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 £525, according to job vacancies posted in the 6 months leading up to 29 March 2026.

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

6 months to
29 Mar 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 31 36 34
Rank change year-on-year +5 -2 +22
Contract jobs requiring a Consultant 1,183 651 1,032
As % of all contract jobs in the UK excluding London 5.28% 5.13% 4.90%
As % of the Job Titles category 5.76% 5.55% 5.29%
Number of daily rates quoted 652 426 739
10th Percentile £403 £425 £368
25th Percentile £463 £490 £463
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £550 £550
Median % change year-on-year -4.55% - -
75th Percentile £625 £630 £638
90th Percentile £711 £700 £725
UK median daily rate £540 £550 £550
% change year-on-year -1.82% - -2.00%
Number of hourly rates quoted 63 10 29
10th Percentile - £69.50 £27.25
25th Percentile £56.25 £71.88 £50.00
Median hourly rate £57.50 £84.25 £61.60
Median % change year-on-year -31.75% +36.77% -6.67%
75th Percentile £60.00 £86.00 £63.29
90th Percentile £65.00 £86.03 £87.20
UK median hourly rate £57.50 £83.75 £61.79
% change year-on-year -31.34% +35.54% -6.38%

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 20,541 11,740 19,525
% of contract IT jobs with a recognized job title 91.74% 92.47% 92.77%
Number of daily rates quoted 12,175 7,660 12,129
10th Percentile £261 £213 £213
25th Percentile £400 £363 £363
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £485 £475 £488
Median % change year-on-year +2.11% -2.56% -2.50%
75th Percentile £581 £588 £598
90th Percentile £675 £660 £688
UK median daily rate £500 £520 £525
% change year-on-year -3.85% -0.95% -3.67%
Number of hourly rates quoted 2,232 750 2,103
10th Percentile £14.38 £14.84 £12.50
25th Percentile £19.00 £19.34 £15.50
Median hourly rate £38.63 £32.25 £33.00
Median % change year-on-year +19.78% -2.27% -21.07%
75th Percentile £65.00 £65.00 £60.00
90th Percentile £77.50 £76.25 £71.90
UK median hourly rate £37.50 £32.50 £33.00
% change year-on-year +15.38% -1.52% -24.36%

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 29 March 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 29 March 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 29 March 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 +5 356 £540 -6.09% 278
North of England -15 240 £531 -1.25% 172
Midlands -8 237 £550 +4.76% 104
West Midlands +8 170 £563 +7.14% 52
South West +18 162 £538 -2.27% 152
North West -19 118 £525 -3.23% 109
Yorkshire +2 112 £544 +3.57% 53
East of England -6 95 £550 +10.00% 67
Scotland +22 61 £510 -7.27% 38
East Midlands -15 59 £500 -3.15% 51
Wales +7 32 £463 +2.78% 33
North East -22 10 £525 -4.55% 12
Northern Ireland +4 9 £405 -22.86% 15
Consultant
UK

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

For the 6 months to 29 March 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.

1 317 (26.80%) Security Cleared
2 263 (22.23%) SC Cleared
3 244 (20.63%) SAP
4 186 (15.72%) Migration
5 147 (12.43%) Oracle
6 138 (11.67%) ERP
7 136 (11.50%) Stakeholder Engagement
8 116 (9.81%) Azure
9 114 (9.64%) Problem-Solving
10 105 (8.88%) SAP S/4HANA
11 95 (8.03%) Microsoft
11 95 (8.03%) SQL
11 95 (8.03%) Workshop Facilitation
12 85 (7.19%) Stakeholder Management
13 82 (6.93%) Data Migration
14 73 (6.17%) Roadmaps
14 73 (6.17%) User Acceptance Testing
15 70 (5.92%) Cybersecurity
16 69 (5.83%) Validation
17 67 (5.66%) Business Intelligence
18 63 (5.33%) Continuous Improvement
19 62 (5.24%) Change Management
20 57 (4.82%) Agile
20 57 (4.82%) Analytics
20 57 (4.82%) Knowledge Transfer
21 53 (4.48%) ISO/IEC 27001
21 53 (4.48%) PLM
21 53 (4.48%) Siemens
22 50 (4.23%) XML
23 49 (4.14%) CyberArk

