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 13 June 2026.

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

6 months to
13 Jun 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 35 38 31
Rank change year-on-year +3 -7 +17
Contract jobs requiring a Consultant 1,227 672 1,120
As % of all contract jobs in the UK excluding London 4.81% 5.05% 5.25%
As % of the Job Titles category 5.23% 5.51% 5.68%
Number of daily rates quoted 673 424 734
10th Percentile £401 £400 £400
25th Percentile £450 £463 £463
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £537 £550
Median % change year-on-year -2.23% -2.36% +1.38%
75th Percentile £618 £600 £645
90th Percentile £725 £664 £725
UK median daily rate £545 £550 £550
% change year-on-year -0.91% - -
Number of hourly rates quoted 70 16 20
10th Percentile £52.35 £28.52 £24.84
25th Percentile £56.25 £42.30 £48.13
Median hourly rate £57.50 £73.75 £56.89
Median % change year-on-year -22.03% +29.65% -13.15%
75th Percentile £60.00 £86.00 £61.60
90th Percentile £63.38 £86.13 -
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 23,453 12,200 19,709
% of contract IT jobs with a recognized job title 91.91% 91.60% 92.42%
Number of daily rates quoted 13,469 7,692 11,751
10th Percentile £303 £220 £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 £594 £575 £593
90th Percentile £688 £650 £680
UK median daily rate £514 £500 £525
% change year-on-year +2.80% -4.76% -2.42%
Number of hourly rates quoted 2,710 925 2,515
10th Percentile £14.82 £13.50 £12.63
25th Percentile £20.25 £16.95 £15.92
Median hourly rate £44.50 £25.15 £40.00
Median % change year-on-year +76.94% -37.13% -4.94%
75th Percentile £67.50 £60.00 £62.83
90th Percentile £78.75 £75.00 £74.00
UK median hourly rate £42.69 £27.70 £37.50
% change year-on-year +54.10% -26.13% -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 13 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 13 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 13 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 0 340 £525 -4.55% 244
North of England -18 267 £550 +3.77% 251
Midlands -12 233 £525 -4.55% 91
South West +38 202 £550 - 127
West Midlands -1 157 £525 -4.55% 65
North West -13 136 £550 - 160
Yorkshire -9 109 £544 +14.47% 67
East of England -8 83 £550 +8.70% 49
Scotland +21 79 £425 -10.53% 50
East Midlands -7 67 £500 -8.05% 25
Wales -1 30 £550 +37.50% 16
North East -35 22 £650 +21.72% 25
Northern Ireland -2 3 £600 +15.38% 26
Consultant
UK

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

For the 6 months to 13 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.

1 257 (20.95%) SAP
2 256 (20.86%) Security Cleared
3 190 (15.48%) SC Cleared
4 153 (12.47%) Migration
5 150 (12.22%) ERP
6 145 (11.82%) Azure
7 139 (11.33%) Oracle
8 126 (10.27%) Microsoft
9 119 (9.70%) Stakeholder Engagement
10 117 (9.54%) Problem-Solving
11 111 (9.05%) SQL
12 102 (8.31%) Stakeholder Management
