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 11 March 2026.

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

6 months to
11 Mar 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 28 27 25
Rank change year-on-year -1 -2 +19
Contract jobs requiring a Consultant 2,748 1,955 2,775
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 6.46% 6.63% 6.20%
As % of the Job Titles category 7.02% 7.13% 6.68%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,544 1,113 1,673
10th Percentile £400 £413 £400
25th Percentile £463 £488 £463
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £550 £550 £550
Median % change year-on-year - - -2.00%
75th Percentile £638 £650 £650
90th Percentile £716 £738 £725
UK excluding London median daily rate £540 £550 £549
% change year-on-year -1.82% +0.18% -0.18%
Number of hourly rates quoted 75 17 35
10th Percentile - £68.00 £33.50
25th Percentile £56.25 £72.50 £54.42
Median hourly rate £57.50 £85.00 £63.00
Median % change year-on-year -32.35% +34.92% -4.55%
75th Percentile £60.00 £86.25 £83.13
90th Percentile £78.25 £87.50 £90.25
UK excluding London median hourly rate £57.50 £83.75 £61.65
% change year-on-year -31.34% +35.86% -6.60%

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 39,127 27,402 41,559
% of contract IT jobs with a recognized job title 91.94% 92.96% 92.88%
Number of daily rates quoted 24,467 17,684 27,246
10th Percentile £312 £293 £270
25th Percentile £410 £406 £406
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £525 £525
Median % change year-on-year -4.76% - -4.55%
75th Percentile £613 £638 £638
90th Percentile £723 £738 £738
UK excluding London median daily rate £480 £475 £488
% change year-on-year +1.05% -2.56% -2.50%
Number of hourly rates quoted 2,427 859 2,507
10th Percentile £14.93 £15.62 £13.00
25th Percentile £19.00 £21.24 £16.25
Median hourly rate £35.00 £33.40 £32.69
Median % change year-on-year +4.79% +2.17% -22.84%
75th Percentile £65.00 £65.00 £60.00
90th Percentile £75.16 £76.44 £71.90
UK excluding London median hourly rate £34.95 £32.50 £32.70
% change year-on-year +7.52% -0.60% -18.26%

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 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 11 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 11 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 -2 2,161 £550 - 1,275
UK excluding London +2 1,150 £540 -1.82% 923
Work from Home 0 1,013 £525 -4.55% 631
London -5 982 £550 -4.35% 435
South East +3 331 £525 -8.70% 323
North of England -6 272 £578 +7.43% 192
Midlands -11 227 £550 +4.76% 99
West Midlands -1 170 £563 +7.14% 53
North West -1 153 £627 +16.45% 103
South West +19 143 £550 - 163
Yorkshire -1 110 £544 +2.35% 62
East of England -3 93 £525 -4.55% 73
East Midlands -22 53 £500 -3.15% 43
Scotland +21 51 £520 -5.45% 42
Wales +9 32 £447 -8.31% 28
Northern Ireland +3 10 £496 -5.48% 17
North East -23 9 £525 -4.55% 28

Consultant Skill Set
Top 30 Co-Occurring Skills & Capabilities

For the 6 months to 11 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.

