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 21 September 2026.

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

6 months to
21 Sep 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 28 26 27
Rank change year-on-year -2 +1 +3
Contract jobs requiring a Consultant 3,233 2,261 2,598
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 5.95% 6.92% 6.77%
As % of the Job Titles category 6.45% 7.60% 7.28%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,820 1,330 1,419
10th Percentile £409 £412 £413
25th Percentile £463 £475 £475
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £550 £550 £550
Median % change year-on-year - - +0.09%
75th Percentile £650 £650 £650
90th Percentile £745 £750 £750
UK excluding London median daily rate £532 £550 £568
% change year-on-year -3.27% -3.08% +8.10%
Number of hourly rates quoted 57 26 24
10th Percentile £36.25 £28.52 £44.75
25th Percentile £45.00 £42.26 £56.24
Median hourly rate £76.00 £77.50 £61.60
Median % change year-on-year -1.94% +25.81% -5.23%
75th Percentile £86.11 £81.25 £69.77
90th Percentile £91.50 £87.38 £74.96
UK excluding London median hourly rate £76.25 £77.50 £61.60
% change year-on-year -1.61% +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 50,135 29,742 35,694
% of contract IT jobs with a recognized job title 92.25% 91.07% 92.98%
Number of daily rates quoted 29,651 18,759 21,938
10th Percentile £325 £278 £300
25th Percentile £425 £400 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £500 £525
Median % change year-on-year +5.00% -4.76% -0.94%
75th Percentile £627 £625 £638
90th Percentile £730 £725 £750
UK excluding London median daily rate £500 £475 £500
% change year-on-year +5.26% -5.00% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 3,860 1,586 1,659
10th Percentile £14.56 £13.75 £14.73
25th Percentile £20.25 £17.17 £20.30
Median hourly rate £42.50 £25.15 £43.00
Median % change year-on-year +68.99% -41.51% -3.37%
75th Percentile £67.84 £51.88 £65.00
90th Percentile £78.78 £70.00 £75.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £42.50 £25.13 £43.90
% change year-on-year +69.14% -42.76% +0.34%

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 21 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 21 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 21 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 -6 2,577 £550 - 3,205
UK excluding London -6 1,363 £532 -3.27% 1,621
London -3 1,239 £550 -4.35% 1,838
Work from Home -5 1,062 £550 - 1,673
South East -6 381 £540 -1.82% 409
North of England -22 321 £575 -1.71% 371
Midlands -3 224 £500 -9.09% 213
North West -15 210 £578 -6.85% 228
South West +13 206 £550 -5.58% 194
West Midlands -1 161 £500 -9.09% 175
Scotland +28 128 £453 -9.40% 135
East of England -16 103 £550 - 168
Yorkshire -17 89 £575 +21.05% 84
East Midlands -8 59 £525 -4.55% 37
Wales -13 24 £550 +22.22% 34
North East -31 21 £750 +38.89% 59
Channel Islands -5 2 £600 - 4
Northern Ireland -6 2 £544 +4.57% 108

Consultant Skill Set
Top 30 Co-Occurring Skills & Capabilities

For the 6 months to 21 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.

1 700 (21.65%) Security Cleared
2 653 (20.20%) SAP
3 561 (17.35%) Stakeholder Management
4 475 (14.69%) SC Cleared
5 462 (14.29%) Microsoft
6 436 (13.49%) Migration
7 417 (12.90%) Oracle
8 316 (9.77%) Azure
9 302 (9.34%) Stakeholder Engagement
10 281 (8.69%) SAP S/4HANA
10 281 (8.69%) User Acceptance Testing
11 258 (7.98%) Problem-Solving
12 241 (7.45%) Validation
13 239 (7.39%) Workshop Facilitation
14 237 (7.33%) ERP
15 234 (7.24%) Cybersecurity
16 220 (6.80%) SQL
17 207 (6.40%) Analytics
18 204 (6.31%) Continuous Improvement
19 195 (6.03%) Roadmaps
20 194 (6.00%) Data Migration
21 186 (5.75%) Agile
22 183 (5.66%) AWS
23 180 (5.57%) Requirements Gathering
24 166 (5.13%) AI
25 157 (4.86%) Power Platform
26 154 (4.76%) DV Cleared
27 149 (4.61%) Translating Business Requirements
28 147 (4.55%) Business Intelligence
28 147 (4.55%) Knowledge Transfer

