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 £550, according to job vacancies posted in the 6 months leading up to 9 October 2026.

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

6 months to
9 Oct 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 38 30 26
Rank change year-on-year -8 -4 +9
Contract jobs requiring a Consultant 1,340 964 1,075
As % of all contract jobs in the UK excluding London 4.76% 6.08% 6.15%
As % of the Job Titles category 5.24% 6.80% 6.66%
Number of daily rates quoted 778 589 630
10th Percentile £410 £413 £420
25th Percentile £463 £491 £477
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £550 £550 £564
Median % change year-on-year - -2.44% +7.38%
75th Percentile £650 £644 £638
90th Percentile £722 £719 £732
UK median daily rate £550 £550 £550
Number of hourly rates quoted 50 24 17
10th Percentile £36.13 £31.61 £55.00
25th Percentile £56.25 £61.56 -
Median hourly rate £76.00 £77.50 £61.60
Median % change year-on-year -1.94% +25.81% -9.08%
75th Percentile £84.56 £81.25 £73.56
90th Percentile £94.38 £86.88 £79.92
UK median hourly rate £75.00 £77.50 £62.30
% change year-on-year -3.23% +24.40% -8.04%

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 25,589 14,176 16,149
% of contract IT jobs with a recognized job title 90.99% 89.46% 92.33%
Number of daily rates quoted 13,801 8,703 9,184
10th Percentile £300 £209 £220
25th Percentile £413 £362 £372
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £475 £494
Median % change year-on-year +5.26% -3.85% -1.20%
75th Percentile £600 £575 £588
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 3,503 1,334 1,250
10th Percentile £14.22 £13.51 £14.73
25th Percentile £19.00 £16.31 £19.50
Median hourly rate £41.71 £25.00 £42.96
Median % change year-on-year +66.84% -41.80% -3.47%
75th Percentile £67.84 £50.00 £66.61
90th Percentile £78.70 £69.65 £74.00
UK median hourly rate £41.71 £25.15 £41.57
% change year-on-year +65.84% -39.49% -6.60%

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 9 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 9 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 9 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 -3 380 £525 -4.55% 411
North of England -20 338 £578 -3.75% 441
North West -12 224 £585 -5.65% 258
Midlands -3 220 £501 -12.96% 223
South West +8 188 £600 +9.09% 208
West Midlands -3 160 £500 -13.04% 166
Scotland +12 118 £500 - 157
East of England -14 109 £552 +0.36% 122
Yorkshire -23 87 £575 +19.79% 88
East Midlands -15 54 £538 -5.49% 57
North East -20 26 £750 +36.36% 95
Wales -26 16 £575 +29.58% 41
Channel Islands -5 2 £600 - 3
Northern Ireland -9 1 £638 +22.60% 71
Consultant
UK

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

For the 6 months to 9 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.

1 412 (30.75%) Security Cleared
2 319 (23.81%) SAP
3 268 (20.00%) SC Cleared
4 248 (18.51%) Stakeholder Management
5 201 (15.00%) Microsoft
6 167 (12.46%) Migration
7 136 (10.15%) Cybersecurity
8 134 (10.00%) Oracle
9 132 (9.85%) Problem-Solving
10 131 (9.78%) Stakeholder Engagement
11 127 (9.48%) Azure
12 116 (8.66%) SAP S/4HANA
13 115 (8.58%) Validation
14 112 (8.36%) Continuous Improvement
15 109 (8.13%) Workshop Facilitation
16 103 (7.69%) DV Cleared
17 102 (7.61%) ERP
17 102 (7.61%) User Acceptance Testing
18 84 (6.27%) Analytics
18 84 (6.27%) Roadmaps
19 83 (6.19%) Agile
20 77 (5.75%) Data Migration
21 74 (5.52%) Knowledge Transfer
22 73 (5.45%) SQL
23 71 (5.30%) AWS
23 71 (5.30%) Requirements Gathering
24 64 (4.78%) BPSS Clearance
25 62 (4.63%) Dynamics 365
25 62 (4.63%) SuccessFactors
26 58 (4.33%) AI

