Consultant Contract Job Trends

Consultant
UK

The median Consultant daily rate in the UK is £540, according to job vacancies posted in the 6 months leading up to 20 May 2026.

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

6 months to
20 May 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 28 28 24
Rank change year-on-year 0 -4 +16
Contract jobs requiring a Consultant 2,802 1,900 2,704
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 5.82% 6.51% 6.35%
As % of the Job Titles category 6.30% 7.05% 6.85%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,556 1,110 1,695
10th Percentile £387 £413 £400
25th Percentile £455 £481 £463
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £540 £550 £550
Median % change year-on-year -1.82% - -
75th Percentile £632 £638 £650
90th Percentile £725 £725 £750
UK excluding London median daily rate £535 £538 £550
% change year-on-year -0.47% -2.27% +1.85%
Number of hourly rates quoted 83 20 28
10th Percentile £41.25 £36.45 £27.13
25th Percentile £56.25 £49.87 £52.18
Median hourly rate £57.50 £72.50 £61.60
Median % change year-on-year -20.69% +17.69% -6.67%
75th Percentile £60.00 £86.00 £63.00
90th Percentile £81.35 £87.50 £71.50
UK excluding London median hourly rate £57.50 £76.25 £56.89
% change year-on-year -24.59% +34.04% -12.48%

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 44,449 26,943 39,487
% of contract IT jobs with a recognized job title 92.32% 92.37% 92.79%
Number of daily rates quoted 27,215 17,536 25,722
10th Percentile £325 £293 £280
25th Percentile £413 £406 £410
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £513 £510 £525
Median % change year-on-year +0.49% -2.86% -3.23%
75th Percentile £615 £625 £638
90th Percentile £725 £738 £750
UK excluding London median daily rate £500 £475 £490
% change year-on-year +5.26% -3.06% -2.00%
Number of hourly rates quoted 2,895 1,057 2,674
10th Percentile £15.00 £14.00 £12.83
25th Percentile £20.31 £18.13 £16.30
Median hourly rate £42.69 £28.00 £36.50
Median % change year-on-year +52.45% -23.29% -18.89%
75th Percentile £66.13 £61.25 £61.30
90th Percentile £77.80 £75.00 £72.90
UK excluding London median hourly rate £44.00 £27.00 £40.00
% change year-on-year +62.96% -32.50% -5.88%

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 May 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 May 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 May 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 -2 2,228 £550 - 1,885
UK excluding London +2 1,159 £535 -0.47% 1,301
London 0 1,038 £550 -4.35% 778
Work from Home -1 979 £550 - 904
South East -5 339 £538 -4.44% 299
North of England -22 235 £531 -0.51% 402
Midlands -13 229 £525 -2.33% 143
South West +26 191 £552 +5.14% 239
West Midlands -1 154 £550 - 100
North West -26 108 £518 -4.49% 269
Yorkshire -5 106 £550 +8.64% 91
Scotland +26 71 £425 -15.00% 62
East of England -10 69 £550 +12.82% 79
East Midlands -16 67 £500 -3.85% 44
Wales +5 30 £550 +37.50% 39
North East -25 21 £725 +35.77% 43
Northern Ireland -5 3 £600 +15.38% 52

Consultant Skill Set
Top 30 Co-Occurring Skills & Capabilities

For the 6 months to 20 May 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.

1 586 (20.91%) SAP
2 524 (18.70%) Security Cleared
3 398 (14.20%) SC Cleared
4 360 (12.85%) Migration
5 318 (11.35%) Azure
6 313 (11.17%) Oracle
7 309 (11.03%) Microsoft
8 257 (9.17%) SAP S/4HANA
9 255 (9.10%) Problem-Solving
10 242 (8.64%) Stakeholder Management
11 241 (8.60%) Stakeholder Engagement
12 236 (8.42%) ERP
13 209 (7.46%) SQL
14 202 (7.21%) User Acceptance Testing
15 191 (6.82%) Workshop Facilitation
16 172 (6.14%) Continuous Improvement
17 166 (5.92%) Data Migration
18 161 (5.75%) Agile
18 161 (5.75%) Validation
19 148 (5.28%) Roadmaps
20 147 (5.25%) Dynamics 365
21 146 (5.21%) Cybersecurity
22 145 (5.17%) Analytics
22 145 (5.17%) Power Platform
23 142 (5.07%) Business Intelligence
24 132 (4.71%) AI
25 129 (4.60%) AWS
26 113 (4.03%) Change Management
27 111 (3.96%) DevOps
27 111 (3.96%) Python

