Consultant Contract Job Trends

Consultant
UK

The median Consultant daily rate in the UK is £545, according to job vacancies posted in the 6 months leading up to 30 June 2026.

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

6 months to
30 Jun 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 27 27 25
Rank change year-on-year 0 -2 +9
Contract jobs requiring a Consultant 2,992 1,981 2,865
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 5.83% 6.47% 6.64%
As % of the Job Titles category 6.31% 7.03% 7.14%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,671 1,154 1,717
10th Percentile £400 £407 £400
25th Percentile £463 £475 £463
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £545 £550 £550
Median % change year-on-year -0.91% - -
75th Percentile £638 £649 £650
90th Percentile £730 £738 £750
UK excluding London median daily rate £525 £543 £550
% change year-on-year -3.38% -1.20% +3.77%
Number of hourly rates quoted 93 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 £85.85 £87.35 £75.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £57.50 £73.75 £59.95
% change year-on-year -22.03% +23.02% -7.31%

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 47,423 28,164 40,143
% of contract IT jobs with a recognized job title 92.41% 92.05% 92.99%
Number of daily rates quoted 28,738 18,025 25,769
10th Percentile £325 £288 £283
25th Percentile £415 £401 £410
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £520 £500 £525
Median % change year-on-year +4.00% -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 3,196 1,261 2,867
10th Percentile £15.61 £13.78 £12.86
25th Percentile £21.23 £17.33 £16.50
Median hourly rate £43.00 £27.00 £37.50
Median % change year-on-year +59.26% -28.00% -12.79%
75th Percentile £67.50 £56.25 £62.50
90th Percentile £80.00 £73.75 £74.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £45.00 £25.15 £40.00
% change year-on-year +78.93% -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 30 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 30 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 30 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 -3 2,395 £550 - 730
UK excluding London +2 1,287 £525 -3.38% 515
London -1 1,096 £550 -4.35% 335
Work from Home -2 1,070 £540 -1.82% 350
South East -3 348 £525 -4.55% 174
North of England -19 278 £550 +0.92% 135
Midlands -8 251 £525 -4.55% 66
South West +29 211 £553 +0.55% 64
West Midlands +10 175 £525 -4.55% 51
North West -11 151 £550 -3.51% 90
Yorkshire -8 105 £550 +15.79% 33
East of England -7 92 £550 +4.17% 45
Scotland +26 85 £425 -8.11% 16
East Midlands -12 67 £500 -9.09% 14
Wales 0 31 £550 +31.34% 9
North East -35 22 £650 +20.37% 13
Northern Ireland -4 3 £600 +15.38% 14

Consultant Skill Set
Top 30 Co-Occurring Skills & Capabilities

For the 6 months to 30 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.

