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 7 July 2026.

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

6 months to
7 Jul 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 35 37 28
Rank change year-on-year +2 -9 +18
Contract jobs requiring a Consultant 1,305 738 1,174
As % of all contract jobs in the UK excluding London 4.89% 5.12% 5.58%
As % of the Job Titles category 5.32% 5.63% 6.04%
Number of daily rates quoted 724 466 760
10th Percentile £405 £400 £419
25th Percentile £458 £463 £475
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £550 £564
Median % change year-on-year -4.55% -2.44% +7.38%
75th Percentile £616 £618 £638
90th Percentile £725 £675 £730
UK median daily rate £540 £550 £550
% change year-on-year -1.82% - -
Number of hourly rates quoted 75 19 23
10th Percentile £52.50 £29.11 £18.79
25th Percentile £56.25 £47.74 £51.45
Median hourly rate £57.50 £77.50 £58.30
Median % change year-on-year -25.81% +32.93% -10.08%
75th Percentile £60.00 £86.00 £61.60
90th Percentile £74.85 - £68.07
UK median hourly rate £57.50 £72.50 £61.60
% change year-on-year -20.69% +17.69% -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 24,539 13,115 19,430
% of contract IT jobs with a recognized job title 92.04% 91.07% 92.34%
Number of daily rates quoted 13,992 8,149 11,675
10th Percentile £303 £220 £213
25th Percentile £406 £363 £370
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £475 £493
Median % change year-on-year +5.26% -3.65% -1.40%
75th Percentile £600 £575 £595
90th Percentile £688 £650 £675
UK median daily rate £520 £500 £525
% change year-on-year +4.00% -4.76% -2.33%
Number of hourly rates quoted 2,842 1,060 2,398
10th Percentile £15.05 £13.50 £12.75
25th Percentile £20.51 £16.84 £16.00
Median hourly rate £44.50 £25.15 £40.00
Median % change year-on-year +76.94% -37.13% +1.14%
75th Percentile £67.50 £57.50 £63.75
90th Percentile £78.75 £75.00 £74.51
UK median hourly rate £42.59 £26.45 £37.50
% change year-on-year +61.03% -29.47% -12.79%

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 7 July 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 7 July 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 7 July 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 +1 359 £525 -4.55% 220
North of England -20 278 £550 - 206
Midlands -7 259 £501 -9.00% 107
South West +27 211 £553 +0.55% 111
West Midlands +9 184 £501 -9.00% 69
North West -13 156 £538 -5.49% 131
Yorkshire -14 101 £544 +14.47% 60
Scotland +31 91 £425 -8.11% 34
East of England -16 90 £550 - 69
East Midlands -10 66 £500 -9.09% 38
Wales -4 31 £550 +31.34% 31
North East -40 21 £650 +20.37% 16
Northern Ireland -2 2 £525 +0.96% 37
Consultant
UK

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

For the 6 months to 7 July 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.

1 287 (21.99%) SAP
2 279 (21.38%) Security Cleared
3 199 (15.25%) SC Cleared
4 152 (11.65%) ERP
5 151 (11.57%) Azure
6 150 (11.49%) Microsoft
7 146 (11.19%) Migration
8 136 (10.42%) Oracle
9 124 (9.50%) Stakeholder Engagement
10 122 (9.35%) Stakeholder Management
11 118 (9.04%) SQL
12 117 (8.97%) Problem-Solving
13 107 (8.20%) Continuous Improvement
14 99 (7.59%) SAP S/4HANA
15 94 (7.20%) Cybersecurity
16 93 (7.13%) Validation
17 86 (6.59%) Workshop Facilitation
18 82 (6.28%) Data Migration
19 77 (5.90%) User Acceptance Testing
20 73 (5.59%) Agile
21 68 (5.21%) Roadmaps
22 66 (5.06%) AWS
23 63 (4.83%) Analytics
23 63 (4.83%) DV Cleared
24 60 (4.60%) PLM
25 57 (4.37%) Data Protection
26 56 (4.29%) AI
26 56 (4.29%) CISSP
27 55 (4.21%) Power Platform
27 55 (4.21%) Python

