Project Management Contract Job Trends

Project Management
UK

The table below provides summary statistics and contractor rates for jobs requiring Project Management skills. It covers contract job vacancies from the 6 months leading up to 11 March 2026, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
11 Mar 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 42 23 19
Rank change year-on-year -19 -4 +5
Contract jobs citing Project Management 2,062 2,409 3,589
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 4.85% 8.17% 8.02%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 5.63% 9.05% 9.26%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,287 1,437 2,248
10th Percentile £325 £275 £313
25th Percentile £413 £400 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £515 £500 £525
Median % change year-on-year +3.04% -4.76% -
75th Percentile £610 £600 £625
90th Percentile £701 £704 £713
UK excluding London median daily rate £500 £475 £500
% change year-on-year +5.26% -5.00% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 122 110 251
10th Percentile £14.64 £23.36 £18.67
25th Percentile £20.79 £30.87 £26.33
Median hourly rate £39.75 £40.00 £38.12
Median % change year-on-year -0.63% +4.93% -24.89%
75th Percentile £63.18 £60.00 £51.54
90th Percentile £79.38 £75.00 £62.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £42.25 £46.30 £38.12
% change year-on-year -8.75% +21.46% -32.57%

All Process & Methodology Skills
UK

Project Management falls under the Processes and Methodologies category. For comparison with the information above, the following table provides summary statistics for all contract job vacancies requiring process or methodology skills.

Contract vacancies with a requirement for process or methodology skills 36,632 26,629 38,749
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 86.08% 90.34% 86.60%
Number of daily rates quoted 23,216 16,983 25,185
10th Percentile £313 £306 £300
25th Percentile £413 £413 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £525 £525
Median % change year-on-year -4.76% - -4.55%
75th Percentile £613 £638 £638
90th Percentile £725 £743 £738
UK excluding London median daily rate £481 £490 £500
% change year-on-year -1.84% -2.00% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 2,179 898 2,347
10th Percentile £14.64 £15.57 £13.00
25th Percentile £18.50 £21.00 £16.06
Median hourly rate £29.61 £32.50 £32.50
Median % change year-on-year -8.89% - -7.14%
75th Percentile £64.75 £65.00 £57.50
90th Percentile £74.68 £76.53 £71.80
UK excluding London median hourly rate £26.55 £32.00 £31.80
% change year-on-year -17.02% +0.63% -9.14%

Project Management
Job Vacancy Trend

Historical trend showing the proportion of contract IT job postings citing Project Management relative to all contract IT jobs advertised.

Project Management job vacancy trend in the UK

Project Management
Daily Rate Trend

Contractor daily rate distribution trend for jobs in the UK citing Project Management.

Contractor daily rate distribution trend for jobs in the UK citing Project Management

Project Management
Daily Rate Histogram

Daily rate distribution for jobs citing Project Management over the 6 months to 11 March 2026.

Daily rate histogram for Project Management in the UK

Project Management
Hourly Rate Trend

Contractor hourly rate distribution trend for jobs in the UK citing Project Management.

Contractor hourly rate distribution trend for jobs in the UK citing Project Management

Project Management
Hourly Rate Histogram

Hourly rate distribution of jobs citing Project Management over the 6 months to 11 March 2026.

Hourly rate histogram for Project Management in the UK

Project Management
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 Project Management within the UK over the 6 months to 11 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 -19 1,809 £525 +5.00% 1,214
UK excluding London -19 1,063 £500 +5.26% 1,021
London -16 835 £550 +4.76% 304
Work from Home -19 578 £525 +5.00% 455
North of England -20 278 £488 +2.63% 216
South East -13 275 £525 - 315
Midlands -25 209 £500 +5.26% 174
North West -9 160 £490 +8.83% 110
West Midlands -27 146 £500 -4.76% 103
South West -16 116 £450 -10.00% 109
Yorkshire -30 110 £492 +3.58% 87
Scotland -13 89 £450 - 53
East of England -29 71 £450 -10.00% 137
East Midlands -19 65 £398 +0.60% 69
Wales +2 29 £325 -38.39% 38
Northern Ireland -4 16 £449 +15.74% 16
North East -19 12 £410 -21.90% 26

