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 £534, according to job vacancies posted in the 6 months leading up to 11 September 2026.

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

6 months to
11 Sep 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 36 33 26
Rank change year-on-year -3 -7 +12
Contract jobs requiring a Consultant 1,394 827 1,117
As % of all contract jobs in the UK excluding London 4.95% 5.35% 6.22%
As % of the Job Titles category 5.42% 5.95% 6.73%
Number of daily rates quoted 823 528 681
10th Percentile £405 £413 £419
25th Percentile £460 £480 £481
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £534 £550 £567
Median % change year-on-year -2.91% -3.00% +8.00%
75th Percentile £638 £627 £638
90th Percentile £713 £700 £746
UK median daily rate £550 £550 £550
% change year-on-year - - +1.85%
Number of hourly rates quoted 39 20 19
10th Percentile £51.00 £29.31 £52.32
25th Percentile £61.13 £49.50 £55.47
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 £70.72
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 25,737 13,896 16,594
% of contract IT jobs with a recognized job title 91.37% 89.84% 92.39%
Number of daily rates quoted 14,346 8,529 9,709
10th Percentile £303 £213 £225
25th Percentile £413 £363 £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 £650 £685
UK median daily rate £525 £500 £525
% change year-on-year +5.00% -4.76% -0.94%
Number of hourly rates quoted 3,229 1,250 1,488
10th Percentile £14.22 £13.27 £14.28
25th Percentile £19.78 £16.17 £19.50
Median hourly rate £42.50 £25.15 £45.00
Median % change year-on-year +68.99% -44.11% +12.50%
75th Percentile £67.84 £52.50 £66.61
90th Percentile £78.75 £71.50 £75.00
UK median hourly rate £42.00 £25.15 £43.00
% change year-on-year +67.00% -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 11 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 11 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 11 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 -4 393 £540 -1.82% 249
North of England -10 323 £575 +4.55% 193
Midlands 0 233 £500 -9.09% 102
North West -5 209 £567 -1.39% 115
South West +6 208 £550 -8.33% 139
West Midlands +8 163 £500 -9.09% 82
Scotland +36 128 £450 -10.00% 69
East of England -14 106 £565 +2.73% 90
Yorkshire -16 93 £575 +22.99% 40
East Midlands -3 63 £525 -4.55% 19
Wales -15 22 £550 +22.22% 20
North East -39 20 £750 +37.61% 38
Channel Islands -3 2 £600 - 4
Northern Ireland -8 2 £544 +18.21% 68
Consultant
UK

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

For the 6 months to 11 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.

1 413 (29.63%) Security Cleared
2 338 (24.25%) SAP
3 277 (19.87%) SC Cleared
4 220 (15.78%) Stakeholder Management
5 189 (13.56%) Microsoft
6 167 (11.98%) Migration
7 157 (11.26%) Oracle
8 142 (10.19%) Stakeholder Engagement
9 130 (9.33%) Cybersecurity
10 129 (9.25%) Problem-Solving
11 126 (9.04%) Azure
12 123 (8.82%) Continuous Improvement
13 121 (8.68%) ERP
14 111 (7.96%) SAP S/4HANA
15 107 (7.68%) Workshop Facilitation
16 105 (7.53%) Validation
17 103 (7.39%) DV Cleared
18 95 (6.81%) User Acceptance Testing
19 93 (6.67%) SQL
20 88 (6.31%) AWS
21 87 (6.24%) Roadmaps
22 86 (6.17%) Agile
23 79 (5.67%) Analytics
24 77 (5.52%) Data Migration
25 71 (5.09%) Knowledge Transfer
26 67 (4.81%) Requirements Gathering
27 64 (4.59%) BPSS Clearance
27 64 (4.59%) Risk Management
28 63 (4.52%) Translating Business Requirements
29 62 (4.45%) SuccessFactors

