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

6 months to
15 Mar 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 43 23 19
Rank change year-on-year -20 -4 +5
Contract jobs citing Project Management 2,092 2,443 3,540
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 4.84% 8.22% 7.96%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 5.62% 9.10% 9.20%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,308 1,464 2,219
10th Percentile £325 £275 £315
25th Percentile £413 £400 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £513 £500 £525
Median % change year-on-year +2.50% -4.76% -
75th Percentile £610 £600 £625
90th Percentile £701 £704 £716
UK excluding London median daily rate £500 £475 £500
% change year-on-year +5.26% -5.00% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 125 112 254
10th Percentile £14.64 £23.55 £18.67
25th Percentile £20.79 £31.04 £26.48
Median hourly rate £40.00 £42.50 £38.12
Median % change year-on-year -5.88% +11.49% -24.89%
75th Percentile £62.50 £60.00 £51.50
90th Percentile £77.50 £75.00 £62.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £42.25 £47.50 £38.12
% change year-on-year -11.05% +24.61% -31.80%

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 37,209 26,860 38,491
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 86.05% 90.36% 86.57%
Number of daily rates quoted 23,562 17,174 25,055
10th Percentile £313 £306 £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 £610 £638 £638
90th Percentile £725 £745 £743
UK excluding London median daily rate £480 £490 £500
% change year-on-year -2.04% -2.00% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 2,222 913 2,330
10th Percentile £14.91 £15.29 £13.00
25th Percentile £18.50 £21.00 £16.06
Median hourly rate £30.00 £32.50 £32.50
Median % change year-on-year -7.69% - -7.14%
75th Percentile £65.00 £65.00 £57.50
90th Percentile £75.00 £77.50 £70.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £27.50 £31.88 £31.50
% change year-on-year -13.74% +1.21% -10.00%

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 15 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 15 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 15 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 -18 1,839 £525 +3.96% 1,241
UK excluding London -20 1,079 £500 +5.26% 1,068
London -16 846 £550 +4.76% 380
Work from Home -20 585 £525 +5.00% 423
South East -11 285 £525 - 318
North of England -23 284 £483 +1.68% 241
Midlands -23 208 £500 +5.26% 179
North West -8 165 £488 +8.33% 119
West Midlands -29 145 £500 -2.34% 104
South West -19 119 £450 -10.00% 118
Yorkshire -29 112 £490 +4.48% 98
Scotland -15 88 £450 - 55
East of England -29 72 £450 -10.00% 135
East Midlands -16 65 £398 -0.53% 75
Wales -4 28 £325 -38.39% 39
Northern Ireland -6 15 £449 +15.74% 19
North East -19 11 £410 -21.90% 27

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
1 178 (8.51%) Confluence
2 84 (4.02%) SharePoint
3 23 (1.10%) CMS
4 8 (0.38%) Oracle Workflow
5 6 (0.29%) Apache
6 5 (0.24%) nginx
7 4 (0.19%) Microsoft Exchange
