Consultant Contract Job Trends

Consultant
UK

The median Consultant daily rate in the UK is £538, according to job vacancies posted in the 6 months leading up to 8 May 2026.

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

6 months to
8 May 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 28 28 24
Rank change year-on-year 0 -4 +16
Contract jobs requiring a Consultant 2,777 1,922 2,752
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 5.85% 6.60% 6.38%
As % of the Job Titles category 6.34% 7.14% 6.88%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,538 1,113 1,715
10th Percentile £381 £413 £400
25th Percentile £450 £482 £463
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £538 £550 £550
Median % change year-on-year -2.27% - -
75th Percentile £630 £638 £650
90th Percentile £722 £725 £750
UK excluding London median daily rate £525 £540 £550
% change year-on-year -2.78% -1.82% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 76 18 29
10th Percentile £51.00 £43.44 £27.25
25th Percentile £56.25 £62.19 £52.90
Median hourly rate £57.50 £78.75 £61.60
Median % change year-on-year -26.98% +27.84% -6.67%
75th Percentile £60.00 £86.00 £63.29
90th Percentile £84.25 £87.50 £71.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £57.50 £82.50 £58.44
% change year-on-year -30.30% +41.16% -11.45%

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 43,778 26,928 40,006
% of contract IT jobs with a recognized job title 92.25% 92.53% 92.76%
Number of daily rates quoted 26,907 17,551 26,037
10th Percentile £319 £300 £280
25th Percentile £413 £406 £410
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £505 £513 £525
Median % change year-on-year -1.46% -2.38% -2.78%
75th Percentile £613 £625 £638
90th Percentile £725 £738 £750
UK excluding London median daily rate £492 £475 £490
% change year-on-year +3.58% -3.06% -2.00%
Number of hourly rates quoted 2,831 1,044 2,664
10th Percentile £15.00 £14.00 £12.86
25th Percentile £20.35 £18.50 £16.30
Median hourly rate £44.00 £28.75 £36.50
Median % change year-on-year +53.04% -21.23% -18.89%
75th Percentile £67.25 £62.50 £61.30
90th Percentile £78.75 £75.00 £72.50
UK excluding London median hourly rate £45.59 £27.50 £40.00
% change year-on-year +65.76% -31.25% -5.35%

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 8 May 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 8 May 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 8 May 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 0 2,190 £540 -1.82% 1,340
UK excluding London -3 1,138 £525 -2.78% 926
London -2 1,029 £550 -4.35% 561
Work from Home +1 978 £550 - 629
South East -3 337 £525 -6.67% 251
Midlands -15 230 £525 -2.33% 101
North of England -23 221 £525 -2.33% 280
South West +24 177 £550 - 170
West Midlands 0 155 £550 - 74
North West -31 103 £525 -3.67% 178
Yorkshire -3 98 £538 +2.38% 73
East of England -12 76 £550 +10.00% 60
Scotland +21 72 £438 -12.50% 26
East Midlands -14 68 £500 -3.85% 28
Wales +6 30 £550 +37.50% 27
North East -20 20 £525 -1.69% 30
Northern Ireland +2 3 £600 +15.38% 22

Consultant Skill Set
Top 30 Co-Occurring Skills & Capabilities

For the 6 months to 8 May 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.

