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

6 months to
16 Jan 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 38 21 20
Rank change year-on-year -17 -1 +4
Contract jobs citing Project Management 1,994 2,637 3,456
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 5.36% 8.28% 8.11%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 6.11% 9.32% 9.25%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,244 1,460 2,222
10th Percentile £313 £275 £321
25th Percentile £413 £412 £418
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £520 £525
Median % change year-on-year -3.85% -0.95% -
75th Percentile £600 £613 £627
90th Percentile £700 £725 £713
UK excluding London median daily rate £500 £500 £500
Number of hourly rates quoted 106 117 161
10th Percentile £16.92 £21.25 £20.07
25th Percentile £22.50 £26.42 £26.25
Median hourly rate £40.25 £33.00 £42.50
Median % change year-on-year +21.97% -22.35% +7.46%
75th Percentile £63.66 £48.75 £60.00
90th Percentile £65.20 £65.40 £70.50
UK excluding London median hourly rate £45.46 £33.27 £45.00
% change year-on-year +36.64% -26.07% -6.25%

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 32,654 28,287 37,362
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 87.81% 88.79% 87.72%
Number of daily rates quoted 20,662 17,217 24,715
10th Percentile £304 £306 £304
25th Percentile £406 £413 £415
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £525 £525
Median % change year-on-year -4.76% - -4.55%
75th Percentile £614 £638 £650
90th Percentile £723 £738 £743
UK excluding London median daily rate £475 £500 £500
% change year-on-year -5.00% - -
Number of hourly rates quoted 1,980 898 1,602
10th Percentile £14.50 £15.62 £14.16
25th Percentile £17.50 £20.75 £18.00
Median hourly rate £25.15 £32.50 £40.50
Median % change year-on-year -22.62% -19.75% +16.41%
75th Percentile £56.06 £62.24 £65.00
90th Percentile £68.80 £74.91 £76.53
UK excluding London median hourly rate £23.83 £30.45 £43.83
% change year-on-year -21.76% -30.52% +51.12%

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 16 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 16 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 16 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 -18 1,722 £520 -0.95% 1,323
UK excluding London -16 1,022 £500 - 1,244
London -17 794 £525 -4.55% 298
Work from Home -11 583 £511 +1.82% 544
South East -8 267 £525 - 381
North of England -25 259 £480 +6.67% 220
Midlands -20 206 £491 -6.48% 214
North West -17 142 £492 +9.33% 109
West Midlands -21 139 £496 -9.82% 129
Yorkshire -17 108 £480 +6.67% 80
South West -26 107 £450 -10.00% 148
Scotland -7 98 £450 +5.88% 64
East Midlands -11 69 £456 +14.06% 85
East of England -32 56 £450 -10.00% 183
Wales 0 29 £308 -42.79% 44
Northern Ireland -3 18 £425 -10.53% 30
North East -29 11 £450 -21.74% 38

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
1 167 (8.38%) Confluence
2 112 (5.62%) SharePoint
3 21 (1.05%) 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 2 (0.10%) MS Project Server
11 1 (0.050%) Anypoint
11 1 (0.050%) Apache Airflow
11 1 (0.050%) Apache Spark
11 1 (0.050%) Moodle
11 1 (0.050%) Oracle Self-Service HR
11 1 (0.050%) Oracle SOA Suite
11 1 (0.050%) Orchard CMS
11 1 (0.050%) Umbraco
11 1 (0.050%) WebSphere
Applications
1 217 (10.88%) Microsoft Excel
2 205 (10.28%) Microsoft Project
3 166 (8.32%) Microsoft Office
4 128 (6.42%) Microsoft PowerPoint
5 67 (3.36%) MS Visio
6 25 (1.25%) 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 (0.10%) Adobe Illustrator
11 2 (0.10%) AutoCAD
11 2 (0.10%) InDesign
11 2 (0.10%) Photoshop
11 2 (0.10%) ProjectWise
Business Applications
1 54 (2.71%) SAP S/4HANA
2 16 (0.80%) Oracle EBS
