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 January 2026, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
11 Jan 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 38 20 19
Rank change year-on-year -18 -1 +5
Contract jobs citing Project Management 1,964 2,651 3,520
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 5.40% 8.34% 8.19%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 6.14% 9.41% 9.34%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,228 1,465 2,268
10th Percentile £315 £275 £325
25th Percentile £413 £413 £425
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £520 £525
Median % change year-on-year -3.85% -0.95% -
75th Percentile £609 £613 £638
90th Percentile £700 £725 £712
UK excluding London median daily rate £500 £500 £500
Number of hourly rates quoted 105 116 165
10th Percentile £17.00 £21.25 £20.07
25th Percentile £23.00 £26.30 £26.25
Median hourly rate £41.06 £32.75 £42.50
Median % change year-on-year +25.37% -22.94% +6.85%
75th Percentile £63.75 £48.19 £60.00
90th Percentile £65.21 £65.50 £71.40
UK excluding London median hourly rate £45.46 £33.00 £45.00
% change year-on-year +37.76% -26.67% -6.25%

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 31,966 28,176 37,671
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 87.84% 88.65% 87.67%
Number of daily rates quoted 20,158 17,120 25,014
10th Percentile £304 £306 £305
25th Percentile £406 £413 £416
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £525 £525
Median % change year-on-year -4.76% - -4.55%
75th Percentile £615 £638 £650
90th Percentile £723 £744 £743
UK excluding London median daily rate £475 £500 £500
% change year-on-year -5.00% - -
Number of hourly rates quoted 1,974 895 1,590
10th Percentile £14.61 £15.62 £14.18
25th Percentile £17.69 £20.50 £18.35
Median hourly rate £25.15 £32.50 £40.50
Median % change year-on-year -22.62% -19.75% +16.41%
75th Percentile £55.00 £62.00 £65.00
90th Percentile £69.59 £75.00 £77.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £23.83 £30.41 £43.90
% change year-on-year -21.64% -30.74% +59.64%

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 January 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 January 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 January 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 -18 1,694 £520 -0.95% 1,489
UK excluding London -17 993 £500 - 1,435
London -17 795 £525 -4.55% 288
Work from Home -12 577 £501 -1.14% 573
South East -7 257 £525 - 418
North of England -21 255 £480 +1.05% 281
Midlands -20 199 £492 -6.29% 236
North West -12 145 £492 +9.33% 128
West Midlands -22 135 £500 -9.09% 130
South West -26 105 £450 -6.49% 166
Yorkshire -15 101 £475 +5.56% 122
Scotland -10 96 £450 +1.69% 68
East Midlands -11 66 £463 +15.63% 104
East of England -35 51 £469 -3.85% 209
Wales -1 29 £308 -42.79% 59
Northern Ireland -5 19 £388 -18.42% 38
North East -25 11 £450 -21.74% 39

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
1 166 (8.45%) Confluence
2 119 (6.06%) SharePoint
3 22 (1.12%) CMS
4 13 (0.66%) Microsoft Exchange
5 8 (0.41%) Skype for Business
