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

6 months to
22 Jan 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 38 21 19
Rank change year-on-year -17 -2 +5
Contract jobs citing Project Management 2,010 2,638 3,529
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 5.32% 8.32% 8.19%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 6.07% 9.35% 9.36%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,251 1,470 2,277
10th Percentile £313 £275 £319
25th Percentile £413 £409 £415
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £516 £525
Median % change year-on-year -3.10% -1.71% -
75th Percentile £606 £613 £625
90th Percentile £700 £725 £712
UK excluding London median daily rate £500 £500 £500
Number of hourly rates quoted 104 114 171
10th Percentile £15.97 £21.25 £19.76
25th Percentile £22.50 £26.27 £25.69
Median hourly rate £42.00 £33.00 £42.31
Median % change year-on-year +27.27% -22.00% -5.99%
75th Percentile £63.75 £48.75 £60.00
90th Percentile £65.22 £65.00 £66.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £45.46 £33.00 £42.50
% change year-on-year +37.76% -22.35% -14.14%

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 33,128 28,199 37,720
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 87.64% 88.95% 87.50%
Number of daily rates quoted 21,004 17,123 24,892
10th Percentile £305 £306 £300
25th Percentile £406 £413 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £525 £525
Median % change year-on-year -4.76% - -4.55%
75th Percentile £613 £638 £645
90th Percentile £720 £743 £738
UK excluding London median daily rate £475 £500 £500
% change year-on-year -5.00% - -
Number of hourly rates quoted 2,016 901 1,818
10th Percentile £14.50 £15.62 £14.00
25th Percentile £17.69 £21.00 £17.08
Median hourly rate £25.15 £32.50 £37.50
Median % change year-on-year -22.62% -13.33% +17.19%
75th Percentile £57.50 £62.50 £62.50
90th Percentile £69.65 £75.00 £75.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £24.00 £30.78 £40.00
% change year-on-year -22.03% -23.05% +53.85%

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 22 January 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 22 January 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 22 January 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 -16 1,742 £521 -0.71% 1,423
UK excluding London -18 1,032 £500 - 1,375
London -18 805 £525 -4.55% 293
Work from Home -13 585 £510 +1.25% 430
South East -14 266 £525 +1.25% 419
North of England -24 256 £480 +6.67% 254
Midlands -18 216 £489 -6.90% 239
West Midlands -20 146 £500 -12.93% 131
North West -17 143 £500 +11.11% 109
South West -22 111 £450 -10.00% 171
Yorkshire -23 105 £480 +6.67% 106
Scotland -10 97 £450 +5.88% 63
East Midlands -11 72 £448 +8.09% 108
East of England -32 58 £450 -10.00% 184
Wales -5 29 £308 -42.79% 52
Northern Ireland -6 18 £425 -10.53% 31
North East -29 11 £450 -21.74% 44

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
1 169 (8.41%) Confluence
2 110 (5.47%) SharePoint
3 21 (1.04%) CMS
4 13 (0.65%) Microsoft Exchange
5 8 (0.40%) Skype for Business
