Consultant Contract Job Trends

Consultant
UK

The median Consultant daily rate in the UK is £538, according to job vacancies posted in the 6 months leading up to 26 April 2026.

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

6 months to
26 Apr 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 27 28 24
Rank change year-on-year +1 -4 +16
Contract jobs requiring a Consultant 2,821 1,933 2,759
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 6.04% 6.58% 6.32%
As % of the Job Titles category 6.54% 7.11% 6.81%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,576 1,128 1,726
10th Percentile £381 £413 £400
25th Percentile £450 £488 £463
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £538 £550 £550
Median % change year-on-year -2.27% - -
75th Percentile £630 £638 £650
90th Percentile £717 £725 £750
UK excluding London median daily rate £525 £548 £550
% change year-on-year -4.11% -0.45% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 77 17 29
10th Percentile £51.00 £48.74 £27.25
25th Percentile £56.25 £65.00 £50.00
Median hourly rate £57.50 £82.50 £61.60
Median % change year-on-year -30.30% +33.93% -6.67%
75th Percentile £60.00 £86.00 £63.00
90th Percentile £78.25 £87.50 £71.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £57.50 £84.25 £56.89
% change year-on-year -31.75% +48.11% -13.81%

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 43,137 27,188 40,489
% of contract IT jobs with a recognized job title 92.31% 92.59% 92.78%
Number of daily rates quoted 26,662 17,796 26,412
10th Percentile £313 £300 £275
25th Percentile £413 £407 £408
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £517 £525
Median % change year-on-year -3.29% -1.52% -2.78%
75th Percentile £613 £625 £638
90th Percentile £725 £738 £750
UK excluding London median daily rate £488 £475 £490
% change year-on-year +2.63% -3.13% -1.93%
Number of hourly rates quoted 2,772 1,030 2,642
10th Percentile £15.00 £14.20 £12.86
25th Percentile £20.48 £18.51 £16.30
Median hourly rate £42.85 £29.24 £35.68
Median % change year-on-year +46.55% -18.05% -20.71%
75th Percentile £65.67 £62.50 £60.00
90th Percentile £78.52 £75.00 £72.50
UK excluding London median hourly rate £45.00 £28.75 £37.50
% change year-on-year +56.52% -23.33% -11.76%

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 26 April 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 26 April 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 26 April 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 2,219 £538 -2.27% 968
UK excluding London +1 1,152 £525 -4.11% 739
London 0 1,040 £550 -4.35% 383
Work from Home -1 983 £540 -1.82% 388
South East -3 345 £538 -4.91% 217
Midlands -13 225 £525 -2.33% 73
North of England -24 225 £525 -2.33% 218
South West +23 176 £525 -4.55% 147
West Midlands -5 152 £550 - 41
North West -26 108 £518 -4.93% 131
Yorkshire -13 97 £544 +3.57% 70
East of England -12 83 £550 +10.00% 41
Scotland +33 72 £450 -13.63% 20
East Midlands -17 66 £500 -3.85% 32
Wales +11 30 £550 +37.50% 16
North East -22 20 £525 -1.69% 18
Northern Ireland +1 4 £525 +0.96% 21

Consultant Skill Set
Top 30 Co-Occurring Skills & Capabilities

For the 6 months to 26 April 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.

1 588 (20.84%) SAP
2 551 (19.53%) Security Cleared
3 442 (15.67%) SC Cleared
4 371 (13.15%) Migration
5 335 (11.88%) Oracle
6 303 (10.74%) Azure
7 284 (10.07%) Microsoft
8 272 (9.64%) Problem-Solving
9 257 (9.11%) SAP S/4HANA
10 254 (9.00%) Stakeholder Engagement
11 249 (8.83%) Stakeholder Management
12 232 (8.22%) ERP
13 211 (7.48%) SQL
14 196 (6.95%) User Acceptance Testing
15 190 (6.74%) Workshop Facilitation
16 178 (6.31%) Agile
17 165 (5.85%) Continuous Improvement
17 165 (5.85%) Data Migration
18 154 (5.46%) Business Intelligence
18 154 (5.46%) Cybersecurity
19 152 (5.39%) Validation
20 150 (5.32%) Analytics
20 150 (5.32%) Roadmaps
21 144 (5.10%) Dynamics 365
22 135 (4.79%) Power Platform
23 127 (4.50%) AI
24 119 (4.22%) AWS
25 115 (4.08%) Python
26 111 (3.93%) Change Management
27 107 (3.79%) OCI

