Consultant Contract Job Trends

Consultant
UK

The median Consultant daily rate in the UK is £534, according to job vacancies posted in the 6 months leading up to 15 April 2026.

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

6 months to
15 Apr 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 28 29 23
Rank change year-on-year +1 -6 +18
Contract jobs requiring a Consultant 2,852 1,906 2,712
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 6.22% 6.51% 6.23%
As % of the Job Titles category 6.74% 7.03% 6.71%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,614 1,121 1,689
10th Percentile £398 £413 £400
25th Percentile £450 £485 £463
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £534 £550 £550
Median % change year-on-year -2.95% - -1.79%
75th Percentile £629 £638 £650
90th Percentile £713 £725 £750
UK excluding London median daily rate £525 £550 £550
% change year-on-year -4.55% - -
Number of hourly rates quoted 76 17 25
10th Percentile £51.13 £63.50 £26.75
25th Percentile £56.25 £70.00 £42.50
Median hourly rate £57.50 £85.00 £56.89
Median % change year-on-year -32.35% +49.42% -13.81%
75th Percentile £60.00 £86.25 £63.00
90th Percentile £78.25 £87.50 £68.50
UK excluding London median hourly rate £57.50 £84.25 £55.80
% change year-on-year -31.75% +50.99% -15.45%

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 42,306 27,128 40,399
% of contract IT jobs with a recognized job title 92.26% 92.60% 92.77%
Number of daily rates quoted 26,259 17,804 26,404
10th Percentile £313 £300 £275
25th Percentile £413 £406 £409
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £518 £525
Median % change year-on-year -3.38% -1.43% -2.78%
75th Percentile £613 £627 £638
90th Percentile £725 £738 £745
UK excluding London median daily rate £488 £475 £490
% change year-on-year +2.63% -3.06% -2.00%
Number of hourly rates quoted 2,679 980 2,578
10th Percentile £15.00 £14.65 £12.86
25th Percentile £20.26 £19.25 £16.25
Median hourly rate £41.86 £31.42 £35.00
Median % change year-on-year +33.20% -10.22% -22.22%
75th Percentile £65.25 £63.75 £60.00
90th Percentile £78.25 £75.58 £72.47
UK excluding London median hourly rate £42.69 £30.00 £35.00
% change year-on-year +42.28% -14.29% -17.38%

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 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 15 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 15 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 2,236 £538 -2.27% 862
UK excluding London +3 1,164 £525 -4.55% 695
London -3 1,047 £550 -4.35% 366
Work from Home +1 1,007 £525 -4.55% 418
South East 0 347 £525 -8.70% 210
Midlands -8 231 £525 -1.18% 78
North of England -23 223 £511 -4.96% 171
South West +21 175 £525 -4.55% 130
West Midlands -4 164 £550 +3.53% 37
North West -32 105 £518 -4.93% 107
Yorkshire -2 101 £500 -4.76% 51
East of England -4 90 £550 +10.00% 30
Scotland +27 69 £459 -12.62% 32
East Midlands -16 60 £500 -4.31% 42
Wales +12 31 £550 +37.50% 27
North East -24 17 £525 -2.23% 14
Northern Ireland +3 6 £428 -18.57% 26

Consultant Skill Set
Top 30 Co-Occurring Skills & Capabilities

For the 6 months to 15 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.

