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 25 June 2026.

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

6 months to
25 Jun 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 27 27 24
Rank change year-on-year 0 -3 +10
Contract jobs requiring a Consultant 2,968 1,952 2,870
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 5.83% 6.48% 6.59%
As % of the Job Titles category 6.31% 7.03% 7.09%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,658 1,141 1,730
10th Percentile £400 £406 £400
25th Percentile £461 £475 £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 47,005 27,763 40,488
% of contract IT jobs with a recognized job title 92.37% 92.19% 92.94%
Number of daily rates quoted 28,579 17,831 26,014
10th Percentile £325 £288 £281
25th Percentile £415 £402 £410
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £519 £500 £525
Median % change year-on-year +3.80% -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 3,151 1,202 2,914
10th Percentile £15.38 £13.79 £12.86
25th Percentile £21.00 £17.44 £16.38
Median hourly rate £43.50 £27.13 £37.50
Median % change year-on-year +60.37% -27.67% -12.79%
75th Percentile £67.50 £56.25 £62.50
90th Percentile £80.00 £73.75 £74.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £44.75 £25.15 £40.00
% change year-on-year +77.93% -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 25 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 25 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 25 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 2,370 £550 - 883
UK excluding London 0 1,264 £525 -2.33% 636
London -2 1,092 £550 -4.35% 409
Work from Home -2 1,063 £538 -2.27% 395
South East -4 345 £525 -3.38% 191
North of England -17 272 £550 +2.33% 169
Midlands -10 243 £525 -4.55% 73
South West +25 209 £553 +0.55% 88
West Midlands +3 166 £525 -4.55% 54
North West -13 145 £550 -4.35% 113
Yorkshire -12 104 £544 +14.47% 39
East of England -3 90 £550 +6.08% 63
Scotland +26 83 £425 -10.53% 23
East Midlands -8 68 £500 -9.09% 17
Wales +1 30 £550 +31.34% 19
North East -36 23 £650 +20.37% 18
Northern Ireland -5 3 £600 +15.38% 21

Consultant Skill Set
Top 30 Co-Occurring Skills & Capabilities

For the 6 months to 25 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.

1 613 (20.65%) SAP
2 544 (18.33%) Security Cleared
3 404 (13.61%) SC Cleared
4 392 (13.21%) Migration
5 351 (11.83%) Microsoft
6 336 (11.32%) Oracle
7 332 (11.19%) Azure
8 293 (9.87%) Stakeholder Management
9 274 (9.23%) SAP S/4HANA
10 270 (9.10%) Stakeholder Engagement
11 258 (8.69%) Problem-Solving
12 249 (8.39%) ERP
13 237 (7.99%) SQL
14 213 (7.18%) User Acceptance Testing
15 200 (6.74%) Workshop Facilitation
16 199 (6.70%) Validation
17 196 (6.60%) Continuous Improvement
18 175 (5.90%) Data Migration
19 170 (5.73%) Analytics
