Consultant Contract Job Trends

Consultant
UK

The median Consultant daily rate in the UK is £550, according to job vacancies posted in the 6 months leading up to 7 October 2026.

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

6 months to
7 Oct 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 30 25 27
Rank change year-on-year -5 +2 +3
Contract jobs requiring a Consultant 3,262 2,372 2,578
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 5.94% 7.18% 6.85%
As % of the Job Titles category 6.45% 7.91% 7.36%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,830 1,377 1,384
10th Percentile £413 £411 £413
25th Percentile £463 £475 £469
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £550 £550 £550
75th Percentile £652 £650 £650
90th Percentile £745 £741 £750
UK excluding London median daily rate £550 £550 £565
% change year-on-year - -2.65% +7.62%
Number of hourly rates quoted 68 27 24
10th Percentile £36.10 £28.72 £45.38
25th Percentile £44.06 £42.92 £60.29
Median hourly rate £74.50 £77.50 £62.30
Median % change year-on-year -3.87% +24.40% -6.84%
75th Percentile £85.55 £81.25 £70.89
90th Percentile £91.13 £86.50 £74.96
UK excluding London median hourly rate £76.00 £77.50 £61.60
% change year-on-year -1.94% +25.81% -9.08%

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 50,571 29,988 35,006
% of contract IT jobs with a recognized job title 92.10% 90.83% 92.99%
Number of daily rates quoted 29,735 18,924 21,160
10th Percentile £325 £277 £300
25th Percentile £425 £400 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £500 £525
Median % change year-on-year +5.00% -4.76% -0.94%
75th Percentile £638 £621 £638
90th Percentile £736 £725 £738
UK excluding London median daily rate £500 £475 £495
% change year-on-year +5.26% -4.04% -1.00%
Number of hourly rates quoted 4,035 1,621 1,511
10th Percentile £14.42 £13.75 £14.99
25th Percentile £19.50 £17.30 £20.75
Median hourly rate £41.71 £25.15 £42.50
Median % change year-on-year +65.84% -40.82% -4.49%
75th Percentile £67.50 £50.75 £65.00
90th Percentile £78.75 £68.00 £74.87
UK excluding London median hourly rate £41.71 £25.08 £43.00
% change year-on-year +66.34% -41.69% -2.05%

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 October 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 October 2026.

Hourly rate histogram for Consultant in the UK

Consultant
Top 18 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 October 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 -5 2,615 £550 -2.22% 3,507
UK excluding London -9 1,348 £550 - 1,837
London -3 1,277 £550 -4.35% 1,851
Work from Home -5 1,060 £550 - 1,745
South East -5 380 £533 -3.18% 523
North of England -20 339 £576 -3.96% 449
North West -13 225 £585 -5.84% 255
Midlands -5 223 £500 -13.00% 238
South West +9 192 £600 +4.35% 225
West Midlands -6 160 £500 -13.04% 173
Scotland +17 120 £478 -4.50% 158
East of England -16 107 £559 +1.55% 137
Yorkshire -22 87 £575 +21.05% 91
East Midlands -13 57 £525 -9.09% 65
North East -20 26 £750 +36.36% 103
Wales -26 15 £575 +29.58% 44
Channel Islands -5 2 £600 - 3
Northern Ireland -8 2 £544 +4.57% 75

Consultant Skill Set
Top 30 Co-Occurring Skills & Capabilities

For the 6 months to 7 October 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.

1 704 (21.58%) Security Cleared
2 640 (19.62%) SAP
3 611 (18.73%) Stakeholder Management
4 485 (14.87%) Microsoft
5 476 (14.59%) SC Cleared
6 448 (13.73%) Migration
7 393 (12.05%) Oracle
8 324 (9.93%) Azure
9 300 (9.20%) User Acceptance Testing
10 295 (9.04%) Stakeholder Engagement
11 290 (8.89%) SAP S/4HANA
12 280 (8.58%) Problem-Solving
13 264 (8.09%) Validation
14 257 (7.88%) Cybersecurity
15 254 (7.79%) Workshop Facilitation
16 226 (6.93%) ERP
17 224 (6.87%) Analytics
18 211 (6.47%) SQL
19 205 (6.28%) Data Migration
20 199 (6.10%) Roadmaps
21 195 (5.98%) Continuous Improvement
22 194 (5.95%) Requirements Gathering
23 183 (5.61%) Agile
24 173 (5.30%) AWS
25 172 (5.27%) AI
26 166 (5.09%) Knowledge Transfer
27 159 (4.87%) Power Platform
28 151 (4.63%) Business Intelligence
29 147 (4.51%) DV Cleared
29 147 (4.51%) Dynamics 365

