Consultant Contract Job Trends

Consultant
UK

The median Consultant daily rate in the UK is £538, according to job vacancies posted in the 6 months leading up to 20 April 2026.

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

6 months to
20 Apr 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 28 28 23
Rank change year-on-year 0 -5 +17
Contract jobs requiring a Consultant 2,836 1,923 2,726
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 6.13% 6.53% 6.24%
As % of the Job Titles category 6.65% 7.05% 6.73%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,589 1,131 1,701
10th Percentile £383 £413 £400
25th Percentile £450 £488 £463
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £538 £550 £550
Median % change year-on-year -2.27% - -1.79%
75th Percentile £626 £638 £650
90th Percentile £713 £725 £750
UK excluding London median daily rate £525 £545 £548
% change year-on-year -3.67% -0.46% -0.45%
Number of hourly rates quoted 76 16 28
10th Percentile £51.13 £63.13 £27.13
25th Percentile £56.25 £70.00 £48.13
Median hourly rate £57.50 £83.75 £60.80
Median % change year-on-year -31.34% +37.75% -7.88%
75th Percentile £60.00 £86.06 £63.07
90th Percentile £78.25 £87.50 £71.50
UK excluding London median hourly rate £57.50 £84.25 £56.89
% change year-on-year -31.75% +48.11% -13.81%

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 42,677 27,265 40,508
% of contract IT jobs with a recognized job title 92.26% 92.61% 92.78%
Number of daily rates quoted 26,446 17,875 26,447
10th Percentile £313 £300 £275
25th Percentile £413 £406 £409
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £515 £525
Median % change year-on-year -2.91% -1.90% -2.78%
75th Percentile £613 £625 £638
90th Percentile £725 £738 £748
UK excluding London median daily rate £488 £475 £493
% change year-on-year +2.63% -3.65% -1.40%
Number of hourly rates quoted 2,718 997 2,615
10th Percentile £14.96 £14.50 £12.86
25th Percentile £20.35 £19.00 £16.25
Median hourly rate £41.94 £30.45 £35.00
Median % change year-on-year +37.73% -13.00% -22.22%
75th Percentile £65.60 £63.75 £60.00
90th Percentile £77.65 £75.35 £72.50
UK excluding London median hourly rate £43.00 £29.53 £36.50
% change year-on-year +45.64% -19.11% -14.12%

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 20 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 20 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 20 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 2,230 £538 -2.27% 1,241
UK excluding London 0 1,160 £525 -3.67% 804
London -2 1,040 £550 -4.35% 577
Work from Home +2 988 £540 -1.82% 617
South East -4 343 £530 -3.64% 247
Midlands -9 231 £525 - 82
North of England -20 227 £525 -2.42% 230
South West +25 176 £525 -4.55% 140
West Midlands -5 161 £550 - 48
North West -27 111 £525 -3.67% 146
Yorkshire -4 98 £500 -4.76% 70
East of England -4 88 £550 +10.00% 31
Scotland +23 70 £438 -16.03% 26
East Midlands -14 63 £500 -3.85% 34
Wales +12 29 £550 +37.50% 29
North East -23 18 £525 -1.69% 15
Northern Ireland +1 4 £525 +0.96% 27

Consultant Skill Set
Top 30 Co-Occurring Skills & Capabilities

For the 6 months to 20 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.

1 603 (21.26%) SAP
2 567 (19.99%) Security Cleared
3 458 (16.15%) SC Cleared
4 381 (13.43%) Migration
5 339 (11.95%) Oracle
6 301 (10.61%) Azure
7 280 (9.87%) Microsoft
8 279 (9.84%) Problem-Solving
9 274 (9.66%) SAP S/4HANA
10 266 (9.38%) Stakeholder Engagement
11 247 (8.71%) Stakeholder Management
12 233 (8.22%) ERP
13 209 (7.37%) SQL
14 196 (6.91%) User Acceptance Testing
15 187 (6.59%) Workshop Facilitation
16 177 (6.24%) Agile
17 164 (5.78%) Continuous Improvement
17 164 (5.78%) Data Migration
18 157 (5.54%) Validation
19 152 (5.36%) Cybersecurity
19 152 (5.36%) Roadmaps
20 150 (5.29%) Business Intelligence
21 149 (5.25%) Analytics
22 137 (4.83%) Dynamics 365
23 126 (4.44%) Power Platform
24 123 (4.34%) AI
25 117 (4.13%) AWS
26 116 (4.09%) Python
27 115 (4.06%) Knowledge Transfer
28 114 (4.02%) Change Management

