Consultant Contract Job Trends

Consultant
UK

The median Consultant daily rate in the UK is £543, according to job vacancies posted in the 6 months leading up to 24 June 2026.

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

6 months to
24 Jun 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 26 27 24
Rank change year-on-year +1 -3 +9
Contract jobs requiring a Consultant 2,972 1,951 2,857
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 5.84% 6.50% 6.57%
As % of the Job Titles category 6.32% 7.05% 7.07%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,656 1,128 1,723
10th Percentile £400 £410 £400
25th Percentile £460 £474 £463
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £543 £550 £550
Median % change year-on-year -1.36% - -
75th Percentile £638 £644 £650
90th Percentile £733 £738 £750
UK excluding London median daily rate £525 £537 £550
% change year-on-year -2.23% -2.36% +2.33%
Number of hourly rates quoted 95 27 29
10th Percentile £36.25 £28.72 £27.25
25th Percentile £56.25 £42.92 £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 £87.35 £75.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £57.50 £73.75 £59.95
% change year-on-year -22.03% +23.02% -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 47,021 27,678 40,406
% of contract IT jobs with a recognized job title 92.36% 92.16% 92.96%
Number of daily rates quoted 28,598 17,771 25,926
10th Percentile £325 £288 £281
25th Percentile £414 £402 £410
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £518 £500 £525
Median % change year-on-year +3.50% -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 3,150 1,209 2,937
10th Percentile £15.38 £13.84 £12.84
25th Percentile £21.00 £17.44 £16.37
Median hourly rate £43.00 £27.38 £37.50
Median % change year-on-year +57.08% -27.00% -12.79%
75th Percentile £67.50 £57.50 £62.50
90th Percentile £80.00 £74.00 £74.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £44.50 £25.15 £40.00
% change year-on-year +76.94% -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 24 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 24 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 24 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 2,374 £550 - 817
UK excluding London +4 1,264 £525 -2.23% 618
London -1 1,095 £550 -4.35% 343
Work from Home -2 1,063 £530 -3.64% 370
South East -1 345 £525 -3.38% 190
North of England -20 273 £550 +2.33% 170
Midlands -9 240 £525 -4.55% 68
South West +33 210 £556 +1.09% 83
West Midlands +2 163 £525 -4.55% 52
North West -21 145 £550 -1.57% 112
Yorkshire -7 105 £544 +14.47% 37
East of England -4 90 £550 +6.08% 57
Scotland +23 83 £425 -8.11% 18
East Midlands -8 68 £500 -9.09% 14
Wales +2 30 £550 +31.34% 18
North East -36 23 £650 +20.37% 22
Northern Ireland -5 3 £600 +15.38% 25

Consultant Skill Set
Top 30 Co-Occurring Skills & Capabilities

For the 6 months to 24 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 (20.63%) SAP
2 546 (18.37%) Security Cleared
3 406 (13.66%) SC Cleared
4 392 (13.19%) Migration
5 347 (11.68%) Microsoft
6 339 (11.41%) Oracle
7 333 (11.20%) Azure
8 289 (9.72%) Stakeholder Management
9 274 (9.22%) SAP S/4HANA
10 266 (8.95%) Stakeholder Engagement
11 261 (8.78%) Problem-Solving
12 249 (8.38%) ERP
13 235 (7.91%) SQL
14 214 (7.20%) User Acceptance Testing
15 201 (6.76%) Validation
16 197 (6.63%) Workshop Facilitation
17 196 (6.59%) Continuous Improvement
18 177 (5.96%) Data Migration
19 171 (5.75%) Analytics
20 161 (5.42%) Agile
21 160 (5.38%) Cybersecurity
22 157 (5.28%) AI
23 153 (5.15%) Roadmaps
24 148 (4.98%) Power Platform
25 145 (4.88%) AWS
26 143 (4.81%) Business Intelligence
27 139 (4.68%) Dynamics 365
28 128 (4.31%) Change Management
29 127 (4.27%) Python
30 119 (4.00%) Translating Business Requirements