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 (2.07%) Confluence
2 15 (1.15%) SharePoint
3 9 (0.69%) WebSphere
4 8 (0.61%) Oracle Workflow
4 8 (0.61%) WebLogic
5 3 (0.23%) Apache
5 3 (0.23%) Apache Spark
5 3 (0.23%) Apache Superset
5 3 (0.23%) Jupyter
5 3 (0.23%) Microsoft Exchange
6 1 (0.077%) ArcGIS
6 1 (0.077%) NetWeaver
6 1 (0.077%) OpenStack
6 1 (0.077%) SAS
6 1 (0.077%) Tomcat
Applications
1 44 (3.37%) Microsoft Excel
2 25 (1.92%) Microsoft Office
3 13 (1.00%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 7 (0.54%) MS Visio
5 5 (0.38%) PTC Creo
6 3 (0.23%) Microsoft Project
7 2 (0.15%) Lectora
7 2 (0.15%) Oracle Smart View
7 2 (0.15%) Spreadsheet
8 1 (0.077%) CATIA
8 1 (0.077%) Siemens NX
Business Applications
1 99 (7.59%) SAP S/4HANA
2 39 (2.99%) SAP PSCD
3 23 (1.76%) Oracle EBS
4 22 (1.69%) SAP MM
5 21 (1.61%) Teamcenter
6 19 (1.46%) Oracle ERP
6 19 (1.46%) Oracle Payables
6 19 (1.46%) SAP FI
7 18 (1.38%) SAP EWM
8 16 (1.23%) Oracle Receivables
8 16 (1.23%) SAP Payroll
9 15 (1.15%) SAP SD
10 13 (1.00%) SAP HCM
11 12 (0.92%) SAP BRIM
11 12 (0.92%) SAP Hybris
11 12 (0.92%) SAP QM
12 11 (0.84%) NetSuite
13 10 (0.77%) SAP CO
14 9 (0.69%) SAP FI/CO
14 9 (0.69%) Workday HCM
Cloud Services
1 151 (11.57%) Azure
2 66 (5.06%) AWS
3 55 (4.21%) Power Platform
4 45 (3.45%) Dynamics 365
5 42 (3.22%) OCI
6 39 (2.99%) GCP
7 31 (2.38%) Microsoft 365
8 27 (2.07%) SuccessFactors
9 25 (1.92%) Entra ID
10 21 (1.61%) Power Automate
11 16 (1.23%) Microsoft Copilot
12 15 (1.15%) SaaS
13 14 (1.07%) SAP Commerce Cloud
14 13 (1.00%) Azure DevOps
14 13 (1.00%) PowerApps
15 12 (0.92%) GitHub
15 12 (0.92%) Oracle Service Cloud
16 9 (0.69%) Cloud Computing
17 8 (0.61%) Azure Monitor
18 7 (0.54%) Azure Sentinel
Communications & Networking
1 29 (2.22%) Network Security
2 23 (1.76%) Firewall
3 18 (1.38%) SNMP
4 10 (0.77%) BGP
5 8 (0.61%) FTP
5 8 (0.61%) VPN
5 8 (0.61%) WAN
6 5 (0.38%) HTTP
6 5 (0.38%) LAN
7 4 (0.31%) Ethernet VPN
7 4 (0.31%) SAN
7 4 (0.31%) VXLAN
7 4 (0.31%) Wireless
8 3 (0.23%) DNS
8 3 (0.23%) SMS
8 3 (0.23%) TCP/IP
8 3 (0.23%) VSAN
8 3 (0.23%) Wi-Fi
9 2 (0.15%) HTTPS
9 2 (0.15%) TACACS
Database & Business Intelligence
1 35 (2.68%) Power BI
2 30 (2.30%) Oracle Reports
3 19 (1.46%) SAP HANA
4 17 (1.30%) Oracle ODI
5 11 (0.84%) Oracle BI Publisher
5 11 (0.84%) Tableau
6 9 (0.69%) Metadata
6 9 (0.69%) SAP Data Services
6 9 (0.69%) SQL Server
7 8 (0.61%) SAP BW
8 7 (0.54%) BusinessObjects
9 6 (0.46%) Oracle Database
10 5 (0.38%) NonStop SQL
11 4 (0.31%) NoSQL
11 4 (0.31%) Power Query
11 4 (0.31%) Relational Database
12 3 (0.23%) Amazon Athena
12 3 (0.23%) Delta Lake
12 3 (0.23%) Hadoop
13 2 (0.15%) Data Lake
Development Applications
1 44 (3.37%) JIRA
2 13 (1.00%) Hudson
3 9 (0.69%) Git
4 8 (0.61%) Oracle Forms
