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 21 February 2026.

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

6 months to
21 Feb 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 28 28 26
Rank change year-on-year 0 -2 +20
Contract jobs requiring a Consultant 2,660 2,040 2,744
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 6.49% 6.64% 6.14%
As % of the Job Titles category 7.08% 7.14% 6.60%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,499 1,124 1,608
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 £545
% change year-on-year - +1.01% -1.00%
Number of hourly rates quoted 68 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 £60.00 £86.25 £83.13
90th Percentile £79.75 £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 37,575 28,553 41,560
% of contract IT jobs with a recognized job title 91.74% 92.90% 93.07%
Number of daily rates quoted 23,586 17,823 27,337
10th Percentile £306 £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 £719 £738 £738
UK excluding London median daily rate £480 £475 £488
% change year-on-year +1.05% -2.56% -2.50%
Number of hourly rates quoted 2,283 827 2,341
10th Percentile £14.61 £16.25 £13.16
25th Percentile £18.87 £21.46 £16.50
Median hourly rate £31.49 £34.00 £35.00
Median % change year-on-year -7.38% -2.86% -10.26%
75th Percentile £63.75 £63.75 £60.75
90th Percentile £74.26 £75.00 £72.50
UK excluding London median hourly rate £30.00 £32.50 £35.95
% change year-on-year -7.69% -9.60% +0.42%

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 21 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 21 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 21 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 2,065 £550 - 1,190
UK excluding London -3 1,069 £550 - 927
Work from Home 0 1,000 £525 -4.55% 479
London -5 958 £550 -4.35% 553
South East +2 281 £536 -2.55% 371
North of England -11 264 £597 +9.45% 214
Midlands -10 206 £550 +4.76% 83
North West -7 153 £625 +15.96% 140
West Midlands -7 151 £563 +5.88% 54
South West +16 138 £575 +4.55% 132
Yorkshire -5 101 £550 +2.33% 57
East of England 0 98 £550 +4.76% 57
Scotland -1 51 £520 -5.45% 23
East Midlands -14 51 £500 -3.85% 28
Wales +9 28 £405 -16.92% 34
Northern Ireland +2 12 £405 -22.86% 26
North East -32 10 £525 -7.08% 18

Consultant Skill Set
Top 30 Co-Occurring Skills & Capabilities

For the 6 months to 21 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.

1 664 (24.96%) SAP
2 632 (23.76%) Security Cleared
3 533 (20.04%) SC Cleared
4 388 (14.59%) Migration
5 353 (13.27%) SAP S/4HANA
6 310 (11.65%) Problem-Solving
7 296 (11.13%) Azure
8 293 (11.02%) Microsoft
9 287 (10.79%) Oracle
10 278 (10.45%) Stakeholder Management
11 277 (10.41%) Stakeholder Engagement
12 224 (8.42%) ERP
13 212 (7.97%) Workshop Facilitation
14 178 (6.69%) User Acceptance Testing
15 168 (6.32%) Agile
15 168 (6.32%) Data Migration
16 158 (5.94%) Analytics
17 152 (5.71%) Roadmaps
18 149 (5.60%) SQL
19 144 (5.41%) Business Intelligence
19 144 (5.41%) Knowledge Transfer
20 138 (5.19%) Dynamics 365
21 135 (5.08%) Validation
22 127 (4.77%) Cybersecurity
23 118 (4.44%) Continuous Improvement
24 115 (4.32%) Power Platform
24 115 (4.32%) Python
25 114 (4.29%) AI
26 109 (4.10%) DevOps
27 106 (3.98%) Degree

