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

6 months to
29 Sep 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 62 30 22
Rank change year-on-year -32 -8 0
Contract jobs citing Project Management 1,996 2,015 2,882
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 3.65% 6.18% 7.61%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 4.33% 6.82% 8.86%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,216 1,219 1,637
10th Percentile £308 £307 £300
25th Percentile £413 £405 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £515 £513 £525
Median % change year-on-year +0.48% -2.38% -
75th Percentile £619 £638 £613
90th Percentile £725 £738 £713
UK excluding London median daily rate £500 £475 £500
% change year-on-year +5.26% -5.00% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 123 118 135
10th Percentile £21.00 £20.24 £21.25
25th Percentile £31.30 £23.75 £26.55
Median hourly rate £50.00 £34.00 £35.00
Median % change year-on-year +47.06% -2.86% -22.22%
75th Percentile £64.38 £57.00 £54.38
90th Percentile £81.50 £65.00 £66.65
UK excluding London median hourly rate £53.73 £33.00 £35.00
% change year-on-year +62.82% -5.71% -22.22%

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 46,073 29,551 32,512
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 84.35% 90.64% 85.83%
Number of daily rates quoted 27,867 18,364 19,652
10th Percentile £325 £294 £308
25th Percentile £425 £403 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £500 £525
Median % change year-on-year +5.00% -4.76% -2.78%
75th Percentile £630 £625 £638
90th Percentile £731 £725 £750
UK excluding London median daily rate £500 £475 £500
% change year-on-year +5.26% -5.00% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 3,200 1,847 1,359
10th Percentile £13.74 £14.25 £15.00
25th Percentile £17.23 £17.30 £20.06
Median hourly rate £39.75 £25.15 £42.50
Median % change year-on-year +58.05% -40.82% -1.16%
75th Percentile £65.88 £43.75 £65.00
90th Percentile £78.75 £65.00 £74.45
UK excluding London median hourly rate £40.00 £22.32 £43.00
% change year-on-year +79.25% -48.10% +1.18%

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 September 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 September 2026.

Hourly rate histogram for Project Management in the UK

Project Management
Top 18 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 September 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 -30 1,749 £525 - 3,387
UK excluding London -39 932 £500 +5.26% 2,047
London -27 861 £550 - 1,568
Work from Home -24 609 £500 +2.09% 1,357
North of England -34 251 £475 -5.00% 439
South East -29 246 £500 - 546
North West -23 147 £475 -3.01% 235
Midlands -48 139 £538 +13.16% 319
South West -25 129 £450 - 224
Yorkshire -19 98 £475 -5.00% 155
West Midlands -58 92 £550 +12.02% 188
Scotland -41 75 £500 +11.48% 172
East of England -20 71 £510 +3.82% 211
East Midlands -20 47 £525 +17.45% 131
Northern Ireland -9 13 £444 -15.48% 111
Wales -23 13 £400 +23.08% 52
North East -42 8 £420 +3.07% 50
Channel Islands - 3 £600 - 2

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
1 128 (6.41%) SharePoint