5 6 (0.46%) Jenkins
6 4 (0.31%) Toad
7 3 (0.23%) Postman
7 3 (0.23%) Visual Studio Code
8 2 (0.15%) JDeveloper
8 2 (0.15%) TestRail
8 2 (0.15%) Zephyr
9 1 (0.077%) Appium
9 1 (0.077%) LoadRunner
9 1 (0.077%) MSTest
9 1 (0.077%) NUnit
9 1 (0.077%) ScriptRunner
9 1 (0.077%) Yeoman
General
1 281 (21.53%) Social Skills
2 255 (19.54%) Finance
3 105 (8.05%) Analytical Skills
4 103 (7.89%) Public Sector
5 44 (3.37%) Manufacturing
6 37 (2.84%) Legal
7 31 (2.38%) Banking
8 27 (2.07%) General Ledger
8 27 (2.07%) Telecoms
9 26 (1.99%) Billing
10 22 (1.69%) Presentation Skills
11 20 (1.53%) Documentation Skills
12 19 (1.46%) Aerospace
13 16 (1.23%) Retail
14 14 (1.07%) Organisational Skills
15 13 (1.00%) Marketing
16 12 (0.92%) Influencing Skills
17 10 (0.77%) Local Government
18 9 (0.69%) Financial Institution
19 8 (0.61%) Law
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 42 (3.22%) XML
2 41 (3.14%) REST
3 21 (1.61%) Oracle Fusion
4 17 (1.30%) SOAP
5 12 (0.92%) Middleware
5 12 (0.92%) SAP Fiori
5 12 (0.92%) Web Services
6 7 (0.54%) IDoc
7 6 (0.46%) BAPI
7 6 (0.46%) JDBC
7 6 (0.46%) JSON
7 6 (0.46%) Microsoft Graph
7 6 (0.46%) RESTful
7 6 (0.46%) SailPoint
7 6 (0.46%) SAP PI
8 5 (0.38%) SAP Basis
9 4 (0.31%) .NET
9 4 (0.31%) AngularJS
9 4 (0.31%) LDAP
9 4 (0.31%) OpenTelemetry
Miscellaneous
1 37 (2.84%) Data Protection Act
2 28 (2.15%) Onboarding
3 24 (1.84%) Security Posture
4 16 (1.23%) Operational Technology
5 15 (1.15%) AI Agents
6 12 (0.92%) Public Cloud
6 12 (0.92%) Replication
7 11 (0.84%) Management Information System
7 11 (0.84%) Product Ownership
8 10 (0.77%) Cloud Native
8 10 (0.77%) CMDB
8 10 (0.77%) Legacy Systems
9 9 (0.69%) FMCG
10 8 (0.61%) Analytical Mindset
10 8 (0.61%) Data Structures
11 7 (0.54%) Data Centre
11 7 (0.54%) Enterprise Software
11 7 (0.54%) NHS
11 7 (0.54%) Private Cloud
11 7 (0.54%) Security Operations Centre
Operating Systems
1 55 (4.21%) Windows
2 40 (3.07%) Linux
3 17 (1.30%) Solaris
4 13 (1.00%) AIX
5 10 (0.77%) Unix
6 9 (0.69%) VMS
7 3 (0.23%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
7 3 (0.23%) Windows Server
8 1 (0.077%) Android
8 1 (0.077%) CoreOS
8 1 (0.077%) Data ONTAP
8 1 (0.077%) Mac OS
8 1 (0.077%) zOS
Processes & Methodologies
1 152 (11.65%) ERP
2 146 (11.19%) Migration
3 124 (9.50%) Stakeholder Engagement
4 122 (9.35%) Stakeholder Management
5 117 (8.97%) Problem-Solving
6 107 (8.20%) Continuous Improvement
7 94 (7.20%) Cybersecurity
8 93 (7.13%) Validation
9 86 (6.59%) Workshop Facilitation
10 82 (6.28%) Data Migration
11 77 (5.90%) User Acceptance Testing
12 73 (5.59%) Agile
13 68 (5.21%) Roadmaps
14 63 (4.83%) Analytics
15 60 (4.60%) PLM
16 57 (4.37%) Data Protection
17 56 (4.29%) AI
18 52 (3.98%) Business Intelligence
18 52 (3.98%) Change Management
