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 5 October 2026.

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

6 months to
5 Oct 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 29 26 27
Rank change year-on-year -3 +1 +3
Contract jobs requiring a Consultant 3,221 2,357 2,594
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 5.92% 7.14% 6.82%
As % of the Job Titles category 6.43% 7.86% 7.34%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,806 1,372 1,397
10th Percentile £413 £411 £413
25th Percentile £463 £475 £469
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £550 £550 £550
75th Percentile £655 £650 £650
90th Percentile £750 £738 £750
UK excluding London median daily rate £550 £550 £565
% change year-on-year - -2.65% +7.62%
Number of hourly rates quoted 64 25 24
10th Percentile £36.25 £28.32 £45.38
25th Percentile £44.06 £41.60 £60.29
Median hourly rate £74.50 £77.50 £62.30
Median % change year-on-year -3.87% +24.40% -5.61%
75th Percentile £85.55 £81.25 £70.89
90th Percentile £92.63 £86.75 £74.96
UK excluding London median hourly rate £76.00 £77.50 £61.60
% change year-on-year -1.94% +25.81% -5.41%

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 50,097 29,975 35,353
% of contract IT jobs with a recognized job title 92.11% 90.82% 93.00%
Number of daily rates quoted 29,425 18,913 21,413
10th Percentile £325 £278 £300
25th Percentile £425 £400 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £500 £525
Median % change year-on-year +5.00% -4.76% -0.94%
75th Percentile £638 £623 £638
90th Percentile £737 £725 £738
UK excluding London median daily rate £500 £475 £495
% change year-on-year +5.26% -4.04% -1.00%
Number of hourly rates quoted 3,996 1,630 1,535
10th Percentile £14.42 £13.75 £14.85
25th Percentile £19.61 £17.26 £20.63
Median hourly rate £41.74 £25.15 £42.50
Median % change year-on-year +65.94% -40.82% -4.49%
75th Percentile £67.50 £50.75 £65.00
90th Percentile £78.75 £68.00 £74.65
UK excluding London median hourly rate £41.74 £25.04 £43.00
% change year-on-year +66.69% -41.77% -2.05%

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 5 October 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 5 October 2026.

Hourly rate histogram for Consultant in the UK

Consultant
Top 18 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 5 October 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 -5 2,580 £550 -2.22% 3,612
UK excluding London -9 1,332 £550 - 1,946
London -4 1,263 £550 -4.35% 1,878
Work from Home -5 1,058 £550 - 1,847
South East -7 378 £540 -1.82% 524
North of England -20 334 £578 -3.75% 492
Midlands -4 223 £500 -13.04% 251
North West -15 222 £585 -5.84% 269
South West +13 188 £578 +0.52% 225
West Midlands -4 159 £500 -13.04% 181
Scotland +19 119 £475 -5.00% 177
East of England -14 103 £552 +0.36% 147
Yorkshire -18 87 £575 +21.05% 103
East Midlands -6 58 £525 -9.09% 70
North East -21 24 £750 +36.36% 121
Wales -28 15 £575 +29.58% 61
Channel Islands -5 2 £600 - 3
Northern Ireland -10 2 £544 +4.57% 85

Consultant Skill Set
Top 30 Co-Occurring Skills & Capabilities

For the 6 months to 5 October 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.

1 697 (21.64%) Security Cleared
2 633 (19.65%) SAP
3 600 (18.63%) Stakeholder Management
4 472 (14.65%) SC Cleared
5 470 (14.59%) Microsoft
6 442 (13.72%) Migration
7 393 (12.20%) Oracle
8 312 (9.69%) Azure
9 295 (9.16%) User Acceptance Testing
10 294 (9.13%) Stakeholder Engagement
11 286 (8.88%) SAP S/4HANA
12 269 (8.35%) Problem-Solving
13 259 (8.04%) Validation
14 249 (7.73%) Cybersecurity
14 249 (7.73%) Workshop Facilitation
15 227 (7.05%) ERP
16 222 (6.89%) Analytics
17 208 (6.46%) SQL
18 201 (6.24%) Data Migration
19 196 (6.09%) Roadmaps
20 193 (5.99%) Continuous Improvement
21 192 (5.96%) Requirements Gathering
22 182 (5.65%) Agile
23 171 (5.31%) AWS
24 170 (5.28%) AI
25 163 (5.06%) Knowledge Transfer
26 158 (4.91%) Power Platform
27 148 (4.59%) Business Intelligence
28 147 (4.56%) Dynamics 365
29 146 (4.53%) DV Cleared

