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 22 September 2026.

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

6 months to
22 Sep 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 28 26 27
Rank change year-on-year -2 +1 +3
Contract jobs requiring a Consultant 3,251 2,252 2,571
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 5.96% 6.93% 6.76%
As % of the Job Titles category 6.46% 7.62% 7.28%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,833 1,325 1,404
10th Percentile £408 £412 £413
25th Percentile £463 £475 £475
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £550 £550 £550
Median % change year-on-year - - +0.14%
75th Percentile £650 £650 £650
90th Percentile £750 £750 £750
UK excluding London median daily rate £530 £550 £568
% change year-on-year -3.64% -3.08% +8.10%
Number of hourly rates quoted 57 26 24
10th Percentile £36.25 £28.52 £44.75
25th Percentile £45.00 £42.26 £56.24
Median hourly rate £76.00 £77.50 £61.60
Median % change year-on-year -1.94% +25.81% -3.75%
75th Percentile £86.11 £81.25 £69.77
90th Percentile £91.50 £87.38 £74.96
UK excluding London median hourly rate £76.25 £77.50 £61.60
% change year-on-year -1.61% +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 50,343 29,565 35,332
% of contract IT jobs with a recognized job title 92.26% 91.03% 92.96%
Number of daily rates quoted 29,778 18,648 21,690
10th Percentile £325 £278 £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 £630 £625 £638
90th Percentile £731 £725 £750
UK excluding London median daily rate £500 £475 £500
% change year-on-year +5.26% -5.00% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 3,866 1,577 1,631
10th Percentile £14.56 £13.75 £14.73
25th Percentile £20.25 £17.29 £20.50
Median hourly rate £42.50 £25.15 £43.00
Median % change year-on-year +68.99% -41.51% -3.37%
75th Percentile £67.80 £51.80 £65.00
90th Percentile £78.75 £69.79 £75.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £42.50 £25.11 £43.90
% change year-on-year +69.26% -42.80% +0.34%

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 22 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 22 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 22 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 -6 2,588 £550 - 3,689
UK excluding London -7 1,368 £530 -3.64% 1,883
London -2 1,245 £550 -4.35% 2,127
Work from Home -4 1,069 £550 - 2,020
South East -4 383 £540 -1.82% 430
North of England -21 322 £575 -1.71% 467
Midlands -1 225 £500 -9.09% 248
North West -14 211 £579 -6.57% 305
South West +12 205 £550 -5.58% 250
West Midlands +1 162 £500 -9.09% 204
Scotland +31 129 £453 -9.40% 178
East of England -19 104 £550 - 141
Yorkshire -21 89 £575 +21.05% 99
East Midlands -7 59 £525 -4.55% 44
Wales -10 24 £550 +22.22% 36
North East -26 21 £750 +38.89% 64
Channel Islands -5 2 £600 - 4
Northern Ireland -6 2 £544 +4.57% 140

Consultant Skill Set
Top 30 Co-Occurring Skills & Capabilities

For the 6 months to 22 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.

1 706 (21.72%) Security Cleared
2 656 (20.18%) SAP
3 566 (17.41%) Stakeholder Management
4 481 (14.80%) SC Cleared
5 462 (14.21%) Microsoft
6 437 (13.44%) Migration
7 418 (12.86%) Oracle
8 318 (9.78%) Azure
9 302 (9.29%) Stakeholder Engagement
10 285 (8.77%) User Acceptance Testing
11 282 (8.67%) SAP S/4HANA
12 261 (8.03%) Problem-Solving
13 244 (7.51%) Validation
14 240 (7.38%) Workshop Facilitation
15 238 (7.32%) ERP
16 236 (7.26%) Cybersecurity
17 224 (6.89%) SQL
18 211 (6.49%) Analytics
19 207 (6.37%) Continuous Improvement
20 196 (6.03%) Roadmaps
21 194 (5.97%) Data Migration
22 186 (5.72%) Agile
22 186 (5.72%) AWS
23 184 (5.66%) Requirements Gathering
24 167 (5.14%) AI
25 160 (4.92%) Power Platform
26 154 (4.74%) DV Cleared
26 154 (4.74%) Translating Business Requirements
27 150 (4.61%) Business Intelligence
28 147 (4.52%) Knowledge Transfer

