Consultant Contract Job Trends

Consultant
UK

The median Consultant daily rate in the UK is £538, according to job vacancies posted in the 6 months leading up to 23 April 2026.

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

6 months to
23 Apr 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 28 28 24
Rank change year-on-year 0 -4 +16
Contract jobs requiring a Consultant 2,824 1,949 2,744
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 6.08% 6.60% 6.28%
As % of the Job Titles category 6.59% 7.12% 6.77%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,581 1,136 1,710
10th Percentile £383 £413 £400
25th Percentile £450 £488 £463
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £538 £550 £550
Median % change year-on-year -2.27% - -
75th Percentile £630 £638 £650
90th Percentile £716 £725 £750
UK excluding London median daily rate £525 £545 £550
% change year-on-year -3.67% -0.91% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 78 17 28
10th Percentile £51.00 £57.45 £27.13
25th Percentile £56.25 £70.00 £48.13
Median hourly rate £57.50 £82.50 £60.80
Median % change year-on-year -30.30% +35.69% -7.88%
75th Percentile £60.00 £86.00 £63.07
90th Percentile £78.25 £87.50 £71.50
UK excluding London median hourly rate £57.50 £84.25 £56.89
% change year-on-year -31.75% +48.11% -13.81%

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 42,836 27,359 40,556
% of contract IT jobs with a recognized job title 92.28% 92.64% 92.76%
Number of daily rates quoted 26,486 17,911 26,489
10th Percentile £313 £300 £275
25th Percentile £413 £406 £409
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £515 £525
Median % change year-on-year -2.91% -1.90% -2.78%
75th Percentile £613 £625 £638
90th Percentile £725 £738 £750
UK excluding London median daily rate £488 £475 £490
% change year-on-year +2.63% -3.06% -2.00%
Number of hourly rates quoted 2,746 1,013 2,627
10th Percentile £15.00 £14.44 £12.86
25th Percentile £20.35 £18.51 £16.25
Median hourly rate £42.50 £30.00 £35.00
Median % change year-on-year +41.67% -14.29% -22.22%
75th Percentile £65.60 £63.00 £60.00
90th Percentile £77.75 £75.00 £72.50
UK excluding London median hourly rate £44.00 £28.88 £37.18
% change year-on-year +52.38% -22.34% -12.52%

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 23 April 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 23 April 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 23 April 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 0 2,222 £538 -2.27% 1,026
UK excluding London +2 1,146 £525 -3.67% 759
London -2 1,043 £550 -4.35% 448
Work from Home 0 983 £539 -2.05% 446
South East 0 341 £540 -1.82% 232
Midlands -11 226 £525 -1.18% 66
North of England -23 223 £525 -2.42% 218
South West +24 173 £525 -4.55% 142
West Midlands -4 156 £550 - 42
North West -27 105 £525 -3.67% 140
Yorkshire -4 99 £519 -1.19% 63
East of England +2 89 £550 +10.00% 38
Scotland +22 68 £450 -13.63% 29
East Midlands -17 63 £500 -3.85% 24
Wales +9 30 £550 +37.50% 17
North East -23 19 £525 -1.69% 16
Northern Ireland +1 4 £525 +0.96% 26

Consultant Skill Set
Top 30 Co-Occurring Skills & Capabilities

For the 6 months to 23 April 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.

1 600 (21.25%) SAP
2 551 (19.51%) Security Cleared
3 442 (15.65%) SC Cleared
4 375 (13.28%) Migration
5 332 (11.76%) Oracle
6 299 (10.59%) Azure
7 282 (9.99%) Microsoft
8 274 (9.70%) Problem-Solving
9 272 (9.63%) SAP S/4HANA
10 262 (9.28%) Stakeholder Engagement
11 252 (8.92%) Stakeholder Management
12 234 (8.29%) ERP
13 211 (7.47%) SQL
14 197 (6.98%) User Acceptance Testing
15 187 (6.62%) Workshop Facilitation
16 174 (6.16%) Agile
17 165 (5.84%) Continuous Improvement
17 165 (5.84%) Data Migration
18 156 (5.52%) Validation
19 153 (5.42%) Cybersecurity
20 151 (5.35%) Analytics
20 151 (5.35%) Business Intelligence
20 151 (5.35%) Roadmaps
21 140 (4.96%) Dynamics 365
22 130 (4.60%) Power Platform
23 122 (4.32%) AI
24 120 (4.25%) AWS
25 115 (4.07%) Python
26 111 (3.93%) Knowledge Transfer
27 110 (3.90%) Change Management

