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 22 April 2026.

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

6 months to
22 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 2,834 1,936 2,719
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 6.11% 6.57% 6.26%
As % of the Job Titles category 6.62% 7.09% 6.75%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,586 1,138 1,696
10th Percentile £382 £413 £400
25th Percentile £450 £488 £463
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £538 £550 £550
Median % change year-on-year -2.27% - -
75th Percentile £629 £638 £650
90th Percentile £716 £725 £750
UK excluding London median daily rate £525 £545 £545
% change year-on-year -3.67% - -0.91%
Number of hourly rates quoted 78 16 28
10th Percentile £51.00 £63.13 £27.13
25th Percentile £56.25 £70.00 £48.13
Median hourly rate £57.50 £83.75 £60.80
Median % change year-on-year -31.34% +37.75% -7.88%
75th Percentile £60.00 £86.06 £63.07
90th Percentile £78.25 £87.50 £71.50
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 42,785 27,291 40,291
% of contract IT jobs with a recognized job title 92.29% 92.62% 92.77%
Number of daily rates quoted 26,469 17,875 26,294
10th Percentile £313 £300 £275
25th Percentile £413 £406 £409
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 £748
UK excluding London median daily rate £488 £475 £493
% change year-on-year +2.63% -3.65% -1.40%
Number of hourly rates quoted 2,747 1,005 2,616
10th Percentile £15.00 £14.41 £12.86
25th Percentile £20.35 £18.87 £16.25
Median hourly rate £42.25 £30.20 £35.00
Median % change year-on-year +39.90% -13.71% -22.22%
75th Percentile £65.74 £63.75 £60.00
90th Percentile £78.10 £75.40 £72.50
UK excluding London median hourly rate £43.85 £29.23 £36.50
% change year-on-year +50.00% -19.92% -15.12%

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 22 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 22 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 22 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 2,226 £538 -2.27% 1,224
UK excluding London +1 1,150 £525 -3.67% 822
London -2 1,045 £550 -4.35% 557
Work from Home 0 988 £540 -1.82% 609
South East -2 344 £535 -2.73% 239
Midlands -11 226 £525 - 85
North of England -25 223 £525 -2.42% 234
South West +21 176 £525 -4.55% 144
West Midlands -3 156 £550 - 53
North West -31 105 £525 -3.67% 153
Yorkshire -4 99 £519 -1.19% 69
East of England -7 86 £550 +10.00% 41
Scotland +24 70 £425 -18.43% 31
East Midlands -17 63 £500 -3.85% 32
Wales +13 29 £550 +37.50% 24
North East -24 19 £525 -1.69% 13
Northern Ireland -1 4 £525 +0.96% 32

Consultant Skill Set
Top 30 Co-Occurring Skills & Capabilities

For the 6 months to 22 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.

1 601 (21.21%) SAP
2 557 (19.65%) Security Cleared
3 448 (15.81%) SC Cleared
4 380 (13.41%) Migration
5 336 (11.86%) Oracle
6 300 (10.59%) Azure
7 282 (9.95%) Microsoft
8 273 (9.63%) Problem-Solving
9 269 (9.49%) SAP S/4HANA
10 265 (9.35%) Stakeholder Engagement
