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 14 August 2026, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
14 Aug 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 57 26 22
Rank change year-on-year -31 -4 +1
Contract jobs citing Project Management 2,027 2,250 2,948
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 3.80% 6.84% 7.57%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 4.48% 7.55% 8.86%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,250 1,372 1,749
10th Percentile £313 £308 £302
25th Percentile £413 £405 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £513 £500 £513
Median % change year-on-year +2.50% -2.44% -2.38%
75th Percentile £625 £619 £613
90th Percentile £725 £725 £713
UK excluding London median daily rate £500 £475 £500
% change year-on-year +5.26% -5.00% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 119 122 229
10th Percentile £20.35 £21.39 £21.25
25th Percentile £28.44 £26.75 £27.26
Median hourly rate £42.65 £36.75 £38.12
Median % change year-on-year +16.05% -3.59% -5.88%
75th Percentile £64.75 £60.00 £48.75
90th Percentile £85.04 £75.00 £65.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £45.00 £40.25 £38.12
% change year-on-year +11.80% +5.59% -3.62%

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 45,278 29,786 33,285
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 84.80% 90.49% 85.51%
Number of daily rates quoted 27,840 18,586 21,275
10th Percentile £325 £300 £310
25th Percentile £423 £404 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £500 £525
Median % change year-on-year +5.00% -4.76% -3.67%
75th Percentile £625 £625 £638
90th Percentile £725 £725 £750
UK excluding London median daily rate £500 £475 £500
% change year-on-year +5.26% -5.00% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 2,823 1,710 1,832
10th Percentile £14.22 £14.20 £14.05
25th Percentile £18.50 £17.31 £18.46
Median hourly rate £42.30 £25.15 £41.50
Median % change year-on-year +68.19% -39.40% -2.35%
75th Percentile £68.00 £48.75 £65.00
90th Percentile £81.25 £68.00 £74.83
UK excluding London median hourly rate £43.96 £23.00 £42.50
% change year-on-year +91.13% -45.88% +13.33%

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 14 August 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 14 August 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 14 August 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 -28 1,789 £525 +1.94% 1,785
UK excluding London -35 974 £500 +5.26% 1,191
London -25 870 £550 +2.80% 795
Work from Home -25 628 £500 +4.17% 709
North of England -35 267 £475 -3.46% 277
South East -25 251 £500 - 343
North West -14 165 £475 - 150
Midlands -48 142 £540 +15.94% 201
South West -23 138 £436 -3.06% 154
West Midlands -61 96 £550 +15.79% 126
Yorkshire -38 95 £495 -1.00% 92
East of England -8 85 £525 -1.13% 123
Scotland -36 68 £470 +4.44% 64
East Midlands -22 46 £500 +18.41% 75
Northern Ireland 0 17 £430 -18.14% 26
Wales -20 14 £400 - 32
North East -43 9 £420 -12.95% 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
1 106 (5.23%) SharePoint
2 105 (5.18%) Confluence
3 34 (1.68%) CMS
4 23 (1.13%) Microsoft Exchange