1 621 (20.76%) SAP
2 547 (18.28%) Security Cleared
3 406 (13.57%) SC Cleared
4 394 (13.17%) Migration
5 356 (11.90%) Microsoft
6 337 (11.26%) Oracle
7 335 (11.20%) Azure
8 302 (10.09%) Stakeholder Management
9 272 (9.09%) SAP S/4HANA
10 269 (8.99%) Stakeholder Engagement
11 255 (8.52%) Problem-Solving
12 250 (8.36%) ERP
13 239 (7.99%) SQL
14 214 (7.15%) User Acceptance Testing
15 201 (6.72%) Workshop Facilitation
16 200 (6.68%) Validation
17 199 (6.65%) Continuous Improvement
18 176 (5.88%) Data Migration
19 171 (5.72%) Analytics
20 164 (5.48%) Agile
20 164 (5.48%) Cybersecurity
21 161 (5.38%) AI
22 155 (5.18%) Roadmaps
23 145 (4.85%) AWS
23 145 (4.85%) Power Platform
24 137 (4.58%) Business Intelligence
25 134 (4.48%) Dynamics 365
26 130 (4.34%) Python
27 126 (4.21%) Change Management
28 123 (4.11%) 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 (2.61%) SharePoint
2 48 (1.60%) Confluence
3 14 (0.47%) Oracle Workflow
4 13 (0.43%) Microsoft Exchange
5 9 (0.30%) WebSphere
6 8 (0.27%) WebLogic
7 6 (0.20%) Apache Spark
8 4 (0.13%) ArcGIS
8 4 (0.13%) Jupyter
8 4 (0.13%) SAS
9 3 (0.10%) Apache
9 3 (0.10%) Apache Superset
9 3 (0.10%) Palantir Foundry
10 2 (0.067%) Apache Airflow
10 2 (0.067%) Cloud Foundry
10 2 (0.067%) IIS
10 2 (0.067%) NetWeaver
10 2 (0.067%) Tomcat
10 2 (0.067%) WordPress
11 1 (0.033%) OpenStack
Applications
1 78 (2.61%) Microsoft Excel
2 26 (0.87%) Microsoft Office
3 22 (0.74%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 8 (0.27%) Spreadsheet
5 7 (0.23%) 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 (0.033%) CATIA
10 1 (0.033%) CPLEX
10 1 (0.033%) Siemens NX
Business Applications
1 272 (9.09%) SAP S/4HANA
2 80 (2.67%) Oracle EBS
3 60 (2.01%) SAP FI
4 50 (1.67%) SAP PSCD
5 42 (1.40%) Oracle Payables
6 37 (1.24%) SAP BRIM
6 37 (1.24%) SAP MM
7 33 (1.10%) Oracle Receivables
8 31 (1.04%) SAP SD
9 30 (1.00%) Dynamics CRM
9 30 (1.00%) Oracle ERP
9 30 (1.00%) SAP FI-CA
10 29 (0.97%) SAP EWM
11 27 (0.90%) SAP CO
12 26 (0.87%) Oracle EBS R12
13 25 (0.84%) NetSuite
13 25 (0.84%) SAP FI/CO
13 25 (0.84%) SAP PP
13 25 (0.84%) Teamcenter
14 23 (0.77%) SAP Travel Management
Cloud Services
1 335 (11.20%) Azure
2 145 (4.85%) AWS
2 145 (4.85%) Power Platform
3 134 (4.48%) Dynamics 365
4 93 (3.11%) Microsoft 365
5 90 (3.01%) OCI
6 81 (2.71%) GCP
7 75 (2.51%) SuccessFactors
8 68 (2.27%) Power Automate
9 55 (1.84%) Entra ID
10 52 (1.74%) SaaS
11 46 (1.54%) Azure DevOps
12 45 (1.50%) Microsoft Copilot
13 33 (1.10%) GitHub
13 33 (1.10%) Microsoft Purview
14 32 (1.07%) PowerApps
15 22 (0.74%) Copilot Studio
16 17 (0.57%) Serverless
17 16 (0.53%) OneDrive
18 15 (0.50%) Azure Logic Apps
Communications & Networking
1 50 (1.67%) Firewall
2 43 (1.44%) Network Security
3 23 (0.77%) SNMP
4 21 (0.70%) WAN
5 16 (0.53%) BGP
6 15 (0.50%) DNS
6 15 (0.50%) LAN
7 13 (0.43%) SAN
8 12 (0.40%) VPN
9 11 (0.37%) VSAN
10 10 (0.33%) SMS
11 9 (0.30%) FTP
12 8 (0.27%) NAS
12 8 (0.27%) Software-Defined Networking
13 7 (0.23%) NGFW
13 7 (0.23%) SD-WAN
14 6 (0.20%) Ethernet VPN
14 6 (0.20%) HTTP
14 6 (0.20%) IPsec
14 6 (0.20%) VXLAN
Database & Business Intelligence
1 86 (2.87%) Power BI
2 51 (1.70%) Oracle Reports
3 36 (1.20%) SAP HANA
