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 17 August 2026.

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

6 months to
17 Aug 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 27 27 26
Rank change year-on-year 0 -1 +7
Contract jobs requiring a Consultant 3,178 2,184 2,682
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 5.94% 6.60% 6.92%
As % of the Job Titles category 6.42% 7.23% 7.45%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,748 1,270 1,563
10th Percentile £403 £412 £406
25th Percentile £463 £475 £468
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £550 £550 £550
75th Percentile £650 £650 £638
90th Percentile £750 £750 £750
UK excluding London median daily rate £525 £550 £552
% change year-on-year -4.55% -0.27% +5.05%
Number of hourly rates quoted 66 27 29
10th Percentile £36.25 £28.72 £41.15
25th Percentile £51.38 £42.92 £55.00
Median hourly rate £62.25 £77.50 £61.60
Median % change year-on-year -19.68% +25.81% -5.32%
75th Percentile £83.06 £81.25 £68.00
90th Percentile £88.75 £83.15 £74.89
UK excluding London median hourly rate £62.25 £77.50 £61.60
% change year-on-year -19.68% +25.81% -5.23%

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 49,505 30,216 36,013
% of contract IT jobs with a recognized job title 92.52% 91.29% 92.95%
Number of daily rates quoted 29,709 19,089 23,205
10th Percentile £325 £281 £300
25th Percentile £425 £400 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £500 £525
Median % change year-on-year +5.00% -4.76% -1.69%
75th Percentile £625 £621 £638
90th Percentile £725 £725 £750
UK excluding London median daily rate £500 £475 £500
% change year-on-year +5.26% -5.00% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 3,494 1,545 1,999
10th Percentile £15.00 £13.60 £14.16
25th Percentile £20.53 £17.30 £20.00
Median hourly rate £41.74 £25.15 £43.00
Median % change year-on-year +65.94% -41.51% +2.87%
75th Percentile £67.96 £53.99 £65.00
90th Percentile £80.00 £72.50 £75.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £42.50 £25.15 £45.00
% change year-on-year +68.99% -44.11% +21.62%

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 17 August 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 17 August 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 17 August 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 -3 2,567 £550 - 1,176
UK excluding London +2 1,384 £525 -4.55% 863
London -2 1,197 £550 -4.35% 508
Work from Home -3 1,072 £550 - 604
South East 0 417 £533 -3.18% 221
North of England -9 307 £550 - 225
Midlands +3 249 £500 -9.09% 110
South West +13 205 £553 -6.27% 137
North West -5 188 £585 +6.36% 157
West Midlands +9 177 £490 -10.91% 84
Scotland +31 109 £425 -10.53% 52
Yorkshire -8 98 £531 +3.66% 50
East of England -15 81 £550 - 60
East Midlands -7 63 £525 -4.55% 25
Wales -9 28 £550 +10.00% 12
North East -37 20 £750 +39.66% 19
Northern Ireland -2 2 £544 +4.57% 59

Consultant Skill Set
Top 30 Co-Occurring Skills & Capabilities

For the 6 months to 17 August 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.

