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

6 months to
4 Mar 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 42 23 19
Rank change year-on-year -19 -4 +5
Contract jobs citing Project Management 2,073 2,474 3,577
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 4.92% 8.23% 8.08%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 5.69% 9.14% 9.31%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,294 1,437 2,267
10th Percentile £325 £275 £315
25th Percentile £413 £400 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £520 £500 £525
Median % change year-on-year +3.95% -4.76% -
75th Percentile £610 £600 £625
90th Percentile £713 £708 £713
UK excluding London median daily rate £500 £475 £500
% change year-on-year +5.26% -5.00% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 122 114 230
10th Percentile £14.64 £24.38 £18.63
25th Percentile £20.79 £30.87 £26.29
Median hourly rate £39.50 £40.00 £38.12
Median % change year-on-year -1.25% +4.93% -23.77%
75th Percentile £63.40 £60.00 £55.56
90th Percentile £79.38 £75.00 £63.83
UK excluding London median hourly rate £43.50 £46.30 £38.12
% change year-on-year -6.05% +21.46% -30.69%

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 36,453 27,072 38,415
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 86.50% 90.11% 86.78%
Number of daily rates quoted 23,124 16,979 25,034
10th Percentile £313 £305 £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 £738 £738
UK excluding London median daily rate £483 £493 £500
% change year-on-year -2.13% -1.40% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 2,168 886 2,250
10th Percentile £14.64 £15.62 £13.25
25th Percentile £18.25 £21.05 £16.13
Median hourly rate £27.94 £32.50 £32.85
Median % change year-on-year -14.03% -1.05% -6.16%
75th Percentile £63.75 £64.31 £58.75
90th Percentile £73.46 £75.13 £71.90
UK excluding London median hourly rate £25.15 £31.76 £33.50
% change year-on-year -20.81% -5.19% -4.29%

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 4 March 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 4 March 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 4 March 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 -17 1,820 £525 +4.61% 1,295
UK excluding London -20 1,053 £500 +5.26% 1,093
London -18 854 £550 +4.76% 367
Work from Home -17 590 £525 +5.00% 451
North of England -21 281 £484 +4.59% 242
South East -12 272 £525 - 313
Midlands -22 201 £500 +3.09% 178
North West -11 163 £490 +8.83% 129
West Midlands -25 140 £500 -4.76% 96
South West -24 118 £450 -10.00% 124
Yorkshire -33 109 £490 +8.83% 91
Scotland -16 88 £450 - 61
East of England -33 67 £450 -11.68% 153
East Midlands -17 63 £402 -1.83% 80
Wales +4 31 £325 -38.68% 40
Northern Ireland -7 15 £475 +22.58% 19
North East -21 13 £410 -21.90% 28

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
1 172 (8.30%) Confluence
2 93 (4.49%) SharePoint
3 23 (1.11%) CMS
4 7 (0.34%) Microsoft Exchange
4 7 (0.34%) Oracle Workflow
5 6 (0.29%) Apache
6 5 (0.24%) nginx
