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 22 March 2026.

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

6 months to
22 Mar 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 28 28 24
Rank change year-on-year 0 -4 +19
Contract jobs requiring a Consultant 2,814 1,940 2,768
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 6.41% 6.57% 6.25%
As % of the Job Titles category 6.97% 7.07% 6.73%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,562 1,117 1,688
10th Percentile £400 £413 £400
25th Percentile £463 £488 £463
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £550 £550 £550
Median % change year-on-year - - -2.65%
75th Percentile £638 £648 £650
90th Percentile £713 £740 £738
UK excluding London median daily rate £538 £550 £537
% change year-on-year -2.27% +2.42% -2.36%
Number of hourly rates quoted 75 16 37
10th Percentile - £67.50 £36.50
25th Percentile £56.25 £70.89 £52.90
Median hourly rate £57.50 £83.75 £62.50
Median % change year-on-year -31.34% +34.00% -5.30%
75th Percentile £60.00 £86.06 £80.00
90th Percentile £76.45 £87.50 £90.25
UK excluding London median hourly rate £57.50 £82.50 £61.60
% change year-on-year -30.30% +33.93% -6.67%

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 40,370 27,451 41,125
% of contract IT jobs with a recognized job title 91.94% 92.96% 92.86%
Number of daily rates quoted 25,228 17,896 26,949
10th Percentile £313 £300 £275
25th Percentile £410 £406 £406
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £520 £525
Median % change year-on-year -3.85% -0.95% -4.46%
75th Percentile £613 £630 £638
90th Percentile £721 £738 £738
UK excluding London median daily rate £481 £475 £487
% change year-on-year +1.32% -2.46% -2.60%
Number of hourly rates quoted 2,504 902 2,504
10th Percentile £15.00 £15.22 £12.88
25th Percentile £19.25 £21.01 £16.25
Median hourly rate £36.00 £32.91 £32.50
Median % change year-on-year +9.41% +1.25% -23.53%
75th Percentile £65.00 £65.00 £60.00
90th Percentile £76.58 £76.25 £71.90
UK excluding London median hourly rate £36.00 £32.50 £32.50
% change year-on-year +10.77% - -19.93%

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 22 March 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 22 March 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 22 March 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 0 2,209 £550 - 1,311
UK excluding London +3 1,152 £538 -2.27% 893
Work from Home 0 1,035 £525 -4.55% 614
London -2 1,028 £550 -4.35% 599
South East +4 348 £537 -6.61% 306
North of England -11 242 £525 -2.42% 184
Midlands -4 235 £550 +4.76% 107
West Midlands -1 171 £563 +7.14% 52
South West +11 149 £550 - 156
North West -21 122 £550 +2.23% 112
Yorkshire +2 111 £500 -5.88% 60
East of England 0 97 £550 +2.33% 75
East Midlands -19 57 £500 -3.15% 54
Scotland +5 49 £520 -5.45% 38
Wales +9 32 £455 +1.06% 24
Northern Ireland +5 9 £405 -22.86% 13
North East -25 9 £525 -4.55% 13

Consultant Skill Set
Top 30 Co-Occurring Skills & Capabilities

For the 6 months to 22 March 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.

