Consultant Contract Job Trends in the UK excluding London

Consultant
UK > UK excluding London

The median Consultant daily rate in the UK excluding London is £549, according to job vacancies posted in the 6 months leading up to 2 October 2026.

The table below compares current contractor rates and summary statistics with the previous two years.

6 months to
2 Oct 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 38 29 27
Rank change year-on-year -9 -2 +7
Contract jobs requiring a Consultant 1,351 933 1,075
As % of all contract jobs in the UK excluding London 4.77% 5.95% 6.12%
As % of the Job Titles category 5.24% 6.65% 6.63%
Number of daily rates quoted 797 595 635
10th Percentile £405 £413 £420
25th Percentile £461 £492 £481
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £549 £550 £565
Median % change year-on-year -0.18% -2.65% +7.62%
75th Percentile £638 £638 £638
90th Percentile £714 £718 £734
UK median daily rate £550 £550 £550
Number of hourly rates quoted 42 20 17
10th Percentile £38.25 £29.31 £55.00
25th Percentile £61.13 £49.50 -
Median hourly rate £76.25 £77.50 £61.60
Median % change year-on-year -1.61% +25.81% -3.75%
75th Percentile £84.56 £81.25 £73.56
90th Percentile £99.38 £87.78 £79.92
UK median hourly rate £76.00 £77.50 £62.30
% change year-on-year -1.94% +24.40% -4.15%

All Contract IT Job Roles
UK excluding London

For comparison with the information above, the following table provides summary statistics for all contract IT job vacancies in the UK excluding London. Most job vacancies include a discernible job title that can be normalized. As such, the figures in the second row provide an indication of the number of contract jobs in our overall sample.

Contract vacancies in the UK excluding London with a recognized job title 25,804 14,040 16,224
% of contract IT jobs with a recognized job title 91.12% 89.58% 92.29%
Number of daily rates quoted 14,048 8,646 9,250
10th Percentile £303 £213 £217
25th Percentile £413 £363 £375
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £475 £500
Median % change year-on-year +5.26% -5.00% -
75th Percentile £600 £575 £590
90th Percentile £688 £670 £675
UK median daily rate £525 £500 £525
% change year-on-year +5.00% -4.76% -0.94%
Number of hourly rates quoted 3,438 1,312 1,311
10th Percentile £14.22 £13.50 £14.69
25th Percentile £19.33 £16.30 £19.74
Median hourly rate £41.87 £25.08 £43.00
Median % change year-on-year +66.97% -41.69% -1.88%
75th Percentile £67.84 £50.00 £66.61
90th Percentile £78.72 £69.65 £74.50
UK median hourly rate £41.74 £25.15 £43.00
% change year-on-year +65.94% -41.51% -3.37%

Consultant
Job Vacancy Trend in the UK excluding London

Historical trend showing the proportion of contract IT job postings featuring 'Consultant' in the job title relative to all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK excluding London.

Consultant job vacancy trend in the UK excluding London

Consultant
Daily Rate Trend in the UK excluding London

Contractor daily rate distribution trend for Consultant job vacancies in the UK excluding London.

Contractor daily rate distribution trend for Consultant job vacancies in the UK excluding London

Consultant
Daily Rate Histogram in the UK excluding London

Daily rate distribution for jobs citing Consultant in the UK excluding London over the 6 months to 2 October 2026.

Daily rate histogram for Consultant in the UK excluding London

Consultant
Hourly Rate Trend in the UK excluding London

Contractor hourly rate distribution trend for Consultant job vacancies in the UK excluding London.

Contractor hourly rate distribution trend for Consultant job vacancies in the UK excluding London

Consultant
Hourly Rate Histogram in the UK excluding London

Hourly rate distribution of jobs citing Consultant in the UK excluding London over the 6 months to 2 October 2026.

Hourly rate histogram for Consultant in the UK excluding London

Consultant
Contract Job Locations in the UK excluding London

The table below looks at the demand and provides a guide to the median contractor rates quoted in IT jobs citing Consultant within the UK excluding London region over the 6 months to 2 October 2026. The 'Rank Change' column provides an indication of the change in demand within each location based on the same 6 month period last year.