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 (2.24%) SharePoint
2 45 (1.38%) Confluence
3 32 (0.98%) Microsoft Exchange
4 8 (0.25%) SAS
4 8 (0.25%) WebSphere
5 7 (0.21%) Oracle Workflow
5 7 (0.21%) WebLogic
6 5 (0.15%) Apache Airflow
7 4 (0.12%) Apache
7 4 (0.12%) Apache Spark
7 4 (0.12%) ArcGIS
7 4 (0.12%) CMS
8 3 (0.092%) Adobe Experience Manager
8 3 (0.092%) IIS
8 3 (0.092%) NetWeaver
8 3 (0.092%) OpenStack
8 3 (0.092%) Oracle SOA Suite
8 3 (0.092%) TIBCO ActiveMatrix
9 2 (0.061%) Smallworld
9 2 (0.061%) WordPress
Applications
1 51 (1.56%) Microsoft Excel
2 33 (1.01%) Microsoft Office
3 29 (0.89%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 10 (0.31%) MS Visio
5 7 (0.21%) Spreadsheet
6 4 (0.12%) Microsoft Project
7 2 (0.061%) Chatbot
8 1 (0.031%) 1Password
8 1 (0.031%) Adobe Captivate
8 1 (0.031%) Adobe Creative Suite
8 1 (0.031%) CPLEX
8 1 (0.031%) Windchill
Business Applications
1 290 (8.89%) SAP S/4HANA
2 84 (2.58%) Oracle EBS
3 79 (2.42%) SAP FI
4 57 (1.75%) SAP Payroll
5 51 (1.56%) SAP PSCD
6 46 (1.41%) Oracle ERP
7 44 (1.35%) SAP CO
8 43 (1.32%) Oracle Payables
8 43 (1.32%) SAP HCM
9 42 (1.29%) Oracle General Ledger
9 42 (1.29%) Oracle Receivables
10 41 (1.26%) Workday HCM
11 37 (1.13%) Dynamics CRM
11 37 (1.13%) SAP HR
12 35 (1.07%) SAP BRIM
12 35 (1.07%) SAP FI/CO
13 33 (1.01%) SAP SD
14 28 (0.86%) NetSuite
15 27 (0.83%) SAP FI-CA
16 26 (0.80%) SAP MM
Cloud Services
1 324 (9.93%) Azure
2 173 (5.30%) AWS
3 159 (4.87%) Power Platform
4 147 (4.51%) Dynamics 365
5 110 (3.37%) OCI
6 104 (3.19%) SuccessFactors
7 97 (2.97%) GCP
8 94 (2.88%) Microsoft 365
9 76 (2.33%) Entra ID
10 67 (2.05%) Azure DevOps
11 61 (1.87%) Power Automate
12 56 (1.72%) Microsoft Copilot
13 50 (1.53%) SaaS
14 34 (1.04%) PowerApps
15 30 (0.92%) Microsoft Purview
16 25 (0.77%) GitHub
17 21 (0.64%) Snowflake
18 19 (0.58%) Azure AI
19 17 (0.52%) SAP Commerce Cloud
20 16 (0.49%) Azure Logic Apps
Communications & Networking
1 72 (2.21%) Firewall
1 72 (2.21%) Network Security
2 34 (1.04%) BGP
2 34 (1.04%) WAN
3 27 (0.83%) VPN
4 20 (0.61%) DNS
5 15 (0.46%) LAN
5 15 (0.46%) SNMP
6 14 (0.43%) Ethernet VPN
6 14 (0.43%) TCP/IP
7 12 (0.37%) IPsec
7 12 (0.37%) SAN
7 12 (0.37%) VXLAN
8 11 (0.34%) MPLS
8 11 (0.34%) NGFW
9 10 (0.31%) 3GPP
9 10 (0.31%) 5G
9 10 (0.31%) FTP
9 10 (0.31%) Radio Access Network
10 9 (0.28%) SD-WAN
Database & Business Intelligence
1 95 (2.91%) Power BI
2 42 (1.29%) Oracle Reports
3 38 (1.16%) Oracle BI Publisher
4 35 (1.07%) Data Warehouse
4 35 (1.07%) SAP HANA
5 34 (1.04%) SAP BW
6 30 (0.92%) SQL Server
7 26 (0.80%) Metadata
8 25 (0.77%) Tableau
9 23 (0.71%) BusinessObjects
10 17 (0.52%) Oracle Database
10 17 (0.52%) Power Query
11 13 (0.40%) Elasticsearch
12 10 (0.31%) Amazon RDS
12 10 (0.31%) BigQuery
12 10 (0.31%) Relational Database
13 9 (0.28%) DynamoDB
13 9 (0.28%) SAP Data Services
14 7 (0.21%) Data Lake
14 7 (0.21%) Looker
Development Applications
1 95 (2.91%) JIRA
2 32 (0.98%) Git
3 19 (0.58%) Jenkins
4 14 (0.43%) GitLab