20 162 (5.46%) Agile
21 160 (5.39%) Cybersecurity
22 159 (5.36%) AI
23 153 (5.15%) Roadmaps
24 147 (4.95%) Power Platform
25 143 (4.82%) AWS
26 140 (4.72%) Business Intelligence
27 138 (4.65%) Dynamics 365
28 129 (4.35%) Change Management
29 127 (4.28%) Python
30 116 (3.91%) 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 78 (2.63%) SharePoint
2 47 (1.58%) 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 5 (0.17%) Jupyter
9 4 (0.13%) ArcGIS
9 4 (0.13%) SAS
10 3 (0.10%) Apache
10 3 (0.10%) Apache Superset
10 3 (0.10%) Palantir Foundry
11 2 (0.067%) Apache Airflow
11 2 (0.067%) Cloud Foundry
11 2 (0.067%) IIS
11 2 (0.067%) NetWeaver
11 2 (0.067%) Tomcat
11 2 (0.067%) WordPress
12 1 (0.034%) Adobe Experience Manager
Applications
1 77 (2.59%) Microsoft Excel
2 23 (0.77%) Microsoft Office
2 23 (0.77%) Microsoft PowerPoint
3 8 (0.27%) Spreadsheet
4 6 (0.20%) MS Visio
5 5 (0.17%) PTC Creo
6 4 (0.13%) Chatbot
7 3 (0.10%) Microsoft Project
8 2 (0.067%) Lectora
8 2 (0.067%) Oracle Smart View
9 1 (0.034%) CATIA
9 1 (0.034%) CPLEX
9 1 (0.034%) Siemens NX
Business Applications
1 274 (9.23%) SAP S/4HANA
2 78 (2.63%) Oracle EBS
3 57 (1.92%) SAP FI
4 49 (1.65%) SAP PSCD
5 41 (1.38%) Oracle Payables
6 37 (1.25%) SAP MM
7 36 (1.21%) 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 (0.94%) Dynamics CRM
11 28 (0.94%) Oracle ERP
12 27 (0.91%) SAP CO
13 26 (0.88%) Oracle EBS R12
13 26 (0.88%) Teamcenter
14 25 (0.84%) SAP FI/CO
14 25 (0.84%) SAP PP
15 24 (0.81%) NetSuite
16 23 (0.77%) SAP Travel Management
Cloud Services
1 332 (11.19%) Azure
2 147 (4.95%) Power Platform
3 143 (4.82%) AWS
4 138 (4.65%) Dynamics 365
5 92 (3.10%) Microsoft 365
6 90 (3.03%) OCI
7 79 (2.66%) GCP
8 74 (2.49%) SuccessFactors
9 67 (2.26%) Power Automate
10 53 (1.79%) SaaS
11 52 (1.75%) Entra ID
12 48 (1.62%) Microsoft Copilot
13 45 (1.52%) Azure DevOps
14 34 (1.15%) GitHub
15 32 (1.08%) Microsoft Purview
15 32 (1.08%) PowerApps
16 23 (0.77%) Copilot Studio
17 18 (0.61%) Serverless
18 16 (0.54%) Azure AI
19 15 (0.51%) OneDrive
Communications & Networking
1 48 (1.62%) Firewall
2 43 (1.45%) Network Security
3 21 (0.71%) SNMP
4 20 (0.67%) WAN
5 15 (0.51%) DNS
6 14 (0.47%) BGP
6 14 (0.47%) LAN
7 13 (0.44%) SAN
8 12 (0.40%) SMS
9 11 (0.37%) VPN
9 11 (0.37%) VSAN
10 9 (0.30%) FTP
11 8 (0.27%) NAS
11 8 (0.27%) Software-Defined Networking
12 7 (0.24%) Intranet
12 7 (0.24%) NGFW
12 7 (0.24%) SD-WAN
13 6 (0.20%) DHCP
13 6 (0.20%) Ethernet VPN
13 6 (0.20%) HTTP
Database & Business Intelligence
1 86 (2.90%) Power BI
2 52 (1.75%) 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
8 21 (0.71%) SAP BW
9 18 (0.61%) Oracle ODI
10 16 (0.54%) Data Warehouse
11 15 (0.51%) BusinessObjects
12 11 (0.37%) SAP Data Services
13 10 (0.34%) Power Query
14 9 (0.30%) Oracle Database
15 7 (0.24%) NoSQL
16 6 (0.20%) Electronic Patient Records
