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

6 months to
28 Jan 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 40 20 19
Rank change year-on-year -20 -1 +5
Contract jobs citing Project Management 1,995 2,622 3,622
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 5.20% 8.38% 8.21%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 5.95% 9.40% 9.39%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,234 1,463 2,329
10th Percentile £313 £275 £320
25th Percentile £413 £406 £415
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £513 £508 £525
Median % change year-on-year +1.13% -3.33% -
75th Percentile £610 £606 £625
90th Percentile £706 £725 £710
UK excluding London median daily rate £500 £500 £500
Number of hourly rates quoted 103 115 184
10th Percentile £15.85 £21.25 £19.04
25th Percentile £22.50 £26.37 £25.85
Median hourly rate £43.50 £33.54 £40.00
Median % change year-on-year +29.70% -16.15% -13.04%
75th Percentile £63.75 £55.63 £60.00
90th Percentile £65.23 £65.00 £66.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £45.46 £33.00 £42.50
% change year-on-year +37.76% -22.35% -15.00%

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 33,541 27,883 38,559
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 87.38% 89.07% 87.36%
Number of daily rates quoted 21,255 16,908 25,386
10th Percentile £305 £306 £300
25th Percentile £406 £413 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £525 £525
Median % change year-on-year -4.76% - -4.55%
75th Percentile £613 £638 £643
90th Percentile £722 £738 £738
UK excluding London median daily rate £480 £499 £500
% change year-on-year -3.81% -0.20% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 2,020 876 1,970
10th Percentile £14.50 £15.62 £13.50
25th Percentile £17.69 £21.00 £16.85
Median hourly rate £25.15 £32.50 £35.98
Median % change year-on-year -22.62% -9.67% +12.44%
75th Percentile £58.00 £62.50 £62.49
90th Percentile £70.00 £75.00 £75.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £24.71 £30.45 £37.50
% change year-on-year -18.85% -18.80% +44.23%

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 28 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 28 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 28 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 -19 1,723 £525 - 1,362
UK excluding London -19 1,019 £500 - 1,315
London -16 803 £530 -3.64% 307
Work from Home -16 578 £525 +5.00% 423
South East -12 267 £525 +1.25% 423
North of England -26 254 £480 +6.67% 235
Midlands -21 204 £492 -6.29% 232
North West -18 142 £475 +5.56% 104
West Midlands -24 140 £500 -10.79% 133
South West -28 106 £450 -10.00% 145
Yorkshire -22 103 £492 +9.33% 92
Scotland -8 99 £444 +4.41% 57
East Midlands -16 66 £456 +7.35% 99
East of England -34 58 £450 -10.00% 177
Wales -1 29 £308 -43.06% 56
Northern Ireland -5 19 £450 -5.26% 25
North East -29 12 £430 -25.22% 44

