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 1 April 2026.

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

6 months to
1 Apr 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 28 28 24
Rank change year-on-year 0 -4 +17
Contract jobs requiring a Consultant 2,837 1,906 2,769
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 6.35% 6.56% 6.26%
As % of the Job Titles category 6.90% 7.07% 6.74%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,587 1,106 1,710
10th Percentile £400 £413 £400
25th Percentile £459 £488 £463
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £538 £550 £550
Median % change year-on-year -2.27% - -1.79%
75th Percentile £638 £638 £650
90th Percentile £713 £734 £743
UK excluding London median daily rate £525 £550 £550
% change year-on-year -4.55% - -
Number of hourly rates quoted 77 17 37
10th Percentile £55.35 £63.50 £36.50
25th Percentile £56.25 £70.00 £52.90
Median hourly rate £57.50 £85.00 £61.79
Median % change year-on-year -32.35% +37.56% -6.38%
75th Percentile £60.00 £86.25 £75.00
90th Percentile £78.25 £87.50 £90.25
UK excluding London median hourly rate £57.50 £84.25 £61.60
% change year-on-year -31.75% +36.77% -6.67%

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 41,143 26,962 41,094
% of contract IT jobs with a recognized job title 92.09% 92.84% 92.84%
Number of daily rates quoted 25,657 17,725 26,925
10th Percentile £313 £300 £275
25th Percentile £413 £406 £408
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £520 £525
Median % change year-on-year -3.85% -0.95% -3.54%
75th Percentile £613 £630 £638
90th Percentile £725 £738 £738
UK excluding London median daily rate £485 £475 £488
% change year-on-year +2.11% -2.56% -2.50%
Number of hourly rates quoted 2,568 945 2,533
10th Percentile £15.00 £15.03 £12.86
25th Percentile £19.74 £20.94 £16.25
Median hourly rate £38.63 £32.50 £32.90
Median % change year-on-year +18.86% -1.20% -25.00%
75th Percentile £65.00 £64.50 £60.00
90th Percentile £77.50 £76.81 £71.75
UK excluding London median hourly rate £40.00 £31.76 £32.90
% change year-on-year +25.94% -3.45% -21.68%

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 1 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 1 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 1 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 2,218 £550 - 1,211
UK excluding London +4 1,175 £525 -4.55% 849
London -5 1,027 £550 -4.35% 544
Work from Home 0 1,024 £525 -4.55% 598
South East +7 349 £525 -8.70% 278
North of England -21 235 £525 -2.42% 172
Midlands -8 232 £525 - 104
West Midlands +4 167 £550 +4.76% 52
South West +21 165 £525 -4.55% 152
Yorkshire +2 112 £519 -1.19% 53
North West -25 112 £525 -3.67% 109
East of England -2 95 £550 +10.00% 67
Scotland +22 63 £500 -9.09% 38
East Midlands -15 57 £500 -3.15% 51
Wales +12 37 £500 +17.65% 33
North East -22 11 £525 -4.55% 12
Northern Ireland +6 7 £405 -22.86% 15

Consultant Skill Set
Top 30 Co-Occurring Skills & Capabilities

For the 6 months to 1 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.

