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 2 September 2026.

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

6 months to
2 Sep 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 34 34 26
Rank change year-on-year 0 -8 +11
Contract jobs requiring a Consultant 1,386 804 1,114
As % of all contract jobs in the UK excluding London 5.02% 5.27% 6.18%
As % of the Job Titles category 5.48% 5.85% 6.69%
Number of daily rates quoted 808 509 691
10th Percentile £404 £413 £413
25th Percentile £458 £488 £475
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £550 £565
Median % change year-on-year -4.55% -2.65% +7.62%
75th Percentile £638 £630 £638
90th Percentile £713 £700 £746
UK median daily rate £550 £550 £550
Number of hourly rates quoted 40 19 20
10th Percentile £51.00 £29.11 £47.75
25th Percentile £59.34 £47.74 £55.00
Median hourly rate £76.25 £77.50 £61.60
Median % change year-on-year -1.61% +25.81% -5.23%
75th Percentile £83.94 £81.25 -
90th Percentile £100.40 - £70.21
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 25,293 13,732 16,656
% of contract IT jobs with a recognized job title 91.59% 90.09% 92.41%
Number of daily rates quoted 14,180 8,401 9,922
10th Percentile £303 £213 £221
25th Percentile £413 £363 £375
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 £650 £685
UK median daily rate £525 £500 £525
% change year-on-year +5.00% -4.76% -1.69%
Number of hourly rates quoted 3,103 1,246 1,560
10th Percentile £14.56 £13.36 £14.05
25th Percentile £20.31 £16.30 £18.50
Median hourly rate £42.50 £25.15 £43.95
Median % change year-on-year +68.99% -42.78% +11.13%
75th Percentile £68.00 £54.00 £66.33
90th Percentile £78.75 £72.50 £75.00
UK median hourly rate £42.50 £25.15 £43.00
% change year-on-year +68.99% -41.51% +1.18%

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 2 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 2 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 2 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 -6 390 £545 -0.91% 241
North of England -6 327 £575 +4.55% 275
Midlands +4 248 £500 -9.09% 148
North West -6 213 £567 -1.48% 195
South West +15 206 £550 -8.33% 212
West Midlands +11 174 £481 -12.55% 124
Scotland +28 122 £450 -7.69% 117
Yorkshire -12 93 £575 +12.20% 42
East of England -12 91 £552 +0.36% 114
East Midlands -1 67 £525 -4.55% 22
Wales -16 22 £550 +22.22% 12
North East -38 20 £750 +38.89% 38
Northern Ireland -5 2 £544 +4.57% 147
Consultant
UK

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

For the 6 months to 2 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.

1 407 (29.37%) Security Cleared
2 330 (23.81%) SAP
3 271 (19.55%) SC Cleared
4 208 (15.01%) Stakeholder Management
5 189 (13.64%) Microsoft
6 156 (11.26%) Migration
7 154 (11.11%) Oracle
8 143 (10.32%) Stakeholder Engagement
9 131 (9.45%) Cybersecurity
10 128 (9.24%) Problem-Solving
11 124 (8.95%) Continuous Improvement
12 123 (8.87%) Azure
13 121 (8.73%) ERP
14 109 (7.86%) SQL
15 104 (7.50%) DV Cleared
15 104 (7.50%) SAP S/4HANA
16 101 (7.29%) Validation
17 100 (7.22%) Workshop Facilitation
18 91 (6.57%) User Acceptance Testing
19 86 (6.20%) AWS
20 85 (6.13%) Roadmaps
21 81 (5.84%) Agile
22 76 (5.48%) Analytics
23 71 (5.12%) Data Migration
24 67 (4.83%) Knowledge Transfer
25 65 (4.69%) Risk Management
26 64 (4.62%) Requirements Gathering
27 62 (4.47%) Translating Business Requirements
28 60 (4.33%) CISSP
28 60 (4.33%) Windows

