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 10 April 2026.

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

6 months to
10 Apr 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 28 28 24
Rank change year-on-year 0 -4 +18
Contract jobs requiring a Consultant 2,857 1,906 2,744
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 6.23% 6.52% 6.24%
As % of the Job Titles category 6.75% 7.04% 6.72%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,613 1,122 1,702
10th Percentile £400 £413 £400
25th Percentile £450 £488 £463
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £538 £550 £550
Median % change year-on-year -2.27% - -2.39%
75th Percentile £630 £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 28
10th Percentile £51.13 £63.50 £27.13
25th Percentile £56.25 £70.00 £48.13
Median hourly rate £57.50 £85.00 £60.80
Median % change year-on-year -32.35% +39.80% -7.88%
75th Percentile £60.00 £86.25 £63.00
90th Percentile £78.25 £87.50 £67.38
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 42,318 27,076 40,821
% of contract IT jobs with a recognized job title 92.26% 92.68% 92.78%
Number of daily rates quoted 26,340 17,810 26,699
10th Percentile £313 £300 £275
25th Percentile £413 £407 £409
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £520 £525
Median % change year-on-year -3.85% -0.95% -2.78%
75th Percentile £613 £630 £638
90th Percentile £725 £743 £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 2,659 966 2,580
10th Percentile £15.00 £14.95 £12.86
25th Percentile £20.09 £20.12 £16.25
Median hourly rate £40.54 £31.58 £35.00
Median % change year-on-year +28.37% -9.77% -21.81%
75th Percentile £65.00 £63.75 £60.00
90th Percentile £77.50 £76.25 £71.87
UK excluding London median hourly rate £41.94 £30.20 £35.00
% change year-on-year +38.87% -13.71% -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 10 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 10 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 10 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 -1 2,243 £538 -2.27% 1,211
UK excluding London +3 1,167 £525 -4.55% 849
London -2 1,048 £550 -4.35% 544
Work from Home +1 1,010 £525 -4.15% 598
South East 0 351 £525 -8.70% 278
Midlands -9 233 £525 -0.47% 104
North of England -23 224 £520 -3.35% 172
South West +23 170 £538 -2.27% 152
West Midlands -2 168 £538 +2.38% 52
North West -26 105 £518 -4.05% 109
Yorkshire +2 104 £500 -4.76% 53
East of England -8 94 £550 +10.00% 67
Scotland +29 65 £460 -12.38% 38
East Midlands -18 58 £475 -9.52% 51
Wales +8 32 £550 +37.50% 33
North East -24 15 £538 +0.09% 12
Northern Ireland +3 6 £428 -18.57% 15

Consultant Skill Set
Top 30 Co-Occurring Skills & Capabilities

For the 6 months to 10 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.

1 621 (21.74%) SAP
2 585 (20.48%) Security Cleared
3 477 (16.70%) SC Cleared
4 390 (13.65%) Migration
5 335 (11.73%) Oracle
6 311 (10.89%) Azure
7 295 (10.33%) Problem-Solving
8 292 (10.22%) Microsoft
9 283 (9.91%) SAP S/4HANA
10 279 (9.77%) Stakeholder Engagement