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 (2.62%) 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%) Oracle Self-Service HR
Applications
1 76 (2.56%) Microsoft Excel
2 23 (0.77%) Microsoft Office
3 22 (0.74%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 7 (0.24%) Spreadsheet
5 6 (0.20%) MS Visio
6 5 (0.17%) PTC Creo
7 4 (0.13%) Chatbot
8 3 (0.10%) Microsoft Project
9 2 (0.067%) Lectora
9 2 (0.067%) Oracle Smart View
10 1 (0.034%) CATIA
10 1 (0.034%) CPLEX
10 1 (0.034%) Siemens NX
Business Applications
1 274 (9.22%) SAP S/4HANA
2 79 (2.66%) Oracle EBS
3 57 (1.92%) SAP FI
4 49 (1.65%) SAP PSCD
5 41 (1.38%) Oracle Payables
6 38 (1.28%) SAP MM
7 36 (1.21%) SAP BRIM
8 32 (1.08%) Oracle Receivables
9 30 (1.01%) SAP EWM
9 30 (1.01%) SAP SD
10 29 (0.98%) Dynamics CRM
10 29 (0.98%) SAP FI-CA
11 28 (0.94%) Oracle ERP
12 27 (0.91%) SAP CO
13 26 (0.87%) Teamcenter
14 25 (0.84%) Oracle EBS R12
14 25 (0.84%) SAP FI/CO
15 24 (0.81%) NetSuite
15 24 (0.81%) SAP PP
16 23 (0.77%) SAP Travel Management
Cloud Services
1 333 (11.20%) Azure
2 148 (4.98%) Power Platform
3 145 (4.88%) AWS
4 139 (4.68%) Dynamics 365
5 93 (3.13%) OCI
6 91 (3.06%) Microsoft 365
7 80 (2.69%) GCP
8 74 (2.49%) SuccessFactors
9 67 (2.25%) Power Automate
10 53 (1.78%) SaaS
11 52 (1.75%) Entra ID
12 48 (1.62%) Microsoft Copilot
13 45 (1.51%) Azure DevOps
14 34 (1.14%) 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 (0.50%) Azure Logic Apps
Communications & Networking
1 46 (1.55%) Firewall
2 41 (1.38%) Network Security
3 21 (0.71%) SNMP
4 19 (0.64%) WAN
5 15 (0.50%) DNS
6 14 (0.47%) BGP
7 13 (0.44%) 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 87 (2.93%) Power BI
2 54 (1.82%) Oracle Reports
3 36 (1.21%) SAP HANA
4 34 (1.14%) Tableau
5 27 (0.91%) Metadata
6 25 (0.84%) Oracle BI Publisher
6 25 (0.84%) SQL Server
7 21 (0.71%) SAP BW
8 18 (0.61%) Oracle ODI
9 16 (0.54%) Data Warehouse
10 15 (0.50%) BusinessObjects
11 11 (0.37%) SAP Data Services
12 10 (0.34%) Power Query
13 9 (0.30%) Oracle Database
14 7 (0.24%) Electronic Patient Records
14 7 (0.24%) NoSQL
15 6 (0.20%) SQL Server Reporting Services
16 5 (0.17%) GIS
16 5 (0.17%) Hadoop
16 5 (0.17%) NonStop SQL
Development Applications
1 88 (2.96%) JIRA
2 19 (0.64%) Oracle Forms
3 16 (0.54%) 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%) LSMW
10 2 (0.067%) Snyk
General
1 632 (21.27%) Finance
2 630 (21.20%) Social Skills
3 250 (8.41%) Analytical Skills
4 214 (7.20%) Public Sector
5 93 (3.13%) Manufacturing
6 90 (3.03%) Banking
7 77 (2.59%) Legal
8 76 (2.56%) Billing
9 61 (2.05%) 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%) Presentation Skills
15 37 (1.24%) Pharmaceutical
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 80 (2.69%) Oracle Fusion
2 76 (2.56%) REST
3 57 (1.92%) XML
4 32 (1.08%) Middleware
4 32 (1.08%) SAP Fiori
5 30 (1.01%) Web Services
6 27 (0.91%) BAPI
7 25 (0.84%) SOAP
8 23 (0.77%) SAP TM
9 20 (0.67%) HTML
10 18 (0.61%) CSS
11 17 (0.57%) JSON
12 16 (0.54%) .NET
12 16 (0.54%) SAP Basis
13 12 (0.40%) LDAP
13 12 (0.40%) OAuth
14 11 (0.37%) IDoc
15 10 (0.34%) EDI
15 10 (0.34%) React
16 9 (0.30%) RESTful
Miscellaneous
1 79 (2.66%) Onboarding
2 46 (1.55%) Data Protection Act
3 44 (1.48%) Security Posture
4 39 (1.31%) Legacy Systems
5 37 (1.24%) CMDB
5 37 (1.24%) Product Ownership
6 31 (1.04%) AI Agents
7 26 (0.87%) Data Structures
7 26 (0.87%) Operational Technology
8 24 (0.81%) Data Centre
8 24 (0.81%) Management Information System
9 23 (0.77%) Life Science
