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 7 May 2026.

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

6 months to
7 May 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 28 28 24
Rank change year-on-year 0 -4 +16
Contract jobs requiring a Consultant 2,801 1,944 2,749
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 5.87% 6.64% 6.33%
As % of the Job Titles category 6.37% 7.17% 6.83%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,550 1,132 1,715
10th Percentile £381 £413 £400
25th Percentile £450 £485 £463
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £538 £550 £550
Median % change year-on-year -2.27% - -
75th Percentile £637 £638 £650
90th Percentile £722 £725 £750
UK excluding London median daily rate £525 £538 £550
% change year-on-year -2.42% -2.18% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 75 18 29
10th Percentile £51.10 £43.44 £27.25
25th Percentile £56.25 £62.19 £52.90
Median hourly rate £57.50 £78.75 £61.60
Median % change year-on-year -26.98% +27.84% -6.67%
75th Percentile £60.00 £86.00 £63.29
90th Percentile £84.45 £87.50 £71.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £57.50 £82.50 £58.44
% change year-on-year -30.30% +41.16% -11.45%

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 43,991 27,101 40,252
% of contract IT jobs with a recognized job title 92.23% 92.53% 92.75%
Number of daily rates quoted 27,021 17,685 26,221
10th Percentile £316 £300 £280
25th Percentile £413 £406 £409
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £505 £513 £525
Median % change year-on-year -1.46% -2.38% -2.78%
75th Percentile £613 £625 £638
90th Percentile £725 £738 £750
UK excluding London median daily rate £492 £475 £490
% change year-on-year +3.58% -3.06% -2.00%
Number of hourly rates quoted 2,853 1,051 2,676
10th Percentile £15.00 £14.20 £12.86
25th Percentile £20.35 £18.50 £16.30
Median hourly rate £43.69 £29.00 £36.50
Median % change year-on-year +50.66% -20.55% -18.89%
75th Percentile £66.50 £62.50 £61.30
90th Percentile £78.75 £75.00 £72.50
UK excluding London median hourly rate £45.00 £28.00 £40.00
% change year-on-year +60.71% -30.00% -5.11%

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 7 May 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 7 May 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 7 May 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 -1 2,207 £540 -1.82% 1,592
UK excluding London -4 1,145 £525 -2.42% 1,153
London -2 1,041 £550 -4.35% 619
Work from Home +1 987 £545 -0.91% 717
South East -1 340 £538 -3.37% 289
Midlands -17 228 £525 -1.18% 119
North of England -25 220 £525 -1.69% 332
South West +23 176 £550 +2.33% 224
West Midlands -4 153 £550 - 89
North West -27 102 £518 -4.05% 213
Yorkshire -7 97 £544 +3.57% 89
East of England -12 81 £550 +10.00% 86
Scotland +29 75 £450 -10.89% 36
East Midlands -16 68 £500 -3.85% 31
Wales 0 30 £550 +37.50% 55
North East -19 21 £525 -1.69% 31
Northern Ireland -1 3 £600 +15.38% 24

Consultant Skill Set
Top 30 Co-Occurring Skills & Capabilities

For the 6 months to 7 May 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.

1 594 (21.21%) SAP
2 533 (19.03%) Security Cleared
3 417 (14.89%) SC Cleared
4 361 (12.89%) Migration
5 333 (11.89%) Oracle
6 302 (10.78%) Azure
7 291 (10.39%) Microsoft
8 265 (9.46%) Problem-Solving
9 252 (9.00%) SAP S/4HANA
10 247 (8.82%) Stakeholder Management
11 233 (8.32%) ERP
12 228 (8.14%) Stakeholder Engagement
13 212 (7.57%) SQL
14 206 (7.35%) User Acceptance Testing
15 198 (7.07%) Workshop Facilitation
16 174 (6.21%) Agile
17 169 (6.03%) Data Migration
18 161 (5.75%) Continuous Improvement
19 155 (5.53%) Validation
20 149 (5.32%) Dynamics 365
21 148 (5.28%) Business Intelligence
21 148 (5.28%) Cybersecurity
22 146 (5.21%) Analytics
23 141 (5.03%) Power Platform
24 139 (4.96%) Roadmaps
25 130 (4.64%) AI
26 127 (4.53%) AWS
27 114 (4.07%) Python
28 110 (3.93%) Change Management
29 106 (3.78%) Translating Business Requirements