1 668 (21.02%) Security Cleared
2 657 (20.67%) SAP
3 460 (14.47%) Stakeholder Management
4 455 (14.32%) SC Cleared
5 420 (13.22%) Microsoft
6 415 (13.06%) Migration
7 390 (12.27%) Oracle
8 304 (9.57%) Azure
9 296 (9.31%) Stakeholder Engagement
10 269 (8.46%) SAP S/4HANA
11 262 (8.24%) SQL
12 257 (8.09%) User Acceptance Testing
13 256 (8.06%) Problem-Solving
14 240 (7.55%) ERP
15 223 (7.02%) Workshop Facilitation
16 219 (6.89%) Validation
17 205 (6.45%) Continuous Improvement
17 205 (6.45%) Cybersecurity
18 190 (5.98%) Agile
19 189 (5.95%) Analytics
19 189 (5.95%) Roadmaps
20 185 (5.82%) Data Migration
21 168 (5.29%) AI
22 159 (5.00%) AWS
23 155 (4.88%) Requirements Gathering
24 152 (4.78%) Power Platform
25 151 (4.75%) Business Intelligence
26 150 (4.72%) DV Cleared
27 137 (4.31%) Translating Business Requirements
28 134 (4.22%) 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 85 (2.67%) SharePoint
2 50 (1.57%) Confluence
3 15 (0.47%) Microsoft Exchange
4 14 (0.44%) Oracle Workflow
5 9 (0.28%) WebSphere
6 8 (0.25%) WebLogic
7 6 (0.19%) Apache Spark
8 4 (0.13%) SAS
9 3 (0.094%) Apache
9 3 (0.094%) Apache Airflow
9 3 (0.094%) Apache Superset
9 3 (0.094%) OpenStack
9 3 (0.094%) TIBCO ActiveMatrix
10 2 (0.063%) Adobe Experience Manager
10 2 (0.063%) Cloud Foundry
10 2 (0.063%) CMS
10 2 (0.063%) NetWeaver
10 2 (0.063%) Palantir Foundry
10 2 (0.063%) Tomcat
10 2 (0.063%) WordPress
Applications
1 79 (2.49%) Microsoft Excel
2 34 (1.07%) Microsoft Office
3 23 (0.72%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 10 (0.31%) Spreadsheet
5 7 (0.22%) MS Visio
6 5 (0.16%) Microsoft Project
7 4 (0.13%) Chatbot
8 2 (0.063%) Lectora
9 1 (0.031%) Adobe Captivate
9 1 (0.031%) Adobe Creative Suite
9 1 (0.031%) CPLEX
9 1 (0.031%) Oracle Smart View
Business Applications
1 269 (8.46%) SAP S/4HANA
2 91 (2.86%) Oracle EBS
3 69 (2.17%) SAP FI
4 49 (1.54%) SAP PSCD
5 47 (1.48%) Oracle ERP
6 46 (1.45%) Oracle Payables
7 38 (1.20%) SAP CO
8 36 (1.13%) Dynamics CRM
9 35 (1.10%) Oracle Receivables
9 35 (1.10%) SAP MM
10 32 (1.01%) SAP BRIM
10 32 (1.01%) SAP FI/CO
10 32 (1.01%) SAP SD
11 30 (0.94%) NetSuite
12 29 (0.91%) SAP FI-CA
13 28 (0.88%) SAP PP
14 26 (0.82%) Oracle EBS R12
14 26 (0.82%) SAP Payroll
15 25 (0.79%) Workday HCM
16 24 (0.76%) SAP EWM
Cloud Services
1 304 (9.57%) Azure
2 159 (5.00%) AWS
3 152 (4.78%) Power Platform
4 134 (4.22%) Dynamics 365
5 115 (3.62%) OCI
6 110 (3.46%) SuccessFactors
7 90 (2.83%) GCP
8 89 (2.80%) Microsoft 365
9 70 (2.20%) Power Automate
10 56 (1.76%) Entra ID
11 55 (1.73%) Azure DevOps
12 54 (1.70%) Microsoft Copilot
13 48 (1.51%) SaaS
14 34 (1.07%) PowerApps
15 29 (0.91%) GitHub
16 25 (0.79%) Microsoft Purview
17 20 (0.63%) Copilot Studio
18 16 (0.50%) Azure AI
18 16 (0.50%) Azure Logic Apps
19 14 (0.44%) GitHub Actions
Communications & Networking
1 60 (1.89%) Firewall
2 56 (1.76%) Network Security
3 35 (1.10%) WAN
4 25 (0.79%) SNMP
5 22 (0.69%) BGP
6 20 (0.63%) LAN
7 19 (0.60%) DNS
7 19 (0.60%) VPN
8 13 (0.41%) SAN
8 13 (0.41%) VSAN
9 11 (0.35%) TCP/IP
10 10 (0.31%) NGFW
10 10 (0.31%) SD-WAN
11 8 (0.25%) Ethernet VPN
12 7 (0.22%) HTTP
12 7 (0.22%) IPsec
12 7 (0.22%) MPLS
12 7 (0.22%) VXLAN
12 7 (0.22%) Wi-Fi
12 7 (0.22%) Wireless
Database & Business Intelligence
1 97 (3.05%) Power BI
2 60 (1.89%) Oracle Reports