1 610 (21.39%) SAP
2 573 (20.09%) Security Cleared
3 466 (16.34%) SC Cleared
4 384 (13.46%) Migration
5 339 (11.89%) Oracle
6 301 (10.55%) Azure
7 285 (9.99%) Problem-Solving
8 280 (9.82%) Microsoft
9 276 (9.68%) SAP S/4HANA
10 275 (9.64%) Stakeholder Engagement
11 247 (8.66%) Stakeholder Management
12 235 (8.24%) ERP
13 214 (7.50%) SQL
14 190 (6.66%) User Acceptance Testing
15 189 (6.63%) Workshop Facilitation
16 179 (6.28%) Agile
17 166 (5.82%) Continuous Improvement
18 157 (5.50%) Data Migration
18 157 (5.50%) Roadmaps
19 152 (5.33%) Validation
20 150 (5.26%) Analytics
20 150 (5.26%) Business Intelligence
21 145 (5.08%) Cybersecurity
22 132 (4.63%) Dynamics 365
23 127 (4.45%) Power Platform
24 125 (4.38%) AI
25 119 (4.17%) Python
26 117 (4.10%) Knowledge Transfer
27 116 (4.07%) AWS
28 115 (4.03%) 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 66 (2.31%) SharePoint
2 35 (1.23%) Confluence
3 17 (0.60%) Microsoft Exchange
4 14 (0.49%) Oracle Workflow
5 6 (0.21%) Jupyter
6 5 (0.18%) MTS
7 4 (0.14%) Apache
7 4 (0.14%) Apache Spark
7 4 (0.14%) ArcGIS
8 3 (0.11%) Apache Superset
8 3 (0.11%) Cloud Foundry
8 3 (0.11%) CMS
8 3 (0.11%) Palantir Foundry
8 3 (0.11%) Tomcat
9 2 (0.070%) IIS
9 2 (0.070%) WebSphere
10 1 (0.035%) NetWeaver
10 1 (0.035%) nginx
10 1 (0.035%) SAS
10 1 (0.035%) WebLogic
Applications
1 67 (2.35%) Microsoft Excel
2 24 (0.84%) Microsoft PowerPoint
3 12 (0.42%) Microsoft Office
4 8 (0.28%) MS Visio
5 5 (0.18%) PTC Creo
6 4 (0.14%) Chatbot
6 4 (0.14%) Spreadsheet
7 3 (0.11%) Microsoft Project
8 2 (0.070%) Lectora
8 2 (0.070%) Oracle Smart View
9 1 (0.035%) Adobe XD
9 1 (0.035%) CATIA
9 1 (0.035%) InfoPath
9 1 (0.035%) Siemens NX
9 1 (0.035%) Windchill
Business Applications
1 276 (9.68%) SAP S/4HANA
2 73 (2.56%) Oracle EBS
3 60 (2.10%) SAP FI
4 49 (1.72%) SAP MM
5 46 (1.61%) Oracle Payables
6 42 (1.47%) Oracle Receivables
7 38 (1.33%) Oracle EBS R12
7 38 (1.33%) SAP PP
8 36 (1.26%) SAP HCM
9 34 (1.19%) SAP PSCD
10 33 (1.16%) Dynamics CRM
10 33 (1.16%) SAP EWM
11 31 (1.09%) SAP CO
12 29 (1.02%) SAP FI/CO
13 28 (0.98%) Oracle Assets
14 26 (0.91%) SAP Travel Management
15 25 (0.88%) Oracle General Ledger
15 25 (0.88%) SAP SD
16 24 (0.84%) Oracle Procure-to-Pay
17 22 (0.77%) Teamcenter
Cloud Services
1 301 (10.55%) Azure
2 132 (4.63%) Dynamics 365
3 127 (4.45%) Power Platform
4 116 (4.07%) AWS
5 115 (4.03%) OCI
6 73 (2.56%) SuccessFactors
7 68 (2.38%) Microsoft 365
8 67 (2.35%) SaaS
9 64 (2.24%) GCP
10 52 (1.82%) Power Automate
11 48 (1.68%) Entra ID
12 37 (1.30%) Azure DevOps
13 34 (1.19%) Microsoft Copilot
14 32 (1.12%) PowerApps
15 29 (1.02%) Microsoft Purview
16 28 (0.98%) GitHub
17 19 (0.67%) Azure Data Factory
18 17 (0.60%) OneDrive
19 16 (0.56%) Serverless
20 15 (0.53%) SAP Commerce Cloud
Communications & Networking
1 39 (1.37%) Firewall
2 25 (0.88%) Network Security
3 15 (0.53%) SMS
4 13 (0.46%) HTTP
4 13 (0.46%) Kerberos
4 13 (0.46%) VSAN
4 13 (0.46%) WAN
5 12 (0.42%) DNS
6 11 (0.39%) LAN
6 11 (0.39%) SD-WAN
7 10 (0.35%) FTP
7 10 (0.35%) SAN
7 10 (0.35%) SNMP
7 10 (0.35%) Software-Defined Networking
7 10 (0.35%) VPN
8 8 (0.28%) Intranet
9 7 (0.25%) DHCP
9 7 (0.25%) NAS
9 7 (0.25%) SSH
10 6 (0.21%) VLAN
Database & Business Intelligence
1 89 (3.12%) Power BI