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 27 (1.95%) Confluence
2 13 (0.94%) SharePoint
3 9 (0.65%) WebSphere
4 8 (0.58%) WebLogic
5 7 (0.51%) Oracle Workflow
6 3 (0.22%) Apache
6 3 (0.22%) Apache Superset
6 3 (0.22%) OpenStack
6 3 (0.22%) TIBCO ActiveMatrix
7 2 (0.14%) Microsoft Exchange
7 2 (0.14%) Smallworld
8 1 (0.072%) SAS
8 1 (0.072%) Tomcat
Applications
1 35 (2.53%) Microsoft Excel
2 29 (2.09%) Microsoft Office
3 17 (1.23%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 8 (0.58%) 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
1 104 (7.50%) SAP S/4HANA
2 32 (2.31%) SAP PSCD
3 25 (1.80%) Oracle ERP
4 22 (1.59%) Oracle EBS
4 22 (1.59%) SAP MM
5 20 (1.44%) Oracle Payables
5 20 (1.44%) SAP EWM
6 17 (1.23%) Oracle Receivables
6 17 (1.23%) SAP Payroll
6 17 (1.23%) SAP SD
7 16 (1.15%) SAP QM
7 16 (1.15%) Workday HCM
8 15 (1.08%) SAP FI
9 13 (0.94%) SAP PP
10 12 (0.87%) SAP HCM
11 11 (0.79%) NetSuite
11 11 (0.79%) SAP HR
11 11 (0.79%) Teamcenter
12 9 (0.65%) SAP CO
12 9 (0.65%) SAP FI/CO
Cloud Services
1 123 (8.87%) Azure
2 86 (6.20%) AWS
3 59 (4.26%) Power Platform
3 59 (4.26%) SuccessFactors
4 56 (4.04%) Dynamics 365
5 50 (3.61%) GCP
6 48 (3.46%) OCI
7 33 (2.38%) Microsoft 365
8 30 (2.16%) Entra ID
9 24 (1.73%) Power Automate
10 14 (1.01%) SaaS
11 12 (0.87%) Azure DevOps
11 12 (0.87%) Microsoft Copilot
11 12 (0.87%) Oracle Service Cloud
12 11 (0.79%) PowerApps
13 10 (0.72%) GitHub
13 10 (0.72%) SAP Commerce Cloud
14 9 (0.65%) Cloud Computing
15 8 (0.58%) Azure Monitor
15 8 (0.58%) Microsoft Purview
Communications & Networking
1 31 (2.24%) Network Security
2 22 (1.59%) Firewall
3 19 (1.37%) SNMP
4 12 (0.87%) BGP
4 12 (0.87%) WAN
5 8 (0.58%) DNS
5 8 (0.58%) VPN
6 7 (0.51%) LAN
6 7 (0.51%) VSAN
6 7 (0.51%) Wi-Fi
7 6 (0.43%) TCP/IP
8 5 (0.36%) SAN
9 4 (0.29%) DHCP
9 4 (0.29%) Wireless
10 3 (0.22%) FTP
10 3 (0.22%) HTTP
10 3 (0.22%) MPLS
10 3 (0.22%) SMS
10 3 (0.22%) TACACS
10 3 (0.22%) VXLAN
Database & Business Intelligence
1 34 (2.45%) Power BI
2 28 (2.02%) Oracle Reports
3 16 (1.15%) Oracle BI Publisher
3 16 (1.15%) SAP BW
3 16 (1.15%) SAP HANA
4 15 (1.08%) Oracle ODI
5 14 (1.01%) SQL Server
6 11 (0.79%) Tableau
7 10 (0.72%) Metadata
8 9 (0.65%) SAP Data Services
9 8 (0.58%) BusinessObjects
10 7 (0.51%) Oracle Database
10 7 (0.51%) Relational Database
11 6 (0.43%) Data Warehouse
12 5 (0.36%) NonStop SQL
12 5 (0.36%) Power Query
13 3 (0.22%) Amazon Athena
13 3 (0.22%) Delta Lake
13 3 (0.22%) RDBMS
13 3 (0.22%) Snowflake Schema
Development Applications
1 48 (3.46%) JIRA
2 11 (0.79%) Git
2 11 (0.79%) Hudson
3 8 (0.58%) Oracle Forms
4 5 (0.36%) Jenkins
5 3 (0.22%) Toad
5 3 (0.22%) Visual Studio Code
6 2 (0.14%) GitLab
6 2 (0.14%) JDeveloper
