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 6 October 2026.

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

6 months to
6 Oct 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 30 26 27
Rank change year-on-year -4 +1 +3
Contract jobs requiring a Consultant 3,240 2,350 2,579
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 5.93% 7.16% 6.85%
As % of the Job Titles category 6.44% 7.89% 7.36%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,815 1,367 1,385
10th Percentile £413 £411 £413
25th Percentile £463 £475 £469
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £550 £550 £550
75th Percentile £654 £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 66 25 24
10th Percentile £36.25 £28.32 £45.38
25th Percentile £46.50 £41.60 £60.29
Median hourly rate £74.50 £77.50 £62.30
Median % change year-on-year -3.87% +24.40% -6.84%
75th Percentile £85.85 £81.25 £70.89
90th Percentile £91.88 £86.75 £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 50,334 29,798 35,032
% of contract IT jobs with a recognized job title 92.11% 90.81% 92.99%
Number of daily rates quoted 29,572 18,806 21,176
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 £638 £620 £638
90th Percentile £738 £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 4,026 1,619 1,521
10th Percentile £14.45 £13.75 £14.85
25th Percentile £19.76 £17.30 £20.50
Median hourly rate £41.74 £25.15 £42.50
Median % change year-on-year +65.94% -40.82% -4.49%
75th Percentile £67.50 £50.38 £65.00
90th Percentile £78.75 £68.00 £74.75
UK excluding London median hourly rate £41.74 £25.08 £43.00
% change year-on-year +66.44% -41.69% -2.16%

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 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 6 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 6 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 2,595 £550 -2.22% 3,834
UK excluding London -11 1,340 £550 - 2,062
London -5 1,268 £550 -4.35% 1,978
Work from Home -5 1,060 £550 - 1,922
South East -5 378 £540 -1.82% 565
North of England -21 338 £575 -4.17% 506
North West -14 223 £585 -5.84% 280
Midlands -8 222 £500 -13.04% 270
South West +12 191 £581 +1.09% 242
West Midlands -4 159 £500 -13.04% 188
Scotland +18 119 £475 -5.00% 189
East of England -17 105 £552 +0.36% 183
Yorkshire -21 88 £575 +21.05% 110
East Midlands -4 57 £525 -9.09% 82
North East -18 26 £750 +36.36% 116
Wales -29 15 £575 +29.58% 46
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 6 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.

1 701 (21.64%) Security Cleared
2 635 (19.60%) SAP
3 604 (18.64%) Stakeholder Management
4 477 (14.72%) Microsoft
5 475 (14.66%) SC Cleared
6 443 (13.67%) Migration
7 392 (12.10%) Oracle
8 318 (9.81%) Azure
9 300 (9.26%) User Acceptance Testing
10 295 (9.10%) Stakeholder Engagement
11 286 (8.83%) SAP S/4HANA
