Consultant Contract Job Trends

Consultant
UK

The median Consultant daily rate in the UK is £538, according to job vacancies posted in the 6 months leading up to 21 April 2026.

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

6 months to
21 Apr 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 27 28 24
Rank change year-on-year +1 -4 +14
Contract jobs requiring a Consultant 2,840 1,923 2,719
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 6.14% 6.53% 6.26%
As % of the Job Titles category 6.65% 7.05% 6.75%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,591 1,131 1,696
10th Percentile £383 £413 £400
25th Percentile £450 £488 £463
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £538 £550 £550
Median % change year-on-year -2.27% - -
75th Percentile £626 £638 £650
90th Percentile £715 £725 £750
UK excluding London median daily rate £525 £545 £545
% change year-on-year -3.67% - -0.91%
Number of hourly rates quoted 77 16 28
10th Percentile £51.00 £63.13 £27.13
25th Percentile £56.25 £70.00 £48.13
Median hourly rate £57.50 £83.75 £60.80
Median % change year-on-year -31.34% +37.75% -7.88%
75th Percentile £60.00 £86.06 £63.07
90th Percentile £78.25 £87.50 £71.50
UK excluding London median hourly rate £57.50 £84.25 £56.89
% change year-on-year -31.75% +48.11% -13.81%

All Contract IT Job Roles
UK

For comparison with the information above, the following table provides summary statistics for all contract IT job vacancies. 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 with a recognized job title 42,695 27,272 40,291
% of contract IT jobs with a recognized job title 92.26% 92.61% 92.77%
Number of daily rates quoted 26,420 17,879 26,298
10th Percentile £313 £300 £275
25th Percentile £413 £406 £409
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £515 £525
Median % change year-on-year -2.91% -1.90% -2.78%
75th Percentile £613 £625 £638
90th Percentile £725 £738 £748
UK excluding London median daily rate £488 £475 £493
% change year-on-year +2.63% -3.65% -1.40%
Number of hourly rates quoted 2,730 998 2,613
10th Percentile £15.00 £14.50 £12.86
25th Percentile £20.35 £19.00 £16.25
Median hourly rate £42.00 £30.45 £35.00
Median % change year-on-year +37.93% -13.00% -22.22%
75th Percentile £65.60 £63.75 £60.00
90th Percentile £77.50 £75.33 £72.50
UK excluding London median hourly rate £43.61 £29.80 £36.50
% change year-on-year +46.34% -18.36% -15.12%

Consultant
Job Vacancy Trend

Historical trend showing the proportion of contract IT job postings featuring 'Consultant' in the job title relative to all contract IT jobs advertised.

Consultant job vacancy trend in the UK

Consultant
Daily Rate Trend

Contractor daily rate distribution trend for Consultant job vacancies in the UK.

Contractor daily rate distribution trend for Consultant job vacancies in the UK

Consultant
Daily Rate Histogram

Daily rate distribution for jobs citing Consultant over the 6 months to 21 April 2026.

Daily rate histogram for Consultant in the UK

Consultant
Hourly Rate Trend

Contractor hourly rate distribution trend for Consultant job vacancies in the UK.

Contractor hourly rate distribution trend for Consultant job vacancies in the UK

Consultant
Hourly Rate Histogram

Hourly rate distribution of jobs citing Consultant over the 6 months to 21 April 2026.

Hourly rate histogram for Consultant in the UK

Consultant
Top 17 Contract Job Locations

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 over the 6 months to 21 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
England -1 2,233 £538 -2.27% 1,229
UK excluding London +2 1,152 £525 -3.67% 817
London -2 1,048 £550 -4.35% 565
Work from Home +1 990 £540 -1.82% 612
South East -5 343 £530 -3.64% 243
Midlands -8 227 £525 - 85
North of England -21 227 £525 -2.42% 234
South West +25 174 £525 -4.55% 140
West Midlands -3 157 £550 - 54
North West -29 110 £525 -3.67% 150
Yorkshire -9 98 £500 -4.76% 70
East of England -4 87 £550 +10.00% 38
Scotland +24 69 £425 -18.43% 32
East Midlands -17 63 £500 -3.85% 31
Wales +12 29 £550 +37.50% 21
North East -19 19 £525 -1.69% 15
Northern Ireland +1 4 £525 +0.96% 33

Consultant Skill Set
Top 30 Co-Occurring Skills & Capabilities

For the 6 months to 21 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 featuring Consultant in the job title.

