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

6 months to
19 May 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 45 24 21
Rank change year-on-year -21 -3 +2
Contract jobs citing Project Management 2,092 2,271 3,321
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 4.35% 7.78% 7.80%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 5.17% 8.55% 9.05%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,306 1,380 2,025
10th Percentile £325 £300 £313
25th Percentile £413 £405 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £512 £500 £525
Median % change year-on-year +2.38% -4.76% -
75th Percentile £618 £600 £619
90th Percentile £725 £713 £725
UK excluding London median daily rate £500 £470 £500
% change year-on-year +6.38% -6.00% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 105 117 273
10th Percentile £14.64 £22.03 £18.35
25th Percentile £21.00 £31.25 £26.25
Median hourly rate £35.53 £45.00 £38.12
Median % change year-on-year -21.04% +18.05% -17.13%
75th Percentile £57.50 £63.75 £50.00
90th Percentile £73.60 £75.00 £61.45
UK excluding London median hourly rate £35.53 £54.51 £38.12
% change year-on-year -34.82% +43.00% -21.40%

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 40,493 26,571 36,681
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 84.28% 90.99% 86.15%
Number of daily rates quoted 25,428 17,064 23,633
10th Percentile £325 £305 £300
25th Percentile £413 £410 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £507 £515 £525
Median % change year-on-year -1.65% -1.90% -4.55%
75th Percentile £613 £625 £638
90th Percentile £725 £738 £750
UK excluding London median daily rate £494 £475 £500
% change year-on-year +4.00% -5.00% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 2,382 1,097 2,442
10th Percentile £14.82 £14.26 £12.75
25th Percentile £19.72 £18.13 £16.00
Median hourly rate £42.40 £28.18 £36.02
Median % change year-on-year +50.46% -21.77% +0.06%
75th Percentile £67.25 £60.00 £60.00
90th Percentile £80.00 £75.00 £72.50
UK excluding London median hourly rate £45.00 £25.23 £37.50
% change year-on-year +78.39% -32.73% +7.14%

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 19 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 19 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 19 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 -21 1,863 £525 +3.45% 1,147
UK excluding London -21 1,054 £500 +6.38% 919
London -19 871 £550 +2.33% 383
Work from Home -18 624 £500 - 428
North of England -17 289 £475 -3.06% 223
South East -16 269 £517 +8.83% 274
Midlands -28 187 £492 +4.90% 132
North West -13 161 £465 -3.63% 123
South West -12 149 £450 -4.05% 98
West Midlands -37 126 £500 - 92
Yorkshire -35 120 £495 +4.21% 73
East of England -25 79 £518 +3.50% 128
Scotland -28 72 £458 +1.67% 39
East Midlands -15 63 £393 -4.52% 40
Wales -3 16 £256 -48.10% 31
Northern Ireland -6 16 £475 +11.76% 22
North East -20 13 £410 -20.96% 30

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
1 142 (6.79%) Confluence
2 88 (4.21%) SharePoint
3 21 (1.00%) CMS
