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 29 August 2026.

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

6 months to
29 Aug 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 27 26 27
Rank change year-on-year -1 +1 +4
Contract jobs requiring a Consultant 3,264 2,193 2,629
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 6.06% 6.66% 6.82%
As % of the Job Titles category 6.55% 7.29% 7.33%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,809 1,276 1,486
10th Percentile £405 £413 £402
25th Percentile £463 £475 £468
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £550 £550 £550
75th Percentile £650 £649 £644
90th Percentile £750 £750 £750
UK excluding London median daily rate £525 £550 £561
% change year-on-year -4.55% -2.00% +6.90%
Number of hourly rates quoted 57 25 27
10th Percentile £36.25 £28.32 £41.05
25th Percentile £51.00 £41.60 £55.00
Median hourly rate £76.00 £77.50 £61.60
Median % change year-on-year -1.94% +25.81% -5.32%
75th Percentile £86.11 £81.25 £65.52
90th Percentile £91.50 - £71.95
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 49,838 30,062 35,859
% of contract IT jobs with a recognized job title 92.47% 91.24% 93.07%
Number of daily rates quoted 29,768 18,992 22,689
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% -1.69%
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 3,565 1,567 1,847
10th Percentile £14.96 £13.75 £14.16
25th Percentile £20.51 £17.04 £20.00
Median hourly rate £42.00 £25.15 £43.00
Median % change year-on-year +67.00% -41.51% +1.18%
75th Percentile £67.84 £53.81 £65.00
90th Percentile £80.00 £70.50 £75.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £42.50 £25.15 £44.00
% change year-on-year +68.99% -42.84% +10.00%

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 29 August 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 29 August 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 29 August 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 -2 2,632 £550 - 2,112
UK excluding London +1 1,406 £525 -4.55% 1,102
London -1 1,242 £550 -4.35% 1,322
Work from Home -3 1,082 £550 - 1,198
South East -3 401 £550 - 234
North of England -5 329 £568 +3.27% 233
Midlands +7 257 £500 -9.09% 137
North West -5 214 £572 -0.61% 153
South West +14 209 £550 -7.56% 194
West Midlands +15 184 £481 -12.50% 108
Scotland +29 123 £450 -7.69% 95
Yorkshire -16 94 £550 +7.32% 49
East of England -16 85 £523 -5.00% 97
East Midlands -2 66 £525 -4.55% 27
Wales -17 22 £550 +22.22% 12
North East -30 20 £750 +38.89% 31
Northern Ireland -5 2 £544 +4.57% 116

Consultant Skill Set
Top 30 Co-Occurring Skills & Capabilities

For the 6 months to 29 August 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.

1 713 (21.84%) Security Cleared
2 672 (20.59%) SAP
3 513 (15.72%) Stakeholder Management
4 490 (15.01%) SC Cleared
5 448 (13.73%) Microsoft
6 432 (13.24%) Migration
7 409 (12.53%) Oracle
8 311 (9.53%) Azure
9 305 (9.34%) Stakeholder Engagement
10 282 (8.64%) User Acceptance Testing
11 276 (8.46%) SAP S/4HANA
12 264 (8.09%) Problem-Solving
13 257 (7.87%) SQL
14 234 (7.17%) ERP
14 234 (7.17%) Validation
15 233 (7.14%) Workshop Facilitation
