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 18 February 2026.

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

6 months to
18 Feb 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 28 28 26
Rank change year-on-year 0 -2 +21
Contract jobs requiring a Consultant 2,653 2,024 2,719
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 6.54% 6.60% 6.13%
As % of the Job Titles category 7.14% 7.10% 6.58%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,510 1,105 1,594
10th Percentile £400 £413 £400
25th Percentile £463 £481 £463
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £550 £550 £550
75th Percentile £638 £650 £650
90th Percentile £716 £738 £725
UK excluding London median daily rate £550 £550 £538
% change year-on-year - +2.33% -2.27%
Number of hourly rates quoted 64 17 39
10th Percentile - £68.00 £41.25
25th Percentile £56.25 £72.50 £54.42
Median hourly rate £57.50 £85.00 £63.00
Median % change year-on-year -32.35% +34.92% -10.00%
75th Percentile £61.25 £86.25 £83.13
90th Percentile £81.75 £87.50 £90.25
UK excluding London median hourly rate £57.50 £83.75 £61.79
% change year-on-year -31.34% +35.54% -4.46%

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 37,174 28,501 41,310
% of contract IT jobs with a recognized job title 91.66% 92.92% 93.10%
Number of daily rates quoted 23,390 17,648 27,150
10th Percentile £305 £288 £275
25th Percentile £406 £406 £410
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £525 £525
Median % change year-on-year -4.76% - -4.55%
75th Percentile £613 £638 £638
90th Percentile £720 £738 £738
UK excluding London median daily rate £478 £475 £488
% change year-on-year +0.53% -2.56% -2.50%
Number of hourly rates quoted 2,257 809 2,323
10th Percentile £14.57 £16.25 £13.15
25th Percentile £18.82 £21.46 £16.50
Median hourly rate £30.00 £34.11 £35.00
Median % change year-on-year -12.05% -2.54% -9.09%
75th Percentile £61.84 £63.75 £61.25
90th Percentile £72.52 £75.00 £72.50
UK excluding London median hourly rate £29.60 £32.50 £35.58
% change year-on-year -8.92% -8.64% +1.64%

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 18 February 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 18 February 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 18 February 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 2,061 £550 - 1,158
UK excluding London -2 1,070 £550 - 852
Work from Home 0 993 £528 -4.09% 471
London -5 953 £550 -4.35% 567
South East -1 278 £537 -2.36% 353
North of England -8 270 £600 +10.09% 197
Midlands -13 203 £550 +4.76% 92
North West -1 159 £625 +16.17% 134
West Midlands -8 152 £563 +7.14% 64
South West +17 138 £581 +5.68% 118
Yorkshire +7 101 £550 - 50
East of England -3 98 £550 +4.76% 42
Scotland +2 51 £520 -5.45% 22
East Midlands -13 50 £500 -3.85% 25
Wales +9 28 £405 -22.86% 16
Northern Ireland +4 13 £405 -22.86% 24
North East -23 10 £525 -9.48% 14

Consultant Skill Set
Top 30 Co-Occurring Skills & Capabilities

For the 6 months to 18 February 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.

