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 24 February 2026.

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

6 months to
24 Feb 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 28 28 26
Rank change year-on-year 0 -2 +20
Contract jobs requiring a Consultant 2,659 2,000 2,756
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 6.49% 6.62% 6.20%
As % of the Job Titles category 7.07% 7.13% 6.67%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,502 1,104 1,627
10th Percentile £400 £413 £400
25th Percentile £463 £482 £463
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £550 £550 £550
75th Percentile £638 £650 £650
90th Percentile £716 £738 £725
UK excluding London median daily rate £550 £550 £539
% change year-on-year - +2.09% -2.05%
Number of hourly rates quoted 73 17 36
10th Percentile - £68.00 £39.38
25th Percentile £56.25 £72.50 £52.90
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 £61.79
% change year-on-year -31.34% +35.54% -5.43%

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 37,601 28,063 41,310
% of contract IT jobs with a recognized job title 91.77% 92.89% 93.00%
Number of daily rates quoted 23,630 17,563 27,190
10th Percentile £306 £293 £275
25th Percentile £408 £406 £409
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £525 £525
Median % change year-on-year -4.76% - -4.55%
75th Percentile £613 £638 £638
90th Percentile £720 £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 2,287 822 2,342
10th Percentile £14.61 £16.25 £13.15
25th Percentile £18.87 £21.46 £16.30
Median hourly rate £32.00 £35.00 £35.00
Median % change year-on-year -8.57% - -10.88%
75th Percentile £63.75 £64.50 £60.00
90th Percentile £74.26 £75.00 £71.99
UK excluding London median hourly rate £30.00 £32.50 £35.00
% change year-on-year -7.69% -7.14% -5.74%

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 24 February 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 24 February 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 24 February 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 -3 2,067 £550 - 1,077
UK excluding London -1 1,074 £550 - 801
Work from Home -1 998 £525 -4.55% 428
London -4 956 £550 -4.35% 545
South East +1 287 £530 -3.64% 340
North of England -11 263 £595 +9.17% 192
Midlands -7 206 £550 +4.76% 78
West Midlands -10 151 £563 +4.41% 52
North West -8 149 £625 +15.74% 122
South West +18 141 £565 +2.64% 97
Yorkshire +1 104 £550 +2.33% 55
East of England +1 96 £550 - 41
East Midlands -17 51 £500 -3.85% 24
Scotland +4 50 £520 -5.45% 25
Wales +8 28 £405 -16.92% 19
Northern Ireland +4 12 £405 -22.86% 19
North East -27 10 £525 -7.08% 16

Consultant Skill Set
Top 30 Co-Occurring Skills & Capabilities

For the 6 months to 24 February 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.

1 655 (24.63%) SAP
2 635 (23.88%) Security Cleared
3 536 (20.16%) SC Cleared
4 386 (14.52%) Migration
5 349 (13.13%) SAP S/4HANA
6 310 (11.66%) Problem-Solving
7 297 (11.17%) Azure
8 293 (11.02%) Microsoft
9 286 (10.76%) Oracle
10 278 (10.46%) Stakeholder Management
11 275 (10.34%) Stakeholder Engagement
12 224 (8.42%) ERP
13 212 (7.97%) Workshop Facilitation
14 177 (6.66%) User Acceptance Testing
15 170 (6.39%) Agile
16 166 (6.24%) Data Migration
17 161 (6.05%) Analytics
18 153 (5.75%) Roadmaps
19 148 (5.57%) SQL
20 146 (5.49%) Business Intelligence
21 145 (5.45%) Knowledge Transfer
22 139 (5.23%) Dynamics 365
23 134 (5.04%) Validation
24 127 (4.78%) Cybersecurity
25 120 (4.51%) Continuous Improvement
26 118 (4.44%) Python
27 117 (4.40%) Power Platform
28 113 (4.25%) AI
29 108 (4.06%) Risk Management
30 107 (4.02%) DevOps

