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 16 April 2026.

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

6 months to
16 Apr 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 33 35 33
Rank change year-on-year +2 -2 +25
Contract jobs requiring a Consultant 1,163 660 1,004
As % of all contract jobs in the UK excluding London 5.01% 5.20% 4.82%
As % of the Job Titles category 5.45% 5.63% 5.20%
Number of daily rates quoted 678 442 728
10th Percentile £403 £425 £374
25th Percentile £450 £484 £463
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £545 £550
Median % change year-on-year -3.67% -0.91% -
75th Percentile £607 £622 £638
90th Percentile £699 £687 £725
UK median daily rate £535 £550 £550
% change year-on-year -2.73% - -1.79%
Number of hourly rates quoted 61 10 21
10th Percentile - £69.50 £26.25
25th Percentile £56.25 £71.88 £42.50
Median hourly rate £57.50 £84.25 £55.80
Median % change year-on-year -31.75% +50.99% -15.45%
75th Percentile £60.00 £86.00 £61.60
90th Percentile - £86.03 £63.29
UK median hourly rate £57.50 £85.00 £58.44
% change year-on-year -32.35% +45.44% -11.45%

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 21,338 11,722 19,305
% of contract IT jobs with a recognized job title 91.95% 92.28% 92.66%
Number of daily rates quoted 12,624 7,599 11,926
10th Percentile £270 £213 £213
25th Percentile £400 £363 £363
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £488 £475 £490
Median % change year-on-year +2.63% -3.06% -2.00%
75th Percentile £588 £582 £599
90th Percentile £675 £656 £688
UK median daily rate £500 £517 £525
% change year-on-year -3.29% -1.52% -2.78%
Number of hourly rates quoted 2,338 783 2,164
10th Percentile £14.40 £14.20 £12.50
25th Percentile £19.73 £18.30 £15.50
Median hourly rate £42.69 £30.00 £35.00
Median % change year-on-year +42.28% -14.29% -17.38%
75th Percentile £65.25 £65.00 £60.00
90th Percentile £78.75 £75.45 £72.90
UK median hourly rate £41.94 £30.79 £35.00
% change year-on-year +36.20% -12.02% -22.22%

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 16 April 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 16 April 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 16 April 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 0 345 £535 -4.29% 227
Midlands -8 231 £525 - 88
North of England -22 226 £506 -6.01% 209
South West +22 174 £525 -4.55% 144
West Midlands -3 163 £550 +4.76% 45
North West -28 107 £518 -4.93% 127
Yorkshire -5 101 £500 -4.76% 67
East of England -13 89 £550 +10.00% 37
Scotland +28 69 £459 -11.95% 33
East Midlands -17 61 £500 -4.31% 44
Wales +8 31 £550 +37.50% 28
North East -23 18 £525 -2.23% 16
Northern Ireland +3 6 £428 -18.57% 27
Consultant
UK

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

For the 6 months to 16 April 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.

1 260 (22.36%) Security Cleared
2 242 (20.81%) SAP
3 206 (17.71%) SC Cleared
4 161 (13.84%) Migration
5 159 (13.67%) Oracle
6 140 (12.04%) ERP
7 128 (11.01%) Stakeholder Engagement
8 115 (9.89%) Azure
9 107 (9.20%) Problem-Solving
10 106 (9.11%) SQL
11 95 (8.17%) SAP S/4HANA
12 86 (7.39%) Workshop Facilitation
13 83 (7.14%) Microsoft
13 83 (7.14%) Stakeholder Management
14 76 (6.53%) Continuous Improvement
15 75 (6.45%) Data Migration
16 73 (6.28%) Cybersecurity
17 70 (6.02%) User Acceptance Testing
18 68 (5.85%) Business Intelligence
19 67 (5.76%) Roadmaps
20 66 (5.67%) Validation
21 60 (5.16%) Agile
22 58 (4.99%) Change Management
23 56 (4.82%) Analytics
24 55 (4.73%) XML
25 54 (4.64%) PLM
26 53 (4.56%) OCI
26 53 (4.56%) Siemens
27 52 (4.47%) Data Protection
27 52 (4.47%) Knowledge Transfer