6 7 (0.35%) Exchange Server 2013
7 6 (0.30%) WordPress
8 5 (0.25%) nginx
8 5 (0.25%) Oracle Workflow
9 4 (0.20%) Apache
10 3 (0.15%) MS Project Server
11 2 (0.100%) SAS
12 1 (0.050%) Apache Spark
12 1 (0.050%) ArcGIS
12 1 (0.050%) Moodle
12 1 (0.050%) Oracle Self-Service HR
12 1 (0.050%) Oracle SOA Suite
12 1 (0.050%) Orchard CMS
12 1 (0.050%) Umbraco
12 1 (0.050%) WebSphere
Applications
1 218 (10.85%) Microsoft Excel
2 209 (10.40%) Microsoft Project
3 170 (8.46%) Microsoft Office
4 129 (6.42%) Microsoft PowerPoint
5 64 (3.18%) MS Visio
6 24 (1.19%) Trello
7 15 (0.75%) Spreadsheet
8 6 (0.30%) Chatbot
9 4 (0.20%) Adobe After Effects
9 4 (0.20%) Adobe Creative Suite
9 4 (0.20%) Adobe XD
9 4 (0.20%) Revit
10 3 (0.15%) InVision
10 3 (0.15%) Navisworks
10 3 (0.15%) Sketch
11 2 (0.100%) Adobe Illustrator
11 2 (0.100%) AutoCAD
11 2 (0.100%) InDesign
11 2 (0.100%) Photoshop
11 2 (0.100%) ProjectWise
Business Applications
1 54 (2.69%) SAP S/4HANA
2 16 (0.80%) Primavera
3 15 (0.75%) Oracle EBS
4 14 (0.70%) Oracle ERP
5 13 (0.65%) Oracle Payables
6 11 (0.55%) Loan IQ
7 10 (0.50%) Salesforce CRM
8 9 (0.45%) Dynamics CRM
8 9 (0.45%) Oracle Subledger Accounting
9 8 (0.40%) SAP Payroll
9 8 (0.40%) Shopify
10 6 (0.30%) NetSuite
10 6 (0.30%) Oracle Financials
10 6 (0.30%) Oracle General Ledger
10 6 (0.30%) SAP PM
11 5 (0.25%) Oracle Assets
11 5 (0.25%) SAP CO
11 5 (0.25%) SAP ERP
11 5 (0.25%) SAP FI
11 5 (0.25%) Workday HCM
Cloud Services
1 173 (8.61%) Azure
2 104 (5.17%) Power Platform
3 99 (4.93%) AWS
4 68 (3.38%) Microsoft 365
5 48 (2.39%) Azure DevOps
6 45 (2.24%) SaaS
7 29 (1.44%) GCP
8 22 (1.09%) Asana
8 22 (1.09%) Smartsheet
9 20 (1.00%) Dynamics 365
10 18 (0.90%) OpenShift
11 17 (0.85%) GitHub
12 16 (0.80%) Google Workspace
13 15 (0.75%) OneDrive
14 14 (0.70%) Cloud Computing
14 14 (0.70%) SuccessFactors
15 11 (0.55%) Entra ID
16 10 (0.50%) Figma
16 10 (0.50%) Microsoft Copilot
16 10 (0.50%) Serverless
Communications & Networking
1 40 (1.99%) Firewall
2 25 (1.24%) WAN
3 18 (0.90%) LAN
4 16 (0.80%) DNS
4 16 (0.80%) Network Security
5 15 (0.75%) Wi-Fi
6 14 (0.70%) SSH
6 14 (0.70%) Structured Cabling
7 13 (0.65%) SD-WAN
8 11 (0.55%) VPN
9 10 (0.50%) HTTP
10 9 (0.45%) Skype
11 8 (0.40%) Internet
11 8 (0.40%) TCP/IP
12 7 (0.35%) BGP
13 6 (0.30%) DHCP
13 6 (0.30%) MPLS
13 6 (0.30%) SSL
14 5 (0.25%) Cisco IOS
14 5 (0.25%) Wireless
Database & Business Intelligence
1 95 (4.73%) Power BI
2 29 (1.44%) Tableau
3 23 (1.14%) SQL Server
4 19 (0.95%) Metadata
5 16 (0.80%) Data Warehouse
6 11 (0.55%) SAP HANA
7 10 (0.50%) Data Lake
8 7 (0.35%) Oracle Reports
9 6 (0.30%) Elasticsearch
9 6 (0.30%) Electronic Patient Records
10 5 (0.25%) Amazon RDS
10 5 (0.25%) GIS
10 5 (0.25%) Relational Database
11 4 (0.20%) Azure SQL Database
11 4 (0.20%) BigQuery
11 4 (0.20%) Power Query
12 3 (0.15%) Big Data
12 3 (0.15%) Enterprise Data Warehouse
12 3 (0.15%) Oracle Database
12 3 (0.15%) Star Schema
Development Applications
1 328 (16.32%) JIRA
2 21 (1.04%) Git
3 10 (0.50%) Jenkins
4 9 (0.45%) GitLab
5 4 (0.20%) Selenium
5 4 (0.20%) SpecFlow
6 3 (0.15%) Axure RP
6 3 (0.15%) Bitbucket
6 3 (0.15%) SonarQube