4 17 (0.81%) Microsoft Exchange
5 9 (0.43%) Oracle Workflow
6 8 (0.38%) Apache
7 5 (0.24%) Adobe Experience Manager
8 4 (0.19%) Oracle Self-Service HR
9 3 (0.14%) Anypoint
9 3 (0.14%) Apache Airflow
9 3 (0.14%) Moodle
9 3 (0.14%) MS Project Server
10 2 (0.096%) IIS
10 2 (0.096%) SAS
11 1 (0.048%) IBM HTTP Server
11 1 (0.048%) JBoss
11 1 (0.048%) nginx
11 1 (0.048%) Sitecore CMS
11 1 (0.048%) Tomcat
11 1 (0.048%) Umbraco
Applications
1 195 (9.32%) Microsoft Project
2 175 (8.37%) Microsoft Excel
3 140 (6.69%) Microsoft Office
4 113 (5.40%) Microsoft PowerPoint
5 45 (2.15%) MS Visio
6 17 (0.81%) Spreadsheet
7 13 (0.62%) Trello
8 8 (0.38%) Chatbot
9 4 (0.19%) Photoshop
10 3 (0.14%) Adobe Creative Suite
10 3 (0.14%) Simulink
10 3 (0.14%) Stateflow
11 2 (0.096%) AutoCAD
11 2 (0.096%) Windchill
12 1 (0.048%) Adobe After Effects
12 1 (0.048%) Adobe Illustrator
12 1 (0.048%) Camtasia
12 1 (0.048%) InDesign
12 1 (0.048%) InVision
12 1 (0.048%) Oracle Smart View
Business Applications
1 88 (4.21%) SAP S/4HANA
2 14 (0.67%) Primavera
3 11 (0.53%) Loan IQ
3 11 (0.53%) Oracle Payables
4 10 (0.48%) Oracle EBS
4 10 (0.48%) Oracle Subledger Accounting
4 10 (0.48%) Shopify
5 9 (0.43%) Dynamics CRM
5 9 (0.43%) Oracle Assets
5 9 (0.43%) Oracle ERP
6 8 (0.38%) Oracle Procure-to-Pay
7 6 (0.29%) Oracle General Ledger
7 6 (0.29%) Oracle Receivables
7 6 (0.29%) ProductWriter
7 6 (0.29%) SAP CO
7 6 (0.29%) SAP FI
7 6 (0.29%) SAP MM
7 6 (0.29%) SAP Payroll
7 6 (0.29%) Teamcenter
8 5 (0.24%) SAP FI/CO
Cloud Services
1 152 (7.27%) Azure
2 92 (4.40%) Power Platform
3 83 (3.97%) SaaS
4 79 (3.78%) AWS
4 79 (3.78%) Microsoft 365
5 46 (2.20%) Azure DevOps
6 28 (1.34%) Google Workspace
7 27 (1.29%) Smartsheet
8 26 (1.24%) GCP
9 24 (1.15%) Dynamics 365
10 22 (1.05%) Asana
11 15 (0.72%) Entra ID
12 14 (0.67%) OpenShift
13 12 (0.57%) Microsoft Copilot
14 11 (0.53%) Azure Data Factory
14 11 (0.53%) Azure Synapse Analytics
14 11 (0.53%) GitHub
15 10 (0.48%) Cloud Computing
15 10 (0.48%) PaaS
15 10 (0.48%) Snowflake
Communications & Networking
1 29 (1.39%) WAN
2 24 (1.15%) Network Security
3 23 (1.10%) Firewall
4 21 (1.00%) TCP/IP
5 20 (0.96%) DNS
6 19 (0.91%) LAN
7 18 (0.86%) SD-WAN
8 15 (0.72%) MPLS
8 15 (0.72%) Structured Cabling
8 15 (0.72%) Wi-Fi
9 12 (0.57%) BGP
9 12 (0.57%) Internet
9 12 (0.57%) VPN
10 9 (0.43%) DHCP
11 8 (0.38%) SAN
12 7 (0.33%) BIG-IP
12 7 (0.33%) DKIM
12 7 (0.33%) DMARC
13 6 (0.29%) Intranet
13 6 (0.29%) IPsec
Database & Business Intelligence
1 87 (4.16%) Power BI
2 19 (0.91%) Data Warehouse
2 19 (0.91%) Metadata
3 18 (0.86%) Tableau
4 15 (0.72%) SQL Server
5 13 (0.62%) Data Lake
6 10 (0.48%) Electronic Patient Records
6 10 (0.48%) Oracle Reports
7 9 (0.43%) Relational Database
8 6 (0.29%) SAP HANA
9 4 (0.19%) Amazon RDS
9 4 (0.19%) Big Data
9 4 (0.19%) Oracle BI Publisher
9 4 (0.19%) Power Query
9 4 (0.19%) SQL Server Integration Services
10 3 (0.14%) Amazon Redshift
10 3 (0.14%) BigQuery
10 3 (0.14%) GIS
10 3 (0.14%) NoSQL
11 2 (0.096%) MongoDB
Development Applications
1 294 (14.05%) JIRA
