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 9 September 2026.

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

6 months to
9 Sep 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 27 26 27
Rank change year-on-year -1 +1 +4
Contract jobs requiring a Consultant 3,286 2,209 2,605
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 6.03% 6.75% 6.84%
As % of the Job Titles category 6.53% 7.41% 7.35%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,835 1,285 1,440
10th Percentile £406 £413 £407
25th Percentile £463 £475 £468
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £550 £550 £550
Median % change year-on-year - - +0.09%
75th Percentile £650 £649 £650
90th Percentile £750 £750 £750
UK excluding London median daily rate £540 £550 £568
% change year-on-year -1.82% -3.08% +8.10%
Number of hourly rates quoted 56 26 26
10th Percentile £36.25 £28.52 £45.63
25th Percentile £51.00 £42.26 £55.24
Median hourly rate £76.00 £77.50 £61.60
Median % change year-on-year -1.94% +25.81% -5.23%
75th Percentile £86.46 £81.25 £65.76
90th Percentile £91.88 £84.25 £72.43
UK excluding London median hourly rate £76.50 £77.50 £61.60
% change year-on-year -1.29% +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 50,326 29,813 35,459
% of contract IT jobs with a recognized job title 92.39% 91.05% 93.07%
Number of daily rates quoted 29,971 18,780 22,045
10th Percentile £325 £280 £300
25th Percentile £425 £400 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £500 £525
Median % change year-on-year +5.00% -4.76% -0.94%
75th Percentile £625 £621 £638
90th Percentile £725 £725 £750
UK excluding London median daily rate £500 £475 £500
% change year-on-year +5.26% -5.00% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 3,688 1,551 1,736
10th Percentile £14.82 £13.65 £14.73
25th Percentile £20.31 £17.00 £20.50
Median hourly rate £42.50 £25.15 £43.00
Median % change year-on-year +68.99% -41.51% +1.18%
75th Percentile £67.91 £53.13 £65.00
90th Percentile £80.00 £70.16 £75.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £42.50 £25.15 £45.00
% change year-on-year +68.99% -44.11% +11.35%

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 9 September 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 9 September 2026.

Hourly rate histogram for Consultant in the UK

Consultant
Top 18 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 9 September 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 2,631 £550 - 2,308
UK excluding London -2 1,393 £540 -1.82% 1,179
London -2 1,258 £550 -4.35% 1,455
Work from Home -3 1,091 £550 - 1,344
South East -3 390 £550 - 251
North of England -9 326 £575 +4.55% 254
Midlands +3 237 £500 -9.09% 145
North West -2 212 £566 -1.57% 174
South West +10 207 £550 -8.33% 191
West Midlands +10 167 £481 -12.50% 119
Scotland +31 128 £450 -10.00% 115
East of England -12 102 £559 +1.55% 99
Yorkshire -11 93 £575 +21.05% 46
East Midlands -4 63 £525 -4.55% 25
Wales -17 22 £550 +22.22% 12
North East -38 20 £750 +37.61% 34
Channel Islands -3 2 £600 - 4
Northern Ireland -6 2 £544 +4.57% 122

Consultant Skill Set
Top 30 Co-Occurring Skills & Capabilities

For the 6 months to 9 September 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.

