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 26 March 2026.

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

6 months to
26 Mar 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 32 38 34
Rank change year-on-year +6 -4 +21
Contract jobs requiring a Consultant 1,162 643 1,030
As % of all contract jobs in the UK excluding London 5.26% 5.11% 4.90%
As % of the Job Titles category 5.74% 5.52% 5.28%
Number of daily rates quoted 640 423 737
10th Percentile £403 £425 £370
25th Percentile £463 £494 £463
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £550 £540
Median % change year-on-year -4.55% +1.85% -1.82%
75th Percentile £625 £638 £638
90th Percentile £708 £700 £725
UK median daily rate £540 £550 £550
% change year-on-year -1.82% - -2.53%
Number of hourly rates quoted 62 11 29
10th Percentile - £70.00 £27.25
25th Percentile £56.25 £70.59 £50.00
Median hourly rate £57.50 £82.50 £61.60
Median % change year-on-year -30.30% +33.93% -6.67%
75th Percentile £60.00 £86.00 £63.29
90th Percentile £65.00 - £87.20
UK median hourly rate £57.50 £82.50 £62.15
% change year-on-year -30.30% +32.75% -5.84%

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 20,259 11,652 19,498
% of contract IT jobs with a recognized job title 91.73% 92.52% 92.75%
Number of daily rates quoted 12,014 7,622 12,101
10th Percentile £260 £213 £213
25th Percentile £400 £363 £363
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £483 £475 £488
Median % change year-on-year +1.68% -2.56% -2.50%
75th Percentile £581 £588 £595
90th Percentile £675 £660 £688
UK median daily rate £500 £520 £525
% change year-on-year -3.85% -0.95% -4.37%
Number of hourly rates quoted 2,197 725 2,108
10th Percentile £14.47 £14.99 £12.50
25th Percentile £18.87 £20.00 £15.50
Median hourly rate £37.50 £31.76 £32.90
Median % change year-on-year +18.07% -3.45% -21.30%
75th Percentile £65.00 £65.00 £60.00
90th Percentile £76.60 £75.40 £72.37
UK median hourly rate £37.20 £32.50 £32.95
% change year-on-year +14.46% -1.36% -24.26%

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 26 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 26 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 26 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 +6 350 £538 -6.52% 278
North of England -13 236 £531 -1.25% 172
Midlands -5 233 £545 +3.81% 104
West Midlands +3 168 £563 +7.14% 52
South West +18 157 £550 - 152
North West -23 117 £525 -2.42% 109
Yorkshire +5 109 £550 +4.76% 53
East of England -5 95 £550 +7.32% 67
Scotland +24 59 £510 -7.27% 38
East Midlands -17 58 £500 -3.15% 51
Wales +5 32 £463 +2.78% 33
North East -21 10 £525 -4.55% 12
Northern Ireland +3 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 26 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.

1 312 (26.85%) Security Cleared
2 258 (22.20%) SC Cleared
3 237 (20.40%) SAP
4 186 (16.01%) Migration
5 143 (12.31%) Oracle
6 133 (11.45%) ERP
7 132 (11.36%) Stakeholder Engagement
8 115 (9.90%) Azure
9 113 (9.72%) Problem-Solving