1 580 (20.89%) SAP
2 532 (19.16%) Security Cleared
3 416 (14.98%) SC Cleared
4 355 (12.78%) Migration
5 321 (11.56%) Oracle
6 303 (10.91%) Azure
7 292 (10.51%) Microsoft
8 265 (9.54%) Problem-Solving
9 251 (9.04%) SAP S/4HANA
10 244 (8.79%) Stakeholder Management
11 230 (8.28%) ERP
12 224 (8.07%) Stakeholder Engagement
13 212 (7.63%) SQL
14 199 (7.17%) User Acceptance Testing
15 191 (6.88%) Workshop Facilitation
16 172 (6.19%) Agile
17 164 (5.91%) Data Migration
18 162 (5.83%) Continuous Improvement
19 157 (5.65%) Validation
20 148 (5.33%) Dynamics 365
21 147 (5.29%) Cybersecurity
22 146 (5.26%) Analytics
23 144 (5.19%) Business Intelligence
24 140 (5.04%) Power Platform
25 138 (4.97%) Roadmaps
26 129 (4.65%) AI
27 128 (4.61%) AWS
28 114 (4.11%) Python
29 109 (3.93%) Change Management
30 106 (3.82%) 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 77 (2.77%) SharePoint
2 42 (1.51%) Confluence
3 14 (0.50%) Oracle Workflow
4 12 (0.43%) Microsoft Exchange
5 6 (0.22%) Jupyter
6 4 (0.14%) Apache
6 4 (0.14%) Apache Spark
6 4 (0.14%) ArcGIS
7 3 (0.11%) Apache Superset
7 3 (0.11%) Cloud Foundry
7 3 (0.11%) Palantir Foundry
7 3 (0.11%) Tomcat
8 2 (0.072%) IIS
8 2 (0.072%) SAS
8 2 (0.072%) WebSphere
9 1 (0.036%) MTS
9 1 (0.036%) NetWeaver
9 1 (0.036%) nginx
9 1 (0.036%) WebLogic
9 1 (0.036%) WordPress
Applications
1 66 (2.38%) Microsoft Excel
2 23 (0.83%) Microsoft PowerPoint
3 13 (0.47%) Microsoft Office
4 7 (0.25%) MS Visio
5 5 (0.18%) Chatbot
5 5 (0.18%) PTC Creo
6 4 (0.14%) Microsoft Project
7 3 (0.11%) Spreadsheet
8 2 (0.072%) Lectora
8 2 (0.072%) Oracle Smart View
9 1 (0.036%) CATIA
9 1 (0.036%) Siemens NX
Business Applications
1 251 (9.04%) SAP S/4HANA
2 75 (2.70%) Oracle EBS
3 55 (1.98%) SAP FI
4 45 (1.62%) Oracle Payables
5 44 (1.58%) SAP PSCD
6 40 (1.44%) SAP MM
7 38 (1.37%) Oracle Receivables
8 34 (1.22%) Dynamics CRM
9 32 (1.15%) SAP PP
10 31 (1.12%) Oracle EBS R12
10 31 (1.12%) SAP BRIM
11 30 (1.08%) SAP CO
12 28 (1.01%) SAP EWM
12 28 (1.01%) SAP FI/CO
13 27 (0.97%) SAP HCM
13 27 (0.97%) SAP Travel Management
14 26 (0.94%) Teamcenter
15 24 (0.86%) Oracle Assets
16 23 (0.83%) SAP SD
17 22 (0.79%) Oracle ERP
Cloud Services
1 303 (10.91%) Azure
2 148 (5.33%) Dynamics 365
3 140 (5.04%) Power Platform
4 128 (4.61%) AWS
5 100 (3.60%) OCI
6 70 (2.52%) GCP
7 68 (2.45%) Microsoft 365
7 68 (2.45%) SuccessFactors
8 63 (2.27%) SaaS
9 62 (2.23%) Power Automate
10 40 (1.44%) Azure DevOps
11 39 (1.40%) Microsoft Copilot
12 38 (1.37%) Entra ID
13 34 (1.22%) PowerApps
14 30 (1.08%) GitHub
15 28 (1.01%) Microsoft Purview
16 19 (0.68%) Copilot Studio
17 18 (0.65%) Serverless
18 17 (0.61%) Azure Data Factory
19 16 (0.58%) SAP Commerce Cloud
Communications & Networking
1 32 (1.15%) Firewall
2 26 (0.94%) Network Security
3 20 (0.72%) SNMP
4 16 (0.58%) SMS
5 14 (0.50%) DNS
6 12 (0.43%) SAN
6 12 (0.43%) VSAN
7 10 (0.36%) FTP
7 10 (0.36%) Software-Defined Networking
8 9 (0.32%) VPN
8 9 (0.32%) WAN
9 8 (0.29%) Intranet
9 8 (0.29%) Kerberos
9 8 (0.29%) NAS
10 7 (0.25%) LAN
10 7 (0.25%) SD-WAN
11 6 (0.22%) HTTP
12 5 (0.18%) DHCP
12 5 (0.18%) TCP/IP
12 5 (0.18%) VLAN
Database & Business Intelligence
1 87 (3.13%) Power BI
2 57 (2.05%) Oracle Reports
3 35 (1.26%) SAP HANA