1 605 (21.30%) SAP
2 564 (19.86%) Security Cleared
3 455 (16.02%) SC Cleared
4 382 (13.45%) Migration
5 338 (11.90%) Oracle
6 302 (10.63%) Azure
7 283 (9.96%) Microsoft
8 279 (9.82%) Problem-Solving
9 274 (9.65%) SAP S/4HANA
10 268 (9.44%) Stakeholder Engagement
11 249 (8.77%) Stakeholder Management
12 234 (8.24%) ERP
13 209 (7.36%) SQL
14 199 (7.01%) User Acceptance Testing
15 188 (6.62%) Workshop Facilitation
16 172 (6.06%) Agile
17 166 (5.85%) Data Migration
18 164 (5.77%) Continuous Improvement
19 158 (5.56%) Validation
20 154 (5.42%) Cybersecurity
21 150 (5.28%) Business Intelligence
21 150 (5.28%) Roadmaps
22 149 (5.25%) Analytics
23 140 (4.93%) Dynamics 365
24 128 (4.51%) Power Platform
25 122 (4.30%) AI
26 120 (4.23%) AWS
27 115 (4.05%) Knowledge Transfer
28 114 (4.01%) Python
29 111 (3.91%) Change Management

Consultant Skill Set
Co-Occurring Skills & Capabilities 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 66 (2.32%) SharePoint
2 32 (1.13%) Confluence
3 17 (0.60%) Microsoft Exchange
4 14 (0.49%) Oracle Workflow
5 6 (0.21%) Jupyter
6 4 (0.14%) Apache
6 4 (0.14%) Apache Spark
6 4 (0.14%) ArcGIS
6 4 (0.14%) MTS
7 3 (0.11%) Apache Superset
7 3 (0.11%) Cloud Foundry
7 3 (0.11%) Palantir Foundry
7 3 (0.11%) Tomcat
8 2 (0.070%) CMS
8 2 (0.070%) SAS
8 2 (0.070%) WebSphere
9 1 (0.035%) NetWeaver
9 1 (0.035%) nginx
9 1 (0.035%) OpenStack
9 1 (0.035%) Skype for Business
Applications
1 67 (2.36%) Microsoft Excel
2 25 (0.88%) Microsoft PowerPoint
3 12 (0.42%) Microsoft Office
4 8 (0.28%) MS Visio
5 5 (0.18%) PTC Creo
6 4 (0.14%) Chatbot
6 4 (0.14%) Spreadsheet
7 3 (0.11%) Microsoft Project
8 2 (0.070%) Lectora
8 2 (0.070%) Oracle Smart View
9 1 (0.035%) Adobe XD
9 1 (0.035%) CATIA
9 1 (0.035%) Siemens NX
9 1 (0.035%) Windchill
Business Applications
1 274 (9.65%) SAP S/4HANA
2 81 (2.85%) Oracle EBS
3 60 (2.11%) SAP FI
4 49 (1.73%) SAP MM
5 46 (1.62%) Oracle Payables
6 42 (1.48%) Oracle Receivables
7 38 (1.34%) Oracle EBS R12
7 38 (1.34%) SAP PP
8 35 (1.23%) SAP HCM
8 35 (1.23%) SAP PSCD
9 34 (1.20%) Dynamics CRM
10 33 (1.16%) SAP EWM
11 31 (1.09%) SAP CO
12 29 (1.02%) SAP FI/CO
13 28 (0.99%) Oracle Assets
14 26 (0.92%) SAP Travel Management
15 25 (0.88%) Oracle General Ledger
15 25 (0.88%) Oracle Procure-to-Pay
16 24 (0.85%) Teamcenter
17 22 (0.77%) Oracle ERP
Cloud Services
1 302 (10.63%) Azure
2 140 (4.93%) Dynamics 365
3 128 (4.51%) Power Platform
4 120 (4.23%) AWS
5 111 (3.91%) OCI
6 78 (2.75%) SuccessFactors
