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 6 May 2026.

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

6 months to
6 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 2,794 1,939 2,734
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 5.87% 6.61% 6.33%
As % of the Job Titles category 6.36% 7.15% 6.83%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,550 1,134 1,706
10th Percentile £381 £413 £400
25th Percentile £450 £488 £463
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £538 £550 £550
Median % change year-on-year -2.27% - -
75th Percentile £638 £638 £650
90th Percentile £722 £725 £750
UK excluding London median daily rate £525 £540 £550
% change year-on-year -2.78% -1.82% -
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 43,929 27,125 40,035
% of contract IT jobs with a recognized job title 92.25% 92.53% 92.76%
Number of daily rates quoted 27,003 17,719 26,065
10th Percentile £318 £300 £280
25th Percentile £413 £406 £409
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £505 £514 £525
Median % change year-on-year -1.75% -2.10% -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 2,852 1,052 2,665
10th Percentile £15.00 £14.20 £12.86
25th Percentile £20.35 £18.50 £16.30
Median hourly rate £44.00 £29.00 £36.50
Median % change year-on-year +51.72% -20.55% -18.89%
75th Percentile £66.25 £62.50 £61.30
90th Percentile £78.75 £75.00 £72.50
UK excluding London median hourly rate £45.46 £28.00 £40.00
% change year-on-year +62.36% -30.00% -4.76%

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 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 6 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 6 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 0 2,199 £543 -1.36% 1,581
UK excluding London -3 1,141 £525 -2.78% 1,076
London 0 1,036 £550 -4.35% 671
Work from Home 0 988 £550 - 669
South East 0 338 £538 -2.27% 278
Midlands -15 228 £525 -2.33% 120
North of England -28 219 £525 -1.69% 306
South West +20 175 £550 - 215
West Midlands -7 153 £550 - 82
North West -35 102 £525 -3.23% 198
Yorkshire -13 96 £544 +3.57% 80
East of England -8 82 £550 +10.00% 71
Scotland +29 75 £450 -12.96% 27
East Midlands -14 68 £500 -3.85% 39
Wales -1 29 £550 +37.50% 49
North East -21 21 £525 -1.69% 29
Northern Ireland -2 3 £600 +15.38% 24

Consultant Skill Set
Top 30 Co-Occurring Skills & Capabilities

For the 6 months to 6 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.