4 28 (1.01%) Tableau
5 24 (0.86%) SQL Server
6 23 (0.83%) Oracle BI Publisher
7 22 (0.79%) Metadata
8 17 (0.61%) Oracle ODI
9 16 (0.58%) SAP BW
10 11 (0.40%) Data Warehouse
11 9 (0.32%) BusinessObjects
11 9 (0.32%) Electronic Patient Records
12 8 (0.29%) NoSQL
12 8 (0.29%) SQL Server Reporting Services
13 7 (0.25%) GIS
13 7 (0.25%) Oracle Database
14 6 (0.22%) Data Lake
14 6 (0.22%) Essbase
14 6 (0.22%) Relational Database
14 6 (0.22%) SAP Data Services
Development Applications
1 75 (2.70%) JIRA
2 19 (0.68%) Hudson
2 19 (0.68%) Oracle Forms
3 15 (0.54%) Jenkins
4 11 (0.40%) Git
5 10 (0.36%) GitLab
6 7 (0.25%) Sonatype Nexus
7 4 (0.14%) Cypress.io
7 4 (0.14%) Oracle APEX
7 4 (0.14%) Postman
7 4 (0.14%) SonarQube
7 4 (0.14%) Visual Studio Code
8 3 (0.11%) Toad
9 2 (0.072%) Bitbucket
9 2 (0.072%) git-flow
9 2 (0.072%) JUnit
9 2 (0.072%) Rational Rhapsody
9 2 (0.072%) Selenium
10 1 (0.036%) Burp Suite
10 1 (0.036%) CircleCI
General
1 599 (21.57%) Social Skills
2 596 (21.46%) Finance
3 242 (8.71%) Analytical Skills
4 200 (7.20%) Public Sector
5 93 (3.35%) Banking
6 87 (3.13%) Manufacturing
7 67 (2.41%) Billing
8 65 (2.34%) Legal
9 59 (2.12%) Marketing
10 48 (1.73%) General Ledger
11 46 (1.66%) Documentation Skills
12 39 (1.40%) Telecoms
13 36 (1.30%) Organisational Skills
14 33 (1.19%) Retail
15 25 (0.90%) Inclusion and Diversity
16 23 (0.83%) Pharmaceutical
16 23 (0.83%) Presentation Skills
17 22 (0.79%) Influencing Skills
18 17 (0.61%) Law
19 15 (0.54%) Advertising
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 76 (2.74%) Oracle Fusion
1 76 (2.74%) REST
2 64 (2.30%) XML
3 28 (1.01%) SAP TM
4 26 (0.94%) SOAP
5 24 (0.86%) Middleware
5 24 (0.86%) Web Services
6 22 (0.79%) JSON
7 21 (0.76%) SAP Fiori
8 19 (0.68%) .NET
8 19 (0.68%) BAPI
9 17 (0.61%) LDAP
10 16 (0.58%) SAP Basis
11 15 (0.54%) HTML
12 14 (0.50%) Node.js
13 13 (0.47%) CSS
14 12 (0.43%) GraphQL
15 11 (0.40%) IDoc
15 11 (0.40%) Kafka
16 10 (0.36%) React
Miscellaneous
1 61 (2.20%) Onboarding
2 49 (1.76%) Data Protection Act
3 42 (1.51%) Legacy Systems
4 37 (1.33%) Security Posture
5 32 (1.15%) Product Ownership
6 30 (1.08%) Operational Technology
7 27 (0.97%) AI Agents
8 26 (0.94%) Data Structures
9 25 (0.90%) Cloud Native
10 23 (0.83%) Data Centre
10 23 (0.83%) Management Information System
11 22 (0.79%) Greenfield Project
12 20 (0.72%) NHS
13 19 (0.68%) Life Science
14 18 (0.65%) Replication
15 17 (0.61%) Public Cloud
16 16 (0.58%) CMDB
17 15 (0.54%) Analytical Mindset
18 13 (0.47%) Algorithms
18 13 (0.47%) Self-Motivation
Operating Systems
1 68 (2.45%) Windows
2 53 (1.91%) Linux
3 18 (0.65%) VMS
4 17 (0.61%) Unix
5 15 (0.54%) AIX
5 15 (0.54%) Solaris
6 8 (0.29%) Windows Server
7 5 (0.18%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
8 4 (0.14%) Mac OS
8 4 (0.14%) Ubuntu
8 4 (0.14%) Windows 10
8 4 (0.14%) zOS
9 3 (0.11%) SUSE
10 2 (0.072%) Apple iOS
10 2 (0.072%) CoreOS
10 2 (0.072%) Data ONTAP
11 1 (0.036%) Android
Processes & Methodologies
1 355 (12.78%) Migration
2 265 (9.54%) Problem-Solving
3 244 (8.79%) Stakeholder Management
4 230 (8.28%) ERP
5 224 (8.07%) Stakeholder Engagement
6 199 (7.17%) User Acceptance Testing
7 191 (6.88%) Workshop Facilitation
8 172 (6.19%) Agile
