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

6 months to
18 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 2,103 2,407 3,545
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 4.86% 8.21% 7.97%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 5.65% 9.08% 9.21%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,315 1,448 2,217
10th Percentile £325 £280 £313
25th Percentile £413 £400 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £513 £500 £525
Median % change year-on-year +2.50% -4.76% -
75th Percentile £610 £600 £625
90th Percentile £701 £700 £717
UK excluding London median daily rate £500 £475 £500
% change year-on-year +5.26% -5.00% +1.01%
Number of hourly rates quoted 124 113 256
10th Percentile £14.64 £23.63 £18.67
25th Percentile £20.79 £31.12 £26.60
Median hourly rate £39.75 £42.50 £38.12
Median % change year-on-year -6.47% +11.49% -22.20%
75th Percentile £57.50 £60.00 £50.00
90th Percentile £78.13 £75.00 £62.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £42.25 £46.90 £38.12
% change year-on-year -9.91% +23.03% -30.69%

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 37,207 26,505 38,501
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 85.99% 90.41% 86.54%
Number of daily rates quoted 23,564 17,019 25,049
10th Percentile £313 £308 £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 £610 £638 £638
90th Percentile £721 £744 £744
UK excluding London median daily rate £480 £490 £500
% change year-on-year -2.04% -2.00% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 2,206 924 2,336
10th Percentile £14.93 £15.25 £13.00
25th Percentile £18.50 £20.99 £16.05
Median hourly rate £30.00 £32.50 £32.50
Median % change year-on-year -7.69% - -7.14%
75th Percentile £65.00 £64.52 £57.50
90th Percentile £75.00 £77.41 £70.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £27.50 £31.64 £31.50
% change year-on-year -13.08% +0.44% -10.00%

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 18 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 18 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 18 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 -18 1,851 £525 +5.00% 1,234
UK excluding London -20 1,077 £500 +5.26% 1,048
London -16 858 £550 +4.76% 387
Work from Home -20 592 £525 +5.00% 432
South East -11 289 £525 - 304
North of England -20 283 £480 +1.05% 243
Midlands -22 206 £500 +11.11% 175
North West -10 164 £488 +8.33% 116
West Midlands -30 142 £500 - 100
South West -20 116 £450 -10.00% 113
Yorkshire -28 111 £488 +5.41% 102
Scotland -16 85 £450 - 58
East of England -25 73 £475 -5.00% 132
East Midlands -18 66 £402 +1.64% 75
Wales +2 27 £331 -37.35% 38
Northern Ireland -5 15 £447 +5.18% 20
North East -17 12 £430 -18.10% 30

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
1 181 (8.61%) Confluence
2 83 (3.95%) SharePoint
3 23 (1.09%) CMS
4 8 (0.38%) Oracle Workflow
5 6 (0.29%) Apache
6 5 (0.24%) nginx
7 4 (0.19%) Microsoft Exchange
7 4 (0.19%) Oracle Self-Service HR
8 3 (0.14%) Anypoint
