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 3 May 2026.

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

6 months to
3 May 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 35 32 33
Rank change year-on-year -3 +1 +24
Contract jobs requiring a Consultant 1,143 686 1,018
As % of all contract jobs in the UK excluding London 4.75% 5.37% 4.92%
As % of the Job Titles category 5.16% 5.83% 5.31%
Number of daily rates quoted 652 446 726
10th Percentile £400 £422 £369
25th Percentile £453 £477 £463
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £540 £550
Median % change year-on-year -2.78% -1.82% -
75th Percentile £613 £613 £650
90th Percentile £712 £680 £725
UK median daily rate £538 £550 £550
% change year-on-year -2.27% - -
Number of hourly rates quoted 62 11 23
10th Percentile £51.30 £44.23 £26.50
25th Percentile £56.25 £67.50 £46.25
Median hourly rate £57.50 £82.50 £56.89
Median % change year-on-year -30.30% +45.03% -13.81%
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 22,140 11,768 19,161
% of contract IT jobs with a recognized job title 91.94% 92.18% 92.57%
Number of daily rates quoted 12,969 7,544 11,699
10th Percentile £280 £213 £213
25th Percentile £400 £363 £363
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £490 £475 £490
Median % change year-on-year +3.16% -3.06% -2.00%
75th Percentile £588 £575 £598
90th Percentile £684 £650 £688
UK median daily rate £501 £515 £525
% change year-on-year -2.82% -1.90% -2.78%
Number of hourly rates quoted 2,455 835 2,248
10th Percentile £14.64 £14.00 £12.50
25th Percentile £19.91 £17.80 £15.75
Median hourly rate £45.46 £28.00 £39.55
Median % change year-on-year +62.36% -29.20% -6.94%
75th Percentile £66.00 £64.50 £61.30
90th Percentile £78.75 £75.00 £73.75
UK median hourly rate £44.00 £29.00 £36.42
% change year-on-year +51.72% -20.37% -19.07%

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 3 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 3 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 3 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 -4 340 £540 -1.82% 250
Midlands -17 230 £525 -1.18% 115
North of England -28 217 £525 -2.33% 304
South West +23 176 £550 - 216
West Midlands -5 155 £550 - 85
North West -32 103 £518 -4.93% 191
Yorkshire -8 94 £526 +0.14% 89
East of England -10 81 £550 +10.00% 65
Scotland +25 74 £450 -13.63% 25
East Midlands -17 68 £500 -3.85% 31
Wales +3 30 £550 +37.50% 46
North East -24 20 £525 -1.69% 25
Northern Ireland -1 3 £600 +15.38% 23
Consultant
UK

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

For the 6 months to 3 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.

1 245 (21.43%) Security Cleared
2 243 (21.26%) SAP
3 185 (16.19%) SC Cleared
4 157 (13.74%) Oracle
5 149 (13.04%) Migration
6 143 (12.51%) ERP
7 120 (10.50%) Azure
8 110 (9.62%) Problem-Solving
9 108 (9.45%) SQL
10 106 (9.27%) Stakeholder Engagement
11 90 (7.87%) Workshop Facilitation
12 89 (7.79%) Microsoft
13 85 (7.44%) Data Migration
14 84 (7.35%) Continuous Improvement
15 83 (7.26%) SAP S/4HANA
15 83 (7.26%) Stakeholder Management
16 80 (7.00%) User Acceptance Testing
17 78 (6.82%) Cybersecurity
18 69 (6.04%) Validation
19 66 (5.77%) Business Intelligence
20 64 (5.60%) Agile
21 59 (5.16%) PLM
22 58 (5.07%) Data Protection
23 56 (4.90%) Change Management
24 55 (4.81%) Roadmaps
25 53 (4.64%) Analytics
25 53 (4.64%) DV Cleared
25 53 (4.64%) Siemens
26 52 (4.55%) AWS
26 52 (4.55%) XML