12 273 (8.43%) Problem-Solving
13 260 (8.02%) Validation
14 253 (7.81%) Cybersecurity
15 250 (7.72%) Workshop Facilitation
16 227 (7.01%) ERP
17 225 (6.94%) Analytics
18 211 (6.51%) SQL
19 201 (6.20%) Data Migration
20 198 (6.11%) Roadmaps
21 193 (5.96%) Continuous Improvement
21 193 (5.96%) Requirements Gathering
22 183 (5.65%) Agile
23 172 (5.31%) AWS
24 171 (5.28%) AI
25 164 (5.06%) Knowledge Transfer
26 159 (4.91%) Power Platform
27 151 (4.66%) Business Intelligence
28 147 (4.54%) Dynamics 365
29 146 (4.51%) 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 73 (2.25%) SharePoint
2 45 (1.39%) Confluence
3 32 (0.99%) Microsoft Exchange
4 8 (0.25%) SAS
4 8 (0.25%) WebSphere
5 7 (0.22%) Oracle Workflow
5 7 (0.22%) 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 (0.093%) Adobe Experience Manager
8 3 (0.093%) IIS
8 3 (0.093%) NetWeaver
8 3 (0.093%) OpenStack
8 3 (0.093%) Oracle SOA Suite
8 3 (0.093%) TIBCO ActiveMatrix
9 2 (0.062%) SAP Portal
9 2 (0.062%) WordPress
Applications
1 51 (1.57%) Microsoft Excel
2 33 (1.02%) Microsoft Office
3 29 (0.90%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 10 (0.31%) MS Visio
5 7 (0.22%) Spreadsheet
6 4 (0.12%) Microsoft Project
7 2 (0.062%) 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
1 286 (8.83%) SAP S/4HANA
2 84 (2.59%) Oracle EBS
3 78 (2.41%) SAP FI
4 57 (1.76%) SAP Payroll
5 50 (1.54%) SAP PSCD
6 46 (1.42%) Oracle ERP
7 44 (1.36%) SAP CO
8 43 (1.33%) Oracle Payables
9 42 (1.30%) Oracle General Ledger
9 42 (1.30%) Oracle Receivables
10 41 (1.27%) SAP HCM
11 40 (1.23%) Workday HCM
12 37 (1.14%) Dynamics CRM
12 37 (1.14%) SAP HR
13 35 (1.08%) SAP FI/CO
14 34 (1.05%) SAP BRIM
15 33 (1.02%) SAP SD
16 28 (0.86%) NetSuite
17 27 (0.83%) SAP MM
18 26 (0.80%) SAP FI-CA
Cloud Services
1 318 (9.81%) Azure
2 172 (5.31%) AWS
3 159 (4.91%) Power Platform
4 147 (4.54%) Dynamics 365
5 110 (3.40%) OCI
6 102 (3.15%) SuccessFactors
7 97 (2.99%) GCP
8 94 (2.90%) Microsoft 365
9 74 (2.28%) Entra ID
10 66 (2.04%) Azure DevOps
11 61 (1.88%) Power Automate
12 56 (1.73%) Microsoft Copilot
13 49 (1.51%) SaaS
14 34 (1.05%) PowerApps
15 30 (0.93%) Microsoft Purview
16 25 (0.77%) GitHub
17 21 (0.65%) Snowflake
18 18 (0.56%) Azure AI
19 16 (0.49%) SAP Commerce Cloud
20 15 (0.46%) Azure Monitor
Communications & Networking
1 71 (2.19%) Firewall
2 68 (2.10%) Network Security
3 34 (1.05%) BGP
3 34 (1.05%) WAN
4 26 (0.80%) VPN
5 20 (0.62%) DNS
6 15 (0.46%) LAN
6 15 (0.46%) SNMP
7 14 (0.43%) Ethernet VPN
7 14 (0.43%) TCP/IP
8 12 (0.37%) SAN
8 12 (0.37%) VXLAN
9 11 (0.34%) IPsec
9 11 (0.34%) MPLS
9 11 (0.34%) NGFW
10 10 (0.31%) 3GPP
10 10 (0.31%) 5G
10 10 (0.31%) Radio Access Network
11 9 (0.28%) FTP
11 9 (0.28%) SD-WAN
Database & Business Intelligence
1 95 (2.93%) Power BI
2 42 (1.30%) Oracle Reports
3 38 (1.17%) Oracle BI Publisher
4 35 (1.08%) Data Warehouse
