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 £538, according to job vacancies posted in the 6 months leading up to 22 March 2026.

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

6 months to
22 Mar 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 33 36 34
Rank change year-on-year +3 -2 +22
Contract jobs requiring a Consultant 1,152 662 1,016
As % of all contract jobs in the UK excluding London 5.23% 5.16% 4.84%
As % of the Job Titles category 5.71% 5.57% 5.22%
Number of daily rates quoted 638 430 721
10th Percentile £403 £425 £369
25th Percentile £463 £492 £463
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £538 £550 £537
Median % change year-on-year -2.27% +2.42% -2.36%
75th Percentile £626 £638 £638
90th Percentile £712 £700 £725
UK median daily rate £550 £550 £550
% change year-on-year - - -2.65%
Number of hourly rates quoted 62 11 28
10th Percentile - £70.00 £27.13
25th Percentile £56.25 £70.59 £48.13
Median hourly rate £57.50 £82.50 £61.60
Median % change year-on-year -30.30% +33.93% -6.67%
75th Percentile £60.00 £86.00 £63.29
90th Percentile £65.00 - £87.30
UK median hourly rate £57.50 £83.75 £62.50
% change year-on-year -31.34% +34.00% -5.30%

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 20,190 11,881 19,480
% of contract IT jobs with a recognized job title 91.61% 92.55% 92.76%
Number of daily rates quoted 12,012 7,675 12,086
10th Percentile £256 £213 £210
25th Percentile £395 £363 £363
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £481 £475 £487
Median % change year-on-year +1.32% -2.46% -2.60%
75th Percentile £580 £588 £594
90th Percentile £675 £663 £688
UK median daily rate £500 £520 £525
% change year-on-year -3.85% -0.95% -4.46%
Number of hourly rates quoted 2,188 711 2,091
10th Percentile £14.42 £14.99 £12.50
25th Percentile £18.87 £20.12 £15.50
Median hourly rate £36.00 £32.50 £32.50
Median % change year-on-year +10.77% - -19.93%
75th Percentile £65.00 £65.00 £60.00
90th Percentile £75.79 £75.50 £71.90
UK median hourly rate £36.00 £32.91 £32.50
% change year-on-year +9.41% +1.25% -23.53%

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 22 March 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 22 March 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 22 March 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 +4 348 £537 -6.61% 300
North of England -11 242 £525 -2.42% 184
Midlands -4 235 £550 +4.76% 110
West Midlands -1 171 £563 +7.14% 53
South West +11 149 £550 - 158
North West -21 122 £550 +2.23% 112
Yorkshire +2 111 £500 -5.88% 59
East of England 0 97 £550 +2.33% 73
East Midlands -19 57 £500 -3.15% 56
Scotland +5 49 £520 -5.45% 40
Wales +9 32 £455 +1.06% 24
Northern Ireland +5 9 £405 -22.86% 14
North East -25 9 £525 -4.55% 14
South Coast - 1 £550 -
Consultant
UK

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

For the 6 months to 22 March 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.

1 307 (26.65%) Security Cleared
2 252 (21.88%) SC Cleared
3 235 (20.40%) SAP
4 184 (15.97%) Migration
5 130 (11.28%) Oracle
5 130 (11.28%) Stakeholder Engagement
6 126 (10.94%) ERP
7 115 (9.98%) Azure
8 111 (9.64%) Problem-Solving
9 105 (9.11%) SAP S/4HANA
10 100 (8.68%) Microsoft
11 92 (7.99%) Workshop Facilitation
12 87 (7.55%) Stakeholder Management
13 86 (7.47%) SQL
14 81 (7.03%) Data Migration
15 72 (6.25%) Roadmaps
15 72 (6.25%) User Acceptance Testing
16 69 (5.99%) Validation
17 68 (5.90%) Cybersecurity
18 64 (5.56%) Business Intelligence
19 62 (5.38%) Change Management
20 58 (5.03%) Analytics
20 58 (5.03%) Knowledge Transfer
21 56 (4.86%) Agile
22 55 (4.77%) Continuous Improvement
23 53 (4.60%) PLM
23 53 (4.60%) Siemens
24 52 (4.51%) ISO/IEC 27001
25 50 (4.34%) XML
26 49 (4.25%) CyberArk

