Consultant Contract Job Trends

Consultant
UK

The median Consultant daily rate in the UK is £538, according to job vacancies posted in the 6 months leading up to 17 April 2026.

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

6 months to
17 Apr 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 28 28 24
Rank change year-on-year 0 -4 +17
Contract jobs requiring a Consultant 2,829 1,911 2,732
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 6.15% 6.51% 6.23%
As % of the Job Titles category 6.67% 7.03% 6.72%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,592 1,122 1,705
10th Percentile £388 £413 £400
25th Percentile £450 £488 £463
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £538 £550 £550
Median % change year-on-year -2.27% - -1.79%
75th Percentile £626 £638 £650
90th Percentile £713 £720 £750
UK excluding London median daily rate £525 £545 £550
% change year-on-year -3.67% -0.91% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 76 17 26
10th Percentile £51.13 £63.50 £26.88
25th Percentile £56.25 £70.00 £44.38
Median hourly rate £57.50 £85.00 £58.44
Median % change year-on-year -32.35% +45.44% -11.45%
75th Percentile £60.00 £86.25 £63.22
90th Percentile £78.25 £87.50 £72.50
UK excluding London median hourly rate £57.50 £84.25 £55.80
% change year-on-year -31.75% +50.99% -15.45%

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 42,439 27,180 40,683
% of contract IT jobs with a recognized job title 92.23% 92.60% 92.75%
Number of daily rates quoted 26,345 17,830 26,590
10th Percentile £313 £300 £275
25th Percentile £413 £406 £408
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £515 £525
Median % change year-on-year -2.91% -1.90% -2.78%
75th Percentile £613 £625 £638
90th Percentile £725 £738 £745
UK excluding London median daily rate £488 £475 £490
% change year-on-year +2.63% -3.06% -2.00%
Number of hourly rates quoted 2,678 986 2,604
10th Percentile £15.00 £14.71 £12.86
25th Percentile £20.35 £19.25 £16.25
Median hourly rate £41.94 £30.79 £35.00
Median % change year-on-year +36.20% -12.02% -22.22%
75th Percentile £65.59 £63.75 £60.00
90th Percentile £78.08 £75.38 £72.33
UK excluding London median hourly rate £43.00 £29.53 £35.00
% change year-on-year +45.64% -15.64% -17.38%

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 April 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 April 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 17 April 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 2,222 £538 -2.27% 1,186
UK excluding London +2 1,154 £525 -3.67% 788
London -3 1,038 £550 -4.35% 533
Work from Home +2 988 £525 -4.15% 590
South East -1 342 £538 -3.85% 228
Midlands -11 231 £525 - 77
North of England -27 223 £520 -3.35% 228
South West +24 174 £525 -4.55% 141
West Midlands -1 162 £550 +4.76% 43
North West -30 106 £525 -3.67% 146
Yorkshire -5 99 £500 -4.76% 71
East of England -3 88 £550 +10.00% 36
Scotland +28 69 £460 -11.71% 32
East Midlands -17 62 £500 -3.85% 34
Wales +11 30 £550 +37.50% 25
North East -24 18 £525 -2.23% 12
Northern Ireland +5 5 £450 -14.29% 28

Consultant Skill Set
Top 30 Co-Occurring Skills & Capabilities

For the 6 months to 17 April 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.