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 31 (2.62%) SharePoint
2 18 (1.52%) Confluence
3 11 (0.93%) Microsoft Exchange
4 6 (0.51%) Jupyter
5 4 (0.34%) Oracle Workflow
6 3 (0.25%) Apache Spark
6 3 (0.25%) MTS
7 2 (0.17%) Apache
7 2 (0.17%) Apache Superset
7 2 (0.17%) CMS
7 2 (0.17%) NetWeaver
8 1 (0.085%) ArcGIS
8 1 (0.085%) OpenStack
8 1 (0.085%) SAS
8 1 (0.085%) Skype for Business
8 1 (0.085%) WebSphere
Applications
1 42 (3.55%) Microsoft Excel
2 11 (0.93%) Microsoft PowerPoint
3 9 (0.76%) MS Visio
4 8 (0.68%) Microsoft Office
5 5 (0.42%) PTC Creo
6 4 (0.34%) Microsoft Project
7 2 (0.17%) Lectora
7 2 (0.17%) Oracle Smart View
7 2 (0.17%) Spreadsheet
8 1 (0.085%) CATIA
8 1 (0.085%) Chatbot
8 1 (0.085%) Navisworks
8 1 (0.085%) Revit
8 1 (0.085%) Siemens NX
8 1 (0.085%) Windchill
Business Applications
1 105 (8.88%) SAP S/4HANA
2 40 (3.38%) Oracle EBS
3 31 (2.62%) Oracle Receivables
4 29 (2.45%) Oracle Payables
5 28 (2.37%) SAP FI
6 27 (2.28%) SAP MM
7 25 (2.11%) SAP PSCD
8 24 (2.03%) Oracle EBS R12
9 22 (1.86%) Oracle General Ledger
10 21 (1.78%) Oracle Assets
10 21 (1.78%) Oracle Cash Management
10 21 (1.78%) SAP HCM
11 20 (1.69%) Oracle Procure-to-Pay
12 19 (1.61%) Teamcenter
13 17 (1.44%) SAP Hybris
14 16 (1.35%) SAP BRIM
15 14 (1.18%) SAP Payroll
16 13 (1.10%) Oracle AGIS
16 13 (1.10%) Oracle ERP
17 12 (1.01%) SAP EWM
Cloud Services
1 116 (9.81%) Azure
2 48 (4.06%) OCI
3 37 (3.13%) AWS
4 31 (2.62%) Dynamics 365
4 31 (2.62%) Power Platform
5 29 (2.45%) GCP
6 28 (2.37%) SuccessFactors
7 22 (1.86%) Microsoft 365
8 19 (1.61%) Entra ID
9 18 (1.52%) SAP Commerce Cloud
10 17 (1.44%) SaaS
11 13 (1.10%) Microsoft Copilot
12 11 (0.93%) Azure DevOps
13 9 (0.76%) PowerApps
14 8 (0.68%) OneDrive
14 8 (0.68%) Power Automate
15 6 (0.51%) GitHub
16 4 (0.34%) Copilot Studio
16 4 (0.34%) dbt
16 4 (0.34%) PaaS
Communications & Networking
1 14 (1.18%) Firewall
2 10 (0.85%) Network Security
3 8 (0.68%) FTP
4 6 (0.51%) SNMP
5 5 (0.42%) Cisco ISE
5 5 (0.42%) HTTP
5 5 (0.42%) Kerberos
6 4 (0.34%) SD-WAN
6 4 (0.34%) SSH
6 4 (0.34%) VSAN
6 4 (0.34%) WAN
7 3 (0.25%) BGP
7 3 (0.25%) Cisco ASA
7 3 (0.25%) Cisco Firepower
7 3 (0.25%) Cisco Nexus
7 3 (0.25%) EIGRP
7 3 (0.25%) LAN
7 3 (0.25%) OSPF
7 3 (0.25%) VPN
7 3 (0.25%) WebEx
Database & Business Intelligence
1 28 (2.37%) Oracle Reports
1 28 (2.37%) Power BI
2 20 (1.69%) SAP HANA
3 18 (1.52%) Oracle BI Publisher
4 12 (1.01%) SQL Server
5 11 (0.93%) Oracle ODI
6 8 (0.68%) Metadata
7 6 (0.51%) NoSQL
7 6 (0.51%) SAP Data Services
8 5 (0.42%) Tableau
9 4 (0.34%) Data Warehouse
9 4 (0.34%) Electronic Patient Records
9 4 (0.34%) Oracle Database
9 4 (0.34%) SAP BW
9 4 (0.34%) Snowflake Schema
10 3 (0.25%) Delta Lake
10 3 (0.25%) GIS
10 3 (0.25%) Hadoop
11 2 (0.17%) MongoDB
11 2 (0.17%) Relational Database
Development Applications
