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 10 October 2026.

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

6 months to
10 Oct 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 29 25 27
Rank change year-on-year -4 +2 +3
Contract jobs requiring a Consultant 3,264 2,389 2,591
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 5.98% 7.21% 6.83%
As % of the Job Titles category 6.50% 7.94% 7.35%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,824 1,377 1,380
10th Percentile £413 £411 £408
25th Percentile £463 £475 £469
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £550 £550 £550
75th Percentile £652 £654 £650
90th Percentile £750 £750 £750
UK excluding London median daily rate £550 £550 £563
% change year-on-year - -2.22% +7.14%
Number of hourly rates quoted 71 28 24
10th Percentile £36.25 £28.92 £45.38
25th Percentile £48.00 £43.57 £60.29
Median hourly rate £74.00 £77.50 £62.30
Median % change year-on-year -4.52% +24.40% -8.04%
75th Percentile £85.40 £81.25 £70.89
90th Percentile £90.00 £86.38 £74.96
UK excluding London median hourly rate £76.00 £77.50 £61.60
% change year-on-year -1.94% +25.81% -7.28%

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 50,251 30,087 35,271
% of contract IT jobs with a recognized job title 92.06% 90.83% 93.00%
Number of daily rates quoted 29,471 18,979 21,309
10th Percentile £325 £275 £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 £638 £623 £638
90th Percentile £738 £725 £738
UK excluding London median daily rate £500 £475 £494
% change year-on-year +5.26% -3.75% -1.30%
Number of hourly rates quoted 4,065 1,640 1,482
10th Percentile £14.31 £13.75 £14.85
25th Percentile £19.33 £17.30 £20.30
Median hourly rate £41.71 £25.15 £42.03
Median % change year-on-year +65.84% -40.16% -5.55%
75th Percentile £67.50 £50.00 £65.00
90th Percentile £79.00 £68.00 £74.37
UK excluding London median hourly rate £41.71 £25.00 £42.91
% change year-on-year +66.84% -41.74% -3.03%

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 10 October 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 10 October 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 10 October 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 -5 2,616 £550 -3.30% 3,998
UK excluding London -8 1,348 £550 - 2,041
London -3 1,277 £550 -4.35% 2,193
Work from Home -4 1,054 £550 - 2,087
South East -4 382 £525 -4.55% 439
North of England -21 342 £578 -3.75% 547
North West -16 225 £585 -5.84% 337
Midlands -5 220 £501 -12.96% 272
South West +6 189 £600 +9.09% 265
West Midlands -1 160 £500 -13.04% 208
Scotland +14 118 £500 - 212
East of England -17 109 £552 +0.36% 138
Yorkshire -19 88 £575 +19.79% 104
East Midlands -11 53 £550 -3.30% 64
North East -20 28 £750 +36.36% 107
Wales -25 17 £575 +29.58% 43
Channel Islands -4 2 £600 - 3
Northern Ireland -10 1 £638 +22.60% 134

Consultant Skill Set
Top 30 Co-Occurring Skills & Capabilities

For the 6 months to 10 October 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.

