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 September 2026.

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

6 months to
17 Sep 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 27 26 27
Rank change year-on-year -1 +1 +4
Contract jobs requiring a Consultant 3,287 2,267 2,598
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 6.01% 6.88% 6.79%
As % of the Job Titles category 6.51% 7.56% 7.31%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,855 1,334 1,423
10th Percentile £407 £413 £413
25th Percentile £463 £475 £469
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £550 £550 £550
Median % change year-on-year - - +1.85%
75th Percentile £650 £650 £650
90th Percentile £745 £750 £750
UK excluding London median daily rate £536 £550 £567
% change year-on-year -2.59% -3.00% +8.00%
Number of hourly rates quoted 57 27 23
10th Percentile £36.25 £28.72 £43.58
25th Percentile £45.00 £42.92 £55.83
Median hourly rate £76.00 £77.50 £61.60
Median % change year-on-year -1.94% +25.81% -5.23%
75th Percentile £86.11 £81.25 £67.00
90th Percentile £91.50 £87.35 £73.89
UK excluding London median hourly rate £76.25 £77.50 £61.60
% change year-on-year -1.61% +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 50,473 30,002 35,564
% of contract IT jobs with a recognized job title 92.35% 91.08% 92.99%
Number of daily rates quoted 29,930 18,956 21,934
10th Percentile £328 £278 £300
25th Percentile £425 £400 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £500 £525
Median % change year-on-year +5.00% -4.76% -0.94%
75th Percentile £626 £621 £638
90th Percentile £727 £725 £750
UK excluding London median daily rate £500 £475 £500
% change year-on-year +5.26% -5.00% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 3,805 1,570 1,684
10th Percentile £14.59 £13.75 £14.73
25th Percentile £20.31 £17.30 £20.30
Median hourly rate £42.50 £25.15 £43.00
Median % change year-on-year +68.99% -41.51% -2.01%
75th Percentile £67.84 £52.50 £65.00
90th Percentile £80.00 £70.00 £75.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £42.50 £25.15 £45.00
% change year-on-year +68.99% -44.11% +5.88%

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 September 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 September 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 17 September 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 -4 2,631 £550 - 3,378
UK excluding London -4 1,387 £536 -2.59% 1,746
London -3 1,265 £550 -4.35% 1,874
Work from Home -2 1,078 £550 - 1,769
South East -5 397 £540 -1.82% 423
North of England -18 319 £575 - 409
Midlands +1 231 £500 -9.09% 240
South West +11 207 £550 -8.33% 201
North West -10 207 £575 -7.26% 250
West Midlands +2 163 £500 -9.09% 194
Scotland +30 127 £452 -9.70% 144
East of England -14 106 £550 - 182
Yorkshire -21 91 £575 +22.99% 97
East Midlands -2 62 £525 -4.55% 45
Wales -15 22 £550 +22.22% 37
North East -34 20 £750 +37.61% 62
Channel Islands -5 2 £600 - 4
Northern Ireland -8 2 £544 +4.57% 120

Consultant Skill Set
Top 30 Co-Occurring Skills & Capabilities

For the 6 months to 17 September 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.

1 722 (21.97%) Security Cleared
2 678 (20.63%) SAP
3 555 (16.88%) Stakeholder Management
4 497 (15.12%) SC Cleared
5 464 (14.12%) Microsoft
6 437 (13.29%) Migration
7 424 (12.90%) Oracle
8 323 (9.83%) Azure
9 305 (9.28%) Stakeholder Engagement
10 292 (8.88%) SAP S/4HANA
11 287 (8.73%) User Acceptance Testing
12 265 (8.06%) Problem-Solving
13 242 (7.36%) Validation
14 237 (7.21%) Workshop Facilitation
15 236 (7.18%) ERP
16 235 (7.15%) Cybersecurity
17 229 (6.97%) SQL
18 213 (6.48%) Analytics
19 206 (6.27%) Continuous Improvement
20 198 (6.02%) Roadmaps
21 193 (5.87%) Data Migration
22 192 (5.84%) Agile
23 185 (5.63%) Requirements Gathering
24 184 (5.60%) AWS
25 168 (5.11%) AI
26 160 (4.87%) Power Platform
27 153 (4.65%) Business Intelligence
28 152 (4.62%) DV Cleared
28 152 (4.62%) Translating Business Requirements
29 147 (4.47%) Knowledge Transfer

