Consultant Contract Job Trends

Consultant
UK

The median Consultant daily rate in the UK is £548, according to job vacancies posted in the 6 months leading up to 26 June 2026.

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

6 months to
26 Jun 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 28 27 24
Rank change year-on-year -1 -3 +10
Contract jobs requiring a Consultant 2,959 1,961 2,883
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 5.82% 6.48% 6.63%
As % of the Job Titles category 6.29% 7.03% 7.14%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,652 1,145 1,734
10th Percentile £400 £406 £400
25th Percentile £461 £472 £463
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £548 £550 £550
Median % change year-on-year -0.45% - -
75th Percentile £638 £649 £650
90th Percentile £731 £738 £750
UK excluding London median daily rate £525 £538 £550
% change year-on-year -2.33% -2.27% +2.33%
Number of hourly rates quoted 95 26 29
10th Percentile £36.25 £28.52 £27.25
25th Percentile £56.25 £42.26 £52.90
Median hourly rate £57.50 £70.00 £61.60
Median % change year-on-year -17.86% +13.64% -6.67%
75th Percentile £60.00 £86.00 £65.03
90th Percentile £85.70 £87.38 £75.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £57.50 £70.00 £59.95
% change year-on-year -17.86% +16.76% -7.54%

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 47,008 27,876 40,382
% of contract IT jobs with a recognized job title 92.38% 92.16% 92.92%
Number of daily rates quoted 28,552 17,889 25,942
10th Percentile £325 £288 £281
25th Percentile £415 £402 £410
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £520 £500 £525
Median % change year-on-year +4.00% -4.76% -2.33%
75th Percentile £625 £625 £638
90th Percentile £725 £738 £750
UK excluding London median daily rate £500 £475 £493
% change year-on-year +5.26% -3.65% -1.40%
Number of hourly rates quoted 3,155 1,223 2,887
10th Percentile £15.38 £13.76 £12.86
25th Percentile £21.08 £17.31 £16.58
Median hourly rate £43.61 £26.45 £37.50
Median % change year-on-year +64.86% -29.47% -12.79%
75th Percentile £67.50 £55.37 £62.50
90th Percentile £80.00 £73.65 £74.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £45.00 £25.15 £40.00
% change year-on-year +78.93% -37.13% -

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 26 June 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 26 June 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 26 June 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 -4 2,364 £550 - 872
UK excluding London +2 1,263 £525 -2.33% 627
London -1 1,086 £550 -4.35% 399
Work from Home -1 1,060 £538 -2.27% 401
South East -1 345 £525 -3.38% 200
North of England -15 271 £550 +2.33% 165
Midlands -12 245 £525 -4.55% 73
South West +28 209 £553 +0.55% 77
West Midlands +5 169 £525 -4.55% 53
North West -14 145 £550 -4.35% 106
Yorkshire -6 104 £544 +14.47% 42
East of England -4 88 £550 +7.42% 57
Scotland +26 83 £425 -10.53% 23
East Midlands -7 67 £500 -9.09% 18
Wales -1 30 £550 +31.34% 16
North East -32 22 £650 +20.37% 18
Northern Ireland -3 3 £600 +15.38% 27

Consultant Skill Set
Top 30 Co-Occurring Skills & Capabilities

For the 6 months to 26 June 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.

1 616 (20.82%) SAP
2 547 (18.49%) Security Cleared
3 406 (13.72%) SC Cleared
4 391 (13.21%) Migration
5 348 (11.76%) Microsoft
6 334 (11.29%) Oracle
7 330 (11.15%) Azure
8 294 (9.94%) Stakeholder Management
9 273 (9.23%) SAP S/4HANA
10 270 (9.12%) Stakeholder Engagement
11 255 (8.62%) Problem-Solving
12 251 (8.48%) ERP
13 236 (7.98%) SQL
14 212 (7.16%) User Acceptance Testing
15 200 (6.76%) Validation
16 199 (6.73%) Continuous Improvement
17 198 (6.69%) Workshop Facilitation
18 176 (5.95%) Data Migration
19 169 (5.71%) Analytics
20 162 (5.47%) Agile
21 160 (5.41%) Cybersecurity
22 155 (5.24%) AI
23 153 (5.17%) Roadmaps
24 144 (4.87%) Power Platform
25 143 (4.83%) AWS
26 136 (4.60%) Business Intelligence
26 136 (4.60%) Dynamics 365
27 129 (4.36%) Change Management
28 125 (4.22%) Python
29 118 (3.99%) Requirements Gathering