1 631 (22.42%) Security Cleared
2 610 (21.68%) SAP
3 535 (19.01%) SC Cleared
4 403 (14.32%) Migration
5 310 (11.02%) Azure
6 302 (10.73%) Problem-Solving
7 298 (10.59%) Microsoft
8 296 (10.52%) SAP S/4HANA
9 291 (10.34%) Oracle
10 284 (10.09%) Stakeholder Engagement
11 272 (9.67%) Stakeholder Management
12 228 (8.10%) ERP
13 208 (7.39%) Workshop Facilitation
14 198 (7.04%) SQL
15 190 (6.75%) User Acceptance Testing
16 178 (6.33%) Agile
17 173 (6.15%) Data Migration
18 168 (5.97%) Roadmaps
19 165 (5.86%) Analytics
20 150 (5.33%) Business Intelligence
21 147 (5.22%) Validation
22 146 (5.19%) Cybersecurity
23 144 (5.12%) Continuous Improvement
24 143 (5.08%) Knowledge Transfer
25 141 (5.01%) Dynamics 365
26 124 (4.41%) AI
26 124 (4.41%) Python
27 116 (4.12%) Power Platform
28 114 (4.05%) Change Management
29 110 (3.91%) Risk Management

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 69 (2.45%) SharePoint
2 40 (1.42%) Confluence
3 23 (0.82%) Microsoft Exchange
4 9 (0.32%) Oracle Workflow
5 6 (0.21%) Jupyter
6 5 (0.18%) MTS
6 5 (0.18%) Palantir Foundry
7 4 (0.14%) Apache
7 4 (0.14%) Apache Spark
7 4 (0.14%) CMS
8 3 (0.11%) ArcGIS
9 2 (0.071%) Apache Superset
9 2 (0.071%) Cloud Foundry
9 2 (0.071%) IIS
9 2 (0.071%) NetWeaver
9 2 (0.071%) Tomcat
10 1 (0.036%) nginx
10 1 (0.036%) Oracle Self-Service HR
10 1 (0.036%) SAS
10 1 (0.036%) WebSphere
Applications
1 67 (2.38%) Microsoft Excel
2 21 (0.75%) Microsoft PowerPoint
3 12 (0.43%) Microsoft Office
4 10 (0.36%) MS Visio
5 5 (0.18%) Microsoft Project
5 5 (0.18%) PTC Creo
6 4 (0.14%) Spreadsheet
7 3 (0.11%) Chatbot
8 2 (0.071%) Lectora
8 2 (0.071%) Oracle Smart View
9 1 (0.036%) Adobe XD
9 1 (0.036%) CATIA
9 1 (0.036%) InfoPath
9 1 (0.036%) Navisworks
9 1 (0.036%) Revit
9 1 (0.036%) Siemens NX
9 1 (0.036%) Windchill
Business Applications
1 296 (10.52%) SAP S/4HANA
2 62 (2.20%) SAP FI
3 59 (2.10%) Oracle EBS
4 50 (1.78%) Oracle Payables
5 46 (1.63%) SAP MM
6 45 (1.60%) Oracle Receivables
7 39 (1.39%) SAP HCM
8 38 (1.35%) Oracle EBS R12
9 37 (1.31%) Dynamics CRM
9 37 (1.31%) SAP PP
10 34 (1.21%) SAP CO
11 33 (1.17%) SAP PSCD
12 32 (1.14%) SAP FI/CO
13 30 (1.07%) Oracle Assets
13 30 (1.07%) Oracle General Ledger
14 29 (1.03%) SAP EWM
15 28 (1.00%) SAP Travel Management
16 27 (0.96%) SAP Payroll
17 25 (0.89%) Oracle Procure-to-Pay
18 23 (0.82%) Oracle Cash Management
Cloud Services
1 310 (11.02%) Azure
2 141 (5.01%) Dynamics 365
3 116 (4.12%) Power Platform
4 105 (3.73%) AWS
5 95 (3.38%) OCI
6 79 (2.81%) GCP
7 76 (2.70%) Microsoft 365