10 103 (8.86%) SAP S/4HANA
11 94 (8.09%) Microsoft
12 93 (8.00%) SQL
12 93 (8.00%) Workshop Facilitation
13 84 (7.23%) Stakeholder Management
14 82 (7.06%) Data Migration
15 72 (6.20%) Roadmaps
16 71 (6.11%) User Acceptance Testing
17 69 (5.94%) Validation
18 68 (5.85%) Cybersecurity
19 67 (5.77%) Business Intelligence
20 60 (5.16%) Change Management
21 58 (4.99%) Continuous Improvement
22 56 (4.82%) Analytics
22 56 (4.82%) Knowledge Transfer
23 54 (4.65%) Agile
24 53 (4.56%) PLM
24 53 (4.56%) Siemens
25 52 (4.48%) ISO/IEC 27001
26 50 (4.30%) XML
27 49 (4.22%) 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 (2.67%) SharePoint
2 18 (1.55%) Confluence
3 11 (0.95%) Microsoft Exchange
4 6 (0.52%) Jupyter
5 3 (0.26%) Apache Spark
5 3 (0.26%) MTS
5 3 (0.26%) Oracle Workflow
6 2 (0.17%) Apache
6 2 (0.17%) Apache Superset
6 2 (0.17%) CMS
6 2 (0.17%) NetWeaver
7 1 (0.086%) ArcGIS
7 1 (0.086%) OpenStack
7 1 (0.086%) SAS
7 1 (0.086%) Skype for Business
7 1 (0.086%) WebSphere
Applications
1 42 (3.61%) Microsoft Excel
2 11 (0.95%) Microsoft PowerPoint
3 9 (0.77%) MS Visio
4 8 (0.69%) Microsoft Office
5 5 (0.43%) 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 (0.086%) CATIA
8 1 (0.086%) Chatbot
8 1 (0.086%) Navisworks
8 1 (0.086%) Revit
8 1 (0.086%) Siemens NX
8 1 (0.086%) Windchill
Business Applications
1 103 (8.86%) SAP S/4HANA
2 39 (3.36%) Oracle EBS
3 30 (2.58%) Oracle Receivables
4 28 (2.41%) Oracle Payables
4 28 (2.41%) SAP FI
5 27 (2.32%) SAP MM
6 25 (2.15%) SAP PSCD
7 24 (2.07%) Oracle EBS R12
8 21 (1.81%) Oracle Assets
8 21 (1.81%) Oracle Cash Management
8 21 (1.81%) Oracle General Ledger
8 21 (1.81%) SAP HCM
9 20 (1.72%) Oracle Procure-to-Pay
10 19 (1.64%) Teamcenter
11 17 (1.46%) SAP Hybris
12 16 (1.38%) SAP BRIM
13 14 (1.20%) SAP Payroll
14 13 (1.12%) Oracle AGIS
15 12 (1.03%) Oracle ERP
16 11 (0.95%) SAP PP
Cloud Services
1 115 (9.90%) Azure
2 47 (4.04%) OCI
3 36 (3.10%) AWS
4 32 (2.75%) Power Platform
5 31 (2.67%) Dynamics 365
6 29 (2.50%) GCP
7 28 (2.41%) SuccessFactors
8 22 (1.89%) Microsoft 365
9 19 (1.64%) Entra ID
10 18 (1.55%) SAP Commerce Cloud
11 17 (1.46%) SaaS
12 13 (1.12%) Microsoft Copilot
13 11 (0.95%) Azure DevOps
14 9 (0.77%) PowerApps
15 8 (0.69%) OneDrive
15 8 (0.69%) Power Automate
16 6 (0.52%) GitHub
17 4 (0.34%) Copilot Studio
17 4 (0.34%) dbt
17 4 (0.34%) PaaS
Communications & Networking
1 14 (1.20%) Firewall
2 9 (0.77%) Network Security
3 8 (0.69%) FTP
4 5 (0.43%) Cisco ISE
4 5 (0.43%) Kerberos
4 5 (0.43%) SNMP
5 4 (0.34%) HTTP
5 4 (0.34%) SD-WAN
5 4 (0.34%) SSH
5 4 (0.34%) VSAN
5 4 (0.34%) WAN
6 3 (0.26%) BGP
6 3 (0.26%) Cisco ASA
6 3 (0.26%) Cisco Firepower
6 3 (0.26%) Cisco Nexus
6 3 (0.26%) EIGRP
6 3 (0.26%) LAN
6 3 (0.26%) OSPF
6 3 (0.26%) VPN
6 3 (0.26%) WebEx
Database & Business Intelligence
1 29 (2.50%) Power BI
2 27 (2.32%) Oracle Reports
3 20 (1.72%) SAP HANA
4 18 (1.55%) Oracle BI Publisher
5 12 (1.03%) SQL Server
6 10 (0.86%) Oracle ODI
7 8 (0.69%) Metadata
8 6 (0.52%) NoSQL
8 6 (0.52%) SAP Data Services
