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 15 October 2026.

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

6 months to
15 Oct 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 31 24 27
Rank change year-on-year -7 +3 +3
Contract jobs requiring a Consultant 3,279 2,404 2,580
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 5.93% 7.24% 6.85%
As % of the Job Titles category 6.45% 7.96% 7.37%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,828 1,388 1,365
10th Percentile £413 £411 £408
25th Percentile £463 £475 £469
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £550 £550 £550
75th Percentile £656 £653 £650
90th Percentile £750 £747 £750
UK excluding London median daily rate £550 £550 £563
% change year-on-year - -2.22% +7.14%
Number of hourly rates quoted 78 29 24
10th Percentile £36.25 £29.11 £45.38
25th Percentile £51.38 £44.23 £60.29
Median hourly rate £74.00 £77.50 £62.30
Median % change year-on-year -4.52% +24.40% -5.61%
75th Percentile £85.40 £81.25 £70.89
90th Percentile £89.13 £86.25 £74.96
UK excluding London median hourly rate £75.00 £77.50 £61.60
% change year-on-year -3.23% +25.81% -3.97%

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 50,841 30,184 35,017
% of contract IT jobs with a recognized job title 91.94% 90.90% 93.00%
Number of daily rates quoted 29,834 19,073 21,148
10th Percentile £325 £275 £300
25th Percentile £425 £400 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £500 £525
Median % change year-on-year +5.00% -4.76% -
75th Percentile £638 £623 £638
90th Percentile £738 £725 £738
UK excluding London median daily rate £500 £475 £490
% change year-on-year +5.26% -3.06% -2.00%
Number of hourly rates quoted 4,158 1,652 1,437
10th Percentile £14.31 £13.80 £15.09
25th Percentile £19.33 £17.30 £20.50
Median hourly rate £41.56 £25.15 £41.27
Median % change year-on-year +65.23% -39.05% -8.30%
75th Percentile £67.50 £50.00 £65.00
90th Percentile £79.30 £68.52 £73.75
UK excluding London median hourly rate £41.06 £25.00 £42.50
% change year-on-year +64.24% -41.18% -4.49%

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 15 October 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 15 October 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 15 October 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 -5 2,633 £550 -2.22% 502
UK excluding London -10 1,349 £550 - 352
London -3 1,288 £550 -4.35% 210
Work from Home -6 1,046 £550 - 294
South East -3 383 £533 -3.18% 119
North of England -18 349 £575 -4.17% 103
North West -17 227 £585 -6.02% 51
Midlands -8 220 £501 -12.00% 31
South West +5 185 £600 +9.09% 58
West Midlands -5 161 £500 -11.11% 24
Scotland +12 114 £500 - 21
East of England -17 108 £552 +0.36% 19
Yorkshire -23 91 £563 +14.33% 17
East Midlands -10 52 £550 -3.30% 7
North East -12 30 £750 +36.36% 35
Wales -25 19 £575 +27.78% 6
Channel Islands -4 2 £600 - 1
Northern Ireland -11 1 £638 +22.60% 4

Consultant Skill Set
Top 30 Co-Occurring Skills & Capabilities

For the 6 months to 15 October 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.

1 718 (21.90%) Security Cleared
2 662 (20.19%) SAP
3 634 (19.34%) Stakeholder Management
4 504 (15.37%) Microsoft
5 487 (14.85%) SC Cleared
6 457 (13.94%) Migration
7 381 (11.62%) Oracle
8 341 (10.40%) Azure
9 300 (9.15%) SAP S/4HANA
9 300 (9.15%) Stakeholder Engagement
9 300 (9.15%) User Acceptance Testing
10 292 (8.91%) Problem-Solving
11 268 (8.17%) Workshop Facilitation
12 266 (8.11%) Validation
13 260 (7.93%) Cybersecurity
14 233 (7.11%) ERP
15 231 (7.04%) Analytics
16 209 (6.37%) SQL
17 208 (6.34%) Data Migration
18 203 (6.19%) Roadmaps
19 201 (6.13%) Requirements Gathering
20 199 (6.07%) Continuous Improvement
21 181 (5.52%) Agile
22 179 (5.46%) AI
23 172 (5.25%) Knowledge Transfer
24 166 (5.06%) AWS
25 154 (4.70%) DV Cleared
25 154 (4.70%) Power Platform
26 153 (4.67%) Business Intelligence
27 143 (4.36%) Dynamics 365