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 75 (2.68%) SharePoint
2 41 (1.46%) Confluence
3 13 (0.46%) Microsoft Exchange
3 13 (0.46%) Oracle Workflow
4 6 (0.21%) Jupyter
5 4 (0.14%) Apache
5 4 (0.14%) Apache Spark
5 4 (0.14%) ArcGIS
6 3 (0.11%) Apache Superset
6 3 (0.11%) Cloud Foundry
6 3 (0.11%) Palantir Foundry
6 3 (0.11%) Tomcat
7 2 (0.071%) IIS
7 2 (0.071%) SAS
7 2 (0.071%) WebSphere
8 1 (0.036%) MTS
8 1 (0.036%) NetWeaver
8 1 (0.036%) nginx
8 1 (0.036%) WebLogic
8 1 (0.036%) WordPress
Applications
1 66 (2.36%) Microsoft Excel
2 23 (0.82%) Microsoft PowerPoint
3 13 (0.46%) Microsoft Office
4 7 (0.25%) MS Visio
5 5 (0.18%) Chatbot
5 5 (0.18%) PTC Creo
6 4 (0.14%) Microsoft Project
6 4 (0.14%) Spreadsheet
7 2 (0.071%) Lectora
7 2 (0.071%) Oracle Smart View
8 1 (0.036%) CATIA
8 1 (0.036%) Siemens NX
8 1 (0.036%) Windchill
Business Applications
1 252 (9.00%) SAP S/4HANA
2 78 (2.78%) Oracle EBS
3 55 (1.96%) SAP FI
4 45 (1.61%) Oracle Payables
5 44 (1.57%) SAP PSCD
6 40 (1.43%) SAP MM
7 39 (1.39%) Oracle Receivables
8 36 (1.29%) Oracle EBS R12
9 35 (1.25%) Dynamics CRM
10 34 (1.21%) SAP PP
11 31 (1.11%) SAP BRIM
11 31 (1.11%) SAP HCM
12 30 (1.07%) SAP CO
13 28 (1.00%) SAP EWM
13 28 (1.00%) SAP FI/CO
14 27 (0.96%) SAP Travel Management
14 27 (0.96%) Teamcenter
15 26 (0.93%) Oracle Assets
16 23 (0.82%) Oracle General Ledger
16 23 (0.82%) SAP SD
Cloud Services
1 302 (10.78%) Azure
2 149 (5.32%) Dynamics 365
3 141 (5.03%) Power Platform
4 127 (4.53%) AWS
5 104 (3.71%) OCI
6 77 (2.75%) SuccessFactors
7 69 (2.46%) GCP
8 68 (2.43%) Microsoft 365
9 64 (2.28%) SaaS
10 62 (2.21%) Power Automate
11 40 (1.43%) Microsoft Copilot
12 39 (1.39%) Azure DevOps
12 39 (1.39%) Entra ID
13 34 (1.21%) PowerApps
14 29 (1.04%) GitHub
14 29 (1.04%) Microsoft Purview
15 19 (0.68%) Copilot Studio
16 18 (0.64%) Serverless
17 17 (0.61%) Azure Data Factory
18 16 (0.57%) SAP Commerce Cloud
Communications & Networking
1 32 (1.14%) Firewall
2 26 (0.93%) Network Security
3 20 (0.71%) SNMP
4 16 (0.57%) SMS
5 13 (0.46%) DNS
6 12 (0.43%) SAN
6 12 (0.43%) VSAN
7 10 (0.36%) FTP
7 10 (0.36%) Software-Defined Networking
8 9 (0.32%) VPN
8 9 (0.32%) WAN
9 8 (0.29%) Intranet
9 8 (0.29%) Kerberos
9 8 (0.29%) LAN
9 8 (0.29%) NAS
10 7 (0.25%) SD-WAN
11 6 (0.21%) HTTP
12 5 (0.18%) DHCP
12 5 (0.18%) TCP/IP
12 5 (0.18%) VLAN
Database & Business Intelligence
1 88 (3.14%) Power BI
2 58 (2.07%) Oracle Reports
3 35 (1.25%) SAP HANA
4 28 (1.00%) Tableau
5 24 (0.86%) Oracle BI Publisher
6 23 (0.82%) SQL Server
7 21 (0.75%) Metadata
8 17 (0.61%) Oracle ODI
9 16 (0.57%) SAP BW
10 11 (0.39%) Data Warehouse
11 9 (0.32%) BusinessObjects
11 9 (0.32%) Electronic Patient Records
11 9 (0.32%) SQL Server Reporting Services
12 8 (0.29%) NoSQL
13 7 (0.25%) GIS
14 6 (0.21%) Data Lake
14 6 (0.21%) Essbase
14 6 (0.21%) Oracle Database
14 6 (0.21%) SAP Data Services
15 5 (0.18%) Relational Database
Development Applications
1 75 (2.68%) JIRA
2 19 (0.68%) Hudson
