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 1 June 2026.

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

6 months to
1 Jun 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 28 28 24
Rank change year-on-year 0 -4 +12
Contract jobs requiring a Consultant 2,821 1,919 2,764
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 5.76% 6.59% 6.43%
As % of the Job Titles category 6.25% 7.13% 6.93%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,567 1,120 1,716
10th Percentile £398 £411 £400
25th Percentile £457 £475 £463
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £550 £550 £550
75th Percentile £638 £638 £650
90th Percentile £725 £725 £750
UK excluding London median daily rate £533 £538 £550
% change year-on-year -0.93% -2.27% +1.62%
Number of hourly rates quoted 86 23 28
10th Percentile £38.75 £27.93 £27.13
25th Percentile £56.25 £39.05 £52.18
Median hourly rate £57.50 £70.00 £61.60
Median % change year-on-year -17.86% +13.64% -6.67%
75th Percentile £60.00 £86.00 £61.95
90th Percentile £85.63 £87.25 £71.50
UK excluding London median hourly rate £57.50 £70.00 £58.44
% change year-on-year -17.86% +19.78% -10.77%

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 45,172 26,906 39,903
% of contract IT jobs with a recognized job title 92.30% 92.35% 92.84%
Number of daily rates quoted 27,538 17,432 25,857
10th Percentile £325 £288 £280
25th Percentile £413 £405 £409
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £513 £505 £525
Median % change year-on-year +1.49% -3.81% -2.78%
75th Percentile £619 £625 £638
90th Percentile £725 £738 £750
UK excluding London median daily rate £500 £475 £488
% change year-on-year +5.26% -2.56% -2.50%
Number of hourly rates quoted 3,009 1,072 2,824
10th Percentile £15.05 £14.00 £12.83
25th Percentile £20.51 £17.87 £16.30
Median hourly rate £42.50 £28.00 £37.50
Median % change year-on-year +51.79% -25.33% -16.67%
75th Percentile £67.25 £59.23 £61.30
90th Percentile £78.80 £75.00 £73.75
UK excluding London median hourly rate £43.69 £25.32 £40.00
% change year-on-year +72.55% -36.70% -6.98%

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 1 June 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 1 June 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 1 June 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 2,247 £550 - 2,055
UK excluding London 0 1,190 £533 -0.93% 1,231
London -1 1,031 £550 -4.35% 972
Work from Home -2 998 £550 - 936
South East -2 339 £525 -4.55% 288
North of England -20 253 £550 +3.77% 423
Midlands -14 233 £525 -3.45% 128
South West +33 200 £600 +9.09% 201
West Midlands -3 155 £528 -4.09% 93
North West -24 124 £519 -4.38% 295
Yorkshire -12 108 £550 +15.79% 87
East of England -11 71 £550 +7.42% 60
Scotland +26 70 £410 -11.35% 64
East Midlands -13 69 £500 -3.85% 35
Wales +3 30 £550 +37.50% 16
North East -28 21 £725 +35.77% 41
Northern Ireland 0 3 £600 +15.38% 60

Consultant Skill Set
Top 30 Co-Occurring Skills & Capabilities

For the 6 months to 1 June 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.

