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

6 months to
1 Aug 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 51 26 22
Rank change year-on-year -25 -4 +2
Contract jobs citing Project Management 2,049 2,301 2,920
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 3.84% 7.00% 7.40%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 4.52% 7.74% 8.66%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,258 1,407 1,743
10th Percentile £313 £308 £306
25th Percentile £413 £405 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £510 £500 £513
Median % change year-on-year +2.00% -2.44% -2.38%
75th Percentile £625 £613 £613
90th Percentile £732 £725 £725
UK excluding London median daily rate £500 £470 £500
% change year-on-year +6.38% -6.00% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 137 126 236
10th Percentile £17.87 £21.39 £21.25
25th Percentile £28.00 £26.75 £27.67
Median hourly rate £42.25 £37.15 £38.12
Median % change year-on-year +13.73% -2.54% -11.35%
75th Percentile £65.00 £59.69 £50.00
90th Percentile £85.23 £75.00 £65.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £42.30 £40.50 £38.12
% change year-on-year +4.44% +6.24% -10.09%

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 45,324 29,743 33,722
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 85.01% 90.43% 85.47%
Number of daily rates quoted 28,013 18,657 21,666
10th Percentile £325 £300 £308
25th Percentile £420 £404 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £523 £500 £525
Median % change year-on-year +4.60% -4.76% -4.55%
75th Percentile £625 £625 £638
90th Percentile £725 £734 £750
UK excluding London median daily rate £500 £475 £500
% change year-on-year +5.26% -5.00% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 2,761 1,640 1,941
10th Percentile £14.50 £14.20 £13.86
25th Percentile £19.50 £17.32 £17.80
Median hourly rate £43.96 £25.15 £40.00
Median % change year-on-year +74.79% -37.13% -5.88%
75th Percentile £68.00 £50.00 £63.75
90th Percentile £82.25 £68.75 £74.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £43.96 £23.57 £40.94
% change year-on-year +86.55% -42.44% +2.35%

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 1 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 1 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 1 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 -24 1,824 £520 +1.46% 1,776
UK excluding London -31 1,010 £500 +6.38% 1,225
London -27 862 £550 +4.76% 773
Work from Home -22 630 £500 +5.26% 724
North of England -26 285 £475 -2.56% 293
South East -23 265 £500 +3.09% 331
North West -16 180 £475 - 159
Midlands -47 146 £525 +16.67% 203
South West -22 141 £438 -2.78% 145
West Midlands -63 99 £550 +16.53% 127
Yorkshire -34 98 £500 - 94
East of England -5 93 £525 +0.48% 127
Scotland -45 63 £500 +11.11% 65
East Midlands -15 47 £488 +24.68% 76
Northern Ireland -4 16 £447 -14.86% 41
Wales -18 12 £400 -13.98% 54
North East -38 10 £420 -12.95% 45

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
1 111 (5.42%) Confluence
2 105 (5.12%) SharePoint
3 32 (1.56%) CMS
4 21 (1.02%) Microsoft Exchange