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 (8.42%) Confluence
2 106 (5.31%) 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 3 (0.15%) MS Project Server
11 2 (0.10%) SAS
12 1 (0.050%) Adobe Experience Manager
12 1 (0.050%) ArcGIS
12 1 (0.050%) IIS
12 1 (0.050%) Moodle
12 1 (0.050%) Oracle SOA Suite
12 1 (0.050%) Orchard CMS
12 1 (0.050%) Umbraco
12 1 (0.050%) WebSphere
Applications
1 216 (10.83%) Microsoft Excel
2 207 (10.38%) Microsoft Project
3 171 (8.57%) Microsoft Office
4 124 (6.22%) Microsoft PowerPoint
5 62 (3.11%) MS Visio
6 24 (1.20%) 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%) AutoCAD
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%) InDesign
11 2 (0.10%) Photoshop
11 2 (0.10%) ProjectWise
Business Applications
1 50 (2.51%) SAP S/4HANA
2 17 (0.85%) Primavera
3 15 (0.75%) Oracle EBS
4 14 (0.70%) Oracle ERP
5 13 (0.65%) Oracle Payables
6 12 (0.60%) Loan IQ
7 10 (0.50%) Dynamics CRM
8 9 (0.45%) Oracle Subledger Accounting
9 8 (0.40%) SAP Payroll
9 8 (0.40%) Shopify
10 7 (0.35%) Salesforce CRM
11 6 (0.30%) NetSuite
11 6 (0.30%) Oracle Financials
11 6 (0.30%) Oracle General Ledger
11 6 (0.30%) SAP PM
12 5 (0.25%) Oracle Assets
12 5 (0.25%) SAP CO
12 5 (0.25%) SAP ERP
12 5 (0.25%) SAP FI
12 5 (0.25%) Workday HCM
Cloud Services
1 174 (8.72%) Azure
2 100 (5.01%) Power Platform
3 99 (4.96%) AWS
4 71 (3.56%) Microsoft 365
5 46 (2.31%) Azure DevOps
5 46 (2.31%) SaaS
6 27 (1.35%) GCP
7 21 (1.05%) Asana
8 20 (1.00%) Dynamics 365
8 20 (1.00%) Smartsheet
9 18 (0.90%) OpenShift
10 17 (0.85%) GitHub
11 16 (0.80%) Google Workspace
12 15 (0.75%) OneDrive
13 14 (0.70%) Cloud Computing
14 12 (0.60%) Entra ID
15 11 (0.55%) Figma
15 11 (0.55%) Microsoft Copilot
15 11 (0.55%) Serverless
16 10 (0.50%) PaaS
Communications & Networking
1 41 (2.06%) Firewall
2 27 (1.35%) WAN
3 19 (0.95%) LAN
4 16 (0.80%) DNS
4 16 (0.80%) Network Security
5 15 (0.75%) SD-WAN
5 15 (0.75%) Wi-Fi
6 14 (0.70%) SSH
6 14 (0.70%) Structured Cabling
7 12 (0.60%) VPN
8 10 (0.50%) HTTP
9 9 (0.45%) Internet
9 9 (0.45%) Skype
9 9 (0.45%) TCP/IP
10 8 (0.40%) BGP
11 7 (0.35%) MPLS
11 7 (0.35%) SSL
12 6 (0.30%) Broadband
12 6 (0.30%) DHCP
13 5 (0.25%) Wireless
Database & Business Intelligence
1 91 (4.56%) Power BI
2 30 (1.50%) Tableau
3 23 (1.15%) SQL Server
4 19 (0.95%) Metadata
5 16 (0.80%) Data Warehouse
6 10 (0.50%) Data Lake
7 8 (0.40%) SAP HANA
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%) GIS
10 5 (0.25%) Relational Database
11 4 (0.20%) Azure SQL Database
11 4 (0.20%) BigQuery
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
1 323 (16.19%) JIRA
2 21 (1.05%) Git
3 10 (0.50%) Jenkins
4 9 (0.45%) 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%) Appium
7 1 (0.050%) Artifactory
7 1 (0.050%) Atlassian Bamboo
7 1 (0.050%) CircleCI
7 1 (0.050%) Claude Code
7 1 (0.050%) Gradle
7 1 (0.050%) JUnit
7 1 (0.050%) SoapUI
