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 9 June 2026.

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

6 months to
9 Jun 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 33 37 31
Rank change year-on-year +4 -6 +17
Contract jobs requiring a Consultant 1,209 666 1,097
As % of all contract jobs in the UK excluding London 4.77% 5.06% 5.21%
As % of the Job Titles category 5.20% 5.52% 5.63%
Number of daily rates quoted 668 420 736
10th Percentile £400 £400 £400
25th Percentile £450 £467 £463
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £537 £550
Median % change year-on-year -2.23% -2.36% +0.69%
75th Percentile £618 £600 £650
90th Percentile £725 £650 £725
UK median daily rate £540 £550 £550
% change year-on-year -1.82% - -
Number of hourly rates quoted 68 14 21
10th Percentile £52.05 £28.12 £26.25
25th Percentile £56.25 £38.43 £50.00
Median hourly rate £57.50 £70.00 £56.89
Median % change year-on-year -17.86% +23.06% -13.15%
75th Percentile £60.00 £86.00 £61.60
90th Percentile £61.01 - -
UK median hourly rate £57.50 £70.00 £61.60
% change year-on-year -17.86% +13.64% -6.67%

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 23,260 12,063 19,476
% of contract IT jobs with a recognized job title 91.84% 91.69% 92.43%
Number of daily rates quoted 13,370 7,616 11,646
10th Percentile £300 £213 £213
25th Percentile £405 £363 £363
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £475 £488
Median % change year-on-year +5.26% -2.56% -2.50%
75th Percentile £592 £575 £591
90th Percentile £687 £650 £683
UK median daily rate £513 £500 £525
% change year-on-year +2.50% -4.76% -2.78%
Number of hourly rates quoted 2,691 898 2,475
10th Percentile £14.82 £13.50 £12.53
25th Percentile £20.09 £16.95 £15.86
Median hourly rate £45.00 £25.15 £40.00
Median % change year-on-year +78.93% -37.13% -5.88%
75th Percentile £67.50 £60.00 £62.50
90th Percentile £78.75 £75.00 £74.22
UK median hourly rate £43.61 £28.00 £37.50
% change year-on-year +55.73% -25.33% -16.67%

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 June 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 June 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 June 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 -1 338 £525 -4.55% 233
North of England -17 271 £550 +3.77% 221
Midlands -14 230 £525 -4.55% 69
South West +37 196 £550 - 133
West Midlands -10 153 £528 -4.09% 45
North West -12 135 £538 -1.38% 131
Yorkshire -6 113 £550 +15.79% 66
Scotland +26 77 £425 -8.11% 36
East of England -11 74 £550 +6.08% 41
East Midlands -13 68 £500 -3.85% 23
Wales +4 30 £550 +37.50% 12
North East -26 23 £725 +35.77% 25
Northern Ireland -1 3 £600 +15.38% 25
Consultant
UK

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

For the 6 months to 9 June 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.

1 255 (21.09%) Security Cleared
2 253 (20.93%) SAP
3 186 (15.38%) SC Cleared
4 151 (12.49%) ERP
5 150 (12.41%) Migration
6 138 (11.41%) Azure
7 135 (11.17%) Oracle
8 122 (10.09%) Microsoft
9 119 (9.84%) Stakeholder Engagement
10 116 (9.59%) Problem-Solving
11 107 (8.85%) SQL
12 100 (8.27%) Stakeholder Management
13 98 (8.11%) Continuous Improvement
14 94 (7.78%) SAP S/4HANA
15 89 (7.36%) Data Migration
16 87 (7.20%) Validation
17 84 (6.95%) Cybersecurity
18 75 (6.20%) Workshop Facilitation
19 70 (5.79%) User Acceptance Testing
20 69 (5.71%) Agile
21 63 (5.21%) Roadmaps
22 61 (5.05%) AWS
23 60 (4.96%) PLM
24 59 (4.88%) Business Intelligence
25 58 (4.80%) Change Management
26 57 (4.71%) Data Protection
27 54 (4.47%) Siemens
28 53 (4.38%) Analytics
29 52 (4.30%) Power Platform
30 51 (4.22%) DV Cleared