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 64 (2.41%) SharePoint
2 30 (1.13%) Confluence
2 30 (1.13%) Microsoft Exchange
3 6 (0.23%) Jupyter
3 6 (0.23%) NetWeaver
4 5 (0.19%) CMS
4 5 (0.19%) MTS
4 5 (0.19%) Oracle Workflow
5 3 (0.11%) Adobe Experience Manager
5 3 (0.11%) ArcGIS
5 3 (0.11%) Palantir Foundry
6 2 (0.075%) Apache
6 2 (0.075%) Apache Spark
6 2 (0.075%) IIS
6 2 (0.075%) OpenStack
7 1 (0.038%) LiveCycle
7 1 (0.038%) SAS
7 1 (0.038%) SharePoint 2010
7 1 (0.038%) Skype for Business
7 1 (0.038%) Tomcat
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
1 353 (13.27%) SAP S/4HANA
2 69 (2.59%) SAP FI
3 56 (2.11%) Oracle EBS
4 52 (1.95%) SAP MM
5 49 (1.84%) Oracle Payables
6 47 (1.77%) Oracle Receivables
7 45 (1.69%) SAP HCM
8 42 (1.58%) SAP CO
8 42 (1.58%) SAP EWM
9 39 (1.47%) Dynamics CRM
9 39 (1.47%) SAP FI/CO
10 38 (1.43%) SAP PP
11 37 (1.39%) Oracle General Ledger
12 36 (1.35%) Oracle EBS R12
13 33 (1.24%) SAP PSCD
14 31 (1.17%) SAP Travel Management
15 30 (1.13%) Oracle Assets
16 28 (1.05%) SAP Payroll
17 25 (0.94%) Oracle Cash Management
17 25 (0.94%) Oracle Procure-to-Pay
Cloud Services
1 296 (11.13%) Azure
2 138 (5.19%) Dynamics 365
3 115 (4.32%) Power Platform
4 104 (3.91%) OCI
5 102 (3.83%) AWS
6 84 (3.16%) Microsoft 365
7 76 (2.86%) GCP
8 69 (2.59%) SaaS
9 62 (2.33%) Entra ID
10 47 (1.77%) SuccessFactors
11 41 (1.54%) Power Automate
12 34 (1.28%) Microsoft Copilot
13 31 (1.17%) Azure DevOps
13 31 (1.17%) PowerApps
14 30 (1.13%) Microsoft Purview
15 24 (0.90%) OneDrive
16 22 (0.83%) GitHub
17 19 (0.71%) SAP Commerce Cloud
18 18 (0.68%) Serverless
19 17 (0.64%) Azure Data Factory
Communications & Networking
1 49 (1.84%) Firewall
2 20 (0.75%) VPN
3 15 (0.56%) DNS
3 15 (0.56%) Network Security
4 13 (0.49%) HTTP
4 13 (0.49%) Kerberos
5 12 (0.45%) SMS
5 12 (0.45%) WAN
6 11 (0.41%) DHCP
6 11 (0.41%) SSL
7 10 (0.38%) VSAN
8 9 (0.34%) SD-WAN
8 9 (0.34%) Software-Defined Networking
8 9 (0.34%) TCP/IP
9 8 (0.30%) FTP
9 8 (0.30%) Intranet
9 8 (0.30%) SAN
10 7 (0.26%) Cisco IPT
10 7 (0.26%) LAN
11 6 (0.23%) SSH
Database & Business Intelligence
1 81 (3.05%) Power BI
2 48 (1.80%) 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%) SAP BW
7 12 (0.45%) PostgreSQL
8 11 (0.41%) SQL Server Reporting Services
8 11 (0.41%) Tableau
9 10 (0.38%) NoSQL
10 8 (0.30%) Electronic Patient Records
10 8 (0.30%) GIS
10 8 (0.30%) Oracle Database
11 6 (0.23%) Data Lake
11 6 (0.23%) Data Mart
11 6 (0.23%) DB2
11 6 (0.23%) DynamoDB
11 6 (0.23%) MongoDB
Development Applications
1 61 (2.29%) JIRA
2 18 (0.68%) Jenkins
3 14 (0.53%) Git
4 13 (0.49%) Hudson
5 12 (0.45%) Oracle Forms
6 10 (0.38%) GitLab
7 7 (0.26%) Oracle APEX
8 6 (0.23%) Postman
9 4 (0.15%) Eclipse
9 4 (0.15%) LSMW
10 3 (0.11%) JUnit
11 2 (0.075%) Bitbucket
11 2 (0.075%) git-flow
11 2 (0.075%) Mockito
11 2 (0.075%) Rational Rhapsody
11 2 (0.075%) Selenium
