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 £528, according to job vacancies posted in the 6 months leading up to 14 September 2026.

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

6 months to
14 Sep 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 34 33 25
Rank change year-on-year -1 -8 +13
Contract jobs requiring a Consultant 1,392 842 1,104
As % of all contract jobs in the UK excluding London 4.98% 5.49% 6.18%
As % of the Job Titles category 5.45% 6.11% 6.69%
Number of daily rates quoted 830 537 671
10th Percentile £405 £413 £425
25th Percentile £460 £480 £481
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £528 £550 £563
Median % change year-on-year -4.09% -2.22% +7.14%
75th Percentile £638 £625 £638
90th Percentile £713 £693 £741
UK median daily rate £550 £550 £550
% change year-on-year - - +1.85%
Number of hourly rates quoted 39 20 17
10th Percentile £48.30 £29.31 £54.16
25th Percentile £61.13 £49.50 £56.65
Median hourly rate £76.50 £77.50 £61.60
Median % change year-on-year -1.29% +25.81% -5.23%
75th Percentile £84.63 £81.25 -
90th Percentile £100.80 £81.85 £71.76
UK median hourly rate £76.00 £77.50 £61.60
% change year-on-year -1.94% +25.81% -5.23%

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 25,554 13,780 16,500
% of contract IT jobs with a recognized job title 91.44% 89.86% 92.35%
Number of daily rates quoted 14,195 8,473 9,650
10th Percentile £304 £213 £222
25th Percentile £413 £361 £379
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £475 £500
Median % change year-on-year +5.26% -5.00% -
75th Percentile £600 £575 £600
90th Percentile £688 £652 £680
UK median daily rate £525 £500 £525
% change year-on-year +5.00% -4.76% -0.94%
Number of hourly rates quoted 3,244 1,243 1,460
10th Percentile £14.25 £13.29 £14.41
25th Percentile £20.00 £16.17 £19.50
Median hourly rate £42.50 £25.15 £45.00
Median % change year-on-year +68.99% -44.11% +8.43%
75th Percentile £67.84 £51.65 £66.61
90th Percentile £78.74 £70.83 £75.00
UK median hourly rate £42.00 £25.15 £43.00
% change year-on-year +67.00% -41.51% -1.71%

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 14 September 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 14 September 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 14 September 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 -6 397 £540 -1.82% 285
North of England -11 318 £575 +4.55% 312
Midlands +1 229 £500 -9.09% 171
South West +9 208 £550 -7.56% 230
North West -10 205 £565 -1.74% 208
West Midlands +5 161 £495 -10.00% 131
Scotland +31 129 £452 -7.38% 138
East of England -13 108 £565 +2.73% 126
Yorkshire -11 92 £575 +22.99% 61
East Midlands -7 62 £525 -4.55% 37
Wales -14 22 £550 +22.22% 28
North East -32 20 £750 +37.61% 44
Channel Islands -5 2 £600 - 4
Northern Ireland -6 2 £544 +18.21% 127
Consultant
UK

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

For the 6 months to 14 September 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.

1 417 (29.96%) Security Cleared
2 337 (24.21%) SAP
3 282 (20.26%) SC Cleared
4 223 (16.02%) Stakeholder Management
5 189 (13.58%) Microsoft
6 166 (11.93%) Migration
7 158 (11.35%) Oracle
8 139 (9.99%) Stakeholder Engagement
9 129 (9.27%) Cybersecurity
10 125 (8.98%) Problem-Solving
11 124 (8.91%) Azure
12 121 (8.69%) Continuous Improvement
13 120 (8.62%) ERP
14 113 (8.12%) SAP S/4HANA
15 106 (7.61%) Validation
15 106 (7.61%) Workshop Facilitation
16 101 (7.26%) DV Cleared
17 93 (6.68%) User Acceptance Testing
18 90 (6.47%) SQL
19 87 (6.25%) Agile
20 86 (6.18%) AWS
20 86 (6.18%) Roadmaps
21 79 (5.68%) Analytics
22 77 (5.53%) Data Migration
23 69 (4.96%) Knowledge Transfer
24 68 (4.89%) Requirements Gathering
25 65 (4.67%) BPSS Clearance
26 64 (4.60%) Risk Management
27 63 (4.53%) SuccessFactors
28 62 (4.45%) Dynamics 365