4 34 (1.14%) Tableau
5 28 (0.94%) Metadata
6 26 (0.87%) SQL Server
7 22 (0.74%) Oracle BI Publisher
7 22 (0.74%) SAP BW
8 18 (0.60%) Oracle ODI
9 16 (0.53%) BusinessObjects
9 16 (0.53%) Data Warehouse
10 12 (0.40%) SAP Data Services
11 10 (0.33%) Power Query
12 9 (0.30%) Oracle Database
13 7 (0.23%) NoSQL
14 6 (0.20%) Delta Lake
14 6 (0.20%) SQL Server Reporting Services
15 5 (0.17%) GIS
15 5 (0.17%) Hadoop
15 5 (0.17%) NonStop SQL
Development Applications
1 88 (2.94%) JIRA
2 19 (0.64%) Oracle Forms
3 17 (0.57%) Hudson
4 15 (0.50%) Git
5 12 (0.40%) Jenkins
6 8 (0.27%) GitLab
7 7 (0.23%) Sonatype Nexus
8 5 (0.17%) Postman
8 5 (0.17%) SonarQube
9 4 (0.13%) Cypress.io
9 4 (0.13%) Toad
9 4 (0.13%) Zephyr
10 3 (0.10%) Browser DevTools
10 3 (0.10%) JDeveloper
10 3 (0.10%) MLflow
10 3 (0.10%) Selenium
10 3 (0.10%) TestRail
10 3 (0.10%) Visual Studio Code
11 2 (0.067%) LSMW
11 2 (0.067%) Snyk
General
1 641 (21.42%) Finance
2 635 (21.22%) Social Skills
3 251 (8.39%) Analytical Skills
4 215 (7.19%) Public Sector
5 97 (3.24%) Manufacturing
6 90 (3.01%) Banking
7 81 (2.71%) Legal
8 78 (2.61%) Billing
9 62 (2.07%) Telecoms
10 59 (1.97%) General Ledger
11 50 (1.67%) Documentation Skills
11 50 (1.67%) Marketing
12 40 (1.34%) Presentation Skills
13 39 (1.30%) Inclusion and Diversity
13 39 (1.30%) Retail
14 38 (1.27%) Pharmaceutical
15 27 (0.90%) Organisational Skills
16 22 (0.74%) Influencing Skills
16 22 (0.74%) Law
17 21 (0.70%) Local Government
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 77 (2.57%) Oracle Fusion
2 71 (2.37%) REST
3 58 (1.94%) XML
4 33 (1.10%) SAP Fiori
5 32 (1.07%) Middleware
6 28 (0.94%) Web Services
7 27 (0.90%) BAPI
8 25 (0.84%) SOAP
9 23 (0.77%) SAP TM
10 20 (0.67%) HTML
11 18 (0.60%) CSS
12 17 (0.57%) JSON
13 16 (0.53%) .NET
13 16 (0.53%) SAP Basis
14 12 (0.40%) LDAP
14 12 (0.40%) OAuth
15 11 (0.37%) EDI
15 11 (0.37%) IDoc
16 10 (0.33%) Microsoft Graph
16 10 (0.33%) React
Miscellaneous
1 80 (2.67%) Onboarding
2 47 (1.57%) Data Protection Act
3 44 (1.47%) Security Posture
4 39 (1.30%) CMDB
5 36 (1.20%) Legacy Systems
6 35 (1.17%) Product Ownership
7 33 (1.10%) AI Agents
8 28 (0.94%) Data Structures
9 26 (0.87%) Operational Technology
10 24 (0.80%) Cloud Native
10 24 (0.80%) Management Information System
11 23 (0.77%) Data Centre
11 23 (0.77%) Life Science
12 21 (0.70%) Greenfield Project
13 19 (0.64%) NHS
13 19 (0.64%) Public Cloud
14 17 (0.57%) Replication
15 15 (0.50%) Algorithms
15 15 (0.50%) Security Operations Centre
16 14 (0.47%) Analytical Mindset
Operating Systems
1 93 (3.11%) Windows
2 67 (2.24%) Linux
3 21 (0.70%) Solaris
3 21 (0.70%) Unix
4 18 (0.60%) 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
10 2 (0.067%) CoreOS
10 2 (0.067%) Data ONTAP
10 2 (0.067%) Mac OS
10 2 (0.067%) SUSE
10 2 (0.067%) Ubuntu
11 1 (0.033%) Windows Server 2012
Processes & Methodologies
1 394 (13.17%) Migration
2 302 (10.09%) Stakeholder Management
3 269 (8.99%) Stakeholder Engagement
4 255 (8.52%) Problem-Solving
5 250 (8.36%) ERP
6 214 (7.15%) User Acceptance Testing
7 201 (6.72%) Workshop Facilitation
8 200 (6.68%) Validation
9 199 (6.65%) Continuous Improvement
10 176 (5.88%) Data Migration
11 171 (5.72%) Analytics