16 6 (0.20%) SQL Server Reporting Services
17 5 (0.17%) Data Lake
17 5 (0.17%) NonStop SQL
17 5 (0.17%) Relational Database
Development Applications
1 88 (2.96%) 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 (0.13%) Cypress.io
8 4 (0.13%) Toad
8 4 (0.13%) 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 (0.067%) git-flow
10 2 (0.067%) MLflow
10 2 (0.067%) Snyk
General
1 637 (21.46%) Finance
2 633 (21.33%) Social Skills
3 250 (8.42%) Analytical Skills
4 214 (7.21%) Public Sector
5 95 (3.20%) Manufacturing
6 91 (3.07%) Banking
7 77 (2.59%) Legal
8 76 (2.56%) Billing
9 61 (2.06%) Telecoms
10 55 (1.85%) General Ledger
11 54 (1.82%) Marketing
12 50 (1.68%) Documentation Skills
13 39 (1.31%) Retail
14 38 (1.28%) Inclusion and Diversity
14 38 (1.28%) Pharmaceutical
15 37 (1.25%) Presentation Skills
16 28 (0.94%) 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 (2.56%) Oracle Fusion
2 73 (2.46%) REST
3 58 (1.95%) XML
4 32 (1.08%) SAP Fiori
5 31 (1.04%) Middleware
6 29 (0.98%) Web Services
7 27 (0.91%) BAPI
8 25 (0.84%) SOAP
9 23 (0.77%) SAP TM
10 20 (0.67%) HTML
11 18 (0.61%) CSS
12 17 (0.57%) JSON
13 16 (0.54%) .NET
13 16 (0.54%) SAP Basis
14 12 (0.40%) LDAP
14 12 (0.40%) OAuth
15 11 (0.37%) IDoc
16 10 (0.34%) EDI
16 10 (0.34%) React
17 9 (0.30%) Elastic Stack
Miscellaneous
1 79 (2.66%) Onboarding
2 45 (1.52%) Data Protection Act
3 44 (1.48%) Security Posture
4 38 (1.28%) Legacy Systems
5 37 (1.25%) CMDB
5 37 (1.25%) Product Ownership
6 31 (1.04%) AI Agents
7 26 (0.88%) Data Structures
7 26 (0.88%) Operational Technology
8 24 (0.81%) Data Centre
8 24 (0.81%) Management Information System
9 23 (0.77%) Cloud Native
9 23 (0.77%) Life Science
10 21 (0.71%) Greenfield Project
11 20 (0.67%) NHS
12 18 (0.61%) Public Cloud
13 17 (0.57%) Replication
14 15 (0.51%) Algorithms
14 15 (0.51%) Security Operations Centre
15 13 (0.44%) Enterprise Software
Operating Systems
1 90 (3.03%) Windows
2 67 (2.26%) 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 (0.13%) Windows 10
9 3 (0.10%) Android
9 3 (0.10%) Apple iOS
9 3 (0.10%) Ubuntu
10 2 (0.067%) CoreOS
10 2 (0.067%) Data ONTAP
10 2 (0.067%) Mac OS
10 2 (0.067%) SUSE
11 1 (0.034%) Windows Server 2012
Processes & Methodologies
1 392 (13.21%) Migration
2 293 (9.87%) Stakeholder Management
3 270 (9.10%) Stakeholder Engagement
4 258 (8.69%) Problem-Solving
5 249 (8.39%) ERP
6 213 (7.18%) User Acceptance Testing
7 200 (6.74%) Workshop Facilitation
8 199 (6.70%) Validation
9 196 (6.60%) Continuous Improvement
10 175 (5.90%) Data Migration
11 170 (5.73%) Analytics
12 162 (5.46%) Agile
13 160 (5.39%) Cybersecurity
14 159 (5.36%) AI
15 153 (5.15%) Roadmaps
16 140 (4.72%) Business Intelligence
17 129 (4.35%) Change Management
18 116 (3.91%) Requirements Gathering
18 116 (3.91%) Translating Business Requirements
