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 18 March 2026.

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

6 months to
18 Mar 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 28 28 25
Rank change year-on-year 0 -3 +18
Contract jobs requiring a Consultant 2,780 1,919 2,785
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 6.42% 6.55% 6.26%
As % of the Job Titles category 6.99% 7.04% 6.74%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,543 1,100 1,685
10th Percentile £400 £413 £400
25th Percentile £462 £488 £463
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £550 £550 £550
Median % change year-on-year - - -1.57%
75th Percentile £638 £650 £650
90th Percentile £713 £750 £725
UK excluding London median daily rate £538 £550 £538
% change year-on-year -2.27% +2.33% -2.27%
Number of hourly rates quoted 75 17 38
10th Percentile - £68.00 £38.00
25th Percentile £56.25 £72.50 £53.66
Median hourly rate £57.50 £85.00 £62.75
Median % change year-on-year -32.35% +35.46% -4.92%
75th Percentile £60.00 £86.25 £79.54
90th Percentile £76.45 £87.50 £90.25
UK excluding London median hourly rate £57.50 £83.75 £60.80
% change year-on-year -31.34% +37.75% -7.88%

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 39,756 27,258 41,316
% of contract IT jobs with a recognized job title 91.88% 92.98% 92.86%
Number of daily rates quoted 24,823 17,712 27,111
10th Percentile £313 £300 £273
25th Percentile £410 £406 £406
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £525 £525
Median % change year-on-year -4.76% - -4.02%
75th Percentile £613 £638 £638
90th Percentile £720 £738 £738
UK excluding London median daily rate £480 £475 £485
% change year-on-year +1.05% -2.06% -3.00%
Number of hourly rates quoted 2,465 888 2,497
10th Percentile £15.00 £15.25 £12.96
25th Percentile £19.10 £21.04 £16.25
Median hourly rate £35.91 £32.50 £32.50
Median % change year-on-year +10.49% - -23.29%
75th Percentile £65.00 £65.00 £59.95
90th Percentile £75.92 £77.28 £71.25
UK excluding London median hourly rate £35.00 £32.50 £32.50
% change year-on-year +7.69% - -18.75%

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 18 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 18 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 18 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 2,184 £550 -0.54% 1,226
UK excluding London +5 1,148 £538 -2.27% 853
Work from Home 0 1,021 £525 -4.55% 589
London -3 1,007 £550 -4.35% 591
South East +5 339 £530 -7.83% 310
North of England -7 252 £550 +2.23% 177
Midlands -5 232 £550 +4.76% 79
West Midlands +6 172 £563 +7.14% 43
South West +15 146 £550 - 155
North West -17 130 £575 +6.88% 101
Yorkshire +3 113 £538 +1.18% 58
East of England -2 98 £550 +2.33% 67
East Midlands -21 55 £500 -2.44% 35
Scotland +12 49 £520 -5.45% 41
Wales +10 32 £455 +1.06% 27
Northern Ireland +4 9 £405 -22.86% 9
North East -21 9 £525 -4.55% 19

Consultant Skill Set
Top 30 Co-Occurring Skills & Capabilities

For the 6 months to 18 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.