1 618 (21.78%) SAP
2 616 (21.71%) Security Cleared
3 514 (18.12%) SC Cleared
4 393 (13.85%) Migration
5 319 (11.24%) Oracle
6 306 (10.79%) Azure
7 299 (10.54%) Problem-Solving
8 293 (10.33%) SAP S/4HANA
9 292 (10.29%) Microsoft
10 286 (10.08%) Stakeholder Engagement
11 253 (8.92%) Stakeholder Management
12 242 (8.53%) ERP
13 214 (7.54%) SQL
14 202 (7.12%) Workshop Facilitation
15 185 (6.52%) User Acceptance Testing
16 178 (6.27%) Agile
17 171 (6.03%) Roadmaps
18 165 (5.82%) Data Migration
19 163 (5.75%) Continuous Improvement
20 158 (5.57%) Analytics
21 151 (5.32%) Business Intelligence
22 148 (5.22%) Cybersecurity
23 144 (5.08%) Validation
24 129 (4.55%) Knowledge Transfer
25 128 (4.51%) Dynamics 365
26 127 (4.48%) Python
27 122 (4.30%) AI
28 120 (4.23%) Power Platform
29 118 (4.16%) Risk Management
30 114 (4.02%) 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 71 (2.50%) SharePoint
2 39 (1.37%) Confluence
3 22 (0.78%) Microsoft Exchange
4 12 (0.42%) Oracle Workflow
5 6 (0.21%) Jupyter
6 5 (0.18%) Apache
6 5 (0.18%) MTS
7 4 (0.14%) Apache Spark
7 4 (0.14%) ArcGIS
7 4 (0.14%) CMS
8 3 (0.11%) Apache Superset
8 3 (0.11%) Cloud Foundry
8 3 (0.11%) Palantir Foundry
9 2 (0.070%) IIS
9 2 (0.070%) NetWeaver
9 2 (0.070%) Tomcat
10 1 (0.035%) nginx
10 1 (0.035%) SAS
10 1 (0.035%) SharePoint 2010
10 1 (0.035%) WebSphere
Applications
1 68 (2.40%) Microsoft Excel
2 23 (0.81%) Microsoft PowerPoint
3 13 (0.46%) Microsoft Office
4 9 (0.32%) MS Visio
5 5 (0.18%) PTC Creo
6 4 (0.14%) Microsoft Project
6 4 (0.14%) Spreadsheet
7 3 (0.11%) Chatbot
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%) InfoPath
9 1 (0.035%) Navisworks
9 1 (0.035%) Revit
9 1 (0.035%) Siemens NX
9 1 (0.035%) Windchill
Business Applications
1 293 (10.33%) SAP S/4HANA
2 69 (2.43%) Oracle EBS
3 64 (2.26%) SAP FI
4 49 (1.73%) Oracle Payables
5 48 (1.69%) SAP MM
6 45 (1.59%) Oracle Receivables
7 40 (1.41%) SAP PP
8 39 (1.37%) SAP HCM
9 37 (1.30%) Oracle EBS R12
10 36 (1.27%) SAP PSCD
11 34 (1.20%) SAP CO
12 33 (1.16%) Dynamics CRM
13 32 (1.13%) SAP EWM
13 32 (1.13%) SAP FI/CO
14 28 (0.99%) Oracle Assets
15 27 (0.95%) SAP Travel Management
16 26 (0.92%) Oracle General Ledger
16 26 (0.92%) SAP SD
17 24 (0.85%) Oracle Cash Management
17 24 (0.85%) SAP BRIM
Cloud Services
1 306 (10.79%) Azure
2 128 (4.51%) Dynamics 365
3 120 (4.23%) Power Platform
4 111 (3.91%) OCI
5 106 (3.74%) AWS
6 76 (2.68%) GCP
7 73 (2.57%) Microsoft 365
8 67 (2.36%) SaaS
9 66 (2.33%) SuccessFactors
10 56 (1.97%) Entra ID
11 43 (1.52%) Power Automate
12 36 (1.27%) Azure DevOps
13 31 (1.09%) Microsoft Purview
13 31 (1.09%) PowerApps
14 30 (1.06%) Microsoft Copilot
15 27 (0.95%) GitHub
16 22 (0.78%) OneDrive
17 19 (0.67%) Azure Data Factory
18 18 (0.63%) SAP Commerce Cloud
19 15 (0.53%) PaaS
Communications & Networking
1 40 (1.41%) Firewall
2 22 (0.78%) Network Security
3 14 (0.49%) VSAN
3 14 (0.49%) WAN
4 13 (0.46%) DNS
4 13 (0.46%) Kerberos
4 13 (0.46%) SMS
4 13 (0.46%) VPN
5 12 (0.42%) HTTP
5 12 (0.42%) LAN
5 12 (0.42%) SD-WAN
6 10 (0.35%) SAN
7 9 (0.32%) FTP
7 9 (0.32%) Software-Defined Networking
8 8 (0.28%) DHCP
8 8 (0.28%) Intranet
8 8 (0.28%) SNMP
8 8 (0.28%) SSH
8 8 (0.28%) SSL
9 7 (0.25%) NAS
Database & Business Intelligence
1 88 (3.10%) Power BI
