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 25 September 2026.

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

6 months to
25 Sep 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 30 26 27
Rank change year-on-year -4 +1 +3
Contract jobs requiring a Consultant 3,250 2,309 2,596
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 5.92% 7.00% 6.76%
As % of the Job Titles category 6.42% 7.68% 7.27%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,841 1,370 1,407
10th Percentile £413 £411 £413
25th Percentile £463 £475 £475
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £550 £550 £550
Median % change year-on-year - - +0.92%
75th Percentile £650 £650 £650
90th Percentile £745 £750 £754
UK excluding London median daily rate £540 £550 £565
% change year-on-year -1.82% -2.65% +7.62%
Number of hourly rates quoted 57 25 24
10th Percentile £36.25 £28.32 £44.75
25th Percentile £45.00 £41.60 £56.24
Median hourly rate £76.00 £77.50 £61.60
Median % change year-on-year -1.94% +25.81% -2.22%
75th Percentile £86.11 £81.25 £69.77
90th Percentile £91.50 £87.40 £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 50,616 30,052 35,689
% of contract IT jobs with a recognized job title 92.25% 91.07% 92.95%
Number of daily rates quoted 29,900 18,989 21,757
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 £630 £625 £638
90th Percentile £731 £725 £750
UK excluding London median daily rate £500 £475 £500
% change year-on-year +5.26% -5.00% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 3,913 1,614 1,619
10th Percentile £14.50 £13.75 £14.84
25th Percentile £20.00 £17.30 £20.88
Median hourly rate £42.00 £25.15 £43.00
Median % change year-on-year +67.00% -41.51% -3.37%
75th Percentile £67.70 £51.65 £65.00
90th Percentile £78.95 £69.65 £75.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £42.50 £25.15 £43.90
% change year-on-year +69.02% -42.72% +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 25 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 25 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 25 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 2,585 £550 -0.45% 3,206
UK excluding London -7 1,368 £540 -1.82% 1,641
London -4 1,248 £550 -4.35% 1,766
Work from Home -4 1,076 £550 - 1,677
South East -7 378 £540 -1.82% 433
North of England -22 328 £575 - 404
Midlands -3 229 £500 -9.09% 222
North West -17 213 £581 -6.29% 237
South West +10 197 £550 -2.44% 195
West Midlands +2 165 £500 -9.09% 172
Scotland +29 133 £450 -10.00% 141
East of England -20 104 £550 - 126
Yorkshire -15 94 £575 +21.05% 87
East Midlands -6 59 £525 -4.55% 48
Wales -14 23 £550 +22.22% 31
North East -35 20 £750 +38.89% 80
Channel Islands -5 2 £600 - 2
Northern Ireland -8 2 £544 +4.57% 100

Consultant Skill Set
Top 30 Co-Occurring Skills & Capabilities

For the 6 months to 25 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.

1 703 (21.63%) Security Cleared
2 650 (20.00%) SAP
3 578 (17.78%) Stakeholder Management
4 479 (14.74%) SC Cleared
5 466 (14.34%) Microsoft
6 439 (13.51%) Migration
7 415 (12.77%) Oracle
8 318 (9.78%) Azure
9 307 (9.45%) Stakeholder Engagement
10 289 (8.89%) User Acceptance Testing