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 24 (1.72%) Confluence
2 14 (1.00%) SharePoint
3 9 (0.65%) WebSphere
4 8 (0.57%) WebLogic
5 7 (0.50%) 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%) OpenEdge
8 1 (0.072%) SAS
8 1 (0.072%) Tomcat
Applications
1 27 (1.94%) Microsoft Office
2 22 (1.58%) Microsoft Excel
3 18 (1.29%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 9 (0.65%) 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
1 111 (7.96%) SAP S/4HANA
2 35 (2.51%) SAP PSCD
3 23 (1.65%) Oracle ERP
4 22 (1.58%) Oracle EBS
4 22 (1.58%) SAP Payroll
5 20 (1.43%) Oracle Payables
5 20 (1.43%) SAP EWM
6 19 (1.36%) Workday HCM
7 18 (1.29%) SAP FI
7 18 (1.29%) SAP MM
8 17 (1.22%) Oracle Receivables
8 17 (1.22%) SAP HCM
9 16 (1.15%) SAP QM
10 15 (1.08%) SAP HR
10 15 (1.08%) SAP SD
11 13 (0.93%) SAP PP
12 11 (0.79%) NetSuite
12 11 (0.79%) SAP CO
12 11 (0.79%) SAP FI/CO
12 11 (0.79%) Teamcenter
Cloud Services
1 126 (9.04%) Azure
2 88 (6.31%) AWS
3 62 (4.45%) SuccessFactors
4 61 (4.38%) Dynamics 365
5 60 (4.30%) Power Platform
6 55 (3.95%) GCP
7 50 (3.59%) OCI
8 34 (2.44%) Microsoft 365
9 30 (2.15%) Entra ID
10 24 (1.72%) Power Automate
11 14 (1.00%) 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 11 (0.79%) PowerApps
15 10 (0.72%) GitHub
16 9 (0.65%) Cloud Computing
16 9 (0.65%) Microsoft Purview
17 8 (0.57%) Azure Monitor
Communications & Networking
1 31 (2.22%) 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 33 (2.37%) Power BI
2 28 (2.01%) Oracle Reports
3 16 (1.15%) Oracle BI Publisher
3 16 (1.15%) SAP BW
3 16 (1.15%) SAP HANA
4 13 (0.93%) Oracle ODI
5 11 (0.79%) SQL Server
5 11 (0.79%) Tableau
6 10 (0.72%) Metadata
7 9 (0.65%) BusinessObjects
7 9 (0.65%) SAP Data Services
8 7 (0.50%) Oracle Database
8 7 (0.50%) Relational Database
9 6 (0.43%) Data Warehouse
10 5 (0.36%) NonStop SQL
10 5 (0.36%) Power Query
11 3 (0.22%) Amazon Athena
11 3 (0.22%) Delta Lake
11 3 (0.22%) RDBMS
11 3 (0.22%) Snowflake Schema
Development Applications
1 46 (3.30%) JIRA
2 15 (1.08%) Git
3 11 (0.79%) 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 (23.89%) Social Skills
2 278 (19.94%) Finance
3 121 (8.68%) Analytical Skills
4 117 (8.39%) Public Sector
5 56 (4.02%) Manufacturing
6 32 (2.30%) Documentation Skills
7 31 (2.22%) Presentation Skills
8 30 (2.15%) General Ledger
9 29 (2.08%) Legal
9 29 (2.08%) Telecoms
10 25 (1.79%) Banking
11 23 (1.65%) Billing
12 21 (1.51%) Retail
13 20 (1.43%) Influencing Skills
14 14 (1.00%) Financial Institution
15 12 (0.86%) Marketing
15 12 (0.86%) Organisational Skills
16 11 (0.79%) Aerospace
16 11 (0.79%) Military
17 9 (0.65%) Local Government
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 44 (3.16%) REST
2 35 (2.51%) Oracle Fusion
3 22 (1.58%) SOAP
3 22 (1.58%) Terraform
4 19 (1.36%) Middleware
5 17 (1.22%) LDAP
5 17 (1.22%) SailPoint
5 17 (1.22%) SAP Fiori
6 15 (1.08%) Web Services
7 14 (1.00%) XML
8 9 (0.65%) SAP PI
9 7 (0.50%) SAP Basis
10 6 (0.43%) EDI
10 6 (0.43%) IDoc
10 6 (0.43%) Microsoft Graph
11 5 (0.36%) JDBC
11 5 (0.36%) OpenTelemetry
11 5 (0.36%) RESTful
11 5 (0.36%) SLSA
11 5 (0.36%) XSLT
Miscellaneous
1 45 (3.23%) Onboarding
2 26 (1.87%) Data Protection Act
3 25 (1.79%) Operational Technology
4 24 (1.72%) CMDB
4 24 (1.72%) Security Posture
