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

6 months to
29 May 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 45 25 21
Rank change year-on-year -20 -4 +2
Contract jobs citing Project Management 2,085 2,217 3,285
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 4.26% 7.71% 7.67%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 5.04% 8.47% 8.95%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,294 1,359 2,002
10th Percentile £317 £300 £310
25th Percentile £413 £406 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £511 £500 £517
Median % change year-on-year +2.10% -3.29% -1.52%
75th Percentile £619 £600 £610
90th Percentile £725 £719 £712
UK excluding London median daily rate £500 £475 £500
% change year-on-year +5.26% -5.00% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 108 106 279
10th Percentile £14.64 £21.45 £18.35
25th Percentile £21.00 £31.50 £26.66
Median hourly rate £35.77 £46.28 £38.12
Median % change year-on-year -22.71% +21.39% -22.20%
75th Percentile £57.50 £63.75 £48.75
90th Percentile £73.49 £75.00 £61.30
UK excluding London median hourly rate £35.53 £52.99 £38.12
% change year-on-year -32.95% +39.01% -22.20%

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 41,377 26,173 36,711
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 84.59% 91.02% 85.72%
Number of daily rates quoted 25,864 16,755 23,656
10th Percentile £325 £300 £300
25th Percentile £413 £408 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £512 £513 £525
Median % change year-on-year -0.10% -2.38% -4.55%
75th Percentile £613 £625 £638
90th Percentile £725 £738 £750
UK excluding London median daily rate £500 £475 £500
% change year-on-year +5.26% -5.00% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 2,474 1,096 2,500
10th Percentile £14.68 £14.20 £12.75
25th Percentile £19.87 £17.87 £16.00
Median hourly rate £42.30 £27.59 £36.50
Median % change year-on-year +53.34% -24.42% +1.04%
75th Percentile £67.65 £57.50 £60.00
90th Percentile £80.76 £74.38 £72.50
UK excluding London median hourly rate £45.00 £25.15 £38.00
% change year-on-year +78.93% -33.82% +8.57%

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 29 May 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 29 May 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 29 May 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 -20 1,868 £521 +1.71% 725
UK excluding London -21 1,046 £500 +5.26% 668
London -20 882 £550 +1.85% 189
Work from Home -18 617 £500 +1.21% 264
North of England -19 294 £475 -1.30% 170
South East -16 260 £515 +7.73% 200
Midlands -30 187 £488 +8.33% 114
North West -11 163 £470 -4.03% 91
South West -18 142 £444 -11.25% 66
West Midlands -35 128 £500 +5.26% 73
Yorkshire -25 124 £480 +1.69% 60
East of England -15 80 £518 +1.57% 89
Scotland -33 69 £475 +5.56% 21
East Midlands -13 61 £390 -4.76% 41
Northern Ireland -3 17 £450 -5.26% 9
Wales -7 16 £256 -46.75% 19
North East -26 12 £410 -20.00% 22

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
1 138 (6.62%) Confluence
2 101 (4.84%) SharePoint
3 19 (0.91%) CMS
4 17 (0.82%) Microsoft Exchange
5 9 (0.43%) Oracle Workflow
