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 28 March 2026.

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

6 months to
28 Mar 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 28 26 24
Rank change year-on-year -2 -2 +18
Contract jobs requiring a Consultant 2,859 1,910 2,765
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 6.43% 6.57% 6.25%
As % of the Job Titles category 6.99% 7.08% 6.73%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,582 1,107 1,700
10th Percentile £400 £413 £400
25th Percentile £460 £488 £463
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £540 £550 £550
Median % change year-on-year -1.82% - -2.35%
75th Percentile £638 £638 £650
90th Percentile £713 £738 £738
UK excluding London median daily rate £525 £550 £548
% change year-on-year -4.55% +0.46% -0.45%
Number of hourly rates quoted 77 16 37
10th Percentile £55.35 £63.13 £36.50
25th Percentile £56.25 £70.00 £52.90
Median hourly rate £57.50 £83.75 £61.79
Median % change year-on-year -31.34% +35.54% -6.38%
75th Percentile £60.00 £86.06 £75.00
90th Percentile £78.25 £87.50 £90.25
UK excluding London median hourly rate £57.50 £84.25 £61.60
% change year-on-year -31.75% +36.77% -6.67%

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 40,899 26,977 41,058
% of contract IT jobs with a recognized job title 92.01% 92.83% 92.83%
Number of daily rates quoted 25,498 17,746 26,889
10th Percentile £313 £300 £275
25th Percentile £413 £406 £406
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £520 £525
Median % change year-on-year -3.85% -0.95% -3.67%
75th Percentile £613 £630 £638
90th Percentile £725 £738 £738
UK excluding London median daily rate £485 £475 £488
% change year-on-year +2.11% -2.56% -2.50%
Number of hourly rates quoted 2,538 929 2,519
10th Percentile £15.00 £15.19 £12.86
25th Percentile £19.51 £21.00 £16.25
Median hourly rate £37.54 £32.50 £33.00
Median % change year-on-year +15.51% -1.52% -23.26%
75th Percentile £65.00 £64.52 £60.00
90th Percentile £77.50 £77.25 £71.90
UK excluding London median hourly rate £38.63 £32.50 £33.00
% change year-on-year +18.86% -1.52% -18.70%

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 28 March 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 28 March 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 28 March 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 2,237 £550 - 1,211
UK excluding London +6 1,181 £525 -4.55% 849
Work from Home 0 1,042 £525 -4.55% 598
London -2 1,032 £550 -4.35% 544
South East +4 356 £540 -6.09% 278
North of England -13 240 £531 -1.25% 172
Midlands -5 236 £550 +4.76% 104
West Midlands +4 170 £563 +7.14% 52
South West +21 161 £525 -4.55% 152
North West -20 118 £525 -3.23% 109
Yorkshire +6 112 £544 +3.57% 53
East of England -7 95 £550 +10.00% 67
Scotland +18 61 £510 -7.27% 38
East Midlands -18 58 £500 -3.15% 51
Wales +4 32 £463 +2.78% 33
North East -18 10 £525 -4.55% 12
Northern Ireland +4 9 £405 -22.86% 15

Consultant Skill Set
Top 30 Co-Occurring Skills & Capabilities

For the 6 months to 28 March 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.

