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 2 October 2026.

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

6 months to
2 Oct 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 30 26 27
Rank change year-on-year -4 +1 +2
Contract jobs requiring a Consultant 3,254 2,356 2,572
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 5.93% 7.11% 6.75%
As % of the Job Titles category 6.43% 7.82% 7.27%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,831 1,383 1,377
10th Percentile £413 £411 £413
25th Percentile £463 £475 £475
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £550 £550 £550
75th Percentile £650 £650 £650
90th Percentile £745 £750 £750
UK excluding London median daily rate £549 £550 £565
% change year-on-year -0.18% -2.65% +7.62%
Number of hourly rates quoted 60 24 24
10th Percentile £36.25 £28.12 £45.38
25th Percentile £44.06 £40.32 £60.29
Median hourly rate £76.00 £77.50 £62.30
Median % change year-on-year -1.94% +24.40% -4.15%
75th Percentile £86.03 £81.25 £70.89
90th Percentile £94.13 £85.45 £74.96
UK excluding London median hourly rate £76.25 £77.50 £61.60
% change year-on-year -1.61% +25.81% -3.75%

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 50,598 30,120 35,393
% of contract IT jobs with a recognized job title 92.17% 90.94% 92.95%
Number of daily rates quoted 29,800 19,028 21,472
10th Percentile £325 £278 £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 £631 £623 £638
90th Percentile £734 £725 £748
UK excluding London median daily rate £500 £475 £500
% change year-on-year +5.26% -5.00% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 3,975 1,619 1,553
10th Percentile £14.45 £13.75 £14.88
25th Percentile £19.78 £17.30 £20.75
Median hourly rate £41.74 £25.15 £43.00
Median % change year-on-year +65.94% -41.51% -3.37%
75th Percentile £67.50 £51.25 £65.00
90th Percentile £79.00 £68.31 £74.97
UK excluding London median hourly rate £41.87 £25.08 £43.00
% change year-on-year +66.97% -41.69% -1.88%

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 2 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 2 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 2 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 2,605 £550 -1.79% 3,809
UK excluding London -9 1,351 £549 -0.18% 2,012
London -3 1,267 £550 -4.35% 2,046
Work from Home -5 1,066 £550 - 1,932
South East -10 381 £533 -3.18% 533
North of England -23 333 £580 -0.04% 500
Midlands -7 227 £500 -12.09% 279
North West -15 221 £585 -5.65% 289
South West +9 191 £556 -3.30% 222
West Midlands -1 162 £500 -13.04% 203
Scotland +19 123 £453 -9.40% 177
East of England -15 107 £552 +0.36% 174
Yorkshire -19 88 £575 +21.05% 112
East Midlands -9 59 £525 -5.62% 74
North East -28 23 £750 +38.89% 100
Wales -22 17 £550 +22.22% 41
Channel Islands -4 2 £600 - 2
Northern Ireland -6 2 £544 +4.57% 104

Consultant Skill Set
Top 30 Co-Occurring Skills & Capabilities

For the 6 months to 2 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.

1 703 (21.60%) Security Cleared
2 640 (19.67%) SAP
3 605 (18.59%) Stakeholder Management
4 476 (14.63%) SC Cleared
5 474 (14.57%) Microsoft
6 446 (13.71%) Migration
7 402 (12.35%) Oracle
8 320 (9.83%) Azure
9 299 (9.19%) User Acceptance Testing
10 296 (9.10%) Stakeholder Engagement
11 279 (8.57%) SAP S/4HANA
12 270 (8.30%) Problem-Solving
13 258 (7.93%) Validation
14 250 (7.68%) Workshop Facilitation
15 248 (7.62%) Cybersecurity
16 228 (7.01%) ERP
17 221 (6.79%) Analytics
18 212 (6.52%) SQL
19 200 (6.15%) Data Migration
20 199 (6.12%) Continuous Improvement
21 197 (6.05%) Roadmaps
22 192 (5.90%) Requirements Gathering
23 188 (5.78%) Agile
24 180 (5.53%) AWS
25 171 (5.26%) AI
26 163 (5.01%) Knowledge Transfer
27 161 (4.95%) Power Platform
28 150 (4.61%) Business Intelligence
28 150 (4.61%) Dynamics 365
29 149 (4.58%) DV Cleared