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 67 (2.37%) SharePoint
2 34 (1.20%) Confluence
3 16 (0.57%) Microsoft Exchange
4 13 (0.46%) Oracle Workflow
5 6 (0.21%) Jupyter
6 4 (0.14%) Apache
6 4 (0.14%) Apache Spark
6 4 (0.14%) ArcGIS
7 3 (0.11%) Apache Superset
7 3 (0.11%) Cloud Foundry
7 3 (0.11%) Palantir Foundry
7 3 (0.11%) Tomcat
8 2 (0.071%) CMS
8 2 (0.071%) IIS
8 2 (0.071%) SAS
8 2 (0.071%) WebSphere
9 1 (0.035%) nginx
9 1 (0.035%) OpenStack
9 1 (0.035%) Oracle Self-Service HR
9 1 (0.035%) Skype for Business
Applications
1 67 (2.37%) Microsoft Excel
2 25 (0.89%) Microsoft PowerPoint
3 12 (0.42%) Microsoft Office
4 8 (0.28%) MS Visio
5 5 (0.18%) Chatbot
5 5 (0.18%) PTC Creo
6 4 (0.14%) Spreadsheet
7 3 (0.11%) Microsoft Project
8 2 (0.071%) Lectora
8 2 (0.071%) Oracle Smart View
9 1 (0.035%) Adobe XD
9 1 (0.035%) CATIA
9 1 (0.035%) Siemens NX
9 1 (0.035%) Windchill
Business Applications
1 272 (9.63%) SAP S/4HANA
2 81 (2.87%) Oracle EBS
3 61 (2.16%) SAP FI
4 48 (1.70%) SAP MM
5 46 (1.63%) Oracle Payables
6 42 (1.49%) Oracle Receivables
7 38 (1.35%) Oracle EBS R12
8 36 (1.27%) SAP PSCD
9 35 (1.24%) Dynamics CRM
9 35 (1.24%) SAP HCM
9 35 (1.24%) SAP PP
10 32 (1.13%) SAP EWM
11 31 (1.10%) SAP CO
12 29 (1.03%) SAP FI/CO
13 28 (0.99%) Oracle Assets
14 26 (0.92%) SAP Travel Management
15 25 (0.89%) Oracle General Ledger
15 25 (0.89%) Oracle Procure-to-Pay
16 24 (0.85%) Teamcenter
17 22 (0.78%) Oracle ERP
Cloud Services
1 299 (10.59%) Azure
2 140 (4.96%) Dynamics 365
3 130 (4.60%) Power Platform
4 120 (4.25%) AWS
5 106 (3.75%) OCI
6 78 (2.76%) SuccessFactors
7 67 (2.37%) SaaS
8 66 (2.34%) GCP
8 66 (2.34%) Microsoft 365
9 52 (1.84%) Power Automate
10 47 (1.66%) Entra ID
11 37 (1.31%) Azure DevOps
12 35 (1.24%) Microsoft Copilot
13 32 (1.13%) PowerApps
14 30 (1.06%) Microsoft Purview
15 28 (0.99%) GitHub
16 19 (0.67%) Azure Data Factory
17 16 (0.57%) Serverless
18 15 (0.53%) Copilot Studio
19 14 (0.50%) OneDrive
Communications & Networking
1 34 (1.20%) Firewall
2 25 (0.89%) Network Security
3 16 (0.57%) SMS
4 14 (0.50%) SNMP
5 12 (0.42%) DNS
5 12 (0.42%) VSAN
6 11 (0.39%) HTTP
7 10 (0.35%) FTP
7 10 (0.35%) SAN
7 10 (0.35%) Software-Defined Networking
7 10 (0.35%) WAN
8 9 (0.32%) Kerberos
8 9 (0.32%) LAN
8 9 (0.32%) VPN
9 8 (0.28%) Intranet
9 8 (0.28%) NAS
9 8 (0.28%) SD-WAN
10 6 (0.21%) Cisco IPT
10 6 (0.21%) DHCP
10 6 (0.21%) VLAN
Database & Business Intelligence
1 92 (3.26%) Power BI
2 62 (2.20%) Oracle Reports
3 36 (1.27%) SAP HANA
4 28 (0.99%) Tableau
5 27 (0.96%) Metadata
6 23 (0.81%) Oracle BI Publisher
7 22 (0.78%) SQL Server
8 18 (0.64%) Oracle ODI
9 15 (0.53%) SAP BW
10 11 (0.39%) Data Warehouse
11 10 (0.35%) SQL Server Reporting Services
12 9 (0.32%) Electronic Patient Records
13 8 (0.28%) NoSQL
14 7 (0.25%) BusinessObjects
14 7 (0.25%) GIS
14 7 (0.25%) SAP Data Services
15 6 (0.21%) Data Mart
15 6 (0.21%) Essbase
15 6 (0.21%) Oracle Database
15 6 (0.21%) Relational Database
Development Applications
1 70 (2.48%) JIRA
