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 2 June 2026.

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

6 months to
2 Jun 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 28 28 24
Rank change year-on-year 0 -4 +12
Contract jobs requiring a Consultant 2,814 1,905 2,774
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 5.77% 6.58% 6.44%
As % of the Job Titles category 6.25% 7.13% 6.94%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,565 1,108 1,720
10th Percentile £398 £412 £400
25th Percentile £458 £475 £463
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £550 £550 £550
75th Percentile £638 £638 £650
90th Percentile £725 £725 £750
UK excluding London median daily rate £525 £538 £550
% change year-on-year -2.33% -2.27% +1.38%
Number of hourly rates quoted 86 23 28
10th Percentile £38.75 £27.93 £27.13
25th Percentile £56.25 £39.05 £52.18
Median hourly rate £57.50 £70.00 £61.60
Median % change year-on-year -17.86% +13.64% -6.67%
75th Percentile £60.00 £86.00 £61.95
90th Percentile £85.63 £87.25 £71.50
UK excluding London median hourly rate £57.50 £70.00 £58.44
% change year-on-year -17.86% +19.78% -10.77%

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 45,020 26,719 39,975
% of contract IT jobs with a recognized job title 92.30% 92.34% 92.84%
Number of daily rates quoted 27,415 17,307 25,875
10th Percentile £325 £289 £280
25th Percentile £413 £405 £409
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £513 £505 £525
Median % change year-on-year +1.49% -3.81% -2.78%
75th Percentile £619 £625 £638
90th Percentile £725 £738 £750
UK excluding London median daily rate £500 £475 £488
% change year-on-year +5.26% -2.56% -2.50%
Number of hourly rates quoted 3,003 1,068 2,841
10th Percentile £15.05 £14.00 £12.86
25th Percentile £20.51 £17.87 £16.30
Median hourly rate £42.69 £28.08 £37.50
Median % change year-on-year +52.04% -25.13% -16.67%
75th Percentile £67.25 £59.23 £61.60
90th Percentile £79.00 £75.00 £73.75
UK excluding London median hourly rate £45.00 £25.72 £40.00
% change year-on-year +74.96% -35.70% -5.88%

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 2 June 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 2 June 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 2 June 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 2,241 £550 - 2,049
UK excluding London -1 1,188 £525 -2.33% 1,259
London -1 1,026 £550 -4.35% 947
Work from Home -2 994 £550 - 926
South East -3 338 £525 -4.55% 284
North of England -20 255 £550 +3.77% 430
Midlands -14 232 £525 -3.45% 129
South West +32 199 £600 +9.09% 215
West Midlands -5 154 £528 -4.09% 92
North West -21 125 £525 -3.67% 304
Yorkshire -11 109 £550 +15.79% 84
Scotland +26 70 £410 -11.35% 68
East of England -12 70 £550 +7.42% 65
East Midlands -13 69 £500 -3.85% 37
Wales +2 30 £550 +37.50% 21
North East -28 21 £725 +35.77% 42
Northern Ireland 0 3 £600 +15.38% 57

Consultant Skill Set
Top 30 Co-Occurring Skills & Capabilities

For the 6 months to 2 June 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.

1 581 (20.65%) SAP
2 522 (18.55%) Security Cleared
3 394 (14.00%) SC Cleared
4 367 (13.04%) Migration
5 320 (11.37%) Microsoft
6 319 (11.34%) Oracle
7 312 (11.09%) Azure
8 255 (9.06%) SAP S/4HANA
9 254 (9.03%) Problem-Solving
10 249 (8.85%) Stakeholder Engagement
11 243 (8.64%) ERP
12 234 (8.32%) Stakeholder Management
13 215 (7.64%) SQL
14 196 (6.97%) User Acceptance Testing
15 185 (6.57%) Workshop Facilitation
16 182 (6.47%) Continuous Improvement
17 169 (6.01%) Data Migration
17 169 (6.01%) Validation
18 153 (5.44%) Agile
19 150 (5.33%) Cybersecurity
20 147 (5.22%) Power Platform
21 145 (5.15%) Roadmaps
22 144 (5.12%) Analytics
22 144 (5.12%) Dynamics 365
23 141 (5.01%) Business Intelligence
24 133 (4.73%) AI
25 130 (4.62%) AWS
26 115 (4.09%) Change Management
27 111 (3.94%) DevOps
27 111 (3.94%) Python