8 3 (0.14%) Apache Airflow
8 3 (0.14%) MS Project Server
9 2 (0.095%) SAS
9 2 (0.095%) WordPress
10 1 (0.048%) IBM HTTP Server
10 1 (0.048%) IIS
10 1 (0.048%) Moodle
10 1 (0.048%) Oracle SOA Suite
10 1 (0.048%) Orchard CMS
10 1 (0.048%) Umbraco
10 1 (0.048%) WebSphere
Applications
1 220 (10.46%) Microsoft Project
2 208 (9.89%) Microsoft Excel
3 150 (7.13%) Microsoft Office
4 115 (5.47%) Microsoft PowerPoint
5 44 (2.09%) MS Visio
6 23 (1.09%) Spreadsheet
7 18 (0.86%) 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 (0.14%) InVision
10 3 (0.14%) Photoshop
10 3 (0.14%) Sketch
11 2 (0.095%) Adobe Illustrator
11 2 (0.095%) AutoCAD
11 2 (0.095%) InDesign
11 2 (0.095%) Windchill
12 1 (0.048%) Camtasia
12 1 (0.048%) Oracle Smart View
Business Applications
1 75 (3.57%) SAP S/4HANA
2 24 (1.14%) Primavera
3 15 (0.71%) Oracle Payables
4 13 (0.62%) Oracle ERP
5 12 (0.57%) Loan IQ
5 12 (0.57%) Oracle EBS
6 11 (0.52%) Oracle Subledger Accounting
6 11 (0.52%) SAP Payroll
7 10 (0.48%) Dynamics CRM
8 9 (0.43%) Oracle Assets
8 9 (0.43%) Oracle Procure-to-Pay
9 8 (0.38%) Oracle General Ledger
9 8 (0.38%) Oracle Receivables
10 7 (0.33%) SAP HCM
11 6 (0.29%) NetSuite
11 6 (0.29%) SAP ERP
11 6 (0.29%) SAP MM
11 6 (0.29%) SAP PM
11 6 (0.29%) Teamcenter
12 5 (0.24%) Shopify
Cloud Services
1 161 (7.66%) Azure
2 95 (4.52%) AWS
3 90 (4.28%) Power Platform
4 61 (2.90%) SaaS
5 56 (2.66%) Microsoft 365
6 51 (2.43%) Azure DevOps
7 26 (1.24%) GCP
8 25 (1.19%) Dynamics 365
9 21 (1.00%) Smartsheet
10 20 (0.95%) OpenShift
11 18 (0.86%) Asana
12 17 (0.81%) Google Workspace
13 16 (0.76%) GitHub
14 15 (0.71%) Microsoft Copilot
15 14 (0.67%) Entra ID
16 11 (0.52%) Azure Synapse Analytics
16 11 (0.52%) Figma
16 11 (0.52%) OCI
16 11 (0.52%) PaaS
16 11 (0.52%) SuccessFactors
Communications & Networking
1 37 (1.76%) WAN
2 32 (1.52%) Firewall
3 25 (1.19%) LAN
4 22 (1.05%) Network Security
4 22 (1.05%) SD-WAN
5 17 (0.81%) MPLS
5 17 (0.81%) Structured Cabling
6 16 (0.76%) VPN
7 15 (0.71%) Wi-Fi
8 13 (0.62%) DNS
8 13 (0.62%) Internet
9 12 (0.57%) TCP/IP
10 10 (0.48%) BGP
11 7 (0.33%) DHCP
11 7 (0.33%) SSL
12 6 (0.29%) Intranet
12 6 (0.29%) IPsec
12 6 (0.29%) OSPF
12 6 (0.29%) SSH
13 5 (0.24%) Kerberos
Database & Business Intelligence
1 82 (3.90%) Power BI
2 30 (1.43%) Tableau
3 19 (0.90%) Data Warehouse
4 18 (0.86%) Metadata
5 17 (0.81%) SQL Server
6 13 (0.62%) Data Lake
7 10 (0.48%) SAP HANA
8 9 (0.43%) Electronic Patient Records
8 9 (0.43%) Oracle Reports
9 6 (0.29%) Elasticsearch
10 5 (0.24%) Amazon RDS
10 5 (0.24%) Power Query
10 5 (0.24%) Relational Database
11 4 (0.19%) Big Data
11 4 (0.19%) BigQuery
11 4 (0.19%) GIS
11 4 (0.19%) Oracle BI Publisher
11 4 (0.19%) SQL Server Integration Services
12 3 (0.14%) NoSQL
12 3 (0.14%) Star Schema
Development Applications
1 336 (15.98%) JIRA
2 19 (0.90%) Git
3 12 (0.57%) GitLab
3 12 (0.57%) Jenkins
4 4 (0.19%) Bitbucket
4 4 (0.19%) SonarQube
5 3 (0.14%) Axure RP
5 3 (0.14%) Selenium
6 1 (0.048%) Ant
6 1 (0.048%) Appium
6 1 (0.048%) Artifactory
