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 13 October 2026.

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

6 months to
13 Oct 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 29 24 25
Rank change year-on-year -5 +1 +5
Contract jobs requiring a Consultant 3,279 2,379 2,571
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 5.97% 7.22% 6.86%
As % of the Job Titles category 6.49% 7.95% 7.37%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,826 1,370 1,361
10th Percentile £413 £411 £408
25th Percentile £463 £475 £469
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £550 £550 £550
75th Percentile £652 £656 £645
90th Percentile £750 £750 £750
UK excluding London median daily rate £550 £550 £563
% change year-on-year - -2.22% +7.14%
Number of hourly rates quoted 74 29 24
10th Percentile £36.25 £29.11 £45.38
25th Percentile £51.00 £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 £89.63 £86.25 £74.96
UK excluding London median hourly rate £75.00 £77.50 £61.60
% change year-on-year -3.23% +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 50,528 29,913 34,877
% of contract IT jobs with a recognized job title 92.00% 90.84% 93.01%
Number of daily rates quoted 29,639 18,895 21,041
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% -0.47%
75th Percentile £638 £623 £638
90th Percentile £736 £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 4,102 1,645 1,439
10th Percentile £14.36 £13.75 £15.00
25th Percentile £19.43 £17.30 £20.30
Median hourly rate £41.71 £25.15 £41.27
Median % change year-on-year +65.84% -39.05% -8.30%
75th Percentile £67.50 £50.00 £65.00
90th Percentile £79.90 £68.15 £73.80
UK excluding London median hourly rate £41.71 £25.00 £42.50
% change year-on-year +66.84% -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 13 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 13 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 13 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 2,634 £550 -3.51% 2,631
UK excluding London -7 1,354 £550 - 1,232
London -3 1,285 £550 -4.35% 1,470
Work from Home -5 1,056 £550 - 1,414
South East -2 385 £525 -4.55% 317
North of England -21 346 £575 -4.17% 347
North West -17 226 £585 -5.84% 191
Midlands -4 221 £501 -12.96% 165
South West +10 190 £600 +8.84% 127
West Midlands -6 160 £500 -13.04% 112
Scotland +13 115 £505 +1.00% 128
East of England -16 108 £559 +1.55% 76
Yorkshire -21 90 £550 +13.40% 76
East Midlands -9 54 £550 -3.30% 53
North East -18 29 £750 +36.36% 80
Wales -26 18 £575 +29.58% 29
Channel Islands -4 2 £600 -
Northern Ireland -11 1 £638 +22.60% 54

Consultant Skill Set
Top 30 Co-Occurring Skills & Capabilities

For the 6 months to 13 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.