6 2 (0.14%) LoadRunner
6 2 (0.14%) Postman
6 2 (0.14%) TestRail
6 2 (0.14%) tSQLt
6 2 (0.14%) Zephyr
7 1 (0.072%) Claude Code
7 1 (0.072%) JMeter
7 1 (0.072%) Oracle APEX
7 1 (0.072%) ScriptRunner
7 1 (0.072%) Yeoman
General
1 329 (23.74%) Social Skills
2 267 (19.26%) Finance
3 123 (8.87%) Analytical Skills
4 110 (7.94%) Public Sector
5 56 (4.04%) Manufacturing
6 31 (2.24%) Documentation Skills
6 31 (2.24%) Presentation Skills
7 30 (2.16%) General Ledger
7 30 (2.16%) Legal
8 26 (1.88%) Telecoms
9 24 (1.73%) Banking
10 20 (1.44%) Billing
10 20 (1.44%) Influencing Skills
10 20 (1.44%) Retail
11 15 (1.08%) Organisational Skills
12 13 (0.94%) Financial Institution
13 12 (0.87%) Marketing
14 11 (0.79%) Aerospace
15 9 (0.65%) Advertising
15 9 (0.65%) Military
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 42 (3.03%) REST
2 33 (2.38%) Oracle Fusion
3 25 (1.80%) XML
4 21 (1.52%) Terraform
5 20 (1.44%) SOAP
6 17 (1.23%) SAP Fiori
7 16 (1.15%) LDAP
7 16 (1.15%) Middleware
7 16 (1.15%) SailPoint
8 11 (0.79%) Web Services
9 9 (0.65%) SAP PI
10 7 (0.51%) SAP Basis
11 6 (0.43%) EDI
11 6 (0.43%) IDoc
11 6 (0.43%) Microsoft Graph
12 5 (0.36%) JDBC
12 5 (0.36%) OpenTelemetry
12 5 (0.36%) RESTful
12 5 (0.36%) SLSA
13 4 (0.29%) eBPF
Miscellaneous
1 44 (3.17%) Onboarding
2 27 (1.95%) Data Protection Act
3 24 (1.73%) CMDB
4 23 (1.66%) Operational Technology
5 22 (1.59%) Security Posture
6 15 (1.08%) Product Ownership
7 13 (0.94%) PKI
7 13 (0.94%) Replication
8 12 (0.87%) Management Information System
9 11 (0.79%) Cloud Native
9 11 (0.79%) Data Centre
9 11 (0.79%) Data Structures
9 11 (0.79%) Enterprise Software
10 10 (0.72%) Learning Management System
11 9 (0.65%) FMCG
11 9 (0.65%) Private Cloud
12 8 (0.58%) Analytical Mindset
12 8 (0.58%) Hybrid Cloud
12 8 (0.58%) Public Cloud
13 7 (0.51%) Greenfield Project
Operating Systems
1 60 (4.33%) Windows
2 44 (3.17%) Linux
3 17 (1.23%) Solaris
4 13 (0.94%) AIX
5 12 (0.87%) Windows Server
6 10 (0.72%) Unix
7 7 (0.51%) 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%) Mac OS
10 1 (0.072%) Windows 10
10 1 (0.072%) zOS
Processes & Methodologies
1 208 (15.01%) Stakeholder Management
2 156 (11.26%) Migration
3 143 (10.32%) Stakeholder Engagement
4 131 (9.45%) Cybersecurity
5 128 (9.24%) Problem-Solving
6 124 (8.95%) Continuous Improvement
7 121 (8.73%) ERP
8 101 (7.29%) Validation
9 100 (7.22%) Workshop Facilitation
10 91 (6.57%) User Acceptance Testing
11 85 (6.13%) Roadmaps
12 81 (5.84%) Agile
13 76 (5.48%) Analytics
14 71 (5.12%) Data Migration
15 67 (4.83%) Knowledge Transfer
16 65 (4.69%) Risk Management
17 64 (4.62%) Requirements Gathering
18 62 (4.47%) Translating Business Requirements
19 56 (4.04%) Project Delivery
20 54 (3.90%) Business Intelligence
