Consultant Contract Job Trends

Consultant
UK

The median Consultant daily rate in the UK is £535, according to job vacancies posted in the 6 months leading up to 16 April 2026.

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

6 months to
16 Apr 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 28 28 24
Rank change year-on-year 0 -4 +17
Contract jobs requiring a Consultant 2,845 1,918 2,740
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 6.20% 6.55% 6.25%
As % of the Job Titles category 6.72% 7.07% 6.74%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,603 1,130 1,705
10th Percentile £396 £413 £400
25th Percentile £450 £485 £463
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £535 £550 £550
Median % change year-on-year -2.73% - -1.79%
75th Percentile £626 £638 £650
90th Percentile £713 £725 £750
UK excluding London median daily rate £525 £545 £550
% change year-on-year -3.67% -0.91% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 76 17 26
10th Percentile £51.13 £63.50 £26.88
25th Percentile £56.25 £70.00 £44.38
Median hourly rate £57.50 £85.00 £58.44
Median % change year-on-year -32.35% +45.44% -11.45%
75th Percentile £60.00 £86.25 £63.22
90th Percentile £78.25 £87.50 £72.50
UK excluding London median hourly rate £57.50 £84.25 £55.80
% change year-on-year -31.75% +50.99% -15.45%

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 42,358 27,131 40,661
% of contract IT jobs with a recognized job title 92.24% 92.61% 92.77%
Number of daily rates quoted 26,304 17,800 26,582
10th Percentile £313 £300 £275
25th Percentile £413 £406 £409
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £517 £525
Median % change year-on-year -3.29% -1.52% -2.78%
75th Percentile £613 £626 £638
90th Percentile £725 £738 £745
UK excluding London median daily rate £488 £475 £490
% change year-on-year +2.63% -3.06% -2.00%
Number of hourly rates quoted 2,673 984 2,591
10th Percentile £15.00 £14.55 £12.86
25th Percentile £20.27 £19.25 £16.25
Median hourly rate £41.94 £30.79 £35.00
Median % change year-on-year +36.20% -12.02% -22.22%
75th Percentile £65.25 £63.75 £60.00
90th Percentile £77.90 £75.43 £72.45
UK excluding London median hourly rate £42.69 £30.00 £35.00
% change year-on-year +42.28% -14.29% -17.38%

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 16 April 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 16 April 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 16 April 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 0 2,233 £538 -2.27% 1,130
UK excluding London +2 1,163 £525 -3.67% 757
London -2 1,043 £550 -4.35% 535
Work from Home +1 1,008 £525 -3.71% 591
South East 0 345 £535 -4.29% 233
Midlands -8 231 £525 - 77
North of England -22 226 £506 -6.01% 199
South West +22 174 £525 -4.55% 140
West Midlands -3 163 £550 +4.76% 39
North West -28 107 £518 -4.93% 125
Yorkshire -5 101 £500 -4.76% 61
East of England -13 89 £550 +10.00% 33
Scotland +28 69 £459 -11.95% 31
East Midlands -17 61 £500 -4.31% 39
Wales +8 31 £550 +37.50% 27
North East -23 18 £525 -2.23% 14
Northern Ireland +3 6 £428 -18.57% 24

Consultant Skill Set
Top 30 Co-Occurring Skills & Capabilities

For the 6 months to 16 April 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.

1 601 (21.12%) SAP
2 568 (19.96%) Security Cleared
3 461 (16.20%) SC Cleared
4 383 (13.46%) Migration
5 339 (11.92%) Oracle
6 298 (10.47%) Azure
7 283 (9.95%) Problem-Solving
8 280 (9.84%) Microsoft
9 275 (9.67%) SAP S/4HANA
10 271 (9.53%) Stakeholder Engagement
11 246 (8.65%) Stakeholder Management
12 232 (8.15%) ERP
13 213 (7.49%) SQL
14 193 (6.78%) User Acceptance Testing
15 188 (6.61%) Workshop Facilitation
16 178 (6.26%) Agile
17 164 (5.76%) Continuous Improvement
18 159 (5.59%) Data Migration
19 156 (5.48%) Roadmaps
20 154 (5.41%) Validation
21 151 (5.31%) Business Intelligence
22 149 (5.24%) Analytics
23 145 (5.10%) Cybersecurity
24 134 (4.71%) Dynamics 365
25 126 (4.43%) Power Platform
26 123 (4.32%) AI
27 116 (4.08%) Knowledge Transfer
28 115 (4.04%) AWS
28 115 (4.04%) Python
29 114 (4.01%) OCI