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 76 (2.31%) SharePoint
2 43 (1.31%) Confluence
3 31 (0.94%) Microsoft Exchange
4 11 (0.33%) Oracle Workflow
5 9 (0.27%) WebSphere
6 8 (0.24%) SAS
6 8 (0.24%) WebLogic
7 4 (0.12%) Apache
8 3 (0.091%) Adobe Experience Manager
8 3 (0.091%) Apache Airflow
8 3 (0.091%) Apache Spark
8 3 (0.091%) CMS
8 3 (0.091%) NetWeaver
8 3 (0.091%) OpenStack
8 3 (0.091%) TIBCO ActiveMatrix
9 2 (0.061%) Apache Superset
9 2 (0.061%) ArcGIS
9 2 (0.061%) Oracle SOA Suite
9 2 (0.061%) Smallworld
9 2 (0.061%) WordPress
Applications
1 48 (1.46%) Microsoft Excel
2 32 (0.97%) Microsoft Office
3 25 (0.76%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 8 (0.24%) MS Visio
4 8 (0.24%) Spreadsheet
5 4 (0.12%) Microsoft Project
6 2 (0.061%) Chatbot
7 1 (0.030%) Adobe Captivate
7 1 (0.030%) Adobe Creative Suite
7 1 (0.030%) CPLEX
Business Applications
1 292 (8.88%) SAP S/4HANA
2 91 (2.77%) Oracle EBS
3 75 (2.28%) SAP FI
4 49 (1.49%) SAP PSCD
5 47 (1.43%) Oracle ERP
6 46 (1.40%) Oracle Payables
7 44 (1.34%) SAP CO
8 40 (1.22%) SAP Payroll
9 37 (1.13%) Dynamics CRM
9 37 (1.13%) Oracle Receivables
9 37 (1.13%) SAP SD
10 35 (1.06%) SAP FI/CO
10 35 (1.06%) Workday HCM
11 34 (1.03%) SAP MM
12 33 (1.00%) SAP HR
13 32 (0.97%) SAP BRIM
14 31 (0.94%) SAP HCM
15 30 (0.91%) NetSuite
15 30 (0.91%) Oracle General Ledger
15 30 (0.91%) SAP PP
Cloud Services
1 323 (9.83%) Azure
2 184 (5.60%) AWS
3 160 (4.87%) Power Platform
4 144 (4.38%) Dynamics 365
5 124 (3.77%) OCI
6 108 (3.29%) SuccessFactors
7 99 (3.01%) GCP
8 86 (2.62%) Microsoft 365
9 70 (2.13%) Entra ID
10 66 (2.01%) Power Automate
11 62 (1.89%) Azure DevOps
12 53 (1.61%) Microsoft Copilot
13 44 (1.34%) SaaS
14 35 (1.06%) PowerApps
15 29 (0.88%) Microsoft Purview
16 27 (0.82%) GitHub
17 18 (0.55%) Azure AI
17 18 (0.55%) Snowflake
18 16 (0.49%) Azure Logic Apps
18 16 (0.49%) Azure Monitor
Communications & Networking
1 68 (2.07%) Firewall
2 67 (2.04%) Network Security
3 35 (1.06%) WAN
4 34 (1.03%) BGP
5 25 (0.76%) VPN
6 21 (0.64%) SNMP
7 18 (0.55%) DNS
8 16 (0.49%) LAN
9 14 (0.43%) Ethernet VPN
10 13 (0.40%) SAN
10 13 (0.40%) TCP/IP
11 12 (0.37%) VXLAN
12 11 (0.33%) MPLS
12 11 (0.33%) NGFW
13 10 (0.30%) 3GPP
13 10 (0.30%) 5G
13 10 (0.30%) IPsec
13 10 (0.30%) Radio Access Network
13 10 (0.30%) SD-WAN
14 7 (0.21%) VLAN
Database & Business Intelligence
1 97 (2.95%) Power BI
2 59 (1.79%) Oracle Reports
3 37 (1.13%) Oracle BI Publisher
3 37 (1.13%) SAP BW
4 36 (1.10%) SAP HANA
5 34 (1.03%) Data Warehouse
6 28 (0.85%) SQL Server
6 28 (0.85%) Tableau
7 26 (0.79%) Metadata
8 20 (0.61%) BusinessObjects
9 18 (0.55%) Oracle Database
10 14 (0.43%) Power Query
11 13 (0.40%) Oracle ODI
12 11 (0.33%) Relational Database
13 10 (0.30%) SAP Data Services
14 8 (0.24%) BigQuery
14 8 (0.24%) DynamoDB
14 8 (0.24%) SQL Server Reporting Services
15 7 (0.21%) Amazon RDS
15 7 (0.21%) Looker
Development Applications
1 94 (2.86%) JIRA
2 26 (0.79%) Git
3 20 (0.61%) Oracle Forms
4 17 (0.52%) Jenkins