3 36 (1.13%) SAP HANA
3 36 (1.13%) SQL Server
4 34 (1.07%) SAP BW
4 34 (1.07%) Tableau
5 33 (1.04%) Oracle BI Publisher
6 26 (0.82%) Metadata
7 23 (0.72%) Data Warehouse
8 19 (0.60%) Oracle ODI
9 17 (0.53%) BusinessObjects
10 12 (0.38%) SAP Data Services
11 11 (0.35%) Oracle Database
12 10 (0.31%) Power Query
13 7 (0.22%) Relational Database
14 6 (0.19%) Delta Lake
14 6 (0.19%) Looker
15 5 (0.16%) Hadoop
15 5 (0.16%) NoSQL
15 5 (0.16%) SQL Server Reporting Services
Development Applications
1 94 (2.96%) JIRA
2 20 (0.63%) Git
2 20 (0.63%) Oracle Forms
3 16 (0.50%) Jenkins
4 14 (0.44%) Hudson
5 11 (0.35%) GitLab
6 7 (0.22%) Sonatype Nexus
7 6 (0.19%) SonarQube
8 5 (0.16%) Cypress.io
8 5 (0.16%) PowerBuilder
9 4 (0.13%) Postman
9 4 (0.13%) Selenium
9 4 (0.13%) Snyk
9 4 (0.13%) Zephyr
10 3 (0.094%) Browser DevTools
10 3 (0.094%) JMeter
10 3 (0.094%) MLflow
10 3 (0.094%) TestRail
10 3 (0.094%) Toad
10 3 (0.094%) Visual Studio Code
General
1 708 (22.28%) Finance
2 698 (21.96%) Social Skills
3 242 (7.61%) Analytical Skills
4 234 (7.36%) Public Sector
5 117 (3.68%) Manufacturing
6 93 (2.93%) Banking
7 88 (2.77%) Legal
8 78 (2.45%) Billing
9 68 (2.14%) Telecoms
10 60 (1.89%) Documentation Skills
11 56 (1.76%) General Ledger
12 55 (1.73%) Presentation Skills
13 51 (1.60%) Marketing
14 50 (1.57%) Retail
15 47 (1.48%) Inclusion and Diversity
16 40 (1.26%) Pharmaceutical
17 37 (1.16%) Influencing Skills
18 24 (0.76%) Local Government
19 19 (0.60%) Aerospace
19 19 (0.60%) Organisational Skills
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 111 (3.49%) Oracle Fusion
2 87 (2.74%) REST
3 62 (1.95%) XML
4 42 (1.32%) SOAP
5 40 (1.26%) SAP Fiori
6 33 (1.04%) Middleware
7 29 (0.91%) Web Services
8 27 (0.85%) JSON
9 22 (0.69%) BAPI
10 20 (0.63%) HTML
11 18 (0.57%) CSS
11 18 (0.57%) SAP PI
12 17 (0.53%) LDAP
12 17 (0.53%) OAuth
12 17 (0.53%) SAP Basis
13 14 (0.44%) IDoc
13 14 (0.44%) SailPoint
14 13 (0.41%) .NET
15 11 (0.35%) ADO
16 10 (0.31%) EDI
Miscellaneous
1 119 (3.74%) Onboarding
2 51 (1.60%) CMDB
3 41 (1.29%) Data Protection Act
4 38 (1.20%) Product Ownership
4 38 (1.20%) Security Posture
5 36 (1.13%) Data Centre
6 35 (1.10%) Data Structures
6 35 (1.10%) Legacy Systems
7 29 (0.91%) AI Agents
7 29 (0.91%) Operational Technology
8 24 (0.76%) Cloud Native
8 24 (0.76%) Enterprise Software
9 23 (0.72%) Replication
10 22 (0.69%) Public Cloud
11 21 (0.66%) Greenfield Project
12 19 (0.60%) Life Science
12 19 (0.60%) Management Information System
13 18 (0.57%) Analytical Mindset
14 17 (0.53%) Hybrid Cloud
14 17 (0.53%) NHS
Operating Systems
1 100 (3.15%) Windows
2 77 (2.42%) Linux
3 25 (0.79%) Unix
4 21 (0.66%) Solaris
5 20 (0.63%) VMS
6 19 (0.60%) AIX
7 15 (0.47%) Windows Server
8 6 (0.19%) Android
8 6 (0.19%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
9 5 (0.16%) Apple iOS
10 4 (0.13%) Windows 10
11 3 (0.094%) Mac OS
12 2 (0.063%) Windows Server 2016
13 1 (0.031%) CoreOS
13 1 (0.031%) Data ONTAP
13 1 (0.031%) OpenVMS
13 1 (0.031%) SUSE
13 1 (0.031%) Windows Server 2012
13 1 (0.031%) zOS
Processes & Methodologies
1 460 (14.47%) Stakeholder Management
2 415 (13.06%) Migration
3 296 (9.31%) Stakeholder Engagement
4 257 (8.09%) User Acceptance Testing
5 256 (8.06%) Problem-Solving
6 240 (7.55%) ERP
7 223 (7.02%) Workshop Facilitation
8 219 (6.89%) Validation