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 31 (2.69%) SharePoint
2 19 (1.65%) Confluence
3 12 (1.04%) Microsoft Exchange
4 6 (0.52%) Jupyter
5 3 (0.26%) Apache Spark
5 3 (0.26%) MTS
5 3 (0.26%) Oracle Workflow
6 2 (0.17%) Apache
6 2 (0.17%) Apache Superset
6 2 (0.17%) CMS
6 2 (0.17%) NetWeaver
7 1 (0.087%) ArcGIS
7 1 (0.087%) OpenStack
7 1 (0.087%) SAS
7 1 (0.087%) Skype for Business
7 1 (0.087%) WebSphere
Applications
1 42 (3.65%) Microsoft Excel
2 10 (0.87%) Microsoft PowerPoint
3 9 (0.78%) MS Visio
4 7 (0.61%) Microsoft Office
5 5 (0.43%) PTC Creo
6 4 (0.35%) Microsoft Project
7 2 (0.17%) Lectora
7 2 (0.17%) Oracle Smart View
7 2 (0.17%) Spreadsheet
8 1 (0.087%) CATIA
8 1 (0.087%) Chatbot
8 1 (0.087%) Navisworks
8 1 (0.087%) Revit
8 1 (0.087%) Siemens NX
8 1 (0.087%) Windchill
Business Applications
1 105 (9.11%) SAP S/4HANA
2 36 (3.13%) Oracle EBS
3 29 (2.52%) Oracle Receivables
4 28 (2.43%) SAP FI
5 27 (2.34%) Oracle Payables
6 26 (2.26%) SAP MM
7 25 (2.17%) SAP PSCD
8 24 (2.08%) Oracle EBS R12
9 21 (1.82%) Oracle General Ledger
9 21 (1.82%) SAP HCM
10 20 (1.74%) Oracle Assets
10 20 (1.74%) Oracle Cash Management
10 20 (1.74%) Oracle Procure-to-Pay
11 19 (1.65%) Teamcenter
12 18 (1.56%) SAP Payroll
13 17 (1.48%) SAP Hybris
14 16 (1.39%) SAP BRIM
15 13 (1.13%) Oracle AGIS
16 11 (0.95%) SAP FI-CA
16 11 (0.95%) SAP PP
Cloud Services
1 115 (9.98%) Azure
2 40 (3.47%) OCI
3 36 (3.13%) Dynamics 365
4 35 (3.04%) AWS
5 32 (2.78%) Power Platform
6 29 (2.52%) GCP
7 26 (2.26%) SuccessFactors
8 24 (2.08%) Microsoft 365
9 19 (1.65%) Entra ID
10 18 (1.56%) SAP Commerce Cloud
11 16 (1.39%) SaaS
12 13 (1.13%) Microsoft Copilot
13 11 (0.95%) Azure DevOps
14 10 (0.87%) PowerApps
15 8 (0.69%) OneDrive
15 8 (0.69%) Power Automate
16 5 (0.43%) GitHub
17 4 (0.35%) Copilot Studio
17 4 (0.35%) dbt
18 3 (0.26%) Azure AI
Communications & Networking
1 13 (1.13%) Firewall
2 9 (0.78%) Network Security
3 8 (0.69%) FTP
4 5 (0.43%) Kerberos
5 4 (0.35%) Cisco ISE
5 4 (0.35%) HTTP
5 4 (0.35%) SD-WAN
5 4 (0.35%) SNMP
5 4 (0.35%) SSH
5 4 (0.35%) VSAN
5 4 (0.35%) WAN
6 3 (0.26%) BGP
6 3 (0.26%) Cisco ASA
6 3 (0.26%) Cisco Firepower
6 3 (0.26%) Cisco Nexus
6 3 (0.26%) EIGRP
6 3 (0.26%) OSPF
6 3 (0.26%) VPN
6 3 (0.26%) WebEx
7 2 (0.17%) HTTPS
Database & Business Intelligence
1 28 (2.43%) Power BI
2 23 (2.00%) Oracle Reports
3 20 (1.74%) SAP HANA
4 16 (1.39%) Oracle BI Publisher
5 12 (1.04%) SQL Server
6 8 (0.69%) Metadata
7 6 (0.52%) Data Warehouse
7 6 (0.52%) NoSQL
7 6 (0.52%) Oracle ODI
7 6 (0.52%) SAP Data Services
8 4 (0.35%) Oracle Database
8 4 (0.35%) SAP BW
8 4 (0.35%) Snowflake Schema
8 4 (0.35%) Tableau
9 3 (0.26%) Electronic Patient Records
9 3 (0.26%) GIS
9 3 (0.26%) Hadoop
9 3 (0.26%) SQL Server Reporting Services
10 2 (0.17%) Geospatial Data
10 2 (0.17%) MongoDB
Development Applications
1 34 (2.95%) JIRA
