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

6 months to
11 Aug 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 56 26 22
Rank change year-on-year -30 -4 +1
Contract jobs citing Project Management 2,026 2,269 2,943
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 3.79% 6.89% 7.56%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 4.47% 7.62% 8.84%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,244 1,392 1,752
10th Percentile £313 £308 £305
25th Percentile £413 £406 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £513 £500 £513
Median % change year-on-year +2.50% -2.44% -2.38%
75th Percentile £625 £613 £611
90th Percentile £725 £725 £713
UK excluding London median daily rate £500 £475 £500
% change year-on-year +5.26% -5.00% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 125 120 230
10th Percentile £20.76 £21.39 £21.25
25th Percentile £28.50 £26.46 £27.32
Median hourly rate £45.00 £36.24 £38.12
Median % change year-on-year +24.17% -4.93% -5.88%
75th Percentile £65.25 £58.69 £48.75
90th Percentile £85.13 £75.00 £65.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £45.50 £40.25 £38.12
% change year-on-year +13.04% +5.59% -3.62%

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 45,312 29,789 33,296
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 84.84% 90.47% 85.51%
Number of daily rates quoted 27,886 18,626 21,285
10th Percentile £325 £300 £310
25th Percentile £421 £404 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £500 £525
Median % change year-on-year +5.00% -4.76% -3.67%
75th Percentile £625 £625 £638
90th Percentile £727 £725 £750
UK excluding London median daily rate £500 £475 £500
% change year-on-year +5.26% -5.00% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 2,829 1,693 1,837
10th Percentile £14.22 £14.20 £14.05
25th Percentile £19.00 £17.30 £18.35
Median hourly rate £42.50 £25.15 £40.94
Median % change year-on-year +68.99% -38.57% -1.35%
75th Percentile £68.00 £48.13 £65.00
90th Percentile £82.25 £68.00 £75.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £43.96 £22.74 £42.50
% change year-on-year +93.36% -46.51% +17.24%

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 August 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 August 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 August 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 -27 1,791 £525 +2.44% 1,914
UK excluding London -35 973 £500 +5.26% 1,220
London -26 875 £550 +2.80% 871
Work from Home -24 628 £500 +4.17% 736
North of England -36 266 £475 -3.01% 281
South East -26 250 £500 - 345
North West -18 165 £475 - 149
Midlands -52 141 £545 +21.11% 213
South West -19 139 £436 -3.06% 150
West Midlands -67 96 £550 +15.79% 135
Yorkshire -37 94 £500 - 92
East of England -10 87 £525 - 127
Scotland -40 68 £475 +5.56% 61
East Midlands -18 45 £494 +22.82% 78
Northern Ireland 0 17 £430 -18.14% 32
Wales -16 13 £400 -5.88% 37
North East -42 9 £420 -12.95% 46

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
1 107 (5.28%) Confluence
2 106 (5.23%) SharePoint
3 35 (1.73%) CMS
4 23 (1.14%) Microsoft Exchange
5 16 (0.79%) Adobe Experience Manager
