Consultant Contract Job Trends

Consultant
UK

The median Consultant daily rate in the UK is £550, according to job vacancies posted in the 6 months leading up to 20 August 2026.

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

6 months to
20 Aug 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 27 27 26
Rank change year-on-year 0 -1 +6
Contract jobs requiring a Consultant 3,200 2,167 2,682
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 5.98% 6.60% 6.92%
As % of the Job Titles category 6.47% 7.23% 7.44%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,759 1,264 1,559
10th Percentile £405 £411 £406
25th Percentile £463 £475 £468
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £550 £550 £550
75th Percentile £650 £650 £638
90th Percentile £750 £750 £750
UK excluding London median daily rate £525 £550 £552
% change year-on-year -4.55% -0.27% +5.05%
Number of hourly rates quoted 62 25 29
10th Percentile £36.25 £28.32 £41.15
25th Percentile £51.00 £41.60 £55.00
Median hourly rate £62.25 £77.50 £61.60
Median % change year-on-year -19.68% +25.81% -5.32%
75th Percentile £85.31 £81.25 £68.00
90th Percentile £88.75 - £74.89
UK excluding London median hourly rate £62.25 £77.50 £61.60
% change year-on-year -19.68% +25.81% -5.23%

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 49,489 29,958 36,053
% of contract IT jobs with a recognized job title 92.49% 91.24% 92.97%
Number of daily rates quoted 29,683 18,934 23,125
10th Percentile £325 £280 £300
25th Percentile £425 £400 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £500 £525
Median % change year-on-year +5.00% -4.76% -1.87%
75th Percentile £625 £620 £638
90th Percentile £730 £725 £750
UK excluding London median daily rate £500 £475 £500
% change year-on-year +5.26% -5.00% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 3,498 1,546 1,979
10th Percentile £15.00 £13.63 £14.16
25th Percentile £20.62 £17.30 £20.00
Median hourly rate £41.74 £25.15 £43.00
Median % change year-on-year +65.94% -41.51% +2.38%
75th Percentile £67.84 £53.99 £65.00
90th Percentile £80.00 £72.50 £75.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £42.50 £25.15 £43.90
% change year-on-year +68.99% -42.71% +17.07%

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 20 August 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 20 August 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 20 August 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 -3 2,581 £550 - 1,147
UK excluding London +3 1,397 £525 -4.55% 797
London -3 1,198 £550 -4.35% 493
Work from Home -3 1,077 £550 - 567
South East 0 412 £540 -1.82% 213
North of England -6 317 £550 - 189
Midlands +5 257 £500 -9.09% 107
South West +12 203 £553 -5.06% 135
North West -4 199 £575 +0.88% 124
West Midlands +14 182 £500 -9.09% 80
Scotland +33 114 £449 -5.53% 37
Yorkshire -9 97 £525 +4.53% 48
East of England -15 82 £550 - 71
East Midlands -3 65 £525 -4.55% 27
Wales -11 27 £550 +10.00% 8
North East -33 20 £750 +39.66% 18
Northern Ireland -2 2 £544 +4.57% 52

Consultant Skill Set
Top 30 Co-Occurring Skills & Capabilities

For the 6 months to 20 August 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.

1 677 (21.16%) Security Cleared
2 664 (20.75%) SAP
3 478 (14.94%) Stakeholder Management
4 463 (14.47%) SC Cleared
5 421 (13.16%) Microsoft
6 415 (12.97%) Migration
7 402 (12.56%) Oracle
8 302 (9.44%) Azure
9 299 (9.34%) Stakeholder Engagement
10 273 (8.53%) SAP S/4HANA
11 267 (8.34%) User Acceptance Testing
12 264 (8.25%) SQL
13 258 (8.06%) Problem-Solving
14 237 (7.41%) ERP
15 226 (7.06%) Workshop Facilitation
16 224 (7.00%) Validation
17 209 (6.53%) Continuous Improvement
18 207 (6.47%) Cybersecurity
19 196 (6.13%) Analytics
20 187 (5.84%) Agile
21 184 (5.75%) Data Migration
21 184 (5.75%) Roadmaps
22 166 (5.19%) AI
23 163 (5.09%) AWS
24 162 (5.06%) Requirements Gathering
25 152 (4.75%) Business Intelligence
26 150 (4.69%) DV Cleared
26 150 (4.69%) Power Platform
27 146 (4.56%) Translating Business Requirements
28 131 (4.09%) Project Delivery