1 645 (23.47%) Security Cleared
2 638 (23.22%) SAP
3 544 (19.80%) SC Cleared
4 385 (14.01%) Migration
5 335 (12.19%) SAP S/4HANA
6 303 (11.03%) Azure
7 301 (10.95%) Problem-Solving
8 291 (10.59%) Oracle
9 286 (10.41%) Microsoft
10 278 (10.12%) Stakeholder Engagement
10 278 (10.12%) Stakeholder Management
11 223 (8.11%) ERP
12 219 (7.97%) Workshop Facilitation
13 189 (6.88%) SQL
14 183 (6.66%) User Acceptance Testing
15 174 (6.33%) Agile
16 169 (6.15%) Analytics
17 164 (5.97%) Data Migration
18 159 (5.79%) Roadmaps
19 145 (5.28%) Business Intelligence
20 143 (5.20%) Knowledge Transfer
21 142 (5.17%) Dynamics 365
22 139 (5.06%) Validation
23 135 (4.91%) Continuous Improvement
24 134 (4.88%) Cybersecurity
25 120 (4.37%) Python
26 115 (4.18%) AI
27 111 (4.04%) AWS
27 111 (4.04%) Power Platform
28 109 (3.97%) Change 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 67 (2.44%) SharePoint
2 35 (1.27%) Confluence
3 26 (0.95%) Microsoft Exchange
4 7 (0.25%) Oracle Workflow
5 6 (0.22%) Jupyter
6 5 (0.18%) Apache Spark
6 5 (0.18%) MTS
6 5 (0.18%) Palantir Foundry
7 4 (0.15%) CMS
7 4 (0.15%) NetWeaver
8 3 (0.11%) ArcGIS
9 2 (0.073%) Adobe Experience Manager
9 2 (0.073%) Apache
9 2 (0.073%) Cloud Foundry
9 2 (0.073%) IIS
10 1 (0.036%) nginx
10 1 (0.036%) OpenStack
10 1 (0.036%) SharePoint 2010
10 1 (0.036%) Skype for Business
10 1 (0.036%) WebSphere
Applications
1 64 (2.33%) Microsoft Excel
2 20 (0.73%) Microsoft PowerPoint
3 12 (0.44%) Microsoft Office
4 9 (0.33%) MS Visio
5 7 (0.25%) Microsoft Project
6 5 (0.18%) PTC Creo
6 5 (0.18%) Spreadsheet
7 4 (0.15%) Oracle Smart View
8 2 (0.073%) Chatbot
8 2 (0.073%) Lectora
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
1 335 (12.19%) SAP S/4HANA
2 63 (2.29%) SAP FI
3 57 (2.07%) Oracle EBS
4 51 (1.86%) SAP MM
5 49 (1.78%) Oracle Payables
6 45 (1.64%) Oracle Receivables
7 39 (1.42%) Dynamics CRM
8 38 (1.38%) Oracle EBS R12
8 38 (1.38%) SAP PP
9 37 (1.35%) SAP CO
9 37 (1.35%) SAP HCM
10 35 (1.27%) SAP PSCD
11 34 (1.24%) SAP FI/CO
12 33 (1.20%) Oracle General Ledger
13 30 (1.09%) SAP Travel Management
14 29 (1.06%) Oracle Assets
14 29 (1.06%) SAP EWM
15 28 (1.02%) SAP Payroll
16 24 (0.87%) Oracle Procure-to-Pay
16 24 (0.87%) SAP BRIM
Cloud Services
1 303 (11.03%) Azure
2 142 (5.17%) Dynamics 365
3 111 (4.04%) AWS
3 111 (4.04%) Power Platform
4 100 (3.64%) OCI
5 81 (2.95%) GCP
6 76 (2.77%) Microsoft 365
7 66 (2.40%) SaaS
8 60 (2.18%) Entra ID
9 52 (1.89%) SuccessFactors
10 40 (1.46%) Power Automate
11 34 (1.24%) Azure DevOps
12 32 (1.16%) Microsoft Copilot
13 31 (1.13%) PowerApps
14 30 (1.09%) Microsoft Purview
15 24 (0.87%) GitHub
16 22 (0.80%) OneDrive
17 21 (0.76%) SAP Commerce Cloud
18 17 (0.62%) Azure Data Factory
19 16 (0.58%) Serverless
Communications & Networking
1 48 (1.75%) Firewall
2 18 (0.66%) Network Security
3 17 (0.62%) DNS
4 16 (0.58%) HTTP
4 16 (0.58%) VPN
5 15 (0.55%) WAN
6 13 (0.47%) Kerberos
6 13 (0.47%) SMS
6 13 (0.47%) VSAN
7 12 (0.44%) SD-WAN
8 11 (0.40%) LAN
9 10 (0.36%) DHCP
9 10 (0.36%) SAN
9 10 (0.36%) SSL
10 9 (0.33%) FTP
10 9 (0.33%) Software-Defined Networking
10 9 (0.33%) TCP/IP
11 8 (0.29%) Intranet
12 7 (0.25%) Cisco IPT
12 7 (0.25%) Internet
Database & Business Intelligence
1 78 (2.84%) Power BI
2 47 (1.71%) SAP HANA
3 46 (1.67%) Oracle Reports
4 29 (1.06%) SQL Server
5 25 (0.91%) Metadata