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 73 (2.25%) SharePoint
2 41 (1.26%) Confluence
3 31 (0.95%) Microsoft Exchange
4 10 (0.31%) Oracle Workflow
5 9 (0.28%) WebSphere
6 8 (0.25%) SAS
6 8 (0.25%) WebLogic
7 5 (0.15%) ArcGIS
8 4 (0.12%) Apache
8 4 (0.12%) CMS
9 3 (0.092%) Adobe Experience Manager
9 3 (0.092%) Apache Airflow
9 3 (0.092%) Apache Spark
9 3 (0.092%) NetWeaver
9 3 (0.092%) OpenStack
9 3 (0.092%) TIBCO ActiveMatrix
10 2 (0.062%) Oracle Service Bus
10 2 (0.062%) Oracle SOA Suite
10 2 (0.062%) Smallworld
10 2 (0.062%) WordPress
Applications
1 50 (1.54%) Microsoft Excel
2 32 (0.98%) Microsoft Office
3 28 (0.86%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 9 (0.28%) MS Visio
5 7 (0.22%) Spreadsheet
6 4 (0.12%) Microsoft Project
7 2 (0.062%) Chatbot
8 1 (0.031%) Adobe Captivate
8 1 (0.031%) Adobe Creative Suite
8 1 (0.031%) CPLEX
Business Applications
1 282 (8.67%) SAP S/4HANA
2 88 (2.71%) Oracle EBS
3 77 (2.37%) SAP FI
4 49 (1.51%) SAP PSCD
5 48 (1.48%) Oracle ERP
6 45 (1.38%) Oracle Payables
6 45 (1.38%) SAP CO
7 42 (1.29%) SAP Payroll
8 38 (1.17%) Workday HCM
9 37 (1.14%) Dynamics CRM
9 37 (1.14%) Oracle Receivables
10 36 (1.11%) SAP FI/CO
11 35 (1.08%) SAP SD
12 33 (1.02%) SAP BRIM
13 32 (0.98%) Oracle General Ledger
13 32 (0.98%) SAP HR
13 32 (0.98%) SAP MM
14 30 (0.92%) NetSuite
14 30 (0.92%) SAP HCM
14 30 (0.92%) SAP PP
Cloud Services
1 318 (9.78%) Azure
2 186 (5.72%) AWS
3 160 (4.92%) Power Platform
4 144 (4.43%) Dynamics 365
5 123 (3.78%) OCI
6 101 (3.11%) SuccessFactors
7 97 (2.98%) GCP
8 89 (2.74%) Microsoft 365
9 69 (2.12%) Entra ID
10 66 (2.03%) Power Automate
11 63 (1.94%) Azure DevOps
12 54 (1.66%) Microsoft Copilot
13 45 (1.38%) SaaS
14 35 (1.08%) PowerApps
15 29 (0.89%) Microsoft Purview
16 26 (0.80%) GitHub
17 20 (0.62%) Snowflake
18 18 (0.55%) Azure AI
19 17 (0.52%) Amazon S3
20 15 (0.46%) Copilot Studio
Communications & Networking
1 69 (2.12%) Firewall
2 68 (2.09%) Network Security
3 35 (1.08%) WAN
4 34 (1.05%) BGP
5 25 (0.77%) VPN
6 20 (0.62%) SNMP
7 18 (0.55%) DNS
8 16 (0.49%) LAN
9 14 (0.43%) Ethernet VPN
9 14 (0.43%) TCP/IP
10 12 (0.37%) SAN
10 12 (0.37%) VXLAN
11 11 (0.34%) IPsec
11 11 (0.34%) MPLS
11 11 (0.34%) NGFW
12 10 (0.31%) 3GPP
12 10 (0.31%) 5G
12 10 (0.31%) Radio Access Network
12 10 (0.31%) SD-WAN
13 7 (0.22%) FTP
Database & Business Intelligence
1 97 (2.98%) Power BI
2 55 (1.69%) Oracle Reports
3 37 (1.14%) Oracle BI Publisher
4 35 (1.08%) SAP BW
4 35 (1.08%) SAP HANA
5 34 (1.05%) Data Warehouse
6 29 (0.89%) Tableau
7 28 (0.86%) SQL Server
8 27 (0.83%) Metadata
9 20 (0.62%) BusinessObjects
10 17 (0.52%) Oracle Database
11 14 (0.43%) Power Query
12 13 (0.40%) Oracle ODI
13 11 (0.34%) Relational Database
14 9 (0.28%) DynamoDB
15 8 (0.25%) BigQuery
15 8 (0.25%) SAP Data Services
16 7 (0.22%) Amazon RDS
16 7 (0.22%) Elasticsearch
16 7 (0.22%) Looker
Development Applications
1 92 (2.83%) JIRA
2 27 (0.83%) Git
3 17 (0.52%) Jenkins
3 17 (0.52%) Oracle Forms
