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 21 August 2026.

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

6 months to
21 Aug 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 27 27 26
Rank change year-on-year 0 -1 +6
Contract jobs requiring a Consultant 3,222 2,154 2,687
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 6.02% 6.57% 6.90%
As % of the Job Titles category 6.51% 7.20% 7.43%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,779 1,257 1,554
10th Percentile £405 £411 £406
25th Percentile £463 £475 £468
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £550 £550 £550
75th Percentile £650 £649 £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 61 25 29
10th Percentile £36.25 £28.32 £41.15
25th Percentile £51.00 £41.60 £55.00
Median hourly rate £62.25 £77.50 £61.60
Median % change year-on-year -19.68% +25.81% -5.32%
75th Percentile £86.00 £81.25 £68.00
90th Percentile £88.75 - £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 49,522 29,914 36,178
% of contract IT jobs with a recognized job title 92.46% 91.26% 92.96%
Number of daily rates quoted 29,686 18,901 23,122
10th Percentile £325 £280 £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 £620 £638
90th Percentile £730 £725 £750
UK excluding London median daily rate £500 £475 £500
% change year-on-year +5.26% -5.00% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 3,509 1,556 1,977
10th Percentile £15.00 £13.60 £14.16
25th Percentile £20.53 £17.30 £19.59
Median hourly rate £41.74 £25.15 £43.00
Median % change year-on-year +65.94% -41.51% +2.38%
75th Percentile £67.84 £53.99 £65.00
90th Percentile £80.00 £72.25 £75.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £42.50 £25.15 £43.00
% change year-on-year +68.99% -41.51% +14.67%

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 21 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 21 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 21 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 2,598 £550 - 963
UK excluding London +4 1,407 £525 -4.55% 698
London -2 1,206 £550 -4.35% 400
Work from Home -3 1,080 £550 - 512
South East 0 416 £540 -1.82% 190
North of England -7 324 £550 - 158
Midlands +5 256 £500 -9.09% 89
North West -3 206 £578 +0.43% 108
South West +12 203 £553 -3.83% 132
West Midlands +13 183 £500 -13.04% 65
Scotland +33 117 £450 -5.26% 33
Yorkshire -11 97 £525 +4.53% 37
East of England -12 82 £550 - 62
East Midlands -3 66 £525 -4.55% 24
Wales -13 26 £550 +10.00% 7
North East -29 20 £750 +38.89% 14
Northern Ireland -6 2 £544 +4.57% 42

Consultant Skill Set
Top 30 Co-Occurring Skills & Capabilities

For the 6 months to 21 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.

1 684 (21.23%) Security Cleared
2 667 (20.70%) SAP
3 481 (14.93%) Stakeholder Management
4 466 (14.46%) SC Cleared
5 423 (13.13%) Microsoft
6 415 (12.88%) Migration
7 402 (12.48%) Oracle
8 302 (9.37%) Azure
9 300 (9.31%) Stakeholder Engagement
10 271 (8.41%) SAP S/4HANA
11 269 (8.35%) User Acceptance Testing
12 264 (8.19%) SQL
13 260 (8.07%) Problem-Solving
14 236 (7.32%) ERP
15 229 (7.11%) Workshop Facilitation
16 225 (6.98%) Validation