10 22 (0.74%) Cloud Native
11 21 (0.71%) Greenfield Project
11 21 (0.71%) NHS
12 18 (0.61%) Public Cloud
13 17 (0.57%) Replication
14 15 (0.50%) Algorithms
14 15 (0.50%) Security Operations Centre
15 13 (0.44%) Analytical Mindset
Operating Systems
1 89 (2.99%) Windows
2 68 (2.29%) Linux
3 21 (0.71%) Solaris
4 20 (0.67%) Unix
5 18 (0.61%) VMS
6 17 (0.57%) AIX
7 7 (0.24%) Windows Server
8 6 (0.20%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
9 5 (0.17%) zOS
10 4 (0.13%) Ubuntu
10 4 (0.13%) Windows 10
11 3 (0.10%) Android
11 3 (0.10%) Apple iOS
12 2 (0.067%) CoreOS
12 2 (0.067%) Data ONTAP
12 2 (0.067%) Mac OS
12 2 (0.067%) SUSE
13 1 (0.034%) Windows Server 2012
Processes & Methodologies
1 392 (13.19%) Migration
2 289 (9.72%) Stakeholder Management
3 266 (8.95%) Stakeholder Engagement
4 261 (8.78%) Problem-Solving
5 249 (8.38%) ERP
6 214 (7.20%) User Acceptance Testing
7 201 (6.76%) Validation
8 197 (6.63%) Workshop Facilitation
9 196 (6.59%) Continuous Improvement
10 177 (5.96%) Data Migration
11 171 (5.75%) Analytics
12 161 (5.42%) Agile
13 160 (5.38%) Cybersecurity
14 157 (5.28%) AI
15 153 (5.15%) Roadmaps
16 143 (4.81%) Business Intelligence
17 128 (4.31%) Change Management
18 119 (4.00%) Translating Business Requirements
19 118 (3.97%) Requirements Gathering
20 112 (3.77%) DevOps
Programming Languages
1 235 (7.91%) SQL
2 127 (4.27%) Python
3 67 (2.25%) JavaScript
4 59 (1.99%) PowerShell
5 50 (1.68%) PL/SQL
6 43 (1.45%) ABAP
7 35 (1.18%) Java
8 34 (1.14%) 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 4 (0.13%) COBOL
16 4 (0.13%) Perl
16 4 (0.13%) Ruby
Qualifications
1 546 (18.37%) Security Cleared
2 406 (13.66%) SC Cleared
3 113 (3.80%) DV Cleared
4 86 (2.89%) BPSS Clearance
5 74 (2.49%) CISSP
6 72 (2.42%) Degree
7 54 (1.82%) CISM
8 31 (1.04%) Cisco Certification
9 27 (0.91%) (ISC)2 CCSP
10 26 (0.87%) CCSP
11 24 (0.81%) CIMA
12 17 (0.57%) PMP
12 17 (0.57%) VMware Certified Professional (VCP)
13 15 (0.50%) 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%) SAP Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 87 (2.93%) NIST
2 75 (2.52%) ISO/IEC 27001
3 73 (2.46%) Data Quality
4 55 (1.85%) GRC
5 52 (1.75%) QA
6 40 (1.35%) 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 17 (0.57%) PMO
11 17 (0.57%) Sarbanes-Oxley
12 15 (0.50%) COBIT
13 13 (0.44%) GxP
14 12 (0.40%) 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 (1.85%) Active Directory
2 40 (1.35%) VMware Infrastructure
3 37 (1.24%) VMware NSX
4 24 (0.81%) vSphere
5 15 (0.50%) 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 6 (0.20%) Virtual Desktop
10 5 (0.17%) Slurm Workload Manager
11 4 (0.13%) NFS
12 2 (0.067%) BitLocker
13 1 (0.034%) HDFS
13 1 (0.034%) Job Entry Subsystem
13 1 (0.034%) Oracle RAC
13 1 (0.034%) ProxySG
13 1 (0.034%) SRDF
13 1 (0.034%) Time Sharing Option
Systems Management
1 50 (1.68%) Kubernetes
2 48 (1.62%) Terraform
3 29 (0.98%) vRealize
4 23 (0.77%) Ansible
5 16 (0.54%) Microsoft Intune
6 15 (0.50%) Nagios
6 15 (0.50%) 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 (20.63%) SAP
2 347 (11.68%) Microsoft
3 339 (11.41%) Oracle
4 108 (3.63%) ServiceNow
5 95 (3.20%) VMware
6 64 (2.15%) Ariba
7 54 (1.82%) Siemens
8 51 (1.72%) Workday
9 50 (1.68%) Salesforce
10 38 (1.28%) Databricks
11 37 (1.24%) Splunk
12 31 (1.04%) Google
13 24 (0.81%) IBM
14 23 (0.77%) BMC
15 21 (0.71%) Adobe
15 21 (0.71%) Palo Alto
16 17 (0.57%) OpenAI
17 16 (0.54%) JD Edwards
17 16 (0.54%) Okta
17 16 (0.54%) SolarWinds