1 702 (21.36%) Security Cleared
2 683 (20.79%) SAP
3 535 (16.28%) Stakeholder Management
4 479 (14.58%) SC Cleared
5 461 (14.03%) Microsoft
6 440 (13.39%) Migration
7 421 (12.81%) Oracle
8 325 (9.89%) Azure
9 302 (9.19%) Stakeholder Engagement
10 290 (8.83%) SAP S/4HANA
11 283 (8.61%) User Acceptance Testing
12 271 (8.25%) Problem-Solving
13 241 (7.33%) SQL
14 240 (7.30%) ERP
15 237 (7.21%) Validation
16 236 (7.18%) Workshop Facilitation
17 224 (6.82%) Cybersecurity
18 212 (6.45%) Continuous Improvement
19 206 (6.27%) Analytics
20 192 (5.84%) Roadmaps
21 189 (5.75%) Data Migration
22 185 (5.63%) Agile
23 184 (5.60%) AWS
24 178 (5.42%) Requirements Gathering
25 171 (5.20%) AI
26 161 (4.90%) Power Platform
27 159 (4.84%) Business Intelligence
28 154 (4.69%) DV Cleared
29 153 (4.66%) Translating Business Requirements
30 142 (4.32%) 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 77 (2.34%) SharePoint
2 46 (1.40%) Confluence
3 31 (0.94%) Microsoft Exchange
4 12 (0.37%) Oracle Workflow
5 8 (0.24%) WebLogic
5 8 (0.24%) WebSphere
6 6 (0.18%) SAS
7 5 (0.15%) Apache
8 3 (0.091%) Adobe Experience Manager
8 3 (0.091%) Apache Airflow
8 3 (0.091%) Apache Spark
8 3 (0.091%) Apache Superset
8 3 (0.091%) CMS
8 3 (0.091%) NetWeaver
8 3 (0.091%) OpenStack
8 3 (0.091%) TIBCO ActiveMatrix
9 2 (0.061%) Oracle Service Bus
9 2 (0.061%) Oracle SOA Suite
9 2 (0.061%) Smallworld
9 2 (0.061%) WordPress
Applications
1 55 (1.67%) Microsoft Excel
2 33 (1.00%) Microsoft Office
3 26 (0.79%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 9 (0.27%) MS Visio
4 9 (0.27%) Spreadsheet
5 3 (0.091%) Chatbot
5 3 (0.091%) Microsoft Project
6 1 (0.030%) Adobe Captivate
6 1 (0.030%) Adobe Creative Suite
6 1 (0.030%) CPLEX
Business Applications
1 290 (8.83%) SAP S/4HANA
2 91 (2.77%) Oracle EBS
3 75 (2.28%) SAP FI
4 47 (1.43%) Oracle ERP
4 47 (1.43%) Oracle Payables
4 47 (1.43%) SAP PSCD
5 41 (1.25%) SAP CO
6 38 (1.16%) Oracle Receivables
6 38 (1.16%) SAP MM
6 38 (1.16%) SAP SD
7 37 (1.13%) Dynamics CRM
8 35 (1.07%) Workday HCM
9 33 (1.00%) SAP FI/CO
9 33 (1.00%) SAP Payroll
10 30 (0.91%) NetSuite
10 30 (0.91%) SAP BRIM
11 29 (0.88%) Oracle General Ledger
11 29 (0.88%) SAP HR
11 29 (0.88%) SAP PP
12 27 (0.82%) SAP HCM
Cloud Services
1 325 (9.89%) Azure
2 184 (5.60%) AWS
3 161 (4.90%) Power Platform
4 142 (4.32%) Dynamics 365
5 123 (3.74%) OCI
6 108 (3.29%) SuccessFactors
7 99 (3.01%) GCP
8 88 (2.68%) Microsoft 365
9 70 (2.13%) Power Automate
10 69 (2.10%) Entra ID
11 64 (1.95%) Azure DevOps
12 53 (1.61%) Microsoft Copilot
13 44 (1.34%) SaaS
14 37 (1.13%) PowerApps
15 29 (0.88%) Microsoft Purview
16 27 (0.82%) GitHub
17 18 (0.55%) Copilot Studio
18 17 (0.52%) Snowflake
19 16 (0.49%) Azure AI
19 16 (0.49%) Azure Logic Apps
Communications & Networking
1 67 (2.04%) Firewall
2 64 (1.95%) Network Security
3 33 (1.00%) BGP
3 33 (1.00%) WAN
4 23 (0.70%) SNMP
4 23 (0.70%) VPN
5 18 (0.55%) DNS
6 16 (0.49%) LAN
7 13 (0.40%) Ethernet VPN
7 13 (0.40%) SAN
8 12 (0.37%) VXLAN
9 11 (0.33%) TCP/IP
10 10 (0.30%) 3GPP
10 10 (0.30%) 5G
10 10 (0.30%) IPsec
10 10 (0.30%) NGFW
10 10 (0.30%) Radio Access Network
11 9 (0.27%) MPLS
11 9 (0.27%) SD-WAN
12 7 (0.21%) VLAN
Database & Business Intelligence
1 99 (3.01%) Power BI
2 60 (1.83%) Oracle Reports
3 38 (1.16%) SAP HANA