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 73 (2.27%) SharePoint
2 45 (1.40%) Confluence
3 31 (0.96%) Microsoft Exchange
4 8 (0.25%) SAS
4 8 (0.25%) WebSphere
5 7 (0.22%) Oracle Workflow
5 7 (0.22%) WebLogic
6 5 (0.16%) Apache Airflow
7 4 (0.12%) ArcGIS
7 4 (0.12%) CMS
8 3 (0.093%) Adobe Experience Manager
8 3 (0.093%) Apache
8 3 (0.093%) Apache Spark
8 3 (0.093%) IIS
8 3 (0.093%) NetWeaver
8 3 (0.093%) OpenStack
8 3 (0.093%) Oracle SOA Suite
8 3 (0.093%) TIBCO ActiveMatrix
9 2 (0.062%) SAP Portal
9 2 (0.062%) WordPress
Applications
1 50 (1.55%) Microsoft Excel
2 33 (1.02%) Microsoft Office
3 29 (0.90%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 10 (0.31%) MS Visio
5 7 (0.22%) Spreadsheet
6 4 (0.12%) Microsoft Project
7 2 (0.062%) Chatbot
8 1 (0.031%) 1Password
8 1 (0.031%) Adobe Captivate
8 1 (0.031%) Adobe Creative Suite
8 1 (0.031%) CPLEX
8 1 (0.031%) Windchill
Business Applications
1 286 (8.88%) SAP S/4HANA
2 84 (2.61%) Oracle EBS
3 78 (2.42%) SAP FI
4 57 (1.77%) SAP Payroll
5 50 (1.55%) SAP PSCD
6 48 (1.49%) Oracle ERP
7 44 (1.37%) SAP CO
8 43 (1.33%) Oracle Payables
9 42 (1.30%) Oracle General Ledger
9 42 (1.30%) Oracle Receivables
10 41 (1.27%) SAP HCM
11 40 (1.24%) Workday HCM
12 37 (1.15%) Dynamics CRM
12 37 (1.15%) SAP HR
13 35 (1.09%) SAP FI/CO
14 34 (1.06%) SAP BRIM
15 33 (1.02%) SAP SD
16 28 (0.87%) NetSuite
17 27 (0.84%) SAP MM
18 26 (0.81%) SAP PP
Cloud Services
1 312 (9.69%) Azure
2 171 (5.31%) AWS
3 158 (4.91%) Power Platform
4 147 (4.56%) Dynamics 365
5 109 (3.38%) OCI
6 102 (3.17%) SuccessFactors
7 96 (2.98%) GCP
8 92 (2.86%) Microsoft 365
9 71 (2.20%) Entra ID
10 65 (2.02%) Azure DevOps
11 62 (1.92%) Power Automate
12 56 (1.74%) Microsoft Copilot
13 49 (1.52%) SaaS
14 34 (1.06%) PowerApps
15 29 (0.90%) Microsoft Purview
16 25 (0.78%) GitHub
17 21 (0.65%) Snowflake
18 18 (0.56%) Azure AI
19 16 (0.50%) SAP Commerce Cloud
20 15 (0.47%) Amazon S3
Communications & Networking
1 71 (2.20%) Firewall
2 66 (2.05%) Network Security
3 34 (1.06%) BGP
3 34 (1.06%) WAN
4 26 (0.81%) VPN
5 20 (0.62%) DNS
6 15 (0.47%) LAN
6 15 (0.47%) SNMP
7 14 (0.43%) Ethernet VPN
7 14 (0.43%) TCP/IP
8 12 (0.37%) SAN
8 12 (0.37%) VXLAN
9 11 (0.34%) IPsec
9 11 (0.34%) MPLS
9 11 (0.34%) NGFW
10 10 (0.31%) 3GPP
10 10 (0.31%) 5G
10 10 (0.31%) Radio Access Network
11 9 (0.28%) FTP
11 9 (0.28%) SD-WAN
Database & Business Intelligence
1 93 (2.89%) Power BI
2 42 (1.30%) Oracle Reports
3 38 (1.18%) Oracle BI Publisher
4 35 (1.09%) SAP HANA
5 34 (1.06%) Data Warehouse
5 34 (1.06%) SAP BW
6 29 (0.90%) SQL Server
7 26 (0.81%) Metadata
8 25 (0.78%) Tableau
9 23 (0.71%) BusinessObjects
10 17 (0.53%) Oracle Database
10 17 (0.53%) Power Query
11 12 (0.37%) Elasticsearch
12 10 (0.31%) BigQuery
12 10 (0.31%) Relational Database
13 9 (0.28%) DynamoDB
13 9 (0.28%) SAP Data Services
14 7 (0.22%) Amazon RDS
14 7 (0.22%) Looker
14 7 (0.22%) Oracle ODI
Development Applications
1 93 (2.89%) JIRA
2 32 (0.99%) Git
3 19 (0.59%) Jenkins