7 4 (0.19%) Oracle Self-Service HR
8 3 (0.14%) Anypoint
8 3 (0.14%) Apache Airflow
8 3 (0.14%) MS Project Server
9 2 (0.096%) SAS
9 2 (0.096%) WordPress
10 1 (0.048%) Adobe Experience Manager
10 1 (0.048%) IBM HTTP Server
10 1 (0.048%) Moodle
10 1 (0.048%) Oracle SOA Suite
10 1 (0.048%) Orchard CMS
10 1 (0.048%) Umbraco
10 1 (0.048%) WebSphere
Applications
1 223 (10.66%) Microsoft Project
2 209 (9.99%) Microsoft Excel
3 146 (6.98%) Microsoft Office
4 113 (5.40%) Microsoft PowerPoint
5 44 (2.10%) MS Visio
6 23 (1.10%) Spreadsheet
7 17 (0.81%) 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%) Photoshop
10 3 (0.14%) Sketch
11 2 (0.096%) Adobe Illustrator
11 2 (0.096%) AutoCAD
11 2 (0.096%) InDesign
12 1 (0.048%) Camtasia
12 1 (0.048%) Oracle Smart View
12 1 (0.048%) Windchill
Business Applications
1 73 (3.49%) SAP S/4HANA
2 23 (1.10%) Primavera
3 15 (0.72%) Oracle Payables
4 13 (0.62%) Oracle EBS
4 13 (0.62%) Oracle ERP
5 12 (0.57%) Loan IQ
6 11 (0.53%) Oracle Subledger Accounting
6 11 (0.53%) SAP Payroll
7 10 (0.48%) Dynamics CRM
8 9 (0.43%) Oracle Assets
8 9 (0.43%) Oracle Procure-to-Pay
9 8 (0.38%) Oracle General Ledger
9 8 (0.38%) Oracle Receivables
10 7 (0.33%) SAP HCM
11 6 (0.29%) NetSuite
11 6 (0.29%) Salesforce CRM
11 6 (0.29%) SAP ERP
11 6 (0.29%) SAP MM
11 6 (0.29%) SAP PM
12 5 (0.24%) Shopify
Cloud Services
1 166 (7.93%) Azure
2 102 (4.88%) AWS
3 92 (4.40%) Power Platform
4 60 (2.87%) SaaS
5 57 (2.72%) Microsoft 365
6 50 (2.39%) Azure DevOps
7 31 (1.48%) GCP
8 25 (1.20%) Dynamics 365
9 20 (0.96%) Asana
9 20 (0.96%) OpenShift
10 19 (0.91%) Smartsheet
11 17 (0.81%) Google Workspace
12 15 (0.72%) GitHub
13 14 (0.67%) Entra ID
13 14 (0.67%) Microsoft Copilot
14 13 (0.62%) Serverless
15 12 (0.57%) Azure Synapse Analytics
16 11 (0.53%) Figma
16 11 (0.53%) IaaS
16 11 (0.53%) PaaS
Communications & Networking
1 36 (1.72%) WAN
2 34 (1.63%) Firewall
3 24 (1.15%) LAN
4 21 (1.00%) Network Security
4 21 (1.00%) SD-WAN
5 16 (0.76%) MPLS
5 16 (0.76%) Structured Cabling
6 15 (0.72%) VPN
6 15 (0.72%) Wi-Fi
7 14 (0.67%) DNS
8 13 (0.62%) Internet
9 11 (0.53%) TCP/IP
10 9 (0.43%) BGP
11 7 (0.33%) DHCP
11 7 (0.33%) SSH
11 7 (0.33%) SSL
12 6 (0.29%) IPsec
13 5 (0.24%) HTTP
13 5 (0.24%) OSPF
13 5 (0.24%) Wireless
Database & Business Intelligence
1 84 (4.02%) Power BI
2 29 (1.39%) Tableau
3 20 (0.96%) Data Warehouse
4 18 (0.86%) SQL Server
5 17 (0.81%) Metadata
6 14 (0.67%) Data Lake
7 10 (0.48%) SAP HANA
8 9 (0.43%) Electronic Patient Records
8 9 (0.43%) Oracle Reports
9 6 (0.29%) Elasticsearch
9 6 (0.29%) Relational Database
10 5 (0.24%) Amazon RDS
10 5 (0.24%) Power Query
11 4 (0.19%) BigQuery
11 4 (0.19%) GIS
11 4 (0.19%) Oracle BI Publisher
11 4 (0.19%) SQL Server Integration Services
12 3 (0.14%) Azure SQL Database
12 3 (0.14%) NoSQL
12 3 (0.14%) Star Schema
Development Applications
1 331 (15.82%) JIRA
2 20 (0.96%) Git
3 11 (0.53%) GitLab
3 11 (0.53%) Jenkins
4 4 (0.19%) SonarQube
5 3 (0.14%) Axure RP
5 3 (0.14%) Selenium
6 2 (0.096%) Bitbucket
7 1 (0.048%) Ant
7 1 (0.048%) Artifactory