5 12 (0.37%) GitLab
6 9 (0.27%) Hudson
7 8 (0.24%) Zephyr
8 7 (0.21%) PowerBuilder
9 6 (0.18%) SonarQube
9 6 (0.18%) Sonatype Nexus
10 5 (0.15%) Cypress.io
11 4 (0.12%) MLflow
12 3 (0.091%) Browser DevTools
12 3 (0.091%) JMeter
12 3 (0.091%) Maven
12 3 (0.091%) Postman
12 3 (0.091%) Selenium
12 3 (0.091%) Snyk
12 3 (0.091%) TestRail
12 3 (0.091%) Visual Studio Code
General
1 736 (22.39%) Social Skills
2 714 (21.72%) Finance
3 252 (7.67%) Public Sector
4 236 (7.18%) Analytical Skills
5 120 (3.65%) Manufacturing
6 98 (2.98%) Banking
7 87 (2.65%) Legal
8 79 (2.40%) Billing
9 78 (2.37%) Documentation Skills
10 68 (2.07%) Telecoms
11 57 (1.73%) General Ledger
12 56 (1.70%) Presentation Skills
12 56 (1.70%) Retail
13 48 (1.46%) Marketing
14 44 (1.34%) Inclusion and Diversity
15 43 (1.31%) Influencing Skills
16 39 (1.19%) Pharmaceutical
17 29 (0.88%) Local Government
18 23 (0.70%) Law
19 19 (0.58%) Financial Institution
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 127 (3.86%) Oracle Fusion
2 81 (2.46%) REST
3 63 (1.92%) Terraform
4 50 (1.52%) SAP Fiori
5 38 (1.16%) Middleware
5 38 (1.16%) SOAP
6 36 (1.10%) XML
7 34 (1.03%) Web Services
8 27 (0.82%) SailPoint
9 24 (0.73%) JSON
10 22 (0.67%) LDAP
10 22 (0.67%) OAuth
11 20 (0.61%) HTML
12 19 (0.58%) SAP Basis
13 18 (0.55%) BAPI
13 18 (0.55%) CSS
13 18 (0.55%) SAP PI
14 14 (0.43%) EDI
15 13 (0.40%) NETCONF
15 13 (0.40%) SAML
Miscellaneous
1 130 (3.95%) Onboarding
2 55 (1.67%) CMDB
3 48 (1.46%) Data Centre
4 47 (1.43%) Operational Technology
5 43 (1.31%) Data Structures
6 41 (1.25%) Security Posture
7 40 (1.22%) Product Ownership
8 39 (1.19%) Data Protection Act
9 35 (1.06%) Enterprise Software
10 31 (0.94%) Replication
11 30 (0.91%) Legacy Systems
12 26 (0.79%) Cloud Native
13 25 (0.76%) AI Agents
14 23 (0.70%) Life Science
15 22 (0.67%) Greenfield Project
15 22 (0.67%) Public Cloud
16 19 (0.58%) Management Information System
17 18 (0.55%) Hybrid Cloud
17 18 (0.55%) NHS
18 16 (0.49%) PKI
Operating Systems
1 100 (3.04%) Windows
2 77 (2.34%) Linux
3 26 (0.79%) Unix
4 22 (0.67%) Windows Server
5 21 (0.64%) Solaris
6 15 (0.46%) AIX
7 14 (0.43%) VMS
8 6 (0.18%) Android
8 6 (0.18%) Windows Server 2016
9 5 (0.15%) Apple iOS
9 5 (0.15%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
9 5 (0.15%) Windows 10
10 1 (0.030%) Mac OS
10 1 (0.030%) OpenVMS
10 1 (0.030%) Windows Server 2012
10 1 (0.030%) zOS
Processes & Methodologies
1 555 (16.88%) Stakeholder Management
2 437 (13.29%) Migration
3 305 (9.28%) Stakeholder Engagement
4 287 (8.73%) User Acceptance Testing
5 265 (8.06%) Problem-Solving
6 242 (7.36%) Validation
7 237 (7.21%) Workshop Facilitation
8 236 (7.18%) ERP
9 235 (7.15%) Cybersecurity
10 213 (6.48%) Analytics
11 206 (6.27%) Continuous Improvement
12 198 (6.02%) Roadmaps
13 193 (5.87%) Data Migration
14 192 (5.84%) Agile
15 185 (5.63%) Requirements Gathering
16 168 (5.11%) AI
17 153 (4.65%) Business Intelligence
18 152 (4.62%) Translating Business Requirements