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 (1.65%) Confluence
2 15 (1.08%) SharePoint
3 9 (0.65%) WebSphere
4 8 (0.57%) WebLogic
5 7 (0.50%) Oracle Workflow
6 3 (0.22%) OpenStack
6 3 (0.22%) TIBCO ActiveMatrix
7 2 (0.14%) Apache
7 2 (0.14%) Apache Superset
7 2 (0.14%) Microsoft Exchange
7 2 (0.14%) Smallworld
8 1 (0.072%) ArcGIS
8 1 (0.072%) OpenEdge
8 1 (0.072%) SAS
8 1 (0.072%) Tomcat
Applications
1 26 (1.87%) Microsoft Office
2 20 (1.44%) Microsoft Excel
3 17 (1.22%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 8 (0.57%) MS Visio
5 2 (0.14%) Spreadsheet
6 1 (0.072%) Adobe Captivate
6 1 (0.072%) Adobe Creative Suite
6 1 (0.072%) Microsoft Project
Business Applications
1 113 (8.12%) SAP S/4HANA
2 36 (2.59%) SAP PSCD
3 24 (1.72%) Oracle ERP
4 23 (1.65%) SAP Payroll
5 21 (1.51%) Oracle EBS
6 20 (1.44%) Oracle Payables
7 18 (1.29%) SAP EWM
7 18 (1.29%) SAP FI
7 18 (1.29%) SAP HCM
7 18 (1.29%) Workday HCM
8 17 (1.22%) Oracle Receivables
9 16 (1.15%) SAP HR
9 16 (1.15%) SAP MM
9 16 (1.15%) SAP QM
10 13 (0.93%) SAP PP
10 13 (0.93%) SAP SD
11 12 (0.86%) SAP BRIM
11 12 (0.86%) SAP Hybris
12 11 (0.79%) SAP FI/CO
12 11 (0.79%) Teamcenter
Cloud Services
1 124 (8.91%) Azure
2 86 (6.18%) AWS
3 63 (4.53%) SuccessFactors
4 62 (4.45%) Dynamics 365
5 57 (4.09%) Power Platform
6 55 (3.95%) GCP
7 51 (3.66%) OCI
8 34 (2.44%) Microsoft 365
9 30 (2.16%) Entra ID
10 23 (1.65%) Power Automate
11 14 (1.01%) SaaS
12 13 (0.93%) Microsoft Copilot
12 13 (0.93%) SAP Commerce Cloud
13 12 (0.86%) Azure DevOps
13 12 (0.86%) Oracle Service Cloud
14 10 (0.72%) GitHub
14 10 (0.72%) PowerApps
15 9 (0.65%) Cloud Computing
15 9 (0.65%) Microsoft Purview
16 8 (0.57%) Azure Monitor
Communications & Networking
1 31 (2.23%) Network Security
2 22 (1.58%) Firewall
3 17 (1.22%) SNMP
4 12 (0.86%) BGP
4 12 (0.86%) WAN
5 8 (0.57%) DNS
5 8 (0.57%) VPN
6 7 (0.50%) Wi-Fi
7 6 (0.43%) LAN
7 6 (0.43%) TCP/IP
7 6 (0.43%) VSAN
8 5 (0.36%) SAN
9 4 (0.29%) DHCP
9 4 (0.29%) FTP
9 4 (0.29%) Wireless
10 3 (0.22%) Ethernet VPN
10 3 (0.22%) MPLS
10 3 (0.22%) SMS
10 3 (0.22%) TACACS
10 3 (0.22%) VXLAN
Database & Business Intelligence
1 30 (2.16%) Power BI
2 28 (2.01%) Oracle Reports
3 16 (1.15%) Oracle BI Publisher
3 16 (1.15%) SAP BW
4 15 (1.08%) SAP HANA
5 13 (0.93%) Oracle ODI
6 10 (0.72%) Metadata
6 10 (0.72%) SQL Server
7 9 (0.65%) BusinessObjects
7 9 (0.65%) SAP Data Services
7 9 (0.65%) Tableau
8 7 (0.50%) Oracle Database
8 7 (0.50%) Relational Database
9 6 (0.43%) Data Warehouse
10 4 (0.29%) NonStop SQL
10 4 (0.29%) Power Query
11 3 (0.22%) Amazon Athena
11 3 (0.22%) BigQuery
11 3 (0.22%) RDBMS
11 3 (0.22%) Snowflake Schema
Development Applications
1 44 (3.16%) JIRA
2 14 (1.01%) Git
3 10 (0.72%) Hudson
4 8 (0.57%) Oracle Forms
5 6 (0.43%) Jenkins
6 4 (0.29%) GitLab
