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 22 May 2026.

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

6 months to
22 May 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 38 37 33
Rank change year-on-year -1 -4 +22
Contract jobs requiring a Consultant 1,160 651 1,013
As % of all contract jobs in the UK excluding London 4.71% 5.11% 5.00%
As % of the Job Titles category 5.12% 5.56% 5.41%
Number of daily rates quoted 649 416 715
10th Percentile £405 £406 £377
25th Percentile £455 £475 £463
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £538 £550
Median % change year-on-year -2.42% -2.18% +1.85%
75th Percentile £618 £605 £650
90th Percentile £722 £659 £725
UK median daily rate £540 £550 £550
% change year-on-year -1.82% - -
Number of hourly rates quoted 65 14 21
10th Percentile £51.60 £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% -12.48%
75th Percentile £58.75 £86.00 £61.60
90th Percentile £60.00 - -
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 22,657 11,703 18,731
% of contract IT jobs with a recognized job title 91.93% 91.90% 92.50%
Number of daily rates quoted 13,109 7,489 11,452
10th Percentile £300 £213 £213
25th Percentile £402 £363 £363
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £475 £488
Median % change year-on-year +5.26% -2.56% -2.50%
75th Percentile £588 £575 £594
90th Percentile £684 £650 £688
UK median daily rate £513 £510 £525
% change year-on-year +0.49% -2.86% -3.31%
Number of hourly rates quoted 2,560 825 2,272
10th Percentile £14.64 £14.00 £12.50
25th Percentile £19.91 £17.30 £15.74
Median hourly rate £45.00 £27.13 £40.00
Median % change year-on-year +65.90% -32.19% -5.88%
75th Percentile £67.25 £63.75 £61.60
90th Percentile £78.75 £75.00 £73.75
UK median hourly rate £42.69 £28.15 £36.50
% change year-on-year +51.63% -22.88% -18.89%

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 22 May 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 22 May 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 22 May 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 -2 335 £530 -3.64% 300
North of England -22 238 £525 -1.69% 401
Midlands -15 230 £525 -4.55% 120
South West +36 193 £600 +9.09% 220
West Midlands 0 154 £550 - 89
North West -24 112 £511 -5.75% 284
Yorkshire -4 104 £550 +7.32% 84
Scotland +28 70 £425 -15.00% 56
East of England -9 69 £550 +10.00% 68
East Midlands -14 68 £500 -3.85% 31
Wales +2 30 £550 +37.50% 23
North East -28 22 £725 +35.77% 34
Northern Ireland -3 3 £600 +15.38% 59
Consultant
UK

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

For the 6 months to 22 May 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.

1 244 (21.03%) Security Cleared
2 241 (20.78%) SAP
3 179 (15.43%) SC Cleared
4 147 (12.67%) Migration
5 146 (12.59%) ERP
6 141 (12.16%) Oracle
7 127 (10.95%) Azure
8 111 (9.57%) Stakeholder Engagement
9 109 (9.40%) Problem-Solving
10 107 (9.22%) Microsoft
11 103 (8.88%) SQL
12 91 (7.84%) Continuous Improvement
13 89 (7.67%) Data Migration
13 89 (7.67%) Stakeholder Management
14 82 (7.07%) SAP S/4HANA
15 81 (6.98%) Workshop Facilitation
16 80 (6.90%) Cybersecurity
17 73 (6.29%) Validation
18 69 (5.95%) User Acceptance Testing
19 65 (5.60%) Agile
20 60 (5.17%) PLM
21 59 (5.09%) Business Intelligence
22 57 (4.91%) Data Protection
23 56 (4.83%) AWS
23 56 (4.83%) Roadmaps
24 54 (4.66%) DV Cleared
24 54 (4.66%) Siemens
25 52 (4.48%) Analytics
26 51 (4.40%) Change Management
27 47 (4.05%) OCI