11 250 (8.82%) Stakeholder Management
12 233 (8.22%) ERP
13 210 (7.41%) SQL
14 198 (6.99%) User Acceptance Testing
15 189 (6.67%) Workshop Facilitation
16 171 (6.03%) Agile
17 167 (5.89%) Data Migration
18 166 (5.86%) Continuous Improvement
19 156 (5.50%) Validation
20 153 (5.40%) Cybersecurity
21 150 (5.29%) Business Intelligence
21 150 (5.29%) Roadmaps
22 149 (5.26%) Analytics
23 139 (4.90%) Dynamics 365
24 127 (4.48%) Power Platform
25 122 (4.30%) AI
26 121 (4.27%) AWS
27 114 (4.02%) Knowledge Transfer
27 114 (4.02%) Python
28 111 (3.92%) 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 67 (2.36%) SharePoint
2 35 (1.24%) Confluence
3 16 (0.56%) Microsoft Exchange
4 14 (0.49%) Oracle Workflow
5 6 (0.21%) Jupyter
6 4 (0.14%) Apache
6 4 (0.14%) Apache Spark
6 4 (0.14%) ArcGIS
7 3 (0.11%) Apache Superset
7 3 (0.11%) Cloud Foundry
7 3 (0.11%) Palantir Foundry
7 3 (0.11%) Tomcat
8 2 (0.071%) CMS
8 2 (0.071%) IIS
8 2 (0.071%) SAS
8 2 (0.071%) WebSphere
9 1 (0.035%) MTS
9 1 (0.035%) NetWeaver
9 1 (0.035%) nginx
9 1 (0.035%) WebLogic
Applications
1 67 (2.36%) Microsoft Excel
2 25 (0.88%) Microsoft PowerPoint
3 12 (0.42%) Microsoft Office
4 8 (0.28%) MS Visio
5 5 (0.18%) Chatbot
5 5 (0.18%) PTC Creo
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
1 269 (9.49%) SAP S/4HANA
2 80 (2.82%) Oracle EBS
3 61 (2.15%) SAP FI
4 49 (1.73%) SAP MM
5 46 (1.62%) Oracle Payables
6 42 (1.48%) Oracle Receivables
7 38 (1.34%) Oracle EBS R12
8 36 (1.27%) SAP PP
8 36 (1.27%) SAP PSCD
9 35 (1.24%) SAP HCM
10 34 (1.20%) Dynamics CRM
11 33 (1.16%) SAP EWM
12 31 (1.09%) SAP CO
13 29 (1.02%) SAP FI/CO
14 28 (0.99%) Oracle Assets
15 26 (0.92%) SAP Travel Management
16 25 (0.88%) Oracle General Ledger
16 25 (0.88%) Oracle Procure-to-Pay
17 24 (0.85%) Teamcenter
18 22 (0.78%) Oracle ERP
Cloud Services
1 300 (10.59%) Azure
2 139 (4.90%) Dynamics 365
3 127 (4.48%) Power Platform
4 121 (4.27%) AWS
5 109 (3.85%) OCI
6 78 (2.75%) SuccessFactors
7 67 (2.36%) GCP
7 67 (2.36%) Microsoft 365
7 67 (2.36%) SaaS
8 52 (1.83%) Power Automate
9 47 (1.66%) Entra ID
10 38 (1.34%) Azure DevOps
11 35 (1.24%) Microsoft Copilot
12 32 (1.13%) PowerApps
13 30 (1.06%) Microsoft Purview
14 28 (0.99%) GitHub
15 19 (0.67%) Azure Data Factory
16 16 (0.56%) Serverless
17 15 (0.53%) Copilot Studio
18 14 (0.49%) OneDrive
Communications & Networking
1 37 (1.31%) Firewall
2 25 (0.88%) Network Security
3 16 (0.56%) SMS
4 12 (0.42%) DNS
4 12 (0.42%) HTTP
4 12 (0.42%) VSAN
4 12 (0.42%) WAN
5 11 (0.39%) SNMP
6 10 (0.35%) FTP
6 10 (0.35%) LAN
6 10 (0.35%) SAN
6 10 (0.35%) SD-WAN
6 10 (0.35%) Software-Defined Networking
7 9 (0.32%) Kerberos
7 9 (0.32%) VPN
8 8 (0.28%) Intranet
8 8 (0.28%) NAS
9 6 (0.21%) Cisco IPT
9 6 (0.21%) DHCP
9 6 (0.21%) VLAN
Database & Business Intelligence
1 89 (3.14%) Power BI
2 62 (2.19%) Oracle Reports
3 33 (1.16%) SAP HANA
4 27 (0.95%) Metadata
5 25 (0.88%) Tableau
6 24 (0.85%) Oracle BI Publisher
7 23 (0.81%) SQL Server
8 19 (0.67%) Oracle ODI
9 12 (0.42%) SAP BW
10 10 (0.35%) SQL Server Reporting Services