2 60 (2.11%) Oracle Reports
3 37 (1.30%) SAP HANA
4 27 (0.95%) Metadata
5 26 (0.92%) Tableau
6 24 (0.85%) SQL Server
7 21 (0.74%) Oracle BI Publisher
8 15 (0.53%) Oracle ODI
9 14 (0.49%) SAP BW
10 11 (0.39%) SQL Server Reporting Services
11 9 (0.32%) Data Warehouse
11 9 (0.32%) Electronic Patient Records
12 8 (0.28%) NoSQL
13 7 (0.25%) GIS
14 6 (0.21%) Data Lake
14 6 (0.21%) Data Mart
14 6 (0.21%) Essbase
14 6 (0.21%) PostgreSQL
14 6 (0.21%) Relational Database
14 6 (0.21%) SAP Data Services
Development Applications
1 73 (2.57%) JIRA
2 18 (0.63%) Hudson
2 18 (0.63%) Oracle Forms
3 15 (0.53%) Jenkins
4 10 (0.35%) Git
5 7 (0.25%) GitLab
5 7 (0.25%) Oracle APEX
6 4 (0.14%) LSMW
6 4 (0.14%) Sonatype Nexus
7 3 (0.11%) Postman
7 3 (0.11%) Visual Studio Code
8 2 (0.070%) Bitbucket
8 2 (0.070%) git-flow
8 2 (0.070%) Rational DOORS
8 2 (0.070%) Rational Rhapsody
8 2 (0.070%) Selenium
8 2 (0.070%) SonarQube
8 2 (0.070%) TeamCity
9 1 (0.035%) MSTest
9 1 (0.035%) Team Foundation Server
General
1 667 (23.51%) Social Skills
2 619 (21.82%) Finance
3 268 (9.45%) Analytical Skills
4 239 (8.42%) Public Sector
5 123 (4.34%) Manufacturing
6 105 (3.70%) Banking
7 72 (2.54%) Marketing
8 70 (2.47%) Legal
9 58 (2.04%) Documentation Skills
10 57 (2.01%) Billing
11 44 (1.55%) General Ledger
12 43 (1.52%) Telecoms
13 38 (1.34%) Retail
14 34 (1.20%) Organisational Skills
15 30 (1.06%) Presentation Skills
16 26 (0.92%) Inclusion and Diversity
17 24 (0.85%) Law
18 22 (0.78%) Pharmaceutical
19 19 (0.67%) Advertising
19 19 (0.67%) Electronics
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 91 (3.21%) Oracle Fusion
2 69 (2.43%) REST
3 61 (2.15%) XML
4 41 (1.45%) SAP Fiori
5 30 (1.06%) SOAP
6 29 (1.02%) SAP TM
6 29 (1.02%) Web Services
7 28 (0.99%) LDAP
8 22 (0.78%) Middleware
9 20 (0.70%) JSON
10 19 (0.67%) BAPI
10 19 (0.67%) Node.js
11 18 (0.63%) SAP Basis
12 17 (0.60%) .NET
13 15 (0.53%) IDoc
14 14 (0.49%) GraphQL
15 13 (0.46%) HTML
16 12 (0.42%) CSS
16 12 (0.42%) SAP PI
17 11 (0.39%) Kafka
Miscellaneous
1 68 (2.40%) Onboarding
2 51 (1.80%) Legacy Systems
3 43 (1.52%) Product Ownership
4 36 (1.27%) Data Protection Act
4 36 (1.27%) Security Posture
5 31 (1.09%) Management Information System
5 31 (1.09%) Replication
6 28 (0.99%) Data Centre
7 26 (0.92%) Operational Technology
8 24 (0.85%) Cloud Native
9 21 (0.74%) AI Agents
9 21 (0.74%) Analytical Mindset
9 21 (0.74%) Data Structures
10 19 (0.67%) NHS
11 18 (0.63%) Greenfield Project
12 17 (0.60%) CMDB
12 17 (0.60%) Public Cloud
13 15 (0.53%) Life Science
14 13 (0.46%) Hybrid Cloud
14 13 (0.46%) Self-Motivation
Operating Systems
1 80 (2.82%) Windows
2 48 (1.69%) Linux
3 15 (0.53%) Unix
3 15 (0.53%) VMS
4 14 (0.49%) Windows Server
5 12 (0.42%) AIX
6 11 (0.39%) Windows 10
7 6 (0.21%) Mac OS
7 6 (0.21%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
7 6 (0.21%) Solaris
8 5 (0.18%) Ubuntu
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
1 393 (13.85%) Migration
2 299 (10.54%) Problem-Solving
3 286 (10.08%) Stakeholder Engagement
4 253 (8.92%) Stakeholder Management
5 242 (8.53%) ERP
6 202 (7.12%) Workshop Facilitation
7 185 (6.52%) User Acceptance Testing
8 178 (6.27%) Agile
9 171 (6.03%) Roadmaps
10 165 (5.82%) Data Migration
11 163 (5.75%) Continuous Improvement
