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 3 October 2026.

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

6 months to
3 Oct 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 29 26 27
Rank change year-on-year -3 +1 +3
Contract jobs requiring a Consultant 3,249 2,360 2,579
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 5.92% 7.12% 6.78%
As % of the Job Titles category 6.43% 7.83% 7.29%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,826 1,376 1,378
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 £748 £750
UK excluding London median daily rate £548 £550 £563
% change year-on-year -0.32% -2.22% +7.14%
Number of hourly rates quoted 62 25 24
10th Percentile £36.25 £28.32 £45.38
25th Percentile £51.00 £41.60 £60.29
Median hourly rate £75.50 £77.50 £62.30
Median % change year-on-year -2.58% +24.40% -4.34%
75th Percentile £86.00 £81.25 £70.89
90th Percentile £93.38 £86.75 £74.96
UK excluding London median hourly rate £76.00 £77.50 £61.60
% change year-on-year -1.94% +25.81% -3.75%

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 50,556 30,128 35,360
% of contract IT jobs with a recognized job title 92.16% 90.91% 92.97%
Number of daily rates quoted 29,767 19,028 21,436
10th Percentile £325 £278 £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 £636 £623 £638
90th Percentile £736 £725 £744
UK excluding London median daily rate £500 £475 £500
% change year-on-year +5.26% -5.00% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 3,987 1,619 1,546
10th Percentile £14.45 £13.75 £14.85
25th Percentile £19.78 £17.27 £20.75
Median hourly rate £41.74 £25.15 £42.96
Median % change year-on-year +65.94% -41.45% -3.47%
75th Percentile £67.50 £51.13 £65.00
90th Percentile £78.75 £68.31 £74.93
UK excluding London median hourly rate £42.00 £25.08 £43.00
% change year-on-year +67.50% -41.69% -2.27%

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 3 October 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 3 October 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 3 October 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 2,602 £550 -2.22% 3,961
UK excluding London -10 1,341 £548 -0.32% 2,300
London -4 1,273 £550 -4.35% 2,029
Work from Home -5 1,064 £550 - 2,210
South East -7 376 £540 -1.82% 579
North of England -24 333 £578 -0.43% 539
Midlands -5 227 £500 -13.04% 291
North West -16 221 £585 -5.84% 292
South West +10 190 £556 -3.30% 258
West Midlands +2 162 £500 -13.04% 208
Scotland +21 123 £453 -9.40% 260
East of England -14 106 £552 +0.36% 199
Yorkshire -22 88 £575 +21.05% 130
East Midlands -11 59 £525 -6.67% 82
North East -31 23 £750 +38.89% 120
Wales -26 14 £575 +29.58% 85
Channel Islands -4 2 £600 - 2
Northern Ireland -10 2 £544 +4.57% 110

Consultant Skill Set
Top 30 Co-Occurring Skills & Capabilities

For the 6 months to 3 October 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.

1 704 (21.67%) Security Cleared
2 639 (19.67%) SAP
3 606 (18.65%) Stakeholder Management
4 478 (14.71%) SC Cleared
5 475 (14.62%) Microsoft
6 447 (13.76%) Migration
7 401 (12.34%) Oracle
8 319 (9.82%) Azure
9 298 (9.17%) User Acceptance Testing
10 297 (9.14%) Stakeholder Engagement
11 284 (8.74%) SAP S/4HANA
12 269 (8.28%) Problem-Solving
13 260 (8.00%) Validation
14 252 (7.76%) Workshop Facilitation
15 247 (7.60%) Cybersecurity
16 227 (6.99%) ERP
17 223 (6.86%) Analytics
18 210 (6.46%) SQL
19 202 (6.22%) Data Migration
20 197 (6.06%) Roadmaps
21 196 (6.03%) Continuous Improvement
22 193 (5.94%) Requirements Gathering
23 185 (5.69%) Agile
24 179 (5.51%) AWS
25 172 (5.29%) AI
26 163 (5.02%) Knowledge Transfer
27 160 (4.92%) Power Platform
28 150 (4.62%) Business Intelligence
29 149 (4.59%) Dynamics 365
30 147 (4.52%) DV Cleared