7 3 (0.22%) Toad
7 3 (0.22%) Visual Studio Code
8 2 (0.14%) Gradle
8 2 (0.14%) JDeveloper
8 2 (0.14%) LoadRunner
8 2 (0.14%) Maven
8 2 (0.14%) Postman
8 2 (0.14%) TestRail
8 2 (0.14%) tSQLt
8 2 (0.14%) Zephyr
9 1 (0.072%) Claude Code
9 1 (0.072%) Oracle APEX
9 1 (0.072%) ScriptRunner
9 1 (0.072%) Yeoman
General
1 333 (23.92%) Social Skills
2 275 (19.76%) Finance
3 118 (8.48%) Public Sector
4 117 (8.41%) Analytical Skills
5 57 (4.09%) Manufacturing
6 32 (2.30%) Documentation Skills
7 31 (2.23%) Presentation Skills
8 30 (2.16%) General Ledger
9 29 (2.08%) Telecoms
10 28 (2.01%) Legal
11 25 (1.80%) Banking
12 23 (1.65%) Billing
13 20 (1.44%) Influencing Skills
13 20 (1.44%) Retail
14 14 (1.01%) Financial Institution
15 12 (0.86%) Marketing
15 12 (0.86%) Military
16 11 (0.79%) Aerospace
16 11 (0.79%) Organisational Skills
17 8 (0.57%) Inclusion and Diversity
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 43 (3.09%) REST
2 36 (2.59%) Oracle Fusion
3 22 (1.58%) Terraform
4 21 (1.51%) SOAP
5 19 (1.36%) Middleware
6 18 (1.29%) SailPoint
7 17 (1.22%) LDAP
7 17 (1.22%) SAP Fiori
8 15 (1.08%) Web Services
9 13 (0.93%) XML
10 9 (0.65%) SAP PI
11 6 (0.43%) EDI
11 6 (0.43%) IDoc
11 6 (0.43%) Microsoft Graph
11 6 (0.43%) SAP Basis
12 5 (0.36%) OpenTelemetry
12 5 (0.36%) RESTful
12 5 (0.36%) SAPUI5
12 5 (0.36%) SLSA
12 5 (0.36%) XSLT
Miscellaneous
1 45 (3.23%) Onboarding
2 26 (1.87%) Data Protection Act
3 25 (1.80%) Operational Technology
4 24 (1.72%) CMDB
4 24 (1.72%) Security Posture
5 16 (1.15%) Product Ownership
6 14 (1.01%) PKI
7 12 (0.86%) Cloud Native
7 12 (0.86%) Enterprise Software
7 12 (0.86%) Replication
8 11 (0.79%) Data Centre
8 11 (0.79%) Data Structures
8 11 (0.79%) Management Information System
9 10 (0.72%) Learning Management System
10 9 (0.65%) FMCG
11 8 (0.57%) Private Cloud
11 8 (0.57%) Public Cloud
12 7 (0.50%) Greenfield Project
12 7 (0.50%) Hybrid Cloud
12 7 (0.50%) Security Operations Centre
Operating Systems
1 56 (4.02%) Windows
2 38 (2.73%) Linux
3 17 (1.22%) Solaris
4 12 (0.86%) Windows Server
5 11 (0.79%) AIX
6 10 (0.72%) Unix
7 5 (0.36%) VMS
8 4 (0.29%) Windows Server 2016
9 2 (0.14%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
10 1 (0.072%) Android
10 1 (0.072%) Windows 10
10 1 (0.072%) zOS
Processes & Methodologies
1 223 (16.02%) Stakeholder Management
2 166 (11.93%) Migration
3 139 (9.99%) Stakeholder Engagement
4 129 (9.27%) Cybersecurity
5 125 (8.98%) Problem-Solving
6 121 (8.69%) Continuous Improvement
7 120 (8.62%) ERP
8 106 (7.61%) Validation
8 106 (7.61%) Workshop Facilitation
9 93 (6.68%) User Acceptance Testing
10 87 (6.25%) Agile
11 86 (6.18%) Roadmaps
12 79 (5.68%) Analytics
13 77 (5.53%) Data Migration
14 69 (4.96%) Knowledge Transfer
15 68 (4.89%) Requirements Gathering
16 64 (4.60%) Risk Management