4 13 (0.40%) GitLab
5 10 (0.31%) Oracle Forms
6 8 (0.25%) SonarQube
7 7 (0.22%) PowerBuilder
7 7 (0.22%) Zephyr
8 6 (0.19%) Sonatype Nexus
9 5 (0.16%) Cypress.io
9 5 (0.16%) Hudson
10 4 (0.12%) Maven
11 3 (0.093%) JDeveloper
11 3 (0.093%) JMeter
11 3 (0.093%) LoadRunner
11 3 (0.093%) MLflow
11 3 (0.093%) Postman
11 3 (0.093%) Snyk
11 3 (0.093%) TestRail
11 3 (0.093%) Toad
General
1 734 (22.79%) Social Skills
2 732 (22.73%) Finance
3 268 (8.32%) Public Sector
4 243 (7.54%) Analytical Skills
5 129 (4.00%) Manufacturing
6 98 (3.04%) Banking
7 93 (2.89%) Legal
8 91 (2.83%) Billing
9 83 (2.58%) Documentation Skills
10 69 (2.14%) Telecoms
11 62 (1.92%) General Ledger
12 59 (1.83%) Retail
13 56 (1.74%) Presentation Skills
14 46 (1.43%) Marketing
15 42 (1.30%) Influencing Skills
16 38 (1.18%) Inclusion and Diversity
17 36 (1.12%) Pharmaceutical
18 30 (0.93%) Local Government
19 24 (0.75%) Law
20 20 (0.62%) Aerospace
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 131 (4.07%) Oracle Fusion
2 72 (2.24%) REST
3 63 (1.96%) Terraform
4 46 (1.43%) SAP Fiori
5 40 (1.24%) Middleware
5 40 (1.24%) Web Services
6 39 (1.21%) SOAP
6 39 (1.21%) XML
7 25 (0.78%) SailPoint
8 22 (0.68%) JSON
8 22 (0.68%) OAuth
9 19 (0.59%) LDAP
10 18 (0.56%) SAP PI
11 16 (0.50%) BAPI
11 16 (0.50%) HTML
12 14 (0.43%) ADO
12 14 (0.43%) CSS
12 14 (0.43%) SAP Basis
13 13 (0.40%) EDI
13 13 (0.40%) XSLT
Miscellaneous
1 136 (4.22%) Onboarding
2 53 (1.65%) CMDB
3 51 (1.58%) Data Structures
3 51 (1.58%) Operational Technology
4 47 (1.46%) Data Centre
5 41 (1.27%) Enterprise Software
6 38 (1.18%) Product Ownership
7 35 (1.09%) Security Posture
8 34 (1.06%) Data Protection Act
9 30 (0.93%) Cloud Native
10 29 (0.90%) Legacy Systems
10 29 (0.90%) Replication
11 27 (0.84%) AI Agents
12 23 (0.71%) Public Cloud
13 22 (0.68%) Greenfield Project
13 22 (0.68%) Life Science
14 20 (0.62%) Management Information System
15 18 (0.56%) Hybrid Cloud
16 17 (0.53%) NHS
17 16 (0.50%) PKI
Operating Systems
1 94 (2.92%) Windows
2 72 (2.24%) Linux
3 29 (0.90%) Unix
4 27 (0.84%) Windows Server
5 19 (0.59%) Solaris
6 13 (0.40%) VMS
7 9 (0.28%) AIX
8 7 (0.22%) Android
8 7 (0.22%) Windows 10
9 6 (0.19%) Apple iOS
9 6 (0.19%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
9 6 (0.19%) Windows Server 2016
10 1 (0.031%) Data ONTAP
10 1 (0.031%) Kali Linux
10 1 (0.031%) Mac OS
10 1 (0.031%) OpenVMS
10 1 (0.031%) SUSE
10 1 (0.031%) Windows Server 2012
10 1 (0.031%) zOS
Processes & Methodologies
1 600 (18.63%) Stakeholder Management
2 442 (13.72%) Migration
3 295 (9.16%) User Acceptance Testing
4 294 (9.13%) Stakeholder Engagement
5 269 (8.35%) Problem-Solving
6 259 (8.04%) Validation
7 249 (7.73%) Cybersecurity
7 249 (7.73%) Workshop Facilitation
8 227 (7.05%) ERP
9 222 (6.89%) Analytics
10 201 (6.24%) Data Migration
11 196 (6.09%) Roadmaps
12 193 (5.99%) Continuous Improvement
13 192 (5.96%) Requirements Gathering
14 182 (5.65%) Agile
15 170 (5.28%) AI
16 163 (5.06%) Knowledge Transfer