1 595 (21.30%) SAP
2 533 (19.08%) Security Cleared
3 419 (15.00%) SC Cleared
4 359 (12.85%) Migration
5 331 (11.85%) Oracle
6 300 (10.74%) Azure
7 292 (10.45%) Microsoft
8 263 (9.41%) Problem-Solving
9 253 (9.06%) SAP S/4HANA
10 246 (8.80%) Stakeholder Management
11 232 (8.30%) ERP
12 228 (8.16%) Stakeholder Engagement
13 210 (7.52%) SQL
14 206 (7.37%) User Acceptance Testing
15 197 (7.05%) Workshop Facilitation
16 173 (6.19%) Agile
17 167 (5.98%) Data Migration
18 160 (5.73%) Continuous Improvement
19 153 (5.48%) Validation
20 150 (5.37%) Cybersecurity
21 149 (5.33%) Dynamics 365
22 148 (5.30%) Business Intelligence
23 146 (5.23%) Analytics
24 140 (5.01%) Power Platform
24 140 (5.01%) Roadmaps
25 131 (4.69%) AI
26 124 (4.44%) AWS
27 116 (4.15%) Python
28 109 (3.90%) Change Management
29 106 (3.79%) 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 74 (2.65%) SharePoint
2 41 (1.47%) Confluence
3 13 (0.47%) Microsoft Exchange
3 13 (0.47%) 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 (0.072%) IIS
7 2 (0.072%) SAS
7 2 (0.072%) WebSphere
8 1 (0.036%) CMS
8 1 (0.036%) NetWeaver
8 1 (0.036%) nginx
8 1 (0.036%) WebLogic
8 1 (0.036%) WordPress
Applications
1 65 (2.33%) Microsoft Excel
2 23 (0.82%) Microsoft PowerPoint
3 13 (0.47%) 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 (0.072%) Lectora
7 2 (0.072%) Oracle Smart View
8 1 (0.036%) CATIA
8 1 (0.036%) Siemens NX
8 1 (0.036%) Windchill
Business Applications
1 253 (9.06%) SAP S/4HANA
2 78 (2.79%) Oracle EBS
3 56 (2.00%) SAP FI
4 44 (1.57%) Oracle Payables
4 44 (1.57%) SAP PSCD
5 40 (1.43%) SAP MM
6 38 (1.36%) Oracle Receivables
7 36 (1.29%) Oracle EBS R12
8 35 (1.25%) Dynamics CRM
9 33 (1.18%) SAP PP
10 31 (1.11%) SAP BRIM
10 31 (1.11%) SAP CO
10 31 (1.11%) SAP HCM
11 29 (1.04%) SAP FI/CO
12 28 (1.00%) SAP EWM
13 27 (0.97%) SAP Travel Management
13 27 (0.97%) Teamcenter
14 26 (0.93%) Oracle Assets
15 23 (0.82%) Oracle General Ledger
15 23 (0.82%) SAP SD
Cloud Services
1 300 (10.74%) Azure
2 149 (5.33%) Dynamics 365
3 140 (5.01%) Power Platform
4 124 (4.44%) AWS
5 104 (3.72%) OCI
6 77 (2.76%) SuccessFactors
7 69 (2.47%) Microsoft 365
8 67 (2.40%) GCP
9 64 (2.29%) SaaS
10 61 (2.18%) Power Automate
11 40 (1.43%) Microsoft Copilot
12 39 (1.40%) Entra ID
13 38 (1.36%) Azure DevOps
14 34 (1.22%) PowerApps
15 29 (1.04%) GitHub
15 29 (1.04%) Microsoft Purview
16 19 (0.68%) Copilot Studio
17 18 (0.64%) Serverless
18 17 (0.61%) Azure Data Factory
19 16 (0.57%) SAP Commerce Cloud
Communications & Networking
1 31 (1.11%) Firewall
2 26 (0.93%) Network Security
3 20 (0.72%) SNMP
4 16 (0.57%) SMS
5 13 (0.47%) 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 (3.15%) Power BI
2 59 (2.11%) 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 74 (2.65%) JIRA
2 19 (0.68%) Oracle Forms
3 18 (0.64%) Hudson
4 15 (0.54%) Jenkins
5 11 (0.39%) Git
6 9 (0.32%) GitLab
7 7 (0.25%) Sonatype Nexus
8 4 (0.14%) Cypress.io
8 4 (0.14%) Oracle APEX
8 4 (0.14%) Postman
8 4 (0.14%) SonarQube
8 4 (0.14%) Visual Studio Code
9 3 (0.11%) Toad
10 2 (0.072%) Bitbucket
10 2 (0.072%) git-flow
10 2 (0.072%) JUnit
10 2 (0.072%) Rational Rhapsody
10 2 (0.072%) Selenium
11 1 (0.036%) Burp Suite
11 1 (0.036%) CircleCI
General
1 609 (21.80%) Social Skills
2 595 (21.30%) Finance
3 246 (8.80%) Analytical Skills
4 207 (7.41%) Public Sector
5 97 (3.47%) Manufacturing
6 91 (3.26%) Banking
7 67 (2.40%) Billing
8 66 (2.36%) Legal
9 61 (2.18%) Marketing
10 47 (1.68%) Documentation Skills
11 46 (1.65%) General Ledger
12 40 (1.43%) Telecoms
13 38 (1.36%) Retail
14 36 (1.29%) Organisational Skills
15 24 (0.86%) Inclusion and Diversity
16 23 (0.82%) Pharmaceutical
16 23 (0.82%) Presentation Skills
17 21 (0.75%) Influencing Skills
18 18 (0.64%) Law
19 15 (0.54%) Advertising
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 78 (2.79%) Oracle Fusion
2 76 (2.72%) REST
3 67 (2.40%) XML
4 30 (1.07%) SOAP
5 28 (1.00%) SAP TM
6 27 (0.97%) Web Services
7 23 (0.82%) Middleware
8 22 (0.79%) JSON
9 21 (0.75%) SAP Fiori
10 19 (0.68%) BAPI
11 18 (0.64%) .NET
11 18 (0.64%) LDAP