12 158 (5.57%) Analytics
13 151 (5.32%) Business Intelligence
14 148 (5.22%) Cybersecurity
15 144 (5.08%) Validation
16 129 (4.55%) Knowledge Transfer
17 122 (4.30%) AI
18 118 (4.16%) Risk Management
19 114 (4.02%) Change Management
20 107 (3.77%) DevOps
Programming Languages
1 214 (7.54%) SQL
2 127 (4.48%) Python
3 83 (2.93%) PowerShell
4 74 (2.61%) JavaScript
5 54 (1.90%) ABAP
6 42 (1.48%) PL/SQL
7 34 (1.20%) Java
8 31 (1.09%) T-SQL
9 23 (0.81%) TypeScript
10 17 (0.60%) C#
11 16 (0.56%) Groovy
12 14 (0.49%) Bash
13 11 (0.39%) Shell Script
14 10 (0.35%) C++
15 8 (0.28%) Apex Code
15 8 (0.28%) Data Analysis Expressions
16 7 (0.25%) Kusto Query Language
16 7 (0.25%) R
17 6 (0.21%) Search Processing Language
18 5 (0.18%) Korn
Qualifications
1 616 (21.71%) Security Cleared
2 514 (18.12%) SC Cleared
3 95 (3.35%) Degree
4 92 (3.24%) DV Cleared
5 67 (2.36%) BPSS Clearance
6 59 (2.08%) CISSP
7 39 (1.37%) CISM
8 28 (0.99%) VMware Certified Professional (VCP)
9 21 (0.74%) CIMA
10 19 (0.67%) Computer Science Degree
11 18 (0.63%) Cisco Certification
12 16 (0.56%) Master's Degree
13 15 (0.53%) Microsoft Certification
14 14 (0.49%) ITIL Certification
15 13 (0.46%) SAP Certification
16 9 (0.32%) ACCA
16 9 (0.32%) Azure Certification
16 9 (0.32%) CEH
16 9 (0.32%) CompTIA Security+
16 9 (0.32%) PMP
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 94 (3.31%) NIST
2 89 (3.14%) ISO/IEC 27001
3 62 (2.19%) GDPR
4 56 (1.97%) Data Quality
5 52 (1.83%) GRC
6 47 (1.66%) QA
7 26 (0.92%) PCI DSS
8 25 (0.88%) NCSC
9 21 (0.74%) PMO
10 20 (0.70%) Sarbanes-Oxley
11 19 (0.67%) SLA
12 18 (0.63%) Actionable Recommendations
13 17 (0.60%) COBIT
14 14 (0.49%) JSP 440
15 11 (0.39%) PERC
16 10 (0.35%) ISO/IEC 27005
17 8 (0.28%) Cyber Essentials
17 8 (0.28%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
18 7 (0.25%) Accessibility
18 7 (0.25%) RMADS
System Software
1 63 (2.22%) Active Directory
2 33 (1.16%) VMware NSX
3 32 (1.13%) VMware Infrastructure
4 28 (0.99%) Docker
5 27 (0.95%) vSphere
6 9 (0.32%) Hyper-V
7 8 (0.28%) Virtual Desktop
8 6 (0.21%) Slurm Workload Manager
8 6 (0.21%) Virtual Machines
9 4 (0.14%) IAG
10 3 (0.11%) NFS
10 3 (0.11%) VMware ESXi
11 2 (0.070%) NDS
11 2 (0.070%) NetIQ eDirectory
12 1 (0.035%) Ceph
12 1 (0.035%) Job Entry Subsystem
12 1 (0.035%) KVM
12 1 (0.035%) QEMU
Systems Management
1 47 (1.66%) Kubernetes
2 36 (1.27%) Terraform
3 33 (1.16%) vRealize
4 20 (0.70%) Microsoft Intune
5 16 (0.56%) Single Sign-On
6 13 (0.46%) Ansible
7 8 (0.28%) Failover Clustering
7 8 (0.28%) Nagios
7 8 (0.28%) Netcool
7 8 (0.28%) OpenView
7 8 (0.28%) PingFederate
7 8 (0.28%) Tivoli
7 8 (0.28%) Tivoli Monitoring
7 8 (0.28%) ZABBIX
8 7 (0.25%) SCCM
9 6 (0.21%) NetBackup
9 6 (0.21%) Podman
10 5 (0.18%) Active Directory Federation Services
11 4 (0.14%) Control-M
12 3 (0.11%) Puppet
Vendors
1 618 (21.78%) SAP
2 319 (11.24%) Oracle
3 292 (10.29%) Microsoft
4 97 (3.42%) VMware
5 90 (3.17%) ServiceNow
6 62 (2.19%) Salesforce
7 58 (2.04%) Ariba
8 54 (1.90%) Workday
9 53 (1.87%) Siemens
10 48 (1.69%) Google
11 45 (1.59%) Cisco
12 37 (1.30%) Aruba
13 31 (1.09%) CyberArk
13 31 (1.09%) Databricks
14 24 (0.85%) Splunk
15 23 (0.81%) Adobe
16 19 (0.67%) IBM
17 18 (0.63%) OpenText
18 17 (0.60%) Murex
19 16 (0.56%) Sage