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 25 February 2026.

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

6 months to
25 Feb 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 28 28 26
Rank change year-on-year 0 -2 +20
Contract jobs requiring a Consultant 2,678 2,010 2,734
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 6.48% 6.60% 6.20%
As % of the Job Titles category 7.06% 7.10% 6.67%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,515 1,113 1,616
10th Percentile £400 £413 £400
25th Percentile £463 £481 £469
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £550 £550 £550
75th Percentile £638 £650 £650
90th Percentile £716 £738 £725
UK excluding London median daily rate £550 £550 £540
% change year-on-year - +1.85% -1.82%
Number of hourly rates quoted 74 17 36
10th Percentile - £68.00 £39.38
25th Percentile £56.25 £72.50 £52.90
Median hourly rate £57.50 £85.00 £63.00
Median % change year-on-year -32.35% +34.92% -10.00%
75th Percentile £60.00 £86.25 £81.56
90th Percentile £78.25 £87.50 £90.25
UK excluding London median hourly rate £57.50 £83.75 £61.79
% change year-on-year -31.34% +35.54% -6.38%

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 37,909 28,295 41,010
% of contract IT jobs with a recognized job title 91.78% 92.89% 92.99%
Number of daily rates quoted 23,822 17,724 26,992
10th Percentile £306 £293 £275
25th Percentile £408 £406 £409
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £525 £525
Median % change year-on-year -4.76% - -4.55%
75th Percentile £613 £638 £638
90th Percentile £720 £738 £738
UK excluding London median daily rate £481 £475 £488
% change year-on-year +1.32% -2.56% -2.50%
Number of hourly rates quoted 2,307 828 2,328
10th Percentile £14.61 £16.43 £13.15
25th Percentile £18.87 £21.50 £16.30
Median hourly rate £32.50 £35.00 £35.00
Median % change year-on-year -7.14% - -10.88%
75th Percentile £63.75 £64.50 £60.00
90th Percentile £74.26 £75.00 £71.93
UK excluding London median hourly rate £30.11 £32.50 £35.00
% change year-on-year -7.37% -7.14% -2.78%

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 25 February 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 25 February 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 25 February 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 -2 2,079 £550 - 1,045
UK excluding London -2 1,079 £550 - 779
Work from Home 0 1,008 £525 -4.55% 429
London -5 964 £550 -4.35% 517
South East +1 288 £525 -4.55% 329
North of England -8 262 £595 +9.17% 186
Midlands -9 208 £550 +4.76% 78
West Midlands -7 153 £563 +4.41% 54
North West -10 148 £626 +15.93% 118
South West +19 143 £554 +0.73% 95
Yorkshire 0 104 £550 +3.53% 54
East of England +3 96 £550 - 44
East Midlands -18 51 £500 -3.85% 22
Scotland +5 50 £520 -5.45% 20
Wales +10 29 £405 -16.92% 19
Northern Ireland +2 12 £405 -22.86% 19
North East -28 10 £525 -7.08% 15

Consultant Skill Set
Top 30 Co-Occurring Skills & Capabilities

For the 6 months to 25 February 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.