16 225 (6.89%) Cybersecurity
17 213 (6.53%) Continuous Improvement
18 208 (6.37%) Analytics
19 194 (5.94%) Roadmaps
20 187 (5.73%) Data Migration
21 183 (5.61%) Agile
22 177 (5.42%) AWS
23 175 (5.36%) Requirements Gathering
24 172 (5.27%) AI
25 159 (4.87%) Power Platform
26 157 (4.81%) DV Cleared
27 156 (4.78%) Business Intelligence
28 151 (4.63%) Translating Business Requirements
29 135 (4.14%) 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 81 (2.48%) SharePoint
2 48 (1.47%) Confluence
3 27 (0.83%) Microsoft Exchange
4 13 (0.40%) Oracle Workflow
5 9 (0.28%) WebSphere
6 8 (0.25%) WebLogic
7 4 (0.12%) SAS
8 3 (0.092%) Adobe Experience Manager
8 3 (0.092%) Apache
8 3 (0.092%) Apache Airflow
8 3 (0.092%) Apache Spark
8 3 (0.092%) Apache Superset
8 3 (0.092%) NetWeaver
8 3 (0.092%) OpenStack
8 3 (0.092%) TIBCO ActiveMatrix
9 2 (0.061%) CMS
9 2 (0.061%) Oracle SOA Suite
9 2 (0.061%) Smallworld
9 2 (0.061%) Tomcat
9 2 (0.061%) WordPress
Applications
1 68 (2.08%) Microsoft Excel
2 34 (1.04%) Microsoft Office
3 26 (0.80%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 9 (0.28%) Spreadsheet
5 8 (0.25%) MS Visio
6 4 (0.12%) Chatbot
6 4 (0.12%) Microsoft Project
7 1 (0.031%) Adobe Captivate
7 1 (0.031%) Adobe Creative Suite
7 1 (0.031%) CPLEX
Business Applications
1 276 (8.46%) SAP S/4HANA
2 92 (2.82%) Oracle EBS
3 73 (2.24%) SAP FI
4 49 (1.50%) Oracle ERP
5 48 (1.47%) Oracle Payables
5 48 (1.47%) SAP PSCD
6 41 (1.26%) SAP CO
6 41 (1.26%) SAP MM
7 37 (1.13%) Oracle Receivables
7 37 (1.13%) SAP SD
8 35 (1.07%) Dynamics CRM
9 32 (0.98%) SAP FI/CO
9 32 (0.98%) Workday HCM
10 31 (0.95%) SAP BRIM
11 30 (0.92%) NetSuite
12 29 (0.89%) Oracle General Ledger
12 29 (0.89%) SAP Payroll
12 29 (0.89%) SAP PP
13 28 (0.86%) SAP FI-CA
14 26 (0.80%) Oracle EBS R12
Cloud Services
1 311 (9.53%) Azure
2 177 (5.42%) AWS
3 159 (4.87%) Power Platform
4 134 (4.11%) Dynamics 365
5 116 (3.55%) OCI
6 107 (3.28%) SuccessFactors
7 99 (3.03%) GCP
8 88 (2.70%) Microsoft 365
9 72 (2.21%) Power Automate
10 63 (1.93%) Entra ID
11 56 (1.72%) Azure DevOps
12 53 (1.62%) Microsoft Copilot
13 44 (1.35%) SaaS
14 37 (1.13%) PowerApps
15 28 (0.86%) Microsoft Purview
16 25 (0.77%) GitHub
17 18 (0.55%) Copilot Studio
18 16 (0.49%) Azure AI
18 16 (0.49%) Azure Logic Apps
19 15 (0.46%) Snowflake
Communications & Networking
1 69 (2.11%) Firewall
2 64 (1.96%) Network Security
3 34 (1.04%) WAN
4 32 (0.98%) BGP
5 25 (0.77%) SNMP
6 23 (0.70%) VPN
7 18 (0.55%) DNS
7 18 (0.55%) LAN
8 14 (0.43%) SAN
9 12 (0.37%) Ethernet VPN
10 11 (0.34%) TCP/IP
10 11 (0.34%) VXLAN
11 10 (0.31%) IPsec
11 10 (0.31%) NGFW
11 10 (0.31%) SD-WAN
12 9 (0.28%) MPLS
12 9 (0.28%) VSAN
13 8 (0.25%) 3GPP
13 8 (0.25%) 5G
13 8 (0.25%) Radio Access Network
Database & Business Intelligence
1 99 (3.03%) Power BI
2 58 (1.78%) Oracle Reports
3 38 (1.16%) SAP HANA
4 37 (1.13%) SAP BW
5 35 (1.07%) Oracle BI Publisher
5 35 (1.07%) SQL Server
6 34 (1.04%) Tableau
7 31 (0.95%) Data Warehouse
8 24 (0.74%) Metadata
9 19 (0.58%) BusinessObjects
10 18 (0.55%) Oracle ODI
11 14 (0.43%) Oracle Database
12 12 (0.37%) SAP Data Services
13 11 (0.34%) Power Query