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 (2.07%) Confluence
2 18 (1.49%) SharePoint
3 7 (0.58%) Oracle Workflow
4 6 (0.50%) Jupyter
5 4 (0.33%) WebSphere
6 3 (0.25%) Apache
6 3 (0.25%) Apache Spark
6 3 (0.25%) Apache Superset
6 3 (0.25%) Microsoft Exchange
6 3 (0.25%) WebLogic
7 1 (0.083%) ArcGIS
7 1 (0.083%) NetWeaver
7 1 (0.083%) SAS
7 1 (0.083%) Tomcat
Applications
1 43 (3.56%) Microsoft Excel
2 15 (1.24%) Microsoft Office
3 13 (1.08%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 6 (0.50%) MS Visio
5 5 (0.41%) PTC Creo
6 3 (0.25%) Microsoft Project
7 2 (0.17%) Lectora
7 2 (0.17%) Oracle Smart View
7 2 (0.17%) Spreadsheet
8 1 (0.083%) CATIA
8 1 (0.083%) Siemens NX
Business Applications
1 94 (7.78%) SAP S/4HANA
2 29 (2.40%) SAP PSCD
3 26 (2.15%) Oracle EBS
4 25 (2.07%) Teamcenter
5 22 (1.82%) SAP MM
6 21 (1.74%) Oracle Payables
7 19 (1.57%) Oracle ERP
7 19 (1.57%) SAP FI
8 18 (1.49%) Oracle Receivables
9 15 (1.24%) SAP SD
10 14 (1.16%) SAP EWM
11 12 (0.99%) SAP CO
11 12 (0.99%) SAP HCM
12 11 (0.91%) NetSuite
12 11 (0.91%) SAP FI/CO
13 10 (0.83%) SAP BRIM
13 10 (0.83%) SAP Hybris
14 9 (0.74%) Oracle Cash Management
15 8 (0.66%) SAP Payroll
15 8 (0.66%) Workday HCM
Cloud Services
1 138 (11.41%) Azure
2 61 (5.05%) AWS
3 52 (4.30%) Power Platform
4 45 (3.72%) OCI
5 44 (3.64%) Dynamics 365
6 32 (2.65%) GCP
7 28 (2.32%) Microsoft 365
8 24 (1.99%) SuccessFactors
9 19 (1.57%) Entra ID
9 19 (1.57%) Power Automate
10 17 (1.41%) Microsoft Copilot
11 16 (1.32%) SaaS
12 13 (1.08%) PowerApps
13 12 (0.99%) Azure DevOps
14 11 (0.91%) GitHub
14 11 (0.91%) SAP Commerce Cloud
15 9 (0.74%) Cloud Computing
15 9 (0.74%) Copilot Studio
16 6 (0.50%) Azure AI
16 6 (0.50%) Oracle Service Cloud
Communications & Networking
1 23 (1.90%) Network Security
2 16 (1.32%) SNMP
3 12 (0.99%) Firewall
4 9 (0.74%) FTP
5 5 (0.41%) HTTP
6 4 (0.33%) LAN
6 4 (0.33%) SAN
6 4 (0.33%) VPN
7 3 (0.25%) DNS
7 3 (0.25%) SMS
7 3 (0.25%) WAN
7 3 (0.25%) Wi-Fi
8 2 (0.17%) Cisco ISE
8 2 (0.17%) Connectrix
8 2 (0.17%) HTTPS
8 2 (0.17%) Intranet
8 2 (0.17%) TCP/IP
8 2 (0.17%) VSAN
8 2 (0.17%) VXLAN
8 2 (0.17%) Wireless
Database & Business Intelligence
1 35 (2.89%) Oracle Reports
2 33 (2.73%) Power BI
3 17 (1.41%) Oracle ODI
4 16 (1.32%) Oracle BI Publisher
5 13 (1.08%) SAP HANA
6 9 (0.74%) Tableau
7 8 (0.66%) SQL Server
8 6 (0.50%) NoSQL
8 6 (0.50%) Oracle Database
9 5 (0.41%) Metadata
9 5 (0.41%) NonStop SQL
9 5 (0.41%) SAP Data Services
10 4 (0.33%) Power Query
10 4 (0.33%) Relational Database
10 4 (0.33%) SAP BW
11 3 (0.25%) Amazon Athena
11 3 (0.25%) BusinessObjects
11 3 (0.25%) Delta Lake
11 3 (0.25%) Hadoop
11 3 (0.25%) Snowflake Schema
Development Applications
1 39 (3.23%) JIRA
2 12 (0.99%) Hudson
3 7 (0.58%) Oracle Forms
