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 4 March 2026.

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

6 months to
4 Mar 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 28 28 24
Rank change year-on-year 0 -4 +21
Contract jobs requiring a Consultant 2,737 1,993 2,744
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 6.49% 6.63% 6.20%
As % of the Job Titles category 7.07% 7.15% 6.67%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,541 1,121 1,642
10th Percentile £400 £413 £400
25th Percentile £463 £488 £463
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £550 £550 £550
Median % change year-on-year - - -1.79%
75th Percentile £638 £650 £650
90th Percentile £716 £738 £725
UK excluding London median daily rate £550 £550 £538
% change year-on-year - +2.33% -2.27%
Number of hourly rates quoted 75 17 36
10th Percentile - £68.00 £42.50
25th Percentile £56.25 £72.50 £55.18
Median hourly rate £57.50 £85.00 £63.00
Median % change year-on-year -32.35% +34.92% -7.35%
75th Percentile £60.00 £86.25 £81.56
90th Percentile £78.25 £87.50 £90.25
UK excluding London median hourly rate £57.50 £83.75 £61.72
% change year-on-year -31.34% +35.70% -6.49%

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 38,703 27,889 41,142
% of contract IT jobs with a recognized job title 91.84% 92.83% 92.94%
Number of daily rates quoted 24,288 17,682 27,029
10th Percentile £310 £288 £275
25th Percentile £409 £406 £406
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £525 £525
Median % change year-on-year -4.76% - -4.55%
75th Percentile £613 £638 £638
90th Percentile £725 £738 £738
UK excluding London median daily rate £481 £475 £488
% change year-on-year +1.32% -2.56% -2.50%
Number of hourly rates quoted 2,374 845 2,408
10th Percentile £14.64 £16.25 £13.05
25th Percentile £18.87 £21.46 £16.25
Median hourly rate £33.50 £34.00 £34.00
Median % change year-on-year -1.47% - -16.05%
75th Percentile £64.00 £64.75 £60.00
90th Percentile £75.00 £75.40 £71.90
UK excluding London median hourly rate £32.50 £32.50 £35.00
% change year-on-year - -7.14% -10.88%

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 4 March 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 4 March 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 4 March 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 2,137 £550 - 1,199
UK excluding London 0 1,116 £550 - 827
Work from Home +1 1,030 £525 -4.55% 564
London -4 989 £550 -4.35% 477
South East +2 309 £520 -9.57% 251
North of England -6 269 £575 +6.68% 182
Midlands -12 211 £563 +7.14% 115
West Midlands -5 157 £563 +4.17% 65
North West -8 149 £626 +16.40% 116
South West +17 146 £550 - 140
Yorkshire 0 110 £519 -2.35% 53
East of England -3 96 £550 - 78
Scotland +4 50 £520 -5.45% 24
East Midlands -17 50 £500 -3.85% 49
Wales +10 32 £447 -8.31% 32
Northern Ireland +4 12 £405 -22.86% 22
North East -25 10 £525 -4.55% 14

Consultant Skill Set
Top 30 Co-Occurring Skills & Capabilities

For the 6 months to 4 March 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.