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 70 (2.48%) SharePoint
2 36 (1.28%) Confluence
3 13 (0.46%) Microsoft Exchange
3 13 (0.46%) Oracle Workflow
4 6 (0.21%) Jupyter
5 4 (0.14%) Apache
5 4 (0.14%) Apache Spark
5 4 (0.14%) ArcGIS
6 3 (0.11%) Apache Superset
6 3 (0.11%) Cloud Foundry
6 3 (0.11%) Palantir Foundry
6 3 (0.11%) Tomcat
7 2 (0.071%) IIS
7 2 (0.071%) SAS
7 2 (0.071%) WebSphere
8 1 (0.035%) CMS
8 1 (0.035%) MTS
8 1 (0.035%) NetWeaver
8 1 (0.035%) nginx
8 1 (0.035%) WebLogic
Applications
1 67 (2.38%) Microsoft Excel
2 25 (0.89%) Microsoft PowerPoint
3 12 (0.43%) Microsoft Office
4 8 (0.28%) MS Visio
5 5 (0.18%) Chatbot
5 5 (0.18%) PTC Creo
6 4 (0.14%) Spreadsheet
7 3 (0.11%) Microsoft Project
8 2 (0.071%) Lectora
8 2 (0.071%) Oracle Smart View
9 1 (0.035%) CATIA
9 1 (0.035%) Siemens NX
9 1 (0.035%) Windchill
Business Applications
1 257 (9.11%) SAP S/4HANA
2 82 (2.91%) Oracle EBS
3 56 (1.99%) SAP FI
4 45 (1.60%) Oracle Payables
5 42 (1.49%) SAP MM
6 41 (1.45%) Oracle Receivables
7 38 (1.35%) Oracle EBS R12
8 36 (1.28%) SAP PSCD
9 34 (1.21%) Dynamics CRM
9 34 (1.21%) SAP HCM
10 33 (1.17%) SAP PP
11 31 (1.10%) SAP CO
11 31 (1.10%) SAP EWM
12 29 (1.03%) SAP FI/CO
13 27 (0.96%) Oracle Assets
14 26 (0.92%) SAP Travel Management
15 25 (0.89%) Oracle General Ledger
15 25 (0.89%) Oracle Procure-to-Pay
15 25 (0.89%) Teamcenter
16 23 (0.82%) SAP BRIM
Cloud Services
1 303 (10.74%) Azure
2 144 (5.10%) Dynamics 365
3 135 (4.79%) Power Platform
4 119 (4.22%) AWS
5 107 (3.79%) OCI
6 76 (2.69%) SuccessFactors
7 66 (2.34%) GCP
7 66 (2.34%) Microsoft 365
7 66 (2.34%) SaaS
8 57 (2.02%) Power Automate
9 45 (1.60%) Entra ID
10 37 (1.31%) Azure DevOps
11 36 (1.28%) Microsoft Copilot
12 33 (1.17%) PowerApps
13 31 (1.10%) Microsoft Purview
14 28 (0.99%) GitHub
15 18 (0.64%) Azure Data Factory
16 16 (0.57%) Copilot Studio
16 16 (0.57%) Serverless
17 14 (0.50%) SAP Commerce Cloud
Communications & Networking
1 33 (1.17%) Firewall
2 25 (0.89%) Network Security
3 16 (0.57%) SMS
4 15 (0.53%) SNMP
5 12 (0.43%) DNS
5 12 (0.43%) SAN
5 12 (0.43%) VSAN
6 10 (0.35%) FTP
6 10 (0.35%) Software-Defined Networking
6 10 (0.35%) WAN
7 9 (0.32%) LAN
7 9 (0.32%) VPN
8 8 (0.28%) HTTP
8 8 (0.28%) Intranet
8 8 (0.28%) Kerberos
8 8 (0.28%) NAS
8 8 (0.28%) SD-WAN
9 6 (0.21%) DHCP
9 6 (0.21%) VLAN
10 5 (0.18%) TCP/IP
Database & Business Intelligence
1 92 (3.26%) Power BI
2 63 (2.23%) Oracle Reports
3 37 (1.31%) SAP HANA
4 29 (1.03%) Tableau
5 24 (0.85%) Oracle BI Publisher
5 24 (0.85%) SQL Server
6 23 (0.82%) Metadata
7 18 (0.64%) Oracle ODI
8 16 (0.57%) SAP BW
9 12 (0.43%) Data Warehouse
10 9 (0.32%) Electronic Patient Records
10 9 (0.32%) SQL Server Reporting Services
11 8 (0.28%) BusinessObjects
11 8 (0.28%) NoSQL
12 7 (0.25%) GIS
12 7 (0.25%) SAP Data Services
13 6 (0.21%) Data Lake
13 6 (0.21%) Data Mart
13 6 (0.21%) Essbase
13 6 (0.21%) Oracle Database
Development Applications
1 71 (2.52%) JIRA
2 20 (0.71%) Oracle Forms
3 18 (0.64%) Hudson
