Project Leader Contract Job Trends

Project Lead
UK

The median Project Lead daily rate in the UK is £563, according to job vacancies posted in the 6 months leading up to 24 December 2025.

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

6 months to
24 Dec 2025
Same period 2024 Same period 2023
Rank 519 512 537
Rank change year-on-year -7 +25 +148
Contract jobs requiring a Project Leader 67 41 53
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 0.18% 0.12% 0.12%
As % of the Job Titles category 0.20% 0.13% 0.13%
Number of daily rates quoted 39 31 28
10th Percentile £422 £425 £363
25th Percentile £475 £488 £393
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £563 £600 £550
Median % change year-on-year -6.25% +9.09% +15.79%
75th Percentile £637 £670 £603
90th Percentile £828 £700 £674
UK excluding London median daily rate £563 £550 £519
% change year-on-year +2.27% +6.02% +25.00%
Number of hourly rates quoted 9 1 5
10th Percentile - - -
25th Percentile £18.25 £26.25 £40.00
Median hourly rate £18.50 £27.50 £68.67
Median % change year-on-year -32.73% -59.95% +4.83%
75th Percentile £40.00 £28.75 £72.33
90th Percentile £64.00 - -
UK excluding London median hourly rate £40.00 £27.50 £68.67
% change year-on-year +45.45% -59.95% +4.83%

All Contract IT Job Vacancies
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 33,689 31,494 40,397
% of contract IT jobs with a recognized job title 91.07% 92.77% 93.34%
Number of daily rates quoted 21,297 19,365 27,107
10th Percentile £293 £300 £285
25th Percentile £405 £409 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £525 £525
Median % change year-on-year -4.76% - -4.55%
75th Percentile £619 £638 £640
90th Percentile £720 £738 £738
UK excluding London median daily rate £475 £488 £500
% change year-on-year -2.56% -2.50% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 1,984 978 1,483
10th Percentile £14.25 £15.50 £15.02
25th Percentile £18.22 £21.01 £19.25
Median hourly rate £25.25 £33.00 £45.00
Median % change year-on-year -23.48% -26.67% +45.77%
75th Percentile £57.50 £62.54 £65.00
90th Percentile £71.00 £73.75 £77.50
UK excluding London median hourly rate £25.15 £32.50 £46.18
% change year-on-year -22.62% -29.62% +84.72%

Project Leader
Job Vacancy Trend

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

Project Leader job vacancy trend in the UK

Project Leader
Daily Rate Trend

Contractor daily rate distribution trend for Project Leader job vacancies in the UK.

Contractor daily rate distribution trend for Project Leader job vacancies in the UK

Project Leader
Daily Rate Histogram

Daily rate distribution for jobs citing Project Leader over the 6 months to 24 December 2025.

Daily rate histogram for Project Leader in the UK

Project Leader
Hourly Rate Trend

Contractor hourly rate distribution trend for Project Leader job vacancies in the UK.

Contractor hourly rate distribution trend for Project Leader job vacancies in the UK

Project Leader
Hourly Rate Histogram

Hourly rate distribution of jobs citing Project Leader over the 6 months to 24 December 2025.

Hourly rate histogram for Project Leader in the UK

Project Leader
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 Project Leader within the UK over the 6 months to 24 December 2025. 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 -1 64 £563 -6.25% 84
London -2 32 £600 - 11
UK excluding London -26 30 £563 +2.27% 78
Work from Home +22 25 £563 -6.25% 13
South East +3 15 £563 -10.00% 21
Midlands -42 8 £775 +40.91% 14
West Midlands -28 4 £775 +40.91% 8
North of England -49 4 £488 +2.63% 17
East Midlands - 4 £450 - 5
North West -27 3 £450 - 8
South West -7 1 £575 -13.21% 11
Yorkshire -38 1 £525 +10.53% 8
Scotland - 1 - - 2
East of England - 1 £400 - 14

Project Leader Skill Set
Top 30 Co-Occurring Skills & Capabilities

For the 6 months to 24 December 2025, Project Leader 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 Project Leader in the job title.

1 20 (29.85%) Project Delivery
2 18 (26.87%) Project Management
3 17 (25.37%) Problem-Solving
4 14 (20.90%) Accessibility
4 14 (20.90%) Decision-Making
4 14 (20.90%) Visualisation
5 12 (17.91%) Agile
5 12 (17.91%) Business Intelligence
5 12 (17.91%) Continuous Improvement
5 12 (17.91%) Data Analysis
5 12 (17.91%) Data Quality
5 12 (17.91%) Microsoft Excel
5 12 (17.91%) Power BI
5 12 (17.91%) Power Platform
5 12 (17.91%) Stakeholder Engagement
6 11 (16.42%) Data Cleansing
6 11 (16.42%) SQL
7 10 (14.93%) Analytics
7 10 (14.93%) Collaborative Culture
8 9 (13.43%) Change Management
8 9 (13.43%) Microsoft
8 9 (13.43%) Oracle
8 9 (13.43%) Stakeholder Management
9 8 (11.94%) Cybersecurity
10 7 (10.45%) Data Protection
11 6 (8.96%) Data Governance
11 6 (8.96%) Migration
11 6 (8.96%) Roadmaps
11 6 (8.96%) Security Cleared
12 5 (7.46%) AI