2 16 (0.80%) Primavera
3 14 (0.70%) Oracle ERP
4 13 (0.65%) Oracle Payables
5 11 (0.55%) Dynamics CRM
6 10 (0.50%) Salesforce CRM
7 9 (0.45%) Loan IQ
8 8 (0.40%) Oracle Subledger Accounting
8 8 (0.40%) SAP Payroll
8 8 (0.40%) Shopify
9 7 (0.35%) SAP PM
10 6 (0.30%) NetSuite
10 6 (0.30%) Oracle Assets
10 6 (0.30%) Oracle Financials
11 5 (0.25%) Oracle Procure-to-Pay
11 5 (0.25%) Oracle Receivables
11 5 (0.25%) SAP ERP
11 5 (0.25%) SAP FI
11 5 (0.25%) Workfront
Cloud Services
1 171 (8.58%) Azure
2 108 (5.42%) Power Platform
3 100 (5.02%) AWS
4 70 (3.51%) Microsoft 365
5 46 (2.31%) Azure DevOps
6 44 (2.21%) SaaS
7 29 (1.45%) GCP
8 24 (1.20%) Asana
9 22 (1.10%) Smartsheet
10 21 (1.05%) Dynamics 365
11 18 (0.90%) OpenShift
12 17 (0.85%) GitHub
12 17 (0.85%) SuccessFactors
13 16 (0.80%) Google Workspace
14 15 (0.75%) OneDrive
15 14 (0.70%) Cloud Computing
16 11 (0.55%) Microsoft Copilot
17 10 (0.50%) Entra ID
17 10 (0.50%) Serverless
18 9 (0.45%) Figma
Communications & Networking
1 41 (2.06%) Firewall
2 24 (1.20%) WAN
3 17 (0.85%) LAN
4 16 (0.80%) DNS
4 16 (0.80%) Network Security
5 15 (0.75%) SSH
6 13 (0.65%) Structured Cabling
6 13 (0.65%) Wi-Fi
7 12 (0.60%) SD-WAN
8 10 (0.50%) HTTP
9 9 (0.45%) Skype
9 9 (0.45%) VPN
10 8 (0.40%) Internet
10 8 (0.40%) TCP/IP
11 6 (0.30%) Broadband
11 6 (0.30%) DHCP
11 6 (0.30%) SSL
12 5 (0.25%) BGP
12 5 (0.25%) VXLAN
12 5 (0.25%) Wireless
Database & Business Intelligence
1 98 (4.91%) Power BI
2 29 (1.45%) Tableau
3 25 (1.25%) SQL Server
4 18 (0.90%) Metadata
5 17 (0.85%) Data Warehouse
6 12 (0.60%) 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%) Relational Database
11 4 (0.20%) Azure SQL Database
11 4 (0.20%) BigQuery
11 4 (0.20%) GIS
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
1 325 (16.30%) JIRA
2 21 (1.05%) Git
3 10 (0.50%) Jenkins
4 8 (0.40%) 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%) 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%) Oracle Forms
7 1 (0.050%) SoapUI
7 1 (0.050%) Travis CI
7 1 (0.050%) Tricentis qTest
7 1 (0.050%) Visual Studio
General
1 975 (48.90%) Social Skills
2 709 (35.56%) Finance
3 343 (17.20%) Analytical Skills
4 202 (10.13%) Public Sector
5 180 (9.03%) Organisational Skills
6 178 (8.93%) Banking
7 90 (4.51%) Legal
7 90 (4.51%) Retail
8 86 (4.31%) Marketing
9 81 (4.06%) Manufacturing
10 72 (3.61%) Influencing Skills
11 51 (2.56%) Telecoms
12 46 (2.31%) Investment Banking
12 46 (2.31%) Presentation Skills
13 41 (2.06%) Local Government
14 35 (1.76%) Inclusion and Diversity
15 31 (1.55%) Front Office
16 27 (1.35%) Documentation Skills
17 25 (1.25%) Financial Institution
18 24 (1.20%) Pharmaceutical
Job Titles
1 737 (36.96%) Project Manager
2 250 (12.54%) Analyst
3 169 (8.48%) Lead
4 150 (7.52%) Senior
5 132 (6.62%) Business Analyst
6 104 (5.22%) IT Manager
7 95 (4.76%) Senior Manager
8 91 (4.56%) IT Project Manager
9 86 (4.31%) Consultant
10 75 (3.76%) Senior Project Manager
11 61 (3.06%) Technical Manager
12 57 (2.86%) Delivery Manager
13 54 (2.71%) Infrastructure Manager
14 49 (2.46%) Programme Manager
15 48 (2.41%) Coordinator
16 45 (2.26%) Infrastructure Project Manager
16 45 (2.26%) SAP Manager
17 44 (2.21%) Developer
18 42 (2.11%) Technical Project Manager
19 38 (1.91%) Security Manager
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 25 (1.25%) Oracle Fusion
2 18 (0.90%) 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%) HTML
6 10 (0.50%) XML
7 9 (0.45%) AngularJS
8 8 (0.40%) React
8 8 (0.40%) Web Services
9 7 (0.35%) LDAP
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%) YAML
Miscellaneous
1 117 (5.87%) Onboarding
2 109 (5.47%) Management Information System
3 66 (3.31%) PMI
4 61 (3.06%) Data Protection Act
5 59 (2.96%) Data Centre
