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 25 March 2026.

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

6 months to
25 Mar 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 28 28 24
Rank change year-on-year 0 -4 +19
Contract jobs requiring a Consultant 2,800 1,908 2,776
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 6.38% 6.56% 6.27%
As % of the Job Titles category 6.94% 7.06% 6.75%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,550 1,101 1,698
10th Percentile £400 £413 £400
25th Percentile £461 £488 £463
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £540 £550 £550
Median % change year-on-year -1.82% - -2.53%
75th Percentile £638 £638 £650
90th Percentile £713 £738 £738
UK excluding London median daily rate £525 £550 £538
% change year-on-year -4.55% +2.33% -2.27%
Number of hourly rates quoted 75 17 37
10th Percentile - £63.50 £36.50
25th Percentile £56.25 £70.00 £52.90
Median hourly rate £57.50 £82.50 £62.50
Median % change year-on-year -30.30% +32.00% -5.30%
75th Percentile £60.00 £86.00 £80.00
90th Percentile £76.45 £87.50 £90.25
UK excluding London median hourly rate £57.50 £82.50 £61.60
% change year-on-year -30.30% +33.93% -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 40,363 27,024 41,118
% of contract IT jobs with a recognized job title 91.96% 92.92% 92.86%
Number of daily rates quoted 25,200 17,764 26,931
10th Percentile £313 £300 £275
25th Percentile £412 £406 £406
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £520 £525
Median % change year-on-year -3.85% -0.95% -4.37%
75th Percentile £613 £630 £638
90th Percentile £725 £738 £738
UK excluding London median daily rate £482 £475 £488
% change year-on-year +1.47% -2.56% -2.50%
Number of hourly rates quoted 2,503 906 2,513
10th Percentile £15.00 £15.20 £12.87
25th Percentile £19.34 £21.00 £16.25
Median hourly rate £36.71 £32.50 £32.50
Median % change year-on-year +12.95% - -24.42%
75th Percentile £65.00 £64.52 £60.00
90th Percentile £76.58 £76.25 £71.90
UK excluding London median hourly rate £36.86 £32.50 £32.50
% change year-on-year +13.40% - -20.36%

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 25 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 25 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 25 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 0 2,197 £550 - 1,211
UK excluding London +4 1,151 £525 -4.55% 849
Work from Home 0 1,029 £525 -4.55% 598
London -4 1,016 £550 -4.35% 544
South East +4 351 £539 -6.35% 278
North of England -11 234 £525 -2.42% 172
Midlands -7 233 £550 +4.76% 104
West Midlands +6 167 £563 +7.14% 52
South West +19 155 £550 -1.26% 152
North West -27 116 £525 -2.42% 109
Yorkshire +1 108 £544 +2.35% 53
East of England -5 96 £550 +4.76% 67
East Midlands -19 59 £500 -3.15% 51
Scotland +15 49 £520 -5.45% 38
Wales +9 33 £463 +2.78% 33
North East -20 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 25 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.

1 631 (22.54%) Security Cleared
2 596 (21.29%) SAP
3 533 (19.04%) SC Cleared
4 401 (14.32%) Migration
5 308 (11.00%) Azure
6 297 (10.61%) Oracle
6 297 (10.61%) Problem-Solving
7 292 (10.43%) Microsoft
8 289 (10.32%) SAP S/4HANA
9 281 (10.04%) Stakeholder Engagement
10 262 (9.36%) Stakeholder Management