7 1 (0.050%) Ant
7 1 (0.050%) Appium
7 1 (0.050%) Artifactory
7 1 (0.050%) Atlassian Bamboo
7 1 (0.050%) CircleCI
7 1 (0.050%) Gradle
7 1 (0.050%) JUnit
7 1 (0.050%) SoapUI
7 1 (0.050%) Travis CI
7 1 (0.050%) Tricentis qTest
7 1 (0.050%) Visual Studio
General
1 992 (49.35%) Social Skills
2 723 (35.97%) Finance
3 341 (16.97%) Analytical Skills
4 205 (10.20%) Public Sector
5 188 (9.35%) Organisational Skills
6 180 (8.96%) Banking
7 92 (4.58%) Retail
8 85 (4.23%) Legal
9 84 (4.18%) Marketing
10 79 (3.93%) Manufacturing
11 73 (3.63%) Influencing Skills
12 51 (2.54%) Telecoms
13 50 (2.49%) Presentation Skills
14 46 (2.29%) Investment Banking
15 39 (1.94%) Local Government
16 35 (1.74%) Inclusion and Diversity
17 31 (1.54%) Front Office
18 29 (1.44%) Documentation Skills
19 25 (1.24%) Financial Institution
20 23 (1.14%) Pharmaceutical
Job Titles
1 757 (37.66%) Project Manager
2 254 (12.64%) Analyst
3 172 (8.56%) Lead
4 153 (7.61%) Senior
5 136 (6.77%) Business Analyst
6 102 (5.07%) IT Manager
7 97 (4.83%) Senior Manager
8 90 (4.48%) IT Project Manager
9 84 (4.18%) Consultant
10 77 (3.83%) Senior Project Manager
11 62 (3.08%) Technical Manager
12 60 (2.99%) Delivery Manager
13 52 (2.59%) Infrastructure Manager
14 51 (2.54%) Programme Manager
15 47 (2.34%) Coordinator
16 44 (2.19%) Developer
17 43 (2.14%) Infrastructure Project Manager
17 43 (2.14%) Technical Project Manager
18 42 (2.09%) SAP Manager
19 41 (2.04%) Security Manager
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 24 (1.19%) Oracle Fusion
2 23 (1.14%) Middleware
3 14 (0.70%) .NET
3 14 (0.70%) REST
4 13 (0.65%) SOAP
5 12 (0.60%) EDI
6 10 (0.50%) ADO
6 10 (0.50%) XML
7 9 (0.45%) AngularJS
7 9 (0.45%) LDAP
7 9 (0.45%) Web Services
8 8 (0.40%) HTML
8 8 (0.40%) React
9 7 (0.35%) RESTful
10 6 (0.30%) .NET Framework
10 6 (0.30%) CSS
10 6 (0.30%) Elastic Stack
10 6 (0.30%) LangChain
11 5 (0.25%) Entity Framework
12 4 (0.20%) Bootstrap
Miscellaneous
1 119 (5.92%) Onboarding
2 108 (5.37%) Management Information System
3 66 (3.28%) PMI
4 64 (3.18%) Data Protection Act
5 59 (2.94%) Data Centre
6 55 (2.74%) Product Ownership
7 48 (2.39%) Virtual Team
8 46 (2.29%) Self-Motivation
9 41 (2.04%) Legacy Systems
10 26 (1.29%) NHS
11 25 (1.24%) Enterprise Software
11 25 (1.24%) Operational Technology
12 22 (1.09%) Analytical Mindset
13 20 (1.00%) CMDB
14 18 (0.90%) SCADA
15 15 (0.75%) Social Media
16 14 (0.70%) Life Science
17 13 (0.65%) Cloud Native
17 13 (0.65%) Public Cloud
18 12 (0.60%) Driving Licence
Operating Systems
1 73 (3.63%) Windows
2 17 (0.85%) Linux
3 14 (0.70%) Windows Server
4 13 (0.65%) Unix
5 11 (0.55%) Windows 10
6 3 (0.15%) Windows Server 2019
7 2 (0.100%) AIX
7 2 (0.100%) Apple iOS
7 2 (0.100%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
7 2 (0.100%) Ubuntu
7 2 (0.100%) Windows Server 2016
8 1 (0.050%) Android
8 1 (0.050%) Solaris
8 1 (0.050%) VMS
8 1 (0.050%) Windows Server 2012
8 1 (0.050%) zOS
Processes & Methodologies
1 766 (38.11%) Agile
2 666 (33.13%) Stakeholder Management
3 495 (24.63%) Project Delivery
4 490 (24.38%) Problem-Solving
5 416 (20.70%) PRINCE2
