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 23 April 2026.

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

6 months to
23 Apr 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 33 35 34
Rank change year-on-year +2 -1 +22
Contract jobs requiring a Consultant 1,146 675 1,022
As % of all contract jobs in the UK excluding London 4.88% 5.26% 4.91%
As % of the Job Titles category 5.31% 5.70% 5.30%
Number of daily rates quoted 662 442 739
10th Percentile £400 £419 £374
25th Percentile £454 £482 £463
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £545 £550
Median % change year-on-year -3.67% -0.91% -
75th Percentile £613 £620 £641
90th Percentile £711 £680 £725
UK median daily rate £538 £550 £550
% change year-on-year -2.27% - -
Number of hourly rates quoted 63 10 23
10th Percentile £51.60 £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 £59.38 £86.00 £61.60
90th Percentile £60.00 £86.03 £63.29
UK median hourly rate £57.50 £82.50 £60.80
% change year-on-year -30.30% +35.69% -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 21,584 11,846 19,275
% of contract IT jobs with a recognized job title 91.98% 92.39% 92.65%
Number of daily rates quoted 12,704 7,628 11,878
10th Percentile £275 £213 £213
25th Percentile £400 £363 £363
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £488 £475 £490
Median % change year-on-year +2.63% -3.06% -2.00%
75th Percentile £588 £575 £598
90th Percentile £676 £650 £688
UK median daily rate £500 £515 £525
% change year-on-year -2.91% -1.90% -2.78%
Number of hourly rates quoted 2,399 810 2,200
10th Percentile £14.50 £14.20 £12.50
25th Percentile £19.91 £18.15 £15.59
Median hourly rate £44.00 £28.88 £37.18
Median % change year-on-year +52.38% -22.34% -12.52%
75th Percentile £65.88 £65.00 £60.75
90th Percentile £78.75 £75.26 £73.75
UK median hourly rate £42.50 £30.00 £35.00
% change year-on-year +41.67% -14.29% -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 23 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 23 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 23 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 0 341 £540 -1.82% 235
Midlands -11 226 £525 -1.18% 74
North of England -23 223 £525 -2.42% 229
South West +24 173 £525 -4.55% 156
West Midlands -4 156 £550 - 45
North West -27 105 £525 -3.67% 146
Yorkshire -4 99 £519 -1.19% 67
East of England +2 89 £550 +10.00% 41
Scotland +22 68 £450 -13.63% 31
East Midlands -17 63 £500 -3.85% 29
Wales +9 30 £550 +37.50% 27
North East -23 19 £525 -1.69% 17
Northern Ireland +1 4 £525 +0.96% 29
Consultant
UK

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

For the 6 months to 23 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.

1 252 (21.99%) Security Cleared
2 244 (21.29%) SAP
3 197 (17.19%) SC Cleared
4 160 (13.96%) Migration
5 158 (13.79%) Oracle
6 142 (12.39%) ERP
7 122 (10.65%) Stakeholder Engagement
8 118 (10.30%) Azure