7 68 (2.39%) Microsoft 365
7 68 (2.39%) SaaS
8 67 (2.36%) GCP
9 53 (1.87%) Power Automate
10 47 (1.65%) Entra ID
11 37 (1.30%) Azure DevOps
12 35 (1.23%) Microsoft Copilot
13 32 (1.13%) PowerApps
14 30 (1.06%) Microsoft Purview
15 28 (0.99%) GitHub
16 19 (0.67%) Azure Data Factory
17 16 (0.56%) Serverless
18 15 (0.53%) Copilot Studio
18 15 (0.53%) OneDrive
Communications & Networking
1 37 (1.30%) Firewall
2 25 (0.88%) Network Security
3 16 (0.56%) SMS
4 13 (0.46%) VSAN
5 12 (0.42%) DNS
5 12 (0.42%) HTTP
5 12 (0.42%) WAN
6 11 (0.39%) SNMP
6 11 (0.39%) Software-Defined Networking
7 10 (0.35%) FTP
7 10 (0.35%) LAN
7 10 (0.35%) SD-WAN
8 9 (0.32%) Kerberos
8 9 (0.32%) SAN
8 9 (0.32%) VPN
9 8 (0.28%) Intranet
10 7 (0.25%) NAS
11 6 (0.21%) Cisco IPT
11 6 (0.21%) TCP/IP
11 6 (0.21%) VLAN
Database & Business Intelligence
1 89 (3.13%) Power BI
2 65 (2.29%) Oracle Reports
3 33 (1.16%) SAP HANA
4 27 (0.95%) Metadata
5 25 (0.88%) Tableau
6 24 (0.85%) Oracle BI Publisher
7 23 (0.81%) SQL Server
8 19 (0.67%) Oracle ODI
9 12 (0.42%) SAP BW
10 10 (0.35%) SQL Server Reporting Services
11 9 (0.32%) Electronic Patient Records
12 8 (0.28%) NoSQL
13 7 (0.25%) Data Warehouse
13 7 (0.25%) GIS
13 7 (0.25%) SAP Data Services
14 6 (0.21%) Data Lake
14 6 (0.21%) Data Mart
14 6 (0.21%) Essbase
14 6 (0.21%) Oracle Database
14 6 (0.21%) Relational Database
Development Applications
1 67 (2.36%) JIRA
2 20 (0.70%) Oracle Forms
3 18 (0.63%) Hudson
4 15 (0.53%) Jenkins
5 8 (0.28%) Git
5 8 (0.28%) GitLab
6 6 (0.21%) Oracle APEX
7 4 (0.14%) Sonatype Nexus
7 4 (0.14%) Visual Studio Code
8 3 (0.11%) Postman
8 3 (0.11%) SonarQube
8 3 (0.11%) Toad
9 2 (0.070%) Bitbucket
9 2 (0.070%) git-flow
9 2 (0.070%) LSMW
9 2 (0.070%) Octopus Deploy
9 2 (0.070%) Rational DOORS
9 2 (0.070%) Rational Rhapsody
9 2 (0.070%) Selenium
9 2 (0.070%) TeamCity
General
1 640 (22.54%) Social Skills
2 629 (22.15%) Finance
3 257 (9.05%) Analytical Skills
4 220 (7.75%) Public Sector
5 113 (3.98%) Manufacturing
6 106 (3.73%) Banking
7 71 (2.50%) Marketing
8 67 (2.36%) Legal
9 57 (2.01%) Billing
10 51 (1.80%) Documentation Skills
11 46 (1.62%) General Ledger
12 41 (1.44%) Telecoms
13 38 (1.34%) Retail
14 36 (1.27%) Organisational Skills
15 26 (0.92%) Inclusion and Diversity
16 25 (0.88%) Presentation Skills
17 22 (0.77%) Pharmaceutical
18 20 (0.70%) Law
19 19 (0.67%) Advertising
19 19 (0.67%) Electronics
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 81 (2.85%) Oracle Fusion
2 73 (2.57%) REST
3 69 (2.43%) XML