Location Rank Change
on Same Period
Last Year
Matching
Contract
IT Job Ads
Median
Daily Rate
Past 6 Months
Median Daily Rate
% Change
on Same Period
Last Year
Live
Jobs
South East -10 381 £533 -3.18% 516
North of England -23 333 £580 -0.04% 467
Midlands -7 227 £500 -12.09% 258
North West -15 221 £585 -5.65% 273
South West +9 191 £556 -3.30% 218
West Midlands -1 162 £500 -13.04% 196
Scotland +19 123 £453 -9.40% 173
East of England -15 107 £552 +0.36% 163
Yorkshire -19 88 £575 +21.05% 103
East Midlands -9 59 £525 -5.62% 60
North East -28 23 £750 +38.89% 92
Wales -22 17 £550 +22.22% 64
Channel Islands -4 2 £600 - 2
Northern Ireland -6 2 £544 +4.57% 96
Consultant
UK

Consultant Skill Set
Top 30 Co-Occurring Skills & Capabilities in the UK excluding London

For the 6 months to 2 October 2026, Consultant contract job roles required the following skills and capabilities in order of popularity. The figures indicate the absolute number of co-occurrences and as a proportion of all contract job ads across the UK excluding London region featuring Consultant in the job title.

1 419 (31.01%) Security Cleared
2 316 (23.39%) SAP
3 277 (20.50%) SC Cleared
4 242 (17.91%) Stakeholder Management
5 196 (14.51%) Microsoft
6 164 (12.14%) Migration
7 134 (9.92%) Cybersecurity
7 134 (9.92%) Oracle
8 133 (9.84%) Stakeholder Engagement
9 126 (9.33%) Azure
9 126 (9.33%) Problem-Solving
10 114 (8.44%) SAP S/4HANA
11 111 (8.22%) Continuous Improvement
12 109 (8.07%) Validation
13 103 (7.62%) Workshop Facilitation
14 102 (7.55%) DV Cleared
14 102 (7.55%) User Acceptance Testing
15 99 (7.33%) ERP
16 88 (6.51%) Agile
17 86 (6.37%) Roadmaps
18 83 (6.14%) Analytics
19 81 (6.00%) AWS
20 76 (5.63%) Knowledge Transfer
21 75 (5.55%) SQL
22 74 (5.48%) Data Migration
23 69 (5.11%) Requirements Gathering
24 68 (5.03%) Dynamics 365
25 63 (4.66%) BPSS Clearance
26 62 (4.59%) SuccessFactors
27 59 (4.37%) ServiceNow

Consultant Skill Set
Co-Occurring Skills & Capabilities in the UK excluding London by Category

The following tables expand on the one above by listing co-occurrences grouped by category. They cover the same employment type, locality and period, with up to 20 co-occurrences shown in each category:

Application Platforms
1 26 (1.92%) Confluence
2 19 (1.41%) SharePoint
3 9 (0.67%) WebSphere
4 8 (0.59%) WebLogic
5 3 (0.22%) ArcGIS
5 3 (0.22%) Microsoft Exchange
5 3 (0.22%) OpenStack
5 3 (0.22%) Oracle Workflow
5 3 (0.22%) TIBCO ActiveMatrix
6 2 (0.15%) SAP Portal
6 2 (0.15%) Smallworld
6 2 (0.15%) Tomcat
7 1 (0.074%) Apache
7 1 (0.074%) IIS
7 1 (0.074%) JBoss
7 1 (0.074%) OpenEdge
7 1 (0.074%) Oracle SOA Suite
7 1 (0.074%) SAS
Applications
1 26 (1.92%) Microsoft Office
2 19 (1.41%) Microsoft PowerPoint
3 18 (1.33%) Microsoft Excel
4 10 (0.74%) MS Visio
5 2 (0.15%) Microsoft Project
5 2 (0.15%) Spreadsheet
6 1 (0.074%) Adobe Captivate
6 1 (0.074%) Adobe Creative Suite
Business Applications
1 114 (8.44%) SAP S/4HANA
2 38 (2.81%) SAP PSCD
3 33 (2.44%) SAP Payroll
4 26 (1.92%) SAP HCM
5 22 (1.63%) Oracle ERP
5 22 (1.63%) SAP HR
6 21 (1.55%) SAP FI
7 20 (1.48%) Workday HCM
8 18 (1.33%) Oracle Payables
9 17 (1.26%) Oracle Receivables
10 15 (1.11%) Oracle EBS
10 15 (1.11%) SAP BRIM
11 14 (1.04%) Teamcenter
12 13 (0.96%) SAP EWM
12 13 (0.96%) SAP Hybris
12 13 (0.96%) SAP QM
13 11 (0.81%) Oracle General Ledger
13 11 (0.81%) SAP CO
13 11 (0.81%) SAP FI/CO
13 11 (0.81%) SAP PP
Cloud Services
1 126 (9.33%) Azure
2 81 (6.00%) AWS
3 68 (5.03%) Dynamics 365
4 62 (4.59%) SuccessFactors
5 57 (4.22%) Power Platform
6 56 (4.15%) GCP
7 42 (3.11%) OCI
8 38 (2.81%) Microsoft 365
9 33 (2.44%) Entra ID
10 24 (1.78%) Power Automate
11 18 (1.33%) SaaS
12 16 (1.18%) Azure DevOps
12 16 (1.18%) SAP Commerce Cloud
13 13 (0.96%) Microsoft Copilot
14 11 (0.81%) Microsoft Purview
14 11 (0.81%) PowerApps
15 10 (0.74%) Oracle Service Cloud
16 9 (0.67%) Cloud Computing
17 8 (0.59%) Azure Monitor
17 8 (0.59%) GitHub
Communications & Networking
1 31 (2.29%) Network Security
2 22 (1.63%) Firewall
3 14 (1.04%) SNMP
4 12 (0.89%) BGP
4 12 (0.89%) WAN
5 9 (0.67%) DNS
5 9 (0.67%) VPN
6 7 (0.52%) Wi-Fi
7 6 (0.44%) FTP
7 6 (0.44%) TCP/IP
7 6 (0.44%) VSAN
8 5 (0.37%) DHCP
8 5 (0.37%) LAN
8 5 (0.37%) SAN
9 4 (0.30%) Wireless
10 3 (0.22%) MPLS
10 3 (0.22%) SD-WAN
10 3 (0.22%) SMS
10 3 (0.22%) TACACS
10 3 (0.22%) VXLAN
Database & Business Intelligence
1 27 (2.00%) Power BI
2 18 (1.33%) Oracle Reports
3 15 (1.11%) Oracle BI Publisher
3 15 (1.11%) SAP BW
4 14 (1.04%) SAP HANA
5 12 (0.89%) Metadata
6 11 (0.81%) SQL Server
7 10 (0.74%) BusinessObjects
8 7 (0.52%) Tableau
9 6 (0.44%) Data Warehouse
9 6 (0.44%) Oracle Database
9 6 (0.44%) Relational Database
10 5 (0.37%) Oracle ODI
10 5 (0.37%) Power Query
11 4 (0.30%) Elasticsearch
11 4 (0.30%) SAP Data Services
11 4 (0.30%) Snowflake Schema
12 3 (0.22%) GIS
12 3 (0.22%) NonStop SQL
12 3 (0.22%) NoSQL
Development Applications
1 47 (3.48%) JIRA
2 17 (1.26%) Git
3 7 (0.52%) Jenkins
4 4 (0.30%) GitLab
4 4 (0.30%) Hudson
5 3 (0.22%) Oracle Forms
