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 2 September 2026.

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

6 months to
2 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 3,233 2,171 2,638
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 6.03% 6.67% 6.83%
As % of the Job Titles category 6.53% 7.32% 7.34%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,797 1,260 1,486
10th Percentile £406 £412 £405
25th Percentile £463 £475 £468
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £550 £550 £550
75th Percentile £650 £649 £644
90th Percentile £745 £750 £750
UK excluding London median daily rate £525 £550 £565
% change year-on-year -4.55% -2.65% +7.62%
Number of hourly rates quoted 57 25 27
10th Percentile £36.25 £28.32 £41.05
25th Percentile £51.00 £41.60 £55.00
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 £65.52
90th Percentile £91.50 - £71.95
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 49,539 29,677 35,948
% of contract IT jobs with a recognized job title 92.44% 91.24% 93.09%
Number of daily rates quoted 29,564 18,735 22,669
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 £623 £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 3,586 1,552 1,836
10th Percentile £14.96 £13.69 £14.16
25th Percentile £20.51 £17.00 £20.00
Median hourly rate £42.50 £25.15 £43.00
Median % change year-on-year +68.99% -41.51% +1.18%
75th Percentile £67.89 £53.89 £65.00
90th Percentile £79.00 £70.16 £75.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £42.50 £25.15 £43.95
% change year-on-year +68.99% -42.78% +11.13%

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 2 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 2 September 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 2 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 2,602 £550 - 2,410
UK excluding London 0 1,386 £525 -4.55% 1,241
London -2 1,232 £550 -4.35% 1,511
Work from Home -2 1,070 £550 - 1,396
South East -6 390 £545 -0.91% 232
North of England -6 327 £575 +4.55% 273
Midlands +4 248 £500 -9.09% 148
North West -6 213 £567 -1.48% 194
South West +15 206 £550 -8.33% 211
West Midlands +11 174 £481 -12.55% 125
Scotland +28 122 £450 -7.69% 117
Yorkshire -12 93 £575 +12.20% 41
East of England -12 91 £552 +0.36% 113
East Midlands -1 67 £525 -4.55% 21
Wales -16 22 £550 +22.22% 13
North East -38 20 £750 +38.89% 38
Northern Ireland -5 2 £544 +4.57% 145

Consultant Skill Set
Top 30 Co-Occurring Skills & Capabilities

For the 6 months to 2 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.

1 697 (21.56%) Security Cleared
2 671 (20.75%) SAP
3 516 (15.96%) Stakeholder Management
4 475 (14.69%) SC Cleared
5 448 (13.86%) Microsoft
6 426 (13.18%) Migration
7 411 (12.71%) Oracle
8 314 (9.71%) Azure
9 302 (9.34%) Stakeholder Engagement
10 279 (8.63%) SAP S/4HANA
10 279 (8.63%) User Acceptance Testing
11 262 (8.10%) Problem-Solving
12 250 (7.73%) SQL
13 236 (7.30%) ERP
14 231 (7.15%) Workshop Facilitation
15 229 (7.08%) Validation
16 222 (6.87%) Cybersecurity
17 210 (6.50%) Continuous Improvement
18 204 (6.31%) Analytics