12 164 (5.48%) Agile
12 164 (5.48%) Cybersecurity
13 161 (5.38%) AI
14 155 (5.18%) Roadmaps
15 137 (4.58%) Business Intelligence
16 126 (4.21%) Change Management
17 123 (4.11%) Requirements Gathering
18 119 (3.98%) Translating Business Requirements
19 112 (3.74%) DevOps
Programming Languages
1 239 (7.99%) SQL
2 130 (4.34%) Python
3 66 (2.21%) JavaScript
4 59 (1.97%) PowerShell
5 51 (1.70%) PL/SQL
6 44 (1.47%) ABAP
7 34 (1.14%) Java
7 34 (1.14%) T-SQL
8 17 (0.57%) Bash
8 17 (0.57%) C#
9 13 (0.43%) Search Processing Language
10 12 (0.40%) Data Analysis Expressions
11 11 (0.37%) Kusto Query Language
11 11 (0.37%) Shell Script
12 10 (0.33%) TypeScript
13 7 (0.23%) C++
13 7 (0.23%) R
14 5 (0.17%) Korn
15 4 (0.13%) Apex Code
15 4 (0.13%) Ruby
Qualifications
1 547 (18.28%) Security Cleared
2 406 (13.57%) SC Cleared
3 113 (3.78%) DV Cleared
4 88 (2.94%) BPSS Clearance
5 74 (2.47%) CISSP
5 74 (2.47%) Degree
6 54 (1.80%) CISM
7 33 (1.10%) Cisco Certification
8 27 (0.90%) (ISC)2 CCSP
9 26 (0.87%) CCSP
10 22 (0.74%) CIMA
11 16 (0.53%) VMware Certified Professional (VCP)
12 15 (0.50%) PMP
13 14 (0.47%) CEH
14 13 (0.43%) ACCA
14 13 (0.43%) Azure Certification
14 13 (0.43%) Computer Science Degree
14 13 (0.43%) ITIL Certification
15 12 (0.40%) Master's Degree
15 12 (0.40%) OSCP
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 88 (2.94%) NIST
2 76 (2.54%) ISO/IEC 27001
3 73 (2.44%) Data Quality
4 58 (1.94%) GRC
5 53 (1.77%) QA
6 38 (1.27%) GDPR
7 29 (0.97%) NCSC
8 28 (0.94%) PCI DSS
9 23 (0.77%) Actionable Recommendations
10 21 (0.70%) Accessibility
11 20 (0.67%) SLA
12 18 (0.60%) PMO
12 18 (0.60%) Sarbanes-Oxley
13 14 (0.47%) COBIT
13 14 (0.47%) GxP
14 12 (0.40%) JSP 440
15 8 (0.27%) WCAG
16 7 (0.23%) DICOM
16 7 (0.23%) GAAP
16 7 (0.23%) HL7
System Software
1 56 (1.87%) Active Directory
2 41 (1.37%) VMware Infrastructure
3 38 (1.27%) VMware NSX
4 25 (0.84%) vSphere
5 13 (0.43%) Docker
6 11 (0.37%) Virtual Machines
6 11 (0.37%) VMware ESXi
7 7 (0.23%) Hyper-V
7 7 (0.23%) IAG
8 5 (0.17%) Virtual Desktop
9 4 (0.13%) NFS
9 4 (0.13%) Slurm Workload Manager
10 2 (0.067%) BitLocker
11 1 (0.033%) HDFS
11 1 (0.033%) Job Entry Subsystem
11 1 (0.033%) Oracle RAC
11 1 (0.033%) ProxySG
11 1 (0.033%) SRDF
11 1 (0.033%) Time Sharing Option
Systems Management
1 50 (1.67%) Terraform
2 47 (1.57%) Kubernetes
3 28 (0.94%) vRealize
4 26 (0.87%) Ansible
5 15 (0.50%) Microsoft Intune
5 15 (0.50%) Nagios
5 15 (0.50%) ZABBIX
6 14 (0.47%) Netcool
6 14 (0.47%) Tivoli
7 13 (0.43%) OpenView
7 13 (0.43%) Single Sign-On
7 13 (0.43%) Tivoli Monitoring
8 12 (0.40%) Grafana
9 11 (0.37%) Prometheus
10 10 (0.33%) FortiGate
11 9 (0.30%) vCenter Server
12 8 (0.27%) SCCM
13 7 (0.23%) NetBackup
14 5 (0.17%) vRealize Orchestrator
15 4 (0.13%) Podman
Vendors
1 621 (20.76%) SAP
2 356 (11.90%) Microsoft
3 337 (11.26%) Oracle
4 112 (3.74%) ServiceNow
5 97 (3.24%) VMware
6 64 (2.14%) Ariba
7 54 (1.80%) Siemens
8 50 (1.67%) Salesforce
8 50 (1.67%) Workday
9 39 (1.30%) Databricks
9 39 (1.30%) Splunk
10 28 (0.94%) Google
11 24 (0.80%) BMC
11 24 (0.80%) IBM
12 22 (0.74%) Palo Alto
13 18 (0.60%) JD Edwards
14 17 (0.57%) Adobe
15 16 (0.53%) IFS
15 16 (0.53%) Okta
15 16 (0.53%) OpenText