1 622 (22.37%) Security Cleared
2 611 (21.98%) SAP
3 524 (18.85%) SC Cleared
4 406 (14.60%) Migration
5 306 (11.01%) Azure
6 300 (10.79%) Problem-Solving
7 298 (10.72%) SAP S/4HANA
8 293 (10.54%) Oracle
9 290 (10.43%) Microsoft
10 286 (10.29%) Stakeholder Engagement
11 271 (9.75%) Stakeholder Management
12 229 (8.24%) ERP
13 207 (7.45%) Workshop Facilitation
14 196 (7.05%) SQL
15 187 (6.73%) User Acceptance Testing
16 176 (6.33%) Data Migration
17 174 (6.26%) Agile
18 166 (5.97%) Analytics
18 166 (5.97%) Roadmaps
19 153 (5.50%) Business Intelligence
20 144 (5.18%) Cybersecurity
20 144 (5.18%) Validation
21 139 (5.00%) Continuous Improvement
21 139 (5.00%) Knowledge Transfer
22 138 (4.96%) Dynamics 365
23 122 (4.39%) AI
24 121 (4.35%) Python
25 116 (4.17%) Power Platform
26 113 (4.06%) Change Management
27 109 (3.92%) Risk 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 68 (2.45%) SharePoint
2 37 (1.33%) Confluence
3 25 (0.90%) Microsoft Exchange
4 8 (0.29%) Oracle Workflow
5 6 (0.22%) Jupyter
6 5 (0.18%) Apache Spark
6 5 (0.18%) MTS
6 5 (0.18%) Palantir Foundry
7 4 (0.14%) CMS
8 3 (0.11%) Apache
8 3 (0.11%) ArcGIS
8 3 (0.11%) NetWeaver
9 2 (0.072%) Cloud Foundry
9 2 (0.072%) IIS
9 2 (0.072%) Tomcat
10 1 (0.036%) Apache Superset
10 1 (0.036%) nginx
10 1 (0.036%) Oracle Self-Service HR
10 1 (0.036%) SAS
10 1 (0.036%) WebSphere
Applications
1 67 (2.41%) Microsoft Excel
2 21 (0.76%) Microsoft PowerPoint
3 12 (0.43%) Microsoft Office
4 10 (0.36%) MS Visio
5 6 (0.22%) Microsoft Project
6 5 (0.18%) PTC Creo
6 5 (0.18%) Spreadsheet
7 3 (0.11%) Chatbot
8 2 (0.072%) Lectora
8 2 (0.072%) Oracle Smart View
9 1 (0.036%) Adobe XD
9 1 (0.036%) CATIA
9 1 (0.036%) InfoPath
9 1 (0.036%) Navisworks
9 1 (0.036%) Revit
9 1 (0.036%) Siemens NX
9 1 (0.036%) Windchill
Business Applications
1 298 (10.72%) SAP S/4HANA
2 62 (2.23%) SAP FI
3 59 (2.12%) Oracle EBS
4 51 (1.83%) Oracle Payables
5 46 (1.65%) Oracle Receivables
5 46 (1.65%) SAP MM
6 39 (1.40%) SAP HCM
7 38 (1.37%) Oracle EBS R12
7 38 (1.37%) SAP PP
8 37 (1.33%) Dynamics CRM
9 34 (1.22%) SAP CO
10 32 (1.15%) SAP FI/CO
10 32 (1.15%) SAP PSCD
11 31 (1.12%) Oracle General Ledger
12 30 (1.08%) Oracle Assets
12 30 (1.08%) SAP EWM
13 28 (1.01%) SAP Payroll
13 28 (1.01%) SAP Travel Management
14 26 (0.94%) Oracle Procure-to-Pay
15 24 (0.86%) Oracle Cash Management
Cloud Services
1 306 (11.01%) Azure
2 138 (4.96%) Dynamics 365
3 116 (4.17%) Power Platform
4 107 (3.85%) AWS
5 98 (3.53%) OCI
6 82 (2.95%) GCP
7 78 (2.81%) Microsoft 365
8 66 (2.37%) SaaS
9 60 (2.16%) Entra ID
10 54 (1.94%) SuccessFactors
11 44 (1.58%) Power Automate
12 36 (1.29%) Azure DevOps
13 33 (1.19%) Microsoft Purview
13 33 (1.19%) PowerApps
14 32 (1.15%) Microsoft Copilot
15 25 (0.90%) GitHub
16 23 (0.83%) OneDrive
17 18 (0.65%) Azure Data Factory
17 18 (0.65%) SAP Commerce Cloud
18 15 (0.54%) Serverless
Communications & Networking
1 45 (1.62%) Firewall
2 20 (0.72%) Network Security
3 17 (0.61%) DNS
4 15 (0.54%) VPN
4 15 (0.54%) WAN
5 14 (0.50%) VSAN
6 13 (0.47%) HTTP
6 13 (0.47%) Kerberos
6 13 (0.47%) SMS
7 12 (0.43%) SD-WAN
8 11 (0.40%) LAN
9 10 (0.36%) DHCP
9 10 (0.36%) SAN
10 9 (0.32%) FTP
10 9 (0.32%) Software-Defined Networking
11 8 (0.29%) Intranet
12 7 (0.25%) Internet
12 7 (0.25%) SSH
12 7 (0.25%) SSL
13 6 (0.22%) TCP/IP
Database & Business Intelligence
1 83 (2.99%) Power BI
2 47 (1.69%) Oracle Reports