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 72 (2.20%) SharePoint
2 47 (1.43%) Confluence
3 31 (0.95%) Microsoft Exchange
4 8 (0.24%) SAS
4 8 (0.24%) WebSphere
5 7 (0.21%) WebLogic
6 6 (0.18%) Apache Airflow
7 5 (0.15%) Oracle Workflow
8 4 (0.12%) Apache
8 4 (0.12%) ArcGIS
8 4 (0.12%) CMS
9 3 (0.091%) Adobe Experience Manager
9 3 (0.091%) Apache Spark
9 3 (0.091%) IIS
9 3 (0.091%) NetWeaver
9 3 (0.091%) OpenEdge
9 3 (0.091%) OpenStack
9 3 (0.091%) Oracle SOA Suite
9 3 (0.091%) SAP Portal
9 3 (0.091%) TIBCO ActiveMatrix
Applications
1 52 (1.59%) Microsoft Excel
2 33 (1.01%) Microsoft Office
3 29 (0.88%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 9 (0.27%) MS Visio
5 7 (0.21%) Spreadsheet
6 4 (0.12%) Microsoft Project
7 3 (0.091%) PTC Creo
8 1 (0.030%) 1Password
8 1 (0.030%) Adobe Captivate
8 1 (0.030%) Adobe Creative Suite
8 1 (0.030%) Chatbot
8 1 (0.030%) CPLEX
8 1 (0.030%) Windchill
Business Applications
1 300 (9.15%) SAP S/4HANA
2 83 (2.53%) Oracle EBS
3 82 (2.50%) SAP FI
4 60 (1.83%) SAP Payroll
5 50 (1.52%) SAP PSCD
6 48 (1.46%) Oracle ERP
7 47 (1.43%) SAP HCM
8 45 (1.37%) SAP CO
9 43 (1.31%) Oracle General Ledger
9 43 (1.31%) Oracle Receivables
10 42 (1.28%) Oracle Payables
11 40 (1.22%) Workday HCM
12 39 (1.19%) SAP HR
13 36 (1.10%) SAP FI/CO
14 35 (1.07%) SAP BRIM
14 35 (1.07%) SAP SD
15 34 (1.04%) Dynamics CRM
16 28 (0.85%) SAP FI-CA
17 27 (0.82%) SAP MM
17 27 (0.82%) SAP PP
Cloud Services
1 341 (10.40%) Azure
2 166 (5.06%) AWS
3 154 (4.70%) Power Platform
4 143 (4.36%) Dynamics 365
5 109 (3.32%) OCI
6 105 (3.20%) SuccessFactors
7 96 (2.93%) GCP
7 96 (2.93%) Microsoft 365
8 82 (2.50%) Entra ID
9 69 (2.10%) Azure DevOps
10 58 (1.77%) Power Automate
11 55 (1.68%) Microsoft Copilot
12 51 (1.56%) SaaS
13 34 (1.04%) PowerApps
14 31 (0.95%) Microsoft Purview
15 26 (0.79%) GitHub
16 23 (0.70%) Snowflake
17 22 (0.67%) Azure AI
18 18 (0.55%) Azure Logic Apps
19 17 (0.52%) SAP Commerce Cloud
Communications & Networking
1 72 (2.20%) Network Security
2 70 (2.13%) Firewall
3 34 (1.04%) BGP
4 33 (1.01%) WAN
5 26 (0.79%) VPN
6 19 (0.58%) DNS
7 15 (0.46%) LAN
7 15 (0.46%) SNMP
8 14 (0.43%) Ethernet VPN
9 13 (0.40%) IPsec
9 13 (0.40%) SAN
9 13 (0.40%) TCP/IP
10 12 (0.37%) VXLAN
11 11 (0.34%) MPLS
11 11 (0.34%) NGFW
12 10 (0.30%) 3GPP
12 10 (0.30%) 5G
12 10 (0.30%) FTP
12 10 (0.30%) Radio Access Network
13 9 (0.27%) X.509
Database & Business Intelligence
1 94 (2.87%) Power BI
2 41 (1.25%) Oracle Reports
3 39 (1.19%) Oracle BI Publisher
4 36 (1.10%) Data Warehouse
5 34 (1.04%) SAP HANA
6 33 (1.01%) SAP BW
7 29 (0.88%) SQL Server
8 27 (0.82%) Metadata
9 23 (0.70%) Tableau
10 22 (0.67%) BusinessObjects
11 20 (0.61%) Power Query
12 17 (0.52%) Oracle Database
13 13 (0.40%) Elasticsearch
14 11 (0.34%) BigQuery
15 10 (0.30%) Amazon RDS
15 10 (0.30%) Relational Database
16 8 (0.24%) DynamoDB
16 8 (0.24%) SAP Data Services
17 7 (0.21%) Data Lake
17 7 (0.21%) Looker
Development Applications
1 94 (2.87%) JIRA
2 34 (1.04%) Git
3 19 (0.58%) Jenkins