1 707 (21.66%) Security Cleared
2 652 (19.98%) SAP
3 620 (19.00%) Stakeholder Management
4 492 (15.07%) Microsoft
5 479 (14.68%) SC Cleared
6 451 (13.82%) Migration
7 389 (11.92%) Oracle
8 329 (10.08%) Azure
9 299 (9.16%) User Acceptance Testing
10 295 (9.04%) Stakeholder Engagement
11 294 (9.01%) SAP S/4HANA
12 283 (8.67%) Problem-Solving
13 262 (8.03%) Validation
14 261 (8.00%) Workshop Facilitation
15 257 (7.87%) Cybersecurity
16 228 (6.99%) Analytics
16 228 (6.99%) ERP
17 211 (6.46%) SQL
18 206 (6.31%) Data Migration
19 199 (6.10%) Continuous Improvement
19 199 (6.10%) Requirements Gathering
19 199 (6.10%) Roadmaps
20 182 (5.58%) Agile
21 174 (5.33%) AI
22 172 (5.27%) Knowledge Transfer
23 170 (5.21%) AWS
24 156 (4.78%) Power Platform
25 152 (4.66%) Business Intelligence
26 151 (4.63%) DV Cleared
27 145 (4.44%) 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 72 (2.21%) SharePoint
2 45 (1.38%) Confluence
3 32 (0.98%) Microsoft Exchange
4 8 (0.25%) SAS
4 8 (0.25%) WebSphere
5 7 (0.21%) WebLogic
6 6 (0.18%) Apache Airflow
7 5 (0.15%) Oracle Workflow
8 4 (0.12%) Apache
8 4 (0.12%) Apache Spark
8 4 (0.12%) ArcGIS
8 4 (0.12%) CMS
9 3 (0.092%) Adobe Experience Manager
9 3 (0.092%) IIS
9 3 (0.092%) NetWeaver
9 3 (0.092%) OpenStack
9 3 (0.092%) Oracle SOA Suite
9 3 (0.092%) SAP Portal
9 3 (0.092%) TIBCO ActiveMatrix
10 2 (0.061%) WordPress
Applications
1 51 (1.56%) Microsoft Excel
2 33 (1.01%) Microsoft Office
3 28 (0.86%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 9 (0.28%) MS Visio
5 7 (0.21%) Spreadsheet
6 4 (0.12%) Microsoft Project
7 1 (0.031%) 1Password
7 1 (0.031%) Adobe Captivate
7 1 (0.031%) Adobe Creative Suite
7 1 (0.031%) Chatbot
7 1 (0.031%) CPLEX
7 1 (0.031%) PTC Creo
7 1 (0.031%) Windchill
Business Applications
1 294 (9.01%) SAP S/4HANA
2 84 (2.57%) Oracle EBS
3 81 (2.48%) SAP FI
4 59 (1.81%) SAP Payroll
5 51 (1.56%) SAP PSCD
6 47 (1.44%) SAP HCM
7 46 (1.41%) Oracle ERP
8 45 (1.38%) SAP CO
9 42 (1.29%) Oracle Payables
9 42 (1.29%) Oracle Receivables
10 41 (1.26%) Oracle General Ledger
10 41 (1.26%) Workday HCM
11 39 (1.19%) SAP HR
12 36 (1.10%) SAP FI/CO
13 35 (1.07%) Dynamics CRM
13 35 (1.07%) SAP BRIM
14 34 (1.04%) SAP SD
15 28 (0.86%) SAP FI-CA
16 27 (0.83%) NetSuite
16 27 (0.83%) SAP PP
Cloud Services
1 329 (10.08%) Azure
2 170 (5.21%) AWS
3 156 (4.78%) Power Platform
4 145 (4.44%) Dynamics 365
5 111 (3.40%) OCI
6 105 (3.22%) SuccessFactors
7 96 (2.94%) GCP
8 92 (2.82%) Microsoft 365
9 78 (2.39%) Entra ID
10 67 (2.05%) Azure DevOps
11 58 (1.78%) Power Automate
12 53 (1.62%) Microsoft Copilot
13 50 (1.53%) SaaS
14 34 (1.04%) PowerApps
15 31 (0.95%) Microsoft Purview
16 26 (0.80%) GitHub
17 23 (0.70%) Snowflake
18 20 (0.61%) Azure AI
19 17 (0.52%) Azure Logic Apps
19 17 (0.52%) SAP Commerce Cloud
Communications & Networking
1 72 (2.21%) Network Security
2 70 (2.14%) Firewall
3 34 (1.04%) BGP
4 33 (1.01%) WAN
5 26 (0.80%) VPN
6 19 (0.58%) DNS
7 15 (0.46%) LAN
7 15 (0.46%) SNMP
8 14 (0.43%) Ethernet VPN
9 13 (0.40%) IPsec
9 13 (0.40%) SAN
9 13 (0.40%) TCP/IP
10 12 (0.37%) VXLAN
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
13 9 (0.28%) FTP
13 9 (0.28%) X.509
Database & Business Intelligence
1 94 (2.88%) Power BI
2 42 (1.29%) Oracle Reports