5 15 (1.08%) Product Ownership
6 14 (1.00%) PKI
7 13 (0.93%) Cloud Native
7 13 (0.93%) Replication
8 12 (0.86%) Enterprise Software
9 11 (0.79%) Data Centre
9 11 (0.79%) Data Structures
9 11 (0.79%) Management Information System
10 10 (0.72%) Learning Management System
11 9 (0.65%) FMCG
12 8 (0.57%) Private Cloud
12 8 (0.57%) Public Cloud
13 7 (0.50%) Greenfield Project
13 7 (0.50%) Hybrid Cloud
13 7 (0.50%) Security Operations Centre
Operating Systems
1 57 (4.09%) Windows
2 40 (2.87%) 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
1 220 (15.78%) Stakeholder Management
2 167 (11.98%) Migration
3 142 (10.19%) Stakeholder Engagement
4 130 (9.33%) Cybersecurity
5 129 (9.25%) Problem-Solving
6 123 (8.82%) Continuous Improvement
7 121 (8.68%) ERP
8 107 (7.68%) Workshop Facilitation
9 105 (7.53%) Validation
10 95 (6.81%) User Acceptance Testing
11 87 (6.24%) Roadmaps
12 86 (6.17%) Agile
13 79 (5.67%) Analytics
14 77 (5.52%) Data Migration
15 71 (5.09%) Knowledge Transfer
16 67 (4.81%) Requirements Gathering
17 64 (4.59%) Risk Management
18 63 (4.52%) Translating Business Requirements
19 60 (4.30%) CI/CD
20 56 (4.02%) AI
Programming Languages
1 93 (6.67%) SQL
2 55 (3.95%) Python
3 31 (2.22%) ABAP
4 27 (1.94%) PowerShell
5 22 (1.58%) PL/SQL
6 20 (1.43%) 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#
10 6 (0.43%) R
11 4 (0.29%) T-SQL
11 4 (0.29%) TypeScript
12 2 (0.14%) Data Analysis Expressions
12 2 (0.14%) Groovy
12 2 (0.14%) Magik
12 2 (0.14%) Perl
12 2 (0.14%) Shell Script
12 2 (0.14%) VBScript
Qualifications
1 413 (29.63%) Security Cleared
2 277 (19.87%) SC Cleared
3 103 (7.39%) DV Cleared
4 64 (4.59%) BPSS Clearance
5 59 (4.23%) CISSP
6 48 (3.44%) CISM
7 36 (2.58%) Cisco Certification
8 31 (2.22%) (ISC)2 CCSP
9 27 (1.94%) CCSP
10 24 (1.72%) 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 47 (3.37%) NIST
2 43 (3.08%) GRC
3 36 (2.58%) ISO/IEC 27001
4 35 (2.51%) Data Quality
5 22 (1.58%) 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
10 9 (0.65%) PCI DSS
11 7 (0.50%) NIST 800
12 6 (0.43%) COBIT
12 6 (0.43%) Def Stans
13 5 (0.36%) Cyber Essentials
14 4 (0.29%) JSP 440
14 4 (0.29%) RMADS
14 4 (0.29%) Sarbanes-Oxley
14 4 (0.29%) WCAG
System Software
1 49 (3.52%) Active Directory
2 23 (1.65%) VMware Infrastructure
3 15 (1.08%) VMware NSX
4 14 (1.00%) VMware ESXi
5 11 (0.79%) 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 (2.15%) Kubernetes
2 18 (1.29%) Ansible
3 11 (0.79%) vRealize
4 10 (0.72%) Nagios
4 10 (0.72%) vCenter Server
4 10 (0.72%) ZABBIX
5 9 (0.65%) Netcool
5 9 (0.65%) Tivoli
6 8 (0.57%) OpenView
6 8 (0.57%) Tivoli Monitoring
7 7 (0.50%) Grafana
8 6 (0.43%) FortiGate
8 6 (0.43%) VxRail
9 5 (0.36%) Microsoft Intune
9 5 (0.36%) SCCM
10 4 (0.29%) CEMLI
10 4 (0.29%) NetBackup
10 4 (0.29%) Prometheus
11 3 (0.22%) Single Sign-On
11 3 (0.22%) vRealize Orchestrator
Vendors
1 338 (24.25%) SAP
2 189 (13.56%) Microsoft
3 157 (11.26%) Oracle
4 59 (4.23%) ServiceNow
5 32 (2.30%) VMware
6 25 (1.79%) Splunk
7 24 (1.72%) Workday
8 20 (1.43%) Salesforce
9 18 (1.29%) Ariba
10 15 (1.08%) BMC
11 14 (1.00%) Databricks
11 14 (1.00%) JD Edwards
12 12 (0.86%) CyberArk
12 12 (0.86%) IBM
13 11 (0.79%) Google
14 10 (0.72%) SolarWinds
15 9 (0.65%) HP
16 8 (0.57%) Cisco
16 8 (0.57%) Informatica
16 8 (0.57%) Veeam