3 39 (1.40%) SAP HANA
4 25 (0.90%) Metadata
4 25 (0.90%) SQL Server
5 24 (0.86%) Oracle BI Publisher
6 17 (0.61%) Tableau
7 11 (0.40%) Data Warehouse
7 11 (0.40%) NoSQL
7 11 (0.40%) SAP BW
8 10 (0.36%) Oracle ODI
8 10 (0.36%) SQL Server Reporting Services
9 8 (0.29%) Electronic Patient Records
9 8 (0.29%) Oracle Database
9 8 (0.29%) PostgreSQL
10 6 (0.22%) Data Mart
10 6 (0.22%) Essbase
10 6 (0.22%) GIS
10 6 (0.22%) MongoDB
10 6 (0.22%) SAP Data Services
Development Applications
1 68 (2.45%) JIRA
2 15 (0.54%) Jenkins
3 13 (0.47%) Hudson
4 12 (0.43%) Git
4 12 (0.43%) Oracle Forms
5 7 (0.25%) GitLab
5 7 (0.25%) Oracle APEX
6 4 (0.14%) LSMW
7 3 (0.11%) Postman
7 3 (0.11%) Sonatype Nexus
8 2 (0.072%) Bitbucket
8 2 (0.072%) git-flow
8 2 (0.072%) JUnit
8 2 (0.072%) Rational DOORS
8 2 (0.072%) Rational Rhapsody
8 2 (0.072%) SonarQube
8 2 (0.072%) TeamCity
8 2 (0.072%) Tricentis qTest
9 1 (0.036%) GCC
9 1 (0.036%) Team Foundation Server
General
1 692 (24.89%) Social Skills
2 608 (21.87%) Finance
3 261 (9.39%) Analytical Skills
4 249 (8.96%) Public Sector
5 124 (4.46%) Manufacturing
6 96 (3.45%) Banking
7 74 (2.66%) Marketing
8 68 (2.45%) Documentation Skills
9 67 (2.41%) Legal
10 62 (2.23%) Billing
11 47 (1.69%) General Ledger
12 46 (1.65%) Telecoms
13 35 (1.26%) Organisational Skills
13 35 (1.26%) Retail
14 34 (1.22%) Presentation Skills
15 27 (0.97%) Law
16 22 (0.79%) Inclusion and Diversity
17 20 (0.72%) Electronics
18 19 (0.68%) Pharmaceutical
19 18 (0.65%) Aerospace
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 100 (3.60%) Oracle Fusion
2 67 (2.41%) REST
3 61 (2.19%) XML
4 40 (1.44%) SAP Fiori
5 37 (1.33%) Web Services
6 35 (1.26%) SOAP
7 30 (1.08%) SAP TM
8 26 (0.94%) LDAP
9 21 (0.76%) Middleware
9 21 (0.76%) Node.js
10 20 (0.72%) BAPI
11 17 (0.61%) JSON
11 17 (0.61%) SAP PI
12 16 (0.58%) .NET
12 16 (0.58%) IDoc
13 14 (0.50%) GraphQL
13 14 (0.50%) SAP Basis
14 13 (0.47%) Kafka
15 11 (0.40%) EDI
15 11 (0.40%) HTML
Miscellaneous
1 70 (2.52%) Onboarding
2 59 (2.12%) Legacy Systems
3 44 (1.58%) Product Ownership
4 39 (1.40%) Security Posture
5 34 (1.22%) Data Protection Act
6 30 (1.08%) Data Centre
7 28 (1.01%) Management Information System
8 27 (0.97%) Replication
9 26 (0.94%) Operational Technology
10 24 (0.86%) Cloud Native
11 22 (0.79%) AI Agents
12 21 (0.76%) Data Structures
13 20 (0.72%) Analytical Mindset
14 19 (0.68%) Greenfield Project
14 19 (0.68%) NHS
15 16 (0.58%) CMDB
15 16 (0.58%) Public Cloud
16 14 (0.50%) Hybrid Cloud
17 13 (0.47%) Life Science
18 12 (0.43%) Self-Motivation
Operating Systems
1 75 (2.70%) Windows
2 43 (1.55%) Linux
3 16 (0.58%) Unix
4 15 (0.54%) Windows Server
5 14 (0.50%) VMS
6 11 (0.40%) Windows 10
7 8 (0.29%) AIX
8 7 (0.25%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
9 6 (0.22%) Mac OS
10 5 (0.18%) Ubuntu
11 4 (0.14%) Solaris
11 4 (0.14%) zOS
12 3 (0.11%) Apple iOS
12 3 (0.11%) SUSE
13 2 (0.072%) CoreOS
13 2 (0.072%) Data ONTAP
13 2 (0.072%) Windows Server 2003
13 2 (0.072%) Windows Server 2008
14 1 (0.036%) Android
14 1 (0.036%) CentOS
Processes & Methodologies
1 406 (14.60%) Migration
2 300 (10.79%) Problem-Solving
3 286 (10.29%) Stakeholder Engagement
4 271 (9.75%) Stakeholder Management
5 229 (8.24%) ERP
6 207 (7.45%) Workshop Facilitation
7 187 (6.73%) User Acceptance Testing
8 176 (6.33%) Data Migration
9 174 (6.26%) Agile
10 166 (5.97%) Analytics