8 66 (2.35%) SaaS
9 63 (2.24%) SuccessFactors
10 59 (2.10%) Entra ID
11 43 (1.53%) Power Automate
12 36 (1.28%) Azure DevOps
13 32 (1.14%) Microsoft Copilot
13 32 (1.14%) Microsoft Purview
13 32 (1.14%) PowerApps
14 27 (0.96%) GitHub
15 22 (0.78%) OneDrive
16 18 (0.64%) Azure Data Factory
16 18 (0.64%) SAP Commerce Cloud
17 15 (0.53%) Serverless
Communications & Networking
1 42 (1.49%) Firewall
2 21 (0.75%) Network Security
3 16 (0.57%) DNS
3 16 (0.57%) WAN
4 15 (0.53%) VPN
5 14 (0.50%) VSAN
6 13 (0.46%) HTTP
6 13 (0.46%) Kerberos
6 13 (0.46%) SMS
7 12 (0.43%) LAN
7 12 (0.43%) SD-WAN
8 10 (0.36%) SAN
9 9 (0.32%) DHCP
9 9 (0.32%) FTP
9 9 (0.32%) Software-Defined Networking
10 8 (0.28%) Intranet
10 8 (0.28%) SSH
11 7 (0.25%) Internet
11 7 (0.25%) NAS
11 7 (0.25%) SSL
Database & Business Intelligence
1 83 (2.95%) Power BI
2 49 (1.74%) Oracle Reports
3 38 (1.35%) SAP HANA
4 25 (0.89%) Metadata
5 24 (0.85%) SQL Server
6 22 (0.78%) Oracle BI Publisher
7 19 (0.68%) Tableau
8 12 (0.43%) SAP BW
8 12 (0.43%) SQL Server Reporting Services
9 11 (0.39%) Data Warehouse
9 11 (0.39%) NoSQL
10 10 (0.36%) Oracle ODI
11 8 (0.28%) Electronic Patient Records
12 7 (0.25%) Oracle Database
12 7 (0.25%) PostgreSQL
13 6 (0.21%) Data Lake
13 6 (0.21%) Data Mart
13 6 (0.21%) Essbase
13 6 (0.21%) GIS
13 6 (0.21%) SAP Data Services
Development Applications
1 72 (2.56%) JIRA
2 16 (0.57%) Jenkins
3 15 (0.53%) Oracle Forms
4 14 (0.50%) Hudson
5 10 (0.36%) Git
6 8 (0.28%) GitLab
7 7 (0.25%) Oracle APEX
8 4 (0.14%) LSMW
8 4 (0.14%) Sonatype Nexus
9 3 (0.11%) Postman
10 2 (0.071%) Bitbucket
10 2 (0.071%) git-flow
10 2 (0.071%) JUnit
10 2 (0.071%) Rational DOORS
10 2 (0.071%) Rational Rhapsody
10 2 (0.071%) Selenium
10 2 (0.071%) SonarQube
10 2 (0.071%) TeamCity
10 2 (0.071%) Visual Studio Code
11 1 (0.036%) Toad
General
1 700 (24.88%) Social Skills
2 610 (21.68%) Finance
3 264 (9.38%) Analytical Skills
4 250 (8.88%) Public Sector
5 122 (4.34%) Manufacturing
6 100 (3.55%) Banking
7 76 (2.70%) Marketing
8 69 (2.45%) Legal
9 68 (2.42%) Documentation Skills
10 63 (2.24%) Billing
11 47 (1.67%) General Ledger
12 46 (1.63%) Telecoms
13 35 (1.24%) Organisational Skills
13 35 (1.24%) Retail
14 33 (1.17%) Presentation Skills
15 27 (0.96%) Law
16 22 (0.78%) Inclusion and Diversity
17 21 (0.75%) Pharmaceutical
18 20 (0.71%) Electronics
19 18 (0.64%) Aerospace
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 96 (3.41%) Oracle Fusion
2 69 (2.45%) REST
3 61 (2.17%) XML
4 41 (1.46%) SAP Fiori
5 35 (1.24%) SOAP
6 34 (1.21%) Web Services