11 281 (8.65%) SAP S/4HANA
12 263 (8.09%) Problem-Solving
13 244 (7.51%) Validation
14 242 (7.45%) Workshop Facilitation
15 238 (7.32%) ERP
16 237 (7.29%) Cybersecurity
17 219 (6.74%) SQL
18 213 (6.55%) Analytics
19 209 (6.43%) Continuous Improvement
20 196 (6.03%) Roadmaps
21 195 (6.00%) Data Migration
22 187 (5.75%) Requirements Gathering
23 184 (5.66%) Agile
23 184 (5.66%) AWS
24 166 (5.11%) AI
25 159 (4.89%) Power Platform
26 152 (4.68%) Business Intelligence
26 152 (4.68%) Knowledge Transfer
26 152 (4.68%) Translating Business Requirements
27 151 (4.65%) DV Cleared

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 75 (2.31%) SharePoint
2 43 (1.32%) Confluence
3 32 (0.98%) Microsoft Exchange
4 10 (0.31%) Oracle Workflow
5 9 (0.28%) WebSphere
6 8 (0.25%) SAS
6 8 (0.25%) WebLogic
7 4 (0.12%) Apache
7 4 (0.12%) ArcGIS
7 4 (0.12%) CMS
8 3 (0.092%) Adobe Experience Manager
8 3 (0.092%) Apache Airflow
8 3 (0.092%) Apache Spark
8 3 (0.092%) NetWeaver
8 3 (0.092%) OpenStack
8 3 (0.092%) TIBCO ActiveMatrix
9 2 (0.062%) IIS
9 2 (0.062%) OpenEdge
9 2 (0.062%) Smallworld
9 2 (0.062%) Tomcat
Applications
1 49 (1.51%) Microsoft Excel
2 32 (0.98%) Microsoft Office
3 28 (0.86%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 9 (0.28%) MS Visio
5 7 (0.22%) Spreadsheet
6 4 (0.12%) Microsoft Project
7 2 (0.062%) Chatbot
8 1 (0.031%) 1Password
8 1 (0.031%) Adobe Captivate
8 1 (0.031%) Adobe Creative Suite
8 1 (0.031%) CPLEX
Business Applications
1 281 (8.65%) SAP S/4HANA
2 86 (2.65%) Oracle EBS
3 76 (2.34%) SAP FI
4 49 (1.51%) SAP PSCD
5 48 (1.48%) SAP Payroll
6 47 (1.45%) Oracle ERP
7 45 (1.38%) SAP CO
8 44 (1.35%) Oracle Payables
9 38 (1.17%) Workday HCM
10 37 (1.14%) Dynamics CRM
10 37 (1.14%) Oracle Receivables
11 36 (1.11%) SAP FI/CO
12 35 (1.08%) SAP HR
13 34 (1.05%) SAP SD
14 33 (1.02%) Oracle General Ledger
14 33 (1.02%) SAP BRIM
14 33 (1.02%) SAP HCM
15 30 (0.92%) SAP MM
16 29 (0.89%) NetSuite
16 29 (0.89%) SAP PP
Cloud Services
1 318 (9.78%) Azure
2 184 (5.66%) AWS
3 159 (4.89%) Power Platform
4 146 (4.49%) Dynamics 365
5 124 (3.82%) OCI
6 102 (3.14%) SuccessFactors
7 96 (2.95%) GCP
8 90 (2.77%) Microsoft 365
9 69 (2.12%) Entra ID
10 66 (2.03%) Power Automate
11 63 (1.94%) Azure DevOps
12 54 (1.66%) Microsoft Copilot
13 46 (1.42%) SaaS
14 34 (1.05%) PowerApps
15 29 (0.89%) Microsoft Purview
16 26 (0.80%) GitHub
17 20 (0.62%) Snowflake
18 18 (0.55%) Azure AI
19 17 (0.52%) Amazon S3
20 15 (0.46%) Azure Monitor
Communications & Networking
1 69 (2.12%) Network Security
2 68 (2.09%) Firewall
3 34 (1.05%) BGP
3 34 (1.05%) WAN
4 25 (0.77%) VPN
5 19 (0.58%) DNS
5 19 (0.58%) SNMP
6 15 (0.46%) LAN
7 14 (0.43%) Ethernet VPN
7 14 (0.43%) TCP/IP
8 12 (0.37%) SAN
8 12 (0.37%) VXLAN
9 11 (0.34%) IPsec
9 11 (0.34%) MPLS
9 11 (0.34%) NGFW
10 10 (0.31%) 3GPP
10 10 (0.31%) 5G
10 10 (0.31%) Radio Access Network
11 9 (0.28%) SD-WAN
12 8 (0.25%) X.509
Database & Business Intelligence
1 95 (2.92%) Power BI
2 54 (1.66%) Oracle Reports
3 40 (1.23%) Oracle BI Publisher
4 35 (1.08%) SAP BW
5 34 (1.05%) Data Warehouse
5 34 (1.05%) SAP HANA
6 29 (0.89%) Tableau
7 27 (0.83%) Metadata
7 27 (0.83%) SQL Server
8 21 (0.65%) BusinessObjects
9 17 (0.52%) Oracle Database