6 7 (0.36%) Exchange Server 2013
7 6 (0.31%) WordPress
8 5 (0.25%) nginx
9 4 (0.20%) Apache
9 4 (0.20%) Oracle Workflow
10 2 (0.10%) MS Project Server
11 1 (0.051%) Anypoint
11 1 (0.051%) Apache Airflow
11 1 (0.051%) Apache Spark
11 1 (0.051%) Moodle
11 1 (0.051%) Oracle Self-Service HR
11 1 (0.051%) Oracle SOA Suite
11 1 (0.051%) Orchard CMS
11 1 (0.051%) Umbraco
11 1 (0.051%) WebSphere
Applications
1 216 (11.00%) Microsoft Excel
2 207 (10.54%) Microsoft Project
3 164 (8.35%) Microsoft Office
4 131 (6.67%) Microsoft PowerPoint
5 63 (3.21%) MS Visio
6 25 (1.27%) Trello
7 15 (0.76%) Spreadsheet
8 5 (0.25%) Chatbot
9 4 (0.20%) Adobe After Effects
9 4 (0.20%) Adobe Creative Suite
9 4 (0.20%) Adobe XD
9 4 (0.20%) Revit
10 3 (0.15%) InVision
10 3 (0.15%) Navisworks
10 3 (0.15%) Sketch
11 2 (0.10%) Adobe Illustrator
11 2 (0.10%) AutoCAD
11 2 (0.10%) InDesign
11 2 (0.10%) Photoshop
11 2 (0.10%) ProjectWise
Business Applications
1 52 (2.65%) SAP S/4HANA
2 15 (0.76%) Primavera
3 14 (0.71%) Oracle EBS
4 13 (0.66%) Oracle ERP
5 11 (0.56%) Dynamics CRM
6 10 (0.51%) Oracle Payables
6 10 (0.51%) Salesforce CRM
7 8 (0.41%) Loan IQ
7 8 (0.41%) SAP Payroll
8 7 (0.36%) SAP PM
8 7 (0.36%) Shopify
9 6 (0.31%) NetSuite
9 6 (0.31%) Oracle Financials
9 6 (0.31%) SAP ERP
10 5 (0.25%) Oracle Assets
10 5 (0.25%) Oracle Subledger Accounting
10 5 (0.25%) SAP CO
10 5 (0.25%) SAP FI
10 5 (0.25%) Workday HCM
10 5 (0.25%) Workfront
Cloud Services
1 166 (8.45%) Azure
2 109 (5.55%) Power Platform
3 97 (4.94%) AWS
4 73 (3.72%) Microsoft 365
5 45 (2.29%) Azure DevOps
6 44 (2.24%) SaaS
7 29 (1.48%) GCP
8 24 (1.22%) Asana
8 24 (1.22%) Smartsheet
9 18 (0.92%) Dynamics 365
9 18 (0.92%) SuccessFactors
10 17 (0.87%) GitHub
10 17 (0.87%) OpenShift
11 16 (0.81%) Google Workspace
11 16 (0.81%) OneDrive
12 15 (0.76%) Cloud Computing
13 11 (0.56%) Microsoft Copilot
14 10 (0.51%) Entra ID
14 10 (0.51%) Serverless
15 9 (0.46%) Figma
Communications & Networking
1 44 (2.24%) Firewall
2 22 (1.12%) WAN
3 16 (0.81%) DNS
3 16 (0.81%) LAN
4 15 (0.76%) Network Security
4 15 (0.76%) SSH
5 13 (0.66%) Structured Cabling
5 13 (0.66%) Wi-Fi
6 11 (0.56%) SD-WAN
7 10 (0.51%) HTTP
7 10 (0.51%) VPN
8 9 (0.46%) Skype
9 8 (0.41%) Internet
9 8 (0.41%) TCP/IP
10 6 (0.31%) Broadband
10 6 (0.31%) DHCP
10 6 (0.31%) SSL
11 5 (0.25%) Multicast
11 5 (0.25%) VXLAN
12 4 (0.20%) VLAN
Database & Business Intelligence
1 99 (5.04%) Power BI
2 27 (1.37%) Tableau
3 26 (1.32%) SQL Server
4 19 (0.97%) Metadata
5 17 (0.87%) Data Warehouse
6 13 (0.66%) SAP HANA
7 10 (0.51%) Data Lake
8 6 (0.31%) Elasticsearch
8 6 (0.31%) Electronic Patient Records
8 6 (0.31%) Oracle Reports
8 6 (0.31%) Relational Database
9 5 (0.25%) Amazon RDS
9 5 (0.25%) Power Query
10 4 (0.20%) Azure SQL Database
11 3 (0.15%) Big Data
11 3 (0.15%) GIS
11 3 (0.15%) Oracle Database
11 3 (0.15%) Star Schema
12 2 (0.10%) Geospatial Data
12 2 (0.10%) Looker
Development Applications
1 324 (16.50%) JIRA
2 21 (1.07%) Git
3 11 (0.56%) Jenkins
4 7 (0.36%) GitLab
5 4 (0.20%) Selenium
5 4 (0.20%) SpecFlow
6 3 (0.15%) Axure RP
6 3 (0.15%) Bitbucket
