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

6 months to
5 Apr 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 43 23 20
Rank change year-on-year -20 -3 +4
Contract jobs citing Project Management 2,140 2,356 3,524
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 4.72% 8.06% 7.99%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 5.52% 8.90% 9.25%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,344 1,410 2,190
10th Percentile £327 £300 £313
25th Percentile £413 £406 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £520 £500 £525
Median % change year-on-year +4.00% -4.76% -
75th Percentile £619 £600 £625
90th Percentile £725 £700 £725
UK excluding London median daily rate £500 £475 £500
% change year-on-year +5.26% -5.00% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 111 117 273
10th Percentile £14.64 £23.92 £18.67
25th Percentile £20.81 £31.25 £26.66
Median hourly rate £40.00 £43.08 £38.12
Median % change year-on-year -7.14% +13.00% -22.20%
75th Percentile £57.50 £64.50 £50.00
90th Percentile £80.00 £75.00 £61.90
UK excluding London median hourly rate £42.25 £52.26 £38.12
% change year-on-year -19.15% +37.08% -23.78%

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 38,742 26,466 38,100
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 85.51% 90.55% 86.35%
Number of daily rates quoted 24,554 17,183 24,720
10th Percentile £313 £308 £300
25th Percentile £413 £413 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £525 £525
Median % change year-on-year -4.76% - -4.55%
75th Percentile £613 £638 £638
90th Percentile £725 £744 £750
UK excluding London median daily rate £487 £488 £500
% change year-on-year -0.10% -2.50% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 2,285 983 2,350
10th Percentile £15.00 £15.00 £12.75
25th Percentile £19.00 £20.00 £16.00
Median hourly rate £35.71 £31.52 £33.00
Median % change year-on-year +13.29% -4.48% -11.53%
75th Percentile £65.00 £63.75 £57.83
90th Percentile £77.50 £76.10 £70.40
UK excluding London median hourly rate £35.00 £30.00 £32.50
% change year-on-year +16.67% -7.69% -12.87%

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 5 April 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 5 April 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 5 April 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 -19 1,883 £525 +5.00% 1,263
UK excluding London -21 1,078 £500 +5.26% 1,056
London -17 887 £550 +4.76% 403
Work from Home -15 630 £525 +5.00% 423
South East -14 289 £525 +2.44% 313
North of England -24 285 £477 +0.36% 233
Midlands -24 202 £500 +11.11% 175
North West -12 169 £483 +7.33% 119
West Midlands -30 138 £503 +2.13% 98
South West -18 123 £450 -8.86% 104
Yorkshire -34 107 £486 +2.97% 85
Scotland -19 81 £450 - 53
East of England -30 75 £510 - 137
East Midlands -18 66 £394 -3.85% 76
Wales -3 26 £297 -42.15% 49
Northern Ireland -4 16 £475 +31.03% 24
North East -14 13 £430 -18.10% 31

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
1 168 (7.85%) Confluence
2 74 (3.46%) SharePoint
3 23 (1.07%) CMS
4 9 (0.42%) Oracle Workflow
5 7 (0.33%) Microsoft Exchange
6 6 (0.28%) Apache