6 360 (17.91%) Stakeholder Engagement
7 334 (16.62%) Change Management
8 282 (14.03%) Migration
9 251 (12.49%) Continuous Improvement
10 238 (11.84%) Waterfall
11 217 (10.80%) Decision-Making
12 209 (10.40%) Risk Management
13 190 (9.45%) Scrum
14 166 (8.26%) Budget Management
15 160 (7.96%) DevOps
16 157 (7.81%) Project Governance
17 156 (7.76%) ITIL
18 154 (7.66%) ERP
19 145 (7.21%) Cybersecurity
20 138 (6.87%) Business Analysis
Programming Languages
1 88 (4.38%) SQL
2 44 (2.19%) Python
3 16 (0.80%) Java
4 14 (0.70%) C#
4 14 (0.70%) JavaScript
5 9 (0.45%) ABAP
6 8 (0.40%) PowerShell
7 7 (0.35%) VBA
8 5 (0.25%) Perl
9 4 (0.20%) Go
9 4 (0.20%) PL/SQL
9 4 (0.20%) R
9 4 (0.20%) Ruby
9 4 (0.20%) T-SQL
10 3 (0.15%) C++
10 3 (0.15%) Data Analysis Expressions
10 3 (0.15%) Korn
11 2 (0.100%) Apex Code
11 2 (0.100%) C
11 2 (0.100%) VB
Qualifications
1 371 (18.46%) Degree
2 275 (13.68%) PMP
3 267 (13.28%) Security Cleared
4 265 (13.18%) PMI Certification
5 190 (9.45%) SC Cleared
6 59 (2.94%) DV Cleared
7 45 (2.24%) Master's Degree
8 44 (2.19%) BPSS Clearance
9 42 (2.09%) APMP
10 31 (1.54%) Computer Science Degree
11 28 (1.39%) PRINCE2 Certification
12 27 (1.34%) PRINCE2 Practitioner
13 23 (1.14%) CISSP
14 21 (1.04%) CISM
15 20 (1.00%) MBA
16 15 (0.75%) CBAP
17 14 (0.70%) IIBA
18 10 (0.50%) A+ Certification
18 10 (0.50%) ITIL Certification
19 9 (0.45%) Microsoft Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 225 (11.19%) PMO
2 127 (6.32%) QA
3 64 (3.18%) Data Quality
4 63 (3.13%) GDPR
5 48 (2.39%) ISO/IEC 27001
6 31 (1.54%) NIST
7 23 (1.14%) Sarbanes-Oxley
8 18 (0.90%) PCI DSS
9 16 (0.80%) GRC
10 15 (0.75%) Accessibility
11 13 (0.65%) P3O
12 12 (0.60%) SLA
13 11 (0.55%) Disclosure Scotland
14 9 (0.45%) Basel III
15 8 (0.40%) GxP
16 7 (0.35%) ISO 19650
16 7 (0.35%) ISO 9001
16 7 (0.35%) PSD2
16 7 (0.35%) WCAG
17 6 (0.30%) NCSC
System Software
1 39 (1.94%) Active Directory
2 14 (0.70%) Docker
3 13 (0.65%) VMware Infrastructure
4 5 (0.25%) VMware ESXi
5 4 (0.20%) Virtual Machines
6 3 (0.15%) Virtual Desktop
7 1 (0.050%) Embedded Firmware
7 1 (0.050%) Firmware
7 1 (0.050%) PowerHA
7 1 (0.050%) RACF
7 1 (0.050%) VMware NSX
7 1 (0.050%) vSphere
Systems Management
1 16 (0.80%) Kubernetes
2 14 (0.70%) Terraform
3 13 (0.65%) SCCM
4 11 (0.55%) Ansible
5 9 (0.45%) Microsoft Intune
5 9 (0.45%) Single Sign-On
6 6 (0.30%) Kibana
7 5 (0.25%) logstash
8 4 (0.20%) Consul
8 4 (0.20%) FortiGate
8 4 (0.20%) Packer
9 3 (0.15%) Grafana
9 3 (0.15%) Puppet
9 3 (0.15%) RSA Archer
9 3 (0.15%) vCenter Server
10 1 (0.050%) Active Directory Federation Services
10 1 (0.050%) Argo
10 1 (0.050%) CASB
10 1 (0.050%) HP ALM
10 1 (0.050%) Prometheus
Vendors
1 319 (15.87%) Microsoft
2 171 (8.51%) SAP
3 88 (4.38%) Oracle
3 88 (4.38%) ServiceNow
4 69 (3.43%) Salesforce
5 36 (1.79%) Google
6 32 (1.59%) Cisco
7 25 (1.24%) Workday
8 24 (1.19%) Adobe
9 20 (1.00%) Atlassian
9 20 (1.00%) Planview
10 19 (0.95%) VMware
11 18 (0.90%) Databricks
12 17 (0.85%) IBM
13 14 (0.70%) CyberArk
14 13 (0.65%) Palo Alto
15 12 (0.60%) Ariba
16 9 (0.45%) Juniper
16 9 (0.45%) Sage
17 8 (0.40%) CheckPoint