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 24 March 2026.

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

6 months to
24 Mar 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 28 28 23
Rank change year-on-year 0 -5 +20
Contract jobs requiring a Consultant 2,804 1,912 2,770
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 6.40% 6.56% 6.26%
As % of the Job Titles category 6.96% 7.06% 6.74%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,557 1,107 1,693
10th Percentile £400 £413 £400
25th Percentile £463 £488 £463
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £550 £550 £550
Median % change year-on-year - - -2.40%
75th Percentile £638 £644 £650
90th Percentile £713 £738 £738
UK excluding London median daily rate £537 £550 £537
% change year-on-year -2.36% +2.37% -2.32%
Number of hourly rates quoted 75 16 37
10th Percentile - £67.50 £36.50
25th Percentile £56.25 £70.89 £52.90
Median hourly rate £57.50 £83.75 £62.50
Median % change year-on-year -31.34% +34.00% -5.30%
75th Percentile £60.00 £86.06 £80.00
90th Percentile £76.45 £87.50 £90.25
UK excluding London median hourly rate £57.50 £82.50 £61.60
% change year-on-year -30.30% +33.93% -6.67%

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 40,297 27,081 41,111
% of contract IT jobs with a recognized job title 91.96% 92.96% 92.86%
Number of daily rates quoted 25,161 17,787 26,923
10th Percentile £313 £300 £275
25th Percentile £411 £406 £406
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £520 £525
Median % change year-on-year -3.85% -0.95% -4.37%
75th Percentile £613 £630 £638
90th Percentile £724 £738 £738
UK excluding London median daily rate £481 £475 £488
% change year-on-year +1.32% -2.56% -2.50%
Number of hourly rates quoted 2,500 900 2,514
10th Percentile £15.00 £15.20 £12.88
25th Percentile £19.34 £21.00 £16.25
Median hourly rate £36.70 £32.50 £32.50
Median % change year-on-year +12.92% - -24.42%
75th Percentile £65.00 £64.73 £60.00
90th Percentile £76.58 £76.34 £71.90
UK excluding London median hourly rate £36.71 £32.50 £32.50
% change year-on-year +12.94% - -21.53%

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 24 March 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 24 March 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 24 March 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 2,203 £550 - 1,280
UK excluding London +3 1,152 £537 -2.36% 866
Work from Home 0 1,032 £525 -4.55% 616
London -3 1,019 £550 -4.35% 571
South East +4 353 £537 -6.61% 285
North of England -12 237 £538 -0.09% 183
Midlands -7 232 £550 +4.76% 106
West Midlands +2 167 £563 +7.14% 51
South West +18 154 £550 -1.26% 158
North West -19 120 £538 -0.09% 114
Yorkshire -3 108 £544 +2.35% 60
East of England -4 95 £550 +2.33% 68
East Midlands -16 58 £500 -3.15% 54
Scotland +9 48 £520 -5.45% 35
Wales +8 32 £455 +1.06% 24
Northern Ireland +3 9 £405 -22.86% 15
North East -27 9 £525 -4.55% 11

Consultant Skill Set
Top 30 Co-Occurring Skills & Capabilities

For the 6 months to 24 March 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.