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 (2.27%) SharePoint
2 45 (1.38%) Confluence
3 31 (0.95%) Microsoft Exchange
4 9 (0.28%) WebSphere
5 8 (0.25%) SAS
5 8 (0.25%) WebLogic
6 7 (0.22%) Oracle Workflow
7 4 (0.12%) Apache Airflow
7 4 (0.12%) ArcGIS
7 4 (0.12%) CMS
8 3 (0.092%) Adobe Experience Manager
8 3 (0.092%) Apache
8 3 (0.092%) Apache Spark
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%) Oracle Service Bus
9 2 (0.061%) SAP Portal
Applications
1 50 (1.54%) Microsoft Excel
2 33 (1.01%) Microsoft Office
3 30 (0.92%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 10 (0.31%) MS Visio
5 7 (0.22%) 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
1 279 (8.57%) SAP S/4HANA
2 84 (2.58%) Oracle EBS
3 78 (2.40%) SAP FI
4 54 (1.66%) SAP Payroll
5 50 (1.54%) Oracle ERP
5 50 (1.54%) SAP PSCD
6 44 (1.35%) Oracle Payables
6 44 (1.35%) SAP CO
7 42 (1.29%) Oracle Receivables
8 41 (1.26%) Oracle General Ledger
9 40 (1.23%) Workday HCM
10 38 (1.17%) SAP HCM
10 38 (1.17%) SAP HR
11 37 (1.14%) Dynamics CRM
12 35 (1.08%) SAP FI/CO
13 34 (1.04%) SAP BRIM
14 32 (0.98%) SAP SD
15 28 (0.86%) NetSuite
15 28 (0.86%) SAP MM
16 27 (0.83%) SAP PP
Cloud Services
1 320 (9.83%) Azure
2 180 (5.53%) AWS
3 161 (4.95%) Power Platform
4 150 (4.61%) Dynamics 365
5 112 (3.44%) OCI
6 104 (3.20%) SuccessFactors
7 101 (3.10%) GCP
8 93 (2.86%) Microsoft 365
9 73 (2.24%) Entra ID
10 67 (2.06%) Azure DevOps
10 67 (2.06%) Power Automate
11 58 (1.78%) Microsoft Copilot
12 49 (1.51%) SaaS
13 35 (1.08%) PowerApps
14 30 (0.92%) Microsoft Purview
15 25 (0.77%) GitHub
16 20 (0.61%) Snowflake
17 19 (0.58%) Azure AI
18 17 (0.52%) Copilot Studio
19 16 (0.49%) SAP Commerce Cloud
Communications & Networking
1 72 (2.21%) Firewall
2 69 (2.12%) Network Security
3 34 (1.04%) BGP
3 34 (1.04%) WAN
4 26 (0.80%) VPN
5 20 (0.61%) DNS
6 17 (0.52%) SNMP
7 15 (0.46%) LAN
8 14 (0.43%) Ethernet VPN
8 14 (0.43%) TCP/IP
9 12 (0.37%) SAN
9 12 (0.37%) VXLAN
10 11 (0.34%) IPsec
10 11 (0.34%) MPLS
10 11 (0.34%) NGFW
11 10 (0.31%) 3GPP
11 10 (0.31%) 5G
11 10 (0.31%) Radio Access Network
12 9 (0.28%) FTP
12 9 (0.28%) SD-WAN
Database & Business Intelligence
1 95 (2.92%) Power BI
2 44 (1.35%) Oracle Reports
3 39 (1.20%) Oracle BI Publisher
4 35 (1.08%) SAP HANA
5 34 (1.04%) Data Warehouse
5 34 (1.04%) SAP BW
6 31 (0.95%) SQL Server
7 26 (0.80%) Metadata
7 26 (0.80%) Tableau
8 23 (0.71%) BusinessObjects
9 17 (0.52%) Oracle Database
10 16 (0.49%) Power Query
11 11 (0.34%) Elasticsearch
12 10 (0.31%) Relational Database
13 9 (0.28%) BigQuery
13 9 (0.28%) DynamoDB
13 9 (0.28%) SAP Data Services
14 7 (0.22%) Amazon RDS
14 7 (0.22%) Looker
14 7 (0.22%) Oracle ODI
Development Applications
1 94 (2.89%) JIRA
2 31 (0.95%) Git
3 19 (0.58%) Jenkins