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 (1.92%) SharePoint
2 19 (1.66%) Confluence
3 6 (0.52%) Jupyter
4 5 (0.44%) Oracle Workflow
5 3 (0.26%) Apache
5 3 (0.26%) Apache Spark
5 3 (0.26%) Apache Superset
6 2 (0.17%) Microsoft Exchange
6 2 (0.17%) WebSphere
7 1 (0.087%) ArcGIS
7 1 (0.087%) NetWeaver
7 1 (0.087%) Tomcat
7 1 (0.087%) WebLogic
Applications
1 38 (3.32%) Microsoft Excel
2 11 (0.96%) Microsoft PowerPoint
3 8 (0.70%) Microsoft Office
4 6 (0.52%) MS Visio
5 5 (0.44%) PTC Creo
6 3 (0.26%) Microsoft Project
7 2 (0.17%) Lectora
7 2 (0.17%) Oracle Smart View
7 2 (0.17%) Spreadsheet
8 1 (0.087%) CATIA
8 1 (0.087%) Chatbot
8 1 (0.087%) Siemens NX
8 1 (0.087%) Windchill
Business Applications
1 83 (7.26%) SAP S/4HANA
2 43 (3.76%) Oracle EBS
3 28 (2.45%) SAP PSCD
4 27 (2.36%) Oracle Receivables
5 25 (2.19%) Oracle Payables
6 24 (2.10%) Teamcenter
7 22 (1.92%) SAP MM
8 21 (1.84%) SAP FI
9 19 (1.66%) Oracle Assets
9 19 (1.66%) Oracle EBS R12
9 19 (1.66%) SAP HCM
10 18 (1.57%) Oracle Procure-to-Pay
11 17 (1.49%) Oracle Cash Management
11 17 (1.49%) Oracle ERP
11 17 (1.49%) Oracle General Ledger
12 13 (1.14%) SAP EWM
12 13 (1.14%) SAP Hybris
12 13 (1.14%) SAP PP
13 12 (1.05%) SAP BRIM
13 12 (1.05%) SAP SD
Cloud Services
1 120 (10.50%) Azure
2 52 (4.55%) AWS
3 50 (4.37%) OCI
4 49 (4.29%) Power Platform
5 43 (3.76%) Dynamics 365
6 31 (2.71%) SuccessFactors
7 24 (2.10%) GCP
8 18 (1.57%) Microsoft 365
9 16 (1.40%) Microsoft Copilot
9 16 (1.40%) Power Automate
9 16 (1.40%) SaaS
10 14 (1.22%) SAP Commerce Cloud
11 11 (0.96%) Azure DevOps
11 11 (0.96%) PowerApps
12 10 (0.87%) Entra ID
13 8 (0.70%) Copilot Studio
14 7 (0.61%) GitHub
15 5 (0.44%) Azure AI
15 5 (0.44%) Oracle Service Cloud
15 5 (0.44%) Serverless
Communications & Networking
1 16 (1.40%) SNMP
2 15 (1.31%) Network Security
3 12 (1.05%) Firewall
4 9 (0.79%) FTP
5 5 (0.44%) HTTP
6 4 (0.35%) SAN
6 4 (0.35%) 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%) VSAN
8 2 (0.17%) WAN
9 1 (0.087%) Ethernet VPN
9 1 (0.087%) VXLAN
Database & Business Intelligence
1 35 (3.06%) Power BI
2 34 (2.97%) Oracle Reports
3 17 (1.49%) Oracle BI Publisher
3 17 (1.49%) Oracle ODI
4 13 (1.14%) SAP HANA
5 9 (0.79%) Tableau
6 8 (0.70%) SQL Server
7 6 (0.52%) NoSQL
8 5 (0.44%) SAP Data Services
9 4 (0.35%) Electronic Patient Records
9 4 (0.35%) Oracle Database
9 4 (0.35%) SAP BW
10 3 (0.26%) Amazon Athena
10 3 (0.26%) Delta Lake
10 3 (0.26%) GIS
10 3 (0.26%) Hadoop
10 3 (0.26%) NonStop SQL
10 3 (0.26%) Relational Database
10 3 (0.26%) Snowflake Schema
11 2 (0.17%) Metadata
Development Applications
1 34 (2.97%) JIRA
2 14 (1.22%) Hudson