13 97 (7.91%) Continuous Improvement
13 97 (7.91%) SAP S/4HANA
14 90 (7.33%) Validation
15 87 (7.09%) Data Migration
16 82 (6.68%) Cybersecurity
17 75 (6.11%) Workshop Facilitation
18 71 (5.79%) User Acceptance Testing
19 67 (5.46%) Agile
20 64 (5.22%) AWS
20 64 (5.22%) Roadmaps
21 60 (4.89%) PLM
22 59 (4.81%) Analytics
23 57 (4.65%) Business Intelligence
23 57 (4.65%) Change Management
23 57 (4.65%) Data Protection
24 54 (4.40%) Siemens
25 51 (4.16%) CISSP
26 50 (4.07%) Power Platform

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 23 (1.87%) Confluence
2 18 (1.47%) SharePoint
3 8 (0.65%) Oracle Workflow
4 6 (0.49%) Jupyter
4 6 (0.49%) WebSphere
5 5 (0.41%) WebLogic
6 3 (0.24%) Apache
6 3 (0.24%) Apache Spark
6 3 (0.24%) Apache Superset
6 3 (0.24%) Microsoft Exchange
7 1 (0.081%) ArcGIS
7 1 (0.081%) NetWeaver
7 1 (0.081%) SAS
7 1 (0.081%) Tomcat
Applications
1 43 (3.50%) Microsoft Excel
2 15 (1.22%) Microsoft Office
3 13 (1.06%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 6 (0.49%) MS Visio
5 5 (0.41%) PTC Creo
6 3 (0.24%) Microsoft Project
7 2 (0.16%) Lectora
7 2 (0.16%) Oracle Smart View
7 2 (0.16%) Spreadsheet
8 1 (0.081%) CATIA
8 1 (0.081%) Siemens NX
Business Applications
1 97 (7.91%) SAP S/4HANA
2 30 (2.44%) SAP PSCD
3 25 (2.04%) Oracle EBS
4 24 (1.96%) Teamcenter
5 22 (1.79%) SAP MM
6 21 (1.71%) Oracle Payables
7 19 (1.55%) Oracle ERP
7 19 (1.55%) SAP FI
8 18 (1.47%) Oracle Receivables
9 15 (1.22%) SAP EWM
9 15 (1.22%) SAP SD
10 12 (0.98%) SAP CO
11 11 (0.90%) NetSuite
11 11 (0.90%) SAP BRIM
11 11 (0.90%) SAP FI/CO
11 11 (0.90%) SAP Hybris
12 10 (0.81%) SAP HCM
12 10 (0.81%) SAP Payroll
13 9 (0.73%) Oracle Cash Management
14 8 (0.65%) Workday HCM
Cloud Services
1 145 (11.82%) Azure
2 64 (5.22%) AWS
3 50 (4.07%) Power Platform
4 45 (3.67%) OCI
5 43 (3.50%) Dynamics 365
6 33 (2.69%) GCP
7 28 (2.28%) Microsoft 365
8 26 (2.12%) SuccessFactors
9 21 (1.71%) Entra ID
10 19 (1.55%) Power Automate
11 18 (1.47%) Microsoft Copilot
12 17 (1.39%) SaaS
13 12 (0.98%) PowerApps
13 12 (0.98%) SAP Commerce Cloud
14 11 (0.90%) Azure DevOps
14 11 (0.90%) GitHub
15 9 (0.73%) Cloud Computing
15 9 (0.73%) Copilot Studio
15 9 (0.73%) Oracle Service Cloud
16 6 (0.49%) Azure AI
Communications & Networking
1 24 (1.96%) Network Security
2 17 (1.39%) Firewall
3 16 (1.30%) SNMP
4 9 (0.73%) FTP
5 6 (0.49%) BGP
5 6 (0.49%) WAN
6 5 (0.41%) HTTP
7 4 (0.33%) LAN
7 4 (0.33%) SAN
7 4 (0.33%) VPN
8 3 (0.24%) DNS
8 3 (0.24%) Ethernet VPN
8 3 (0.24%) SMS
8 3 (0.24%) VXLAN
9 2 (0.16%) Connectrix
9 2 (0.16%) HTTPS
9 2 (0.16%) Intranet
9 2 (0.16%) TCP/IP
9 2 (0.16%) VSAN
9 2 (0.16%) Wi-Fi
Database & Business Intelligence
1 36 (2.93%) Oracle Reports
2 31 (2.53%) Power BI
3 17 (1.39%) Oracle BI Publisher
3 17 (1.39%) Oracle ODI
4 15 (1.22%) SAP HANA
5 9 (0.73%) Tableau
6 8 (0.65%) SQL Server
7 6 (0.49%) Metadata
7 6 (0.49%) NoSQL
7 6 (0.49%) Oracle Database
