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 September 2026.

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

6 months to
10 Sep 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 27 26 27
Rank change year-on-year -1 +1 +3
Contract jobs requiring a Consultant 3,281 2,225 2,614
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 6.02% 6.75% 6.83%
As % of the Job Titles category 6.52% 7.41% 7.34%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,831 1,292 1,446
10th Percentile £406 £413 £408
25th Percentile £463 £475 £468
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £550 £550 £550
Median % change year-on-year - - +1.48%
75th Percentile £650 £649 £650
90th Percentile £750 £750 £750
UK excluding London median daily rate £540 £550 £567
% change year-on-year -1.82% -3.04% +8.05%
Number of hourly rates quoted 56 26 26
10th Percentile £36.25 £28.52 £45.63
25th Percentile £51.00 £42.26 £55.24
Median hourly rate £76.00 £77.50 £61.60
Median % change year-on-year -1.94% +25.81% -5.23%
75th Percentile £86.46 £81.25 £65.76
90th Percentile £91.88 £84.25 £72.43
UK excluding London median hourly rate £76.50 £77.50 £61.60
% change year-on-year -1.29% +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 50,324 30,039 35,625
% of contract IT jobs with a recognized job title 92.36% 91.06% 93.05%
Number of daily rates quoted 29,923 18,938 22,148
10th Percentile £325 £281 £300
25th Percentile £425 £400 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £500 £525
Median % change year-on-year +5.00% -4.76% -1.32%
75th Percentile £625 £622 £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 3,732 1,556 1,742
10th Percentile £14.56 £13.67 £14.73
25th Percentile £20.00 £17.06 £20.50
Median hourly rate £42.00 £25.15 £43.00
Median % change year-on-year +67.00% -41.51% +1.18%
75th Percentile £67.84 £52.81 £65.00
90th Percentile £79.90 £70.16 £75.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £42.50 £25.15 £45.00
% change year-on-year +68.99% -44.11% +12.50%

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 September 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 September 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 September 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 2,623 £550 - 1,385
UK excluding London -2 1,388 £540 -1.82% 727
London -2 1,257 £550 -4.35% 842
Work from Home -3 1,089 £550 - 848
South East -3 391 £545 -0.91% 218
North of England -11 324 £575 +4.55% 133
Midlands +1 232 £500 -9.09% 83
North West -4 210 £567 -1.39% 84
South West +13 207 £550 -8.33% 124
West Midlands +6 163 £495 -10.00% 69
Scotland +22 128 £450 -10.00% 53
East of England -13 103 £565 +2.73% 62
Yorkshire -19 93 £575 +21.05% 21
East Midlands -8 62 £525 -4.55% 13
Wales -12 22 £550 +22.22% 10
North East -38 20 £750 +37.61% 28
Channel Islands -3 2 £600 - 4
Northern Ireland -5 2 £544 +4.57% 54

Consultant Skill Set
Top 30 Co-Occurring Skills & Capabilities

For the 6 months to 10 September 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.

1 701 (21.37%) Security Cleared
2 682 (20.79%) SAP
3 539 (16.43%) Stakeholder Management
4 478 (14.57%) SC Cleared
5 462 (14.08%) Microsoft
6 444 (13.53%) Migration
7 424 (12.92%) Oracle