2 19 (0.68%) Oracle Forms
3 15 (0.54%) Jenkins
4 11 (0.39%) Git
5 10 (0.36%) GitLab
6 7 (0.25%) Sonatype Nexus
7 4 (0.14%) Cypress.io
7 4 (0.14%) Oracle APEX
7 4 (0.14%) Postman
7 4 (0.14%) SonarQube
7 4 (0.14%) Visual Studio Code
8 3 (0.11%) Toad
9 2 (0.071%) Bitbucket
9 2 (0.071%) git-flow
9 2 (0.071%) JUnit
9 2 (0.071%) Rational Rhapsody
9 2 (0.071%) Selenium
10 1 (0.036%) Burp Suite
10 1 (0.036%) SQL Server Management Studio (SSMS)
General
1 607 (21.67%) Social Skills
2 599 (21.39%) Finance
3 246 (8.78%) Analytical Skills
4 205 (7.32%) Public Sector
5 97 (3.46%) Manufacturing
6 91 (3.25%) Banking
7 67 (2.39%) Billing
8 66 (2.36%) Legal
9 60 (2.14%) Marketing
10 47 (1.68%) Documentation Skills
10 47 (1.68%) General Ledger
11 40 (1.43%) Telecoms
12 38 (1.36%) Retail
13 36 (1.29%) Organisational Skills
14 24 (0.86%) Inclusion and Diversity
15 23 (0.82%) Pharmaceutical
15 23 (0.82%) Presentation Skills
16 21 (0.75%) Influencing Skills
17 17 (0.61%) Law
18 15 (0.54%) Back Office
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 79 (2.82%) Oracle Fusion
2 76 (2.71%) REST
3 67 (2.39%) XML
4 30 (1.07%) SOAP
5 28 (1.00%) SAP TM
6 27 (0.96%) Web Services
7 24 (0.86%) Middleware
8 22 (0.79%) JSON
9 21 (0.75%) SAP Fiori
10 19 (0.68%) .NET
10 19 (0.68%) BAPI
11 16 (0.57%) LDAP
11 16 (0.57%) SAP Basis
12 15 (0.54%) HTML
13 14 (0.50%) Node.js
14 13 (0.46%) CSS
15 12 (0.43%) GraphQL
16 11 (0.39%) IDoc
16 11 (0.39%) Kafka
17 10 (0.36%) React
Miscellaneous
1 59 (2.11%) Onboarding
2 48 (1.71%) Data Protection Act
3 43 (1.54%) Legacy Systems
4 37 (1.32%) Security Posture
5 31 (1.11%) Product Ownership
6 30 (1.07%) Operational Technology
7 27 (0.96%) AI Agents
7 27 (0.96%) Data Structures
8 26 (0.93%) Cloud Native
8 26 (0.93%) Replication
9 23 (0.82%) Management Information System
10 22 (0.79%) Data Centre
11 21 (0.75%) Greenfield Project
12 20 (0.71%) NHS
13 18 (0.64%) Life Science
14 17 (0.61%) Public Cloud
15 16 (0.57%) Analytical Mindset
15 16 (0.57%) CMDB
16 13 (0.46%) Algorithms
16 13 (0.46%) Self-Motivation
Operating Systems
1 67 (2.39%) Windows
2 52 (1.86%) Linux
3 18 (0.64%) VMS
4 17 (0.61%) Unix
5 15 (0.54%) AIX
5 15 (0.54%) Solaris
6 8 (0.29%) Windows Server
7 5 (0.18%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
8 4 (0.14%) Mac OS
8 4 (0.14%) Ubuntu
8 4 (0.14%) Windows 10
8 4 (0.14%) zOS
9 3 (0.11%) SUSE
10 2 (0.071%) Apple iOS
10 2 (0.071%) CoreOS
10 2 (0.071%) Data ONTAP
11 1 (0.036%) Android
Processes & Methodologies
1 361 (12.89%) Migration
2 265 (9.46%) Problem-Solving
3 247 (8.82%) Stakeholder Management
4 233 (8.32%) ERP
5 228 (8.14%) Stakeholder Engagement
6 206 (7.35%) User Acceptance Testing
7 198 (7.07%) Workshop Facilitation
8 174 (6.21%) Agile
9 169 (6.03%) Data Migration
10 161 (5.75%) Continuous Improvement
11 155 (5.53%) Validation
12 148 (5.28%) Business Intelligence
12 148 (5.28%) Cybersecurity
13 146 (5.21%) Analytics
14 139 (4.96%) Roadmaps
15 130 (4.64%) AI
16 110 (3.93%) Change Management
