Consultant Contract Job Trends

Consultant
UK

The median Consultant daily rate in the UK is £540, according to job vacancies posted in the 6 months leading up to 31 March 2026.

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

6 months to
31 Mar 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 28 28 24
Rank change year-on-year 0 -4 +18
Contract jobs requiring a Consultant 2,834 1,907 2,768
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 6.36% 6.56% 6.25%
As % of the Job Titles category 6.91% 7.07% 6.74%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,575 1,107 1,709
10th Percentile £400 £413 £400
25th Percentile £460 £488 £463
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £540 £550 £550
Median % change year-on-year -1.82% - -2.22%
75th Percentile £638 £638 £650
90th Percentile £713 £738 £739
UK excluding London median daily rate £525 £550 £550
% change year-on-year -4.55% - -
Number of hourly rates quoted 77 16 37
10th Percentile £55.35 £63.13 £36.50
25th Percentile £56.25 £70.00 £52.90
Median hourly rate £57.50 £83.75 £61.79
Median % change year-on-year -31.34% +35.54% -6.38%
75th Percentile £60.00 £86.06 £75.00
90th Percentile £78.25 £87.50 £90.25
UK excluding London median hourly rate £57.50 £84.25 £61.60
% change year-on-year -31.75% +36.77% -6.67%

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 40,988 26,987 41,095
% of contract IT jobs with a recognized job title 92.05% 92.82% 92.84%
Number of daily rates quoted 25,540 17,745 26,925
10th Percentile £313 £300 £275
25th Percentile £413 £406 £408
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £520 £525
Median % change year-on-year -3.85% -0.95% -3.67%
75th Percentile £613 £630 £638
90th Percentile £725 £738 £738
UK excluding London median daily rate £485 £475 £488
% change year-on-year +2.11% -2.56% -2.50%
Number of hourly rates quoted 2,566 944 2,532
10th Percentile £15.00 £15.02 £12.86
25th Percentile £19.72 £20.92 £16.25
Median hourly rate £38.63 £32.50 £32.90
Median % change year-on-year +18.86% -1.20% -25.00%
75th Percentile £65.00 £64.50 £60.00
90th Percentile £77.50 £76.91 £71.75
UK excluding London median hourly rate £40.00 £31.88 £32.90
% change year-on-year +25.47% -3.09% -21.32%

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 31 March 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 31 March 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 31 March 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 +1 2,221 £550 - 1,211
UK excluding London +4 1,171 £525 -4.55% 849
Work from Home 0 1,028 £525 -4.55% 598
London -3 1,028 £550 -4.35% 544
South East +6 351 £525 -8.70% 278
North of England -16 237 £525 -2.42% 172
Midlands -7 233 £525 - 104
West Midlands +4 168 £563 +7.14% 52
South West +18 163 £525 -4.55% 152
North West -25 114 £525 -3.23% 109
Yorkshire +6 113 £538 +2.38% 53
East of England -8 95 £550 +10.00% 67
Scotland +20 61 £510 -7.27% 38
East Midlands -19 57 £500 -3.15% 51
Wales +8 31 £463 +8.82% 33
North East -23 10 £525 -4.55% 12
Northern Ireland +5 8 £405 -22.86% 15

Consultant Skill Set
Top 30 Co-Occurring Skills & Capabilities

For the 6 months to 31 March 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.

1 629 (22.19%) Security Cleared
2 607 (21.42%) SAP
3 527 (18.60%) SC Cleared
4 393 (13.87%) Migration
5 319 (11.26%) Oracle
6 311 (10.97%) Azure
7 298 (10.52%) Problem-Solving
8 291 (10.27%) SAP S/4HANA
9 290 (10.23%) Microsoft
10 285 (10.06%) Stakeholder Engagement
11 256 (9.03%) Stakeholder Management
12 235 (8.29%) ERP
13 213 (7.52%) SQL
14 204 (7.20%) Workshop Facilitation
15 186 (6.56%) User Acceptance Testing
16 181 (6.39%) Agile
17 169 (5.96%) Roadmaps
18 165 (5.82%) Data Migration
19 159 (5.61%) Analytics
20 154 (5.43%) Continuous Improvement
21 152 (5.36%) Business Intelligence
22 150 (5.29%) Cybersecurity
23 144 (5.08%) Validation
24 131 (4.62%) Knowledge Transfer
25 128 (4.52%) Dynamics 365
26 126 (4.45%) Python
27 125 (4.41%) AI
28 118 (4.16%) Power Platform
29 116 (4.09%) Risk Management
30 111 (3.92%) Change Management