1 635 (22.65%) Security Cleared
2 603 (21.50%) SAP
3 537 (19.15%) SC Cleared
4 401 (14.30%) Migration
5 306 (10.91%) Azure
6 297 (10.59%) Microsoft
7 296 (10.56%) Problem-Solving
8 295 (10.52%) SAP S/4HANA
9 293 (10.45%) Oracle
10 284 (10.13%) Stakeholder Engagement
11 266 (9.49%) Stakeholder Management
12 227 (8.10%) ERP
13 206 (7.35%) Workshop Facilitation
14 202 (7.20%) SQL
15 188 (6.70%) User Acceptance Testing
16 178 (6.35%) Agile
17 172 (6.13%) Data Migration
18 167 (5.96%) Roadmaps
19 163 (5.81%) Analytics
20 149 (5.31%) Business Intelligence
21 146 (5.21%) Continuous Improvement
21 146 (5.21%) Cybersecurity
22 145 (5.17%) Validation
23 140 (4.99%) Dynamics 365
23 140 (4.99%) Knowledge Transfer
24 124 (4.42%) AI
24 124 (4.42%) Python
25 115 (4.10%) Power Platform
26 113 (4.03%) Change Management
27 110 (3.92%) Risk 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 69 (2.46%) SharePoint
2 39 (1.39%) Confluence
3 23 (0.82%) Microsoft Exchange
4 9 (0.32%) 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%) CMS
7 4 (0.14%) Palantir Foundry
8 3 (0.11%) ArcGIS
9 2 (0.071%) Apache Superset
9 2 (0.071%) Cloud Foundry
9 2 (0.071%) IIS
9 2 (0.071%) NetWeaver
9 2 (0.071%) Tomcat
10 1 (0.036%) nginx
10 1 (0.036%) Oracle Self-Service HR
10 1 (0.036%) SAS
10 1 (0.036%) WebSphere
Applications
1 68 (2.43%) Microsoft Excel
2 22 (0.78%) Microsoft PowerPoint
3 12 (0.43%) Microsoft Office
4 10 (0.36%) MS Visio
5 5 (0.18%) Microsoft Project
5 5 (0.18%) PTC Creo
6 4 (0.14%) Spreadsheet
7 3 (0.11%) Chatbot
8 2 (0.071%) Lectora
8 2 (0.071%) Oracle Smart View
9 1 (0.036%) Adobe XD
9 1 (0.036%) CATIA
9 1 (0.036%) InfoPath
9 1 (0.036%) Navisworks
9 1 (0.036%) Revit
9 1 (0.036%) Siemens NX
9 1 (0.036%) Windchill
Business Applications
1 295 (10.52%) SAP S/4HANA
2 63 (2.25%) SAP FI
3 60 (2.14%) Oracle EBS
4 51 (1.82%) Oracle Payables
5 46 (1.64%) Oracle Receivables
6 45 (1.60%) SAP MM
7 40 (1.43%) SAP HCM
8 38 (1.36%) Oracle EBS R12
9 37 (1.32%) Dynamics CRM
9 37 (1.32%) SAP PP
10 34 (1.21%) SAP CO
10 34 (1.21%) SAP PSCD
11 32 (1.14%) SAP FI/CO
12 30 (1.07%) Oracle Assets
12 30 (1.07%) Oracle General Ledger
12 30 (1.07%) SAP EWM
13 28 (1.00%) SAP Travel Management
14 25 (0.89%) Oracle Procure-to-Pay
14 25 (0.89%) SAP Payroll
15 23 (0.82%) Oracle Cash Management
Cloud Services
1 306 (10.91%) Azure
2 140 (4.99%) Dynamics 365
3 115 (4.10%) Power Platform
4 105 (3.74%) AWS
5 95 (3.39%) OCI
6 79 (2.82%) GCP
7 75 (2.67%) Microsoft 365
8 66 (2.35%) SaaS
9 63 (2.25%) SuccessFactors
10 57 (2.03%) Entra ID
11 42 (1.50%) Power Automate
12 36 (1.28%) Azure DevOps
13 32 (1.14%) PowerApps
14 31 (1.11%) Microsoft Copilot
14 31 (1.11%) Microsoft Purview
15 27 (0.96%) GitHub
16 22 (0.78%) OneDrive
17 19 (0.68%) Azure Data Factory
18 18 (0.64%) SAP Commerce Cloud
19 14 (0.50%) Serverless
Communications & Networking
1 39 (1.39%) Firewall
2 21 (0.75%) Network Security
3 14 (0.50%) VPN
3 14 (0.50%) VSAN
3 14 (0.50%) WAN
4 13 (0.46%) DNS
4 13 (0.46%) SMS
5 12 (0.43%) Kerberos
6 11 (0.39%) HTTP
6 11 (0.39%) LAN
6 11 (0.39%) SD-WAN
7 10 (0.36%) SAN
8 9 (0.32%) FTP
8 9 (0.32%) Software-Defined Networking
9 8 (0.29%) DHCP
9 8 (0.29%) Intranet
9 8 (0.29%) SSH
10 7 (0.25%) NAS
10 7 (0.25%) SSL
11 6 (0.21%) VLAN
Database & Business Intelligence
1 82 (2.92%) Power BI
2 51 (1.82%) Oracle Reports
3 38 (1.36%) SAP HANA