1 658 (24.04%) Security Cleared
2 652 (23.82%) SAP
3 555 (20.28%) SC Cleared
4 392 (14.32%) Migration
5 345 (12.61%) SAP S/4HANA
6 310 (11.33%) Problem-Solving
7 305 (11.14%) Azure
8 297 (10.85%) Oracle
9 289 (10.56%) Microsoft
10 284 (10.38%) Stakeholder Management
11 277 (10.12%) Stakeholder Engagement
12 229 (8.37%) ERP
13 215 (7.86%) Workshop Facilitation
14 183 (6.69%) User Acceptance Testing
15 175 (6.39%) Agile
16 169 (6.17%) Data Migration
17 168 (6.14%) SQL
18 163 (5.96%) Analytics
19 159 (5.81%) Roadmaps
20 148 (5.41%) Business Intelligence
21 146 (5.33%) Knowledge Transfer
22 141 (5.15%) Validation
23 139 (5.08%) Dynamics 365
24 137 (5.01%) Cybersecurity
25 131 (4.79%) Continuous Improvement
26 122 (4.46%) Python
27 113 (4.13%) Power Platform
28 112 (4.09%) AI
28 112 (4.09%) Risk Management
29 110 (4.02%) AWS

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 69 (2.52%) SharePoint
2 33 (1.21%) Confluence
3 28 (1.02%) Microsoft Exchange
4 7 (0.26%) Oracle Workflow
5 6 (0.22%) Jupyter
5 6 (0.22%) NetWeaver
6 5 (0.18%) Apache Spark
6 5 (0.18%) MTS
7 4 (0.15%) CMS
7 4 (0.15%) Palantir Foundry
8 3 (0.11%) ArcGIS
9 2 (0.073%) Adobe Experience Manager
9 2 (0.073%) Apache
9 2 (0.073%) Cloud Foundry
9 2 (0.073%) IIS
9 2 (0.073%) OpenStack
10 1 (0.037%) nginx
10 1 (0.037%) SAP Portal
10 1 (0.037%) SharePoint 2010
10 1 (0.037%) Skype for Business
Applications
1 49 (1.79%) Microsoft Excel
2 20 (0.73%) Microsoft PowerPoint
3 11 (0.40%) Microsoft Office
4 9 (0.33%) MS Visio
5 7 (0.26%) Microsoft Project
5 7 (0.26%) Oracle Smart View
6 5 (0.18%) PTC Creo
7 4 (0.15%) Spreadsheet
8 2 (0.073%) Lectora
8 2 (0.073%) Navisworks
8 2 (0.073%) Revit
9 1 (0.037%) Adobe Captivate
9 1 (0.037%) Adobe Creative Suite
9 1 (0.037%) Adobe XD
9 1 (0.037%) CATIA
9 1 (0.037%) Chatbot
9 1 (0.037%) InfoPath
9 1 (0.037%) ProjectWise
9 1 (0.037%) Siemens NX
9 1 (0.037%) Windchill
Business Applications
1 345 (12.61%) SAP S/4HANA
2 63 (2.30%) SAP FI
3 61 (2.23%) Oracle EBS
4 52 (1.90%) SAP MM
5 50 (1.83%) Oracle Payables
6 47 (1.72%) Oracle Receivables
7 42 (1.53%) SAP HCM
8 39 (1.42%) Dynamics CRM
8 39 (1.42%) Oracle EBS R12
8 39 (1.42%) Oracle General Ledger
8 39 (1.42%) SAP PP
9 38 (1.39%) SAP CO
10 35 (1.28%) SAP EWM
10 35 (1.28%) SAP FI/CO
11 32 (1.17%) Oracle Assets
11 32 (1.17%) SAP PSCD
12 31 (1.13%) SAP Travel Management
13 28 (1.02%) SAP Payroll
14 25 (0.91%) Oracle Cash Management
14 25 (0.91%) Oracle Procure-to-Pay
Cloud Services
1 305 (11.14%) Azure
2 139 (5.08%) Dynamics 365
3 113 (4.13%) Power Platform
4 110 (4.02%) AWS