1 672 (25.33%) SAP
2 643 (24.24%) Security Cleared
3 543 (20.47%) SC Cleared
4 381 (14.36%) Migration
5 358 (13.49%) SAP S/4HANA
6 322 (12.14%) Problem-Solving
7 295 (11.12%) Azure
8 289 (10.89%) Microsoft
9 286 (10.78%) Oracle
10 283 (10.67%) Stakeholder Management
11 279 (10.52%) Stakeholder Engagement
12 217 (8.18%) ERP
13 212 (7.99%) Workshop Facilitation
14 178 (6.71%) User Acceptance Testing
15 167 (6.29%) Agile
16 165 (6.22%) Analytics
17 162 (6.11%) Data Migration
18 149 (5.62%) Roadmaps
19 147 (5.54%) SQL
20 145 (5.47%) Knowledge Transfer
21 143 (5.39%) Business Intelligence
22 136 (5.13%) Validation
23 135 (5.09%) Dynamics 365
24 126 (4.75%) Cybersecurity
25 116 (4.37%) Continuous Improvement
26 114 (4.30%) Python
27 113 (4.26%) Power Platform
28 112 (4.22%) AI
29 110 (4.15%) Degree
30 109 (4.11%) DevOps

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 63 (2.37%) SharePoint
2 31 (1.17%) Microsoft Exchange
3 30 (1.13%) Confluence
4 6 (0.23%) Jupyter
5 5 (0.19%) CMS
5 5 (0.19%) MTS
5 5 (0.19%) NetWeaver
5 5 (0.19%) Oracle Workflow
6 3 (0.11%) Adobe Experience Manager
6 3 (0.11%) ArcGIS
6 3 (0.11%) Palantir Foundry
7 2 (0.075%) Apache
7 2 (0.075%) Apache Spark
7 2 (0.075%) IIS
7 2 (0.075%) OpenStack
8 1 (0.038%) Cloud Foundry
8 1 (0.038%) LiveCycle
8 1 (0.038%) nginx
8 1 (0.038%) SharePoint 2010
8 1 (0.038%) Skype for Business
Applications
1 38 (1.43%) Microsoft Excel
2 20 (0.75%) Microsoft PowerPoint
3 14 (0.53%) Microsoft Office
4 11 (0.41%) MS Visio
5 6 (0.23%) Oracle Smart View
6 5 (0.19%) Microsoft Project
6 5 (0.19%) PTC Creo
7 4 (0.15%) Navisworks
7 4 (0.15%) Revit
7 4 (0.15%) Spreadsheet
8 3 (0.11%) ProjectWise
9 2 (0.075%) Lectora
10 1 (0.038%) Adobe Captivate
10 1 (0.038%) Adobe Creative Suite
10 1 (0.038%) Adobe XD
10 1 (0.038%) CATIA
10 1 (0.038%) Chatbot
10 1 (0.038%) InfoPath
10 1 (0.038%) Siemens NX
10 1 (0.038%) Windchill
Business Applications
1 358 (13.49%) SAP S/4HANA
2 68 (2.56%) SAP FI
3 57 (2.15%) Oracle EBS
4 51 (1.92%) SAP MM
5 50 (1.88%) Oracle Payables
5 50 (1.88%) SAP EWM
6 48 (1.81%) Oracle Receivables
7 44 (1.66%) SAP HCM
8 42 (1.58%) SAP CO
9 39 (1.47%) Dynamics CRM
9 39 (1.47%) SAP FI/CO
9 39 (1.47%) SAP PP
10 38 (1.43%) Oracle General Ledger
11 37 (1.39%) Oracle EBS R12
12 32 (1.21%) SAP PSCD
13 30 (1.13%) Oracle Assets
13 30 (1.13%) SAP Travel Management
14 28 (1.06%) SAP Payroll
14 28 (1.06%) SAP WM
15 26 (0.98%) Oracle Cash Management
Cloud Services
1 295 (11.12%) Azure
2 135 (5.09%) Dynamics 365
3 113 (4.26%) Power Platform
4 105 (3.96%) AWS