4 25 (0.89%) Metadata
4 25 (0.89%) SQL Server
5 22 (0.78%) Oracle BI Publisher
6 20 (0.71%) Tableau
7 12 (0.43%) SAP BW
8 10 (0.36%) Data Warehouse
8 10 (0.36%) NoSQL
8 10 (0.36%) Oracle ODI
8 10 (0.36%) SQL Server Reporting Services
9 8 (0.29%) Electronic Patient Records
10 7 (0.25%) Oracle Database
10 7 (0.25%) PostgreSQL
11 6 (0.21%) Data Lake
11 6 (0.21%) Data Mart
11 6 (0.21%) Essbase
11 6 (0.21%) GIS
11 6 (0.21%) SAP Data Services
Development Applications
1 71 (2.53%) JIRA
2 16 (0.57%) Jenkins
3 15 (0.53%) Hudson
3 15 (0.53%) Oracle Forms
4 10 (0.36%) Git
5 8 (0.29%) GitLab
6 7 (0.25%) Oracle APEX
7 4 (0.14%) LSMW
7 4 (0.14%) Sonatype Nexus
8 3 (0.11%) Postman
9 2 (0.071%) Bitbucket
9 2 (0.071%) git-flow
9 2 (0.071%) JUnit
9 2 (0.071%) Rational DOORS
9 2 (0.071%) Rational Rhapsody
9 2 (0.071%) Selenium
9 2 (0.071%) SonarQube
9 2 (0.071%) TeamCity
9 2 (0.071%) Visual Studio Code
10 1 (0.036%) Team Foundation Server
General
1 691 (24.64%) Social Skills
2 615 (21.93%) Finance
3 263 (9.38%) Analytical Skills
4 249 (8.88%) Public Sector
5 122 (4.35%) Manufacturing
6 100 (3.57%) Banking
7 76 (2.71%) Marketing
8 68 (2.43%) Legal
9 67 (2.39%) Documentation Skills
10 58 (2.07%) Billing
11 48 (1.71%) General Ledger
12 47 (1.68%) Telecoms
13 35 (1.25%) Retail
14 34 (1.21%) Organisational Skills
15 30 (1.07%) Presentation Skills
16 26 (0.93%) Law
17 25 (0.89%) Inclusion and Diversity
18 21 (0.75%) Pharmaceutical
19 20 (0.71%) Electronics
20 19 (0.68%) Advertising
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 96 (3.42%) Oracle Fusion
2 71 (2.53%) REST
3 61 (2.18%) XML
4 38 (1.36%) SAP Fiori
5 34 (1.21%) SOAP
6 33 (1.18%) Web Services
7 30 (1.07%) SAP TM
8 26 (0.93%) LDAP
9 22 (0.78%) Middleware
10 20 (0.71%) BAPI
10 20 (0.71%) Node.js
11 18 (0.64%) JSON
12 17 (0.61%) .NET
13 16 (0.57%) IDoc
13 16 (0.57%) SAP Basis
14 15 (0.53%) SAP PI
15 14 (0.50%) GraphQL
16 12 (0.43%) HTML
16 12 (0.43%) Kafka
17 11 (0.39%) EDI
Miscellaneous
1 71 (2.53%) Onboarding
2 56 (2.00%) Legacy Systems
3 45 (1.60%) Product Ownership
4 36 (1.28%) Security Posture
5 35 (1.25%) Data Protection Act
6 32 (1.14%) Replication
7 30 (1.07%) Management Information System
8 28 (1.00%) Data Centre
9 26 (0.93%) Operational Technology
10 24 (0.86%) Cloud Native
11 21 (0.75%) AI Agents
11 21 (0.75%) Data Structures
12 20 (0.71%) Analytical Mindset
12 20 (0.71%) Greenfield Project
13 19 (0.68%) NHS
14 18 (0.64%) Public Cloud
15 16 (0.57%) CMDB
16 14 (0.50%) Life Science
17 13 (0.46%) Hybrid Cloud
17 13 (0.46%) Self-Motivation
Operating Systems
1 79 (2.82%) Windows
2 45 (1.60%) Linux
3 16 (0.57%) Windows Server
4 15 (0.53%) Unix
5 14 (0.50%) VMS
6 11 (0.39%) Windows 10
7 10 (0.36%) AIX
8 6 (0.21%) Mac OS
8 6 (0.21%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
9 5 (0.18%) Ubuntu
10 4 (0.14%) Solaris
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
12 2 (0.071%) Windows Server 2003
12 2 (0.071%) Windows Server 2008
13 1 (0.036%) Android
13 1 (0.036%) CentOS
Processes & Methodologies
1 401 (14.30%) Migration
2 296 (10.56%) Problem-Solving
3 284 (10.13%) Stakeholder Engagement
4 266 (9.49%) Stakeholder Management
5 227 (8.10%) ERP
6 206 (7.35%) Workshop Facilitation
7 188 (6.70%) User Acceptance Testing
8 178 (6.35%) Agile
9 172 (6.13%) Data Migration
10 167 (5.96%) Roadmaps
11 163 (5.81%) Analytics