4 13 (0.40%) GitLab
5 10 (0.30%) Oracle Forms
6 7 (0.21%) PowerBuilder
6 7 (0.21%) SonarQube
6 7 (0.21%) Zephyr
7 6 (0.18%) Sonatype Nexus
8 5 (0.15%) Cypress.io
8 5 (0.15%) Hudson
9 4 (0.12%) Browser DevTools
9 4 (0.12%) Maven
10 3 (0.091%) JDeveloper
10 3 (0.091%) JMeter
10 3 (0.091%) LSMW
10 3 (0.091%) MLflow
10 3 (0.091%) Postman
10 3 (0.091%) Snyk
10 3 (0.091%) TestRail
General
1 767 (23.39%) Social Skills
2 744 (22.69%) Finance
3 271 (8.26%) Public Sector
4 250 (7.62%) Analytical Skills
5 146 (4.45%) Manufacturing
6 102 (3.11%) Banking
7 96 (2.93%) Legal
8 91 (2.78%) Billing
9 88 (2.68%) Documentation Skills
10 70 (2.13%) Telecoms
11 64 (1.95%) General Ledger
12 60 (1.83%) Retail
13 55 (1.68%) Presentation Skills
14 45 (1.37%) Marketing
15 40 (1.22%) Influencing Skills
16 38 (1.16%) Inclusion and Diversity
17 36 (1.10%) Pharmaceutical
18 33 (1.01%) Local Government
19 25 (0.76%) Law
20 23 (0.70%) Aerospace
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 129 (3.93%) Oracle Fusion
2 70 (2.13%) REST
3 65 (1.98%) Terraform
4 46 (1.40%) SAP Fiori
5 41 (1.25%) Web Services
6 39 (1.19%) Middleware
7 36 (1.10%) SOAP
8 34 (1.04%) XML
9 26 (0.79%) SailPoint
10 22 (0.67%) OAuth
11 20 (0.61%) LDAP
12 19 (0.58%) JSON
13 18 (0.55%) SAP PI
14 16 (0.49%) BAPI
15 15 (0.46%) ADO
15 15 (0.46%) HTML
16 14 (0.43%) SAPUI5
17 13 (0.40%) CSS
17 13 (0.40%) NETCONF
17 13 (0.40%) YANG
Miscellaneous
1 143 (4.36%) Onboarding
2 53 (1.62%) CMDB
2 53 (1.62%) Data Structures
3 51 (1.56%) Operational Technology
4 50 (1.52%) Data Centre
5 45 (1.37%) Enterprise Software
6 40 (1.22%) Product Ownership
7 33 (1.01%) Security Posture
8 32 (0.98%) Cloud Native
9 30 (0.91%) AI Agents
9 30 (0.91%) Data Protection Act
9 30 (0.91%) Replication
10 29 (0.88%) Legacy Systems
11 25 (0.76%) Public Cloud
12 23 (0.70%) Greenfield Project
12 23 (0.70%) Management Information System
13 21 (0.64%) Life Science
14 19 (0.58%) Hybrid Cloud
15 17 (0.52%) NHS
16 16 (0.49%) PKI
Operating Systems
1 103 (3.14%) Windows
2 72 (2.20%) Linux
3 30 (0.91%) Unix
3 30 (0.91%) Windows Server
4 14 (0.43%) Solaris
5 13 (0.40%) VMS
6 10 (0.30%) Windows 10
7 9 (0.27%) AIX
8 8 (0.24%) Android
8 8 (0.24%) Apple iOS
9 7 (0.21%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
10 6 (0.18%) Windows Server 2016
11 2 (0.061%) macOS
12 1 (0.030%) Data ONTAP
12 1 (0.030%) Kali Linux
12 1 (0.030%) OpenVMS
12 1 (0.030%) SUSE
12 1 (0.030%) Windows Server 2012
12 1 (0.030%) zOS
Processes & Methodologies
1 634 (19.34%) Stakeholder Management
2 457 (13.94%) Migration
3 300 (9.15%) Stakeholder Engagement
3 300 (9.15%) User Acceptance Testing
4 292 (8.91%) Problem-Solving
5 268 (8.17%) Workshop Facilitation
6 266 (8.11%) Validation
7 260 (7.93%) Cybersecurity
8 233 (7.11%) ERP
9 231 (7.04%) Analytics
10 208 (6.34%) Data Migration
11 203 (6.19%) Roadmaps
12 201 (6.13%) Requirements Gathering
13 199 (6.07%) Continuous Improvement
14 181 (5.52%) Agile
15 179 (5.46%) AI
16 172 (5.25%) Knowledge Transfer