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 65 (2.44%) SharePoint
2 32 (1.20%) Confluence
3 30 (1.13%) Microsoft Exchange
4 6 (0.23%) Jupyter
4 6 (0.23%) NetWeaver
5 5 (0.19%) CMS
5 5 (0.19%) MTS
5 5 (0.19%) Oracle Workflow
6 3 (0.11%) Adobe Experience Manager
6 3 (0.11%) Apache Spark
6 3 (0.11%) ArcGIS
6 3 (0.11%) Palantir Foundry
7 2 (0.075%) Apache
7 2 (0.075%) IIS
7 2 (0.075%) OpenStack
8 1 (0.038%) LiveCycle
8 1 (0.038%) nginx
8 1 (0.038%) SAP Portal
8 1 (0.038%) SAS
8 1 (0.038%) Tomcat
Applications
1 38 (1.43%) Microsoft Excel
2 20 (0.75%) Microsoft PowerPoint
3 14 (0.53%) Microsoft Office
4 11 (0.41%) MS Visio
5 6 (0.23%) Microsoft Project
5 6 (0.23%) Oracle Smart View
6 5 (0.19%) PTC Creo
7 4 (0.15%) Navisworks
7 4 (0.15%) Revit
7 4 (0.15%) Spreadsheet
8 3 (0.11%) ProjectWise
9 2 (0.075%) Lectora
10 1 (0.038%) Adobe Captivate
10 1 (0.038%) Adobe Creative Suite
10 1 (0.038%) Adobe XD
10 1 (0.038%) CATIA
10 1 (0.038%) Chatbot
10 1 (0.038%) InfoPath
10 1 (0.038%) Siemens NX
10 1 (0.038%) Windchill
Business Applications
1 349 (13.13%) SAP S/4HANA
2 68 (2.56%) SAP FI
3 56 (2.11%) Oracle EBS
4 52 (1.96%) SAP MM
5 49 (1.84%) Oracle Payables
6 47 (1.77%) Oracle Receivables
7 45 (1.69%) SAP HCM
8 42 (1.58%) SAP CO
9 39 (1.47%) Dynamics CRM
9 39 (1.47%) SAP FI/CO
10 38 (1.43%) SAP PP
11 37 (1.39%) Oracle General Ledger
12 36 (1.35%) Oracle EBS R12
12 36 (1.35%) SAP EWM
13 32 (1.20%) SAP PSCD
14 30 (1.13%) Oracle Assets
14 30 (1.13%) SAP Travel Management
15 28 (1.05%) SAP Payroll
16 25 (0.94%) Oracle Cash Management
16 25 (0.94%) Oracle Procure-to-Pay
Cloud Services
1 297 (11.17%) Azure
2 139 (5.23%) Dynamics 365
3 117 (4.40%) Power Platform
4 105 (3.95%) OCI
5 103 (3.87%) AWS
6 85 (3.20%) Microsoft 365
7 76 (2.86%) GCP
8 68 (2.56%) SaaS
9 62 (2.33%) Entra ID
10 47 (1.77%) SuccessFactors
11 40 (1.50%) Power Automate
12 34 (1.28%) Microsoft Copilot
13 31 (1.17%) Azure DevOps
13 31 (1.17%) PowerApps
14 29 (1.09%) Microsoft Purview
15 24 (0.90%) OneDrive
16 23 (0.86%) GitHub
17 19 (0.71%) SAP Commerce Cloud
18 18 (0.68%) Serverless
19 17 (0.64%) Azure Data Factory
Communications & Networking
1 46 (1.73%) Firewall
2 19 (0.71%) VPN
3 16 (0.60%) Network Security
4 15 (0.56%) DNS
5 14 (0.53%) HTTP
6 13 (0.49%) Kerberos
7 12 (0.45%) DHCP
7 12 (0.45%) SMS
7 12 (0.45%) WAN
8 10 (0.38%) SSL
8 10 (0.38%) VSAN
9 9 (0.34%) SD-WAN
9 9 (0.34%) Software-Defined Networking
9 9 (0.34%) TCP/IP
10 8 (0.30%) FTP
10 8 (0.30%) Intranet
10 8 (0.30%) SAN
11 7 (0.26%) Cisco IPT
11 7 (0.26%) LAN
12 6 (0.23%) VLAN
Database & Business Intelligence
1 83 (3.12%) Power BI
2 48 (1.81%) SAP HANA
3 43 (1.62%) Oracle Reports
4 24 (0.90%) SQL Server
5 22 (0.83%) Metadata
5 22 (0.83%) Oracle BI Publisher
6 13 (0.49%) Data Warehouse
6 13 (0.49%) SAP BW
7 12 (0.45%) PostgreSQL
7 12 (0.45%) Tableau
8 11 (0.41%) NoSQL
8 11 (0.41%) SQL Server Reporting Services
9 8 (0.30%) Electronic Patient Records
9 8 (0.30%) GIS
9 8 (0.30%) Oracle Database
10 6 (0.23%) Data Lake
10 6 (0.23%) Data Mart
10 6 (0.23%) DB2
10 6 (0.23%) DynamoDB
10 6 (0.23%) MongoDB
Development Applications