10 14 (0.43%) Power Query
11 10 (0.31%) Relational Database
12 9 (0.28%) DynamoDB
12 9 (0.28%) Oracle ODI
13 8 (0.25%) BigQuery
13 8 (0.25%) Elasticsearch
13 8 (0.25%) SAP Data Services
14 7 (0.22%) Amazon RDS
14 7 (0.22%) SQL Server Reporting Services
Development Applications
1 92 (2.83%) JIRA
2 27 (0.83%) Git
3 17 (0.52%) Jenkins
3 17 (0.52%) Oracle Forms
4 12 (0.37%) GitLab
5 8 (0.25%) Hudson
6 7 (0.22%) PowerBuilder
6 7 (0.22%) Zephyr
7 6 (0.18%) SonarQube
8 5 (0.15%) Cypress.io
8 5 (0.15%) Sonatype Nexus
9 4 (0.12%) MLflow
10 3 (0.092%) Browser DevTools
10 3 (0.092%) JDeveloper
10 3 (0.092%) JMeter
10 3 (0.092%) LoadRunner
10 3 (0.092%) Maven
10 3 (0.092%) Postman
10 3 (0.092%) Snyk
10 3 (0.092%) Toad
General
1 732 (22.52%) Finance
1 732 (22.52%) Social Skills
2 267 (8.22%) Public Sector
3 231 (7.11%) Analytical Skills
4 121 (3.72%) Manufacturing
5 98 (3.02%) Banking
6 90 (2.77%) Legal
7 80 (2.46%) Billing
8 79 (2.43%) Documentation Skills
9 66 (2.03%) Telecoms
10 57 (1.75%) Presentation Skills
11 56 (1.72%) Retail
12 55 (1.69%) General Ledger
13 49 (1.51%) Marketing
14 43 (1.32%) Influencing Skills
15 39 (1.20%) Inclusion and Diversity
16 38 (1.17%) Pharmaceutical
17 29 (0.89%) Local Government
18 25 (0.77%) Law
19 18 (0.55%) Financial Institution
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 127 (3.91%) Oracle Fusion
2 79 (2.43%) REST
3 61 (1.88%) Terraform
4 49 (1.51%) SAP Fiori
5 39 (1.20%) SOAP
5 39 (1.20%) XML
6 38 (1.17%) Middleware
6 38 (1.17%) Web Services
7 29 (0.89%) SailPoint
8 24 (0.74%) OAuth
9 23 (0.71%) JSON
10 21 (0.65%) LDAP
11 18 (0.55%) SAP PI
12 17 (0.52%) BAPI
12 17 (0.52%) HTML
12 17 (0.52%) SAP Basis
13 15 (0.46%) CSS
14 14 (0.43%) EDI
14 14 (0.43%) SAML
15 13 (0.40%) NETCONF
Miscellaneous
1 129 (3.97%) Onboarding
2 54 (1.66%) CMDB
3 48 (1.48%) Operational Technology
4 47 (1.45%) Data Centre
5 46 (1.42%) Data Structures
6 40 (1.23%) Security Posture
7 38 (1.17%) Product Ownership
8 37 (1.14%) Data Protection Act
9 35 (1.08%) Enterprise Software
10 29 (0.89%) Legacy Systems
11 27 (0.83%) Replication
12 26 (0.80%) AI Agents
13 25 (0.77%) Cloud Native
14 23 (0.71%) Life Science
15 22 (0.68%) Greenfield Project
16 18 (0.55%) Public Cloud
17 17 (0.52%) Hybrid Cloud
17 17 (0.52%) Management Information System
17 17 (0.52%) NHS
18 16 (0.49%) PKI
Operating Systems
1 97 (2.98%) Windows
2 75 (2.31%) Linux
3 27 (0.83%) Unix
4 23 (0.71%) Windows Server
5 21 (0.65%) Solaris
6 13 (0.40%) AIX
6 13 (0.40%) VMS
7 6 (0.18%) Android
7 6 (0.18%) Windows 10
7 6 (0.18%) Windows Server 2016
8 5 (0.15%) Apple iOS
8 5 (0.15%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
9 1 (0.031%) Kali Linux
9 1 (0.031%) Mac OS
9 1 (0.031%) OpenVMS
9 1 (0.031%) Windows Server 2012
9 1 (0.031%) zOS
Processes & Methodologies
1 578 (17.78%) Stakeholder Management
2 439 (13.51%) Migration
3 307 (9.45%) Stakeholder Engagement
4 289 (8.89%) User Acceptance Testing
5 263 (8.09%) Problem-Solving
6 244 (7.51%) Validation
7 242 (7.45%) Workshop Facilitation
8 238 (7.32%) ERP
9 237 (7.29%) Cybersecurity
10 213 (6.55%) Analytics
11 209 (6.43%) Continuous Improvement
12 196 (6.03%) Roadmaps
13 195 (6.00%) Data Migration