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 70 (2.47%) SharePoint
2 40 (1.41%) Confluence
3 22 (0.78%) Microsoft Exchange
4 12 (0.42%) Oracle Workflow
5 6 (0.21%) Jupyter
6 5 (0.18%) Apache
6 5 (0.18%) MTS
7 4 (0.14%) Apache Spark
7 4 (0.14%) ArcGIS
7 4 (0.14%) CMS
8 3 (0.11%) Apache Superset
8 3 (0.11%) Cloud Foundry
8 3 (0.11%) Palantir Foundry
9 2 (0.071%) IIS
9 2 (0.071%) NetWeaver
9 2 (0.071%) Tomcat
10 1 (0.035%) nginx
10 1 (0.035%) SAS
10 1 (0.035%) SharePoint 2010
10 1 (0.035%) WebSphere
Applications
1 69 (2.43%) Microsoft Excel
2 24 (0.85%) Microsoft PowerPoint
3 13 (0.46%) Microsoft Office
4 9 (0.32%) MS Visio
5 5 (0.18%) PTC Creo
6 4 (0.14%) Microsoft Project
6 4 (0.14%) Spreadsheet
7 3 (0.11%) Chatbot
8 2 (0.071%) Lectora
8 2 (0.071%) Oracle Smart View
9 1 (0.035%) Adobe XD
9 1 (0.035%) CATIA
9 1 (0.035%) InfoPath
9 1 (0.035%) Navisworks
9 1 (0.035%) Revit
9 1 (0.035%) Siemens NX
9 1 (0.035%) Windchill
Business Applications
1 291 (10.27%) SAP S/4HANA
2 71 (2.51%) Oracle EBS
3 63 (2.22%) SAP FI
4 50 (1.76%) Oracle Payables
5 49 (1.73%) SAP MM
6 45 (1.59%) Oracle Receivables
7 39 (1.38%) Oracle EBS R12
7 39 (1.38%) SAP HCM
8 38 (1.34%) SAP PP
9 36 (1.27%) SAP PSCD
10 33 (1.16%) Dynamics CRM
10 33 (1.16%) SAP CO
11 32 (1.13%) SAP EWM
12 31 (1.09%) SAP FI/CO
13 30 (1.06%) Oracle Assets
14 28 (0.99%) Oracle General Ledger
14 28 (0.99%) SAP Travel Management
15 26 (0.92%) SAP SD
16 24 (0.85%) Oracle Cash Management
16 24 (0.85%) SAP BRIM
Cloud Services
1 311 (10.97%) Azure
2 128 (4.52%) Dynamics 365
3 118 (4.16%) Power Platform
4 109 (3.85%) AWS
5 108 (3.81%) OCI
6 80 (2.82%) GCP
7 72 (2.54%) Microsoft 365
8 67 (2.36%) SaaS
9 65 (2.29%) SuccessFactors
10 56 (1.98%) Entra ID
11 42 (1.48%) Power Automate
12 37 (1.31%) Azure DevOps
13 31 (1.09%) Microsoft Purview
14 30 (1.06%) Microsoft Copilot
14 30 (1.06%) PowerApps
15 27 (0.95%) GitHub
16 22 (0.78%) OneDrive
17 19 (0.67%) Azure Data Factory
18 18 (0.64%) SAP Commerce Cloud
19 15 (0.53%) PaaS
Communications & Networking
1 40 (1.41%) Firewall
2 22 (0.78%) Network Security
3 14 (0.49%) VSAN
3 14 (0.49%) WAN
4 13 (0.46%) DNS
4 13 (0.46%) Kerberos
4 13 (0.46%) SMS
4 13 (0.46%) VPN
5 12 (0.42%) HTTP
5 12 (0.42%) LAN
5 12 (0.42%) SD-WAN
6 10 (0.35%) SAN
7 9 (0.32%) FTP
7 9 (0.32%) Software-Defined Networking
8 8 (0.28%) DHCP
8 8 (0.28%) Intranet
8 8 (0.28%) SNMP
8 8 (0.28%) SSH
8 8 (0.28%) SSL
9 7 (0.25%) NAS
Database & Business Intelligence
1 87 (3.07%) Power BI
2 60 (2.12%) Oracle Reports
3 37 (1.31%) SAP HANA
4 26 (0.92%) Metadata
5 24 (0.85%) SQL Server
5 24 (0.85%) Tableau
6 23 (0.81%) Oracle BI Publisher
7 15 (0.53%) Oracle ODI
8 13 (0.46%) SAP BW
9 10 (0.35%) SQL Server Reporting Services
10 9 (0.32%) Data Warehouse
10 9 (0.32%) Electronic Patient Records
11 8 (0.28%) NoSQL
12 7 (0.25%) GIS
13 6 (0.21%) Data Lake
13 6 (0.21%) Data Mart
13 6 (0.21%) Essbase
13 6 (0.21%) Oracle Database
13 6 (0.21%) PostgreSQL
13 6 (0.21%) SAP Data Services
Development Applications
1 72 (2.54%) JIRA
2 19 (0.67%) Oracle Forms