12 16 (0.57%) SAP Basis
13 15 (0.54%) HTML
14 14 (0.50%) Node.js
15 13 (0.47%) CSS
16 12 (0.43%) GraphQL
17 11 (0.39%) IDoc
17 11 (0.39%) Kafka
18 10 (0.36%) React
Miscellaneous
1 59 (2.11%) Onboarding
2 48 (1.72%) 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 28 (1.00%) Data Structures
8 27 (0.97%) AI Agents
9 26 (0.93%) Cloud Native
9 26 (0.93%) Replication
10 23 (0.82%) Management Information System
11 22 (0.79%) Data Centre
12 20 (0.72%) Greenfield Project
12 20 (0.72%) NHS
13 17 (0.61%) Life Science
13 17 (0.61%) Public Cloud
14 16 (0.57%) Analytical Mindset
14 16 (0.57%) CMDB
15 13 (0.47%) Algorithms
15 13 (0.47%) Self-Motivation
Operating Systems
1 68 (2.43%) Windows
2 51 (1.83%) Linux
3 18 (0.64%) VMS
4 17 (0.61%) Unix
5 15 (0.54%) AIX
6 14 (0.50%) Solaris
7 8 (0.29%) Windows Server
8 5 (0.18%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
9 4 (0.14%) Mac OS
9 4 (0.14%) Ubuntu
9 4 (0.14%) Windows 10
9 4 (0.14%) zOS
10 3 (0.11%) SUSE
11 2 (0.072%) Apple iOS
11 2 (0.072%) CoreOS
11 2 (0.072%) Data ONTAP
12 1 (0.036%) Android
Processes & Methodologies
1 359 (12.85%) Migration
2 263 (9.41%) Problem-Solving
3 246 (8.80%) Stakeholder Management
4 232 (8.30%) ERP
5 228 (8.16%) Stakeholder Engagement
6 206 (7.37%) User Acceptance Testing
7 197 (7.05%) Workshop Facilitation
8 173 (6.19%) Agile
9 167 (5.98%) Data Migration
10 160 (5.73%) Continuous Improvement
11 153 (5.48%) Validation
12 150 (5.37%) Cybersecurity
13 148 (5.30%) Business Intelligence
14 146 (5.23%) Analytics
15 140 (5.01%) Roadmaps
16 131 (4.69%) AI
17 109 (3.90%) Change Management
18 106 (3.79%) Translating Business Requirements
19 103 (3.69%) DevOps
20 101 (3.61%) Knowledge Transfer
Programming Languages
1 210 (7.52%) SQL
2 116 (4.15%) Python
3 69 (2.47%) JavaScript
4 56 (2.00%) PowerShell
5 46 (1.65%) PL/SQL
6 38 (1.36%) ABAP
7 34 (1.22%) T-SQL
8 30 (1.07%) Java
9 25 (0.89%) TypeScript
10 16 (0.57%) C#
11 13 (0.47%) Bash
11 13 (0.47%) Search Processing Language
12 11 (0.39%) Groovy
12 11 (0.39%) Shell Script
13 9 (0.32%) R
14 8 (0.29%) C++
15 7 (0.25%) Data Analysis Expressions
16 6 (0.21%) Apex Code
17 5 (0.18%) Kusto Query Language
18 4 (0.14%) Ruby
Qualifications
1 533 (19.08%) Security Cleared
2 419 (15.00%) SC Cleared
3 101 (3.61%) DV Cleared
4 79 (2.83%) BPSS Clearance
4 79 (2.83%) Degree
5 64 (2.29%) CISSP
6 49 (1.75%) CISM
7 21 (0.75%) Cisco Certification
8 20 (0.72%) VMware Certified Professional (VCP)
9 19 (0.68%) CIMA
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 (0.47%) ITIL Certification
13 12 (0.43%) Master's Degree
14 11 (0.39%) Microsoft Certification
15 10 (0.36%) Azure Certification
15 10 (0.36%) CEH
15 10 (0.36%) PMP
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 81 (2.90%) NIST
2 79 (2.83%) ISO/IEC 27001
3 63 (2.25%) Data Quality
4 58 (2.08%) GRC
5 52 (1.86%) GDPR
6 39 (1.40%) QA
7 25 (0.89%) NCSC
8 24 (0.86%) PCI DSS
9 21 (0.75%) PMO
10 20 (0.72%) 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 35 (1.25%) VMware Infrastructure
3 34 (1.22%) VMware NSX
4 23 (0.82%) Docker
5 21 (0.75%) vSphere
6 10 (0.36%) Virtual Desktop
6 10 (0.36%) 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 (0.036%) BitLocker
12 1 (0.036%) HDFS
12 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 17 (0.61%) Microsoft Intune
6 15 (0.54%) Nagios
6 15 (0.54%) ZABBIX
7 14 (0.50%) Netcool
7 14 (0.50%) Tivoli
8 13 (0.47%) OpenView
8 13 (0.47%) Tivoli Monitoring
9 10 (0.36%) Grafana
9 10 (0.36%) Prometheus
10 9 (0.32%) Single Sign-On
11 7 (0.25%) SCCM
12 6 (0.21%) Failover Clustering
12 6 (0.21%) Podman
13 5 (0.18%) NetBackup
13 5 (0.18%) vRealize Orchestrator
14 4 (0.14%) Control-M
Vendors
1 595 (21.30%) SAP
2 331 (11.85%) Oracle
3 292 (10.45%) Microsoft
4 90 (3.22%) VMware
5 77 (2.76%) ServiceNow
6 58 (2.08%) Ariba
7 54 (1.93%) Salesforce
8 53 (1.90%) Siemens
8 53 (1.90%) Workday
9 36 (1.29%) Splunk
10 31 (1.11%) Google
11 27 (0.97%) Databricks
12 24 (0.86%) BMC
13 21 (0.75%) Adobe
13 21 (0.75%) IBM
14 16 (0.57%) Murex
14 16 (0.57%) Sage
15 15 (0.54%) SolarWinds
16 14 (0.50%) IFS
17 13 (0.47%) HP