17 212 (6.58%) Cybersecurity
18 210 (6.52%) Continuous Improvement
19 198 (6.15%) Analytics
20 188 (5.83%) Agile
21 187 (5.80%) Roadmaps
22 184 (5.71%) Data Migration
23 167 (5.18%) AI
24 164 (5.09%) AWS
25 163 (5.06%) Requirements Gathering
26 154 (4.78%) Business Intelligence
27 152 (4.72%) DV Cleared
28 151 (4.69%) Power Platform
29 146 (4.53%) Translating Business Requirements
30 133 (4.13%) 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 (2.64%) SharePoint
2 50 (1.55%) Confluence
3 19 (0.59%) Microsoft Exchange
4 14 (0.43%) Oracle Workflow
5 9 (0.28%) WebSphere
6 8 (0.25%) WebLogic
7 6 (0.19%) Apache Spark
8 4 (0.12%) SAS
9 3 (0.093%) Apache
9 3 (0.093%) Apache Airflow
9 3 (0.093%) Apache Superset
9 3 (0.093%) OpenStack
9 3 (0.093%) TIBCO ActiveMatrix
10 2 (0.062%) Adobe Experience Manager
10 2 (0.062%) Cloud Foundry
10 2 (0.062%) Oracle Service Bus
10 2 (0.062%) Oracle SOA Suite
10 2 (0.062%) Palantir Foundry
10 2 (0.062%) Tomcat
10 2 (0.062%) WordPress
Applications
1 79 (2.45%) Microsoft Excel
2 33 (1.02%) Microsoft Office
3 24 (0.74%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 10 (0.31%) Spreadsheet
5 8 (0.25%) MS Visio
6 5 (0.16%) Microsoft Project
7 4 (0.12%) Chatbot
8 1 (0.031%) Adobe Captivate
8 1 (0.031%) Adobe Creative Suite
8 1 (0.031%) CPLEX
8 1 (0.031%) Oracle Smart View
Business Applications
1 271 (8.41%) SAP S/4HANA
2 90 (2.79%) Oracle EBS
3 70 (2.17%) SAP FI
4 48 (1.49%) SAP PSCD
5 47 (1.46%) Oracle ERP
5 47 (1.46%) Oracle Payables
6 39 (1.21%) SAP CO
6 39 (1.21%) SAP MM
7 36 (1.12%) Oracle Receivables
8 35 (1.09%) Dynamics CRM
8 35 (1.09%) SAP SD
9 32 (0.99%) SAP FI/CO
10 31 (0.96%) SAP BRIM
10 31 (0.96%) Workday HCM
11 30 (0.93%) NetSuite
11 30 (0.93%) SAP PP
12 28 (0.87%) SAP FI-CA
12 28 (0.87%) SAP Payroll
13 27 (0.84%) Oracle General Ledger
14 26 (0.81%) Oracle EBS R12
Cloud Services
1 302 (9.37%) Azure
2 164 (5.09%) AWS
3 151 (4.69%) Power Platform
4 133 (4.13%) Dynamics 365
5 112 (3.48%) OCI
6 109 (3.38%) SuccessFactors
7 92 (2.86%) GCP
8 86 (2.67%) Microsoft 365
9 70 (2.17%) Power Automate
10 58 (1.80%) Entra ID
11 57 (1.77%) Azure DevOps
12 53 (1.64%) Microsoft Copilot
13 46 (1.43%) SaaS
14 35 (1.09%) PowerApps
15 28 (0.87%) GitHub
16 26 (0.81%) Microsoft Purview
17 18 (0.56%) Copilot Studio
18 16 (0.50%) Azure AI
18 16 (0.50%) Azure Logic Apps
19 14 (0.43%) GitHub Actions
Communications & Networking
1 60 (1.86%) Firewall
2 58 (1.80%) Network Security
3 33 (1.02%) WAN
4 25 (0.78%) SNMP
5 24 (0.74%) BGP
6 20 (0.62%) DNS
6 20 (0.62%) VPN
7 19 (0.59%) LAN
8 14 (0.43%) SAN
9 11 (0.34%) TCP/IP
10 10 (0.31%) Ethernet VPN
10 10 (0.31%) NGFW
10 10 (0.31%) VSAN
11 9 (0.28%) SD-WAN
11 9 (0.28%) VXLAN
12 7 (0.22%) 5G
12 7 (0.22%) IPsec
12 7 (0.22%) MPLS
12 7 (0.22%) Radio Access Network
12 7 (0.22%) Wireless
Database & Business Intelligence
1 95 (2.95%) Power BI
2 60 (1.86%) Oracle Reports
3 36 (1.12%) Oracle BI Publisher
3 36 (1.12%) SAP BW
3 36 (1.12%) SQL Server
4 34 (1.06%) SAP HANA
4 34 (1.06%) Tableau
5 26 (0.81%) Metadata
6 25 (0.78%) Data Warehouse
7 19 (0.59%) BusinessObjects
7 19 (0.59%) Oracle ODI
8 12 (0.37%) SAP Data Services
9 11 (0.34%) Oracle Database
10 10 (0.31%) Power Query
