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 9 April 2026.

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

6 months to
9 Apr 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 28 28 24
Rank change year-on-year 0 -4 +18
Contract jobs requiring a Consultant 2,855 1,908 2,751
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 6.24% 6.53% 6.25%
As % of the Job Titles category 6.76% 7.04% 6.74%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,611 1,118 1,710
10th Percentile £400 £413 £400
25th Percentile £450 £488 £463
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £538 £550 £550
Median % change year-on-year -2.27% - -2.39%
75th Percentile £630 £638 £650
90th Percentile £713 £725 £750
UK excluding London median daily rate £525 £550 £550
% change year-on-year -4.55% - -
Number of hourly rates quoted 76 17 30
10th Percentile £51.13 £63.50 £27.38
25th Percentile £56.25 £70.00 £50.73
Median hourly rate £57.50 £85.00 £61.60
Median % change year-on-year -32.35% +37.99% -6.67%
75th Percentile £60.00 £86.25 £63.22
90th Percentile £78.25 £87.50 £70.50
UK excluding London median hourly rate £57.50 £84.25 £56.89
% change year-on-year -31.75% +48.11% -13.81%

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 42,236 27,096 40,842
% of contract IT jobs with a recognized job title 92.26% 92.72% 92.78%
Number of daily rates quoted 26,288 17,831 26,727
10th Percentile £313 £300 £275
25th Percentile £413 £407 £408
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £520 £525
Median % change year-on-year -3.85% -0.95% -2.78%
75th Percentile £613 £630 £638
90th Percentile £725 £738 £744
UK excluding London median daily rate £488 £475 £490
% change year-on-year +2.63% -3.06% -2.00%
Number of hourly rates quoted 2,660 965 2,571
10th Percentile £15.00 £14.99 £12.86
25th Percentile £20.00 £20.26 £16.25
Median hourly rate £40.54 £31.76 £35.00
Median % change year-on-year +27.64% -9.26% -21.40%
75th Percentile £65.00 £64.50 £60.00
90th Percentile £77.50 £76.25 £71.75
UK excluding London median hourly rate £41.94 £30.45 £35.00
% change year-on-year +37.73% -13.00% -16.97%

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 9 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 9 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 9 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 2,238 £539 -2.05% 1,211
UK excluding London +1 1,166 £525 -4.55% 849
London -2 1,045 £550 -4.35% 544
Work from Home +2 1,007 £525 -4.55% 598
South East +3 350 £525 -8.70% 278
Midlands -8 234 £525 -0.94% 104
North of England -20 224 £520 -3.35% 172
South West +26 169 £550 - 152
West Midlands +1 169 £550 +3.53% 52
North West -30 107 £525 -2.78% 109
Yorkshire -2 104 £500 -4.76% 53
East of England -7 94 £550 +10.00% 67
Scotland +28 65 £460 -12.38% 38
East Midlands -20 58 £475 -9.52% 51
Wales +7 32 £550 +37.50% 33
North East -26 13 £525 -2.23% 12
Northern Ireland +4 6 £428 -18.57% 15

Consultant Skill Set
Top 30 Co-Occurring Skills & Capabilities

For the 6 months to 9 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.

1 622 (21.79%) SAP
2 583 (20.42%) Security Cleared
3 476 (16.67%) SC Cleared
4 389 (13.63%) Migration
5 333 (11.66%) Oracle
6 312 (10.93%) Azure
7 295 (10.33%) Problem-Solving
8 292 (10.23%) Microsoft
9 284 (9.95%) SAP S/4HANA
10 279 (9.77%) Stakeholder Engagement
11 249 (8.72%) Stakeholder Management
12 238 (8.34%) ERP
13 216 (7.57%) SQL
14 200 (7.01%) Workshop Facilitation
15 191 (6.69%) User Acceptance Testing
16 181 (6.34%) Agile
17 168 (5.88%) Continuous Improvement
18 164 (5.74%) Roadmaps
19 161 (5.64%) Data Migration
20 151 (5.29%) Analytics
21 150 (5.25%) Business Intelligence
22 146 (5.11%) Validation
23 144 (5.04%) Cybersecurity
24 130 (4.55%) Dynamics 365
25 128 (4.48%) AI
26 125 (4.38%) Knowledge Transfer
27 124 (4.34%) Power Platform
28 122 (4.27%) Python
29 117 (4.10%) AWS
30 116 (4.06%) OCI