Programming Languages
1 109 (7.86%) SQL
2 56 (4.04%) Python
3 29 (2.09%) ABAP
3 29 (2.09%) PowerShell
4 22 (1.59%) PL/SQL
5 17 (1.23%) T-SQL
6 16 (1.15%) JavaScript
7 14 (1.01%) Search Processing Language
8 13 (0.94%) Java
9 12 (0.87%) Bash
10 10 (0.72%) Kusto Query Language
11 6 (0.43%) C#
11 6 (0.43%) R
12 2 (0.14%) Data Analysis Expressions
12 2 (0.14%) Groovy
12 2 (0.14%) Korn
12 2 (0.14%) Magik
12 2 (0.14%) Perl
12 2 (0.14%) Shell Script
12 2 (0.14%) VBScript
Qualifications
1 407 (29.37%) Security Cleared
2 271 (19.55%) SC Cleared
3 104 (7.50%) DV Cleared
4 60 (4.33%) CISSP
5 52 (3.75%) BPSS Clearance
6 47 (3.39%) CISM
7 36 (2.60%) Cisco Certification
8 31 (2.24%) (ISC)2 CCSP
9 27 (1.95%) CCSP
9 27 (1.95%) Degree
10 13 (0.94%) ACCA
10 13 (0.94%) CIMA
11 11 (0.79%) PMP
12 10 (0.72%) CompTIA Security+
12 10 (0.72%) CRISC
13 9 (0.65%) CEH
13 9 (0.65%) OSCP
14 8 (0.58%) Azure Certification
14 8 (0.58%) CCSK
15 7 (0.51%) CCA
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 47 (3.39%) NIST
2 44 (3.17%) GRC
3 37 (2.67%) ISO/IEC 27001
4 35 (2.53%) Data Quality
5 22 (1.59%) QA
6 16 (1.15%) SLA
7 14 (1.01%) GDPR
7 14 (1.01%) NCSC
8 13 (0.94%) Actionable Recommendations
9 11 (0.79%) PCI DSS
10 10 (0.72%) PMO
11 9 (0.65%) Accessibility
12 7 (0.51%) NIST 800
13 6 (0.43%) COBIT
13 6 (0.43%) Def Stans
14 5 (0.36%) JSP 440
14 5 (0.36%) RMADS
14 5 (0.36%) Sarbanes-Oxley
15 4 (0.29%) WCAG
16 3 (0.22%) Cyber Essentials
System Software
1 48 (3.46%) Active Directory
2 23 (1.66%) VMware Infrastructure
3 16 (1.15%) VMware NSX
4 14 (1.01%) VMware ESXi
5 12 (0.87%) vSphere
6 9 (0.65%) Hyper-V
7 5 (0.36%) Virtual Desktop
8 4 (0.29%) Docker
8 4 (0.29%) Virtual Machines
9 3 (0.22%) Firmware
10 2 (0.14%) IAG
11 1 (0.072%) NFS
11 1 (0.072%) PowerHA
11 1 (0.072%) Time Sharing Option
Systems Management
1 24 (1.73%) Kubernetes
2 18 (1.30%) Ansible
3 12 (0.87%) Nagios
3 12 (0.87%) ZABBIX
4 11 (0.79%) Netcool
4 11 (0.79%) Tivoli
4 11 (0.79%) vRealize
5 10 (0.72%) OpenView
5 10 (0.72%) Tivoli Monitoring
5 10 (0.72%) vCenter Server
6 7 (0.51%) Grafana
7 6 (0.43%) FortiGate
7 6 (0.43%) VxRail
8 4 (0.29%) CEMLI
8 4 (0.29%) Microsoft Intune
8 4 (0.29%) NetBackup
8 4 (0.29%) Prometheus
8 4 (0.29%) SCCM
9 3 (0.22%) Failover Clustering
9 3 (0.22%) Single Sign-On
Vendors
1 330 (23.81%) SAP
2 189 (13.64%) Microsoft
3 154 (11.11%) Oracle
4 57 (4.11%) ServiceNow
5 33 (2.38%) VMware
6 27 (1.95%) Splunk
7 20 (1.44%) Salesforce
8 19 (1.37%) Workday
9 17 (1.23%) Ariba
9 17 (1.23%) BMC
10 15 (1.08%) Databricks
10 15 (1.08%) IBM
11 14 (1.01%) JD Edwards
12 12 (0.87%) SolarWinds
13 11 (0.79%) CyberArk
13 11 (0.79%) HP
14 9 (0.65%) Informatica
15 8 (0.58%) Cisco
15 8 (0.58%) Google
15 8 (0.58%) Veeam