6 24 (0.87%) Oracle BI Publisher
7 12 (0.44%) Data Warehouse
7 12 (0.44%) NoSQL
8 11 (0.40%) PostgreSQL
8 11 (0.40%) SAP BW
8 11 (0.40%) SQL Server Reporting Services
8 11 (0.40%) Tableau
9 8 (0.29%) Oracle ODI
10 7 (0.25%) Electronic Patient Records
11 6 (0.22%) Data Mart
11 6 (0.22%) Essbase
11 6 (0.22%) GIS
11 6 (0.22%) MongoDB
11 6 (0.22%) Oracle Database
12 5 (0.18%) DB2
Development Applications
1 64 (2.33%) JIRA
2 16 (0.58%) Jenkins
3 13 (0.47%) Oracle Forms
4 11 (0.40%) Git
5 10 (0.36%) Hudson
6 7 (0.25%) GitLab
6 7 (0.25%) Oracle APEX
7 4 (0.15%) LSMW
8 3 (0.11%) Postman
9 2 (0.073%) Bitbucket
9 2 (0.073%) git-flow
9 2 (0.073%) JUnit
9 2 (0.073%) Rational DOORS
9 2 (0.073%) Rational Rhapsody
9 2 (0.073%) SonarQube
9 2 (0.073%) Sonatype Nexus
9 2 (0.073%) TeamCity
9 2 (0.073%) Tricentis qTest
10 1 (0.036%) PeopleTools
10 1 (0.036%) Toad
General
1 696 (25.33%) Social Skills
2 590 (21.47%) Finance
3 259 (9.43%) Public Sector
4 252 (9.17%) Analytical Skills
5 124 (4.51%) Manufacturing
6 96 (3.49%) Banking
7 74 (2.69%) Marketing
8 70 (2.55%) Documentation Skills
9 65 (2.37%) Legal
10 64 (2.33%) Billing
11 48 (1.75%) Telecoms
12 43 (1.56%) General Ledger
13 36 (1.31%) Presentation Skills
14 34 (1.24%) Organisational Skills
14 34 (1.24%) Retail
15 27 (0.98%) Law
16 24 (0.87%) Pharmaceutical
17 19 (0.69%) Aerospace
17 19 (0.69%) Electronics
18 17 (0.62%) Financial Institution
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 97 (3.53%) Oracle Fusion
2 68 (2.47%) REST
3 60 (2.18%) XML
4 55 (2.00%) SAP Fiori
5 49 (1.78%) Web Services
6 38 (1.38%) SAP TM
7 36 (1.31%) SOAP
8 27 (0.98%) BAPI
8 27 (0.98%) LDAP
9 23 (0.84%) Node.js
10 21 (0.76%) Middleware
11 18 (0.66%) JSON
12 17 (0.62%) .NET
12 17 (0.62%) SAP PI
13 16 (0.58%) IDoc
14 15 (0.55%) GraphQL
15 13 (0.47%) HTML
15 13 (0.47%) Kafka
15 13 (0.47%) SAP Basis
16 12 (0.44%) SAML
Miscellaneous
1 72 (2.62%) Onboarding
2 59 (2.15%) Legacy Systems
3 42 (1.53%) Product Ownership
4 37 (1.35%) Security Posture
5 33 (1.20%) Data Protection Act
6 30 (1.09%) Data Centre
7 26 (0.95%) Management Information System
7 26 (0.95%) Replication
8 24 (0.87%) Operational Technology
9 23 (0.84%) Cloud Native
10 22 (0.80%) Analytical Mindset
11 20 (0.73%) AI Agents
11 20 (0.73%) Data Structures
11 20 (0.73%) Greenfield Project
12 19 (0.69%) NHS
13 14 (0.51%) Hybrid Cloud
13 14 (0.51%) Life Science
13 14 (0.51%) Public Cloud
13 14 (0.51%) Self-Motivation
14 13 (0.47%) CMDB
Operating Systems
1 73 (2.66%) Windows
2 42 (1.53%) Linux
3 15 (0.55%) Unix
4 14 (0.51%) Windows Server
5 12 (0.44%) VMS
6 10 (0.36%) Windows 10
7 8 (0.29%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
8 7 (0.25%) AIX
9 6 (0.22%) Mac OS
10 5 (0.18%) Ubuntu
11 4 (0.15%) Solaris
11 4 (0.15%) zOS
12 3 (0.11%) Apple iOS
12 3 (0.11%) SUSE
13 2 (0.073%) CoreOS
13 2 (0.073%) Data ONTAP
13 2 (0.073%) SUSE Linux Enterprise Server
13 2 (0.073%) Windows Server 2003
13 2 (0.073%) Windows Server 2008
14 1 (0.036%) CentOS
Processes & Methodologies
1 385 (14.01%) Migration
2 301 (10.95%) Problem-Solving
3 278 (10.12%) Stakeholder Engagement
3 278 (10.12%) Stakeholder Management
4 223 (8.11%) ERP
5 219 (7.97%) Workshop Facilitation
6 183 (6.66%) User Acceptance Testing
7 174 (6.33%) Agile
8 169 (6.15%) Analytics
9 164 (5.97%) Data Migration
10 159 (5.79%) Roadmaps