8 325 (9.91%) Azure
9 302 (9.20%) Stakeholder Engagement
10 287 (8.75%) SAP S/4HANA
11 285 (8.69%) User Acceptance Testing
12 270 (8.23%) Problem-Solving
13 240 (7.31%) ERP
14 238 (7.25%) SQL
15 237 (7.22%) Validation
16 232 (7.07%) Workshop Facilitation
17 223 (6.80%) Cybersecurity
18 210 (6.40%) Continuous Improvement
19 207 (6.31%) Analytics
20 194 (5.91%) Roadmaps
21 191 (5.82%) Data Migration
22 183 (5.58%) AWS
23 182 (5.55%) Agile
24 179 (5.46%) Requirements Gathering
25 170 (5.18%) AI
26 160 (4.88%) Power Platform
27 158 (4.82%) Business Intelligence
28 154 (4.69%) Translating Business Requirements
29 152 (4.63%) DV Cleared
30 143 (4.36%) 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 77 (2.35%) SharePoint
2 44 (1.34%) Confluence
3 31 (0.94%) Microsoft Exchange
4 12 (0.37%) Oracle Workflow
5 8 (0.24%) WebLogic
5 8 (0.24%) WebSphere
6 6 (0.18%) SAS
7 5 (0.15%) Apache
8 3 (0.091%) Adobe Experience Manager
8 3 (0.091%) Apache Airflow
8 3 (0.091%) Apache Spark
8 3 (0.091%) Apache Superset
8 3 (0.091%) CMS
8 3 (0.091%) NetWeaver
8 3 (0.091%) OpenStack
8 3 (0.091%) TIBCO ActiveMatrix
9 2 (0.061%) Oracle Service Bus
9 2 (0.061%) Oracle SOA Suite
9 2 (0.061%) Smallworld
9 2 (0.061%) WordPress
Applications
1 55 (1.68%) Microsoft Excel
2 32 (0.98%) Microsoft Office
3 26 (0.79%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 9 (0.27%) MS Visio
5 8 (0.24%) Spreadsheet
6 3 (0.091%) Chatbot
6 3 (0.091%) Microsoft Project
7 1 (0.030%) Adobe Captivate
7 1 (0.030%) Adobe Creative Suite
7 1 (0.030%) CPLEX
Business Applications
1 287 (8.75%) SAP S/4HANA
2 91 (2.77%) Oracle EBS
3 75 (2.29%) SAP FI
4 49 (1.49%) SAP PSCD
5 47 (1.43%) Oracle ERP
5 47 (1.43%) Oracle Payables
6 41 (1.25%) SAP CO
7 38 (1.16%) Oracle Receivables
8 37 (1.13%) Dynamics CRM
8 37 (1.13%) SAP MM
9 36 (1.10%) SAP SD
10 35 (1.07%) Workday HCM
11 33 (1.01%) SAP FI/CO
11 33 (1.01%) SAP Payroll
12 32 (0.98%) SAP BRIM
13 30 (0.91%) NetSuite
13 30 (0.91%) Oracle General Ledger
14 29 (0.88%) SAP HR
14 29 (0.88%) SAP PP
15 27 (0.82%) SAP HCM
Cloud Services
1 325 (9.91%) Azure
2 183 (5.58%) AWS
3 160 (4.88%) Power Platform
4 143 (4.36%) Dynamics 365
5 124 (3.78%) OCI
6 107 (3.26%) SuccessFactors
7 99 (3.02%) GCP
8 87 (2.65%) Microsoft 365
9 70 (2.13%) Power Automate
10 69 (2.10%) Entra ID
11 64 (1.95%) Azure DevOps
12 53 (1.62%) Microsoft Copilot
13 44 (1.34%) SaaS
14 36 (1.10%) PowerApps
15 29 (0.88%) Microsoft Purview
16 27 (0.82%) GitHub
17 18 (0.55%) Copilot Studio
18 17 (0.52%) Snowflake
19 16 (0.49%) Azure Logic Apps
19 16 (0.49%) Azure Monitor
Communications & Networking
1 67 (2.04%) Firewall
2 64 (1.95%) Network Security
3 33 (1.01%) BGP
3 33 (1.01%) WAN
4 24 (0.73%) VPN
5 22 (0.67%) SNMP
6 17 (0.52%) DNS
7 15 (0.46%) LAN
8 14 (0.43%) Ethernet VPN
9 13 (0.40%) SAN
10 12 (0.37%) VXLAN
11 11 (0.34%) NGFW
11 11 (0.34%) TCP/IP
12 10 (0.30%) 3GPP
12 10 (0.30%) 5G
12 10 (0.30%) IPsec
12 10 (0.30%) MPLS
12 10 (0.30%) Radio Access Network
13 9 (0.27%) SD-WAN
14 7 (0.21%) VSAN
Database & Business Intelligence
1 99 (3.02%) Power BI
2 61 (1.86%) Oracle Reports
3 38 (1.16%) SAP HANA
4 37 (1.13%) Oracle BI Publisher
4 37 (1.13%) SAP BW
5 34 (1.04%) Data Warehouse
6 33 (1.01%) Tableau