19 192 (5.94%) Roadmaps
20 183 (5.66%) Agile
21 182 (5.63%) Data Migration
22 176 (5.44%) Requirements Gathering
23 175 (5.41%) AWS
24 170 (5.26%) AI
25 155 (4.79%) Power Platform
26 153 (4.73%) Business Intelligence
27 152 (4.70%) DV Cleared
28 151 (4.67%) Translating Business Requirements
29 137 (4.24%) 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 78 (2.41%) SharePoint
2 48 (1.48%) Confluence
3 28 (0.87%) Microsoft Exchange
4 12 (0.37%) Oracle Workflow
5 9 (0.28%) WebSphere
6 8 (0.25%) WebLogic
7 4 (0.12%) SAS
8 3 (0.093%) Adobe Experience Manager
8 3 (0.093%) Apache
8 3 (0.093%) Apache Airflow
8 3 (0.093%) Apache Spark
8 3 (0.093%) Apache Superset
8 3 (0.093%) CMS
8 3 (0.093%) NetWeaver
8 3 (0.093%) OpenStack
8 3 (0.093%) TIBCO ActiveMatrix
9 2 (0.062%) Oracle Service Bus
9 2 (0.062%) Oracle SOA Suite
9 2 (0.062%) Tomcat
9 2 (0.062%) WordPress
Applications
1 64 (1.98%) Microsoft Excel
2 34 (1.05%) Microsoft Office
3 25 (0.77%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 9 (0.28%) Spreadsheet
5 8 (0.25%) MS Visio
6 4 (0.12%) Chatbot
7 3 (0.093%) Microsoft Project
8 1 (0.031%) Adobe Captivate
8 1 (0.031%) Adobe Creative Suite
8 1 (0.031%) CPLEX
Business Applications
1 279 (8.63%) SAP S/4HANA
2 90 (2.78%) Oracle EBS
3 72 (2.23%) SAP FI
4 49 (1.52%) Oracle ERP
5 47 (1.45%) Oracle Payables
5 47 (1.45%) SAP PSCD
6 41 (1.27%) SAP MM
7 40 (1.24%) SAP CO
8 38 (1.18%) Oracle Receivables
9 37 (1.14%) Dynamics CRM
9 37 (1.14%) SAP SD
10 32 (0.99%) SAP FI/CO
10 32 (0.99%) Workday HCM
11 30 (0.93%) NetSuite
11 30 (0.93%) SAP BRIM
11 30 (0.93%) SAP Payroll
12 29 (0.90%) Oracle General Ledger
12 29 (0.90%) SAP PP
13 27 (0.84%) SAP FI-CA
14 26 (0.80%) SAP HR
Cloud Services
1 314 (9.71%) Azure
2 175 (5.41%) AWS
3 155 (4.79%) Power Platform
4 137 (4.24%) Dynamics 365
5 118 (3.65%) OCI
6 105 (3.25%) SuccessFactors
7 95 (2.94%) GCP
8 87 (2.69%) Microsoft 365
9 70 (2.17%) Power Automate
10 66 (2.04%) Entra ID
11 58 (1.79%) Azure DevOps
12 53 (1.64%) Microsoft Copilot
13 43 (1.33%) SaaS
14 36 (1.11%) PowerApps
15 28 (0.87%) Microsoft Purview
16 25 (0.77%) GitHub
17 18 (0.56%) Copilot Studio
18 16 (0.49%) Azure AI
18 16 (0.49%) Azure Logic Apps
19 15 (0.46%) Snowflake
Communications & Networking
1 67 (2.07%) Firewall
2 63 (1.95%) Network Security
3 33 (1.02%) BGP
3 33 (1.02%) WAN
4 24 (0.74%) SNMP
5 23 (0.71%) VPN
6 17 (0.53%) DNS
6 17 (0.53%) LAN
7 13 (0.40%) Ethernet VPN
7 13 (0.40%) SAN
8 12 (0.37%) VXLAN
9 11 (0.34%) TCP/IP
10 10 (0.31%) IPsec
10 10 (0.31%) NGFW
11 9 (0.28%) 3GPP
11 9 (0.28%) 5G
11 9 (0.28%) MPLS
11 9 (0.28%) Radio Access Network
11 9 (0.28%) SD-WAN
12 8 (0.25%) VSAN
Database & Business Intelligence
1 96 (2.97%) Power BI
2 58 (1.79%) Oracle Reports
3 37 (1.14%) SAP BW
3 37 (1.14%) SAP HANA
4 36 (1.11%) Oracle BI Publisher
5 34 (1.05%) SQL Server
6 33 (1.02%) Tableau
7 31 (0.96%) Data Warehouse
8 24 (0.74%) Metadata
9 19 (0.59%) BusinessObjects
10 17 (0.53%) Oracle ODI
11 15 (0.46%) Oracle Database
12 12 (0.37%) SAP Data Services
13 11 (0.34%) Power Query
13 11 (0.34%) Relational Database
