Consultant Contract Job Trends

Consultant
UK

The median Consultant daily rate in the UK is £545, according to job vacancies posted in the 6 months leading up to 11 June 2026.

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

6 months to
11 Jun 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 28 28 24
Rank change year-on-year 0 -4 +11
Contract jobs requiring a Consultant 2,889 1,914 2,840
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 5.79% 6.52% 6.51%
As % of the Job Titles category 6.27% 7.06% 7.01%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,616 1,101 1,723
10th Percentile £400 £411 £400
25th Percentile £459 £475 £463
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £545 £550 £550
Median % change year-on-year -0.91% - -
75th Percentile £638 £638 £650
90th Percentile £726 £725 £750
UK excluding London median daily rate £525 £537 £550
% change year-on-year -2.23% -2.36% +0.69%
Number of hourly rates quoted 91 23 27
10th Percentile £36.25 £27.93 £27.00
25th Percentile £56.25 £39.05 £51.45
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 -
90th Percentile £86.00 £87.25 £72.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £57.50 £70.00 £56.89
% change year-on-year -17.86% +23.06% -13.15%

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 46,065 27,116 40,535
% of contract IT jobs with a recognized job title 92.33% 92.32% 92.89%
Number of daily rates quoted 28,032 17,461 26,079
10th Percentile £325 £288 £280
25th Percentile £413 £402 £408
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £513 £500 £525
Median % change year-on-year +2.55% -4.76% -2.60%
75th Percentile £621 £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 3,078 1,132 2,932
10th Percentile £15.13 £13.87 £12.86
25th Percentile £20.75 £17.79 £16.30
Median hourly rate £43.00 £27.70 £37.50
Median % change year-on-year +55.23% -26.13% -16.67%
75th Percentile £67.50 £57.50 £61.60
90th Percentile £80.00 £75.00 £73.75
UK excluding London median hourly rate £45.00 £25.15 £40.00
% change year-on-year +78.93% -37.13% -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 11 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 11 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 11 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 -2 2,305 £550 - 1,024
UK excluding London +4 1,218 £525 -2.23% 728
London -2 1,064 £550 -4.35% 426
Work from Home -3 1,022 £540 -1.82% 451
South East +2 343 £535 -2.73% 218
North of England -17 269 £550 +3.77% 216
Midlands -13 230 £525 -4.55% 70
South West +40 196 £550 - 121
West Midlands -3 154 £525 -4.55% 48
North West -14 135 £550 +0.92% 129
Yorkshire -1 112 £550 +15.79% 64
Scotland +24 79 £425 -8.11% 34
East of England -5 78 £550 +6.08% 42
East Midlands -12 67 £500 -9.09% 21
Wales +1 30 £550 +37.50% 12
North East -30 22 £725 +35.77% 24
Northern Ireland 0 3 £600 +15.38% 26

Consultant Skill Set
Top 30 Co-Occurring Skills & Capabilities

For the 6 months to 11 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.

1 599 (20.73%) SAP
2 538 (18.62%) Security Cleared
3 405 (14.02%) SC Cleared
4 371 (12.84%) Migration
5 333 (11.53%) Oracle
6 324 (11.21%) Microsoft
7 315 (10.90%) Azure
8 278 (9.62%) SAP S/4HANA
9 265 (9.17%) Stakeholder Management
10 260 (9.00%) Problem-Solving
11 259 (8.97%) Stakeholder Engagement
12 246 (8.52%) ERP
13 226 (7.82%) SQL
14 208 (7.20%) User Acceptance Testing
15 193 (6.68%) Continuous Improvement
16 185 (6.40%) Workshop Facilitation
17 180 (6.23%) Validation
18 169 (5.85%) Data Migration
19 159 (5.50%) Cybersecurity
20 156 (5.40%) Agile
21 152 (5.26%) Analytics
21 152 (5.26%) Roadmaps
22 148 (5.12%) Power Platform
23 142 (4.92%) Business Intelligence
23 142 (4.92%) Dynamics 365
24 141 (4.88%) AI
25 137 (4.74%) AWS
26 123 (4.26%) Change Management
27 122 (4.22%) Python
28 111 (3.84%) DevOps