11 8 (0.25%) Relational Database
12 7 (0.22%) Looker
12 7 (0.22%) SQL Server Reporting Services
13 6 (0.19%) Delta Lake
14 5 (0.16%) Hadoop
14 5 (0.16%) NonStop SQL
Development Applications
1 95 (2.95%) JIRA
2 20 (0.62%) Git
2 20 (0.62%) Oracle Forms
3 16 (0.50%) Jenkins
4 12 (0.37%) Hudson
5 10 (0.31%) GitLab
6 7 (0.22%) Sonatype Nexus
7 6 (0.19%) PowerBuilder
7 6 (0.19%) SonarQube
8 5 (0.16%) Cypress.io
9 4 (0.12%) Selenium
9 4 (0.12%) Snyk
9 4 (0.12%) Zephyr
10 3 (0.093%) Browser DevTools
10 3 (0.093%) JMeter
10 3 (0.093%) MLflow
10 3 (0.093%) Postman
10 3 (0.093%) TestRail
10 3 (0.093%) Toad
10 3 (0.093%) Visual Studio Code
General
1 708 (21.97%) Finance
2 700 (21.73%) Social Skills
3 247 (7.67%) Analytical Skills
4 232 (7.20%) Public Sector
5 119 (3.69%) Manufacturing
6 94 (2.92%) Banking
7 88 (2.73%) Legal
8 78 (2.42%) Billing
9 66 (2.05%) Telecoms
10 62 (1.92%) Documentation Skills
11 59 (1.83%) General Ledger
12 54 (1.68%) Presentation Skills
13 53 (1.64%) Retail
14 48 (1.49%) Marketing
15 46 (1.43%) Inclusion and Diversity
16 38 (1.18%) Pharmaceutical
17 37 (1.15%) Influencing Skills
18 23 (0.71%) Local Government
19 19 (0.59%) Law
19 19 (0.59%) Organisational Skills
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 119 (3.69%) Oracle Fusion
2 87 (2.70%) REST
3 63 (1.96%) XML
4 59 (1.83%) Terraform
5 41 (1.27%) SAP Fiori
5 41 (1.27%) SOAP
6 33 (1.02%) Middleware
7 30 (0.93%) Web Services
8 27 (0.84%) JSON
9 21 (0.65%) BAPI
10 20 (0.62%) HTML
11 18 (0.56%) CSS
11 18 (0.56%) LDAP
11 18 (0.56%) SAP Basis
11 18 (0.56%) SAP PI
12 17 (0.53%) OAuth
13 16 (0.50%) SailPoint
14 13 (0.40%) .NET
14 13 (0.40%) EDI
14 13 (0.40%) IDoc
Miscellaneous
1 119 (3.69%) Onboarding
2 52 (1.61%) CMDB
3 41 (1.27%) Data Protection Act
4 39 (1.21%) Data Centre
4 39 (1.21%) Product Ownership
5 36 (1.12%) Security Posture
6 35 (1.09%) Data Structures
7 34 (1.06%) Legacy Systems
8 29 (0.90%) AI Agents
9 27 (0.84%) Enterprise Software
9 27 (0.84%) Operational Technology
10 26 (0.81%) Replication
11 24 (0.74%) Cloud Native
12 22 (0.68%) Public Cloud
13 19 (0.59%) Greenfield Project
13 19 (0.59%) Management Information System
14 18 (0.56%) Analytical Mindset
14 18 (0.56%) Hybrid Cloud
14 18 (0.56%) Life Science
14 18 (0.56%) NHS
Operating Systems
1 102 (3.17%) Windows
2 79 (2.45%) Linux
3 25 (0.78%) Unix
4 21 (0.65%) Solaris
5 20 (0.62%) VMS
6 19 (0.59%) AIX
7 17 (0.53%) Windows Server
8 6 (0.19%) Android
8 6 (0.19%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
9 5 (0.16%) Apple iOS
9 5 (0.16%) Windows 10
10 3 (0.093%) Mac OS
11 2 (0.062%) Windows Server 2016
12 1 (0.031%) CoreOS
12 1 (0.031%) Data ONTAP
12 1 (0.031%) OpenVMS
12 1 (0.031%) SUSE
12 1 (0.031%) Windows Server 2012
12 1 (0.031%) zOS
Processes & Methodologies
1 481 (14.93%) Stakeholder Management
2 415 (12.88%) Migration
3 300 (9.31%) Stakeholder Engagement
4 269 (8.35%) User Acceptance Testing
5 260 (8.07%) Problem-Solving
6 236 (7.32%) ERP
7 229 (7.11%) Workshop Facilitation
8 225 (6.98%) Validation
9 212 (6.58%) Cybersecurity
10 210 (6.52%) Continuous Improvement
11 198 (6.15%) Analytics
12 188 (5.83%) Agile
13 187 (5.80%) Roadmaps
14 184 (5.71%) Data Migration