1 598 (21.14%) SAP
2 568 (20.08%) Security Cleared
3 462 (16.33%) SC Cleared
4 382 (13.50%) Migration
5 339 (11.98%) Oracle
6 301 (10.64%) Azure
7 280 (9.90%) Problem-Solving
8 279 (9.86%) Microsoft
9 272 (9.61%) SAP S/4HANA
10 270 (9.54%) Stakeholder Engagement
11 244 (8.62%) Stakeholder Management
12 233 (8.24%) ERP
13 211 (7.46%) SQL
14 194 (6.86%) User Acceptance Testing
15 187 (6.61%) Workshop Facilitation
16 178 (6.29%) Agile
17 163 (5.76%) Continuous Improvement
18 160 (5.66%) Data Migration
19 155 (5.48%) Roadmaps
19 155 (5.48%) Validation
20 150 (5.30%) Business Intelligence
21 148 (5.23%) Analytics
22 145 (5.13%) Cybersecurity
23 136 (4.81%) Dynamics 365
24 125 (4.42%) Power Platform
25 122 (4.31%) AI
26 116 (4.10%) AWS
27 114 (4.03%) Knowledge Transfer
27 114 (4.03%) Python
28 113 (3.99%) Change 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 66 (2.33%) SharePoint
2 33 (1.17%) Confluence
3 17 (0.60%) Microsoft Exchange
4 14 (0.49%) Oracle Workflow
5 6 (0.21%) Jupyter
6 5 (0.18%) MTS
7 4 (0.14%) Apache
7 4 (0.14%) Apache Spark
7 4 (0.14%) ArcGIS
8 3 (0.11%) Apache Superset
8 3 (0.11%) Cloud Foundry
8 3 (0.11%) Palantir Foundry
8 3 (0.11%) SAS
8 3 (0.11%) Tomcat
9 2 (0.071%) CMS
9 2 (0.071%) WebSphere
10 1 (0.035%) nginx
10 1 (0.035%) OpenStack
10 1 (0.035%) Oracle Self-Service HR
10 1 (0.035%) Skype for Business
Applications
1 65 (2.30%) Microsoft Excel
2 24 (0.85%) Microsoft PowerPoint
3 12 (0.42%) Microsoft Office
4 8 (0.28%) MS Visio
5 5 (0.18%) PTC Creo
6 4 (0.14%) Chatbot
6 4 (0.14%) Spreadsheet
7 3 (0.11%) Microsoft Project
8 2 (0.071%) Lectora
8 2 (0.071%) Oracle Smart View
9 1 (0.035%) Adobe XD
9 1 (0.035%) CATIA
9 1 (0.035%) Siemens NX
9 1 (0.035%) Windchill
Business Applications
1 272 (9.61%) SAP S/4HANA
2 78 (2.76%) Oracle EBS
3 59 (2.09%) SAP FI
4 49 (1.73%) SAP MM
5 46 (1.63%) Oracle Payables
6 42 (1.48%) Oracle Receivables
7 38 (1.34%) Oracle EBS R12
8 37 (1.31%) SAP PP
9 35 (1.24%) SAP HCM
10 33 (1.17%) Dynamics CRM
10 33 (1.17%) SAP EWM
10 33 (1.17%) SAP PSCD
11 30 (1.06%) SAP CO
12 28 (0.99%) Oracle Assets
12 28 (0.99%) SAP FI/CO
13 26 (0.92%) SAP Travel Management
14 25 (0.88%) Oracle General Ledger
15 24 (0.85%) Oracle Procure-to-Pay
16 23 (0.81%) Teamcenter
17 22 (0.78%) Oracle ERP
Cloud Services
1 301 (10.64%) Azure
2 136 (4.81%) Dynamics 365
3 125 (4.42%) Power Platform
4 116 (4.10%) AWS
5 113 (3.99%) OCI
6 75 (2.65%) SuccessFactors
7 68 (2.40%) Microsoft 365
8 67 (2.37%) SaaS
9 65 (2.30%) GCP
10 53 (1.87%) Power Automate
11 46 (1.63%) Entra ID
12 38 (1.34%) Azure DevOps
13 35 (1.24%) Microsoft Copilot
14 32 (1.13%) PowerApps
15 30 (1.06%) Microsoft Purview
16 28 (0.99%) GitHub
17 19 (0.67%) Azure Data Factory
18 16 (0.57%) OneDrive
18 16 (0.57%) Serverless
19 15 (0.53%) Copilot Studio
Communications & Networking
1 38 (1.34%) Firewall
2 26 (0.92%) Network Security
3 16 (0.57%) SMS
4 13 (0.46%) VSAN
5 12 (0.42%) DNS
5 12 (0.42%) HTTP
5 12 (0.42%) WAN
6 11 (0.39%) Kerberos
6 11 (0.39%) Software-Defined Networking
7 10 (0.35%) FTP
7 10 (0.35%) LAN
7 10 (0.35%) SD-WAN
7 10 (0.35%) SNMP
8 9 (0.32%) SAN
8 9 (0.32%) VPN
9 8 (0.28%) Intranet
10 7 (0.25%) NAS
11 6 (0.21%) Cisco IPT
11 6 (0.21%) TCP/IP
11 6 (0.21%) VLAN
Database & Business Intelligence
1 88 (3.11%) Power BI
2 65 (2.30%) Oracle Reports