11 9 (0.32%) Electronic Patient Records
12 8 (0.28%) NoSQL
13 7 (0.25%) Data Warehouse
13 7 (0.25%) GIS
13 7 (0.25%) SAP Data Services
14 6 (0.21%) Data Lake
14 6 (0.21%) Essbase
14 6 (0.21%) Oracle Database
14 6 (0.21%) Power Query
14 6 (0.21%) Relational Database
Development Applications
1 71 (2.51%) JIRA
2 20 (0.71%) Oracle Forms
3 18 (0.64%) Hudson
4 16 (0.56%) Jenkins
5 9 (0.32%) GitLab
6 8 (0.28%) Git
7 6 (0.21%) Oracle APEX
7 6 (0.21%) Sonatype Nexus
8 4 (0.14%) Postman
8 4 (0.14%) SonarQube
8 4 (0.14%) Visual Studio Code
9 3 (0.11%) Toad
10 2 (0.071%) Bitbucket
10 2 (0.071%) git-flow
10 2 (0.071%) JUnit
10 2 (0.071%) Octopus Deploy
10 2 (0.071%) Rational DOORS
10 2 (0.071%) Rational Rhapsody
10 2 (0.071%) Selenium
10 2 (0.071%) TeamCity
General
1 635 (22.41%) Social Skills
2 625 (22.05%) Finance
3 257 (9.07%) Analytical Skills
4 219 (7.73%) Public Sector
5 112 (3.95%) Manufacturing
6 105 (3.71%) Banking
7 70 (2.47%) Marketing
8 69 (2.43%) Legal
9 56 (1.98%) Billing
10 50 (1.76%) Documentation Skills
11 46 (1.62%) General Ledger
12 41 (1.45%) Telecoms
13 38 (1.34%) Retail
14 36 (1.27%) Organisational Skills
15 27 (0.95%) Inclusion and Diversity
16 24 (0.85%) Presentation Skills
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 79 (2.79%) Oracle Fusion
2 73 (2.58%) REST
3 70 (2.47%) 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
9 21 (0.74%) LDAP
9 21 (0.74%) Middleware
9 21 (0.74%) SAP Basis
10 19 (0.67%) .NET
11 18 (0.64%) Node.js
12 17 (0.60%) BAPI
12 17 (0.60%) HTML
13 15 (0.53%) CSS
14 14 (0.49%) GraphQL
15 11 (0.39%) IDoc
15 11 (0.39%) Kafka
16 9 (0.32%) Playwright
Miscellaneous
1 57 (2.01%) Onboarding
2 46 (1.62%) Legacy Systems
3 43 (1.52%) Data Protection Act
4 37 (1.31%) Product Ownership
4 37 (1.31%) Security Posture
5 31 (1.09%) Operational Technology
5 31 (1.09%) Replication
6 25 (0.88%) Data Centre
7 24 (0.85%) Cloud Native
7 24 (0.85%) Management Information System
8 23 (0.81%) AI Agents
8 23 (0.81%) Data Structures
9 20 (0.71%) Greenfield Project
10 19 (0.67%) Analytical Mindset
10 19 (0.67%) NHS
11 18 (0.64%) CMDB
12 17 (0.60%) Public Cloud
13 16 (0.56%) Life Science
14 13 (0.46%) Self-Motivation
15 12 (0.42%) FMCG
Operating Systems
1 72 (2.54%) Windows
2 50 (1.76%) Linux
3 16 (0.56%) Unix
3 16 (0.56%) VMS
4 11 (0.39%) AIX
4 11 (0.39%) Solaris
5 9 (0.32%) Windows Server
6 6 (0.21%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
6 6 (0.21%) Windows 10
7 5 (0.18%) Ubuntu
8 4 (0.14%) Mac OS
8 4 (0.14%) zOS
9 3 (0.11%) Apple iOS
9 3 (0.11%) SUSE
10 2 (0.071%) CoreOS
10 2 (0.071%) Data ONTAP
11 1 (0.035%) Android
11 1 (0.035%) CentOS
Processes & Methodologies
1 380 (13.41%) Migration
2 273 (9.63%) Problem-Solving
3 265 (9.35%) Stakeholder Engagement
4 250 (8.82%) Stakeholder Management
5 233 (8.22%) ERP
6 198 (6.99%) User Acceptance Testing
7 189 (6.67%) Workshop Facilitation
8 171 (6.03%) Agile
9 167 (5.89%) Data Migration
10 166 (5.86%) Continuous Improvement
11 156 (5.50%) Validation
12 153 (5.40%) Cybersecurity
13 150 (5.29%) Business Intelligence