5 100 (3.77%) OCI
6 81 (3.05%) Microsoft 365
7 76 (2.86%) GCP
8 70 (2.64%) SaaS
9 64 (2.41%) Entra ID
10 47 (1.77%) SuccessFactors
11 40 (1.51%) Power Automate
12 32 (1.21%) Microsoft Copilot
13 31 (1.17%) Azure DevOps
13 31 (1.17%) PowerApps
14 30 (1.13%) Microsoft Purview
15 23 (0.87%) GitHub
15 23 (0.87%) OneDrive
16 19 (0.72%) SAP Commerce Cloud
17 18 (0.68%) Serverless
18 17 (0.64%) Azure Data Factory
Communications & Networking
1 50 (1.88%) Firewall
2 21 (0.79%) VPN
3 16 (0.60%) DNS
4 15 (0.57%) Network Security
5 13 (0.49%) HTTP
5 13 (0.49%) Kerberos
6 12 (0.45%) SMS
6 12 (0.45%) WAN
7 11 (0.41%) DHCP
7 11 (0.41%) SSL
8 10 (0.38%) SAN
8 10 (0.38%) SD-WAN
9 9 (0.34%) Software-Defined Networking
9 9 (0.34%) TCP/IP
10 8 (0.30%) Intranet
10 8 (0.30%) VSAN
11 7 (0.26%) Cisco IPT
11 7 (0.26%) FTP
11 7 (0.26%) LAN
12 6 (0.23%) BGP
Database & Business Intelligence
1 80 (3.02%) Power BI
2 45 (1.70%) SAP HANA
3 43 (1.62%) Oracle Reports
4 27 (1.02%) SQL Server
5 22 (0.83%) Metadata
5 22 (0.83%) Oracle BI Publisher
6 13 (0.49%) Data Warehouse
6 13 (0.49%) PostgreSQL
6 13 (0.49%) SAP BW
7 11 (0.41%) SQL Server Reporting Services
7 11 (0.41%) Tableau
8 10 (0.38%) NoSQL
9 8 (0.30%) Electronic Patient Records
9 8 (0.30%) GIS
9 8 (0.30%) Oracle Database
10 7 (0.26%) DB2
11 6 (0.23%) Data Lake
11 6 (0.23%) Data Mart
11 6 (0.23%) DynamoDB
11 6 (0.23%) MongoDB
Development Applications
1 62 (2.34%) JIRA
2 19 (0.72%) Jenkins
3 14 (0.53%) Git
4 12 (0.45%) Oracle Forms
5 11 (0.41%) GitLab
5 11 (0.41%) Hudson
6 7 (0.26%) Oracle APEX
7 5 (0.19%) Postman
8 4 (0.15%) Eclipse
8 4 (0.15%) LSMW
9 3 (0.11%) JUnit
10 2 (0.075%) Bitbucket
10 2 (0.075%) git-flow
10 2 (0.075%) Mockito
10 2 (0.075%) Rational DOORS
10 2 (0.075%) Rational Rhapsody
10 2 (0.075%) Selenium
10 2 (0.075%) SonarQube
10 2 (0.075%) TeamCity
10 2 (0.075%) Visual Studio
General
1 707 (26.65%) Social Skills
2 562 (21.18%) Finance
3 248 (9.35%) Public Sector
4 247 (9.31%) Analytical Skills
5 126 (4.75%) Manufacturing
6 95 (3.58%) Banking
7 78 (2.94%) Documentation Skills
8 73 (2.75%) Marketing
9 65 (2.45%) Billing
10 58 (2.19%) Legal
11 51 (1.92%) Presentation Skills
12 45 (1.70%) General Ledger
13 39 (1.47%) Telecoms
14 32 (1.21%) Retail
15 29 (1.09%) Law
16 28 (1.06%) Pharmaceutical
17 27 (1.02%) Organisational Skills
18 21 (0.79%) Aerospace
19 20 (0.75%) Financial Institution
20 17 (0.64%) Electronics
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 91 (3.43%) Oracle Fusion
2 70 (2.64%) REST
3 69 (2.60%) SAP Fiori
4 48 (1.81%) Web Services
5 39 (1.47%) SOAP