Project Management
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
1 171 (8.29%) Confluence
2 86 (4.17%) SharePoint
3 22 (1.07%) CMS
4 7 (0.34%) Oracle Workflow
5 6 (0.29%) Apache
6 5 (0.24%) nginx
7 3 (0.15%) Anypoint
7 3 (0.15%) Apache Airflow
7 3 (0.15%) Microsoft Exchange
7 3 (0.15%) MS Project Server
8 2 (0.097%) Oracle Self-Service HR
8 2 (0.097%) SAS
8 2 (0.097%) WordPress
9 1 (0.048%) IBM HTTP Server
9 1 (0.048%) IIS
9 1 (0.048%) Moodle
9 1 (0.048%) Oracle SOA Suite
9 1 (0.048%) Orchard CMS
9 1 (0.048%) Umbraco
9 1 (0.048%) WebSphere
Applications
1 217 (10.52%) Microsoft Project
2 206 (9.99%) Microsoft Excel
3 143 (6.94%) Microsoft Office
4 111 (5.38%) Microsoft PowerPoint
5 43 (2.09%) MS Visio
6 23 (1.12%) Spreadsheet
7 17 (0.82%) Trello
8 6 (0.29%) Chatbot
9 4 (0.19%) Adobe After Effects
9 4 (0.19%) Adobe Creative Suite
9 4 (0.19%) Adobe XD
10 3 (0.15%) InVision
10 3 (0.15%) Photoshop
10 3 (0.15%) Sketch
11 2 (0.097%) Adobe Illustrator
11 2 (0.097%) AutoCAD
11 2 (0.097%) InDesign
12 1 (0.048%) Camtasia
12 1 (0.048%) Oracle Smart View
12 1 (0.048%) Windchill
Business Applications
1 73 (3.54%) SAP S/4HANA
2 23 (1.12%) Primavera
3 14 (0.68%) Loan IQ
3 14 (0.68%) Oracle Payables
4 13 (0.63%) Oracle EBS
4 13 (0.63%) Oracle ERP
5 11 (0.53%) Dynamics CRM
5 11 (0.53%) Oracle Subledger Accounting
5 11 (0.53%) SAP Payroll
6 8 (0.39%) Oracle Assets
7 7 (0.34%) Oracle General Ledger
7 7 (0.34%) Oracle Procure-to-Pay
7 7 (0.34%) Oracle Receivables
7 7 (0.34%) SAP HCM
8 6 (0.29%) NetSuite
8 6 (0.29%) Salesforce CRM
8 6 (0.29%) SAP ERP
8 6 (0.29%) SAP MM
8 6 (0.29%) SAP PM
9 5 (0.24%) Teamcenter
Cloud Services
1 162 (7.86%) Azure
2 101 (4.90%) AWS
3 93 (4.51%) Power Platform
4 57 (2.76%) Microsoft 365
4 57 (2.76%) SaaS
5 47 (2.28%) Azure DevOps
6 29 (1.41%) GCP
7 24 (1.16%) Dynamics 365
8 20 (0.97%) Asana
8 20 (0.97%) OpenShift
9 18 (0.87%) Smartsheet
10 17 (0.82%) Google Workspace
11 15 (0.73%) GitHub
12 14 (0.68%) Microsoft Copilot
13 13 (0.63%) Entra ID
13 13 (0.63%) Serverless
14 12 (0.58%) Azure Synapse Analytics
14 12 (0.58%) IaaS
15 11 (0.53%) PaaS
15 11 (0.53%) SuccessFactors
Communications & Networking
1 33 (1.60%) Firewall
2 32 (1.55%) WAN
3 21 (1.02%) LAN
4 18 (0.87%) Network Security
5 17 (0.82%) Structured Cabling
6 16 (0.78%) SD-WAN
6 16 (0.78%) Wi-Fi
7 14 (0.68%) VPN
8 13 (0.63%) DNS
