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 20 June 2026.

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

6 months to
20 Jun 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 27 28 24
Rank change year-on-year +1 -4 +10
Contract jobs requiring a Consultant 2,943 1,950 2,855
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 5.81% 6.53% 6.51%
As % of the Job Titles category 6.29% 7.08% 7.00%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,638 1,132 1,703
10th Percentile £400 £410 £400
25th Percentile £460 £475 £463
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £540 £550 £550
Median % change year-on-year -1.82% - -
75th Percentile £638 £638 £650
90th Percentile £734 £725 £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 94 27 30
10th Percentile £37.75 £28.72 £27.38
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 £64.52
90th Percentile £85.78 £87.35 £75.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £57.50 £73.75 £58.30
% change year-on-year -22.03% +26.50% -11.67%

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 46,784 27,533 40,775
% of contract IT jobs with a recognized job title 92.37% 92.21% 92.91%
Number of daily rates quoted 28,447 17,712 26,117
10th Percentile £325 £288 £281
25th Percentile £414 £402 £409
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £515 £500 £525
Median % change year-on-year +3.00% -4.76% -2.33%
75th Percentile £625 £625 £638
90th Percentile £725 £738 £750
UK excluding London median daily rate £500 £475 £490
% change year-on-year +5.26% -3.06% -2.00%
Number of hourly rates quoted 3,114 1,185 2,993
10th Percentile £15.25 £13.91 £12.86
25th Percentile £21.00 £17.50 £16.37
Median hourly rate £44.94 £27.50 £37.50
Median % change year-on-year +63.40% -26.67% -16.67%
75th Percentile £67.50 £57.50 £62.50
90th Percentile £80.00 £75.00 £73.95
UK excluding London median hourly rate £45.00 £25.15 £40.00
% change year-on-year +78.93% -37.13% -3.61%

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 20 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 20 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 20 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 2,346 £550 - 1,016
UK excluding London +3 1,245 £525 -2.33% 769
London -2 1,083 £550 -4.35% 417
Work from Home -2 1,043 £535 -2.77% 420
South East -3 343 £525 -4.55% 223
North of England -20 268 £550 +3.00% 242
Midlands -12 236 £525 -4.55% 77
South West +32 206 £550 - 109
West Midlands +1 160 £525 -4.55% 60
North West -19 142 £550 - 153
Yorkshire -11 104 £550 +15.79% 65
East of England -10 87 £550 +6.08% 57
Scotland +29 83 £425 -10.53% 21
East Midlands -9 67 £500 -9.09% 16
Wales +1 29 £550 +31.34% 16
North East -36 22 £650 +20.37% 25
Northern Ireland -3 3 £600 +15.38% 35

Consultant Skill Set
Top 30 Co-Occurring Skills & Capabilities

For the 6 months to 20 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.