6 38 (1.43%) SAP TM
7 33 (1.24%) XML
8 28 (1.06%) Node.js
9 27 (1.02%) BAPI
10 26 (0.98%) LDAP
11 23 (0.87%) Middleware
12 19 (0.72%) SAP PI
13 18 (0.68%) GraphQL
13 18 (0.68%) JSON
14 17 (0.64%) HTML
15 15 (0.57%) .NET
15 15 (0.57%) CSS
16 14 (0.53%) IDoc
17 13 (0.49%) Kafka
17 13 (0.49%) SAP Basis
Miscellaneous
1 72 (2.71%) Onboarding
2 60 (2.26%) Legacy Systems
3 40 (1.51%) Product Ownership
3 40 (1.51%) Security Posture
4 32 (1.21%) Data Centre
5 30 (1.13%) Data Protection Act
6 29 (1.09%) Cloud Native
7 28 (1.06%) Management Information System
8 25 (0.94%) Operational Technology
9 24 (0.90%) Replication
10 23 (0.87%) Greenfield Project
11 20 (0.75%) Data Structures
12 19 (0.72%) AI Agents
13 18 (0.68%) Analytical Mindset
14 17 (0.64%) Hybrid Cloud
14 17 (0.64%) Life Science
15 16 (0.60%) NHS
16 15 (0.57%) Public Cloud
17 14 (0.53%) Self-Motivation
18 11 (0.41%) Enterprise Software
Operating Systems
1 74 (2.79%) Windows
2 46 (1.73%) Linux
3 21 (0.79%) Unix
4 14 (0.53%) Windows Server
5 11 (0.41%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
6 9 (0.34%) Mac OS
6 9 (0.34%) Windows 10
7 5 (0.19%) Ubuntu
7 5 (0.19%) VMS
8 4 (0.15%) AIX
8 4 (0.15%) Solaris
8 4 (0.15%) zOS
9 3 (0.11%) Apple iOS
10 2 (0.075%) SUSE
10 2 (0.075%) SUSE Linux Enterprise Server
10 2 (0.075%) Windows Server 2003
10 2 (0.075%) Windows Server 2008
11 1 (0.038%) Android
11 1 (0.038%) CentOS
11 1 (0.038%) CoreOS
Processes & Methodologies
1 381 (14.36%) Migration
2 322 (12.14%) Problem-Solving
3 283 (10.67%) Stakeholder Management
4 279 (10.52%) Stakeholder Engagement
5 217 (8.18%) ERP
6 212 (7.99%) Workshop Facilitation
7 178 (6.71%) User Acceptance Testing
8 167 (6.29%) Agile
9 165 (6.22%) Analytics
10 162 (6.11%) Data Migration
11 149 (5.62%) Roadmaps
12 145 (5.47%) Knowledge Transfer
13 143 (5.39%) Business Intelligence
14 136 (5.13%) Validation
15 126 (4.75%) Cybersecurity
16 116 (4.37%) Continuous Improvement
17 112 (4.22%) AI
18 109 (4.11%) DevOps
19 107 (4.03%) Logistics
20 106 (4.00%) Risk Management
Programming Languages
1 147 (5.54%) SQL
2 114 (4.30%) Python
3 88 (3.32%) PowerShell
4 85 (3.20%) JavaScript
5 71 (2.68%) ABAP
6 39 (1.47%) Java
7 30 (1.13%) TypeScript
8 23 (0.87%) PL/SQL
9 22 (0.83%) Groovy
10 16 (0.60%) C#
11 14 (0.53%) Bash
12 10 (0.38%) Shell Script
13 9 (0.34%) Kusto Query Language
14 7 (0.26%) Apex Code
14 7 (0.26%) C++
14 7 (0.26%) Data Analysis Expressions
15 6 (0.23%) COBOL
16 5 (0.19%) Bicep
16 5 (0.19%) Korn
17 4 (0.15%) R
Qualifications
1 643 (24.24%) Security Cleared
2 543 (20.47%) SC Cleared