3 32 (1.13%) SAP HANA
4 28 (0.99%) Metadata
5 25 (0.88%) Tableau
6 24 (0.85%) Oracle BI Publisher
7 23 (0.81%) SQL Server
8 20 (0.71%) Oracle ODI
9 11 (0.39%) SAP BW
10 10 (0.35%) SQL Server Reporting Services
11 9 (0.32%) Electronic Patient Records
12 8 (0.28%) Data Warehouse
12 8 (0.28%) NoSQL
13 7 (0.25%) GIS
13 7 (0.25%) SAP Data Services
14 6 (0.21%) Data Lake
14 6 (0.21%) Data Mart
14 6 (0.21%) Essbase
14 6 (0.21%) Oracle Database
14 6 (0.21%) Relational Database
Development Applications
1 69 (2.44%) JIRA
2 20 (0.71%) Oracle Forms
3 18 (0.64%) Hudson
4 15 (0.53%) Jenkins
5 8 (0.28%) Git
5 8 (0.28%) GitLab
6 7 (0.25%) Oracle APEX
7 4 (0.14%) Sonatype Nexus
7 4 (0.14%) Visual Studio Code
8 3 (0.11%) Postman
8 3 (0.11%) SonarQube
9 2 (0.071%) Bitbucket
9 2 (0.071%) git-flow
9 2 (0.071%) LSMW
9 2 (0.071%) Octopus Deploy
9 2 (0.071%) Rational DOORS
9 2 (0.071%) Rational Rhapsody
9 2 (0.071%) Selenium
9 2 (0.071%) TeamCity
9 2 (0.071%) Toad
General
1 638 (22.55%) Social Skills
2 620 (21.92%) Finance
3 257 (9.08%) Analytical Skills
4 223 (7.88%) Public Sector
5 112 (3.96%) Manufacturing
6 104 (3.68%) Banking
7 70 (2.47%) Marketing
8 66 (2.33%) Legal
9 56 (1.98%) Billing
10 51 (1.80%) Documentation Skills
11 46 (1.63%) General Ledger
12 41 (1.45%) Telecoms
13 36 (1.27%) Retail
14 35 (1.24%) Organisational Skills
15 27 (0.95%) Presentation Skills
16 26 (0.92%) Inclusion and Diversity
17 22 (0.78%) Pharmaceutical
18 20 (0.71%) Law
19 19 (0.67%) Advertising
19 19 (0.67%) Electronics
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 83 (2.93%) Oracle Fusion
2 74 (2.62%) REST
3 68 (2.40%) XML
4 32 (1.13%) SOAP
5 30 (1.06%) Web Services
6 27 (0.95%) SAP TM
7 26 (0.92%) SAP Fiori
8 24 (0.85%) JSON
8 24 (0.85%) LDAP
9 21 (0.74%) Middleware
9 21 (0.74%) SAP Basis
10 19 (0.67%) Node.js
11 18 (0.64%) .NET
12 16 (0.57%) BAPI
12 16 (0.57%) HTML
13 15 (0.53%) CSS
14 14 (0.49%) GraphQL
15 12 (0.42%) IDoc
16 11 (0.39%) Kafka
17 9 (0.32%) SAP PI
Miscellaneous
1 56 (1.98%) Onboarding
2 46 (1.63%) Legacy Systems
3 44 (1.56%) Data Protection Act
4 37 (1.31%) Product Ownership
5 36 (1.27%) Security Posture
6 30 (1.06%) Operational Technology
6 30 (1.06%) Replication
7 26 (0.92%) Data Centre
8 25 (0.88%) Management Information System
9 24 (0.85%) AI Agents
9 24 (0.85%) Cloud Native
10 23 (0.81%) Data Structures
11 19 (0.67%) NHS
12 18 (0.64%) Analytical Mindset
12 18 (0.64%) CMDB
12 18 (0.64%) Greenfield Project
13 17 (0.60%) Public Cloud
14 16 (0.57%) Life Science
15 13 (0.46%) Self-Motivation
16 12 (0.42%) Hybrid Cloud
Operating Systems
1 76 (2.69%) Windows
2 51 (1.80%) Linux
3 16 (0.57%) Unix
3 16 (0.57%) VMS
4 12 (0.42%) AIX
5 10 (0.35%) Windows Server
6 9 (0.32%) Solaris
7 8 (0.28%) Windows 10
8 6 (0.21%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
9 5 (0.18%) Ubuntu
10 4 (0.14%) Mac OS
10 4 (0.14%) zOS
11 3 (0.11%) Apple iOS
11 3 (0.11%) SUSE
12 2 (0.071%) CoreOS
12 2 (0.071%) Data ONTAP
13 1 (0.035%) Android
13 1 (0.035%) CentOS
Processes & Methodologies
1 382 (13.50%) Migration
2 280 (9.90%) Problem-Solving
3 270 (9.54%) Stakeholder Engagement
4 244 (8.62%) Stakeholder Management
5 233 (8.24%) ERP
6 194 (6.86%) User Acceptance Testing
7 187 (6.61%) Workshop Facilitation
8 178 (6.29%) Agile
9 163 (5.76%) Continuous Improvement