9 106 (9.25%) Problem-Solving
10 105 (9.16%) SQL
11 91 (7.94%) SAP S/4HANA
12 85 (7.42%) Workshop Facilitation
13 83 (7.24%) Stakeholder Management
14 82 (7.16%) Microsoft
15 81 (7.07%) Data Migration
16 79 (6.89%) Continuous Improvement
17 76 (6.63%) Cybersecurity
18 74 (6.46%) User Acceptance Testing
19 70 (6.11%) Validation
20 65 (5.67%) Business Intelligence
21 61 (5.32%) Roadmaps
22 58 (5.06%) Agile
23 56 (4.89%) Analytics
23 56 (4.89%) Change Management
23 56 (4.89%) PLM
24 55 (4.80%) XML
25 53 (4.62%) Siemens
26 52 (4.54%) Data Protection
27 51 (4.45%) DV Cleared
27 51 (4.45%) Knowledge Transfer

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 19 (1.66%) SharePoint
2 16 (1.40%) Confluence
3 6 (0.52%) Jupyter
4 5 (0.44%) Oracle Workflow
5 4 (0.35%) Microsoft Exchange
6 3 (0.26%) Apache
6 3 (0.26%) Apache Spark
6 3 (0.26%) Apache Superset
7 2 (0.17%) WebSphere
8 1 (0.087%) ArcGIS
8 1 (0.087%) NetWeaver
8 1 (0.087%) OpenStack
8 1 (0.087%) Skype for Business
8 1 (0.087%) Tomcat
8 1 (0.087%) WebLogic
Applications
1 37 (3.23%) Microsoft Excel
2 11 (0.96%) Microsoft PowerPoint
3 7 (0.61%) Microsoft Office
3 7 (0.61%) MS Visio
4 5 (0.44%) 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 (0.087%) CATIA
6 1 (0.087%) Chatbot
6 1 (0.087%) Siemens NX
6 1 (0.087%) Windchill
Business Applications
1 91 (7.94%) SAP S/4HANA
2 46 (4.01%) Oracle EBS
3 28 (2.44%) Oracle Receivables
3 28 (2.44%) SAP FI
4 27 (2.36%) SAP MM
5 26 (2.27%) SAP PSCD
6 25 (2.18%) Oracle Payables
7 21 (1.83%) Oracle EBS R12
7 21 (1.83%) SAP HCM
7 21 (1.83%) Teamcenter
8 19 (1.66%) Oracle Assets
8 19 (1.66%) Oracle Procure-to-Pay
9 17 (1.48%) Oracle Cash Management
9 17 (1.48%) Oracle ERP
9 17 (1.48%) Oracle General Ledger
10 14 (1.22%) SAP EWM
10 14 (1.22%) SAP PP
11 13 (1.13%) SAP Hybris
12 12 (1.05%) SAP BRIM
13 11 (0.96%) Oracle AGIS
Cloud Services
1 118 (10.30%) Azure
2 50 (4.36%) AWS
2 50 (4.36%) OCI
3 40 (3.49%) Dynamics 365
3 40 (3.49%) Power Platform
4 32 (2.79%) SuccessFactors
5 23 (2.01%) GCP
6 17 (1.48%) Microsoft 365
7 16 (1.40%) SaaS
8 14 (1.22%) Entra ID
8 14 (1.22%) Microsoft Copilot
8 14 (1.22%) SAP Commerce Cloud
9 13 (1.13%) Power Automate
10 11 (0.96%) Azure DevOps
10 11 (0.96%) PowerApps
11 7 (0.61%) GitHub
12 6 (0.52%) Copilot Studio
13 5 (0.44%) Oracle Service Cloud
13 5 (0.44%) Serverless
14 3 (0.26%) Azure Data Factory
Communications & Networking
1 14 (1.22%) Network Security
2 13 (1.13%) Firewall
3 11 (0.96%) SNMP
4 9 (0.79%) FTP
5 5 (0.44%) HTTP
6 4 (0.35%) VPN
7 3 (0.26%) Cisco ISE
7 3 (0.26%) SD-WAN
7 3 (0.26%) SMS
7 3 (0.26%) TCP/IP
7 3 (0.26%) WAN
8 2 (0.17%) Cisco Firepower
8 2 (0.17%) DNS
8 2 (0.17%) HTTPS
8 2 (0.17%) Intranet
8 2 (0.17%) LAN
8 2 (0.17%) SAN
8 2 (0.17%) VSAN
8 2 (0.17%) VXLAN
8 2 (0.17%) WebEx
Database & Business Intelligence
1 35 (3.05%) Oracle Reports
2 34 (2.97%) Power BI
3 17 (1.48%) Oracle BI Publisher
3 17 (1.48%) Oracle ODI
