IT Consultant Contract Job Trends

IT Consultant
UK

The median IT Consultant daily rate in the UK is £500, according to job vacancies posted in the 6 months leading up to 22 September 2026.

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

6 months to
22 Sep 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 603 510 514
Rank change year-on-year -93 +4 +74
Contract jobs requiring an IT Consultant 79 30 48
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 0.14% 0.092% 0.13%
As % of the Job Titles category 0.16% 0.10% 0.14%
Number of daily rates quoted 49 22 32
10th Percentile £188 £366 £453
25th Percentile £413 £450 £510
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £506 £550
Median % change year-on-year -1.23% -7.95% +5.77%
75th Percentile £725 £584 £632
90th Percentile £875 £669 £675
UK excluding London median daily rate £650 £460 £558
% change year-on-year +41.30% -17.49% -0.89%

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 50,343 29,565 35,332
% of contract IT jobs with a recognized job title 92.26% 91.03% 92.96%
Number of daily rates quoted 29,778 18,648 21,690
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 £630 £625 £638
90th Percentile £731 £725 £750
UK excluding London median daily rate £500 £475 £500
% change year-on-year +5.26% -5.00% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 3,866 1,577 1,631
10th Percentile £14.56 £13.75 £14.73
25th Percentile £20.25 £17.29 £20.50
Median hourly rate £42.50 £25.15 £43.00
Median % change year-on-year +68.99% -41.51% -3.37%
75th Percentile £67.80 £51.80 £65.00
90th Percentile £78.75 £69.79 £75.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £42.50 £25.11 £43.90
% change year-on-year +69.26% -42.80% +0.34%

IT Consultant
Job Vacancy Trend

Historical trend showing the proportion of contract IT job postings featuring 'IT Consultant' in the job title relative to all contract IT jobs advertised.

IT Consultant job vacancy trend in the UK

IT Consultant
Daily Rate Trend

Contractor daily rate distribution trend for IT Consultant job vacancies in the UK.

Contractor daily rate distribution trend for IT Consultant job vacancies in the UK

IT Consultant
Daily Rate Histogram

Daily rate distribution for jobs citing IT Consultant over the 6 months to 22 September 2026.

Daily rate histogram for IT Consultant in the UK

IT Consultant
Hourly Rate Trend

Contractor hourly rate distribution trend for IT Consultant job vacancies in the UK.

Contractor hourly rate distribution trend for IT Consultant job vacancies in the UK

IT Consultant
Top 14 Contract Job Locations

The table below looks at the demand and provides a guide to the median contractor rates quoted in IT jobs citing IT Consultant within the UK over the 6 months to 22 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 -95 70 £500 -2.44% 52
UK excluding London -74 39 £650 +41.30% 35
London -60 35 £438 -16.27% 23
Work from Home -38 27 £650 +36.84% 26
South West - 21 £650 - 1
Midlands -45 6 £388 -35.42% 7
North of England -69 5 £400 -10.51% 12
North West - 5 £400 - 11
Scotland -21 4 £365 -2.67% 3
West Midlands -46 3 £388 -35.42% 6
South East -61 3 £700 +40.00% 7
East Midlands - 3 - - 1
Yorkshire -48 1 £400 -10.51% 1
Northern Ireland - 1 £638 - 1

IT Consultant Skill Set
Top 30 Co-Occurring Skills & Capabilities

For the 6 months to 22 September 2026, IT 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 IT Consultant in the job title.

1 22 (27.85%) Azure
2 18 (22.78%) Microsoft
3 17 (21.52%) Disaster Recovery
4 14 (17.72%) Active Directory
5 13 (16.46%) Cybersecurity
6 12 (15.19%) Stakeholder Management
7 10 (12.66%) Migration
7 10 (12.66%) Roadmaps
7 10 (12.66%) VPN
8 9 (11.39%) Change Management
8 9 (11.39%) Entra ID
8 9 (11.39%) Firewall
8 9 (11.39%) Network Security
8 9 (11.39%) Palo Alto
8 9 (11.39%) Windows
9 8 (10.13%) Digital Transformation Programme
9 8 (10.13%) Microsoft 365
9 8 (10.13%) Security Cleared
9 8 (10.13%) Service Management
10 7 (8.86%) Identity Management
10 7 (8.86%) ITIL
10 7 (8.86%) SC Cleared
10 7 (8.86%) Service Design
10 7 (8.86%) WAN
11 6 (7.59%) DNS
11 6 (7.59%) ITSM
11 6 (7.59%) Project Delivery
11 6 (7.59%) Target Operating Model
11 6 (7.59%) Workshop Facilitation
11 6 (7.59%) Zero Trust