5 107 (3.91%) OCI
6 82 (3.00%) Microsoft 365
7 80 (2.92%) GCP
8 69 (2.52%) SaaS
9 62 (2.27%) Entra ID
10 52 (1.90%) SuccessFactors
11 40 (1.46%) Power Automate
12 35 (1.28%) Microsoft Copilot
13 32 (1.17%) Azure DevOps
14 30 (1.10%) Microsoft Purview
15 29 (1.06%) PowerApps
16 26 (0.95%) GitHub
17 24 (0.88%) OneDrive
18 19 (0.69%) SAP Commerce Cloud
18 19 (0.69%) Serverless
19 18 (0.66%) Azure Data Factory
Communications & Networking
1 48 (1.75%) Firewall
2 18 (0.66%) DNS
2 18 (0.66%) Network Security
3 17 (0.62%) VPN
4 15 (0.55%) HTTP
5 14 (0.51%) WAN
6 13 (0.47%) Kerberos
6 13 (0.47%) SMS
7 12 (0.44%) DHCP
8 11 (0.40%) SAN
8 11 (0.40%) SD-WAN
8 11 (0.40%) VSAN
9 10 (0.37%) SSL
10 9 (0.33%) FTP
10 9 (0.33%) LAN
10 9 (0.33%) Software-Defined Networking
10 9 (0.33%) TCP/IP
11 8 (0.29%) Intranet
12 7 (0.26%) BGP
12 7 (0.26%) Internet
Database & Business Intelligence
1 82 (3.00%) Power BI
2 48 (1.75%) SAP HANA
3 46 (1.68%) Oracle Reports
4 25 (0.91%) Metadata
5 24 (0.88%) Oracle BI Publisher
5 24 (0.88%) SQL Server
6 14 (0.51%) NoSQL
7 12 (0.44%) Data Warehouse
7 12 (0.44%) PostgreSQL
7 12 (0.44%) SAP BW
7 12 (0.44%) Tableau
8 11 (0.40%) SQL Server Reporting Services
9 8 (0.29%) Electronic Patient Records
9 8 (0.29%) GIS
10 7 (0.26%) MongoDB
10 7 (0.26%) Oracle Database
11 6 (0.22%) Data Mart
11 6 (0.22%) DynamoDB
11 6 (0.22%) Essbase
11 6 (0.22%) Oracle ODI
Development Applications
1 63 (2.30%) JIRA
2 19 (0.69%) Jenkins
3 13 (0.47%) Oracle Forms
4 12 (0.44%) Git
4 12 (0.44%) Hudson
5 9 (0.33%) GitLab
6 7 (0.26%) Oracle APEX
7 4 (0.15%) LSMW
7 4 (0.15%) Postman
8 3 (0.11%) JUnit
9 2 (0.073%) Bitbucket
9 2 (0.073%) git-flow
9 2 (0.073%) Mockito
9 2 (0.073%) Rational DOORS
9 2 (0.073%) Rational Rhapsody
9 2 (0.073%) SonarQube
9 2 (0.073%) TeamCity
9 2 (0.073%) Tricentis qTest
9 2 (0.073%) Visual Studio
10 1 (0.037%) Cucumber
General
1 710 (25.94%) Social Skills
2 593 (21.67%) Finance
3 258 (9.43%) Public Sector
4 250 (9.13%) Analytical Skills
5 125 (4.57%) Manufacturing
6 98 (3.58%) Banking
7 75 (2.74%) Marketing
8 74 (2.70%) Documentation Skills
9 62 (2.27%) Billing
10 61 (2.23%) Legal
11 46 (1.68%) General Ledger
12 43 (1.57%) Presentation Skills
13 42 (1.53%) Telecoms
14 34 (1.24%) Retail
15 31 (1.13%) Organisational Skills
16 28 (1.02%) Pharmaceutical
17 27 (0.99%) Law
18 21 (0.77%) Aerospace
18 21 (0.77%) Financial Institution
19 18 (0.66%) Electronics
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 96 (3.51%) Oracle Fusion
2 69 (2.52%) REST
3 59 (2.16%) SAP Fiori
4 48 (1.75%) Web Services