5 16 (0.79%) Adobe Experience Manager
6 7 (0.35%) Sitecore CMS
6 7 (0.35%) WebLogic
6 7 (0.35%) WebSphere
7 6 (0.30%) Apache
7 6 (0.30%) ArcGIS
7 6 (0.30%) WordPress
8 5 (0.25%) JBoss
8 5 (0.25%) Moodle
9 3 (0.15%) Apache Airflow
9 3 (0.15%) Oracle Workflow
10 2 (0.099%) Anypoint
10 2 (0.099%) Oracle Self-Service HR
10 2 (0.099%) SAS
11 1 (0.049%) CICS
11 1 (0.049%) IBM HTTP Server
Applications
1 185 (9.13%) Microsoft Excel
2 170 (8.39%) Microsoft Project
3 154 (7.60%) Microsoft Office
4 117 (5.77%) Microsoft PowerPoint
5 45 (2.22%) MS Visio
6 21 (1.04%) Spreadsheet
7 15 (0.74%) Trello
8 10 (0.49%) Adobe Creative Suite
9 6 (0.30%) Photoshop
10 5 (0.25%) Chatbot
11 4 (0.20%) Simulink
11 4 (0.20%) Stateflow
12 3 (0.15%) Adobe Illustrator
12 3 (0.15%) InDesign
12 3 (0.15%) Windchill
13 2 (0.099%) Houdini
13 2 (0.099%) NUKE
14 1 (0.049%) Adobe After Effects
14 1 (0.049%) CATIA
14 1 (0.049%) Notion
Business Applications
1 67 (3.31%) SAP S/4HANA
2 25 (1.23%) Primavera
3 11 (0.54%) Adobe Campaign
3 11 (0.54%) Magento
4 9 (0.44%) Dynamics CRM
5 8 (0.39%) NEC Housing
5 8 (0.39%) NetSuite
6 7 (0.35%) Oracle ERP
6 7 (0.35%) Oracle Payables
6 7 (0.35%) Oracle Receivables
6 7 (0.35%) SAP CO
6 7 (0.35%) SAP FI
6 7 (0.35%) SAP PS
7 6 (0.30%) ProductWriter
7 6 (0.30%) SAP FI/CO
7 6 (0.30%) Shopify
8 5 (0.25%) Salesforce CRM
8 5 (0.25%) SAP MM
9 4 (0.20%) Oracle EBS
9 4 (0.20%) SAP PP
Cloud Services
1 178 (8.78%) Azure
2 120 (5.92%) Power Platform
3 95 (4.69%) SaaS
4 77 (3.80%) Microsoft 365
5 74 (3.65%) AWS
6 64 (3.16%) Azure DevOps
7 38 (1.87%) Smartsheet
8 30 (1.48%) Google Workspace
9 27 (1.33%) Dynamics 365
10 20 (0.99%) Asana
10 20 (0.99%) Entra ID
11 18 (0.89%) GCP
11 18 (0.89%) GitHub
12 13 (0.64%) Google Sheets
12 13 (0.64%) Microsoft Copilot
12 13 (0.64%) Snowflake
12 13 (0.64%) SuccessFactors
13 11 (0.54%) Cloud Computing
14 10 (0.49%) OCI
14 10 (0.49%) PowerApps
Communications & Networking
1 35 (1.73%) Network Security
2 27 (1.33%) WAN
3 24 (1.18%) LAN
4 23 (1.13%) TCP/IP
5 22 (1.09%) DNS
6 20 (0.99%) Firewall
6 20 (0.99%) Structured Cabling
7 15 (0.74%) Internet
7 15 (0.74%) SD-WAN
8 14 (0.69%) Wi-Fi
9 13 (0.64%) DHCP
9 13 (0.64%) Intranet
9 13 (0.64%) VPN
10 11 (0.54%) MPLS
11 10 (0.49%) BGP
11 10 (0.49%) Wireless
12 8 (0.39%) BIG-IP
12 8 (0.39%) SAN
13 7 (0.35%) DKIM
13 7 (0.35%) DMARC
Database & Business Intelligence
1 108 (5.33%) Power BI
2 20 (0.99%) Data Warehouse
3 17 (0.84%) Data Lake
4 16 (0.79%) SQL Server
5 15 (0.74%) Tableau
6 13 (0.64%) Metadata
7 10 (0.49%) Relational Database
8 9 (0.44%) Power Query
9 8 (0.39%) GIS
9 8 (0.39%) Oracle Reports
10 7 (0.35%) Electronic Patient Records
11 6 (0.30%) Amazon RDS
11 6 (0.30%) Big Data
12 5 (0.25%) DynamoDB
13 4 (0.20%) Amazon Redshift
13 4 (0.20%) Hadoop
13 4 (0.20%) SAP HANA
14 3 (0.15%) EDMS
14 3 (0.15%) QlikView
14 3 (0.15%) SQL Server Integration Services
Development Applications
1 249 (12.28%) JIRA
2 27 (1.33%) Git
3 21 (1.04%) Jenkins
4 9 (0.44%) Subversion
5 7 (0.35%) Bitbucket
5 7 (0.35%) GitLab
6 3 (0.15%) Visual Studio
7 2 (0.099%) Hudson
7 2 (0.099%) Rational Rhapsody
7 2 (0.099%) SonarQube
7 2 (0.099%) Zephyr
8 1 (0.049%) git-flow
