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 19 April 2026.

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

6 months to
19 Apr 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 34 35 34
Rank change year-on-year +1 -1 +24
Contract jobs requiring a Consultant 1,167 660 1,013
As % of all contract jobs in the UK excluding London 5.00% 5.17% 4.87%
As % of the Job Titles category 5.43% 5.60% 5.25%
Number of daily rates quoted 679 438 734
10th Percentile £400 £419 £372
25th Percentile £450 £482 £463
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £545 £548
Median % change year-on-year -3.67% -0.46% -0.45%
75th Percentile £605 £620 £638
90th Percentile £700 £680 £725
UK median daily rate £535 £550 £550
% change year-on-year -2.73% - -2.22%
Number of hourly rates quoted 61 10 23
10th Percentile - £69.50 £26.50
25th Percentile £56.25 £71.88 £42.50
Median hourly rate £57.50 £84.25 £56.89
Median % change year-on-year -31.75% +48.11% -13.81%
75th Percentile £60.00 £86.00 £61.60
90th Percentile - £86.03 £63.29
UK median hourly rate £57.50 £83.75 £60.80
% change year-on-year -31.34% +37.75% -7.88%

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 21,472 11,783 19,294
% of contract IT jobs with a recognized job title 91.91% 92.34% 92.71%
Number of daily rates quoted 12,685 7,616 11,880
10th Percentile £273 £213 £213
25th Percentile £400 £363 £363
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £488 £475 £493
Median % change year-on-year +2.63% -3.65% -1.40%
75th Percentile £588 £576 £598
90th Percentile £675 £656 £688
UK median daily rate £500 £515 £525
% change year-on-year -2.91% -1.90% -2.78%
Number of hourly rates quoted 2,363 794 2,186
10th Percentile £14.38 £14.20 £12.50
25th Percentile £19.68 £18.21 £15.50
Median hourly rate £43.00 £29.53 £36.27
Median % change year-on-year +45.64% -18.60% -14.17%
75th Percentile £65.60 £65.00 £60.75
90th Percentile £78.75 £76.03 £73.75
UK median hourly rate £41.94 £30.45 £35.00
% change year-on-year +37.73% -13.00% -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 19 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 19 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 19 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 -2 343 £530 -3.64% 235
Midlands -7 232 £525 - 74
North of England -22 229 £520 -3.35% 218
South West +28 177 £525 -4.55% 133
West Midlands -5 162 £550 - 43
North West -24 111 £525 -3.67% 138
Yorkshire -3 100 £500 -4.76% 66
East of England -3 88 £550 +10.00% 30
Scotland +26 71 £425 -18.43% 28
East Midlands -14 63 £500 -3.85% 31
Wales +13 30 £550 +37.50% 26
North East -21 18 £525 -1.69% 15
Northern Ireland +2 5 £450 -13.46% 25
Consultant
UK

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

For the 6 months to 19 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.

1 261 (22.37%) Security Cleared
2 244 (20.91%) SAP
3 206 (17.65%) SC Cleared
4 165 (14.14%) Migration
5 160 (13.71%) Oracle
6 141 (12.08%) ERP
7 125 (10.71%) Stakeholder Engagement
8 116 (9.94%) Azure
9 106 (9.08%) Problem-Solving
10 105 (9.00%) SQL
11 95 (8.14%) SAP S/4HANA
12 85 (7.28%) Workshop Facilitation
13 83 (7.11%) Microsoft
14 82 (7.03%) Stakeholder Management
15 81 (6.94%) Data Migration
16 77 (6.60%) Continuous Improvement
17 75 (6.43%) Cybersecurity
17 75 (6.43%) User Acceptance Testing
18 70 (6.00%) Validation
19 67 (5.74%) Business Intelligence
20 64 (5.48%) Roadmaps
21 62 (5.31%) Agile
22 58 (4.97%) Change Management
23 57 (4.88%) Analytics
24 56 (4.80%) PLM
25 55 (4.71%) XML
26 53 (4.54%) Data Protection
26 53 (4.54%) OCI
26 53 (4.54%) Siemens
27 51 (4.37%) DV Cleared