14 8 (0.25%) SQL Server Reporting Services
15 7 (0.22%) Looker
16 6 (0.19%) BigQuery
16 6 (0.19%) Delta Lake
16 6 (0.19%) DynamoDB
Development Applications
1 96 (2.97%) JIRA
2 21 (0.65%) Git
3 20 (0.62%) Oracle Forms
4 15 (0.46%) Jenkins
5 12 (0.37%) Hudson
6 10 (0.31%) GitLab
7 8 (0.25%) Sonatype Nexus
8 7 (0.22%) PowerBuilder
9 6 (0.19%) SonarQube
9 6 (0.19%) Zephyr
10 5 (0.15%) Cypress.io
11 4 (0.12%) MLflow
11 4 (0.12%) Selenium
12 3 (0.093%) Browser DevTools
12 3 (0.093%) JMeter
12 3 (0.093%) Postman
12 3 (0.093%) Snyk
12 3 (0.093%) TestRail
12 3 (0.093%) Toad
12 3 (0.093%) Visual Studio Code
General
1 711 (21.99%) Social Skills
2 703 (21.74%) Finance
3 246 (7.61%) Analytical Skills
4 234 (7.24%) Public Sector
5 113 (3.50%) Manufacturing
6 93 (2.88%) Banking
7 88 (2.72%) Legal
8 77 (2.38%) Billing
9 72 (2.23%) Documentation Skills
10 68 (2.10%) Telecoms
11 59 (1.82%) General Ledger
12 54 (1.67%) Retail
13 52 (1.61%) Presentation Skills
14 49 (1.52%) Marketing
15 46 (1.42%) Inclusion and Diversity
16 42 (1.30%) Influencing Skills
17 35 (1.08%) Pharmaceutical
18 26 (0.80%) Local Government
19 22 (0.68%) Law
20 18 (0.56%) Financial Institution
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 124 (3.84%) Oracle Fusion
2 82 (2.54%) REST
3 59 (1.82%) Terraform
4 48 (1.48%) SAP Fiori
5 47 (1.45%) XML
6 37 (1.14%) SOAP
7 31 (0.96%) Middleware
8 28 (0.87%) Web Services
9 23 (0.71%) SailPoint
10 22 (0.68%) JSON
11 21 (0.65%) SAP Basis
12 20 (0.62%) BAPI
12 20 (0.62%) HTML
12 20 (0.62%) LDAP
13 18 (0.56%) CSS
13 18 (0.56%) OAuth
13 18 (0.56%) SAP PI
14 12 (0.37%) .NET
14 12 (0.37%) EDI
14 12 (0.37%) IDoc
Miscellaneous
1 117 (3.62%) Onboarding
2 54 (1.67%) CMDB
3 46 (1.42%) Data Centre
4 40 (1.24%) Data Structures
4 40 (1.24%) Product Ownership
5 39 (1.21%) Data Protection Act
6 38 (1.18%) Security Posture
7 37 (1.14%) Operational Technology
8 34 (1.05%) Legacy Systems
9 30 (0.93%) Enterprise Software
9 30 (0.93%) Replication
10 29 (0.90%) AI Agents
11 26 (0.80%) Cloud Native
12 22 (0.68%) Public Cloud
13 19 (0.59%) Greenfield Project
13 19 (0.59%) Life Science
13 19 (0.59%) Management Information System
14 18 (0.56%) Hybrid Cloud
14 18 (0.56%) NHS
15 16 (0.49%) Analytical Mindset
Operating Systems
1 101 (3.12%) Windows
2 84 (2.60%) Linux
3 25 (0.77%) Unix
4 21 (0.65%) Solaris
5 20 (0.62%) VMS
6 19 (0.59%) Windows Server
7 18 (0.56%) AIX
8 6 (0.19%) Android
9 5 (0.15%) Apple iOS
9 5 (0.15%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
10 4 (0.12%) Windows 10
10 4 (0.12%) Windows Server 2016
11 2 (0.062%) Mac OS
12 1 (0.031%) OpenVMS
12 1 (0.031%) SUSE
12 1 (0.031%) Windows Server 2012
12 1 (0.031%) zOS
Processes & Methodologies
1 516 (15.96%) Stakeholder Management
2 426 (13.18%) Migration
3 302 (9.34%) Stakeholder Engagement
4 279 (8.63%) User Acceptance Testing
5 262 (8.10%) Problem-Solving
6 236 (7.30%) ERP
7 231 (7.15%) Workshop Facilitation
8 229 (7.08%) Validation
9 222 (6.87%) Cybersecurity
10 210 (6.50%) Continuous Improvement
11 204 (6.31%) Analytics
12 192 (5.94%) Roadmaps
13 183 (5.66%) Agile
14 182 (5.63%) Data Migration