2 62 (2.17%) Oracle Reports
3 32 (1.12%) SAP HANA
4 28 (0.98%) Metadata
5 26 (0.91%) Tableau
6 23 (0.81%) SQL Server
7 22 (0.77%) Oracle BI Publisher
8 19 (0.67%) Oracle ODI
9 11 (0.39%) SAP BW
10 10 (0.35%) SQL Server Reporting Services
11 9 (0.32%) Electronic Patient Records
12 8 (0.28%) Data Warehouse
12 8 (0.28%) NoSQL
13 7 (0.25%) GIS
13 7 (0.25%) SAP Data Services
14 6 (0.21%) Data Mart
14 6 (0.21%) Essbase
14 6 (0.21%) Oracle Database
14 6 (0.21%) PostgreSQL
14 6 (0.21%) Relational Database
Development Applications
1 70 (2.45%) JIRA
2 19 (0.67%) Oracle Forms
3 18 (0.63%) Hudson
4 15 (0.53%) Jenkins
5 8 (0.28%) Git
5 8 (0.28%) GitLab
6 7 (0.25%) Oracle APEX
7 5 (0.18%) LSMW
8 4 (0.14%) Sonatype Nexus
8 4 (0.14%) Visual Studio Code
9 3 (0.11%) Postman
9 3 (0.11%) SonarQube
10 2 (0.070%) Bitbucket
10 2 (0.070%) git-flow
10 2 (0.070%) Octopus Deploy
10 2 (0.070%) Rational DOORS
10 2 (0.070%) Rational Rhapsody
10 2 (0.070%) Selenium
10 2 (0.070%) TeamCity
10 2 (0.070%) Toad
General
1 647 (22.69%) Social Skills
2 622 (21.81%) Finance
3 262 (9.19%) Analytical Skills
4 226 (7.92%) Public Sector
5 115 (4.03%) Manufacturing
6 106 (3.72%) Banking
7 72 (2.52%) Marketing
8 65 (2.28%) Legal
9 57 (2.00%) Billing
10 53 (1.86%) Documentation Skills
11 46 (1.61%) General Ledger
12 43 (1.51%) Telecoms
13 36 (1.26%) Retail
14 35 (1.23%) Organisational Skills
15 29 (1.02%) Presentation Skills
16 25 (0.88%) Inclusion and Diversity
17 21 (0.74%) Pharmaceutical
18 20 (0.70%) Electronics
18 20 (0.70%) Law
19 19 (0.67%) Advertising
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 85 (2.98%) Oracle Fusion
2 74 (2.59%) REST
3 68 (2.38%) XML
4 32 (1.12%) SOAP
5 31 (1.09%) SAP Fiori
6 30 (1.05%) Web Services
7 27 (0.95%) SAP TM
8 26 (0.91%) LDAP
9 24 (0.84%) JSON
10 21 (0.74%) Middleware
11 20 (0.70%) SAP Basis
12 19 (0.67%) BAPI
12 19 (0.67%) Node.js
13 18 (0.63%) .NET
14 15 (0.53%) HTML
14 15 (0.53%) IDoc
15 14 (0.49%) CSS
15 14 (0.49%) GraphQL
16 11 (0.39%) EDI
16 11 (0.39%) Kafka
Miscellaneous
1 59 (2.07%) Onboarding
2 46 (1.61%) Legacy Systems
3 44 (1.54%) Data Protection Act
4 38 (1.33%) Product Ownership
5 36 (1.26%) Security Posture
6 30 (1.05%) Replication
7 28 (0.98%) Operational Technology
8 26 (0.91%) Data Centre
8 26 (0.91%) Management Information System
9 24 (0.84%) AI Agents
9 24 (0.84%) Cloud Native
10 22 (0.77%) Data Structures
11 20 (0.70%) Analytical Mindset
12 19 (0.67%) NHS
13 17 (0.60%) CMDB
13 17 (0.60%) Greenfield Project
13 17 (0.60%) Public Cloud
14 15 (0.53%) Life Science
15 13 (0.46%) Self-Motivation
16 12 (0.42%) Hybrid Cloud
Operating Systems
1 79 (2.77%) Windows
2 53 (1.86%) Linux
3 16 (0.56%) Unix
3 16 (0.56%) VMS
4 14 (0.49%) AIX
5 11 (0.39%) Solaris
6 10 (0.35%) Windows Server
7 9 (0.32%) Windows 10
8 6 (0.21%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
9 5 (0.18%) Ubuntu
10 4 (0.14%) Mac OS
10 4 (0.14%) zOS
11 3 (0.11%) Apple iOS
11 3 (0.11%) SUSE
12 2 (0.070%) CoreOS
12 2 (0.070%) Data ONTAP
13 1 (0.035%) Android
13 1 (0.035%) CentOS
Processes & Methodologies
1 384 (13.46%) Migration
2 285 (9.99%) Problem-Solving
3 275 (9.64%) Stakeholder Engagement
4 247 (8.66%) Stakeholder Management
5 235 (8.24%) ERP
6 190 (6.66%) User Acceptance Testing
7 189 (6.63%) Workshop Facilitation