6 8 (0.38%) Apache
7 6 (0.29%) Adobe Experience Manager
8 5 (0.24%) WordPress
9 4 (0.19%) Moodle
9 4 (0.19%) Oracle Self-Service HR
10 3 (0.14%) Anypoint
10 3 (0.14%) Apache Airflow
10 3 (0.14%) MS Project Server
11 2 (0.096%) IIS
11 2 (0.096%) SAS
12 1 (0.048%) CICS
12 1 (0.048%) IBM HTTP Server
12 1 (0.048%) JBoss
12 1 (0.048%) Tomcat
12 1 (0.048%) Umbraco
Applications
1 186 (8.92%) Microsoft Project
2 172 (8.25%) Microsoft Excel
3 137 (6.57%) Microsoft Office
4 111 (5.32%) Microsoft PowerPoint
5 46 (2.21%) MS Visio
6 15 (0.72%) Spreadsheet
7 13 (0.62%) Trello
8 8 (0.38%) Chatbot
9 5 (0.24%) Photoshop
10 4 (0.19%) Simulink
10 4 (0.19%) Stateflow
11 3 (0.14%) Adobe Creative Suite
12 2 (0.096%) Adobe After Effects
12 2 (0.096%) Adobe Illustrator
12 2 (0.096%) AutoCAD
12 2 (0.096%) InDesign
13 1 (0.048%) Adobe XD
13 1 (0.048%) InVision
13 1 (0.048%) Oracle Smart View
13 1 (0.048%) Windchill
Business Applications
1 88 (4.22%) SAP S/4HANA
2 15 (0.72%) Primavera
3 11 (0.53%) Oracle Payables
4 10 (0.48%) Dynamics CRM
4 10 (0.48%) Oracle Subledger Accounting
4 10 (0.48%) Shopify
5 9 (0.43%) Oracle Assets
6 8 (0.38%) Loan IQ
6 8 (0.38%) Oracle ERP
6 8 (0.38%) Oracle Procure-to-Pay
7 7 (0.34%) NEC Housing
8 6 (0.29%) Oracle EBS
8 6 (0.29%) Oracle General Ledger
8 6 (0.29%) Oracle Receivables
8 6 (0.29%) ProductWriter
8 6 (0.29%) SAP CO
8 6 (0.29%) SAP FI
8 6 (0.29%) SAP MM
9 5 (0.24%) Magento
9 5 (0.24%) SAP HCM
Cloud Services
1 152 (7.29%) Azure
2 101 (4.84%) Power Platform
3 82 (3.93%) Microsoft 365
3 82 (3.93%) SaaS
4 77 (3.69%) AWS
5 47 (2.25%) Azure DevOps
6 27 (1.29%) Smartsheet
7 26 (1.25%) Dynamics 365
8 24 (1.15%) GCP
8 24 (1.15%) Google Workspace
9 21 (1.01%) Asana
10 17 (0.82%) Entra ID
11 14 (0.67%) Microsoft Copilot
11 14 (0.67%) OpenShift
12 11 (0.53%) GitHub
12 11 (0.53%) Snowflake
13 10 (0.48%) Azure Synapse Analytics
13 10 (0.48%) BigCommerce
13 10 (0.48%) Google Sheets
14 9 (0.43%) OCI
Communications & Networking
1 29 (1.39%) WAN
2 24 (1.15%) Firewall
2 24 (1.15%) Network Security
3 22 (1.06%) TCP/IP
4 20 (0.96%) DNS
5 18 (0.86%) LAN
6 17 (0.82%) SD-WAN
7 16 (0.77%) Wi-Fi
8 15 (0.72%) Structured Cabling
9 14 (0.67%) MPLS
10 12 (0.58%) Internet
11 11 (0.53%) BGP
12 10 (0.48%) DHCP
12 10 (0.48%) VPN
13 9 (0.43%) BIG-IP
14 8 (0.38%) SAN
15 7 (0.34%) DKIM
15 7 (0.34%) DMARC
15 7 (0.34%) Intranet
16 6 (0.29%) SSL
Database & Business Intelligence
1 95 (4.56%) Power BI
2 18 (0.86%) Tableau
3 17 (0.82%) Data Warehouse
3 17 (0.82%) Metadata
4 13 (0.62%) Data Lake
4 13 (0.62%) SQL Server
5 10 (0.48%) Electronic Patient Records
6 9 (0.43%) Oracle Reports
6 9 (0.43%) Relational Database
7 6 (0.29%) Power Query
7 6 (0.29%) SAP HANA
8 4 (0.19%) Oracle BI Publisher
9 3 (0.14%) Amazon RDS
9 3 (0.14%) BigQuery
9 3 (0.14%) NoSQL
9 3 (0.14%) QlikView
9 3 (0.14%) SQL Server Integration Services
10 2 (0.096%) Elasticsearch
10 2 (0.096%) MongoDB
10 2 (0.096%) Oracle Database
Development Applications
1 283 (13.57%) JIRA
2 23 (1.10%) Git
3 15 (0.72%) Jenkins
4 11 (0.53%) GitLab
5 5 (0.24%) Subversion
6 4 (0.19%) Bitbucket
7 3 (0.14%) Selenium
8 2 (0.096%) Hudson
8 2 (0.096%) Rational Rhapsody
8 2 (0.096%) SonarQube