1 32 (2.70%) JIRA
2 11 (0.93%) Hudson
3 5 (0.42%) Oracle Forms
4 4 (0.34%) Git
5 3 (0.25%) Jenkins
5 3 (0.25%) Visual Studio Code
6 2 (0.17%) Postman
7 1 (0.085%) Appium
7 1 (0.085%) Bitbucket
7 1 (0.085%) GitLab
7 1 (0.085%) JUnit
7 1 (0.085%) MSTest
7 1 (0.085%) NUnit
7 1 (0.085%) Rational Rhapsody
7 1 (0.085%) Toad
7 1 (0.085%) Tricentis qTest
General
1 248 (20.96%) Social Skills
2 234 (19.78%) Finance
3 128 (10.82%) Public Sector
4 102 (8.62%) Analytical Skills
5 39 (3.30%) Manufacturing
6 28 (2.37%) Billing
7 26 (2.20%) Legal
7 26 (2.20%) Telecoms
8 24 (2.03%) Banking
9 22 (1.86%) General Ledger
10 20 (1.69%) Presentation Skills
11 16 (1.35%) Marketing
12 15 (1.27%) Documentation Skills
13 14 (1.18%) Aerospace
14 13 (1.10%) Local Government
14 13 (1.10%) Organisational Skills
15 11 (0.93%) Law
16 10 (0.85%) Retail
17 5 (0.42%) Advertising
17 5 (0.42%) Retail Banking
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 50 (4.23%) XML
2 45 (3.80%) Oracle Fusion
3 42 (3.55%) REST
4 22 (1.86%) SOAP
5 19 (1.61%) Web Services
6 13 (1.10%) SAP Basis
7 12 (1.01%) SAP Fiori
8 10 (0.85%) JSON
9 9 (0.76%) LDAP
10 7 (0.59%) .NET
11 6 (0.51%) BAPI
11 6 (0.51%) SAML
11 6 (0.51%) SAP Business Workflow
12 5 (0.42%) IDoc
12 5 (0.42%) Middleware
12 5 (0.42%) OAuth
13 3 (0.25%) AngularJS
13 3 (0.25%) PySpark
13 3 (0.25%) RESTful
13 3 (0.25%) TensorFlow
Miscellaneous
1 21 (1.78%) Data Protection Act
1 21 (1.78%) Replication
2 19 (1.61%) Onboarding
3 18 (1.52%) Legacy Systems
4 14 (1.18%) Product Ownership
5 13 (1.10%) Operational Technology
6 12 (1.01%) Public Cloud
7 10 (0.85%) Data Centre
7 10 (0.85%) Management Information System
7 10 (0.85%) NHS
8 9 (0.76%) AI Agents
8 9 (0.76%) Data Structures
9 8 (0.68%) Analytical Mindset
9 8 (0.68%) Security Posture
10 6 (0.51%) Beowulf
11 5 (0.42%) BYOD
11 5 (0.42%) Enterprise Software
11 5 (0.42%) Market Risk
11 5 (0.42%) SCORM
12 4 (0.34%) Private Cloud
Operating Systems
1 36 (3.04%) Windows
2 25 (2.11%) Linux
3 10 (0.85%) AIX
4 7 (0.59%) VMS
5 5 (0.42%) Windows Server
6 4 (0.34%) Solaris
6 4 (0.34%) Windows 10
7 3 (0.25%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
7 3 (0.25%) Unix
8 1 (0.085%) CentOS
8 1 (0.085%) CoreOS
8 1 (0.085%) Data ONTAP
8 1 (0.085%) Mac OS
8 1 (0.085%) Ubuntu
Processes & Methodologies
1 186 (15.72%) Migration
2 138 (11.67%) ERP
3 136 (11.50%) Stakeholder Engagement
4 114 (9.64%) Problem-Solving
5 95 (8.03%) Workshop Facilitation
6 85 (7.19%) Stakeholder Management
7 82 (6.93%) Data Migration
8 73 (6.17%) Roadmaps
8 73 (6.17%) User Acceptance Testing
9 70 (5.92%) Cybersecurity
10 69 (5.83%) Validation
11 67 (5.66%) Business Intelligence
12 63 (5.33%) Continuous Improvement
13 62 (5.24%) Change Management
14 57 (4.82%) Agile
14 57 (4.82%) Analytics
14 57 (4.82%) Knowledge Transfer
15 53 (4.48%) PLM
