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 31 January 2026.

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

6 months to
31 Jan 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 27 27 26
Rank change year-on-year 0 -1 +20
Contract jobs requiring a Consultant 2,581 2,077 2,737
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 6.66% 6.61% 6.12%
As % of the Job Titles category 7.28% 7.11% 6.57%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,477 1,114 1,597
10th Percentile £400 £413 £400
25th Percentile £463 £480 £463
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £550 £550 £550
75th Percentile £638 £638 £650
90th Percentile £719 £738 £725
UK excluding London median daily rate £550 £550 £531
% change year-on-year - +3.58% -3.45%
Number of hourly rates quoted 38 15 40
10th Percentile £48.63 £65.38 £41.88
25th Percentile £56.25 £72.06 £55.18
Median hourly rate £60.00 £82.50 £63.29
Median % change year-on-year -27.27% +30.35% -4.11%
75th Percentile £73.16 £86.13 £86.44
90th Percentile £81.85 £87.50 £90.25
UK excluding London median hourly rate £58.75 £82.50 £61.79
% change year-on-year -28.79% +33.52% -4.46%

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 35,445 29,208 41,662
% of contract IT jobs with a recognized job title 91.48% 92.89% 93.12%
Number of daily rates quoted 22,347 17,858 27,594
10th Percentile £300 £296 £275
25th Percentile £405 £409 £411
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £525 £525
Median % change year-on-year -4.76% - -4.55%
75th Percentile £613 £638 £638
90th Percentile £719 £738 £738
UK excluding London median daily rate £475 £479 £495
% change year-on-year -0.84% -3.23% -1.00%
Number of hourly rates quoted 2,112 858 2,186
10th Percentile £14.38 £15.91 £13.25
25th Percentile £18.50 £21.25 £17.00
Median hourly rate £29.60 £32.50 £36.50
Median % change year-on-year -8.92% -10.96% +4.29%
75th Percentile £61.18 £62.50 £62.50
90th Percentile £70.00 £75.00 £73.75
UK excluding London median hourly rate £27.50 £31.52 £38.00
% change year-on-year -12.75% -17.05% +26.67%

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 31 January 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 31 January 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 31 January 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 -3 2,007 £550 - 941
UK excluding London +1 1,036 £550 - 715
Work from Home +1 953 £535 -2.82% 406
London -6 936 £575 +1.77% 482
South East -3 273 £550 - 307
North of England -9 267 £600 +9.09% 140
Midlands -16 186 £525 - 63
North West -4 159 £625 +16.17% 84
West Midlands -9 141 £538 +2.38% 44
South West +9 123 £594 +13.10% 139
Yorkshire +9 98 £550 -12.00% 48
East of England +7 94 £550 - 37
Scotland +10 62 £510 -7.27% 17
East Midlands -18 44 £505 -2.88% 18
Wales +11 27 £405 -22.86% 12
Northern Ireland +6 13 £405 -22.86% 13
North East -25 10 £525 -9.48% 8
Channel Islands - 2 £600 -

Consultant Skill Set
Top 30 Co-Occurring Skills & Capabilities

For the 6 months to 31 January 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.

1 656 (25.42%) SAP
2 646 (25.03%) Security Cleared
3 541 (20.96%) SC Cleared
4 364 (14.10%) Migration
5 359 (13.91%) SAP S/4HANA
6 324 (12.55%) Problem-Solving
7 305 (11.82%) Oracle
8 296 (11.47%) Stakeholder Engagement
9 289 (11.20%) Stakeholder Management
10 281 (10.89%) Microsoft
11 269 (10.42%) Azure
12 212 (8.21%) Workshop Facilitation
13 206 (7.98%) ERP
14 184 (7.13%) User Acceptance Testing
15 179 (6.94%) Agile
16 169 (6.55%) Analytics
17 158 (6.12%) Data Migration
18 153 (5.93%) Knowledge Transfer
19 152 (5.89%) SQL
20 146 (5.66%) Roadmaps
21 139 (5.39%) Business Intelligence
22 137 (5.31%) Validation
23 127 (4.92%) Dynamics 365
24 124 (4.80%) Cybersecurity
25 118 (4.57%) DevOps
26 117 (4.53%) Python
27 115 (4.46%) Power Platform
27 115 (4.46%) Risk Management
28 107 (4.15%) AI
29 105 (4.07%) Data Modelling