11 251 (8.79%) Stakeholder Management
12 239 (8.37%) ERP
13 217 (7.60%) SQL
14 199 (6.97%) Workshop Facilitation
15 193 (6.76%) User Acceptance Testing
16 180 (6.30%) Agile
17 167 (5.85%) Continuous Improvement
18 165 (5.78%) Roadmaps
19 161 (5.64%) Data Migration
20 151 (5.29%) Analytics
21 150 (5.25%) Business Intelligence
22 149 (5.22%) Validation
23 145 (5.08%) Cybersecurity
24 130 (4.55%) Dynamics 365
25 128 (4.48%) AI
26 125 (4.38%) Power Platform
27 123 (4.31%) Knowledge Transfer
28 121 (4.24%) Python
29 117 (4.10%) OCI
30 116 (4.06%) AWS

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 (2.52%) SharePoint
2 35 (1.23%) Confluence
3 19 (0.67%) 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%) ArcGIS
8 3 (0.11%) Apache Spark
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%) nginx
10 1 (0.035%) OpenStack
10 1 (0.035%) SharePoint 2010
10 1 (0.035%) Skype for Business
Applications
1 68 (2.38%) Microsoft Excel
2 25 (0.88%) Microsoft PowerPoint
3 12 (0.42%) Microsoft Office
4 10 (0.35%) MS Visio
5 5 (0.18%) PTC Creo
6 4 (0.14%) Chatbot
6 4 (0.14%) Microsoft Project
6 4 (0.14%) Spreadsheet
7 2 (0.070%) Lectora
7 2 (0.070%) Oracle Smart View
8 1 (0.035%) Adobe XD
8 1 (0.035%) CATIA
8 1 (0.035%) InfoPath
8 1 (0.035%) Siemens NX
8 1 (0.035%) Windchill
Business Applications
1 283 (9.91%) SAP S/4HANA
2 72 (2.52%) Oracle EBS
3 64 (2.24%) SAP FI
4 50 (1.75%) SAP MM
5 48 (1.68%) Oracle Payables
6 43 (1.51%) Oracle Receivables
7 39 (1.37%) SAP PP
8 38 (1.33%) Oracle EBS R12
9 37 (1.30%) SAP PSCD
10 36 (1.26%) SAP HCM
11 34 (1.19%) SAP CO
12 33 (1.16%) Dynamics CRM
12 33 (1.16%) SAP EWM
13 32 (1.12%) SAP FI/CO
14 28 (0.98%) Oracle Assets
15 26 (0.91%) SAP Travel Management
16 25 (0.88%) Oracle General Ledger
16 25 (0.88%) SAP SD
17 24 (0.84%) SAP BRIM
18 23 (0.81%) Oracle Procure-to-Pay
Cloud Services
1 311 (10.89%) Azure
2 130 (4.55%) Dynamics 365
3 125 (4.38%) Power Platform
4 117 (4.10%) OCI
5 116 (4.06%) AWS
6 73 (2.56%) SuccessFactors
7 72 (2.52%) Microsoft 365
8 67 (2.35%) GCP
8 67 (2.35%) SaaS
9 54 (1.89%) Entra ID
10 52 (1.82%) Power Automate
11 39 (1.37%) Azure DevOps
12 37 (1.30%) Microsoft Copilot
13 32 (1.12%) PowerApps
14 29 (1.02%) Microsoft Purview
15 28 (0.98%) GitHub
16 19 (0.67%) OneDrive
17 18 (0.63%) Azure Data Factory
17 18 (0.63%) SAP Commerce Cloud
18 15 (0.53%) Copilot Studio
Communications & Networking
1 41 (1.44%) Firewall
2 25 (0.88%) Network Security
3 15 (0.53%) SMS
4 14 (0.49%) VSAN
5 13 (0.46%) DNS
5 13 (0.46%) HTTP
5 13 (0.46%) Kerberos
5 13 (0.46%) WAN
6 12 (0.42%) VPN
7 11 (0.39%) LAN
7 11 (0.39%) SD-WAN
7 11 (0.39%) Software-Defined Networking
8 10 (0.35%) FTP
8 10 (0.35%) SAN
8 10 (0.35%) SNMP
9 8 (0.28%) Intranet
9 8 (0.28%) SSH
9 8 (0.28%) SSL
10 7 (0.25%) DHCP
10 7 (0.25%) NAS
Database & Business Intelligence
1 88 (3.08%) Power BI
2 62 (2.17%) Oracle Reports
3 33 (1.16%) SAP HANA
4 27 (0.95%) Metadata
5 25 (0.88%) Tableau
6 23 (0.81%) SQL Server
7 22 (0.77%) Oracle BI Publisher
8 18 (0.63%) Oracle ODI
9 11 (0.39%) SAP BW