9 164 (5.91%) Data Migration
10 162 (5.83%) Continuous Improvement
11 157 (5.65%) Validation
12 147 (5.29%) Cybersecurity
13 146 (5.26%) Analytics
14 144 (5.19%) Business Intelligence
15 138 (4.97%) Roadmaps
16 129 (4.65%) AI
17 109 (3.93%) Change Management
18 106 (3.82%) DevOps
18 106 (3.82%) Translating Business Requirements
19 100 (3.60%) Knowledge Transfer
Programming Languages
1 212 (7.63%) SQL
2 114 (4.11%) Python
3 68 (2.45%) JavaScript
4 54 (1.94%) PowerShell
5 47 (1.69%) PL/SQL
6 34 (1.22%) ABAP
6 34 (1.22%) T-SQL
7 30 (1.08%) Java
8 24 (0.86%) TypeScript
9 17 (0.61%) C#
10 14 (0.50%) Bash
11 13 (0.47%) Search Processing Language
12 11 (0.40%) Groovy
13 10 (0.36%) Shell Script
14 9 (0.32%) R
15 8 (0.29%) C++
16 7 (0.25%) Data Analysis Expressions
17 6 (0.22%) Apex Code
17 6 (0.22%) Kusto Query Language
18 4 (0.14%) Ruby
Qualifications
1 532 (19.16%) Security Cleared
2 416 (14.98%) SC Cleared
3 101 (3.64%) DV Cleared
4 78 (2.81%) BPSS Clearance
5 77 (2.77%) Degree
6 62 (2.23%) CISSP
7 47 (1.69%) CISM
8 21 (0.76%) Cisco Certification
9 20 (0.72%) CIMA
9 20 (0.72%) VMware Certified Professional (VCP)
10 16 (0.58%) (ISC)2 CCSP
10 16 (0.58%) CCSP
10 16 (0.58%) Computer Science Degree
11 14 (0.50%) SAP Certification
12 13 (0.47%) ITIL Certification
13 11 (0.40%) Master's Degree
13 11 (0.40%) PMP
14 10 (0.36%) ACCA
14 10 (0.36%) Azure Certification
14 10 (0.36%) CEH
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 80 (2.88%) NIST
2 78 (2.81%) ISO/IEC 27001
3 64 (2.30%) Data Quality
4 58 (2.09%) GRC
5 50 (1.80%) GDPR
6 36 (1.30%) QA
7 25 (0.90%) NCSC
8 23 (0.83%) PCI DSS
9 20 (0.72%) PMO
9 20 (0.72%) SLA
10 17 (0.61%) Sarbanes-Oxley
11 16 (0.58%) Actionable Recommendations
11 16 (0.58%) COBIT
12 14 (0.50%) Accessibility
12 14 (0.50%) JSP 440
13 9 (0.32%) DICOM
13 9 (0.32%) GxP
13 9 (0.32%) HL7
14 7 (0.25%) RMADS
15 6 (0.22%) WCAG
System Software
1 45 (1.62%) Active Directory
2 37 (1.33%) VMware NSX
3 36 (1.30%) VMware Infrastructure
4 23 (0.83%) Docker
4 23 (0.83%) vSphere
5 10 (0.36%) Virtual Desktop
5 10 (0.36%) Virtual Machines
6 9 (0.32%) Hyper-V
7 6 (0.22%) Slurm Workload Manager
7 6 (0.22%) VMware ESXi
8 4 (0.14%) IAG
9 3 (0.11%) NFS
10 1 (0.036%) BitLocker
10 1 (0.036%) HDFS
10 1 (0.036%) Job Entry Subsystem
Systems Management
1 49 (1.76%) Kubernetes
2 30 (1.08%) Terraform
2 30 (1.08%) vRealize
3 18 (0.65%) Ansible
4 16 (0.58%) Microsoft Intune
5 15 (0.54%) Nagios
5 15 (0.54%) ZABBIX
6 14 (0.50%) Netcool
6 14 (0.50%) Tivoli
7 13 (0.47%) OpenView
7 13 (0.47%) Tivoli Monitoring
8 11 (0.40%) Grafana
8 11 (0.40%) Prometheus
9 9 (0.32%) Single Sign-On
10 6 (0.22%) Failover Clustering
10 6 (0.22%) NetBackup
10 6 (0.22%) Podman
10 6 (0.22%) SCCM
11 5 (0.18%) vRealize Orchestrator
12 4 (0.14%) Active Directory Federation Services
Vendors
1 580 (20.89%) SAP
2 321 (11.56%) Oracle
3 292 (10.51%) Microsoft
4 91 (3.28%) VMware
5 75 (2.70%) ServiceNow
6 58 (2.09%) Ariba
7 53 (1.91%) Salesforce
8 52 (1.87%) Siemens
8 52 (1.87%) Workday
9 36 (1.30%) Splunk
10 30 (1.08%) Google
11 27 (0.97%) Databricks
12 24 (0.86%) BMC
13 22 (0.79%) IBM
14 21 (0.76%) Adobe
15 16 (0.58%) Sage
16 15 (0.54%) IFS
16 15 (0.54%) Murex
16 15 (0.54%) SolarWinds
17 13 (0.47%) HP