4 35 (1.08%) SAP HANA
5 34 (1.05%) SAP BW
6 30 (0.93%) 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%) BigQuery
12 10 (0.31%) Relational Database
13 9 (0.28%) DynamoDB
13 9 (0.28%) SAP Data Services
14 8 (0.25%) Amazon RDS
15 7 (0.22%) Data Lake
15 7 (0.22%) Looker
Development Applications
1 95 (2.93%) JIRA
2 32 (0.99%) Git
3 19 (0.59%) Jenkins
4 14 (0.43%) GitLab
5 10 (0.31%) Oracle Forms
6 8 (0.25%) SonarQube
7 7 (0.22%) PowerBuilder
7 7 (0.22%) Zephyr
8 6 (0.19%) Sonatype Nexus
9 5 (0.15%) Cypress.io
9 5 (0.15%) Hudson
10 4 (0.12%) Maven
11 3 (0.093%) Browser DevTools
11 3 (0.093%) JDeveloper
11 3 (0.093%) JMeter
11 3 (0.093%) MLflow
11 3 (0.093%) Postman
11 3 (0.093%) Snyk
11 3 (0.093%) TestRail
11 3 (0.093%) Toad
General
1 740 (22.84%) Social Skills
2 732 (22.59%) Finance
3 269 (8.30%) Public Sector
4 244 (7.53%) Analytical Skills
5 133 (4.10%) Manufacturing
6 98 (3.02%) Banking
7 93 (2.87%) Legal
8 91 (2.81%) Billing
9 84 (2.59%) Documentation Skills
10 69 (2.13%) Telecoms
11 62 (1.91%) General Ledger
12 59 (1.82%) Retail
13 56 (1.73%) Presentation Skills
14 46 (1.42%) Marketing
15 41 (1.27%) Influencing Skills
16 38 (1.17%) Inclusion and Diversity
17 36 (1.11%) Pharmaceutical
18 32 (0.99%) Local Government
19 24 (0.74%) Law
20 20 (0.62%) Aerospace
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 131 (4.04%) Oracle Fusion
2 72 (2.22%) REST
3 63 (1.94%) Terraform
4 46 (1.42%) 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 (0.68%) JSON
8 22 (0.68%) OAuth
9 19 (0.59%) LDAP
10 18 (0.56%) 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%) SAP Basis
13 13 (0.40%) EDI
13 13 (0.40%) XSLT
Miscellaneous
1 136 (4.20%) Onboarding
2 53 (1.64%) CMDB
3 52 (1.60%) Data Structures
4 51 (1.57%) Operational Technology
5 47 (1.45%) Data Centre
6 41 (1.27%) Enterprise Software
7 38 (1.17%) Product Ownership
8 35 (1.08%) Security Posture
9 34 (1.05%) Data Protection Act
10 30 (0.93%) Cloud Native
11 29 (0.90%) Replication
12 28 (0.86%) AI Agents
12 28 (0.86%) Legacy Systems
13 23 (0.71%) Public Cloud
14 22 (0.68%) Greenfield Project
14 22 (0.68%) Life Science
15 20 (0.62%) Management Information System
16 18 (0.56%) Hybrid Cloud
17 17 (0.52%) NHS
18 16 (0.49%) PKI
Operating Systems
1 95 (2.93%) Windows
2 73 (2.25%) Linux
3 29 (0.90%) Unix
4 27 (0.83%) Windows Server
5 19 (0.59%) Solaris
6 13 (0.40%) VMS
7 9 (0.28%) AIX
8 8 (0.25%) Windows 10
9 7 (0.22%) Android
9 7 (0.22%) Apple iOS
10 6 (0.19%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
10 6 (0.19%) Windows Server 2016
11 1 (0.031%) Data ONTAP
11 1 (0.031%) Kali Linux
11 1 (0.031%) Mac OS
11 1 (0.031%) OpenVMS
11 1 (0.031%) SUSE
11 1 (0.031%) Windows Server 2012
11 1 (0.031%) zOS
Processes & Methodologies
1 604 (18.64%) Stakeholder Management
2 443 (13.67%) Migration
3 300 (9.26%) User Acceptance Testing
