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 26 August 2026.

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

6 months to
26 Aug 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 27 27 26
Rank change year-on-year 0 -1 +6
Contract jobs requiring a Consultant 3,239 2,167 2,661
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 6.04% 6.62% 6.85%
As % of the Job Titles category 6.53% 7.26% 7.37%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,793 1,262 1,524
10th Percentile £405 £413 £405
25th Percentile £463 £475 £468
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £550 £550 £550
75th Percentile £650 £649 £644
90th Percentile £750 £750 £750
UK excluding London median daily rate £525 £550 £553
% change year-on-year -4.55% -0.54% +5.33%
Number of hourly rates quoted 54 25 29
10th Percentile £36.25 £28.32 £41.15
25th Percentile £51.00 £41.60 £55.00
Median hourly rate £75.50 £77.50 £61.60
Median % change year-on-year -2.58% +25.81% -5.32%
75th Percentile £86.08 £81.25 £68.00
90th Percentile £89.63 - £74.89
UK excluding London median hourly rate £76.00 £77.50 £61.60
% change year-on-year -1.94% +25.81% -5.23%

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 49,591 29,856 36,116
% of contract IT jobs with a recognized job title 92.45% 91.25% 93.00%
Number of daily rates quoted 29,677 18,858 22,961
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% -1.87%
75th Percentile £625 £622 £638
90th Percentile £725 £725 £750
UK excluding London median daily rate £500 £475 £500
% change year-on-year +5.26% -5.00% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 3,535 1,578 1,930
10th Percentile £14.96 £13.68 £14.16
25th Percentile £20.51 £17.08 £19.50
Median hourly rate £41.74 £25.15 £43.00
Median % change year-on-year +65.94% -41.51% -1.44%
75th Percentile £67.84 £53.83 £65.00
90th Percentile £80.00 £71.47 £75.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £42.30 £25.15 £43.00
% change year-on-year +68.19% -41.51% +7.50%

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 August 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 August 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 August 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 2,610 £550 - 1,577
UK excluding London +3 1,405 £525 -4.55% 890
London -2 1,225 £550 -4.35% 914
Work from Home -3 1,084 £550 - 940
South East -1 408 £540 -1.82% 107
North of England -5 330 £561 +2.05% 210
Midlands +8 255 £500 -9.09% 122
North West -5 214 £572 -0.61% 144
South West +11 201 £550 -5.58% 165
West Midlands +8 182 £486 -15.54% 92
Scotland +35 121 £450 -5.26% 93
Yorkshire -8 95 £550 +7.32% 42
East of England -18 84 £523 -5.00% 83
East Midlands -3 66 £525 -4.55% 29
Wales -14 25 £550 +10.00% 10
North East -34 20 £750 +38.89% 24
Northern Ireland -7 2 £544 +4.57% 116

Consultant Skill Set
Top 30 Co-Occurring Skills & Capabilities

For the 6 months to 26 August 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.

1 697 (21.52%) Security Cleared
2 659 (20.35%) SAP
3 505 (15.59%) Stakeholder Management
4 478 (14.76%) SC Cleared
5 442 (13.65%) Microsoft
6 422 (13.03%) Migration
7 408 (12.60%) Oracle
8 313 (9.66%) Azure
9 304 (9.39%) Stakeholder Engagement
10 275 (8.49%) User Acceptance Testing
11 267 (8.24%) SAP S/4HANA
12 264 (8.15%) SQL
13 263 (8.12%) Problem-Solving
14 233 (7.19%) ERP
15 231 (7.13%) Validation
16 230 (7.10%) Workshop Facilitation
17 217 (6.70%) Cybersecurity
18 213 (6.58%) Continuous Improvement
19 203 (6.27%) Analytics
20 192 (5.93%) Roadmaps
21 185 (5.71%) Agile
22 183 (5.65%) Data Migration
23 174 (5.37%) AWS
24 170 (5.25%) Requirements Gathering
25 169 (5.22%) AI
26 156 (4.82%) Power Platform
27 153 (4.72%) Business Intelligence
27 153 (4.72%) DV Cleared
28 148 (4.57%) Translating Business Requirements
29 136 (4.20%) Knowledge Transfer