1 647 (22.63%) Security Cleared
2 613 (21.44%) SAP
3 545 (19.06%) SC Cleared
4 404 (14.13%) Migration
5 314 (10.98%) Azure
6 312 (10.91%) Oracle
7 300 (10.49%) Problem-Solving
8 295 (10.32%) SAP S/4HANA
9 292 (10.21%) Microsoft
10 286 (10.00%) Stakeholder Engagement
11 262 (9.16%) Stakeholder Management
12 239 (8.36%) ERP
13 210 (7.35%) SQL
14 206 (7.21%) Workshop Facilitation
15 188 (6.58%) User Acceptance Testing
16 181 (6.33%) Agile
17 172 (6.02%) Data Migration
18 168 (5.88%) Roadmaps
19 159 (5.56%) Analytics
20 153 (5.35%) Continuous Improvement
21 152 (5.32%) Business Intelligence
22 149 (5.21%) Cybersecurity
23 147 (5.14%) Validation
24 137 (4.79%) Knowledge Transfer
25 133 (4.65%) Dynamics 365
26 127 (4.44%) Python
27 123 (4.30%) AI
28 117 (4.09%) Power Platform
29 116 (4.06%) Risk Management
30 112 (3.92%) 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 71 (2.48%) SharePoint
2 40 (1.40%) Confluence
3 23 (0.80%) Microsoft Exchange
4 10 (0.35%) Oracle Workflow
5 6 (0.21%) Jupyter
6 5 (0.17%) MTS
7 4 (0.14%) Apache
7 4 (0.14%) Apache Spark
7 4 (0.14%) ArcGIS
7 4 (0.14%) CMS
8 3 (0.10%) Cloud Foundry
8 3 (0.10%) Palantir Foundry
9 2 (0.070%) Apache Superset
9 2 (0.070%) IIS
9 2 (0.070%) NetWeaver
9 2 (0.070%) Tomcat
10 1 (0.035%) nginx
10 1 (0.035%) Oracle Self-Service HR
10 1 (0.035%) SAS
10 1 (0.035%) WebSphere
Applications
1 69 (2.41%) Microsoft Excel
2 24 (0.84%) Microsoft PowerPoint
3 13 (0.45%) Microsoft Office
4 10 (0.35%) MS Visio
5 5 (0.17%) Microsoft Project
5 5 (0.17%) PTC Creo
6 4 (0.14%) Spreadsheet
7 3 (0.10%) Chatbot
8 2 (0.070%) Lectora
8 2 (0.070%) Oracle Smart View
9 1 (0.035%) Adobe XD
9 1 (0.035%) CATIA
9 1 (0.035%) InfoPath
9 1 (0.035%) Navisworks
9 1 (0.035%) Revit
9 1 (0.035%) Siemens NX
9 1 (0.035%) Windchill
Business Applications
1 295 (10.32%) SAP S/4HANA
2 67 (2.34%) Oracle EBS
3 62 (2.17%) SAP FI
4 51 (1.78%) Oracle Payables
5 48 (1.68%) SAP MM
6 46 (1.61%) Oracle Receivables
7 39 (1.36%) Oracle EBS R12
7 39 (1.36%) SAP HCM
8 38 (1.33%) SAP PP
9 34 (1.19%) SAP PSCD
10 33 (1.15%) Dynamics CRM
10 33 (1.15%) SAP CO
11 32 (1.12%) SAP EWM
12 31 (1.08%) Oracle Assets
12 31 (1.08%) SAP FI/CO
13 30 (1.05%) Oracle General Ledger
14 28 (0.98%) SAP Travel Management
15 25 (0.87%) Oracle Cash Management
15 25 (0.87%) Oracle Procure-to-Pay
15 25 (0.87%) SAP SD
Cloud Services
1 314 (10.98%) Azure
2 133 (4.65%) Dynamics 365
3 117 (4.09%) Power Platform
4 108 (3.78%) AWS
5 106 (3.71%) OCI
6 80 (2.80%) GCP
7 74 (2.59%) Microsoft 365
8 67 (2.34%) SaaS
9 65 (2.27%) SuccessFactors
10 59 (2.06%) Entra ID
11 42 (1.47%) Power Automate
12 37 (1.29%) Azure DevOps
13 32 (1.12%) Microsoft Purview
14 31 (1.08%) Microsoft Copilot
14 31 (1.08%) PowerApps
15 27 (0.94%) GitHub
16 23 (0.80%) OneDrive
17 19 (0.66%) Azure Data Factory
18 18 (0.63%) SAP Commerce Cloud
19 15 (0.52%) PaaS
Communications & Networking
1 41 (1.43%) Firewall
2 22 (0.77%) Network Security
3 15 (0.52%) VPN
3 15 (0.52%) WAN
4 14 (0.49%) VSAN
5 13 (0.45%) DNS
5 13 (0.45%) Kerberos
5 13 (0.45%) SMS
6 12 (0.42%) HTTP
6 12 (0.42%) LAN
6 12 (0.42%) SD-WAN
7 10 (0.35%) SAN
8 9 (0.31%) FTP
8 9 (0.31%) Software-Defined Networking
9 8 (0.28%) DHCP
9 8 (0.28%) Intranet
9 8 (0.28%) SNMP
9 8 (0.28%) SSH
9 8 (0.28%) SSL
10 7 (0.24%) NAS
Database & Business Intelligence
1 85 (2.97%) Power BI