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 73 (2.56%) SharePoint
2 37 (1.30%) Confluence
3 19 (0.67%) Microsoft Exchange
4 13 (0.46%) Oracle Workflow
5 6 (0.21%) Jupyter
6 5 (0.18%) MTS
7 4 (0.14%) Apache
7 4 (0.14%) ArcGIS
7 4 (0.14%) CMS
8 3 (0.11%) Apache Spark
8 3 (0.11%) Apache Superset
8 3 (0.11%) Cloud Foundry
8 3 (0.11%) Palantir Foundry
8 3 (0.11%) Tomcat
9 2 (0.070%) IIS
9 2 (0.070%) WebSphere
10 1 (0.035%) nginx
10 1 (0.035%) OpenStack
10 1 (0.035%) SharePoint 2010
10 1 (0.035%) Skype for Business
Applications
1 69 (2.42%) Microsoft Excel
2 24 (0.84%) Microsoft PowerPoint
3 12 (0.42%) Microsoft Office
4 9 (0.32%) MS Visio
5 5 (0.18%) PTC Creo
6 4 (0.14%) Chatbot
6 4 (0.14%) Microsoft Project
6 4 (0.14%) Spreadsheet
7 2 (0.070%) Lectora
7 2 (0.070%) Oracle Smart View
8 1 (0.035%) Adobe XD
8 1 (0.035%) CATIA
8 1 (0.035%) InfoPath
8 1 (0.035%) Siemens NX
8 1 (0.035%) Windchill
Business Applications
1 284 (9.95%) SAP S/4HANA
2 71 (2.49%) Oracle EBS
3 65 (2.28%) SAP FI
4 51 (1.79%) SAP MM
5 49 (1.72%) Oracle Payables
6 44 (1.54%) Oracle Receivables
7 39 (1.37%) SAP PP
8 38 (1.33%) Oracle EBS R12
9 37 (1.30%) SAP HCM
9 37 (1.30%) SAP PSCD
10 35 (1.23%) SAP CO
11 33 (1.16%) SAP EWM
11 33 (1.16%) SAP FI/CO
12 32 (1.12%) Dynamics CRM
13 28 (0.98%) Oracle Assets
14 26 (0.91%) Oracle General Ledger
14 26 (0.91%) SAP Travel Management
15 25 (0.88%) SAP SD
16 24 (0.84%) SAP BRIM
17 23 (0.81%) Oracle Cash Management
Cloud Services
1 312 (10.93%) Azure
2 130 (4.55%) Dynamics 365
3 124 (4.34%) Power Platform
4 117 (4.10%) AWS
5 116 (4.06%) OCI
6 72 (2.52%) Microsoft 365
6 72 (2.52%) SuccessFactors
7 68 (2.38%) GCP
8 66 (2.31%) SaaS
9 54 (1.89%) Entra ID
10 51 (1.79%) Power Automate
11 39 (1.37%) Azure DevOps
12 37 (1.30%) Microsoft Copilot
13 31 (1.09%) PowerApps
14 29 (1.02%) Microsoft Purview
15 28 (0.98%) GitHub
16 19 (0.67%) OneDrive
17 18 (0.63%) Azure Data Factory
17 18 (0.63%) SAP Commerce Cloud
18 15 (0.53%) Copilot Studio
Communications & Networking
1 41 (1.44%) Firewall
2 25 (0.88%) Network Security
3 15 (0.53%) SMS
4 14 (0.49%) VSAN
5 13 (0.46%) DNS
5 13 (0.46%) HTTP
5 13 (0.46%) Kerberos
5 13 (0.46%) WAN
6 12 (0.42%) VPN
7 11 (0.39%) LAN
7 11 (0.39%) SD-WAN
7 11 (0.39%) Software-Defined Networking
8 10 (0.35%) SAN
8 10 (0.35%) SNMP
9 9 (0.32%) FTP
10 8 (0.28%) Intranet
10 8 (0.28%) SSH
10 8 (0.28%) SSL
11 7 (0.25%) DHCP
11 7 (0.25%) NAS
Database & Business Intelligence
1 88 (3.08%) Power BI
2 62 (2.17%) Oracle Reports
3 34 (1.19%) SAP HANA
4 27 (0.95%) Metadata
5 25 (0.88%) Tableau
6 23 (0.81%) SQL Server
7 22 (0.77%) Oracle BI Publisher
8 17 (0.60%) Oracle ODI
9 11 (0.39%) SAP BW
9 11 (0.39%) SQL Server Reporting Services
10 9 (0.32%) Electronic Patient Records
11 8 (0.28%) Data Warehouse
11 8 (0.28%) NoSQL
12 7 (0.25%) GIS
13 6 (0.21%) Data Mart
13 6 (0.21%) Essbase
13 6 (0.21%) Oracle Database
13 6 (0.21%) PostgreSQL
13 6 (0.21%) Relational Database
13 6 (0.21%) SAP Data Services
Development Applications
1 73 (2.56%) JIRA
2 19 (0.67%) Oracle Forms