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 66 (2.33%) SharePoint
2 34 (1.20%) Confluence
3 17 (0.60%) 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%) Palantir Foundry
8 3 (0.11%) SAS
8 3 (0.11%) Tomcat
9 2 (0.071%) CMS
9 2 (0.071%) 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 65 (2.29%) Microsoft Excel
2 24 (0.85%) 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 (0.071%) Lectora
8 2 (0.071%) 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
1 274 (9.66%) SAP S/4HANA
2 79 (2.79%) Oracle EBS
3 60 (2.12%) SAP FI
4 49 (1.73%) SAP MM
5 46 (1.62%) Oracle Payables
6 42 (1.48%) Oracle Receivables
7 38 (1.34%) Oracle EBS R12
7 38 (1.34%) SAP PP
8 35 (1.23%) SAP HCM
9 34 (1.20%) SAP PSCD
10 33 (1.16%) Dynamics CRM
10 33 (1.16%) SAP EWM
11 31 (1.09%) SAP CO
12 29 (1.02%) SAP FI/CO
13 28 (0.99%) Oracle Assets
14 26 (0.92%) SAP Travel Management
15 25 (0.88%) Oracle General Ledger
16 24 (0.85%) Oracle Procure-to-Pay
16 24 (0.85%) Teamcenter
17 22 (0.78%) Oracle Cash Management
Cloud Services
1 301 (10.61%) Azure
2 137 (4.83%) Dynamics 365
3 126 (4.44%) Power Platform
4 117 (4.13%) AWS
5 114 (4.02%) OCI
6 76 (2.68%) SuccessFactors
7 69 (2.43%) Microsoft 365
8 68 (2.40%) SaaS
9 65 (2.29%) GCP
10 53 (1.87%) Power Automate
11 46 (1.62%) Entra ID
12 38 (1.34%) Azure DevOps
13 35 (1.23%) Microsoft Copilot
14 32 (1.13%) PowerApps
15 30 (1.06%) Microsoft Purview
16 28 (0.99%) GitHub
17 19 (0.67%) Azure Data Factory
18 16 (0.56%) OneDrive
18 16 (0.56%) Serverless
19 15 (0.53%) Copilot Studio
Communications & Networking
1 37 (1.30%) Firewall
2 25 (0.88%) Network Security
3 16 (0.56%) SMS
4 13 (0.46%) VSAN
5 12 (0.42%) DNS
5 12 (0.42%) HTTP
5 12 (0.42%) WAN
6 11 (0.39%) Kerberos
6 11 (0.39%) SNMP
6 11 (0.39%) Software-Defined Networking
7 10 (0.35%) FTP
7 10 (0.35%) LAN
7 10 (0.35%) SD-WAN
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%) DHCP
11 6 (0.21%) VLAN
Database & Business Intelligence
1 88 (3.10%) Power BI
2 66 (2.33%) Oracle Reports
3 32 (1.13%) SAP HANA
4 28 (0.99%) Metadata
5 25 (0.88%) Tableau
6 24 (0.85%) Oracle BI Publisher
7 23 (0.81%) SQL Server
8 20 (0.71%) Oracle ODI
9 12 (0.42%) 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 70 (2.47%) JIRA
2 20 (0.71%) 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%) Postman
8 3 (0.11%) SonarQube
9 2 (0.071%) Bitbucket
9 2 (0.071%) git-flow
9 2 (0.071%) LSMW
9 2 (0.071%) Octopus Deploy
9 2 (0.071%) Rational DOORS
9 2 (0.071%) Rational Rhapsody
9 2 (0.071%) Selenium
9 2 (0.071%) TeamCity
9 2 (0.071%) Toad
General
1 637 (22.46%) Social Skills
2 625 (22.04%) Finance
3 257 (9.06%) Analytical Skills
4 221 (7.79%) Public Sector