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 61 (2.36%) SharePoint
2 30 (1.16%) Confluence
2 30 (1.16%) Microsoft Exchange
3 6 (0.23%) Jupyter
3 6 (0.23%) Oracle Workflow
4 5 (0.19%) CMS
4 5 (0.19%) MTS
4 5 (0.19%) NetWeaver
5 3 (0.12%) Adobe Experience Manager
5 3 (0.12%) Apache Spark
5 3 (0.12%) OpenStack
6 2 (0.077%) Apache
6 2 (0.077%) IIS
6 2 (0.077%) Palantir Foundry
6 2 (0.077%) SharePoint Server
7 1 (0.039%) ArcGIS
7 1 (0.039%) LiveCycle
7 1 (0.039%) nginx
7 1 (0.039%) SAS
7 1 (0.039%) Tomcat
Applications
1 49 (1.90%) Microsoft Excel
2 23 (0.89%) Microsoft PowerPoint
3 14 (0.54%) Microsoft Office
4 8 (0.31%) MS Visio
5 5 (0.19%) Microsoft Project
5 5 (0.19%) Oracle Smart View
6 4 (0.15%) Navisworks
6 4 (0.15%) PTC Creo
6 4 (0.15%) Revit
6 4 (0.15%) Spreadsheet
7 3 (0.12%) ProjectWise
8 1 (0.039%) Adobe Captivate
8 1 (0.039%) Adobe Creative Suite
8 1 (0.039%) Adobe XD
8 1 (0.039%) CATIA
8 1 (0.039%) Chatbot
8 1 (0.039%) InfoPath
8 1 (0.039%) Siemens NX
8 1 (0.039%) Windchill
Business Applications
1 359 (13.91%) SAP S/4HANA
2 71 (2.75%) Oracle EBS
3 65 (2.52%) SAP FI
4 57 (2.21%) Oracle Payables
5 52 (2.01%) Oracle Receivables
5 52 (2.01%) SAP EWM
6 50 (1.94%) SAP MM
7 44 (1.70%) Oracle EBS R12
8 43 (1.67%) Oracle General Ledger
9 41 (1.59%) SAP PP
10 40 (1.55%) SAP CO
10 40 (1.55%) SAP HCM
11 37 (1.43%) Oracle Cash Management
11 37 (1.43%) SAP FI/CO
12 36 (1.39%) Dynamics CRM
13 33 (1.28%) Oracle Assets
13 33 (1.28%) SAP WM
14 29 (1.12%) SAP PSCD
15 26 (1.01%) Oracle Procure-to-Pay
15 26 (1.01%) SAP Payroll
Cloud Services
1 269 (10.42%) Azure
2 127 (4.92%) Dynamics 365
3 115 (4.46%) Power Platform
4 104 (4.03%) AWS
5 102 (3.95%) OCI
6 74 (2.87%) GCP
7 71 (2.75%) Microsoft 365
8 66 (2.56%) SaaS
9 61 (2.36%) Entra ID
10 39 (1.51%) SuccessFactors
11 38 (1.47%) Power Automate
12 32 (1.24%) Azure DevOps
13 30 (1.16%) PowerApps
14 28 (1.08%) Microsoft Copilot
15 24 (0.93%) Microsoft Purview
16 20 (0.77%) GitHub
17 19 (0.74%) OneDrive
18 18 (0.70%) SAP Commerce Cloud
19 17 (0.66%) Azure Data Factory
19 17 (0.66%) Serverless
Communications & Networking
1 50 (1.94%) Firewall
2 19 (0.74%) VPN
3 18 (0.70%) DNS
4 16 (0.62%) Network Security
5 13 (0.50%) HTTP
5 13 (0.50%) Kerberos
5 13 (0.50%) WAN
6 12 (0.46%) SMS
6 12 (0.46%) SSL
7 11 (0.43%) DHCP
7 11 (0.43%) SD-WAN
8 9 (0.35%) Software-Defined Networking
8 9 (0.35%) TCP/IP
9 8 (0.31%) Intranet
9 8 (0.31%) SSH
10 7 (0.27%) Cisco IPT
10 7 (0.27%) LAN
10 7 (0.27%) SAN
11 6 (0.23%) BGP
11 6 (0.23%) VSAN
Database & Business Intelligence
1 81 (3.14%) Power BI
2 48 (1.86%) Oracle Reports
3 43 (1.67%) SAP HANA
4 31 (1.20%) SQL Server
5 24 (0.93%) Metadata
6 22 (0.85%) Oracle BI Publisher
7 21 (0.81%) SAP BW
8 15 (0.58%) Data Warehouse
9 13 (0.50%) SAP Data Services
10 12 (0.46%) PostgreSQL
11 11 (0.43%) SQL Server Reporting Services
11 11 (0.43%) Tableau
12 10 (0.39%) NoSQL
13 8 (0.31%) Electronic Patient Records
13 8 (0.31%) Oracle Database
14 7 (0.27%) DB2
15 6 (0.23%) Data Mart
15 6 (0.23%) DynamoDB
15 6 (0.23%) GIS
15 6 (0.23%) Power Query
Development Applications
1 65 (2.52%) JIRA