17 106 (3.78%) Translating Business Requirements
18 105 (3.75%) DevOps
19 102 (3.64%) Knowledge Transfer
Programming Languages
1 212 (7.57%) SQL
2 114 (4.07%) Python
3 69 (2.46%) JavaScript
4 54 (1.93%) PowerShell
5 47 (1.68%) PL/SQL
6 38 (1.36%) ABAP
7 34 (1.21%) T-SQL
8 31 (1.11%) Java
9 25 (0.89%) TypeScript
10 17 (0.61%) C#
11 14 (0.50%) Bash
12 13 (0.46%) Search Processing Language
13 11 (0.39%) Groovy
13 11 (0.39%) Shell Script
14 9 (0.32%) R
15 8 (0.29%) C++
16 7 (0.25%) Data Analysis Expressions
17 6 (0.21%) Apex Code
17 6 (0.21%) Kusto Query Language
18 4 (0.14%) Ruby
Qualifications
1 533 (19.03%) Security Cleared
2 417 (14.89%) SC Cleared
3 101 (3.61%) DV Cleared
4 80 (2.86%) Degree
5 78 (2.78%) BPSS Clearance
6 62 (2.21%) CISSP
7 47 (1.68%) CISM
8 21 (0.75%) Cisco Certification
9 20 (0.71%) CIMA
9 20 (0.71%) VMware Certified Professional (VCP)
10 16 (0.57%) (ISC)2 CCSP
10 16 (0.57%) CCSP
10 16 (0.57%) Computer Science Degree
11 14 (0.50%) SAP Certification
12 13 (0.46%) ITIL Certification
13 12 (0.43%) Master's Degree
14 11 (0.39%) PMP
15 10 (0.36%) ACCA
15 10 (0.36%) Azure Certification
15 10 (0.36%) CEH
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 81 (2.89%) NIST
2 79 (2.82%) ISO/IEC 27001
3 63 (2.25%) Data Quality
4 58 (2.07%) GRC
5 52 (1.86%) GDPR
6 38 (1.36%) QA
7 25 (0.89%) NCSC
8 24 (0.86%) PCI DSS
9 21 (0.75%) PMO
10 20 (0.71%) SLA
11 17 (0.61%) Actionable Recommendations
11 17 (0.61%) Sarbanes-Oxley
12 16 (0.57%) COBIT
13 14 (0.50%) Accessibility
13 14 (0.50%) JSP 440
14 9 (0.32%) DICOM
14 9 (0.32%) HL7
15 8 (0.29%) GxP
16 7 (0.25%) PERC
16 7 (0.25%) RMADS
System Software
1 45 (1.61%) Active Directory
2 36 (1.29%) VMware Infrastructure
2 36 (1.29%) VMware NSX
3 23 (0.82%) Docker
4 22 (0.79%) vSphere
5 10 (0.36%) Virtual Desktop
5 10 (0.36%) Virtual Machines
6 9 (0.32%) Hyper-V
7 6 (0.21%) Slurm Workload Manager
8 5 (0.18%) VMware ESXi
9 4 (0.14%) IAG
10 3 (0.11%) NFS
11 1 (0.036%) BitLocker
11 1 (0.036%) HDFS
11 1 (0.036%) Job Entry Subsystem
Systems Management
1 49 (1.75%) Kubernetes
2 30 (1.07%) Terraform
3 29 (1.04%) vRealize
4 18 (0.64%) Ansible
5 16 (0.57%) Microsoft Intune
6 15 (0.54%) Nagios
6 15 (0.54%) ZABBIX
7 14 (0.50%) Netcool
7 14 (0.50%) Tivoli
8 13 (0.46%) OpenView
8 13 (0.46%) Tivoli Monitoring
9 11 (0.39%) Grafana
9 11 (0.39%) Prometheus
10 9 (0.32%) Single Sign-On
11 6 (0.21%) Failover Clustering
11 6 (0.21%) Podman
11 6 (0.21%) SCCM
12 5 (0.18%) NetBackup
12 5 (0.18%) vRealize Orchestrator
13 4 (0.14%) Active Directory Federation Services
Vendors
1 594 (21.21%) SAP
2 333 (11.89%) Oracle
3 291 (10.39%) Microsoft
4 92 (3.28%) VMware
5 77 (2.75%) ServiceNow
6 58 (2.07%) Ariba
7 53 (1.89%) Salesforce
7 53 (1.89%) Siemens
7 53 (1.89%) Workday
8 36 (1.29%) Splunk
9 31 (1.11%) Google
10 27 (0.96%) Databricks
11 24 (0.86%) BMC
12 21 (0.75%) Adobe
12 21 (0.75%) IBM
13 16 (0.57%) Murex
13 16 (0.57%) Sage
14 15 (0.54%) IFS
14 15 (0.54%) SolarWinds
15 13 (0.46%) HP