1 580 (20.56%) SAP
2 524 (18.57%) Security Cleared
3 395 (14.00%) SC Cleared
4 367 (13.01%) Migration
5 321 (11.38%) Microsoft
6 319 (11.31%) Oracle
7 312 (11.06%) Azure
8 257 (9.11%) Problem-Solving
9 255 (9.04%) SAP S/4HANA
10 250 (8.86%) Stakeholder Engagement
11 243 (8.61%) ERP
12 235 (8.33%) Stakeholder Management
13 214 (7.59%) SQL
14 197 (6.98%) User Acceptance Testing
15 187 (6.63%) Workshop Facilitation
16 183 (6.49%) Continuous Improvement
17 169 (5.99%) Data Migration
17 169 (5.99%) Validation
18 158 (5.60%) Agile
19 151 (5.35%) Cybersecurity
20 148 (5.25%) Power Platform
21 146 (5.18%) Analytics
21 146 (5.18%) Roadmaps
22 145 (5.14%) Dynamics 365
23 141 (5.00%) Business Intelligence
24 133 (4.71%) AI
25 131 (4.64%) AWS
26 115 (4.08%) Change Management
27 111 (3.93%) DevOps
27 111 (3.93%) 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 80 (2.84%) SharePoint
2 45 (1.60%) Confluence
3 14 (0.50%) 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%) SAS
7 3 (0.11%) Tomcat
7 3 (0.11%) WebSphere
8 2 (0.071%) IIS
8 2 (0.071%) NetWeaver
8 2 (0.071%) WebLogic
9 1 (0.035%) Oracle Self-Service HR
9 1 (0.035%) WordPress
Applications
1 75 (2.66%) Microsoft Excel
2 25 (0.89%) Microsoft PowerPoint
3 19 (0.67%) Microsoft Office
4 6 (0.21%) MS Visio
4 6 (0.21%) Spreadsheet
5 5 (0.18%) PTC Creo
6 4 (0.14%) Chatbot
7 3 (0.11%) Microsoft Project
8 2 (0.071%) Lectora
8 2 (0.071%) Oracle Smart View
9 1 (0.035%) CATIA
9 1 (0.035%) Siemens NX
Business Applications
1 255 (9.04%) SAP S/4HANA
2 73 (2.59%) Oracle EBS
3 55 (1.95%) SAP FI
4 44 (1.56%) SAP PSCD
5 41 (1.45%) Oracle Payables
6 39 (1.38%) SAP MM
7 34 (1.21%) Oracle Receivables
8 32 (1.13%) SAP BRIM
9 31 (1.10%) Dynamics CRM
10 28 (0.99%) SAP EWM
10 28 (0.99%) SAP Travel Management
10 28 (0.99%) Teamcenter
11 27 (0.96%) SAP FI-CA
11 27 (0.96%) SAP SD
12 25 (0.89%) SAP CO
13 24 (0.85%) Oracle EBS R12
13 24 (0.85%) Oracle ERP
13 24 (0.85%) SAP FI/CO
13 24 (0.85%) SAP PP
14 21 (0.74%) Oracle Cash Management
Cloud Services
1 312 (11.06%) Azure
2 148 (5.25%) Power Platform
3 145 (5.14%) Dynamics 365
4 131 (4.64%) AWS
5 93 (3.30%) OCI
6 84 (2.98%) Microsoft 365
7 69 (2.45%) GCP
8 67 (2.38%) Power Automate
9 62 (2.20%) SuccessFactors
10 58 (2.06%) SaaS
11 49 (1.74%) Entra ID
12 43 (1.52%) Azure DevOps
13 41 (1.45%) Microsoft Copilot
14 34 (1.21%) PowerApps
15 31 (1.10%) GitHub
16 30 (1.06%) Microsoft Purview
17 21 (0.74%) Copilot Studio
18 20 (0.71%) Serverless
19 15 (0.53%) Azure Data Factory
19 15 (0.53%) OneDrive
Communications & Networking
1 37 (1.31%) Firewall
2 35 (1.24%) Network Security
3 21 (0.74%) SNMP
4 16 (0.57%) SMS
5 14 (0.50%) DNS
6 13 (0.46%) SAN
6 13 (0.46%) WAN
7 12 (0.43%) LAN
8 11 (0.39%) VPN
9 10 (0.35%) Software-Defined Networking
9 10 (0.35%) VSAN
10 9 (0.32%) FTP
11 8 (0.28%) NAS
11 8 (0.28%) SD-WAN
12 7 (0.25%) Intranet
13 6 (0.21%) HTTP
13 6 (0.21%) Kerberos
13 6 (0.21%) NGFW
13 6 (0.21%) VLAN
13 6 (0.21%) Wireless
Database & Business Intelligence
1 85 (3.01%) Power BI
2 53 (1.88%) Oracle Reports
3 32 (1.13%) SAP HANA
4 31 (1.10%) Tableau
5 25 (0.89%) SQL Server
6 24 (0.85%) Metadata