4 5 (0.41%) Git
4 5 (0.41%) Jenkins
5 3 (0.25%) Toad
5 3 (0.25%) Visual Studio Code
6 2 (0.17%) JDeveloper
6 2 (0.17%) Postman
7 1 (0.083%) Appium
7 1 (0.083%) Bitbucket
7 1 (0.083%) GitLab
7 1 (0.083%) JUnit
7 1 (0.083%) LoadRunner
7 1 (0.083%) MSTest
7 1 (0.083%) NUnit
General
1 242 (20.02%) Social Skills
2 240 (19.85%) Finance
3 92 (7.61%) Public Sector
4 91 (7.53%) Analytical Skills
5 43 (3.56%) Manufacturing
6 31 (2.56%) Banking
6 31 (2.56%) Legal
7 22 (1.82%) Billing
8 20 (1.65%) General Ledger
9 19 (1.57%) Telecoms
10 15 (1.24%) Aerospace
10 15 (1.24%) Documentation Skills
10 15 (1.24%) Organisational Skills
11 14 (1.16%) Presentation Skills
12 13 (1.08%) Retail
13 12 (0.99%) Local Government
13 12 (0.99%) Marketing
14 11 (0.91%) Influencing Skills
15 8 (0.66%) Advertising
15 8 (0.66%) Law
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 41 (3.39%) XML
2 38 (3.14%) REST
3 26 (2.15%) Oracle Fusion
4 12 (0.99%) Web Services
5 9 (0.74%) SOAP
6 8 (0.66%) SAP Fiori
7 7 (0.58%) Middleware
8 6 (0.50%) JSON
8 6 (0.50%) RESTful
9 5 (0.41%) Microsoft Graph
9 5 (0.41%) SailPoint
9 5 (0.41%) SAP Basis
10 4 (0.33%) .NET
10 4 (0.33%) AngularJS
10 4 (0.33%) BAPI
10 4 (0.33%) LDAP
11 3 (0.25%) PyTorch
11 3 (0.25%) scikit-learn
11 3 (0.25%) TensorFlow
11 3 (0.25%) XSLT
Miscellaneous
1 31 (2.56%) Data Protection Act
2 25 (2.07%) Onboarding
3 20 (1.65%) Security Posture
4 17 (1.41%) Operational Technology
5 14 (1.16%) AI Agents
5 14 (1.16%) Product Ownership
6 13 (1.08%) Legacy Systems
7 12 (0.99%) Public Cloud
7 12 (0.99%) Replication
8 9 (0.74%) Cloud Native
8 9 (0.74%) Management Information System
9 7 (0.58%) Enterprise Software
9 7 (0.58%) NHS
9 7 (0.58%) SCADA
10 6 (0.50%) Beowulf
10 6 (0.50%) Data Centre
10 6 (0.50%) Data Structures
10 6 (0.50%) FMCG
10 6 (0.50%) Greenfield Project
10 6 (0.50%) Private Cloud
Operating Systems
1 41 (3.39%) Windows
2 36 (2.98%) Linux
3 17 (1.41%) Solaris
4 13 (1.08%) AIX
5 11 (0.91%) VMS
6 4 (0.33%) Unix
7 3 (0.25%) Windows Server
8 2 (0.17%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
9 1 (0.083%) Android
9 1 (0.083%) CoreOS
9 1 (0.083%) Data ONTAP
9 1 (0.083%) Mac OS
9 1 (0.083%) zOS
Processes & Methodologies
1 151 (12.49%) ERP
2 150 (12.41%) Migration
3 119 (9.84%) Stakeholder Engagement
4 116 (9.59%) Problem-Solving
5 100 (8.27%) Stakeholder Management
6 98 (8.11%) Continuous Improvement
7 89 (7.36%) Data Migration
8 87 (7.20%) Validation
9 84 (6.95%) Cybersecurity
10 75 (6.20%) Workshop Facilitation
11 70 (5.79%) User Acceptance Testing
12 69 (5.71%) Agile
13 63 (5.21%) Roadmaps
14 60 (4.96%) PLM
15 59 (4.88%) Business Intelligence
16 58 (4.80%) Change Management
17 57 (4.71%) Data Protection
18 53 (4.38%) Analytics
19 47 (3.89%) AI
20 45 (3.72%) Workflow
