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 11 May 2026.

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

6 months to
11 May 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 38 34 32
Rank change year-on-year -4 -2 +25
Contract jobs requiring a Consultant 1,135 673 1,036
As % of all contract jobs in the UK excluding London 4.68% 5.22% 5.06%
As % of the Job Titles category 5.09% 5.67% 5.47%
Number of daily rates quoted 638 434 733
10th Percentile £400 £413 £381
25th Percentile £450 £475 £463
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £542 £550
Median % change year-on-year -3.08% -1.51% -
75th Percentile £613 £613 £650
90th Percentile £713 £680 £725
UK median daily rate £538 £550 £550
% change year-on-year -2.27% - -
Number of hourly rates quoted 64 11 23
10th Percentile £51.00 £44.23 £26.50
25th Percentile £56.25 £67.50 £51.45
Median hourly rate £57.50 £82.50 £60.00
Median % change year-on-year -30.30% +37.50% -9.09%
75th Percentile £58.75 £86.00 £61.60
90th Percentile £60.00 - £63.29
UK median hourly rate £57.50 £78.75 £61.60
% change year-on-year -26.98% +27.84% -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 22,303 11,871 18,941
% of contract IT jobs with a recognized job title 91.94% 92.15% 92.50%
Number of daily rates quoted 12,987 7,591 11,548
10th Percentile £286 £213 £213
25th Percentile £400 £363 £363
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £493 £475 £490
Median % change year-on-year +3.68% -3.06% -2.00%
75th Percentile £588 £575 £598
90th Percentile £686 £650 £688
UK median daily rate £505 £513 £525
% change year-on-year -1.46% -2.38% -2.78%
Number of hourly rates quoted 2,501 850 2,262
10th Percentile £14.65 £14.00 £12.50
25th Percentile £20.00 £17.44 £15.75
Median hourly rate £45.59 £27.50 £40.00
Median % change year-on-year +65.76% -31.25% -5.88%
75th Percentile £67.25 £64.50 £61.60
90th Percentile £78.75 £75.00 £73.98
UK median hourly rate £44.25 £28.51 £37.34
% change year-on-year +55.24% -23.66% -17.02%

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 11 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 11 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 11 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 -3 337 £538 -4.91% 252
Midlands -15 227 £525 -1.18% 93
North of England -21 220 £525 -2.33% 279
South West +28 181 £550 - 174
West Midlands -3 153 £550 - 66
North West -34 102 £525 -3.67% 183
Yorkshire -8 99 £531 +1.19% 70
East of England -12 75 £550 +10.00% 61
Scotland +30 70 £425 -15.00% 23
East Midlands -14 67 £500 -3.85% 28
Wales +4 30 £550 +37.50% 29
North East -22 19 £538 +0.66% 27
Northern Ireland -1 3 £600 +15.38% 18
Consultant
UK

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

For the 6 months to 11 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.

1 241 (21.23%) Security Cleared
2 240 (21.15%) SAP
3 178 (15.68%) SC Cleared
4 145 (12.78%) Migration
4 145 (12.78%) Oracle
5 141 (12.42%) ERP
6 125 (11.01%) Azure
7 109 (9.60%) SQL
8 107 (9.43%) Problem-Solving
9 105 (9.25%) Stakeholder Engagement
10 96 (8.46%) Microsoft
11 88 (7.75%) Workshop Facilitation
12 86 (7.58%) Data Migration
13 85 (7.49%) Continuous Improvement
14 83 (7.31%) Stakeholder Management
15 82 (7.22%) SAP S/4HANA
16 75 (6.61%) Cybersecurity
16 75 (6.61%) User Acceptance Testing
17 72 (6.34%) Validation
18 65 (5.73%) Agile
19 63 (5.55%) Business Intelligence
20 59 (5.20%) PLM
21 57 (5.02%) Data Protection
22 55 (4.85%) DV Cleared
23 53 (4.67%) Analytics
23 53 (4.67%) AWS
23 53 (4.67%) Siemens
24 52 (4.58%) Change Management
25 50 (4.41%) Power Platform
25 50 (4.41%) Roadmaps