7 23 (0.82%) Oracle BI Publisher
8 17 (0.60%) Oracle ODI
9 15 (0.53%) SAP BW
10 14 (0.50%) Data Warehouse
11 9 (0.32%) BusinessObjects
12 8 (0.28%) Power Query
13 7 (0.25%) Electronic Patient Records
13 7 (0.25%) GIS
13 7 (0.25%) NoSQL
13 7 (0.25%) SQL Server Reporting Services
14 6 (0.21%) Crystal Reports
14 6 (0.21%) Oracle Database
14 6 (0.21%) Relational Database
14 6 (0.21%) SAP Data Services
Development Applications
1 79 (2.80%) JIRA
2 18 (0.64%) Oracle Forms
3 17 (0.60%) Hudson
4 12 (0.43%) Jenkins
5 9 (0.32%) Git
6 8 (0.28%) GitLab
7 7 (0.25%) Sonatype Nexus
8 4 (0.14%) Cypress.io
8 4 (0.14%) Oracle APEX
8 4 (0.14%) Postman
8 4 (0.14%) SonarQube
9 3 (0.11%) Browser DevTools
9 3 (0.11%) Toad
9 3 (0.11%) Visual Studio Code
10 2 (0.071%) git-flow
10 2 (0.071%) JDeveloper
10 2 (0.071%) JUnit
10 2 (0.071%) Selenium
11 1 (0.035%) MSTest
11 1 (0.035%) TeamCity
General
1 599 (21.23%) Social Skills
2 591 (20.95%) Finance
3 242 (8.58%) Analytical Skills
4 194 (6.88%) Public Sector
5 94 (3.33%) Banking
6 87 (3.08%) Manufacturing
7 65 (2.30%) Billing
8 62 (2.20%) Legal
9 57 (2.02%) Marketing
10 51 (1.81%) General Ledger
11 50 (1.77%) Documentation Skills
12 38 (1.35%) Telecoms
13 33 (1.17%) Organisational Skills
14 30 (1.06%) Inclusion and Diversity
15 29 (1.03%) Retail
16 28 (0.99%) Pharmaceutical
17 24 (0.85%) Presentation Skills
18 22 (0.78%) Influencing Skills
19 20 (0.71%) Law
20 17 (0.60%) Advertising
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 74 (2.62%) Oracle Fusion
2 71 (2.52%) REST
3 59 (2.09%) XML
4 29 (1.03%) SAP TM
5 28 (0.99%) Middleware
6 25 (0.89%) Web Services
7 23 (0.82%) SAP Fiori
8 22 (0.78%) BAPI
8 22 (0.78%) SOAP
9 18 (0.64%) HTML
9 18 (0.64%) JSON
10 17 (0.60%) .NET
11 16 (0.57%) SAP Basis
12 15 (0.53%) CSS
12 15 (0.53%) LDAP
13 12 (0.43%) OAuth
14 10 (0.35%) IDoc
14 10 (0.35%) Kafka
14 10 (0.35%) React
15 9 (0.32%) Elastic Stack
Miscellaneous
1 62 (2.20%) Onboarding
2 45 (1.60%) Data Protection Act
3 44 (1.56%) Security Posture
4 37 (1.31%) Legacy Systems
5 34 (1.21%) Product Ownership
6 32 (1.13%) Operational Technology
7 29 (1.03%) AI Agents
8 24 (0.85%) Data Centre
9 23 (0.82%) Data Structures
10 22 (0.78%) Cloud Native
10 22 (0.78%) CMDB
10 22 (0.78%) Management Information System
10 22 (0.78%) NHS
11 20 (0.71%) Greenfield Project
11 20 (0.71%) Life Science
12 17 (0.60%) Replication
13 16 (0.57%) Public Cloud
14 14 (0.50%) Algorithms
15 13 (0.46%) Hybrid Cloud
15 13 (0.46%) Security Operations Centre
Operating Systems
1 77 (2.73%) Windows
2 62 (2.20%) Linux
3 20 (0.71%) VMS
4 19 (0.67%) Solaris
5 17 (0.60%) AIX
6 16 (0.57%) Unix
7 6 (0.21%) Windows Server
8 5 (0.18%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
8 5 (0.18%) Windows 10
8 5 (0.18%) zOS
9 4 (0.14%) Ubuntu
10 3 (0.11%) Android
10 3 (0.11%) Apple iOS
10 3 (0.11%) Mac OS
10 3 (0.11%) SUSE
11 2 (0.071%) CoreOS
11 2 (0.071%) Data ONTAP
Processes & Methodologies
1 367 (13.01%) Migration
2 257 (9.11%) Problem-Solving
3 250 (8.86%) Stakeholder Engagement
4 243 (8.61%) ERP
5 235 (8.33%) Stakeholder Management
6 197 (6.98%) User Acceptance Testing