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 (1.71%) SharePoint
2 18 (1.54%) Confluence
3 6 (0.51%) Jupyter
3 6 (0.51%) Oracle Workflow
4 5 (0.43%) 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%) 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 37 (3.17%) Microsoft Excel
2 11 (0.94%) 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 (8.14%) SAP S/4HANA
2 44 (3.77%) Oracle EBS
3 28 (2.40%) Oracle Receivables
3 28 (2.40%) SAP FI
4 27 (2.31%) SAP MM
5 25 (2.14%) Oracle Payables
6 24 (2.06%) SAP PSCD
7 21 (1.80%) Oracle EBS R12
7 21 (1.80%) SAP HCM
7 21 (1.80%) Teamcenter
8 19 (1.63%) Oracle Assets
9 18 (1.54%) Oracle Cash Management
9 18 (1.54%) Oracle Procure-to-Pay
10 17 (1.46%) Oracle ERP
10 17 (1.46%) Oracle General Ledger
11 14 (1.20%) SAP EWM
12 13 (1.11%) SAP Hybris
12 13 (1.11%) SAP PP
13 12 (1.03%) SAP BRIM
14 11 (0.94%) Oracle AGIS
Cloud Services
1 116 (9.94%) Azure
2 53 (4.54%) OCI
3 48 (4.11%) AWS
4 40 (3.43%) Dynamics 365
4 40 (3.43%) Power Platform
5 32 (2.74%) SuccessFactors
6 23 (1.97%) GCP
7 18 (1.54%) Microsoft 365
8 16 (1.37%) SaaS
9 14 (1.20%) Entra ID
9 14 (1.20%) Microsoft Copilot
9 14 (1.20%) SAP Commerce Cloud
10 13 (1.11%) Power Automate
11 11 (0.94%) PowerApps
12 10 (0.86%) Azure DevOps
13 7 (0.60%) GitHub
14 6 (0.51%) Copilot Studio
15 5 (0.43%) Serverless
16 3 (0.26%) Figma
16 3 (0.26%) Oracle Service Cloud
Communications & Networking
1 15 (1.29%) Firewall
2 13 (1.11%) Network Security
3 9 (0.77%) FTP
3 9 (0.77%) SNMP
4 5 (0.43%) Cisco ISE
4 5 (0.43%) HTTP
4 5 (0.43%) SD-WAN
4 5 (0.43%) WAN
5 4 (0.34%) Cisco Firepower
5 4 (0.34%) VPN
6 3 (0.26%) BGP
6 3 (0.26%) Cisco ASA
6 3 (0.26%) Cisco Nexus
6 3 (0.26%) EIGRP
6 3 (0.26%) Kerberos
6 3 (0.26%) OSPF
6 3 (0.26%) SMS
6 3 (0.26%) TCP/IP
6 3 (0.26%) VSAN
7 2 (0.17%) WebEx
Database & Business Intelligence
1 36 (3.08%) Oracle Reports
2 34 (2.91%) Power BI
3 18 (1.54%) Oracle BI Publisher
4 17 (1.46%) Oracle ODI
5 14 (1.20%) SAP HANA
6 9 (0.77%) Metadata
6 9 (0.77%) Tableau
7 8 (0.69%) SQL Server
8 6 (0.51%) NoSQL
8 6 (0.51%) SAP Data Services
9 4 (0.34%) Electronic Patient Records
9 4 (0.34%) Oracle Database
10 3 (0.26%) Amazon Athena
10 3 (0.26%) Data Warehouse
10 3 (0.26%) Delta Lake
10 3 (0.26%) GIS
10 3 (0.26%) Hadoop
10 3 (0.26%) Relational Database
10 3 (0.26%) SAP BW
10 3 (0.26%) Snowflake Schema
Development Applications
1 34 (2.91%) 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
1 235 (20.14%) Finance
2 228 (19.54%) Social Skills
3 106 (9.08%) Public Sector
4 99 (8.48%) Analytical Skills