5 112 (3.95%) Manufacturing
6 104 (3.67%) Banking
7 70 (2.47%) Marketing
8 67 (2.36%) Legal
9 56 (1.97%) Billing
10 51 (1.80%) Documentation Skills
11 46 (1.62%) General Ledger
12 41 (1.45%) Telecoms
13 37 (1.30%) Retail
14 36 (1.27%) Organisational Skills
15 27 (0.95%) Presentation Skills
16 26 (0.92%) Inclusion and Diversity
17 22 (0.78%) Pharmaceutical
18 20 (0.71%) Law
19 19 (0.67%) Advertising
19 19 (0.67%) Electronics
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 83 (2.93%) Oracle Fusion
2 75 (2.64%) REST
3 69 (2.43%) XML
4 32 (1.13%) SOAP
5 30 (1.06%) Web Services
6 27 (0.95%) SAP TM
7 26 (0.92%) SAP Fiori
8 24 (0.85%) JSON
9 23 (0.81%) LDAP
10 21 (0.74%) Middleware
10 21 (0.74%) SAP Basis
11 19 (0.67%) Node.js
12 18 (0.63%) .NET
13 16 (0.56%) BAPI
13 16 (0.56%) HTML
14 15 (0.53%) CSS
15 14 (0.49%) GraphQL
16 12 (0.42%) IDoc
17 11 (0.39%) Kafka
18 9 (0.32%) OAuth
Miscellaneous
1 56 (1.97%) Onboarding
2 46 (1.62%) Legacy Systems
3 44 (1.55%) Data Protection Act
4 37 (1.30%) Product Ownership
5 36 (1.27%) Security Posture
6 31 (1.09%) Operational Technology
7 30 (1.06%) Replication
8 26 (0.92%) Data Centre
9 25 (0.88%) Management Information System
10 24 (0.85%) AI Agents
10 24 (0.85%) Cloud Native
11 23 (0.81%) Data Structures
12 20 (0.71%) Greenfield Project
13 19 (0.67%) NHS
14 18 (0.63%) Analytical Mindset
14 18 (0.63%) CMDB
15 17 (0.60%) Public Cloud
16 16 (0.56%) Life Science
17 13 (0.46%) Self-Motivation
18 11 (0.39%) Security Operations Centre
Operating Systems
1 76 (2.68%) Windows
2 52 (1.83%) Linux
3 16 (0.56%) Unix
3 16 (0.56%) VMS
4 13 (0.46%) AIX
5 12 (0.42%) 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 (0.071%) CoreOS
12 2 (0.071%) Data ONTAP
13 1 (0.035%) Android
13 1 (0.035%) CentOS
Processes & Methodologies
1 381 (13.43%) Migration
2 279 (9.84%) Problem-Solving
3 266 (9.38%) Stakeholder Engagement
4 247 (8.71%) Stakeholder Management
5 233 (8.22%) ERP
6 196 (6.91%) User Acceptance Testing
7 187 (6.59%) Workshop Facilitation
8 177 (6.24%) Agile
9 164 (5.78%) Continuous Improvement
9 164 (5.78%) Data Migration
10 157 (5.54%) Validation
11 152 (5.36%) Cybersecurity
11 152 (5.36%) Roadmaps
12 150 (5.29%) Business Intelligence
13 149 (5.25%) Analytics
14 123 (4.34%) AI
15 115 (4.06%) Knowledge Transfer
16 114 (4.02%) Change Management
17 106 (3.74%) DevOps
17 106 (3.74%) Risk Management
Programming Languages
1 209 (7.37%) SQL
2 116 (4.09%) Python
3 76 (2.68%) JavaScript
4 67 (2.36%) PowerShell
5 50 (1.76%) PL/SQL
6 49 (1.73%) ABAP
7 33 (1.16%) Java
7 33 (1.16%) T-SQL
8 23 (0.81%) TypeScript
9 16 (0.56%) C#
10 12 (0.42%) Groovy
11 10 (0.35%) Shell Script
12 9 (0.32%) Bash
12 9 (0.32%) R