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 86 (2.69%) SharePoint
2 50 (1.56%) Confluence
3 18 (0.56%) Microsoft Exchange
4 14 (0.44%) Oracle Workflow
5 9 (0.28%) WebSphere
6 8 (0.25%) WebLogic
7 6 (0.19%) Apache Spark
8 4 (0.13%) SAS
9 3 (0.094%) Apache
9 3 (0.094%) Apache Airflow
9 3 (0.094%) Apache Superset
9 3 (0.094%) OpenStack
9 3 (0.094%) TIBCO ActiveMatrix
10 2 (0.063%) Adobe Experience Manager
10 2 (0.063%) Cloud Foundry
10 2 (0.063%) CMS
10 2 (0.063%) Oracle Service Bus
10 2 (0.063%) Oracle SOA Suite
10 2 (0.063%) Palantir Foundry
10 2 (0.063%) WordPress
Applications
1 79 (2.47%) Microsoft Excel
2 33 (1.03%) Microsoft Office
3 24 (0.75%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 10 (0.31%) Spreadsheet
5 8 (0.25%) MS Visio
6 5 (0.16%) Microsoft Project
7 4 (0.13%) Chatbot
8 1 (0.031%) Adobe Captivate
8 1 (0.031%) Adobe Creative Suite
8 1 (0.031%) CPLEX
8 1 (0.031%) Oracle Smart View
Business Applications
1 273 (8.53%) SAP S/4HANA
2 91 (2.84%) Oracle EBS
3 70 (2.19%) SAP FI
4 48 (1.50%) Oracle ERP
4 48 (1.50%) SAP PSCD
5 47 (1.47%) Oracle Payables
6 39 (1.22%) SAP CO
6 39 (1.22%) SAP MM
7 36 (1.13%) Oracle Receivables
8 35 (1.09%) Dynamics CRM
8 35 (1.09%) SAP SD
9 32 (1.00%) SAP FI/CO
10 31 (0.97%) SAP BRIM
11 30 (0.94%) NetSuite
11 30 (0.94%) SAP PP
12 29 (0.91%) Workday HCM
13 28 (0.88%) SAP FI-CA
13 28 (0.88%) SAP Payroll
14 26 (0.81%) Oracle EBS R12
14 26 (0.81%) Oracle General Ledger
Cloud Services
1 302 (9.44%) Azure
2 163 (5.09%) AWS
3 150 (4.69%) Power Platform
4 130 (4.06%) Dynamics 365
5 116 (3.63%) OCI
6 108 (3.38%) SuccessFactors
7 91 (2.84%) GCP
8 87 (2.72%) Microsoft 365
9 70 (2.19%) Power Automate
10 58 (1.81%) Entra ID
11 56 (1.75%) Azure DevOps
12 53 (1.66%) Microsoft Copilot
13 46 (1.44%) SaaS
14 35 (1.09%) PowerApps
15 28 (0.88%) GitHub
16 26 (0.81%) Microsoft Purview
17 18 (0.56%) Copilot Studio
18 16 (0.50%) Azure AI
18 16 (0.50%) Azure Logic Apps
19 14 (0.44%) Snowflake
Communications & Networking
1 60 (1.88%) Firewall
2 57 (1.78%) Network Security
3 33 (1.03%) WAN
4 25 (0.78%) SNMP
5 23 (0.72%) BGP
6 20 (0.63%) DNS
6 20 (0.63%) VPN
7 19 (0.59%) LAN
8 14 (0.44%) SAN
9 11 (0.34%) TCP/IP
10 10 (0.31%) NGFW
10 10 (0.31%) VSAN
11 9 (0.28%) Ethernet VPN
11 9 (0.28%) SD-WAN
12 8 (0.25%) VXLAN
13 7 (0.22%) 5G
13 7 (0.22%) IPsec
13 7 (0.22%) MPLS
13 7 (0.22%) Radio Access Network
13 7 (0.22%) Wireless
Database & Business Intelligence
1 95 (2.97%) Power BI
2 60 (1.88%) Oracle Reports
3 36 (1.13%) SAP BW
3 36 (1.13%) SQL Server
4 34 (1.06%) Oracle BI Publisher
4 34 (1.06%) SAP HANA
4 34 (1.06%) Tableau
5 26 (0.81%) Metadata
6 24 (0.75%) Data Warehouse
7 19 (0.59%) BusinessObjects
7 19 (0.59%) Oracle ODI
8 12 (0.38%) SAP Data Services
9 11 (0.34%) Oracle Database
10 10 (0.31%) Power Query
11 8 (0.25%) Relational Database
12 7 (0.22%) SQL Server Reporting Services
13 6 (0.19%) Delta Lake
13 6 (0.19%) Looker
14 5 (0.16%) NonStop SQL
14 5 (0.16%) NoSQL
Development Applications
1 95 (2.97%) JIRA
2 20 (0.63%) Git
2 20 (0.63%) Oracle Forms