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 76 (2.57%) SharePoint
2 46 (1.55%) Confluence
3 14 (0.47%) Oracle Workflow
4 13 (0.44%) Microsoft Exchange
5 8 (0.27%) WebSphere
6 7 (0.24%) WebLogic
7 6 (0.20%) Apache Spark
8 4 (0.14%) ArcGIS
8 4 (0.14%) Jupyter
8 4 (0.14%) SAS
9 3 (0.10%) Apache
9 3 (0.10%) Apache Superset
9 3 (0.10%) Palantir Foundry
10 2 (0.068%) Apache Airflow
10 2 (0.068%) Cloud Foundry
10 2 (0.068%) IIS
10 2 (0.068%) NetWeaver
10 2 (0.068%) Tomcat
10 2 (0.068%) WordPress
11 1 (0.034%) Adobe Experience Manager
Applications
1 77 (2.60%) Microsoft Excel
2 23 (0.78%) Microsoft Office
2 23 (0.78%) Microsoft PowerPoint
3 8 (0.27%) Spreadsheet
4 6 (0.20%) MS Visio
5 5 (0.17%) PTC Creo
6 4 (0.14%) Chatbot
7 3 (0.10%) Microsoft Project
8 2 (0.068%) Lectora
8 2 (0.068%) Oracle Smart View
9 1 (0.034%) CATIA
9 1 (0.034%) CPLEX
9 1 (0.034%) Siemens NX
Business Applications
1 273 (9.23%) SAP S/4HANA
2 78 (2.64%) Oracle EBS
3 56 (1.89%) SAP FI
4 50 (1.69%) SAP PSCD
5 41 (1.39%) Oracle Payables
6 37 (1.25%) SAP MM
7 36 (1.22%) SAP BRIM
8 32 (1.08%) Oracle Receivables
9 30 (1.01%) SAP SD
10 29 (0.98%) SAP EWM
10 29 (0.98%) SAP FI-CA
11 28 (0.95%) Dynamics CRM
11 28 (0.95%) Oracle ERP
12 26 (0.88%) Oracle EBS R12
12 26 (0.88%) SAP CO
12 26 (0.88%) Teamcenter
13 25 (0.84%) SAP PP
14 24 (0.81%) NetSuite
14 24 (0.81%) SAP FI/CO
15 23 (0.78%) SAP Travel Management
Cloud Services
1 330 (11.15%) Azure
2 144 (4.87%) Power Platform
3 143 (4.83%) AWS
4 136 (4.60%) Dynamics 365
5 93 (3.14%) Microsoft 365
6 90 (3.04%) OCI
7 79 (2.67%) GCP
8 74 (2.50%) SuccessFactors
9 67 (2.26%) Power Automate
10 52 (1.76%) Entra ID
10 52 (1.76%) SaaS
11 45 (1.52%) Azure DevOps
12 44 (1.49%) Microsoft Copilot
13 34 (1.15%) GitHub
14 32 (1.08%) Microsoft Purview
14 32 (1.08%) PowerApps
15 22 (0.74%) Copilot Studio
16 17 (0.57%) Serverless
17 15 (0.51%) Azure Logic Apps
17 15 (0.51%) OneDrive
Communications & Networking
1 49 (1.66%) Firewall
2 43 (1.45%) Network Security
3 21 (0.71%) SNMP
4 20 (0.68%) WAN
5 15 (0.51%) DNS
6 14 (0.47%) BGP
6 14 (0.47%) LAN
7 13 (0.44%) SAN
8 11 (0.37%) VPN
8 11 (0.37%) VSAN
9 10 (0.34%) SMS
10 9 (0.30%) FTP
11 8 (0.27%) NAS
11 8 (0.27%) Software-Defined Networking
12 7 (0.24%) NGFW
12 7 (0.24%) SD-WAN
13 6 (0.20%) Ethernet VPN
13 6 (0.20%) HTTP
13 6 (0.20%) IPsec
13 6 (0.20%) VXLAN
Database & Business Intelligence
1 85 (2.87%) Power BI
2 51 (1.72%) Oracle Reports
3 35 (1.18%) SAP HANA
4 34 (1.15%) Tableau
5 27 (0.91%) Metadata
6 26 (0.88%) SQL Server
7 22 (0.74%) Oracle BI Publisher
7 22 (0.74%) SAP BW
8 18 (0.61%) Oracle ODI
9 16 (0.54%) BusinessObjects
9 16 (0.54%) Data Warehouse
10 12 (0.41%) SAP Data Services
11 10 (0.34%) Power Query
12 9 (0.30%) Oracle Database
13 7 (0.24%) NoSQL
14 6 (0.20%) SQL Server Reporting Services
15 5 (0.17%) Crystal Reports
15 5 (0.17%) GIS
15 5 (0.17%) Hadoop
15 5 (0.17%) NonStop SQL
Development Applications
1 88 (2.97%) JIRA
2 19 (0.64%) Oracle Forms
3 17 (0.57%) Hudson
4 13 (0.44%) Git