3 39 (1.19%) Oracle BI Publisher
4 36 (1.10%) Data Warehouse
5 34 (1.04%) SAP HANA
6 33 (1.01%) SAP BW
7 30 (0.92%) SQL Server
8 28 (0.86%) Metadata
9 24 (0.74%) Tableau
10 23 (0.70%) BusinessObjects
11 20 (0.61%) Power Query
12 17 (0.52%) Oracle Database
13 13 (0.40%) Elasticsearch
14 11 (0.34%) BigQuery
15 10 (0.31%) Amazon RDS
15 10 (0.31%) Relational Database
16 9 (0.28%) DynamoDB
17 8 (0.25%) SAP Data Services
18 7 (0.21%) Data Lake
18 7 (0.21%) Looker
Development Applications
1 92 (2.82%) JIRA
2 33 (1.01%) Git
3 19 (0.58%) Jenkins
4 14 (0.43%) GitLab
5 10 (0.31%) Oracle Forms
6 8 (0.25%) SonarQube
7 7 (0.21%) PowerBuilder
7 7 (0.21%) Zephyr
8 6 (0.18%) Sonatype Nexus
9 5 (0.15%) Cypress.io
9 5 (0.15%) Hudson
10 4 (0.12%) Browser DevTools
10 4 (0.12%) Maven
11 3 (0.092%) JDeveloper
11 3 (0.092%) JMeter
11 3 (0.092%) MLflow
11 3 (0.092%) Postman
11 3 (0.092%) Snyk
11 3 (0.092%) TestRail
11 3 (0.092%) Toad
General
1 758 (23.22%) Social Skills
2 737 (22.58%) Finance
3 269 (8.24%) Public Sector
4 247 (7.57%) Analytical Skills
5 141 (4.32%) Manufacturing
6 102 (3.13%) Banking
7 94 (2.88%) Legal
8 92 (2.82%) Billing
9 86 (2.63%) Documentation Skills
10 70 (2.14%) Telecoms
11 61 (1.87%) General Ledger
12 60 (1.84%) Retail
13 55 (1.69%) Presentation Skills
14 46 (1.41%) Marketing
15 39 (1.19%) Inclusion and Diversity
15 39 (1.19%) Influencing Skills
16 36 (1.10%) Pharmaceutical
17 34 (1.04%) Local Government
18 25 (0.77%) Law
19 21 (0.64%) Aerospace
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 132 (4.04%) Oracle Fusion
2 69 (2.11%) REST
3 64 (1.96%) Terraform
4 46 (1.41%) SAP Fiori
5 39 (1.19%) Web Services
6 38 (1.16%) Middleware
7 36 (1.10%) SOAP
8 34 (1.04%) XML
9 25 (0.77%) SailPoint
10 21 (0.64%) OAuth
11 19 (0.58%) LDAP
12 18 (0.55%) JSON
12 18 (0.55%) SAP PI
13 16 (0.49%) BAPI
13 16 (0.49%) HTML
14 15 (0.46%) ADO
15 14 (0.43%) CSS
15 14 (0.43%) EDI
15 14 (0.43%) SAPUI5
16 13 (0.40%) NETCONF
Miscellaneous
1 139 (4.26%) Onboarding
2 53 (1.62%) CMDB
2 53 (1.62%) Data Structures
3 52 (1.59%) Operational Technology
4 48 (1.47%) Data Centre
5 45 (1.38%) Enterprise Software
6 39 (1.19%) Product Ownership
7 34 (1.04%) Security Posture
8 31 (0.95%) Cloud Native
9 30 (0.92%) Data Protection Act
9 30 (0.92%) Replication
10 29 (0.89%) AI Agents
11 27 (0.83%) Legacy Systems
12 25 (0.77%) Public Cloud
13 23 (0.70%) Greenfield Project
14 21 (0.64%) Life Science
15 20 (0.61%) Management Information System
16 19 (0.58%) Hybrid Cloud
17 17 (0.52%) NHS
18 16 (0.49%) PKI
Operating Systems
1 98 (3.00%) Windows
2 73 (2.24%) Linux
3 30 (0.92%) Unix
3 30 (0.92%) Windows Server
4 17 (0.52%) Solaris
5 13 (0.40%) VMS
6 9 (0.28%) AIX
6 9 (0.28%) Windows 10
7 7 (0.21%) Android
7 7 (0.21%) Apple iOS
8 6 (0.18%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
8 6 (0.18%) Windows Server 2016
9 1 (0.031%) Data ONTAP
9 1 (0.031%) Kali Linux
9 1 (0.031%) Mac OS
9 1 (0.031%) OpenVMS
9 1 (0.031%) SUSE
9 1 (0.031%) Windows Server 2012
9 1 (0.031%) zOS
Processes & Methodologies
1 620 (19.00%) Stakeholder Management
2 451 (13.82%) Migration
3 299 (9.16%) User Acceptance Testing
4 295 (9.04%) Stakeholder Engagement
5 283 (8.67%) Problem-Solving
6 262 (8.03%) Validation
7 261 (8.00%) Workshop Facilitation