7 1 (0.050%) Travis CI
7 1 (0.050%) Tricentis qTest
General
1 990 (49.62%) Social Skills
2 723 (36.24%) Finance
3 341 (17.09%) Analytical Skills
4 205 (10.28%) Public Sector
5 192 (9.62%) Organisational Skills
6 179 (8.97%) Banking
7 89 (4.46%) Retail
8 84 (4.21%) Legal
9 80 (4.01%) Influencing Skills
9 80 (4.01%) Marketing
10 76 (3.81%) Manufacturing
11 52 (2.61%) Telecoms
12 50 (2.51%) Presentation Skills
13 44 (2.21%) Investment Banking
14 40 (2.01%) Local Government
15 34 (1.70%) Inclusion and Diversity
16 31 (1.55%) Front Office
17 28 (1.40%) Documentation Skills
18 27 (1.35%) Financial Institution
19 20 (1.00%) Pharmaceutical
Job Titles
1 761 (38.15%) Project Manager
2 251 (12.58%) Analyst
3 168 (8.42%) Lead
4 153 (7.67%) Senior
5 132 (6.62%) Business Analyst
6 104 (5.21%) IT Manager
7 98 (4.91%) Senior Manager
8 92 (4.61%) IT Project Manager
9 83 (4.16%) Consultant
10 78 (3.91%) Senior Project Manager
11 67 (3.36%) Technical Manager
12 60 (3.01%) Delivery Manager
13 51 (2.56%) Infrastructure Manager
13 51 (2.56%) Programme Manager
14 47 (2.36%) Coordinator
14 47 (2.36%) Technical Project Manager
15 46 (2.31%) Developer
16 43 (2.16%) Infrastructure Project Manager
16 43 (2.16%) SAP Manager
17 40 (2.01%) Security Manager
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 24 (1.20%) Oracle Fusion
2 22 (1.10%) 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%) Web Services
6 10 (0.50%) XML
7 9 (0.45%) AngularJS
7 9 (0.45%) HTML
7 9 (0.45%) LDAP
8 8 (0.40%) React
9 7 (0.35%) CSS
9 7 (0.35%) RESTful
10 6 (0.30%) .NET Framework
10 6 (0.30%) Elastic Stack
10 6 (0.30%) LangChain
11 5 (0.25%) Entity Framework
12 4 (0.20%) Bootstrap
Miscellaneous
1 117 (5.86%) Onboarding
2 104 (5.21%) Management Information System
3 67 (3.36%) Data Protection Act
4 62 (3.11%) PMI
5 60 (3.01%) Data Centre
6 56 (2.81%) Product Ownership
7 50 (2.51%) Virtual Team
8 42 (2.11%) Self-Motivation
9 41 (2.06%) Legacy Systems
10 26 (1.30%) NHS
11 25 (1.25%) Operational Technology
12 24 (1.20%) Enterprise Software
13 22 (1.10%) Analytical Mindset
14 21 (1.05%) CMDB
15 17 (0.85%) SCADA
16 15 (0.75%) Social Media
17 14 (0.70%) Cloud Native
18 13 (0.65%) Public Cloud
19 12 (0.60%) Driving Licence
19 12 (0.60%) FMCG
Operating Systems
1 73 (3.66%) Windows
2 18 (0.90%) 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%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
6 2 (0.10%) Ubuntu
6 2 (0.10%) Windows Server 2016
7 1 (0.050%) Apple iOS
7 1 (0.050%) Solaris
7 1 (0.050%) VMS
7 1 (0.050%) Windows Server 2012
7 1 (0.050%) zOS
Processes & Methodologies
1 761 (38.15%) Agile
2 656 (32.88%) Stakeholder Management
3 485 (24.31%) Problem-Solving
4 484 (24.26%) Project Delivery
5 408 (20.45%) PRINCE2
6 364 (18.25%) Stakeholder Engagement
7 332 (16.64%) Change Management
8 288 (14.44%) Migration
9 248 (12.43%) Continuous Improvement
10 233 (11.68%) Waterfall