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 83 (2.56%) SharePoint
2 48 (1.48%) Confluence
3 24 (0.74%) Microsoft Exchange
4 13 (0.40%) Oracle Workflow
5 9 (0.28%) WebSphere
6 8 (0.25%) WebLogic
7 4 (0.12%) Apache Spark
7 4 (0.12%) SAS
8 3 (0.093%) Apache
8 3 (0.093%) Apache Airflow
8 3 (0.093%) Apache Superset
8 3 (0.093%) OpenStack
8 3 (0.093%) TIBCO ActiveMatrix
9 2 (0.062%) Adobe Experience Manager
9 2 (0.062%) CMS
9 2 (0.062%) IIS
9 2 (0.062%) Oracle Service Bus
9 2 (0.062%) Smallworld
9 2 (0.062%) Tomcat
9 2 (0.062%) WordPress
Applications
1 75 (2.32%) Microsoft Excel
2 34 (1.05%) Microsoft Office
3 26 (0.80%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 10 (0.31%) Spreadsheet
5 8 (0.25%) MS Visio
6 4 (0.12%) Chatbot
6 4 (0.12%) Microsoft Project
7 1 (0.031%) Adobe Captivate
7 1 (0.031%) Adobe Creative Suite
7 1 (0.031%) CPLEX
Business Applications
1 267 (8.24%) SAP S/4HANA
2 91 (2.81%) Oracle EBS
3 71 (2.19%) SAP FI
4 50 (1.54%) Oracle ERP
5 48 (1.48%) SAP PSCD
6 47 (1.45%) Oracle Payables
7 39 (1.20%) SAP CO
7 39 (1.20%) SAP MM
8 36 (1.11%) Dynamics CRM
8 36 (1.11%) Oracle Receivables
9 34 (1.05%) SAP SD
10 32 (0.99%) SAP FI/CO
10 32 (0.99%) Workday HCM
11 31 (0.96%) SAP BRIM
12 30 (0.93%) NetSuite
13 29 (0.90%) SAP PP
14 28 (0.86%) Oracle General Ledger
14 28 (0.86%) SAP FI-CA
14 28 (0.86%) SAP Payroll
15 26 (0.80%) Oracle EBS R12
Cloud Services
1 313 (9.66%) Azure
2 174 (5.37%) AWS
3 156 (4.82%) Power Platform
4 135 (4.17%) Dynamics 365
5 113 (3.49%) OCI
6 108 (3.33%) SuccessFactors
7 97 (2.99%) GCP
8 87 (2.69%) Microsoft 365
9 73 (2.25%) Power Automate
10 63 (1.95%) Entra ID
11 58 (1.79%) Azure DevOps
12 53 (1.64%) Microsoft Copilot
13 44 (1.36%) SaaS
14 37 (1.14%) PowerApps
15 28 (0.86%) Microsoft Purview
16 27 (0.83%) GitHub
17 18 (0.56%) Copilot Studio
18 16 (0.49%) Azure AI
18 16 (0.49%) Azure Logic Apps
19 15 (0.46%) Snowflake
Communications & Networking
1 66 (2.04%) Firewall
2 63 (1.95%) Network Security
3 34 (1.05%) WAN
4 30 (0.93%) BGP
5 25 (0.77%) SNMP
6 22 (0.68%) VPN
7 18 (0.56%) DNS
7 18 (0.56%) LAN
8 14 (0.43%) SAN
9 11 (0.34%) TCP/IP
10 10 (0.31%) Ethernet VPN
10 10 (0.31%) IPsec
10 10 (0.31%) NGFW
10 10 (0.31%) SD-WAN
11 9 (0.28%) MPLS
11 9 (0.28%) VSAN
11 9 (0.28%) VXLAN
12 8 (0.25%) 3GPP
12 8 (0.25%) 5G
12 8 (0.25%) Radio Access Network
Database & Business Intelligence
1 96 (2.96%) Power BI
2 59 (1.82%) Oracle Reports
3 36 (1.11%) SAP BW
3 36 (1.11%) SQL Server
4 35 (1.08%) Oracle BI Publisher
5 33 (1.02%) SAP HANA
5 33 (1.02%) Tableau
6 31 (0.96%) Data Warehouse
7 25 (0.77%) Metadata
8 19 (0.59%) BusinessObjects
8 19 (0.59%) Oracle ODI
9 14 (0.43%) Oracle Database
10 12 (0.37%) SAP Data Services
11 11 (0.34%) Power Query
12 10 (0.31%) Relational Database
13 7 (0.22%) Looker
13 7 (0.22%) SQL Server Reporting Services
14 6 (0.19%) BigQuery
14 6 (0.19%) Delta Lake
15 5 (0.15%) Elasticsearch
Development Applications
1 93 (2.87%) JIRA
2 20 (0.62%) Git
3 19 (0.59%) Oracle Forms
4 15 (0.46%) Jenkins
5 12 (0.37%) Hudson