1 658 (24.57%) SAP
2 638 (23.82%) Security Cleared
3 539 (20.13%) SC Cleared
4 389 (14.53%) Migration
5 351 (13.11%) SAP S/4HANA
6 312 (11.65%) Problem-Solving
7 298 (11.13%) Azure
8 295 (11.02%) Microsoft
9 287 (10.72%) Oracle
10 279 (10.42%) Stakeholder Management
11 276 (10.31%) Stakeholder Engagement
12 229 (8.55%) ERP
13 214 (7.99%) Workshop Facilitation
14 178 (6.65%) User Acceptance Testing
15 172 (6.42%) Agile
16 167 (6.24%) Data Migration
17 161 (6.01%) Analytics
18 156 (5.83%) Roadmaps
19 148 (5.53%) SQL
20 146 (5.45%) Business Intelligence
21 145 (5.41%) Knowledge Transfer
22 141 (5.27%) Dynamics 365
23 137 (5.12%) Validation
24 128 (4.78%) Cybersecurity
25 122 (4.56%) Continuous Improvement
26 118 (4.41%) Python
27 117 (4.37%) Power Platform
28 113 (4.22%) AI
29 109 (4.07%) Risk Management
30 107 (4.00%) DevOps

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 65 (2.43%) SharePoint
2 32 (1.19%) Confluence
3 30 (1.12%) Microsoft Exchange
4 6 (0.22%) Jupyter
4 6 (0.22%) NetWeaver
5 5 (0.19%) CMS
5 5 (0.19%) MTS
5 5 (0.19%) Oracle Workflow
6 3 (0.11%) Adobe Experience Manager
6 3 (0.11%) Apache Spark
6 3 (0.11%) ArcGIS
6 3 (0.11%) Palantir Foundry
7 2 (0.075%) Apache
7 2 (0.075%) Cloud Foundry
7 2 (0.075%) IIS
7 2 (0.075%) OpenStack
8 1 (0.037%) LiveCycle
8 1 (0.037%) nginx
8 1 (0.037%) SAS
8 1 (0.037%) Tomcat
Applications
1 38 (1.42%) Microsoft Excel
2 20 (0.75%) Microsoft PowerPoint
3 15 (0.56%) Microsoft Office
4 11 (0.41%) MS Visio
5 6 (0.22%) Microsoft Project
5 6 (0.22%) Oracle Smart View
6 5 (0.19%) PTC Creo
7 4 (0.15%) Navisworks
7 4 (0.15%) Revit
7 4 (0.15%) Spreadsheet
8 3 (0.11%) ProjectWise
9 2 (0.075%) Lectora
10 1 (0.037%) Adobe Captivate
10 1 (0.037%) Adobe Creative Suite
10 1 (0.037%) Adobe XD
10 1 (0.037%) CATIA
10 1 (0.037%) Chatbot
10 1 (0.037%) InfoPath
10 1 (0.037%) Siemens NX
10 1 (0.037%) Windchill
Business Applications
1 351 (13.11%) SAP S/4HANA
2 68 (2.54%) SAP FI
3 56 (2.09%) Oracle EBS
4 52 (1.94%) SAP MM
5 49 (1.83%) Oracle Payables
6 47 (1.76%) Oracle Receivables
7 45 (1.68%) SAP HCM
8 42 (1.57%) SAP CO
9 39 (1.46%) Dynamics CRM
9 39 (1.46%) SAP FI/CO
10 38 (1.42%) SAP PP
11 37 (1.38%) Oracle General Ledger
12 36 (1.34%) Oracle EBS R12
12 36 (1.34%) SAP EWM
13 32 (1.19%) SAP PSCD
14 30 (1.12%) Oracle Assets
14 30 (1.12%) SAP Travel Management
15 28 (1.05%) SAP Payroll
16 25 (0.93%) Oracle Cash Management
16 25 (0.93%) Oracle Procure-to-Pay
Cloud Services
1 298 (11.13%) Azure
2 141 (5.27%) Dynamics 365
3 117 (4.37%) Power Platform
4 105 (3.92%) OCI