7 31 (0.94%) SQL Server
8 27 (0.82%) Metadata
9 20 (0.61%) BusinessObjects
10 18 (0.55%) Oracle Database
11 15 (0.46%) Oracle ODI
12 13 (0.40%) Power Query
12 13 (0.40%) SAP Data Services
13 11 (0.34%) Relational Database
14 8 (0.24%) SQL Server Reporting Services
15 7 (0.21%) BigQuery
15 7 (0.21%) DynamoDB
15 7 (0.21%) Looker
16 6 (0.18%) Amazon RDS
Development Applications
1 95 (2.90%) JIRA
2 25 (0.76%) Git
3 20 (0.61%) Oracle Forms
4 15 (0.46%) Jenkins
5 12 (0.37%) Hudson
6 10 (0.30%) GitLab
7 7 (0.21%) PowerBuilder
7 7 (0.21%) Sonatype Nexus
7 7 (0.21%) Zephyr
8 6 (0.18%) SonarQube
9 5 (0.15%) Cypress.io
10 4 (0.12%) MLflow
11 3 (0.091%) Browser DevTools
11 3 (0.091%) LoadRunner
11 3 (0.091%) Postman
11 3 (0.091%) Selenium
11 3 (0.091%) Snyk
11 3 (0.091%) TestRail
11 3 (0.091%) Toad
11 3 (0.091%) Visual Studio Code
General
1 728 (22.19%) Social Skills
2 721 (21.98%) Finance
3 247 (7.53%) Analytical Skills
4 239 (7.28%) Public Sector
5 115 (3.51%) Manufacturing
6 95 (2.90%) Banking
7 87 (2.65%) Legal
8 80 (2.44%) Billing
9 76 (2.32%) Documentation Skills
10 68 (2.07%) Telecoms
11 59 (1.80%) General Ledger
12 54 (1.65%) Presentation Skills
12 54 (1.65%) Retail
13 50 (1.52%) Marketing
14 47 (1.43%) Inclusion and Diversity
15 42 (1.28%) Influencing Skills
16 38 (1.16%) Pharmaceutical
17 28 (0.85%) Local Government
18 24 (0.73%) Law
19 19 (0.58%) Financial Institution
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 129 (3.93%) Oracle Fusion
2 82 (2.50%) REST
3 65 (1.98%) Terraform
4 49 (1.49%) SAP Fiori
5 39 (1.19%) SOAP
5 39 (1.19%) XML
6 35 (1.07%) Middleware
7 33 (1.01%) Web Services
8 25 (0.76%) SailPoint
9 23 (0.70%) JSON
10 21 (0.64%) LDAP
10 21 (0.64%) OAuth
10 21 (0.64%) SAP Basis
11 20 (0.61%) BAPI
11 20 (0.61%) HTML
12 18 (0.55%) CSS
12 18 (0.55%) SAP PI
13 13 (0.40%) EDI
13 13 (0.40%) NETCONF
13 13 (0.40%) SAML
Miscellaneous
1 121 (3.69%) Onboarding
2 55 (1.68%) CMDB
3 47 (1.43%) Data Centre
4 42 (1.28%) Data Structures
4 42 (1.28%) Operational Technology
5 41 (1.25%) Data Protection Act
5 41 (1.25%) Security Posture
6 38 (1.16%) Product Ownership
7 33 (1.01%) Enterprise Software
8 32 (0.98%) Legacy Systems
8 32 (0.98%) Replication
9 28 (0.85%) AI Agents
10 27 (0.82%) Cloud Native
11 22 (0.67%) Public Cloud
12 21 (0.64%) Life Science
13 20 (0.61%) Greenfield Project
14 18 (0.55%) Hybrid Cloud
14 18 (0.55%) Management Information System
14 18 (0.55%) NHS
15 16 (0.49%) PKI
Operating Systems
1 101 (3.08%) Windows
2 81 (2.47%) Linux
3 25 (0.76%) Unix
4 21 (0.64%) Solaris
4 21 (0.64%) Windows Server
5 17 (0.52%) VMS
6 16 (0.49%) AIX
7 6 (0.18%) Android
7 6 (0.18%) Windows Server 2016
8 5 (0.15%) Apple iOS
8 5 (0.15%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
9 4 (0.12%) Windows 10
10 1 (0.030%) Mac OS
10 1 (0.030%) OpenVMS
10 1 (0.030%) Windows Server 2012
10 1 (0.030%) zOS
Processes & Methodologies
1 539 (16.43%) Stakeholder Management
2 444 (13.53%) Migration
3 302 (9.20%) Stakeholder Engagement
4 285 (8.69%) User Acceptance Testing
5 270 (8.23%) Problem-Solving
6 240 (7.31%) ERP
7 237 (7.22%) Validation
8 232 (7.07%) Workshop Facilitation
9 223 (6.80%) Cybersecurity
10 210 (6.40%) Continuous Improvement
11 207 (6.31%) Analytics