4 37 (1.13%) Oracle BI Publisher
4 37 (1.13%) SAP BW
5 33 (1.00%) Data Warehouse
5 33 (1.00%) Tableau
6 31 (0.94%) SQL Server
7 27 (0.82%) Metadata
8 20 (0.61%) BusinessObjects
9 17 (0.52%) Oracle Database
10 15 (0.46%) Oracle ODI
11 13 (0.40%) Power Query
12 12 (0.37%) SAP Data Services
13 11 (0.33%) Relational Database
14 8 (0.24%) SQL Server Reporting Services
15 7 (0.21%) BigQuery
15 7 (0.21%) DynamoDB
15 7 (0.21%) Looker
16 6 (0.18%) Amazon RDS
Development Applications
1 96 (2.92%) JIRA
2 24 (0.73%) Git
3 20 (0.61%) Oracle Forms
4 15 (0.46%) Jenkins
5 12 (0.37%) Hudson
6 10 (0.30%) GitLab
7 7 (0.21%) PowerBuilder
7 7 (0.21%) Sonatype Nexus
8 6 (0.18%) SonarQube
8 6 (0.18%) Zephyr
9 5 (0.15%) Cypress.io
10 4 (0.12%) MLflow
11 3 (0.091%) Browser DevTools
11 3 (0.091%) JMeter
11 3 (0.091%) Postman
11 3 (0.091%) Selenium
11 3 (0.091%) Snyk
11 3 (0.091%) TestRail
11 3 (0.091%) Toad
11 3 (0.091%) Visual Studio Code
General
1 725 (22.06%) Social Skills
2 719 (21.88%) Finance
3 250 (7.61%) Analytical Skills
4 238 (7.24%) Public Sector
5 114 (3.47%) Manufacturing
6 96 (2.92%) Banking
7 87 (2.65%) Legal
8 79 (2.40%) Billing
9 75 (2.28%) Documentation Skills
10 69 (2.10%) Telecoms
11 59 (1.80%) General Ledger
12 54 (1.64%) Presentation Skills
12 54 (1.64%) Retail
13 50 (1.52%) Marketing
14 47 (1.43%) Inclusion and Diversity
15 42 (1.28%) Influencing Skills
16 37 (1.13%) Pharmaceutical
17 27 (0.82%) Local Government
18 23 (0.70%) Law
19 19 (0.58%) Organisational Skills
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 129 (3.93%) Oracle Fusion
2 83 (2.53%) REST
3 64 (1.95%) Terraform
4 49 (1.49%) SAP Fiori
5 39 (1.19%) SOAP
5 39 (1.19%) XML
6 35 (1.07%) Middleware
7 33 (1.00%) Web Services
8 25 (0.76%) SailPoint
9 23 (0.70%) JSON
10 21 (0.64%) LDAP
10 21 (0.64%) OAuth
10 21 (0.64%) SAP Basis
11 20 (0.61%) BAPI
11 20 (0.61%) HTML
12 18 (0.55%) CSS
12 18 (0.55%) SAP PI
13 13 (0.40%) EDI
13 13 (0.40%) NETCONF
13 13 (0.40%) SAML
Miscellaneous
1 125 (3.80%) Onboarding
2 56 (1.70%) CMDB
3 47 (1.43%) Data Centre
4 41 (1.25%) Data Protection Act
4 41 (1.25%) Data Structures
4 41 (1.25%) Operational Technology
4 41 (1.25%) Product Ownership
4 41 (1.25%) Security Posture
5 33 (1.00%) Enterprise Software
5 33 (1.00%) Legacy Systems
6 32 (0.97%) Replication
7 29 (0.88%) AI Agents
8 27 (0.82%) Cloud Native
9 22 (0.67%) Public Cloud
10 21 (0.64%) Life Science
11 19 (0.58%) Greenfield Project
11 19 (0.58%) Management Information System
12 17 (0.52%) Hybrid Cloud
12 17 (0.52%) NHS
12 17 (0.52%) PKI
Operating Systems
1 102 (3.10%) Windows
2 83 (2.53%) Linux
3 25 (0.76%) Unix
4 21 (0.64%) Solaris
4 21 (0.64%) Windows Server
5 20 (0.61%) VMS
6 17 (0.52%) AIX
7 6 (0.18%) Android
7 6 (0.18%) Windows Server 2016
8 5 (0.15%) Apple iOS
8 5 (0.15%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
9 4 (0.12%) Windows 10
10 1 (0.030%) Mac OS
10 1 (0.030%) OpenVMS
10 1 (0.030%) Windows Server 2012
10 1 (0.030%) zOS
Processes & Methodologies
1 535 (16.28%) Stakeholder Management
2 440 (13.39%) Migration
3 302 (9.19%) Stakeholder Engagement
4 283 (8.61%) User Acceptance Testing
5 271 (8.25%) Problem-Solving
6 240 (7.30%) ERP
7 237 (7.21%) Validation
8 236 (7.18%) Workshop Facilitation
9 224 (6.82%) Cybersecurity
10 212 (6.45%) Continuous Improvement