5 103 (3.85%) AWS
6 85 (3.17%) Microsoft 365
7 76 (2.84%) GCP
8 69 (2.58%) SaaS
9 62 (2.32%) Entra ID
10 48 (1.79%) SuccessFactors
11 40 (1.49%) Power Automate
12 34 (1.27%) Microsoft Copilot
13 31 (1.16%) Azure DevOps
13 31 (1.16%) PowerApps
14 29 (1.08%) Microsoft Purview
15 24 (0.90%) OneDrive
16 23 (0.86%) GitHub
17 19 (0.71%) SAP Commerce Cloud
18 18 (0.67%) Serverless
19 17 (0.63%) Azure Data Factory
Communications & Networking
1 47 (1.76%) Firewall
2 19 (0.71%) VPN
3 16 (0.60%) DNS
3 16 (0.60%) Network Security
4 14 (0.52%) HTTP
5 13 (0.49%) Kerberos
5 13 (0.49%) WAN
6 12 (0.45%) DHCP
6 12 (0.45%) SMS
7 10 (0.37%) SD-WAN
7 10 (0.37%) SSL
7 10 (0.37%) VSAN
8 9 (0.34%) Software-Defined Networking
8 9 (0.34%) TCP/IP
9 8 (0.30%) FTP
9 8 (0.30%) Intranet
9 8 (0.30%) LAN
9 8 (0.30%) SAN
10 7 (0.26%) Cisco IPT
11 6 (0.22%) SSH
Database & Business Intelligence
1 83 (3.10%) Power BI
2 49 (1.83%) SAP HANA
3 43 (1.61%) Oracle Reports
4 24 (0.90%) SQL Server
5 23 (0.86%) Metadata
6 22 (0.82%) Oracle BI Publisher
7 13 (0.49%) Data Warehouse
7 13 (0.49%) SAP BW
8 12 (0.45%) PostgreSQL
8 12 (0.45%) Tableau
9 11 (0.41%) NoSQL
9 11 (0.41%) SQL Server Reporting Services
10 8 (0.30%) Electronic Patient Records
10 8 (0.30%) GIS
10 8 (0.30%) Oracle Database
11 6 (0.22%) Data Lake
11 6 (0.22%) Data Mart
11 6 (0.22%) DB2
11 6 (0.22%) DynamoDB
11 6 (0.22%) MongoDB
Development Applications
1 64 (2.39%) JIRA
2 19 (0.71%) Jenkins
3 13 (0.49%) Hudson
3 13 (0.49%) Oracle Forms
4 12 (0.45%) Git
5 9 (0.34%) GitLab
6 7 (0.26%) Oracle APEX
7 6 (0.22%) Postman
8 4 (0.15%) LSMW
9 3 (0.11%) JUnit
10 2 (0.075%) Bitbucket
10 2 (0.075%) git-flow
10 2 (0.075%) Mockito
10 2 (0.075%) Rational DOORS
10 2 (0.075%) Rational Rhapsody
10 2 (0.075%) Selenium
10 2 (0.075%) TeamCity
10 2 (0.075%) Tricentis qTest
10 2 (0.075%) Visual Studio
11 1 (0.037%) SonarQube
General
1 707 (26.40%) Social Skills
2 583 (21.77%) Finance
3 250 (9.34%) Public Sector
4 248 (9.26%) Analytical Skills
5 125 (4.67%) Manufacturing
6 96 (3.58%) Banking
7 77 (2.88%) Documentation Skills
8 76 (2.84%) Marketing
9 63 (2.35%) Billing
10 59 (2.20%) Legal
11 46 (1.72%) Presentation Skills
12 45 (1.68%) General Ledger
13 42 (1.57%) Telecoms
14 32 (1.19%) Retail
15 29 (1.08%) Organisational Skills
16 28 (1.05%) Pharmaceutical
17 27 (1.01%) Law
18 21 (0.78%) Aerospace
19 20 (0.75%) Financial Institution
20 17 (0.63%) Electronics
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 94 (3.51%) Oracle Fusion
2 67 (2.50%) REST
3 63 (2.35%) SAP Fiori
4 46 (1.72%) Web Services