11 226 (8.07%) ERP
12 206 (7.36%) Workshop Facilitation
13 205 (7.32%) SQL
14 187 (6.68%) User Acceptance Testing
15 180 (6.43%) Agile
16 173 (6.18%) Data Migration
17 167 (5.96%) Roadmaps
18 162 (5.79%) Analytics
19 151 (5.39%) Business Intelligence
20 147 (5.25%) Continuous Improvement
20 147 (5.25%) Cybersecurity
21 146 (5.21%) Validation
22 140 (5.00%) Knowledge Transfer
23 136 (4.86%) Dynamics 365
24 125 (4.46%) Python
25 124 (4.43%) AI
26 118 (4.21%) Power Platform
27 111 (3.96%) Change Management
27 111 (3.96%) Risk 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 70 (2.50%) SharePoint
2 39 (1.39%) Confluence
3 22 (0.79%) Microsoft Exchange
4 9 (0.32%) Oracle Workflow
5 6 (0.21%) Jupyter
6 5 (0.18%) MTS
7 4 (0.14%) Apache
7 4 (0.14%) Apache Spark
7 4 (0.14%) ArcGIS
7 4 (0.14%) CMS
7 4 (0.14%) Palantir Foundry
8 2 (0.071%) Apache Superset
8 2 (0.071%) Cloud Foundry
8 2 (0.071%) IIS
8 2 (0.071%) NetWeaver
8 2 (0.071%) Tomcat
9 1 (0.036%) nginx
9 1 (0.036%) Oracle Self-Service HR
9 1 (0.036%) SAS
9 1 (0.036%) WebSphere
Applications
1 68 (2.43%) Microsoft Excel
2 23 (0.82%) Microsoft PowerPoint
3 13 (0.46%) Microsoft Office
4 10 (0.36%) MS Visio
5 5 (0.18%) Microsoft Project
5 5 (0.18%) PTC Creo
6 4 (0.14%) Spreadsheet
7 3 (0.11%) Chatbot
8 2 (0.071%) Lectora
8 2 (0.071%) Oracle Smart View
9 1 (0.036%) Adobe XD
9 1 (0.036%) CATIA
9 1 (0.036%) InfoPath
9 1 (0.036%) Navisworks
9 1 (0.036%) Revit
9 1 (0.036%) Siemens NX
9 1 (0.036%) Windchill
Business Applications
1 289 (10.32%) SAP S/4HANA
2 62 (2.21%) Oracle EBS
3 61 (2.18%) SAP FI
4 51 (1.82%) Oracle Payables
5 46 (1.64%) Oracle Receivables
5 46 (1.64%) SAP MM
6 40 (1.43%) SAP HCM
7 38 (1.36%) Oracle EBS R12
8 37 (1.32%) SAP PP
9 34 (1.21%) Dynamics CRM
9 34 (1.21%) SAP PSCD
10 32 (1.14%) SAP CO
11 30 (1.07%) Oracle Assets
11 30 (1.07%) Oracle General Ledger
11 30 (1.07%) SAP EWM
11 30 (1.07%) SAP FI/CO
12 28 (1.00%) SAP Travel Management
13 25 (0.89%) Oracle Procure-to-Pay
14 23 (0.82%) Oracle Cash Management
14 23 (0.82%) SAP BRIM
Cloud Services
1 308 (11.00%) Azure
2 136 (4.86%) Dynamics 365
3 118 (4.21%) Power Platform
4 105 (3.75%) AWS
5 95 (3.39%) OCI
6 79 (2.82%) GCP
7 75 (2.68%) Microsoft 365
8 67 (2.39%) SaaS
9 63 (2.25%) SuccessFactors
10 58 (2.07%) Entra ID
11 43 (1.54%) Power Automate
12 37 (1.32%) Azure DevOps
13 32 (1.14%) PowerApps
14 31 (1.11%) Microsoft Copilot
14 31 (1.11%) Microsoft Purview
15 26 (0.93%) GitHub
16 22 (0.79%) OneDrive
17 19 (0.68%) Azure Data Factory
18 18 (0.64%) SAP Commerce Cloud
19 14 (0.50%) Serverless
Communications & Networking
1 41 (1.46%) Firewall
2 21 (0.75%) Network Security
3 15 (0.54%) VPN
3 15 (0.54%) WAN
4 14 (0.50%) VSAN
5 13 (0.46%) DNS
5 13 (0.46%) SMS
6 12 (0.43%) Kerberos
6 12 (0.43%) LAN
6 12 (0.43%) SD-WAN
7 11 (0.39%) HTTP
8 10 (0.36%) SAN
9 9 (0.32%) FTP
9 9 (0.32%) Software-Defined Networking
10 8 (0.29%) DHCP
10 8 (0.29%) Intranet
10 8 (0.29%) SSH
11 7 (0.25%) NAS
11 7 (0.25%) SSL
12 6 (0.21%) VLAN
Database & Business Intelligence
1 85 (3.04%) Power BI
2 51 (1.82%) Oracle Reports
3 38 (1.36%) SAP HANA
4 25 (0.89%) Metadata
4 25 (0.89%) SQL Server
5 22 (0.79%) Oracle BI Publisher
5 22 (0.79%) Tableau
6 14 (0.50%) Oracle ODI
7 12 (0.43%) SAP BW
8 10 (0.36%) SQL Server Reporting Services
