Consultant Contract Job Trends

Consultant
UK

The median Consultant daily rate in the UK is £540, according to job vacancies posted in the 6 months leading up to 6 June 2026.

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

6 months to
6 Jun 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 28 28 25
Rank change year-on-year 0 -3 +10
Contract jobs requiring a Consultant 2,858 1,910 2,768
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 5.79% 6.58% 6.43%
As % of the Job Titles category 6.27% 7.12% 6.92%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,598 1,101 1,703
10th Percentile £397 £411 £400
25th Percentile £456 £475 £463
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £540 £550 £550
Median % change year-on-year -1.82% - -
75th Percentile £638 £638 £650
90th Percentile £725 £725 £750
UK excluding London median daily rate £525 £537 £550
% change year-on-year -2.23% -2.36% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 87 23 27
10th Percentile £39.25 £27.93 £27.00
25th Percentile £56.25 £39.05 £51.45
Median hourly rate £57.50 £70.00 £61.60
Median % change year-on-year -17.86% +13.64% -6.67%
75th Percentile £60.00 £86.00 -
90th Percentile £85.55 £87.25 £72.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £57.50 £70.00 £56.89
% change year-on-year -17.86% +23.06% -13.15%

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 45,608 26,825 40,003
% of contract IT jobs with a recognized job title 92.34% 92.39% 92.88%
Number of daily rates quoted 27,789 17,300 25,804
10th Percentile £325 £288 £280
25th Percentile £413 £403 £407
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £513 £500 £525
Median % change year-on-year +2.50% -4.76% -2.78%
75th Percentile £619 £625 £638
90th Percentile £725 £738 £750
UK excluding London median daily rate £500 £475 £488
% change year-on-year +5.26% -2.56% -2.50%
Number of hourly rates quoted 3,038 1,097 2,862
10th Percentile £15.05 £14.00 £12.86
25th Percentile £20.75 £17.87 £16.30
Median hourly rate £45.00 £28.00 £37.50
Median % change year-on-year +60.71% -25.33% -16.67%
75th Percentile £67.50 £58.75 £61.60
90th Percentile £80.00 £75.00 £73.75
UK excluding London median hourly rate £45.00 £25.23 £40.00
% change year-on-year +78.39% -36.94% -5.88%

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 6 June 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 6 June 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 6 June 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 2,280 £550 - 1,933
UK excluding London +2 1,204 £525 -2.23% 1,158
London -2 1,051 £550 -4.35% 916
Work from Home -2 1,009 £540 -1.82% 880
South East -1 339 £525 -4.55% 279
North of England -17 266 £550 +3.77% 368
Midlands -13 228 £525 -4.55% 104
South West +36 201 £577 +4.91% 216
West Midlands -9 151 £525 -4.55% 67
North West -16 131 £525 -3.67% 246
Yorkshire -11 113 £550 +15.79% 83
Scotland +22 73 £418 -9.73% 71
East of England -9 72 £550 +6.08% 54
East Midlands -11 68 £500 -3.85% 36
Wales -3 30 £550 +37.50% 17
North East -28 22 £638 +19.38% 39
Northern Ireland +1 3 £600 +15.38% 56

Consultant Skill Set
Top 30 Co-Occurring Skills & Capabilities

For the 6 months to 6 June 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.