7 5 (0.23%) nginx
8 4 (0.19%) Oracle Self-Service HR
9 3 (0.14%) Anypoint
9 3 (0.14%) Apache Airflow
9 3 (0.14%) MS Project Server
10 2 (0.093%) WordPress
11 1 (0.047%) Apache Superset
11 1 (0.047%) IBM HTTP Server
11 1 (0.047%) IIS
11 1 (0.047%) Moodle
11 1 (0.047%) Orchard CMS
11 1 (0.047%) SAS
11 1 (0.047%) Umbraco
11 1 (0.047%) WebSphere
Applications
1 214 (10.00%) Microsoft Project
2 199 (9.30%) Microsoft Excel
3 148 (6.92%) Microsoft Office
4 111 (5.19%) Microsoft PowerPoint
5 46 (2.15%) MS Visio
6 19 (0.89%) Spreadsheet
7 17 (0.79%) Trello
8 7 (0.33%) Chatbot
9 6 (0.28%) Adobe Creative Suite
10 5 (0.23%) Photoshop
11 4 (0.19%) Adobe After Effects
11 4 (0.19%) Adobe XD
12 3 (0.14%) Adobe Illustrator
12 3 (0.14%) InDesign
12 3 (0.14%) InVision
12 3 (0.14%) Sketch
13 2 (0.093%) AutoCAD
13 2 (0.093%) Windchill
14 1 (0.047%) Camtasia
14 1 (0.047%) Oracle Smart View
Business Applications
1 78 (3.64%) SAP S/4HANA
2 22 (1.03%) Primavera
3 14 (0.65%) Oracle EBS
3 14 (0.65%) Oracle Payables
4 13 (0.61%) Oracle ERP
5 12 (0.56%) Loan IQ
6 10 (0.47%) Oracle Subledger Accounting
6 10 (0.47%) SAP Payroll
7 9 (0.42%) Dynamics CRM
7 9 (0.42%) Oracle Assets
8 8 (0.37%) Oracle Procure-to-Pay
9 7 (0.33%) Oracle General Ledger
9 7 (0.33%) Oracle Receivables
9 7 (0.33%) Shopify
10 6 (0.28%) NetSuite
10 6 (0.28%) Salesforce CRM
10 6 (0.28%) SAP HCM
10 6 (0.28%) SAP MM
10 6 (0.28%) SAP PM
10 6 (0.28%) Teamcenter
Cloud Services
1 162 (7.57%) Azure
2 96 (4.49%) Power Platform
3 95 (4.44%) AWS
4 67 (3.13%) SaaS
5 66 (3.08%) Microsoft 365
6 53 (2.48%) Azure DevOps
7 25 (1.17%) GCP
8 24 (1.12%) Dynamics 365
9 23 (1.07%) Smartsheet
10 20 (0.93%) Asana
11 19 (0.89%) Google Workspace
12 17 (0.79%) OpenShift
13 16 (0.75%) Microsoft Copilot
14 14 (0.65%) GitHub
15 12 (0.56%) Entra ID
15 12 (0.56%) OCI
16 11 (0.51%) Figma
17 10 (0.47%) Azure Synapse Analytics
17 10 (0.47%) Salesforce Service Cloud
17 10 (0.47%) SuccessFactors
Communications & Networking
1 34 (1.59%) WAN
2 29 (1.36%) Firewall
3 23 (1.07%) Network Security
4 22 (1.03%) LAN
4 22 (1.03%) SD-WAN
5 18 (0.84%) MPLS
6 16 (0.75%) TCP/IP
7 15 (0.70%) Internet
7 15 (0.70%) Structured Cabling
7 15 (0.70%) VPN
8 14 (0.65%) DNS
8 14 (0.65%) Wi-Fi
9 10 (0.47%) BGP
9 10 (0.47%) DHCP
10 6 (0.28%) Intranet
10 6 (0.28%) IPsec
10 6 (0.28%) OSPF
10 6 (0.28%) SSL
11 5 (0.23%) BIG-IP
11 5 (0.23%) Cisco IOS
Database & Business Intelligence
1 88 (4.11%) Power BI
2 25 (1.17%) Tableau
3 18 (0.84%) Data Warehouse
3 18 (0.84%) Metadata
4 17 (0.79%) SQL Server
5 13 (0.61%) Data Lake
6 12 (0.56%) Electronic Patient Records
7 10 (0.47%) Oracle Reports
8 9 (0.42%) Relational Database
8 9 (0.42%) SAP HANA
9 6 (0.28%) Power Query
10 4 (0.19%) Amazon RDS
10 4 (0.19%) Big Data
10 4 (0.19%) BigQuery
10 4 (0.19%) Elasticsearch
10 4 (0.19%) Oracle BI Publisher
10 4 (0.19%) SQL Server Integration Services
11 3 (0.14%) GIS
11 3 (0.14%) Oracle Database
11 3 (0.14%) Star Schema
Development Applications
1 323 (15.09%) JIRA
2 17 (0.79%) Git
3 10 (0.47%) Jenkins
4 9 (0.42%) GitLab
5 4 (0.19%) Bitbucket
5 4 (0.19%) SonarQube
6 3 (0.14%) Axure RP
7 2 (0.093%) Hudson
7 2 (0.093%) Selenium