8 1 (0.049%) IBM UrbanCode
8 1 (0.049%) minitest
8 1 (0.049%) Postman
8 1 (0.049%) ScriptRunner
8 1 (0.049%) Snyk
8 1 (0.049%) Sonatype Nexus
8 1 (0.049%) Terragrunt
8 1 (0.049%) Visual Studio Code
General
1 885 (43.66%) Social Skills
2 744 (36.70%) Finance
3 340 (16.77%) Analytical Skills
4 203 (10.01%) Organisational Skills
5 177 (8.73%) Public Sector
6 160 (7.89%) Banking
7 141 (6.96%) Marketing
8 117 (5.77%) Retail
9 78 (3.85%) Manufacturing
10 74 (3.65%) Influencing Skills
11 73 (3.60%) Legal
12 69 (3.40%) Telecoms
13 47 (2.32%) Presentation Skills
14 38 (1.87%) Investment Banking
15 32 (1.58%) Financial Institution
16 31 (1.53%) Aerospace
16 31 (1.53%) Documentation Skills
16 31 (1.53%) Pharmaceutical
17 30 (1.48%) Front Office
18 28 (1.38%) Inclusion and Diversity
Job Titles
1 816 (40.26%) Project Manager
2 204 (10.06%) Senior
3 171 (8.44%) Lead
4 165 (8.14%) Analyst
5 150 (7.40%) Senior Manager
6 121 (5.97%) Senior Project Manager
7 114 (5.62%) IT Manager
8 91 (4.49%) IT Project Manager
9 90 (4.44%) Programme Manager
10 85 (4.19%) Business Analyst
11 72 (3.55%) Technical Manager
12 65 (3.21%) Delivery Manager
13 62 (3.06%) Consultant
14 59 (2.91%) Technical Project Manager
15 53 (2.61%) Infrastructure Manager
16 42 (2.07%) SC Cleared Project Manager
17 41 (2.02%) Infrastructure Project Manager
17 41 (2.02%) Project Officer
18 38 (1.87%) Developer
19 36 (1.78%) Coordinator
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 26 (1.28%) Middleware
2 21 (1.04%) REST
3 16 (0.79%) ADO
4 15 (0.74%) HTML
4 15 (0.74%) Oracle Fusion
5 13 (0.64%) VML
5 13 (0.64%) Web Services
6 11 (0.54%) JSON
6 11 (0.54%) SOAP
7 10 (0.49%) .NET
7 10 (0.49%) OAuth
8 9 (0.44%) React
9 8 (0.39%) RESTful
10 7 (0.35%) CSS
11 6 (0.30%) AngularJS
11 6 (0.30%) FastAPI
11 6 (0.30%) XML
12 5 (0.25%) FHIR
12 5 (0.25%) Lightning Web Components
12 5 (0.25%) pytest
Miscellaneous
1 108 (5.33%) Management Information System
2 86 (4.24%) Onboarding
2 86 (4.24%) Product Ownership
3 68 (3.35%) Data Centre
4 54 (2.66%) Data Protection Act
5 52 (2.57%) PMI
6 46 (2.27%) Virtual Team
7 34 (1.68%) Self-Motivation
8 31 (1.53%) Legacy Systems
9 26 (1.28%) Enterprise Software
9 26 (1.28%) Operational Technology
10 24 (1.18%) Analytical Mindset
10 24 (1.18%) FMCG
10 24 (1.18%) Social Media
11 20 (0.99%) Data Structures
11 20 (0.99%) Life Science
12 19 (0.94%) AI Agents
12 19 (0.94%) Credit Risk
13 16 (0.79%) Foreign Exchange (FX)
14 15 (0.74%) EPoS
Operating Systems
1 59 (2.91%) Windows
2 44 (2.17%) Linux
3 20 (0.99%) Unix
4 18 (0.89%) Windows Server
5 8 (0.39%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
5 8 (0.39%) Windows 10
6 5 (0.25%) Apple iOS
6 5 (0.25%) zOS
7 3 (0.15%) Android
7 3 (0.15%) Solaris
8 2 (0.099%) Mac OS X
8 2 (0.099%) Windows 7
8 2 (0.099%) Windows Server 2012
8 2 (0.099%) Windows Server 2019
9 1 (0.049%) AIX
9 1 (0.049%) FreeRTOS
9 1 (0.049%) Mac OS
9 1 (0.049%) Windows Server 2003
9 1 (0.049%) Windows Server 2016
Processes & Methodologies
1 834 (41.14%) Stakeholder Management
2 761 (37.54%) Agile
3 560 (27.63%) Project Delivery
4 460 (22.69%) PRINCE2
5 349 (17.22%) Problem-Solving
6 341 (16.82%) Continuous Improvement