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 79 (2.73%) SharePoint
2 45 (1.56%) Confluence
3 14 (0.48%) Oracle Workflow
4 13 (0.45%) Microsoft Exchange
5 6 (0.21%) Jupyter
6 5 (0.17%) Apache Spark
7 4 (0.14%) ArcGIS
7 4 (0.14%) WebSphere
8 3 (0.10%) Apache
8 3 (0.10%) Apache Superset
8 3 (0.10%) Cloud Foundry
8 3 (0.10%) Palantir Foundry
8 3 (0.10%) SAS
8 3 (0.10%) Tomcat
8 3 (0.10%) WebLogic
9 2 (0.069%) IIS
9 2 (0.069%) NetWeaver
10 1 (0.035%) Apache Airflow
10 1 (0.035%) Oracle Self-Service HR
10 1 (0.035%) WordPress
Applications
1 78 (2.70%) Microsoft Excel
2 25 (0.87%) Microsoft PowerPoint
3 20 (0.69%) Microsoft Office
4 6 (0.21%) MS Visio
4 6 (0.21%) Spreadsheet
5 5 (0.17%) PTC Creo
6 4 (0.14%) Chatbot
7 3 (0.10%) Microsoft Project
8 2 (0.069%) Lectora
8 2 (0.069%) Oracle Smart View
9 1 (0.035%) CATIA
9 1 (0.035%) Siemens NX
Business Applications
1 278 (9.62%) SAP S/4HANA
2 74 (2.56%) Oracle EBS
3 55 (1.90%) SAP FI
4 44 (1.52%) Oracle Payables
5 43 (1.49%) SAP PSCD
6 39 (1.35%) SAP MM
7 36 (1.25%) Oracle Receivables
8 33 (1.14%) SAP BRIM
9 31 (1.07%) SAP Travel Management
10 29 (1.00%) Dynamics CRM
10 29 (1.00%) SAP EWM
10 29 (1.00%) SAP SD
11 28 (0.97%) Oracle ERP
11 28 (0.97%) Teamcenter
12 26 (0.90%) SAP CO
12 26 (0.90%) SAP FI-CA
13 25 (0.87%) Oracle EBS R12
13 25 (0.87%) SAP FI/CO
14 22 (0.76%) SAP IBP
15 21 (0.73%) SAP PP
Cloud Services
1 315 (10.90%) Azure
2 148 (5.12%) Power Platform
3 142 (4.92%) Dynamics 365
4 137 (4.74%) AWS
5 96 (3.32%) OCI
6 89 (3.08%) Microsoft 365
7 73 (2.53%) GCP
8 69 (2.39%) SuccessFactors
9 67 (2.32%) Power Automate
10 56 (1.94%) SaaS
11 52 (1.80%) Entra ID
12 42 (1.45%) Azure DevOps
12 42 (1.45%) Microsoft Copilot
13 34 (1.18%) PowerApps
14 32 (1.11%) Microsoft Purview
15 31 (1.07%) GitHub
16 21 (0.73%) Copilot Studio
17 19 (0.66%) Serverless
18 15 (0.52%) Azure Data Factory
18 15 (0.52%) OneDrive
Communications & Networking
1 38 (1.32%) Network Security
2 36 (1.25%) Firewall
3 21 (0.73%) SNMP
4 16 (0.55%) SMS
5 15 (0.52%) DNS
6 13 (0.45%) SAN
7 12 (0.42%) LAN
7 12 (0.42%) WAN
8 11 (0.38%) VPN
8 11 (0.38%) VSAN
9 10 (0.35%) Software-Defined Networking
10 9 (0.31%) FTP
11 8 (0.28%) NAS
12 7 (0.24%) BGP
12 7 (0.24%) Intranet
12 7 (0.24%) SD-WAN
13 6 (0.21%) DHCP
13 6 (0.21%) HTTP
13 6 (0.21%) IPsec
13 6 (0.21%) NGFW
Database & Business Intelligence
1 86 (2.98%) Power BI
2 54 (1.87%) Oracle Reports
3 35 (1.21%) SAP HANA
4 31 (1.07%) Tableau
5 26 (0.90%) SQL Server
6 24 (0.83%) Metadata
7 23 (0.80%) Oracle BI Publisher
8 18 (0.62%) Oracle ODI
9 17 (0.59%) Data Warehouse
10 16 (0.55%) SAP BW
11 11 (0.38%) BusinessObjects
12 10 (0.35%) Power Query
13 9 (0.31%) Oracle Database
14 7 (0.24%) Electronic Patient Records
14 7 (0.24%) NoSQL
14 7 (0.24%) SAP Data Services
15 6 (0.21%) Crystal Reports
15 6 (0.21%) Relational Database
15 6 (0.21%) SQL Server Reporting Services
16 5 (0.17%) GIS
Development Applications
1 82 (2.84%) JIRA
2 19 (0.66%) Oracle Forms