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 73 (2.26%) SharePoint
2 40 (1.24%) Confluence
3 31 (0.96%) Microsoft Exchange
4 10 (0.31%) Oracle Workflow
5 9 (0.28%) WebSphere
6 8 (0.25%) SAS
6 8 (0.25%) WebLogic
7 5 (0.15%) ArcGIS
8 4 (0.12%) CMS
9 3 (0.093%) Adobe Experience Manager
9 3 (0.093%) Apache
9 3 (0.093%) Apache Airflow
9 3 (0.093%) Apache Spark
9 3 (0.093%) NetWeaver
9 3 (0.093%) OpenStack
9 3 (0.093%) TIBCO ActiveMatrix
10 2 (0.062%) IIS
10 2 (0.062%) Oracle Service Bus
10 2 (0.062%) Oracle SOA Suite
10 2 (0.062%) WordPress
Applications
1 50 (1.55%) Microsoft Excel
2 32 (0.99%) Microsoft Office
3 27 (0.84%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 8 (0.25%) MS Visio
5 7 (0.22%) Spreadsheet
6 4 (0.12%) Microsoft Project
7 2 (0.062%) Chatbot
8 1 (0.031%) Adobe Captivate
8 1 (0.031%) Adobe Creative Suite
8 1 (0.031%) CPLEX
Business Applications
1 281 (8.69%) SAP S/4HANA
2 88 (2.72%) Oracle EBS
3 75 (2.32%) SAP FI
4 48 (1.48%) Oracle ERP
4 48 (1.48%) SAP PSCD
5 45 (1.39%) Oracle Payables
6 44 (1.36%) SAP CO
7 41 (1.27%) SAP Payroll
8 37 (1.14%) Dynamics CRM
8 37 (1.14%) Oracle Receivables
9 35 (1.08%) SAP FI/CO
9 35 (1.08%) SAP SD
10 33 (1.02%) Workday HCM
11 32 (0.99%) Oracle General Ledger
11 32 (0.99%) SAP BRIM
11 32 (0.99%) SAP MM
12 31 (0.96%) SAP HR
13 30 (0.93%) NetSuite
13 30 (0.93%) SAP HCM
13 30 (0.93%) SAP PP
Cloud Services
1 316 (9.77%) Azure
2 183 (5.66%) AWS
3 157 (4.86%) Power Platform
4 144 (4.45%) Dynamics 365
5 123 (3.80%) OCI
6 100 (3.09%) SuccessFactors
7 97 (3.00%) GCP
8 89 (2.75%) Microsoft 365
9 69 (2.13%) Entra ID
10 66 (2.04%) Power Automate
11 63 (1.95%) Azure DevOps
12 54 (1.67%) Microsoft Copilot
13 44 (1.36%) SaaS
14 35 (1.08%) PowerApps
15 29 (0.90%) Microsoft Purview
16 26 (0.80%) GitHub
17 18 (0.56%) Azure AI
17 18 (0.56%) Snowflake
18 16 (0.49%) Amazon S3
19 15 (0.46%) Azure Monitor
Communications & Networking
1 68 (2.10%) Firewall
1 68 (2.10%) Network Security
2 35 (1.08%) WAN
3 34 (1.05%) BGP
4 25 (0.77%) VPN
5 20 (0.62%) SNMP
6 18 (0.56%) DNS
7 16 (0.49%) LAN
8 14 (0.43%) Ethernet VPN
8 14 (0.43%) TCP/IP
9 12 (0.37%) SAN
9 12 (0.37%) VXLAN
10 11 (0.34%) IPsec
10 11 (0.34%) MPLS
10 11 (0.34%) NGFW
11 10 (0.31%) 3GPP
11 10 (0.31%) 5G
11 10 (0.31%) Radio Access Network
11 10 (0.31%) SD-WAN
12 7 (0.22%) OSPF
Database & Business Intelligence
1 94 (2.91%) Power BI
2 55 (1.70%) Oracle Reports
3 37 (1.14%) Oracle BI Publisher
4 35 (1.08%) SAP BW
4 35 (1.08%) SAP HANA
5 34 (1.05%) Data Warehouse
6 28 (0.87%) SQL Server
7 27 (0.84%) Metadata
8 26 (0.80%) Tableau
9 20 (0.62%) BusinessObjects
10 17 (0.53%) Oracle Database
11 14 (0.43%) Power Query
12 13 (0.40%) Oracle ODI
13 11 (0.34%) Relational Database
14 8 (0.25%) BigQuery
14 8 (0.25%) DynamoDB
14 8 (0.25%) SAP Data Services
15 7 (0.22%) Amazon RDS
15 7 (0.22%) Looker
16 6 (0.19%) Elasticsearch
Development Applications
1 90 (2.78%) JIRA
2 26 (0.80%) Git
3 17 (0.53%) Oracle Forms
4 16 (0.49%) Jenkins
5 12 (0.37%) GitLab