1 64 (2.41%) JIRA
2 19 (0.71%) Jenkins
3 13 (0.49%) Hudson
4 12 (0.45%) Git
4 12 (0.45%) Oracle Forms
5 9 (0.34%) GitLab
6 7 (0.26%) Oracle APEX
7 6 (0.23%) Postman
8 4 (0.15%) LSMW
9 3 (0.11%) JUnit
10 2 (0.075%) Bitbucket
10 2 (0.075%) git-flow
10 2 (0.075%) Mockito
10 2 (0.075%) Rational DOORS
10 2 (0.075%) Rational Rhapsody
10 2 (0.075%) Selenium
10 2 (0.075%) TeamCity
10 2 (0.075%) Tricentis qTest
10 2 (0.075%) Visual Studio
11 1 (0.038%) Cucumber
General
1 703 (26.44%) Social Skills
2 575 (21.62%) Finance
3 250 (9.40%) Public Sector
4 245 (9.21%) Analytical Skills
5 123 (4.63%) Manufacturing
6 96 (3.61%) Banking
7 77 (2.90%) Documentation Skills
8 76 (2.86%) Marketing
9 63 (2.37%) Billing
10 59 (2.22%) Legal
11 46 (1.73%) Presentation Skills
12 45 (1.69%) General Ledger
13 41 (1.54%) Telecoms
14 32 (1.20%) Retail
15 28 (1.05%) Organisational Skills
16 27 (1.02%) Law
17 26 (0.98%) Pharmaceutical
18 21 (0.79%) Aerospace
19 20 (0.75%) Financial Institution
20 17 (0.64%) Electronics
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 94 (3.54%) Oracle Fusion
2 67 (2.52%) REST
3 63 (2.37%) SAP Fiori
4 46 (1.73%) Web Services
5 38 (1.43%) SAP TM
6 36 (1.35%) SOAP
7 33 (1.24%) XML
8 28 (1.05%) BAPI
9 27 (1.02%) Node.js
10 26 (0.98%) LDAP
11 23 (0.86%) Middleware
12 19 (0.71%) SAP PI
13 18 (0.68%) GraphQL
14 17 (0.64%) JSON
15 15 (0.56%) .NET
15 15 (0.56%) HTML
15 15 (0.56%) IDoc
16 13 (0.49%) CSS
16 13 (0.49%) Kafka
16 13 (0.49%) SAP Basis
Miscellaneous
1 67 (2.52%) Onboarding
2 59 (2.22%) Legacy Systems
3 39 (1.47%) Product Ownership
4 38 (1.43%) Security Posture
5 32 (1.20%) Data Protection Act
6 30 (1.13%) Data Centre
7 28 (1.05%) Cloud Native
8 27 (1.02%) Management Information System
9 25 (0.94%) Operational Technology
10 24 (0.90%) Greenfield Project
10 24 (0.90%) Replication
11 23 (0.86%) Data Structures
12 19 (0.71%) AI Agents
13 18 (0.68%) Analytical Mindset
14 16 (0.60%) NHS
15 15 (0.56%) Life Science
15 15 (0.56%) Public Cloud
16 14 (0.53%) Hybrid Cloud
16 14 (0.53%) Self-Motivation
17 12 (0.45%) CMDB
Operating Systems
1 74 (2.78%) Windows
2 42 (1.58%) Linux
3 20 (0.75%) Unix
4 14 (0.53%) Windows Server
5 10 (0.38%) Mac OS
5 10 (0.38%) Windows 10
6 9 (0.34%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
7 5 (0.19%) Ubuntu
7 5 (0.19%) VMS
8 4 (0.15%) AIX
8 4 (0.15%) Solaris
8 4 (0.15%) zOS
9 3 (0.11%) Apple iOS
10 2 (0.075%) SUSE
10 2 (0.075%) SUSE Linux Enterprise Server
10 2 (0.075%) Windows Server 2003
10 2 (0.075%) Windows Server 2008
11 1 (0.038%) Android
11 1 (0.038%) CentOS
11 1 (0.038%) CoreOS
Processes & Methodologies
1 386 (14.52%) Migration
2 310 (11.66%) Problem-Solving
3 278 (10.46%) Stakeholder Management
4 275 (10.34%) Stakeholder Engagement
5 224 (8.42%) ERP
6 212 (7.97%) Workshop Facilitation
7 177 (6.66%) User Acceptance Testing
8 170 (6.39%) Agile
9 166 (6.24%) Data Migration
10 161 (6.05%) Analytics
11 153 (5.75%) Roadmaps
12 146 (5.49%) Business Intelligence
13 145 (5.45%) Knowledge Transfer
14 134 (5.04%) Validation
15 127 (4.78%) Cybersecurity
16 120 (4.51%) Continuous Improvement