2 22 (1.05%) 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
7 3 (0.14%) SonarQube
8 2 (0.096%) Hudson
8 2 (0.096%) Rational Rhapsody
8 2 (0.096%) Visual Studio
8 2 (0.096%) Zephyr
9 1 (0.048%) Appium
9 1 (0.048%) Axure RP
9 1 (0.048%) Capybara
9 1 (0.048%) LSMW
9 1 (0.048%) Maven
9 1 (0.048%) MSI
9 1 (0.048%) Rational DOORS
9 1 (0.048%) RSpec
General
1 925 (44.22%) Social Skills
2 788 (37.67%) Finance
3 349 (16.68%) Analytical Skills
4 213 (10.18%) Organisational Skills
5 179 (8.56%) Public Sector
6 153 (7.31%) Banking
7 115 (5.50%) Retail
8 114 (5.45%) Marketing
9 79 (3.78%) Legal
10 75 (3.59%) Influencing Skills
10 75 (3.59%) Manufacturing
11 56 (2.68%) Telecoms
12 47 (2.25%) Presentation Skills
13 38 (1.82%) Investment Banking
14 35 (1.67%) Financial Institution
15 30 (1.43%) Documentation Skills
16 28 (1.34%) Pharmaceutical
17 26 (1.24%) Front Office
18 23 (1.10%) Aerospace
18 23 (1.10%) Military
Job Titles
1 834 (39.87%) Project Manager
2 243 (11.62%) Analyst
3 211 (10.09%) Senior
4 160 (7.65%) Lead
5 145 (6.93%) Senior Manager
6 125 (5.98%) Senior Project Manager
7 119 (5.69%) Business Analyst
8 102 (4.88%) IT Manager
9 91 (4.35%) IT Project Manager
10 75 (3.59%) Programme Manager
11 70 (3.35%) Consultant
12 66 (3.15%) Technical Manager
13 60 (2.87%) Delivery Manager
14 57 (2.72%) Architect
15 56 (2.68%) Infrastructure Manager
16 51 (2.44%) Technical Project Manager
17 45 (2.15%) SC Cleared Project Manager
18 44 (2.10%) Developer
18 44 (2.10%) SAP Manager
19 43 (2.06%) Infrastructure Project Manager
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 25 (1.20%) Middleware
2 23 (1.10%) REST
3 17 (0.81%) Oracle Fusion
4 15 (0.72%) OAuth
4 15 (0.72%) SOAP
4 15 (0.72%) Web Services
5 13 (0.62%) HTML
5 13 (0.62%) VML
6 11 (0.53%) CSS
7 10 (0.48%) ADO
8 9 (0.43%) .NET
9 8 (0.38%) JSON
9 8 (0.38%) RESTful
9 8 (0.38%) SailPoint
9 8 (0.38%) SAML
9 8 (0.38%) XML
10 7 (0.33%) OpenID
11 6 (0.29%) AngularJS
11 6 (0.29%) OAuth2
12 5 (0.24%) XACML
Miscellaneous
1 104 (4.97%) Management Information System
2 93 (4.45%) Onboarding
3 72 (3.44%) Data Centre
4 68 (3.25%) Data Protection Act
5 65 (3.11%) PMI
6 61 (2.92%) Product Ownership
7 41 (1.96%) Virtual Team
8 39 (1.86%) Self-Motivation
9 35 (1.67%) Legacy Systems
10 21 (1.00%) Operational Technology
11 20 (0.96%) CMDB
11 20 (0.96%) Life Science
11 20 (0.96%) Social Media
12 19 (0.91%) Analytical Mindset
12 19 (0.91%) Data Structures
13 18 (0.86%) NHS
14 17 (0.81%) Enterprise Software
15 16 (0.76%) EPoS
16 14 (0.67%) FMCG
17 12 (0.57%) PKI
Operating Systems
1 51 (2.44%) Windows
2 30 (1.43%) Linux
3 13 (0.62%) Unix
3 13 (0.62%) Windows Server
4 9 (0.43%) Windows 10
5 5 (0.24%) zOS
6 4 (0.19%) Windows Server 2019
7 3 (0.14%) Apple iOS
7 3 (0.14%) Solaris
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
1 762 (36.42%) Agile
2 717 (34.27%) Stakeholder Management
3 538 (25.72%) Project Delivery
4 449 (21.46%) Problem-Solving
5 385 (18.40%) PRINCE2
6 323 (15.44%) Migration
7 314 (15.01%) Stakeholder Engagement
8 313 (14.96%) Continuous Improvement
9 311 (14.87%) Change Management