5 10 (0.31%) Oracle Forms
6 8 (0.25%) SonarQube
7 7 (0.21%) PowerBuilder
7 7 (0.21%) Zephyr
8 6 (0.18%) Sonatype Nexus
9 5 (0.15%) Cypress.io
9 5 (0.15%) Hudson
10 4 (0.12%) Maven
11 3 (0.092%) Browser DevTools
11 3 (0.092%) JDeveloper
11 3 (0.092%) JMeter
11 3 (0.092%) LoadRunner
11 3 (0.092%) MLflow
11 3 (0.092%) Postman
11 3 (0.092%) Snyk
11 3 (0.092%) Toad
General
1 749 (22.96%) Social Skills
2 737 (22.59%) Finance
3 270 (8.28%) Public Sector
4 246 (7.54%) Analytical Skills
5 135 (4.14%) Manufacturing
6 99 (3.03%) Banking
7 94 (2.88%) Legal
8 93 (2.85%) Billing
9 86 (2.64%) Documentation Skills
10 70 (2.15%) Telecoms
11 62 (1.90%) General Ledger
12 60 (1.84%) Retail
13 56 (1.72%) Presentation Skills
14 45 (1.38%) Marketing
15 41 (1.26%) Influencing Skills
16 38 (1.16%) Inclusion and Diversity
17 36 (1.10%) Pharmaceutical
18 33 (1.01%) Local Government
19 24 (0.74%) Law
20 21 (0.64%) Aerospace
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 131 (4.02%) Oracle Fusion
2 72 (2.21%) REST
3 63 (1.93%) Terraform
4 46 (1.41%) SAP Fiori
5 40 (1.23%) Middleware
5 40 (1.23%) Web Services
6 39 (1.20%) SOAP
6 39 (1.20%) XML
7 25 (0.77%) SailPoint
8 22 (0.67%) JSON
8 22 (0.67%) OAuth
9 19 (0.58%) LDAP
10 18 (0.55%) SAP PI
11 16 (0.49%) BAPI
11 16 (0.49%) HTML
12 14 (0.43%) ADO
12 14 (0.43%) CSS
12 14 (0.43%) EDI
13 13 (0.40%) SAP Basis
13 13 (0.40%) XSLT
Miscellaneous
1 137 (4.20%) Onboarding
2 53 (1.62%) CMDB
3 52 (1.59%) Data Structures
4 51 (1.56%) Operational Technology
5 47 (1.44%) Data Centre
6 43 (1.32%) Enterprise Software
7 39 (1.20%) Product Ownership
8 35 (1.07%) Security Posture
9 34 (1.04%) Data Protection Act
10 30 (0.92%) Cloud Native
11 29 (0.89%) Replication
12 28 (0.86%) AI Agents
12 28 (0.86%) Legacy Systems
13 23 (0.71%) Public Cloud
14 22 (0.67%) Greenfield Project
14 22 (0.67%) Life Science
15 21 (0.64%) Management Information System
16 18 (0.55%) Hybrid Cloud
17 17 (0.52%) NHS
18 16 (0.49%) PKI
Operating Systems
1 98 (3.00%) Windows
2 74 (2.27%) Linux
3 29 (0.89%) Unix
4 28 (0.86%) Windows Server
5 19 (0.58%) Solaris
6 13 (0.40%) VMS
7 9 (0.28%) AIX
7 9 (0.28%) Windows 10
8 7 (0.21%) Android
8 7 (0.21%) Apple iOS
9 6 (0.18%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
9 6 (0.18%) Windows Server 2016
10 1 (0.031%) Data ONTAP
10 1 (0.031%) Kali Linux
10 1 (0.031%) Mac OS
10 1 (0.031%) OpenVMS
10 1 (0.031%) SUSE
10 1 (0.031%) Windows Server 2012
10 1 (0.031%) zOS
Processes & Methodologies
1 611 (18.73%) Stakeholder Management
2 448 (13.73%) Migration
3 300 (9.20%) User Acceptance Testing
4 295 (9.04%) Stakeholder Engagement
5 280 (8.58%) Problem-Solving
6 264 (8.09%) Validation
7 257 (7.88%) Cybersecurity
8 254 (7.79%) Workshop Facilitation
9 226 (6.93%) ERP
10 224 (6.87%) Analytics
11 205 (6.28%) Data Migration
12 199 (6.10%) Roadmaps
13 195 (5.98%) Continuous Improvement
14 194 (5.95%) Requirements Gathering
15 183 (5.61%) Agile
16 172 (5.27%) AI
17 166 (5.09%) Knowledge Transfer
18 151 (4.63%) Business Intelligence