3 16 (0.50%) Jenkins
4 12 (0.38%) Hudson
5 10 (0.31%) GitLab
6 7 (0.22%) Sonatype Nexus
7 6 (0.19%) PowerBuilder
7 6 (0.19%) SonarQube
8 5 (0.16%) Cypress.io
9 4 (0.13%) Selenium
9 4 (0.13%) Snyk
9 4 (0.13%) Zephyr
10 3 (0.094%) Browser DevTools
10 3 (0.094%) JMeter
10 3 (0.094%) MLflow
10 3 (0.094%) Postman
10 3 (0.094%) TestRail
10 3 (0.094%) Toad
10 3 (0.094%) Visual Studio Code
General
1 704 (22.00%) Finance
2 697 (21.78%) Social Skills
3 244 (7.63%) Analytical Skills
4 233 (7.28%) Public Sector
5 118 (3.69%) Manufacturing
6 93 (2.91%) Banking
7 87 (2.72%) Legal
8 77 (2.41%) Billing
9 67 (2.09%) Telecoms
10 62 (1.94%) Documentation Skills
11 59 (1.84%) General Ledger
12 55 (1.72%) Presentation Skills
13 53 (1.66%) Retail
14 49 (1.53%) Marketing
15 46 (1.44%) Inclusion and Diversity
16 38 (1.19%) Pharmaceutical
17 37 (1.16%) Influencing Skills
18 23 (0.72%) Local Government
19 19 (0.59%) Law
19 19 (0.59%) Organisational Skills
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 118 (3.69%) Oracle Fusion
2 87 (2.72%) REST
3 63 (1.97%) XML
4 59 (1.84%) Terraform
5 41 (1.28%) SAP Fiori
5 41 (1.28%) SOAP
6 33 (1.03%) Middleware
7 30 (0.94%) Web Services
8 27 (0.84%) JSON
9 21 (0.66%) BAPI
10 20 (0.63%) HTML
11 18 (0.56%) CSS
11 18 (0.56%) LDAP
11 18 (0.56%) SAP Basis
11 18 (0.56%) SAP PI
12 17 (0.53%) OAuth
13 15 (0.47%) SailPoint
14 13 (0.41%) .NET
14 13 (0.41%) EDI
14 13 (0.41%) IDoc
Miscellaneous
1 119 (3.72%) Onboarding
2 52 (1.63%) CMDB
3 41 (1.28%) Data Protection Act
4 39 (1.22%) Product Ownership
5 38 (1.19%) Data Centre
6 36 (1.13%) Data Structures
6 36 (1.13%) Security Posture
7 35 (1.09%) Legacy Systems
8 29 (0.91%) AI Agents
9 27 (0.84%) Enterprise Software
10 26 (0.81%) Operational Technology
10 26 (0.81%) Replication
11 24 (0.75%) Cloud Native
12 22 (0.69%) Public Cloud
13 19 (0.59%) Greenfield Project
13 19 (0.59%) Management Information System
14 18 (0.56%) Analytical Mindset
14 18 (0.56%) Hybrid Cloud
14 18 (0.56%) Life Science
14 18 (0.56%) NHS
Operating Systems
1 102 (3.19%) Windows
2 79 (2.47%) Linux
3 25 (0.78%) Unix
4 21 (0.66%) Solaris
5 20 (0.63%) VMS
6 19 (0.59%) AIX
7 17 (0.53%) Windows Server
8 6 (0.19%) Android
8 6 (0.19%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
9 5 (0.16%) Apple iOS
9 5 (0.16%) Windows 10
10 3 (0.094%) Mac OS
11 2 (0.063%) Windows Server 2016
12 1 (0.031%) CoreOS
12 1 (0.031%) Data ONTAP
12 1 (0.031%) OpenVMS
12 1 (0.031%) SUSE
12 1 (0.031%) Windows Server 2012
12 1 (0.031%) zOS
Processes & Methodologies
1 478 (14.94%) Stakeholder Management
2 415 (12.97%) Migration
3 299 (9.34%) Stakeholder Engagement
4 267 (8.34%) User Acceptance Testing
5 258 (8.06%) Problem-Solving
6 237 (7.41%) ERP
7 226 (7.06%) Workshop Facilitation
8 224 (7.00%) Validation
9 209 (6.53%) Continuous Improvement
10 207 (6.47%) Cybersecurity
11 196 (6.13%) Analytics
12 187 (5.84%) Agile
13 184 (5.75%) Data Migration
13 184 (5.75%) Roadmaps
14 166 (5.19%) AI
15 162 (5.06%) Requirements Gathering
16 152 (4.75%) Business Intelligence
17 146 (4.56%) Translating Business Requirements
