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 10 June 2026.

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

6 months to
10 Jun 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 28 28 24
Rank change year-on-year 0 -4 +11
Contract jobs requiring a Consultant 2,869 1,914 2,840
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 5.80% 6.52% 6.51%
As % of the Job Titles category 6.28% 7.06% 7.01%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,604 1,101 1,723
10th Percentile £400 £411 £400
25th Percentile £459 £475 £463
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £543 £550 £550
Median % change year-on-year -1.36% - -
75th Percentile £638 £638 £650
90th Percentile £726 £725 £750
UK excluding London median daily rate £525 £537 £550
% change year-on-year -2.23% -2.36% +0.69%
Number of hourly rates quoted 88 23 27
10th Percentile £39.75 £27.93 £27.00
25th Percentile £56.25 £39.05 £51.45
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 £85.48 £87.25 £72.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £57.50 £70.00 £56.89
% change year-on-year -17.86% +23.06% -13.15%

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 45,686 27,116 40,535
% of contract IT jobs with a recognized job title 92.32% 92.32% 92.89%
Number of daily rates quoted 27,799 17,461 26,079
10th Percentile £325 £288 £280
25th Percentile £413 £402 £408
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £513 £500 £525
Median % change year-on-year +2.68% -4.76% -2.60%
75th Percentile £620 £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 3,044 1,132 2,932
10th Percentile £15.05 £13.87 £12.86
25th Percentile £20.65 £17.79 £16.30
Median hourly rate £42.50 £27.70 £37.50
Median % change year-on-year +53.43% -26.13% -16.67%
75th Percentile £67.50 £57.50 £61.60
90th Percentile £80.00 £75.00 £73.75
UK excluding London median hourly rate £43.69 £25.15 £40.00
% change year-on-year +73.72% -37.13% -5.88%

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 10 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 10 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 10 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 2,289 £550 - 1,084
UK excluding London +4 1,212 £525 -2.23% 760
London -1 1,053 £550 -4.35% 454
Work from Home -2 1,014 £540 -1.82% 494
South East +2 342 £530 -3.64% 232
North of England -14 269 £550 +3.77% 222
Midlands -13 230 £525 -4.55% 70
South West +41 194 £550 - 132
West Midlands -3 154 £525 -4.55% 45
North West -12 135 £550 +0.92% 133
Yorkshire -7 112 £550 +15.79% 65
Scotland +24 78 £425 -8.11% 35
East of England -7 76 £550 +6.08% 43
East Midlands -11 67 £500 -9.09% 24
Wales 0 30 £550 +37.50% 11
North East -25 22 £725 +35.77% 25
Northern Ireland -1 3 £600 +15.38% 24

Consultant Skill Set
Top 30 Co-Occurring Skills & Capabilities

For the 6 months to 10 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.

1 593 (20.67%) SAP
2 534 (18.61%) Security Cleared
3 402 (14.01%) SC Cleared
4 367 (12.79%) Migration
5 330 (11.50%) Oracle
6 322 (11.22%) Microsoft
7 313 (10.91%) Azure
8 273 (9.52%) SAP S/4HANA
9 259 (9.03%) Problem-Solving
10 258 (8.99%) Stakeholder Management
11 256 (8.92%) Stakeholder Engagement
12 245 (8.54%) ERP
13 223 (7.77%) SQL
14 205 (7.15%) User Acceptance Testing
15 193 (6.73%) Continuous Improvement
16 184 (6.41%) Workshop Facilitation
17 179 (6.24%) Validation
18 168 (5.86%) Data Migration
19 156 (5.44%) Agile
19 156 (5.44%) Cybersecurity
20 152 (5.30%) Roadmaps
21 149 (5.19%) Analytics
22 148 (5.16%) Power Platform
23 142 (4.95%) Dynamics 365
24 141 (4.91%) Business Intelligence
25 140 (4.88%) AI
26 135 (4.71%) AWS
27 122 (4.25%) Change Management
28 121 (4.22%) Python
29 111 (3.87%) DevOps