1 714 (21.77%) Security Cleared
2 659 (20.10%) SAP
3 624 (19.03%) Stakeholder Management
4 500 (15.25%) Microsoft
5 484 (14.76%) SC Cleared
6 452 (13.78%) Migration
7 387 (11.80%) Oracle
8 338 (10.31%) Azure
9 300 (9.15%) SAP S/4HANA
9 300 (9.15%) User Acceptance Testing
10 298 (9.09%) Stakeholder Engagement
11 286 (8.72%) Problem-Solving
12 266 (8.11%) Workshop Facilitation
13 265 (8.08%) Validation
14 258 (7.87%) Cybersecurity
15 233 (7.11%) ERP
16 229 (6.98%) Analytics
17 209 (6.37%) SQL
18 207 (6.31%) Data Migration
19 201 (6.13%) Roadmaps
20 200 (6.10%) Requirements Gathering
21 198 (6.04%) Continuous Improvement
22 181 (5.52%) Agile
23 178 (5.43%) AI
24 173 (5.28%) Knowledge Transfer
25 167 (5.09%) AWS
26 156 (4.76%) Power Platform
27 154 (4.70%) DV Cleared
28 153 (4.67%) Business Intelligence
29 146 (4.45%) 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 71 (2.17%) SharePoint
2 46 (1.40%) 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%) Apache Spark
8 4 (0.12%) ArcGIS
8 4 (0.12%) CMS
9 3 (0.091%) Adobe Experience Manager
9 3 (0.091%) IIS
9 3 (0.091%) NetWeaver
9 3 (0.091%) OpenStack
9 3 (0.091%) Oracle SOA Suite
9 3 (0.091%) SAP Portal
9 3 (0.091%) TIBCO ActiveMatrix
10 2 (0.061%) Oracle Service Bus
Applications
1 51 (1.56%) Microsoft Excel
2 33 (1.01%) Microsoft Office
3 28 (0.85%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 9 (0.27%) MS Visio
5 7 (0.21%) Spreadsheet
6 4 (0.12%) Microsoft Project
7 2 (0.061%) 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 84 (2.56%) 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
6 48 (1.46%) SAP HCM
7 45 (1.37%) SAP CO
8 43 (1.31%) Oracle General Ledger
8 43 (1.31%) Oracle Receivables
9 42 (1.28%) Oracle Payables
10 41 (1.25%) Workday HCM
11 39 (1.19%) SAP HR
12 36 (1.10%) SAP FI/CO
13 35 (1.07%) SAP BRIM
13 35 (1.07%) SAP SD
14 34 (1.04%) Dynamics CRM
15 28 (0.85%) SAP FI-CA
16 27 (0.82%) SAP MM
16 27 (0.82%) SAP PP
Cloud Services
1 338 (10.31%) Azure
2 167 (5.09%) AWS
3 156 (4.76%) Power Platform
4 146 (4.45%) Dynamics 365
5 111 (3.39%) OCI
6 106 (3.23%) SuccessFactors
7 96 (2.93%) GCP
8 92 (2.81%) Microsoft 365
9 79 (2.41%) Entra ID
10 69 (2.10%) Azure DevOps
11 58 (1.77%) Power Automate
12 55 (1.68%) Microsoft Copilot
13 49 (1.49%) SaaS
14 34 (1.04%) PowerApps
15 31 (0.95%) Microsoft Purview
16 28 (0.85%) GitHub
17 23 (0.70%) Snowflake
18 22 (0.67%) Azure AI
19 17 (0.52%) Azure Logic Apps
19 17 (0.52%) GitHub Actions
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%) Radio Access Network
13 9 (0.27%) FTP
13 9 (0.27%) X.509
Database & Business Intelligence
1 95 (2.90%) 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 28 (0.85%) Metadata
9 24 (0.73%) Tableau
10 23 (0.70%) 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 9 (0.27%) DynamoDB
17 8 (0.24%) SAP Data Services
18 7 (0.21%) Data Lake
18 7 (0.21%) Looker
Development Applications
1 93 (2.84%) JIRA
2 33 (1.01%) Git
3 19 (0.58%) Jenkins
4 14 (0.43%) GitLab
5 10 (0.30%) Oracle Forms
6 8 (0.24%) SonarQube
7 7 (0.21%) PowerBuilder
7 7 (0.21%) Zephyr
8 6 (0.18%) Sonatype Nexus
9 5 (0.15%) Cypress.io
9 5 (0.15%) Hudson
10 4 (0.12%) Browser DevTools
10 4 (0.12%) Maven
11 3 (0.091%) JDeveloper
11 3 (0.091%) JMeter
11 3 (0.091%) LoadRunner
11 3 (0.091%) MLflow
11 3 (0.091%) Postman
11 3 (0.091%) Snyk
11 3 (0.091%) TestRail
General
1 761 (23.21%) Social Skills
2 740 (22.57%) Finance
3 271 (8.26%) Public Sector
4 248 (7.56%) Analytical Skills
5 144 (4.39%) Manufacturing
6 101 (3.08%) Banking
7 95 (2.90%) Legal
8 93 (2.84%) Billing
9 86 (2.62%) Documentation Skills
10 70 (2.13%) Telecoms
11 63 (1.92%) General Ledger
12 61 (1.86%) Retail
13 55 (1.68%) Presentation Skills
14 45 (1.37%) Marketing
15 39 (1.19%) Inclusion and Diversity
15 39 (1.19%) Influencing Skills
16 36 (1.10%) Pharmaceutical
17 34 (1.04%) Local Government
18 25 (0.76%) Law
19 21 (0.64%) Aerospace
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 131 (4.00%) Oracle Fusion