7 187 (6.63%) Workshop Facilitation
8 183 (6.49%) Continuous Improvement
9 169 (5.99%) Data Migration
9 169 (5.99%) Validation
10 158 (5.60%) Agile
11 151 (5.35%) Cybersecurity
12 146 (5.18%) Analytics
12 146 (5.18%) Roadmaps
13 141 (5.00%) Business Intelligence
14 133 (4.71%) AI
15 115 (4.08%) Change Management
16 111 (3.93%) DevOps
17 109 (3.86%) Translating Business Requirements
18 98 (3.47%) Workflow
Programming Languages
1 214 (7.59%) SQL
2 111 (3.93%) Python
3 67 (2.38%) JavaScript
4 53 (1.88%) PowerShell
5 49 (1.74%) PL/SQL
6 35 (1.24%) T-SQL
7 30 (1.06%) Java
8 28 (0.99%) ABAP
9 19 (0.67%) C#
10 13 (0.46%) Search Processing Language
10 13 (0.46%) TypeScript
11 12 (0.43%) Bash
12 10 (0.35%) Data Analysis Expressions
12 10 (0.35%) Kusto Query Language
13 9 (0.32%) Shell Script
14 8 (0.28%) R
15 7 (0.25%) C++
16 5 (0.18%) Apex Code
16 5 (0.18%) Groovy
17 4 (0.14%) Ruby
Qualifications
1 524 (18.57%) Security Cleared
2 395 (14.00%) SC Cleared
3 105 (3.72%) DV Cleared
4 80 (2.84%) BPSS Clearance
5 73 (2.59%) CISSP
6 65 (2.30%) Degree
7 55 (1.95%) CISM
8 27 (0.96%) Cisco Certification
9 23 (0.82%) (ISC)2 CCSP
9 23 (0.82%) CCSP
9 23 (0.82%) CIMA
10 19 (0.67%) VMware Certified Professional (VCP)
11 15 (0.53%) CEH
11 15 (0.53%) PMP
12 13 (0.46%) ACCA
12 13 (0.46%) ITIL Certification
13 12 (0.43%) Computer Science Degree
13 12 (0.43%) SAP Certification
14 11 (0.39%) Azure Certification
14 11 (0.39%) OSCP
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 84 (2.98%) NIST
2 75 (2.66%) ISO/IEC 27001
3 68 (2.41%) Data Quality
4 51 (1.81%) GRC
5 44 (1.56%) GDPR
6 38 (1.35%) QA
7 27 (0.96%) NCSC
8 26 (0.92%) PCI DSS
9 20 (0.71%) Actionable Recommendations
10 19 (0.67%) PMO
10 19 (0.67%) SLA
11 18 (0.64%) Accessibility
12 15 (0.53%) Sarbanes-Oxley
13 14 (0.50%) COBIT
14 13 (0.46%) JSP 440
15 10 (0.35%) GxP
16 7 (0.25%) DICOM
16 7 (0.25%) HL7
16 7 (0.25%) RMADS
16 7 (0.25%) WCAG
System Software
1 49 (1.74%) Active Directory
2 37 (1.31%) VMware Infrastructure
3 36 (1.28%) VMware NSX
4 25 (0.89%) vSphere
5 18 (0.64%) 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%) IAG
8 6 (0.21%) Slurm Workload Manager
9 4 (0.14%) NFS
10 1 (0.035%) BitLocker
10 1 (0.035%) HDFS
10 1 (0.035%) Job Entry Subsystem
10 1 (0.035%) Oracle RAC
10 1 (0.035%) ProxySG
10 1 (0.035%) SRDF
10 1 (0.035%) Time Sharing Option
Systems Management
1 52 (1.84%) Kubernetes
2 36 (1.28%) Terraform
3 27 (0.96%) vRealize
4 19 (0.67%) Ansible
5 17 (0.60%) Microsoft Intune
6 15 (0.53%) Nagios
6 15 (0.53%) ZABBIX
7 14 (0.50%) Netcool
7 14 (0.50%) Tivoli
8 13 (0.46%) OpenView
8 13 (0.46%) Tivoli Monitoring
9 10 (0.35%) Grafana
9 10 (0.35%) 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
1 580 (20.56%) SAP
2 321 (11.38%) Microsoft
3 319 (11.31%) Oracle
4 89 (3.15%) VMware
5 82 (2.91%) ServiceNow
6 63 (2.23%) Ariba
7 54 (1.91%) Siemens
8 52 (1.84%) Workday
9 49 (1.74%) Salesforce
10 36 (1.28%) Splunk
11 30 (1.06%) Databricks
11 30 (1.06%) Google
12 26 (0.92%) BMC
13 24 (0.85%) IBM
14 20 (0.71%) Palo Alto
15 17 (0.60%) Adobe
15 17 (0.60%) Sage
16 16 (0.57%) IFS
16 16 (0.57%) SolarWinds
17 14 (0.50%) HP