2 57 (1.99%) Oracle Reports
3 39 (1.36%) SAP HANA
4 26 (0.91%) Metadata
5 24 (0.84%) SQL Server
6 23 (0.80%) Oracle BI Publisher
7 22 (0.77%) Tableau
8 14 (0.49%) Oracle ODI
9 12 (0.42%) SAP BW
10 10 (0.35%) SQL Server Reporting Services
11 9 (0.31%) Data Warehouse
11 9 (0.31%) Electronic Patient Records
11 9 (0.31%) NoSQL
12 7 (0.24%) GIS
13 6 (0.21%) Data Lake
13 6 (0.21%) Data Mart
13 6 (0.21%) Essbase
13 6 (0.21%) Oracle Database
13 6 (0.21%) PostgreSQL
13 6 (0.21%) SAP Data Services
Development Applications
1 72 (2.52%) JIRA
2 18 (0.63%) Oracle Forms
3 15 (0.52%) Hudson
3 15 (0.52%) Jenkins
4 10 (0.35%) Git
5 7 (0.24%) GitLab
5 7 (0.24%) Oracle APEX
6 4 (0.14%) LSMW
6 4 (0.14%) Sonatype Nexus
7 3 (0.10%) Postman
7 3 (0.10%) Visual Studio Code
8 2 (0.070%) Bitbucket
8 2 (0.070%) git-flow
8 2 (0.070%) Rational DOORS
8 2 (0.070%) Rational Rhapsody
8 2 (0.070%) Selenium
8 2 (0.070%) SonarQube
8 2 (0.070%) TeamCity
9 1 (0.035%) MSTest
9 1 (0.035%) Team Foundation Server
General
1 689 (24.10%) Social Skills
2 618 (21.62%) Finance
3 272 (9.51%) Analytical Skills
4 250 (8.74%) Public Sector
5 122 (4.27%) Manufacturing
6 105 (3.67%) Banking
7 75 (2.62%) Marketing
8 71 (2.48%) Legal
9 63 (2.20%) Documentation Skills
10 58 (2.03%) Billing
11 48 (1.68%) General Ledger
12 46 (1.61%) Telecoms
13 36 (1.26%) Retail
14 34 (1.19%) Organisational Skills
15 32 (1.12%) Presentation Skills
16 25 (0.87%) Inclusion and Diversity
16 25 (0.87%) Law
17 22 (0.77%) Pharmaceutical
18 20 (0.70%) Electronics
19 19 (0.66%) Advertising
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 95 (3.32%) Oracle Fusion
2 71 (2.48%) REST
3 61 (2.13%) XML
4 38 (1.33%) SAP Fiori
5 33 (1.15%) SOAP
5 33 (1.15%) Web Services
6 30 (1.05%) SAP TM
7 28 (0.98%) LDAP
8 22 (0.77%) Middleware
9 20 (0.70%) BAPI
9 20 (0.70%) Node.js
10 19 (0.66%) JSON
11 18 (0.63%) SAP Basis
12 17 (0.59%) .NET
12 17 (0.59%) IDoc
13 14 (0.49%) GraphQL
13 14 (0.49%) SAP PI
14 13 (0.45%) HTML
15 12 (0.42%) CSS
15 12 (0.42%) EDI
Miscellaneous
1 67 (2.34%) Onboarding
2 53 (1.85%) Legacy Systems
3 45 (1.57%) Product Ownership
4 38 (1.33%) Security Posture
5 35 (1.22%) Data Protection Act
6 32 (1.12%) Replication
7 31 (1.08%) Management Information System
8 29 (1.01%) Data Centre
9 26 (0.91%) Operational Technology
10 23 (0.80%) Cloud Native
11 21 (0.73%) AI Agents
11 21 (0.73%) Analytical Mindset
11 21 (0.73%) Data Structures
12 20 (0.70%) NHS
13 18 (0.63%) Greenfield Project
13 18 (0.63%) Public Cloud
14 16 (0.56%) CMDB
15 14 (0.49%) Hybrid Cloud
15 14 (0.49%) Life Science
16 13 (0.45%) Self-Motivation
Operating Systems
1 81 (2.83%) Windows
2 48 (1.68%) Linux
3 15 (0.52%) Unix
3 15 (0.52%) VMS
4 14 (0.49%) Windows Server
5 12 (0.42%) AIX
6 11 (0.38%) Windows 10
7 6 (0.21%) Mac OS
7 6 (0.21%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
8 5 (0.17%) Ubuntu
9 4 (0.14%) Solaris
9 4 (0.14%) zOS
10 3 (0.10%) Apple iOS
10 3 (0.10%) SUSE
11 2 (0.070%) CoreOS
11 2 (0.070%) Data ONTAP
12 1 (0.035%) Android
12 1 (0.035%) CentOS
Processes & Methodologies
1 404 (14.13%) Migration
2 300 (10.49%) Problem-Solving
3 286 (10.00%) Stakeholder Engagement
4 262 (9.16%) Stakeholder Management
5 239 (8.36%) ERP
6 206 (7.21%) Workshop Facilitation
7 188 (6.58%) User Acceptance Testing
8 181 (6.33%) Agile
9 172 (6.02%) Data Migration