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 82 (2.93%) SharePoint
2 41 (1.46%) Confluence
3 13 (0.46%) Oracle Workflow
4 12 (0.43%) Microsoft Exchange
5 6 (0.21%) Jupyter
6 4 (0.14%) Apache Spark
6 4 (0.14%) ArcGIS
7 3 (0.11%) Apache
7 3 (0.11%) Apache Superset
7 3 (0.11%) Cloud Foundry
7 3 (0.11%) Palantir Foundry
7 3 (0.11%) Tomcat
8 2 (0.071%) IIS
8 2 (0.071%) NetWeaver
8 2 (0.071%) SAS
8 2 (0.071%) WebSphere
9 1 (0.036%) CMS
9 1 (0.036%) Oracle Self-Service HR
9 1 (0.036%) WebLogic
9 1 (0.036%) WordPress
Applications
1 67 (2.39%) Microsoft Excel
2 23 (0.82%) Microsoft PowerPoint
3 13 (0.46%) Microsoft Office
4 7 (0.25%) MS Visio
5 5 (0.18%) Chatbot
5 5 (0.18%) PTC Creo
6 4 (0.14%) Microsoft Project
6 4 (0.14%) Spreadsheet
7 2 (0.071%) Lectora
7 2 (0.071%) Oracle Smart View
8 1 (0.036%) CATIA
8 1 (0.036%) Siemens NX
Business Applications
1 257 (9.17%) SAP S/4HANA
2 70 (2.50%) Oracle EBS
3 59 (2.11%) SAP FI
4 46 (1.64%) Oracle Payables
5 43 (1.53%) SAP PSCD
6 41 (1.46%) SAP MM
7 40 (1.43%) Oracle Receivables
8 34 (1.21%) Dynamics CRM
9 32 (1.14%) SAP BRIM
10 30 (1.07%) SAP CO
11 29 (1.03%) SAP EWM
12 28 (1.00%) Oracle EBS R12
12 28 (1.00%) SAP FI/CO
12 28 (1.00%) SAP PP
12 28 (1.00%) Teamcenter
13 27 (0.96%) SAP FI-CA
13 27 (0.96%) SAP Travel Management
14 26 (0.93%) SAP SD
15 24 (0.86%) Oracle Assets
16 23 (0.82%) Oracle Cash Management
Cloud Services
1 318 (11.35%) Azure
2 147 (5.25%) Dynamics 365
3 145 (5.17%) Power Platform
4 129 (4.60%) AWS
5 92 (3.28%) OCI
6 77 (2.75%) Microsoft 365
7 72 (2.57%) GCP
8 67 (2.39%) Power Automate
9 61 (2.18%) SaaS
9 61 (2.18%) SuccessFactors
10 45 (1.61%) Azure DevOps
10 45 (1.61%) Entra ID
11 39 (1.39%) Microsoft Copilot
12 38 (1.36%) PowerApps
13 30 (1.07%) GitHub
14 28 (1.00%) Microsoft Purview
15 19 (0.68%) Copilot Studio
15 19 (0.68%) Serverless
16 17 (0.61%) Azure Data Factory
17 15 (0.54%) OneDrive
Communications & Networking
1 33 (1.18%) Firewall
2 30 (1.07%) Network Security
3 20 (0.71%) SNMP
4 16 (0.57%) SMS
5 13 (0.46%) DNS
6 12 (0.43%) SAN
7 11 (0.39%) WAN
8 10 (0.36%) Software-Defined Networking
8 10 (0.36%) VSAN
9 9 (0.32%) FTP
9 9 (0.32%) LAN
9 9 (0.32%) VPN
10 8 (0.29%) Intranet
10 8 (0.29%) Kerberos
10 8 (0.29%) NAS
10 8 (0.29%) SD-WAN
11 6 (0.21%) HTTP
11 6 (0.21%) VLAN
12 5 (0.18%) NGFW
12 5 (0.18%) TCP/IP
Database & Business Intelligence
1 87 (3.10%) Power BI
2 53 (1.89%) Oracle Reports
3 35 (1.25%) SAP HANA
4 30 (1.07%) Tableau
5 26 (0.93%) SQL Server
6 23 (0.82%) Metadata
7 21 (0.75%) Oracle BI Publisher
8 17 (0.61%) Oracle ODI
9 15 (0.54%) SAP BW
10 13 (0.46%) Data Warehouse
11 9 (0.32%) Electronic Patient Records
12 8 (0.29%) BusinessObjects
13 7 (0.25%) GIS
13 7 (0.25%) NoSQL
13 7 (0.25%) SQL Server Reporting Services
14 6 (0.21%) Data Lake
14 6 (0.21%) Essbase
14 6 (0.21%) SAP Data Services
15 5 (0.18%) Geospatial Data
15 5 (0.18%) Power Query
Development Applications
1 74 (2.64%) JIRA
2 18 (0.64%) Hudson