9 9 (0.32%) Data Warehouse
9 9 (0.32%) NoSQL
10 8 (0.29%) Electronic Patient Records
11 7 (0.25%) GIS
11 7 (0.25%) Oracle Database
12 6 (0.21%) Data Lake
12 6 (0.21%) Data Mart
12 6 (0.21%) Essbase
12 6 (0.21%) PostgreSQL
12 6 (0.21%) SAP Data Services
Development Applications
1 72 (2.57%) JIRA
2 15 (0.54%) Hudson
2 15 (0.54%) Jenkins
2 15 (0.54%) Oracle Forms
3 10 (0.36%) Git
4 7 (0.25%) GitLab
4 7 (0.25%) Oracle APEX
5 4 (0.14%) LSMW
5 4 (0.14%) Sonatype Nexus
6 3 (0.11%) Postman
7 2 (0.071%) Bitbucket
7 2 (0.071%) git-flow
7 2 (0.071%) Rational DOORS
7 2 (0.071%) Rational Rhapsody
7 2 (0.071%) Selenium
7 2 (0.071%) SonarQube
7 2 (0.071%) TeamCity
7 2 (0.071%) Visual Studio Code
8 1 (0.036%) MSTest
8 1 (0.036%) Team Foundation Server
General
1 685 (24.46%) Social Skills
2 610 (21.79%) Finance
3 264 (9.43%) Analytical Skills
4 248 (8.86%) Public Sector
5 122 (4.36%) Manufacturing
6 101 (3.61%) Banking
7 74 (2.64%) Marketing
8 68 (2.43%) Legal
9 66 (2.36%) Documentation Skills
10 58 (2.07%) Billing
11 48 (1.71%) General Ledger
12 45 (1.61%) Telecoms
13 36 (1.29%) Retail
14 35 (1.25%) Organisational Skills
15 31 (1.11%) Presentation Skills
16 25 (0.89%) Inclusion and Diversity
16 25 (0.89%) Law
17 20 (0.71%) Electronics
17 20 (0.71%) Pharmaceutical
18 19 (0.68%) Advertising
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 98 (3.50%) Oracle Fusion
2 69 (2.46%) REST
3 61 (2.18%) XML
4 38 (1.36%) SAP Fiori
5 33 (1.18%) SOAP
5 33 (1.18%) Web Services
6 30 (1.07%) SAP TM
7 26 (0.93%) LDAP
8 22 (0.79%) Middleware
9 20 (0.71%) BAPI
9 20 (0.71%) Node.js
10 19 (0.68%) JSON
11 17 (0.61%) .NET
12 16 (0.57%) IDoc
12 16 (0.57%) SAP Basis
13 15 (0.54%) SAP PI
14 14 (0.50%) GraphQL
15 13 (0.46%) HTML
16 12 (0.43%) CSS
17 11 (0.39%) Kafka
Miscellaneous
1 69 (2.46%) Onboarding
2 55 (1.96%) Legacy Systems
3 45 (1.61%) Product Ownership
4 37 (1.32%) Security Posture
5 35 (1.25%) Data Protection Act
6 32 (1.14%) Replication
7 30 (1.07%) Management Information System
8 29 (1.04%) Data Centre
9 26 (0.93%) Operational Technology
10 23 (0.82%) Cloud Native
11 21 (0.75%) AI Agents
11 21 (0.75%) Data Structures
12 20 (0.71%) Analytical Mindset
12 20 (0.71%) NHS
13 18 (0.64%) Greenfield Project
13 18 (0.64%) Public Cloud
14 16 (0.57%) CMDB
15 13 (0.46%) Hybrid Cloud
15 13 (0.46%) Life Science
15 13 (0.46%) Self-Motivation
Operating Systems
1 78 (2.79%) Windows
2 45 (1.61%) Linux
3 15 (0.54%) Unix
3 15 (0.54%) VMS
3 15 (0.54%) Windows Server
4 11 (0.39%) Windows 10
5 10 (0.36%) AIX
6 6 (0.21%) Mac OS
6 6 (0.21%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
7 5 (0.18%) Ubuntu
8 4 (0.14%) Solaris
8 4 (0.14%) zOS
9 3 (0.11%) Apple iOS
9 3 (0.11%) SUSE
10 2 (0.071%) CoreOS
10 2 (0.071%) Data ONTAP
11 1 (0.036%) Android
11 1 (0.036%) CentOS
11 1 (0.036%) Windows Server 2003
11 1 (0.036%) Windows Server 2008
Processes & Methodologies
1 401 (14.32%) Migration
2 297 (10.61%) Problem-Solving
3 281 (10.04%) Stakeholder Engagement
4 262 (9.36%) Stakeholder Management
5 226 (8.07%) ERP
6 206 (7.36%) Workshop Facilitation
7 187 (6.68%) User Acceptance Testing
8 180 (6.43%) Agile
9 173 (6.18%) Data Migration
10 167 (5.96%) Roadmaps
11 162 (5.79%) Analytics
12 151 (5.39%) Business Intelligence
13 147 (5.25%) Continuous Improvement