2 10 (0.87%) Hudson
3 4 (0.35%) Git
3 4 (0.35%) Oracle Forms
4 3 (0.26%) Jenkins
5 2 (0.17%) Postman
5 2 (0.17%) Visual Studio Code
6 1 (0.087%) Appium
6 1 (0.087%) Bitbucket
6 1 (0.087%) GitLab
6 1 (0.087%) JUnit
6 1 (0.087%) MSTest
6 1 (0.087%) NeoLoad
6 1 (0.087%) NUnit
6 1 (0.087%) Rational Rhapsody
6 1 (0.087%) Toad
6 1 (0.087%) Tricentis qTest
General
1 245 (21.27%) Social Skills
2 230 (19.97%) Finance
3 126 (10.94%) Public Sector
4 92 (7.99%) Analytical Skills
5 40 (3.47%) Manufacturing
6 28 (2.43%) Billing
7 27 (2.34%) Telecoms
8 26 (2.26%) Legal
9 23 (2.00%) Banking
10 21 (1.82%) General Ledger
11 18 (1.56%) Presentation Skills
12 17 (1.48%) Marketing
13 16 (1.39%) Documentation Skills
14 15 (1.30%) Aerospace
15 13 (1.13%) Organisational Skills
16 12 (1.04%) Local Government
17 11 (0.95%) Law
18 9 (0.78%) Retail
19 5 (0.43%) Electronics
19 5 (0.43%) Retail Banking
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 50 (4.34%) XML
2 44 (3.82%) Oracle Fusion
3 40 (3.47%) REST
4 23 (2.00%) SOAP
5 20 (1.74%) Web Services
6 14 (1.22%) SAP Fiori
7 13 (1.13%) SAP Basis
8 9 (0.78%) JSON
8 9 (0.78%) LDAP
9 7 (0.61%) .NET
9 7 (0.61%) BAPI
10 6 (0.52%) SAML
10 6 (0.52%) SAP Business Workflow
11 5 (0.43%) OAuth
12 4 (0.35%) IDoc
12 4 (0.35%) Middleware
13 3 (0.26%) AngularJS
13 3 (0.26%) PySpark
13 3 (0.26%) scikit-learn
13 3 (0.26%) TensorFlow
Miscellaneous
1 21 (1.82%) Data Protection Act
1 21 (1.82%) Legacy Systems
1 21 (1.82%) Onboarding
2 20 (1.74%) Replication
3 14 (1.22%) Product Ownership
4 13 (1.13%) Operational Technology
5 12 (1.04%) Public Cloud
6 10 (0.87%) Data Centre
7 9 (0.78%) AI Agents
7 9 (0.78%) Data Structures
7 9 (0.78%) Management Information System
8 8 (0.69%) NHS
9 7 (0.61%) Analytical Mindset
9 7 (0.61%) Security Posture
10 6 (0.52%) Beowulf
11 5 (0.43%) Enterprise Software
11 5 (0.43%) Market Risk
11 5 (0.43%) SCADA
11 5 (0.43%) SCORM
12 4 (0.35%) BYOD
Operating Systems
1 36 (3.13%) Windows
2 23 (2.00%) Linux
3 8 (0.69%) AIX
4 7 (0.61%) VMS
4 7 (0.61%) Windows Server
5 4 (0.35%) Solaris
5 4 (0.35%) Windows 10
6 3 (0.26%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
6 3 (0.26%) Unix
7 2 (0.17%) Windows Server 2003
7 2 (0.17%) Windows Server 2008
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
Processes & Methodologies
1 184 (15.97%) Migration
2 130 (11.28%) Stakeholder Engagement
3 126 (10.94%) ERP
4 111 (9.64%) Problem-Solving
5 92 (7.99%) Workshop Facilitation
6 87 (7.55%) Stakeholder Management
7 81 (7.03%) Data Migration
8 72 (6.25%) Roadmaps
8 72 (6.25%) User Acceptance Testing
9 69 (5.99%) Validation
10 68 (5.90%) Cybersecurity
11 64 (5.56%) Business Intelligence
12 62 (5.38%) Change Management
13 58 (5.03%) Analytics
13 58 (5.03%) Knowledge Transfer
14 56 (4.86%) Agile
15 55 (4.77%) Continuous Improvement
16 53 (4.60%) PLM
17 45 (3.91%) Project Management