19 141 (4.32%) Translating Business Requirements
20 140 (4.29%) Project Delivery
Programming Languages
1 211 (6.47%) SQL
2 101 (3.10%) Python
3 67 (2.05%) ABAP
4 54 (1.66%) PowerShell
5 41 (1.26%) JavaScript
6 33 (1.01%) Java
7 29 (0.89%) PL/SQL
8 24 (0.74%) Bash
9 17 (0.52%) C#
10 16 (0.49%) Data Analysis Expressions
11 13 (0.40%) Kusto Query Language
12 9 (0.28%) T-SQL
12 9 (0.28%) TypeScript
13 8 (0.25%) Groovy
13 8 (0.25%) Shell Script
14 7 (0.21%) Search Processing Language
15 6 (0.18%) Korn
16 5 (0.15%) R
17 4 (0.12%) Bicep
17 4 (0.12%) Perl
Qualifications
1 704 (21.58%) Security Cleared
2 476 (14.59%) SC Cleared
3 147 (4.51%) DV Cleared
4 110 (3.37%) BPSS Clearance
5 78 (2.39%) Degree
6 70 (2.15%) CISSP
7 56 (1.72%) CISM
8 41 (1.26%) Cisco Certification
9 29 (0.89%) (ISC)2 CCSP
10 25 (0.77%) CCSP
11 18 (0.55%) ACCA
12 17 (0.52%) AWS Certification
13 16 (0.49%) CRISC
14 15 (0.46%) CIMA
15 12 (0.37%) CompTIA Security+
16 11 (0.34%) CISA
16 11 (0.34%) Computer Science Degree
16 11 (0.34%) PMP
17 10 (0.31%) CCIE
18 9 (0.28%) ISO 27001 Lead Auditor
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 122 (3.74%) Data Quality
2 103 (3.16%) NIST
3 81 (2.48%) ISO/IEC 27001
4 79 (2.42%) GRC
5 61 (1.87%) QA
6 47 (1.44%) NCSC
7 40 (1.23%) GDPR
8 34 (1.04%) SLA
9 28 (0.86%) PMO
10 22 (0.67%) Actionable Recommendations
11 21 (0.64%) PCI DSS
12 19 (0.58%) Accessibility
13 18 (0.55%) Cyber Essentials
14 13 (0.40%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
15 11 (0.34%) NIST 800
15 11 (0.34%) Sarbanes-Oxley
16 9 (0.28%) GxP
16 9 (0.28%) IFRS
17 8 (0.25%) SOC 2
17 8 (0.25%) WCAG
System Software
1 91 (2.79%) Active Directory
2 35 (1.07%) VMware Infrastructure
3 28 (0.86%) VMware NSX
4 18 (0.55%) Docker
5 17 (0.52%) vSphere
6 12 (0.37%) Hyper-V
6 12 (0.37%) VMware ESXi
7 11 (0.34%) Virtual Machines
8 9 (0.28%) IAG
8 9 (0.28%) Virtual Desktop
9 7 (0.21%) Firmware
10 2 (0.061%) BitLocker
10 2 (0.061%) Embedded Firmware
10 2 (0.061%) PowerHA
11 1 (0.031%) HDFS
11 1 (0.031%) Oracle RAC
11 1 (0.031%) oVirt
11 1 (0.031%) ProxySG
11 1 (0.031%) RHEV
11 1 (0.031%) Time Sharing Option
Systems Management
1 49 (1.50%) Kubernetes
2 37 (1.13%) Ansible
3 26 (0.80%) Microsoft Intune
4 21 (0.64%) SCCM
5 15 (0.46%) Grafana
6 12 (0.37%) FortiGate
6 12 (0.37%) vRealize
7 11 (0.34%) Single Sign-On
8 10 (0.31%) vCenter Server
9 9 (0.28%) Prometheus
10 6 (0.18%) Nagios
10 6 (0.18%) VxRail
10 6 (0.18%) ZABBIX
11 5 (0.15%) logstash
12 4 (0.12%) CEMLI
12 4 (0.12%) Kibana
12 4 (0.12%) Netcool
12 4 (0.12%) Tivoli
12 4 (0.12%) vRealize Orchestrator
13 3 (0.092%) Argo
Vendors
1 640 (19.62%) SAP
2 485 (14.87%) Microsoft
3 393 (12.05%) Oracle
4 134 (4.11%) ServiceNow
5 86 (2.64%) Workday
6 67 (2.05%) VMware
7 48 (1.47%) Ariba
7 48 (1.47%) Salesforce
8 40 (1.23%) Databricks
9 37 (1.13%) Palo Alto
10 34 (1.04%) Splunk
11 31 (0.95%) CyberArk
12 30 (0.92%) Google
13 29 (0.89%) Cisco
14 24 (0.74%) OpenText
15 22 (0.67%) BMC
16 21 (0.64%) IBM
17 19 (0.58%) Zscaler
18 18 (0.55%) Adobe
18 18 (0.55%) Dell