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 20 (1.72%) SharePoint
2 17 (1.46%) Confluence
3 6 (0.52%) Jupyter
3 6 (0.52%) Oracle Workflow
4 4 (0.34%) Microsoft Exchange
5 3 (0.26%) Apache
5 3 (0.26%) Apache Spark
5 3 (0.26%) Apache Superset
5 3 (0.26%) MTS
6 2 (0.17%) WebSphere
7 1 (0.086%) ArcGIS
7 1 (0.086%) CMS
7 1 (0.086%) NetWeaver
7 1 (0.086%) OpenStack
7 1 (0.086%) SAS
7 1 (0.086%) Skype for Business
7 1 (0.086%) Tomcat
7 1 (0.086%) WebLogic
Applications
1 39 (3.35%) Microsoft Excel
2 11 (0.95%) Microsoft PowerPoint
3 7 (0.60%) Microsoft Office
3 7 (0.60%) MS Visio
4 5 (0.43%) PTC Creo
5 2 (0.17%) Lectora
5 2 (0.17%) Microsoft Project
5 2 (0.17%) Oracle Smart View
5 2 (0.17%) Spreadsheet
6 1 (0.086%) CATIA
6 1 (0.086%) Chatbot
6 1 (0.086%) Siemens NX
6 1 (0.086%) Windchill
Business Applications
1 95 (8.17%) SAP S/4HANA
2 43 (3.70%) Oracle EBS
3 28 (2.41%) Oracle Receivables
3 28 (2.41%) SAP FI
4 27 (2.32%) SAP MM
5 25 (2.15%) Oracle Payables
6 24 (2.06%) SAP PSCD
7 21 (1.81%) Oracle EBS R12
8 20 (1.72%) SAP HCM
9 19 (1.63%) Oracle Assets
9 19 (1.63%) Teamcenter
10 18 (1.55%) Oracle Cash Management
10 18 (1.55%) Oracle Procure-to-Pay
11 17 (1.46%) Oracle General Ledger
12 16 (1.38%) Oracle ERP
13 14 (1.20%) SAP EWM
14 13 (1.12%) SAP Hybris
14 13 (1.12%) SAP PP
15 12 (1.03%) SAP BRIM
16 11 (0.95%) Oracle AGIS
Cloud Services
1 115 (9.89%) Azure
2 53 (4.56%) OCI
3 48 (4.13%) AWS
4 40 (3.44%) Power Platform
5 38 (3.27%) Dynamics 365
6 31 (2.67%) SuccessFactors
7 23 (1.98%) GCP
8 16 (1.38%) Microsoft 365
9 15 (1.29%) SaaS
10 14 (1.20%) Entra ID
10 14 (1.20%) SAP Commerce Cloud
11 13 (1.12%) Microsoft Copilot
12 12 (1.03%) Power Automate
13 10 (0.86%) Azure DevOps
13 10 (0.86%) PowerApps
14 7 (0.60%) GitHub
15 6 (0.52%) Copilot Studio
16 5 (0.43%) Serverless
17 3 (0.26%) Azure Data Factory
17 3 (0.26%) Oracle Service Cloud
Communications & Networking
1 15 (1.29%) Firewall
2 13 (1.12%) Network Security
3 9 (0.77%) FTP
4 8 (0.69%) SNMP
5 5 (0.43%) Cisco ISE
5 5 (0.43%) HTTP
5 5 (0.43%) SD-WAN
5 5 (0.43%) WAN
6 4 (0.34%) Cisco Firepower
6 4 (0.34%) Kerberos
7 3 (0.26%) BGP
7 3 (0.26%) Cisco ASA
7 3 (0.26%) Cisco Nexus
7 3 (0.26%) EIGRP
7 3 (0.26%) OSPF
7 3 (0.26%) SSH
7 3 (0.26%) TCP/IP
7 3 (0.26%) VPN
7 3 (0.26%) VSAN
8 2 (0.17%) WebEx
Database & Business Intelligence
1 35 (3.01%) Power BI
2 34 (2.92%) Oracle Reports
3 18 (1.55%) Oracle BI Publisher
4 16 (1.38%) Oracle ODI
5 13 (1.12%) SAP HANA
6 10 (0.86%) Tableau
7 9 (0.77%) Metadata
8 8 (0.69%) SQL Server
9 6 (0.52%) NoSQL
9 6 (0.52%) SAP Data Services
10 4 (0.34%) Electronic Patient Records
10 4 (0.34%) Oracle Database
11 3 (0.26%) Amazon Athena
11 3 (0.26%) Data Warehouse
11 3 (0.26%) Delta Lake
11 3 (0.26%) GIS
11 3 (0.26%) Hadoop
11 3 (0.26%) Relational Database
11 3 (0.26%) Snowflake Schema
12 2 (0.17%) SAP BW