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 (2.75%) SharePoint
2 45 (1.57%) Confluence
3 13 (0.45%) Microsoft Exchange
3 13 (0.45%) Oracle Workflow
4 6 (0.21%) Jupyter
5 5 (0.17%) Apache Spark
6 4 (0.14%) ArcGIS
6 4 (0.14%) WebSphere
7 3 (0.10%) Apache
7 3 (0.10%) Apache Superset
7 3 (0.10%) Cloud Foundry
7 3 (0.10%) Palantir Foundry
7 3 (0.10%) SAS
7 3 (0.10%) Tomcat
7 3 (0.10%) WebLogic
8 2 (0.070%) IIS
8 2 (0.070%) NetWeaver
9 1 (0.035%) Apache Airflow
9 1 (0.035%) Oracle Self-Service HR
9 1 (0.035%) WordPress
Applications
1 78 (2.72%) Microsoft Excel
2 25 (0.87%) Microsoft PowerPoint
3 20 (0.70%) Microsoft Office
4 6 (0.21%) MS Visio
4 6 (0.21%) Spreadsheet
5 5 (0.17%) PTC Creo
6 4 (0.14%) Chatbot
7 3 (0.10%) Microsoft Project
8 2 (0.070%) Lectora
8 2 (0.070%) Oracle Smart View
9 1 (0.035%) CATIA
9 1 (0.035%) Siemens NX
Business Applications
1 273 (9.52%) SAP S/4HANA
2 73 (2.54%) Oracle EBS
3 55 (1.92%) SAP FI
4 43 (1.50%) SAP PSCD
5 42 (1.46%) Oracle Payables
6 39 (1.36%) SAP MM
7 34 (1.19%) Oracle Receivables
8 33 (1.15%) SAP BRIM
9 29 (1.01%) Dynamics CRM
9 29 (1.01%) SAP EWM
9 29 (1.01%) SAP SD
9 29 (1.01%) SAP Travel Management
10 28 (0.98%) Oracle ERP
10 28 (0.98%) Teamcenter
11 26 (0.91%) SAP CO
11 26 (0.91%) SAP FI-CA
12 25 (0.87%) SAP FI/CO
13 23 (0.80%) Oracle EBS R12
14 22 (0.77%) SAP IBP
15 21 (0.73%) SAP PP
Cloud Services
1 313 (10.91%) Azure
2 148 (5.16%) Power Platform
3 142 (4.95%) Dynamics 365
4 135 (4.71%) AWS
5 95 (3.31%) OCI
6 89 (3.10%) Microsoft 365
7 72 (2.51%) GCP
8 68 (2.37%) SuccessFactors
9 67 (2.34%) Power Automate
10 56 (1.95%) SaaS
11 51 (1.78%) Entra ID
12 42 (1.46%) Azure DevOps
12 42 (1.46%) Microsoft Copilot
13 34 (1.19%) PowerApps
14 32 (1.12%) Microsoft Purview
15 31 (1.08%) GitHub
16 21 (0.73%) Copilot Studio
17 19 (0.66%) Serverless
18 15 (0.52%) Azure Data Factory
18 15 (0.52%) OneDrive
Communications & Networking
1 38 (1.32%) Network Security
2 36 (1.25%) Firewall
3 21 (0.73%) SNMP
4 16 (0.56%) SMS
5 15 (0.52%) DNS
6 13 (0.45%) SAN
7 12 (0.42%) LAN
7 12 (0.42%) WAN
8 11 (0.38%) VPN
8 11 (0.38%) VSAN
9 10 (0.35%) Software-Defined Networking
10 9 (0.31%) FTP
11 8 (0.28%) NAS
12 7 (0.24%) BGP
12 7 (0.24%) Intranet
12 7 (0.24%) SD-WAN
13 6 (0.21%) DHCP
13 6 (0.21%) HTTP
13 6 (0.21%) IPsec
13 6 (0.21%) NGFW
Database & Business Intelligence
1 86 (3.00%) Power BI
2 52 (1.81%) Oracle Reports
3 35 (1.22%) SAP HANA
4 31 (1.08%) Tableau
5 26 (0.91%) SQL Server
6 24 (0.84%) Metadata
7 22 (0.77%) Oracle BI Publisher
8 18 (0.63%) Oracle ODI
9 16 (0.56%) Data Warehouse
9 16 (0.56%) SAP BW
10 11 (0.38%) BusinessObjects
11 10 (0.35%) Power Query
12 9 (0.31%) Oracle Database
13 7 (0.24%) Electronic Patient Records
13 7 (0.24%) NoSQL
14 6 (0.21%) Crystal Reports
14 6 (0.21%) Relational Database
14 6 (0.21%) SAP Data Services
14 6 (0.21%) SQL Server Reporting Services
15 5 (0.17%) NonStop SQL
Development Applications
1 82 (2.86%) JIRA
2 18 (0.63%) Oracle Forms
3 16 (0.56%) Hudson
4 12 (0.42%) Git