9 11 (0.39%) SQL Server Reporting Services
10 9 (0.32%) Electronic Patient Records
11 8 (0.28%) Data Warehouse
11 8 (0.28%) NoSQL
12 7 (0.25%) GIS
12 7 (0.25%) SAP Data Services
13 6 (0.21%) Data Mart
13 6 (0.21%) Essbase
13 6 (0.21%) Oracle Database
13 6 (0.21%) PostgreSQL
13 6 (0.21%) Relational Database
Development Applications
1 72 (2.52%) JIRA
2 19 (0.67%) Oracle Forms
3 18 (0.63%) Hudson
4 15 (0.53%) Jenkins
5 9 (0.32%) Git
6 7 (0.25%) 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
10 2 (0.070%) Bitbucket
10 2 (0.070%) git-flow
10 2 (0.070%) Rational DOORS
10 2 (0.070%) Rational Rhapsody
10 2 (0.070%) Selenium
10 2 (0.070%) SonarQube
10 2 (0.070%) TeamCity
11 1 (0.035%) MSTest
11 1 (0.035%) Team Foundation Server
General
1 666 (23.31%) Social Skills
2 632 (22.12%) Finance
3 267 (9.35%) Analytical Skills
4 237 (8.30%) Public Sector
5 117 (4.10%) Manufacturing
6 105 (3.68%) Banking
7 71 (2.49%) Legal
7 71 (2.49%) Marketing
8 59 (2.07%) Billing
9 56 (1.96%) Documentation Skills
10 47 (1.65%) General Ledger
11 46 (1.61%) Telecoms
12 36 (1.26%) Retail
13 34 (1.19%) Organisational Skills
14 29 (1.02%) Presentation Skills
15 24 (0.84%) Inclusion and Diversity
16 21 (0.74%) Pharmaceutical
17 20 (0.70%) Electronics
17 20 (0.70%) Law
18 19 (0.67%) Advertising
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 87 (3.05%) Oracle Fusion
2 77 (2.70%) REST
3 67 (2.35%) XML
4 34 (1.19%) SAP Fiori
5 33 (1.16%) SOAP
6 30 (1.05%) Web Services
7 29 (1.02%) LDAP
8 27 (0.95%) SAP TM
9 24 (0.84%) JSON
10 22 (0.77%) Middleware
11 20 (0.70%) SAP Basis
12 19 (0.67%) BAPI
12 19 (0.67%) Node.js
13 17 (0.60%) .NET
14 15 (0.53%) IDoc
15 14 (0.49%) GraphQL
15 14 (0.49%) HTML
16 13 (0.46%) CSS
17 11 (0.39%) Kafka
17 11 (0.39%) OAuth
Miscellaneous
1 62 (2.17%) Onboarding
2 48 (1.68%) Legacy Systems
3 44 (1.54%) Data Protection Act
4 43 (1.51%) Product Ownership
5 38 (1.33%) Security Posture
6 31 (1.09%) Replication
7 27 (0.95%) Operational Technology
8 26 (0.91%) Data Centre
8 26 (0.91%) Management Information System
9 24 (0.84%) Cloud Native
10 23 (0.81%) AI Agents
11 22 (0.77%) Data Structures
12 20 (0.70%) Analytical Mindset
13 19 (0.67%) NHS
14 18 (0.63%) Greenfield Project
15 17 (0.60%) CMDB
15 17 (0.60%) Public Cloud
16 15 (0.53%) Life Science
17 13 (0.46%) Self-Motivation
18 12 (0.42%) Hybrid Cloud
Operating Systems
1 84 (2.94%) Windows
2 52 (1.82%) Linux
3 16 (0.56%) Unix
3 16 (0.56%) VMS
4 14 (0.49%) AIX
5 13 (0.46%) Windows Server
6 11 (0.39%) Windows 10
7 8 (0.28%) Solaris
8 6 (0.21%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
9 5 (0.18%) Mac OS
9 5 (0.18%) Ubuntu
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
1 390 (13.65%) Migration
2 295 (10.33%) Problem-Solving
3 279 (9.77%) Stakeholder Engagement
4 251 (8.79%) Stakeholder Management
5 239 (8.37%) ERP
6 199 (6.97%) Workshop Facilitation
7 193 (6.76%) User Acceptance Testing
8 180 (6.30%) Agile
9 167 (5.85%) Continuous Improvement
10 165 (5.78%) Roadmaps
11 161 (5.64%) Data Migration
12 151 (5.29%) Analytics
13 150 (5.25%) Business Intelligence