8 13 (0.63%) MPLS
9 12 (0.58%) Internet
10 10 (0.48%) TCP/IP
11 8 (0.39%) BGP
11 8 (0.39%) SSL
12 7 (0.34%) SSH
13 6 (0.29%) DHCP
13 6 (0.29%) IPsec
14 5 (0.24%) HTTP
14 5 (0.24%) Kerberos
14 5 (0.24%) Wireless
Database & Business Intelligence
1 85 (4.12%) Power BI
2 29 (1.41%) Tableau
3 20 (0.97%) Data Warehouse
4 18 (0.87%) SQL Server
5 17 (0.82%) Metadata
6 14 (0.68%) Data Lake
7 10 (0.48%) SAP HANA
8 9 (0.44%) Oracle Reports
9 7 (0.34%) Electronic Patient Records
10 6 (0.29%) Elasticsearch
10 6 (0.29%) Relational Database
11 5 (0.24%) Amazon RDS
11 5 (0.24%) Power Query
12 4 (0.19%) BigQuery
12 4 (0.19%) GIS
12 4 (0.19%) Oracle Database
12 4 (0.19%) SQL Server Integration Services
13 3 (0.15%) Big Data
13 3 (0.15%) NoSQL
13 3 (0.15%) Oracle BI Publisher
Development Applications
1 322 (15.62%) JIRA
2 20 (0.97%) Git
3 11 (0.53%) GitLab
3 11 (0.53%) Jenkins
4 4 (0.19%) SonarQube
5 3 (0.15%) Axure RP
5 3 (0.15%) Selenium
6 2 (0.097%) Bitbucket
7 1 (0.048%) Ant
7 1 (0.048%) Appium
7 1 (0.048%) Artifactory
7 1 (0.048%) Atlassian Bamboo
7 1 (0.048%) CircleCI
7 1 (0.048%) Claude Code
7 1 (0.048%) Hudson
7 1 (0.048%) SoapUI
7 1 (0.048%) SpecFlow
7 1 (0.048%) Travis CI
7 1 (0.048%) Tricentis qTest
7 1 (0.048%) Zephyr
General
1 1,022 (49.56%) Social Skills
2 772 (37.44%) Finance
3 344 (16.68%) Analytical Skills
4 209 (10.14%) Public Sector
5 199 (9.65%) Organisational Skills
6 175 (8.49%) Banking
7 99 (4.80%) Retail
8 86 (4.17%) Manufacturing
8 86 (4.17%) Marketing
9 84 (4.07%) Legal
10 81 (3.93%) Influencing Skills
11 51 (2.47%) Presentation Skills
12 48 (2.33%) Investment Banking
13 46 (2.23%) Telecoms
14 33 (1.60%) Financial Institution
15 30 (1.45%) Documentation Skills
15 30 (1.45%) Local Government
16 27 (1.31%) Front Office
16 27 (1.31%) Inclusion and Diversity
17 25 (1.21%) Aerospace
Job Titles
1 815 (39.52%) Project Manager
2 246 (11.93%) Analyst
3 179 (8.68%) Senior
4 163 (7.90%) Lead
5 129 (6.26%) Business Analyst
6 123 (5.97%) Senior Manager
7 103 (5.00%) Senior Project Manager
8 94 (4.56%) IT Manager
9 87 (4.22%) IT Project Manager
10 83 (4.03%) Consultant
11 67 (3.25%) Technical Manager
12 65 (3.15%) Delivery Manager
13 64 (3.10%) Programme Manager
14 61 (2.96%) Infrastructure Manager
15 51 (2.47%) Infrastructure Project Manager
16 49 (2.38%) SAP Manager
17 48 (2.33%) Project Officer