1 606 (20.59%) SAP
2 545 (18.52%) Security Cleared
3 407 (13.83%) SC Cleared
4 385 (13.08%) Migration
5 341 (11.59%) Microsoft
6 337 (11.45%) Oracle
7 329 (11.18%) Azure
8 281 (9.55%) Stakeholder Management
9 273 (9.28%) SAP S/4HANA
10 267 (9.07%) Stakeholder Engagement
11 263 (8.94%) Problem-Solving
12 248 (8.43%) ERP
13 233 (7.92%) SQL
14 213 (7.24%) User Acceptance Testing
15 199 (6.76%) Validation
16 194 (6.59%) Workshop Facilitation
17 193 (6.56%) Continuous Improvement
18 174 (5.91%) Data Migration
19 166 (5.64%) Analytics
20 160 (5.44%) Cybersecurity
21 157 (5.33%) Agile
22 153 (5.20%) Roadmaps
23 152 (5.16%) AI
24 148 (5.03%) Power Platform
25 146 (4.96%) AWS
26 142 (4.83%) Business Intelligence
27 137 (4.66%) Dynamics 365
28 127 (4.32%) Change Management
28 127 (4.32%) Python
29 116 (3.94%) 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 (2.65%) SharePoint
2 45 (1.53%) Confluence
3 14 (0.48%) Oracle Workflow
4 13 (0.44%) Microsoft Exchange
5 7 (0.24%) WebSphere
6 6 (0.20%) Apache Spark
6 6 (0.20%) WebLogic
7 5 (0.17%) Jupyter
8 4 (0.14%) ArcGIS
8 4 (0.14%) SAS
9 3 (0.10%) Apache
9 3 (0.10%) Apache Superset
9 3 (0.10%) Palantir Foundry
10 2 (0.068%) Apache Airflow
10 2 (0.068%) Cloud Foundry
10 2 (0.068%) IIS
10 2 (0.068%) NetWeaver
10 2 (0.068%) Tomcat
10 2 (0.068%) WordPress
11 1 (0.034%) CMS
Applications
1 76 (2.58%) Microsoft Excel
2 23 (0.78%) 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%) CPLEX
10 1 (0.034%) Siemens NX
Business Applications
1 273 (9.28%) SAP S/4HANA
2 77 (2.62%) Oracle EBS
3 54 (1.83%) SAP FI
4 48 (1.63%) SAP PSCD
5 41 (1.39%) Oracle Payables
6 38 (1.29%) SAP MM
7 36 (1.22%) SAP BRIM
8 32 (1.09%) Oracle Receivables
9 31 (1.05%) SAP EWM
10 29 (0.99%) SAP SD
11 28 (0.95%) Oracle ERP
11 28 (0.95%) SAP FI-CA
12 27 (0.92%) Dynamics CRM
12 27 (0.92%) SAP Travel Management
12 27 (0.92%) Teamcenter
13 25 (0.85%) Oracle EBS R12
14 24 (0.82%) SAP CO
15 23 (0.78%) SAP FI/CO
15 23 (0.78%) SAP PP
16 22 (0.75%) NetSuite
Cloud Services
1 329 (11.18%) Azure
2 148 (5.03%) Power Platform
3 146 (4.96%) AWS
4 137 (4.66%) Dynamics 365
5 95 (3.23%) OCI
6 91 (3.09%) Microsoft 365
7 79 (2.68%) GCP
8 73 (2.48%) SuccessFactors
9 66 (2.24%) Power Automate
10 53 (1.80%) Entra ID
10 53 (1.80%) SaaS
11 46 (1.56%) Microsoft Copilot
12 42 (1.43%) Azure DevOps
13 32 (1.09%) GitHub
13 32 (1.09%) Microsoft Purview
14 31 (1.05%) PowerApps
15 23 (0.78%) Copilot Studio
16 17 (0.58%) Serverless
17 16 (0.54%) Azure Data Factory
18 15 (0.51%) OneDrive
Communications & Networking
1 45 (1.53%) Firewall
2 40 (1.36%) Network Security
3 21 (0.71%) SNMP
4 18 (0.61%) WAN
5 15 (0.51%) DNS
6 14 (0.48%) BGP
7 13 (0.44%) SAN
8 12 (0.41%) LAN
8 12 (0.41%) SMS
9 11 (0.37%) VPN
9 11 (0.37%) 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%) HTTP
13 6 (0.20%) IPsec
Database & Business Intelligence
