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 10 August 2026.

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

6 months to
10 Aug 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 27 27 26
Rank change year-on-year 0 -1 +7
Contract jobs requiring a Consultant 3,150 2,185 2,690
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 5.91% 6.59% 6.93%
As % of the Job Titles category 6.38% 7.21% 7.46%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,736 1,276 1,580
10th Percentile £401 £411 £406
25th Percentile £463 £475 £475
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £550 £550 £550
75th Percentile £640 £650 £644
90th Percentile £738 £750 £750
UK excluding London median daily rate £525 £550 £568
% change year-on-year -4.55% -3.08% +8.10%
Number of hourly rates quoted 78 29 27
10th Percentile £36.25 £29.11 £41.05
25th Percentile £54.56 £44.23 £55.00
Median hourly rate £60.00 £70.00 £61.60
Median % change year-on-year -14.29% +13.64% -5.23%
75th Percentile £81.63 £81.25 £67.00
90th Percentile £88.75 £82.20 £72.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £60.00 £77.50 £61.60
% change year-on-year -22.58% +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 49,375 30,298 36,046
% of contract IT jobs with a recognized job title 92.56% 91.39% 92.91%
Number of daily rates quoted 29,671 19,217 23,307
10th Percentile £328 £283 £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 £625 £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 3,467 1,516 2,023
10th Percentile £15.00 £13.60 £14.16
25th Percentile £20.72 £17.21 £20.50
Median hourly rate £42.00 £25.15 £43.00
Median % change year-on-year +67.00% -41.51% +1.18%
75th Percentile £67.84 £53.75 £65.00
90th Percentile £80.00 £72.63 £75.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £42.50 £25.11 £45.00
% change year-on-year +69.26% -44.20% +20.00%

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 10 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 10 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 10 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 -4 2,544 £550 - 1,742
UK excluding London +4 1,382 £525 -4.55% 972
London -2 1,175 £550 -4.35% 932
Work from Home -2 1,061 £540 -1.82% 893
South East 0 412 £525 -4.55% 268
North of England -4 303 £550 +2.66% 264
Midlands +4 255 £500 -9.09% 99
South West +16 207 £550 -8.33% 162
West Midlands +14 182 £500 -9.09% 70
North West -8 181 £550 - 182
Scotland +36 108 £425 -15.00% 59
Yorkshire -11 101 £531 +11.84% 68
East of England -14 81 £551 +0.18% 69
East Midlands -2 64 £513 -6.82% 28
Wales -10 28 £550 +10.00% 16
North East -37 20 £750 +39.66% 15
Northern Ireland -2 1 £450 -13.46% 44

Consultant Skill Set
Top 30 Co-Occurring Skills & Capabilities

For the 6 months to 10 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.

1 643 (20.41%) SAP
1 643 (20.41%) Security Cleared
2 438 (13.90%) SC Cleared
3 434 (13.78%) Stakeholder Management
4 410 (13.02%) Migration
5 405 (12.86%) Microsoft
6 380 (12.06%) Oracle
7 305 (9.68%) Azure
8 289 (9.17%) Stakeholder Engagement
9 263 (8.35%) SAP S/4HANA
10 258 (8.19%) Problem-Solving
10 258 (8.19%) SQL
11 251 (7.97%) User Acceptance Testing
12 242 (7.68%) ERP
13 217 (6.89%) Workshop Facilitation
14 209 (6.63%) Validation
15 208 (6.60%) Continuous Improvement
16 201 (6.38%) Cybersecurity
17 184 (5.84%) Agile
17 184 (5.84%) Analytics
17 184 (5.84%) Roadmaps
18 182 (5.78%) Data Migration
19 165 (5.24%) AI
20 157 (4.98%) AWS
21 151 (4.79%) Business Intelligence
22 150 (4.76%) Power Platform
23 147 (4.67%) Requirements Gathering
24 146 (4.63%) DV Cleared
25 135 (4.29%) Translating Business Requirements
26 132 (4.19%) Dynamics 365