19 51 (3.91%) Risk Management
Programming Languages
1 118 (9.04%) SQL
2 55 (4.21%) Python
3 28 (2.15%) T-SQL
4 27 (2.07%) ABAP
5 26 (1.99%) PL/SQL
5 26 (1.99%) PowerShell
6 15 (1.15%) JavaScript
7 14 (1.07%) Java
8 13 (1.00%) Search Processing Language
9 11 (0.84%) Bash
10 10 (0.77%) Kusto Query Language
11 6 (0.46%) R
12 5 (0.38%) C#
13 3 (0.23%) Shell Script
13 3 (0.23%) TypeScript
14 2 (0.15%) C++
14 2 (0.15%) VBScript
15 1 (0.077%) ActionScript
15 1 (0.077%) COBOL
15 1 (0.077%) VB
Qualifications
1 279 (21.38%) Security Cleared
2 199 (15.25%) SC Cleared
3 63 (4.83%) DV Cleared
4 56 (4.29%) CISSP
5 40 (3.07%) CISM
6 38 (2.91%) BPSS Clearance
7 30 (2.30%) Degree
8 28 (2.15%) Cisco Certification
9 23 (1.76%) (ISC)2 CCSP
10 22 (1.69%) CCSP
11 11 (0.84%) PMP
12 10 (0.77%) CEH
13 9 (0.69%) OSCP
14 8 (0.61%) ACCA
14 8 (0.61%) Azure Certification
14 8 (0.61%) CIMA
14 8 (0.61%) Computer Science Degree
14 8 (0.61%) ITIL Foundation Certificate
15 6 (0.46%) CCA
15 6 (0.46%) SAP Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 51 (3.91%) NIST
2 43 (3.30%) ISO/IEC 27001
3 33 (2.53%) GRC
4 27 (2.07%) Data Quality
5 22 (1.69%) QA
6 17 (1.30%) GDPR
7 13 (1.00%) PCI DSS
8 12 (0.92%) Actionable Recommendations
8 12 (0.92%) NCSC
9 10 (0.77%) SLA
10 8 (0.61%) Accessibility
10 8 (0.61%) JSP 440
11 7 (0.54%) COBIT
11 7 (0.54%) Sarbanes-Oxley
12 6 (0.46%) RMADS
13 5 (0.38%) PMO
14 4 (0.31%) WCAG
15 3 (0.23%) Def Stans
15 3 (0.23%) NIST 800
16 2 (0.15%) ISO/IEC 27005
System Software
1 28 (2.15%) Active Directory
2 19 (1.46%) VMware Infrastructure
3 13 (1.00%) VMware NSX
4 12 (0.92%) VMware ESXi
4 12 (0.92%) vSphere
5 6 (0.46%) Docker
6 4 (0.31%) Virtual Desktop
7 3 (0.23%) Slurm Workload Manager
8 2 (0.15%) NFS
8 2 (0.15%) Virtual Machines
9 1 (0.077%) Hyper-V
9 1 (0.077%) IAG
9 1 (0.077%) Time Sharing Option
Systems Management
1 25 (1.92%) Kubernetes
2 20 (1.53%) Terraform
3 16 (1.23%) Ansible
4 13 (1.00%) Nagios
4 13 (1.00%) ZABBIX
5 12 (0.92%) Netcool
5 12 (0.92%) Tivoli
6 11 (0.84%) OpenView
6 11 (0.84%) Tivoli Monitoring
7 9 (0.69%) vRealize
8 8 (0.61%) vCenter Server
9 6 (0.46%) FortiGate
9 6 (0.46%) NetBackup
10 5 (0.38%) CEMLI
10 5 (0.38%) Grafana
11 4 (0.31%) Microsoft Intune
11 4 (0.31%) Prometheus
12 3 (0.23%) Oracle Identity Management
12 3 (0.23%) Oracle Identity Manager
12 3 (0.23%) vRealize Orchestrator
Vendors
1 287 (21.99%) SAP
2 150 (11.49%) Microsoft
3 136 (10.42%) Oracle
4 54 (4.14%) Siemens
5 37 (2.84%) ServiceNow
6 29 (2.22%) VMware
7 24 (1.84%) Splunk
8 18 (1.38%) Ariba
9 16 (1.23%) BMC
9 16 (1.23%) IBM
10 15 (1.15%) Workday
11 14 (1.07%) Databricks
11 14 (1.07%) JD Edwards
12 13 (1.00%) SolarWinds
13 12 (0.92%) HP
13 12 (0.92%) Sage
14 11 (0.84%) Google
15 10 (0.77%) IFS
15 10 (0.77%) Salesforce
16 9 (0.69%) Informatica