7 4 (0.19%) Exchange Server 2013
7 4 (0.19%) Skype for Business
7 4 (0.19%) WordPress
8 3 (0.14%) Anypoint
8 3 (0.14%) Apache Airflow
8 3 (0.14%) MS Project Server
9 2 (0.096%) Oracle Self-Service HR
9 2 (0.096%) SAS
10 1 (0.048%) Apache Spark
10 1 (0.048%) Apache Superset
10 1 (0.048%) IBM HTTP Server
10 1 (0.048%) IIS
10 1 (0.048%) WebSphere
Applications
1 219 (10.56%) Microsoft Project
2 215 (10.37%) Microsoft Excel
3 151 (7.28%) Microsoft Office
4 120 (5.79%) Microsoft PowerPoint
5 49 (2.36%) MS Visio
6 22 (1.06%) Spreadsheet
7 21 (1.01%) Trello
8 6 (0.29%) Chatbot
9 4 (0.19%) Adobe After Effects
9 4 (0.19%) Adobe Creative Suite
9 4 (0.19%) Adobe XD
10 3 (0.14%) InVision
10 3 (0.14%) Sketch
11 2 (0.096%) Adobe Illustrator
11 2 (0.096%) AutoCAD
11 2 (0.096%) InDesign
11 2 (0.096%) Photoshop
12 1 (0.048%) Camtasia
12 1 (0.048%) Oracle Smart View
12 1 (0.048%) Windchill
Business Applications
1 70 (3.38%) SAP S/4HANA
2 19 (0.92%) Primavera
3 16 (0.77%) Oracle Payables
4 14 (0.68%) Loan IQ
5 13 (0.63%) Oracle EBS
6 12 (0.58%) Oracle ERP
7 11 (0.53%) Dynamics CRM
7 11 (0.53%) Oracle Subledger Accounting
7 11 (0.53%) SAP Payroll
8 8 (0.39%) Oracle Assets
9 7 (0.34%) NetSuite
9 7 (0.34%) Oracle General Ledger
9 7 (0.34%) Oracle Procure-to-Pay
9 7 (0.34%) Oracle Receivables
9 7 (0.34%) SAP HCM
10 6 (0.29%) Oracle Financials
10 6 (0.29%) SAP CO
10 6 (0.29%) SAP ERP
10 6 (0.29%) SAP PM
10 6 (0.29%) Teamcenter
Cloud Services
1 170 (8.20%) Azure
2 105 (5.07%) AWS
3 95 (4.58%) Power Platform
4 60 (2.89%) Microsoft 365
5 56 (2.70%) SaaS
6 47 (2.27%) Azure DevOps
7 31 (1.50%) GCP
8 23 (1.11%) Dynamics 365
9 21 (1.01%) Asana
10 20 (0.96%) OpenShift
11 19 (0.92%) Smartsheet
12 17 (0.82%) Google Workspace
13 15 (0.72%) GitHub
14 14 (0.68%) Serverless
15 13 (0.63%) Microsoft Copilot
16 12 (0.58%) Azure Synapse Analytics
16 12 (0.58%) IaaS
17 11 (0.53%) Figma
17 11 (0.53%) PaaS
17 11 (0.53%) SuccessFactors
Communications & Networking
1 37 (1.78%) Firewall
2 29 (1.40%) WAN
3 20 (0.96%) LAN
4 18 (0.87%) Network Security
5 17 (0.82%) Structured Cabling
6 16 (0.77%) DNS
6 16 (0.77%) Wi-Fi
7 13 (0.63%) SD-WAN
8 12 (0.58%) VPN
9 10 (0.48%) MPLS
9 10 (0.48%) SSH
9 10 (0.48%) TCP/IP
10 9 (0.43%) Internet
11 8 (0.39%) SSL
12 7 (0.34%) BGP
12 7 (0.34%) DHCP
12 7 (0.34%) HTTP
13 6 (0.29%) IPsec
14 5 (0.24%) Kerberos
14 5 (0.24%) Wireless
Database & Business Intelligence
1 88 (4.25%) Power BI
2 29 (1.40%) Tableau
3 20 (0.96%) SQL Server
4 19 (0.92%) Metadata
5 18 (0.87%) Data Warehouse
6 14 (0.68%) Data Lake
7 11 (0.53%) SAP HANA
8 9 (0.43%) Oracle Reports
9 7 (0.34%) Electronic Patient Records
10 6 (0.29%) Elasticsearch
10 6 (0.29%) Relational Database
11 5 (0.24%) Amazon RDS
12 4 (0.19%) BigQuery
12 4 (0.19%) GIS
12 4 (0.19%) Oracle Database
12 4 (0.19%) Power Query
12 4 (0.19%) SQL Server Integration Services
13 3 (0.14%) Azure SQL Database
13 3 (0.14%) NoSQL
13 3 (0.14%) Star Schema
Development Applications
1 327 (15.77%) JIRA
2 22 (1.06%) Git
3 10 (0.48%) Jenkins
4 9 (0.43%) GitLab
5 4 (0.19%) SonarQube