10 262 (12.52%) Decision-Making
11 257 (12.28%) Waterfall
12 243 (11.62%) Risk Management
13 196 (9.37%) Scrum
14 188 (8.99%) ERP
15 178 (8.51%) Budget Management
16 145 (6.93%) AI
17 144 (6.88%) Roadmaps
18 137 (6.55%) Validation
19 135 (6.45%) Analytics
20 134 (6.41%) Project Planning
Programming Languages
1 85 (4.06%) SQL
2 49 (2.34%) Python
3 17 (0.81%) Java
3 17 (0.81%) JavaScript
4 12 (0.57%) C#
4 12 (0.57%) VBA
5 10 (0.48%) C++
6 8 (0.38%) C
7 7 (0.33%) PowerShell
8 6 (0.29%) ABAP
8 6 (0.29%) R
9 5 (0.24%) TypeScript
10 4 (0.19%) Ada
10 4 (0.19%) PL/SQL
10 4 (0.19%) T-SQL
11 3 (0.14%) JCL
11 3 (0.14%) MATLAB
11 3 (0.14%) Perl
11 3 (0.14%) Shell Script
11 3 (0.14%) SOQL
Qualifications
1 338 (16.16%) Security Cleared
2 326 (15.58%) Degree
3 290 (13.86%) PMP
4 258 (12.33%) PMI Certification
5 251 (12.00%) SC Cleared
6 69 (3.30%) DV Cleared
7 48 (2.29%) Master's Degree
8 40 (1.91%) PRINCE2 Practitioner
9 36 (1.72%) BPSS Clearance
10 32 (1.53%) ACCA
10 32 (1.53%) CIMA
11 29 (1.39%) APMP
12 24 (1.15%) Computer Science Degree
13 23 (1.10%) MBA
14 21 (1.00%) CISSP
15 19 (0.91%) CISM
16 17 (0.81%) CBAP
17 15 (0.72%) PRINCE2 Certification
18 12 (0.57%) IIBA
19 11 (0.53%) Cisco Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 259 (12.38%) PMO
2 131 (6.26%) QA
3 74 (3.54%) Data Quality
4 50 (2.39%) GDPR
5 44 (2.10%) ISO/IEC 27001
6 35 (1.67%) SLA
7 33 (1.58%) NIST
8 15 (0.72%) Accessibility
9 13 (0.62%) GRC
10 11 (0.53%) Basel III
11 9 (0.43%) EMIR
12 8 (0.38%) ISO 9001
12 8 (0.38%) Sarbanes-Oxley
13 7 (0.33%) GMP
13 7 (0.33%) MiFID
13 7 (0.33%) PCI DSS
14 6 (0.29%) Cyber Essentials
14 6 (0.29%) Disclosure Scotland
14 6 (0.29%) SOC 2
15 5 (0.24%) Actionable Recommendations
System Software
1 31 (1.48%) Active Directory
2 9 (0.43%) VMware Infrastructure
3 5 (0.24%) RACF
4 4 (0.19%) Docker
5 3 (0.14%) NFS
5 3 (0.14%) Time Sharing Option
5 3 (0.14%) Virtual Machines
5 3 (0.14%) VMware ESXi
6 2 (0.096%) Virtual Desktop
7 1 (0.048%) Firmware
7 1 (0.048%) Hyper-V
7 1 (0.048%) Microsoft App-V
7 1 (0.048%) PowerHA
7 1 (0.048%) Sendmail
7 1 (0.048%) Virtual Servers
7 1 (0.048%) VMware NSX
7 1 (0.048%) vSphere
Systems Management
1 18 (0.86%) Single Sign-On
2 15 (0.72%) Ansible
3 9 (0.43%) Kubernetes
3 9 (0.43%) Microsoft Intune
4 6 (0.29%) Tivoli Storage Manager
5 4 (0.19%) RSA Archer
5 4 (0.19%) SCCM
5 4 (0.19%) Terraform
6 3 (0.14%) FortiGate
6 3 (0.14%) vCenter Server
7 2 (0.096%) Grafana
7 2 (0.096%) logstash
7 2 (0.096%) SCOM
8 1 (0.048%) Control-M
8 1 (0.048%) Docker Swarm
8 1 (0.048%) Kibana
8 1 (0.048%) Nagios
8 1 (0.048%) Puppet
8 1 (0.048%) Tivoli
8 1 (0.048%) ZABBIX
Vendors
1 299 (14.29%) Microsoft
2 193 (9.23%) SAP
3 112 (5.35%) ServiceNow
4 71 (3.39%) Oracle
5 52 (2.49%) Salesforce
6 45 (2.15%) Google
7 32 (1.53%) Cisco
8 29 (1.39%) Adobe
9 25 (1.20%) Workday
10 21 (1.00%) Databricks
11 19 (0.91%) Ariba
11 19 (0.91%) VMware
12 17 (0.81%) CyberArk
13 15 (0.72%) Atlassian
13 15 (0.72%) Sitecore
14 14 (0.67%) Sage
15 13 (0.62%) IBM
16 12 (0.57%) NEC
17 10 (0.48%) IFS
18 9 (0.43%) F5