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 80 (2.84%) SharePoint
2 45 (1.60%) Confluence
3 14 (0.50%) Oracle Workflow
4 12 (0.43%) Microsoft Exchange
5 6 (0.21%) Jupyter
6 4 (0.14%) Apache Spark
6 4 (0.14%) ArcGIS
7 3 (0.11%) Apache
7 3 (0.11%) Apache Superset
7 3 (0.11%) Cloud Foundry
7 3 (0.11%) Palantir Foundry
7 3 (0.11%) SAS
7 3 (0.11%) Tomcat
7 3 (0.11%) WebSphere
8 2 (0.071%) IIS
8 2 (0.071%) NetWeaver
8 2 (0.071%) WebLogic
9 1 (0.036%) Oracle Self-Service HR
9 1 (0.036%) WordPress
Applications
1 75 (2.67%) Microsoft Excel
2 25 (0.89%) Microsoft PowerPoint
3 19 (0.68%) Microsoft Office
4 6 (0.21%) MS Visio
4 6 (0.21%) Spreadsheet
5 5 (0.18%) PTC Creo
6 4 (0.14%) Chatbot
7 3 (0.11%) Microsoft Project
8 2 (0.071%) Lectora
8 2 (0.071%) Oracle Smart View
9 1 (0.036%) CATIA
9 1 (0.036%) Siemens NX
Business Applications
1 255 (9.06%) SAP S/4HANA
2 74 (2.63%) Oracle EBS
3 55 (1.95%) SAP FI
4 44 (1.56%) SAP PSCD
5 41 (1.46%) Oracle Payables
6 39 (1.39%) SAP MM
7 34 (1.21%) Oracle Receivables
8 32 (1.14%) SAP BRIM
9 30 (1.07%) Dynamics CRM
10 28 (1.00%) SAP EWM
10 28 (1.00%) SAP Travel Management
10 28 (1.00%) Teamcenter
11 27 (0.96%) SAP FI-CA
11 27 (0.96%) SAP SD
12 25 (0.89%) Oracle EBS R12
12 25 (0.89%) SAP CO
13 24 (0.85%) Oracle ERP
13 24 (0.85%) SAP FI/CO
13 24 (0.85%) SAP PP
14 21 (0.75%) Oracle Cash Management
Cloud Services
1 312 (11.09%) Azure
2 147 (5.22%) Power Platform
3 144 (5.12%) Dynamics 365
4 130 (4.62%) AWS
5 92 (3.27%) OCI
6 84 (2.99%) Microsoft 365
7 68 (2.42%) GCP
8 66 (2.35%) Power Automate
9 62 (2.20%) SuccessFactors
10 57 (2.03%) SaaS
11 49 (1.74%) Entra ID
12 44 (1.56%) Azure DevOps
13 41 (1.46%) Microsoft Copilot
14 33 (1.17%) PowerApps
15 32 (1.14%) GitHub
16 30 (1.07%) Microsoft Purview
17 21 (0.75%) Copilot Studio
18 20 (0.71%) Serverless
19 15 (0.53%) Azure Data Factory
19 15 (0.53%) OneDrive
Communications & Networking
1 36 (1.28%) Firewall
2 35 (1.24%) Network Security
3 21 (0.75%) SNMP
4 16 (0.57%) SMS
5 14 (0.50%) DNS
6 13 (0.46%) SAN
6 13 (0.46%) WAN
7 12 (0.43%) LAN
8 11 (0.39%) VPN
9 10 (0.36%) Software-Defined Networking
9 10 (0.36%) VSAN
10 9 (0.32%) FTP
11 8 (0.28%) NAS
11 8 (0.28%) SD-WAN
12 7 (0.25%) Intranet
13 6 (0.21%) HTTP
13 6 (0.21%) Kerberos
13 6 (0.21%) NGFW
13 6 (0.21%) VLAN
13 6 (0.21%) Wireless
Database & Business Intelligence
1 85 (3.02%) Power BI
2 52 (1.85%) Oracle Reports
3 32 (1.14%) SAP HANA
4 31 (1.10%) Tableau
5 25 (0.89%) SQL Server
6 24 (0.85%) Metadata
7 23 (0.82%) Oracle BI Publisher
8 17 (0.60%) Oracle ODI
9 15 (0.53%) SAP BW
10 14 (0.50%) Data Warehouse
11 10 (0.36%) BusinessObjects
12 8 (0.28%) Power Query
13 7 (0.25%) Electronic Patient Records
13 7 (0.25%) GIS
13 7 (0.25%) NoSQL
13 7 (0.25%) Oracle Database
13 7 (0.25%) SQL Server Reporting Services
14 6 (0.21%) Crystal Reports
14 6 (0.21%) Relational Database
14 6 (0.21%) SAP Data Services
Development Applications
1 78 (2.77%) JIRA
2 18 (0.64%) Oracle Forms
3 17 (0.60%) Hudson