14 187 (5.75%) Requirements Gathering
15 184 (5.66%) Agile
16 166 (5.11%) AI
17 152 (4.68%) Business Intelligence
17 152 (4.68%) Knowledge Transfer
17 152 (4.68%) Translating Business Requirements
18 138 (4.25%) Project Delivery
Programming Languages
1 219 (6.74%) SQL
2 101 (3.11%) Python
3 59 (1.82%) ABAP
4 50 (1.54%) PowerShell
5 42 (1.29%) JavaScript
6 41 (1.26%) PL/SQL
7 29 (0.89%) Java
8 19 (0.58%) Bash
9 13 (0.40%) Data Analysis Expressions
9 13 (0.40%) Kusto Query Language
10 12 (0.37%) C#
11 10 (0.31%) Search Processing Language
12 9 (0.28%) T-SQL
12 9 (0.28%) TypeScript
13 7 (0.22%) R
14 6 (0.18%) Groovy
14 6 (0.18%) Shell Script
15 5 (0.15%) Korn
15 5 (0.15%) Perl
16 3 (0.092%) Scala
Qualifications
1 703 (21.63%) Security Cleared
2 479 (14.74%) SC Cleared
3 151 (4.65%) DV Cleared
4 114 (3.51%) BPSS Clearance
5 78 (2.40%) Degree
6 76 (2.34%) CISSP
7 59 (1.82%) CISM
8 44 (1.35%) Cisco Certification
9 32 (0.98%) (ISC)2 CCSP
10 28 (0.86%) CCSP
11 20 (0.62%) ACCA
12 17 (0.52%) CIMA
13 16 (0.49%) CRISC
14 14 (0.43%) AWS Certification
14 14 (0.43%) PMP
15 13 (0.40%) CompTIA Security+
16 10 (0.31%) Azure Certification
16 10 (0.31%) CISA
16 10 (0.31%) Computer Science Degree
16 10 (0.31%) ISO 27001 Lead Auditor
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 105 (3.23%) Data Quality
2 102 (3.14%) NIST
3 84 (2.58%) GRC
4 77 (2.37%) ISO/IEC 27001
5 57 (1.75%) QA
6 44 (1.35%) NCSC
7 38 (1.17%) GDPR
8 30 (0.92%) SLA
9 28 (0.86%) PMO
10 23 (0.71%) Actionable Recommendations
11 19 (0.58%) Accessibility
11 19 (0.58%) PCI DSS
12 17 (0.52%) Cyber Essentials
13 14 (0.43%) Sarbanes-Oxley
14 12 (0.37%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
15 11 (0.34%) NIST 800
16 10 (0.31%) GxP
17 9 (0.28%) IFRS
18 8 (0.25%) COBIT
18 8 (0.25%) WCAG
System Software
1 87 (2.68%) Active Directory
2 37 (1.14%) VMware Infrastructure
3 32 (0.98%) VMware NSX
4 18 (0.55%) vSphere
5 17 (0.52%) Docker
6 13 (0.40%) VMware ESXi
7 12 (0.37%) Hyper-V
8 11 (0.34%) IAG
9 10 (0.31%) Virtual Machines
10 8 (0.25%) Virtual Desktop
11 4 (0.12%) Firmware
12 2 (0.062%) BitLocker
12 2 (0.062%) PowerHA
13 1 (0.031%) HDFS
13 1 (0.031%) Oracle RAC
13 1 (0.031%) oVirt
13 1 (0.031%) ProxySG
13 1 (0.031%) RHEV
13 1 (0.031%) SRDF
13 1 (0.031%) Time Sharing Option
Systems Management
1 46 (1.42%) Kubernetes
2 32 (0.98%) Ansible
3 22 (0.68%) Microsoft Intune
4 21 (0.65%) SCCM
5 14 (0.43%) Grafana
6 13 (0.40%) vRealize
7 12 (0.37%) FortiGate
7 12 (0.37%) Single Sign-On
8 10 (0.31%) Nagios
8 10 (0.31%) vCenter Server
8 10 (0.31%) ZABBIX
9 9 (0.28%) Prometheus
10 8 (0.25%) Netcool
10 8 (0.25%) Tivoli
11 7 (0.22%) OpenView
11 7 (0.22%) Tivoli Monitoring
12 6 (0.18%) VxRail
13 4 (0.12%) CEMLI
13 4 (0.12%) NetBackup
13 4 (0.12%) vRealize Orchestrator
Vendors
1 650 (20.00%) SAP
2 466 (14.34%) Microsoft
3 415 (12.77%) Oracle
4 134 (4.12%) ServiceNow
5 79 (2.43%) Workday
6 73 (2.25%) VMware
7 60 (1.85%) Ariba
8 46 (1.42%) Salesforce
9 39 (1.20%) Databricks
10 38 (1.17%) Splunk
11 36 (1.11%) Palo Alto
12 29 (0.89%) Cisco
13 28 (0.86%) CyberArk
14 26 (0.80%) BMC
14 26 (0.80%) OpenText
15 25 (0.77%) IBM
16 23 (0.71%) Google
17 19 (0.58%) Zscaler
18 18 (0.55%) Adobe
18 18 (0.55%) Dell