6 9 (0.28%) Hudson
7 7 (0.22%) PowerBuilder
7 7 (0.22%) Zephyr
8 6 (0.19%) SonarQube
9 5 (0.15%) Cypress.io
9 5 (0.15%) Sonatype Nexus
10 4 (0.12%) MLflow
11 3 (0.093%) Browser DevTools
11 3 (0.093%) JDeveloper
11 3 (0.093%) LoadRunner
11 3 (0.093%) Maven
11 3 (0.093%) Postman
11 3 (0.093%) Snyk
11 3 (0.093%) TestRail
11 3 (0.093%) Toad
General
1 717 (22.18%) Social Skills
2 711 (21.99%) Finance
3 255 (7.89%) Public Sector
4 228 (7.05%) Analytical Skills
5 120 (3.71%) Manufacturing
6 95 (2.94%) Banking
7 85 (2.63%) Legal
8 79 (2.44%) Billing
9 78 (2.41%) Documentation Skills
10 66 (2.04%) Telecoms
11 58 (1.79%) Presentation Skills
12 56 (1.73%) Retail
13 54 (1.67%) General Ledger
14 47 (1.45%) Marketing
15 43 (1.33%) Influencing Skills
16 41 (1.27%) Inclusion and Diversity
17 38 (1.18%) Pharmaceutical
18 30 (0.93%) Local Government
19 25 (0.77%) Law
20 18 (0.56%) Financial Institution
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 128 (3.96%) Oracle Fusion
2 79 (2.44%) REST
3 62 (1.92%) Terraform
4 49 (1.52%) SAP Fiori
5 38 (1.18%) Middleware
6 37 (1.14%) SOAP
6 37 (1.14%) XML
7 35 (1.08%) Web Services
8 28 (0.87%) SailPoint
9 24 (0.74%) JSON
10 23 (0.71%) OAuth
11 21 (0.65%) LDAP
12 19 (0.59%) HTML
13 18 (0.56%) BAPI
13 18 (0.56%) SAP PI
14 17 (0.53%) CSS
14 17 (0.53%) SAP Basis
15 14 (0.43%) SAML
16 13 (0.40%) EDI
16 13 (0.40%) NETCONF
Miscellaneous
1 128 (3.96%) Onboarding
2 53 (1.64%) CMDB
3 49 (1.52%) Operational Technology
4 48 (1.48%) Data Centre
5 42 (1.30%) Data Structures
6 41 (1.27%) Security Posture
7 39 (1.21%) Product Ownership
8 37 (1.14%) Data Protection Act
9 35 (1.08%) Enterprise Software
10 30 (0.93%) Legacy Systems
11 26 (0.80%) AI Agents
12 25 (0.77%) Cloud Native
13 24 (0.74%) Replication
14 23 (0.71%) Life Science
15 22 (0.68%) Greenfield Project
16 18 (0.56%) NHS
16 18 (0.56%) Public Cloud
17 17 (0.53%) Hybrid Cloud
18 16 (0.49%) Management Information System
18 16 (0.49%) PKI
Operating Systems
1 96 (2.97%) Windows
2 73 (2.26%) Linux
3 25 (0.77%) Unix
4 21 (0.65%) Solaris
4 21 (0.65%) Windows Server
5 14 (0.43%) AIX
5 14 (0.43%) VMS
6 6 (0.19%) Android
6 6 (0.19%) Windows 10
6 6 (0.19%) Windows Server 2016
7 5 (0.15%) Apple iOS
7 5 (0.15%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
8 1 (0.031%) Mac OS
8 1 (0.031%) OpenVMS
8 1 (0.031%) Windows Server 2012
8 1 (0.031%) zOS
Processes & Methodologies
1 561 (17.35%) Stakeholder Management
2 436 (13.49%) Migration
3 302 (9.34%) Stakeholder Engagement
4 281 (8.69%) User Acceptance Testing
5 258 (7.98%) Problem-Solving
6 241 (7.45%) Validation
7 239 (7.39%) Workshop Facilitation
8 237 (7.33%) ERP
9 234 (7.24%) Cybersecurity
10 207 (6.40%) Analytics
11 204 (6.31%) Continuous Improvement
12 195 (6.03%) Roadmaps
13 194 (6.00%) Data Migration
14 186 (5.75%) Agile
15 180 (5.57%) Requirements Gathering
16 166 (5.13%) AI
17 149 (4.61%) Translating Business Requirements
18 147 (4.55%) Business Intelligence
18 147 (4.55%) Knowledge Transfer