10 168 (5.88%) Roadmaps
11 159 (5.56%) Analytics
12 153 (5.35%) Continuous Improvement
13 152 (5.32%) Business Intelligence
14 149 (5.21%) Cybersecurity
15 147 (5.14%) Validation
16 137 (4.79%) Knowledge Transfer
17 123 (4.30%) AI
18 116 (4.06%) Risk Management
19 112 (3.92%) Change Management
20 110 (3.85%) DevOps
Programming Languages
1 210 (7.35%) SQL
2 127 (4.44%) Python
3 85 (2.97%) PowerShell
4 76 (2.66%) JavaScript
5 55 (1.92%) ABAP
6 38 (1.33%) PL/SQL
7 35 (1.22%) Java
8 31 (1.08%) T-SQL
9 23 (0.80%) TypeScript
10 17 (0.59%) C#
10 17 (0.59%) Groovy
11 14 (0.49%) Bash
12 11 (0.38%) Shell Script
13 10 (0.35%) C++
14 8 (0.28%) Apex Code
14 8 (0.28%) Data Analysis Expressions
15 7 (0.24%) Kusto Query Language
16 6 (0.21%) R
16 6 (0.21%) Search Processing Language
17 5 (0.17%) Korn
Qualifications
1 647 (22.63%) Security Cleared
2 545 (19.06%) SC Cleared
3 96 (3.36%) Degree
4 90 (3.15%) DV Cleared
5 64 (2.24%) BPSS Clearance
6 59 (2.06%) CISSP
7 39 (1.36%) CISM
8 30 (1.05%) VMware Certified Professional (VCP)
9 20 (0.70%) CIMA
10 18 (0.63%) Cisco Certification
10 18 (0.63%) Computer Science Degree
11 17 (0.59%) Master's Degree
12 16 (0.56%) Microsoft Certification
13 14 (0.49%) ITIL Certification
14 13 (0.45%) SAP Certification
15 9 (0.31%) Azure Certification
15 9 (0.31%) CEH
15 9 (0.31%) CompTIA Security+
16 8 (0.28%) (ISC)2 CCSP
16 8 (0.28%) CESG Certified Professional
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 95 (3.32%) NIST
2 90 (3.15%) ISO/IEC 27001
3 65 (2.27%) GDPR
4 56 (1.96%) Data Quality
5 49 (1.71%) QA
6 48 (1.68%) GRC
7 26 (0.91%) PCI DSS
8 25 (0.87%) NCSC
9 20 (0.70%) PMO
9 20 (0.70%) Sarbanes-Oxley
10 19 (0.66%) SLA
11 17 (0.59%) Actionable Recommendations
11 17 (0.59%) COBIT
12 13 (0.45%) JSP 440
13 11 (0.38%) PERC
14 10 (0.35%) ISO/IEC 27005
15 8 (0.28%) Accessibility
15 8 (0.28%) Cyber Essentials
15 8 (0.28%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
16 6 (0.21%) RMADS
System Software
1 64 (2.24%) Active Directory
2 35 (1.22%) VMware NSX
3 34 (1.19%) VMware Infrastructure
4 30 (1.05%) Docker
5 28 (0.98%) vSphere
6 9 (0.31%) Hyper-V
7 8 (0.28%) Virtual Desktop
8 7 (0.24%) Virtual Machines
9 6 (0.21%) Slurm Workload Manager
10 3 (0.10%) NFS
10 3 (0.10%) VMware ESXi
11 2 (0.070%) IAG
11 2 (0.070%) NDS
11 2 (0.070%) NetIQ eDirectory
12 1 (0.035%) Ceph
12 1 (0.035%) Job Entry Subsystem
12 1 (0.035%) KVM
12 1 (0.035%) QEMU
Systems Management
1 49 (1.71%) Kubernetes
2 36 (1.26%) Terraform
3 34 (1.19%) vRealize
4 20 (0.70%) Microsoft Intune
5 17 (0.59%) Single Sign-On
6 13 (0.45%) Ansible
7 8 (0.28%) Failover Clustering
7 8 (0.28%) Nagios
7 8 (0.28%) Netcool
7 8 (0.28%) OpenView
7 8 (0.28%) PingFederate
7 8 (0.28%) Tivoli
7 8 (0.28%) Tivoli Monitoring
7 8 (0.28%) ZABBIX
8 6 (0.21%) Active Directory Federation Services
8 6 (0.21%) NetBackup
8 6 (0.21%) Podman
8 6 (0.21%) SCCM
9 3 (0.10%) CEMLI
9 3 (0.10%) Puppet
Vendors
1 613 (21.44%) SAP
2 312 (10.91%) Oracle
3 292 (10.21%) Microsoft
4 99 (3.46%) VMware
5 89 (3.11%) ServiceNow
6 62 (2.17%) Salesforce
7 56 (1.96%) Workday
8 54 (1.89%) CyberArk
9 53 (1.85%) Siemens
10 50 (1.75%) Ariba
11 48 (1.68%) Google
12 45 (1.57%) Cisco
13 37 (1.29%) Aruba
14 29 (1.01%) Databricks
15 24 (0.84%) Splunk
16 23 (0.80%) Adobe
17 19 (0.66%) IBM
18 17 (0.59%) OpenText
19 16 (0.56%) BMC
19 16 (0.56%) Murex