4 13 (0.40%) GitLab
5 11 (0.34%) Oracle Forms
6 8 (0.25%) SonarQube
7 7 (0.22%) PowerBuilder
7 7 (0.22%) 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%) 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%) TestRail
11 3 (0.092%) Toad
General
1 741 (22.77%) Social Skills
2 739 (22.71%) Finance
3 269 (8.27%) Public Sector
4 241 (7.41%) Analytical Skills
5 129 (3.96%) Manufacturing
6 98 (3.01%) Banking
7 93 (2.86%) Legal
8 89 (2.74%) Billing
9 82 (2.52%) Documentation Skills
10 71 (2.18%) Telecoms
11 61 (1.87%) General Ledger
12 60 (1.84%) Retail
13 56 (1.72%) Presentation Skills
14 47 (1.44%) Marketing
15 42 (1.29%) Influencing Skills
16 38 (1.17%) Inclusion and Diversity
17 36 (1.11%) Pharmaceutical
18 29 (0.89%) Local Government
19 24 (0.74%) Law
20 20 (0.61%) Aerospace
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 131 (4.03%) Oracle Fusion
2 76 (2.34%) REST
3 64 (1.97%) Terraform
4 46 (1.41%) SAP Fiori
5 40 (1.23%) Middleware
5 40 (1.23%) Web Services
5 40 (1.23%) XML
6 39 (1.20%) SOAP
7 27 (0.83%) SailPoint
8 23 (0.71%) OAuth
9 22 (0.68%) JSON
10 21 (0.65%) LDAP
11 18 (0.55%) SAP PI
12 17 (0.52%) HTML
13 16 (0.49%) BAPI
14 15 (0.46%) CSS
15 14 (0.43%) ADO
15 14 (0.43%) SAP Basis
16 13 (0.40%) EDI
16 13 (0.40%) XSLT
Miscellaneous
1 136 (4.18%) Onboarding
2 53 (1.63%) CMDB
3 52 (1.60%) Operational Technology
4 50 (1.54%) Data Structures
5 47 (1.44%) Data Centre
6 41 (1.26%) Enterprise Software
7 39 (1.20%) Product Ownership
7 39 (1.20%) Security Posture
8 37 (1.14%) Data Protection Act
9 31 (0.95%) Cloud Native
10 29 (0.89%) AI Agents
10 29 (0.89%) Legacy Systems
10 29 (0.89%) Replication
11 22 (0.68%) Greenfield Project
11 22 (0.68%) Public Cloud
12 21 (0.65%) Life Science
13 19 (0.58%) Management Information System
14 18 (0.55%) Hybrid Cloud
15 16 (0.49%) NHS
15 16 (0.49%) PKI
Operating Systems
1 98 (3.01%) Windows
2 76 (2.34%) Linux
3 31 (0.95%) Unix
4 27 (0.83%) Windows Server
5 19 (0.58%) Solaris
6 14 (0.43%) VMS
7 11 (0.34%) AIX
8 7 (0.22%) Android
8 7 (0.22%) Windows 10
9 6 (0.18%) 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
1 605 (18.59%) Stakeholder Management
2 446 (13.71%) Migration
3 299 (9.19%) User Acceptance Testing
4 296 (9.10%) Stakeholder Engagement
5 270 (8.30%) Problem-Solving
6 258 (7.93%) Validation
7 250 (7.68%) Workshop Facilitation
8 248 (7.62%) Cybersecurity
9 228 (7.01%) ERP
10 221 (6.79%) Analytics
11 200 (6.15%) Data Migration
12 199 (6.12%) Continuous Improvement
13 197 (6.05%) Roadmaps
14 192 (5.90%) Requirements Gathering
15 188 (5.78%) Agile
16 171 (5.26%) AI
17 163 (5.01%) Knowledge Transfer
18 150 (4.61%) Business Intelligence
19 142 (4.36%) Translating Business Requirements
20 136 (4.18%) Project Delivery
Programming Languages