4 13 (0.44%) Jenkins
5 9 (0.30%) GitLab
6 7 (0.24%) Sonatype Nexus
7 5 (0.17%) Postman
7 5 (0.17%) SonarQube
8 4 (0.14%) Cypress.io
8 4 (0.14%) Toad
8 4 (0.14%) Zephyr
9 3 (0.10%) Browser DevTools
9 3 (0.10%) JDeveloper
9 3 (0.10%) Selenium
9 3 (0.10%) TestRail
9 3 (0.10%) Visual Studio Code
10 2 (0.068%) git-flow
10 2 (0.068%) MLflow
10 2 (0.068%) Snyk
General
1 638 (21.56%) Finance
2 629 (21.26%) Social Skills
3 247 (8.35%) Analytical Skills
4 215 (7.27%) Public Sector
5 95 (3.21%) Manufacturing
6 91 (3.08%) Banking
7 79 (2.67%) Legal
8 75 (2.53%) Billing
9 62 (2.10%) Telecoms
10 56 (1.89%) General Ledger
11 51 (1.72%) Marketing
12 48 (1.62%) Documentation Skills
13 39 (1.32%) Retail
14 38 (1.28%) Inclusion and Diversity
14 38 (1.28%) Pharmaceutical
15 37 (1.25%) Presentation Skills
16 27 (0.91%) Organisational Skills
17 22 (0.74%) Influencing Skills
18 21 (0.71%) Law
18 21 (0.71%) Local Government
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 76 (2.57%) Oracle Fusion
2 71 (2.40%) REST
3 58 (1.96%) XML
4 32 (1.08%) SAP Fiori
5 31 (1.05%) Middleware
6 28 (0.95%) Web Services
7 27 (0.91%) BAPI
8 25 (0.84%) SOAP
9 23 (0.78%) SAP TM
10 20 (0.68%) HTML
11 18 (0.61%) CSS
12 17 (0.57%) JSON
13 16 (0.54%) .NET
13 16 (0.54%) SAP Basis
14 12 (0.41%) LDAP
14 12 (0.41%) OAuth
15 11 (0.37%) IDoc
16 10 (0.34%) EDI
16 10 (0.34%) React
17 9 (0.30%) Microsoft Graph
Miscellaneous
1 79 (2.67%) Onboarding
2 45 (1.52%) Data Protection Act
3 44 (1.49%) Security Posture
4 37 (1.25%) CMDB
4 37 (1.25%) Legacy Systems
4 37 (1.25%) Product Ownership
5 32 (1.08%) AI Agents
6 26 (0.88%) Data Structures
6 26 (0.88%) Operational Technology
7 24 (0.81%) Cloud Native
7 24 (0.81%) Data Centre
7 24 (0.81%) Management Information System
8 23 (0.78%) Life Science
9 21 (0.71%) Greenfield Project
10 19 (0.64%) NHS
11 18 (0.61%) Public Cloud
12 17 (0.57%) Replication
13 15 (0.51%) Algorithms
13 15 (0.51%) Security Operations Centre
14 13 (0.44%) Enterprise Software
Operating Systems
1 91 (3.08%) Windows
2 68 (2.30%) Linux
3 21 (0.71%) Solaris
3 21 (0.71%) Unix
4 18 (0.61%) VMS
5 17 (0.57%) AIX
6 8 (0.27%) Windows Server
7 5 (0.17%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
7 5 (0.17%) zOS
8 4 (0.14%) Windows 10
9 3 (0.10%) Android
9 3 (0.10%) Apple iOS
9 3 (0.10%) Ubuntu
10 2 (0.068%) CoreOS
10 2 (0.068%) Data ONTAP
10 2 (0.068%) Mac OS
10 2 (0.068%) SUSE
11 1 (0.034%) Windows Server 2012
Processes & Methodologies
1 391 (13.21%) Migration
2 294 (9.94%) Stakeholder Management
3 270 (9.12%) Stakeholder Engagement
4 255 (8.62%) Problem-Solving
5 251 (8.48%) ERP
6 212 (7.16%) User Acceptance Testing
7 200 (6.76%) Validation
8 199 (6.73%) Continuous Improvement
9 198 (6.69%) Workshop Facilitation
10 176 (5.95%) Data Migration
11 169 (5.71%) Analytics
12 162 (5.47%) Agile
13 160 (5.41%) Cybersecurity
14 155 (5.24%) AI
15 153 (5.17%) Roadmaps
16 136 (4.60%) Business Intelligence
17 129 (4.36%) Change Management
18 118 (3.99%) Requirements Gathering