8 5 (0.41%) NonStop SQL
8 5 (0.41%) SAP Data Services
9 4 (0.33%) Power Query
9 4 (0.33%) Relational Database
9 4 (0.33%) SAP BW
10 3 (0.24%) Amazon Athena
10 3 (0.24%) BusinessObjects
10 3 (0.24%) Delta Lake
10 3 (0.24%) Hadoop
10 3 (0.24%) Snowflake Schema
Development Applications
1 38 (3.10%) JIRA
2 12 (0.98%) Hudson
3 8 (0.65%) Oracle Forms
4 6 (0.49%) Git
5 5 (0.41%) Jenkins
6 4 (0.33%) Toad
7 3 (0.24%) Visual Studio Code
8 2 (0.16%) JDeveloper
9 1 (0.081%) Appium
9 1 (0.081%) GitLab
9 1 (0.081%) JUnit
9 1 (0.081%) LoadRunner
9 1 (0.081%) MSTest
9 1 (0.081%) NUnit
9 1 (0.081%) Postman
General
1 247 (20.13%) Social Skills
2 242 (19.72%) Finance
3 95 (7.74%) Analytical Skills
4 93 (7.58%) Public Sector
5 43 (3.50%) Manufacturing
6 34 (2.77%) Legal
7 31 (2.53%) Banking
8 23 (1.87%) Billing
9 22 (1.79%) General Ledger
10 21 (1.71%) Telecoms
11 18 (1.47%) Presentation Skills
12 16 (1.30%) Documentation Skills
13 15 (1.22%) Aerospace
14 14 (1.14%) Organisational Skills
15 13 (1.06%) Retail
16 12 (0.98%) Local Government
16 12 (0.98%) Marketing
17 11 (0.90%) Influencing Skills
18 8 (0.65%) Aviation
18 8 (0.65%) Law
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 41 (3.34%) XML
2 38 (3.10%) REST
3 28 (2.28%) Oracle Fusion
4 12 (0.98%) Web Services
5 10 (0.81%) SAP Fiori
6 9 (0.73%) SOAP
7 8 (0.65%) Middleware
8 6 (0.49%) JSON
8 6 (0.49%) RESTful
8 6 (0.49%) SailPoint
9 5 (0.41%) BAPI
9 5 (0.41%) Microsoft Graph
9 5 (0.41%) SAP Basis
10 4 (0.33%) .NET
10 4 (0.33%) AngularJS
10 4 (0.33%) LDAP
11 3 (0.24%) PySpark
11 3 (0.24%) PyTorch
11 3 (0.24%) scikit-learn
11 3 (0.24%) XSLT
Miscellaneous
1 31 (2.53%) Data Protection Act
2 26 (2.12%) Onboarding
3 21 (1.71%) Security Posture
4 16 (1.30%) Operational Technology
5 14 (1.14%) AI Agents
6 13 (1.06%) Legacy Systems
6 13 (1.06%) Product Ownership
7 12 (0.98%) Public Cloud
7 12 (0.98%) Replication
8 9 (0.73%) Cloud Native
8 9 (0.73%) Management Information System
9 7 (0.57%) Enterprise Software
9 7 (0.57%) NHS
10 6 (0.49%) Beowulf
10 6 (0.49%) Data Centre
10 6 (0.49%) Data Structures
10 6 (0.49%) FMCG
10 6 (0.49%) Greenfield Project
10 6 (0.49%) Private Cloud
10 6 (0.49%) SCADA
Operating Systems
1 45 (3.67%) Windows
2 36 (2.93%) Linux
3 17 (1.39%) Solaris
4 13 (1.06%) AIX
5 11 (0.90%) VMS
6 4 (0.33%) Unix
7 3 (0.24%) Windows Server
8 2 (0.16%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
9 1 (0.081%) Android
9 1 (0.081%) CoreOS
9 1 (0.081%) Data ONTAP
9 1 (0.081%) Mac OS
9 1 (0.081%) zOS
Processes & Methodologies
1 153 (12.47%) Migration
2 150 (12.22%) ERP
3 119 (9.70%) Stakeholder Engagement
4 117 (9.54%) Problem-Solving
5 102 (8.31%) Stakeholder Management
6 97 (7.91%) Continuous Improvement
7 90 (7.33%) Validation
8 87 (7.09%) Data Migration
9 82 (6.68%) Cybersecurity
10 75 (6.11%) Workshop Facilitation
11 71 (5.79%) User Acceptance Testing
12 67 (5.46%) Agile
13 64 (5.22%) Roadmaps
14 60 (4.89%) PLM