Project Leader 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 4 (5.97%) CMS
2 3 (4.48%) SharePoint
3 1 (1.49%) Documentum
Applications
1 12 (17.91%) Microsoft Excel
2 3 (4.48%) Microsoft Project
3 2 (2.99%) Microsoft Office
Business Applications
1 3 (4.48%) Oracle EBS
2 2 (2.99%) Oracle EBS R12
2 2 (2.99%) Workday HCM
3 1 (1.49%) Dynamics NAV
3 1 (1.49%) Oracle Payroll
3 1 (1.49%) TrackWise
Cloud Services
1 12 (17.91%) Power Platform
2 5 (7.46%) Azure
3 3 (4.48%) AWS
3 3 (4.48%) Google Workspace
3 3 (4.48%) Intacct
4 2 (2.99%) AWS Lambda
4 2 (2.99%) GitHub
4 2 (2.99%) GitHub Actions
4 2 (2.99%) Microsoft 365
4 2 (2.99%) OpenShift
4 2 (2.99%) Serverless
5 1 (1.49%) Amazon Cognito
5 1 (1.49%) Amazon EC2
5 1 (1.49%) Amazon S3
5 1 (1.49%) Azure DevOps
5 1 (1.49%) Entra ID
5 1 (1.49%) GCP
5 1 (1.49%) IaaS
5 1 (1.49%) Oracle CX
5 1 (1.49%) PaaS
Database & Business Intelligence
1 12 (17.91%) Power BI
2 2 (2.99%) MongoDB
3 1 (1.49%) Oracle BI EE
Development Applications
1 2 (2.99%) GitLab
1 2 (2.99%) Maven
2 1 (1.49%) Selenium
General
1 18 (26.87%) Finance
2 17 (25.37%) Social Skills
3 15 (22.39%) Analytical Skills
4 10 (14.93%) Publishing
5 7 (10.45%) Public Sector
6 4 (5.97%) Manufacturing
6 4 (5.97%) Marketing
6 4 (5.97%) Multimedia
6 4 (5.97%) Organisational Skills
7 3 (4.48%) Aerospace
7 3 (4.48%) Inclusion and Diversity
8 2 (2.99%) German Language
8 2 (2.99%) Influencing Skills
8 2 (2.99%) Legal
8 2 (2.99%) Pharmaceutical
9 1 (1.49%) Documentation Skills
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 4 (5.97%) HTML
2 2 (2.99%) Elastic Stack
2 2 (2.99%) Kafka
2 2 (2.99%) Spring Boot
3 1 (1.49%) NumPy
3 1 (1.49%) Oracle Fusion
3 1 (1.49%) Pandas
3 1 (1.49%) Playwright
3 1 (1.49%) REST
Miscellaneous
1 11 (16.42%) Analytical Mindset
2 4 (5.97%) Onboarding
3 3 (4.48%) Management Information System
4 2 (2.99%) Data Protection Act
5 1 (1.49%) CMDB
5 1 (1.49%) FMCG
5 1 (1.49%) Greenfield Project
5 1 (1.49%) Legacy Systems
5 1 (1.49%) Manufacturing Execution System
Operating Systems
1 1 (1.49%) Mac OS
1 1 (1.49%) Windows
1 1 (1.49%) Windows 10
Processes & Methodologies
1 20 (29.85%) Project Delivery
2 18 (26.87%) Project Management
3 17 (25.37%) Problem-Solving
4 14 (20.90%) Decision-Making
4 14 (20.90%) Visualisation
5 12 (17.91%) Agile
5 12 (17.91%) Business Intelligence
5 12 (17.91%) Continuous Improvement
5 12 (17.91%) Data Analysis
5 12 (17.91%) Stakeholder Engagement
6 11 (16.42%) Data Cleansing
7 10 (14.93%) Analytics
7 10 (14.93%) Collaborative Culture
8 9 (13.43%) Change Management
8 9 (13.43%) Stakeholder Management
9 8 (11.94%) Cybersecurity
10 7 (10.45%) Data Protection
11 6 (8.96%) Data Governance
11 6 (8.96%) Migration
11 6 (8.96%) Roadmaps
Programming Languages
1 11 (16.42%) SQL
2 5 (7.46%) Python
3 2 (2.99%) Google Apps Script
3 2 (2.99%) Java
3 2 (2.99%) JavaScript
4 1 (1.49%) Bash
4 1 (1.49%) PowerShell
Qualifications
1 6 (8.96%) Security Cleared
2 3 (4.48%) Degree
2 3 (4.48%) PMI Certification
2 3 (4.48%) PMP
3 2 (2.99%) CTC Cleared
3 2 (2.99%) SC Cleared
4 1 (1.49%) Chartered Engineer
4 1 (1.49%) CISM
4 1 (1.49%) CISSP
4 1 (1.49%) CITP
4 1 (1.49%) CRISC
4 1 (1.49%) DV Cleared
4 1 (1.49%) PRINCE2 Certification
4 1 (1.49%) SAP Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 14 (20.90%) Accessibility
2 12 (17.91%) Data Quality
3 5 (7.46%) GDPR
4 3 (4.48%) QA
5 2 (2.99%) Def Stans
5 2 (2.99%) NCSC
5 2 (2.99%) PMO
6 1 (1.49%) Actionable Recommendations
6 1 (1.49%) ISO/IEC 27001
6 1 (1.49%) JSP 440
6 1 (1.49%) NIST
System Software
1 1 (1.49%) Active Directory
Systems Management
1 2 (2.99%) Grafana
1 2 (2.99%) Kubernetes
1 2 (2.99%) Prometheus
2 1 (1.49%) CEMLI
2 1 (1.49%) Microsoft Intune
2 1 (1.49%) SCCM
Vendors
1 9 (13.43%) Microsoft
1 9 (13.43%) Oracle
2 3 (4.48%) Google
2 3 (4.48%) Sage
2 3 (4.48%) VMware
3 2 (2.99%) Civica
3 2 (2.99%) SAP
3 2 (2.99%) Workday
4 1 (1.49%) Citrix
4 1 (1.49%) Concur
4 1 (1.49%) LabVantage
4 1 (1.49%) Salesforce
4 1 (1.49%) ServiceNow