4 32 (1.13%) SOAP
5 30 (1.06%) Web Services
6 27 (0.95%) SAP Fiori
6 27 (0.95%) SAP TM
7 24 (0.85%) JSON
8 21 (0.74%) LDAP
8 21 (0.74%) Middleware
8 21 (0.74%) SAP Basis
9 18 (0.63%) .NET
9 18 (0.63%) Node.js
10 17 (0.60%) BAPI
11 16 (0.56%) HTML
12 15 (0.53%) CSS
13 14 (0.49%) GraphQL
14 12 (0.42%) IDoc
15 11 (0.39%) Kafka
16 9 (0.32%) Playwright
Miscellaneous
1 56 (1.97%) Onboarding
2 46 (1.62%) Legacy Systems
3 42 (1.48%) Data Protection Act
4 36 (1.27%) Product Ownership
4 36 (1.27%) Security Posture
5 31 (1.09%) Operational Technology
5 31 (1.09%) Replication
6 26 (0.92%) Data Centre
7 25 (0.88%) Management Information System
8 24 (0.85%) Cloud Native
9 23 (0.81%) AI Agents
9 23 (0.81%) Data Structures
10 20 (0.70%) Greenfield Project
11 19 (0.67%) Analytical Mindset
11 19 (0.67%) NHS
12 18 (0.63%) CMDB
13 17 (0.60%) Public Cloud
14 16 (0.56%) Life Science
15 13 (0.46%) Self-Motivation
16 12 (0.42%) FMCG
Operating Systems
1 73 (2.57%) Windows
2 50 (1.76%) Linux
3 16 (0.56%) Unix
3 16 (0.56%) VMS
4 11 (0.39%) AIX
4 11 (0.39%) Solaris
5 9 (0.32%) Windows Server
6 7 (0.25%) Windows 10
7 6 (0.21%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
8 5 (0.18%) Ubuntu
9 4 (0.14%) Mac OS
9 4 (0.14%) zOS
10 3 (0.11%) Apple iOS
10 3 (0.11%) SUSE
11 2 (0.070%) CoreOS
11 2 (0.070%) Data ONTAP
12 1 (0.035%) Android
12 1 (0.035%) CentOS
Processes & Methodologies
1 382 (13.45%) Migration
2 279 (9.82%) Problem-Solving
3 268 (9.44%) Stakeholder Engagement
4 249 (8.77%) Stakeholder Management
5 234 (8.24%) ERP
6 199 (7.01%) User Acceptance Testing
7 188 (6.62%) Workshop Facilitation
8 172 (6.06%) Agile
9 166 (5.85%) Data Migration
10 164 (5.77%) Continuous Improvement
11 158 (5.56%) Validation
12 154 (5.42%) Cybersecurity
13 150 (5.28%) Business Intelligence
13 150 (5.28%) Roadmaps
14 149 (5.25%) Analytics
15 122 (4.30%) AI
16 115 (4.05%) Knowledge Transfer
17 111 (3.91%) Change Management
18 105 (3.70%) Risk Management
19 102 (3.59%) DevOps
Programming Languages
1 209 (7.36%) SQL
2 114 (4.01%) Python
3 76 (2.68%) JavaScript
4 65 (2.29%) PowerShell
5 50 (1.76%) PL/SQL
6 49 (1.73%) ABAP
7 33 (1.16%) Java
7 33 (1.16%) T-SQL
8 23 (0.81%) TypeScript
9 16 (0.56%) C#
10 12 (0.42%) Groovy
11 10 (0.35%) Shell Script
12 9 (0.32%) Bash
12 9 (0.32%) Data Analysis Expressions
12 9 (0.32%) R
12 9 (0.32%) Search Processing Language
13 8 (0.28%) C++
14 7 (0.25%) Apex Code
14 7 (0.25%) Kusto Query Language
15 5 (0.18%) Korn
Qualifications