14 149 (5.22%) Validation
15 145 (5.08%) Cybersecurity
16 128 (4.48%) AI
17 123 (4.31%) Knowledge Transfer
18 113 (3.96%) Change Management
19 111 (3.89%) Risk Management
20 108 (3.78%) DevOps
Programming Languages
1 217 (7.60%) SQL
2 121 (4.24%) Python
3 78 (2.73%) PowerShell
4 75 (2.63%) JavaScript
5 53 (1.86%) ABAP
6 44 (1.54%) PL/SQL
7 35 (1.23%) Java
8 32 (1.12%) T-SQL
9 23 (0.81%) TypeScript
10 16 (0.56%) C#
11 14 (0.49%) Bash
12 13 (0.46%) Groovy
13 10 (0.35%) Shell Script
14 8 (0.28%) C++
14 8 (0.28%) Data Analysis Expressions
14 8 (0.28%) R
14 8 (0.28%) Search Processing Language
15 7 (0.25%) Apex Code
16 6 (0.21%) Kusto Query Language
17 5 (0.18%) Korn
Qualifications
1 585 (20.48%) Security Cleared
2 477 (16.70%) SC Cleared
3 95 (3.33%) DV Cleared
4 94 (3.29%) Degree
5 75 (2.63%) BPSS Clearance
6 63 (2.21%) CISSP
7 44 (1.54%) CISM
8 28 (0.98%) VMware Certified Professional (VCP)
9 21 (0.74%) CIMA
10 19 (0.67%) Cisco Certification
10 19 (0.67%) Computer Science Degree
11 16 (0.56%) Microsoft Certification
12 15 (0.53%) Master's Degree
13 13 (0.46%) ITIL Certification
13 13 (0.46%) SAP Certification
14 12 (0.42%) Azure Certification
15 10 (0.35%) (ISC)2 CCSP
15 10 (0.35%) ACCA
16 9 (0.32%) CompTIA Security+
16 9 (0.32%) Oracle Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 92 (3.22%) NIST
2 87 (3.05%) ISO/IEC 27001
3 58 (2.03%) Data Quality
4 57 (2.00%) GDPR
4 57 (2.00%) GRC
5 43 (1.51%) QA
6 27 (0.95%) NCSC
7 26 (0.91%) PCI DSS
8 22 (0.77%) Sarbanes-Oxley
9 21 (0.74%) PMO
10 19 (0.67%) Actionable Recommendations
11 18 (0.63%) COBIT
11 18 (0.63%) SLA
12 14 (0.49%) JSP 440
13 11 (0.39%) PERC
14 8 (0.28%) DICOM
14 8 (0.28%) GxP
14 8 (0.28%) HL7
15 7 (0.25%) ISO/IEC 27005
15 7 (0.25%) RMADS
System Software
1 61 (2.14%) Active Directory
2 35 (1.23%) VMware NSX
3 33 (1.16%) VMware Infrastructure
4 28 (0.98%) Docker
5 25 (0.88%) vSphere
6 10 (0.35%) Virtual Desktop
7 9 (0.32%) Hyper-V
8 6 (0.21%) Slurm Workload Manager
8 6 (0.21%) Virtual Machines
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%) Job Entry Subsystem
12 1 (0.035%) KVM
12 1 (0.035%) QEMU
Systems Management
1 48 (1.68%) Kubernetes
2 35 (1.23%) Terraform
3 32 (1.12%) vRealize
4 21 (0.74%) Microsoft Intune
5 12 (0.42%) Ansible
5 12 (0.42%) Single Sign-On
6 10 (0.35%) Nagios
6 10 (0.35%) Netcool
6 10 (0.35%) OpenView
6 10 (0.35%) Tivoli
6 10 (0.35%) Tivoli Monitoring
6 10 (0.35%) ZABBIX
7 8 (0.28%) Failover Clustering
8 7 (0.25%) SCCM
9 6 (0.21%) PingFederate
9 6 (0.21%) Podman
10 5 (0.18%) NetBackup
11 4 (0.14%) Active Directory Federation Services
11 4 (0.14%) Control-M
12 3 (0.11%) Grafana
Vendors
1 621 (21.74%) SAP
2 335 (11.73%) Oracle
3 292 (10.22%) Microsoft
4 98 (3.43%) VMware
5 96 (3.36%) ServiceNow
6 65 (2.28%) Ariba
7 61 (2.14%) Salesforce
8 59 (2.07%) Workday
9 53 (1.86%) Siemens
10 38 (1.33%) Cisco
11 34 (1.19%) Google
12 30 (1.05%) Aruba
13 29 (1.02%) Databricks
14 26 (0.91%) Splunk
15 23 (0.81%) Adobe
16 21 (0.74%) IBM
17 20 (0.70%) OpenText
18 18 (0.63%) BMC
19 17 (0.60%) Murex
19 17 (0.60%) Sage