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 75 (2.31%) SharePoint
2 45 (1.39%) Confluence
3 31 (0.95%) Microsoft Exchange
4 8 (0.25%) SAS
4 8 (0.25%) WebSphere
5 7 (0.22%) Oracle Workflow
5 7 (0.22%) WebLogic
6 5 (0.15%) Apache Airflow
7 4 (0.12%) ArcGIS
7 4 (0.12%) CMS
8 3 (0.092%) Adobe Experience Manager
8 3 (0.092%) Apache
8 3 (0.092%) Apache Spark
8 3 (0.092%) IIS
8 3 (0.092%) NetWeaver
8 3 (0.092%) OpenStack
8 3 (0.092%) Oracle SOA Suite
8 3 (0.092%) TIBCO ActiveMatrix
9 2 (0.062%) Oracle Service Bus
9 2 (0.062%) SAP Portal
Applications
1 50 (1.54%) Microsoft Excel
2 33 (1.02%) Microsoft Office
3 29 (0.89%) 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
8 1 (0.031%) Windchill
Business Applications
1 284 (8.74%) SAP S/4HANA
2 84 (2.59%) Oracle EBS
3 77 (2.37%) SAP FI
4 56 (1.72%) SAP Payroll
5 50 (1.54%) SAP PSCD
6 49 (1.51%) Oracle ERP
7 44 (1.35%) Oracle Payables
8 43 (1.32%) SAP CO
9 41 (1.26%) Oracle General Ledger
9 41 (1.26%) Oracle Receivables
10 40 (1.23%) SAP HCM
10 40 (1.23%) Workday HCM
11 38 (1.17%) SAP HR
12 37 (1.14%) Dynamics CRM
13 34 (1.05%) SAP BRIM
13 34 (1.05%) SAP FI/CO
14 33 (1.02%) SAP SD
15 28 (0.86%) NetSuite
15 28 (0.86%) SAP MM
16 26 (0.80%) SAP FI-CA
Cloud Services
1 319 (9.82%) Azure
2 179 (5.51%) AWS
3 160 (4.92%) Power Platform
4 149 (4.59%) Dynamics 365
5 112 (3.45%) OCI
6 105 (3.23%) SuccessFactors
7 100 (3.08%) GCP
8 94 (2.89%) Microsoft 365
9 73 (2.25%) Entra ID
10 66 (2.03%) Azure DevOps
10 66 (2.03%) Power Automate
11 58 (1.79%) Microsoft Copilot
12 50 (1.54%) SaaS
13 35 (1.08%) PowerApps
14 30 (0.92%) Microsoft Purview
15 25 (0.77%) GitHub
16 21 (0.65%) Snowflake
17 18 (0.55%) Azure AI
18 16 (0.49%) Copilot Studio
18 16 (0.49%) SAP Commerce Cloud
Communications & Networking
1 71 (2.19%) Firewall
2 66 (2.03%) Network Security
3 34 (1.05%) BGP
3 34 (1.05%) WAN
4 26 (0.80%) VPN
5 20 (0.62%) DNS
6 15 (0.46%) LAN
6 15 (0.46%) SNMP
7 14 (0.43%) Ethernet VPN
7 14 (0.43%) TCP/IP
8 12 (0.37%) SAN
8 12 (0.37%) VXLAN
9 11 (0.34%) IPsec
9 11 (0.34%) MPLS
9 11 (0.34%) NGFW
10 10 (0.31%) 3GPP
10 10 (0.31%) 5G
10 10 (0.31%) Radio Access Network
11 9 (0.28%) FTP
11 9 (0.28%) SD-WAN
Database & Business Intelligence
1 94 (2.89%) Power BI
2 44 (1.35%) Oracle Reports
3 39 (1.20%) Oracle BI Publisher
4 35 (1.08%) SAP HANA
5 34 (1.05%) Data Warehouse
5 34 (1.05%) SAP BW
6 31 (0.95%) SQL Server
7 26 (0.80%) Metadata
7 26 (0.80%) Tableau
8 23 (0.71%) BusinessObjects
9 17 (0.52%) Oracle Database
9 17 (0.52%) Power Query
10 11 (0.34%) Elasticsearch
11 10 (0.31%) BigQuery
11 10 (0.31%) Relational Database
12 9 (0.28%) DynamoDB
12 9 (0.28%) SAP Data Services
13 7 (0.22%) Amazon RDS
13 7 (0.22%) Looker
13 7 (0.22%) Oracle ODI
Development Applications
1 93 (2.86%) JIRA
2 32 (0.98%) Git
3 19 (0.58%) Jenkins
4 13 (0.40%) GitLab
5 11 (0.34%) Oracle Forms
6 8 (0.25%) SonarQube
7 7 (0.22%) PowerBuilder
7 7 (0.22%) Zephyr
8 6 (0.18%) Sonatype Nexus