7 30 (1.07%) SAP TM
8 27 (0.96%) LDAP
9 21 (0.75%) Middleware
9 21 (0.75%) Node.js
10 20 (0.71%) BAPI
11 17 (0.60%) .NET
11 17 (0.60%) IDoc
11 17 (0.60%) JSON
11 17 (0.60%) SAP PI
12 16 (0.57%) SAP Basis
13 14 (0.50%) GraphQL
14 12 (0.43%) EDI
14 12 (0.43%) HTML
14 12 (0.43%) Kafka
Miscellaneous
1 70 (2.49%) Onboarding
2 56 (1.99%) Legacy Systems
3 44 (1.56%) Product Ownership
4 36 (1.28%) Security Posture
5 35 (1.24%) Data Protection Act
6 32 (1.14%) Replication
7 30 (1.07%) Data Centre
7 30 (1.07%) Management Information System
8 25 (0.89%) Operational Technology
9 24 (0.85%) Cloud Native
10 22 (0.78%) AI Agents
11 21 (0.75%) Data Structures
12 20 (0.71%) Analytical Mindset
13 19 (0.68%) Greenfield Project
13 19 (0.68%) NHS
13 19 (0.68%) Public Cloud
14 16 (0.57%) CMDB
15 15 (0.53%) Hybrid Cloud
16 14 (0.50%) Life Science
17 13 (0.46%) Self-Motivation
Operating Systems
1 80 (2.84%) Windows
2 44 (1.56%) Linux
3 16 (0.57%) Unix
3 16 (0.57%) Windows Server
4 14 (0.50%) VMS
5 11 (0.39%) Windows 10
6 9 (0.32%) AIX
7 6 (0.21%) Mac OS
7 6 (0.21%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
8 5 (0.18%) Ubuntu
9 4 (0.14%) Solaris
9 4 (0.14%) zOS
10 3 (0.11%) Apple iOS
10 3 (0.11%) SUSE
11 2 (0.071%) CoreOS
11 2 (0.071%) Data ONTAP
11 2 (0.071%) Windows Server 2003
11 2 (0.071%) Windows Server 2008
12 1 (0.036%) Android
12 1 (0.036%) CentOS
Processes & Methodologies
1 403 (14.32%) Migration
2 302 (10.73%) Problem-Solving
3 284 (10.09%) Stakeholder Engagement
4 272 (9.67%) Stakeholder Management
5 228 (8.10%) ERP
6 208 (7.39%) Workshop Facilitation
7 190 (6.75%) User Acceptance Testing
8 178 (6.33%) Agile
9 173 (6.15%) Data Migration
10 168 (5.97%) Roadmaps
11 165 (5.86%) Analytics
12 150 (5.33%) Business Intelligence
13 147 (5.22%) Validation
14 146 (5.19%) Cybersecurity
15 144 (5.12%) Continuous Improvement
16 143 (5.08%) Knowledge Transfer
17 124 (4.41%) AI
18 114 (4.05%) Change Management
19 110 (3.91%) Risk Management
20 107 (3.80%) DevOps
Programming Languages
1 198 (7.04%) SQL
2 124 (4.41%) Python
3 82 (2.91%) PowerShell
4 77 (2.74%) JavaScript
5 60 (2.13%) ABAP
6 37 (1.31%) Java
7 30 (1.07%) T-SQL
8 29 (1.03%) PL/SQL
9 26 (0.92%) TypeScript
10 22 (0.78%) Groovy
11 17 (0.60%) C#
12 14 (0.50%) Bash
13 11 (0.39%) Shell Script
14 10 (0.36%) C++
15 8 (0.28%) Apex Code
15 8 (0.28%) Data Analysis Expressions
15 8 (0.28%) Kusto Query Language
16 5 (0.18%) Korn
16 5 (0.18%) R
17 4 (0.14%) Go
Qualifications
1 631 (22.42%) Security Cleared
2 535 (19.01%) SC Cleared
3 96 (3.41%) Degree