11 145 (5.28%) Business Intelligence
12 143 (5.20%) Knowledge Transfer
13 139 (5.06%) Validation
14 135 (4.91%) Continuous Improvement
15 134 (4.88%) Cybersecurity
16 115 (4.18%) AI
17 109 (3.97%) Change Management
17 109 (3.97%) Risk Management
18 104 (3.78%) Data Modelling
Programming Languages
1 189 (6.88%) SQL
2 120 (4.37%) Python
3 80 (2.91%) JavaScript
3 80 (2.91%) PowerShell
4 69 (2.51%) ABAP
5 37 (1.35%) Java
6 29 (1.06%) T-SQL
7 28 (1.02%) TypeScript
8 23 (0.84%) PL/SQL
9 22 (0.80%) Groovy
10 16 (0.58%) C#
11 15 (0.55%) Bash
12 10 (0.36%) Shell Script
13 9 (0.33%) C++
14 7 (0.25%) Apex Code
14 7 (0.25%) Data Analysis Expressions
14 7 (0.25%) Kusto Query Language
15 6 (0.22%) Korn
16 4 (0.15%) Ruby
16 4 (0.15%) VBA
Qualifications
1 645 (23.47%) Security Cleared
2 544 (19.80%) SC Cleared
3 101 (3.68%) Degree
4 81 (2.95%) DV Cleared
5 62 (2.26%) BPSS Clearance
6 52 (1.89%) CISSP
7 34 (1.24%) CISM
8 31 (1.13%) VMware Certified Professional (VCP)
9 18 (0.66%) CIMA
9 18 (0.66%) Cisco Certification
9 18 (0.66%) Master's Degree
10 16 (0.58%) Computer Science Degree
11 15 (0.55%) ITIL Certification
11 15 (0.55%) Microsoft Certification
12 12 (0.44%) SAP Certification
13 8 (0.29%) CCNP
13 8 (0.29%) CEH
13 8 (0.29%) CESG Certified Professional
14 7 (0.25%) AWS Certification
14 7 (0.25%) CompTIA Security+
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 90 (3.28%) NIST
2 85 (3.09%) ISO/IEC 27001
3 68 (2.47%) GDPR
4 51 (1.86%) Data Quality
4 51 (1.86%) QA
5 43 (1.56%) GRC
6 23 (0.84%) NCSC
7 20 (0.73%) Actionable Recommendations
7 20 (0.73%) Sarbanes-Oxley
7 20 (0.73%) SLA
8 19 (0.69%) PCI DSS
9 18 (0.66%) PMO
10 13 (0.47%) COBIT
11 11 (0.40%) JSP 440
11 11 (0.40%) PERC
12 8 (0.29%) Cyber Essentials
12 8 (0.29%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
12 8 (0.29%) ISO/IEC 27005
13 6 (0.22%) Accessibility
14 5 (0.18%) ITGC
System Software
1 68 (2.47%) Active Directory
2 34 (1.24%) Docker
3 32 (1.16%) VMware Infrastructure
4 31 (1.13%) VMware NSX
5 26 (0.95%) vSphere
6 8 (0.29%) Hyper-V
7 7 (0.25%) Virtual Machines
8 6 (0.22%) Slurm Workload Manager
8 6 (0.22%) Virtual Desktop
9 5 (0.18%) NDS
9 5 (0.18%) NetIQ eDirectory
10 3 (0.11%) NFS
11 1 (0.036%) Ceph
11 1 (0.036%) IAG
11 1 (0.036%) Job Entry Subsystem
11 1 (0.036%) KVM
11 1 (0.036%) Microsoft App-V
11 1 (0.036%) QEMU
11 1 (0.036%) Terminal Services
11 1 (0.036%) VMware ESXi
Systems Management
1 51 (1.86%) Kubernetes
2 33 (1.20%) Terraform
3 31 (1.13%) vRealize
4 22 (0.80%) Microsoft Intune
5 17 (0.62%) Ansible
5 17 (0.62%) Single Sign-On
6 10 (0.36%) Failover Clustering
7 9 (0.33%) PingFederate
8 6 (0.22%) Active Directory Federation Services
8 6 (0.22%) Podman
9 5 (0.18%) SCCM
10 4 (0.15%) FortiGate
10 4 (0.15%) NetBackup
10 4 (0.15%) vCenter Server
11 3 (0.11%) CEMLI
11 3 (0.11%) Nagios
11 3 (0.11%) Puppet
11 3 (0.11%) Rancher
11 3 (0.11%) vMotion
11 3 (0.11%) vRealize Orchestrator
Vendors
1 638 (23.22%) SAP
2 291 (10.59%) Oracle
3 286 (10.41%) Microsoft
4 91 (3.31%) VMware
5 87 (3.17%) ServiceNow
6 55 (2.00%) Salesforce
7 54 (1.97%) CyberArk
8 53 (1.93%) Siemens
8 53 (1.93%) Workday
9 51 (1.86%) Cisco
10 45 (1.64%) Google
11 44 (1.60%) Ariba
12 37 (1.35%) Aruba
13 32 (1.16%) Adobe
14 24 (0.87%) Databricks
15 21 (0.76%) OpenText
16 18 (0.66%) Splunk
17 17 (0.62%) Sage
18 15 (0.55%) Murex
19 13 (0.47%) IBM