9 5 (0.15%) Cypress.io
9 5 (0.15%) Hudson
10 4 (0.12%) Maven
11 3 (0.092%) JDeveloper
11 3 (0.092%) JMeter
11 3 (0.092%) LoadRunner
11 3 (0.092%) MLflow
11 3 (0.092%) Postman
11 3 (0.092%) Snyk
11 3 (0.092%) TestRail
11 3 (0.092%) Toad
General
1 740 (22.78%) Social Skills
2 733 (22.56%) Finance
3 272 (8.37%) Public Sector
4 242 (7.45%) Analytical Skills
5 128 (3.94%) Manufacturing
6 98 (3.02%) Banking
7 93 (2.86%) Legal
8 90 (2.77%) Billing
9 83 (2.55%) Documentation Skills
10 70 (2.15%) Telecoms
11 61 (1.88%) General Ledger
12 60 (1.85%) Retail
13 56 (1.72%) Presentation Skills
14 47 (1.45%) Marketing
15 42 (1.29%) Influencing Skills
16 38 (1.17%) Inclusion and Diversity
17 36 (1.11%) Pharmaceutical
18 30 (0.92%) Local Government
19 24 (0.74%) Law
20 20 (0.62%) Aerospace
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 131 (4.03%) Oracle Fusion
2 72 (2.22%) REST
3 64 (1.97%) Terraform
4 46 (1.42%) SAP Fiori
5 40 (1.23%) Middleware
5 40 (1.23%) Web Services
6 39 (1.20%) SOAP
6 39 (1.20%) XML
7 26 (0.80%) SailPoint
8 23 (0.71%) OAuth
9 22 (0.68%) JSON
10 20 (0.62%) LDAP
11 18 (0.55%) SAP PI
12 17 (0.52%) HTML
13 16 (0.49%) BAPI
14 15 (0.46%) CSS
15 14 (0.43%) ADO
15 14 (0.43%) SAP Basis
16 13 (0.40%) EDI
16 13 (0.40%) XSLT
Miscellaneous
1 136 (4.19%) Onboarding
2 53 (1.63%) CMDB
3 51 (1.57%) Data Structures
3 51 (1.57%) Operational Technology
4 47 (1.45%) Data Centre
5 41 (1.26%) Enterprise Software
6 39 (1.20%) Product Ownership
7 37 (1.14%) Data Protection Act
7 37 (1.14%) Security Posture
8 31 (0.95%) Cloud Native
9 29 (0.89%) AI Agents
9 29 (0.89%) Legacy Systems
9 29 (0.89%) Replication
10 23 (0.71%) Greenfield Project
10 23 (0.71%) Public Cloud
11 22 (0.68%) Life Science
12 20 (0.62%) Management Information System
13 18 (0.55%) Hybrid Cloud
14 17 (0.52%) NHS
15 16 (0.49%) PKI
Operating Systems
1 94 (2.89%) Windows
2 72 (2.22%) Linux
3 29 (0.89%) Unix
4 27 (0.83%) Windows Server
5 19 (0.58%) Solaris
6 14 (0.43%) VMS
7 9 (0.28%) AIX
8 7 (0.22%) Android
8 7 (0.22%) Windows 10
9 6 (0.18%) Apple iOS
9 6 (0.18%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
9 6 (0.18%) Windows Server 2016
10 1 (0.031%) Data ONTAP
10 1 (0.031%) Kali Linux
10 1 (0.031%) Mac OS
10 1 (0.031%) OpenVMS
10 1 (0.031%) SUSE
10 1 (0.031%) Windows Server 2012
10 1 (0.031%) zOS
Processes & Methodologies
1 606 (18.65%) Stakeholder Management
2 447 (13.76%) Migration
3 298 (9.17%) User Acceptance Testing
4 297 (9.14%) Stakeholder Engagement
5 269 (8.28%) Problem-Solving
6 260 (8.00%) Validation
7 252 (7.76%) Workshop Facilitation
8 247 (7.60%) Cybersecurity
9 227 (6.99%) ERP
10 223 (6.86%) Analytics
11 202 (6.22%) Data Migration
12 197 (6.06%) Roadmaps
13 196 (6.03%) Continuous Improvement
14 193 (5.94%) Requirements Gathering
15 185 (5.69%) Agile
16 172 (5.29%) AI
17 163 (5.02%) Knowledge Transfer
18 150 (4.62%) Business Intelligence
19 142 (4.37%) Translating Business Requirements