11 206 (6.27%) Analytics
12 192 (5.84%) Roadmaps
13 189 (5.75%) Data Migration
14 185 (5.63%) Agile
15 178 (5.42%) Requirements Gathering
16 171 (5.20%) AI
17 159 (4.84%) Business Intelligence
18 153 (4.66%) Translating Business Requirements
19 139 (4.23%) Knowledge Transfer
20 133 (4.05%) Project Delivery
Programming Languages
1 241 (7.33%) SQL
2 121 (3.68%) Python
3 58 (1.77%) PowerShell
4 52 (1.58%) ABAP
4 52 (1.58%) PL/SQL
5 47 (1.43%) JavaScript
6 30 (0.91%) Java
7 18 (0.55%) Bash
8 15 (0.46%) C#
9 14 (0.43%) Data Analysis Expressions
9 14 (0.43%) Kusto Query Language
10 13 (0.40%) Search Processing Language
10 13 (0.40%) T-SQL
11 9 (0.27%) R
12 8 (0.24%) Shell Script
12 8 (0.24%) TypeScript
13 6 (0.18%) Groovy
13 6 (0.18%) Korn
13 6 (0.18%) Perl
14 3 (0.091%) COBOL
Qualifications
1 702 (21.36%) Security Cleared
2 479 (14.58%) SC Cleared
3 154 (4.69%) DV Cleared
4 103 (3.13%) BPSS Clearance
5 82 (2.50%) CISSP
6 77 (2.34%) Degree
7 64 (1.95%) CISM
8 45 (1.37%) Cisco Certification
9 33 (1.00%) (ISC)2 CCSP
10 29 (0.88%) CCSP
11 21 (0.64%) ACCA
12 18 (0.55%) CIMA
13 15 (0.46%) CRISC
13 15 (0.46%) PMP
14 14 (0.43%) CompTIA Security+
15 13 (0.40%) AWS Certification
15 13 (0.40%) Azure Certification
16 12 (0.37%) SAP Certification
17 11 (0.33%) CISA
17 11 (0.33%) Computer Science Degree
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 100 (3.04%) Data Quality
2 93 (2.83%) NIST
3 75 (2.28%) GRC
4 74 (2.25%) ISO/IEC 27001
5 56 (1.70%) QA
6 40 (1.22%) GDPR
7 36 (1.10%) NCSC
8 32 (0.97%) SLA
9 24 (0.73%) PMO
10 23 (0.70%) Accessibility
10 23 (0.70%) Actionable Recommendations
11 22 (0.67%) PCI DSS
12 14 (0.43%) Cyber Essentials
13 13 (0.40%) Sarbanes-Oxley
14 11 (0.33%) GxP
15 10 (0.30%) COBIT
15 10 (0.30%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
15 10 (0.30%) NIST 800
16 9 (0.27%) IFRS
17 8 (0.24%) SOC 2
System Software
1 84 (2.56%) Active Directory
2 38 (1.16%) VMware Infrastructure
3 36 (1.10%) VMware NSX
4 20 (0.61%) vSphere
5 16 (0.49%) Docker
6 14 (0.43%) VMware ESXi
7 12 (0.37%) Hyper-V
7 12 (0.37%) IAG
8 11 (0.33%) Virtual Machines
9 10 (0.30%) Virtual Desktop
10 4 (0.12%) Firmware
11 2 (0.061%) BitLocker
11 2 (0.061%) PowerHA
12 1 (0.030%) HDFS
12 1 (0.030%) Oracle RAC
12 1 (0.030%) oVirt
12 1 (0.030%) ProxySG
12 1 (0.030%) RHEV
12 1 (0.030%) SRDF
12 1 (0.030%) Time Sharing Option
Systems Management
1 48 (1.46%) Kubernetes
2 31 (0.94%) Ansible
3 19 (0.58%) Microsoft Intune
3 19 (0.58%) SCCM
4 16 (0.49%) vRealize
5 14 (0.43%) Grafana
5 14 (0.43%) Nagios
5 14 (0.43%) ZABBIX
6 13 (0.40%) Single Sign-On
7 12 (0.37%) Netcool
7 12 (0.37%) Tivoli
8 11 (0.33%) FortiGate
8 11 (0.33%) OpenView
8 11 (0.33%) Tivoli Monitoring
9 10 (0.30%) Prometheus
9 10 (0.30%) vCenter Server
10 6 (0.18%) VxRail
11 5 (0.15%) NetBackup
12 4 (0.12%) CEMLI
12 4 (0.12%) vRealize Orchestrator
Vendors
1 683 (20.79%) SAP
2 461 (14.03%) Microsoft
3 421 (12.81%) Oracle
4 133 (4.05%) ServiceNow
5 82 (2.50%) VMware
6 68 (2.07%) Workday
7 64 (1.95%) Ariba
8 53 (1.61%) Salesforce
9 43 (1.31%) Splunk
10 42 (1.28%) Databricks
11 30 (0.91%) BMC
11 30 (0.91%) Palo Alto
12 28 (0.85%) Cisco
13 26 (0.79%) OpenText
14 25 (0.76%) Google
14 25 (0.76%) IBM
15 22 (0.67%) CyberArk
16 21 (0.64%) Adobe
17 18 (0.55%) Dell
17 18 (0.55%) Veeam