18 45 (2.18%) Technical Project Manager
19 41 (1.99%) Architect
19 41 (1.99%) Coordinator
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 25 (1.21%) Oracle Fusion
2 23 (1.12%) Middleware
3 14 (0.68%) REST
4 13 (0.63%) SOAP
4 13 (0.63%) Web Services
5 11 (0.53%) EDI
5 11 (0.53%) XML
6 10 (0.48%) CSS
7 9 (0.44%) HTML
8 8 (0.39%) .NET
8 8 (0.39%) SailPoint
9 7 (0.34%) OAuth
10 6 (0.29%) ADO
10 6 (0.29%) Elastic Stack
10 6 (0.29%) OpenID
10 6 (0.29%) SAML
11 5 (0.24%) AngularJS
11 5 (0.24%) LDAP
11 5 (0.24%) OAuth2
11 5 (0.24%) XACML
Miscellaneous
1 118 (5.72%) Onboarding
2 108 (5.24%) Management Information System
3 73 (3.54%) Data Centre
4 67 (3.25%) PMI
5 66 (3.20%) Data Protection Act
6 50 (2.42%) Virtual Team
7 48 (2.33%) Product Ownership
8 41 (1.99%) Self-Motivation
9 37 (1.79%) Legacy Systems
10 31 (1.50%) NHS
11 27 (1.31%) CMDB
11 27 (1.31%) Operational Technology
12 20 (0.97%) Analytical Mindset
13 17 (0.82%) SCADA
14 16 (0.78%) Data Structures
14 16 (0.78%) Enterprise Software
14 16 (0.78%) Social Media
15 15 (0.73%) Cloud Native
15 15 (0.73%) Web Conferencing
16 12 (0.58%) Derivative
Operating Systems
1 50 (2.42%) Windows
2 15 (0.73%) Linux
3 11 (0.53%) Windows Server
4 9 (0.44%) Unix
5 8 (0.39%) Windows 10
6 2 (0.097%) AIX
6 2 (0.097%) Ubuntu
6 2 (0.097%) Windows Server 2019
7 1 (0.048%) Apple iOS
7 1 (0.048%) Mac OS X
7 1 (0.048%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
7 1 (0.048%) Solaris
7 1 (0.048%) VMS
7 1 (0.048%) Windows 7
7 1 (0.048%) Windows Server 2016
7 1 (0.048%) zOS
Processes & Methodologies
1 759 (36.81%) Agile
2 683 (33.12%) Stakeholder Management
3 489 (23.71%) Project Delivery
4 478 (23.18%) Problem-Solving
5 440 (21.34%) PRINCE2
6 354 (17.17%) Stakeholder Engagement
7 324 (15.71%) Change Management
8 305 (14.79%) Migration
9 286 (13.87%) Continuous Improvement
10 222 (10.77%) Decision-Making
11 220 (10.67%) Waterfall
12 216 (10.48%) Risk Management
13 211 (10.23%) Scrum
14 179 (8.68%) Budget Management
15 170 (8.24%) ERP
16 155 (7.52%) DevOps
17 145 (7.03%) ITIL
18 144 (6.98%) Roadmaps
19 142 (6.89%) Project Governance
20 138 (6.69%) Cybersecurity
Programming Languages
1 93 (4.51%) SQL
2 39 (1.89%) Python
3 14 (0.68%) ABAP
3 14 (0.68%) Java
3 14 (0.68%) JavaScript
4 12 (0.58%) C#
5 6 (0.29%) PowerShell
5 6 (0.29%) VBA
6 5 (0.24%) Perl
6 5 (0.24%) PL/SQL
6 5 (0.24%) R