3 16 (0.55%) Hudson
4 12 (0.42%) Git
4 12 (0.42%) Jenkins
5 8 (0.28%) GitLab
6 7 (0.24%) 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%) Toad
8 3 (0.10%) Browser DevTools
8 3 (0.10%) JDeveloper
8 3 (0.10%) Selenium
8 3 (0.10%) Visual Studio Code
9 2 (0.069%) git-flow
9 2 (0.069%) JUnit
9 2 (0.069%) Zephyr
10 1 (0.035%) LoadRunner
General
1 617 (21.36%) Social Skills
2 592 (20.49%) Finance
3 241 (8.34%) Analytical Skills
4 206 (7.13%) Public Sector
5 91 (3.15%) Banking
5 91 (3.15%) Manufacturing
6 73 (2.53%) Legal
7 68 (2.35%) Billing
8 55 (1.90%) Marketing
9 52 (1.80%) General Ledger
10 49 (1.70%) Documentation Skills
11 46 (1.59%) Telecoms
12 36 (1.25%) Retail
13 34 (1.18%) Inclusion and Diversity
14 32 (1.11%) Organisational Skills
15 30 (1.04%) Pharmaceutical
16 26 (0.90%) Presentation Skills
17 22 (0.76%) Influencing Skills
18 21 (0.73%) Law
19 17 (0.59%) Advertising
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 80 (2.77%) Oracle Fusion
2 72 (2.49%) REST
3 59 (2.04%) XML
4 31 (1.07%) SAP TM
5 30 (1.04%) Middleware
6 29 (1.00%) SAP Fiori
6 29 (1.00%) Web Services
7 26 (0.90%) BAPI
8 23 (0.80%) SOAP
9 19 (0.66%) HTML
10 17 (0.59%) JSON
11 16 (0.55%) .NET
11 16 (0.55%) CSS
11 16 (0.55%) SAP Basis
12 14 (0.48%) LDAP
13 12 (0.42%) OAuth
14 10 (0.35%) IDoc
14 10 (0.35%) Kafka
14 10 (0.35%) React
15 9 (0.31%) Elastic Stack
Miscellaneous
1 74 (2.56%) Onboarding
2 45 (1.56%) Security Posture
3 44 (1.52%) Data Protection Act
4 40 (1.38%) Legacy Systems
4 40 (1.38%) Product Ownership
5 32 (1.11%) Operational Technology
6 30 (1.04%) AI Agents
7 29 (1.00%) CMDB
8 25 (0.87%) Data Structures
9 23 (0.80%) Data Centre
9 23 (0.80%) Management Information System
10 22 (0.76%) Cloud Native
11 21 (0.73%) NHS
12 20 (0.69%) Life Science
13 19 (0.66%) Greenfield Project
14 17 (0.59%) Public Cloud
14 17 (0.59%) Replication
15 14 (0.48%) Algorithms
15 14 (0.48%) Enterprise Software
15 14 (0.48%) Self-Motivation
Operating Systems
1 80 (2.77%) Windows
2 64 (2.22%) Linux
3 21 (0.73%) Solaris
4 20 (0.69%) Unix
4 20 (0.69%) VMS
5 17 (0.59%) AIX
6 6 (0.21%) Windows Server
7 5 (0.17%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
7 5 (0.17%) Windows 10
7 5 (0.17%) zOS
8 4 (0.14%) Ubuntu
9 3 (0.10%) Android
9 3 (0.10%) Apple iOS
9 3 (0.10%) Mac OS
10 2 (0.069%) CoreOS
10 2 (0.069%) Data ONTAP
10 2 (0.069%) SUSE
11 1 (0.035%) Windows Server 2012
Processes & Methodologies
1 371 (12.84%) Migration
2 265 (9.17%) Stakeholder Management
3 260 (9.00%) Problem-Solving
4 259 (8.97%) Stakeholder Engagement
5 246 (8.52%) ERP
6 208 (7.20%) User Acceptance Testing
7 193 (6.68%) Continuous Improvement
8 185 (6.40%) Workshop Facilitation
9 180 (6.23%) Validation
10 169 (5.85%) Data Migration
11 159 (5.50%) Cybersecurity
12 156 (5.40%) Agile
13 152 (5.26%) Analytics
13 152 (5.26%) Roadmaps
14 142 (4.92%) Business Intelligence
15 141 (4.88%) AI
16 123 (4.26%) Change Management
17 111 (3.84%) DevOps
18 110 (3.81%) Translating Business Requirements