5 38 (1.42%) SAP TM
6 36 (1.34%) SOAP
7 33 (1.23%) XML
8 28 (1.05%) BAPI
9 27 (1.01%) Node.js
10 26 (0.97%) LDAP
11 23 (0.86%) Middleware
12 19 (0.71%) SAP PI
13 18 (0.67%) GraphQL
14 17 (0.63%) JSON
15 15 (0.56%) .NET
15 15 (0.56%) HTML
15 15 (0.56%) IDoc
16 14 (0.52%) SAP Basis
17 13 (0.49%) CSS
17 13 (0.49%) Kafka
Miscellaneous
1 67 (2.50%) Onboarding
2 59 (2.20%) Legacy Systems
3 39 (1.46%) Product Ownership
4 38 (1.42%) Security Posture
5 33 (1.23%) Data Protection Act
6 30 (1.12%) Data Centre
7 28 (1.05%) Cloud Native
8 27 (1.01%) Management Information System
9 25 (0.93%) Operational Technology
9 25 (0.93%) Replication
10 24 (0.90%) Data Structures
10 24 (0.90%) Greenfield Project
11 19 (0.71%) AI Agents
11 19 (0.71%) Analytical Mindset
12 16 (0.60%) Life Science
12 16 (0.60%) NHS
13 15 (0.56%) Public Cloud
13 15 (0.56%) Self-Motivation
14 14 (0.52%) Hybrid Cloud
15 12 (0.45%) CMDB
Operating Systems
1 74 (2.76%) Windows
2 43 (1.61%) Linux
3 20 (0.75%) Unix
4 14 (0.52%) Windows Server
5 10 (0.37%) Mac OS
5 10 (0.37%) Windows 10
6 9 (0.34%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
7 6 (0.22%) VMS
8 5 (0.19%) Ubuntu
9 4 (0.15%) AIX
9 4 (0.15%) Solaris
9 4 (0.15%) zOS
10 3 (0.11%) Apple iOS
11 2 (0.075%) SUSE
11 2 (0.075%) SUSE Linux Enterprise Server
11 2 (0.075%) Windows Server 2003
11 2 (0.075%) Windows Server 2008
12 1 (0.037%) CentOS
12 1 (0.037%) CoreOS
12 1 (0.037%) Data ONTAP
Processes & Methodologies
1 389 (14.53%) Migration
2 312 (11.65%) Problem-Solving
3 279 (10.42%) Stakeholder Management
4 276 (10.31%) Stakeholder Engagement
5 229 (8.55%) ERP
6 214 (7.99%) Workshop Facilitation
7 178 (6.65%) User Acceptance Testing
8 172 (6.42%) Agile
9 167 (6.24%) Data Migration
10 161 (6.01%) Analytics
11 156 (5.83%) Roadmaps
12 146 (5.45%) Business Intelligence
13 145 (5.41%) Knowledge Transfer
14 137 (5.12%) Validation
15 128 (4.78%) Cybersecurity
16 122 (4.56%) Continuous Improvement
17 113 (4.22%) AI
18 109 (4.07%) Risk Management
19 107 (4.00%) DevOps
20 105 (3.92%) Data Modelling
Programming Languages
1 148 (5.53%) SQL
2 118 (4.41%) Python
3 88 (3.29%) PowerShell
4 85 (3.17%) JavaScript
5 72 (2.69%) ABAP
6 34 (1.27%) Java
7 30 (1.12%) TypeScript
8 22 (0.82%) Groovy
9 21 (0.78%) PL/SQL
10 16 (0.60%) C#
11 15 (0.56%) Bash
12 10 (0.37%) Shell Script
13 8 (0.30%) Apex Code
13 8 (0.30%) Data Analysis Expressions
14 7 (0.26%) C++
14 7 (0.26%) Kusto Query Language
15 5 (0.19%) Bicep
15 5 (0.19%) Korn
16 4 (0.15%) R
16 4 (0.15%) Ruby
Qualifications
1 638 (23.82%) Security Cleared