6 55 (2.76%) Product Ownership
7 49 (2.46%) Virtual Team
8 48 (2.41%) Self-Motivation
9 38 (1.91%) Legacy Systems
10 26 (1.30%) Enterprise Software
10 26 (1.30%) NHS
11 23 (1.15%) Analytical Mindset
12 22 (1.10%) Operational Technology
13 20 (1.00%) CMDB
14 17 (0.85%) SCADA
15 16 (0.80%) Social Media
16 14 (0.70%) Life Science
17 13 (0.65%) Cloud Native
17 13 (0.65%) Public Cloud
18 12 (0.60%) Web Conferencing
Operating Systems
1 74 (3.71%) Windows
2 15 (0.75%) Linux
3 14 (0.70%) Unix
3 14 (0.70%) Windows Server
4 11 (0.55%) Windows 10
5 3 (0.15%) Windows Server 2019
6 2 (0.10%) AIX
6 2 (0.10%) Apple iOS
6 2 (0.10%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
6 2 (0.10%) Windows Server 2016
7 1 (0.050%) Android
7 1 (0.050%) Solaris
7 1 (0.050%) VMS
7 1 (0.050%) Windows Server 2012
7 1 (0.050%) zOS
Processes & Methodologies
1 749 (37.56%) Agile
2 649 (32.55%) Stakeholder Management
3 490 (24.57%) Problem-Solving
4 484 (24.27%) Project Delivery
5 417 (20.91%) PRINCE2
6 356 (17.85%) Stakeholder Engagement
7 333 (16.70%) Change Management
8 271 (13.59%) Migration
9 248 (12.44%) Continuous Improvement
10 229 (11.48%) Waterfall
11 215 (10.78%) Decision-Making
12 212 (10.63%) Risk Management
13 184 (9.23%) Scrum
14 166 (8.32%) Budget Management
15 161 (8.07%) ITIL
16 156 (7.82%) Project Governance
17 153 (7.67%) DevOps
18 148 (7.42%) ERP
19 139 (6.97%) Cybersecurity
20 136 (6.82%) Roadmaps
Programming Languages
1 87 (4.36%) SQL
2 43 (2.16%) Python
3 17 (0.85%) Java
4 15 (0.75%) JavaScript
5 14 (0.70%) C#
6 10 (0.50%) ABAP
7 8 (0.40%) PowerShell
8 6 (0.30%) VBA
9 5 (0.25%) Perl
9 5 (0.25%) PL/SQL
10 4 (0.20%) Go
10 4 (0.20%) R
10 4 (0.20%) Ruby
10 4 (0.20%) T-SQL
11 3 (0.15%) C++
11 3 (0.15%) Data Analysis Expressions
11 3 (0.15%) Korn
11 3 (0.15%) VB
12 2 (0.10%) Kusto Query Language
13 1 (0.050%) Google Apps Script
Qualifications
1 364 (18.25%) Degree
2 273 (13.69%) PMP
3 266 (13.34%) PMI Certification
4 261 (13.09%) Security Cleared
5 188 (9.43%) SC Cleared
6 56 (2.81%) DV Cleared
7 45 (2.26%) Master's Degree
8 41 (2.06%) APMP
9 40 (2.01%) BPSS Clearance
10 31 (1.55%) Computer Science Degree
11 28 (1.40%) PRINCE2 Certification
12 26 (1.30%) PRINCE2 Practitioner
13 23 (1.15%) CISSP
14 21 (1.05%) CISM
15 20 (1.00%) MBA
16 11 (0.55%) CBAP
17 10 (0.50%) A+ Certification
17 10 (0.50%) IIBA
17 10 (0.50%) ITIL Certification
18 9 (0.45%) Microsoft Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 226 (11.33%) PMO
2 122 (6.12%) QA
3 59 (2.96%) Data Quality
4 58 (2.91%) GDPR
5 47 (2.36%) ISO/IEC 27001
6 28 (1.40%) NIST
7 23 (1.15%) Sarbanes-Oxley
8 16 (0.80%) PCI DSS
9 15 (0.75%) Accessibility
9 15 (0.75%) GRC
10 13 (0.65%) P3O
11 12 (0.60%) SLA
12 11 (0.55%) Disclosure Scotland
13 9 (0.45%) Basel III
14 7 (0.35%) GxP
14 7 (0.35%) ISO 19650
14 7 (0.35%) ISO 9001
14 7 (0.35%) WCAG
15 6 (0.30%) MiFID
15 6 (0.30%) PSD2
System Software
1 40 (2.01%) Active Directory
2 14 (0.70%) Docker
3 11 (0.55%) VMware Infrastructure
4 4 (0.20%) Virtual Machines
5 3 (0.15%) Virtual Desktop
5 3 (0.15%) VMware ESXi
6 2 (0.10%) Firmware
7 1 (0.050%) Embedded 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
10 1 (0.050%) CASB
10 1 (0.050%) Cisco UCCX
10 1 (0.050%) Docker Swarm
10 1 (0.050%) HP ALM
10 1 (0.050%) Prometheus
10 1 (0.050%) vCenter Server
Vendors
1 317 (15.90%) Microsoft
2 173 (8.68%) SAP
3 88 (4.41%) ServiceNow
4 86 (4.31%) Oracle
5 65 (3.26%) Salesforce
6 38 (1.91%) Google
7 31 (1.55%) Cisco
8 26 (1.30%) Adobe
9 25 (1.25%) Workday
10 21 (1.05%) Atlassian
10 21 (1.05%) Planview
11 18 (0.90%) Databricks
11 18 (0.90%) IBM
12 17 (0.85%) VMware
13 13 (0.65%) Palo Alto
14 12 (0.60%) Ariba
14 12 (0.60%) CyberArk
15 9 (0.45%) Juniper
16 8 (0.40%) CheckPoint
16 8 (0.40%) Sage