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 65 (2.28%) SharePoint
2 34 (1.20%) Confluence
3 16 (0.56%) Microsoft Exchange
4 14 (0.49%) Oracle Workflow
5 6 (0.21%) Jupyter
6 5 (0.18%) MTS
7 4 (0.14%) Apache
7 4 (0.14%) Apache Spark
7 4 (0.14%) ArcGIS
8 3 (0.11%) Apache Superset
8 3 (0.11%) Cloud Foundry
8 3 (0.11%) CMS
8 3 (0.11%) Palantir Foundry
8 3 (0.11%) SAS
8 3 (0.11%) Tomcat
9 2 (0.070%) WebSphere
10 1 (0.035%) nginx
10 1 (0.035%) OpenStack
10 1 (0.035%) Oracle Self-Service HR
10 1 (0.035%) Skype for Business
Applications
1 67 (2.36%) Microsoft Excel
2 24 (0.84%) Microsoft PowerPoint
3 12 (0.42%) Microsoft Office
4 8 (0.28%) MS Visio
5 5 (0.18%) PTC Creo
6 4 (0.14%) Chatbot
6 4 (0.14%) Spreadsheet
7 3 (0.11%) Microsoft Project
8 2 (0.070%) Lectora
8 2 (0.070%) Oracle Smart View
9 1 (0.035%) Adobe XD
9 1 (0.035%) CATIA
9 1 (0.035%) Siemens NX
9 1 (0.035%) Windchill
Business Applications
1 275 (9.67%) SAP S/4HANA
2 77 (2.71%) Oracle EBS
3 59 (2.07%) SAP FI
4 49 (1.72%) SAP MM
5 46 (1.62%) Oracle Payables
6 42 (1.48%) Oracle Receivables
7 38 (1.34%) Oracle EBS R12
8 37 (1.30%) SAP PP
9 36 (1.27%) SAP HCM
10 33 (1.16%) Dynamics CRM
10 33 (1.16%) SAP EWM
10 33 (1.16%) SAP PSCD
11 30 (1.05%) SAP CO
12 28 (0.98%) Oracle Assets
12 28 (0.98%) SAP FI/CO
13 26 (0.91%) SAP Travel Management
14 25 (0.88%) Oracle General Ledger
15 24 (0.84%) Oracle Procure-to-Pay
16 23 (0.81%) SAP SD
17 22 (0.77%) Teamcenter
Cloud Services
1 298 (10.47%) Azure
2 134 (4.71%) Dynamics 365
3 126 (4.43%) Power Platform
4 115 (4.04%) AWS
5 114 (4.01%) OCI
6 73 (2.57%) SuccessFactors
7 66 (2.32%) Microsoft 365
7 66 (2.32%) SaaS
8 64 (2.25%) GCP
9 51 (1.79%) Power Automate
10 47 (1.65%) Entra ID
11 37 (1.30%) Azure DevOps
12 34 (1.20%) Microsoft Copilot
13 31 (1.09%) PowerApps
14 29 (1.02%) Microsoft Purview
15 28 (0.98%) GitHub
16 19 (0.67%) Azure Data Factory
17 16 (0.56%) OneDrive
17 16 (0.56%) Serverless
18 15 (0.53%) Copilot Studio
Communications & Networking
1 38 (1.34%) Firewall
2 25 (0.88%) Network Security
3 15 (0.53%) SMS
4 13 (0.46%) VSAN
4 13 (0.46%) WAN
5 12 (0.42%) DNS
5 12 (0.42%) HTTP
5 12 (0.42%) Kerberos
6 11 (0.39%) SD-WAN
6 11 (0.39%) Software-Defined Networking
7 10 (0.35%) FTP
7 10 (0.35%) LAN
7 10 (0.35%) SNMP
8 9 (0.32%) SAN
8 9 (0.32%) VPN
9 8 (0.28%) Intranet
10 7 (0.25%) NAS
11 6 (0.21%) Cisco IPT
11 6 (0.21%) SSH
11 6 (0.21%) VLAN
Database & Business Intelligence
1 89 (3.13%) Power BI
2 65 (2.28%) Oracle Reports
3 32 (1.12%) SAP HANA
4 28 (0.98%) Metadata
5 26 (0.91%) Tableau
6 24 (0.84%) Oracle BI Publisher
7 22 (0.77%) SQL Server
8 19 (0.67%) Oracle ODI
9 11 (0.39%) SAP BW
10 10 (0.35%) SQL Server Reporting Services
11 9 (0.32%) Electronic Patient Records
12 8 (0.28%) Data Warehouse
12 8 (0.28%) NoSQL
13 7 (0.25%) GIS
13 7 (0.25%) SAP Data Services
14 6 (0.21%) Data Lake
14 6 (0.21%) Data Mart
14 6 (0.21%) Essbase
14 6 (0.21%) Oracle Database
14 6 (0.21%) Relational Database
Development Applications
1 69 (2.43%) JIRA
2 21 (0.74%) Oracle Forms