9 5 (0.43%) Tableau
10 4 (0.34%) Data Warehouse
10 4 (0.34%) Oracle Database
10 4 (0.34%) SAP BW
10 4 (0.34%) Snowflake Schema
11 3 (0.26%) Electronic Patient Records
11 3 (0.26%) GIS
11 3 (0.26%) Hadoop
12 2 (0.17%) Geospatial Data
12 2 (0.17%) MongoDB
12 2 (0.17%) Relational Database
Development Applications
1 33 (2.84%) JIRA
2 11 (0.95%) Hudson
3 4 (0.34%) Git
3 4 (0.34%) Oracle Forms
4 3 (0.26%) Jenkins
4 3 (0.26%) Visual Studio Code
5 2 (0.17%) Postman
6 1 (0.086%) Appium
6 1 (0.086%) Bitbucket
6 1 (0.086%) GitLab
6 1 (0.086%) JUnit
6 1 (0.086%) MSTest
6 1 (0.086%) NeoLoad
6 1 (0.086%) NUnit
6 1 (0.086%) Rational Rhapsody
6 1 (0.086%) Toad
6 1 (0.086%) Tricentis qTest
General
1 244 (21.00%) Social Skills
2 230 (19.79%) Finance
3 128 (11.02%) Public Sector
4 98 (8.43%) Analytical Skills
5 39 (3.36%) Manufacturing
6 28 (2.41%) Billing
7 26 (2.24%) Telecoms
8 25 (2.15%) Legal
9 23 (1.98%) Banking
10 21 (1.81%) General Ledger
11 19 (1.64%) Presentation Skills
12 16 (1.38%) Marketing
13 15 (1.29%) Documentation Skills
14 14 (1.20%) Aerospace
15 13 (1.12%) Local Government
15 13 (1.12%) Organisational Skills
16 11 (0.95%) Law
17 10 (0.86%) Retail
18 5 (0.43%) Back Office
18 5 (0.43%) Retail Banking
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 50 (4.30%) XML
2 46 (3.96%) Oracle Fusion
3 41 (3.53%) REST
4 22 (1.89%) SOAP
5 19 (1.64%) Web Services
6 13 (1.12%) SAP Basis
7 12 (1.03%) SAP Fiori
8 10 (0.86%) JSON
9 9 (0.77%) LDAP
10 7 (0.60%) .NET
11 6 (0.52%) BAPI
11 6 (0.52%) SAML
11 6 (0.52%) SAP Business Workflow
12 5 (0.43%) Middleware
12 5 (0.43%) OAuth
13 4 (0.34%) IDoc
14 3 (0.26%) AngularJS
14 3 (0.26%) PySpark
14 3 (0.26%) scikit-learn
14 3 (0.26%) TensorFlow
Miscellaneous
1 21 (1.81%) Data Protection Act
1 21 (1.81%) Replication
2 19 (1.64%) Onboarding
3 18 (1.55%) Legacy Systems
4 13 (1.12%) Operational Technology
4 13 (1.12%) Product Ownership
5 12 (1.03%) Public Cloud
6 10 (0.86%) Data Centre
7 9 (0.77%) AI Agents
7 9 (0.77%) Data Structures
7 9 (0.77%) Management Information System
7 9 (0.77%) NHS
8 7 (0.60%) Analytical Mindset
8 7 (0.60%) Security Posture
9 6 (0.52%) Beowulf
10 5 (0.43%) Enterprise Software
10 5 (0.43%) Market Risk
10 5 (0.43%) SCADA
10 5 (0.43%) SCORM
11 4 (0.34%) BYOD
Operating Systems
1 35 (3.01%) Windows
2 24 (2.07%) Linux
3 9 (0.77%) AIX
4 7 (0.60%) VMS
5 5 (0.43%) Windows Server
6 4 (0.34%) Solaris
6 4 (0.34%) Windows 10
7 3 (0.26%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
7 3 (0.26%) Unix
8 1 (0.086%) CentOS
8 1 (0.086%) CoreOS
8 1 (0.086%) Data ONTAP
8 1 (0.086%) Mac OS
8 1 (0.086%) Ubuntu
Processes & Methodologies
1 186 (16.01%) Migration
2 133 (11.45%) ERP
3 132 (11.36%) Stakeholder Engagement
4 113 (9.72%) Problem-Solving
5 93 (8.00%) Workshop Facilitation
6 84 (7.23%) Stakeholder Management
7 82 (7.06%) Data Migration
8 72 (6.20%) Roadmaps
9 71 (6.11%) User Acceptance Testing
10 69 (5.94%) Validation
11 68 (5.85%) Cybersecurity
12 67 (5.77%) Business Intelligence
