Consultant Contract Job Trends

Consultant
UK

The median Consultant daily rate in the UK is £540, according to job vacancies posted in the 6 months leading up to 17 June 2026.

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

6 months to
17 Jun 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 27 28 25
Rank change year-on-year +1 -3 +9
Contract jobs requiring a Consultant 2,928 1,944 2,811
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 5.82% 6.55% 6.45%
As % of the Job Titles category 6.30% 7.10% 6.94%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,633 1,125 1,684
10th Percentile £400 £406 £400
25th Percentile £461 £475 £463
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £540 £550 £550
Median % change year-on-year -1.82% - -
75th Percentile £638 £638 £650
90th Percentile £731 £725 £750
UK excluding London median daily rate £525 £536 £550
% change year-on-year -2.05% -2.55% +2.33%
Number of hourly rates quoted 92 25 26
10th Percentile £36.75 £28.32 £26.88
25th Percentile £56.25 £41.60 £50.73
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 -
90th Percentile £85.93 £87.40 £72.50
UK excluding London median hourly rate £57.50 £73.75 £56.89
% change year-on-year -22.03% +29.65% -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 46,477 27,381 40,501
% of contract IT jobs with a recognized job title 92.36% 92.25% 92.91%
Number of daily rates quoted 28,258 17,617 25,961
10th Percentile £325 £289 £280
25th Percentile £413 £402 £407
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £515 £500 £525
Median % change year-on-year +3.00% -4.76% -2.33%
75th Percentile £624 £625 £638
90th Percentile £725 £738 £750
UK excluding London median daily rate £500 £475 £488
% change year-on-year +5.26% -2.56% -2.50%
Number of hourly rates quoted 3,104 1,172 2,957
10th Percentile £15.25 £13.87 £12.86
25th Percentile £20.86 £17.75 £16.37
Median hourly rate £43.61 £27.45 £37.50
Median % change year-on-year +58.85% -26.80% -16.67%
75th Percentile £67.50 £57.50 £62.50
90th Percentile £80.00 £75.00 £73.75
UK excluding London median hourly rate £45.00 £25.15 £40.00
% change year-on-year +78.93% -37.13% -1.45%

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 17 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 17 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 17 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 -2 2,331 £550 - 2,027
UK excluding London +2 1,233 £525 -2.05% 1,472
London -1 1,079 £550 -4.35% 831
Work from Home -2 1,047 £538 -2.27% 1,162
South East +1 339 £525 -4.55% 380
North of England -17 269 £550 +4.27% 392
Midlands -11 229 £525 -4.55% 173
South West +35 205 £550 - 199
West Midlands -2 153 £525 -4.55% 106
North West -11 142 £550 - 243
Yorkshire -9 105 £538 +13.16% 96
East of England -3 86 £550 +6.08% 121
Scotland +26 82 £425 -10.53% 96
East Midlands -10 67 £500 -9.09% 66
Wales +1 30 £550 +37.50% 43
North East -34 22 £650 +21.72% 54
Northern Ireland -1 3 £600 +15.38% 85

Consultant Skill Set
Top 30 Co-Occurring Skills & Capabilities

For the 6 months to 17 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.