1 564 (19.86%) Security Cleared
2 455 (16.02%) SC Cleared
3 95 (3.35%) DV Cleared
4 93 (3.27%) Degree
5 79 (2.78%) BPSS Clearance
6 63 (2.22%) CISSP
7 45 (1.58%) CISM
8 25 (0.88%) VMware Certified Professional (VCP)
9 21 (0.74%) CIMA
10 19 (0.67%) Cisco Certification
10 19 (0.67%) Computer Science Degree
11 14 (0.49%) Master's Degree
11 14 (0.49%) SAP Certification
12 13 (0.46%) Microsoft Certification
13 12 (0.42%) ITIL Certification
14 10 (0.35%) (ISC)2 CCSP
14 10 (0.35%) ACCA
14 10 (0.35%) Azure Certification
14 10 (0.35%) CCSP
14 10 (0.35%) PMP
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 89 (3.13%) NIST
2 86 (3.03%) ISO/IEC 27001
3 58 (2.04%) GDPR
3 58 (2.04%) GRC
4 57 (2.01%) Data Quality
5 40 (1.41%) QA
6 26 (0.92%) PCI DSS
7 24 (0.85%) NCSC
8 21 (0.74%) PMO
9 20 (0.70%) SLA
10 18 (0.63%) Actionable Recommendations
10 18 (0.63%) Sarbanes-Oxley
11 16 (0.56%) COBIT
12 14 (0.49%) JSP 440
13 11 (0.39%) PERC
14 8 (0.28%) Accessibility
14 8 (0.28%) DICOM
14 8 (0.28%) GxP
14 8 (0.28%) HL7
15 7 (0.25%) RMADS
System Software
1 53 (1.87%) Active Directory
2 36 (1.27%) VMware Infrastructure
3 35 (1.23%) VMware NSX
4 27 (0.95%) Docker
5 24 (0.85%) vSphere
6 10 (0.35%) Virtual Desktop
6 10 (0.35%) Virtual Machines
7 9 (0.32%) Hyper-V
8 6 (0.21%) Slurm Workload Manager
9 4 (0.14%) IAG
9 4 (0.14%) VMware ESXi
10 3 (0.11%) NFS
11 1 (0.035%) BitLocker
11 1 (0.035%) Ceph
11 1 (0.035%) HDFS
11 1 (0.035%) Job Entry Subsystem
11 1 (0.035%) KVM
11 1 (0.035%) NDS
11 1 (0.035%) NetIQ eDirectory
11 1 (0.035%) QEMU
Systems Management
1 47 (1.65%) Kubernetes
2 32 (1.13%) vRealize
3 30 (1.06%) Terraform
4 19 (0.67%) Microsoft Intune
5 12 (0.42%) Ansible
6 11 (0.39%) Nagios
6 11 (0.39%) Single Sign-On
6 11 (0.39%) ZABBIX
7 10 (0.35%) Netcool
7 10 (0.35%) OpenView
7 10 (0.35%) Tivoli
7 10 (0.35%) Tivoli Monitoring
8 8 (0.28%) SCCM
9 7 (0.25%) Failover Clustering
10 6 (0.21%) PingFederate
10 6 (0.21%) Podman
11 4 (0.14%) Active Directory Federation Services
11 4 (0.14%) Grafana
11 4 (0.14%) Prometheus
11 4 (0.14%) vRealize Orchestrator
Vendors
1 605 (21.30%) SAP
2 338 (11.90%) Oracle
3 283 (9.96%) Microsoft
4 96 (3.38%) VMware
5 92 (3.24%) ServiceNow
6 63 (2.22%) Ariba
7 59 (2.08%) Salesforce
8 53 (1.87%) Siemens
8 53 (1.87%) Workday
9 35 (1.23%) Google
10 31 (1.09%) Cisco
11 27 (0.95%) Databricks
12 26 (0.92%) Splunk
13 23 (0.81%) Aruba
14 22 (0.77%) Adobe
15 21 (0.74%) IBM
15 21 (0.74%) OpenText
16 19 (0.67%) BMC
17 17 (0.60%) Murex
17 17 (0.60%) Sage