12 194 (5.91%) Roadmaps
13 191 (5.82%) Data Migration
14 182 (5.55%) Agile
15 179 (5.46%) Requirements Gathering
16 170 (5.18%) AI
17 158 (4.82%) Business Intelligence
18 154 (4.69%) Translating Business Requirements
19 139 (4.24%) Knowledge Transfer
20 132 (4.02%) Project Delivery
Programming Languages
1 238 (7.25%) SQL
2 118 (3.60%) Python
3 57 (1.74%) PowerShell
4 52 (1.58%) ABAP
4 52 (1.58%) PL/SQL
5 47 (1.43%) JavaScript
6 31 (0.94%) Java
7 18 (0.55%) Bash
8 15 (0.46%) C#
9 14 (0.43%) Data Analysis Expressions
9 14 (0.43%) Kusto Query Language
10 13 (0.40%) T-SQL
11 12 (0.37%) Search Processing Language
12 9 (0.27%) R
13 8 (0.24%) Shell Script
13 8 (0.24%) TypeScript
14 6 (0.18%) Groovy
14 6 (0.18%) Korn
14 6 (0.18%) Perl
15 3 (0.091%) Scala
Qualifications
1 701 (21.37%) Security Cleared
2 478 (14.57%) SC Cleared
3 152 (4.63%) DV Cleared
4 105 (3.20%) BPSS Clearance
5 81 (2.47%) CISSP
6 75 (2.29%) Degree
7 64 (1.95%) CISM
8 45 (1.37%) Cisco Certification
9 33 (1.01%) (ISC)2 CCSP
10 29 (0.88%) CCSP
11 20 (0.61%) ACCA
12 17 (0.52%) CIMA
13 16 (0.49%) CRISC
14 15 (0.46%) PMP
15 14 (0.43%) CompTIA Security+
16 13 (0.40%) AWS Certification
16 13 (0.40%) Azure Certification
17 11 (0.34%) CISA
17 11 (0.34%) Computer Science Degree
17 11 (0.34%) SAP Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 101 (3.08%) Data Quality
2 93 (2.83%) NIST
3 75 (2.29%) GRC
3 75 (2.29%) ISO/IEC 27001
4 57 (1.74%) QA
5 39 (1.19%) GDPR
6 36 (1.10%) NCSC
7 29 (0.88%) SLA
8 24 (0.73%) PMO
9 23 (0.70%) Accessibility
9 23 (0.70%) Actionable Recommendations
10 22 (0.67%) PCI DSS
11 14 (0.43%) Cyber Essentials
12 12 (0.37%) Sarbanes-Oxley
13 11 (0.34%) GxP
14 10 (0.30%) COBIT
14 10 (0.30%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
14 10 (0.30%) NIST 800
15 9 (0.27%) IFRS
16 8 (0.24%) SOC 2
System Software
1 84 (2.56%) Active Directory
2 38 (1.16%) VMware Infrastructure
3 36 (1.10%) VMware NSX
4 20 (0.61%) vSphere
5 16 (0.49%) Docker
6 14 (0.43%) VMware ESXi
7 12 (0.37%) Hyper-V
7 12 (0.37%) IAG
8 11 (0.34%) Virtual Machines
9 10 (0.30%) Virtual Desktop
10 4 (0.12%) Firmware
11 2 (0.061%) BitLocker
11 2 (0.061%) PowerHA
12 1 (0.030%) HDFS
12 1 (0.030%) NFS
12 1 (0.030%) Oracle RAC
12 1 (0.030%) oVirt
12 1 (0.030%) RHEV
12 1 (0.030%) SRDF
12 1 (0.030%) Time Sharing Option
Systems Management
1 48 (1.46%) Kubernetes
2 32 (0.98%) Ansible
3 20 (0.61%) Microsoft Intune
3 20 (0.61%) SCCM
4 16 (0.49%) vRealize
5 14 (0.43%) Grafana
6 13 (0.40%) Nagios
6 13 (0.40%) Single Sign-On
6 13 (0.40%) ZABBIX
7 12 (0.37%) FortiGate
8 11 (0.34%) Netcool
8 11 (0.34%) Tivoli
9 10 (0.30%) OpenView
9 10 (0.30%) Prometheus
9 10 (0.30%) Tivoli Monitoring
9 10 (0.30%) vCenter Server
10 6 (0.18%) VxRail
11 5 (0.15%) NetBackup
12 4 (0.12%) CEMLI
12 4 (0.12%) vRealize Orchestrator
Vendors
1 682 (20.79%) SAP
2 462 (14.08%) Microsoft
3 424 (12.92%) Oracle
4 130 (3.96%) ServiceNow
5 82 (2.50%) VMware
6 68 (2.07%) Workday
7 65 (1.98%) Ariba
8 52 (1.58%) Salesforce
9 42 (1.28%) Databricks
10 41 (1.25%) Splunk
11 31 (0.94%) Palo Alto
12 29 (0.88%) BMC
12 29 (0.88%) Cisco
13 26 (0.79%) OpenText
14 25 (0.76%) Google
15 24 (0.73%) IBM
16 22 (0.67%) CyberArk
17 21 (0.64%) Adobe
18 18 (0.55%) Dell
18 18 (0.55%) Veeam