6 10 (0.31%) GitLab
7 7 (0.22%) Sonatype Nexus
8 6 (0.19%) PowerBuilder
8 6 (0.19%) SonarQube
9 5 (0.15%) Cypress.io
9 5 (0.15%) Zephyr
10 4 (0.12%) MLflow
10 4 (0.12%) Selenium
10 4 (0.12%) Snyk
11 3 (0.093%) Browser DevTools
11 3 (0.093%) JDeveloper
11 3 (0.093%) JMeter
11 3 (0.093%) LoadRunner
11 3 (0.093%) Postman
11 3 (0.093%) Toad
General
1 701 (21.64%) Social Skills
2 700 (21.61%) Finance
3 250 (7.72%) Analytical Skills
4 238 (7.35%) Public Sector
5 115 (3.55%) Manufacturing
6 94 (2.90%) Banking
7 90 (2.78%) Legal
8 79 (2.44%) Billing
9 69 (2.13%) Documentation Skills
10 68 (2.10%) Telecoms
11 59 (1.82%) General Ledger
12 54 (1.67%) Presentation Skills
12 54 (1.67%) Retail
13 48 (1.48%) Marketing
14 46 (1.42%) Inclusion and Diversity
15 39 (1.20%) Influencing Skills
16 34 (1.05%) Pharmaceutical
17 24 (0.74%) Local Government
18 20 (0.62%) Law
19 18 (0.56%) Organisational Skills
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 120 (3.70%) Oracle Fusion
2 83 (2.56%) REST
3 59 (1.82%) Terraform
4 56 (1.73%) XML
5 42 (1.30%) SAP Fiori
6 38 (1.17%) SOAP
7 32 (0.99%) Middleware
8 27 (0.83%) Web Services
9 24 (0.74%) JSON
10 21 (0.65%) BAPI
11 20 (0.62%) SailPoint
12 19 (0.59%) HTML
12 19 (0.59%) LDAP
12 19 (0.59%) OAuth
13 18 (0.56%) SAP PI
14 17 (0.52%) CSS
14 17 (0.52%) SAP Basis
15 13 (0.40%) IDoc
16 12 (0.37%) .NET
16 12 (0.37%) EDI
Miscellaneous
1 121 (3.74%) Onboarding
2 52 (1.61%) CMDB
3 43 (1.33%) Data Centre
4 41 (1.27%) Data Protection Act
5 39 (1.20%) Product Ownership
6 38 (1.17%) Security Posture
7 36 (1.11%) Data Structures
7 36 (1.11%) Legacy Systems
8 32 (0.99%) Operational Technology
9 29 (0.90%) AI Agents
9 29 (0.90%) Enterprise Software
10 27 (0.83%) Replication
11 24 (0.74%) Cloud Native
12 22 (0.68%) Public Cloud
13 20 (0.62%) NHS
14 19 (0.59%) Management Information System
15 18 (0.56%) Analytical Mindset
15 18 (0.56%) Hybrid Cloud
16 17 (0.52%) Greenfield Project
16 17 (0.52%) Life Science
Operating Systems
1 102 (3.15%) Windows
2 84 (2.59%) Linux
3 25 (0.77%) Unix
4 21 (0.65%) Solaris
5 20 (0.62%) VMS
6 19 (0.59%) AIX
7 18 (0.56%) Windows Server
8 6 (0.19%) Android
8 6 (0.19%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
9 5 (0.15%) Apple iOS
10 4 (0.12%) Windows 10
11 3 (0.093%) Windows Server 2016
12 2 (0.062%) Mac OS
13 1 (0.031%) CoreOS
13 1 (0.031%) Data ONTAP
13 1 (0.031%) OpenVMS
13 1 (0.031%) SUSE
13 1 (0.031%) Windows Server 2012
13 1 (0.031%) zOS
Processes & Methodologies
1 505 (15.59%) Stakeholder Management
2 422 (13.03%) Migration
3 304 (9.39%) Stakeholder Engagement
4 275 (8.49%) User Acceptance Testing
5 263 (8.12%) Problem-Solving
6 233 (7.19%) ERP
7 231 (7.13%) Validation
8 230 (7.10%) Workshop Facilitation
9 217 (6.70%) Cybersecurity
10 213 (6.58%) Continuous Improvement
11 203 (6.27%) Analytics
12 192 (5.93%) Roadmaps
13 185 (5.71%) Agile
14 183 (5.65%) Data Migration
15 170 (5.25%) Requirements Gathering
16 169 (5.22%) AI
17 153 (4.72%) Business Intelligence