5 47 (1.72%) XML
6 39 (1.42%) SAP TM
7 38 (1.39%) SOAP
8 28 (1.02%) BAPI
8 28 (1.02%) LDAP
9 26 (0.95%) Node.js
10 24 (0.88%) Middleware
11 19 (0.69%) JSON
11 19 (0.69%) SAP PI
12 17 (0.62%) .NET
12 17 (0.62%) GraphQL
13 16 (0.58%) IDoc
14 14 (0.51%) EDI
14 14 (0.51%) HTML
14 14 (0.51%) Kafka
15 13 (0.47%) SAML
Miscellaneous
1 72 (2.63%) Onboarding
2 57 (2.08%) Legacy Systems
3 40 (1.46%) Product Ownership
4 39 (1.42%) Security Posture
5 34 (1.24%) Data Protection Act
6 31 (1.13%) Data Centre
7 27 (0.99%) Cloud Native
8 25 (0.91%) Operational Technology
8 25 (0.91%) Replication
9 24 (0.88%) Management Information System
10 22 (0.80%) Greenfield Project
11 21 (0.77%) Data Structures
12 19 (0.69%) AI Agents
12 19 (0.69%) Analytical Mindset
12 19 (0.69%) NHS
13 15 (0.55%) Life Science
13 15 (0.55%) Public Cloud
13 15 (0.55%) Self-Motivation
14 14 (0.51%) Hybrid Cloud
15 12 (0.44%) CMDB
Operating Systems
1 70 (2.56%) Windows
2 40 (1.46%) Linux
3 16 (0.58%) Unix
4 14 (0.51%) Windows Server
5 10 (0.37%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
5 10 (0.37%) Windows 10
6 8 (0.29%) VMS
7 6 (0.22%) Mac OS
8 5 (0.18%) AIX
8 5 (0.18%) Ubuntu
9 4 (0.15%) Solaris
9 4 (0.15%) zOS
10 3 (0.11%) Apple iOS
11 2 (0.073%) CoreOS
11 2 (0.073%) Data ONTAP
11 2 (0.073%) SUSE
11 2 (0.073%) SUSE Linux Enterprise Server
11 2 (0.073%) Windows Server 2003
11 2 (0.073%) Windows Server 2008
12 1 (0.037%) CentOS
Processes & Methodologies
1 392 (14.32%) Migration
2 310 (11.33%) Problem-Solving
3 284 (10.38%) Stakeholder Management
4 277 (10.12%) Stakeholder Engagement
5 229 (8.37%) ERP
6 215 (7.86%) Workshop Facilitation
7 183 (6.69%) User Acceptance Testing
8 175 (6.39%) Agile
9 169 (6.17%) Data Migration
10 163 (5.96%) Analytics
11 159 (5.81%) Roadmaps
12 148 (5.41%) Business Intelligence
13 146 (5.33%) Knowledge Transfer
14 141 (5.15%) Validation
15 137 (5.01%) Cybersecurity
16 131 (4.79%) Continuous Improvement
17 112 (4.09%) AI
17 112 (4.09%) Risk Management
18 109 (3.98%) DevOps
19 108 (3.95%) Change Management
Programming Languages
1 168 (6.14%) SQL
2 122 (4.46%) Python
3 87 (3.18%) PowerShell
4 85 (3.11%) JavaScript
5 71 (2.59%) ABAP
6 36 (1.32%) Java
7 30 (1.10%) TypeScript
8 22 (0.80%) Groovy
8 22 (0.80%) PL/SQL
9 16 (0.58%) C#
10 15 (0.55%) Bash
11 14 (0.51%) T-SQL
12 10 (0.37%) Shell Script
13 9 (0.33%) C++
14 8 (0.29%) Apex Code
15 7 (0.26%) Data Analysis Expressions
15 7 (0.26%) Kusto Query Language
16 5 (0.18%) Bicep
16 5 (0.18%) Korn
17 4 (0.15%) VBA
Qualifications
1 658 (24.04%) Security Cleared