10 160 (5.66%) Data Migration
11 155 (5.48%) Roadmaps
11 155 (5.48%) Validation
12 150 (5.30%) Business Intelligence
13 148 (5.23%) Analytics
14 145 (5.13%) Cybersecurity
15 122 (4.31%) AI
16 114 (4.03%) Knowledge Transfer
17 113 (3.99%) Change Management
18 108 (3.82%) DevOps
19 106 (3.75%) Risk Management
Programming Languages
1 211 (7.46%) SQL
2 114 (4.03%) Python
3 76 (2.69%) JavaScript
4 66 (2.33%) PowerShell
5 50 (1.77%) PL/SQL
6 49 (1.73%) ABAP
7 33 (1.17%) Java
7 33 (1.17%) T-SQL
8 23 (0.81%) TypeScript
9 16 (0.57%) C#
10 12 (0.42%) Groovy
11 10 (0.35%) Shell Script
12 9 (0.32%) Bash
12 9 (0.32%) R
13 8 (0.28%) C++
13 8 (0.28%) Data Analysis Expressions
13 8 (0.28%) Search Processing Language
14 7 (0.25%) Apex Code
14 7 (0.25%) Kusto Query Language
15 5 (0.18%) Korn
Qualifications
1 568 (20.08%) Security Cleared
2 462 (16.33%) SC Cleared
3 94 (3.32%) DV Cleared
4 93 (3.29%) Degree
5 76 (2.69%) BPSS Clearance
6 63 (2.23%) CISSP
7 45 (1.59%) CISM
8 25 (0.88%) VMware Certified Professional (VCP)
9 21 (0.74%) CIMA
10 19 (0.67%) Cisco Certification
10 19 (0.67%) Computer Science Degree
11 14 (0.49%) Master's Degree
11 14 (0.49%) Microsoft Certification
12 13 (0.46%) SAP Certification
13 12 (0.42%) ITIL Certification
14 10 (0.35%) (ISC)2 CCSP
14 10 (0.35%) ACCA
14 10 (0.35%) Azure Certification
14 10 (0.35%) CCSP
15 9 (0.32%) CompTIA Security+
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 89 (3.15%) NIST
2 84 (2.97%) ISO/IEC 27001
3 59 (2.09%) Data Quality
4 57 (2.01%) GDPR
4 57 (2.01%) GRC
5 40 (1.41%) QA
6 26 (0.92%) NCSC
7 24 (0.85%) PCI DSS
8 21 (0.74%) PMO
9 18 (0.64%) Actionable Recommendations
9 18 (0.64%) Sarbanes-Oxley
9 18 (0.64%) SLA
10 16 (0.57%) COBIT
11 14 (0.49%) JSP 440
12 11 (0.39%) PERC
13 8 (0.28%) Accessibility
13 8 (0.28%) DICOM
13 8 (0.28%) GxP
13 8 (0.28%) HL7
14 7 (0.25%) RMADS
System Software
1 54 (1.91%) Active Directory
2 36 (1.27%) VMware Infrastructure
3 35 (1.24%) VMware NSX
4 27 (0.95%) Docker
5 24 (0.85%) vSphere
6 10 (0.35%) Virtual Desktop
6 10 (0.35%) Virtual Machines
7 9 (0.32%) Hyper-V
8 6 (0.21%) Slurm Workload Manager
9 4 (0.14%) IAG
9 4 (0.14%) VMware ESXi
10 3 (0.11%) NFS
11 1 (0.035%) BitLocker
11 1 (0.035%) Ceph
11 1 (0.035%) HDFS
11 1 (0.035%) Job Entry Subsystem
11 1 (0.035%) KVM
11 1 (0.035%) NDS
11 1 (0.035%) NetIQ eDirectory
11 1 (0.035%) QEMU
Systems Management
1 47 (1.66%) Kubernetes
2 32 (1.13%) Terraform
2 32 (1.13%) vRealize
3 19 (0.67%) Microsoft Intune
4 12 (0.42%) Ansible
5 11 (0.39%) Single Sign-On
6 10 (0.35%) Nagios
6 10 (0.35%) Netcool
6 10 (0.35%) OpenView
6 10 (0.35%) Tivoli
6 10 (0.35%) Tivoli Monitoring
6 10 (0.35%) ZABBIX
7 7 (0.25%) Failover Clustering
7 7 (0.25%) SCCM
8 6 (0.21%) PingFederate
8 6 (0.21%) Podman
9 4 (0.14%) Active Directory Federation Services
9 4 (0.14%) Grafana
9 4 (0.14%) Prometheus
9 4 (0.14%) vRealize Orchestrator
Vendors
1 598 (21.14%) SAP
2 339 (11.98%) Oracle
3 279 (9.86%) Microsoft
4 96 (3.39%) VMware
5 93 (3.29%) ServiceNow
6 63 (2.23%) Ariba
7 59 (2.09%) Salesforce
8 55 (1.94%) Workday
9 53 (1.87%) Siemens
10 35 (1.24%) Google
11 34 (1.20%) Cisco
12 27 (0.95%) Databricks
13 26 (0.92%) Aruba
14 25 (0.88%) Splunk
15 23 (0.81%) Adobe
16 21 (0.74%) IBM
17 19 (0.67%) OpenText
18 18 (0.64%) BMC
19 17 (0.60%) Murex
19 17 (0.60%) Sage