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 22 (1.94%) SharePoint
2 19 (1.67%) Confluence
3 6 (0.53%) Jupyter
3 6 (0.53%) Oracle Workflow
4 3 (0.26%) Apache
4 3 (0.26%) Apache Spark
4 3 (0.26%) Apache Superset
5 2 (0.18%) Microsoft Exchange
5 2 (0.18%) WebSphere
6 1 (0.088%) ArcGIS
6 1 (0.088%) NetWeaver
6 1 (0.088%) Tomcat
6 1 (0.088%) WebLogic
Applications
1 38 (3.35%) Microsoft Excel
2 11 (0.97%) Microsoft PowerPoint
3 7 (0.62%) Microsoft Office
4 6 (0.53%) MS Visio
5 5 (0.44%) PTC Creo
6 3 (0.26%) Microsoft Project
7 2 (0.18%) Lectora
7 2 (0.18%) Oracle Smart View
8 1 (0.088%) CATIA
8 1 (0.088%) Chatbot
8 1 (0.088%) Siemens NX
8 1 (0.088%) Spreadsheet
Business Applications
1 82 (7.22%) SAP S/4HANA
2 38 (3.35%) Oracle EBS
3 32 (2.82%) SAP PSCD
4 25 (2.20%) Oracle Payables
5 24 (2.11%) Oracle Receivables
5 24 (2.11%) Teamcenter
6 21 (1.85%) SAP FI
6 21 (1.85%) SAP MM
7 17 (1.50%) Oracle Assets
7 17 (1.50%) Oracle ERP
8 16 (1.41%) Oracle Cash Management
9 15 (1.32%) Oracle General Ledger
10 14 (1.23%) Oracle Procure-to-Pay
10 14 (1.23%) SAP HCM
10 14 (1.23%) SAP Hybris
11 13 (1.15%) Oracle EBS R12
11 13 (1.15%) SAP BRIM
11 13 (1.15%) SAP EWM
11 13 (1.15%) SAP PP
11 13 (1.15%) SAP SD
Cloud Services
1 125 (11.01%) Azure
2 53 (4.67%) AWS
3 50 (4.41%) Power Platform
4 49 (4.32%) OCI
5 45 (3.96%) Dynamics 365
6 26 (2.29%) SuccessFactors
7 25 (2.20%) GCP
8 20 (1.76%) Microsoft 365
9 18 (1.59%) Power Automate
10 16 (1.41%) Microsoft Copilot
10 16 (1.41%) SaaS
11 15 (1.32%) SAP Commerce Cloud
12 12 (1.06%) Azure DevOps
13 11 (0.97%) PowerApps
14 10 (0.88%) Entra ID
15 8 (0.70%) Copilot Studio
16 7 (0.62%) GitHub
17 6 (0.53%) Oracle Service Cloud
18 5 (0.44%) Azure AI
18 5 (0.44%) Serverless
Communications & Networking
1 16 (1.41%) Network Security
1 16 (1.41%) SNMP
2 12 (1.06%) Firewall
3 9 (0.79%) FTP
4 5 (0.44%) HTTP
5 4 (0.35%) SAN
5 4 (0.35%) VPN
6 3 (0.26%) SMS
6 3 (0.26%) TCP/IP
7 2 (0.18%) Cisco ISE
7 2 (0.18%) Connectrix
7 2 (0.18%) DNS
7 2 (0.18%) HTTPS
7 2 (0.18%) Intranet
7 2 (0.18%) LAN
7 2 (0.18%) SD-WAN
7 2 (0.18%) VSAN
7 2 (0.18%) WAN
8 1 (0.088%) Ethernet VPN
8 1 (0.088%) VXLAN
Database & Business Intelligence
1 35 (3.08%) Power BI
2 33 (2.91%) Oracle Reports
3 17 (1.50%) Oracle ODI
4 15 (1.32%) Oracle BI Publisher
5 13 (1.15%) SAP HANA
6 9 (0.79%) Tableau
7 8 (0.70%) SQL Server
8 6 (0.53%) NoSQL
9 5 (0.44%) SAP Data Services
10 4 (0.35%) Electronic Patient Records
10 4 (0.35%) NonStop SQL
10 4 (0.35%) Oracle Database
10 4 (0.35%) Relational Database
10 4 (0.35%) SAP BW
11 3 (0.26%) Amazon Athena
11 3 (0.26%) Delta Lake
11 3 (0.26%) GIS
11 3 (0.26%) Hadoop
11 3 (0.26%) Metadata
11 3 (0.26%) Snowflake Schema
Development Applications
1 33 (2.91%) JIRA
2 15 (1.32%) Hudson