8 1 (0.047%) Appium
8 1 (0.047%) Artifactory
8 1 (0.047%) Atlassian Bamboo
8 1 (0.047%) CircleCI
8 1 (0.047%) Claude Code
8 1 (0.047%) Rational DOORS
8 1 (0.047%) Rational Rhapsody
8 1 (0.047%) SoapUI
8 1 (0.047%) SpecFlow
8 1 (0.047%) Travis CI
8 1 (0.047%) Zephyr
General
1 1,040 (48.60%) Social Skills
2 812 (37.94%) Finance
3 375 (17.52%) Analytical Skills
4 211 (9.86%) Public Sector
5 200 (9.35%) Organisational Skills
6 185 (8.64%) Banking
7 103 (4.81%) Marketing
8 102 (4.77%) Retail
9 87 (4.07%) Legal
10 81 (3.79%) Influencing Skills
11 77 (3.60%) Manufacturing
12 55 (2.57%) Presentation Skills
12 55 (2.57%) Telecoms
13 51 (2.38%) Investment Banking
14 34 (1.59%) Documentation Skills
15 33 (1.54%) Financial Institution
16 32 (1.50%) Local Government
17 29 (1.36%) Front Office
18 27 (1.26%) Pharmaceutical
19 26 (1.21%) Inclusion and Diversity
Job Titles
1 856 (40.00%) Project Manager
2 260 (12.15%) Analyst
3 199 (9.30%) Senior
4 173 (8.08%) Lead
5 139 (6.50%) Business Analyst
6 136 (6.36%) Senior Manager
7 115 (5.37%) Senior Project Manager
8 103 (4.81%) IT Manager
9 93 (4.35%) IT Project Manager
10 80 (3.74%) Consultant
11 75 (3.50%) Programme Manager
12 73 (3.41%) Technical Manager
13 65 (3.04%) Delivery Manager
14 60 (2.80%) Infrastructure Manager
15 57 (2.66%) Architect
16 53 (2.48%) Technical Project Manager
17 51 (2.38%) Project Officer
18 48 (2.24%) Infrastructure Project Manager
19 43 (2.01%) SAP Manager
20 42 (1.96%) Developer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 25 (1.17%) Middleware
1 25 (1.17%) Oracle Fusion
2 22 (1.03%) REST
3 16 (0.75%) Web Services
4 14 (0.65%) SOAP
5 12 (0.56%) CSS
6 11 (0.51%) .NET
6 11 (0.51%) HTML
6 11 (0.51%) XML
7 10 (0.47%) EDI
8 9 (0.42%) AngularJS
9 8 (0.37%) RESTful
9 8 (0.37%) SailPoint
10 7 (0.33%) ADO
10 7 (0.33%) OAuth
10 7 (0.33%) OpenID
10 7 (0.33%) React
10 7 (0.33%) SAML
10 7 (0.33%) VML
11 6 (0.28%) JSON
Miscellaneous
1 115 (5.37%) Management Information System
2 110 (5.14%) Onboarding
3 73 (3.41%) PMI
4 71 (3.32%) Data Centre
5 67 (3.13%) Data Protection Act
6 60 (2.80%) Product Ownership
7 54 (2.52%) Virtual Team
8 47 (2.20%) Self-Motivation
9 36 (1.68%) Legacy Systems
10 32 (1.50%) NHS
11 25 (1.17%) CMDB
12 23 (1.07%) Operational Technology
13 20 (0.93%) Data Structures
14 19 (0.89%) Analytical Mindset
15 17 (0.79%) Enterprise Software
16 16 (0.75%) Life Science
16 16 (0.75%) Web Conferencing
17 14 (0.65%) Cloud Native
17 14 (0.65%) Social Media
18 13 (0.61%) SCADA
Operating Systems
1 50 (2.34%) Windows
2 22 (1.03%) Linux
3 14 (0.65%) Windows Server
4 7 (0.33%) Windows 10
5 6 (0.28%) Unix
6 2 (0.093%) AIX
6 2 (0.093%) Solaris
6 2 (0.093%) Ubuntu
6 2 (0.093%) Windows Server 2019
6 2 (0.093%) zOS
7 1 (0.047%) Apple iOS
7 1 (0.047%) FreeRTOS
7 1 (0.047%) Mac OS X
7 1 (0.047%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
7 1 (0.047%) VMS
7 1 (0.047%) Windows 7
7 1 (0.047%) Windows Server 2012
7 1 (0.047%) Windows Server 2016
Processes & Methodologies
1 797 (37.24%) Agile
2 719 (33.60%) Stakeholder Management
3 533 (24.91%) Project Delivery
4 497 (23.22%) Problem-Solving
5 451 (21.07%) PRINCE2