Development Applications
1 33 (2.84%) JIRA
2 14 (1.20%) Hudson
3 7 (0.60%) Oracle Forms
4 4 (0.34%) Visual Studio Code
5 3 (0.26%) Jenkins
6 2 (0.17%) Git
6 2 (0.17%) Postman
6 2 (0.17%) Toad
7 1 (0.086%) Appium
7 1 (0.086%) Bitbucket
7 1 (0.086%) GitLab
7 1 (0.086%) JUnit
7 1 (0.086%) MSTest
7 1 (0.086%) NUnit
7 1 (0.086%) Rational Rhapsody
7 1 (0.086%) Tricentis qTest
General
1 231 (19.86%) Finance
2 229 (19.69%) Social Skills
3 106 (9.11%) Public Sector
4 98 (8.43%) Analytical Skills
5 37 (3.18%) Manufacturing
6 26 (2.24%) Legal
7 25 (2.15%) Billing
8 23 (1.98%) Banking
9 21 (1.81%) General Ledger
10 19 (1.63%) Telecoms
11 17 (1.46%) Presentation Skills
12 14 (1.20%) Organisational Skills
13 13 (1.12%) Aerospace
13 13 (1.12%) Local Government
14 11 (0.95%) Marketing
15 10 (0.86%) Documentation Skills
15 10 (0.86%) Law
16 9 (0.77%) Retail
17 7 (0.60%) Back Office
18 6 (0.52%) Influencing Skills
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 55 (4.73%) XML
2 44 (3.78%) REST
3 38 (3.27%) Oracle Fusion
4 21 (1.81%) SOAP
5 18 (1.55%) Web Services
6 12 (1.03%) JSON
7 11 (0.95%) SAP Basis
8 9 (0.77%) SAP Fiori
9 8 (0.69%) LDAP
10 7 (0.60%) .NET
11 6 (0.52%) SAP Business Workflow
12 5 (0.43%) OAuth
12 5 (0.43%) SAML
13 4 (0.34%) AngularJS
13 4 (0.34%) BAPI
13 4 (0.34%) Middleware
13 4 (0.34%) PySpark
13 4 (0.34%) SailPoint
14 3 (0.26%) IDoc
14 3 (0.26%) TensorFlow
Miscellaneous
1 29 (2.49%) Data Protection Act
2 21 (1.81%) Replication
3 16 (1.38%) Operational Technology
4 15 (1.29%) Legacy Systems
5 14 (1.20%) Onboarding
6 12 (1.03%) Product Ownership
6 12 (1.03%) Public Cloud
7 10 (0.86%) AI Agents
7 10 (0.86%) Data Centre
7 10 (0.86%) NHS
7 10 (0.86%) Security Posture
8 9 (0.77%) Data Structures
8 9 (0.77%) Management Information System
9 6 (0.52%) Analytical Mindset
9 6 (0.52%) Beowulf
9 6 (0.52%) Enterprise Software
10 5 (0.43%) FMCG
10 5 (0.43%) Market Risk
10 5 (0.43%) SCADA
10 5 (0.43%) SCORM
Operating Systems
1 30 (2.58%) Windows
2 25 (2.15%) Linux
3 11 (0.95%) AIX
4 7 (0.60%) Solaris
4 7 (0.60%) VMS
5 3 (0.26%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
5 3 (0.26%) Windows Server
6 2 (0.17%) Unix
6 2 (0.17%) Windows 10
7 1 (0.086%) CentOS
7 1 (0.086%) CoreOS
7 1 (0.086%) Data ONTAP
7 1 (0.086%) Mac OS
7 1 (0.086%) Ubuntu
Processes & Methodologies
1 161 (13.84%) Migration
2 140 (12.04%) ERP
3 128 (11.01%) Stakeholder Engagement
4 107 (9.20%) Problem-Solving
5 86 (7.39%) Workshop Facilitation
6 83 (7.14%) Stakeholder Management
7 76 (6.53%) Continuous Improvement
8 75 (6.45%) Data Migration
9 73 (6.28%) Cybersecurity
10 70 (6.02%) User Acceptance Testing
11 68 (5.85%) Business Intelligence
12 67 (5.76%) Roadmaps
13 66 (5.67%) Validation
14 60 (5.16%) Agile
15 58 (4.99%) Change Management
16 56 (4.82%) Analytics
17 54 (4.64%) PLM
18 52 (4.47%) Data Protection