6 7 (0.35%) Sitecore CMS
6 7 (0.35%) WebLogic
6 7 (0.35%) WebSphere
7 6 (0.30%) Apache
7 6 (0.30%) ArcGIS
7 6 (0.30%) WordPress
8 5 (0.25%) JBoss
8 5 (0.25%) Moodle
9 4 (0.20%) Oracle Workflow
10 3 (0.15%) Apache Airflow
10 3 (0.15%) Oracle Self-Service HR
11 2 (0.099%) Anypoint
11 2 (0.099%) SAS
12 1 (0.049%) CICS
12 1 (0.049%) IIS
Applications
1 182 (8.98%) Microsoft Excel
2 171 (8.44%) Microsoft Project
3 153 (7.55%) Microsoft Office
4 115 (5.68%) Microsoft PowerPoint
5 45 (2.22%) MS Visio
6 22 (1.09%) Spreadsheet
7 15 (0.74%) Trello
8 9 (0.44%) Adobe Creative Suite
9 6 (0.30%) Chatbot
9 6 (0.30%) Photoshop
10 4 (0.20%) Simulink
10 4 (0.20%) Stateflow
11 3 (0.15%) Adobe Illustrator
11 3 (0.15%) InDesign
11 3 (0.15%) Windchill
12 2 (0.099%) Houdini
12 2 (0.099%) NUKE
13 1 (0.049%) Adobe After Effects
13 1 (0.049%) CATIA
13 1 (0.049%) Notion
Business Applications
1 70 (3.46%) SAP S/4HANA
2 24 (1.18%) Primavera
3 11 (0.54%) Adobe Campaign
3 11 (0.54%) Magento
4 9 (0.44%) Dynamics CRM
5 8 (0.39%) NEC Housing
5 8 (0.39%) NetSuite
6 7 (0.35%) Oracle Payables
6 7 (0.35%) Oracle Receivables
6 7 (0.35%) SAP CO
6 7 (0.35%) SAP FI
6 7 (0.35%) SAP FI/CO
7 6 (0.30%) Oracle ERP
7 6 (0.30%) ProductWriter
7 6 (0.30%) SAP HCM
7 6 (0.30%) SAP PS
7 6 (0.30%) Shopify
8 5 (0.25%) Salesforce CRM
8 5 (0.25%) Teamcenter
9 4 (0.20%) Oracle EBS
Cloud Services
1 178 (8.79%) Azure
2 117 (5.77%) Power Platform
3 93 (4.59%) SaaS
4 76 (3.75%) Microsoft 365
5 75 (3.70%) AWS
6 64 (3.16%) Azure DevOps
7 36 (1.78%) Smartsheet
8 29 (1.43%) Google Workspace
9 27 (1.33%) Dynamics 365
10 21 (1.04%) Entra ID
11 20 (0.99%) Asana
11 20 (0.99%) GCP
12 18 (0.89%) GitHub
13 13 (0.64%) Google Sheets
13 13 (0.64%) Microsoft Copilot
13 13 (0.64%) SuccessFactors
14 11 (0.54%) Cloud Computing
14 11 (0.54%) Snowflake
15 10 (0.49%) OCI
16 9 (0.44%) Power Automate
Communications & Networking
1 33 (1.63%) Network Security
2 24 (1.18%) WAN
3 23 (1.14%) TCP/IP
4 22 (1.09%) DNS
5 21 (1.04%) LAN
6 20 (0.99%) Structured Cabling
7 18 (0.89%) Firewall
8 14 (0.69%) Internet
8 14 (0.69%) SD-WAN
8 14 (0.69%) Wi-Fi
9 13 (0.64%) DHCP
9 13 (0.64%) Intranet
9 13 (0.64%) VPN
10 11 (0.54%) MPLS
11 10 (0.49%) BGP
12 8 (0.39%) BIG-IP
12 8 (0.39%) SAN
12 8 (0.39%) Wireless
13 7 (0.35%) DKIM
13 7 (0.35%) DMARC
Database & Business Intelligence
1 105 (5.18%) Power BI
2 18 (0.89%) Data Warehouse
3 15 (0.74%) Data Lake
3 15 (0.74%) SQL Server
3 15 (0.74%) Tableau
4 13 (0.64%) Metadata
5 9 (0.44%) Power Query
5 9 (0.44%) Relational Database
6 8 (0.39%) Amazon RDS
6 8 (0.39%) GIS
6 8 (0.39%) Oracle Reports
7 7 (0.35%) Electronic Patient Records
8 6 (0.30%) Big Data
8 6 (0.30%) SAP HANA
9 5 (0.25%) DynamoDB
10 4 (0.20%) Hadoop
11 3 (0.15%) EDMS
11 3 (0.15%) Looker
11 3 (0.15%) QlikView
11 3 (0.15%) SQL Server Integration Services
Development Applications
1 249 (12.29%) JIRA
2 28 (1.38%) Git
3 22 (1.09%) Jenkins
4 9 (0.44%) Subversion
5 7 (0.35%) Bitbucket
5 7 (0.35%) GitLab
6 3 (0.15%) Visual Studio
7 2 (0.099%) Hudson
7 2 (0.099%) Rational Rhapsody
7 2 (0.099%) SonarQube
7 2 (0.099%) Zephyr
8 1 (0.049%) Appium
8 1 (0.049%) git-flow
8 1 (0.049%) IBM UrbanCode