7 1 (0.048%) Atlassian Bamboo
7 1 (0.048%) ERwin
7 1 (0.048%) Hudson
7 1 (0.048%) JUnit
7 1 (0.048%) MSI
7 1 (0.048%) Oracle Forms
7 1 (0.048%) SoapUI
7 1 (0.048%) SpecFlow
7 1 (0.048%) TestDirector
7 1 (0.048%) Toad
General
1 1,026 (49.04%) Social Skills
2 788 (37.67%) Finance
3 357 (17.07%) Analytical Skills
4 208 (9.94%) Public Sector
5 202 (9.66%) Organisational Skills
6 176 (8.41%) Banking
7 100 (4.78%) Retail
8 90 (4.30%) Marketing
9 84 (4.02%) Legal
9 84 (4.02%) Manufacturing
10 80 (3.82%) Influencing Skills
11 55 (2.63%) Presentation Skills
12 50 (2.39%) Telecoms
13 48 (2.29%) Investment Banking
14 33 (1.58%) Financial Institution
15 32 (1.53%) Local Government
16 30 (1.43%) Documentation Skills
17 27 (1.29%) Front Office
17 27 (1.29%) Inclusion and Diversity
18 25 (1.20%) Aerospace
Job Titles
1 833 (39.82%) Project Manager
2 253 (12.09%) Analyst
3 181 (8.65%) Senior
4 164 (7.84%) Lead
5 134 (6.41%) Business Analyst
6 123 (5.88%) Senior Manager
7 103 (4.92%) Senior Project Manager
8 94 (4.49%) IT Manager
9 87 (4.16%) IT Project Manager
10 83 (3.97%) Consultant
11 69 (3.30%) Technical Manager
12 67 (3.20%) Programme Manager
13 63 (3.01%) Infrastructure Manager
14 62 (2.96%) Delivery Manager
15 52 (2.49%) Infrastructure Project Manager
16 49 (2.34%) Technical Project Manager
17 48 (2.29%) SAP Manager
18 47 (2.25%) Project Officer
19 42 (2.01%) Architect
19 42 (2.01%) Coordinator
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 27 (1.29%) Oracle Fusion
2 24 (1.15%) Middleware
3 14 (0.67%) REST
4 13 (0.62%) SOAP
4 13 (0.62%) Web Services
5 12 (0.57%) XML
6 11 (0.53%) EDI
7 10 (0.48%) CSS
8 8 (0.38%) .NET
8 8 (0.38%) HTML
8 8 (0.38%) SailPoint
9 7 (0.33%) OAuth
10 6 (0.29%) ADO
10 6 (0.29%) AngularJS
10 6 (0.29%) Elastic Stack
10 6 (0.29%) OpenID
10 6 (0.29%) SAML
11 5 (0.24%) LDAP
11 5 (0.24%) OAuth2
11 5 (0.24%) VML
Miscellaneous
1 120 (5.74%) Onboarding
2 109 (5.21%) Management Information System
3 75 (3.59%) Data Centre
4 67 (3.20%) Data Protection Act
5 66 (3.15%) PMI
6 50 (2.39%) Virtual Team
7 48 (2.29%) Product Ownership
8 44 (2.10%) Self-Motivation
9 38 (1.82%) Legacy Systems
10 31 (1.48%) NHS
11 27 (1.29%) CMDB
11 27 (1.29%) Operational Technology
12 23 (1.10%) Analytical Mindset
13 17 (0.81%) SCADA
14 16 (0.76%) Data Structures
14 16 (0.76%) Enterprise Software
14 16 (0.76%) Social Media
14 16 (0.76%) Web Conferencing
15 15 (0.72%) Cloud Native
16 11 (0.53%) Public Cloud
Operating Systems
1 53 (2.53%) Windows
2 18 (0.86%) Linux
3 12 (0.57%) Windows Server
4 9 (0.43%) Unix
5 8 (0.38%) Windows 10
6 2 (0.096%) AIX
6 2 (0.096%) Ubuntu
6 2 (0.096%) Windows Server 2019
6 2 (0.096%) zOS
7 1 (0.048%) Apple iOS
7 1 (0.048%) Mac OS X
7 1 (0.048%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
7 1 (0.048%) Solaris
7 1 (0.048%) VMS
7 1 (0.048%) Windows 7
7 1 (0.048%) Windows Server 2016
Processes & Methodologies
1 776 (37.09%) Agile
2 699 (33.41%) Stakeholder Management
3 500 (23.90%) Project Delivery
4 483 (23.09%) Problem-Solving
5 448 (21.41%) PRINCE2
6 352 (16.83%) Stakeholder Engagement