3 16 (0.56%) Hudson
4 15 (0.53%) Jenkins
5 10 (0.35%) Git
6 7 (0.25%) GitLab
6 7 (0.25%) Oracle APEX
7 4 (0.14%) LSMW
7 4 (0.14%) Sonatype Nexus
8 3 (0.11%) Postman
8 3 (0.11%) Visual Studio Code
9 2 (0.071%) Bitbucket
9 2 (0.071%) git-flow
9 2 (0.071%) Rational DOORS
9 2 (0.071%) Rational Rhapsody
9 2 (0.071%) Selenium
9 2 (0.071%) SonarQube
9 2 (0.071%) TeamCity
10 1 (0.035%) PeopleTools
10 1 (0.035%) Toad
General
1 675 (23.82%) Social Skills
2 616 (21.74%) Finance
3 271 (9.56%) Analytical Skills
4 245 (8.65%) Public Sector
5 121 (4.27%) Manufacturing
6 104 (3.67%) Banking
7 75 (2.65%) Marketing
8 70 (2.47%) Legal
9 57 (2.01%) Documentation Skills
10 56 (1.98%) Billing
11 46 (1.62%) General Ledger
12 45 (1.59%) Telecoms
13 38 (1.34%) Retail
14 34 (1.20%) Organisational Skills
15 30 (1.06%) Presentation Skills
16 25 (0.88%) Inclusion and Diversity
16 25 (0.88%) Law
17 21 (0.74%) Pharmaceutical
18 20 (0.71%) Electronics
19 19 (0.67%) Advertising
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 94 (3.32%) Oracle Fusion
2 71 (2.51%) REST
3 61 (2.15%) XML
4 39 (1.38%) SAP Fiori
5 33 (1.16%) SOAP
6 31 (1.09%) Web Services
7 30 (1.06%) SAP TM
8 28 (0.99%) LDAP
9 22 (0.78%) Middleware
10 19 (0.67%) BAPI
10 19 (0.67%) JSON
10 19 (0.67%) Node.js
11 17 (0.60%) .NET
11 17 (0.60%) SAP Basis
12 15 (0.53%) IDoc
13 14 (0.49%) GraphQL
14 13 (0.46%) HTML
15 12 (0.42%) CSS
15 12 (0.42%) SAP PI
16 11 (0.39%) SAP ALE
Miscellaneous
1 68 (2.40%) Onboarding
2 53 (1.87%) Legacy Systems
3 45 (1.59%) Product Ownership
4 36 (1.27%) Data Protection Act
4 36 (1.27%) Security Posture
5 31 (1.09%) Management Information System
5 31 (1.09%) Replication
6 28 (0.99%) Data Centre
7 26 (0.92%) Operational Technology
8 24 (0.85%) Cloud Native
9 21 (0.74%) AI Agents
9 21 (0.74%) Analytical Mindset
9 21 (0.74%) Data Structures
10 19 (0.67%) NHS
11 18 (0.64%) Greenfield Project
12 17 (0.60%) CMDB
12 17 (0.60%) Public Cloud
13 14 (0.49%) Life Science
14 13 (0.46%) Hybrid Cloud
14 13 (0.46%) Self-Motivation
Operating Systems
1 79 (2.79%) Windows
2 47 (1.66%) Linux
3 15 (0.53%) Unix
3 15 (0.53%) VMS
4 14 (0.49%) Windows Server
5 12 (0.42%) AIX
6 11 (0.39%) Windows 10
7 6 (0.21%) Mac OS
7 6 (0.21%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
8 5 (0.18%) Solaris
8 5 (0.18%) Ubuntu
9 4 (0.14%) zOS
10 3 (0.11%) Apple iOS
10 3 (0.11%) SUSE
11 2 (0.071%) CoreOS
11 2 (0.071%) Data ONTAP
12 1 (0.035%) Android
12 1 (0.035%) CentOS
Processes & Methodologies
1 393 (13.87%) Migration
2 298 (10.52%) Problem-Solving
3 285 (10.06%) Stakeholder Engagement
4 256 (9.03%) Stakeholder Management
5 235 (8.29%) ERP
6 204 (7.20%) Workshop Facilitation
7 186 (6.56%) User Acceptance Testing
8 181 (6.39%) Agile
9 169 (5.96%) Roadmaps
10 165 (5.82%) Data Migration
11 159 (5.61%) Analytics
12 154 (5.43%) Continuous Improvement
13 152 (5.36%) Business Intelligence
14 150 (5.29%) Cybersecurity
15 144 (5.08%) Validation
16 131 (4.62%) Knowledge Transfer
17 125 (4.41%) AI
18 116 (4.09%) Risk Management