3 18 (0.63%) Hudson
4 15 (0.53%) Jenkins
5 9 (0.32%) Git
6 7 (0.25%) GitLab
6 7 (0.25%) Oracle APEX
7 4 (0.14%) LSMW
7 4 (0.14%) Sonatype Nexus
7 4 (0.14%) Visual Studio Code
8 3 (0.11%) Postman
9 2 (0.070%) Bitbucket
9 2 (0.070%) git-flow
9 2 (0.070%) Rational DOORS
9 2 (0.070%) Rational Rhapsody
9 2 (0.070%) Selenium
9 2 (0.070%) SonarQube
9 2 (0.070%) TeamCity
10 1 (0.035%) MSTest
10 1 (0.035%) Team Foundation Server
General
1 666 (23.33%) Social Skills
2 633 (22.17%) Finance
3 265 (9.28%) Analytical Skills
4 235 (8.23%) Public Sector
5 117 (4.10%) Manufacturing
6 105 (3.68%) Banking
7 72 (2.52%) Marketing
8 71 (2.49%) Legal
9 59 (2.07%) Billing
10 56 (1.96%) Documentation Skills
11 47 (1.65%) General Ledger
12 46 (1.61%) Telecoms
13 36 (1.26%) Retail
14 34 (1.19%) Organisational Skills
15 29 (1.02%) Presentation Skills
16 24 (0.84%) Inclusion and Diversity
17 21 (0.74%) Law
18 20 (0.70%) Electronics
18 20 (0.70%) Pharmaceutical
19 19 (0.67%) Advertising
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 87 (3.05%) Oracle Fusion
2 76 (2.66%) REST
3 65 (2.28%) XML
4 35 (1.23%) SAP Fiori
5 32 (1.12%) SOAP
6 29 (1.02%) LDAP
6 29 (1.02%) Web Services
7 27 (0.95%) SAP TM
8 23 (0.81%) JSON
9 21 (0.74%) Middleware
10 20 (0.70%) SAP Basis
11 19 (0.67%) BAPI
11 19 (0.67%) Node.js
12 17 (0.60%) .NET
13 15 (0.53%) IDoc
14 14 (0.49%) GraphQL
14 14 (0.49%) HTML
15 13 (0.46%) CSS
16 11 (0.39%) Kafka
16 11 (0.39%) OAuth
Miscellaneous
1 63 (2.21%) Onboarding
2 49 (1.72%) Legacy Systems
3 43 (1.51%) Data Protection Act
3 43 (1.51%) Product Ownership
4 38 (1.33%) Security Posture
5 31 (1.09%) Replication
6 27 (0.95%) Operational Technology
7 26 (0.91%) Data Centre
7 26 (0.91%) Management Information System
8 24 (0.84%) Cloud Native
9 23 (0.81%) AI Agents
10 21 (0.74%) Data Structures
11 20 (0.70%) Analytical Mindset
12 19 (0.67%) NHS
13 18 (0.63%) Greenfield Project
14 17 (0.60%) CMDB
14 17 (0.60%) Public Cloud
15 14 (0.49%) Life Science
16 13 (0.46%) Self-Motivation
17 12 (0.42%) Hybrid Cloud
Operating Systems
1 84 (2.94%) Windows
2 52 (1.82%) Linux
3 16 (0.56%) Unix
3 16 (0.56%) VMS
4 14 (0.49%) AIX
5 13 (0.46%) Windows Server
6 11 (0.39%) Windows 10
7 8 (0.28%) Solaris
8 6 (0.21%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
9 5 (0.18%) Mac OS
9 5 (0.18%) Ubuntu
10 4 (0.14%) zOS
11 3 (0.11%) Apple iOS
11 3 (0.11%) SUSE
12 2 (0.070%) CoreOS
12 2 (0.070%) Data ONTAP
13 1 (0.035%) Android
13 1 (0.035%) CentOS
Processes & Methodologies
1 389 (13.63%) Migration
2 295 (10.33%) Problem-Solving
3 279 (9.77%) Stakeholder Engagement
4 249 (8.72%) Stakeholder Management
5 238 (8.34%) ERP
6 200 (7.01%) Workshop Facilitation
7 191 (6.69%) User Acceptance Testing
8 181 (6.34%) Agile
9 168 (5.88%) Continuous Improvement
10 164 (5.74%) Roadmaps
11 161 (5.64%) Data Migration
12 151 (5.29%) Analytics
13 150 (5.25%) Business Intelligence
14 146 (5.11%) Validation
15 144 (5.04%) Cybersecurity
16 128 (4.48%) AI
17 125 (4.38%) Knowledge Transfer
18 112 (3.92%) Change Management