3 110 (4.15%) Degree
4 80 (3.02%) DV Cleared
5 71 (2.68%) BPSS Clearance
6 48 (1.81%) CISSP
7 35 (1.32%) VMware Certified Professional (VCP)
8 33 (1.24%) CISM
9 23 (0.87%) SAP Certification
10 19 (0.72%) Master's Degree
11 18 (0.68%) Cisco Certification
12 17 (0.64%) Computer Science Degree
13 16 (0.60%) CIMA
13 16 (0.60%) Microsoft Certification
14 11 (0.41%) ITIL Certification
15 9 (0.34%) CCNP
16 8 (0.30%) AWS Certification
16 8 (0.30%) CESG Certified Professional
17 7 (0.26%) ACCA
17 7 (0.26%) CRISC
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 84 (3.17%) NIST
2 78 (2.94%) ISO/IEC 27001
3 69 (2.60%) GDPR
4 53 (2.00%) Data Quality
5 49 (1.85%) QA
6 40 (1.51%) GRC
7 22 (0.83%) Actionable Recommendations
8 21 (0.79%) NCSC
9 20 (0.75%) SLA
10 16 (0.60%) PMO
11 14 (0.53%) Sarbanes-Oxley
12 13 (0.49%) PCI DSS
13 11 (0.41%) COBIT
13 11 (0.41%) PERC
14 9 (0.34%) JSP 440
15 7 (0.26%) Cyber Essentials
15 7 (0.26%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
15 7 (0.26%) ISO/IEC 27005
16 6 (0.23%) Accessibility
16 6 (0.23%) GxP
System Software
1 72 (2.71%) Active Directory
2 39 (1.47%) Docker
3 36 (1.36%) VMware Infrastructure
4 29 (1.09%) VMware NSX
5 21 (0.79%) vSphere
6 8 (0.30%) Hyper-V
7 7 (0.26%) Virtual Desktop
8 6 (0.23%) Slurm Workload Manager
9 5 (0.19%) NDS
9 5 (0.19%) NetIQ eDirectory
9 5 (0.19%) Virtual Machines
10 2 (0.075%) NFS
11 1 (0.038%) Ceph
11 1 (0.038%) IAG
11 1 (0.038%) Job Entry Subsystem
11 1 (0.038%) KVM
11 1 (0.038%) Microsoft App-V
11 1 (0.038%) QEMU
11 1 (0.038%) Terminal Services
11 1 (0.038%) VMware ESXi
Systems Management
1 58 (2.19%) Kubernetes
2 36 (1.36%) vRealize
3 34 (1.28%) Terraform
4 23 (0.87%) Microsoft Intune
5 18 (0.68%) Single Sign-On
6 15 (0.57%) Ansible
7 10 (0.38%) Failover Clustering
7 10 (0.38%) PingFederate
8 8 (0.30%) Grafana
8 8 (0.30%) SCCM
9 7 (0.26%) Active Directory Federation Services
9 7 (0.26%) Prometheus
10 6 (0.23%) Podman
11 5 (0.19%) vRealize Orchestrator
12 4 (0.15%) EMC VPLEX
13 3 (0.11%) CEMLI
13 3 (0.11%) EMC NetWorker
13 3 (0.11%) FortiGate
13 3 (0.11%) NetBackup
13 3 (0.11%) vCenter Server
Vendors
1 672 (25.33%) SAP
2 289 (10.89%) Microsoft
3 286 (10.78%) Oracle
4 98 (3.69%) VMware
5 79 (2.98%) ServiceNow
6 58 (2.19%) Salesforce
6 58 (2.19%) Workday
7 56 (2.11%) CyberArk
8 55 (2.07%) Ariba
9 54 (2.04%) Cisco
10 43 (1.62%) Siemens
11 41 (1.55%) Google
12 36 (1.36%) Aruba
13 33 (1.24%) Adobe
14 20 (0.75%) Databricks
15 19 (0.72%) OpenText
16 15 (0.57%) Dynatrace
17 14 (0.53%) Murex
18 13 (0.49%) Dell
18 13 (0.49%) Sage