4 12 (0.37%) GitLab
5 9 (0.28%) Hudson
6 7 (0.22%) PowerBuilder
6 7 (0.22%) Zephyr
7 6 (0.18%) SonarQube
8 5 (0.15%) Cypress.io
8 5 (0.15%) Sonatype Nexus
9 4 (0.12%) MLflow
10 3 (0.092%) Browser DevTools
10 3 (0.092%) JDeveloper
10 3 (0.092%) JMeter
10 3 (0.092%) Maven
10 3 (0.092%) Postman
10 3 (0.092%) Snyk
10 3 (0.092%) TestRail
10 3 (0.092%) Toad
General
1 723 (22.24%) Finance
2 720 (22.15%) Social Skills
3 257 (7.91%) Public Sector
4 231 (7.11%) Analytical Skills
5 120 (3.69%) Manufacturing
6 99 (3.05%) Banking
7 85 (2.61%) Legal
8 80 (2.46%) Billing
9 79 (2.43%) Documentation Skills
10 67 (2.06%) Telecoms
11 58 (1.78%) Presentation Skills
12 56 (1.72%) Retail
13 54 (1.66%) General Ledger
14 47 (1.45%) Marketing
15 43 (1.32%) Influencing Skills
16 41 (1.26%) Inclusion and Diversity
17 38 (1.17%) Pharmaceutical
18 30 (0.92%) Local Government
19 25 (0.77%) Law
20 18 (0.55%) Financial Institution
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 128 (3.94%) Oracle Fusion
2 80 (2.46%) REST
3 62 (1.91%) Terraform
4 49 (1.51%) SAP Fiori
5 38 (1.17%) Middleware
5 38 (1.17%) SOAP
5 38 (1.17%) XML
6 37 (1.14%) Web Services
7 29 (0.89%) SailPoint
8 24 (0.74%) JSON
9 23 (0.71%) OAuth
10 21 (0.65%) LDAP
11 19 (0.58%) HTML
12 18 (0.55%) BAPI
12 18 (0.55%) SAP PI
13 17 (0.52%) CSS
13 17 (0.52%) SAP Basis
14 14 (0.43%) SAML
15 13 (0.40%) EDI
15 13 (0.40%) NETCONF
Miscellaneous
1 130 (4.00%) Onboarding
2 53 (1.63%) CMDB
3 49 (1.51%) Operational Technology
4 48 (1.48%) Data Centre
5 43 (1.32%) Data Structures
6 41 (1.26%) Security Posture
7 40 (1.23%) Product Ownership
8 37 (1.14%) Data Protection Act
9 35 (1.08%) Enterprise Software
10 30 (0.92%) Legacy Systems
11 26 (0.80%) AI Agents
12 25 (0.77%) Cloud Native
12 25 (0.77%) Replication
13 23 (0.71%) Greenfield Project
13 23 (0.71%) Life Science
14 18 (0.55%) NHS
14 18 (0.55%) Public Cloud
15 17 (0.52%) Hybrid Cloud
16 16 (0.49%) Management Information System
16 16 (0.49%) PKI
Operating Systems
1 96 (2.95%) Windows
2 73 (2.25%) Linux
3 25 (0.77%) Unix
4 21 (0.65%) Solaris
4 21 (0.65%) Windows Server
5 14 (0.43%) AIX
5 14 (0.43%) VMS
6 6 (0.18%) Android
6 6 (0.18%) Windows 10
6 6 (0.18%) Windows Server 2016
7 5 (0.15%) Apple iOS
7 5 (0.15%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
8 1 (0.031%) Mac OS
8 1 (0.031%) OpenVMS
8 1 (0.031%) Windows Server 2012
8 1 (0.031%) zOS
Processes & Methodologies
1 566 (17.41%) Stakeholder Management
2 437 (13.44%) Migration
3 302 (9.29%) Stakeholder Engagement
4 285 (8.77%) User Acceptance Testing
5 261 (8.03%) Problem-Solving
6 244 (7.51%) Validation
7 240 (7.38%) Workshop Facilitation
8 238 (7.32%) ERP
9 236 (7.26%) Cybersecurity
10 211 (6.49%) Analytics
11 207 (6.37%) Continuous Improvement
12 196 (6.03%) Roadmaps
13 194 (5.97%) Data Migration
14 186 (5.72%) Agile
15 184 (5.66%) Requirements Gathering
16 167 (5.14%) AI
17 154 (4.74%) Translating Business Requirements
18 150 (4.61%) Business Intelligence
19 147 (4.52%) Knowledge Transfer