8 2 (0.096%) Visual Studio
8 2 (0.096%) Zephyr
9 1 (0.048%) Appium
9 1 (0.048%) Capybara
9 1 (0.048%) git-flow
9 1 (0.048%) Gradle
9 1 (0.048%) LSMW
9 1 (0.048%) Maven
9 1 (0.048%) MSI
9 1 (0.048%) Travis CI
General
1 921 (44.17%) Social Skills
2 784 (37.60%) Finance
3 335 (16.07%) Analytical Skills
4 213 (10.22%) Organisational Skills
5 179 (8.59%) Public Sector
6 154 (7.39%) Banking
7 120 (5.76%) Retail
8 114 (5.47%) Marketing
9 83 (3.98%) Legal
10 74 (3.55%) Manufacturing
11 72 (3.45%) Influencing Skills
12 53 (2.54%) Telecoms
13 45 (2.16%) Presentation Skills
14 38 (1.82%) Investment Banking
15 34 (1.63%) Financial Institution
16 30 (1.44%) Documentation Skills
17 27 (1.29%) Front Office
17 27 (1.29%) Pharmaceutical
18 24 (1.15%) Aerospace
18 24 (1.15%) Local Government
Job Titles
1 828 (39.71%) Project Manager
2 246 (11.80%) Analyst
3 210 (10.07%) Senior
4 161 (7.72%) Lead
5 144 (6.91%) Senior Manager
6 124 (5.95%) Senior Project Manager
7 122 (5.85%) Business Analyst
8 99 (4.75%) IT Manager
9 90 (4.32%) IT Project Manager
10 74 (3.55%) Programme Manager
11 72 (3.45%) Consultant
12 62 (2.97%) Delivery Manager
13 61 (2.93%) Technical Manager
14 56 (2.69%) Architect
15 55 (2.64%) Infrastructure Manager
16 48 (2.30%) Technical Project Manager
17 47 (2.25%) SC Cleared Project Manager
18 42 (2.01%) Infrastructure Project Manager
19 41 (1.97%) Developer
19 41 (1.97%) Project Officer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 25 (1.20%) Middleware
2 23 (1.10%) REST
3 17 (0.82%) Oracle Fusion
4 15 (0.72%) OAuth
5 14 (0.67%) SOAP
5 14 (0.67%) Web Services
6 13 (0.62%) VML
7 12 (0.58%) HTML
8 11 (0.53%) CSS
9 10 (0.48%) JSON
10 9 (0.43%) ADO
11 8 (0.38%) .NET
11 8 (0.38%) RESTful
11 8 (0.38%) SailPoint
11 8 (0.38%) SAML
12 7 (0.34%) OpenID
13 6 (0.29%) OAuth2
13 6 (0.29%) XML
14 5 (0.24%) AngularJS
14 5 (0.24%) FHIR
Miscellaneous
1 106 (5.08%) Management Information System
2 91 (4.36%) Onboarding
3 75 (3.60%) Data Centre
4 69 (3.31%) Product Ownership
5 66 (3.17%) Data Protection Act
6 64 (3.07%) PMI
7 38 (1.82%) Self-Motivation
7 38 (1.82%) Virtual Team
8 32 (1.53%) Legacy Systems
9 22 (1.06%) Analytical Mindset
10 21 (1.01%) Social Media
11 20 (0.96%) CMDB
11 20 (0.96%) Data Structures
11 20 (0.96%) FMCG
11 20 (0.96%) Life Science
11 20 (0.96%) NHS
11 20 (0.96%) Operational Technology
12 17 (0.82%) Enterprise Software
13 16 (0.77%) EPoS
14 12 (0.58%) Foreign Exchange (FX)
Operating Systems
1 52 (2.49%) Windows
2 31 (1.49%) Linux
3 16 (0.77%) Unix
4 14 (0.67%) Windows Server
5 9 (0.43%) Windows 10
6 6 (0.29%) zOS
7 3 (0.14%) Apple iOS
7 3 (0.14%) Solaris
7 3 (0.14%) Windows Server 2019
8 2 (0.096%) Mac OS X
8 2 (0.096%) Ubuntu
8 2 (0.096%) Windows 7
8 2 (0.096%) Windows Server 2012
8 2 (0.096%) Windows Server 2016
9 1 (0.048%) AIX
9 1 (0.048%) Android
9 1 (0.048%) FreeRTOS
9 1 (0.048%) Mac OS
9 1 (0.048%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
9 1 (0.048%) Windows Server 2003
Processes & Methodologies
1 750 (35.97%) Agile
2 727 (34.87%) Stakeholder Management
3 540 (25.90%) Project Delivery
4 438 (21.01%) Problem-Solving
5 388 (18.61%) PRINCE2
6 315 (15.11%) Migration
