Consultant Contract Job Trends

Consultant
UK

The median Consultant daily rate in the UK is £550, according to job vacancies posted in the 6 months leading up to 29 September 2026.

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

6 months to
29 Sep 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 30 26 27
Rank change year-on-year -4 +1 +3
Contract jobs requiring a Consultant 3,213 2,285 2,560
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 5.88% 7.01% 6.76%
As % of the Job Titles category 6.38% 7.70% 7.27%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,815 1,354 1,375
10th Percentile £413 £411 £413
25th Percentile £463 £475 £475
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £550 £550 £550
75th Percentile £650 £650 £650
90th Percentile £745 £750 £750
UK excluding London median daily rate £548 £550 £564
% change year-on-year -0.32% -2.44% +7.38%
Number of hourly rates quoted 57 25 24
10th Percentile £36.25 £28.32 £45.38
25th Percentile £45.00 £41.60 £60.29
Median hourly rate £76.00 £77.50 £62.30
Median % change year-on-year -1.94% +24.40% -4.15%
75th Percentile £86.11 £81.25 £70.89
90th Percentile £95.25 £87.40 £74.96
UK excluding London median hourly rate £76.50 £77.50 £61.60
% change year-on-year -1.29% +25.81% -5.23%

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 50,372 29,667 35,213
% of contract IT jobs with a recognized job title 92.22% 91.00% 92.96%
Number of daily rates quoted 29,736 18,751 21,351
10th Percentile £325 £275 £300
25th Percentile £425 £400 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £500 £525
Median % change year-on-year +5.00% -4.76% -0.94%
75th Percentile £630 £623 £638
90th Percentile £731 £725 £749
UK excluding London median daily rate £500 £475 £500
% change year-on-year +5.26% -5.00% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 3,923 1,598 1,565
10th Percentile £14.50 £13.75 £14.85
25th Percentile £20.00 £17.30 £20.50
Median hourly rate £41.92 £25.15 £43.00
Median % change year-on-year +66.68% -41.51% -3.37%
75th Percentile £67.50 £51.25 £65.00
90th Percentile £78.75 £68.61 £74.95
UK excluding London median hourly rate £42.00 £25.08 £43.00
% change year-on-year +67.50% -41.69% -2.82%

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 29 September 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 29 September 2026.

Hourly rate histogram for Consultant in the UK

Consultant
Top 18 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 29 September 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 -5 2,557 £550 -0.90% 2,993
UK excluding London -3 1,347 £548 -0.32% 1,563
London -4 1,238 £550 -4.35% 1,568
Work from Home -5 1,062 £550 - 1,583
South East -4 379 £540 -1.82% 382
North of England -22 323 £575 - 377
Midlands -3 225 £500 -9.09% 228
North West -14 212 £581 -6.29% 217
South West +13 191 £553 -6.27% 188
West Midlands -2 161 £500 -9.09% 173
Scotland +24 125 £450 -10.00% 139
East of England -16 105 £552 +0.36% 123
Yorkshire -19 90 £575 +21.05% 78
East Midlands -9 59 £525 -4.55% 55
Wales -14 23 £550 +22.22% 37
North East -29 20 £750 +38.89% 82
Channel Islands -3 2 £600 - 2
Northern Ireland -8 2 £544 +4.57% 103

Consultant Skill Set
Top 30 Co-Occurring Skills & Capabilities

For the 6 months to 29 September 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.

1 693 (21.57%) Security Cleared
2 639 (19.89%) SAP
3 591 (18.39%) Stakeholder Management
4 468 (14.57%) SC Cleared
5 467 (14.53%) Microsoft
6 442 (13.76%) Migration
7 406 (12.64%) Oracle
8 314 (9.77%) Azure
9 299 (9.31%) Stakeholder Engagement
10 295 (9.18%) User Acceptance Testing
11 276 (8.59%) SAP S/4HANA
12 266 (8.28%) Problem-Solving
13 247 (7.69%) Validation
14 242 (7.53%) Cybersecurity
15 241 (7.50%) Workshop Facilitation
16 230 (7.16%) ERP
17 217 (6.75%) SQL
18 214 (6.66%) Analytics
19 203 (6.32%) Continuous Improvement
20 200 (6.22%) Data Migration
21 196 (6.10%) Roadmaps
22 183 (5.70%) Agile
22 183 (5.70%) Requirements Gathering
23 182 (5.66%) AWS
24 168 (5.23%) AI
25 164 (5.10%) Power Platform
26 155 (4.82%) Knowledge Transfer
27 154 (4.79%) Business Intelligence
28 150 (4.67%) DV Cleared
29 148 (4.61%) Dynamics 365