17 62 (4.45%) Translating Business Requirements
18 58 (4.17%) CI/CD
19 57 (4.09%) AI
Programming Languages
1 90 (6.47%) SQL
2 54 (3.88%) Python
3 32 (2.30%) ABAP
4 27 (1.94%) PowerShell
5 22 (1.58%) PL/SQL
6 20 (1.44%) JavaScript
7 16 (1.15%) Java
8 12 (0.86%) Bash
8 12 (0.86%) Search Processing Language
9 10 (0.72%) Kusto Query Language
10 6 (0.43%) C#
11 5 (0.36%) R
12 4 (0.29%) TypeScript
13 3 (0.22%) T-SQL
14 2 (0.14%) Groovy
14 2 (0.14%) Korn
14 2 (0.14%) Magik
14 2 (0.14%) Perl
14 2 (0.14%) Shell Script
14 2 (0.14%) VBScript
Qualifications
1 417 (29.96%) Security Cleared
2 282 (20.26%) SC Cleared
3 101 (7.26%) DV Cleared
4 65 (4.67%) BPSS Clearance
5 55 (3.95%) CISSP
6 46 (3.30%) CISM
7 36 (2.59%) Cisco Certification
8 31 (2.23%) (ISC)2 CCSP
9 27 (1.94%) CCSP
10 22 (1.58%) Degree
11 13 (0.93%) ACCA
11 13 (0.93%) CIMA
12 12 (0.86%) CompTIA Security+
13 11 (0.79%) PMP
14 10 (0.72%) CRISC
15 8 (0.57%) Azure Certification
15 8 (0.57%) CCSK
15 8 (0.57%) CEH
15 8 (0.57%) OSCP
16 7 (0.50%) CCA
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 46 (3.30%) NIST
2 42 (3.02%) GRC
3 37 (2.66%) Data Quality
4 35 (2.51%) ISO/IEC 27001
5 21 (1.51%) QA
6 16 (1.15%) SLA
7 15 (1.08%) GDPR
7 15 (1.08%) NCSC
8 13 (0.93%) Actionable Recommendations
9 10 (0.72%) PMO
10 9 (0.65%) Accessibility
11 8 (0.57%) PCI DSS
12 7 (0.50%) NIST 800
13 6 (0.43%) COBIT
13 6 (0.43%) Def Stans
14 5 (0.36%) Cyber Essentials
15 4 (0.29%) JSP 440
15 4 (0.29%) RMADS
15 4 (0.29%) Sarbanes-Oxley
15 4 (0.29%) WCAG
System Software
1 49 (3.52%) Active Directory
2 23 (1.65%) VMware Infrastructure
3 14 (1.01%) VMware NSX
4 13 (0.93%) VMware ESXi
5 10 (0.72%) vSphere
6 9 (0.65%) Hyper-V
7 8 (0.57%) Docker
8 5 (0.36%) Virtual Desktop
9 4 (0.29%) Virtual Machines
10 3 (0.22%) Firmware
10 3 (0.22%) IAG
11 1 (0.072%) NFS
11 1 (0.072%) PowerHA
11 1 (0.072%) Time Sharing Option
Systems Management
1 30 (2.16%) Kubernetes
2 18 (1.29%) Ansible
3 10 (0.72%) Nagios
3 10 (0.72%) vCenter Server
3 10 (0.72%) vRealize
3 10 (0.72%) ZABBIX
4 9 (0.65%) Netcool
4 9 (0.65%) Tivoli
5 8 (0.57%) OpenView
5 8 (0.57%) Tivoli Monitoring
6 7 (0.50%) Grafana
7 6 (0.43%) FortiGate
7 6 (0.43%) VxRail
8 5 (0.36%) Microsoft Intune
8 5 (0.36%) SCCM
9 4 (0.29%) CEMLI
9 4 (0.29%) Prometheus
10 3 (0.22%) Failover Clustering
10 3 (0.22%) Single Sign-On
10 3 (0.22%) vRealize Orchestrator
Vendors
1 337 (24.21%) SAP
2 189 (13.58%) Microsoft
3 158 (11.35%) Oracle
4 58 (4.17%) ServiceNow
5 31 (2.23%) VMware
6 26 (1.87%) Workday
7 25 (1.80%) Splunk
8 19 (1.36%) Salesforce
9 18 (1.29%) Ariba
10 15 (1.08%) BMC
11 14 (1.01%) JD Edwards
12 13 (0.93%) Databricks
13 12 (0.86%) CyberArk
13 12 (0.86%) IBM
14 11 (0.79%) Google
15 10 (0.72%) SolarWinds
16 9 (0.65%) HP
17 8 (0.57%) Cisco
17 8 (0.57%) Veeam
18 7 (0.50%) IFS