3 7 (0.62%) Oracle Forms
4 4 (0.35%) Git
4 4 (0.35%) Visual Studio Code
5 3 (0.26%) Jenkins
5 3 (0.26%) Toad
6 2 (0.18%) Postman
7 1 (0.088%) Appium
7 1 (0.088%) Bitbucket
7 1 (0.088%) GitLab
7 1 (0.088%) JDeveloper
7 1 (0.088%) JUnit
7 1 (0.088%) MSTest
7 1 (0.088%) NUnit
7 1 (0.088%) Rational Rhapsody
General
1 241 (21.23%) Finance
2 223 (19.65%) Social Skills
3 93 (8.19%) Public Sector
4 91 (8.02%) Analytical Skills
5 38 (3.35%) Manufacturing
6 27 (2.38%) Legal
7 25 (2.20%) Billing
8 24 (2.11%) Banking
9 22 (1.94%) General Ledger
10 21 (1.85%) Telecoms
11 15 (1.32%) Organisational Skills
12 14 (1.23%) Retail
13 13 (1.15%) Presentation Skills
14 12 (1.06%) Local Government
15 11 (0.97%) Aerospace
16 10 (0.88%) Influencing Skills
17 9 (0.79%) Documentation Skills
17 9 (0.79%) Marketing
18 8 (0.70%) Law
19 7 (0.62%) Back Office
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 49 (4.32%) XML
2 45 (3.96%) REST
3 30 (2.64%) Oracle Fusion
4 14 (1.23%) SOAP
5 12 (1.06%) Web Services
6 11 (0.97%) JSON
7 7 (0.62%) .NET
8 6 (0.53%) SAP Fiori
9 5 (0.44%) LDAP
9 5 (0.44%) SAP Basis
10 4 (0.35%) AngularJS
10 4 (0.35%) BAPI
10 4 (0.35%) CSS
10 4 (0.35%) HTML
10 4 (0.35%) Microsoft Graph
10 4 (0.35%) Middleware
10 4 (0.35%) RESTful
10 4 (0.35%) SailPoint
11 3 (0.26%) IDoc
11 3 (0.26%) PySpark
Miscellaneous
1 31 (2.73%) Data Protection Act
2 18 (1.59%) Onboarding
3 16 (1.41%) Operational Technology
4 14 (1.23%) Legacy Systems
4 14 (1.23%) Replication
5 13 (1.15%) AI Agents
5 13 (1.15%) Security Posture
6 12 (1.06%) Product Ownership
7 11 (0.97%) Public Cloud
8 9 (0.79%) Data Centre
8 9 (0.79%) Management Information System
9 8 (0.70%) Cloud Native
9 8 (0.70%) NHS
10 7 (0.62%) Analytical Mindset
10 7 (0.62%) SCADA
11 6 (0.53%) Beowulf
11 6 (0.53%) Data Structures
12 5 (0.44%) BYOD
12 5 (0.44%) Enterprise Software
12 5 (0.44%) Greenfield Project
Operating Systems
1 32 (2.82%) Windows
2 26 (2.29%) Linux
3 13 (1.15%) AIX
4 12 (1.06%) Solaris
5 9 (0.79%) VMS
6 4 (0.35%) Windows Server
7 2 (0.18%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
7 2 (0.18%) Unix
8 1 (0.088%) CoreOS
8 1 (0.088%) Data ONTAP
8 1 (0.088%) Mac OS
Processes & Methodologies
1 145 (12.78%) Migration
2 141 (12.42%) ERP
3 107 (9.43%) Problem-Solving
4 105 (9.25%) Stakeholder Engagement
5 88 (7.75%) Workshop Facilitation
6 86 (7.58%) Data Migration
7 85 (7.49%) Continuous Improvement
8 83 (7.31%) Stakeholder Management
9 75 (6.61%) Cybersecurity
9 75 (6.61%) User Acceptance Testing
10 72 (6.34%) Validation
11 65 (5.73%) Agile
12 63 (5.55%) Business Intelligence
13 59 (5.20%) PLM
14 57 (5.02%) Data Protection
15 53 (4.67%) Analytics
16 52 (4.58%) Change Management
17 50 (4.41%) Roadmaps
18 45 (3.96%) Knowledge Transfer