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 74 (2.30%) SharePoint
2 41 (1.28%) Confluence
3 31 (0.96%) Microsoft Exchange
4 9 (0.28%) Oracle Workflow
4 9 (0.28%) WebSphere
5 8 (0.25%) SAS
5 8 (0.25%) WebLogic
6 4 (0.12%) Apache
6 4 (0.12%) Apache Airflow
6 4 (0.12%) ArcGIS
6 4 (0.12%) CMS
7 3 (0.093%) Adobe Experience Manager
7 3 (0.093%) Apache Spark
7 3 (0.093%) NetWeaver
7 3 (0.093%) OpenStack
7 3 (0.093%) TIBCO ActiveMatrix
8 2 (0.062%) Oracle Service Bus
8 2 (0.062%) Smallworld
8 2 (0.062%) Tomcat
8 2 (0.062%) WordPress
Applications
1 49 (1.53%) Microsoft Excel
2 32 (1.00%) Microsoft Office
3 28 (0.87%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 10 (0.31%) MS Visio
5 7 (0.22%) Spreadsheet
6 4 (0.12%) Microsoft Project
7 2 (0.062%) Chatbot
8 1 (0.031%) 1Password
8 1 (0.031%) Adobe Captivate
8 1 (0.031%) Adobe Creative Suite
8 1 (0.031%) CPLEX
Business Applications
1 276 (8.59%) SAP S/4HANA
2 85 (2.65%) Oracle EBS
3 77 (2.40%) SAP FI
4 50 (1.56%) Oracle ERP
4 50 (1.56%) SAP PSCD
5 49 (1.53%) SAP Payroll
6 45 (1.40%) Oracle Payables
7 44 (1.37%) SAP CO
8 42 (1.31%) Oracle Receivables
9 40 (1.24%) Workday HCM
10 39 (1.21%) Oracle General Ledger
11 37 (1.15%) Dynamics CRM
12 35 (1.09%) SAP FI/CO
12 35 (1.09%) SAP HR
13 34 (1.06%) SAP BRIM
13 34 (1.06%) SAP HCM
13 34 (1.06%) SAP SD
14 30 (0.93%) NetSuite
15 28 (0.87%) SAP MM
15 28 (0.87%) SAP PP
Cloud Services
1 314 (9.77%) Azure
2 182 (5.66%) AWS
3 164 (5.10%) Power Platform
4 148 (4.61%) Dynamics 365
5 114 (3.55%) OCI
6 100 (3.11%) SuccessFactors
7 96 (2.99%) GCP
8 91 (2.83%) Microsoft 365
9 69 (2.15%) Entra ID
10 67 (2.09%) Power Automate
11 63 (1.96%) Azure DevOps
12 56 (1.74%) Microsoft Copilot
13 49 (1.53%) SaaS
14 35 (1.09%) PowerApps
15 29 (0.90%) Microsoft Purview
16 25 (0.78%) GitHub
17 21 (0.65%) Snowflake
18 19 (0.59%) Azure AI
19 17 (0.53%) Amazon S3
20 16 (0.50%) Copilot Studio
Communications & Networking
1 69 (2.15%) Firewall
2 68 (2.12%) Network Security
3 34 (1.06%) BGP
3 34 (1.06%) WAN
4 26 (0.81%) VPN
5 20 (0.62%) DNS
6 17 (0.53%) SNMP
7 15 (0.47%) LAN
8 14 (0.44%) Ethernet VPN
8 14 (0.44%) TCP/IP
9 12 (0.37%) SAN
9 12 (0.37%) VXLAN
10 11 (0.34%) IPsec
10 11 (0.34%) MPLS
10 11 (0.34%) NGFW
11 10 (0.31%) 3GPP
11 10 (0.31%) 5G
11 10 (0.31%) Radio Access Network
12 9 (0.28%) SD-WAN
13 8 (0.25%) FTP
Database & Business Intelligence
1 98 (3.05%) Power BI
2 48 (1.49%) Oracle Reports
3 39 (1.21%) Oracle BI Publisher
4 36 (1.12%) SAP BW
5 35 (1.09%) Data Warehouse
6 33 (1.03%) SAP HANA
7 30 (0.93%) Tableau
8 29 (0.90%) SQL Server
9 26 (0.81%) Metadata
10 22 (0.68%) BusinessObjects
11 17 (0.53%) Oracle Database
12 16 (0.50%) Power Query
13 10 (0.31%) Relational Database
14 9 (0.28%) BigQuery
14 9 (0.28%) DynamoDB
14 9 (0.28%) Elasticsearch
15 8 (0.25%) Oracle ODI
15 8 (0.25%) SAP Data Services
16 7 (0.22%) Amazon RDS
16 7 (0.22%) SQL Server Reporting Services
Development Applications
1 92 (2.86%) JIRA
2 28 (0.87%) Git
3 17 (0.53%) Jenkins
4 13 (0.40%) GitLab