15 167 (5.18%) AI
16 163 (5.06%) Requirements Gathering
17 154 (4.78%) Business Intelligence
18 146 (4.53%) Translating Business Requirements
19 132 (4.10%) Project Delivery
20 128 (3.97%) Knowledge Transfer
Programming Languages
1 264 (8.19%) SQL
2 121 (3.76%) Python
3 57 (1.77%) PowerShell
4 53 (1.64%) PL/SQL
5 49 (1.52%) ABAP
5 49 (1.52%) JavaScript
6 38 (1.18%) T-SQL
7 31 (0.96%) Java
8 17 (0.53%) Bash
9 14 (0.43%) C#
10 13 (0.40%) Data Analysis Expressions
10 13 (0.40%) Kusto Query Language
10 13 (0.40%) Search Processing Language
11 9 (0.28%) R
11 9 (0.28%) TypeScript
12 7 (0.22%) Shell Script
13 6 (0.19%) Korn
13 6 (0.19%) Perl
14 5 (0.16%) C++
14 5 (0.16%) Groovy
Qualifications
1 684 (21.23%) Security Cleared
2 466 (14.46%) SC Cleared
3 152 (4.72%) DV Cleared
4 94 (2.92%) BPSS Clearance
5 80 (2.48%) CISSP
6 72 (2.23%) Degree
7 62 (1.92%) CISM
8 41 (1.27%) Cisco Certification
9 31 (0.96%) (ISC)2 CCSP
10 27 (0.84%) CCSP
11 21 (0.65%) ACCA
12 20 (0.62%) CIMA
13 15 (0.47%) CRISC
13 15 (0.47%) PMP
14 14 (0.43%) CEH
14 14 (0.43%) CompTIA Security+
15 12 (0.37%) Azure Certification
15 12 (0.37%) OSCP
16 11 (0.34%) Computer Science Degree
16 11 (0.34%) ISO 27001 Lead Auditor
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 93 (2.89%) NIST
2 86 (2.67%) Data Quality
3 80 (2.48%) ISO/IEC 27001
4 75 (2.33%) GRC
5 52 (1.61%) QA
6 38 (1.18%) GDPR
7 35 (1.09%) NCSC
8 30 (0.93%) SLA
9 28 (0.87%) PMO
10 24 (0.74%) PCI DSS
11 23 (0.71%) Accessibility
12 22 (0.68%) Actionable Recommendations
13 14 (0.43%) Sarbanes-Oxley
14 12 (0.37%) Cyber Essentials
14 12 (0.37%) GxP
15 11 (0.34%) COBIT
15 11 (0.34%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
16 9 (0.28%) IFRS
16 9 (0.28%) NIST 800
16 9 (0.28%) SOC 2
System Software
1 73 (2.27%) Active Directory
2 41 (1.27%) VMware Infrastructure
3 38 (1.18%) VMware NSX
4 24 (0.74%) vSphere
5 14 (0.43%) VMware ESXi
6 13 (0.40%) Docker
7 12 (0.37%) Hyper-V
7 12 (0.37%) Virtual Machines
8 10 (0.31%) IAG
9 7 (0.22%) Virtual Desktop
10 2 (0.062%) BitLocker
10 2 (0.062%) Firmware
10 2 (0.062%) NFS
10 2 (0.062%) PowerHA
11 1 (0.031%) HDFS
11 1 (0.031%) Oracle RAC
11 1 (0.031%) ProxySG
11 1 (0.031%) RHEV
11 1 (0.031%) SRDF
11 1 (0.031%) Time Sharing Option
Systems Management
1 45 (1.40%) Kubernetes
2 31 (0.96%) Ansible
3 18 (0.56%) Microsoft Intune
3 18 (0.56%) SCCM
4 16 (0.50%) vRealize
5 15 (0.47%) Nagios
5 15 (0.47%) ZABBIX
6 14 (0.43%) Grafana
6 14 (0.43%) Netcool
6 14 (0.43%) Tivoli
7 13 (0.40%) OpenView
7 13 (0.40%) Tivoli Monitoring
8 12 (0.37%) FortiGate
8 12 (0.37%) Single Sign-On
9 11 (0.34%) Prometheus
10 10 (0.31%) vCenter Server
11 6 (0.19%) NetBackup
11 6 (0.19%) VxRail
12 4 (0.12%) CEMLI
12 4 (0.12%) vRealize Orchestrator
Vendors
1 667 (20.70%) SAP
2 423 (13.13%) Microsoft
3 402 (12.48%) Oracle
4 131 (4.07%) ServiceNow
5 84 (2.61%) VMware
6 62 (1.92%) Workday
7 61 (1.89%) Ariba
8 55 (1.71%) Salesforce
9 46 (1.43%) Splunk
10 44 (1.37%) Databricks
11 32 (0.99%) BMC
12 29 (0.90%) IBM
13 28 (0.87%) Google
13 28 (0.87%) OpenText
14 24 (0.74%) Palo Alto
15 22 (0.68%) Adobe
16 20 (0.62%) Cisco
17 18 (0.56%) Okta
18 17 (0.53%) JD Edwards
18 17 (0.53%) OpenAI