16 47 (3.97%) Project Management
17 44 (3.72%) Workflow
Programming Languages
1 95 (8.03%) SQL
2 41 (3.47%) Python
3 28 (2.37%) T-SQL
4 27 (2.28%) PowerShell
5 23 (1.94%) ABAP
6 18 (1.52%) PL/SQL
7 12 (1.01%) JavaScript
8 8 (0.68%) Bash
8 8 (0.68%) Java
9 7 (0.59%) C#
10 6 (0.51%) Search Processing Language
11 4 (0.34%) R
11 4 (0.34%) TypeScript
12 2 (0.17%) Apex Code
12 2 (0.17%) Shell Script
12 2 (0.17%) VBA
12 2 (0.17%) VBScript
13 1 (0.085%) ActionScript
13 1 (0.085%) C++
13 1 (0.085%) MATLAB
Qualifications
1 317 (26.80%) Security Cleared
2 263 (22.23%) SC Cleared
3 46 (3.89%) DV Cleared
4 30 (2.54%) BPSS Clearance
4 30 (2.54%) Degree
5 25 (2.11%) CISSP
6 16 (1.35%) CISM
7 12 (1.01%) Cisco Certification
8 9 (0.76%) Computer Science Degree
9 8 (0.68%) ITIL Foundation Certificate
9 8 (0.68%) Microsoft Certification
10 7 (0.59%) SAP Certification
11 6 (0.51%) ITIL Certification
12 5 (0.42%) Azure Certification
12 5 (0.42%) CCNP
12 5 (0.42%) CEH
12 5 (0.42%) DBS Check
12 5 (0.42%) PMP
13 4 (0.34%) (ISC)2 CCSP
13 4 (0.34%) Master's Degree
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 53 (4.48%) ISO/IEC 27001
2 45 (3.80%) NIST
3 24 (2.03%) GRC
4 22 (1.86%) GDPR
5 21 (1.78%) Data Quality
5 21 (1.78%) QA
6 13 (1.10%) PCI DSS
7 11 (0.93%) NCSC
8 10 (0.85%) JSP 440
9 9 (0.76%) Actionable Recommendations
10 8 (0.68%) COBIT
10 8 (0.68%) PMO
11 6 (0.51%) RMADS
12 5 (0.42%) Cyber Essentials
12 5 (0.42%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
12 5 (0.42%) Sarbanes-Oxley
13 3 (0.25%) ISO/IEC 27005
13 3 (0.25%) SLA
14 2 (0.17%) HL7
14 2 (0.17%) SOC 2
System Software
1 26 (2.20%) Active Directory
2 14 (1.18%) VMware Infrastructure
2 14 (1.18%) VMware NSX
3 10 (0.85%) Docker
4 7 (0.59%) vSphere
5 6 (0.51%) Slurm Workload Manager
6 3 (0.25%) Virtual Desktop
7 2 (0.17%) Virtual Machines
7 2 (0.17%) VMware ESXi
8 1 (0.085%) Ceph
8 1 (0.085%) KVM
8 1 (0.085%) NFS
8 1 (0.085%) QEMU
Systems Management
1 14 (1.18%) Kubernetes
2 9 (0.76%) Single Sign-On
3 7 (0.59%) PingFederate
3 7 (0.59%) Terraform
4 6 (0.51%) Nagios
4 6 (0.51%) NetBackup
4 6 (0.51%) Netcool
4 6 (0.51%) OpenView
4 6 (0.51%) Podman
4 6 (0.51%) Tivoli
4 6 (0.51%) Tivoli Monitoring
4 6 (0.51%) ZABBIX
5 4 (0.34%) Ansible
5 4 (0.34%) vRealize
6 3 (0.25%) Active Directory Federation Services
6 3 (0.25%) Microsoft Intune
6 3 (0.25%) Puppet
6 3 (0.25%) SCCM
7 1 (0.085%) CEMLI
7 1 (0.085%) Control-M
Vendors
1 244 (20.63%) SAP
2 147 (12.43%) Oracle
3 95 (8.03%) Microsoft
4 53 (4.48%) Siemens
5 49 (4.14%) CyberArk
6 42 (3.55%) Cisco
7 35 (2.96%) Aruba
8 29 (2.45%) ServiceNow
9 26 (2.20%) Workday
10 22 (1.86%) Google
10 22 (1.86%) VMware
11 14 (1.18%) Sage
12 12 (1.01%) BMC
12 12 (1.01%) IBM
13 11 (0.93%) Databricks
13 11 (0.93%) Splunk
14 10 (0.85%) OpenText
15 9 (0.76%) IFS
16 8 (0.68%) Ariba
16 8 (0.68%) Atlassian