19 112 (3.77%) DevOps
Programming Languages
1 237 (7.99%) SQL
2 127 (4.28%) Python
3 67 (2.26%) JavaScript
4 59 (1.99%) PowerShell
5 51 (1.72%) PL/SQL
6 42 (1.42%) ABAP
7 35 (1.18%) Java
8 34 (1.15%) T-SQL
9 18 (0.61%) C#
10 16 (0.54%) Bash
11 13 (0.44%) Search Processing Language
12 12 (0.40%) 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 (0.13%) COBOL
17 4 (0.13%) Ruby
Qualifications
1 544 (18.33%) Security Cleared
2 404 (13.61%) SC Cleared
3 112 (3.77%) DV Cleared
4 87 (2.93%) BPSS Clearance
5 74 (2.49%) CISSP
6 73 (2.46%) Degree
7 54 (1.82%) CISM
8 31 (1.04%) Cisco Certification
9 27 (0.91%) (ISC)2 CCSP
10 26 (0.88%) CCSP
11 24 (0.81%) CIMA
12 17 (0.57%) PMP
12 17 (0.57%) VMware Certified Professional (VCP)
13 15 (0.51%) CEH
14 14 (0.47%) ACCA
14 14 (0.47%) Azure Certification
15 13 (0.44%) ITIL Certification
16 12 (0.40%) Computer Science Degree
16 12 (0.40%) OSCP
17 11 (0.37%) Master's Degree
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 86 (2.90%) NIST
2 75 (2.53%) ISO/IEC 27001
3 73 (2.46%) Data Quality
4 54 (1.82%) GRC
5 52 (1.75%) QA
6 37 (1.25%) GDPR
7 31 (1.04%) NCSC
8 27 (0.91%) PCI DSS
9 23 (0.77%) Actionable Recommendations
10 21 (0.71%) Accessibility
10 21 (0.71%) SLA
11 18 (0.61%) PMO
12 17 (0.57%) Sarbanes-Oxley
13 15 (0.51%) COBIT
14 13 (0.44%) GxP
15 12 (0.40%) JSP 440
16 8 (0.27%) WCAG
17 7 (0.24%) DICOM
17 7 (0.24%) GAAP
17 7 (0.24%) HL7
System Software
1 55 (1.85%) Active Directory
2 40 (1.35%) VMware Infrastructure
3 37 (1.25%) VMware NSX
4 24 (0.81%) vSphere
5 15 (0.51%) Docker
6 11 (0.37%) Virtual Machines
7 10 (0.34%) VMware ESXi
8 7 (0.24%) Hyper-V
8 7 (0.24%) IAG
9 5 (0.17%) Slurm Workload Manager
9 5 (0.17%) Virtual Desktop
10 4 (0.13%) NFS
11 2 (0.067%) BitLocker
12 1 (0.034%) HDFS
12 1 (0.034%) Job Entry Subsystem
12 1 (0.034%) Oracle RAC
12 1 (0.034%) ProxySG
12 1 (0.034%) SRDF
12 1 (0.034%) Time Sharing Option
Systems Management
1 49 (1.65%) Kubernetes
2 48 (1.62%) Terraform
3 29 (0.98%) vRealize
4 23 (0.77%) Ansible
5 16 (0.54%) Microsoft Intune
6 15 (0.51%) Nagios
6 15 (0.51%) ZABBIX
7 14 (0.47%) Netcool
7 14 (0.47%) Tivoli
8 13 (0.44%) OpenView
8 13 (0.44%) Single Sign-On
8 13 (0.44%) Tivoli Monitoring
9 11 (0.37%) Grafana
10 10 (0.34%) Prometheus
11 9 (0.30%) FortiGate
12 8 (0.27%) SCCM
12 8 (0.27%) vCenter Server
13 7 (0.24%) NetBackup
14 5 (0.17%) Podman
14 5 (0.17%) vRealize Orchestrator
Vendors
1 613 (20.65%) SAP
2 351 (11.83%) Microsoft
3 336 (11.32%) Oracle
4 110 (3.71%) ServiceNow
5 95 (3.20%) VMware
6 64 (2.16%) Ariba
7 54 (1.82%) Siemens
8 50 (1.68%) Salesforce
8 50 (1.68%) Workday
9 38 (1.28%) Databricks
9 38 (1.28%) Splunk
10 30 (1.01%) Google
11 24 (0.81%) BMC
11 24 (0.81%) IBM
12 21 (0.71%) Palo Alto
13 20 (0.67%) Adobe
14 17 (0.57%) OpenAI
15 16 (0.54%) IFS
15 16 (0.54%) JD Edwards
15 16 (0.54%) Sage