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 21 (1.81%) Confluence
2 19 (1.64%) SharePoint
3 6 (0.52%) Jupyter
3 6 (0.52%) Oracle Workflow
4 3 (0.26%) Apache
4 3 (0.26%) Apache Spark
4 3 (0.26%) Apache Superset
5 2 (0.17%) Microsoft Exchange
5 2 (0.17%) WebSphere
6 1 (0.086%) ArcGIS
6 1 (0.086%) NetWeaver
6 1 (0.086%) Tomcat
6 1 (0.086%) WebLogic
Applications
1 38 (3.28%) Microsoft Excel
2 12 (1.03%) Microsoft PowerPoint
3 10 (0.86%) Microsoft Office
4 6 (0.52%) MS Visio
5 5 (0.43%) PTC Creo
6 3 (0.26%) Microsoft Project
7 2 (0.17%) Lectora
7 2 (0.17%) Oracle Smart View
8 1 (0.086%) CATIA
8 1 (0.086%) Chatbot
8 1 (0.086%) Siemens NX
8 1 (0.086%) Spreadsheet
Business Applications
1 82 (7.07%) SAP S/4HANA
2 34 (2.93%) Oracle EBS
3 27 (2.33%) SAP PSCD
4 26 (2.24%) Oracle Payables
5 25 (2.16%) Oracle Receivables
5 25 (2.16%) Teamcenter
6 22 (1.90%) SAP MM
7 19 (1.64%) SAP FI
8 17 (1.47%) Oracle ERP
9 16 (1.38%) Oracle Assets
10 15 (1.29%) Oracle Cash Management
10 15 (1.29%) SAP SD
11 14 (1.21%) Oracle General Ledger
11 14 (1.21%) SAP EWM
12 12 (1.03%) Oracle Procure-to-Pay
13 11 (0.95%) SAP CO
13 11 (0.95%) SAP PP
14 10 (0.86%) Oracle EBS R12
14 10 (0.86%) SAP FI/CO
14 10 (0.86%) SAP Hybris
Cloud Services
1 127 (10.95%) Azure
2 56 (4.83%) AWS
3 47 (4.05%) OCI
3 47 (4.05%) Power Platform
4 44 (3.79%) Dynamics 365
5 28 (2.41%) GCP
6 22 (1.90%) Microsoft 365
6 22 (1.90%) SuccessFactors
7 17 (1.47%) Power Automate
8 16 (1.38%) Microsoft Copilot
9 15 (1.29%) SaaS
10 12 (1.03%) Entra ID
11 11 (0.95%) Azure DevOps
11 11 (0.95%) PowerApps
11 11 (0.95%) SAP Commerce Cloud
12 8 (0.69%) Copilot Studio
13 7 (0.60%) GitHub
14 6 (0.52%) Azure AI
14 6 (0.52%) Oracle Service Cloud
15 4 (0.34%) Serverless
Communications & Networking
1 18 (1.55%) Network Security
2 16 (1.38%) SNMP
3 11 (0.95%) Firewall
4 9 (0.78%) FTP
5 5 (0.43%) HTTP
6 4 (0.34%) SAN
6 4 (0.34%) VPN
7 3 (0.26%) SMS
7 3 (0.26%) TCP/IP
8 2 (0.17%) Cisco ISE
8 2 (0.17%) Connectrix
8 2 (0.17%) DNS
8 2 (0.17%) HTTPS
8 2 (0.17%) Intranet
8 2 (0.17%) LAN
8 2 (0.17%) SD-WAN
8 2 (0.17%) WAN
9 1 (0.086%) Ethernet VPN
9 1 (0.086%) VXLAN
9 1 (0.086%) WebEx
Database & Business Intelligence
1 33 (2.84%) Oracle Reports
2 31 (2.67%) Power BI
3 17 (1.47%) Oracle ODI
4 15 (1.29%) Oracle BI Publisher
5 13 (1.12%) SAP HANA
6 9 (0.78%) Tableau
7 8 (0.69%) SQL Server
8 6 (0.52%) NoSQL
9 5 (0.43%) Metadata
9 5 (0.43%) NonStop SQL
9 5 (0.43%) SAP Data Services
10 4 (0.34%) SAP BW
11 3 (0.26%) Amazon Athena
11 3 (0.26%) Delta Lake
11 3 (0.26%) Electronic Patient Records
11 3 (0.26%) GIS
11 3 (0.26%) Hadoop
11 3 (0.26%) Oracle Database
11 3 (0.26%) Relational Database
11 3 (0.26%) Snowflake Schema
Development Applications
1 35 (3.02%) JIRA