19 147 (4.47%) Knowledge Transfer
20 136 (4.14%) Project Delivery
Programming Languages
1 229 (6.97%) SQL
2 113 (3.44%) Python
3 58 (1.76%) PowerShell
4 57 (1.73%) ABAP
5 48 (1.46%) JavaScript
5 48 (1.46%) PL/SQL
6 33 (1.00%) Java
7 18 (0.55%) Bash
8 15 (0.46%) C#
9 14 (0.43%) Kusto Query Language
10 13 (0.40%) Data Analysis Expressions
11 11 (0.33%) Search Processing Language
12 9 (0.27%) T-SQL
12 9 (0.27%) TypeScript
13 8 (0.24%) R
14 7 (0.21%) Shell Script
15 6 (0.18%) Groovy
15 6 (0.18%) Perl
16 5 (0.15%) Korn
17 3 (0.091%) Scala
Qualifications
1 722 (21.97%) Security Cleared
2 497 (15.12%) SC Cleared
3 152 (4.62%) DV Cleared
4 107 (3.26%) BPSS Clearance
5 77 (2.34%) CISSP
6 75 (2.28%) Degree
7 61 (1.86%) CISM
8 45 (1.37%) Cisco Certification
9 33 (1.00%) (ISC)2 CCSP
10 29 (0.88%) CCSP
11 19 (0.58%) ACCA
12 16 (0.49%) CIMA
12 16 (0.49%) CRISC
13 15 (0.46%) PMP
14 14 (0.43%) AWS Certification
14 14 (0.43%) CompTIA Security+
15 13 (0.40%) Azure Certification
16 11 (0.33%) CISA
17 10 (0.30%) CEH
17 10 (0.30%) OSCP
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 102 (3.10%) NIST
2 101 (3.07%) Data Quality
3 82 (2.49%) GRC
4 74 (2.25%) ISO/IEC 27001
5 58 (1.76%) QA
6 44 (1.34%) NCSC
7 37 (1.13%) GDPR
8 29 (0.88%) SLA
9 24 (0.73%) PMO
10 23 (0.70%) Actionable Recommendations
11 22 (0.67%) Accessibility
12 19 (0.58%) PCI DSS
13 15 (0.46%) Cyber Essentials
14 12 (0.37%) Sarbanes-Oxley
15 11 (0.33%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
15 11 (0.33%) GxP
15 11 (0.33%) NIST 800
16 10 (0.30%) COBIT
17 9 (0.27%) IFRS
18 8 (0.24%) SOC 2
System Software
1 86 (2.62%) Active Directory
2 38 (1.16%) VMware Infrastructure
3 33 (1.00%) VMware NSX
4 18 (0.55%) Docker
4 18 (0.55%) vSphere
5 13 (0.40%) VMware ESXi
6 12 (0.37%) Hyper-V
6 12 (0.37%) IAG
7 11 (0.33%) Virtual Machines
8 10 (0.30%) Virtual Desktop
9 4 (0.12%) Firmware
10 2 (0.061%) BitLocker
10 2 (0.061%) PowerHA
11 1 (0.030%) HDFS
11 1 (0.030%) Oracle RAC
11 1 (0.030%) oVirt
11 1 (0.030%) ProxySG
11 1 (0.030%) RHEV
11 1 (0.030%) SRDF
11 1 (0.030%) Time Sharing Option
Systems Management
1 48 (1.46%) Kubernetes
2 32 (0.97%) Ansible
3 21 (0.64%) Microsoft Intune
3 21 (0.64%) SCCM
4 15 (0.46%) vRealize
5 14 (0.43%) Grafana
6 12 (0.37%) FortiGate
6 12 (0.37%) Nagios
6 12 (0.37%) Single Sign-On
6 12 (0.37%) ZABBIX
7 10 (0.30%) Netcool
7 10 (0.30%) Prometheus
7 10 (0.30%) Tivoli
7 10 (0.30%) vCenter Server
8 9 (0.27%) OpenView
8 9 (0.27%) Tivoli Monitoring
9 6 (0.18%) VxRail
10 4 (0.12%) CEMLI
10 4 (0.12%) NetBackup
10 4 (0.12%) vRealize Orchestrator
Vendors
1 678 (20.63%) SAP
2 464 (14.12%) Microsoft
3 424 (12.90%) Oracle
4 132 (4.02%) ServiceNow
5 79 (2.40%) VMware
6 73 (2.22%) Workday
7 65 (1.98%) Ariba
8 45 (1.37%) Salesforce
9 41 (1.25%) Databricks
9 41 (1.25%) Splunk
10 34 (1.03%) Palo Alto
11 30 (0.91%) Cisco
12 28 (0.85%) BMC
13 27 (0.82%) IBM
14 26 (0.79%) Google
14 26 (0.79%) OpenText
15 25 (0.76%) CyberArk
16 20 (0.61%) Adobe
17 18 (0.55%) Dell
17 18 (0.55%) Veeam