4 12 (0.42%) Jenkins
5 8 (0.28%) GitLab
6 7 (0.24%) Sonatype Nexus
7 4 (0.14%) Cypress.io
7 4 (0.14%) Oracle APEX
7 4 (0.14%) Postman
7 4 (0.14%) SonarQube
8 3 (0.10%) Browser DevTools
8 3 (0.10%) JDeveloper
8 3 (0.10%) Selenium
8 3 (0.10%) Toad
8 3 (0.10%) Visual Studio Code
9 2 (0.070%) git-flow
9 2 (0.070%) JUnit
9 2 (0.070%) Zephyr
10 1 (0.035%) LoadRunner
General
1 608 (21.19%) Social Skills
2 588 (20.49%) Finance
3 241 (8.40%) Analytical Skills
4 206 (7.18%) Public Sector
5 91 (3.17%) Banking
5 91 (3.17%) Manufacturing
6 70 (2.44%) Legal
7 68 (2.37%) Billing
8 55 (1.92%) Marketing
9 50 (1.74%) General Ledger
10 49 (1.71%) Documentation Skills
11 46 (1.60%) Telecoms
12 35 (1.22%) Retail
13 32 (1.12%) Inclusion and Diversity
13 32 (1.12%) Organisational Skills
14 30 (1.05%) Pharmaceutical
15 25 (0.87%) Presentation Skills
16 22 (0.77%) Influencing Skills
17 21 (0.73%) Law
18 17 (0.59%) Aerospace
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 80 (2.79%) Oracle Fusion
2 72 (2.51%) REST
3 59 (2.06%) XML
4 30 (1.05%) Middleware
4 30 (1.05%) SAP TM
5 29 (1.01%) Web Services
6 28 (0.98%) SAP Fiori
7 26 (0.91%) BAPI
8 23 (0.80%) SOAP
9 18 (0.63%) HTML
10 17 (0.59%) JSON
11 16 (0.56%) .NET
11 16 (0.56%) SAP Basis
12 15 (0.52%) CSS
13 14 (0.49%) LDAP
14 12 (0.42%) OAuth
15 10 (0.35%) IDoc
15 10 (0.35%) Kafka
15 10 (0.35%) React
16 9 (0.31%) Elastic Stack
Miscellaneous
1 72 (2.51%) Onboarding
2 45 (1.57%) Security Posture
3 44 (1.53%) Data Protection Act
4 40 (1.39%) Product Ownership
5 37 (1.29%) Legacy Systems
6 32 (1.12%) Operational Technology
7 30 (1.05%) AI Agents
8 29 (1.01%) CMDB
9 24 (0.84%) Data Structures
10 23 (0.80%) Data Centre
10 23 (0.80%) Management Information System
11 22 (0.77%) Cloud Native
12 21 (0.73%) NHS
13 20 (0.70%) Life Science
14 19 (0.66%) Greenfield Project
15 17 (0.59%) Public Cloud
15 17 (0.59%) Replication
16 14 (0.49%) Algorithms
16 14 (0.49%) Self-Motivation
17 13 (0.45%) Analytical Mindset
Operating Systems
1 80 (2.79%) Windows
2 64 (2.23%) Linux
3 21 (0.73%) Solaris
4 20 (0.70%) Unix
4 20 (0.70%) VMS
5 17 (0.59%) AIX
6 6 (0.21%) Windows Server
7 5 (0.17%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
7 5 (0.17%) Windows 10
7 5 (0.17%) zOS
8 4 (0.14%) Ubuntu
9 3 (0.10%) Android
9 3 (0.10%) Apple iOS
9 3 (0.10%) Mac OS
10 2 (0.070%) CoreOS
10 2 (0.070%) Data ONTAP
10 2 (0.070%) SUSE
11 1 (0.035%) Windows Server 2012
Processes & Methodologies
1 367 (12.79%) Migration
2 259 (9.03%) Problem-Solving
3 258 (8.99%) Stakeholder Management
4 256 (8.92%) Stakeholder Engagement
5 245 (8.54%) ERP
6 205 (7.15%) User Acceptance Testing
7 193 (6.73%) Continuous Improvement
8 184 (6.41%) Workshop Facilitation
9 179 (6.24%) Validation
10 168 (5.86%) Data Migration
11 156 (5.44%) Agile
11 156 (5.44%) Cybersecurity
12 152 (5.30%) Roadmaps
13 149 (5.19%) Analytics
14 141 (4.91%) Business Intelligence
15 140 (4.88%) AI
16 122 (4.25%) Change Management
17 111 (3.87%) DevOps