4 16 (0.57%) Jenkins
5 10 (0.35%) Git
6 9 (0.32%) GitLab
7 6 (0.21%) Sonatype Nexus
8 5 (0.18%) Oracle APEX
9 4 (0.14%) Postman
9 4 (0.14%) SonarQube
9 4 (0.14%) Visual Studio Code
10 3 (0.11%) Toad
11 2 (0.071%) Bitbucket
11 2 (0.071%) Cypress.io
11 2 (0.071%) git-flow
11 2 (0.071%) JUnit
11 2 (0.071%) Rational DOORS
11 2 (0.071%) Rational Rhapsody
11 2 (0.071%) Selenium
12 1 (0.035%) Charles Proxy
General
1 623 (22.08%) Social Skills
2 606 (21.48%) Finance
3 252 (8.93%) Analytical Skills
4 213 (7.55%) Public Sector
5 104 (3.69%) Manufacturing
6 98 (3.47%) Banking
7 68 (2.41%) Legal
8 67 (2.38%) Marketing
9 60 (2.13%) Billing
10 49 (1.74%) Documentation Skills
11 45 (1.60%) General Ledger
12 40 (1.42%) Telecoms
13 37 (1.31%) Retail
14 36 (1.28%) Organisational Skills
15 27 (0.96%) Inclusion and Diversity
16 24 (0.85%) Presentation Skills
17 21 (0.74%) Pharmaceutical
18 20 (0.71%) Law
19 18 (0.64%) Electronics
19 18 (0.64%) Influencing Skills
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 78 (2.76%) Oracle Fusion
2 72 (2.55%) REST
3 68 (2.41%) XML
4 31 (1.10%) SOAP
5 28 (0.99%) Web Services
6 27 (0.96%) SAP TM
7 23 (0.82%) JSON
8 21 (0.74%) Middleware
8 21 (0.74%) SAP Fiori
9 19 (0.67%) LDAP
10 18 (0.64%) .NET
11 17 (0.60%) BAPI
11 17 (0.60%) Node.js
12 16 (0.57%) HTML
12 16 (0.57%) SAP Basis
13 14 (0.50%) CSS
13 14 (0.50%) GraphQL
14 11 (0.39%) Kafka
15 10 (0.35%) IDoc
16 9 (0.32%) Playwright
Miscellaneous
1 56 (1.99%) Onboarding
2 45 (1.60%) Data Protection Act
2 45 (1.60%) Legacy Systems
3 37 (1.31%) Product Ownership
3 37 (1.31%) Security Posture
4 32 (1.13%) Operational Technology
5 29 (1.03%) Cloud Native
6 28 (0.99%) Replication
7 26 (0.92%) Data Structures
8 23 (0.82%) AI Agents
8 23 (0.82%) Management Information System
9 21 (0.74%) Data Centre
9 21 (0.74%) Greenfield Project
10 19 (0.67%) NHS
11 18 (0.64%) CMDB
12 17 (0.60%) Analytical Mindset
12 17 (0.60%) Public Cloud
13 16 (0.57%) Life Science
14 13 (0.46%) Self-Motivation
15 12 (0.43%) Hybrid Cloud
Operating Systems
1 68 (2.41%) Windows
2 50 (1.77%) Linux
3 17 (0.60%) VMS
4 16 (0.57%) Unix
5 12 (0.43%) Solaris
6 11 (0.39%) AIX
7 8 (0.28%) Windows Server
8 6 (0.21%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
9 5 (0.18%) Ubuntu
9 5 (0.18%) Windows 10
10 4 (0.14%) Mac OS
10 4 (0.14%) zOS
11 3 (0.11%) SUSE
12 2 (0.071%) Apple iOS
12 2 (0.071%) CoreOS
12 2 (0.071%) Data ONTAP
13 1 (0.035%) Android
13 1 (0.035%) CentOS
Processes & Methodologies
1 371 (13.15%) Migration
2 272 (9.64%) Problem-Solving
3 254 (9.00%) Stakeholder Engagement
4 249 (8.83%) Stakeholder Management
5 232 (8.22%) ERP
6 196 (6.95%) User Acceptance Testing
7 190 (6.74%) Workshop Facilitation
8 178 (6.31%) Agile
9 165 (5.85%) Continuous Improvement
9 165 (5.85%) Data Migration
10 154 (5.46%) Business Intelligence
10 154 (5.46%) Cybersecurity
11 152 (5.39%) Validation
12 150 (5.32%) Analytics
12 150 (5.32%) Roadmaps
13 127 (4.50%) AI
14 111 (3.93%) Change Management
15 105 (3.72%) DevOps
