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 19 August 2026.

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

6 months to
19 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 3,192 2,164 2,691
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 5.96% 6.59% 6.92%
As % of the Job Titles category 6.44% 7.23% 7.45%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,754 1,260 1,565
10th Percentile £404 £411 £406
25th Percentile £463 £475 £468
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £550 £550 £550
75th Percentile £650 £650 £638
90th Percentile £745 £750 £750
UK excluding London median daily rate £525 £550 £557
% change year-on-year -4.55% -1.17% +6.00%
Number of hourly rates quoted 63 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 £84.63 £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 49,538 29,942 36,126
% of contract IT jobs with a recognized job title 92.48% 91.24% 92.96%
Number of daily rates quoted 29,723 18,896 23,187
10th Percentile £325 £281 £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 £727 £725 £750
UK excluding London median daily rate £500 £475 £500
% change year-on-year +5.26% -5.00% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 3,497 1,549 1,984
10th Percentile £15.00 £13.59 £14.16
25th Percentile £20.60 £17.30 £20.00
Median hourly rate £41.71 £25.15 £43.00
Median % change year-on-year +65.84% -41.51% +2.87%
75th Percentile £67.84 £53.99 £65.00
90th Percentile £80.00 £72.50 £75.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £42.30 £25.15 £43.95
% change year-on-year +68.19% -42.78% +17.20%

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 19 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 19 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 19 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 2,575 £550 - 1,940
UK excluding London +2 1,396 £525 -4.55% 1,191
London -3 1,193 £550 -4.35% 1,038
Work from Home -4 1,075 £550 - 1,040
South East 0 413 £540 -1.82% 237
North of England -9 315 £550 - 306
Midlands +6 257 £500 -9.09% 157
South West +13 204 £553 -3.83% 190
North West -7 197 £578 +5.00% 210
West Midlands +13 183 £500 -9.09% 120
Scotland +32 113 £448 -5.79% 103
Yorkshire -11 97 £525 +4.53% 69
East of England -20 82 £550 - 86
East Midlands -5 64 £525 -4.55% 37
Wales -11 27 £550 +22.22% 12
North East -33 20 £750 +39.66% 29
Northern Ireland -1 2 £544 +4.57% 115

Consultant Skill Set
Top 30 Co-Occurring Skills & Capabilities

For the 6 months to 19 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.