3 17 (0.61%) Oracle Forms
4 12 (0.43%) Git
4 12 (0.43%) Jenkins
5 9 (0.32%) GitLab
6 7 (0.25%) Sonatype Nexus
7 4 (0.14%) Cypress.io
7 4 (0.14%) Oracle APEX
7 4 (0.14%) Postman
7 4 (0.14%) SonarQube
7 4 (0.14%) Visual Studio Code
8 3 (0.11%) Toad
9 2 (0.071%) Browser DevTools
9 2 (0.071%) git-flow
9 2 (0.071%) JUnit
9 2 (0.071%) Rational Rhapsody
9 2 (0.071%) Selenium
10 1 (0.036%) Charles Proxy
10 1 (0.036%) MLflow
General
1 593 (21.16%) Finance
2 590 (21.06%) Social Skills
3 234 (8.35%) Analytical Skills
4 198 (7.07%) Public Sector
5 94 (3.35%) Banking
6 87 (3.10%) Manufacturing
7 64 (2.28%) Billing
7 64 (2.28%) Legal
8 62 (2.21%) Marketing
9 49 (1.75%) General Ledger
10 47 (1.68%) Documentation Skills
11 38 (1.36%) Telecoms
12 33 (1.18%) Organisational Skills
13 32 (1.14%) Retail
14 26 (0.93%) Inclusion and Diversity
15 25 (0.89%) Influencing Skills
15 25 (0.89%) Pharmaceutical
16 24 (0.86%) Presentation Skills
17 20 (0.71%) Law
18 16 (0.57%) Advertising
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 76 (2.71%) REST
2 73 (2.61%) Oracle Fusion
3 60 (2.14%) XML
4 28 (1.00%) SAP TM
5 25 (0.89%) Middleware
6 24 (0.86%) SOAP
7 23 (0.82%) BAPI
7 23 (0.82%) SAP Fiori
8 21 (0.75%) JSON
8 21 (0.75%) Web Services
9 19 (0.68%) .NET
10 18 (0.64%) HTML
11 17 (0.61%) LDAP
11 17 (0.61%) SAP Basis
12 15 (0.54%) CSS
13 11 (0.39%) IDoc
13 11 (0.39%) Node.js
13 11 (0.39%) OAuth
13 11 (0.39%) React
14 10 (0.36%) Kafka
Miscellaneous
1 64 (2.28%) Onboarding
2 48 (1.71%) Data Protection Act
3 41 (1.46%) Security Posture
4 39 (1.39%) Legacy Systems
5 33 (1.18%) Product Ownership
6 30 (1.07%) Operational Technology
7 29 (1.03%) AI Agents
8 26 (0.93%) Data Structures
9 24 (0.86%) Data Centre
10 23 (0.82%) Cloud Native
10 23 (0.82%) Management Information System
11 21 (0.75%) Greenfield Project
11 21 (0.75%) NHS
12 19 (0.68%) CMDB
12 19 (0.68%) Life Science
13 16 (0.57%) Public Cloud
14 15 (0.54%) Replication
15 14 (0.50%) Algorithms
16 13 (0.46%) Analytical Mindset
16 13 (0.46%) Hybrid Cloud
Operating Systems
1 71 (2.53%) Windows
2 52 (1.86%) Linux
3 20 (0.71%) VMS
4 17 (0.61%) Solaris
4 17 (0.61%) Unix
5 16 (0.57%) AIX
6 8 (0.29%) Windows Server
7 5 (0.18%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
7 5 (0.18%) Windows 10
8 4 (0.14%) Mac OS
8 4 (0.14%) Ubuntu
8 4 (0.14%) zOS
9 3 (0.11%) Apple iOS
9 3 (0.11%) SUSE
10 2 (0.071%) Android
10 2 (0.071%) CoreOS
10 2 (0.071%) Data ONTAP
Processes & Methodologies
1 360 (12.85%) Migration
2 255 (9.10%) Problem-Solving
3 242 (8.64%) Stakeholder Management
4 241 (8.60%) Stakeholder Engagement
5 236 (8.42%) ERP
6 202 (7.21%) User Acceptance Testing
7 191 (6.82%) Workshop Facilitation
8 172 (6.14%) Continuous Improvement
9 166 (5.92%) Data Migration
10 161 (5.75%) Agile
10 161 (5.75%) Validation
11 148 (5.28%) Roadmaps
12 146 (5.21%) Cybersecurity
13 145 (5.17%) Analytics
14 142 (5.07%) Business Intelligence
15 132 (4.71%) AI
16 113 (4.03%) Change Management