4 83 (2.95%) DV Cleared
5 58 (2.06%) BPSS Clearance
6 55 (1.95%) CISSP
7 36 (1.28%) CISM
8 29 (1.03%) VMware Certified Professional (VCP)
9 19 (0.68%) CIMA
10 18 (0.64%) Computer Science Degree
11 17 (0.60%) Cisco Certification
11 17 (0.60%) Master's Degree
11 17 (0.60%) Microsoft Certification
12 16 (0.57%) ITIL Certification
13 13 (0.46%) SAP Certification
14 8 (0.28%) CEH
14 8 (0.28%) CESG Certified Professional
14 8 (0.28%) CompTIA Security+
15 7 (0.25%) (ISC)2 CCSP
15 7 (0.25%) ITIL Foundation Certificate
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 93 (3.30%) NIST
2 87 (3.09%) ISO/IEC 27001
3 63 (2.24%) GDPR
4 55 (1.95%) Data Quality
5 48 (1.71%) QA
6 46 (1.63%) GRC
7 25 (0.89%) NCSC
8 23 (0.82%) PCI DSS
9 19 (0.68%) PMO
9 19 (0.68%) Sarbanes-Oxley
9 19 (0.68%) SLA
10 18 (0.64%) Actionable Recommendations
11 16 (0.57%) COBIT
12 12 (0.43%) JSP 440
13 11 (0.39%) PERC
14 10 (0.36%) Accessibility
14 10 (0.36%) ISO/IEC 27005
15 8 (0.28%) Cyber Essentials
15 8 (0.28%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
16 6 (0.21%) DICOM
System Software
1 67 (2.38%) Active Directory
2 35 (1.24%) VMware NSX
3 33 (1.17%) VMware Infrastructure
4 30 (1.07%) Docker
5 28 (1.00%) vSphere
6 9 (0.32%) Hyper-V
7 8 (0.28%) Virtual Desktop
7 8 (0.28%) Virtual Machines
8 6 (0.21%) Slurm Workload Manager
9 3 (0.11%) NFS
10 2 (0.071%) IAG
10 2 (0.071%) NDS
10 2 (0.071%) NetIQ eDirectory
10 2 (0.071%) VMware ESXi
11 1 (0.036%) Ceph
11 1 (0.036%) Job Entry Subsystem
11 1 (0.036%) KVM
11 1 (0.036%) Microsoft App-V
11 1 (0.036%) QEMU
11 1 (0.036%) Terminal Services
Systems Management
1 49 (1.74%) Kubernetes
2 36 (1.28%) Terraform
3 31 (1.10%) vRealize
4 22 (0.78%) Microsoft Intune
5 17 (0.60%) Single Sign-On
6 14 (0.50%) Ansible
7 8 (0.28%) Failover Clustering
8 7 (0.25%) PingFederate
9 6 (0.21%) Active Directory Federation Services
9 6 (0.21%) Podman
9 6 (0.21%) SCCM
10 5 (0.18%) Nagios
10 5 (0.18%) NetBackup
10 5 (0.18%) Netcool
10 5 (0.18%) OpenView
10 5 (0.18%) Tivoli
10 5 (0.18%) Tivoli Monitoring
10 5 (0.18%) ZABBIX
11 4 (0.14%) vCenter Server
12 3 (0.11%) Prometheus
Vendors
1 610 (21.68%) SAP
2 298 (10.59%) Microsoft
3 291 (10.34%) Oracle
4 96 (3.41%) VMware
5 90 (3.20%) ServiceNow
6 64 (2.27%) Salesforce
7 55 (1.95%) Workday
8 54 (1.92%) CyberArk
9 53 (1.88%) Siemens
10 48 (1.71%) Ariba
11 46 (1.63%) Cisco
11 46 (1.63%) Google
12 37 (1.31%) Aruba
13 26 (0.92%) Databricks
14 22 (0.78%) Adobe
15 21 (0.75%) Splunk
16 19 (0.68%) OpenText
17 17 (0.60%) Sage
18 16 (0.57%) Murex
19 15 (0.53%) IBM