3 7 (0.61%) 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 (0.17%) Postman
7 1 (0.087%) Appium
7 1 (0.087%) Bitbucket
7 1 (0.087%) GitLab
7 1 (0.087%) JUnit
7 1 (0.087%) MSTest
7 1 (0.087%) NUnit
7 1 (0.087%) Rational Rhapsody
7 1 (0.087%) Tricentis qTest
General
1 234 (20.47%) Finance
2 226 (19.77%) Social Skills
3 96 (8.40%) Analytical Skills
4 92 (8.05%) Public Sector
5 41 (3.59%) Manufacturing
6 28 (2.45%) Legal
7 24 (2.10%) Billing
8 21 (1.84%) Banking
8 21 (1.84%) General Ledger
9 19 (1.66%) Telecoms
10 15 (1.31%) Organisational Skills
11 14 (1.22%) Retail
12 13 (1.14%) Presentation Skills
13 12 (1.05%) Local Government
14 11 (0.96%) Aerospace
15 9 (0.79%) Documentation Skills
15 9 (0.79%) Marketing
16 8 (0.70%) Influencing Skills
16 8 (0.70%) Law
17 7 (0.61%) Back Office
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 52 (4.55%) XML
2 46 (4.02%) REST
3 32 (2.80%) Oracle Fusion
4 19 (1.66%) SOAP
5 16 (1.40%) Web Services
6 11 (0.96%) JSON
7 7 (0.61%) .NET
8 5 (0.44%) LDAP
8 5 (0.44%) SAP Basis
8 5 (0.44%) SAP Fiori
9 4 (0.35%) AngularJS
9 4 (0.35%) BAPI
9 4 (0.35%) CSS
9 4 (0.35%) HTML
9 4 (0.35%) Middleware
9 4 (0.35%) RESTful
9 4 (0.35%) SailPoint
10 3 (0.26%) Microsoft Graph
10 3 (0.26%) scikit-learn
10 3 (0.26%) XSLT
Miscellaneous
1 31 (2.71%) Data Protection Act
2 19 (1.66%) Replication
3 17 (1.49%) Operational Technology
4 16 (1.40%) Onboarding
5 14 (1.22%) Legacy Systems
6 12 (1.05%) AI Agents
6 12 (1.05%) Security Posture
7 11 (0.96%) Product Ownership
7 11 (0.96%) Public Cloud
8 9 (0.79%) Management Information System
8 9 (0.79%) NHS
9 8 (0.70%) Cloud Native
9 8 (0.70%) Data Centre
9 8 (0.70%) Data Structures
10 7 (0.61%) Analytical Mindset
10 7 (0.61%) SCADA
11 6 (0.52%) Beowulf
11 6 (0.52%) FMCG
12 5 (0.44%) Market Risk
12 5 (0.44%) SCORM
Operating Systems
1 32 (2.80%) Windows
2 27 (2.36%) Linux
3 13 (1.14%) AIX
4 9 (0.79%) Solaris
4 9 (0.79%) VMS
5 4 (0.35%) Windows Server
6 2 (0.17%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
6 2 (0.17%) Unix
7 1 (0.087%) CoreOS
7 1 (0.087%) Data ONTAP
7 1 (0.087%) Mac OS
Processes & Methodologies
1 149 (13.04%) Migration
2 143 (12.51%) ERP
3 110 (9.62%) Problem-Solving
4 106 (9.27%) Stakeholder Engagement
5 90 (7.87%) Workshop Facilitation
6 85 (7.44%) Data Migration
7 84 (7.35%) Continuous Improvement
8 83 (7.26%) Stakeholder Management
9 80 (7.00%) User Acceptance Testing
10 78 (6.82%) Cybersecurity
11 69 (6.04%) Validation
12 66 (5.77%) Business Intelligence
13 64 (5.60%) Agile
14 59 (5.16%) PLM
15 58 (5.07%) Data Protection
16 56 (4.90%) Change Management
17 55 (4.81%) Roadmaps
18 53 (4.64%) Analytics
19 44 (3.85%) Knowledge Transfer
20 41 (3.59%) Risk Management
Programming Languages