1 212 (6.52%) SQL
2 101 (3.10%) Python
3 64 (1.97%) ABAP
4 49 (1.51%) PowerShell
5 43 (1.32%) JavaScript
6 32 (0.98%) Java
7 31 (0.95%) PL/SQL
8 23 (0.71%) Bash
9 15 (0.46%) C#
9 15 (0.46%) Data Analysis Expressions
10 13 (0.40%) Kusto Query Language
11 10 (0.31%) T-SQL
12 9 (0.28%) Search Processing Language
12 9 (0.28%) TypeScript
13 8 (0.25%) Groovy
13 8 (0.25%) Shell Script
14 6 (0.18%) Korn
15 5 (0.15%) R
16 4 (0.12%) Bicep
16 4 (0.12%) Perl
Qualifications
1 703 (21.60%) Security Cleared
2 476 (14.63%) SC Cleared
3 149 (4.58%) DV Cleared
4 109 (3.35%) BPSS Clearance
5 80 (2.46%) Degree
6 73 (2.24%) CISSP
7 57 (1.75%) CISM
8 43 (1.32%) Cisco Certification
9 31 (0.95%) (ISC)2 CCSP
10 27 (0.83%) CCSP
11 18 (0.55%) ACCA
12 17 (0.52%) CRISC
13 16 (0.49%) AWS Certification
14 15 (0.46%) CIMA
15 12 (0.37%) CompTIA Security+
15 12 (0.37%) PMP
16 11 (0.34%) CISA
16 11 (0.34%) Computer Science Degree
17 10 (0.31%) CCIE
17 10 (0.31%) ISO 27001 Lead Auditor
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 115 (3.53%) Data Quality
2 101 (3.10%) NIST
3 81 (2.49%) GRC
4 76 (2.34%) ISO/IEC 27001
5 60 (1.84%) QA
6 47 (1.44%) NCSC
7 36 (1.11%) GDPR
8 34 (1.04%) SLA
9 28 (0.86%) PMO
10 22 (0.68%) Actionable Recommendations
11 19 (0.58%) Accessibility
12 18 (0.55%) Cyber Essentials
13 16 (0.49%) PCI DSS
14 13 (0.40%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
14 13 (0.40%) Sarbanes-Oxley
15 11 (0.34%) NIST 800
16 9 (0.28%) GxP
16 9 (0.28%) IFRS
17 8 (0.25%) SOC 2
17 8 (0.25%) WCAG
System Software
1 89 (2.74%) Active Directory
2 36 (1.11%) VMware Infrastructure
3 30 (0.92%) 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
9 7 (0.22%) Virtual Desktop
10 5 (0.15%) Firmware
11 2 (0.061%) BitLocker
11 2 (0.061%) PowerHA
12 1 (0.031%) HDFS
12 1 (0.031%) NFS
12 1 (0.031%) Oracle RAC
12 1 (0.031%) oVirt
12 1 (0.031%) RHEV
12 1 (0.031%) SRDF
12 1 (0.031%) Time Sharing Option
Systems Management
1 50 (1.54%) Kubernetes
2 36 (1.11%) Ansible
3 24 (0.74%) Microsoft Intune
4 21 (0.65%) 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 8 (0.25%) Nagios
10 8 (0.25%) ZABBIX
11 6 (0.18%) Netcool
11 6 (0.18%) Tivoli
11 6 (0.18%) VxRail
12 5 (0.15%) OpenView
12 5 (0.15%) Tivoli Monitoring
13 4 (0.12%) CEMLI
13 4 (0.12%) logstash
13 4 (0.12%) vRealize Orchestrator
Vendors
1 640 (19.67%) SAP
2 474 (14.57%) Microsoft
3 402 (12.35%) Oracle
4 137 (4.21%) ServiceNow
5 85 (2.61%) Workday
6 69 (2.12%) VMware
7 51 (1.57%) Ariba
8 49 (1.51%) Salesforce
9 38 (1.17%) Databricks
10 37 (1.14%) Palo Alto
11 36 (1.11%) Splunk
12 31 (0.95%) CyberArk
13 29 (0.89%) Cisco
13 29 (0.89%) Google
14 25 (0.77%) OpenText
15 24 (0.74%) BMC
16 23 (0.71%) IBM
17 19 (0.58%) Zscaler
18 18 (0.55%) Adobe
18 18 (0.55%) Dell