18 52 (4.47%) Knowledge Transfer
19 49 (4.21%) Workflow
Programming Languages
1 106 (9.11%) SQL
2 42 (3.61%) Python
3 28 (2.41%) T-SQL
4 23 (1.98%) PL/SQL
5 22 (1.89%) ABAP
6 20 (1.72%) PowerShell
7 16 (1.38%) JavaScript
8 9 (0.77%) Java
9 8 (0.69%) Search Processing Language
10 7 (0.60%) C#
10 7 (0.60%) R
11 6 (0.52%) Bash
12 4 (0.34%) TypeScript
13 2 (0.17%) Apex Code
13 2 (0.17%) Kusto Query Language
13 2 (0.17%) VBScript
14 1 (0.086%) ActionScript
14 1 (0.086%) Bicep
14 1 (0.086%) C++
14 1 (0.086%) VBA
Qualifications
1 260 (22.36%) Security Cleared
2 206 (17.71%) SC Cleared
3 50 (4.30%) DV Cleared
4 36 (3.10%) BPSS Clearance
5 30 (2.58%) CISSP
5 30 (2.58%) Degree
6 19 (1.63%) CISM
7 12 (1.03%) Cisco Certification
8 10 (0.86%) Computer Science Degree
9 8 (0.69%) ITIL Foundation Certificate
9 8 (0.69%) Microsoft Certification
9 8 (0.69%) SAP Certification
10 5 (0.43%) (ISC)2 CCSP
10 5 (0.43%) Azure Certification
10 5 (0.43%) CCSP
10 5 (0.43%) CEH
10 5 (0.43%) DBS Check
10 5 (0.43%) Oracle Certification
10 5 (0.43%) PMP
11 4 (0.34%) CCNP
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 46 (3.96%) ISO/IEC 27001
2 44 (3.78%) NIST
3 31 (2.67%) GRC
4 25 (2.15%) Data Quality
5 15 (1.29%) GDPR
6 14 (1.20%) QA
7 11 (0.95%) JSP 440
7 11 (0.95%) PCI DSS
8 10 (0.86%) NCSC
9 9 (0.77%) Actionable Recommendations
9 9 (0.77%) PMO
10 8 (0.69%) COBIT
11 7 (0.60%) RMADS
12 5 (0.43%) Sarbanes-Oxley
12 5 (0.43%) SLA
13 3 (0.26%) ISO/IEC 27005
14 2 (0.17%) HL7
15 1 (0.086%) DICOM
15 1 (0.086%) ISO/IEC 12207
15 1 (0.086%) WCAG
System Software
1 18 (1.55%) Active Directory
2 12 (1.03%) VMware Infrastructure
3 10 (0.86%) Docker
3 10 (0.86%) VMware NSX
4 6 (0.52%) Slurm Workload Manager
4 6 (0.52%) vSphere
5 4 (0.34%) Virtual Desktop
6 2 (0.17%) Virtual Machines
6 2 (0.17%) VMware ESXi
7 1 (0.086%) Ceph
7 1 (0.086%) IAG
7 1 (0.086%) KVM
7 1 (0.086%) NFS
7 1 (0.086%) QEMU
Systems Management
1 14 (1.20%) Kubernetes
2 8 (0.69%) Nagios
2 8 (0.69%) Netcool
2 8 (0.69%) OpenView
2 8 (0.69%) Tivoli
2 8 (0.69%) Tivoli Monitoring
2 8 (0.69%) ZABBIX
3 7 (0.60%) Terraform
4 6 (0.52%) Ansible
4 6 (0.52%) Podman
4 6 (0.52%) Single Sign-On
5 5 (0.43%) PingFederate
6 4 (0.34%) NetBackup
6 4 (0.34%) vRealize
7 3 (0.26%) Microsoft Intune
7 3 (0.26%) Puppet
8 2 (0.17%) Oracle Identity Management
8 2 (0.17%) Oracle Identity Manager
8 2 (0.17%) SCCM
8 2 (0.17%) vRealize Orchestrator
Vendors
1 242 (20.81%) SAP
2 159 (13.67%) Oracle
3 83 (7.14%) Microsoft
4 53 (4.56%) Siemens
5 33 (2.84%) Cisco
6 32 (2.75%) ServiceNow
7 26 (2.24%) Aruba
8 22 (1.89%) Workday
9 19 (1.63%) VMware
10 18 (1.55%) Ariba
11 14 (1.20%) BMC
11 14 (1.20%) IBM
11 14 (1.20%) Sage
12 13 (1.12%) Splunk
13 12 (1.03%) Databricks
13 12 (1.03%) Google
13 12 (1.03%) IFS
13 12 (1.03%) OpenText
14 8 (0.69%) Atlassian
14 8 (0.69%) Computacenter