11 216 (10.83%) Decision-Making
12 210 (10.53%) Risk Management
13 194 (9.72%) Scrum
14 171 (8.57%) Budget Management
15 160 (8.02%) ITIL
16 156 (7.82%) DevOps
17 152 (7.62%) Project Governance
18 151 (7.57%) ERP
19 148 (7.42%) Cybersecurity
20 136 (6.82%) Business Analysis
Programming Languages
1 89 (4.46%) SQL
2 43 (2.16%) Python
3 16 (0.80%) Java
4 15 (0.75%) C#
5 14 (0.70%) JavaScript
6 9 (0.45%) ABAP
7 8 (0.40%) PowerShell
8 7 (0.35%) VBA
9 5 (0.25%) Perl
9 5 (0.25%) R
10 4 (0.20%) C++
10 4 (0.20%) Go
10 4 (0.20%) PL/SQL
10 4 (0.20%) Ruby
10 4 (0.20%) T-SQL
11 3 (0.15%) Data Analysis Expressions
11 3 (0.15%) Korn
12 2 (0.10%) Apex Code
12 2 (0.10%) Kusto Query Language
12 2 (0.10%) SOQL
Qualifications
1 370 (18.55%) Degree
2 271 (13.58%) PMP
3 265 (13.28%) Security Cleared
4 259 (12.98%) PMI Certification
5 190 (9.52%) SC Cleared
6 59 (2.96%) DV Cleared
7 45 (2.26%) Master's Degree
8 42 (2.11%) APMP
8 42 (2.11%) BPSS Clearance
9 31 (1.55%) Computer Science Degree
10 28 (1.40%) PRINCE2 Certification
11 27 (1.35%) PRINCE2 Practitioner
12 24 (1.20%) CISSP
13 21 (1.05%) CISM
14 20 (1.00%) MBA
15 16 (0.80%) CBAP
16 15 (0.75%) IIBA
17 11 (0.55%) ITIL Certification
18 10 (0.50%) A+ Certification
19 9 (0.45%) Cisco Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 214 (10.73%) PMO
2 128 (6.42%) QA
3 65 (3.26%) Data Quality
4 61 (3.06%) GDPR
5 49 (2.46%) ISO/IEC 27001
6 32 (1.60%) NIST
7 20 (1.00%) Sarbanes-Oxley
8 18 (0.90%) PCI DSS
9 16 (0.80%) GRC
10 15 (0.75%) Accessibility
11 12 (0.60%) SLA
12 11 (0.55%) Disclosure Scotland
12 11 (0.55%) P3O
13 9 (0.45%) Basel III
14 7 (0.35%) ISO 19650
14 7 (0.35%) ISO 9001
14 7 (0.35%) PSD2
14 7 (0.35%) WCAG
15 6 (0.30%) MiFID
15 6 (0.30%) NCSC
System Software
1 40 (2.01%) Active Directory
2 14 (0.70%) Docker
3 13 (0.65%) VMware Infrastructure
4 5 (0.25%) VMware ESXi
5 4 (0.20%) Virtual Machines
6 3 (0.15%) Virtual Desktop
7 2 (0.10%) RACF
8 1 (0.050%) Embedded Firmware
8 1 (0.050%) Firmware
8 1 (0.050%) PowerHA
8 1 (0.050%) VMware NSX
8 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
4 11 (0.55%) Single Sign-On
5 9 (0.45%) Microsoft Intune
6 6 (0.30%) Kibana
6 6 (0.30%) logstash
7 4 (0.20%) Consul
7 4 (0.20%) FortiGate
7 4 (0.20%) Packer
8 3 (0.15%) Grafana
8 3 (0.15%) Puppet
8 3 (0.15%) RSA Archer
8 3 (0.15%) vCenter Server
9 1 (0.050%) Cisco UCCX
9 1 (0.050%) Docker Swarm
9 1 (0.050%) ITRS Geneos
9 1 (0.050%) Progress Chef
9 1 (0.050%) Prometheus
Vendors
1 324 (16.24%) Microsoft
2 164 (8.22%) SAP
3 90 (4.51%) ServiceNow
4 87 (4.36%) Oracle
5 63 (3.16%) Salesforce
6 35 (1.75%) Google
7 31 (1.55%) Cisco
8 27 (1.35%) Adobe
9 23 (1.15%) Workday
10 20 (1.00%) Atlassian
10 20 (1.00%) VMware
11 18 (0.90%) Databricks
11 18 (0.90%) Planview
12 17 (0.85%) IBM
13 14 (0.70%) CyberArk
14 13 (0.65%) Palo Alto
15 11 (0.55%) Ariba
15 11 (0.55%) Sage
16 10 (0.50%) Juniper
17 8 (0.40%) CheckPoint