4 11 (0.39%) Jenkins
5 9 (0.32%) Git
6 8 (0.28%) GitLab
7 7 (0.25%) Sonatype Nexus
8 4 (0.14%) Cypress.io
8 4 (0.14%) Oracle APEX
8 4 (0.14%) Postman
8 4 (0.14%) SonarQube
9 3 (0.11%) Browser DevTools
9 3 (0.11%) Toad
9 3 (0.11%) Visual Studio Code
10 2 (0.071%) git-flow
10 2 (0.071%) JDeveloper
10 2 (0.071%) JUnit
10 2 (0.071%) Selenium
11 1 (0.036%) MSTest
11 1 (0.036%) TeamCity
General
1 596 (21.18%) Social Skills
2 588 (20.90%) Finance
3 240 (8.53%) Analytical Skills
4 196 (6.97%) Public Sector
5 94 (3.34%) Banking
6 87 (3.09%) Manufacturing
7 65 (2.31%) Billing
8 60 (2.13%) Legal
9 57 (2.03%) Marketing
10 51 (1.81%) General Ledger
11 48 (1.71%) Documentation Skills
12 38 (1.35%) Telecoms
13 33 (1.17%) Organisational Skills
14 30 (1.07%) Inclusion and Diversity
15 29 (1.03%) Retail
16 28 (1.00%) Pharmaceutical
17 24 (0.85%) Presentation Skills
18 22 (0.78%) Influencing Skills
19 20 (0.71%) Law
20 17 (0.60%) Advertising
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 73 (2.59%) Oracle Fusion
2 71 (2.52%) REST
3 59 (2.10%) XML
4 29 (1.03%) Middleware
4 29 (1.03%) SAP TM
5 25 (0.89%) Web Services
6 23 (0.82%) SAP Fiori
7 22 (0.78%) BAPI
7 22 (0.78%) SOAP
8 18 (0.64%) HTML
8 18 (0.64%) JSON
9 17 (0.60%) .NET
10 16 (0.57%) SAP Basis
11 15 (0.53%) CSS
11 15 (0.53%) LDAP
12 12 (0.43%) OAuth
13 10 (0.36%) IDoc
13 10 (0.36%) Kafka
13 10 (0.36%) React
14 9 (0.32%) Elastic Stack
Miscellaneous
1 62 (2.20%) Onboarding
2 45 (1.60%) Data Protection Act
3 44 (1.56%) Security Posture
4 37 (1.31%) Legacy Systems
5 34 (1.21%) Product Ownership
6 32 (1.14%) Operational Technology
7 29 (1.03%) AI Agents
8 23 (0.82%) Data Centre
8 23 (0.82%) Data Structures
9 22 (0.78%) CMDB
9 22 (0.78%) Management Information System
10 21 (0.75%) Cloud Native
10 21 (0.75%) NHS
11 20 (0.71%) Greenfield Project
11 20 (0.71%) Life Science
12 17 (0.60%) Replication
13 16 (0.57%) Public Cloud
14 14 (0.50%) Algorithms
15 13 (0.46%) Hybrid Cloud
15 13 (0.46%) Security Operations Centre
Operating Systems
1 77 (2.74%) Windows
2 63 (2.24%) Linux
3 20 (0.71%) Solaris
3 20 (0.71%) VMS
4 17 (0.60%) AIX
4 17 (0.60%) Unix
5 6 (0.21%) Windows Server
6 5 (0.18%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
6 5 (0.18%) Windows 10
6 5 (0.18%) zOS
7 4 (0.14%) Ubuntu
8 3 (0.11%) Android
8 3 (0.11%) Apple iOS
8 3 (0.11%) Mac OS
8 3 (0.11%) SUSE
9 2 (0.071%) CoreOS
9 2 (0.071%) Data ONTAP
Processes & Methodologies
1 367 (13.04%) Migration
2 254 (9.03%) Problem-Solving
3 249 (8.85%) Stakeholder Engagement
4 243 (8.64%) ERP
5 234 (8.32%) Stakeholder Management
6 196 (6.97%) User Acceptance Testing
7 185 (6.57%) Workshop Facilitation
8 182 (6.47%) Continuous Improvement
9 169 (6.01%) Data Migration
9 169 (6.01%) Validation
10 153 (5.44%) Agile
11 150 (5.33%) Cybersecurity
12 145 (5.15%) Roadmaps
13 144 (5.12%) Analytics
14 141 (5.01%) Business Intelligence
15 133 (4.73%) AI
16 115 (4.09%) Change Management
17 111 (3.94%) DevOps
18 108 (3.84%) Translating Business Requirements