1 87 (2.96%) Power BI
2 54 (1.83%) Oracle Reports
3 36 (1.22%) SAP HANA
4 34 (1.16%) Tableau
5 27 (0.92%) Metadata
6 25 (0.85%) Oracle BI Publisher
6 25 (0.85%) SQL Server
7 19 (0.65%) SAP BW
8 18 (0.61%) Oracle ODI
9 17 (0.58%) Data Warehouse
10 14 (0.48%) BusinessObjects
11 10 (0.34%) Power Query
11 10 (0.34%) SAP Data Services
12 9 (0.31%) Oracle Database
13 7 (0.24%) Electronic Patient Records
13 7 (0.24%) NoSQL
14 6 (0.20%) Crystal Reports
14 6 (0.20%) SQL Server Reporting Services
15 5 (0.17%) GIS
15 5 (0.17%) Hadoop
Development Applications
1 82 (2.79%) JIRA
2 19 (0.65%) Oracle Forms
3 16 (0.54%) Hudson
4 13 (0.44%) Git
5 11 (0.37%) 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%) MLflow
11 2 (0.068%) Snyk
11 2 (0.068%) Zephyr
General
1 622 (21.13%) Social Skills
2 620 (21.07%) Finance
3 249 (8.46%) Analytical Skills
4 210 (7.14%) Public Sector
5 93 (3.16%) Manufacturing
6 89 (3.02%) Banking
7 75 (2.55%) Billing
7 75 (2.55%) Legal
8 58 (1.97%) Telecoms
9 55 (1.87%) General Ledger
9 55 (1.87%) Marketing
10 48 (1.63%) Documentation Skills
11 38 (1.29%) Retail
12 37 (1.26%) Inclusion and Diversity
13 36 (1.22%) Presentation Skills
14 34 (1.16%) Pharmaceutical
15 29 (0.99%) Organisational Skills
16 22 (0.75%) Influencing Skills
16 22 (0.75%) Local Government
17 21 (0.71%) Law
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 81 (2.75%) Oracle Fusion
2 70 (2.38%) REST
3 57 (1.94%) XML
4 31 (1.05%) Middleware
5 30 (1.02%) SAP Fiori
6 29 (0.99%) Web Services
7 27 (0.92%) BAPI
7 27 (0.92%) SAP TM
8 24 (0.82%) SOAP
9 19 (0.65%) HTML
10 17 (0.58%) CSS
10 17 (0.58%) JSON
11 16 (0.54%) .NET
11 16 (0.54%) SAP Basis
12 13 (0.44%) LDAP
13 12 (0.41%) OAuth
14 11 (0.37%) IDoc
15 10 (0.34%) EDI
15 10 (0.34%) React
16 9 (0.31%) SailPoint
Miscellaneous
1 77 (2.62%) Onboarding
2 46 (1.56%) Data Protection Act
3 44 (1.50%) Security Posture
4 38 (1.29%) Product Ownership
5 37 (1.26%) Legacy Systems
6 34 (1.16%) CMDB
7 31 (1.05%) AI Agents
8 28 (0.95%) Operational Technology
9 24 (0.82%) Data Structures
10 23 (0.78%) Data Centre
10 23 (0.78%) Management Information System
11 22 (0.75%) Cloud Native
12 21 (0.71%) Life Science
12 21 (0.71%) NHS
13 19 (0.65%) Greenfield Project
14 17 (0.58%) Public Cloud
14 17 (0.58%) Replication
15 15 (0.51%) Algorithms
16 14 (0.48%) Security Operations Centre
17 13 (0.44%) Analytical Mindset
Operating Systems
1 87 (2.96%) Windows
2 67 (2.28%) Linux
3 21 (0.71%) 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
1 385 (13.08%) Migration
2 281 (9.55%) Stakeholder Management
3 267 (9.07%) Stakeholder Engagement
4 263 (8.94%) Problem-Solving
5 248 (8.43%) ERP
6 213 (7.24%) User Acceptance Testing
7 199 (6.76%) Validation
8 194 (6.59%) Workshop Facilitation
9 193 (6.56%) Continuous Improvement
10 174 (5.91%) Data Migration
11 166 (5.64%) Analytics
12 160 (5.44%) Cybersecurity