7 313 (15.01%) Continuous Improvement
8 304 (14.58%) Stakeholder Engagement
9 303 (14.53%) Change Management
10 260 (12.47%) Decision-Making
11 254 (12.18%) Waterfall
12 246 (11.80%) Risk Management
13 190 (9.11%) Scrum
14 184 (8.82%) ERP
15 170 (8.15%) Budget Management
16 158 (7.58%) AI
17 142 (6.81%) Roadmaps
18 135 (6.47%) Analytics
19 134 (6.43%) DevOps
19 134 (6.43%) Validation
Programming Languages
1 88 (4.22%) SQL
2 51 (2.45%) Python
3 19 (0.91%) JavaScript
4 17 (0.82%) Java
5 14 (0.67%) VBA
6 11 (0.53%) C#
7 9 (0.43%) C++
8 8 (0.38%) C
9 6 (0.29%) ABAP
9 6 (0.29%) PowerShell
10 5 (0.24%) R
10 5 (0.24%) TypeScript
11 4 (0.19%) Ada
11 4 (0.19%) JCL
11 4 (0.19%) MATLAB
11 4 (0.19%) PL/SQL
12 3 (0.14%) Perl
12 3 (0.14%) REXX
12 3 (0.14%) Shell Script
12 3 (0.14%) T-SQL
Qualifications
1 325 (15.59%) Security Cleared
2 312 (14.96%) Degree
3 287 (13.76%) PMP
4 249 (11.94%) PMI Certification
5 241 (11.56%) SC Cleared
6 62 (2.97%) DV Cleared
7 43 (2.06%) Master's Degree
8 42 (2.01%) PRINCE2 Practitioner
9 34 (1.63%) ACCA
9 34 (1.63%) CIMA
10 31 (1.49%) BPSS Clearance
11 30 (1.44%) APMP
12 22 (1.06%) CISSP
13 20 (0.96%) Computer Science Degree
14 19 (0.91%) CISM
14 19 (0.91%) MBA
15 17 (0.82%) CBAP
16 16 (0.77%) PRINCE2 Certification
17 12 (0.58%) IIBA
18 10 (0.48%) ITIL Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 259 (12.42%) PMO
2 127 (6.09%) QA
3 74 (3.55%) Data Quality
4 49 (2.35%) GDPR
5 41 (1.97%) ISO/IEC 27001
6 36 (1.73%) SLA
7 32 (1.53%) NIST
8 20 (0.96%) Accessibility
9 14 (0.67%) GRC
10 10 (0.48%) Basel III
11 9 (0.43%) EMIR
12 8 (0.38%) ISO 9001
13 7 (0.34%) GMP
13 7 (0.34%) MiFID
13 7 (0.34%) PCI DSS
14 6 (0.29%) Cyber Essentials
14 6 (0.29%) Sarbanes-Oxley
14 6 (0.29%) SOC 2
15 5 (0.24%) GxP
15 5 (0.24%) HL7
System Software
1 29 (1.39%) Active Directory
2 8 (0.38%) VMware Infrastructure
3 6 (0.29%) RACF
4 4 (0.19%) Docker
4 4 (0.19%) NFS
4 4 (0.19%) Time Sharing Option
4 4 (0.19%) Virtual Machines
5 2 (0.096%) Firmware
5 2 (0.096%) Virtual Desktop
5 2 (0.096%) VMware ESXi
6 1 (0.048%) ACF2
6 1 (0.048%) Hyper-V
6 1 (0.048%) Microsoft App-V
6 1 (0.048%) Sendmail
6 1 (0.048%) Virtual Servers
6 1 (0.048%) VMware NSX
6 1 (0.048%) vSphere
Systems Management
1 19 (0.91%) Single Sign-On
2 18 (0.86%) Ansible
3 9 (0.43%) Kubernetes
3 9 (0.43%) Microsoft Intune
4 7 (0.34%) Tivoli Storage Manager
5 4 (0.19%) RSA Archer
5 4 (0.19%) Terraform
6 3 (0.14%) FortiGate
6 3 (0.14%) SCCM
7 2 (0.096%) Grafana
7 2 (0.096%) logstash
7 2 (0.096%) vCenter Server
8 1 (0.048%) Active Directory Federation Services
8 1 (0.048%) Docker Swarm
8 1 (0.048%) ITRS Geneos
8 1 (0.048%) Kibana
8 1 (0.048%) Progress Chef
8 1 (0.048%) Prometheus
8 1 (0.048%) SCOM
8 1 (0.048%) vRealize
Vendors
1 303 (14.53%) Microsoft
2 188 (9.02%) SAP
3 111 (5.32%) ServiceNow
4 67 (3.21%) Oracle
5 50 (2.40%) Salesforce
6 42 (2.01%) Google
7 31 (1.49%) Cisco
8 30 (1.44%) Adobe
9 25 (1.20%) Workday
10 20 (0.96%) Databricks
10 20 (0.96%) Sitecore
11 18 (0.86%) VMware
12 15 (0.72%) NEC
13 14 (0.67%) Ariba
13 14 (0.67%) Atlassian
13 14 (0.67%) CyberArk
13 14 (0.67%) Sage
14 13 (0.62%) IBM
15 11 (0.53%) F5
16 10 (0.48%) IFS