5 13 (0.63%) Adobe Experience Manager
6 7 (0.34%) WebLogic
6 7 (0.34%) WebSphere
7 6 (0.29%) Apache
7 6 (0.29%) ArcGIS
7 6 (0.29%) WordPress
8 5 (0.24%) Moodle
8 5 (0.24%) Sitecore CMS
9 4 (0.20%) Oracle Workflow
10 3 (0.15%) Apache Airflow
10 3 (0.15%) JBoss
10 3 (0.15%) Oracle Self-Service HR
11 2 (0.098%) Anypoint
11 2 (0.098%) SAS
12 1 (0.049%) CICS
12 1 (0.049%) IBM HTTP Server
Applications
1 186 (9.08%) Microsoft Excel
2 181 (8.83%) Microsoft Project
3 149 (7.27%) Microsoft Office
4 116 (5.66%) Microsoft PowerPoint
5 43 (2.10%) MS Visio
6 23 (1.12%) Spreadsheet
7 15 (0.73%) Trello
8 8 (0.39%) Adobe Creative Suite
9 7 (0.34%) Chatbot
10 6 (0.29%) Photoshop
11 4 (0.20%) Simulink
11 4 (0.20%) Stateflow
12 3 (0.15%) Adobe Illustrator
12 3 (0.15%) InDesign
12 3 (0.15%) Windchill
13 2 (0.098%) Houdini
13 2 (0.098%) NUKE
14 1 (0.049%) Adobe After Effects
14 1 (0.049%) Notion
14 1 (0.049%) Oracle Smart View
Business Applications
1 80 (3.90%) SAP S/4HANA
2 24 (1.17%) Primavera
3 10 (0.49%) Magento
4 9 (0.44%) Adobe Campaign
5 8 (0.39%) Dynamics CRM
5 8 (0.39%) NetSuite
5 8 (0.39%) SAP CO
5 8 (0.39%) SAP FI
5 8 (0.39%) SAP FI/CO
5 8 (0.39%) SAP HCM
6 7 (0.34%) NEC Housing
6 7 (0.34%) Oracle Payables
6 7 (0.34%) Oracle Receivables
7 6 (0.29%) Oracle ERP
7 6 (0.29%) ProductWriter
7 6 (0.29%) SAP Payroll
7 6 (0.29%) SAP PS
7 6 (0.29%) Shopify
7 6 (0.29%) Teamcenter
8 5 (0.24%) SAP MM
Cloud Services
1 183 (8.93%) Azure
2 118 (5.76%) Power Platform
3 94 (4.59%) SaaS
4 82 (4.00%) AWS
5 75 (3.66%) Microsoft 365
6 63 (3.07%) Azure DevOps
7 35 (1.71%) Smartsheet
8 28 (1.37%) Google Workspace
9 26 (1.27%) Dynamics 365
10 24 (1.17%) GCP
11 20 (0.98%) Asana
11 20 (0.98%) Entra ID
12 18 (0.88%) GitHub
13 13 (0.63%) SuccessFactors
14 12 (0.59%) Google Sheets
14 12 (0.59%) Microsoft Copilot
15 11 (0.54%) Cloud Computing
15 11 (0.54%) OCI
15 11 (0.54%) Snowflake
16 10 (0.49%) IaaS
Communications & Networking
1 33 (1.61%) Network Security
2 25 (1.22%) WAN
3 24 (1.17%) TCP/IP
4 23 (1.12%) DNS
5 21 (1.02%) LAN
6 20 (0.98%) Structured Cabling
7 18 (0.88%) Firewall
8 15 (0.73%) Wi-Fi
9 14 (0.68%) DHCP
10 13 (0.63%) Intranet
10 13 (0.63%) SD-WAN
10 13 (0.63%) VPN
11 12 (0.59%) Internet
11 12 (0.59%) MPLS
12 10 (0.49%) BGP
13 9 (0.44%) BIG-IP
14 8 (0.39%) SAN
14 8 (0.39%) Wireless
15 7 (0.34%) DKIM
15 7 (0.34%) DMARC
Database & Business Intelligence
1 107 (5.22%) Power BI
2 16 (0.78%) Data Warehouse
2 16 (0.78%) Tableau
3 15 (0.73%) SQL Server
4 14 (0.68%) Metadata
5 13 (0.63%) Data Lake
6 10 (0.49%) Relational Database
7 9 (0.44%) Oracle Reports
8 8 (0.39%) Amazon RDS
8 8 (0.39%) GIS
8 8 (0.39%) Power Query
8 8 (0.39%) SAP HANA
9 7 (0.34%) Electronic Patient Records
10 5 (0.24%) DynamoDB
11 4 (0.20%) Big Data
12 3 (0.15%) EDMS
12 3 (0.15%) Looker
12 3 (0.15%) Oracle BI Publisher
12 3 (0.15%) Oracle Database
12 3 (0.15%) SQL Server Integration Services
Development Applications
1 251 (12.25%) JIRA
2 27 (1.32%) Git
3 21 (1.02%) Jenkins
4 9 (0.44%) Subversion
5 7 (0.34%) Bitbucket
5 7 (0.34%) GitLab
6 3 (0.15%) Visual Studio
7 2 (0.098%) Hudson
7 2 (0.098%) Rational Rhapsody
7 2 (0.098%) SonarQube
7 2 (0.098%) Zephyr