1 587 (20.54%) SAP
2 530 (18.54%) Security Cleared
3 396 (13.86%) SC Cleared
4 368 (12.88%) Migration
5 329 (11.51%) Oracle
6 327 (11.44%) Microsoft
7 315 (11.02%) Azure
8 259 (9.06%) SAP S/4HANA
9 257 (8.99%) Problem-Solving
10 253 (8.85%) Stakeholder Engagement
11 246 (8.61%) Stakeholder Management
12 245 (8.57%) ERP
13 223 (7.80%) SQL
14 205 (7.17%) User Acceptance Testing
15 188 (6.58%) Continuous Improvement
16 185 (6.47%) Workshop Facilitation
17 174 (6.09%) Validation
18 168 (5.88%) Data Migration
19 159 (5.56%) Agile
20 156 (5.46%) Cybersecurity
21 152 (5.32%) Roadmaps
22 150 (5.25%) Analytics
23 148 (5.18%) Power Platform
24 144 (5.04%) Business Intelligence
25 143 (5.00%) Dynamics 365
26 140 (4.90%) AI
27 135 (4.72%) AWS
28 121 (4.23%) Change Management
29 119 (4.16%) Python
30 114 (3.99%) 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 78 (2.73%) SharePoint
2 47 (1.64%) Confluence
3 13 (0.45%) Microsoft Exchange
3 13 (0.45%) Oracle Workflow
4 6 (0.21%) Jupyter
5 4 (0.14%) Apache Spark
5 4 (0.14%) ArcGIS
5 4 (0.14%) WebSphere
6 3 (0.10%) Apache
6 3 (0.10%) Apache Superset
6 3 (0.10%) Cloud Foundry
6 3 (0.10%) IIS
6 3 (0.10%) Palantir Foundry
6 3 (0.10%) SAS
6 3 (0.10%) Tomcat
6 3 (0.10%) WebLogic
7 2 (0.070%) NetWeaver
8 1 (0.035%) Apache Airflow
8 1 (0.035%) Oracle Self-Service HR
8 1 (0.035%) WordPress
Applications
1 77 (2.69%) Microsoft Excel
2 25 (0.87%) Microsoft PowerPoint
3 20 (0.70%) Microsoft Office
4 6 (0.21%) MS Visio
4 6 (0.21%) Spreadsheet
5 5 (0.17%) PTC Creo
6 4 (0.14%) Chatbot
7 3 (0.10%) Microsoft Project
8 2 (0.070%) Lectora
8 2 (0.070%) Oracle Smart View
9 1 (0.035%) CATIA
9 1 (0.035%) Siemens NX
Business Applications
1 259 (9.06%) SAP S/4HANA
2 75 (2.62%) Oracle EBS
3 53 (1.85%) SAP FI
4 45 (1.57%) Oracle Payables
5 43 (1.50%) SAP PSCD
6 40 (1.40%) SAP MM
7 37 (1.29%) Oracle Receivables
8 33 (1.15%) SAP BRIM
9 30 (1.05%) Dynamics CRM
10 29 (1.01%) SAP EWM
10 29 (1.01%) SAP Travel Management
11 28 (0.98%) Teamcenter
12 27 (0.94%) Oracle ERP
12 27 (0.94%) SAP SD
13 26 (0.91%) SAP FI-CA
14 25 (0.87%) SAP PP
15 24 (0.84%) Oracle EBS R12
15 24 (0.84%) SAP CO
16 23 (0.80%) SAP FI/CO
17 22 (0.77%) SAP IBP
Cloud Services
1 315 (11.02%) Azure
2 148 (5.18%) Power Platform
3 143 (5.00%) Dynamics 365
4 135 (4.72%) AWS
5 94 (3.29%) OCI
6 87 (3.04%) Microsoft 365
7 71 (2.48%) GCP
8 67 (2.34%) Power Automate
9 63 (2.20%) SuccessFactors
10 57 (1.99%) SaaS
11 51 (1.78%) Entra ID
12 44 (1.54%) Azure DevOps
13 42 (1.47%) Microsoft Copilot
14 33 (1.15%) PowerApps
15 32 (1.12%) GitHub
16 31 (1.08%) Microsoft Purview
17 21 (0.73%) Copilot Studio
18 19 (0.66%) Serverless
19 15 (0.52%) Azure Data Factory
19 15 (0.52%) OneDrive
Communications & Networking
1 37 (1.29%) Firewall
2 36 (1.26%) Network Security
3 21 (0.73%) SNMP
4 16 (0.56%) SMS
5 14 (0.49%) DNS
6 13 (0.45%) SAN
6 13 (0.45%) WAN
7 12 (0.42%) LAN
8 11 (0.38%) VPN
9 10 (0.35%) Software-Defined Networking
9 10 (0.35%) VSAN
10 9 (0.31%) FTP
11 8 (0.28%) NAS
11 8 (0.28%) SD-WAN
12 7 (0.24%) Intranet
13 6 (0.21%) BGP
13 6 (0.21%) HTTP
13 6 (0.21%) IPsec
13 6 (0.21%) VLAN
13 6 (0.21%) Wireless
Database & Business Intelligence
1 86 (3.01%) Power BI
2 53 (1.85%) Oracle Reports
3 32 (1.12%) SAP HANA
4 31 (1.08%) Tableau