2 13 (1.12%) Hudson
3 7 (0.60%) Oracle Forms
4 5 (0.43%) Git
5 4 (0.34%) Visual Studio Code
6 3 (0.26%) Jenkins
6 3 (0.26%) Toad
7 2 (0.17%) Postman
8 1 (0.086%) Appium
8 1 (0.086%) Bitbucket
8 1 (0.086%) GitLab
8 1 (0.086%) JDeveloper
8 1 (0.086%) JUnit
8 1 (0.086%) MSTest
8 1 (0.086%) NUnit
8 1 (0.086%) Rational Rhapsody
General
1 234 (20.17%) Finance
2 223 (19.22%) Social Skills
3 88 (7.59%) Analytical Skills
4 85 (7.33%) Public Sector
5 41 (3.53%) Manufacturing
6 27 (2.33%) Legal
7 26 (2.24%) Banking
8 21 (1.81%) General Ledger
9 19 (1.64%) Billing
10 18 (1.55%) Telecoms
11 14 (1.21%) Organisational Skills
11 14 (1.21%) Retail
12 13 (1.12%) Aerospace
12 13 (1.12%) Marketing
13 12 (1.03%) Influencing Skills
13 12 (1.03%) Presentation Skills
14 11 (0.95%) Local Government
15 10 (0.86%) Documentation Skills
16 9 (0.78%) Law
17 6 (0.52%) Advertising
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 44 (3.79%) REST
1 44 (3.79%) XML
2 30 (2.59%) Oracle Fusion
3 13 (1.12%) SOAP
4 10 (0.86%) Web Services
5 9 (0.78%) JSON
6 8 (0.69%) SAP Fiori
7 6 (0.52%) .NET
7 6 (0.52%) RESTful
8 5 (0.43%) LDAP
8 5 (0.43%) SAP Basis
9 4 (0.34%) AngularJS
9 4 (0.34%) BAPI
9 4 (0.34%) Microsoft Graph
9 4 (0.34%) SailPoint
10 3 (0.26%) OpenTelemetry
10 3 (0.26%) PySpark
10 3 (0.26%) PyTorch
10 3 (0.26%) scikit-learn
10 3 (0.26%) TensorFlow
Miscellaneous
1 32 (2.76%) Data Protection Act
2 21 (1.81%) Onboarding
3 16 (1.38%) Operational Technology
3 16 (1.38%) Security Posture
4 14 (1.21%) AI Agents
5 13 (1.12%) Legacy Systems
5 13 (1.12%) Product Ownership
6 11 (0.95%) Replication
7 10 (0.86%) Public Cloud
8 9 (0.78%) Management Information System
9 8 (0.69%) Cloud Native
9 8 (0.69%) Data Centre
10 7 (0.60%) NHS
10 7 (0.60%) SCADA
11 6 (0.52%) Analytical Mindset
11 6 (0.52%) Beowulf
11 6 (0.52%) Data Structures
11 6 (0.52%) Private Cloud
12 5 (0.43%) BYOD
12 5 (0.43%) Greenfield Project
Operating Systems
1 35 (3.02%) Windows
2 28 (2.41%) Linux
3 13 (1.12%) AIX
3 13 (1.12%) Solaris
4 11 (0.95%) VMS
5 4 (0.34%) Windows Server
6 2 (0.17%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
6 2 (0.17%) Unix
7 1 (0.086%) CoreOS
7 1 (0.086%) Data ONTAP
7 1 (0.086%) Mac OS
Processes & Methodologies
1 147 (12.67%) Migration
2 146 (12.59%) ERP
3 111 (9.57%) Stakeholder Engagement
4 109 (9.40%) Problem-Solving
5 91 (7.84%) Continuous Improvement
6 89 (7.67%) Data Migration
6 89 (7.67%) Stakeholder Management
7 81 (6.98%) Workshop Facilitation
8 80 (6.90%) Cybersecurity
9 73 (6.29%) Validation
10 69 (5.95%) User Acceptance Testing
11 65 (5.60%) Agile
12 60 (5.17%) PLM
13 59 (5.09%) Business Intelligence
14 57 (4.91%) Data Protection
15 56 (4.83%) Roadmaps
16 52 (4.48%) Analytics
17 51 (4.40%) Change Management