12 149 (5.31%) Business Intelligence
13 146 (5.21%) Continuous Improvement
13 146 (5.21%) Cybersecurity
14 145 (5.17%) Validation
15 140 (4.99%) Knowledge Transfer
16 124 (4.42%) AI
17 113 (4.03%) Change Management
18 110 (3.92%) Risk Management
19 108 (3.85%) DevOps
Programming Languages
1 202 (7.20%) SQL
2 124 (4.42%) Python
3 82 (2.92%) PowerShell
4 78 (2.78%) JavaScript
5 57 (2.03%) ABAP
6 35 (1.25%) Java
7 30 (1.07%) PL/SQL
7 30 (1.07%) T-SQL
8 26 (0.93%) TypeScript
9 20 (0.71%) Groovy
10 17 (0.61%) C#
11 14 (0.50%) Bash
12 11 (0.39%) Shell Script
13 10 (0.36%) C++
14 8 (0.29%) Apex Code
14 8 (0.29%) Data Analysis Expressions
15 7 (0.25%) Kusto Query Language
16 5 (0.18%) Korn
16 5 (0.18%) R
16 5 (0.18%) Search Processing Language
Qualifications
1 635 (22.65%) Security Cleared
2 537 (19.15%) SC Cleared
3 97 (3.46%) Degree
4 86 (3.07%) DV Cleared
5 58 (2.07%) BPSS Clearance
6 55 (1.96%) CISSP
7 36 (1.28%) CISM
8 30 (1.07%) VMware Certified Professional (VCP)
9 19 (0.68%) CIMA
9 19 (0.68%) Computer Science Degree
10 17 (0.61%) Cisco Certification
10 17 (0.61%) Master's Degree
10 17 (0.61%) Microsoft Certification
11 14 (0.50%) ITIL Certification
12 13 (0.46%) SAP Certification
13 8 (0.29%) CEH
13 8 (0.29%) CESG Certified Professional
13 8 (0.29%) CompTIA Security+
13 8 (0.29%) ITIL Foundation Certificate
14 7 (0.25%) (ISC)2 CCSP
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 92 (3.28%) NIST
2 87 (3.10%) ISO/IEC 27001
3 62 (2.21%) GDPR
4 54 (1.93%) Data Quality
5 49 (1.75%) QA
6 46 (1.64%) GRC
7 25 (0.89%) NCSC
8 23 (0.82%) PCI DSS
9 19 (0.68%) PMO
9 19 (0.68%) Sarbanes-Oxley
9 19 (0.68%) SLA
10 17 (0.61%) Actionable Recommendations
11 16 (0.57%) COBIT
12 13 (0.46%) JSP 440
13 11 (0.39%) PERC
14 10 (0.36%) ISO/IEC 27005
15 8 (0.29%) Accessibility
15 8 (0.29%) Cyber Essentials
15 8 (0.29%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
16 6 (0.21%) DICOM
System Software
1 65 (2.32%) Active Directory
2 33 (1.18%) VMware Infrastructure
2 33 (1.18%) VMware NSX
3 30 (1.07%) Docker
4 27 (0.96%) vSphere
5 9 (0.32%) Hyper-V
6 7 (0.25%) Virtual Desktop
6 7 (0.25%) Virtual Machines
7 6 (0.21%) Slurm Workload Manager
8 3 (0.11%) NFS
9 2 (0.071%) IAG
9 2 (0.071%) NDS
9 2 (0.071%) NetIQ eDirectory
9 2 (0.071%) VMware ESXi
10 1 (0.036%) Ceph
10 1 (0.036%) Job Entry Subsystem
10 1 (0.036%) KVM
10 1 (0.036%) QEMU
10 1 (0.036%) Terminal Services
Systems Management
1 49 (1.75%) Kubernetes
2 34 (1.21%) Terraform
3 33 (1.18%) vRealize
4 20 (0.71%) Microsoft Intune
5 17 (0.61%) Single Sign-On
6 13 (0.46%) Ansible
7 8 (0.29%) Failover Clustering
8 7 (0.25%) PingFederate
9 6 (0.21%) Nagios
9 6 (0.21%) Netcool
9 6 (0.21%) OpenView
9 6 (0.21%) Podman
9 6 (0.21%) SCCM
9 6 (0.21%) Tivoli
9 6 (0.21%) Tivoli Monitoring
9 6 (0.21%) ZABBIX
10 5 (0.18%) Active Directory Federation Services
10 5 (0.18%) NetBackup
11 3 (0.11%) Puppet
11 3 (0.11%) Rancher
Vendors
1 603 (21.50%) SAP
2 297 (10.59%) Microsoft
3 293 (10.45%) Oracle
4 96 (3.42%) VMware
5 91 (3.25%) ServiceNow
6 63 (2.25%) Salesforce
7 54 (1.93%) CyberArk
7 54 (1.93%) Workday
8 53 (1.89%) Siemens
9 48 (1.71%) Ariba
10 47 (1.68%) Google
11 44 (1.57%) Cisco
12 37 (1.32%) Aruba
13 27 (0.96%) Databricks
14 22 (0.78%) Splunk
15 21 (0.75%) Adobe
16 19 (0.68%) OpenText
17 16 (0.57%) IBM
17 16 (0.57%) Murex
17 16 (0.57%) Sage