13 11 (0.34%) Relational Database
14 7 (0.21%) Looker
14 7 (0.21%) SQL Server Reporting Services
15 6 (0.18%) BigQuery
15 6 (0.18%) Delta Lake
15 6 (0.18%) DynamoDB
Development Applications
1 95 (2.91%) JIRA
2 21 (0.64%) Git
3 19 (0.58%) Oracle Forms
4 15 (0.46%) Jenkins
5 12 (0.37%) Hudson
6 10 (0.31%) GitLab
7 8 (0.25%) Sonatype Nexus
8 7 (0.21%) PowerBuilder
9 6 (0.18%) SonarQube
10 5 (0.15%) Cypress.io
10 5 (0.15%) Zephyr
11 4 (0.12%) MLflow
11 4 (0.12%) Selenium
12 3 (0.092%) Browser DevTools
12 3 (0.092%) JMeter
12 3 (0.092%) Postman
12 3 (0.092%) Snyk
12 3 (0.092%) TestRail
12 3 (0.092%) Toad
12 3 (0.092%) Visual Studio Code
General
1 711 (21.78%) Social Skills
2 705 (21.60%) Finance
3 246 (7.54%) Analytical Skills
4 239 (7.32%) Public Sector
5 116 (3.55%) Manufacturing
6 96 (2.94%) Banking
7 88 (2.70%) Legal
8 78 (2.39%) Billing
9 72 (2.21%) Documentation Skills
10 68 (2.08%) Telecoms
11 61 (1.87%) General Ledger
12 54 (1.65%) Presentation Skills
13 52 (1.59%) Retail
14 49 (1.50%) Marketing
15 46 (1.41%) Inclusion and Diversity
16 40 (1.23%) Influencing Skills
17 35 (1.07%) Pharmaceutical
18 25 (0.77%) Local Government
19 21 (0.64%) Law
20 17 (0.52%) Organisational Skills
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 122 (3.74%) Oracle Fusion
2 82 (2.51%) REST
3 60 (1.84%) Terraform
4 49 (1.50%) XML
5 46 (1.41%) SAP Fiori
6 37 (1.13%) SOAP
7 32 (0.98%) Middleware
8 29 (0.89%) Web Services
9 24 (0.74%) JSON
10 22 (0.67%) SAP Basis
11 21 (0.64%) BAPI
11 21 (0.64%) SailPoint
12 20 (0.61%) HTML
12 20 (0.61%) LDAP
13 18 (0.55%) CSS
13 18 (0.55%) OAuth
13 18 (0.55%) SAP PI
14 13 (0.40%) IDoc
15 12 (0.37%) .NET
15 12 (0.37%) EDI
Miscellaneous
1 119 (3.65%) Onboarding
2 53 (1.62%) CMDB
3 44 (1.35%) Data Centre
4 41 (1.26%) Data Protection Act
5 39 (1.19%) Data Structures
5 39 (1.19%) Security Posture
6 38 (1.16%) Product Ownership
7 37 (1.13%) Operational Technology
8 36 (1.10%) Legacy Systems
9 31 (0.95%) Replication
10 29 (0.89%) AI Agents
10 29 (0.89%) Enterprise Software
11 25 (0.77%) Cloud Native
12 23 (0.70%) Public Cloud
13 20 (0.61%) Management Information System
14 19 (0.58%) Hybrid Cloud
14 19 (0.58%) NHS
15 18 (0.55%) Greenfield Project
15 18 (0.55%) Life Science
16 17 (0.52%) Analytical Mindset
Operating Systems
1 103 (3.16%) Windows
2 86 (2.63%) Linux
3 26 (0.80%) Unix
4 21 (0.64%) Solaris
4 21 (0.64%) VMS
5 19 (0.58%) AIX
5 19 (0.58%) Windows Server
6 6 (0.18%) Android
6 6 (0.18%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
7 5 (0.15%) Apple iOS
8 4 (0.12%) Windows 10
8 4 (0.12%) Windows Server 2016
9 2 (0.061%) Mac OS
10 1 (0.031%) CoreOS
10 1 (0.031%) Data ONTAP
10 1 (0.031%) OpenVMS
10 1 (0.031%) SUSE
10 1 (0.031%) Windows Server 2012
10 1 (0.031%) zOS
Processes & Methodologies
1 513 (15.72%) Stakeholder Management
2 432 (13.24%) Migration
3 305 (9.34%) Stakeholder Engagement
4 282 (8.64%) User Acceptance Testing
5 264 (8.09%) Problem-Solving
6 234 (7.17%) ERP
6 234 (7.17%) Validation
7 233 (7.14%) Workshop Facilitation
8 225 (6.89%) Cybersecurity
9 213 (6.53%) Continuous Improvement
10 208 (6.37%) Analytics
11 194 (5.94%) Roadmaps
12 187 (5.73%) Data Migration