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 88 (2.79%) SharePoint
2 49 (1.56%) Confluence
3 14 (0.44%) Oracle Workflow
4 12 (0.38%) Microsoft Exchange
5 9 (0.29%) WebSphere
6 8 (0.25%) WebLogic
7 6 (0.19%) Apache Spark
8 4 (0.13%) SAS
9 3 (0.095%) Apache
9 3 (0.095%) Apache Airflow
9 3 (0.095%) Apache Superset
9 3 (0.095%) OpenStack
9 3 (0.095%) TIBCO ActiveMatrix
10 2 (0.063%) Adobe Experience Manager
10 2 (0.063%) Cloud Foundry
10 2 (0.063%) IIS
10 2 (0.063%) NetWeaver
10 2 (0.063%) Palantir Foundry
10 2 (0.063%) Tomcat
10 2 (0.063%) WordPress
Applications
1 76 (2.41%) Microsoft Excel
2 33 (1.05%) Microsoft Office
3 22 (0.70%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 10 (0.32%) Spreadsheet
5 8 (0.25%) MS Visio
6 5 (0.16%) Microsoft Project
7 4 (0.13%) Chatbot
8 2 (0.063%) Lectora
8 2 (0.063%) Oracle Smart View
9 1 (0.032%) Adobe Captivate
9 1 (0.032%) Adobe Creative Suite
9 1 (0.032%) CPLEX
Business Applications
1 263 (8.35%) SAP S/4HANA
2 90 (2.86%) Oracle EBS
3 69 (2.19%) SAP FI
4 50 (1.59%) SAP PSCD
5 46 (1.46%) Oracle Payables
6 43 (1.37%) Oracle ERP
7 37 (1.17%) Dynamics CRM
7 37 (1.17%) SAP CO
8 35 (1.11%) Oracle Receivables
9 34 (1.08%) SAP MM
10 33 (1.05%) SAP BRIM
10 33 (1.05%) SAP FI/CO
11 30 (0.95%) NetSuite
11 30 (0.95%) SAP FI-CA
11 30 (0.95%) SAP SD
12 28 (0.89%) SAP Payroll
12 28 (0.89%) SAP PP
13 26 (0.83%) Oracle EBS R12
14 25 (0.79%) SAP EWM
14 25 (0.79%) Workday HCM
Cloud Services
1 305 (9.68%) Azure
2 157 (4.98%) AWS
3 150 (4.76%) Power Platform
4 132 (4.19%) Dynamics 365
5 112 (3.56%) OCI
6 103 (3.27%) SuccessFactors
7 91 (2.89%) Microsoft 365
8 89 (2.83%) GCP
9 74 (2.35%) Power Automate
10 56 (1.78%) Entra ID
11 51 (1.62%) Azure DevOps
11 51 (1.62%) Microsoft Copilot
12 49 (1.56%) SaaS
13 37 (1.17%) PowerApps
14 32 (1.02%) GitHub
15 28 (0.89%) Microsoft Purview
16 20 (0.63%) Copilot Studio
17 16 (0.51%) Azure AI
17 16 (0.51%) OneDrive
18 14 (0.44%) Azure Logic Apps
Communications & Networking
1 62 (1.97%) Firewall
2 55 (1.75%) Network Security
3 34 (1.08%) WAN
4 25 (0.79%) SNMP
5 20 (0.63%) BGP
5 20 (0.63%) LAN
5 20 (0.63%) VPN
6 16 (0.51%) DNS
7 14 (0.44%) VSAN
8 12 (0.38%) SAN
9 11 (0.35%) NGFW
9 11 (0.35%) TCP/IP
10 9 (0.29%) SD-WAN
11 7 (0.22%) HTTP
11 7 (0.22%) IPsec
11 7 (0.22%) MPLS
11 7 (0.22%) Wireless
12 6 (0.19%) Ethernet VPN
12 6 (0.19%) FTP
12 6 (0.19%) Wi-Fi
Database & Business Intelligence
1 96 (3.05%) Power BI
2 60 (1.90%) Oracle Reports
3 38 (1.21%) SAP HANA
4 36 (1.14%) SQL Server
5 34 (1.08%) Oracle BI Publisher
6 33 (1.05%) Tableau
7 30 (0.95%) SAP BW
8 28 (0.89%) Metadata
9 23 (0.73%) Data Warehouse
10 19 (0.60%) Oracle ODI
11 18 (0.57%) BusinessObjects
12 12 (0.38%) SAP Data Services
13 10 (0.32%) Power Query
14 8 (0.25%) Oracle Database
15 7 (0.22%) Relational Database
16 6 (0.19%) Delta Lake
17 5 (0.16%) Hadoop
17 5 (0.16%) Looker
17 5 (0.16%) NoSQL
17 5 (0.16%) SQL Server Reporting Services
Development Applications
1 91 (2.89%) JIRA
2 20 (0.63%) Oracle Forms