1 605 (20.66%) SAP
2 543 (18.55%) Security Cleared
3 406 (13.87%) SC Cleared
4 382 (13.05%) Migration
5 339 (11.58%) Microsoft
6 337 (11.51%) Oracle
7 326 (11.13%) Azure
8 278 (9.49%) SAP S/4HANA
9 271 (9.26%) Stakeholder Management
10 262 (8.95%) Stakeholder Engagement
11 260 (8.88%) Problem-Solving
12 247 (8.44%) ERP
13 229 (7.82%) SQL
14 214 (7.31%) User Acceptance Testing
15 195 (6.66%) Validation
16 191 (6.52%) Continuous Improvement
17 185 (6.32%) Workshop Facilitation
18 172 (5.87%) Data Migration
19 158 (5.40%) Analytics
19 158 (5.40%) Cybersecurity
20 156 (5.33%) Agile
21 155 (5.29%) Roadmaps
22 147 (5.02%) AI
22 147 (5.02%) Power Platform
23 141 (4.82%) AWS
24 140 (4.78%) Dynamics 365
25 139 (4.75%) Business Intelligence
26 126 (4.30%) Change Management
27 124 (4.23%) Python
28 113 (3.86%) 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 79 (2.70%) SharePoint
2 45 (1.54%) Confluence
3 14 (0.48%) Oracle Workflow
4 13 (0.44%) Microsoft Exchange
5 6 (0.20%) Jupyter
5 6 (0.20%) WebSphere
6 5 (0.17%) Apache Spark
6 5 (0.17%) WebLogic
7 4 (0.14%) ArcGIS
7 4 (0.14%) SAS
8 3 (0.10%) Apache
8 3 (0.10%) Apache Superset
8 3 (0.10%) Cloud Foundry
8 3 (0.10%) Palantir Foundry
8 3 (0.10%) Tomcat
9 2 (0.068%) IIS
9 2 (0.068%) NetWeaver
10 1 (0.034%) Apache Airflow
10 1 (0.034%) Oracle Self-Service HR
10 1 (0.034%) WordPress
Applications
1 78 (2.66%) Microsoft Excel
2 24 (0.82%) Microsoft PowerPoint
3 22 (0.75%) Microsoft Office
4 7 (0.24%) Spreadsheet
5 6 (0.20%) MS Visio
6 5 (0.17%) PTC Creo
7 4 (0.14%) Chatbot
8 3 (0.10%) Microsoft Project
9 2 (0.068%) Lectora
9 2 (0.068%) Oracle Smart View
10 1 (0.034%) CATIA
10 1 (0.034%) Siemens NX
Business Applications
1 278 (9.49%) SAP S/4HANA
2 74 (2.53%) Oracle EBS
3 57 (1.95%) SAP FI
4 46 (1.57%) SAP PSCD
5 42 (1.43%) Oracle Payables
6 38 (1.30%) SAP MM
7 36 (1.23%) SAP BRIM
8 33 (1.13%) Oracle Receivables
9 30 (1.02%) SAP EWM
10 29 (0.99%) Dynamics CRM
11 28 (0.96%) Oracle ERP
11 28 (0.96%) SAP SD
11 28 (0.96%) SAP Travel Management
12 27 (0.92%) SAP CO
12 27 (0.92%) SAP FI-CA
12 27 (0.92%) Teamcenter
13 26 (0.89%) SAP FI/CO
14 25 (0.85%) Oracle EBS R12
15 23 (0.79%) SAP PP
16 22 (0.75%) SAP IBP
Cloud Services
1 326 (11.13%) Azure
2 147 (5.02%) Power Platform
3 141 (4.82%) AWS
4 140 (4.78%) Dynamics 365
5 96 (3.28%) OCI
6 89 (3.04%) Microsoft 365
7 75 (2.56%) GCP
8 72 (2.46%) SuccessFactors
9 67 (2.29%) Power Automate
10 54 (1.84%) SaaS
11 53 (1.81%) Entra ID
12 44 (1.50%) Microsoft Copilot
13 42 (1.43%) Azure DevOps
14 34 (1.16%) PowerApps
15 32 (1.09%) GitHub
15 32 (1.09%) Microsoft Purview
16 21 (0.72%) Copilot Studio
17 18 (0.61%) Serverless
18 16 (0.55%) Azure Data Factory
19 15 (0.51%) OneDrive
Communications & Networking
1 45 (1.54%) Firewall
2 40 (1.37%) Network Security
3 21 (0.72%) SNMP
4 17 (0.58%) WAN
5 15 (0.51%) DNS
6 14 (0.48%) SMS
7 13 (0.44%) BGP
7 13 (0.44%) SAN
8 12 (0.41%) LAN
9 11 (0.38%) VPN
9 11 (0.38%) VSAN
10 9 (0.31%) FTP
10 9 (0.31%) Software-Defined Networking
11 8 (0.27%) NAS
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%) VXLAN
Database & Business Intelligence
1 85 (2.90%) Power BI
2 54 (1.84%) Oracle Reports
3 36 (1.23%) SAP HANA