11 2 (0.075%) SonarQube
11 2 (0.075%) TeamCity
11 2 (0.075%) Tricentis qTest
11 2 (0.075%) Visual Studio
General
1 702 (26.39%) Social Skills
2 571 (21.47%) Finance
3 250 (9.40%) Public Sector
4 244 (9.17%) Analytical Skills
5 125 (4.70%) Manufacturing
6 95 (3.57%) Banking
7 77 (2.89%) Documentation Skills
8 76 (2.86%) Marketing
9 64 (2.41%) Billing
10 59 (2.22%) Legal
11 48 (1.80%) Presentation Skills
12 45 (1.69%) General Ledger
13 41 (1.54%) Telecoms
14 33 (1.24%) Retail
15 28 (1.05%) Law
15 28 (1.05%) Pharmaceutical
16 27 (1.02%) Organisational Skills
17 21 (0.79%) Aerospace
18 20 (0.75%) Financial Institution
19 19 (0.71%) Inclusion and Diversity
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 92 (3.46%) Oracle Fusion
2 70 (2.63%) REST
3 63 (2.37%) SAP Fiori
4 48 (1.80%) Web Services
5 40 (1.50%) SOAP
6 39 (1.47%) SAP TM
7 34 (1.28%) XML
8 28 (1.05%) BAPI
9 27 (1.02%) Node.js
10 26 (0.98%) LDAP
11 23 (0.86%) Middleware
12 19 (0.71%) SAP PI
13 18 (0.68%) GraphQL
14 17 (0.64%) HTML
14 17 (0.64%) JSON
15 16 (0.60%) IDoc
16 15 (0.56%) .NET
16 15 (0.56%) CSS
17 13 (0.49%) SAP Basis
18 12 (0.45%) EDI
Miscellaneous
1 68 (2.56%) Onboarding
2 59 (2.22%) Legacy Systems
3 39 (1.47%) Product Ownership
3 39 (1.47%) Security Posture
4 30 (1.13%) Data Centre
4 30 (1.13%) Data Protection Act
5 29 (1.09%) Cloud Native
6 26 (0.98%) Management Information System
7 25 (0.94%) Operational Technology
8 24 (0.90%) Greenfield Project
8 24 (0.90%) Replication
9 22 (0.83%) Data Structures
10 19 (0.71%) AI Agents
11 18 (0.68%) Analytical Mindset
12 16 (0.60%) Life Science
12 16 (0.60%) NHS
13 15 (0.56%) Hybrid Cloud
13 15 (0.56%) Public Cloud
14 14 (0.53%) Self-Motivation
15 11 (0.41%) Enterprise Software
Operating Systems
1 73 (2.74%) Windows
2 42 (1.58%) Linux
3 20 (0.75%) Unix
4 14 (0.53%) Windows Server
5 9 (0.34%) Mac OS
5 9 (0.34%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
5 9 (0.34%) Windows 10
6 5 (0.19%) Ubuntu
6 5 (0.19%) VMS
7 4 (0.15%) AIX
7 4 (0.15%) Solaris
7 4 (0.15%) zOS
8 3 (0.11%) Apple iOS
9 2 (0.075%) SUSE
9 2 (0.075%) SUSE Linux Enterprise Server
9 2 (0.075%) Windows Server 2003
9 2 (0.075%) Windows Server 2008
10 1 (0.038%) CentOS
10 1 (0.038%) CoreOS
10 1 (0.038%) Data ONTAP
Processes & Methodologies
1 388 (14.59%) Migration
2 310 (11.65%) Problem-Solving
3 278 (10.45%) Stakeholder Management
4 277 (10.41%) Stakeholder Engagement
5 224 (8.42%) ERP
6 212 (7.97%) Workshop Facilitation
7 178 (6.69%) User Acceptance Testing
8 168 (6.32%) Agile
8 168 (6.32%) Data Migration
9 158 (5.94%) Analytics
10 152 (5.71%) Roadmaps
11 144 (5.41%) Business Intelligence
11 144 (5.41%) Knowledge Transfer
12 135 (5.08%) Validation
13 127 (4.77%) Cybersecurity
14 118 (4.44%) Continuous Improvement
15 114 (4.29%) AI
16 109 (4.10%) DevOps
17 106 (3.98%) Risk Management
18 104 (3.91%) Data Modelling
Programming Languages