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 25 (1.87%) Confluence
2 21 (1.57%) SharePoint
3 8 (0.60%) WebSphere
4 7 (0.52%) 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%) SAP Portal
5 3 (0.22%) TIBCO ActiveMatrix
6 2 (0.15%) Apache
6 2 (0.15%) Smallworld
7 1 (0.075%) Apache Spark
7 1 (0.075%) IIS
7 1 (0.075%) JBoss
7 1 (0.075%) OpenEdge
7 1 (0.075%) Oracle SOA Suite
7 1 (0.075%) SAS
7 1 (0.075%) Tomcat
Applications
1 26 (1.94%) Microsoft Office
2 19 (1.42%) Microsoft PowerPoint
3 18 (1.34%) Microsoft Excel
4 10 (0.75%) MS Visio
5 2 (0.15%) Microsoft Project
5 2 (0.15%) Spreadsheet
6 1 (0.075%) Adobe Captivate
6 1 (0.075%) Adobe Creative Suite
6 1 (0.075%) PTC Creo
Business Applications
1 116 (8.66%) SAP S/4HANA
2 38 (2.84%) SAP PSCD
3 34 (2.54%) SAP Payroll
4 29 (2.16%) SAP HCM
5 23 (1.72%) SAP HR
6 22 (1.64%) SAP FI
7 21 (1.57%) Oracle ERP
7 21 (1.57%) Workday HCM
8 18 (1.34%) Oracle Payables
8 18 (1.34%) Oracle Receivables
9 17 (1.27%) Oracle EBS
9 17 (1.27%) Teamcenter
10 16 (1.19%) SAP BRIM
11 13 (0.97%) SAP Hybris
11 13 (0.97%) SAP QM
12 12 (0.90%) Oracle General Ledger
12 12 (0.90%) SAP EWM
13 11 (0.82%) SAP CO
13 11 (0.82%) SAP FI/CO
14 10 (0.75%) SAP PP
Cloud Services
1 127 (9.48%) Azure
2 71 (5.30%) AWS
3 62 (4.63%) Dynamics 365
3 62 (4.63%) SuccessFactors
4 54 (4.03%) Power Platform
5 50 (3.73%) GCP
6 44 (3.28%) OCI
7 39 (2.91%) Microsoft 365
8 34 (2.54%) Entra ID
9 21 (1.57%) Power Automate
10 19 (1.42%) SaaS
11 18 (1.34%) Azure DevOps
12 17 (1.27%) SAP Commerce Cloud
13 11 (0.82%) Microsoft Copilot
13 11 (0.82%) PowerApps
14 10 (0.75%) Microsoft Purview
14 10 (0.75%) Oracle Service Cloud
15 9 (0.67%) Cloud Computing
16 8 (0.60%) Azure Monitor
17 7 (0.52%) GitHub
Communications & Networking
1 29 (2.16%) Network Security
2 21 (1.57%) Firewall
3 12 (0.90%) BGP
3 12 (0.90%) SNMP
4 11 (0.82%) WAN
5 9 (0.67%) VPN
6 8 (0.60%) DNS
7 7 (0.52%) FTP
7 7 (0.52%) Wi-Fi
8 6 (0.45%) VSAN
9 5 (0.37%) DHCP
9 5 (0.37%) LAN
9 5 (0.37%) SAN
9 5 (0.37%) TCP/IP
10 4 (0.30%) Wireless
11 3 (0.22%) Ethernet VPN
11 3 (0.22%) MPLS
11 3 (0.22%) TACACS
11 3 (0.22%) VXLAN
12 2 (0.15%) NGFW
Database & Business Intelligence
1 25 (1.87%) Power BI
2 18 (1.34%) Oracle Reports
3 16 (1.19%) Oracle BI Publisher
4 15 (1.12%) SAP BW
5 14 (1.04%) SAP HANA
6 12 (0.90%) Metadata
7 11 (0.82%) SQL Server
8 10 (0.75%) BusinessObjects
9 6 (0.45%) Data Warehouse
9 6 (0.45%) Oracle Database
9 6 (0.45%) Relational Database
10 5 (0.37%) Power Query
10 5 (0.37%) Tableau
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%) Oracle ODI
12 3 (0.22%) RDBMS
Development Applications
1 44 (3.28%) JIRA
2 17 (1.27%) 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 (0.075%) Bitbucket