1 108 (9.45%) SQL
2 43 (3.76%) Python
3 28 (2.45%) T-SQL
4 23 (2.01%) PL/SQL
5 20 (1.75%) PowerShell
6 16 (1.40%) JavaScript
7 13 (1.14%) ABAP
7 13 (1.14%) Search Processing Language
8 8 (0.70%) Java
9 7 (0.61%) Bash
9 7 (0.61%) C#
9 7 (0.61%) R
10 4 (0.35%) TypeScript
11 3 (0.26%) Kusto Query Language
12 2 (0.17%) Apex Code
12 2 (0.17%) VBScript
13 1 (0.087%) ActionScript
13 1 (0.087%) C++
13 1 (0.087%) Shell Script
13 1 (0.087%) VBA
Qualifications
1 245 (21.43%) Security Cleared
2 185 (16.19%) SC Cleared
3 53 (4.64%) DV Cleared
4 38 (3.32%) CISSP
5 33 (2.89%) BPSS Clearance
6 28 (2.45%) Degree
7 27 (2.36%) CISM
8 14 (1.22%) Cisco Certification
9 11 (0.96%) CCSP
10 10 (0.87%) (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 (0.52%) CEH
12 6 (0.52%) Microsoft Certification
13 5 (0.44%) Azure Certification
13 5 (0.44%) DBS Check
13 5 (0.44%) Oracle Certification
14 4 (0.35%) CCSK
14 4 (0.35%) OSCP
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 47 (4.11%) ISO/IEC 27001
2 46 (4.02%) NIST
3 34 (2.97%) GRC
4 26 (2.27%) Data Quality
5 17 (1.49%) GDPR
6 13 (1.14%) QA
7 11 (0.96%) JSP 440
7 11 (0.96%) PCI DSS
8 9 (0.79%) NCSC
9 8 (0.70%) COBIT
9 8 (0.70%) PMO
10 7 (0.61%) Actionable Recommendations
10 7 (0.61%) RMADS
10 7 (0.61%) SLA
11 5 (0.44%) Sarbanes-Oxley
12 3 (0.26%) Accessibility
12 3 (0.26%) ISO/IEC 27005
13 2 (0.17%) HL7
13 2 (0.17%) ISA99
13 2 (0.17%) WCAG
System Software
1 18 (1.57%) Active Directory
2 14 (1.22%) VMware Infrastructure
3 10 (0.87%) VMware NSX
4 9 (0.79%) Docker
5 7 (0.61%) vSphere
6 6 (0.52%) Slurm Workload Manager
7 4 (0.35%) Virtual Desktop
7 4 (0.35%) VMware ESXi
8 3 (0.26%) Virtual Machines
9 1 (0.087%) Hyper-V
9 1 (0.087%) IAG
9 1 (0.087%) NFS
Systems Management
1 17 (1.49%) Kubernetes
2 13 (1.14%) Nagios
2 13 (1.14%) ZABBIX
3 12 (1.05%) Netcool
3 12 (1.05%) Tivoli
4 11 (0.96%) OpenView
4 11 (0.96%) Tivoli Monitoring
5 9 (0.79%) Ansible
6 7 (0.61%) Terraform
7 6 (0.52%) Podman
7 6 (0.52%) vRealize
8 5 (0.44%) NetBackup
9 4 (0.35%) Single Sign-On
10 3 (0.26%) Grafana
10 3 (0.26%) Microsoft Intune
10 3 (0.26%) Oracle Identity Management
10 3 (0.26%) Oracle Identity Manager
10 3 (0.26%) PingFederate
10 3 (0.26%) Prometheus
10 3 (0.26%) vRealize Orchestrator
Vendors
1 243 (21.26%) SAP
2 157 (13.74%) Oracle
3 89 (7.79%) Microsoft
4 53 (4.64%) Siemens
5 22 (1.92%) ServiceNow
5 22 (1.92%) Splunk
6 21 (1.84%) VMware
7 20 (1.75%) BMC
8 18 (1.57%) Ariba
8 18 (1.57%) Workday
9 16 (1.40%) IBM
10 14 (1.22%) Sage
11 13 (1.14%) Google
11 13 (1.14%) SolarWinds
12 12 (1.05%) Databricks
12 12 (1.05%) IFS
13 11 (0.96%) HP
14 9 (0.79%) Cisco
15 8 (0.70%) OpenText
16 7 (0.61%) Informatica