3 19 (0.60%) Git
4 17 (0.54%) Jenkins
5 14 (0.44%) Hudson
6 11 (0.35%) GitLab
7 7 (0.22%) Sonatype Nexus
8 6 (0.19%) SonarQube
9 5 (0.16%) Cypress.io
9 5 (0.16%) Postman
10 4 (0.13%) Selenium
10 4 (0.13%) Snyk
10 4 (0.13%) Zephyr
11 3 (0.095%) JDeveloper
11 3 (0.095%) JMeter
11 3 (0.095%) LoadRunner
11 3 (0.095%) MLflow
11 3 (0.095%) PowerBuilder
11 3 (0.095%) TestRail
11 3 (0.095%) Toad
General
1 692 (21.97%) Finance
2 683 (21.68%) Social Skills
3 249 (7.90%) Analytical Skills
4 220 (6.98%) Public Sector
5 111 (3.52%) Manufacturing
6 97 (3.08%) Banking
7 90 (2.86%) Legal
8 79 (2.51%) Billing
9 66 (2.10%) Telecoms
10 57 (1.81%) Presentation Skills
11 55 (1.75%) General Ledger
11 55 (1.75%) Marketing
12 52 (1.65%) Documentation Skills
13 51 (1.62%) Retail
14 46 (1.46%) Inclusion and Diversity
15 40 (1.27%) Pharmaceutical
16 33 (1.05%) Influencing Skills
17 24 (0.76%) Local Government
18 22 (0.70%) Aerospace
19 19 (0.60%) Organisational Skills
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 107 (3.40%) Oracle Fusion
2 85 (2.70%) REST
3 59 (1.87%) XML
4 41 (1.30%) SOAP
5 38 (1.21%) SAP Fiori
6 32 (1.02%) Middleware
7 27 (0.86%) Web Services
8 26 (0.83%) JSON
9 23 (0.73%) BAPI
10 20 (0.63%) HTML
11 18 (0.57%) CSS
12 17 (0.54%) SAP Basis
12 17 (0.54%) SAP PI
13 16 (0.51%) OAuth
14 15 (0.48%) LDAP
15 14 (0.44%) IDoc
16 13 (0.41%) .NET
17 11 (0.35%) ADO
18 10 (0.32%) PySpark
18 10 (0.32%) SailPoint
Miscellaneous
1 117 (3.71%) Onboarding
2 51 (1.62%) CMDB
3 44 (1.40%) Data Protection Act
4 41 (1.30%) Security Posture
5 37 (1.17%) Product Ownership
6 34 (1.08%) Data Structures
7 33 (1.05%) AI Agents
7 33 (1.05%) Legacy Systems
8 31 (0.98%) Data Centre
9 29 (0.92%) Operational Technology
10 24 (0.76%) Greenfield Project
11 21 (0.67%) Cloud Native
12 20 (0.63%) Enterprise Software
12 20 (0.63%) Replication
13 19 (0.60%) Life Science
13 19 (0.60%) Management Information System
14 18 (0.57%) Analytical Mindset
14 18 (0.57%) Security Operations Centre
15 17 (0.54%) NHS
15 17 (0.54%) Public Cloud
Operating Systems
1 97 (3.08%) Windows
2 71 (2.25%) Linux
3 25 (0.79%) Unix
4 21 (0.67%) Solaris
5 19 (0.60%) AIX
6 18 (0.57%) VMS
7 12 (0.38%) Windows Server
8 6 (0.19%) Android
9 5 (0.16%) Apple iOS
9 5 (0.16%) Windows 10
10 4 (0.13%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
11 3 (0.095%) Mac OS
12 2 (0.063%) CoreOS
12 2 (0.063%) Data ONTAP
13 1 (0.032%) OpenVMS
13 1 (0.032%) SUSE
13 1 (0.032%) Windows Server 2012
13 1 (0.032%) Windows Server 2016
13 1 (0.032%) zOS
Processes & Methodologies
1 434 (13.78%) Stakeholder Management
2 410 (13.02%) Migration
3 289 (9.17%) Stakeholder Engagement
4 258 (8.19%) Problem-Solving
5 251 (7.97%) User Acceptance Testing
6 242 (7.68%) ERP
7 217 (6.89%) Workshop Facilitation
8 209 (6.63%) Validation
9 208 (6.60%) Continuous Improvement
10 201 (6.38%) Cybersecurity
11 184 (5.84%) Agile
11 184 (5.84%) Analytics
11 184 (5.84%) Roadmaps
12 182 (5.78%) Data Migration
13 165 (5.24%) AI