17 113 (4.25%) AI
18 108 (4.06%) Risk Management
19 107 (4.02%) DevOps
20 105 (3.95%) Data Modelling
Programming Languages
1 148 (5.57%) SQL
2 118 (4.44%) Python
3 88 (3.31%) PowerShell
4 85 (3.20%) JavaScript
5 72 (2.71%) ABAP
6 34 (1.28%) Java
7 30 (1.13%) TypeScript
8 22 (0.83%) Groovy
9 21 (0.79%) PL/SQL
10 16 (0.60%) C#
11 15 (0.56%) Bash
12 10 (0.38%) Shell Script
13 8 (0.30%) Apex Code
13 8 (0.30%) Data Analysis Expressions
14 7 (0.26%) C++
14 7 (0.26%) Kusto Query Language
15 5 (0.19%) Bicep
15 5 (0.19%) Korn
16 4 (0.15%) Ruby
16 4 (0.15%) VBA
Qualifications
1 635 (23.88%) Security Cleared
2 536 (20.16%) SC Cleared
3 105 (3.95%) Degree
4 76 (2.86%) DV Cleared
5 63 (2.37%) BPSS Clearance
6 49 (1.84%) CISSP
7 36 (1.35%) VMware Certified Professional (VCP)
8 34 (1.28%) CISM
9 19 (0.71%) Master's Degree
10 18 (0.68%) SAP Certification
11 17 (0.64%) Cisco Certification
11 17 (0.64%) Computer Science Degree
12 16 (0.60%) CIMA
13 15 (0.56%) Microsoft Certification
14 12 (0.45%) ITIL Certification
15 8 (0.30%) AWS Certification
15 8 (0.30%) CCNP
15 8 (0.30%) CESG Certified Professional
16 6 (0.23%) (ISC)2 CCSP
16 6 (0.23%) CRISC
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 87 (3.27%) NIST
2 80 (3.01%) ISO/IEC 27001
3 70 (2.63%) GDPR
4 50 (1.88%) Data Quality
4 50 (1.88%) QA
5 38 (1.43%) GRC
6 22 (0.83%) Actionable Recommendations
7 21 (0.79%) NCSC
8 19 (0.71%) SLA
9 18 (0.68%) Sarbanes-Oxley
10 16 (0.60%) PMO
11 15 (0.56%) PCI DSS
12 11 (0.41%) COBIT
12 11 (0.41%) PERC
13 9 (0.34%) JSP 440
14 7 (0.26%) Cyber Essentials
14 7 (0.26%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
14 7 (0.26%) ISO/IEC 27005
15 6 (0.23%) Accessibility
15 6 (0.23%) HIPAA
System Software
1 69 (2.59%) Active Directory
2 38 (1.43%) Docker
3 32 (1.20%) VMware Infrastructure
4 29 (1.09%) VMware NSX
5 21 (0.79%) vSphere
6 8 (0.30%) Hyper-V
7 6 (0.23%) Slurm Workload Manager
7 6 (0.23%) Virtual Desktop
8 5 (0.19%) NDS
8 5 (0.19%) NetIQ eDirectory
8 5 (0.19%) Virtual Machines
9 2 (0.075%) NFS
10 1 (0.038%) Ceph
10 1 (0.038%) IAG
10 1 (0.038%) Job Entry Subsystem
10 1 (0.038%) KVM
10 1 (0.038%) Microsoft App-V
10 1 (0.038%) QEMU
10 1 (0.038%) Terminal Services
10 1 (0.038%) VMware ESXi
Systems Management
1 54 (2.03%) Kubernetes
2 37 (1.39%) vRealize
3 31 (1.17%) Terraform
4 22 (0.83%) Microsoft Intune
5 18 (0.68%) Single Sign-On
6 15 (0.56%) Ansible
7 10 (0.38%) Failover Clustering
7 10 (0.38%) PingFederate
8 7 (0.26%) Active Directory Federation Services
8 7 (0.26%) SCCM
9 6 (0.23%) Podman
10 5 (0.19%) Grafana
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%) FortiGate
12 3 (0.11%) Puppet
12 3 (0.11%) vMotion
Vendors
1 655 (24.63%) SAP
2 293 (11.02%) Microsoft
3 286 (10.76%) Oracle
4 95 (3.57%) VMware
5 78 (2.93%) ServiceNow
6 60 (2.26%) Salesforce
7 56 (2.11%) CyberArk
7 56 (2.11%) Workday
8 55 (2.07%) Ariba
9 51 (1.92%) Cisco
9 51 (1.92%) Siemens
10 42 (1.58%) Google
11 36 (1.35%) Aruba
12 35 (1.32%) Adobe
13 20 (0.75%) Databricks
14 19 (0.71%) OpenText
15 14 (0.53%) Murex
15 14 (0.53%) Sage
16 13 (0.49%) IFS
17 12 (0.45%) Dynatrace