16 104 (3.69%) Knowledge Transfer
17 101 (3.58%) Translating Business Requirements
Programming Languages
1 211 (7.48%) SQL
2 115 (4.08%) Python
3 72 (2.55%) JavaScript
4 61 (2.16%) PowerShell
5 48 (1.70%) PL/SQL
6 40 (1.42%) ABAP
7 34 (1.21%) T-SQL
8 30 (1.06%) Java
9 25 (0.89%) TypeScript
10 16 (0.57%) C#
11 13 (0.46%) Bash
12 11 (0.39%) Shell Script
13 10 (0.35%) Groovy
14 9 (0.32%) Data Analysis Expressions
14 9 (0.32%) R
14 9 (0.32%) Search Processing Language
15 8 (0.28%) C++
16 7 (0.25%) Apex Code
16 7 (0.25%) Kusto Query Language
17 4 (0.14%) Ruby
Qualifications
1 551 (19.53%) Security Cleared
2 442 (15.67%) SC Cleared
3 97 (3.44%) DV Cleared
4 90 (3.19%) Degree
5 78 (2.76%) BPSS Clearance
6 63 (2.23%) CISSP
7 47 (1.67%) CISM
8 23 (0.82%) VMware Certified Professional (VCP)
9 20 (0.71%) CIMA
10 19 (0.67%) Cisco Certification
11 18 (0.64%) Computer Science Degree
12 14 (0.50%) SAP Certification
13 13 (0.46%) ITIL Certification
13 13 (0.46%) Master's Degree
14 12 (0.43%) (ISC)2 CCSP
14 12 (0.43%) CCSP
14 12 (0.43%) Microsoft Certification
15 10 (0.35%) Azure Certification
15 10 (0.35%) CEH
15 10 (0.35%) PMP
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 89 (3.15%) NIST
2 85 (3.01%) ISO/IEC 27001
3 61 (2.16%) Data Quality
4 59 (2.09%) GRC
5 58 (2.06%) GDPR
6 40 (1.42%) QA
7 26 (0.92%) PCI DSS
8 24 (0.85%) NCSC
9 21 (0.74%) PMO
10 20 (0.71%) SLA
11 17 (0.60%) Actionable Recommendations
11 17 (0.60%) COBIT
11 17 (0.60%) Sarbanes-Oxley
12 14 (0.50%) JSP 440
13 10 (0.35%) PERC
14 9 (0.32%) Accessibility
14 9 (0.32%) DICOM
14 9 (0.32%) HL7
15 8 (0.28%) GxP
16 7 (0.25%) RMADS
System Software
1 51 (1.81%) Active Directory
2 36 (1.28%) VMware Infrastructure
3 34 (1.21%) VMware NSX
4 26 (0.92%) Docker
5 22 (0.78%) vSphere
6 10 (0.35%) Virtual Desktop
6 10 (0.35%) Virtual Machines
7 9 (0.32%) Hyper-V
8 6 (0.21%) Slurm Workload Manager
9 5 (0.18%) VMware ESXi
10 4 (0.14%) IAG
11 3 (0.11%) NFS
12 1 (0.035%) BitLocker
12 1 (0.035%) Ceph
12 1 (0.035%) HDFS
12 1 (0.035%) Job Entry Subsystem
12 1 (0.035%) KVM
12 1 (0.035%) QEMU
Systems Management
1 48 (1.70%) Kubernetes
2 32 (1.13%) Terraform
3 31 (1.10%) vRealize
4 18 (0.64%) Ansible
4 18 (0.64%) Microsoft Intune
5 11 (0.39%) Nagios
5 11 (0.39%) Single Sign-On
5 11 (0.39%) ZABBIX
6 10 (0.35%) Netcool
6 10 (0.35%) OpenView
6 10 (0.35%) Tivoli
6 10 (0.35%) Tivoli Monitoring
7 9 (0.32%) Grafana
7 9 (0.32%) Prometheus
8 7 (0.25%) SCCM
9 6 (0.21%) Failover Clustering
9 6 (0.21%) PingFederate
9 6 (0.21%) Podman
10 5 (0.18%) NetBackup
10 5 (0.18%) vRealize Orchestrator
Vendors
1 588 (20.84%) SAP
2 335 (11.88%) Oracle
3 284 (10.07%) Microsoft
4 94 (3.33%) VMware
5 85 (3.01%) ServiceNow
6 61 (2.16%) Ariba
7 57 (2.02%) Salesforce
8 54 (1.91%) Workday
9 53 (1.88%) Siemens
10 32 (1.13%) Google
11 30 (1.06%) Splunk
12 25 (0.89%) Databricks
13 23 (0.82%) Cisco
14 21 (0.74%) Adobe
15 20 (0.71%) IBM
16 19 (0.67%) BMC
17 17 (0.60%) Aruba
17 17 (0.60%) Murex
17 17 (0.60%) Sage
18 15 (0.53%) OpenText