9 205 (6.45%) Continuous Improvement
9 205 (6.45%) Cybersecurity
10 190 (5.98%) Agile
11 189 (5.95%) Analytics
11 189 (5.95%) Roadmaps
12 185 (5.82%) Data Migration
13 168 (5.29%) AI
14 155 (4.88%) Requirements Gathering
15 151 (4.75%) Business Intelligence
16 137 (4.31%) Translating Business Requirements
17 128 (4.03%) Project Delivery
18 127 (4.00%) Change Management
Programming Languages
1 262 (8.24%) SQL
2 122 (3.84%) Python
3 58 (1.83%) PowerShell
4 54 (1.70%) PL/SQL
5 51 (1.60%) JavaScript
6 48 (1.51%) ABAP
7 38 (1.20%) T-SQL
8 31 (0.98%) Java
9 17 (0.53%) Bash
10 14 (0.44%) C#
10 14 (0.44%) Data Analysis Expressions
11 13 (0.41%) Kusto Query Language
11 13 (0.41%) Search Processing Language
12 9 (0.28%) R
12 9 (0.28%) TypeScript
13 7 (0.22%) Shell Script
14 6 (0.19%) Korn
14 6 (0.19%) Perl
15 5 (0.16%) C++
15 5 (0.16%) Groovy
Qualifications
1 668 (21.02%) Security Cleared
2 455 (14.32%) SC Cleared
3 150 (4.72%) DV Cleared
4 92 (2.89%) BPSS Clearance
5 81 (2.55%) CISSP
6 75 (2.36%) Degree
7 63 (1.98%) CISM
8 41 (1.29%) Cisco Certification
9 32 (1.01%) (ISC)2 CCSP
10 27 (0.85%) CCSP
11 20 (0.63%) ACCA
11 20 (0.63%) CIMA
12 17 (0.53%) CRISC
13 15 (0.47%) PMP
14 14 (0.44%) CEH
14 14 (0.44%) CompTIA Security+
15 12 (0.38%) Azure Certification
15 12 (0.38%) Computer Science Degree
15 12 (0.38%) OSCP
16 11 (0.35%) ISO 27001 Lead Auditor
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 90 (2.83%) NIST
2 83 (2.61%) Data Quality
3 77 (2.42%) ISO/IEC 27001
4 70 (2.20%) GRC
5 54 (1.70%) QA
6 40 (1.26%) GDPR
7 29 (0.91%) NCSC
8 28 (0.88%) PCI DSS
9 24 (0.76%) PMO
10 23 (0.72%) Accessibility
10 23 (0.72%) Actionable Recommendations
10 23 (0.72%) SLA
11 16 (0.50%) Sarbanes-Oxley
12 13 (0.41%) GxP
13 12 (0.38%) COBIT
14 11 (0.35%) Cyber Essentials
15 10 (0.31%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
15 10 (0.31%) NIST 800
16 9 (0.28%) IFRS
16 9 (0.28%) SOC 2
System Software
1 70 (2.20%) Active Directory
2 41 (1.29%) VMware Infrastructure
3 39 (1.23%) VMware NSX
4 25 (0.79%) vSphere
5 14 (0.44%) VMware ESXi
6 12 (0.38%) Docker
7 11 (0.35%) Hyper-V
7 11 (0.35%) Virtual Machines
8 10 (0.31%) IAG
9 7 (0.22%) Virtual Desktop
10 2 (0.063%) BitLocker
10 2 (0.063%) Firmware
10 2 (0.063%) NFS
10 2 (0.063%) PowerHA
11 1 (0.031%) HDFS
11 1 (0.031%) Oracle RAC
11 1 (0.031%) oVirt
11 1 (0.031%) ProxySG
11 1 (0.031%) RHEV
11 1 (0.031%) SRDF
Systems Management
1 59 (1.86%) Terraform
2 45 (1.42%) Kubernetes
3 31 (0.98%) Ansible
4 18 (0.57%) vRealize
5 17 (0.53%) SCCM
6 16 (0.50%) Microsoft Intune
7 15 (0.47%) Nagios
7 15 (0.47%) ZABBIX
8 14 (0.44%) Grafana
8 14 (0.44%) Netcool
8 14 (0.44%) Tivoli
9 13 (0.41%) OpenView
9 13 (0.41%) Single Sign-On
9 13 (0.41%) Tivoli Monitoring
10 12 (0.38%) FortiGate
11 11 (0.35%) Prometheus
11 11 (0.35%) vCenter Server
12 6 (0.19%) NetBackup
12 6 (0.19%) VxRail
13 4 (0.13%) CEMLI
Vendors
1 657 (20.67%) SAP
2 420 (13.22%) Microsoft
3 390 (12.27%) Oracle
4 127 (4.00%) ServiceNow
5 88 (2.77%) VMware
6 60 (1.89%) Ariba
7 57 (1.79%) Workday
8 56 (1.76%) Salesforce
9 46 (1.45%) Splunk
10 43 (1.35%) Databricks
11 30 (0.94%) BMC
12 29 (0.91%) Google
13 28 (0.88%) IBM
14 27 (0.85%) OpenText
15 24 (0.76%) Palo Alto
16 22 (0.69%) Adobe
17 19 (0.60%) Cisco
18 17 (0.53%) Dell
18 17 (0.53%) JD Edwards
18 17 (0.53%) OpenAI