18 45 (3.88%) Risk Management
19 44 (3.79%) Knowledge Transfer
Programming Languages
1 103 (8.88%) SQL
2 42 (3.62%) Python
3 28 (2.41%) T-SQL
4 24 (2.07%) PL/SQL
5 19 (1.64%) PowerShell
6 15 (1.29%) JavaScript
7 13 (1.12%) Search Processing Language
8 9 (0.78%) Java
9 8 (0.69%) Kusto Query Language
10 7 (0.60%) ABAP
10 7 (0.60%) Bash
10 7 (0.60%) C#
10 7 (0.60%) R
11 3 (0.26%) TypeScript
12 2 (0.17%) Apex Code
12 2 (0.17%) C++
12 2 (0.17%) VBScript
13 1 (0.086%) ActionScript 2.0
13 1 (0.086%) C
13 1 (0.086%) COBOL
Qualifications
1 244 (21.03%) Security Cleared
2 179 (15.43%) SC Cleared
3 54 (4.66%) DV Cleared
4 46 (3.97%) CISSP
5 35 (3.02%) CISM
6 33 (2.84%) BPSS Clearance
7 26 (2.24%) Degree
8 20 (1.72%) Cisco Certification
9 17 (1.47%) CCSP
10 16 (1.38%) (ISC)2 CCSP
11 10 (0.86%) CEH
12 8 (0.69%) ITIL Foundation Certificate
12 8 (0.69%) OSCP
13 7 (0.60%) ACCA
13 7 (0.60%) CIMA
13 7 (0.60%) Computer Science Degree
13 7 (0.60%) PMP
13 7 (0.60%) SAP Certification
14 6 (0.52%) DBS Check
15 5 (0.43%) CCSK
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 46 (3.97%) NIST
2 43 (3.71%) ISO/IEC 27001
3 31 (2.67%) GRC
4 29 (2.50%) Data Quality
5 16 (1.38%) GDPR
6 12 (1.03%) PCI DSS
6 12 (1.03%) QA
7 10 (0.86%) JSP 440
8 9 (0.78%) NCSC
9 8 (0.69%) COBIT
9 8 (0.69%) RMADS
9 8 (0.69%) SLA
10 6 (0.52%) Actionable Recommendations
10 6 (0.52%) PMO
11 5 (0.43%) Sarbanes-Oxley
12 3 (0.26%) Accessibility
13 2 (0.17%) HL7
13 2 (0.17%) ISA99
13 2 (0.17%) NIST 800
13 2 (0.17%) SOC 2
System Software
1 19 (1.64%) Active Directory
2 14 (1.21%) VMware Infrastructure
3 11 (0.95%) VMware NSX
4 10 (0.86%) vSphere
5 9 (0.78%) Docker
6 8 (0.69%) VMware ESXi
7 6 (0.52%) Slurm Workload Manager
8 3 (0.26%) Virtual Desktop
8 3 (0.26%) Virtual Machines
9 1 (0.086%) Hyper-V
9 1 (0.086%) IAG
9 1 (0.086%) NFS
Systems Management
1 24 (2.07%) Kubernetes
2 13 (1.12%) Nagios
2 13 (1.12%) ZABBIX
3 12 (1.03%) Netcool
3 12 (1.03%) Tivoli
4 11 (0.95%) OpenView
4 11 (0.95%) Tivoli Monitoring
5 9 (0.78%) Ansible
6 7 (0.60%) Terraform
7 6 (0.52%) NetBackup
7 6 (0.52%) Podman
7 6 (0.52%) vRealize
8 4 (0.34%) vCenter Server
9 3 (0.26%) Grafana
9 3 (0.26%) Oracle Identity Management
9 3 (0.26%) Oracle Identity Manager
9 3 (0.26%) Prometheus
9 3 (0.26%) Puppet
9 3 (0.26%) vRealize Orchestrator
10 2 (0.17%) Dell DRAC
Vendors
1 241 (20.78%) SAP
2 141 (12.16%) Oracle
3 107 (9.22%) Microsoft
4 54 (4.66%) Siemens
5 26 (2.24%) ServiceNow
6 22 (1.90%) BMC
6 22 (1.90%) Splunk
7 21 (1.81%) VMware
8 20 (1.72%) Workday
9 17 (1.47%) Ariba
9 17 (1.47%) IBM
10 14 (1.21%) Sage
11 13 (1.12%) SolarWinds
12 12 (1.03%) Databricks
12 12 (1.03%) HP
13 11 (0.95%) Google
13 11 (0.95%) IFS
14 7 (0.60%) Informatica
14 7 (0.60%) OpenText
14 7 (0.60%) Veritas