18 131 (4.09%) Project Delivery
19 127 (3.97%) Knowledge Transfer
Programming Languages
1 264 (8.25%) SQL
2 122 (3.81%) Python
3 58 (1.81%) PowerShell
4 54 (1.69%) PL/SQL
5 50 (1.56%) JavaScript
6 49 (1.53%) ABAP
7 38 (1.19%) T-SQL
8 31 (0.97%) Java
9 17 (0.53%) Bash
10 14 (0.44%) C#
11 13 (0.41%) Data Analysis Expressions
11 13 (0.41%) Kusto Query Language
11 13 (0.41%) Search Processing Language
12 9 (0.28%) R
12 9 (0.28%) TypeScript
13 7 (0.22%) Shell Script
14 6 (0.19%) Korn
14 6 (0.19%) Perl
15 5 (0.16%) C++
15 5 (0.16%) Groovy
Qualifications
1 677 (21.16%) Security Cleared
2 463 (14.47%) SC Cleared
3 150 (4.69%) DV Cleared
4 94 (2.94%) BPSS Clearance
5 80 (2.50%) CISSP
6 72 (2.25%) Degree
7 62 (1.94%) CISM
8 41 (1.28%) Cisco Certification
9 31 (0.97%) (ISC)2 CCSP
10 27 (0.84%) CCSP
11 20 (0.63%) ACCA
12 19 (0.59%) CIMA
13 15 (0.47%) CRISC
13 15 (0.47%) PMP
14 14 (0.44%) CEH
14 14 (0.44%) CompTIA Security+
15 12 (0.38%) Azure Certification
15 12 (0.38%) OSCP
16 11 (0.34%) Computer Science Degree
16 11 (0.34%) ISO 27001 Lead Auditor
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 89 (2.78%) NIST
2 83 (2.59%) Data Quality
3 79 (2.47%) ISO/IEC 27001
4 74 (2.31%) GRC
5 52 (1.63%) QA
6 38 (1.19%) GDPR
7 31 (0.97%) NCSC
8 26 (0.81%) PMO
8 26 (0.81%) SLA
9 24 (0.75%) PCI DSS
10 23 (0.72%) Accessibility
11 21 (0.66%) Actionable Recommendations
12 15 (0.47%) Sarbanes-Oxley
13 12 (0.38%) Cyber Essentials
13 12 (0.38%) GxP
14 11 (0.34%) COBIT
14 11 (0.34%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
15 9 (0.28%) IFRS
15 9 (0.28%) NIST 800
15 9 (0.28%) SOC 2
System Software
1 73 (2.28%) Active Directory
2 41 (1.28%) VMware Infrastructure
3 38 (1.19%) VMware NSX
4 24 (0.75%) vSphere
5 14 (0.44%) VMware ESXi
6 13 (0.41%) Docker
7 12 (0.38%) Hyper-V
7 12 (0.38%) Virtual Machines
8 10 (0.31%) IAG
9 7 (0.22%) Virtual Desktop
10 2 (0.063%) BitLocker
10 2 (0.063%) Firmware
10 2 (0.063%) NFS
10 2 (0.063%) PowerHA
11 1 (0.031%) HDFS
11 1 (0.031%) Oracle RAC
11 1 (0.031%) ProxySG
11 1 (0.031%) RHEV
11 1 (0.031%) SRDF
11 1 (0.031%) Time Sharing Option
Systems Management
1 45 (1.41%) Kubernetes
2 31 (0.97%) Ansible
3 18 (0.56%) Microsoft Intune
3 18 (0.56%) SCCM
4 17 (0.53%) vRealize
5 15 (0.47%) Nagios
5 15 (0.47%) ZABBIX
6 14 (0.44%) Grafana
6 14 (0.44%) Netcool
6 14 (0.44%) Tivoli
7 13 (0.41%) OpenView
7 13 (0.41%) Tivoli Monitoring
8 12 (0.38%) FortiGate
8 12 (0.38%) Single Sign-On
9 11 (0.34%) Prometheus
10 10 (0.31%) vCenter Server
11 6 (0.19%) NetBackup
11 6 (0.19%) VxRail
12 4 (0.13%) CEMLI
12 4 (0.13%) vRealize Orchestrator
Vendors
1 664 (20.75%) SAP
2 421 (13.16%) Microsoft
3 402 (12.56%) Oracle
4 130 (4.06%) ServiceNow
5 85 (2.66%) VMware
6 61 (1.91%) Ariba
7 60 (1.88%) Workday
8 55 (1.72%) Salesforce
9 46 (1.44%) Splunk
10 44 (1.38%) Databricks
11 32 (1.00%) BMC
12 28 (0.88%) Google
12 28 (0.88%) IBM
12 28 (0.88%) OpenText
13 24 (0.75%) Palo Alto
14 22 (0.69%) Adobe
15 20 (0.63%) Cisco
16 18 (0.56%) Okta
17 17 (0.53%) JD Edwards
17 17 (0.53%) OpenAI