8 1 (0.049%) minitest
8 1 (0.049%) ScriptRunner
8 1 (0.049%) Snyk
8 1 (0.049%) Sonatype Nexus
8 1 (0.049%) Terragrunt
8 1 (0.049%) Visual Studio Code
General
1 881 (43.48%) Social Skills
2 735 (36.28%) Finance
3 339 (16.73%) Analytical Skills
4 204 (10.07%) Organisational Skills
5 177 (8.74%) Public Sector
6 152 (7.50%) Banking
7 144 (7.11%) Marketing
8 114 (5.63%) Retail
9 75 (3.70%) Legal
10 74 (3.65%) Manufacturing
11 73 (3.60%) Influencing Skills
12 63 (3.11%) Telecoms
13 47 (2.32%) Presentation Skills
14 38 (1.88%) Investment Banking
15 32 (1.58%) Financial Institution
16 31 (1.53%) Documentation Skills
16 31 (1.53%) Pharmaceutical
17 30 (1.48%) Aerospace
18 29 (1.43%) Front Office
19 27 (1.33%) Inclusion and Diversity
Job Titles
1 813 (40.13%) Project Manager
2 203 (10.02%) Senior
3 175 (8.64%) Lead
4 165 (8.14%) Analyst
5 150 (7.40%) Senior Manager
6 124 (6.12%) Senior Project Manager
7 114 (5.63%) IT Manager
8 91 (4.49%) IT Project Manager
8 91 (4.49%) Programme Manager
9 85 (4.20%) Business Analyst
10 71 (3.50%) Technical Manager
11 64 (3.16%) Consultant
11 64 (3.16%) Delivery Manager
12 56 (2.76%) Technical Project Manager
13 54 (2.67%) Infrastructure Manager
14 42 (2.07%) Infrastructure Project Manager
14 42 (2.07%) Project Officer
15 41 (2.02%) SC Cleared Project Manager
16 37 (1.83%) Developer
17 36 (1.78%) Data Manager
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 25 (1.23%) Middleware
2 21 (1.04%) REST
3 15 (0.74%) ADO
3 15 (0.74%) HTML
3 15 (0.74%) Oracle Fusion
4 13 (0.64%) VML
5 11 (0.54%) JSON
5 11 (0.54%) SOAP
5 11 (0.54%) Web Services
6 10 (0.49%) .NET
6 10 (0.49%) OAuth
7 9 (0.44%) React
8 8 (0.39%) RESTful
9 7 (0.35%) CSS
9 7 (0.35%) XML
10 6 (0.30%) AngularJS
10 6 (0.30%) FastAPI
10 6 (0.30%) SailPoint
11 5 (0.25%) FHIR
11 5 (0.25%) Lightning Web Components
Miscellaneous
1 109 (5.38%) Management Information System
2 85 (4.20%) Onboarding
3 84 (4.15%) Product Ownership
4 68 (3.36%) Data Centre
5 54 (2.67%) PMI
6 53 (2.62%) Data Protection Act
7 45 (2.22%) Virtual Team
8 34 (1.68%) Self-Motivation
9 30 (1.48%) Legacy Systems
10 26 (1.28%) Enterprise Software
10 26 (1.28%) Operational Technology
11 25 (1.23%) Analytical Mindset
11 25 (1.23%) Social Media
12 23 (1.14%) FMCG
13 20 (0.99%) Data Structures
13 20 (0.99%) Life Science
14 19 (0.94%) AI Agents
15 18 (0.89%) Credit Risk
16 16 (0.79%) EPoS
16 16 (0.79%) Foreign Exchange (FX)
Operating Systems
1 57 (2.81%) Windows
2 43 (2.12%) Linux
3 20 (0.99%) Unix
4 18 (0.89%) Windows Server
5 8 (0.39%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
6 7 (0.35%) Windows 10
7 5 (0.25%) Apple iOS
7 5 (0.25%) zOS
8 3 (0.15%) Android
8 3 (0.15%) Solaris
9 2 (0.099%) Mac OS X
9 2 (0.099%) Windows 7
9 2 (0.099%) Windows Server 2012
9 2 (0.099%) Windows Server 2019
10 1 (0.049%) AIX
10 1 (0.049%) FreeRTOS
10 1 (0.049%) Mac OS
10 1 (0.049%) Windows Server 2003
10 1 (0.049%) Windows Server 2016
Processes & Methodologies
1 810 (39.98%) Stakeholder Management
2 751 (37.07%) Agile
3 557 (27.49%) Project Delivery
4 456 (22.51%) PRINCE2
5 352 (17.37%) Problem-Solving
6 340 (16.78%) Continuous Improvement