19 42 (3.70%) Risk Management
Programming Languages
1 109 (9.60%) SQL
2 42 (3.70%) Python
3 28 (2.47%) T-SQL
4 25 (2.20%) PL/SQL
5 19 (1.67%) PowerShell
6 16 (1.41%) JavaScript
7 13 (1.15%) Search Processing Language
8 8 (0.70%) ABAP
8 8 (0.70%) Java
9 7 (0.62%) Bash
9 7 (0.62%) C#
9 7 (0.62%) R
10 5 (0.44%) Kusto Query Language
11 4 (0.35%) TypeScript
12 2 (0.18%) Apex Code
12 2 (0.18%) VBScript
13 1 (0.088%) ActionScript
13 1 (0.088%) C++
13 1 (0.088%) Shell Script
13 1 (0.088%) VBA
Qualifications
1 241 (21.23%) Security Cleared
2 178 (15.68%) SC Cleared
3 55 (4.85%) DV Cleared
4 38 (3.35%) CISSP
5 32 (2.82%) BPSS Clearance
6 27 (2.38%) CISM
7 26 (2.29%) Degree
8 15 (1.32%) Cisco Certification
9 12 (1.06%) CCSP
10 11 (0.97%) (ISC)2 CCSP
11 8 (0.70%) Computer Science Degree
11 8 (0.70%) ITIL Foundation Certificate
11 8 (0.70%) SAP Certification
12 6 (0.53%) CEH
12 6 (0.53%) DBS Check
13 5 (0.44%) ACCA
13 5 (0.44%) CIMA
13 5 (0.44%) Microsoft Certification
13 5 (0.44%) Oracle Certification
13 5 (0.44%) PMP
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 44 (3.88%) ISO/IEC 27001
1 44 (3.88%) NIST
2 33 (2.91%) GRC
3 27 (2.38%) Data Quality
4 17 (1.50%) GDPR
5 12 (1.06%) QA
6 11 (0.97%) JSP 440
6 11 (0.97%) PCI DSS
7 9 (0.79%) NCSC
8 7 (0.62%) COBIT
8 7 (0.62%) RMADS
8 7 (0.62%) SLA
9 6 (0.53%) Actionable Recommendations
9 6 (0.53%) PMO
10 5 (0.44%) Sarbanes-Oxley
11 3 (0.26%) Accessibility
11 3 (0.26%) ISO/IEC 27005
12 2 (0.18%) HL7
12 2 (0.18%) ISA99
12 2 (0.18%) WCAG
System Software
1 16 (1.41%) Active Directory
2 14 (1.23%) VMware Infrastructure
3 11 (0.97%) VMware NSX
4 9 (0.79%) Docker
5 8 (0.70%) vSphere
6 6 (0.53%) Slurm Workload Manager
7 5 (0.44%) VMware ESXi
8 4 (0.35%) Virtual Desktop
9 3 (0.26%) Virtual Machines
10 1 (0.088%) Hyper-V
10 1 (0.088%) IAG
10 1 (0.088%) NFS
Systems Management
1 18 (1.59%) Kubernetes
2 13 (1.15%) Nagios
2 13 (1.15%) ZABBIX
3 12 (1.06%) Netcool
3 12 (1.06%) Tivoli
4 11 (0.97%) OpenView
4 11 (0.97%) Tivoli Monitoring
5 9 (0.79%) Ansible
6 7 (0.62%) Terraform
6 7 (0.62%) vRealize
7 6 (0.53%) NetBackup
7 6 (0.53%) Podman
8 3 (0.26%) Grafana
8 3 (0.26%) Oracle Identity Management
8 3 (0.26%) Oracle Identity Manager
8 3 (0.26%) Prometheus
8 3 (0.26%) Puppet
8 3 (0.26%) Single Sign-On
8 3 (0.26%) vRealize Orchestrator
9 2 (0.18%) Microsoft Intune
Vendors
1 240 (21.15%) SAP
2 145 (12.78%) Oracle
3 96 (8.46%) Microsoft
4 53 (4.67%) Siemens
5 22 (1.94%) ServiceNow
5 22 (1.94%) Splunk
5 22 (1.94%) VMware
6 20 (1.76%) BMC
7 17 (1.50%) Ariba
7 17 (1.50%) IBM
7 17 (1.50%) Workday
8 14 (1.23%) Sage
9 13 (1.15%) IFS
9 13 (1.15%) SolarWinds
10 12 (1.06%) Databricks
10 12 (1.06%) Google
11 11 (0.97%) HP
12 7 (0.62%) Informatica
12 7 (0.62%) OpenText
12 7 (0.62%) Veritas