13 60 (5.16%) Change Management
14 58 (4.99%) Continuous Improvement
15 56 (4.82%) Analytics
15 56 (4.82%) Knowledge Transfer
16 54 (4.65%) Agile
17 53 (4.56%) PLM
18 46 (3.96%) Project Management
19 43 (3.70%) Workflow
Programming Languages
1 93 (8.00%) SQL
2 39 (3.36%) Python
3 28 (2.41%) T-SQL
4 26 (2.24%) PowerShell
5 23 (1.98%) ABAP
6 17 (1.46%) PL/SQL
7 12 (1.03%) JavaScript
8 8 (0.69%) Bash
8 8 (0.69%) Java
9 7 (0.60%) C#
10 5 (0.43%) Search Processing Language
11 4 (0.34%) TypeScript
12 3 (0.26%) R
13 2 (0.17%) Apex Code
13 2 (0.17%) Shell Script
13 2 (0.17%) VBA
13 2 (0.17%) VBScript
14 1 (0.086%) ActionScript
14 1 (0.086%) C++
14 1 (0.086%) MATLAB
Qualifications
1 312 (26.85%) Security Cleared
2 258 (22.20%) SC Cleared
3 45 (3.87%) DV Cleared
4 29 (2.50%) Degree
5 28 (2.41%) BPSS Clearance
6 23 (1.98%) CISSP
7 14 (1.20%) CISM
8 11 (0.95%) Cisco Certification
9 9 (0.77%) Computer Science Degree
10 8 (0.69%) ITIL Foundation Certificate
10 8 (0.69%) Microsoft Certification
11 7 (0.60%) SAP Certification
12 6 (0.52%) ITIL Certification
13 5 (0.43%) Azure Certification
13 5 (0.43%) CCNP
13 5 (0.43%) DBS Check
14 4 (0.34%) CISA
14 4 (0.34%) Master's Degree
14 4 (0.34%) Oracle Certification
14 4 (0.34%) PMP
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 52 (4.48%) ISO/IEC 27001
2 43 (3.70%) NIST
3 21 (1.81%) Data Quality
3 21 (1.81%) GDPR
3 21 (1.81%) GRC
3 21 (1.81%) QA
4 11 (0.95%) NCSC
4 11 (0.95%) PCI DSS
5 10 (0.86%) JSP 440
6 9 (0.77%) Actionable Recommendations
7 8 (0.69%) PMO
8 7 (0.60%) COBIT
9 6 (0.52%) RMADS
10 5 (0.43%) Cyber Essentials
10 5 (0.43%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
11 4 (0.34%) Sarbanes-Oxley
12 3 (0.26%) ISO/IEC 27005
12 3 (0.26%) SLA
13 2 (0.17%) SOC 2
14 1 (0.086%) ISO 19650
System Software
1 26 (2.24%) Active Directory
2 14 (1.20%) VMware Infrastructure
3 13 (1.12%) VMware NSX
4 10 (0.86%) Docker
5 6 (0.52%) Slurm Workload Manager
5 6 (0.52%) vSphere
6 3 (0.26%) Virtual Desktop
7 2 (0.17%) Virtual Machines
8 1 (0.086%) Ceph
8 1 (0.086%) KVM
8 1 (0.086%) NFS
8 1 (0.086%) QEMU
8 1 (0.086%) VMware ESXi
Systems Management
1 14 (1.20%) Kubernetes
2 9 (0.77%) Single Sign-On
3 7 (0.60%) PingFederate
3 7 (0.60%) Terraform
4 6 (0.52%) Podman
5 5 (0.43%) Nagios
5 5 (0.43%) NetBackup
5 5 (0.43%) Netcool
5 5 (0.43%) OpenView
5 5 (0.43%) Tivoli
5 5 (0.43%) Tivoli Monitoring
5 5 (0.43%) ZABBIX
6 4 (0.34%) Ansible
7 3 (0.26%) Active Directory Federation Services
7 3 (0.26%) Microsoft Intune
7 3 (0.26%) Puppet
7 3 (0.26%) SCCM
7 3 (0.26%) vRealize
8 1 (0.086%) CEMLI
8 1 (0.086%) Control-M
Vendors
1 237 (20.40%) SAP
2 143 (12.31%) Oracle
3 94 (8.09%) Microsoft
4 53 (4.56%) Siemens
5 49 (4.22%) CyberArk
6 42 (3.61%) Cisco
7 35 (3.01%) Aruba
8 29 (2.50%) ServiceNow
9 26 (2.24%) Workday
10 22 (1.89%) Google
11 20 (1.72%) VMware
12 14 (1.20%) Sage
13 11 (0.95%) BMC
13 11 (0.95%) IBM
14 10 (0.86%) Databricks
14 10 (0.86%) OpenText
14 10 (0.86%) Splunk
15 9 (0.77%) IFS
16 8 (0.69%) Ariba
16 8 (0.69%) Atlassian