17 153 (4.67%) Business Intelligence
18 142 (4.33%) Translating Business Requirements
19 138 (4.21%) DevOps
Programming Languages
1 209 (6.37%) SQL
2 103 (3.14%) Python
3 69 (2.10%) ABAP
4 58 (1.77%) PowerShell
5 40 (1.22%) JavaScript
6 36 (1.10%) Java
7 26 (0.79%) Bash
8 25 (0.76%) PL/SQL
9 20 (0.61%) C#
10 19 (0.58%) Data Analysis Expressions
11 12 (0.37%) Kusto Query Language
12 9 (0.27%) TypeScript
13 8 (0.24%) Groovy
13 8 (0.24%) Shell Script
13 8 (0.24%) T-SQL
14 7 (0.21%) Korn
14 7 (0.21%) Search Processing Language
15 4 (0.12%) Bicep
15 4 (0.12%) Perl
16 3 (0.091%) C++
Qualifications
1 718 (21.90%) Security Cleared
2 487 (14.85%) SC Cleared
3 154 (4.70%) DV Cleared
4 110 (3.35%) BPSS Clearance
5 80 (2.44%) Degree
6 66 (2.01%) CISSP
7 54 (1.65%) CISM
8 40 (1.22%) Cisco Certification
9 28 (0.85%) (ISC)2 CCSP
10 24 (0.73%) CCSP
11 19 (0.58%) ACCA
12 18 (0.55%) AWS Certification
13 17 (0.52%) CIMA
14 15 (0.46%) CRISC
15 12 (0.37%) CompTIA Security+
15 12 (0.37%) Computer Science Degree
16 10 (0.30%) CCIE
16 10 (0.30%) CISA
16 10 (0.30%) PMP
17 9 (0.27%) DBS Check
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 129 (3.93%) Data Quality
2 104 (3.17%) NIST
3 80 (2.44%) ISO/IEC 27001
4 79 (2.41%) GRC
5 63 (1.92%) QA
6 47 (1.43%) NCSC
7 41 (1.25%) GDPR
8 31 (0.95%) PMO
8 31 (0.95%) SLA
9 22 (0.67%) Actionable Recommendations
10 21 (0.64%) PCI DSS
11 19 (0.58%) Accessibility
12 17 (0.52%) Cyber Essentials
13 12 (0.37%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
13 12 (0.37%) Sarbanes-Oxley
14 10 (0.30%) NIST 800
15 9 (0.27%) IFRS
15 9 (0.27%) SOC 2
16 8 (0.24%) GxP
16 8 (0.24%) ISO 22301
System Software
1 97 (2.96%) Active Directory
2 33 (1.01%) VMware Infrastructure
3 26 (0.79%) VMware NSX
4 18 (0.55%) Docker
4 18 (0.55%) vSphere
5 12 (0.37%) Hyper-V
5 12 (0.37%) VMware ESXi
6 9 (0.27%) Firmware
6 9 (0.27%) IAG
6 9 (0.27%) Virtual Machines
7 8 (0.24%) Virtual Desktop
8 4 (0.12%) Embedded Firmware
9 2 (0.061%) NFS
9 2 (0.061%) PowerHA
10 1 (0.030%) Corosync
10 1 (0.030%) Oracle RAC
10 1 (0.030%) oVirt
10 1 (0.030%) ProxySG
10 1 (0.030%) RHEV
10 1 (0.030%) SRDF
Systems Management
1 49 (1.49%) Kubernetes
2 35 (1.07%) Ansible
3 26 (0.79%) Microsoft Intune
4 23 (0.70%) SCCM
5 14 (0.43%) Grafana
6 12 (0.37%) FortiGate
6 12 (0.37%) Single Sign-On
7 11 (0.34%) vRealize
8 10 (0.30%) vCenter Server
9 8 (0.24%) Prometheus
10 6 (0.18%) Nagios
10 6 (0.18%) VxRail
10 6 (0.18%) ZABBIX
11 5 (0.15%) logstash
12 4 (0.12%) CEMLI
12 4 (0.12%) Control-M
12 4 (0.12%) Kibana
12 4 (0.12%) Netcool
12 4 (0.12%) Tivoli
13 3 (0.091%) Argo
Vendors
1 662 (20.19%) SAP
2 504 (15.37%) Microsoft
3 381 (11.62%) Oracle
4 138 (4.21%) ServiceNow
5 82 (2.50%) Workday
6 65 (1.98%) VMware
7 50 (1.52%) Salesforce
8 46 (1.40%) Ariba
9 42 (1.28%) Databricks
10 36 (1.10%) Palo Alto
11 33 (1.01%) CyberArk
11 33 (1.01%) Splunk
12 30 (0.91%) Google
13 28 (0.85%) Cisco
14 23 (0.70%) IBM
15 22 (0.67%) BMC
15 22 (0.67%) OpenText
16 20 (0.61%) Adobe
17 19 (0.58%) Zscaler
18 17 (0.52%) Okta