6 3 (0.15%) SonarQube
7 2 (0.10%) Artifactory
8 1 (0.051%) Ant
8 1 (0.051%) Appium
8 1 (0.051%) Atlassian Bamboo
8 1 (0.051%) CircleCI
8 1 (0.051%) Gradle
8 1 (0.051%) JUnit
8 1 (0.051%) SoapUI
8 1 (0.051%) Sonatype Nexus
8 1 (0.051%) Travis CI
8 1 (0.051%) Tricentis qTest
General
1 972 (49.49%) Social Skills
2 699 (35.59%) Finance
3 342 (17.41%) Analytical Skills
4 207 (10.54%) Public Sector
5 179 (9.11%) Banking
6 174 (8.86%) Organisational Skills
7 93 (4.74%) Legal
8 90 (4.58%) Retail
9 86 (4.38%) Marketing
10 78 (3.97%) Manufacturing
11 73 (3.72%) Influencing Skills
12 50 (2.55%) Telecoms
13 48 (2.44%) Presentation Skills
14 44 (2.24%) Investment Banking
14 44 (2.24%) Local Government
15 35 (1.78%) Inclusion and Diversity
16 31 (1.58%) Front Office
17 28 (1.43%) Documentation Skills
17 28 (1.43%) Pharmaceutical
18 26 (1.32%) Financial Institution
Job Titles
1 725 (36.91%) Project Manager
2 252 (12.83%) Analyst
3 169 (8.60%) Lead
4 154 (7.84%) Senior
5 131 (6.67%) Business Analyst
6 104 (5.30%) IT Manager
7 97 (4.94%) Senior Manager
8 90 (4.58%) IT Project Manager
9 85 (4.33%) Consultant
10 77 (3.92%) Senior Project Manager
11 62 (3.16%) Technical Manager
12 54 (2.75%) Delivery Manager
13 51 (2.60%) Infrastructure Manager
14 50 (2.55%) Programme Manager
15 48 (2.44%) Coordinator
16 43 (2.19%) Infrastructure Project Manager
16 43 (2.19%) Technical Project Manager
17 42 (2.14%) Developer
17 42 (2.14%) SAP Manager
18 38 (1.93%) Architect
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 22 (1.12%) Oracle Fusion
2 18 (0.92%) Middleware
3 13 (0.66%) .NET
3 13 (0.66%) REST
4 12 (0.61%) EDI
4 12 (0.61%) SOAP
5 11 (0.56%) HTML
6 10 (0.51%) ADO
6 10 (0.51%) XML
7 9 (0.46%) AngularJS
8 8 (0.41%) React
8 8 (0.41%) SAP Fiori
8 8 (0.41%) Web Services
9 7 (0.36%) CSS
9 7 (0.36%) LDAP
9 7 (0.36%) RESTful
10 6 (0.31%) Elastic Stack
10 6 (0.31%) LangChain
11 5 (0.25%) .NET Framework
11 5 (0.25%) Entity Framework
Miscellaneous
1 114 (5.80%) Onboarding
2 110 (5.60%) Management Information System
3 65 (3.31%) PMI
4 59 (3.00%) Data Centre
4 59 (3.00%) Data Protection Act
5 53 (2.70%) Product Ownership
6 49 (2.49%) Virtual Team
7 48 (2.44%) Self-Motivation
8 38 (1.93%) Legacy Systems
9 26 (1.32%) Enterprise Software
10 25 (1.27%) Analytical Mindset
10 25 (1.27%) NHS
11 21 (1.07%) CMDB
12 19 (0.97%) Operational Technology
13 16 (0.81%) Life Science
14 15 (0.76%) Social Media
15 14 (0.71%) Public Cloud
16 13 (0.66%) Mobile App
16 13 (0.66%) SCADA
17 12 (0.61%) Derivative
Operating Systems
1 76 (3.87%) Windows
2 18 (0.92%) Linux
3 15 (0.76%) Unix
4 13 (0.66%) Windows Server
5 12 (0.61%) Windows 10
6 4 (0.20%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
7 3 (0.15%) Windows Server 2019
8 2 (0.10%) AIX
8 2 (0.10%) Apple iOS
8 2 (0.10%) VMS
8 2 (0.10%) Windows Server 2016
9 1 (0.051%) Android
9 1 (0.051%) Solaris
9 1 (0.051%) Windows Server 2012
9 1 (0.051%) zOS
Processes & Methodologies
1 740 (37.68%) Agile
2 633 (32.23%) Stakeholder Management
3 487 (24.80%) Problem-Solving
4 467 (23.78%) Project Delivery
5 412 (20.98%) PRINCE2
6 357 (18.18%) Stakeholder Engagement