5 26 (0.91%) SQL Server
6 24 (0.84%) Metadata
7 23 (0.80%) Oracle BI Publisher
8 18 (0.63%) Oracle ODI
9 16 (0.56%) SAP BW
10 15 (0.52%) Data Warehouse
11 11 (0.38%) BusinessObjects
12 9 (0.31%) Oracle Database
12 9 (0.31%) Power Query
13 7 (0.24%) Electronic Patient Records
13 7 (0.24%) NoSQL
14 6 (0.21%) Crystal Reports
14 6 (0.21%) GIS
14 6 (0.21%) Relational Database
14 6 (0.21%) SAP Data Services
14 6 (0.21%) SQL Server Reporting Services
Development Applications
1 83 (2.90%) JIRA
2 18 (0.63%) Oracle Forms
3 16 (0.56%) Hudson
4 12 (0.42%) Jenkins
5 10 (0.35%) Git
6 8 (0.28%) GitLab
7 7 (0.24%) Sonatype Nexus
8 4 (0.14%) Cypress.io
8 4 (0.14%) Oracle APEX
8 4 (0.14%) Postman
8 4 (0.14%) SonarQube
9 3 (0.10%) Browser DevTools
9 3 (0.10%) Selenium
9 3 (0.10%) Toad
9 3 (0.10%) Visual Studio Code
10 2 (0.070%) git-flow
10 2 (0.070%) JDeveloper
10 2 (0.070%) JUnit
10 2 (0.070%) Zephyr
11 1 (0.035%) Rational Rhapsody
General
1 612 (21.41%) Social Skills
2 589 (20.61%) Finance
3 242 (8.47%) Analytical Skills
4 203 (7.10%) Public Sector
5 92 (3.22%) Banking
5 92 (3.22%) Manufacturing
6 66 (2.31%) Billing
7 64 (2.24%) Legal
8 57 (1.99%) Marketing
9 51 (1.78%) Documentation Skills
9 51 (1.78%) General Ledger
10 43 (1.50%) Telecoms
11 33 (1.15%) Organisational Skills
11 33 (1.15%) Retail
12 31 (1.08%) Inclusion and Diversity
13 30 (1.05%) Pharmaceutical
14 25 (0.87%) Presentation Skills
15 22 (0.77%) Influencing Skills
16 21 (0.73%) Law
17 17 (0.59%) Advertising
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 77 (2.69%) Oracle Fusion
2 71 (2.48%) REST
3 59 (2.06%) XML
4 30 (1.05%) Middleware
4 30 (1.05%) SAP TM
5 26 (0.91%) Web Services
6 23 (0.80%) BAPI
6 23 (0.80%) SAP Fiori
7 22 (0.77%) SOAP
8 18 (0.63%) HTML
8 18 (0.63%) JSON
9 17 (0.59%) .NET
10 16 (0.56%) SAP Basis
11 15 (0.52%) CSS
12 14 (0.49%) LDAP
13 12 (0.42%) OAuth
14 10 (0.35%) IDoc
14 10 (0.35%) Kafka
14 10 (0.35%) React
15 9 (0.31%) Elastic Stack
Miscellaneous
1 66 (2.31%) Onboarding
2 44 (1.54%) Data Protection Act
2 44 (1.54%) Security Posture
3 37 (1.29%) Legacy Systems
4 35 (1.22%) Product Ownership
5 33 (1.15%) Operational Technology
6 29 (1.01%) AI Agents
7 25 (0.87%) CMDB
8 23 (0.80%) Cloud Native
8 23 (0.80%) Data Centre
8 23 (0.80%) Data Structures
9 22 (0.77%) Management Information System
10 21 (0.73%) NHS
11 20 (0.70%) Greenfield Project
11 20 (0.70%) Life Science
12 17 (0.59%) Replication
13 16 (0.56%) Public Cloud
14 14 (0.49%) Algorithms
14 14 (0.49%) Self-Motivation
15 13 (0.45%) Hybrid Cloud
Operating Systems
1 80 (2.80%) Windows
2 65 (2.27%) Linux
3 21 (0.73%) Solaris
4 20 (0.70%) Unix
4 20 (0.70%) VMS
5 17 (0.59%) AIX
6 6 (0.21%) Windows Server
7 5 (0.17%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
7 5 (0.17%) Windows 10
7 5 (0.17%) zOS
8 4 (0.14%) Ubuntu
9 3 (0.10%) Android
9 3 (0.10%) Apple iOS
9 3 (0.10%) Mac OS
9 3 (0.10%) SUSE
10 2 (0.070%) CoreOS
10 2 (0.070%) Data ONTAP
Processes & Methodologies
1 368 (12.88%) Migration
2 257 (8.99%) Problem-Solving
3 253 (8.85%) Stakeholder Engagement
4 246 (8.61%) Stakeholder Management
5 245 (8.57%) ERP
6 205 (7.17%) User Acceptance Testing
7 188 (6.58%) Continuous Improvement
8 185 (6.47%) Workshop Facilitation
9 174 (6.09%) Validation