18 43 (3.73%) Workflow
Programming Languages
1 86 (7.47%) SQL
2 38 (3.30%) Python
3 28 (2.43%) T-SQL
4 25 (2.17%) ABAP
4 25 (2.17%) PowerShell
5 13 (1.13%) PL/SQL
6 12 (1.04%) JavaScript
7 8 (0.69%) Bash
7 8 (0.69%) Java
8 7 (0.61%) C#
9 4 (0.35%) Search Processing Language
9 4 (0.35%) TypeScript
10 3 (0.26%) R
11 2 (0.17%) Apex Code
11 2 (0.17%) Shell Script
11 2 (0.17%) VBA
11 2 (0.17%) VBScript
12 1 (0.087%) ActionScript
12 1 (0.087%) C++
12 1 (0.087%) MATLAB
Qualifications
1 307 (26.65%) Security Cleared
2 252 (21.88%) SC Cleared
3 42 (3.65%) DV Cleared
4 28 (2.43%) BPSS Clearance
4 28 (2.43%) Degree
5 23 (2.00%) CISSP
6 14 (1.22%) CISM
7 11 (0.95%) Cisco Certification
8 9 (0.78%) Microsoft Certification
9 8 (0.69%) Computer Science Degree
10 7 (0.61%) ITIL Foundation Certificate
10 7 (0.61%) SAP Certification
11 6 (0.52%) ITIL Certification
12 5 (0.43%) CCNP
12 5 (0.43%) DBS Check
13 4 (0.35%) Azure Certification
13 4 (0.35%) CEH
13 4 (0.35%) CISA
13 4 (0.35%) Master's Degree
13 4 (0.35%) PMP
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 52 (4.51%) ISO/IEC 27001
2 43 (3.73%) NIST
3 22 (1.91%) GDPR
3 22 (1.91%) GRC
4 21 (1.82%) QA
5 19 (1.65%) Data Quality
6 11 (0.95%) NCSC
6 11 (0.95%) PCI DSS
7 9 (0.78%) Actionable Recommendations
7 9 (0.78%) JSP 440
8 8 (0.69%) PMO
9 7 (0.61%) COBIT
10 5 (0.43%) Cyber Essentials
10 5 (0.43%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
10 5 (0.43%) RMADS
11 4 (0.35%) Sarbanes-Oxley
12 3 (0.26%) ISO/IEC 27005
12 3 (0.26%) SLA
13 2 (0.17%) SOC 2
14 1 (0.087%) ISO 19650
System Software
1 30 (2.60%) Active Directory
2 14 (1.22%) VMware Infrastructure
3 13 (1.13%) VMware NSX
4 10 (0.87%) Docker
5 6 (0.52%) Slurm Workload Manager
5 6 (0.52%) vSphere
6 2 (0.17%) Virtual Desktop
6 2 (0.17%) Virtual Machines
7 1 (0.087%) Ceph
7 1 (0.087%) KVM
7 1 (0.087%) NFS
7 1 (0.087%) QEMU
7 1 (0.087%) Terminal Services
7 1 (0.087%) VMware ESXi
Systems Management
1 14 (1.22%) Kubernetes
2 9 (0.78%) Single Sign-On
3 7 (0.61%) PingFederate
4 6 (0.52%) Podman
4 6 (0.52%) Terraform
5 5 (0.43%) NetBackup
6 4 (0.35%) Ansible
6 4 (0.35%) Nagios
6 4 (0.35%) Netcool
6 4 (0.35%) OpenView
6 4 (0.35%) Tivoli
6 4 (0.35%) Tivoli Monitoring
6 4 (0.35%) ZABBIX
7 3 (0.26%) Active Directory Federation Services
7 3 (0.26%) Microsoft Intune
7 3 (0.26%) Puppet
7 3 (0.26%) SCCM
7 3 (0.26%) vRealize
8 1 (0.087%) CEMLI
8 1 (0.087%) Control-M
Vendors
1 235 (20.40%) SAP
2 130 (11.28%) Oracle
3 100 (8.68%) Microsoft
4 53 (4.60%) Siemens
5 49 (4.25%) CyberArk
6 42 (3.65%) Cisco
7 35 (3.04%) Aruba
8 30 (2.60%) ServiceNow
9 29 (2.52%) Workday
10 22 (1.91%) Google
11 20 (1.74%) VMware
12 15 (1.30%) Sage
13 11 (0.95%) OpenText
14 10 (0.87%) BMC
14 10 (0.87%) Databricks
14 10 (0.87%) IBM
15 9 (0.78%) Splunk
16 8 (0.69%) Atlassian
16 8 (0.69%) IFS
17 7 (0.61%) Computacenter