15 59 (4.81%) Analytics
16 57 (4.65%) Business Intelligence
16 57 (4.65%) Change Management
16 57 (4.65%) Data Protection
17 49 (3.99%) AI
18 47 (3.83%) Knowledge Transfer
Programming Languages
1 111 (9.05%) SQL
2 49 (3.99%) Python
3 28 (2.28%) T-SQL
4 25 (2.04%) PL/SQL
5 23 (1.87%) PowerShell
6 13 (1.06%) JavaScript
6 13 (1.06%) Search Processing Language
7 10 (0.81%) ABAP
7 10 (0.81%) Kusto Query Language
8 9 (0.73%) Bash
8 9 (0.73%) Java
9 6 (0.49%) R
10 5 (0.41%) C#
11 3 (0.24%) Shell Script
12 2 (0.16%) C++
12 2 (0.16%) TypeScript
12 2 (0.16%) VBScript
13 1 (0.081%) COBOL
13 1 (0.081%) Perl
13 1 (0.081%) VB
Qualifications
1 256 (20.86%) Security Cleared
2 190 (15.48%) SC Cleared
3 51 (4.16%) CISSP
4 49 (3.99%) DV Cleared
5 38 (3.10%) CISM
6 37 (3.02%) BPSS Clearance
7 30 (2.44%) Degree
8 24 (1.96%) Cisco Certification
9 21 (1.71%) CCSP
10 20 (1.63%) (ISC)2 CCSP
11 10 (0.81%) ACCA
11 10 (0.81%) CEH
11 10 (0.81%) CIMA
11 10 (0.81%) PMP
12 9 (0.73%) OSCP
13 8 (0.65%) ITIL Foundation Certificate
14 7 (0.57%) Azure Certification
14 7 (0.57%) Computer Science Degree
14 7 (0.57%) SAP Certification
15 6 (0.49%) DBS Check
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 47 (3.83%) NIST
2 40 (3.26%) ISO/IEC 27001
3 31 (2.53%) GRC
4 29 (2.36%) Data Quality
5 19 (1.55%) GDPR
6 13 (1.06%) PCI DSS
6 13 (1.06%) QA
7 11 (0.90%) NCSC
8 10 (0.81%) Actionable Recommendations
9 8 (0.65%) SLA
10 7 (0.57%) Accessibility
10 7 (0.57%) COBIT
10 7 (0.57%) JSP 440
11 6 (0.49%) RMADS
11 6 (0.49%) Sarbanes-Oxley
12 4 (0.33%) PMO
12 4 (0.33%) WCAG
13 2 (0.16%) ISA99
13 2 (0.16%) ISO 22301
13 2 (0.16%) ISO/IEC 27005
System Software
1 25 (2.04%) Active Directory
2 16 (1.30%) VMware Infrastructure
3 10 (0.81%) Docker
3 10 (0.81%) VMware NSX
3 10 (0.81%) vSphere
4 9 (0.73%) VMware ESXi
5 6 (0.49%) Slurm Workload Manager
6 3 (0.24%) Virtual Desktop
6 3 (0.24%) Virtual Machines
7 2 (0.16%) NFS
8 1 (0.081%) Hyper-V
8 1 (0.081%) IAG
8 1 (0.081%) Time Sharing Option
Systems Management
1 28 (2.28%) Kubernetes
2 16 (1.30%) Terraform
3 13 (1.06%) Nagios
3 13 (1.06%) ZABBIX
4 12 (0.98%) Ansible
4 12 (0.98%) Netcool
4 12 (0.98%) Tivoli
5 11 (0.90%) OpenView
5 11 (0.90%) Tivoli Monitoring
6 8 (0.65%) vRealize
7 6 (0.49%) NetBackup
7 6 (0.49%) Podman
8 5 (0.41%) FortiGate
8 5 (0.41%) vCenter Server
9 4 (0.33%) Grafana
10 3 (0.24%) Oracle Identity Management
10 3 (0.24%) Oracle Identity Manager
10 3 (0.24%) Prometheus
10 3 (0.24%) Single Sign-On
10 3 (0.24%) vRealize Orchestrator
Vendors
1 257 (20.95%) SAP
2 139 (11.33%) Oracle
3 126 (10.27%) Microsoft
4 54 (4.40%) Siemens
5 28 (2.28%) ServiceNow
6 24 (1.96%) VMware
7 22 (1.79%) Splunk
8 21 (1.71%) BMC
9 20 (1.63%) Workday
10 18 (1.47%) Ariba
10 18 (1.47%) IBM
11 14 (1.14%) Sage
12 13 (1.06%) Databricks
12 13 (1.06%) Google
12 13 (1.06%) SolarWinds
13 12 (0.98%) HP
14 9 (0.73%) IFS
15 7 (0.57%) Informatica
15 7 (0.57%) JD Edwards
15 7 (0.57%) OpenText