7 334 (16.48%) Change Management
8 301 (14.85%) Stakeholder Engagement
9 299 (14.75%) Migration
10 258 (12.73%) Decision-Making
11 255 (12.58%) Risk Management
12 244 (12.04%) Waterfall
13 199 (9.82%) Scrum
14 190 (9.37%) AI
15 160 (7.89%) Project Governance
15 160 (7.89%) Roadmaps
16 154 (7.60%) ITIL
17 146 (7.20%) Analytics
18 144 (7.10%) ERP
18 144 (7.10%) Project Planning
Programming Languages
1 82 (4.05%) SQL
2 64 (3.16%) Python
3 20 (0.99%) JavaScript
4 16 (0.79%) Java
5 14 (0.69%) VBA
6 10 (0.49%) C#
6 10 (0.49%) C++
6 10 (0.49%) PowerShell
7 9 (0.44%) TypeScript
8 7 (0.35%) C
9 5 (0.25%) ABAP
9 5 (0.25%) Korn
9 5 (0.25%) MATLAB
9 5 (0.25%) Shell Script
10 4 (0.20%) Ada
10 4 (0.20%) Apex Code
10 4 (0.20%) Bash
10 4 (0.20%) JCL
11 3 (0.15%) R
11 3 (0.15%) REXX
Qualifications
1 324 (15.98%) Security Cleared
2 317 (15.64%) Degree
3 311 (15.34%) PMP
4 272 (13.42%) PMI Certification
5 221 (10.90%) SC Cleared
6 76 (3.75%) DV Cleared
7 70 (3.45%) PRINCE2 Practitioner
8 30 (1.48%) Master's Degree
9 28 (1.38%) BPSS Clearance
10 25 (1.23%) ACCA
10 25 (1.23%) CIMA
11 19 (0.94%) Computer Science Degree
11 19 (0.94%) PRINCE2 Certification
12 16 (0.79%) APMP
12 16 (0.79%) ITIL Certification
13 15 (0.74%) CISSP
14 14 (0.69%) Azure Certification
15 11 (0.54%) CISM
15 11 (0.54%) MBA
16 10 (0.49%) CIPFA
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 243 (11.99%) PMO
2 100 (4.93%) QA
3 57 (2.81%) Data Quality
4 36 (1.78%) GDPR
5 32 (1.58%) SLA
6 27 (1.33%) ISO/IEC 27001
7 26 (1.28%) GRC
8 24 (1.18%) NIST
9 23 (1.13%) Accessibility
10 9 (0.44%) P3O
11 8 (0.39%) EMIR
11 8 (0.39%) MiFID
12 7 (0.35%) FINREP
12 7 (0.35%) GMP
12 7 (0.35%) Sarbanes-Oxley
13 6 (0.30%) COREP
13 6 (0.30%) SOC 2
14 5 (0.25%) HL7
14 5 (0.25%) ISO 9001
14 5 (0.25%) WCAG
System Software
1 38 (1.87%) Active Directory
2 20 (0.99%) VMware Infrastructure
3 7 (0.35%) Virtual Desktop
3 7 (0.35%) Virtual Machines
4 5 (0.25%) VMware NSX
5 4 (0.20%) NFS
5 4 (0.20%) Time Sharing Option
5 4 (0.20%) vSphere
6 3 (0.15%) Docker
6 3 (0.15%) Hyper-V
7 2 (0.099%) Firmware
8 1 (0.049%) ACF2
8 1 (0.049%) IAG
8 1 (0.049%) Microsoft App-V
8 1 (0.049%) RACF
8 1 (0.049%) Sendmail
8 1 (0.049%) Virtual Servers
8 1 (0.049%) VMware ESXi
Systems Management
1 20 (0.99%) Ansible
2 13 (0.64%) Microsoft Intune
3 12 (0.59%) Single Sign-On
4 6 (0.30%) Terraform
4 6 (0.30%) Tivoli Storage Manager
5 5 (0.25%) Puppet
6 4 (0.20%) Failover Clustering
6 4 (0.20%) ITRS Geneos
6 4 (0.20%) Kubernetes
6 4 (0.20%) Red Hat Satellite
6 4 (0.20%) RSA Archer
7 3 (0.15%) SCCM
8 2 (0.099%) ZABBIX
9 1 (0.049%) FortiGate
9 1 (0.049%) HP Quality Center
9 1 (0.049%) Nagios
9 1 (0.049%) Nessus
9 1 (0.049%) OMEGAMON
9 1 (0.049%) Progress Chef
9 1 (0.049%) SCOM
Vendors
1 337 (16.63%) Microsoft
2 168 (8.29%) SAP
3 116 (5.72%) ServiceNow
4 84 (4.14%) Oracle
5 54 (2.66%) Google
6 53 (2.61%) Salesforce
7 45 (2.22%) Adobe
8 34 (1.68%) VMware
9 31 (1.53%) Cisco
10 24 (1.18%) Workday
11 23 (1.13%) Sitecore
12 21 (1.04%) Atlassian
12 21 (1.04%) Databricks
13 19 (0.94%) NEC
14 16 (0.79%) Ariba
15 14 (0.69%) IBM
16 11 (0.54%) Alteryx
16 11 (0.54%) IFS
16 11 (0.54%) JD Edwards
17 10 (0.49%) Guidewire