6 3 (0.14%) Axure RP
6 3 (0.14%) Selenium
7 1 (0.048%) Ant
7 1 (0.048%) Appium
7 1 (0.048%) Artifactory
7 1 (0.048%) Atlassian Bamboo
7 1 (0.048%) Bitbucket
7 1 (0.048%) CircleCI
7 1 (0.048%) Claude Code
7 1 (0.048%) Hudson
7 1 (0.048%) JUnit
7 1 (0.048%) SoapUI
7 1 (0.048%) SpecFlow
7 1 (0.048%) Travis CI
7 1 (0.048%) Tricentis qTest
General
1 1,023 (49.35%) Social Skills
2 769 (37.10%) Finance
3 343 (16.55%) Analytical Skills
4 209 (10.08%) Public Sector
5 203 (9.79%) Organisational Skills
6 179 (8.63%) Banking
7 104 (5.02%) Retail
8 86 (4.15%) Manufacturing
8 86 (4.15%) Marketing
9 85 (4.10%) Legal
10 81 (3.91%) Influencing Skills
11 58 (2.80%) Presentation Skills
12 47 (2.27%) Investment Banking
13 42 (2.03%) Telecoms
14 33 (1.59%) Financial Institution
15 32 (1.54%) Local Government
16 30 (1.45%) Documentation Skills
17 27 (1.30%) Front Office
17 27 (1.30%) Inclusion and Diversity
18 22 (1.06%) Aerospace
Job Titles
1 814 (39.27%) Project Manager
2 247 (11.92%) Analyst
3 178 (8.59%) Senior
4 168 (8.10%) Lead
5 129 (6.22%) Business Analyst
6 123 (5.93%) Senior Manager
7 103 (4.97%) Senior Project Manager
8 97 (4.68%) IT Manager
9 90 (4.34%) IT Project Manager
10 84 (4.05%) Consultant
11 68 (3.28%) Technical Manager
12 63 (3.04%) Delivery Manager
13 61 (2.94%) Programme Manager
14 59 (2.85%) Infrastructure Manager
15 50 (2.41%) Infrastructure Project Manager
16 49 (2.36%) Project Officer
16 49 (2.36%) SAP Manager
17 46 (2.22%) Technical Project Manager
18 43 (2.07%) Coordinator
19 42 (2.03%) Architect
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 25 (1.21%) Oracle Fusion
2 23 (1.11%) Middleware
3 15 (0.72%) REST
3 15 (0.72%) SOAP
4 14 (0.68%) Web Services
5 11 (0.53%) EDI
5 11 (0.53%) XML
6 9 (0.43%) .NET
6 9 (0.43%) CSS
7 8 (0.39%) HTML
7 8 (0.39%) SailPoint
8 7 (0.34%) LDAP
8 7 (0.34%) OAuth
9 6 (0.29%) ADO
9 6 (0.29%) AngularJS
9 6 (0.29%) Elastic Stack
9 6 (0.29%) OpenID
9 6 (0.29%) SAML
10 5 (0.24%) OAuth2
10 5 (0.24%) XACML
Miscellaneous
1 120 (5.79%) Onboarding
2 103 (4.97%) Management Information System
3 75 (3.62%) Data Centre
4 71 (3.42%) Data Protection Act
5 64 (3.09%) PMI
6 50 (2.41%) Product Ownership
6 50 (2.41%) Virtual Team
7 40 (1.93%) Self-Motivation
8 37 (1.78%) Legacy Systems
9 31 (1.50%) NHS
10 26 (1.25%) CMDB
11 25 (1.21%) Operational Technology
12 19 (0.92%) Analytical Mindset
13 18 (0.87%) Enterprise Software
14 17 (0.82%) SCADA
14 17 (0.82%) Social Media
15 15 (0.72%) Cloud Native
15 15 (0.72%) Web Conferencing
16 12 (0.58%) Data Structures
16 12 (0.58%) Public Cloud
Operating Systems
1 54 (2.60%) Windows
2 16 (0.77%) Linux
3 12 (0.58%) Windows Server
4 11 (0.53%) Unix
5 8 (0.39%) Windows 10
6 2 (0.096%) AIX
6 2 (0.096%) Ubuntu
6 2 (0.096%) Windows Server 2019
7 1 (0.048%) Apple iOS
7 1 (0.048%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
7 1 (0.048%) Solaris
7 1 (0.048%) VMS
7 1 (0.048%) Windows Server 2016
7 1 (0.048%) zOS
Processes & Methodologies
1 753 (36.32%) Agile
2 678 (32.71%) Stakeholder Management
3 493 (23.78%) Project Delivery