2 20 (0.71%) Oracle Forms
3 18 (0.64%) Hudson
4 16 (0.57%) Jenkins
5 11 (0.39%) Git
6 9 (0.32%) GitLab
7 6 (0.21%) Sonatype Nexus
8 5 (0.18%) Oracle APEX
9 4 (0.14%) Postman
9 4 (0.14%) SonarQube
9 4 (0.14%) Visual Studio Code
10 3 (0.11%) Toad
11 2 (0.071%) Bitbucket
11 2 (0.071%) git-flow
11 2 (0.071%) JUnit
11 2 (0.071%) Octopus Deploy
11 2 (0.071%) Rational DOORS
11 2 (0.071%) Rational Rhapsody
11 2 (0.071%) Selenium
11 2 (0.071%) TeamCity
General
1 632 (22.38%) Social Skills
2 619 (21.92%) Finance
3 255 (9.03%) Analytical Skills
4 217 (7.68%) Public Sector
5 109 (3.86%) Manufacturing
6 105 (3.72%) Banking
7 69 (2.44%) Legal
8 68 (2.41%) Marketing
9 56 (1.98%) Billing
10 50 (1.77%) Documentation Skills
11 46 (1.63%) General Ledger
12 40 (1.42%) Telecoms
13 38 (1.35%) Retail
14 36 (1.27%) Organisational Skills
15 27 (0.96%) Inclusion and Diversity
16 24 (0.85%) Presentation Skills
17 22 (0.78%) Pharmaceutical
18 20 (0.71%) Law
19 19 (0.67%) Advertising
20 18 (0.64%) Electronics
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 78 (2.76%) Oracle Fusion
2 72 (2.55%) REST
3 70 (2.48%) XML
4 32 (1.13%) SOAP
5 30 (1.06%) Web Services
6 27 (0.96%) SAP Fiori
6 27 (0.96%) SAP TM
7 24 (0.85%) JSON
8 21 (0.74%) Middleware
8 21 (0.74%) SAP Basis
9 20 (0.71%) LDAP
10 19 (0.67%) .NET
11 17 (0.60%) BAPI
11 17 (0.60%) HTML
11 17 (0.60%) Node.js
12 15 (0.53%) CSS
13 14 (0.50%) GraphQL
14 11 (0.39%) IDoc
14 11 (0.39%) Kafka
15 9 (0.32%) Playwright
Miscellaneous
1 57 (2.02%) Onboarding
2 46 (1.63%) Legacy Systems
3 43 (1.52%) Data Protection Act
4 37 (1.31%) Security Posture
5 36 (1.27%) Product Ownership
6 31 (1.10%) Operational Technology
6 31 (1.10%) Replication
7 27 (0.96%) Cloud Native
8 26 (0.92%) Data Structures
9 24 (0.85%) Management Information System
10 23 (0.81%) Data Centre
11 22 (0.78%) AI Agents
12 20 (0.71%) Greenfield Project
12 20 (0.71%) NHS
13 18 (0.64%) CMDB
14 17 (0.60%) Analytical Mindset
14 17 (0.60%) Public Cloud
15 16 (0.57%) Life Science
16 13 (0.46%) Self-Motivation
17 12 (0.42%) FMCG
Operating Systems
1 70 (2.48%) Windows
2 49 (1.74%) Linux
3 16 (0.57%) Unix
3 16 (0.57%) VMS
4 11 (0.39%) AIX
4 11 (0.39%) Solaris
5 8 (0.28%) Windows Server
6 6 (0.21%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
6 6 (0.21%) Windows 10
7 5 (0.18%) Ubuntu
8 4 (0.14%) Mac OS
8 4 (0.14%) zOS
9 3 (0.11%) Apple iOS
9 3 (0.11%) SUSE
10 2 (0.071%) CoreOS
10 2 (0.071%) Data ONTAP
11 1 (0.035%) Android
11 1 (0.035%) CentOS
Processes & Methodologies
1 375 (13.28%) Migration
2 274 (9.70%) Problem-Solving
3 262 (9.28%) Stakeholder Engagement
4 252 (8.92%) Stakeholder Management
5 234 (8.29%) ERP
6 197 (6.98%) User Acceptance Testing
7 187 (6.62%) Workshop Facilitation
8 174 (6.16%) Agile
9 165 (5.84%) Continuous Improvement
9 165 (5.84%) Data Migration
10 156 (5.52%) Validation
11 153 (5.42%) Cybersecurity
12 151 (5.35%) Analytics
12 151 (5.35%) Business Intelligence
12 151 (5.35%) Roadmaps
13 122 (4.32%) AI
14 111 (3.93%) Knowledge Transfer