2 96 (4.81%) Confluence
3 34 (1.70%) CMS
4 25 (1.25%) Microsoft Exchange
5 20 (1.00%) Adobe Experience Manager
6 8 (0.40%) Sitecore CMS
7 7 (0.35%) WebLogic
7 7 (0.35%) WebSphere
8 6 (0.30%) Apache
8 6 (0.30%) ArcGIS
8 6 (0.30%) JBoss
8 6 (0.30%) SAS
8 6 (0.30%) WordPress
9 5 (0.25%) Moodle
10 3 (0.15%) Apache Airflow
11 2 (0.10%) FactoryTalk
11 2 (0.10%) Oracle Workflow
11 2 (0.10%) WinCC
12 1 (0.050%) Drupal
12 1 (0.050%) Oracle Coherence
Applications
1 197 (9.87%) Microsoft Excel
2 163 (8.17%) Microsoft Project
3 155 (7.77%) Microsoft Office
4 122 (6.11%) Microsoft PowerPoint
5 36 (1.80%) MS Visio
6 22 (1.10%) Spreadsheet
7 14 (0.70%) Trello
8 9 (0.45%) Adobe Creative Suite
9 6 (0.30%) Windchill
10 5 (0.25%) Chatbot
11 4 (0.20%) Simulink
11 4 (0.20%) Stateflow
12 3 (0.15%) Photoshop
13 2 (0.10%) Adobe Illustrator
13 2 (0.10%) AutoCAD
13 2 (0.10%) Houdini
13 2 (0.10%) InDesign
13 2 (0.10%) NUKE
14 1 (0.050%) CATIA
14 1 (0.050%) Notion
Business Applications
1 58 (2.91%) SAP S/4HANA
2 23 (1.15%) Primavera
3 13 (0.65%) Adobe Campaign
3 13 (0.65%) Magento
4 11 (0.55%) SAP CO
4 11 (0.55%) SAP FI
4 11 (0.55%) SAP PS
5 9 (0.45%) Dynamics CRM
5 9 (0.45%) SAP MM
6 8 (0.40%) NetSuite
7 7 (0.35%) NEC Housing
7 7 (0.35%) Oracle Receivables
7 7 (0.35%) Teamcenter
8 6 (0.30%) Oracle Payables
8 6 (0.30%) SAP FI/CO
8 6 (0.30%) SAP SD
9 5 (0.25%) ProductWriter
9 5 (0.25%) Remedy ITSM
9 5 (0.25%) SAP PM
9 5 (0.25%) Workday HCM
Cloud Services
1 172 (8.62%) Azure
2 141 (7.06%) Power Platform
3 87 (4.36%) SaaS
4 84 (4.21%) Microsoft 365
5 68 (3.41%) AWS
6 64 (3.21%) Azure DevOps
7 34 (1.70%) Smartsheet
8 33 (1.65%) Google Workspace
9 28 (1.40%) Dynamics 365
10 27 (1.35%) Entra ID
11 26 (1.30%) GCP
12 20 (1.00%) Asana
13 16 (0.80%) GitHub
13 16 (0.80%) PowerApps
14 15 (0.75%) OneDrive
14 15 (0.75%) Power Automate
15 14 (0.70%) Microsoft Copilot
15 14 (0.70%) SuccessFactors
16 11 (0.55%) Snowflake
17 10 (0.50%) IaaS
Communications & Networking
1 38 (1.90%) Network Security
2 26 (1.30%) DNS
3 25 (1.25%) WAN
4 23 (1.15%) Firewall
5 21 (1.05%) TCP/IP
6 20 (1.00%) LAN
7 17 (0.85%) Structured Cabling
8 13 (0.65%) DHCP
8 13 (0.65%) Wi-Fi
9 12 (0.60%) VPN
10 11 (0.55%) Intranet
10 11 (0.55%) Wireless
11 10 (0.50%) BGP
11 10 (0.50%) Internet
12 9 (0.45%) Radio Access Network
13 8 (0.40%) 3GPP
13 8 (0.40%) 5G
13 8 (0.40%) BIG-IP
13 8 (0.40%) LTE
13 8 (0.40%) Wireshark
Database & Business Intelligence
1 127 (6.36%) Power BI
2 20 (1.00%) Metadata
3 19 (0.95%) Data Warehouse
4 16 (0.80%) Tableau
5 15 (0.75%) Data Lake
6 14 (0.70%) SQL Server
7 8 (0.40%) GIS
7 8 (0.40%) Power Query
8 7 (0.35%) Amazon RDS
9 6 (0.30%) Big Data
9 6 (0.30%) Relational Database
10 5 (0.25%) DynamoDB
10 5 (0.25%) Hadoop
10 5 (0.25%) Looker
10 5 (0.25%) Oracle Reports
11 4 (0.20%) Amazon Redshift
11 4 (0.20%) BigQuery
11 4 (0.20%) EDMS
11 4 (0.20%) Qlik Sense
12 3 (0.15%) SAP HANA
Development Applications
1 252 (12.63%) JIRA
2 29 (1.45%) Git
3 19 (0.95%) Jenkins
4 8 (0.40%) Rational DOORS
4 8 (0.40%) Subversion
5 5 (0.25%) Rational Rhapsody
6 4 (0.20%) Bitbucket
6 4 (0.20%) GitLab
7 3 (0.15%) Visual Studio
8 2 (0.10%) Hudson
8 2 (0.10%) Selenium
8 2 (0.10%) Zephyr