14 151 (4.79%) Business Intelligence
15 147 (4.67%) Requirements Gathering
16 135 (4.29%) Translating Business Requirements
17 128 (4.06%) Change Management
18 123 (3.90%) Workflow
Programming Languages
1 258 (8.19%) SQL
2 121 (3.84%) Python
3 58 (1.84%) PowerShell
4 54 (1.71%) PL/SQL
5 52 (1.65%) JavaScript
6 51 (1.62%) ABAP
7 38 (1.21%) T-SQL
8 32 (1.02%) Java
9 18 (0.57%) Bash
10 13 (0.41%) C#
10 13 (0.41%) Data Analysis Expressions
10 13 (0.41%) Kusto Query Language
10 13 (0.41%) Search Processing Language
11 9 (0.29%) TypeScript
12 7 (0.22%) Korn
12 7 (0.22%) R
12 7 (0.22%) Shell Script
13 6 (0.19%) Perl
14 5 (0.16%) C++
14 5 (0.16%) Groovy
Qualifications
1 643 (20.41%) Security Cleared
2 438 (13.90%) SC Cleared
3 146 (4.63%) DV Cleared
4 90 (2.86%) BPSS Clearance
5 79 (2.51%) CISSP
6 73 (2.32%) Degree
7 60 (1.90%) CISM
8 38 (1.21%) Cisco Certification
9 31 (0.98%) (ISC)2 CCSP
10 26 (0.83%) CCSP
11 19 (0.60%) CIMA
12 18 (0.57%) ACCA
13 16 (0.51%) CRISC
14 15 (0.48%) PMP
15 14 (0.44%) CEH
16 13 (0.41%) CompTIA Security+
17 12 (0.38%) Azure Certification
17 12 (0.38%) Computer Science Degree
17 12 (0.38%) OSCP
18 11 (0.35%) ISO 27001 Lead Auditor
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 90 (2.86%) NIST
2 80 (2.54%) Data Quality
3 78 (2.48%) ISO/IEC 27001
4 69 (2.19%) GRC
5 55 (1.75%) QA
6 40 (1.27%) GDPR
7 29 (0.92%) PCI DSS
8 28 (0.89%) NCSC
9 25 (0.79%) Actionable Recommendations
10 24 (0.76%) SLA
11 21 (0.67%) Accessibility
12 20 (0.63%) PMO
13 15 (0.48%) Sarbanes-Oxley
14 13 (0.41%) GxP
15 12 (0.38%) COBIT
16 10 (0.32%) NIST 800
17 9 (0.29%) Cyber Essentials
17 9 (0.29%) IFRS
17 9 (0.29%) SOC 2
18 8 (0.25%) WCAG
System Software
1 65 (2.06%) Active Directory
2 42 (1.33%) VMware Infrastructure
3 40 (1.27%) VMware NSX
4 26 (0.83%) vSphere
5 14 (0.44%) VMware ESXi
6 12 (0.38%) Docker
6 12 (0.38%) Virtual Machines
7 8 (0.25%) Hyper-V
7 8 (0.25%) IAG
8 7 (0.22%) Virtual Desktop
9 3 (0.095%) NFS
10 2 (0.063%) BitLocker
10 2 (0.063%) Firmware
10 2 (0.063%) PowerHA
11 1 (0.032%) HDFS
11 1 (0.032%) Oracle RAC
11 1 (0.032%) ProxySG
11 1 (0.032%) SRDF
11 1 (0.032%) Time Sharing Option
Systems Management
1 56 (1.78%) Terraform
2 43 (1.37%) Kubernetes
3 32 (1.02%) Ansible
4 19 (0.60%) vRealize
5 18 (0.57%) Microsoft Intune
6 15 (0.48%) Nagios
6 15 (0.48%) SCCM
6 15 (0.48%) 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%) Single Sign-On
8 13 (0.41%) Tivoli Monitoring
9 12 (0.38%) FortiGate
9 12 (0.38%) vCenter Server
10 11 (0.35%) Prometheus
11 7 (0.22%) NetBackup
12 6 (0.19%) VxRail
13 4 (0.13%) CEMLI
Vendors
1 643 (20.41%) SAP
2 405 (12.86%) Microsoft
3 380 (12.06%) Oracle
4 128 (4.06%) ServiceNow
5 89 (2.83%) VMware
6 61 (1.94%) Ariba
7 60 (1.90%) Salesforce
8 57 (1.81%) Workday
9 49 (1.56%) Splunk
10 41 (1.30%) Databricks
11 29 (0.92%) Google
12 28 (0.89%) BMC
13 26 (0.83%) OpenText
13 26 (0.83%) Palo Alto
14 24 (0.76%) IBM
15 22 (0.70%) Siemens
16 21 (0.67%) Adobe
17 17 (0.54%) JD Edwards
17 17 (0.54%) OpenAI
18 16 (0.51%) Okta