19 98 (3.48%) Workflow
Programming Languages
1 215 (7.64%) SQL
2 111 (3.94%) Python
3 67 (2.38%) JavaScript
4 54 (1.92%) PowerShell
5 49 (1.74%) PL/SQL
6 35 (1.24%) T-SQL
7 30 (1.07%) Java
8 28 (1.00%) ABAP
9 19 (0.68%) C#
10 13 (0.46%) Bash
10 13 (0.46%) Search Processing Language
11 12 (0.43%) TypeScript
12 10 (0.36%) Data Analysis Expressions
12 10 (0.36%) Kusto Query Language
12 10 (0.36%) Shell Script
13 8 (0.28%) R
14 7 (0.25%) C++
15 5 (0.18%) Apex Code
16 4 (0.14%) COBOL
16 4 (0.14%) Groovy
Qualifications
1 522 (18.55%) Security Cleared
2 394 (14.00%) SC Cleared
3 104 (3.70%) DV Cleared
4 80 (2.84%) BPSS Clearance
5 73 (2.59%) CISSP
6 64 (2.27%) Degree
7 55 (1.95%) CISM
8 27 (0.96%) Cisco Certification
9 23 (0.82%) (ISC)2 CCSP
9 23 (0.82%) CCSP
9 23 (0.82%) CIMA
10 19 (0.68%) VMware Certified Professional (VCP)
11 15 (0.53%) CEH
11 15 (0.53%) PMP
12 13 (0.46%) ACCA
12 13 (0.46%) ITIL Certification
13 12 (0.43%) Computer Science Degree
13 12 (0.43%) SAP Certification
14 11 (0.39%) Azure Certification
14 11 (0.39%) OSCP
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 84 (2.99%) NIST
2 75 (2.67%) ISO/IEC 27001
3 68 (2.42%) Data Quality
4 51 (1.81%) GRC
5 44 (1.56%) GDPR
6 38 (1.35%) QA
7 27 (0.96%) NCSC
8 26 (0.92%) PCI DSS
9 21 (0.75%) Actionable Recommendations
10 19 (0.68%) Accessibility
11 18 (0.64%) PMO
11 18 (0.64%) SLA
12 15 (0.53%) Sarbanes-Oxley
13 14 (0.50%) COBIT
14 13 (0.46%) JSP 440
15 10 (0.36%) GxP
16 8 (0.28%) WCAG
17 7 (0.25%) DICOM
17 7 (0.25%) HL7
17 7 (0.25%) RMADS
System Software
1 49 (1.74%) Active Directory
2 37 (1.31%) VMware Infrastructure
3 35 (1.24%) VMware NSX
4 25 (0.89%) vSphere
5 17 (0.60%) Docker
6 11 (0.39%) Virtual Machines
7 9 (0.32%) Hyper-V
7 9 (0.32%) Virtual Desktop
7 9 (0.32%) VMware ESXi
8 6 (0.21%) IAG
8 6 (0.21%) Slurm Workload Manager
9 4 (0.14%) NFS
10 1 (0.036%) BitLocker
10 1 (0.036%) HDFS
10 1 (0.036%) Job Entry Subsystem
10 1 (0.036%) Oracle RAC
10 1 (0.036%) ProxySG
10 1 (0.036%) SRDF
10 1 (0.036%) Time Sharing Option
Systems Management
1 51 (1.81%) Kubernetes
2 37 (1.31%) Terraform
3 27 (0.96%) vRealize
4 19 (0.68%) Ansible
5 17 (0.60%) Microsoft Intune
6 15 (0.53%) Nagios
6 15 (0.53%) ZABBIX
7 14 (0.50%) Netcool
7 14 (0.50%) Tivoli
8 13 (0.46%) OpenView
8 13 (0.46%) Tivoli Monitoring
9 10 (0.36%) Grafana
9 10 (0.36%) Prometheus
10 7 (0.25%) SCCM
10 7 (0.25%) Single Sign-On
11 6 (0.21%) Failover Clustering
11 6 (0.21%) NetBackup
11 6 (0.21%) Podman
11 6 (0.21%) vCenter Server
12 5 (0.18%) vRealize Orchestrator
Vendors
1 581 (20.65%) SAP
2 320 (11.37%) Microsoft
3 319 (11.34%) Oracle
4 89 (3.16%) VMware
5 82 (2.91%) ServiceNow
6 63 (2.24%) Ariba
7 54 (1.92%) Siemens
8 52 (1.85%) Workday
9 49 (1.74%) Salesforce
10 36 (1.28%) Splunk
11 30 (1.07%) Databricks
11 30 (1.07%) Google
12 26 (0.92%) BMC
13 24 (0.85%) IBM
14 19 (0.68%) Palo Alto
15 17 (0.60%) Sage
16 16 (0.57%) Adobe
16 16 (0.57%) IFS
16 16 (0.57%) SolarWinds
17 14 (0.50%) HP