4 31 (1.06%) Tableau
5 26 (0.89%) Metadata
5 26 (0.89%) SQL Server
6 24 (0.82%) Oracle BI Publisher
7 18 (0.61%) Data Warehouse
7 18 (0.61%) Oracle ODI
8 16 (0.55%) SAP BW
9 11 (0.38%) BusinessObjects
9 11 (0.38%) Power Query
10 9 (0.31%) Oracle Database
11 7 (0.24%) Electronic Patient Records
11 7 (0.24%) NoSQL
11 7 (0.24%) SAP Data Services
12 6 (0.20%) Crystal Reports
12 6 (0.20%) Relational Database
12 6 (0.20%) SQL Server Reporting Services
13 5 (0.17%) GIS
Development Applications
1 81 (2.77%) JIRA
2 19 (0.65%) Oracle Forms
3 16 (0.55%) Hudson
4 13 (0.44%) Git
5 11 (0.38%) Jenkins
6 9 (0.31%) GitLab
7 7 (0.24%) Sonatype Nexus
8 5 (0.17%) SonarQube
9 4 (0.14%) Cypress.io
9 4 (0.14%) Toad
10 3 (0.10%) Browser DevTools
10 3 (0.10%) JDeveloper
10 3 (0.10%) Oracle APEX
10 3 (0.10%) Postman
10 3 (0.10%) Selenium
10 3 (0.10%) Visual Studio Code
11 2 (0.068%) git-flow
11 2 (0.068%) JUnit
11 2 (0.068%) MLflow
11 2 (0.068%) Snyk
General
1 618 (21.11%) Social Skills
2 616 (21.04%) Finance
3 246 (8.40%) Analytical Skills
4 212 (7.24%) Public Sector
5 92 (3.14%) Manufacturing
6 90 (3.07%) Banking
7 77 (2.63%) Legal
8 72 (2.46%) Billing
9 57 (1.95%) Marketing
10 54 (1.84%) General Ledger
10 54 (1.84%) Telecoms
11 52 (1.78%) Documentation Skills
12 37 (1.26%) Retail
13 35 (1.20%) Inclusion and Diversity
14 33 (1.13%) Pharmaceutical
15 32 (1.09%) Presentation Skills
16 31 (1.06%) Organisational Skills
17 22 (0.75%) Influencing Skills
18 21 (0.72%) Law
18 21 (0.72%) Local Government
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 84 (2.87%) Oracle Fusion
2 71 (2.42%) REST
3 59 (2.02%) XML
4 31 (1.06%) Middleware
5 29 (0.99%) SAP Fiori
5 29 (0.99%) Web Services
6 28 (0.96%) SAP TM
7 27 (0.92%) BAPI
8 24 (0.82%) SOAP
9 20 (0.68%) HTML
10 17 (0.58%) CSS
10 17 (0.58%) JSON
11 16 (0.55%) .NET
11 16 (0.55%) SAP Basis
12 13 (0.44%) LDAP
13 12 (0.41%) OAuth
14 11 (0.38%) IDoc
15 10 (0.34%) EDI
15 10 (0.34%) React
16 9 (0.31%) SailPoint
Miscellaneous
1 76 (2.60%) Onboarding
2 46 (1.57%) Data Protection Act
3 43 (1.47%) Security Posture
4 40 (1.37%) Legacy Systems
5 38 (1.30%) Product Ownership
6 32 (1.09%) CMDB
7 30 (1.02%) AI Agents
8 29 (0.99%) Operational Technology
9 24 (0.82%) Data Structures
9 24 (0.82%) Management Information System
10 23 (0.79%) Data Centre
11 22 (0.75%) Cloud Native
12 21 (0.72%) Life Science
13 20 (0.68%) NHS
14 19 (0.65%) Greenfield Project
15 17 (0.58%) Public Cloud
15 17 (0.58%) Replication
16 15 (0.51%) Algorithms
17 14 (0.48%) Enterprise Software
18 13 (0.44%) Security Operations Centre
Operating Systems
1 84 (2.87%) Windows
2 65 (2.22%) Linux
3 21 (0.72%) Solaris
4 19 (0.65%) Unix
5 18 (0.61%) VMS
6 17 (0.58%) AIX
7 6 (0.20%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
7 6 (0.20%) Windows Server
8 5 (0.17%) zOS
9 4 (0.14%) Ubuntu
9 4 (0.14%) Windows 10
10 3 (0.10%) Android
10 3 (0.10%) Apple iOS
11 2 (0.068%) CoreOS
11 2 (0.068%) Data ONTAP
11 2 (0.068%) Mac OS
11 2 (0.068%) SUSE
12 1 (0.034%) Windows Server 2012
Processes & Methodologies
1 382 (13.05%) Migration
2 271 (9.26%) Stakeholder Management
3 262 (8.95%) Stakeholder Engagement
4 260 (8.88%) Problem-Solving
5 247 (8.44%) ERP