5 39 (3.34%) Manufacturing
6 27 (2.31%) Legal
7 25 (2.14%) Billing
8 23 (1.97%) Banking
9 21 (1.80%) General Ledger
10 19 (1.63%) Telecoms
11 16 (1.37%) Presentation Skills
12 15 (1.29%) Organisational Skills
13 12 (1.03%) Aerospace
13 12 (1.03%) Local Government
14 11 (0.94%) Marketing
14 11 (0.94%) Retail
15 10 (0.86%) Law
16 9 (0.77%) Documentation Skills
17 7 (0.60%) Back Office
17 7 (0.60%) Influencing Skills
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 55 (4.71%) XML
2 45 (3.86%) REST
3 37 (3.17%) Oracle Fusion
4 21 (1.80%) SOAP
5 18 (1.54%) Web Services
6 12 (1.03%) JSON
7 11 (0.94%) SAP Basis
8 9 (0.77%) SAP Fiori
9 7 (0.60%) .NET
9 7 (0.60%) LDAP
10 6 (0.51%) SAP Business Workflow
11 4 (0.34%) AngularJS
11 4 (0.34%) BAPI
11 4 (0.34%) Middleware
11 4 (0.34%) OAuth
11 4 (0.34%) PySpark
11 4 (0.34%) SailPoint
11 4 (0.34%) SAML
12 3 (0.26%) IDoc
12 3 (0.26%) TensorFlow
Miscellaneous
1 28 (2.40%) Data Protection Act
2 21 (1.80%) Replication
3 17 (1.46%) Operational Technology
4 15 (1.29%) Legacy Systems
5 14 (1.20%) Onboarding
6 12 (1.03%) Public Cloud
7 11 (0.94%) Product Ownership
8 10 (0.86%) AI Agents
8 10 (0.86%) Data Centre
8 10 (0.86%) Data Structures
8 10 (0.86%) NHS
9 9 (0.77%) Management Information System
9 9 (0.77%) Security Posture
10 6 (0.51%) Analytical Mindset
10 6 (0.51%) Beowulf
10 6 (0.51%) Enterprise Software
10 6 (0.51%) SCADA
11 5 (0.43%) BYOD
11 5 (0.43%) Greenfield Project
11 5 (0.43%) Market Risk
Operating Systems
1 31 (2.66%) Windows
2 25 (2.14%) Linux
3 11 (0.94%) AIX
4 8 (0.69%) Solaris
5 7 (0.60%) VMS
6 4 (0.34%) Windows Server
7 3 (0.26%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
8 2 (0.17%) Unix
8 2 (0.17%) Windows 10
9 1 (0.086%) CentOS
9 1 (0.086%) CoreOS
9 1 (0.086%) Data ONTAP
9 1 (0.086%) Mac OS
9 1 (0.086%) Ubuntu
Processes & Methodologies
1 165 (14.14%) Migration
2 141 (12.08%) ERP
3 125 (10.71%) Stakeholder Engagement
4 106 (9.08%) Problem-Solving
5 85 (7.28%) Workshop Facilitation
6 82 (7.03%) Stakeholder Management
7 81 (6.94%) Data Migration
8 77 (6.60%) Continuous Improvement
9 75 (6.43%) Cybersecurity
9 75 (6.43%) User Acceptance Testing
10 70 (6.00%) Validation
11 67 (5.74%) Business Intelligence
12 64 (5.48%) Roadmaps
13 62 (5.31%) Agile
14 58 (4.97%) Change Management
15 57 (4.88%) Analytics
16 56 (4.80%) PLM
17 53 (4.54%) Data Protection
18 51 (4.37%) Knowledge Transfer
19 49 (4.20%) Workflow
Programming Languages
1 105 (9.00%) SQL
2 42 (3.60%) Python
3 28 (2.40%) T-SQL
4 23 (1.97%) PL/SQL
5 22 (1.89%) ABAP
6 20 (1.71%) PowerShell