7 1 (0.075%) Claude Code
7 1 (0.075%) ScriptRunner
7 1 (0.075%) SonarQube
7 1 (0.075%) Yeoman
General
1 338 (25.22%) Social Skills
2 261 (19.48%) Finance
3 127 (9.48%) Public Sector
4 111 (8.28%) Analytical Skills
5 65 (4.85%) Manufacturing
6 39 (2.91%) Documentation Skills
7 34 (2.54%) Telecoms
8 33 (2.46%) Legal
9 31 (2.31%) Billing
10 30 (2.24%) General Ledger
11 29 (2.16%) Presentation Skills
12 22 (1.64%) Banking
13 18 (1.34%) Influencing Skills
14 17 (1.27%) Retail
15 15 (1.12%) Aerospace
16 14 (1.04%) Financial Institution
16 14 (1.04%) Marketing
17 13 (0.97%) Organisational Skills
18 12 (0.90%) Military
19 9 (0.67%) Local Government
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 37 (2.76%) Oracle Fusion
2 35 (2.61%) REST
3 21 (1.57%) Middleware
3 21 (1.57%) SOAP
4 20 (1.49%) Terraform
4 20 (1.49%) Web Services
5 18 (1.34%) SailPoint
6 16 (1.19%) SAP Fiori
7 15 (1.12%) LDAP
8 14 (1.04%) XML
9 11 (0.82%) SAPUI5
10 9 (0.67%) SAP PI
11 8 (0.60%) XSLT
12 7 (0.52%) Microsoft Graph
13 5 (0.37%) EDI
13 5 (0.37%) IDoc
13 5 (0.37%) JDBC
13 5 (0.37%) OpenTelemetry
13 5 (0.37%) SLSA
14 4 (0.30%) Jakarta EE
Miscellaneous
1 48 (3.58%) Onboarding
2 29 (2.16%) Operational Technology
3 23 (1.72%) CMDB
4 21 (1.57%) Security Posture
5 19 (1.42%) Data Protection Act
6 18 (1.34%) Enterprise Software
7 16 (1.19%) Data Structures
8 14 (1.04%) PKI
8 14 (1.04%) Product Ownership
9 13 (0.97%) Management Information System
10 12 (0.90%) Data Centre
10 12 (0.90%) Learning Management System
11 11 (0.82%) Cloud Native
12 9 (0.67%) AI Agents
13 7 (0.52%) Hybrid Cloud
13 7 (0.52%) Replication
13 7 (0.52%) Security Operations Centre
14 6 (0.45%) FMCG
14 6 (0.45%) Legacy Systems
14 6 (0.45%) Private Cloud
Operating Systems
1 57 (4.25%) Windows
2 32 (2.39%) Linux
3 16 (1.19%) Solaris
4 15 (1.12%) Windows Server
5 9 (0.67%) Unix
6 6 (0.45%) AIX
7 5 (0.37%) VMS
8 4 (0.30%) Windows Server 2016
9 2 (0.15%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
9 2 (0.15%) Windows 10
10 1 (0.075%) Android
10 1 (0.075%) Apple iOS
10 1 (0.075%) Kali Linux
10 1 (0.075%) zOS
Processes & Methodologies
1 248 (18.51%) Stakeholder Management
2 167 (12.46%) Migration
3 136 (10.15%) Cybersecurity
4 132 (9.85%) Problem-Solving
5 131 (9.78%) Stakeholder Engagement
6 115 (8.58%) Validation
7 112 (8.36%) Continuous Improvement
8 109 (8.13%) Workshop Facilitation
9 102 (7.61%) ERP
9 102 (7.61%) User Acceptance Testing
10 84 (6.27%) Analytics
10 84 (6.27%) Roadmaps
11 83 (6.19%) Agile
12 77 (5.75%) Data Migration
13 74 (5.52%) Knowledge Transfer
14 71 (5.30%) Requirements Gathering
15 58 (4.33%) AI
16 57 (4.25%) Vulnerability Management
17 55 (4.10%) Risk Management
18 54 (4.03%) CI/CD
Programming Languages
1 73 (5.45%) SQL