3 18 (0.63%) Hudson
4 15 (0.53%) Jenkins
5 8 (0.28%) Git
5 8 (0.28%) GitLab
6 7 (0.25%) Oracle APEX
7 4 (0.14%) Sonatype Nexus
7 4 (0.14%) Visual Studio Code
8 3 (0.11%) LSMW
8 3 (0.11%) Postman
8 3 (0.11%) SonarQube
9 2 (0.070%) Bitbucket
9 2 (0.070%) git-flow
9 2 (0.070%) Octopus Deploy
9 2 (0.070%) Rational DOORS
9 2 (0.070%) Rational Rhapsody
9 2 (0.070%) Selenium
9 2 (0.070%) TeamCity
9 2 (0.070%) Toad
General
1 642 (22.57%) Social Skills
2 619 (21.76%) Finance
3 259 (9.10%) Analytical Skills
4 223 (7.84%) Public Sector
5 112 (3.94%) Manufacturing
6 106 (3.73%) Banking
7 70 (2.46%) Marketing
8 65 (2.28%) Legal
9 56 (1.97%) Billing
10 52 (1.83%) Documentation Skills
11 46 (1.62%) General Ledger
12 41 (1.44%) Telecoms
13 36 (1.27%) Retail
14 35 (1.23%) Organisational Skills
15 28 (0.98%) Presentation Skills
16 25 (0.88%) Inclusion and Diversity
17 22 (0.77%) Pharmaceutical
18 20 (0.70%) Law
19 19 (0.67%) Advertising
19 19 (0.67%) Electronics
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 84 (2.95%) Oracle Fusion
2 74 (2.60%) REST
3 69 (2.43%) XML
4 32 (1.12%) SOAP
5 30 (1.05%) Web Services
6 27 (0.95%) SAP Fiori
6 27 (0.95%) SAP TM
7 25 (0.88%) LDAP
8 24 (0.84%) JSON
9 21 (0.74%) Middleware
10 20 (0.70%) SAP Basis
11 19 (0.67%) Node.js
12 18 (0.63%) .NET
13 17 (0.60%) BAPI
14 16 (0.56%) HTML
15 15 (0.53%) CSS
16 14 (0.49%) GraphQL
17 13 (0.46%) IDoc
18 11 (0.39%) Kafka
19 10 (0.35%) SAP PI
Miscellaneous
1 59 (2.07%) Onboarding
2 46 (1.62%) Legacy Systems
3 45 (1.58%) Data Protection Act
4 38 (1.34%) Product Ownership
5 36 (1.27%) Security Posture
6 30 (1.05%) Replication
7 29 (1.02%) Operational Technology
8 26 (0.91%) Data Centre
9 25 (0.88%) Management Information System
10 24 (0.84%) AI Agents
10 24 (0.84%) Cloud Native
11 22 (0.77%) Data Structures
12 19 (0.67%) NHS
13 18 (0.63%) Analytical Mindset
13 18 (0.63%) CMDB
14 17 (0.60%) Greenfield Project
14 17 (0.60%) Public Cloud
15 16 (0.56%) Life Science
16 13 (0.46%) Self-Motivation
17 12 (0.42%) Hybrid Cloud
Operating Systems
1 76 (2.67%) Windows
2 52 (1.83%) Linux
3 16 (0.56%) Unix
3 16 (0.56%) VMS
4 13 (0.46%) AIX
5 10 (0.35%) Solaris
6 9 (0.32%) Windows Server
7 8 (0.28%) Windows 10
8 6 (0.21%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
9 5 (0.18%) Ubuntu
10 4 (0.14%) Mac OS
10 4 (0.14%) zOS
11 3 (0.11%) Apple iOS
11 3 (0.11%) SUSE
12 2 (0.070%) CoreOS
12 2 (0.070%) Data ONTAP
13 1 (0.035%) Android
13 1 (0.035%) CentOS
Processes & Methodologies
1 383 (13.46%) Migration
2 283 (9.95%) Problem-Solving
3 271 (9.53%) Stakeholder Engagement
4 246 (8.65%) Stakeholder Management
5 232 (8.15%) ERP
6 193 (6.78%) User Acceptance Testing
7 188 (6.61%) Workshop Facilitation
8 178 (6.26%) Agile
9 164 (5.76%) Continuous Improvement
10 159 (5.59%) Data Migration
11 156 (5.48%) Roadmaps
12 154 (5.41%) Validation
13 151 (5.31%) Business Intelligence
14 149 (5.24%) Analytics
15 145 (5.10%) Cybersecurity
16 123 (4.32%) AI
17 116 (4.08%) Knowledge Transfer
18 113 (3.97%) Change Management
19 106 (3.73%) DevOps