17 111 (3.96%) DevOps
18 110 (3.93%) Translating Business Requirements
19 98 (3.50%) Knowledge Transfer
Programming Languages
1 209 (7.46%) SQL
2 111 (3.96%) Python
3 71 (2.53%) JavaScript
4 54 (1.93%) PowerShell
5 48 (1.71%) PL/SQL
6 35 (1.25%) T-SQL
7 31 (1.11%) ABAP
7 31 (1.11%) Java
8 21 (0.75%) C#
8 21 (0.75%) TypeScript
9 13 (0.46%) Bash
9 13 (0.46%) Search Processing Language
10 10 (0.36%) Shell Script
11 8 (0.29%) Data Analysis Expressions
11 8 (0.29%) Groovy
11 8 (0.29%) R
12 7 (0.25%) C++
12 7 (0.25%) Kusto Query Language
13 6 (0.21%) Apex Code
14 4 (0.14%) COBOL
Qualifications
1 524 (18.70%) Security Cleared
2 398 (14.20%) SC Cleared
3 105 (3.75%) DV Cleared
4 80 (2.86%) BPSS Clearance
5 67 (2.39%) Degree
6 64 (2.28%) CISSP
7 49 (1.75%) CISM
8 24 (0.86%) Cisco Certification
9 21 (0.75%) CIMA
10 19 (0.68%) (ISC)2 CCSP
10 19 (0.68%) CCSP
10 19 (0.68%) VMware Certified Professional (VCP)
11 13 (0.46%) Computer Science Degree
11 13 (0.46%) ITIL Certification
11 13 (0.46%) PMP
11 13 (0.46%) SAP Certification
12 11 (0.39%) ACCA
13 10 (0.36%) Azure Certification
13 10 (0.36%) CEH
13 10 (0.36%) Master's Degree
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 81 (2.89%) NIST
2 76 (2.71%) ISO/IEC 27001
3 67 (2.39%) Data Quality
4 53 (1.89%) GRC
5 44 (1.57%) GDPR
6 37 (1.32%) QA
7 25 (0.89%) NCSC
8 22 (0.79%) PCI DSS
9 20 (0.71%) PMO
9 20 (0.71%) SLA
10 18 (0.64%) Actionable Recommendations
11 15 (0.54%) Accessibility
11 15 (0.54%) Sarbanes-Oxley
12 14 (0.50%) JSP 440
13 13 (0.46%) COBIT
14 9 (0.32%) DICOM
14 9 (0.32%) GxP
14 9 (0.32%) HL7
15 7 (0.25%) RMADS
16 6 (0.21%) NIST 800
System Software
1 49 (1.75%) Active Directory
2 37 (1.32%) VMware NSX
3 36 (1.28%) VMware Infrastructure
4 24 (0.86%) vSphere
5 20 (0.71%) Docker
6 11 (0.39%) Virtual Machines
7 9 (0.32%) Hyper-V
7 9 (0.32%) Virtual Desktop
7 9 (0.32%) VMware ESXi
8 6 (0.21%) Slurm Workload Manager
9 4 (0.14%) IAG
10 3 (0.11%) NFS
11 1 (0.036%) BitLocker
11 1 (0.036%) HDFS
11 1 (0.036%) Job Entry Subsystem
Systems Management
1 54 (1.93%) Kubernetes
2 34 (1.21%) Terraform
3 27 (0.96%) vRealize
4 18 (0.64%) Ansible
5 17 (0.61%) Microsoft Intune
6 15 (0.54%) Nagios
6 15 (0.54%) ZABBIX
7 14 (0.50%) Netcool
7 14 (0.50%) Tivoli
8 13 (0.46%) OpenView
8 13 (0.46%) Tivoli Monitoring
9 11 (0.39%) Grafana
9 11 (0.39%) Prometheus
10 7 (0.25%) SCCM
10 7 (0.25%) Single Sign-On
11 6 (0.21%) Failover Clustering
11 6 (0.21%) NetBackup
11 6 (0.21%) Podman
11 6 (0.21%) vCenter Server
12 5 (0.18%) vRealize Orchestrator
Vendors
1 586 (20.91%) SAP
2 313 (11.17%) Oracle
3 309 (11.03%) Microsoft
4 89 (3.18%) VMware
5 79 (2.82%) ServiceNow
6 58 (2.07%) Ariba
7 54 (1.93%) Siemens
8 52 (1.86%) Workday
9 51 (1.82%) Salesforce
10 36 (1.28%) Splunk
11 30 (1.07%) Databricks
11 30 (1.07%) Google
12 25 (0.89%) BMC
13 22 (0.79%) IBM
14 19 (0.68%) Adobe
15 18 (0.64%) IFS
16 16 (0.57%) Palo Alto
16 16 (0.57%) Sage
16 16 (0.57%) SolarWinds
17 14 (0.50%) HP