4 13 (0.40%) Oracle Forms
5 8 (0.25%) Hudson
6 7 (0.22%) PowerBuilder
6 7 (0.22%) Zephyr
7 6 (0.19%) SonarQube
8 5 (0.16%) Cypress.io
8 5 (0.16%) Sonatype Nexus
9 4 (0.12%) MLflow
10 3 (0.093%) Browser DevTools
10 3 (0.093%) JDeveloper
10 3 (0.093%) JMeter
10 3 (0.093%) Maven
10 3 (0.093%) Postman
10 3 (0.093%) Snyk
10 3 (0.093%) TestRail
10 3 (0.093%) Toad
General
1 737 (22.94%) Finance
2 736 (22.91%) Social Skills
3 263 (8.19%) Public Sector
4 232 (7.22%) Analytical Skills
5 125 (3.89%) Manufacturing
6 96 (2.99%) Banking
7 88 (2.74%) Billing
8 87 (2.71%) Legal
9 81 (2.52%) Documentation Skills
10 68 (2.12%) Telecoms
11 59 (1.84%) Retail
12 58 (1.81%) General Ledger
13 56 (1.74%) Presentation Skills
14 47 (1.46%) Marketing
15 41 (1.28%) Influencing Skills
16 39 (1.21%) Inclusion and Diversity
17 36 (1.12%) Pharmaceutical
18 29 (0.90%) Local Government
19 24 (0.75%) Law
20 19 (0.59%) Organisational Skills
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 130 (4.05%) Oracle Fusion
2 77 (2.40%) REST
3 60 (1.87%) Terraform
4 48 (1.49%) SAP Fiori
5 40 (1.24%) XML
6 39 (1.21%) Middleware
6 39 (1.21%) SOAP
6 39 (1.21%) Web Services
7 27 (0.84%) SailPoint
8 23 (0.72%) JSON
8 23 (0.72%) OAuth
9 20 (0.62%) LDAP
10 18 (0.56%) SAP PI
11 17 (0.53%) BAPI
11 17 (0.53%) HTML
12 15 (0.47%) CSS
13 14 (0.44%) SAP Basis
14 13 (0.40%) EDI
14 13 (0.40%) SAML
14 13 (0.40%) XSLT
Miscellaneous
1 130 (4.05%) Onboarding
2 54 (1.68%) CMDB
3 50 (1.56%) Operational Technology
4 48 (1.49%) Data Structures
5 47 (1.46%) Data Centre
6 39 (1.21%) Enterprise Software
6 39 (1.21%) Product Ownership
6 39 (1.21%) Security Posture
7 38 (1.18%) Data Protection Act
8 30 (0.93%) Legacy Systems
9 28 (0.87%) Replication
10 27 (0.84%) AI Agents
11 26 (0.81%) Cloud Native
12 22 (0.68%) Greenfield Project
12 22 (0.68%) Life Science
13 19 (0.59%) Public Cloud
14 18 (0.56%) Management Information System
15 16 (0.50%) Hybrid Cloud
15 16 (0.50%) NHS
15 16 (0.50%) PKI
Operating Systems
1 95 (2.96%) Windows
2 73 (2.27%) Linux
3 27 (0.84%) Unix
4 24 (0.75%) Windows Server
5 21 (0.65%) Solaris
6 13 (0.40%) VMS
7 11 (0.34%) AIX
8 6 (0.19%) Android
8 6 (0.19%) Windows 10
8 6 (0.19%) Windows Server 2016
9 5 (0.16%) Apple iOS
9 5 (0.16%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
10 1 (0.031%) Kali Linux
10 1 (0.031%) Mac OS
10 1 (0.031%) OpenVMS
10 1 (0.031%) Windows Server 2012
10 1 (0.031%) zOS
Processes & Methodologies
1 591 (18.39%) Stakeholder Management
2 442 (13.76%) Migration
3 299 (9.31%) Stakeholder Engagement
4 295 (9.18%) User Acceptance Testing
5 266 (8.28%) Problem-Solving
6 247 (7.69%) Validation
7 242 (7.53%) Cybersecurity
8 241 (7.50%) Workshop Facilitation
9 230 (7.16%) ERP
10 214 (6.66%) Analytics
11 203 (6.32%) Continuous Improvement
12 200 (6.22%) Data Migration
13 196 (6.10%) Roadmaps
14 183 (5.70%) Agile
14 183 (5.70%) Requirements Gathering
15 168 (5.23%) AI
16 155 (4.82%) Knowledge Transfer
17 154 (4.79%) Business Intelligence
18 147 (4.58%) Translating Business Requirements