9 1 (0.050%) Gemini Tracker
9 1 (0.050%) git-flow
9 1 (0.050%) IBM UrbanCode
9 1 (0.050%) ScriptRunner
9 1 (0.050%) SonarQube
9 1 (0.050%) Sonatype Nexus
9 1 (0.050%) TestRail
9 1 (0.050%) Visual Studio Code
General
1 890 (44.59%) Social Skills
2 770 (38.58%) Finance
3 309 (15.48%) Analytical Skills
4 206 (10.32%) Organisational Skills
5 174 (8.72%) Banking
6 171 (8.57%) Public Sector
7 127 (6.36%) Marketing
8 112 (5.61%) Retail
9 100 (5.01%) Influencing Skills
10 80 (4.01%) Manufacturing
11 72 (3.61%) Legal
12 69 (3.46%) Telecoms
13 56 (2.81%) Presentation Skills
14 37 (1.85%) Investment Banking
15 36 (1.80%) Aerospace
16 30 (1.50%) Local Government
17 28 (1.40%) Inclusion and Diversity
18 27 (1.35%) Front Office
18 27 (1.35%) Pharmaceutical
19 22 (1.10%) Documentation Skills
Job Titles
1 797 (39.93%) Project Manager
2 179 (8.97%) Senior
3 178 (8.92%) Lead
4 134 (6.71%) Senior Manager
5 127 (6.36%) Analyst
6 115 (5.76%) IT Manager
7 101 (5.06%) Senior Project Manager
8 87 (4.36%) IT Project Manager
9 83 (4.16%) Programme Manager
10 78 (3.91%) Delivery Manager
10 78 (3.91%) Technical Manager
11 72 (3.61%) Consultant
12 69 (3.46%) Business Analyst
13 60 (3.01%) Technical Project Manager
14 48 (2.40%) Project Officer
15 41 (2.05%) Coordinator
15 41 (2.05%) Infrastructure Manager
16 37 (1.85%) Project Coordinator
16 37 (1.85%) SC Cleared Project Manager
17 34 (1.70%) Transformation Manager
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 23 (1.15%) Middleware
2 17 (0.85%) ADO
3 13 (0.65%) Oracle Fusion
3 13 (0.65%) REST
4 12 (0.60%) HTML
5 11 (0.55%) JSON
6 10 (0.50%) .NET
6 10 (0.50%) OAuth
6 10 (0.50%) VML
7 9 (0.45%) Web Services
8 8 (0.40%) pytest
8 8 (0.40%) React
8 8 (0.40%) SOAP
8 8 (0.40%) Terraform
9 6 (0.30%) FastAPI
10 5 (0.25%) AngularJS
10 5 (0.25%) CSS
10 5 (0.25%) XML
11 4 (0.20%) EDI
11 4 (0.20%) SAP Fiori
Miscellaneous
1 113 (5.66%) Management Information System
2 100 (5.01%) Onboarding
3 94 (4.71%) Product Ownership
4 64 (3.21%) Data Centre
5 51 (2.56%) Data Protection Act
6 45 (2.25%) Virtual Team
7 42 (2.10%) PMI
8 30 (1.50%) Enterprise Software
9 28 (1.40%) Legacy Systems
9 28 (1.40%) Operational Technology
10 26 (1.30%) FMCG
11 24 (1.20%) Social Media
12 23 (1.15%) Life Science
13 21 (1.05%) AI Agents
14 20 (1.00%) Credit Risk
14 20 (1.00%) Self-Motivation
15 19 (0.95%) Analytical Mindset
16 17 (0.85%) Fixed Income
16 17 (0.85%) Foreign Exchange (FX)
17 16 (0.80%) NHS
Operating Systems
1 57 (2.86%) Linux
2 54 (2.71%) Windows
3 23 (1.15%) Unix
3 23 (1.15%) Windows Server
4 10 (0.50%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
5 7 (0.35%) Windows 10
6 6 (0.30%) zOS
7 5 (0.25%) Apple iOS
8 4 (0.20%) Android
8 4 (0.20%) FreeRTOS
9 2 (0.10%) Windows Server 2019
10 1 (0.050%) Mac OS
10 1 (0.050%) Mac OS X
10 1 (0.050%) Rocky
10 1 (0.050%) Solaris
10 1 (0.050%) Windows 7
10 1 (0.050%) Windows Server 2003
10 1 (0.050%) Windows Server 2012
10 1 (0.050%) Windows Server 2016
Processes & Methodologies
1 911 (45.64%) Stakeholder Management
2 754 (37.78%) Agile
3 582 (29.16%) Project Delivery
4 450 (22.55%) PRINCE2
5 332 (16.63%) Problem-Solving
6 328 (16.43%) Change Management