2 69 (2.10%) REST
3 66 (2.01%) Terraform
4 46 (1.40%) SAP Fiori
5 39 (1.19%) Web Services
6 38 (1.16%) Middleware
7 36 (1.10%) SOAP
8 33 (1.01%) XML
9 25 (0.76%) SailPoint
10 21 (0.64%) OAuth
11 19 (0.58%) LDAP
12 18 (0.55%) JSON
12 18 (0.55%) SAP PI
13 16 (0.49%) BAPI
14 15 (0.46%) ADO
14 15 (0.46%) HTML
15 14 (0.43%) SAPUI5
16 13 (0.40%) .NET
16 13 (0.40%) NETCONF
16 13 (0.40%) YANG
Miscellaneous
1 141 (4.30%) Onboarding
2 53 (1.62%) CMDB
2 53 (1.62%) Data Structures
3 52 (1.59%) Operational Technology
4 49 (1.49%) Data Centre
5 44 (1.34%) Enterprise Software
6 39 (1.19%) Product Ownership
7 34 (1.04%) 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 28 (0.85%) Legacy Systems
11 25 (0.76%) Public Cloud
12 23 (0.70%) Greenfield Project
13 21 (0.64%) Life Science
14 20 (0.61%) Management Information System
15 19 (0.58%) Hybrid Cloud
16 17 (0.52%) NHS
17 16 (0.49%) PKI
Operating Systems
1 102 (3.11%) Windows
2 73 (2.23%) Linux
3 30 (0.91%) Unix
3 30 (0.91%) Windows Server
4 15 (0.46%) 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
1 624 (19.03%) Stakeholder Management
2 452 (13.78%) Migration
3 300 (9.15%) User Acceptance Testing
4 298 (9.09%) Stakeholder Engagement
5 286 (8.72%) Problem-Solving
6 266 (8.11%) Workshop Facilitation
7 265 (8.08%) Validation
8 258 (7.87%) Cybersecurity
9 233 (7.11%) ERP
10 229 (6.98%) Analytics
11 207 (6.31%) Data Migration
12 201 (6.13%) Roadmaps
13 200 (6.10%) Requirements Gathering
14 198 (6.04%) Continuous Improvement
15 181 (5.52%) Agile
16 178 (5.43%) AI
17 173 (5.28%) Knowledge Transfer
18 153 (4.67%) Business Intelligence
19 142 (4.33%) Translating Business Requirements
20 139 (4.24%) DevOps
Programming Languages
1 209 (6.37%) SQL
2 105 (3.20%) Python
3 70 (2.13%) ABAP
4 57 (1.74%) PowerShell
5 39 (1.19%) JavaScript
6 35 (1.07%) Java
7 26 (0.79%) Bash
7 26 (0.79%) PL/SQL
8 19 (0.58%) C#
8 19 (0.58%) Data Analysis Expressions
9 13 (0.40%) Kusto Query Language
10 9 (0.27%) TypeScript
11 8 (0.24%) Groovy
11 8 (0.24%) Shell Script
11 8 (0.24%) T-SQL
12 7 (0.21%) Korn
12 7 (0.21%) Search Processing Language
13 4 (0.12%) Bicep
13 4 (0.12%) Perl
13 4 (0.12%) R
Qualifications
1 714 (21.77%) Security Cleared
2 484 (14.76%) 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 18 (0.55%) ACCA
11 18 (0.55%) AWS Certification
12 16 (0.49%) CIMA
13 15 (0.46%) CRISC
14 12 (0.37%) CompTIA Security+
14 12 (0.37%) Computer Science Degree
15 10 (0.30%) CCIE
15 10 (0.30%) CISA
15 10 (0.30%) PMP
16 9 (0.27%) DBS Check
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 128 (3.90%) Data Quality
2 103 (3.14%) NIST
3 80 (2.44%) ISO/IEC 27001
4 78 (2.38%) GRC
5 61 (1.86%) QA
6 47 (1.43%) NCSC
7 41 (1.25%) GDPR
8 31 (0.95%) SLA
9 28 (0.85%) PMO
10 21 (0.64%) 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%) SOC 2
16 8 (0.24%) GxP
16 8 (0.24%) IFRS
16 8 (0.24%) ISO 22301
System Software
1 95 (2.90%) Active Directory
2 32 (0.98%) VMware Infrastructure
3 26 (0.79%) VMware NSX
4 18 (0.55%) Docker
5 17 (0.52%) vSphere
6 12 (0.37%) Hyper-V
6 12 (0.37%) VMware ESXi
7 10 (0.30%) Virtual Machines
8 9 (0.27%) Firmware
8 9 (0.27%) IAG
9 8 (0.24%) Virtual Desktop
10 4 (0.12%) Embedded Firmware
11 2 (0.061%) NFS
11 2 (0.061%) PowerHA
12 1 (0.030%) Corosync
12 1 (0.030%) HDFS
12 1 (0.030%) Oracle RAC
12 1 (0.030%) ProxySG
12 1 (0.030%) RHEV
12 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 15 (0.46%) 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 9 (0.27%) 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%) Tivoli Monitoring
Vendors
1 659 (20.10%) SAP
2 500 (15.25%) Microsoft
3 387 (11.80%) Oracle
4 136 (4.15%) ServiceNow
5 82 (2.50%) Workday
6 64 (1.95%) VMware
7 49 (1.49%) Salesforce
8 46 (1.40%) Ariba
9 42 (1.28%) Databricks
10 36 (1.10%) Palo Alto
11 34 (1.04%) Splunk
12 32 (0.98%) CyberArk
13 30 (0.91%) Google
14 28 (0.85%) Cisco
15 22 (0.67%) BMC
15 22 (0.67%) IBM
15 22 (0.67%) OpenText
16 20 (0.61%) Adobe
17 19 (0.58%) Zscaler
18 17 (0.52%) Okta