13 147 (5.25%) Cybersecurity
14 146 (5.21%) Validation
15 140 (5.00%) Knowledge Transfer
16 124 (4.43%) AI
17 111 (3.96%) Change Management
17 111 (3.96%) Risk Management
18 109 (3.89%) DevOps
Programming Languages
1 205 (7.32%) SQL
2 125 (4.46%) Python
3 83 (2.96%) PowerShell
4 79 (2.82%) JavaScript
5 56 (2.00%) ABAP
6 34 (1.21%) Java
7 33 (1.18%) PL/SQL
8 31 (1.11%) T-SQL
9 25 (0.89%) TypeScript
10 20 (0.71%) Groovy
11 17 (0.61%) C#
12 14 (0.50%) Bash
13 11 (0.39%) Shell Script
14 10 (0.36%) C++
15 8 (0.29%) Apex Code
15 8 (0.29%) Data Analysis Expressions
16 7 (0.25%) Kusto Query Language
17 5 (0.18%) Korn
17 5 (0.18%) R
17 5 (0.18%) Search Processing Language
Qualifications
1 631 (22.54%) Security Cleared
2 533 (19.04%) SC Cleared
3 97 (3.46%) Degree
4 86 (3.07%) DV Cleared
5 57 (2.04%) BPSS Clearance
6 55 (1.96%) CISSP
7 36 (1.29%) CISM
8 30 (1.07%) VMware Certified Professional (VCP)
9 19 (0.68%) CIMA
9 19 (0.68%) Computer Science Degree
10 17 (0.61%) Cisco Certification
10 17 (0.61%) Master's Degree
11 15 (0.54%) Microsoft Certification
12 14 (0.50%) ITIL Certification
13 13 (0.46%) SAP Certification
14 8 (0.29%) Azure Certification
14 8 (0.29%) CEH
14 8 (0.29%) CESG Certified Professional
14 8 (0.29%) CompTIA Security+
14 8 (0.29%) ITIL Foundation Certificate
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 92 (3.29%) NIST
2 87 (3.11%) ISO/IEC 27001
3 62 (2.21%) GDPR
4 56 (2.00%) Data Quality
5 50 (1.79%) QA
6 46 (1.64%) GRC
7 25 (0.89%) NCSC
8 23 (0.82%) PCI DSS
9 19 (0.68%) PMO
9 19 (0.68%) Sarbanes-Oxley
9 19 (0.68%) SLA
10 17 (0.61%) Actionable Recommendations
11 16 (0.57%) COBIT
12 13 (0.46%) JSP 440
13 11 (0.39%) PERC
14 10 (0.36%) ISO/IEC 27005
15 8 (0.29%) Accessibility
15 8 (0.29%) Cyber Essentials
15 8 (0.29%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
16 6 (0.21%) RMADS
System Software
1 62 (2.21%) Active Directory
2 33 (1.18%) VMware Infrastructure
2 33 (1.18%) VMware NSX
3 29 (1.04%) Docker
4 27 (0.96%) vSphere
5 9 (0.32%) Hyper-V
6 7 (0.25%) Virtual Desktop
6 7 (0.25%) Virtual Machines
7 6 (0.21%) Slurm Workload Manager
8 3 (0.11%) NFS
9 2 (0.071%) IAG
9 2 (0.071%) NDS
9 2 (0.071%) NetIQ eDirectory
9 2 (0.071%) VMware ESXi
10 1 (0.036%) Ceph
10 1 (0.036%) Job Entry Subsystem
10 1 (0.036%) KVM
10 1 (0.036%) QEMU
10 1 (0.036%) Terminal Services
Systems Management
1 48 (1.71%) Kubernetes
2 35 (1.25%) Terraform
3 33 (1.18%) vRealize
4 20 (0.71%) Microsoft Intune
5 16 (0.57%) Single Sign-On
6 13 (0.46%) Ansible
7 8 (0.29%) Failover Clustering
8 7 (0.25%) PingFederate
9 6 (0.21%) Nagios
9 6 (0.21%) Netcool
9 6 (0.21%) OpenView
9 6 (0.21%) Podman
9 6 (0.21%) SCCM
9 6 (0.21%) Tivoli
9 6 (0.21%) Tivoli Monitoring
9 6 (0.21%) ZABBIX
10 5 (0.18%) Active Directory Federation Services
10 5 (0.18%) NetBackup
11 3 (0.11%) CEMLI
11 3 (0.11%) Rancher
Vendors
1 596 (21.29%) SAP
2 297 (10.61%) Oracle
3 292 (10.43%) Microsoft
4 96 (3.43%) VMware
5 91 (3.25%) ServiceNow
6 63 (2.25%) Salesforce
7 54 (1.93%) CyberArk
7 54 (1.93%) Workday
8 53 (1.89%) Siemens
9 48 (1.71%) Ariba
9 48 (1.71%) Google
10 45 (1.61%) Cisco
11 37 (1.32%) Aruba
12 27 (0.96%) Databricks
13 22 (0.79%) Adobe
13 22 (0.79%) Splunk
14 19 (0.68%) OpenText
15 16 (0.57%) IBM
15 16 (0.57%) Murex
15 16 (0.57%) Sage