15 176 (5.44%) Requirements Gathering
16 170 (5.26%) AI
17 153 (4.73%) Business Intelligence
18 151 (4.67%) Translating Business Requirements
19 134 (4.14%) Knowledge Transfer
20 133 (4.11%) Project Delivery
Programming Languages
1 250 (7.73%) SQL
2 121 (3.74%) Python
3 56 (1.73%) PowerShell
4 51 (1.58%) ABAP
4 51 (1.58%) PL/SQL
5 45 (1.39%) JavaScript
6 30 (0.93%) Java
7 23 (0.71%) T-SQL
8 18 (0.56%) Bash
9 15 (0.46%) C#
10 14 (0.43%) Data Analysis Expressions
10 14 (0.43%) Search Processing Language
11 13 (0.40%) Kusto Query Language
12 9 (0.28%) R
13 8 (0.25%) Shell Script
13 8 (0.25%) TypeScript
14 6 (0.19%) Groovy
14 6 (0.19%) Korn
14 6 (0.19%) Perl
15 3 (0.093%) VBScript
Qualifications
1 697 (21.56%) Security Cleared
2 475 (14.69%) SC Cleared
3 152 (4.70%) DV Cleared
4 94 (2.91%) BPSS Clearance
5 80 (2.47%) CISSP
6 73 (2.26%) Degree
7 62 (1.92%) CISM
8 45 (1.39%) Cisco Certification
9 33 (1.02%) (ISC)2 CCSP
10 29 (0.90%) CCSP
11 21 (0.65%) ACCA
12 18 (0.56%) CIMA
13 15 (0.46%) CRISC
13 15 (0.46%) PMP
14 13 (0.40%) CompTIA Security+
15 12 (0.37%) Azure Certification
15 12 (0.37%) CEH
16 11 (0.34%) CISA
16 11 (0.34%) Computer Science Degree
16 11 (0.34%) OSCP
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 93 (2.88%) Data Quality
2 92 (2.85%) NIST
3 76 (2.35%) GRC
4 72 (2.23%) ISO/IEC 27001
5 55 (1.70%) QA
6 38 (1.18%) GDPR
7 36 (1.11%) NCSC
8 32 (0.99%) SLA
9 24 (0.74%) PMO
10 23 (0.71%) Accessibility
10 23 (0.71%) PCI DSS
11 22 (0.68%) Actionable Recommendations
12 12 (0.37%) Cyber Essentials
12 12 (0.37%) Sarbanes-Oxley
13 11 (0.34%) COBIT
13 11 (0.34%) GxP
14 10 (0.31%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
14 10 (0.31%) NIST 800
15 9 (0.28%) IFRS
16 8 (0.25%) SOC 2
System Software
1 80 (2.47%) Active Directory
2 38 (1.18%) VMware Infrastructure
3 37 (1.14%) VMware NSX
4 22 (0.68%) vSphere
5 14 (0.43%) Docker
5 14 (0.43%) VMware ESXi
6 12 (0.37%) Hyper-V
7 11 (0.34%) IAG
7 11 (0.34%) Virtual Machines
8 7 (0.22%) Virtual Desktop
9 4 (0.12%) Firmware
10 2 (0.062%) BitLocker
10 2 (0.062%) 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
11 1 (0.031%) Time Sharing Option
Systems Management
1 45 (1.39%) Kubernetes
2 31 (0.96%) Ansible
3 19 (0.59%) SCCM
4 18 (0.56%) Microsoft Intune
5 16 (0.49%) vRealize
6 15 (0.46%) Nagios
6 15 (0.46%) ZABBIX
7 14 (0.43%) Grafana
8 13 (0.40%) Netcool
8 13 (0.40%) Tivoli
9 12 (0.37%) OpenView
9 12 (0.37%) Tivoli Monitoring
10 11 (0.34%) FortiGate
10 11 (0.34%) Single Sign-On
11 10 (0.31%) Prometheus
11 10 (0.31%) vCenter Server
12 6 (0.19%) VxRail
13 5 (0.15%) NetBackup
14 4 (0.12%) CEMLI
14 4 (0.12%) vRealize Orchestrator
Vendors
1 671 (20.75%) SAP
2 448 (13.86%) Microsoft
3 411 (12.71%) Oracle
4 127 (3.93%) ServiceNow
5 84 (2.60%) VMware
6 64 (1.98%) Workday
7 60 (1.86%) Ariba
8 54 (1.67%) Salesforce
9 45 (1.39%) Splunk
10 40 (1.24%) Databricks
11 31 (0.96%) BMC
12 30 (0.93%) Palo Alto
13 28 (0.87%) Cisco
13 28 (0.87%) IBM
14 26 (0.80%) OpenText
15 23 (0.71%) Google
16 21 (0.65%) Adobe
16 21 (0.65%) CyberArk
17 18 (0.56%) Dell
18 17 (0.53%) JD Edwards