1 671 (21.02%) Security Cleared
2 662 (20.74%) SAP
3 475 (14.88%) Stakeholder Management
4 459 (14.38%) SC Cleared
5 421 (13.19%) Microsoft
6 417 (13.06%) Migration
7 398 (12.47%) Oracle
8 301 (9.43%) Azure
9 297 (9.30%) Stakeholder Engagement
10 271 (8.49%) SAP S/4HANA
11 263 (8.24%) SQL
11 263 (8.24%) User Acceptance Testing
12 258 (8.08%) Problem-Solving
13 240 (7.52%) ERP
14 224 (7.02%) Validation
15 223 (6.99%) Workshop Facilitation
16 209 (6.55%) Continuous Improvement
17 205 (6.42%) Cybersecurity
18 193 (6.05%) Analytics
19 188 (5.89%) Agile
20 186 (5.83%) Data Migration
20 186 (5.83%) Roadmaps
21 166 (5.20%) AI
22 162 (5.08%) AWS
23 159 (4.98%) Requirements Gathering
24 151 (4.73%) Business Intelligence
25 149 (4.67%) DV Cleared
25 149 (4.67%) Power Platform
26 143 (4.48%) Translating Business Requirements
27 132 (4.14%) 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 85 (2.66%) SharePoint
2 50 (1.57%) Confluence
3 17 (0.53%) 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%) NetWeaver
10 2 (0.063%) Palantir Foundry
10 2 (0.063%) Tomcat
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
1 271 (8.49%) SAP S/4HANA
2 91 (2.85%) Oracle EBS
3 69 (2.16%) 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 MM
7 38 (1.19%) SAP CO
8 36 (1.13%) Oracle Receivables
9 35 (1.10%) Dynamics CRM
10 34 (1.07%) SAP SD
11 32 (1.00%) SAP FI/CO
12 31 (0.97%) SAP BRIM
13 30 (0.94%) NetSuite
13 30 (0.94%) SAP PP
14 29 (0.91%) Workday HCM
15 28 (0.88%) SAP FI-CA
15 28 (0.88%) SAP Payroll
16 26 (0.81%) Oracle EBS R12
17 25 (0.78%) SAP EWM
Cloud Services
1 301 (9.43%) Azure
2 162 (5.08%) AWS
3 149 (4.67%) Power Platform
4 131 (4.10%) Dynamics 365
5 116 (3.63%) OCI
6 108 (3.38%) SuccessFactors
7 91 (2.85%) GCP
8 88 (2.76%) Microsoft 365
9 69 (2.16%) Power Automate
10 57 (1.79%) Entra ID
11 55 (1.72%) Azure DevOps
12 53 (1.66%) Microsoft Copilot
13 46 (1.44%) SaaS
14 34 (1.07%) 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%) GitHub Actions
Communications & Networking
1 60 (1.88%) Firewall
2 57 (1.79%) Network Security
3 35 (1.10%) WAN
4 25 (0.78%) SNMP
5 22 (0.69%) BGP
6 20 (0.63%) DNS
6 20 (0.63%) LAN
6 20 (0.63%) VPN
7 14 (0.44%) SAN
8 12 (0.38%) VSAN
9 11 (0.34%) TCP/IP
10 10 (0.31%) NGFW
10 10 (0.31%) SD-WAN
11 8 (0.25%) Ethernet VPN
11 8 (0.25%) MPLS
12 7 (0.22%) IPsec
12 7 (0.22%) Radio Access Network
12 7 (0.22%) VXLAN
12 7 (0.22%) Wi-Fi
12 7 (0.22%) Wireless
Database & Business Intelligence
1 95 (2.98%) Power BI
2 60 (1.88%) Oracle Reports
3 36 (1.13%) SQL Server
4 35 (1.10%) SAP BW
5 34 (1.07%) Oracle BI Publisher
5 34 (1.07%) SAP HANA
5 34 (1.07%) Tableau
6 26 (0.81%) Metadata
7 24 (0.75%) Data Warehouse
8 19 (0.60%) Oracle ODI
9 18 (0.56%) BusinessObjects
10 12 (0.38%) SAP Data Services
11 11 (0.34%) Oracle Database
12 10 (0.31%) Power Query
13 8 (0.25%) Relational Database
14 7 (0.22%) SQL Server Reporting Services
15 6 (0.19%) Delta Lake
15 6 (0.19%) Looker
16 5 (0.16%) NonStop SQL
16 5 (0.16%) NoSQL
Development Applications
1 95 (2.98%) JIRA
2 20 (0.63%) Git
2 20 (0.63%) Oracle Forms
3 16 (0.50%) Jenkins
4 13 (0.41%) Hudson
5 11 (0.34%) GitLab
6 7 (0.22%) Sonatype Nexus
7 6 (0.19%) SonarQube
8 5 (0.16%) Cypress.io
8 5 (0.16%) PowerBuilder
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
1 706 (22.12%) Finance
2 701 (21.96%) Social Skills
3 245 (7.68%) Analytical Skills
4 232 (7.27%) Public Sector
5 117 (3.67%) Manufacturing
6 92 (2.88%) Banking
7 88 (2.76%) Legal
8 77 (2.41%) Billing
9 67 (2.10%) Telecoms
10 62 (1.94%) Documentation Skills
11 57 (1.79%) General Ledger
12 55 (1.72%) Presentation Skills
13 51 (1.60%) Retail
14 50 (1.57%) 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 (0.60%) Organisational Skills
20 18 (0.56%) Law
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 115 (3.60%) Oracle Fusion