19 133 (4.11%) Project Delivery
Programming Languages
1 220 (6.80%) SQL
2 107 (3.31%) Python
3 57 (1.76%) ABAP
4 54 (1.67%) PowerShell
5 45 (1.39%) JavaScript
6 44 (1.36%) PL/SQL
7 28 (0.87%) Java
8 17 (0.53%) Bash
9 13 (0.40%) Data Analysis Expressions
9 13 (0.40%) Kusto Query Language
10 12 (0.37%) C#
11 11 (0.34%) Search Processing Language
12 9 (0.28%) T-SQL
12 9 (0.28%) TypeScript
13 7 (0.22%) R
14 6 (0.19%) Groovy
14 6 (0.19%) Shell Script
15 5 (0.15%) Korn
15 5 (0.15%) Perl
16 3 (0.093%) Scala
Qualifications
1 700 (21.65%) Security Cleared
2 475 (14.69%) SC Cleared
3 154 (4.76%) DV Cleared
4 106 (3.28%) BPSS Clearance
5 76 (2.35%) Degree
6 75 (2.32%) CISSP
7 58 (1.79%) CISM
8 44 (1.36%) Cisco Certification
9 32 (0.99%) (ISC)2 CCSP
10 28 (0.87%) CCSP
11 20 (0.62%) ACCA
12 17 (0.53%) CIMA
13 15 (0.46%) CRISC
14 14 (0.43%) AWS Certification
14 14 (0.43%) PMP
15 13 (0.40%) CompTIA Security+
16 11 (0.34%) Azure Certification
17 10 (0.31%) CCIE
17 10 (0.31%) CISA
17 10 (0.31%) ISO 27001 Lead Auditor
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 103 (3.19%) Data Quality
2 100 (3.09%) NIST
3 81 (2.51%) GRC
4 72 (2.23%) ISO/IEC 27001
5 59 (1.82%) QA
6 42 (1.30%) NCSC
7 37 (1.14%) GDPR
8 29 (0.90%) SLA
9 26 (0.80%) PMO
10 23 (0.71%) Actionable Recommendations
11 19 (0.59%) Accessibility
11 19 (0.59%) PCI DSS
12 16 (0.49%) Cyber Essentials
13 12 (0.37%) Sarbanes-Oxley
14 11 (0.34%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
14 11 (0.34%) NIST 800
15 10 (0.31%) GxP
16 9 (0.28%) IFRS
17 8 (0.25%) SOC 2
17 8 (0.25%) WCAG
System Software
1 84 (2.60%) Active Directory
2 36 (1.11%) VMware Infrastructure
3 32 (0.99%) VMware NSX
4 18 (0.56%) vSphere
5 17 (0.53%) Docker
6 13 (0.40%) VMware ESXi
7 11 (0.34%) Hyper-V
7 11 (0.34%) IAG
8 10 (0.31%) Virtual Machines
9 8 (0.25%) Virtual Desktop
10 4 (0.12%) Firmware
11 2 (0.062%) BitLocker
11 2 (0.062%) PowerHA
12 1 (0.031%) HDFS
12 1 (0.031%) NFS
12 1 (0.031%) Oracle RAC
12 1 (0.031%) oVirt
12 1 (0.031%) RHEV
12 1 (0.031%) SRDF
12 1 (0.031%) Time Sharing Option
Systems Management
1 46 (1.42%) Kubernetes
2 32 (0.99%) Ansible
3 21 (0.65%) Microsoft Intune
3 21 (0.65%) SCCM
4 15 (0.46%) vRealize
5 14 (0.43%) Grafana
6 12 (0.37%) FortiGate
6 12 (0.37%) Single Sign-On
7 11 (0.34%) Nagios
7 11 (0.34%) ZABBIX
8 10 (0.31%) vCenter Server
9 9 (0.28%) Netcool
9 9 (0.28%) Prometheus
9 9 (0.28%) Tivoli
10 8 (0.25%) OpenView
10 8 (0.25%) Tivoli Monitoring
11 6 (0.19%) VxRail
12 4 (0.12%) CEMLI
12 4 (0.12%) NetBackup
12 4 (0.12%) vRealize Orchestrator
Vendors
1 653 (20.20%) SAP
2 462 (14.29%) Microsoft
3 417 (12.90%) Oracle
4 131 (4.05%) ServiceNow
5 75 (2.32%) VMware
6 70 (2.17%) Workday
7 61 (1.89%) Ariba
8 42 (1.30%) Salesforce
9 39 (1.21%) Databricks
9 39 (1.21%) Splunk
10 36 (1.11%) Palo Alto
11 30 (0.93%) Cisco
12 27 (0.84%) BMC
13 26 (0.80%) CyberArk
13 26 (0.80%) IBM
13 26 (0.80%) OpenText
14 24 (0.74%) Google
15 19 (0.59%) Adobe
15 19 (0.59%) Zscaler
16 18 (0.56%) Dell