2 20 (0.77%) Jenkins
3 17 (0.66%) Git
4 14 (0.54%) GitLab
5 13 (0.50%) Oracle Forms
6 9 (0.35%) Hudson
7 8 (0.31%) Oracle APEX
8 5 (0.19%) LSMW
9 4 (0.15%) Eclipse
9 4 (0.15%) Postman
10 3 (0.12%) JUnit
11 2 (0.077%) Bitbucket
11 2 (0.077%) Cypress.io
11 2 (0.077%) git-flow
11 2 (0.077%) Mockito
11 2 (0.077%) Rational Rhapsody
11 2 (0.077%) Selenium
11 2 (0.077%) SonarQube
11 2 (0.077%) TeamCity
11 2 (0.077%) Visual Studio
General
1 722 (27.97%) Social Skills
2 570 (22.08%) Finance
3 256 (9.92%) Public Sector
4 234 (9.07%) Analytical Skills
5 138 (5.35%) Manufacturing
6 89 (3.45%) Banking
7 79 (3.06%) Documentation Skills
8 70 (2.71%) Marketing
9 62 (2.40%) Billing
10 55 (2.13%) Legal
11 53 (2.05%) Presentation Skills
12 47 (1.82%) General Ledger
13 41 (1.59%) Telecoms
14 30 (1.16%) Law
14 30 (1.16%) Retail
15 28 (1.08%) Pharmaceutical
16 25 (0.97%) Organisational Skills
17 20 (0.77%) Financial Institution
17 20 (0.77%) Inclusion and Diversity
18 18 (0.70%) Electronics
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 84 (3.25%) Oracle Fusion
2 74 (2.87%) REST
3 71 (2.75%) SAP Fiori
4 45 (1.74%) Web Services
5 39 (1.51%) SAP TM
5 39 (1.51%) SOAP
6 34 (1.32%) XML
7 28 (1.08%) LDAP
7 28 (1.08%) Node.js
8 24 (0.93%) BAPI
9 21 (0.81%) Middleware
10 19 (0.74%) JSON
10 19 (0.74%) SAP PI
11 18 (0.70%) GraphQL
12 17 (0.66%) HTML
13 15 (0.58%) .NET
13 15 (0.58%) CSS
14 13 (0.50%) Kafka
14 13 (0.50%) OAuth
14 13 (0.50%) SAP Basis
Miscellaneous
1 78 (3.02%) Onboarding
2 61 (2.36%) Legacy Systems
3 44 (1.70%) Product Ownership
4 40 (1.55%) Security Posture
5 33 (1.28%) Data Centre
6 32 (1.24%) Management Information System
7 29 (1.12%) Cloud Native
8 26 (1.01%) Data Protection Act
9 24 (0.93%) Data Structures
9 24 (0.93%) Replication
10 20 (0.77%) Greenfield Project
11 18 (0.70%) Hybrid Cloud
11 18 (0.70%) Operational Technology
12 16 (0.62%) Analytical Mindset
12 16 (0.62%) NHS
13 15 (0.58%) Public Cloud
14 13 (0.50%) Life Science
15 12 (0.46%) AI Agents
16 10 (0.39%) FMCG
16 10 (0.39%) SCADA
Operating Systems
1 78 (3.02%) Windows
2 51 (1.98%) Linux
3 24 (0.93%) Unix
4 14 (0.54%) Windows Server
5 10 (0.39%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
6 9 (0.35%) Mac OS
7 8 (0.31%) Windows 10
8 6 (0.23%) AIX
8 6 (0.23%) Solaris
9 5 (0.19%) Ubuntu
10 4 (0.15%) VMS
11 3 (0.12%) Apple iOS
11 3 (0.12%) zOS
12 2 (0.077%) SUSE
12 2 (0.077%) SUSE Linux Enterprise Server
12 2 (0.077%) Windows Server 2003
12 2 (0.077%) Windows Server 2008
13 1 (0.039%) Android
13 1 (0.039%) CentOS
Processes & Methodologies
1 364 (14.10%) Migration
2 324 (12.55%) Problem-Solving
3 296 (11.47%) Stakeholder Engagement
4 289 (11.20%) Stakeholder Management
5 212 (8.21%) Workshop Facilitation
6 206 (7.98%) ERP
7 184 (7.13%) User Acceptance Testing
8 179 (6.94%) Agile
9 169 (6.55%) Analytics
10 158 (6.12%) Data Migration
11 153 (5.93%) Knowledge Transfer
12 146 (5.66%) Roadmaps
13 139 (5.39%) Business Intelligence
14 137 (5.31%) Validation
15 124 (4.80%) Cybersecurity
16 118 (4.57%) DevOps
17 115 (4.46%) Risk Management
18 107 (4.15%) AI
19 105 (4.07%) Data Modelling