4 14 (1.22%) SAP HANA
5 9 (0.79%) Tableau
6 8 (0.70%) Metadata
6 8 (0.70%) SQL Server
7 6 (0.52%) NoSQL
7 6 (0.52%) SAP Data Services
8 4 (0.35%) Electronic Patient Records
8 4 (0.35%) Oracle Database
9 3 (0.26%) Amazon Athena
9 3 (0.26%) Delta Lake
9 3 (0.26%) GIS
9 3 (0.26%) Hadoop
9 3 (0.26%) NonStop SQL
9 3 (0.26%) Relational Database
9 3 (0.26%) SAP BW
9 3 (0.26%) Snowflake Schema
Development Applications
1 31 (2.71%) 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
1 235 (20.51%) Finance
2 226 (19.72%) Social Skills
3 104 (9.08%) Public Sector
4 97 (8.46%) Analytical Skills
5 40 (3.49%) Manufacturing
6 27 (2.36%) Legal
7 24 (2.09%) Billing
8 23 (2.01%) Banking
9 21 (1.83%) General Ledger
10 19 (1.66%) Telecoms
11 15 (1.31%) Organisational Skills
12 14 (1.22%) Presentation Skills
13 12 (1.05%) Aerospace
13 12 (1.05%) Retail
14 11 (0.96%) Local Government
14 11 (0.96%) Marketing
15 10 (0.87%) Law
16 9 (0.79%) Documentation Skills
17 7 (0.61%) Back Office
17 7 (0.61%) Influencing Skills
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 55 (4.80%) XML
2 42 (3.66%) REST
3 34 (2.97%) Oracle Fusion
4 21 (1.83%) SOAP
5 18 (1.57%) Web Services
6 12 (1.05%) JSON
7 11 (0.96%) SAP Basis
8 9 (0.79%) SAP Fiori
9 7 (0.61%) .NET
10 6 (0.52%) SAP Business Workflow
11 5 (0.44%) LDAP
12 4 (0.35%) AngularJS
12 4 (0.35%) BAPI
12 4 (0.35%) Middleware
12 4 (0.35%) PySpark
12 4 (0.35%) SailPoint
13 3 (0.26%) IDoc
13 3 (0.26%) RESTful
13 3 (0.26%) scikit-learn
13 3 (0.26%) TensorFlow
Miscellaneous
1 27 (2.36%) Data Protection Act
2 21 (1.83%) Replication
3 17 (1.48%) Operational Technology
4 15 (1.31%) Legacy Systems
4 15 (1.31%) Onboarding
5 12 (1.05%) Product Ownership
5 12 (1.05%) Public Cloud
6 10 (0.87%) AI Agents
6 10 (0.87%) NHS
6 10 (0.87%) Security Posture
7 9 (0.79%) Data Structures
7 9 (0.79%) Management Information System
8 8 (0.70%) Data Centre
9 6 (0.52%) Analytical Mindset
9 6 (0.52%) Beowulf
9 6 (0.52%) Cloud Native
9 6 (0.52%) Enterprise Software
9 6 (0.52%) FMCG
9 6 (0.52%) SCADA
10 5 (0.44%) Market Risk
Operating Systems
1 28 (2.44%) Windows
2 23 (2.01%) Linux
3 9 (0.79%) AIX
4 7 (0.61%) Solaris
4 7 (0.61%) VMS
5 4 (0.35%) Windows Server
6 3 (0.26%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
7 2 (0.17%) Unix
8 1 (0.087%) CentOS
8 1 (0.087%) CoreOS
8 1 (0.087%) Data ONTAP
8 1 (0.087%) Mac OS
8 1 (0.087%) Ubuntu
8 1 (0.087%) Windows 10
Processes & Methodologies
1 160 (13.96%) Migration
2 142 (12.39%) ERP
3 122 (10.65%) Stakeholder Engagement
4 106 (9.25%) Problem-Solving
5 85 (7.42%) Workshop Facilitation
6 83 (7.24%) Stakeholder Management
7 81 (7.07%) Data Migration
8 79 (6.89%) Continuous Improvement
9 76 (6.63%) Cybersecurity
10 74 (6.46%) User Acceptance Testing
11 70 (6.11%) Validation
12 65 (5.67%) Business Intelligence
13 61 (5.32%) Roadmaps
14 58 (5.06%) Agile
15 56 (4.89%) Analytics
15 56 (4.89%) Change Management