2 45 (3.36%) Python
3 41 (3.06%) ABAP
4 26 (1.94%) PowerShell
5 18 (1.34%) Java
6 16 (1.19%) JavaScript
7 13 (0.97%) Bash
8 12 (0.90%) PL/SQL
9 10 (0.75%) Kusto Query Language
10 7 (0.52%) Search Processing Language
11 5 (0.37%) C#
12 4 (0.30%) TypeScript
13 3 (0.22%) T-SQL
14 2 (0.15%) C++
14 2 (0.15%) Groovy
14 2 (0.15%) Korn
14 2 (0.15%) Magik
14 2 (0.15%) Perl
14 2 (0.15%) Shell Script
14 2 (0.15%) XPath
Qualifications
1 412 (30.75%) Security Cleared
2 268 (20.00%) SC Cleared
3 103 (7.69%) DV Cleared
4 64 (4.78%) BPSS Clearance
5 46 (3.43%) CISSP
6 39 (2.91%) CISM
7 32 (2.39%) Cisco Certification
8 27 (2.01%) (ISC)2 CCSP
9 23 (1.72%) CCSP
10 22 (1.64%) Degree
11 12 (0.90%) CompTIA Security+
12 11 (0.82%) ACCA
12 11 (0.82%) CIMA
13 10 (0.75%) CRISC
14 8 (0.60%) DBS Check
14 8 (0.60%) PMP
15 6 (0.45%) CCA
15 6 (0.45%) CEH
15 6 (0.45%) CISA
15 6 (0.45%) Network+ Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 40 (2.99%) NIST
2 38 (2.84%) Data Quality
3 34 (2.54%) GRC
3 34 (2.54%) ISO/IEC 27001
4 21 (1.57%) QA
5 20 (1.49%) NCSC
6 19 (1.42%) SLA
7 15 (1.12%) GDPR
8 13 (0.97%) Actionable Recommendations
9 12 (0.90%) PMO
10 9 (0.67%) Accessibility
11 7 (0.52%) Cyber Essentials
11 7 (0.52%) NIST 800
12 6 (0.45%) Def Stans
13 4 (0.30%) COBIT
13 4 (0.30%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
13 4 (0.30%) ISO 14001
13 4 (0.30%) ISO 9001
13 4 (0.30%) PCI DSS
13 4 (0.30%) WCAG
System Software
1 56 (4.18%) Active Directory
2 22 (1.64%) VMware Infrastructure
3 13 (0.97%) VMware NSX
4 12 (0.90%) VMware ESXi
5 10 (0.75%) Hyper-V
6 9 (0.67%) vSphere
7 8 (0.60%) Docker
8 6 (0.45%) Firmware
9 4 (0.30%) Virtual Desktop
9 4 (0.30%) Virtual Machines
10 2 (0.15%) Embedded Firmware
10 2 (0.15%) IAG
11 1 (0.075%) NFS
11 1 (0.075%) PowerHA
11 1 (0.075%) Time Sharing Option
Systems Management
1 29 (2.16%) Kubernetes
2 17 (1.27%) Ansible
3 10 (0.75%) vCenter Server
4 9 (0.67%) vRealize
5 8 (0.60%) Microsoft Intune
6 7 (0.52%) Grafana
7 6 (0.45%) FortiGate
7 6 (0.45%) VxRail
8 5 (0.37%) Nagios
8 5 (0.37%) SCCM
8 5 (0.37%) ZABBIX
9 4 (0.30%) CEMLI
9 4 (0.30%) Netcool
9 4 (0.30%) Prometheus
9 4 (0.30%) Single Sign-On
9 4 (0.30%) Tivoli
10 3 (0.22%) Failover Clustering
10 3 (0.22%) OpenView
10 3 (0.22%) Tivoli Monitoring
11 2 (0.15%) Tivoli Storage Manager
Vendors
1 319 (23.81%) SAP
2 201 (15.00%) Microsoft
3 134 (10.00%) Oracle
4 56 (4.18%) ServiceNow
5 32 (2.39%) Workday
6 29 (2.16%) VMware
7 22 (1.64%) Salesforce
8 19 (1.42%) Splunk
9 14 (1.04%) JD Edwards
10 12 (0.90%) CyberArk
10 12 (0.90%) Google
11 11 (0.82%) Concur
11 11 (0.82%) Databricks
12 10 (0.75%) BMC
13 8 (0.60%) IBM
13 8 (0.60%) Veeam
14 7 (0.52%) Epicor
14 7 (0.52%) Qualtrics
15 6 (0.45%) Okta
15 6 (0.45%) OpenAI