19 111 (3.89%) Risk Management
20 108 (3.78%) DevOps
Programming Languages
1 216 (7.57%) SQL
2 122 (4.27%) Python
3 79 (2.77%) PowerShell
4 76 (2.66%) JavaScript
5 53 (1.86%) ABAP
6 43 (1.51%) PL/SQL
7 35 (1.23%) Java
8 32 (1.12%) T-SQL
9 23 (0.81%) TypeScript
10 16 (0.56%) C#
11 14 (0.49%) Bash
11 14 (0.49%) Groovy
12 10 (0.35%) Shell Script
13 8 (0.28%) C++
13 8 (0.28%) Data Analysis Expressions
13 8 (0.28%) R
13 8 (0.28%) Search Processing Language
14 7 (0.25%) Apex Code
15 6 (0.21%) Kusto Query Language
16 5 (0.18%) Korn
Qualifications
1 583 (20.42%) Security Cleared
2 476 (16.67%) SC Cleared
3 95 (3.33%) DV Cleared
4 94 (3.29%) Degree
5 75 (2.63%) BPSS Clearance
6 63 (2.21%) CISSP
7 44 (1.54%) CISM
8 28 (0.98%) VMware Certified Professional (VCP)
9 21 (0.74%) CIMA
10 19 (0.67%) Cisco Certification
10 19 (0.67%) Computer Science Degree
11 16 (0.56%) Microsoft Certification
12 15 (0.53%) Master's Degree
13 13 (0.46%) ITIL Certification
13 13 (0.46%) SAP Certification
14 12 (0.42%) Azure Certification
15 10 (0.35%) (ISC)2 CCSP
15 10 (0.35%) PMP
16 9 (0.32%) CompTIA Security+
16 9 (0.32%) Oracle Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 92 (3.22%) NIST
2 87 (3.05%) ISO/IEC 27001
3 57 (2.00%) Data Quality
3 57 (2.00%) GDPR
3 57 (2.00%) GRC
4 45 (1.58%) QA
5 27 (0.95%) NCSC
6 26 (0.91%) PCI DSS
7 22 (0.77%) Sarbanes-Oxley
8 21 (0.74%) PMO
9 18 (0.63%) Actionable Recommendations
9 18 (0.63%) COBIT
9 18 (0.63%) SLA
10 14 (0.49%) JSP 440
11 11 (0.39%) PERC
12 8 (0.28%) DICOM
12 8 (0.28%) HL7
13 7 (0.25%) GxP
13 7 (0.25%) ISO/IEC 27005
13 7 (0.25%) RMADS
System Software
1 61 (2.14%) Active Directory
2 36 (1.26%) VMware NSX
3 33 (1.16%) VMware Infrastructure
4 28 (0.98%) Docker
5 26 (0.91%) vSphere
6 10 (0.35%) Virtual Desktop
7 9 (0.32%) Hyper-V
8 6 (0.21%) Slurm Workload Manager
8 6 (0.21%) Virtual Machines
9 4 (0.14%) IAG
10 3 (0.11%) NFS
10 3 (0.11%) VMware ESXi
11 2 (0.070%) NDS
11 2 (0.070%) NetIQ eDirectory
12 1 (0.035%) BitLocker
12 1 (0.035%) Ceph
12 1 (0.035%) Job Entry Subsystem
12 1 (0.035%) KVM
12 1 (0.035%) QEMU
Systems Management
1 48 (1.68%) Kubernetes
2 36 (1.26%) Terraform
3 33 (1.16%) vRealize
4 21 (0.74%) Microsoft Intune
5 13 (0.46%) Ansible
6 12 (0.42%) Single Sign-On
7 10 (0.35%) Nagios
7 10 (0.35%) Netcool
7 10 (0.35%) OpenView
7 10 (0.35%) Tivoli
7 10 (0.35%) Tivoli Monitoring
7 10 (0.35%) ZABBIX
8 8 (0.28%) Failover Clustering
9 7 (0.25%) SCCM
10 6 (0.21%) PingFederate
10 6 (0.21%) Podman
11 5 (0.18%) NetBackup
12 4 (0.14%) Active Directory Federation Services
12 4 (0.14%) Control-M
13 3 (0.11%) vRealize Orchestrator
Vendors
1 622 (21.79%) SAP
2 333 (11.66%) Oracle
3 292 (10.23%) Microsoft
4 99 (3.47%) VMware
5 96 (3.36%) ServiceNow
6 64 (2.24%) Ariba
7 61 (2.14%) Salesforce
8 58 (2.03%) Workday
9 53 (1.86%) Siemens
10 38 (1.33%) Cisco
11 34 (1.19%) Google
12 30 (1.05%) Aruba
13 29 (1.02%) Databricks
14 26 (0.91%) Splunk
15 23 (0.81%) Adobe
16 21 (0.74%) IBM
17 20 (0.70%) OpenText
18 18 (0.63%) BMC
19 17 (0.60%) Murex
20 16 (0.56%) Sage