5 3 (0.22%) Toad
6 2 (0.15%) Gradle
6 2 (0.15%) JDeveloper
6 2 (0.15%) LoadRunner
6 2 (0.15%) Maven
6 2 (0.15%) Postman
6 2 (0.15%) TestRail
6 2 (0.15%) tSQLt
6 2 (0.15%) Zephyr
7 1 (0.074%) Claude Code
7 1 (0.074%) ScriptRunner
7 1 (0.074%) SonarQube
7 1 (0.074%) Visual Studio Code
7 1 (0.074%) Yeoman
General
1 338 (25.02%) Social Skills
2 270 (19.99%) Finance
3 127 (9.40%) Public Sector
4 109 (8.07%) Analytical Skills
5 62 (4.59%) Manufacturing
6 37 (2.74%) Documentation Skills
7 34 (2.52%) Legal
8 33 (2.44%) Telecoms
9 30 (2.22%) General Ledger
10 29 (2.15%) Billing
10 29 (2.15%) Presentation Skills
11 23 (1.70%) Banking
12 19 (1.41%) Influencing Skills
12 19 (1.41%) Retail
13 14 (1.04%) Aerospace
13 14 (1.04%) Financial Institution
13 14 (1.04%) Marketing
13 14 (1.04%) Organisational Skills
14 12 (0.89%) Military
15 8 (0.59%) Inclusion and Diversity
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 39 (2.89%) REST
2 35 (2.59%) Oracle Fusion
3 22 (1.63%) SOAP
4 21 (1.55%) Middleware
4 21 (1.55%) Terraform
5 20 (1.48%) SailPoint
5 20 (1.48%) Web Services
6 18 (1.33%) LDAP
7 17 (1.26%) XML
8 16 (1.18%) SAP Fiori
9 10 (0.74%) SAPUI5
10 9 (0.67%) SAP PI
11 8 (0.59%) XSLT
12 6 (0.44%) Microsoft Graph
12 6 (0.44%) OAuth
13 5 (0.37%) EDI
13 5 (0.37%) IDoc
13 5 (0.37%) Jakarta EE
13 5 (0.37%) OpenTelemetry
13 5 (0.37%) SLSA
Miscellaneous
1 47 (3.48%) Onboarding
2 29 (2.15%) Operational Technology
3 24 (1.78%) Data Protection Act
3 24 (1.78%) Security Posture
4 23 (1.70%) CMDB
5 15 (1.11%) Data Structures
5 15 (1.11%) Enterprise Software
6 14 (1.04%) PKI
6 14 (1.04%) Product Ownership
7 12 (0.89%) Cloud Native
7 12 (0.89%) Data Centre
7 12 (0.89%) Learning Management System
8 11 (0.81%) Management Information System
9 8 (0.59%) AI Agents
10 7 (0.52%) Hybrid Cloud
10 7 (0.52%) Replication
10 7 (0.52%) Security Operations Centre
11 6 (0.44%) FMCG
11 6 (0.44%) Greenfield Project
11 6 (0.44%) Private Cloud
Operating Systems
1 55 (4.07%) Windows
2 34 (2.52%) Linux
3 17 (1.26%) Solaris
4 14 (1.04%) Windows Server
5 9 (0.67%) Unix
6 8 (0.59%) AIX
7 5 (0.37%) VMS
8 4 (0.30%) Windows Server 2016
9 2 (0.15%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
10 1 (0.074%) Android
10 1 (0.074%) Kali Linux
10 1 (0.074%) Windows 10
10 1 (0.074%) zOS
Processes & Methodologies
1 242 (17.91%) Stakeholder Management
2 164 (12.14%) Migration
3 134 (9.92%) Cybersecurity
4 133 (9.84%) Stakeholder Engagement
5 126 (9.33%) Problem-Solving
6 111 (8.22%) Continuous Improvement
7 109 (8.07%) Validation
8 103 (7.62%) Workshop Facilitation
9 102 (7.55%) User Acceptance Testing
10 99 (7.33%) ERP
11 88 (6.51%) Agile
12 86 (6.37%) Roadmaps
13 83 (6.14%) Analytics
14 76 (5.63%) Knowledge Transfer
15 74 (5.48%) Data Migration
16 69 (5.11%) Requirements Gathering
17 58 (4.29%) Vulnerability Management