4 478 (23.06%) Problem-Solving
5 432 (20.84%) PRINCE2
6 354 (17.08%) Stakeholder Engagement
7 325 (15.68%) Change Management
8 314 (15.15%) Migration
9 284 (13.70%) Continuous Improvement
10 225 (10.85%) Decision-Making
11 224 (10.81%) Risk Management
12 219 (10.56%) Waterfall
13 207 (9.99%) Scrum
14 180 (8.68%) Budget Management
15 172 (8.30%) ERP
16 154 (7.43%) DevOps
17 145 (6.99%) ITIL
18 144 (6.95%) Project Governance
19 143 (6.90%) Cybersecurity
19 143 (6.90%) Roadmaps
Programming Languages
1 90 (4.34%) SQL
2 41 (1.98%) Python
3 14 (0.68%) ABAP
3 14 (0.68%) Java
4 13 (0.63%) C#
4 13 (0.63%) JavaScript
5 6 (0.29%) PowerShell
5 6 (0.29%) VBA
6 5 (0.24%) Perl
6 5 (0.24%) PL/SQL
6 5 (0.24%) R
6 5 (0.24%) T-SQL
7 4 (0.19%) Data Analysis Expressions
8 3 (0.14%) C++
8 3 (0.14%) Go
8 3 (0.14%) Ruby
8 3 (0.14%) SOQL
8 3 (0.14%) VB
9 2 (0.096%) C
9 2 (0.096%) Korn
Qualifications
1 339 (16.35%) Degree
2 305 (14.71%) Security Cleared
3 301 (14.52%) PMP
4 280 (13.51%) PMI Certification
5 220 (10.61%) SC Cleared
6 65 (3.14%) DV Cleared
7 48 (2.32%) Master's Degree
8 44 (2.12%) BPSS Clearance
9 42 (2.03%) APMP
10 34 (1.64%) PRINCE2 Practitioner
11 28 (1.35%) Computer Science Degree
12 25 (1.21%) CISSP
12 25 (1.21%) PRINCE2 Certification
13 21 (1.01%) CISM
14 20 (0.96%) MBA
15 16 (0.77%) CBAP
16 15 (0.72%) ACCA
16 15 (0.72%) CIMA
16 15 (0.72%) IIBA
17 8 (0.39%) Cisco Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 231 (11.14%) PMO
2 131 (6.32%) QA
3 64 (3.09%) Data Quality
4 56 (2.70%) GDPR
5 50 (2.41%) ISO/IEC 27001
6 36 (1.74%) NIST
7 24 (1.16%) SLA
8 19 (0.92%) PCI DSS
8 19 (0.92%) Sarbanes-Oxley
9 18 (0.87%) GRC
10 14 (0.68%) Accessibility
11 10 (0.48%) Basel III
11 10 (0.48%) Disclosure Scotland
12 8 (0.39%) MiFID
13 7 (0.34%) ISO 9001
13 7 (0.34%) WCAG
14 6 (0.29%) Actionable Recommendations
14 6 (0.29%) Cyber Essentials
14 6 (0.29%) EMIR
14 6 (0.29%) P3O
System Software
1 32 (1.54%) Active Directory
2 14 (0.68%) Docker
3 12 (0.58%) VMware Infrastructure
4 5 (0.24%) RACF
4 5 (0.24%) VMware ESXi
5 3 (0.14%) Virtual Desktop
6 1 (0.048%) PowerHA
6 1 (0.048%) VMware NSX
6 1 (0.048%) vSphere
Systems Management
1 16 (0.77%) Kubernetes
2 14 (0.68%) Single Sign-On
3 12 (0.58%) Terraform
4 10 (0.48%) Ansible
5 6 (0.29%) Kibana
5 6 (0.29%) logstash
5 6 (0.29%) SCCM
6 5 (0.24%) Microsoft Intune
7 4 (0.19%) Consul
7 4 (0.19%) FortiGate
7 4 (0.19%) Packer
7 4 (0.19%) RSA Archer
8 3 (0.14%) Grafana
8 3 (0.14%) vCenter Server
9 2 (0.096%) Puppet
10 1 (0.048%) Cisco UCCE
10 1 (0.048%) Cisco UCCX
10 1 (0.048%) Progress Chef
10 1 (0.048%) SCOM
10 1 (0.048%) ZABBIX
Vendors
1 312 (15.05%) Microsoft
2 200 (9.65%) SAP
3 110 (5.31%) ServiceNow
4 79 (3.81%) Oracle
5 68 (3.28%) Salesforce
6 35 (1.69%) Cisco
7 33 (1.59%) Google
8 27 (1.30%) Adobe
9 26 (1.25%) Workday
10 21 (1.01%) Databricks
11 20 (0.96%) VMware
12 19 (0.92%) Atlassian
13 17 (0.82%) CyberArk
13 17 (0.82%) Sage
14 16 (0.77%) Ariba
14 16 (0.77%) Planview
15 15 (0.72%) IBM
16 13 (0.63%) Palo Alto
17 10 (0.48%) Juniper
18 9 (0.43%) Splunk