20 134 (4.12%) Project Delivery
Programming Languages
1 224 (6.89%) SQL
2 107 (3.29%) Python
3 57 (1.75%) ABAP
4 54 (1.66%) PowerShell
5 45 (1.38%) JavaScript
6 44 (1.35%) PL/SQL
7 29 (0.89%) Java
8 17 (0.52%) Bash
9 13 (0.40%) Data Analysis Expressions
9 13 (0.40%) Kusto Query Language
10 12 (0.37%) C#
11 11 (0.34%) Search Processing Language
12 9 (0.28%) T-SQL
12 9 (0.28%) TypeScript
13 7 (0.22%) R
14 6 (0.18%) Groovy
14 6 (0.18%) Shell Script
15 5 (0.15%) Korn
15 5 (0.15%) Perl
16 3 (0.092%) COBOL
Qualifications
1 706 (21.72%) Security Cleared
2 481 (14.80%) SC Cleared
3 154 (4.74%) DV Cleared
4 109 (3.35%) BPSS Clearance
5 76 (2.34%) Degree
6 75 (2.31%) CISSP
7 58 (1.78%) CISM
8 44 (1.35%) Cisco Certification
9 32 (0.98%) (ISC)2 CCSP
10 28 (0.86%) CCSP
11 20 (0.62%) ACCA
12 17 (0.52%) CIMA
13 15 (0.46%) CRISC
14 14 (0.43%) AWS Certification
14 14 (0.43%) PMP
15 13 (0.40%) CompTIA Security+
16 11 (0.34%) Azure Certification
17 10 (0.31%) CCIE
17 10 (0.31%) CISA
17 10 (0.31%) ISO 27001 Lead Auditor
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 106 (3.26%) Data Quality
2 101 (3.11%) NIST
3 83 (2.55%) GRC
4 73 (2.25%) ISO/IEC 27001
5 60 (1.85%) QA
6 43 (1.32%) NCSC
7 38 (1.17%) GDPR
8 29 (0.89%) SLA
9 26 (0.80%) PMO
10 23 (0.71%) Actionable Recommendations
11 19 (0.58%) Accessibility
11 19 (0.58%) PCI DSS
12 16 (0.49%) Cyber Essentials
13 13 (0.40%) Sarbanes-Oxley
14 11 (0.34%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
14 11 (0.34%) NIST 800
15 10 (0.31%) GxP
16 9 (0.28%) IFRS
17 8 (0.25%) SOC 2
17 8 (0.25%) WCAG
System Software
1 85 (2.61%) Active Directory
2 36 (1.11%) VMware Infrastructure
3 32 (0.98%) VMware NSX
4 18 (0.55%) vSphere
5 17 (0.52%) Docker
6 13 (0.40%) VMware ESXi
7 11 (0.34%) Hyper-V
7 11 (0.34%) IAG
8 10 (0.31%) Virtual Machines
9 8 (0.25%) Virtual Desktop
10 4 (0.12%) Firmware
11 2 (0.062%) BitLocker
11 2 (0.062%) PowerHA
12 1 (0.031%) HDFS
12 1 (0.031%) Oracle RAC
12 1 (0.031%) oVirt
12 1 (0.031%) ProxySG
12 1 (0.031%) RHEV
12 1 (0.031%) SRDF
12 1 (0.031%) Time Sharing Option
Systems Management
1 46 (1.41%) Kubernetes
2 32 (0.98%) Ansible
3 21 (0.65%) Microsoft Intune
3 21 (0.65%) SCCM
4 15 (0.46%) vRealize
5 14 (0.43%) Grafana
6 12 (0.37%) FortiGate
6 12 (0.37%) Single Sign-On
7 11 (0.34%) Nagios
7 11 (0.34%) ZABBIX
8 10 (0.31%) vCenter Server
9 9 (0.28%) Netcool
9 9 (0.28%) Prometheus
9 9 (0.28%) Tivoli
10 8 (0.25%) OpenView
10 8 (0.25%) Tivoli Monitoring
11 6 (0.18%) VxRail
12 4 (0.12%) CEMLI
12 4 (0.12%) NetBackup
12 4 (0.12%) vRealize Orchestrator
Vendors
1 656 (20.18%) SAP
2 462 (14.21%) Microsoft
3 418 (12.86%) Oracle
4 131 (4.03%) ServiceNow
5 76 (2.34%) Workday
6 75 (2.31%) VMware
7 62 (1.91%) Ariba
8 43 (1.32%) Salesforce
9 39 (1.20%) Databricks
9 39 (1.20%) Splunk
10 36 (1.11%) Palo Alto
11 30 (0.92%) Cisco
12 27 (0.83%) BMC
13 26 (0.80%) CyberArk
13 26 (0.80%) IBM
13 26 (0.80%) OpenText
14 24 (0.74%) Google
15 19 (0.58%) Adobe
15 19 (0.58%) Zscaler
16 18 (0.55%) Dell