20 137 (4.22%) Project Delivery
Programming Languages
1 210 (6.46%) SQL
2 100 (3.08%) Python
3 66 (2.03%) ABAP
4 48 (1.48%) PowerShell
5 42 (1.29%) JavaScript
6 31 (0.95%) Java
6 31 (0.95%) PL/SQL
7 23 (0.71%) Bash
8 16 (0.49%) Data Analysis Expressions
9 15 (0.46%) C#
10 13 (0.40%) Kusto Query Language
11 10 (0.31%) T-SQL
12 9 (0.28%) TypeScript
13 8 (0.25%) Groovy
13 8 (0.25%) Shell Script
14 7 (0.22%) Search Processing Language
15 6 (0.18%) Korn
16 5 (0.15%) R
17 4 (0.12%) Bicep
17 4 (0.12%) Perl
Qualifications
1 704 (21.67%) Security Cleared
2 478 (14.71%) SC Cleared
3 147 (4.52%) DV Cleared
4 107 (3.29%) BPSS Clearance
5 78 (2.40%) Degree
6 70 (2.15%) CISSP
7 54 (1.66%) CISM
8 41 (1.26%) Cisco Certification
9 29 (0.89%) (ISC)2 CCSP
10 25 (0.77%) CCSP
11 18 (0.55%) ACCA
12 17 (0.52%) AWS Certification
12 17 (0.52%) CRISC
13 15 (0.46%) CIMA
14 12 (0.37%) CompTIA Security+
14 12 (0.37%) PMP
15 11 (0.34%) CISA
15 11 (0.34%) Computer Science Degree
16 10 (0.31%) CCIE
16 10 (0.31%) ISO 27001 Lead Auditor
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 117 (3.60%) Data Quality
2 100 (3.08%) NIST
3 81 (2.49%) GRC
4 76 (2.34%) ISO/IEC 27001
5 61 (1.88%) QA
6 47 (1.45%) NCSC
7 36 (1.11%) GDPR
8 34 (1.05%) SLA
9 28 (0.86%) PMO
10 22 (0.68%) Actionable Recommendations
11 19 (0.58%) Accessibility
12 18 (0.55%) Cyber Essentials
13 16 (0.49%) PCI DSS
14 13 (0.40%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
15 12 (0.37%) Sarbanes-Oxley
16 11 (0.34%) NIST 800
17 9 (0.28%) GxP
17 9 (0.28%) IFRS
18 8 (0.25%) SOC 2
18 8 (0.25%) WCAG
System Software
1 88 (2.71%) Active Directory
2 36 (1.11%) VMware Infrastructure
3 30 (0.92%) VMware NSX
4 18 (0.55%) Docker
5 17 (0.52%) vSphere
6 12 (0.37%) Hyper-V
6 12 (0.37%) VMware ESXi
7 11 (0.34%) Virtual Machines
8 9 (0.28%) IAG
9 7 (0.22%) Virtual Desktop
10 6 (0.18%) Firmware
11 2 (0.062%) BitLocker
11 2 (0.062%) PowerHA
12 1 (0.031%) Embedded Firmware
12 1 (0.031%) HDFS
12 1 (0.031%) Oracle RAC
12 1 (0.031%) oVirt
12 1 (0.031%) RHEV
12 1 (0.031%) SRDF
12 1 (0.031%) Time Sharing Option
Systems Management
1 48 (1.48%) Kubernetes
2 36 (1.11%) Ansible
3 24 (0.74%) Microsoft Intune
4 21 (0.65%) SCCM
5 15 (0.46%) 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 6 (0.18%) Nagios
10 6 (0.18%) VxRail
10 6 (0.18%) ZABBIX
11 4 (0.12%) CEMLI
11 4 (0.12%) logstash
11 4 (0.12%) Netcool
11 4 (0.12%) Tivoli
11 4 (0.12%) vRealize Orchestrator
12 3 (0.092%) Failover Clustering
12 3 (0.092%) Kibana
Vendors
1 639 (19.67%) SAP
2 475 (14.62%) Microsoft
3 401 (12.34%) Oracle
4 135 (4.16%) ServiceNow
5 86 (2.65%) Workday
6 69 (2.12%) VMware
7 49 (1.51%) Salesforce
8 48 (1.48%) Ariba
9 39 (1.20%) Databricks
10 37 (1.14%) Palo Alto
11 34 (1.05%) Splunk
12 32 (0.98%) CyberArk
13 29 (0.89%) Cisco
13 29 (0.89%) Google
14 25 (0.77%) OpenText
15 22 (0.68%) BMC
16 21 (0.65%) IBM
17 19 (0.58%) Zscaler
18 18 (0.55%) Adobe
18 18 (0.55%) Dell