2 555 (20.28%) SC Cleared
3 105 (3.84%) Degree
4 81 (2.96%) DV Cleared
5 64 (2.34%) BPSS Clearance
6 50 (1.83%) CISSP
7 36 (1.32%) VMware Certified Professional (VCP)
8 34 (1.24%) CISM
9 19 (0.69%) Master's Degree
10 18 (0.66%) CIMA
11 17 (0.62%) Cisco Certification
11 17 (0.62%) Computer Science Degree
12 16 (0.58%) SAP Certification
13 15 (0.55%) Microsoft Certification
14 13 (0.47%) ITIL Certification
15 8 (0.29%) AWS Certification
15 8 (0.29%) CCNP
15 8 (0.29%) CESG Certified Professional
16 7 (0.26%) CISA
16 7 (0.26%) CRISC
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 92 (3.36%) NIST
2 88 (3.22%) ISO/IEC 27001
3 71 (2.59%) GDPR
4 52 (1.90%) Data Quality
5 51 (1.86%) QA
6 42 (1.53%) GRC
7 23 (0.84%) NCSC
8 22 (0.80%) Actionable Recommendations
9 20 (0.73%) Sarbanes-Oxley
10 19 (0.69%) PMO
10 19 (0.69%) SLA
11 18 (0.66%) PCI DSS
12 12 (0.44%) COBIT
13 11 (0.40%) PERC
14 9 (0.33%) JSP 440
15 8 (0.29%) Cyber Essentials
15 8 (0.29%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
15 8 (0.29%) ISO/IEC 27005
16 6 (0.22%) Accessibility
17 5 (0.18%) SOC 2
System Software
1 70 (2.56%) Active Directory
2 38 (1.39%) Docker
3 33 (1.21%) VMware Infrastructure
4 30 (1.10%) VMware NSX
5 23 (0.84%) vSphere
6 8 (0.29%) Hyper-V
7 7 (0.26%) Virtual Machines
8 6 (0.22%) Slurm Workload Manager
8 6 (0.22%) Virtual Desktop
9 5 (0.18%) NDS
9 5 (0.18%) NetIQ eDirectory
10 3 (0.11%) NFS
11 1 (0.037%) Ceph
11 1 (0.037%) IAG
11 1 (0.037%) Job Entry Subsystem
11 1 (0.037%) KVM
11 1 (0.037%) Microsoft App-V
11 1 (0.037%) QEMU
11 1 (0.037%) Terminal Services
11 1 (0.037%) VMware ESXi
Systems Management
1 54 (1.97%) Kubernetes
2 37 (1.35%) vRealize
3 34 (1.24%) Terraform
4 22 (0.80%) Microsoft Intune
5 18 (0.66%) Single Sign-On
6 17 (0.62%) Ansible
7 10 (0.37%) Failover Clustering
7 10 (0.37%) PingFederate
8 7 (0.26%) Active Directory Federation Services
9 6 (0.22%) Podman
10 5 (0.18%) Grafana
10 5 (0.18%) SCCM
11 4 (0.15%) FortiGate
11 4 (0.15%) NetBackup
11 4 (0.15%) Prometheus
11 4 (0.15%) vCenter Server
11 4 (0.15%) vRealize Orchestrator
12 3 (0.11%) CEMLI
12 3 (0.11%) Puppet
12 3 (0.11%) vMotion
Vendors
1 652 (23.82%) SAP
2 297 (10.85%) Oracle
3 289 (10.56%) Microsoft
4 96 (3.51%) VMware
5 80 (2.92%) ServiceNow
6 57 (2.08%) Salesforce
7 56 (2.05%) CyberArk
8 55 (2.01%) Workday
9 53 (1.94%) Siemens
10 52 (1.90%) Ariba
10 52 (1.90%) Cisco
11 44 (1.61%) Google
12 37 (1.35%) Aruba
13 33 (1.21%) Adobe
14 23 (0.84%) Databricks
15 21 (0.77%) OpenText
16 16 (0.58%) Sage
17 15 (0.55%) Murex
18 14 (0.51%) Splunk
19 13 (0.47%) Zscaler