19 106 (3.67%) Requirements Gathering
Programming Languages
1 226 (7.82%) SQL
2 122 (4.22%) Python
3 67 (2.32%) JavaScript
4 58 (2.01%) PowerShell
5 50 (1.73%) PL/SQL
6 38 (1.32%) ABAP
7 34 (1.18%) T-SQL
8 33 (1.14%) Java
9 19 (0.66%) C#
10 15 (0.52%) Bash
11 13 (0.45%) Search Processing Language
12 11 (0.38%) Data Analysis Expressions
12 11 (0.38%) Kusto Query Language
12 11 (0.38%) Shell Script
13 10 (0.35%) TypeScript
14 7 (0.24%) C++
14 7 (0.24%) R
15 5 (0.17%) Apex Code
16 4 (0.14%) COBOL
16 4 (0.14%) Perl
Qualifications
1 538 (18.62%) Security Cleared
2 405 (14.02%) SC Cleared
3 103 (3.57%) DV Cleared
4 86 (2.98%) BPSS Clearance
5 71 (2.46%) CISSP
6 68 (2.35%) Degree
7 54 (1.87%) CISM
8 29 (1.00%) Cisco Certification
9 25 (0.87%) (ISC)2 CCSP
9 25 (0.87%) CCSP
10 24 (0.83%) CIMA
11 20 (0.69%) VMware Certified Professional (VCP)
12 16 (0.55%) PMP
13 15 (0.52%) CEH
14 14 (0.48%) ACCA
15 13 (0.45%) Azure Certification
15 13 (0.45%) ITIL Certification
16 12 (0.42%) Computer Science Degree
16 12 (0.42%) OSCP
17 11 (0.38%) SAP Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 87 (3.01%) NIST
2 75 (2.60%) ISO/IEC 27001
3 72 (2.49%) Data Quality
4 50 (1.73%) GRC
5 43 (1.49%) GDPR
6 42 (1.45%) QA
7 33 (1.14%) NCSC
8 27 (0.93%) PCI DSS
9 21 (0.73%) Actionable Recommendations
9 21 (0.73%) SLA
10 20 (0.69%) Accessibility
11 18 (0.62%) PMO
12 16 (0.55%) Sarbanes-Oxley
13 15 (0.52%) COBIT
14 11 (0.38%) GxP
14 11 (0.38%) JSP 440
15 8 (0.28%) WCAG
16 7 (0.24%) DICOM
16 7 (0.24%) GAAP
16 7 (0.24%) HL7
System Software
1 56 (1.94%) Active Directory
2 39 (1.35%) VMware Infrastructure
3 37 (1.28%) VMware NSX
4 25 (0.87%) vSphere
5 16 (0.55%) Docker
6 12 (0.42%) Virtual Machines
7 10 (0.35%) VMware ESXi
8 9 (0.31%) Hyper-V
9 8 (0.28%) Virtual Desktop
10 6 (0.21%) IAG
10 6 (0.21%) Slurm Workload Manager
11 4 (0.14%) NFS
12 2 (0.069%) BitLocker
13 1 (0.035%) HDFS
13 1 (0.035%) Job Entry Subsystem
13 1 (0.035%) Oracle RAC
13 1 (0.035%) ProxySG
13 1 (0.035%) SRDF
13 1 (0.035%) Time Sharing Option
Systems Management
1 50 (1.73%) Kubernetes
2 39 (1.35%) Terraform
3 30 (1.04%) vRealize
4 21 (0.73%) Ansible
5 18 (0.62%) Microsoft Intune
6 15 (0.52%) Nagios
6 15 (0.52%) ZABBIX
7 14 (0.48%) Netcool
7 14 (0.48%) Tivoli
8 13 (0.45%) OpenView
8 13 (0.45%) Tivoli Monitoring
9 11 (0.38%) Grafana
9 11 (0.38%) Single Sign-On
10 10 (0.35%) Prometheus
11 8 (0.28%) SCCM
12 7 (0.24%) vCenter Server
13 6 (0.21%) Failover Clustering
13 6 (0.21%) NetBackup
13 6 (0.21%) Podman
14 5 (0.17%) vRealize Orchestrator
Vendors
1 599 (20.73%) SAP
2 333 (11.53%) Oracle
3 324 (11.21%) Microsoft
4 94 (3.25%) ServiceNow
5 92 (3.18%) VMware
6 58 (2.01%) Ariba
7 54 (1.87%) Siemens
8 52 (1.80%) Workday
9 48 (1.66%) Salesforce
10 36 (1.25%) Splunk
11 32 (1.11%) Databricks
12 30 (1.04%) Google
13 26 (0.90%) BMC
14 24 (0.83%) IBM
15 20 (0.69%) Palo Alto
16 19 (0.66%) Adobe
17 16 (0.55%) Sage
17 16 (0.55%) SolarWinds
18 15 (0.52%) IFS
19 14 (0.48%) HP