10 168 (5.88%) Data Migration
11 159 (5.56%) Agile
12 156 (5.46%) Cybersecurity
13 152 (5.32%) Roadmaps
14 150 (5.25%) Analytics
15 144 (5.04%) Business Intelligence
16 140 (4.90%) AI
17 121 (4.23%) Change Management
18 114 (3.99%) DevOps
19 109 (3.81%) Translating Business Requirements
20 101 (3.53%) Requirements Gathering
Programming Languages
1 223 (7.80%) SQL
2 119 (4.16%) Python
3 67 (2.34%) JavaScript
4 57 (1.99%) PowerShell
5 48 (1.68%) PL/SQL
6 35 (1.22%) T-SQL
7 31 (1.08%) ABAP
7 31 (1.08%) Java
8 19 (0.66%) C#
9 14 (0.49%) Bash
10 13 (0.45%) Search Processing Language
11 12 (0.42%) Shell Script
11 12 (0.42%) TypeScript
12 11 (0.38%) Kusto Query Language
13 10 (0.35%) Data Analysis Expressions
14 8 (0.28%) R
15 7 (0.24%) C++
16 5 (0.17%) Apex Code
17 4 (0.14%) COBOL
17 4 (0.14%) Groovy
Qualifications
1 530 (18.54%) Security Cleared
2 396 (13.86%) SC Cleared
3 105 (3.67%) DV Cleared
4 82 (2.87%) BPSS Clearance
5 72 (2.52%) CISSP
6 65 (2.27%) Degree
7 54 (1.89%) CISM
8 28 (0.98%) Cisco Certification
9 24 (0.84%) (ISC)2 CCSP
9 24 (0.84%) CCSP
9 24 (0.84%) CIMA
10 19 (0.66%) VMware Certified Professional (VCP)
11 16 (0.56%) PMP
12 15 (0.52%) CEH
13 14 (0.49%) ACCA
14 13 (0.45%) ITIL Certification
15 12 (0.42%) Azure Certification
15 12 (0.42%) Computer Science Degree
15 12 (0.42%) OSCP
15 12 (0.42%) SAP Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 86 (3.01%) NIST
2 77 (2.69%) ISO/IEC 27001
3 70 (2.45%) Data Quality
4 51 (1.78%) GRC
5 43 (1.50%) GDPR
6 40 (1.40%) QA
7 30 (1.05%) NCSC
8 27 (0.94%) PCI DSS
9 21 (0.73%) Actionable Recommendations
10 20 (0.70%) Accessibility
11 19 (0.66%) SLA
12 18 (0.63%) PMO
13 15 (0.52%) COBIT
13 15 (0.52%) Sarbanes-Oxley
14 12 (0.42%) JSP 440
15 11 (0.38%) GxP
16 8 (0.28%) WCAG
17 7 (0.24%) DICOM
17 7 (0.24%) HL7
17 7 (0.24%) RMADS
System Software
1 52 (1.82%) Active Directory
2 37 (1.29%) VMware Infrastructure
3 36 (1.26%) VMware NSX
4 26 (0.91%) vSphere
5 17 (0.59%) Docker
6 12 (0.42%) Virtual Machines
7 9 (0.31%) Hyper-V
7 9 (0.31%) Virtual Desktop
7 9 (0.31%) VMware ESXi
8 6 (0.21%) IAG
8 6 (0.21%) Slurm Workload Manager
9 4 (0.14%) NFS
10 2 (0.070%) BitLocker
11 1 (0.035%) HDFS
11 1 (0.035%) Job Entry Subsystem
11 1 (0.035%) Oracle RAC
11 1 (0.035%) ProxySG
11 1 (0.035%) SRDF
11 1 (0.035%) Time Sharing Option
Systems Management
1 52 (1.82%) Kubernetes
2 37 (1.29%) Terraform
3 28 (0.98%) vRealize
4 20 (0.70%) Ansible
5 18 (0.63%) Microsoft Intune
6 15 (0.52%) Nagios
6 15 (0.52%) ZABBIX
7 14 (0.49%) Netcool
7 14 (0.49%) Tivoli
8 13 (0.45%) OpenView
8 13 (0.45%) Tivoli Monitoring
9 10 (0.35%) Grafana
9 10 (0.35%) Prometheus
10 9 (0.31%) Single Sign-On
11 8 (0.28%) SCCM
12 6 (0.21%) Failover Clustering
12 6 (0.21%) NetBackup
12 6 (0.21%) Podman
12 6 (0.21%) vCenter Server
13 5 (0.17%) vRealize Orchestrator
Vendors
1 587 (20.54%) SAP
2 329 (11.51%) Oracle
3 327 (11.44%) Microsoft
4 91 (3.18%) VMware
5 87 (3.04%) ServiceNow
6 62 (2.17%) Ariba
7 54 (1.89%) Siemens
8 52 (1.82%) Workday
9 51 (1.78%) Salesforce
10 36 (1.26%) Splunk
11 30 (1.05%) Databricks
11 30 (1.05%) Google
12 26 (0.91%) BMC
13 24 (0.84%) IBM
14 20 (0.70%) Palo Alto
15 16 (0.56%) Adobe
15 16 (0.56%) Sage
15 16 (0.56%) SolarWinds
16 15 (0.52%) IFS
17 14 (0.49%) HP