7 333 (15.92%) Change Management
8 311 (14.87%) Migration
9 288 (13.77%) Continuous Improvement
10 226 (10.80%) Decision-Making
10 226 (10.80%) Waterfall
11 214 (10.23%) Risk Management
11 214 (10.23%) Scrum
12 182 (8.70%) Budget Management
13 172 (8.22%) ERP
14 160 (7.65%) DevOps
15 152 (7.27%) Roadmaps
16 150 (7.17%) ITIL
17 141 (6.74%) Project Governance
18 139 (6.64%) Cybersecurity
Programming Languages
1 95 (4.54%) SQL
2 40 (1.91%) Python
3 14 (0.67%) ABAP
4 13 (0.62%) Java
4 13 (0.62%) JavaScript
5 12 (0.57%) C#
6 6 (0.29%) PowerShell
7 5 (0.24%) Perl
7 5 (0.24%) PL/SQL
7 5 (0.24%) R
7 5 (0.24%) T-SQL
7 5 (0.24%) VBA
8 4 (0.19%) Data Analysis Expressions
9 3 (0.14%) C++
9 3 (0.14%) Google Apps Script
9 3 (0.14%) Korn
9 3 (0.14%) SOQL
9 3 (0.14%) TypeScript
10 2 (0.096%) C
10 2 (0.096%) Ruby
Qualifications
1 342 (16.35%) Degree
2 327 (15.63%) Security Cleared
3 303 (14.48%) PMP
4 285 (13.62%) PMI Certification
5 238 (11.38%) SC Cleared
6 67 (3.20%) DV Cleared
7 49 (2.34%) Master's Degree
8 45 (2.15%) BPSS Clearance
9 39 (1.86%) APMP
10 34 (1.63%) PRINCE2 Practitioner
11 29 (1.39%) Computer Science Degree
12 25 (1.20%) PRINCE2 Certification
13 24 (1.15%) CISSP
14 21 (1.00%) MBA
15 20 (0.96%) CISM
16 17 (0.81%) ACCA
16 17 (0.81%) CBAP
16 17 (0.81%) CIMA
17 15 (0.72%) IIBA
18 11 (0.53%) ITIL Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 229 (10.95%) PMO
2 136 (6.50%) QA
3 70 (3.35%) Data Quality
4 57 (2.72%) GDPR
5 46 (2.20%) ISO/IEC 27001
6 33 (1.58%) NIST
7 26 (1.24%) SLA
8 14 (0.67%) GRC
8 14 (0.67%) Sarbanes-Oxley
9 13 (0.62%) Accessibility
9 13 (0.62%) PCI DSS
10 10 (0.48%) Basel III
10 10 (0.48%) Disclosure Scotland
11 9 (0.43%) MiFID
12 8 (0.38%) EMIR
13 7 (0.33%) P3O
13 7 (0.33%) WCAG
14 6 (0.29%) Cyber Essentials
14 6 (0.29%) ISO 9001
14 6 (0.29%) JSP 440
System Software
1 30 (1.43%) Active Directory
2 14 (0.67%) Docker
3 11 (0.53%) VMware Infrastructure
4 5 (0.24%) RACF
5 4 (0.19%) VMware ESXi
6 2 (0.096%) Virtual Desktop
6 2 (0.096%) VMware NSX
7 1 (0.048%) Hyper-V
7 1 (0.048%) Microsoft App-V
7 1 (0.048%) NFS
7 1 (0.048%) PowerHA
7 1 (0.048%) Time Sharing Option
7 1 (0.048%) vSphere
Systems Management
1 16 (0.76%) Kubernetes
2 12 (0.57%) Single Sign-On
2 12 (0.57%) Terraform
3 8 (0.38%) Ansible
4 6 (0.29%) Kibana
4 6 (0.29%) logstash
5 5 (0.24%) FortiGate
6 4 (0.19%) Consul
6 4 (0.19%) Microsoft Intune
6 4 (0.19%) Packer
6 4 (0.19%) RSA Archer
7 3 (0.14%) vCenter Server
8 2 (0.096%) Grafana
8 2 (0.096%) SCCM
8 2 (0.096%) Tivoli Storage Manager
9 1 (0.048%) Cisco UCCE
9 1 (0.048%) Control-M
9 1 (0.048%) Puppet
9 1 (0.048%) SCOM
9 1 (0.048%) ZABBIX
Vendors
1 305 (14.58%) Microsoft
2 203 (9.70%) SAP
3 114 (5.45%) ServiceNow
4 79 (3.78%) Oracle
5 72 (3.44%) Salesforce
6 35 (1.67%) Cisco
7 34 (1.63%) Google
8 30 (1.43%) Adobe
9 26 (1.24%) Workday
10 24 (1.15%) Atlassian
11 20 (0.96%) Databricks
12 19 (0.91%) VMware
13 17 (0.81%) Ariba
14 16 (0.76%) CyberArk
14 16 (0.76%) Sage
15 15 (0.72%) IBM
16 13 (0.62%) Palo Alto
17 12 (0.57%) Planview
18 10 (0.48%) Juniper
19 9 (0.43%) CheckPoint