2 539 (20.13%) SC Cleared
3 106 (3.96%) Degree
4 77 (2.88%) DV Cleared
5 63 (2.35%) BPSS Clearance
6 50 (1.87%) CISSP
7 36 (1.34%) VMware Certified Professional (VCP)
8 34 (1.27%) CISM
9 19 (0.71%) Master's Degree
10 18 (0.67%) Cisco Certification
10 18 (0.67%) SAP Certification
11 17 (0.63%) CIMA
11 17 (0.63%) Computer Science Degree
12 15 (0.56%) Microsoft Certification
13 12 (0.45%) ITIL Certification
14 8 (0.30%) AWS Certification
14 8 (0.30%) CCNP
14 8 (0.30%) CESG Certified Professional
15 7 (0.26%) CISA
15 7 (0.26%) CRISC
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 88 (3.29%) NIST
2 82 (3.06%) ISO/IEC 27001
3 71 (2.65%) GDPR
4 50 (1.87%) Data Quality
4 50 (1.87%) QA
5 38 (1.42%) GRC
6 22 (0.82%) Actionable Recommendations
6 22 (0.82%) NCSC
7 19 (0.71%) SLA
8 18 (0.67%) Sarbanes-Oxley
9 17 (0.63%) PMO
10 16 (0.60%) PCI DSS
11 11 (0.41%) COBIT
11 11 (0.41%) PERC
12 9 (0.34%) JSP 440
13 8 (0.30%) Cyber Essentials
13 8 (0.30%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
13 8 (0.30%) ISO/IEC 27005
14 6 (0.22%) Accessibility
14 6 (0.22%) HIPAA
System Software
1 69 (2.58%) Active Directory
2 38 (1.42%) Docker
3 33 (1.23%) VMware Infrastructure
4 29 (1.08%) VMware NSX
5 21 (0.78%) vSphere
6 8 (0.30%) Hyper-V
7 6 (0.22%) Slurm Workload Manager
7 6 (0.22%) Virtual Desktop
8 5 (0.19%) NDS
8 5 (0.19%) NetIQ eDirectory
8 5 (0.19%) Virtual Machines
9 2 (0.075%) NFS
10 1 (0.037%) Ceph
10 1 (0.037%) IAG
10 1 (0.037%) Job Entry Subsystem
10 1 (0.037%) KVM
10 1 (0.037%) Microsoft App-V
10 1 (0.037%) QEMU
10 1 (0.037%) Terminal Services
10 1 (0.037%) VMware ESXi
Systems Management
1 54 (2.02%) Kubernetes
2 37 (1.38%) vRealize
3 31 (1.16%) Terraform
4 22 (0.82%) Microsoft Intune
5 18 (0.67%) Single Sign-On
6 15 (0.56%) Ansible
7 10 (0.37%) Failover Clustering
7 10 (0.37%) PingFederate
8 7 (0.26%) Active Directory Federation Services
8 7 (0.26%) SCCM
9 6 (0.22%) Podman
10 5 (0.19%) Grafana
11 4 (0.15%) NetBackup
11 4 (0.15%) Prometheus
11 4 (0.15%) vCenter Server
11 4 (0.15%) vRealize Orchestrator
12 3 (0.11%) CEMLI
12 3 (0.11%) FortiGate
12 3 (0.11%) Puppet
12 3 (0.11%) vMotion
Vendors
1 658 (24.57%) SAP
2 295 (11.02%) Microsoft
3 287 (10.72%) Oracle
4 96 (3.58%) VMware
5 78 (2.91%) ServiceNow
6 60 (2.24%) Salesforce
7 56 (2.09%) Ariba
7 56 (2.09%) CyberArk
7 56 (2.09%) Workday
8 52 (1.94%) Siemens
9 51 (1.90%) Cisco
10 43 (1.61%) Google
11 36 (1.34%) Aruba
12 35 (1.31%) Adobe
13 20 (0.75%) Databricks
14 19 (0.71%) OpenText
15 15 (0.56%) Sage
16 14 (0.52%) Murex
17 13 (0.49%) IFS
18 12 (0.45%) Dynatrace