20 104 (4.03%) Logistics
Programming Languages
1 152 (5.89%) SQL
2 117 (4.53%) Python
3 88 (3.41%) PowerShell
4 81 (3.14%) JavaScript
5 69 (2.67%) ABAP
6 40 (1.55%) Java
7 30 (1.16%) TypeScript
8 26 (1.01%) Groovy
9 25 (0.97%) PL/SQL
10 18 (0.70%) C#
11 16 (0.62%) Bash
12 10 (0.39%) Kusto Query Language
12 10 (0.39%) Shell Script
13 9 (0.35%) Data Analysis Expressions
14 7 (0.27%) C++
15 6 (0.23%) Apex Code
15 6 (0.23%) COBOL
15 6 (0.23%) R
15 6 (0.23%) VBA
16 5 (0.19%) Bicep
Qualifications
1 646 (25.03%) Security Cleared
2 541 (20.96%) SC Cleared
3 102 (3.95%) Degree
4 83 (3.22%) DV Cleared
5 75 (2.91%) BPSS Clearance
6 50 (1.94%) CISSP
7 33 (1.28%) CISM
8 31 (1.20%) VMware Certified Professional (VCP)
9 25 (0.97%) SAP Certification
10 18 (0.70%) Cisco Certification
11 17 (0.66%) Master's Degree
12 16 (0.62%) Microsoft Certification
13 15 (0.58%) CIMA
13 15 (0.58%) Computer Science Degree
14 10 (0.39%) CCNP
15 9 (0.35%) ACCA
15 9 (0.35%) AWS Certification
15 9 (0.35%) ITIL Certification
16 8 (0.31%) CESG Certified Professional
17 7 (0.27%) CompTIA Security+
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 76 (2.94%) NIST
2 74 (2.87%) ISO/IEC 27001
3 70 (2.71%) GDPR
4 53 (2.05%) Data Quality
5 52 (2.01%) QA
6 40 (1.55%) GRC
7 20 (0.77%) NCSC
8 19 (0.74%) PMO
8 19 (0.74%) SLA
9 18 (0.70%) Actionable Recommendations
10 12 (0.46%) Sarbanes-Oxley
11 11 (0.43%) PERC
12 10 (0.39%) PCI DSS
13 9 (0.35%) COBIT
14 8 (0.31%) Cyber Essentials
14 8 (0.31%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
14 8 (0.31%) JSP 440
15 7 (0.27%) Accessibility
15 7 (0.27%) HIPAA
15 7 (0.27%) ISO/IEC 27005
System Software
1 73 (2.83%) Active Directory
2 44 (1.70%) Docker
3 32 (1.24%) VMware Infrastructure
4 27 (1.05%) VMware NSX
5 19 (0.74%) vSphere
6 8 (0.31%) Virtual Desktop
7 7 (0.27%) Hyper-V
8 6 (0.23%) Slurm Workload Manager
9 5 (0.19%) NDS
9 5 (0.19%) NetIQ eDirectory
10 3 (0.12%) Virtual Machines
11 1 (0.039%) Ceph
11 1 (0.039%) Firmware
11 1 (0.039%) Job Entry Subsystem
11 1 (0.039%) KVM
11 1 (0.039%) Microsoft App-V
11 1 (0.039%) QEMU
11 1 (0.039%) Terminal Services
11 1 (0.039%) VMware ESXi
Systems Management
1 59 (2.29%) Kubernetes
2 36 (1.39%) Terraform
3 32 (1.24%) vRealize
4 22 (0.85%) Microsoft Intune
5 17 (0.66%) Single Sign-On
6 16 (0.62%) Ansible
7 11 (0.43%) PingFederate
7 11 (0.43%) SCCM
8 10 (0.39%) Grafana
9 9 (0.35%) Failover Clustering
10 8 (0.31%) Prometheus
11 7 (0.27%) Active Directory Federation Services
12 6 (0.23%) Podman
13 5 (0.19%) vRealize Orchestrator
14 3 (0.12%) CASB
14 3 (0.12%) CEMLI
14 3 (0.12%) EMC NetWorker
14 3 (0.12%) EMC VPLEX
14 3 (0.12%) FortiGate
14 3 (0.12%) Nessus
Vendors
1 656 (25.42%) SAP
2 305 (11.82%) Oracle
3 281 (10.89%) Microsoft
4 93 (3.60%) VMware
5 82 (3.18%) ServiceNow
6 60 (2.32%) Workday
7 58 (2.25%) CyberArk
8 54 (2.09%) Salesforce
9 53 (2.05%) Cisco
10 51 (1.98%) Ariba
11 37 (1.43%) Google
12 36 (1.39%) Aruba
13 33 (1.28%) Adobe
14 22 (0.85%) OpenText
15 21 (0.81%) Siemens
16 19 (0.74%) Databricks
17 16 (0.62%) Dynatrace
18 14 (0.54%) Dell
18 14 (0.54%) Murex
19 12 (0.46%) Splunk