18 57 (4.22%) AI
19 56 (4.15%) CI/CD
20 55 (4.07%) Risk Management
Programming Languages
1 75 (5.55%) SQL
2 46 (3.40%) Python
3 39 (2.89%) ABAP
4 24 (1.78%) PowerShell
5 19 (1.41%) JavaScript
6 15 (1.11%) Java
7 12 (0.89%) Bash
7 12 (0.89%) PL/SQL
8 10 (0.74%) Kusto Query Language
9 9 (0.67%) Search Processing Language
10 5 (0.37%) C#
11 4 (0.30%) TypeScript
12 3 (0.22%) T-SQL
13 2 (0.15%) C++
13 2 (0.15%) Groovy
13 2 (0.15%) Korn
13 2 (0.15%) Magik
13 2 (0.15%) R
13 2 (0.15%) Shell Script
13 2 (0.15%) XPath
Qualifications
1 419 (31.01%) Security Cleared
2 277 (20.50%) SC Cleared
3 102 (7.55%) DV Cleared
4 63 (4.66%) BPSS Clearance
5 51 (3.77%) CISSP
6 42 (3.11%) CISM
7 34 (2.52%) Cisco Certification
8 29 (2.15%) (ISC)2 CCSP
9 25 (1.85%) CCSP
10 23 (1.70%) Degree
11 12 (0.89%) CompTIA Security+
12 11 (0.81%) ACCA
12 11 (0.81%) CIMA
13 10 (0.74%) CRISC
14 8 (0.59%) CCSK
14 8 (0.59%) PMP
15 7 (0.52%) CCA
15 7 (0.52%) DBS Check
16 6 (0.44%) CISA
16 6 (0.44%) Network+ Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 43 (3.18%) NIST
2 38 (2.81%) GRC
3 36 (2.66%) Data Quality
4 34 (2.52%) ISO/IEC 27001
5 21 (1.55%) QA
6 20 (1.48%) SLA
7 19 (1.41%) NCSC
8 16 (1.18%) GDPR
9 13 (0.96%) Actionable Recommendations
10 12 (0.89%) PMO
11 9 (0.67%) Accessibility
12 7 (0.52%) Cyber Essentials
12 7 (0.52%) NIST 800
13 6 (0.44%) Def Stans
14 4 (0.30%) COBIT
14 4 (0.30%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
14 4 (0.30%) PCI DSS
14 4 (0.30%) WCAG
15 3 (0.22%) GxP
16 2 (0.15%) ISO/IEC 20000
System Software
1 52 (3.85%) Active Directory
2 23 (1.70%) VMware Infrastructure
3 13 (0.96%) VMware NSX
4 12 (0.89%) VMware ESXi
5 10 (0.74%) Hyper-V
6 9 (0.67%) vSphere
7 8 (0.59%) Docker
8 4 (0.30%) Firmware
8 4 (0.30%) Virtual Machines
9 3 (0.22%) Virtual Desktop
10 2 (0.15%) IAG
11 1 (0.074%) NFS
11 1 (0.074%) PowerHA
11 1 (0.074%) Time Sharing Option
Systems Management
1 31 (2.29%) Kubernetes
2 18 (1.33%) Ansible
3 10 (0.74%) vCenter Server
4 9 (0.67%) vRealize
5 7 (0.52%) Grafana
5 7 (0.52%) Microsoft Intune
5 7 (0.52%) Nagios
5 7 (0.52%) ZABBIX
6 6 (0.44%) FortiGate
6 6 (0.44%) Netcool
6 6 (0.44%) Tivoli
6 6 (0.44%) VxRail
7 5 (0.37%) OpenView
7 5 (0.37%) SCCM
7 5 (0.37%) Tivoli Monitoring
8 4 (0.30%) CEMLI
8 4 (0.30%) Prometheus
9 3 (0.22%) Failover Clustering
9 3 (0.22%) Single Sign-On
9 3 (0.22%) vRealize Orchestrator
Vendors
1 316 (23.39%) SAP
2 196 (14.51%) Microsoft
3 134 (9.92%) Oracle
4 59 (4.37%) ServiceNow
5 31 (2.29%) Workday
6 30 (2.22%) VMware
7 22 (1.63%) Salesforce
8 21 (1.55%) Splunk
9 14 (1.04%) JD Edwards
10 13 (0.96%) CyberArk
11 12 (0.89%) BMC
11 12 (0.89%) Databricks
11 12 (0.89%) Google
12 9 (0.67%) Concur
12 9 (0.67%) IBM
13 8 (0.59%) Ariba
13 8 (0.59%) Veeam
14 7 (0.52%) Cisco
14 7 (0.52%) Epicor
14 7 (0.52%) SolarWinds