12 9 (0.32%) Search Processing Language
13 8 (0.28%) C++
13 8 (0.28%) Data Analysis Expressions
14 7 (0.25%) Apex Code
14 7 (0.25%) Kusto Query Language
15 5 (0.18%) Korn
Qualifications
1 567 (19.99%) Security Cleared
2 458 (16.15%) SC Cleared
3 96 (3.39%) DV Cleared
4 93 (3.28%) Degree
5 78 (2.75%) BPSS Clearance
6 63 (2.22%) CISSP
7 45 (1.59%) CISM
8 25 (0.88%) VMware Certified Professional (VCP)
9 21 (0.74%) CIMA
10 19 (0.67%) Cisco Certification
10 19 (0.67%) Computer Science Degree
11 14 (0.49%) Master's Degree
12 13 (0.46%) Microsoft Certification
12 13 (0.46%) SAP Certification
13 12 (0.42%) ITIL Certification
14 10 (0.35%) (ISC)2 CCSP
14 10 (0.35%) ACCA
14 10 (0.35%) Azure Certification
14 10 (0.35%) CCSP
14 10 (0.35%) PMP
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 90 (3.17%) NIST
2 86 (3.03%) ISO/IEC 27001
3 58 (2.05%) GDPR
3 58 (2.05%) GRC
4 57 (2.01%) Data Quality
5 40 (1.41%) QA
6 26 (0.92%) PCI DSS
7 24 (0.85%) NCSC
8 21 (0.74%) PMO
9 19 (0.67%) SLA
10 18 (0.63%) Actionable Recommendations
10 18 (0.63%) Sarbanes-Oxley
11 16 (0.56%) COBIT
12 14 (0.49%) JSP 440
13 11 (0.39%) PERC
14 8 (0.28%) Accessibility
14 8 (0.28%) DICOM
14 8 (0.28%) GxP
14 8 (0.28%) HL7
15 7 (0.25%) RMADS
System Software
1 55 (1.94%) Active Directory
2 36 (1.27%) VMware Infrastructure
3 35 (1.23%) VMware NSX
4 27 (0.95%) Docker
5 24 (0.85%) vSphere
6 10 (0.35%) Virtual Desktop
6 10 (0.35%) Virtual Machines
7 9 (0.32%) Hyper-V
8 6 (0.21%) Slurm Workload Manager
9 4 (0.14%) IAG
9 4 (0.14%) VMware ESXi
10 3 (0.11%) NFS
11 1 (0.035%) BitLocker
11 1 (0.035%) Ceph
11 1 (0.035%) HDFS
11 1 (0.035%) Job Entry Subsystem
11 1 (0.035%) KVM
11 1 (0.035%) NDS
11 1 (0.035%) NetIQ eDirectory
11 1 (0.035%) QEMU
Systems Management
1 47 (1.66%) Kubernetes
2 32 (1.13%) vRealize
3 30 (1.06%) Terraform
4 19 (0.67%) Microsoft Intune
5 12 (0.42%) Ansible
6 11 (0.39%) Nagios
6 11 (0.39%) Single Sign-On
6 11 (0.39%) ZABBIX
7 10 (0.35%) Netcool
7 10 (0.35%) OpenView
7 10 (0.35%) Tivoli
7 10 (0.35%) Tivoli Monitoring
8 8 (0.28%) SCCM
9 7 (0.25%) Failover Clustering
10 6 (0.21%) PingFederate
10 6 (0.21%) Podman
11 4 (0.14%) Active Directory Federation Services
11 4 (0.14%) Grafana
11 4 (0.14%) Prometheus
11 4 (0.14%) vRealize Orchestrator
Vendors
1 603 (21.26%) SAP
2 339 (11.95%) Oracle
3 280 (9.87%) Microsoft
4 97 (3.42%) VMware
5 93 (3.28%) ServiceNow
6 63 (2.22%) Ariba
7 59 (2.08%) Salesforce
8 53 (1.87%) Siemens
8 53 (1.87%) Workday
9 35 (1.23%) Google
10 31 (1.09%) Cisco
11 27 (0.95%) Databricks
12 26 (0.92%) Splunk
13 23 (0.81%) Aruba
14 22 (0.78%) Adobe
15 21 (0.74%) IBM
16 20 (0.71%) OpenText
17 19 (0.67%) BMC
18 17 (0.60%) Murex
18 17 (0.60%) Sage