10 166 (5.97%) Roadmaps
11 153 (5.50%) Business Intelligence
12 144 (5.18%) Cybersecurity
12 144 (5.18%) Validation
13 139 (5.00%) Continuous Improvement
13 139 (5.00%) Knowledge Transfer
14 122 (4.39%) AI
15 113 (4.06%) Change Management
16 109 (3.92%) Risk Management
17 107 (3.85%) DevOps
Programming Languages
1 196 (7.05%) SQL
2 121 (4.35%) Python
3 82 (2.95%) PowerShell
4 78 (2.81%) JavaScript
5 60 (2.16%) ABAP
6 35 (1.26%) Java
7 30 (1.08%) T-SQL
8 26 (0.94%) PL/SQL
8 26 (0.94%) TypeScript
9 22 (0.79%) Groovy
10 16 (0.58%) C#
11 14 (0.50%) Bash
12 11 (0.40%) Shell Script
13 9 (0.32%) C++
14 8 (0.29%) Apex Code
14 8 (0.29%) Data Analysis Expressions
15 7 (0.25%) Kusto Query Language
16 5 (0.18%) Korn
17 4 (0.14%) Ruby
17 4 (0.14%) Search Processing Language
Qualifications
1 622 (22.37%) Security Cleared
2 524 (18.85%) SC Cleared
3 98 (3.53%) Degree
4 85 (3.06%) DV Cleared
5 58 (2.09%) BPSS Clearance
6 57 (2.05%) CISSP
7 37 (1.33%) CISM
8 31 (1.12%) VMware Certified Professional (VCP)
9 19 (0.68%) CIMA
10 18 (0.65%) Cisco Certification
10 18 (0.65%) Computer Science Degree
11 17 (0.61%) Master's Degree
12 16 (0.58%) ITIL Certification
12 16 (0.58%) Microsoft Certification
13 12 (0.43%) SAP Certification
14 10 (0.36%) CEH
15 8 (0.29%) CESG Certified Professional
15 8 (0.29%) CompTIA Security+
16 7 (0.25%) (ISC)2 CCSP
16 7 (0.25%) CCNP
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 95 (3.42%) NIST
2 89 (3.20%) ISO/IEC 27001
3 65 (2.34%) GDPR
4 56 (2.01%) Data Quality
5 49 (1.76%) QA
6 45 (1.62%) GRC
7 25 (0.90%) NCSC
8 23 (0.83%) PCI DSS
9 20 (0.72%) Actionable Recommendations
10 19 (0.68%) PMO
10 19 (0.68%) Sarbanes-Oxley
10 19 (0.68%) SLA
11 16 (0.58%) COBIT
12 12 (0.43%) JSP 440
13 11 (0.40%) PERC
14 9 (0.32%) ISO/IEC 27005
15 8 (0.29%) Cyber Essentials
15 8 (0.29%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
16 7 (0.25%) Accessibility
17 5 (0.18%) ITGC
System Software
1 67 (2.41%) Active Directory
2 34 (1.22%) VMware NSX
3 33 (1.19%) VMware Infrastructure
4 30 (1.08%) Docker
5 28 (1.01%) vSphere
6 8 (0.29%) Hyper-V
7 7 (0.25%) Virtual Machines
8 6 (0.22%) Slurm Workload Manager
8 6 (0.22%) Virtual Desktop
9 3 (0.11%) NFS
10 2 (0.072%) NDS
10 2 (0.072%) NetIQ eDirectory
10 2 (0.072%) VMware ESXi
11 1 (0.036%) Ceph
11 1 (0.036%) IAG
11 1 (0.036%) Job Entry Subsystem
11 1 (0.036%) KVM
11 1 (0.036%) Microsoft App-V
11 1 (0.036%) QEMU
11 1 (0.036%) Terminal Services
Systems Management
1 49 (1.76%) Kubernetes
2 35 (1.26%) Terraform
3 32 (1.15%) vRealize
4 22 (0.79%) Microsoft Intune
5 17 (0.61%) Single Sign-On
6 16 (0.58%) Ansible
7 9 (0.32%) Failover Clustering
8 7 (0.25%) PingFederate
9 6 (0.22%) Active Directory Federation Services
9 6 (0.22%) Podman
9 6 (0.22%) SCCM
10 5 (0.18%) NetBackup
11 4 (0.14%) Nagios
11 4 (0.14%) Netcool
11 4 (0.14%) OpenView
11 4 (0.14%) Tivoli
11 4 (0.14%) Tivoli Monitoring
11 4 (0.14%) vCenter Server
11 4 (0.14%) ZABBIX
12 3 (0.11%) vRealize Orchestrator
Vendors
1 611 (21.98%) SAP
2 293 (10.54%) Oracle
3 290 (10.43%) Microsoft
4 94 (3.38%) VMware
5 90 (3.24%) ServiceNow
6 60 (2.16%) Salesforce
7 56 (2.01%) Workday
8 54 (1.94%) CyberArk
9 53 (1.91%) Siemens
10 47 (1.69%) Ariba
10 47 (1.69%) Cisco
11 45 (1.62%) Google
12 37 (1.33%) Aruba
13 24 (0.86%) Databricks
14 23 (0.83%) Adobe
15 20 (0.72%) Splunk
16 19 (0.68%) OpenText
17 17 (0.61%) Sage
18 15 (0.54%) Murex
19 14 (0.50%) IBM