1 149 (5.60%) SQL
2 115 (4.32%) Python
3 88 (3.31%) PowerShell
4 87 (3.27%) JavaScript
5 72 (2.71%) ABAP
6 37 (1.39%) Java
7 30 (1.13%) TypeScript
8 24 (0.90%) PL/SQL
9 22 (0.83%) Groovy
10 16 (0.60%) C#
11 14 (0.53%) Bash
12 10 (0.38%) Shell Script
13 8 (0.30%) Apex Code
13 8 (0.30%) Data Analysis Expressions
14 7 (0.26%) C++
14 7 (0.26%) Kusto Query Language
15 6 (0.23%) COBOL
16 5 (0.19%) Bicep
16 5 (0.19%) Korn
17 4 (0.15%) Go
Qualifications
1 632 (23.76%) Security Cleared
2 533 (20.04%) SC Cleared
3 106 (3.98%) Degree
4 78 (2.93%) DV Cleared
5 63 (2.37%) BPSS Clearance
6 47 (1.77%) CISSP
7 37 (1.39%) VMware Certified Professional (VCP)
8 32 (1.20%) CISM
9 20 (0.75%) SAP Certification
10 19 (0.71%) Master's Degree
11 17 (0.64%) Cisco Certification
11 17 (0.64%) Computer Science Degree
12 16 (0.60%) CIMA
13 15 (0.56%) Microsoft Certification
14 11 (0.41%) ITIL Certification
15 8 (0.30%) AWS Certification
15 8 (0.30%) CCNP
15 8 (0.30%) CESG Certified Professional
16 6 (0.23%) (ISC)2 CCSP
16 6 (0.23%) CRISC
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 84 (3.16%) NIST
2 77 (2.89%) ISO/IEC 27001
3 69 (2.59%) GDPR
4 52 (1.95%) Data Quality
5 50 (1.88%) QA
6 38 (1.43%) GRC
7 22 (0.83%) Actionable Recommendations
8 21 (0.79%) NCSC
9 19 (0.71%) SLA
10 17 (0.64%) Sarbanes-Oxley
11 16 (0.60%) PMO
12 14 (0.53%) 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%) HIPAA
System Software
1 69 (2.59%) Active Directory
2 38 (1.43%) Docker
3 33 (1.24%) VMware Infrastructure
4 29 (1.09%) VMware NSX
5 22 (0.83%) vSphere
6 8 (0.30%) Hyper-V
7 6 (0.23%) Slurm Workload Manager
7 6 (0.23%) Virtual Desktop
8 5 (0.19%) NDS
8 5 (0.19%) NetIQ eDirectory
8 5 (0.19%) Virtual Machines
9 2 (0.075%) NFS
10 1 (0.038%) Ceph
10 1 (0.038%) IAG
10 1 (0.038%) Job Entry Subsystem
10 1 (0.038%) KVM
10 1 (0.038%) Microsoft App-V
10 1 (0.038%) QEMU
10 1 (0.038%) Terminal Services
10 1 (0.038%) VMware ESXi
Systems Management
1 55 (2.07%) Kubernetes
2 38 (1.43%) vRealize
3 33 (1.24%) Terraform
4 21 (0.79%) Microsoft Intune
5 18 (0.68%) Single Sign-On
6 15 (0.56%) Ansible
7 10 (0.38%) Failover Clustering
7 10 (0.38%) PingFederate
8 7 (0.26%) Active Directory Federation Services
8 7 (0.26%) SCCM
9 6 (0.23%) Grafana
9 6 (0.23%) Podman
10 5 (0.19%) Prometheus
10 5 (0.19%) vRealize Orchestrator
11 4 (0.15%) vCenter Server
12 3 (0.11%) CEMLI
12 3 (0.11%) FortiGate
12 3 (0.11%) NetBackup
12 3 (0.11%) vMotion
13 2 (0.075%) Puppet
Vendors
1 664 (24.96%) SAP
2 293 (11.02%) Microsoft
3 287 (10.79%) Oracle
4 96 (3.61%) VMware
5 78 (2.93%) ServiceNow
6 59 (2.22%) Salesforce
7 56 (2.11%) CyberArk
7 56 (2.11%) Workday
8 55 (2.07%) Ariba
9 51 (1.92%) Cisco
10 47 (1.77%) Siemens
11 41 (1.54%) Google
12 36 (1.35%) Aruba
13 33 (1.24%) Adobe
14 20 (0.75%) Databricks
15 19 (0.71%) OpenText
16 14 (0.53%) Dynatrace
16 14 (0.53%) Murex
16 14 (0.53%) Sage
17 13 (0.49%) IFS