8 1 (0.049%) Appium
8 1 (0.049%) Artifactory
8 1 (0.049%) Capybara
8 1 (0.049%) git-flow
8 1 (0.049%) Gradle
8 1 (0.049%) IBM UrbanCode
8 1 (0.049%) ScriptRunner
8 1 (0.049%) Sonatype Nexus
8 1 (0.049%) Visual Studio Code
General
1 895 (43.68%) Social Skills
2 752 (36.70%) Finance
3 334 (16.30%) Analytical Skills
4 199 (9.71%) Organisational Skills
5 179 (8.74%) Public Sector
6 137 (6.69%) Banking
6 137 (6.69%) Marketing
7 111 (5.42%) Retail
8 77 (3.76%) Manufacturing
9 74 (3.61%) Influencing Skills
9 74 (3.61%) Legal
10 59 (2.88%) Telecoms
11 48 (2.34%) Presentation Skills
12 34 (1.66%) Investment Banking
13 30 (1.46%) Aerospace
13 30 (1.46%) Documentation Skills
13 30 (1.46%) Financial Institution
13 30 (1.46%) Pharmaceutical
14 26 (1.27%) Front Office
14 26 (1.27%) Inclusion and Diversity
Job Titles
1 810 (39.53%) Project Manager
2 209 (10.20%) Senior
3 179 (8.74%) Analyst
4 173 (8.44%) Lead
5 152 (7.42%) Senior Manager
6 129 (6.30%) Senior Project Manager
7 111 (5.42%) IT Manager
8 89 (4.34%) IT Project Manager
9 88 (4.29%) Programme Manager
10 87 (4.25%) Business Analyst
11 67 (3.27%) Consultant
12 66 (3.22%) Technical Manager
13 60 (2.93%) Delivery Manager
14 56 (2.73%) Infrastructure Manager
15 54 (2.64%) Technical Project Manager
16 44 (2.15%) Project Officer
17 43 (2.10%) Infrastructure Project Manager
18 42 (2.05%) Architect
19 41 (2.00%) SC Cleared Project Manager
20 37 (1.81%) Coordinator
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 25 (1.22%) Middleware
2 22 (1.07%) REST
3 15 (0.73%) ADO
3 15 (0.73%) HTML
3 15 (0.73%) Oracle Fusion
4 13 (0.63%) OAuth
4 13 (0.63%) VML
5 12 (0.59%) JSON
5 12 (0.59%) SOAP
5 12 (0.59%) Web Services
6 10 (0.49%) .NET
7 9 (0.44%) React
8 8 (0.39%) CSS
8 8 (0.39%) RESTful
9 7 (0.34%) XML
10 6 (0.29%) AngularJS
10 6 (0.29%) FastAPI
10 6 (0.29%) SailPoint
10 6 (0.29%) SAML
11 5 (0.24%) FHIR
Miscellaneous
1 111 (5.42%) Management Information System
2 89 (4.34%) Onboarding
3 82 (4.00%) Product Ownership
4 70 (3.42%) Data Centre
5 54 (2.64%) PMI
6 52 (2.54%) Data Protection Act
7 46 (2.24%) Virtual Team
8 34 (1.66%) Self-Motivation
9 30 (1.46%) Legacy Systems
10 26 (1.27%) Enterprise Software
11 25 (1.22%) Analytical Mindset
11 25 (1.22%) FMCG
11 25 (1.22%) Operational Technology
11 25 (1.22%) Social Media
12 20 (0.98%) AI Agents
12 20 (0.98%) Data Structures
12 20 (0.98%) Life Science
13 16 (0.78%) EPoS
14 15 (0.73%) Credit Risk
14 15 (0.73%) NHS
Operating Systems
1 55 (2.68%) Windows
2 40 (1.95%) Linux
3 20 (0.98%) Unix
4 17 (0.83%) Windows Server
5 7 (0.34%) Windows 10
6 6 (0.29%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
7 5 (0.24%) zOS
8 3 (0.15%) Apple iOS
8 3 (0.15%) Solaris
9 2 (0.098%) Mac OS X
9 2 (0.098%) Windows 7
9 2 (0.098%) Windows Server 2012
9 2 (0.098%) Windows Server 2019
10 1 (0.049%) AIX
10 1 (0.049%) Android
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
1 797 (38.90%) Stakeholder Management
2 741 (36.16%) Agile
3 548 (26.74%) Project Delivery
4 446 (21.77%) PRINCE2
5 369 (18.01%) Problem-Solving
6 340 (16.59%) Continuous Improvement
7 337 (16.45%) Change Management
8 303 (14.79%) Migration