19 111 (3.92%) Change Management
20 110 (3.88%) DevOps
Programming Languages
1 213 (7.52%) SQL
2 126 (4.45%) Python
3 83 (2.93%) PowerShell
4 74 (2.61%) JavaScript
5 54 (1.91%) ABAP
6 41 (1.45%) PL/SQL
7 34 (1.20%) Java
8 31 (1.09%) T-SQL
9 23 (0.81%) TypeScript
10 17 (0.60%) C#
11 16 (0.56%) Groovy
12 14 (0.49%) Bash
13 11 (0.39%) Shell Script
14 10 (0.35%) C++
15 8 (0.28%) Apex Code
15 8 (0.28%) Data Analysis Expressions
16 7 (0.25%) Kusto Query Language
16 7 (0.25%) R
17 6 (0.21%) Search Processing Language
18 5 (0.18%) Korn
Qualifications
1 629 (22.19%) Security Cleared
2 527 (18.60%) SC Cleared
3 95 (3.35%) Degree
4 91 (3.21%) DV Cleared
5 67 (2.36%) BPSS Clearance
6 59 (2.08%) CISSP
7 39 (1.38%) CISM
8 28 (0.99%) VMware Certified Professional (VCP)
9 21 (0.74%) CIMA
10 18 (0.64%) Cisco Certification
10 18 (0.64%) Computer Science Degree
11 16 (0.56%) Master's Degree
12 15 (0.53%) Microsoft Certification
13 14 (0.49%) ITIL Certification
14 13 (0.46%) SAP Certification
15 9 (0.32%) ACCA
15 9 (0.32%) Azure Certification
15 9 (0.32%) CEH
15 9 (0.32%) CompTIA Security+
15 9 (0.32%) PMP
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 93 (3.28%) NIST
2 88 (3.11%) ISO/IEC 27001
3 63 (2.22%) GDPR
4 56 (1.98%) Data Quality
5 51 (1.80%) GRC
6 48 (1.69%) QA
7 26 (0.92%) PCI DSS
8 25 (0.88%) NCSC
9 20 (0.71%) PMO
9 20 (0.71%) Sarbanes-Oxley
10 19 (0.67%) SLA
11 18 (0.64%) Actionable Recommendations
12 17 (0.60%) COBIT
13 13 (0.46%) JSP 440
14 11 (0.39%) PERC
15 10 (0.35%) ISO/IEC 27005
16 8 (0.28%) Accessibility
16 8 (0.28%) Cyber Essentials
16 8 (0.28%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
17 6 (0.21%) RMADS
System Software
1 63 (2.22%) Active Directory
2 34 (1.20%) VMware NSX
3 33 (1.16%) VMware Infrastructure
4 30 (1.06%) Docker
5 27 (0.95%) vSphere
6 9 (0.32%) Hyper-V
7 8 (0.28%) Virtual Desktop
8 6 (0.21%) Slurm Workload Manager
8 6 (0.21%) Virtual Machines
9 3 (0.11%) IAG
9 3 (0.11%) NFS
9 3 (0.11%) VMware ESXi
10 2 (0.071%) NDS
10 2 (0.071%) NetIQ eDirectory
11 1 (0.035%) Ceph
11 1 (0.035%) Job Entry Subsystem
11 1 (0.035%) KVM
11 1 (0.035%) QEMU
Systems Management
1 49 (1.73%) Kubernetes
2 36 (1.27%) Terraform
3 33 (1.16%) vRealize
4 20 (0.71%) Microsoft Intune
5 16 (0.56%) Single Sign-On
6 13 (0.46%) Ansible
7 8 (0.28%) Failover Clustering
7 8 (0.28%) Nagios
7 8 (0.28%) Netcool
7 8 (0.28%) OpenView
7 8 (0.28%) PingFederate
7 8 (0.28%) Tivoli
7 8 (0.28%) Tivoli Monitoring
7 8 (0.28%) ZABBIX
8 7 (0.25%) SCCM
9 6 (0.21%) NetBackup
9 6 (0.21%) Podman
10 5 (0.18%) Active Directory Federation Services
11 3 (0.11%) CEMLI
11 3 (0.11%) Prometheus
Vendors
1 607 (21.42%) SAP
2 319 (11.26%) Oracle
3 290 (10.23%) Microsoft
4 97 (3.42%) VMware
5 89 (3.14%) ServiceNow
6 63 (2.22%) Salesforce
7 53 (1.87%) Siemens
7 53 (1.87%) Workday
8 49 (1.73%) Ariba
8 49 (1.73%) Google
9 45 (1.59%) Cisco
10 42 (1.48%) CyberArk
11 37 (1.31%) Aruba
12 31 (1.09%) Databricks
13 24 (0.85%) Splunk
14 23 (0.81%) Adobe
15 19 (0.67%) IBM
16 17 (0.60%) OpenText
17 16 (0.56%) BMC
17 16 (0.56%) Murex