18 148 (4.57%) Translating Business Requirements
19 136 (4.20%) Knowledge Transfer
20 134 (4.14%) Project Delivery
Programming Languages
1 264 (8.15%) SQL
2 121 (3.74%) Python
3 57 (1.76%) PowerShell
4 53 (1.64%) PL/SQL
5 49 (1.51%) ABAP
6 45 (1.39%) JavaScript
7 34 (1.05%) T-SQL
8 31 (0.96%) Java
9 16 (0.49%) Bash
10 15 (0.46%) Search Processing Language
11 14 (0.43%) C#
11 14 (0.43%) Data Analysis Expressions
12 13 (0.40%) Kusto Query Language
13 9 (0.28%) R
13 9 (0.28%) TypeScript
14 7 (0.22%) Shell Script
15 6 (0.19%) Korn
15 6 (0.19%) Perl
16 5 (0.15%) Groovy
17 4 (0.12%) C++
Qualifications
1 697 (21.52%) Security Cleared
2 478 (14.76%) SC Cleared
3 153 (4.72%) DV Cleared
4 94 (2.90%) BPSS Clearance
5 78 (2.41%) CISSP
6 73 (2.25%) Degree
7 61 (1.88%) CISM
8 43 (1.33%) Cisco Certification
9 32 (0.99%) (ISC)2 CCSP
10 28 (0.86%) CCSP
11 21 (0.65%) ACCA
12 19 (0.59%) CIMA
13 15 (0.46%) PMP
14 14 (0.43%) CRISC
15 13 (0.40%) CEH
15 13 (0.40%) CompTIA Security+
16 12 (0.37%) Azure Certification
16 12 (0.37%) OSCP
17 11 (0.34%) Computer Science Degree
18 10 (0.31%) CISA
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 93 (2.87%) Data Quality
2 92 (2.84%) NIST
3 77 (2.38%) GRC
3 77 (2.38%) ISO/IEC 27001
4 55 (1.70%) QA
5 40 (1.23%) GDPR
6 36 (1.11%) NCSC
7 32 (0.99%) SLA
8 27 (0.83%) PMO
9 24 (0.74%) PCI DSS
10 23 (0.71%) Accessibility
10 23 (0.71%) Actionable Recommendations
11 14 (0.43%) Sarbanes-Oxley
12 11 (0.34%) COBIT
12 11 (0.34%) Cyber Essentials
12 11 (0.34%) GxP
13 10 (0.31%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
14 9 (0.28%) IFRS
14 9 (0.28%) NIST 800
15 8 (0.25%) SOC 2
System Software
1 77 (2.38%) Active Directory
2 40 (1.23%) VMware Infrastructure
3 37 (1.14%) VMware NSX
4 23 (0.71%) vSphere
5 14 (0.43%) Docker
5 14 (0.43%) VMware ESXi
6 12 (0.37%) Hyper-V
7 11 (0.34%) Virtual Machines
8 10 (0.31%) IAG
9 7 (0.22%) Virtual Desktop
10 2 (0.062%) BitLocker
10 2 (0.062%) Firmware
10 2 (0.062%) NFS
10 2 (0.062%) PowerHA
11 1 (0.031%) HDFS
11 1 (0.031%) Oracle RAC
11 1 (0.031%) oVirt
11 1 (0.031%) ProxySG
11 1 (0.031%) RHEV
11 1 (0.031%) SRDF
Systems Management
1 45 (1.39%) Kubernetes
2 31 (0.96%) Ansible
3 19 (0.59%) SCCM
4 18 (0.56%) Microsoft Intune
5 16 (0.49%) vRealize
6 15 (0.46%) Nagios
6 15 (0.46%) ZABBIX
7 14 (0.43%) Grafana
7 14 (0.43%) Netcool
7 14 (0.43%) Tivoli
8 13 (0.40%) OpenView
8 13 (0.40%) Tivoli Monitoring
9 12 (0.37%) FortiGate
9 12 (0.37%) Single Sign-On
10 11 (0.34%) Prometheus
11 10 (0.31%) vCenter Server
12 6 (0.19%) VxRail
13 5 (0.15%) NetBackup
14 4 (0.12%) CEMLI
14 4 (0.12%) vRealize Orchestrator
Vendors
1 659 (20.35%) SAP
2 442 (13.65%) Microsoft
3 408 (12.60%) Oracle
4 128 (3.95%) ServiceNow
5 83 (2.56%) VMware
6 66 (2.04%) Workday
7 59 (1.82%) Ariba
8 54 (1.67%) Salesforce
9 46 (1.42%) Splunk
10 44 (1.36%) Databricks
11 32 (0.99%) BMC
12 29 (0.90%) IBM
13 28 (0.86%) OpenText
14 26 (0.80%) Cisco
14 26 (0.80%) Google
14 26 (0.80%) Palo Alto
15 20 (0.62%) Adobe
16 19 (0.59%) CyberArk
17 17 (0.52%) Okta
17 17 (0.52%) Veeam