6 1 (0.048%) Atlassian Bamboo
6 1 (0.048%) CircleCI
6 1 (0.048%) Claude Code
6 1 (0.048%) Hudson
6 1 (0.048%) SoapUI
6 1 (0.048%) SpecFlow
6 1 (0.048%) Travis CI
6 1 (0.048%) Tricentis qTest
6 1 (0.048%) Zephyr
General
1 1,034 (49.17%) Social Skills
2 789 (37.52%) Finance
3 362 (17.21%) Analytical Skills
4 215 (10.22%) Public Sector
5 203 (9.65%) Organisational Skills
6 177 (8.42%) Banking
7 101 (4.80%) Retail
8 90 (4.28%) Marketing
9 83 (3.95%) Legal
10 82 (3.90%) Manufacturing
11 80 (3.80%) Influencing Skills
12 55 (2.62%) Presentation Skills
13 52 (2.47%) Telecoms
14 49 (2.33%) Investment Banking
15 35 (1.66%) Financial Institution
16 32 (1.52%) Documentation Skills
17 30 (1.43%) Local Government
18 26 (1.24%) Aerospace
18 26 (1.24%) Front Office
19 25 (1.19%) Inclusion and Diversity
Job Titles
1 844 (40.13%) Project Manager
2 251 (11.94%) Analyst
3 176 (8.37%) Senior
4 160 (7.61%) Lead
5 131 (6.23%) Business Analyst
6 117 (5.56%) Senior Manager
7 100 (4.76%) Senior Project Manager
8 96 (4.56%) IT Manager
9 87 (4.14%) IT Project Manager
10 86 (4.09%) Consultant
11 71 (3.38%) Programme Manager
11 71 (3.38%) Technical Manager
12 62 (2.95%) Infrastructure Manager
13 61 (2.90%) Delivery Manager
14 51 (2.43%) Infrastructure Project Manager
14 51 (2.43%) Technical Project Manager
15 47 (2.23%) Project Officer
16 44 (2.09%) Architect
16 44 (2.09%) SAP Manager
17 42 (2.00%) Data Manager
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 27 (1.28%) Oracle Fusion
2 25 (1.19%) Middleware
3 13 (0.62%) REST
3 13 (0.62%) SOAP
3 13 (0.62%) Web Services
4 12 (0.57%) XML
5 11 (0.52%) EDI
6 10 (0.48%) CSS
7 8 (0.38%) .NET
7 8 (0.38%) HTML
7 8 (0.38%) SailPoint
8 7 (0.33%) OAuth
9 6 (0.29%) ADO
9 6 (0.29%) AngularJS
9 6 (0.29%) Elastic Stack
9 6 (0.29%) OpenID
9 6 (0.29%) SAML
10 5 (0.24%) OAuth2
10 5 (0.24%) RESTful
10 5 (0.24%) XACML
Miscellaneous
1 116 (5.52%) Onboarding
2 107 (5.09%) Management Information System
3 76 (3.61%) Data Centre
4 67 (3.19%) PMI
5 66 (3.14%) Data Protection Act
6 52 (2.47%) Product Ownership
7 49 (2.33%) Virtual Team
8 44 (2.09%) Self-Motivation
9 37 (1.76%) Legacy Systems
10 30 (1.43%) NHS
11 26 (1.24%) CMDB
11 26 (1.24%) Operational Technology
12 23 (1.09%) Analytical Mindset
13 17 (0.81%) Data Structures
13 17 (0.81%) SCADA
14 16 (0.76%) Web Conferencing
15 15 (0.71%) Enterprise Software
15 15 (0.71%) Social Media
16 14 (0.67%) Cloud Native
17 11 (0.52%) Mobile App
Operating Systems
1 51 (2.43%) Windows
2 18 (0.86%) Linux
3 11 (0.52%) Windows Server
4 9 (0.43%) Unix
5 8 (0.38%) Windows 10
6 2 (0.095%) AIX
6 2 (0.095%) Ubuntu
6 2 (0.095%) Windows Server 2019
6 2 (0.095%) zOS
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
Processes & Methodologies
1 782 (37.18%) Agile
2 703 (33.43%) Stakeholder Management
3 507 (24.11%) Project Delivery
4 492 (23.40%) Problem-Solving
5 451 (21.45%) PRINCE2
6 352 (16.74%) Stakeholder Engagement
7 329 (15.64%) Change Management
8 309 (14.69%) Migration
9 299 (14.22%) Continuous Improvement