17 148 (4.59%) Business Intelligence
18 141 (4.38%) Translating Business Requirements
19 138 (4.28%) Project Delivery
Programming Languages
1 208 (6.46%) SQL
2 98 (3.04%) Python
3 66 (2.05%) ABAP
4 48 (1.49%) PowerShell
5 41 (1.27%) JavaScript
6 31 (0.96%) Java
7 29 (0.90%) PL/SQL
8 23 (0.71%) Bash
9 16 (0.50%) Data Analysis Expressions
10 15 (0.47%) C#
11 13 (0.40%) Kusto Query Language
12 9 (0.28%) T-SQL
12 9 (0.28%) TypeScript
13 8 (0.25%) Groovy
13 8 (0.25%) Shell Script
14 7 (0.22%) Search Processing Language
15 6 (0.19%) Korn
16 5 (0.16%) R
17 4 (0.12%) Bicep
17 4 (0.12%) Perl
Qualifications
1 697 (21.64%) Security Cleared
2 472 (14.65%) SC Cleared
3 146 (4.53%) DV Cleared
4 106 (3.29%) BPSS Clearance
5 77 (2.39%) Degree
6 66 (2.05%) CISSP
7 52 (1.61%) CISM
8 41 (1.27%) Cisco Certification
9 29 (0.90%) (ISC)2 CCSP
10 25 (0.78%) CCSP
11 18 (0.56%) ACCA
12 17 (0.53%) AWS Certification
13 16 (0.50%) CRISC
14 15 (0.47%) CIMA
15 12 (0.37%) CompTIA Security+
16 11 (0.34%) CISA
16 11 (0.34%) Computer Science Degree
16 11 (0.34%) PMP
17 10 (0.31%) CCIE
18 9 (0.28%) ISO 27001 Lead Auditor
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 117 (3.63%) Data Quality
2 99 (3.07%) NIST
3 80 (2.48%) GRC
4 75 (2.33%) ISO/IEC 27001
5 61 (1.89%) QA
6 46 (1.43%) NCSC
7 36 (1.12%) GDPR
8 34 (1.06%) SLA
9 28 (0.87%) PMO
10 22 (0.68%) Actionable Recommendations
11 19 (0.59%) Accessibility
12 18 (0.56%) Cyber Essentials
13 16 (0.50%) PCI DSS
14 13 (0.40%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
15 11 (0.34%) NIST 800
15 11 (0.34%) Sarbanes-Oxley
16 9 (0.28%) GxP
16 9 (0.28%) IFRS
17 8 (0.25%) SOC 2
17 8 (0.25%) WCAG
System Software
1 87 (2.70%) Active Directory
2 35 (1.09%) VMware Infrastructure
3 28 (0.87%) VMware NSX
4 18 (0.56%) Docker
5 17 (0.53%) vSphere
6 12 (0.37%) Hyper-V
6 12 (0.37%) VMware ESXi
7 11 (0.34%) Virtual Machines
8 9 (0.28%) IAG
9 6 (0.19%) Firmware
9 6 (0.19%) Virtual Desktop
10 2 (0.062%) BitLocker
10 2 (0.062%) PowerHA
11 1 (0.031%) HDFS
11 1 (0.031%) NFS
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 48 (1.49%) Kubernetes
2 36 (1.12%) Ansible
3 24 (0.75%) Microsoft Intune
4 21 (0.65%) SCCM
5 15 (0.47%) Grafana
6 12 (0.37%) FortiGate
6 12 (0.37%) vRealize
7 11 (0.34%) Single Sign-On
8 10 (0.31%) vCenter Server
9 9 (0.28%) Prometheus
10 6 (0.19%) Nagios
10 6 (0.19%) VxRail
10 6 (0.19%) ZABBIX
11 4 (0.12%) CEMLI
11 4 (0.12%) logstash
11 4 (0.12%) Netcool
11 4 (0.12%) Tivoli
11 4 (0.12%) vRealize Orchestrator
12 3 (0.093%) Tivoli Monitoring
12 3 (0.093%) Tivoli Storage Manager
Vendors
1 633 (19.65%) SAP
2 470 (14.59%) Microsoft
3 393 (12.20%) Oracle
4 134 (4.16%) ServiceNow
5 86 (2.67%) Workday
6 67 (2.08%) VMware
7 49 (1.52%) Salesforce
8 47 (1.46%) Ariba
9 38 (1.18%) Databricks
10 37 (1.15%) Palo Alto
11 34 (1.06%) Splunk
12 31 (0.96%) CyberArk
13 29 (0.90%) Cisco
13 29 (0.90%) Google
14 24 (0.75%) OpenText
15 22 (0.68%) BMC
16 21 (0.65%) IBM
17 19 (0.59%) Zscaler
18 18 (0.56%) Adobe
18 18 (0.56%) Dell