9 302 (14.74%) Stakeholder Engagement
10 263 (12.84%) Decision-Making
11 260 (12.69%) Risk Management
12 242 (11.81%) Waterfall
13 196 (9.57%) AI
14 192 (9.37%) Scrum
15 157 (7.66%) ERP
16 146 (7.13%) Budget Management
16 146 (7.13%) ITIL
17 143 (6.98%) Roadmaps
18 142 (6.93%) Project Governance
19 141 (6.88%) Analytics
Programming Languages
1 85 (4.15%) SQL
2 66 (3.22%) Python
3 21 (1.02%) JavaScript
4 14 (0.68%) Java
5 13 (0.63%) VBA
6 10 (0.49%) C#
6 10 (0.49%) C++
6 10 (0.49%) PowerShell
6 10 (0.49%) TypeScript
7 8 (0.39%) ABAP
8 7 (0.34%) C
9 5 (0.24%) MATLAB
9 5 (0.24%) Shell Script
10 4 (0.20%) Ada
10 4 (0.20%) Apex Code
10 4 (0.20%) JCL
11 3 (0.15%) Bash
11 3 (0.15%) Data Analysis Expressions
11 3 (0.15%) R
11 3 (0.15%) REXX
Qualifications
1 337 (16.45%) Security Cleared
2 321 (15.67%) Degree
3 308 (15.03%) PMP
4 273 (13.32%) PMI Certification
5 235 (11.47%) SC Cleared
6 79 (3.86%) DV Cleared
7 65 (3.17%) PRINCE2 Practitioner
8 32 (1.56%) Master's Degree
9 30 (1.46%) BPSS Clearance
10 29 (1.42%) ACCA
10 29 (1.42%) CIMA
11 22 (1.07%) Computer Science Degree
12 18 (0.88%) PRINCE2 Certification
13 17 (0.83%) CISSP
14 16 (0.78%) ITIL Certification
15 14 (0.68%) APMP
15 14 (0.68%) Azure Certification
16 13 (0.63%) CISM
17 10 (0.49%) CIPFA
17 10 (0.49%) MBA
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 251 (12.25%) PMO
2 104 (5.08%) QA
3 57 (2.78%) Data Quality
4 37 (1.81%) GDPR
4 37 (1.81%) SLA
5 28 (1.37%) ISO/IEC 27001
6 26 (1.27%) GRC
7 25 (1.22%) NIST
8 24 (1.17%) Accessibility
9 9 (0.44%) EMIR
10 8 (0.39%) P3O
11 7 (0.34%) FINREP
11 7 (0.34%) MiFID
11 7 (0.34%) Sarbanes-Oxley
12 6 (0.29%) COREP
12 6 (0.29%) Cyber Essentials
12 6 (0.29%) GMP
12 6 (0.29%) SOC 2
13 5 (0.24%) HL7
13 5 (0.24%) WCAG
System Software
1 37 (1.81%) Active Directory
2 17 (0.83%) VMware Infrastructure
3 7 (0.34%) Virtual Desktop
3 7 (0.34%) Virtual Machines
4 5 (0.24%) VMware NSX
5 4 (0.20%) NFS
5 4 (0.20%) RACF
5 4 (0.20%) Time Sharing Option
5 4 (0.20%) vSphere
6 3 (0.15%) Docker
7 2 (0.098%) Firmware
7 2 (0.098%) Hyper-V
8 1 (0.049%) ACF2
8 1 (0.049%) IAG
8 1 (0.049%) Microsoft App-V
8 1 (0.049%) Sendmail
8 1 (0.049%) Virtual Servers
8 1 (0.049%) VMware ESXi
Systems Management
1 19 (0.93%) Ansible
2 15 (0.73%) Single Sign-On
3 12 (0.59%) Microsoft Intune
4 6 (0.29%) Tivoli Storage Manager
5 4 (0.20%) ITRS Geneos
5 4 (0.20%) Kubernetes
5 4 (0.20%) RSA Archer
5 4 (0.20%) Terraform
6 3 (0.15%) Puppet
6 3 (0.15%) SCCM
7 2 (0.098%) Failover Clustering
7 2 (0.098%) Red Hat Satellite
7 2 (0.098%) ZABBIX
8 1 (0.049%) FortiGate
8 1 (0.049%) HP Quality Center
8 1 (0.049%) Nagios
8 1 (0.049%) Progress Chef
8 1 (0.049%) SCOM
8 1 (0.049%) vCenter Server
8 1 (0.049%) vRealize
Vendors
1 332 (16.20%) Microsoft
2 188 (9.18%) SAP
3 120 (5.86%) ServiceNow
4 82 (4.00%) Oracle
5 55 (2.68%) Salesforce
6 53 (2.59%) Google
7 39 (1.90%) Adobe
8 29 (1.42%) VMware
9 28 (1.37%) Cisco
10 24 (1.17%) Workday
11 21 (1.02%) Sitecore
12 19 (0.93%) Atlassian
13 18 (0.88%) Databricks
13 18 (0.88%) NEC
14 16 (0.78%) Ariba
15 15 (0.73%) IBM
16 11 (0.54%) F5
16 11 (0.54%) IFS
16 11 (0.54%) JD Edwards
17 10 (0.49%) Alteryx