6 214 (7.31%) User Acceptance Testing
7 195 (6.66%) Validation
8 191 (6.52%) Continuous Improvement
9 185 (6.32%) Workshop Facilitation
10 172 (5.87%) Data Migration
11 158 (5.40%) Analytics
11 158 (5.40%) Cybersecurity
12 156 (5.33%) Agile
13 155 (5.29%) Roadmaps
14 147 (5.02%) AI
15 139 (4.75%) Business Intelligence
16 126 (4.30%) Change Management
17 113 (3.86%) Translating Business Requirements
18 111 (3.79%) DevOps
19 109 (3.72%) Requirements Gathering
Programming Languages
1 229 (7.82%) SQL
2 124 (4.23%) Python
3 65 (2.22%) JavaScript
4 59 (2.02%) PowerShell
5 50 (1.71%) PL/SQL
6 37 (1.26%) ABAP
7 35 (1.20%) Java
8 34 (1.16%) T-SQL
9 18 (0.61%) C#
10 16 (0.55%) Bash
11 13 (0.44%) Search Processing Language
12 12 (0.41%) Data Analysis Expressions
13 11 (0.38%) Kusto Query Language
13 11 (0.38%) Shell Script
14 8 (0.27%) TypeScript
15 7 (0.24%) C++
16 6 (0.20%) R
17 4 (0.14%) Apex Code
17 4 (0.14%) Korn
17 4 (0.14%) Ruby
Qualifications
1 543 (18.55%) Security Cleared
2 406 (13.87%) SC Cleared
3 107 (3.65%) DV Cleared
4 84 (2.87%) BPSS Clearance
5 72 (2.46%) CISSP
6 70 (2.39%) Degree
7 54 (1.84%) CISM
8 30 (1.02%) Cisco Certification
9 26 (0.89%) (ISC)2 CCSP
9 26 (0.89%) CCSP
10 24 (0.82%) CIMA
11 18 (0.61%) VMware Certified Professional (VCP)
12 17 (0.58%) PMP
13 15 (0.51%) CEH
14 14 (0.48%) ACCA
14 14 (0.48%) Azure Certification
15 13 (0.44%) ITIL Certification
16 12 (0.41%) Computer Science Degree
16 12 (0.41%) OSCP
17 11 (0.38%) SAP Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 86 (2.94%) NIST
2 74 (2.53%) ISO/IEC 27001
3 71 (2.42%) Data Quality
4 51 (1.74%) GRC
5 46 (1.57%) QA
6 42 (1.43%) GDPR
7 32 (1.09%) NCSC
8 27 (0.92%) PCI DSS
9 21 (0.72%) Actionable Recommendations
9 21 (0.72%) SLA
10 20 (0.68%) Accessibility
11 18 (0.61%) PMO
12 16 (0.55%) Sarbanes-Oxley
13 15 (0.51%) COBIT
14 13 (0.44%) GxP
15 11 (0.38%) 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 56 (1.91%) Active Directory
2 40 (1.37%) VMware Infrastructure
3 37 (1.26%) VMware NSX
4 24 (0.82%) vSphere
5 16 (0.55%) Docker
6 11 (0.38%) Virtual Machines
7 10 (0.34%) VMware ESXi
8 8 (0.27%) Hyper-V
9 7 (0.24%) Virtual Desktop
10 6 (0.20%) IAG
10 6 (0.20%) Slurm Workload Manager
11 4 (0.14%) NFS
12 2 (0.068%) 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 51 (1.74%) Kubernetes
2 47 (1.61%) Terraform
3 30 (1.02%) vRealize
4 23 (0.79%) Ansible
5 16 (0.55%) Microsoft Intune
6 15 (0.51%) Nagios
6 15 (0.51%) ZABBIX
7 14 (0.48%) Netcool
7 14 (0.48%) Tivoli
8 13 (0.44%) OpenView
8 13 (0.44%) Tivoli Monitoring
9 12 (0.41%) Single Sign-On
10 11 (0.38%) Grafana
11 10 (0.34%) Prometheus
12 8 (0.27%) FortiGate
12 8 (0.27%) SCCM
12 8 (0.27%) vCenter Server
13 7 (0.24%) NetBackup
14 6 (0.20%) Podman
15 5 (0.17%) vRealize Orchestrator
Vendors
1 605 (20.66%) SAP
2 339 (11.58%) Microsoft
3 337 (11.51%) Oracle
4 102 (3.48%) ServiceNow
5 94 (3.21%) VMware
6 60 (2.05%) Ariba
7 54 (1.84%) Siemens
8 49 (1.67%) Workday
9 48 (1.64%) Salesforce
10 36 (1.23%) Splunk
11 35 (1.20%) Databricks
12 30 (1.02%) Google
13 24 (0.82%) BMC
13 24 (0.82%) IBM
14 21 (0.72%) Palo Alto
15 20 (0.68%) Adobe
16 16 (0.55%) Sage
16 16 (0.55%) SolarWinds
17 15 (0.51%) IFS
17 15 (0.51%) OpenAI