2 87 (2.73%) REST
3 64 (2.01%) XML
4 42 (1.32%) SOAP
5 41 (1.28%) SAP Fiori
6 33 (1.03%) Middleware
7 30 (0.94%) Web Services
8 27 (0.85%) 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%) IDoc
14 14 (0.44%) SailPoint
15 13 (0.41%) .NET
15 13 (0.41%) EDI
16 11 (0.34%) ADO
Miscellaneous
1 120 (3.76%) Onboarding
2 52 (1.63%) CMDB
3 41 (1.28%) Data Protection Act
4 39 (1.22%) Product Ownership
5 37 (1.16%) Data Centre
5 37 (1.16%) Data Structures
6 36 (1.13%) Security Posture
7 35 (1.10%) Legacy Systems
8 29 (0.91%) AI Agents
9 26 (0.81%) Enterprise Software
9 26 (0.81%) Operational Technology
9 26 (0.81%) Replication
10 24 (0.75%) Cloud Native
11 22 (0.69%) Public Cloud
12 20 (0.63%) Greenfield Project
13 19 (0.60%) 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 (3.20%) Windows
2 79 (2.47%) Linux
3 25 (0.78%) Unix
4 21 (0.66%) Solaris
5 20 (0.63%) VMS
6 19 (0.60%) 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
1 475 (14.88%) Stakeholder Management
2 417 (13.06%) Migration
3 297 (9.30%) Stakeholder Engagement
4 263 (8.24%) User Acceptance Testing
5 258 (8.08%) Problem-Solving
6 240 (7.52%) ERP
7 224 (7.02%) Validation
8 223 (6.99%) Workshop Facilitation
9 209 (6.55%) Continuous Improvement
10 205 (6.42%) Cybersecurity
11 193 (6.05%) Analytics
12 188 (5.89%) Agile
13 186 (5.83%) Data Migration
13 186 (5.83%) Roadmaps
14 166 (5.20%) AI
15 159 (4.98%) Requirements Gathering
16 151 (4.73%) Business Intelligence
17 143 (4.48%) Translating Business Requirements
18 132 (4.14%) Project Delivery
19 127 (3.98%) Change Management
Programming Languages
1 263 (8.24%) SQL
2 122 (3.82%) Python
3 58 (1.82%) PowerShell
4 54 (1.69%) PL/SQL
5 50 (1.57%) ABAP
5 50 (1.57%) JavaScript
6 38 (1.19%) T-SQL
7 31 (0.97%) Java
8 17 (0.53%) Bash
9 14 (0.44%) C#
10 13 (0.41%) Data Analysis Expressions
10 13 (0.41%) Kusto Query Language
10 13 (0.41%) Search Processing Language
11 9 (0.28%) R
11 9 (0.28%) TypeScript
12 7 (0.22%) Shell Script
13 6 (0.19%) Korn
13 6 (0.19%) Perl
14 5 (0.16%) C++
14 5 (0.16%) Groovy
Qualifications
1 671 (21.02%) Security Cleared
2 459 (14.38%) SC Cleared
3 149 (4.67%) DV Cleared
4 94 (2.94%) BPSS Clearance
5 79 (2.47%) CISSP
6 72 (2.26%) Degree
7 61 (1.91%) CISM
8 40 (1.25%) Cisco Certification
9 31 (0.97%) (ISC)2 CCSP
10 27 (0.85%) CCSP
11 20 (0.63%) ACCA
12 19 (0.60%) 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 87 (2.73%) NIST
2 83 (2.60%) Data Quality
3 78 (2.44%) ISO/IEC 27001
4 73 (2.29%) GRC
5 54 (1.69%) QA
6 38 (1.19%) GDPR
7 30 (0.94%) NCSC
8 26 (0.81%) PMO
8 26 (0.81%) SLA
9 25 (0.78%) PCI DSS
10 23 (0.72%) Accessibility
11 22 (0.69%) 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 72 (2.26%) Active Directory
2 42 (1.32%) VMware Infrastructure
3 39 (1.22%) VMware NSX
4 25 (0.78%) 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%) oVirt
11 1 (0.031%) ProxySG
11 1 (0.031%) RHEV
11 1 (0.031%) SRDF
Systems Management
1 59 (1.85%) Terraform
2 45 (1.41%) Kubernetes
3 31 (0.97%) Ansible
4 18 (0.56%) SCCM
5 17 (0.53%) Microsoft Intune
5 17 (0.53%) vRealize
6 15 (0.47%) Nagios
6 15 (0.47%) ZABBIX
7 14 (0.44%) Grafana
7 14 (0.44%) Netcool
7 14 (0.44%) Tivoli
8 13 (0.41%) OpenView
8 13 (0.41%) Tivoli Monitoring
9 12 (0.38%) FortiGate
9 12 (0.38%) Single Sign-On
10 11 (0.34%) Prometheus
10 11 (0.34%) vCenter Server
11 6 (0.19%) NetBackup
11 6 (0.19%) VxRail
12 4 (0.13%) CEMLI
Vendors
1 662 (20.74%) SAP
2 421 (13.19%) Microsoft
3 398 (12.47%) Oracle
4 129 (4.04%) ServiceNow
5 87 (2.73%) VMware
6 61 (1.91%) Ariba
7 60 (1.88%) Workday
8 56 (1.75%) Salesforce
9 46 (1.44%) Splunk
10 44 (1.38%) Databricks
11 30 (0.94%) 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 19 (0.60%) Cisco
16 17 (0.53%) Dell
16 17 (0.53%) JD Edwards
16 17 (0.53%) Okta