7 16 (1.37%) JavaScript
8 9 (0.77%) Java
8 9 (0.77%) Search Processing Language
9 7 (0.60%) C#
9 7 (0.60%) R
10 5 (0.43%) Bash
11 4 (0.34%) TypeScript
12 2 (0.17%) Apex Code
12 2 (0.17%) Kusto Query Language
12 2 (0.17%) VBScript
13 1 (0.086%) ActionScript
13 1 (0.086%) C++
13 1 (0.086%) Shell Script
13 1 (0.086%) VBA
Qualifications
1 261 (22.37%) Security Cleared
2 206 (17.65%) SC Cleared
3 51 (4.37%) DV Cleared
4 36 (3.08%) BPSS Clearance
5 31 (2.66%) CISSP
6 30 (2.57%) Degree
7 20 (1.71%) CISM
8 13 (1.11%) Cisco Certification
9 10 (0.86%) Computer Science Degree
10 8 (0.69%) ITIL Foundation Certificate
10 8 (0.69%) SAP Certification
11 7 (0.60%) Microsoft Certification
12 6 (0.51%) CCSP
13 5 (0.43%) (ISC)2 CCSP
13 5 (0.43%) Azure Certification
13 5 (0.43%) CEH
13 5 (0.43%) DBS Check
13 5 (0.43%) Oracle Certification
14 4 (0.34%) ITIL Certification
14 4 (0.34%) PMP
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 47 (4.03%) ISO/IEC 27001
2 45 (3.86%) NIST
3 32 (2.74%) GRC
4 25 (2.14%) Data Quality
5 17 (1.46%) GDPR
6 13 (1.11%) QA
7 11 (0.94%) JSP 440
8 10 (0.86%) PCI DSS
9 9 (0.77%) NCSC
10 8 (0.69%) Actionable Recommendations
10 8 (0.69%) COBIT
10 8 (0.69%) PMO
11 7 (0.60%) RMADS
12 6 (0.51%) SLA
13 5 (0.43%) Sarbanes-Oxley
14 3 (0.26%) ISO/IEC 27005
15 2 (0.17%) HL7
16 1 (0.086%) DICOM
16 1 (0.086%) ISO/IEC 12207
16 1 (0.086%) WCAG
System Software
1 20 (1.71%) Active Directory
2 13 (1.11%) VMware Infrastructure
3 10 (0.86%) Docker
3 10 (0.86%) VMware NSX
4 6 (0.51%) Slurm Workload Manager
4 6 (0.51%) vSphere
5 4 (0.34%) Virtual Desktop
6 3 (0.26%) Virtual Machines
6 3 (0.26%) VMware ESXi
7 1 (0.086%) Ceph
7 1 (0.086%) Hyper-V
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 9 (0.77%) Nagios
2 9 (0.77%) ZABBIX
3 8 (0.69%) Netcool
3 8 (0.69%) OpenView
3 8 (0.69%) Tivoli
3 8 (0.69%) Tivoli Monitoring
4 6 (0.51%) Ansible
4 6 (0.51%) Podman
4 6 (0.51%) Single Sign-On
4 6 (0.51%) Terraform
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%) Oracle Identity Management
7 3 (0.26%) Oracle Identity Manager
7 3 (0.26%) Puppet
8 2 (0.17%) SCCM
8 2 (0.17%) vRealize Orchestrator
Vendors
1 244 (20.91%) SAP
2 160 (13.71%) Oracle
3 83 (7.11%) Microsoft
4 53 (4.54%) Siemens
5 31 (2.66%) ServiceNow
6 30 (2.57%) Cisco
7 23 (1.97%) Aruba
8 20 (1.71%) VMware
8 20 (1.71%) Workday
9 18 (1.54%) Ariba
10 15 (1.29%) BMC
11 14 (1.20%) Google
11 14 (1.20%) IBM
11 14 (1.20%) OpenText
11 14 (1.20%) Sage
11 14 (1.20%) Splunk
12 12 (1.03%) Databricks
12 12 (1.03%) IFS
13 9 (0.77%) SolarWinds
14 8 (0.69%) Computacenter