IT 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 1 (1.27%) Confluence
1 1 (1.27%) IIS
Business Applications
1 1 (1.27%) Dynamics NAV
Cloud Services
1 22 (27.85%) Azure
2 9 (11.39%) Entra ID
3 8 (10.13%) Microsoft 365
4 4 (5.06%) Nutanix
5 2 (2.53%) Dynamics 365
6 1 (1.27%) AWS
6 1 (1.27%) Cloud Computing
6 1 (1.27%) IaaS
6 1 (1.27%) Microsoft Copilot
6 1 (1.27%) Power Automate
6 1 (1.27%) Power Platform
Communications & Networking
1 10 (12.66%) VPN
2 9 (11.39%) Firewall
2 9 (11.39%) Network Security
3 7 (8.86%) WAN
4 6 (7.59%) DNS
5 4 (5.06%) DHCP
5 4 (5.06%) NGFW
6 3 (3.80%) MQTT
7 1 (1.27%) Remote Desktop
7 1 (1.27%) SD-WAN
7 1 (1.27%) SNMP
7 1 (1.27%) TCP/IP
Database & Business Intelligence
1 1 (1.27%) Amazon RDS
Development Applications
1 2 (2.53%) JIRA
General
1 13 (16.46%) Social Skills
2 10 (12.66%) Finance
3 6 (7.59%) Banking
3 6 (7.59%) Manufacturing
4 4 (5.06%) Documentation Skills
5 3 (3.80%) Public Sector
6 2 (2.53%) Analytical Skills
7 1 (1.27%) Advertising
7 1 (1.27%) Financial Institution
7 1 (1.27%) Inclusion and Diversity
7 1 (1.27%) Local Government
7 1 (1.27%) Retail
7 1 (1.27%) Telecoms
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 1 (1.27%) REST
1 1 (1.27%) Software Packaging
Miscellaneous
1 6 (7.59%) Onboarding
2 4 (5.06%) Hybrid Cloud
3 3 (3.80%) Data Centre
3 3 (3.80%) Operational Technology
3 3 (3.80%) SCADA
4 1 (1.27%) Cloud Native
4 1 (1.27%) CMDB
4 1 (1.27%) Cyber Threat
4 1 (1.27%) Industry 4.0
4 1 (1.27%) Legacy Systems
4 1 (1.27%) Life Science
4 1 (1.27%) Management Information System
4 1 (1.27%) Microsoft Licensing
4 1 (1.27%) Product Ownership
4 1 (1.27%) Renewable Energy
4 1 (1.27%) Replication
4 1 (1.27%) Security Posture
4 1 (1.27%) Self-Motivation
4 1 (1.27%) SWIFT Messaging Network
Operating Systems
1 9 (11.39%) Windows
2 4 (5.06%) Windows 10
2 4 (5.06%) Windows Server
3 2 (2.53%) Android
3 2 (2.53%) Apple iOS
4 1 (1.27%) AIX
4 1 (1.27%) Linux
4 1 (1.27%) Windows Server 2012
Processes & Methodologies
1 17 (21.52%) Disaster Recovery
2 13 (16.46%) Cybersecurity
3 12 (15.19%) Stakeholder Management
4 10 (12.66%) Migration
4 10 (12.66%) Roadmaps
5 9 (11.39%) Change Management
6 8 (10.13%) Digital Transformation Programme
6 8 (10.13%) Service Management
7 7 (8.86%) Identity Management
7 7 (8.86%) ITIL
7 7 (8.86%) Service Design
8 6 (7.59%) ITSM
8 6 (7.59%) Project Delivery
8 6 (7.59%) Target Operating Model
8 6 (7.59%) Workshop Facilitation
8 6 (7.59%) Zero Trust
9 5 (6.33%) Infrastructure Engineering
9 5 (6.33%) IT Audit
9 5 (6.33%) Process Improvement
9 5 (6.33%) Technology Transformation
Programming Languages
1 3 (3.80%) PowerShell
2 2 (2.53%) Python
3 1 (1.27%) Search Processing Language
Qualifications
1 8 (10.13%) Security Cleared
2 7 (8.86%) SC Cleared
3 2 (2.53%) CISA
3 2 (2.53%) CRISC
3 2 (2.53%) DV Cleared
4 1 (1.27%) ISO 27001 Lead Auditor
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 5 (6.33%) Sarbanes-Oxley
2 3 (3.80%) ISO/IEC 27001
3 2 (2.53%) Cyber Essentials
3 2 (2.53%) SLA
4 1 (1.27%) Accessibility
4 1 (1.27%) COBIT
4 1 (1.27%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
4 1 (1.27%) Data Quality
4 1 (1.27%) GxP
4 1 (1.27%) ITGC
4 1 (1.27%) NIST
4 1 (1.27%) NIST 800
4 1 (1.27%) PMO
System Software
1 14 (17.72%) Active Directory
2 3 (3.80%) VMware Infrastructure
Systems Management
1 4 (5.06%) Microsoft Intune
2 2 (2.53%) SCCM
3 1 (1.27%) Nagios
3 1 (1.27%) ZABBIX
Vendors
1 18 (22.78%) Microsoft
2 9 (11.39%) Palo Alto
3 5 (6.33%) ServiceNow
4 3 (3.80%) Aruba
4 3 (3.80%) VMware
5 1 (1.27%) BMC
5 1 (1.27%) F5
5 1 (1.27%) SolarWinds
5 1 (1.27%) Splunk
5 1 (1.27%) Workday
5 1 (1.27%) Zscaler