13 150 (5.29%) Roadmaps
14 149 (5.26%) Analytics
15 122 (4.30%) AI
16 114 (4.02%) Knowledge Transfer
17 111 (3.92%) Change Management
18 105 (3.71%) Risk Management
19 104 (3.67%) DevOps
Programming Languages
1 210 (7.41%) SQL
2 114 (4.02%) Python
3 75 (2.65%) JavaScript
4 63 (2.22%) PowerShell
5 50 (1.76%) PL/SQL
6 48 (1.69%) ABAP
7 33 (1.16%) Java
7 33 (1.16%) T-SQL
8 23 (0.81%) TypeScript
9 16 (0.56%) C#
10 11 (0.39%) Groovy
10 11 (0.39%) Shell Script
11 9 (0.32%) Bash
11 9 (0.32%) Data Analysis Expressions
11 9 (0.32%) R
11 9 (0.32%) Search Processing Language
12 8 (0.28%) C++
13 7 (0.25%) Apex Code
13 7 (0.25%) Kusto Query Language
14 5 (0.18%) Korn
Qualifications
1 557 (19.65%) Security Cleared
2 448 (15.81%) SC Cleared
3 95 (3.35%) DV Cleared
4 91 (3.21%) Degree
5 77 (2.72%) BPSS Clearance
6 63 (2.22%) CISSP
7 45 (1.59%) CISM
8 23 (0.81%) VMware Certified Professional (VCP)
9 20 (0.71%) CIMA
9 20 (0.71%) Cisco Certification
10 18 (0.64%) Computer Science Degree
11 14 (0.49%) SAP Certification
12 13 (0.46%) ITIL Certification
12 13 (0.46%) Master's Degree
13 12 (0.42%) Microsoft Certification
14 11 (0.39%) (ISC)2 CCSP
14 11 (0.39%) CCSP
15 10 (0.35%) Azure Certification
15 10 (0.35%) PMP
16 9 (0.32%) ACCA
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 88 (3.11%) NIST
2 85 (3.00%) ISO/IEC 27001
3 58 (2.05%) Data Quality
3 58 (2.05%) GRC
4 57 (2.01%) GDPR
5 41 (1.45%) QA
6 25 (0.88%) PCI DSS
7 24 (0.85%) NCSC
8 21 (0.74%) PMO
8 21 (0.74%) SLA
9 18 (0.64%) Actionable Recommendations
9 18 (0.64%) Sarbanes-Oxley
10 16 (0.56%) COBIT
11 14 (0.49%) JSP 440
12 11 (0.39%) PERC
13 9 (0.32%) DICOM
13 9 (0.32%) HL7
14 8 (0.28%) Accessibility
14 8 (0.28%) GxP
15 7 (0.25%) RMADS
System Software
1 53 (1.87%) Active Directory
2 36 (1.27%) VMware Infrastructure
3 34 (1.20%) VMware NSX
4 27 (0.95%) Docker
5 23 (0.81%) 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 5 (0.18%) VMware ESXi
10 4 (0.14%) IAG
11 3 (0.11%) NFS
12 1 (0.035%) BitLocker
12 1 (0.035%) Ceph
12 1 (0.035%) HDFS
12 1 (0.035%) Job Entry Subsystem
12 1 (0.035%) KVM
12 1 (0.035%) NDS
12 1 (0.035%) NetIQ eDirectory
12 1 (0.035%) QEMU
Systems Management
1 49 (1.73%) Kubernetes
2 32 (1.13%) vRealize
3 30 (1.06%) Terraform
4 19 (0.67%) Microsoft Intune
5 13 (0.46%) Ansible
6 11 (0.39%) Nagios
6 11 (0.39%) Single Sign-On
6 11 (0.39%) ZABBIX
7 10 (0.35%) Netcool
7 10 (0.35%) OpenView
7 10 (0.35%) Tivoli
7 10 (0.35%) Tivoli Monitoring
8 8 (0.28%) SCCM
9 6 (0.21%) Failover Clustering
9 6 (0.21%) PingFederate
9 6 (0.21%) Podman
10 5 (0.18%) Grafana
10 5 (0.18%) NetBackup
10 5 (0.18%) Prometheus
11 4 (0.14%) Control-M
Vendors
1 601 (21.21%) SAP
2 336 (11.86%) Oracle
3 282 (9.95%) Microsoft
4 95 (3.35%) VMware
5 92 (3.25%) ServiceNow
6 63 (2.22%) Ariba
7 58 (2.05%) Salesforce
8 53 (1.87%) Siemens
8 53 (1.87%) Workday
9 35 (1.24%) Google
10 30 (1.06%) Cisco
11 27 (0.95%) Databricks
12 26 (0.92%) Splunk
13 22 (0.78%) Adobe
13 22 (0.78%) Aruba
14 21 (0.74%) IBM
14 21 (0.74%) OpenText
15 19 (0.67%) BMC
16 17 (0.60%) Murex
16 17 (0.60%) Sage