15 110 (3.90%) Change Management
16 104 (3.68%) DevOps
17 102 (3.61%) Risk Management
Programming Languages
1 211 (7.47%) SQL
2 115 (4.07%) Python
3 74 (2.62%) JavaScript
4 62 (2.20%) PowerShell
5 49 (1.74%) PL/SQL
6 47 (1.66%) ABAP
7 33 (1.17%) T-SQL
8 31 (1.10%) Java
9 23 (0.81%) TypeScript
10 16 (0.57%) C#
11 12 (0.42%) Bash
12 11 (0.39%) Shell Script
13 10 (0.35%) Groovy
14 9 (0.32%) Data Analysis Expressions
14 9 (0.32%) R
14 9 (0.32%) Search Processing Language
15 8 (0.28%) C++
16 7 (0.25%) Apex Code
16 7 (0.25%) Kusto Query Language
17 4 (0.14%) Ruby
Qualifications
1 551 (19.51%) Security Cleared
2 442 (15.65%) SC Cleared
3 94 (3.33%) DV Cleared
4 89 (3.15%) Degree
5 77 (2.73%) BPSS Clearance
6 63 (2.23%) CISSP
7 45 (1.59%) CISM
8 23 (0.81%) VMware Certified Professional (VCP)
9 20 (0.71%) CIMA
10 18 (0.64%) Cisco Certification
10 18 (0.64%) Computer Science Degree
11 14 (0.50%) SAP Certification
12 13 (0.46%) ITIL Certification
12 13 (0.46%) Master's Degree
13 12 (0.42%) Microsoft Certification
14 11 (0.39%) (ISC)2 CCSP
14 11 (0.39%) CCSP
15 10 (0.35%) Azure Certification
15 10 (0.35%) PMP
16 9 (0.32%) ACCA
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 87 (3.08%) NIST
2 84 (2.97%) ISO/IEC 27001
3 59 (2.09%) Data Quality
3 59 (2.09%) GRC
4 56 (1.98%) GDPR
5 41 (1.45%) QA
6 25 (0.89%) PCI DSS
7 24 (0.85%) NCSC
8 21 (0.74%) PMO
8 21 (0.74%) SLA
9 17 (0.60%) Actionable Recommendations
9 17 (0.60%) Sarbanes-Oxley
10 16 (0.57%) COBIT
11 14 (0.50%) JSP 440
12 11 (0.39%) PERC
13 9 (0.32%) DICOM
13 9 (0.32%) HL7
14 8 (0.28%) Accessibility
14 8 (0.28%) GxP
15 7 (0.25%) RMADS
System Software
1 53 (1.88%) Active Directory
2 35 (1.24%) VMware Infrastructure
3 34 (1.20%) VMware NSX
4 26 (0.92%) Docker
5 23 (0.81%) vSphere
6 10 (0.35%) Virtual Desktop
6 10 (0.35%) Virtual Machines
7 9 (0.32%) Hyper-V
8 6 (0.21%) Slurm Workload Manager
9 5 (0.18%) VMware ESXi
10 4 (0.14%) IAG
11 3 (0.11%) NFS
12 1 (0.035%) BitLocker
12 1 (0.035%) Ceph
12 1 (0.035%) HDFS
12 1 (0.035%) Job Entry Subsystem
12 1 (0.035%) KVM
12 1 (0.035%) QEMU
Systems Management
1 48 (1.70%) Kubernetes
2 32 (1.13%) Terraform
2 32 (1.13%) vRealize
3 19 (0.67%) Microsoft Intune
4 16 (0.57%) Ansible
5 12 (0.42%) Single Sign-On
6 11 (0.39%) Nagios
6 11 (0.39%) ZABBIX
7 10 (0.35%) Netcool
7 10 (0.35%) OpenView
7 10 (0.35%) Tivoli
7 10 (0.35%) Tivoli Monitoring
8 8 (0.28%) Grafana
8 8 (0.28%) Prometheus
8 8 (0.28%) SCCM
9 6 (0.21%) Failover Clustering
9 6 (0.21%) PingFederate
9 6 (0.21%) Podman
10 5 (0.18%) NetBackup
11 4 (0.14%) Control-M
Vendors
1 600 (21.25%) SAP
2 332 (11.76%) Oracle
3 282 (9.99%) Microsoft
4 95 (3.36%) VMware
5 92 (3.26%) ServiceNow
6 62 (2.20%) Ariba
7 57 (2.02%) Salesforce
8 53 (1.88%) Siemens
8 53 (1.88%) Workday
9 34 (1.20%) Google
10 29 (1.03%) Splunk
11 27 (0.96%) Cisco
11 27 (0.96%) Databricks
12 22 (0.78%) Adobe
13 21 (0.74%) Aruba
14 20 (0.71%) IBM
15 19 (0.67%) BMC
15 19 (0.67%) OpenText
16 17 (0.60%) Murex
16 17 (0.60%) Sage