13 157 (5.33%) Agile
14 153 (5.20%) Roadmaps
15 152 (5.16%) AI
16 142 (4.83%) Business Intelligence
17 127 (4.32%) Change Management
18 116 (3.94%) Translating Business Requirements
19 115 (3.91%) Requirements Gathering
20 110 (3.74%) DevOps
Programming Languages
1 233 (7.92%) SQL
2 127 (4.32%) Python
3 65 (2.21%) JavaScript
4 59 (2.00%) PowerShell
5 50 (1.70%) PL/SQL
6 41 (1.39%) ABAP
7 35 (1.19%) Java
8 34 (1.16%) T-SQL
9 17 (0.58%) C#
10 16 (0.54%) Bash
11 13 (0.44%) Search Processing Language
12 11 (0.37%) Data Analysis Expressions
12 11 (0.37%) Kusto Query Language
12 11 (0.37%) Shell Script
13 8 (0.27%) TypeScript
14 7 (0.24%) C++
14 7 (0.24%) R
15 4 (0.14%) Apex Code
15 4 (0.14%) COBOL
15 4 (0.14%) Ruby
Qualifications
1 545 (18.52%) Security Cleared
2 407 (13.83%) SC Cleared
3 110 (3.74%) DV Cleared
4 86 (2.92%) BPSS Clearance
5 74 (2.51%) CISSP
6 71 (2.41%) Degree
7 54 (1.83%) CISM
8 31 (1.05%) Cisco Certification
9 27 (0.92%) (ISC)2 CCSP
10 26 (0.88%) CCSP
11 24 (0.82%) CIMA
12 18 (0.61%) VMware Certified Professional (VCP)
13 17 (0.58%) PMP
14 15 (0.51%) CEH
15 14 (0.48%) ACCA
15 14 (0.48%) Azure Certification
16 13 (0.44%) ITIL Certification
17 12 (0.41%) Computer Science Degree
17 12 (0.41%) OSCP
18 10 (0.34%) PMI Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 89 (3.02%) NIST
2 75 (2.55%) ISO/IEC 27001
3 70 (2.38%) Data Quality
4 54 (1.83%) GRC
5 50 (1.70%) QA
6 40 (1.36%) GDPR
7 32 (1.09%) NCSC
8 27 (0.92%) PCI DSS
9 22 (0.75%) Actionable Recommendations
10 21 (0.71%) SLA
11 20 (0.68%) Accessibility
12 18 (0.61%) PMO
13 16 (0.54%) Sarbanes-Oxley
14 15 (0.51%) COBIT
15 13 (0.44%) GxP
16 12 (0.41%) JSP 440
17 8 (0.27%) WCAG
18 7 (0.24%) DICOM
18 7 (0.24%) GAAP
18 7 (0.24%) HL7
System Software
1 56 (1.90%) Active Directory
2 40 (1.36%) VMware Infrastructure
3 37 (1.26%) VMware NSX
4 24 (0.82%) vSphere
5 15 (0.51%) Docker
6 11 (0.37%) Virtual Machines
7 10 (0.34%) VMware ESXi
8 8 (0.27%) Hyper-V
9 6 (0.20%) IAG
9 6 (0.20%) Virtual Desktop
10 5 (0.17%) 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 50 (1.70%) Kubernetes
2 48 (1.63%) Terraform
3 30 (1.02%) vRealize
4 23 (0.78%) Ansible
5 16 (0.54%) 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 (0.37%) Grafana
11 10 (0.34%) Prometheus
12 9 (0.31%) FortiGate
13 8 (0.27%) SCCM
13 8 (0.27%) vCenter Server
14 7 (0.24%) NetBackup
15 5 (0.17%) Failover Clustering
15 5 (0.17%) vRealize Orchestrator
Vendors
1 606 (20.59%) SAP
2 341 (11.59%) Microsoft
3 337 (11.45%) Oracle
4 104 (3.53%) ServiceNow
5 95 (3.23%) VMware
6 60 (2.04%) Ariba
7 54 (1.83%) Siemens
8 50 (1.70%) Workday
9 47 (1.60%) Salesforce
10 37 (1.26%) Databricks
11 36 (1.22%) Splunk
12 31 (1.05%) Google
13 24 (0.82%) BMC
13 24 (0.82%) IBM
14 21 (0.71%) Adobe
14 21 (0.71%) Palo Alto
15 17 (0.58%) OpenAI
16 16 (0.54%) Sage
16 16 (0.54%) SolarWinds
17 15 (0.51%) IFS