7 326 (16.33%) Continuous Improvement
8 291 (14.58%) Stakeholder Engagement
9 278 (13.93%) Decision-Making
10 273 (13.68%) Migration
11 255 (12.78%) Risk Management
12 238 (11.92%) Waterfall
13 216 (10.82%) AI
14 211 (10.57%) Project Governance
15 208 (10.42%) Scrum
16 167 (8.37%) Roadmaps
17 164 (8.22%) Change Control
17 164 (8.22%) Project Planning
18 158 (7.92%) Programme Management
19 148 (7.41%) Budget Management
Programming Languages
1 77 (3.86%) SQL
2 68 (3.41%) Python
3 16 (0.80%) Java
4 15 (0.75%) JavaScript
4 15 (0.75%) VBA
5 12 (0.60%) C++
6 10 (0.50%) C#
7 9 (0.45%) Bash
8 8 (0.40%) Korn
8 8 (0.40%) PowerShell
9 7 (0.35%) Ada
9 7 (0.35%) TypeScript
10 6 (0.30%) C
11 5 (0.25%) MATLAB
11 5 (0.25%) Shell Script
12 4 (0.20%) Apex Code
13 3 (0.15%) ABAP
13 3 (0.15%) JCL
13 3 (0.15%) R
13 3 (0.15%) REXX
Qualifications
1 312 (15.63%) Security Cleared
2 310 (15.53%) Degree
3 292 (14.63%) PMP
4 253 (12.68%) PMI Certification
5 215 (10.77%) SC Cleared
6 78 (3.91%) PRINCE2 Practitioner
7 74 (3.71%) DV Cleared
8 35 (1.75%) BPSS Clearance
9 22 (1.10%) Master's Degree
10 17 (0.85%) PRINCE2 Certification
11 16 (0.80%) ITIL Certification
12 15 (0.75%) ACCA
12 15 (0.75%) Azure Certification
12 15 (0.75%) CIMA
12 15 (0.75%) ISTQB
13 13 (0.65%) APMP
13 13 (0.65%) CISSP
13 13 (0.65%) DBS Check
14 10 (0.50%) Cisco Certification
14 10 (0.50%) CISM
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 246 (12.32%) PMO
2 94 (4.71%) QA
3 56 (2.81%) Data Quality
4 36 (1.80%) GDPR
5 25 (1.25%) GRC
6 21 (1.05%) Accessibility
6 21 (1.05%) SLA
7 20 (1.00%) ISO/IEC 27001
8 18 (0.90%) NIST
9 8 (0.40%) P3O
10 7 (0.35%) FINREP
10 7 (0.35%) GMP
11 6 (0.30%) COREP
11 6 (0.30%) Cyber Essentials
11 6 (0.30%) EMIR
11 6 (0.30%) Sarbanes-Oxley
11 6 (0.30%) SOC 2
12 5 (0.25%) ISO 9001
12 5 (0.25%) MiFID
12 5 (0.25%) WCAG
System Software
1 35 (1.75%) Active Directory
2 29 (1.45%) VMware Infrastructure
3 11 (0.55%) vSphere
4 9 (0.45%) Virtual Machines
5 8 (0.40%) Virtual Desktop
6 6 (0.30%) VMware ESXi
7 5 (0.25%) Hyper-V
7 5 (0.25%) VMware NSX
8 3 (0.15%) NFS
8 3 (0.15%) Time Sharing Option
9 2 (0.10%) Docker
9 2 (0.10%) Firmware
10 1 (0.050%) ACF2
10 1 (0.050%) IAG
10 1 (0.050%) RACF
10 1 (0.050%) Virtual Servers
Systems Management
1 21 (1.05%) Ansible
2 11 (0.55%) Single Sign-On
3 10 (0.50%) Microsoft Intune
4 7 (0.35%) Puppet
5 5 (0.25%) Failover Clustering
5 5 (0.25%) Red Hat Satellite
5 5 (0.25%) Tivoli Storage Manager
6 4 (0.20%) ITRS Geneos
6 4 (0.20%) Kubernetes
7 3 (0.15%) SCCM
8 2 (0.10%) BMC PATROL
8 2 (0.10%) BMC Performance Manager
8 2 (0.10%) Perfmon
8 2 (0.10%) ZABBIX
9 1 (0.050%) HP ALM
9 1 (0.050%) Nagios
9 1 (0.050%) Nessus
9 1 (0.050%) OMEGAMON
9 1 (0.050%) Tivoli
9 1 (0.050%) vCenter Server
Vendors
1 363 (18.19%) Microsoft
2 159 (7.97%) SAP
3 98 (4.91%) ServiceNow
4 76 (3.81%) Oracle
5 50 (2.51%) Salesforce
6 48 (2.40%) Google
7 42 (2.10%) VMware
8 40 (2.00%) Adobe
9 29 (1.45%) Cisco
10 21 (1.05%) Ariba
11 20 (1.00%) Atlassian
11 20 (1.00%) IBM
11 20 (1.00%) Workday
12 19 (0.95%) NEC
12 19 (0.95%) Sitecore
13 18 (0.90%) Databricks
14 15 (0.75%) Planview
15 12 (0.60%) Alteryx
16 11 (0.55%) JD Edwards
17 10 (0.50%) F5