4 295 (9.10%) Stakeholder Engagement
5 273 (8.43%) Problem-Solving
6 260 (8.02%) Validation
7 253 (7.81%) Cybersecurity
8 250 (7.72%) Workshop Facilitation
9 227 (7.01%) ERP
10 225 (6.94%) Analytics
11 201 (6.20%) Data Migration
12 198 (6.11%) Roadmaps
13 193 (5.96%) Continuous Improvement
13 193 (5.96%) Requirements Gathering
14 183 (5.65%) Agile
15 171 (5.28%) AI
16 164 (5.06%) Knowledge Transfer
17 151 (4.66%) Business Intelligence
18 142 (4.38%) Translating Business Requirements
19 138 (4.26%) Project Delivery
Programming Languages
1 211 (6.51%) SQL
2 100 (3.09%) Python
3 66 (2.04%) ABAP
4 51 (1.57%) PowerShell
5 41 (1.27%) JavaScript
6 31 (0.96%) Java
7 29 (0.90%) PL/SQL
8 24 (0.74%) Bash
9 16 (0.49%) Data Analysis Expressions
10 15 (0.46%) C#
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 (0.22%) Search Processing Language
15 6 (0.19%) Korn
16 5 (0.15%) R
17 4 (0.12%) Bicep
17 4 (0.12%) Perl
Qualifications
1 701 (21.64%) Security Cleared
2 475 (14.66%) SC Cleared
3 146 (4.51%) DV Cleared
4 107 (3.30%) BPSS Clearance
5 78 (2.41%) Degree
6 68 (2.10%) CISSP
7 54 (1.67%) CISM
8 41 (1.27%) Cisco Certification
9 29 (0.90%) (ISC)2 CCSP
10 25 (0.77%) CCSP
11 18 (0.56%) 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
1 120 (3.70%) Data Quality
2 101 (3.12%) NIST
3 80 (2.47%) GRC
4 79 (2.44%) ISO/IEC 27001
5 61 (1.88%) QA
6 47 (1.45%) NCSC
7 38 (1.17%) GDPR
8 34 (1.05%) SLA
9 28 (0.86%) PMO
10 22 (0.68%) Actionable Recommendations
11 19 (0.59%) Accessibility
11 19 (0.59%) PCI DSS
12 18 (0.56%) Cyber Essentials
13 13 (0.40%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
14 11 (0.34%) NIST 800
14 11 (0.34%) Sarbanes-Oxley
15 9 (0.28%) GxP
15 9 (0.28%) IFRS
16 8 (0.25%) SOC 2
16 8 (0.25%) WCAG
System Software
1 88 (2.72%) Active Directory
2 35 (1.08%) VMware Infrastructure
3 28 (0.86%) VMware NSX
4 18 (0.56%) 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 8 (0.25%) Virtual Desktop
10 7 (0.22%) Firmware
11 2 (0.062%) BitLocker
11 2 (0.062%) Embedded Firmware
11 2 (0.062%) PowerHA
12 1 (0.031%) HDFS
12 1 (0.031%) oVirt
12 1 (0.031%) ProxySG
12 1 (0.031%) RHEV
12 1 (0.031%) SRDF
12 1 (0.031%) Time Sharing Option
Systems Management
1 49 (1.51%) Kubernetes
2 37 (1.14%) Ansible
3 25 (0.77%) 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 6 (0.19%) Nagios
10 6 (0.19%) VxRail
10 6 (0.19%) 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 (0.093%) Argo
Vendors
1 635 (19.60%) SAP
2 477 (14.72%) Microsoft
3 392 (12.10%) Oracle
4 134 (4.14%) ServiceNow
5 85 (2.62%) Workday
6 67 (2.07%) VMware
7 48 (1.48%) Salesforce
8 47 (1.45%) Ariba
9 40 (1.23%) Databricks
10 37 (1.14%) Palo Alto
11 34 (1.05%) Splunk
12 31 (0.96%) CyberArk
13 30 (0.93%) Google
14 29 (0.90%) Cisco
15 24 (0.74%) OpenText
16 22 (0.68%) BMC
17 21 (0.65%) IBM
18 19 (0.59%) Zscaler
19 18 (0.56%) Adobe
19 18 (0.56%) Dell