7 332 (16.39%) Change Management
8 305 (15.05%) Stakeholder Engagement
9 295 (14.56%) Migration
10 258 (12.73%) Risk Management
11 257 (12.69%) Decision-Making
12 242 (11.94%) Waterfall
13 196 (9.67%) Scrum
14 191 (9.43%) AI
15 152 (7.50%) Project Governance
15 152 (7.50%) Roadmaps
16 151 (7.45%) ITIL
17 147 (7.26%) ERP
18 143 (7.06%) Analytics
19 141 (6.96%) Budget Management
Programming Languages
1 82 (4.05%) SQL
2 65 (3.21%) Python
3 20 (0.99%) JavaScript
4 16 (0.79%) Java
5 13 (0.64%) VBA
6 10 (0.49%) C#
6 10 (0.49%) C++
6 10 (0.49%) PowerShell
6 10 (0.49%) TypeScript
7 7 (0.35%) C
8 6 (0.30%) ABAP
9 5 (0.25%) Korn
9 5 (0.25%) MATLAB
9 5 (0.25%) Shell Script
10 4 (0.20%) Ada
10 4 (0.20%) Apex Code
10 4 (0.20%) Bash
10 4 (0.20%) JCL
11 3 (0.15%) R
11 3 (0.15%) REXX
Qualifications
1 325 (16.04%) Security Cleared
2 317 (15.65%) Degree
3 311 (15.35%) PMP
4 272 (13.43%) PMI Certification
5 222 (10.96%) SC Cleared
6 79 (3.90%) DV Cleared
7 68 (3.36%) PRINCE2 Practitioner
8 29 (1.43%) Master's Degree
9 28 (1.38%) BPSS Clearance
10 27 (1.33%) ACCA
10 27 (1.33%) CIMA
11 20 (0.99%) PRINCE2 Certification
12 19 (0.94%) Computer Science Degree
13 16 (0.79%) APMP
13 16 (0.79%) ITIL Certification
14 15 (0.74%) CISSP
15 14 (0.69%) Azure Certification
16 11 (0.54%) CISM
17 10 (0.49%) CIPFA
17 10 (0.49%) MBA
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 244 (12.04%) PMO
2 98 (4.84%) QA
3 56 (2.76%) Data Quality
4 35 (1.73%) GDPR
5 34 (1.68%) SLA
6 28 (1.38%) ISO/IEC 27001
7 27 (1.33%) GRC
8 25 (1.23%) NIST
9 23 (1.14%) Accessibility
10 8 (0.39%) EMIR
10 8 (0.39%) MiFID
10 8 (0.39%) P3O
11 7 (0.35%) FINREP
11 7 (0.35%) GMP
12 6 (0.30%) COREP
12 6 (0.30%) Sarbanes-Oxley
12 6 (0.30%) SOC 2
13 5 (0.25%) Cyber Essentials
13 5 (0.25%) HL7
13 5 (0.25%) WCAG
System Software
1 38 (1.88%) Active Directory
2 20 (0.99%) VMware Infrastructure
3 7 (0.35%) Virtual Desktop
3 7 (0.35%) Virtual Machines
4 5 (0.25%) VMware NSX
5 4 (0.20%) NFS
5 4 (0.20%) Time Sharing Option
5 4 (0.20%) vSphere
6 3 (0.15%) Docker
6 3 (0.15%) Hyper-V
7 2 (0.099%) Firmware
8 1 (0.049%) ACF2
8 1 (0.049%) IAG
8 1 (0.049%) Microsoft App-V
8 1 (0.049%) RACF
8 1 (0.049%) Sendmail
8 1 (0.049%) Virtual Servers
8 1 (0.049%) VMware ESXi
Systems Management
1 19 (0.94%) Ansible
2 12 (0.59%) Microsoft Intune
2 12 (0.59%) Single Sign-On
3 6 (0.30%) Tivoli Storage Manager
4 5 (0.25%) Puppet
4 5 (0.25%) Terraform
5 4 (0.20%) Failover Clustering
5 4 (0.20%) ITRS Geneos
5 4 (0.20%) Kubernetes
5 4 (0.20%) Red Hat Satellite
5 4 (0.20%) RSA Archer
6 3 (0.15%) SCCM
7 2 (0.099%) ZABBIX
8 1 (0.049%) FortiGate
8 1 (0.049%) HP Quality Center
8 1 (0.049%) Nagios
8 1 (0.049%) Nessus
8 1 (0.049%) OMEGAMON
8 1 (0.049%) SCOM
8 1 (0.049%) Tivoli
Vendors
1 331 (16.34%) Microsoft
2 173 (8.54%) SAP
3 117 (5.77%) ServiceNow
4 83 (4.10%) Oracle
5 56 (2.76%) Salesforce
6 55 (2.71%) Google
7 44 (2.17%) Adobe
8 33 (1.63%) VMware
9 31 (1.53%) Cisco
10 24 (1.18%) Workday
11 23 (1.14%) Sitecore
12 21 (1.04%) Atlassian
13 19 (0.94%) Databricks
13 19 (0.94%) NEC
14 15 (0.74%) Ariba
15 14 (0.69%) IBM
16 11 (0.54%) IFS
16 11 (0.54%) JD Edwards
17 10 (0.49%) Alteryx
17 10 (0.49%) F5