13 183 (5.61%) Agile
14 175 (5.36%) Requirements Gathering
15 172 (5.27%) AI
16 156 (4.78%) Business Intelligence
17 151 (4.63%) Translating Business Requirements
18 135 (4.14%) Knowledge Transfer
18 135 (4.14%) Project Delivery
Programming Languages
1 257 (7.87%) SQL
2 123 (3.77%) Python
3 57 (1.75%) PowerShell
4 52 (1.59%) PL/SQL
5 51 (1.56%) ABAP
6 46 (1.41%) JavaScript
7 32 (0.98%) Java
8 27 (0.83%) T-SQL
9 18 (0.55%) Bash
10 15 (0.46%) Search Processing Language
11 14 (0.43%) C#
11 14 (0.43%) Data Analysis Expressions
12 13 (0.40%) Kusto Query Language
13 9 (0.28%) R
14 8 (0.25%) Shell Script
14 8 (0.25%) TypeScript
15 6 (0.18%) Groovy
15 6 (0.18%) Korn
15 6 (0.18%) Perl
16 4 (0.12%) C++
Qualifications
1 713 (21.84%) Security Cleared
2 490 (15.01%) SC Cleared
3 157 (4.81%) DV Cleared
4 95 (2.91%) BPSS Clearance
5 80 (2.45%) CISSP
6 74 (2.27%) Degree
7 63 (1.93%) CISM
8 45 (1.38%) Cisco Certification
9 33 (1.01%) (ISC)2 CCSP
10 29 (0.89%) CCSP
11 21 (0.64%) ACCA
12 19 (0.58%) CIMA
13 15 (0.46%) CRISC
13 15 (0.46%) PMP
14 13 (0.40%) CEH
14 13 (0.40%) CompTIA Security+
15 12 (0.37%) Azure Certification
15 12 (0.37%) OSCP
16 11 (0.34%) CISA
16 11 (0.34%) Computer Science Degree
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 95 (2.91%) NIST
2 93 (2.85%) Data Quality
3 78 (2.39%) GRC
3 78 (2.39%) ISO/IEC 27001
4 57 (1.75%) QA
5 40 (1.23%) GDPR
6 36 (1.10%) NCSC
7 32 (0.98%) SLA
8 27 (0.83%) PMO
9 25 (0.77%) PCI DSS
10 23 (0.70%) Accessibility
11 22 (0.67%) Actionable Recommendations
12 14 (0.43%) Sarbanes-Oxley
13 12 (0.37%) COBIT
13 12 (0.37%) Cyber Essentials
14 11 (0.34%) GxP
15 10 (0.31%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
15 10 (0.31%) NIST 800
16 9 (0.28%) IFRS
17 8 (0.25%) SOC 2
System Software
1 78 (2.39%) Active Directory
2 40 (1.23%) VMware Infrastructure
3 38 (1.16%) VMware NSX
4 24 (0.74%) vSphere
5 14 (0.43%) Docker
5 14 (0.43%) VMware ESXi
6 12 (0.37%) Hyper-V
6 12 (0.37%) Virtual Machines
7 11 (0.34%) IAG
8 7 (0.21%) Virtual Desktop
9 4 (0.12%) Firmware
10 2 (0.061%) BitLocker
10 2 (0.061%) NFS
10 2 (0.061%) PowerHA
11 1 (0.031%) HDFS
11 1 (0.031%) Oracle RAC
11 1 (0.031%) ProxySG
11 1 (0.031%) RHEV
11 1 (0.031%) SRDF
11 1 (0.031%) Time Sharing Option
Systems Management
1 46 (1.41%) Kubernetes
2 32 (0.98%) Ansible
3 19 (0.58%) SCCM
4 18 (0.55%) Microsoft Intune
5 16 (0.49%) Nagios
5 16 (0.49%) vRealize
5 16 (0.49%) ZABBIX
6 14 (0.43%) Grafana
6 14 (0.43%) Netcool
6 14 (0.43%) Tivoli
7 13 (0.40%) OpenView
7 13 (0.40%) Tivoli Monitoring
8 12 (0.37%) Single Sign-On
9 11 (0.34%) FortiGate
10 10 (0.31%) Prometheus
10 10 (0.31%) vCenter Server
11 6 (0.18%) VxRail
12 5 (0.15%) NetBackup
13 4 (0.12%) CEMLI
13 4 (0.12%) vRealize Orchestrator
Vendors
1 672 (20.59%) SAP
2 448 (13.73%) Microsoft
3 409 (12.53%) Oracle
4 130 (3.98%) ServiceNow
5 86 (2.63%) VMware
6 66 (2.02%) Workday
7 60 (1.84%) Ariba
8 54 (1.65%) Salesforce
9 46 (1.41%) Splunk
10 43 (1.32%) Databricks
11 32 (0.98%) BMC
12 29 (0.89%) IBM
12 29 (0.89%) Palo Alto
13 28 (0.86%) OpenText
14 27 (0.83%) Cisco
14 27 (0.83%) Google
15 21 (0.64%) Adobe
16 20 (0.61%) CyberArk
17 17 (0.52%) SolarWinds
17 17 (0.52%) Veeam