19 106 (3.73%) Risk Management
Programming Languages
1 213 (7.49%) SQL
2 115 (4.04%) Python
3 77 (2.71%) JavaScript
4 67 (2.36%) PowerShell
5 51 (1.79%) ABAP
6 50 (1.76%) PL/SQL
7 34 (1.20%) Java
8 33 (1.16%) T-SQL
9 23 (0.81%) TypeScript
10 16 (0.56%) C#
11 13 (0.46%) Groovy
12 10 (0.35%) Bash
12 10 (0.35%) Shell Script
13 9 (0.32%) R
14 8 (0.28%) C++
14 8 (0.28%) Data Analysis Expressions
14 8 (0.28%) Search Processing Language
15 7 (0.25%) Apex Code
15 7 (0.25%) Kusto Query Language
16 5 (0.18%) Korn
Qualifications
1 568 (19.96%) Security Cleared
2 461 (16.20%) SC Cleared
3 94 (3.30%) DV Cleared
4 93 (3.27%) Degree
5 76 (2.67%) BPSS Clearance
6 61 (2.14%) CISSP
7 43 (1.51%) CISM
8 25 (0.88%) VMware Certified Professional (VCP)
9 21 (0.74%) CIMA
10 19 (0.67%) Computer Science Degree
11 18 (0.63%) Cisco Certification
12 14 (0.49%) Master's Degree
12 14 (0.49%) Microsoft Certification
13 13 (0.46%) SAP Certification
14 12 (0.42%) ITIL Certification
15 10 (0.35%) (ISC)2 CCSP
15 10 (0.35%) ACCA
15 10 (0.35%) Azure Certification
15 10 (0.35%) PMP
16 9 (0.32%) CompTIA Security+
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 88 (3.09%) NIST
2 82 (2.88%) ISO/IEC 27001
3 59 (2.07%) Data Quality
4 56 (1.97%) GRC
5 54 (1.90%) GDPR
6 42 (1.48%) QA
7 26 (0.91%) NCSC
8 25 (0.88%) PCI DSS
9 22 (0.77%) PMO
10 19 (0.67%) Actionable Recommendations
10 19 (0.67%) SLA
11 18 (0.63%) Sarbanes-Oxley
12 16 (0.56%) COBIT
13 14 (0.49%) JSP 440
14 11 (0.39%) PERC
15 8 (0.28%) Accessibility
15 8 (0.28%) DICOM
15 8 (0.28%) GxP
15 8 (0.28%) HL7
16 7 (0.25%) RMADS
System Software
1 53 (1.86%) Active Directory
2 36 (1.27%) VMware Infrastructure
3 35 (1.23%) VMware NSX
4 27 (0.95%) Docker
5 25 (0.88%) vSphere
6 10 (0.35%) Virtual Desktop
7 9 (0.32%) Virtual Machines
8 8 (0.28%) Hyper-V
9 6 (0.21%) Slurm Workload Manager
10 4 (0.14%) IAG
11 3 (0.11%) NFS
11 3 (0.11%) VMware ESXi
12 1 (0.035%) BitLocker
12 1 (0.035%) Ceph
12 1 (0.035%) HDFS
12 1 (0.035%) Job Entry Subsystem
12 1 (0.035%) KVM
12 1 (0.035%) NDS
12 1 (0.035%) NetIQ eDirectory
12 1 (0.035%) QEMU
Systems Management
1 47 (1.65%) Kubernetes
2 33 (1.16%) vRealize
3 32 (1.12%) Terraform
4 19 (0.67%) Microsoft Intune
5 12 (0.42%) Ansible
6 11 (0.39%) Single Sign-On
7 10 (0.35%) Nagios
7 10 (0.35%) Netcool
7 10 (0.35%) OpenView
7 10 (0.35%) Tivoli
7 10 (0.35%) Tivoli Monitoring
7 10 (0.35%) ZABBIX
8 7 (0.25%) Failover Clustering
8 7 (0.25%) SCCM
9 6 (0.21%) PingFederate
9 6 (0.21%) Podman
10 4 (0.14%) Active Directory Federation Services
10 4 (0.14%) Grafana
10 4 (0.14%) Prometheus
10 4 (0.14%) vRealize Orchestrator
Vendors
1 601 (21.12%) SAP
2 339 (11.92%) Oracle
3 280 (9.84%) Microsoft
4 99 (3.48%) VMware
5 95 (3.34%) ServiceNow
6 63 (2.21%) Ariba
7 60 (2.11%) Salesforce
8 57 (2.00%) Workday
9 53 (1.86%) Siemens
10 35 (1.23%) Cisco
11 34 (1.20%) Google
12 27 (0.95%) Aruba
12 27 (0.95%) Databricks
13 25 (0.88%) Splunk
14 23 (0.81%) Adobe
15 21 (0.74%) IBM
16 18 (0.63%) BMC
16 18 (0.63%) OpenText
17 17 (0.60%) Murex
17 17 (0.60%) Sage