19 117 (3.95%) Translating Business Requirements
20 110 (3.72%) DevOps
Programming Languages
1 236 (7.98%) SQL
2 125 (4.22%) Python
3 66 (2.23%) JavaScript
4 58 (1.96%) PowerShell
5 51 (1.72%) PL/SQL
6 43 (1.45%) ABAP
7 35 (1.18%) Java
8 34 (1.15%) T-SQL
9 17 (0.57%) C#
10 16 (0.54%) Bash
11 13 (0.44%) Search Processing Language
12 12 (0.41%) Data Analysis Expressions
13 11 (0.37%) Kusto Query Language
13 11 (0.37%) Shell Script
14 10 (0.34%) TypeScript
15 7 (0.24%) C++
15 7 (0.24%) R
16 5 (0.17%) Korn
17 4 (0.14%) COBOL
17 4 (0.14%) Ruby
Qualifications
1 547 (18.49%) Security Cleared
2 406 (13.72%) SC Cleared
3 113 (3.82%) DV Cleared
4 88 (2.97%) BPSS Clearance
5 75 (2.53%) CISSP
6 74 (2.50%) Degree
7 55 (1.86%) CISM
8 31 (1.05%) Cisco Certification
9 27 (0.91%) (ISC)2 CCSP
10 26 (0.88%) CCSP
11 23 (0.78%) CIMA
12 17 (0.57%) PMP
13 16 (0.54%) VMware Certified Professional (VCP)
14 15 (0.51%) CEH
15 14 (0.47%) Azure Certification
16 13 (0.44%) ACCA
16 13 (0.44%) Computer Science Degree
16 13 (0.44%) ITIL Certification
17 12 (0.41%) Master's Degree
17 12 (0.41%) OSCP
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 87 (2.94%) NIST
2 76 (2.57%) ISO/IEC 27001
3 71 (2.40%) Data Quality
4 56 (1.89%) GRC
5 52 (1.76%) QA
6 37 (1.25%) GDPR
7 31 (1.05%) NCSC
8 28 (0.95%) PCI DSS
9 23 (0.78%) Actionable Recommendations
10 21 (0.71%) Accessibility
10 21 (0.71%) SLA
11 18 (0.61%) PMO
11 18 (0.61%) Sarbanes-Oxley
12 15 (0.51%) COBIT
13 13 (0.44%) GxP
14 12 (0.41%) JSP 440
15 8 (0.27%) WCAG
16 7 (0.24%) DICOM
16 7 (0.24%) GAAP
16 7 (0.24%) HL7
System Software
1 55 (1.86%) Active Directory
2 41 (1.39%) VMware Infrastructure
3 38 (1.28%) VMware NSX
4 25 (0.84%) vSphere
5 13 (0.44%) Docker
6 11 (0.37%) Virtual Machines
6 11 (0.37%) VMware ESXi
7 7 (0.24%) Hyper-V
7 7 (0.24%) IAG
8 5 (0.17%) Virtual Desktop
9 4 (0.14%) NFS
9 4 (0.14%) Slurm Workload Manager
10 2 (0.068%) BitLocker
11 1 (0.034%) HDFS
11 1 (0.034%) Job Entry Subsystem
11 1 (0.034%) Oracle RAC
11 1 (0.034%) ProxySG
11 1 (0.034%) SRDF
11 1 (0.034%) Time Sharing Option
Systems Management
1 48 (1.62%) Terraform
2 47 (1.59%) Kubernetes
3 28 (0.95%) vRealize
4 23 (0.78%) Ansible
5 15 (0.51%) Microsoft Intune
5 15 (0.51%) Nagios
5 15 (0.51%) ZABBIX
6 14 (0.47%) Netcool
6 14 (0.47%) Tivoli
7 13 (0.44%) OpenView
7 13 (0.44%) Single Sign-On
7 13 (0.44%) Tivoli Monitoring
8 11 (0.37%) Grafana
9 10 (0.34%) FortiGate
9 10 (0.34%) Prometheus
10 9 (0.30%) vCenter Server
11 8 (0.27%) SCCM
12 7 (0.24%) NetBackup
13 5 (0.17%) vRealize Orchestrator
14 4 (0.14%) Podman
Vendors
1 616 (20.82%) SAP
2 348 (11.76%) Microsoft
3 334 (11.29%) Oracle
4 110 (3.72%) ServiceNow
5 95 (3.21%) VMware
6 64 (2.16%) Ariba
7 54 (1.82%) Siemens
8 50 (1.69%) Salesforce
8 50 (1.69%) Workday
9 38 (1.28%) Databricks
9 38 (1.28%) Splunk
10 29 (0.98%) Google
11 23 (0.78%) BMC
11 23 (0.78%) IBM
12 21 (0.71%) Palo Alto
13 20 (0.68%) Adobe
14 16 (0.54%) IFS
14 16 (0.54%) JD Edwards
14 16 (0.54%) Okta
14 16 (0.54%) Sage