8 257 (7.87%) Cybersecurity
9 228 (6.99%) Analytics
9 228 (6.99%) ERP
10 206 (6.31%) Data Migration
11 199 (6.10%) Continuous Improvement
11 199 (6.10%) Requirements Gathering
11 199 (6.10%) Roadmaps
12 182 (5.58%) Agile
13 174 (5.33%) AI
14 172 (5.27%) Knowledge Transfer
15 152 (4.66%) Business Intelligence
16 141 (4.32%) Translating Business Requirements
17 136 (4.17%) DevOps
Programming Languages
1 211 (6.46%) SQL
2 105 (3.22%) Python
3 69 (2.11%) ABAP
4 57 (1.75%) PowerShell
5 39 (1.19%) JavaScript
6 35 (1.07%) Java
7 28 (0.86%) PL/SQL
8 26 (0.80%) Bash
9 19 (0.58%) C#
9 19 (0.58%) Data Analysis Expressions
10 13 (0.40%) Kusto Query Language
11 9 (0.28%) T-SQL
11 9 (0.28%) TypeScript
12 8 (0.25%) Groovy
12 8 (0.25%) Shell Script
13 7 (0.21%) Korn
13 7 (0.21%) Search Processing Language
14 4 (0.12%) Bicep
14 4 (0.12%) Perl
14 4 (0.12%) R
Qualifications
1 707 (21.66%) Security Cleared
2 479 (14.68%) SC Cleared
3 151 (4.63%) DV Cleared
4 108 (3.31%) BPSS Clearance
5 80 (2.45%) Degree
6 66 (2.02%) CISSP
7 54 (1.65%) CISM
8 40 (1.23%) Cisco Certification
9 28 (0.86%) (ISC)2 CCSP
10 24 (0.74%) CCSP
11 18 (0.55%) ACCA
11 18 (0.55%) AWS Certification
12 16 (0.49%) CIMA
13 15 (0.46%) CRISC
14 12 (0.37%) CompTIA Security+
14 12 (0.37%) Computer Science Degree
15 11 (0.34%) PMP
16 10 (0.31%) CCIE
16 10 (0.31%) CISA
17 9 (0.28%) DBS Check
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 127 (3.89%) Data Quality
2 102 (3.13%) NIST
3 78 (2.39%) GRC
3 78 (2.39%) ISO/IEC 27001
4 60 (1.84%) QA
5 47 (1.44%) NCSC
6 41 (1.26%) GDPR
7 33 (1.01%) SLA
8 28 (0.86%) PMO
9 21 (0.64%) Actionable Recommendations
9 21 (0.64%) PCI DSS
10 19 (0.58%) Accessibility
11 17 (0.52%) Cyber Essentials
12 12 (0.37%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
12 12 (0.37%) Sarbanes-Oxley
13 10 (0.31%) NIST 800
14 8 (0.25%) GxP
14 8 (0.25%) IFRS
14 8 (0.25%) SOC 2
14 8 (0.25%) WCAG
System Software
1 94 (2.88%) Active Directory
2 33 (1.01%) VMware Infrastructure
3 26 (0.80%) VMware NSX
4 18 (0.55%) Docker
5 17 (0.52%) vSphere
6 12 (0.37%) Hyper-V
6 12 (0.37%) VMware ESXi
7 11 (0.34%) Virtual Machines
8 9 (0.28%) IAG
9 8 (0.25%) Firmware
9 8 (0.25%) Virtual Desktop
10 3 (0.092%) Embedded Firmware
11 2 (0.061%) NFS
11 2 (0.061%) 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
Systems Management
1 48 (1.47%) Kubernetes
2 36 (1.10%) Ansible
3 24 (0.74%) Microsoft Intune
4 21 (0.64%) SCCM
5 15 (0.46%) Grafana
6 12 (0.37%) FortiGate
6 12 (0.37%) Single Sign-On
7 11 (0.34%) vRealize
8 10 (0.31%) vCenter Server
9 9 (0.28%) Prometheus
10 6 (0.18%) Nagios
10 6 (0.18%) VxRail
10 6 (0.18%) ZABBIX
11 5 (0.15%) logstash
12 4 (0.12%) CEMLI
12 4 (0.12%) Control-M
12 4 (0.12%) Kibana
12 4 (0.12%) Netcool
12 4 (0.12%) Tivoli
13 3 (0.092%) vRealize Orchestrator
Vendors
1 652 (19.98%) SAP
2 492 (15.07%) Microsoft
3 389 (11.92%) Oracle
4 136 (4.17%) ServiceNow
5 82 (2.51%) Workday
6 65 (1.99%) VMware
7 49 (1.50%) Salesforce
8 46 (1.41%) Ariba
9 41 (1.26%) Databricks
10 36 (1.10%) Palo Alto
11 34 (1.04%) Splunk
12 32 (0.98%) CyberArk
13 30 (0.92%) Google
14 28 (0.86%) Cisco
15 23 (0.70%) OpenText
16 22 (0.67%) BMC
16 22 (0.67%) IBM
17 20 (0.61%) Adobe
18 19 (0.58%) Zscaler
19 17 (0.52%) OpenAI