7 329 (16.75%) Change Management
8 264 (13.44%) Migration
9 244 (12.42%) Continuous Improvement
10 235 (11.97%) Waterfall
11 210 (10.69%) Decision-Making
11 210 (10.69%) Risk Management
12 182 (9.27%) Scrum
13 164 (8.35%) Budget Management
14 161 (8.20%) ITIL
15 156 (7.94%) Project Governance
16 148 (7.54%) DevOps
17 137 (6.98%) ERP
18 136 (6.92%) Cybersecurity
18 136 (6.92%) Roadmaps
Programming Languages
1 87 (4.43%) SQL
2 44 (2.24%) Python
3 18 (0.92%) Java
4 16 (0.81%) JavaScript
5 12 (0.61%) C#
6 11 (0.56%) ABAP
7 8 (0.41%) PowerShell
8 5 (0.25%) Perl
8 5 (0.25%) PL/SQL
8 5 (0.25%) VBA
9 4 (0.20%) C++
9 4 (0.20%) Go
9 4 (0.20%) R
9 4 (0.20%) Ruby
9 4 (0.20%) T-SQL
10 3 (0.15%) Data Analysis Expressions
10 3 (0.15%) Korn
10 3 (0.15%) VB
11 2 (0.10%) C
11 2 (0.10%) Kusto Query Language
Qualifications
1 368 (18.74%) Degree
2 273 (13.90%) PMP
3 269 (13.70%) PMI Certification
4 254 (12.93%) Security Cleared
5 182 (9.27%) SC Cleared
6 55 (2.80%) DV Cleared
7 46 (2.34%) Master's Degree
8 40 (2.04%) APMP
9 39 (1.99%) BPSS Clearance
10 30 (1.53%) Computer Science Degree
11 29 (1.48%) PRINCE2 Certification
12 26 (1.32%) PRINCE2 Practitioner
13 21 (1.07%) CISSP
14 20 (1.02%) MBA
15 19 (0.97%) CISM
16 12 (0.61%) CBAP
17 10 (0.51%) A+ Certification
17 10 (0.51%) IIBA
17 10 (0.51%) ITIL Certification
18 9 (0.46%) Microsoft Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 217 (11.05%) PMO
2 117 (5.96%) QA
3 59 (3.00%) Data Quality
4 58 (2.95%) GDPR
5 45 (2.29%) ISO/IEC 27001
6 29 (1.48%) NIST
7 23 (1.17%) Sarbanes-Oxley
8 16 (0.81%) PCI DSS
9 15 (0.76%) Accessibility
9 15 (0.76%) GRC
10 13 (0.66%) P3O
11 10 (0.51%) Disclosure Scotland
12 9 (0.46%) Basel III
12 9 (0.46%) SLA
13 8 (0.41%) GxP
14 7 (0.36%) ISO 19650
14 7 (0.36%) ISO 9001
14 7 (0.36%) WCAG
15 6 (0.31%) Actionable Recommendations
16 5 (0.25%) MiFID
System Software
1 39 (1.99%) Active Directory
2 14 (0.71%) Docker
3 11 (0.56%) VMware Infrastructure
4 4 (0.20%) Virtual Machines
5 3 (0.15%) Virtual Desktop
5 3 (0.15%) VMware ESXi
6 2 (0.10%) Firmware
7 1 (0.051%) Embedded Firmware
7 1 (0.051%) IAG
7 1 (0.051%) PowerHA
7 1 (0.051%) RACF
7 1 (0.051%) VMware NSX
7 1 (0.051%) vSphere
Systems Management
1 16 (0.81%) Kubernetes
2 14 (0.71%) Terraform
3 13 (0.66%) Ansible
3 13 (0.66%) SCCM
4 9 (0.46%) Microsoft Intune
4 9 (0.46%) Single Sign-On
5 6 (0.31%) Kibana
6 5 (0.25%) logstash
7 4 (0.20%) Consul
7 4 (0.20%) Packer
8 3 (0.15%) FortiGate
8 3 (0.15%) Grafana
8 3 (0.15%) Puppet
8 3 (0.15%) RSA Archer
9 2 (0.10%) ITRS Geneos
9 2 (0.10%) ZABBIX
10 1 (0.051%) Cisco UCCE
10 1 (0.051%) Docker Swarm
10 1 (0.051%) Prometheus
10 1 (0.051%) vCenter Server
Vendors
1 317 (16.14%) Microsoft
2 170 (8.66%) SAP
3 87 (4.43%) ServiceNow
4 82 (4.18%) Oracle
5 65 (3.31%) Salesforce
6 39 (1.99%) Google
7 29 (1.48%) Cisco
8 26 (1.32%) Adobe
9 25 (1.27%) Workday
10 22 (1.12%) Atlassian
11 21 (1.07%) Planview
12 18 (0.92%) IBM
13 17 (0.87%) VMware
14 16 (0.81%) Databricks
15 14 (0.71%) Ariba
16 12 (0.61%) Palo Alto
17 11 (0.56%) CyberArk
18 10 (0.51%) Juniper
19 8 (0.41%) CheckPoint
19 8 (0.41%) Remedy