Programming Languages
1 107 (8.85%) SQL
2 46 (3.80%) Python
3 28 (2.32%) T-SQL
4 24 (1.99%) PL/SQL
5 22 (1.82%) PowerShell
6 13 (1.08%) Search Processing Language
7 12 (0.99%) JavaScript
8 10 (0.83%) ABAP
8 10 (0.83%) Kusto Query Language
9 9 (0.74%) Bash
9 9 (0.74%) Java
10 6 (0.50%) R
11 5 (0.41%) C#
12 3 (0.25%) Shell Script
13 2 (0.17%) C++
13 2 (0.17%) TypeScript
13 2 (0.17%) VBScript
14 1 (0.083%) ActionScript
14 1 (0.083%) Perl
14 1 (0.083%) VB
Qualifications
1 255 (21.09%) Security Cleared
2 186 (15.38%) SC Cleared
3 51 (4.22%) DV Cleared
4 50 (4.14%) CISSP
5 38 (3.14%) BPSS Clearance
6 37 (3.06%) CISM
7 30 (2.48%) Degree
8 23 (1.90%) Cisco Certification
9 20 (1.65%) CCSP
10 19 (1.57%) (ISC)2 CCSP
11 11 (0.91%) PMP
12 10 (0.83%) ACCA
12 10 (0.83%) CEH
12 10 (0.83%) CIMA
13 9 (0.74%) OSCP
14 8 (0.66%) ITIL Foundation Certificate
15 7 (0.58%) Computer Science Degree
15 7 (0.58%) SAP Certification
16 6 (0.50%) Azure Certification
16 6 (0.50%) DBS Check
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 48 (3.97%) NIST
2 41 (3.39%) ISO/IEC 27001
3 32 (2.65%) GRC
4 29 (2.40%) Data Quality
5 18 (1.49%) GDPR
6 14 (1.16%) QA
7 13 (1.08%) PCI DSS
8 12 (0.99%) NCSC
9 10 (0.83%) Actionable Recommendations
10 8 (0.66%) SLA
11 7 (0.58%) Accessibility
11 7 (0.58%) COBIT
11 7 (0.58%) JSP 440
12 6 (0.50%) RMADS
13 5 (0.41%) PMO
13 5 (0.41%) Sarbanes-Oxley
14 4 (0.33%) WCAG
15 2 (0.17%) ISO 22301
15 2 (0.17%) ISO/IEC 27005
15 2 (0.17%) NIST 800
System Software
1 23 (1.90%) Active Directory
2 15 (1.24%) VMware Infrastructure
3 10 (0.83%) Docker
3 10 (0.83%) VMware NSX
3 10 (0.83%) vSphere
4 9 (0.74%) VMware ESXi
5 6 (0.50%) Slurm Workload Manager
6 3 (0.25%) Virtual Desktop
6 3 (0.25%) Virtual Machines
7 2 (0.17%) NFS
8 1 (0.083%) Hyper-V
8 1 (0.083%) IAG
8 1 (0.083%) Time Sharing Option
Systems Management
1 27 (2.23%) Kubernetes
2 13 (1.08%) Nagios
2 13 (1.08%) ZABBIX
3 12 (0.99%) Netcool
3 12 (0.99%) Tivoli
4 11 (0.91%) Ansible
4 11 (0.91%) OpenView
4 11 (0.91%) Tivoli Monitoring
5 10 (0.83%) Terraform
6 7 (0.58%) vRealize
7 6 (0.50%) NetBackup
7 6 (0.50%) Podman
8 5 (0.41%) vCenter Server
9 3 (0.25%) Grafana
9 3 (0.25%) Microsoft Intune
9 3 (0.25%) Oracle Identity Management
9 3 (0.25%) Oracle Identity Manager
9 3 (0.25%) Prometheus
9 3 (0.25%) vRealize Orchestrator
10 2 (0.17%) Puppet
Vendors
1 253 (20.93%) SAP
2 135 (11.17%) Oracle
3 122 (10.09%) Microsoft
4 54 (4.47%) Siemens
5 27 (2.23%) ServiceNow
6 22 (1.82%) BMC
6 22 (1.82%) Splunk
6 22 (1.82%) VMware
7 21 (1.74%) Workday
8 18 (1.49%) Ariba
8 18 (1.49%) IBM
9 14 (1.16%) Sage
10 13 (1.08%) Google
10 13 (1.08%) SolarWinds
11 12 (0.99%) Databricks
11 12 (0.99%) HP
12 9 (0.74%) IFS
13 7 (0.58%) Epicor
13 7 (0.58%) Informatica
13 7 (0.58%) Veritas