19 135 (4.20%) Project Delivery
Programming Languages
1 217 (6.75%) SQL
2 99 (3.08%) Python
3 60 (1.87%) ABAP
4 48 (1.49%) PowerShell
5 42 (1.31%) JavaScript
6 35 (1.09%) PL/SQL
7 29 (0.90%) Java
8 20 (0.62%) Bash
9 15 (0.47%) Data Analysis Expressions
10 13 (0.40%) Kusto Query Language
11 12 (0.37%) C#
12 10 (0.31%) T-SQL
13 9 (0.28%) Search Processing Language
13 9 (0.28%) TypeScript
14 6 (0.19%) Groovy
14 6 (0.19%) R
14 6 (0.19%) Shell Script
15 5 (0.16%) Korn
15 5 (0.16%) Perl
16 3 (0.093%) Scala
Qualifications
1 693 (21.57%) Security Cleared
2 468 (14.57%) SC Cleared
3 150 (4.67%) DV Cleared
4 109 (3.39%) BPSS Clearance
5 78 (2.43%) Degree
6 73 (2.27%) CISSP
7 57 (1.77%) CISM
8 43 (1.34%) Cisco Certification
9 31 (0.96%) (ISC)2 CCSP
10 27 (0.84%) CCSP
11 19 (0.59%) ACCA
12 17 (0.53%) CRISC
13 16 (0.50%) CIMA
14 15 (0.47%) AWS Certification
15 13 (0.40%) PMP
16 12 (0.37%) CompTIA Security+
17 11 (0.34%) CISA
17 11 (0.34%) Computer Science Degree
18 10 (0.31%) CCIE
18 10 (0.31%) ISO 27001 Lead Auditor
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 110 (3.42%) Data Quality
2 101 (3.14%) NIST
3 84 (2.61%) GRC
4 76 (2.37%) ISO/IEC 27001
5 57 (1.77%) QA
6 46 (1.43%) NCSC
7 35 (1.09%) GDPR
8 30 (0.93%) SLA
9 27 (0.84%) PMO
10 23 (0.72%) Actionable Recommendations
11 19 (0.59%) Accessibility
12 18 (0.56%) Cyber Essentials
13 16 (0.50%) PCI DSS
14 13 (0.40%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
14 13 (0.40%) Sarbanes-Oxley
15 11 (0.34%) NIST 800
16 10 (0.31%) GxP
17 9 (0.28%) IFRS
18 8 (0.25%) SOC 2
18 8 (0.25%) WCAG
System Software
1 85 (2.65%) Active Directory
2 36 (1.12%) VMware Infrastructure
3 30 (0.93%) VMware NSX
4 17 (0.53%) vSphere
5 16 (0.50%) Docker
6 12 (0.37%) Hyper-V
6 12 (0.37%) VMware ESXi
7 11 (0.34%) IAG
8 10 (0.31%) Virtual Machines
9 7 (0.22%) Virtual Desktop
10 4 (0.12%) Firmware
11 2 (0.062%) BitLocker
11 2 (0.062%) PowerHA
12 1 (0.031%) HDFS
12 1 (0.031%) Oracle RAC
12 1 (0.031%) oVirt
12 1 (0.031%) ProxySG
12 1 (0.031%) RHEV
12 1 (0.031%) SRDF
12 1 (0.031%) Time Sharing Option
Systems Management
1 46 (1.43%) Kubernetes
2 33 (1.03%) Ansible
3 22 (0.68%) Microsoft Intune
4 21 (0.65%) SCCM
5 14 (0.44%) Grafana
6 12 (0.37%) FortiGate
6 12 (0.37%) vRealize
7 11 (0.34%) Single Sign-On
8 10 (0.31%) vCenter Server
9 9 (0.28%) Prometheus
10 8 (0.25%) Nagios
10 8 (0.25%) ZABBIX
11 6 (0.19%) Netcool
11 6 (0.19%) Tivoli
11 6 (0.19%) VxRail
12 5 (0.16%) OpenView
12 5 (0.16%) Tivoli Monitoring
13 4 (0.12%) CEMLI
13 4 (0.12%) logstash
13 4 (0.12%) vRealize Orchestrator
Vendors
1 639 (19.89%) SAP
2 467 (14.53%) Microsoft
3 406 (12.64%) Oracle
4 135 (4.20%) ServiceNow
5 85 (2.65%) Workday
6 69 (2.15%) VMware
7 60 (1.87%) Ariba
8 49 (1.53%) Salesforce
9 39 (1.21%) Databricks
10 36 (1.12%) Palo Alto
10 36 (1.12%) Splunk
11 29 (0.90%) Cisco
11 29 (0.90%) CyberArk
12 26 (0.81%) OpenText
13 25 (0.78%) Google
14 24 (0.75%) BMC
15 22 (0.68%) IBM
16 19 (0.59%) Zscaler
17 18 (0.56%) Dell
17 18 (0.56%) Veeam