15 56 (4.89%) PLM
16 52 (4.54%) Data Protection
17 51 (4.45%) Knowledge Transfer
18 48 (4.19%) Workflow
Programming Languages
1 105 (9.16%) SQL
2 41 (3.58%) Python
3 28 (2.44%) T-SQL
4 24 (2.09%) PL/SQL
5 22 (1.92%) ABAP
6 17 (1.48%) PowerShell
7 16 (1.40%) JavaScript
8 9 (0.79%) Java
8 9 (0.79%) Search Processing Language
9 7 (0.61%) Bash
9 7 (0.61%) C#
9 7 (0.61%) R
10 4 (0.35%) TypeScript
11 2 (0.17%) Apex Code
11 2 (0.17%) Kusto Query Language
11 2 (0.17%) VBScript
12 1 (0.087%) ActionScript
12 1 (0.087%) C++
12 1 (0.087%) Shell Script
12 1 (0.087%) VBA
Qualifications
1 252 (21.99%) Security Cleared
2 197 (17.19%) SC Cleared
3 51 (4.45%) DV Cleared
4 35 (3.05%) BPSS Clearance
5 32 (2.79%) CISSP
6 30 (2.62%) Degree
7 21 (1.83%) CISM
8 12 (1.05%) Cisco Certification
9 10 (0.87%) Computer Science Degree
10 8 (0.70%) ITIL Foundation Certificate
10 8 (0.70%) SAP Certification
11 7 (0.61%) CCSP
11 7 (0.61%) Microsoft Certification
12 6 (0.52%) (ISC)2 CCSP
13 5 (0.44%) Azure Certification
13 5 (0.44%) CEH
13 5 (0.44%) DBS Check
13 5 (0.44%) Oracle Certification
14 4 (0.35%) ITIL Certification
14 4 (0.35%) PMP
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 47 (4.10%) ISO/IEC 27001
2 45 (3.93%) NIST
3 32 (2.79%) GRC
4 24 (2.09%) Data Quality
5 17 (1.48%) GDPR
6 13 (1.13%) QA
7 11 (0.96%) JSP 440
8 10 (0.87%) PCI DSS
9 9 (0.79%) NCSC
10 8 (0.70%) COBIT
10 8 (0.70%) PMO
11 7 (0.61%) Actionable Recommendations
11 7 (0.61%) RMADS
11 7 (0.61%) SLA
12 5 (0.44%) Sarbanes-Oxley
13 3 (0.26%) ISO/IEC 27005
14 2 (0.17%) HL7
15 1 (0.087%) DICOM
15 1 (0.087%) ISO/IEC 12207
15 1 (0.087%) WCAG
System Software
1 19 (1.66%) Active Directory
2 12 (1.05%) VMware Infrastructure
3 10 (0.87%) Docker
4 9 (0.79%) VMware NSX
5 6 (0.52%) Slurm Workload Manager
5 6 (0.52%) vSphere
6 4 (0.35%) Virtual Desktop
6 4 (0.35%) VMware ESXi
7 3 (0.26%) Virtual Machines
8 1 (0.087%) Ceph
8 1 (0.087%) Hyper-V
8 1 (0.087%) IAG
8 1 (0.087%) KVM
8 1 (0.087%) NFS
8 1 (0.087%) QEMU
Systems Management
1 15 (1.31%) Kubernetes
2 9 (0.79%) Nagios
2 9 (0.79%) ZABBIX
3 8 (0.70%) Ansible
3 8 (0.70%) Netcool
3 8 (0.70%) OpenView
3 8 (0.70%) Terraform
3 8 (0.70%) Tivoli
3 8 (0.70%) Tivoli Monitoring
4 6 (0.52%) Podman
4 6 (0.52%) Single Sign-On
5 5 (0.44%) NetBackup
5 5 (0.44%) PingFederate
5 5 (0.44%) vRealize
6 3 (0.26%) Microsoft Intune
6 3 (0.26%) Oracle Identity Management
6 3 (0.26%) Oracle Identity Manager
6 3 (0.26%) Puppet
7 2 (0.17%) Grafana
7 2 (0.17%) vRealize Orchestrator
Vendors
1 244 (21.29%) SAP
2 158 (13.79%) Oracle
3 82 (7.16%) Microsoft
4 53 (4.62%) Siemens
5 30 (2.62%) ServiceNow
6 25 (2.18%) Cisco
7 20 (1.75%) Aruba
8 19 (1.66%) VMware
8 19 (1.66%) Workday
9 18 (1.57%) Ariba
10 16 (1.40%) Splunk
11 15 (1.31%) BMC
12 14 (1.22%) OpenText
12 14 (1.22%) Sage
13 13 (1.13%) Google
13 13 (1.13%) IBM
14 12 (1.05%) Databricks
14 12 (1.05%) IFS
15 9 (0.79%) SolarWinds
16 8 (0.70%) Computacenter