10 232 (11.03%) Decision-Making
11 229 (10.89%) Waterfall
12 222 (10.56%) Risk Management
13 215 (10.22%) Scrum
14 179 (8.51%) Budget Management
15 172 (8.18%) ERP
16 158 (7.51%) DevOps
17 155 (7.37%) Roadmaps
18 147 (6.99%) ITIL
19 145 (6.89%) Project Governance
20 139 (6.61%) Data Migration
Programming Languages
1 95 (4.52%) SQL
2 38 (1.81%) Python
3 14 (0.67%) ABAP
4 13 (0.62%) Java
4 13 (0.62%) JavaScript
5 11 (0.52%) C#
6 5 (0.24%) Perl
6 5 (0.24%) PL/SQL
6 5 (0.24%) PowerShell
6 5 (0.24%) R
6 5 (0.24%) T-SQL
6 5 (0.24%) VBA
7 4 (0.19%) Data Analysis Expressions
8 3 (0.14%) C++
8 3 (0.14%) Google Apps Script
8 3 (0.14%) SOQL
8 3 (0.14%) TypeScript
9 2 (0.095%) Apex Code
9 2 (0.095%) Korn
9 2 (0.095%) Ruby
Qualifications
1 344 (16.36%) Degree
2 327 (15.55%) Security Cleared
3 310 (14.74%) PMP
4 289 (13.74%) PMI Certification
5 235 (11.17%) SC Cleared
6 68 (3.23%) DV Cleared
7 49 (2.33%) Master's Degree
8 46 (2.19%) BPSS Clearance
9 39 (1.85%) APMP
10 35 (1.66%) PRINCE2 Practitioner
11 28 (1.33%) Computer Science Degree
12 25 (1.19%) PRINCE2 Certification
13 24 (1.14%) CISSP
14 21 (1.00%) MBA
15 20 (0.95%) CISM
16 18 (0.86%) ACCA
16 18 (0.86%) CIMA
17 17 (0.81%) CBAP
18 15 (0.71%) IIBA
19 11 (0.52%) ITIL Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 241 (11.46%) PMO
2 135 (6.42%) QA
3 70 (3.33%) Data Quality
4 56 (2.66%) GDPR
5 45 (2.14%) ISO/IEC 27001
6 33 (1.57%) NIST
7 27 (1.28%) SLA
8 14 (0.67%) Accessibility
9 13 (0.62%) GRC
9 13 (0.62%) Sarbanes-Oxley
10 12 (0.57%) PCI DSS
11 10 (0.48%) Basel III
12 9 (0.43%) MiFID
13 8 (0.38%) Disclosure Scotland
13 8 (0.38%) EMIR
14 7 (0.33%) P3O
14 7 (0.33%) WCAG
15 6 (0.29%) Cyber Essentials
15 6 (0.29%) ISO 9001
15 6 (0.29%) JSP 440
System Software
1 28 (1.33%) Active Directory
2 13 (0.62%) Docker
3 10 (0.48%) VMware Infrastructure
4 5 (0.24%) RACF
5 4 (0.19%) VMware ESXi
6 2 (0.095%) Virtual Desktop
6 2 (0.095%) VMware NSX
7 1 (0.048%) Hyper-V
7 1 (0.048%) Microsoft App-V
7 1 (0.048%) NFS
7 1 (0.048%) PowerHA
7 1 (0.048%) Sendmail
7 1 (0.048%) Time Sharing Option
7 1 (0.048%) vSphere
Systems Management
1 16 (0.76%) Kubernetes
2 11 (0.52%) Single Sign-On
2 11 (0.52%) Terraform
3 7 (0.33%) Ansible
4 6 (0.29%) Kibana
4 6 (0.29%) logstash
5 4 (0.19%) Consul
5 4 (0.19%) FortiGate
5 4 (0.19%) Microsoft Intune
5 4 (0.19%) Packer
5 4 (0.19%) RSA Archer
6 3 (0.14%) vCenter Server
7 2 (0.095%) Grafana
7 2 (0.095%) SCCM
7 2 (0.095%) Tivoli Storage Manager
8 1 (0.048%) Cisco UCCE
8 1 (0.048%) Control-M
8 1 (0.048%) Puppet
8 1 (0.048%) SCOM
8 1 (0.048%) ZABBIX
Vendors
1 298 (14.17%) Microsoft
2 201 (9.56%) SAP
3 111 (5.28%) ServiceNow
4 79 (3.76%) Oracle
5 71 (3.38%) Salesforce
6 35 (1.66%) Cisco
7 34 (1.62%) Google
8 31 (1.47%) Adobe
9 28 (1.33%) Workday
10 25 (1.19%) Atlassian
11 20 (0.95%) Databricks
12 18 (0.86%) Ariba
12 18 (0.86%) CyberArk
12 18 (0.86%) VMware
13 15 (0.71%) IBM
13 15 (0.71%) Sage
14 13 (0.62%) Palo Alto
15 12 (0.57%) Planview
16 10 (0.48%) Juniper
17 8 (0.38%) CheckPoint