6 5 (0.24%) T-SQL
7 4 (0.19%) Data Analysis Expressions
8 3 (0.15%) C++
8 3 (0.15%) Korn
8 3 (0.15%) SOQL
9 2 (0.097%) Apex Code
9 2 (0.097%) C
9 2 (0.097%) Ruby
9 2 (0.097%) VB
Qualifications
1 336 (16.29%) Degree
2 317 (15.37%) Security Cleared
3 298 (14.45%) PMP
4 281 (13.63%) PMI Certification
5 231 (11.20%) SC Cleared
6 64 (3.10%) DV Cleared
7 47 (2.28%) Master's Degree
8 46 (2.23%) BPSS Clearance
9 39 (1.89%) APMP
10 34 (1.65%) PRINCE2 Practitioner
11 28 (1.36%) Computer Science Degree
12 26 (1.26%) PRINCE2 Certification
13 24 (1.16%) CISSP
14 20 (0.97%) CISM
14 20 (0.97%) MBA
15 16 (0.78%) ACCA
15 16 (0.78%) CBAP
15 16 (0.78%) CIMA
16 15 (0.73%) IIBA
17 9 (0.44%) ITIL Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 226 (10.96%) PMO
2 132 (6.40%) QA
3 70 (3.39%) Data Quality
4 54 (2.62%) GDPR
5 45 (2.18%) ISO/IEC 27001
6 32 (1.55%) NIST
7 26 (1.26%) SLA
8 15 (0.73%) GRC
9 14 (0.68%) Accessibility
9 14 (0.68%) PCI DSS
9 14 (0.68%) Sarbanes-Oxley
10 10 (0.48%) Basel III
10 10 (0.48%) Disclosure Scotland
11 8 (0.39%) MiFID
12 7 (0.34%) EMIR
12 7 (0.34%) WCAG
13 6 (0.29%) Cyber Essentials
13 6 (0.29%) ISO 9001
13 6 (0.29%) JSP 440
13 6 (0.29%) P3O
System Software
1 27 (1.31%) Active Directory
2 14 (0.68%) Docker
3 10 (0.48%) VMware Infrastructure
4 5 (0.24%) RACF
5 4 (0.19%) VMware ESXi
6 2 (0.097%) Virtual Desktop
7 1 (0.048%) Microsoft App-V
7 1 (0.048%) PowerHA
7 1 (0.048%) VMware NSX
7 1 (0.048%) vSphere
Systems Management
1 16 (0.78%) Kubernetes
2 12 (0.58%) Single Sign-On
2 12 (0.58%) Terraform
3 8 (0.39%) Ansible
4 6 (0.29%) Kibana
4 6 (0.29%) logstash
5 5 (0.24%) FortiGate
6 4 (0.19%) Consul
6 4 (0.19%) Packer
6 4 (0.19%) RSA Archer
7 3 (0.15%) Microsoft Intune
7 3 (0.15%) vCenter Server
8 2 (0.097%) Grafana
8 2 (0.097%) SCCM
9 1 (0.048%) Argo
9 1 (0.048%) CASB
9 1 (0.048%) Docker Swarm
9 1 (0.048%) ITRS Geneos
9 1 (0.048%) Progress Chef
9 1 (0.048%) Prometheus
Vendors
1 301 (14.60%) Microsoft
2 204 (9.89%) SAP
3 111 (5.38%) ServiceNow
4 78 (3.78%) Oracle
5 68 (3.30%) Salesforce
6 36 (1.75%) Cisco
7 32 (1.55%) Google
8 30 (1.45%) Adobe
9 26 (1.26%) Workday
10 23 (1.12%) Atlassian
11 20 (0.97%) Databricks
12 17 (0.82%) Ariba
12 17 (0.82%) CyberArk
12 17 (0.82%) VMware
13 16 (0.78%) Sage
14 14 (0.68%) IBM
15 13 (0.63%) Palo Alto
15 13 (0.63%) Planview
16 10 (0.48%) Juniper
17 8 (0.39%) CheckPoint