8 179 (6.28%) Agile
9 166 (5.82%) Continuous Improvement
10 157 (5.50%) Data Migration
10 157 (5.50%) Roadmaps
11 152 (5.33%) Validation
12 150 (5.26%) Analytics
12 150 (5.26%) Business Intelligence
13 145 (5.08%) Cybersecurity
14 125 (4.38%) AI
15 117 (4.10%) Knowledge Transfer
16 114 (4.00%) Change Management
17 108 (3.79%) Risk Management
18 106 (3.72%) DevOps
Programming Languages
1 214 (7.50%) SQL
2 119 (4.17%) Python
3 75 (2.63%) JavaScript
4 70 (2.45%) PowerShell
5 53 (1.86%) ABAP
6 47 (1.65%) PL/SQL
7 35 (1.23%) Java
8 33 (1.16%) T-SQL
9 23 (0.81%) TypeScript
10 16 (0.56%) C#
11 13 (0.46%) Groovy
12 12 (0.42%) Bash
13 10 (0.35%) Shell Script
14 9 (0.32%) R
15 8 (0.28%) C++
15 8 (0.28%) Data Analysis Expressions
15 8 (0.28%) Search Processing Language
16 7 (0.25%) Apex Code
16 7 (0.25%) Kusto Query Language
17 5 (0.18%) Korn
Qualifications
1 573 (20.09%) Security Cleared
2 466 (16.34%) SC Cleared
3 96 (3.37%) DV Cleared
4 94 (3.30%) Degree
5 76 (2.66%) BPSS Clearance
6 63 (2.21%) CISSP
7 44 (1.54%) CISM
8 26 (0.91%) VMware Certified Professional (VCP)
9 21 (0.74%) CIMA
10 19 (0.67%) Cisco Certification
10 19 (0.67%) Computer Science Degree
11 14 (0.49%) Master's Degree
11 14 (0.49%) Microsoft Certification
12 13 (0.46%) SAP Certification
13 12 (0.42%) ITIL Certification
14 10 (0.35%) (ISC)2 CCSP
14 10 (0.35%) ACCA
14 10 (0.35%) Azure Certification
14 10 (0.35%) PMP
15 9 (0.32%) CompTIA Security+
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 91 (3.19%) NIST
2 85 (2.98%) ISO/IEC 27001
3 59 (2.07%) Data Quality
4 56 (1.96%) GRC
5 55 (1.93%) GDPR
6 42 (1.47%) QA
7 26 (0.91%) NCSC
7 26 (0.91%) PCI DSS
8 21 (0.74%) PMO
8 21 (0.74%) Sarbanes-Oxley
9 19 (0.67%) Actionable Recommendations
9 19 (0.67%) SLA
10 18 (0.63%) COBIT
11 14 (0.49%) JSP 440
12 11 (0.39%) PERC
13 8 (0.28%) DICOM
13 8 (0.28%) GxP
13 8 (0.28%) HL7
14 7 (0.25%) ISO/IEC 27005
14 7 (0.25%) RMADS
System Software
1 55 (1.93%) Active Directory
2 34 (1.19%) VMware Infrastructure
2 34 (1.19%) VMware NSX
3 28 (0.98%) Docker
4 24 (0.84%) vSphere
5 10 (0.35%) Virtual Desktop
6 9 (0.32%) Virtual Machines
7 8 (0.28%) Hyper-V
8 6 (0.21%) Slurm Workload Manager
9 4 (0.14%) IAG
10 3 (0.11%) NFS
10 3 (0.11%) VMware ESXi
11 2 (0.070%) NDS
11 2 (0.070%) NetIQ eDirectory
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 (1.68%) Kubernetes
2 33 (1.16%) Terraform
3 31 (1.09%) vRealize
4 20 (0.70%) Microsoft Intune
5 13 (0.46%) Ansible
6 11 (0.39%) Single Sign-On
7 10 (0.35%) Nagios
7 10 (0.35%) Netcool
7 10 (0.35%) OpenView
7 10 (0.35%) Tivoli
7 10 (0.35%) Tivoli Monitoring
7 10 (0.35%) ZABBIX
8 7 (0.25%) Failover Clustering
8 7 (0.25%) SCCM
9 6 (0.21%) PingFederate
9 6 (0.21%) Podman
10 4 (0.14%) Active Directory Federation Services
10 4 (0.14%) Grafana
10 4 (0.14%) NetBackup
10 4 (0.14%) Prometheus
Vendors
1 610 (21.39%) SAP
2 339 (11.89%) Oracle
3 280 (9.82%) Microsoft
4 96 (3.37%) VMware
5 94 (3.30%) ServiceNow
6 64 (2.24%) Ariba
7 60 (2.10%) Salesforce
8 59 (2.07%) Workday
9 53 (1.86%) Siemens
10 36 (1.26%) Cisco
11 34 (1.19%) Google
12 28 (0.98%) Aruba
12 28 (0.98%) Databricks
13 25 (0.88%) Splunk
14 23 (0.81%) Adobe
15 21 (0.74%) IBM
16 18 (0.63%) BMC
16 18 (0.63%) OpenText
17 17 (0.60%) Murex
17 17 (0.60%) Sage