6 353 (16.50%) Stakeholder Engagement
7 334 (15.61%) Change Management
8 307 (14.35%) Migration
9 306 (14.30%) Continuous Improvement
10 249 (11.64%) Decision-Making
11 240 (11.21%) Risk Management
12 237 (11.07%) Waterfall
13 217 (10.14%) Scrum
14 187 (8.74%) Budget Management
15 178 (8.32%) ERP
16 161 (7.52%) DevOps
17 151 (7.06%) Roadmaps
18 145 (6.78%) Business Analysis
18 145 (6.78%) ITIL
19 141 (6.59%) Analytics
Programming Languages
1 93 (4.35%) SQL
2 38 (1.78%) Python
3 19 (0.89%) JavaScript
4 17 (0.79%) Java
5 13 (0.61%) ABAP
6 12 (0.56%) C#
7 10 (0.47%) VBA
8 7 (0.33%) PowerShell
9 6 (0.28%) C++
9 6 (0.28%) R
9 6 (0.28%) TypeScript
10 5 (0.23%) Perl
10 5 (0.23%) PL/SQL
10 5 (0.23%) T-SQL
11 4 (0.19%) C
12 3 (0.14%) Data Analysis Expressions
12 3 (0.14%) Google Apps Script
12 3 (0.14%) SOQL
13 2 (0.093%) Apex Code
13 2 (0.093%) Korn
Qualifications
1 352 (16.45%) Degree
2 344 (16.07%) Security Cleared
3 320 (14.95%) PMP
4 296 (13.83%) PMI Certification
5 254 (11.87%) SC Cleared
6 70 (3.27%) DV Cleared
7 51 (2.38%) Master's Degree
8 50 (2.34%) BPSS Clearance
9 41 (1.92%) PRINCE2 Practitioner
10 39 (1.82%) APMP
11 29 (1.36%) Computer Science Degree
12 27 (1.26%) PRINCE2 Certification
13 25 (1.17%) CISSP
14 24 (1.12%) ACCA
14 24 (1.12%) CIMA
14 24 (1.12%) MBA
15 21 (0.98%) CISM
16 17 (0.79%) CBAP
17 14 (0.65%) IIBA
18 11 (0.51%) ITIL Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 247 (11.54%) PMO
2 136 (6.36%) QA
3 72 (3.36%) Data Quality
4 59 (2.76%) GDPR
5 48 (2.24%) ISO/IEC 27001
6 35 (1.64%) NIST
7 28 (1.31%) SLA
8 17 (0.79%) Accessibility
9 15 (0.70%) GRC
10 11 (0.51%) Basel III
10 11 (0.51%) EMIR
10 11 (0.51%) MiFID
10 11 (0.51%) PCI DSS
11 10 (0.47%) Sarbanes-Oxley
12 9 (0.42%) Disclosure Scotland
13 7 (0.33%) ISO 9001
13 7 (0.33%) P3O
13 7 (0.33%) SOC 2
14 6 (0.28%) JSP 440
14 6 (0.28%) WCAG
System Software
1 26 (1.21%) Active Directory
2 12 (0.56%) Docker
3 9 (0.42%) VMware Infrastructure
4 5 (0.23%) RACF
5 4 (0.19%) VMware ESXi
6 2 (0.093%) Virtual Desktop
6 2 (0.093%) VMware NSX
7 1 (0.047%) Hyper-V
7 1 (0.047%) Microsoft App-V
7 1 (0.047%) NFS
7 1 (0.047%) PowerHA
7 1 (0.047%) Sendmail
7 1 (0.047%) Time Sharing Option
7 1 (0.047%) Virtual Machines
7 1 (0.047%) vSphere
Systems Management
1 15 (0.70%) Kubernetes
2 12 (0.56%) Terraform
3 10 (0.47%) Single Sign-On
4 9 (0.42%) Ansible
5 8 (0.37%) Microsoft Intune
6 7 (0.33%) RSA Archer
7 5 (0.23%) logstash
8 4 (0.19%) Consul
8 4 (0.19%) Kibana
8 4 (0.19%) Packer
9 3 (0.14%) FortiGate
9 3 (0.14%) vCenter Server
10 2 (0.093%) Grafana
10 2 (0.093%) SCCM
10 2 (0.093%) SCOM
10 2 (0.093%) Tivoli Storage Manager
11 1 (0.047%) CASB
11 1 (0.047%) Docker Swarm
11 1 (0.047%) Prometheus
11 1 (0.047%) vRealize
Vendors
1 303 (14.16%) Microsoft
2 199 (9.30%) SAP
3 124 (5.79%) ServiceNow
4 86 (4.02%) Oracle
5 71 (3.32%) Salesforce
6 35 (1.64%) Adobe
6 35 (1.64%) Cisco
6 35 (1.64%) Google
7 29 (1.36%) Workday
8 21 (0.98%) Atlassian
9 19 (0.89%) VMware
10 18 (0.84%) Ariba
10 18 (0.84%) CyberArk
10 18 (0.84%) Databricks
11 15 (0.70%) Sage
12 13 (0.61%) Palo Alto
13 12 (0.56%) Planview
14 11 (0.51%) IBM
15 10 (0.47%) Juniper
15 10 (0.47%) Sitecore