18 110 (3.83%) Translating Business Requirements
19 105 (3.66%) Requirements Gathering
Programming Languages
1 223 (7.77%) SQL
2 121 (4.22%) Python
3 66 (2.30%) JavaScript
4 58 (2.02%) PowerShell
5 49 (1.71%) PL/SQL
6 36 (1.25%) ABAP
7 34 (1.19%) T-SQL
8 33 (1.15%) Java
9 19 (0.66%) C#
10 15 (0.52%) Bash
11 13 (0.45%) Search Processing Language
12 11 (0.38%) Data Analysis Expressions
12 11 (0.38%) Kusto Query Language
12 11 (0.38%) Shell Script
13 10 (0.35%) TypeScript
14 7 (0.24%) C++
14 7 (0.24%) R
15 5 (0.17%) Apex Code
16 4 (0.14%) COBOL
16 4 (0.14%) Perl
Qualifications
1 534 (18.61%) Security Cleared
2 402 (14.01%) SC Cleared
3 103 (3.59%) DV Cleared
4 86 (3.00%) BPSS Clearance
5 71 (2.47%) CISSP
6 67 (2.34%) Degree
7 54 (1.88%) CISM
8 29 (1.01%) Cisco Certification
9 25 (0.87%) (ISC)2 CCSP
9 25 (0.87%) CCSP
10 24 (0.84%) CIMA
11 20 (0.70%) VMware Certified Professional (VCP)
12 16 (0.56%) PMP
13 15 (0.52%) CEH
14 14 (0.49%) ACCA
15 13 (0.45%) ITIL Certification
16 12 (0.42%) Azure Certification
16 12 (0.42%) Computer Science Degree
16 12 (0.42%) OSCP
17 11 (0.38%) SAP Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 87 (3.03%) NIST
2 75 (2.61%) ISO/IEC 27001
3 71 (2.47%) Data Quality
4 49 (1.71%) GRC
5 43 (1.50%) GDPR
6 41 (1.43%) QA
7 32 (1.12%) NCSC
8 27 (0.94%) PCI DSS
9 21 (0.73%) Actionable Recommendations
10 20 (0.70%) Accessibility
10 20 (0.70%) SLA
11 18 (0.63%) PMO
12 16 (0.56%) Sarbanes-Oxley
13 15 (0.52%) COBIT
14 11 (0.38%) GxP
14 11 (0.38%) JSP 440
15 8 (0.28%) WCAG
16 7 (0.24%) DICOM
16 7 (0.24%) GAAP
16 7 (0.24%) HL7
System Software
1 54 (1.88%) Active Directory
2 39 (1.36%) VMware Infrastructure
3 37 (1.29%) VMware NSX
4 25 (0.87%) vSphere
5 16 (0.56%) Docker
6 12 (0.42%) Virtual Machines
7 10 (0.35%) VMware ESXi
8 9 (0.31%) Hyper-V
9 8 (0.28%) Virtual Desktop
10 6 (0.21%) IAG
10 6 (0.21%) Slurm Workload Manager
11 4 (0.14%) NFS
12 2 (0.070%) BitLocker
13 1 (0.035%) HDFS
13 1 (0.035%) Job Entry Subsystem
13 1 (0.035%) Oracle RAC
13 1 (0.035%) ProxySG
13 1 (0.035%) SRDF
13 1 (0.035%) Time Sharing Option
Systems Management
1 50 (1.74%) Kubernetes
2 37 (1.29%) Terraform
3 30 (1.05%) vRealize
4 21 (0.73%) Ansible
5 18 (0.63%) Microsoft Intune
6 15 (0.52%) Nagios
6 15 (0.52%) ZABBIX
7 14 (0.49%) Netcool
7 14 (0.49%) Tivoli
8 13 (0.45%) OpenView
8 13 (0.45%) Tivoli Monitoring
9 10 (0.35%) Grafana
9 10 (0.35%) Prometheus
10 9 (0.31%) Single Sign-On
11 8 (0.28%) SCCM
12 7 (0.24%) vCenter Server
13 6 (0.21%) Failover Clustering
13 6 (0.21%) NetBackup
13 6 (0.21%) Podman
14 5 (0.17%) vRealize Orchestrator
Vendors
1 593 (20.67%) SAP
2 330 (11.50%) Oracle
3 322 (11.22%) Microsoft
4 94 (3.28%) ServiceNow
5 92 (3.21%) VMware
6 58 (2.02%) Ariba
7 54 (1.88%) Siemens
8 52 (1.81%) Workday
9 48 (1.67%) Salesforce
10 36 (1.25%) Splunk
11 31 (1.08%) Databricks
12 30 (1.05%) Google
13 26 (0.91%) BMC
14 24 (0.84%) IBM
15 20 (0.70%) Palo Alto
16 19 (0.66%) Adobe
17 16 (0.56%) Sage
17 16 (0.56%) SolarWinds
18 15 (0.52%) IFS
19 14 (0.49%) HP