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

6 months to
14 Jan 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 38 20 20
Rank change year-on-year -18 0 +4
Contract jobs citing Project Management 1,986 2,633 3,460
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 5.37% 8.33% 8.14%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 6.12% 9.39% 9.28%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,240 1,451 2,231
10th Percentile £313 £275 £320
25th Percentile £413 £413 £418
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £520 £525
Median % change year-on-year -3.85% -0.95% -
75th Percentile £609 £613 £629
90th Percentile £700 £725 £712
UK excluding London median daily rate £500 £500 £500
% change year-on-year - - +1.01%
Number of hourly rates quoted 104 118 162
10th Percentile £17.00 £21.25 £20.09
25th Percentile £22.88 £26.34 £26.35
Median hourly rate £42.28 £33.00 £42.50
Median % change year-on-year +28.12% -22.35% +7.46%
75th Percentile £63.75 £52.50 £60.00
90th Percentile £65.22 £65.30 £70.50
UK excluding London median hourly rate £45.46 £33.54 £45.00
% change year-on-year +35.54% -25.47% -6.25%

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 32,475 28,042 37,290
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 87.84% 88.72% 87.72%
Number of daily rates quoted 20,506 17,042 24,746
10th Percentile £304 £306 £304
25th Percentile £406 £413 £415
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £525 £525
Median % change year-on-year -4.76% - -4.55%
75th Percentile £614 £638 £650
90th Percentile £723 £744 £743
UK excluding London median daily rate £475 £500 £500
% change year-on-year -5.00% - -
Number of hourly rates quoted 1,987 893 1,582
10th Percentile £14.52 £15.62 £14.18
25th Percentile £17.50 £20.50 £18.18
Median hourly rate £25.15 £32.50 £40.50
Median % change year-on-year -22.62% -19.75% +15.71%
75th Percentile £56.00 £62.24 £65.00
90th Percentile £69.39 £74.97 £76.53
UK excluding London median hourly rate £23.83 £30.45 £43.83
% change year-on-year -21.76% -30.52% +51.12%

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 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 14 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 14 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 1,714 £520 -0.95% 1,354
UK excluding London -15 1,012 £500 - 1,268
London -17 798 £525 -4.55% 310
Work from Home -13 580 £510 +1.95% 564
South East -10 264 £525 - 393
North of England -24 258 £490 +4.48% 232
Midlands -20 199 £492 -6.29% 212
North West -13 143 £492 +9.33% 115
West Midlands -23 135 £500 -9.09% 127
Yorkshire -18 106 £484 +7.50% 89
South West -26 106 £450 -7.69% 149
Scotland -5 100 £438 +1.74% 63
East Midlands -12 66 £463 +15.63% 85
East of England -30 55 £450 -5.26% 180
Wales -3 29 £308 -42.79% 46
Northern Ireland -4 19 £388 -18.42% 31
North East -27 11 £450 -21.74% 35

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
1 166 (8.36%) Confluence
2 116 (5.84%) SharePoint
3 22 (1.11%) 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 2 (0.10%) MS Project Server
11 1 (0.050%) Anypoint
11 1 (0.050%) Apache Airflow
11 1 (0.050%) Apache Spark
11 1 (0.050%) ArcGIS
11 1 (0.050%) Moodle
11 1 (0.050%) Oracle Self-Service HR
11 1 (0.050%) SAS
11 1 (0.050%) Umbraco
11 1 (0.050%) WebSphere
Applications
1 219 (11.03%) Microsoft Excel
2 204 (10.27%) Microsoft Project
3 168 (8.46%) Microsoft Office
4 133 (6.70%) Microsoft PowerPoint
5 65 (3.27%) MS Visio
6 25 (1.26%) Trello
7 15 (0.76%) Spreadsheet
8 5 (0.25%) 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%) InVision
10 3 (0.15%) Navisworks
10 3 (0.15%) Sketch
11 2 (0.10%) Adobe Illustrator
11 2 (0.10%) AutoCAD
11 2 (0.10%) InDesign
11 2 (0.10%) Photoshop
11 2 (0.10%) ProjectWise
Business Applications
1 49 (2.47%) SAP S/4HANA
2 15 (0.76%) Primavera
3 14 (0.70%) Oracle EBS
3 14 (0.70%) Oracle ERP
4 12 (0.60%) Oracle Payables
5 11 (0.55%) Dynamics CRM
6 10 (0.50%) Salesforce CRM
7 8 (0.40%) Loan IQ
7 8 (0.40%) SAP Payroll
7 8 (0.40%) Shopify
8 7 (0.35%) Oracle Subledger Accounting
8 7 (0.35%) SAP PM
9 6 (0.30%) NetSuite
9 6 (0.30%) Oracle Assets
9 6 (0.30%) Oracle Financials
9 6 (0.30%) SAP ERP
10 5 (0.25%) SAP CO
10 5 (0.25%) SAP FI
10 5 (0.25%) Workday HCM
10 5 (0.25%) Workfront
Cloud Services
1 170 (8.56%) Azure
2 107 (5.39%) Power Platform
3 99 (4.98%) AWS
4 74 (3.73%) Microsoft 365
5 46 (2.32%) Azure DevOps
6 44 (2.22%) SaaS
7 27 (1.36%) GCP
8 24 (1.21%) Asana
8 24 (1.21%) Smartsheet
9 18 (0.91%) Dynamics 365
10 17 (0.86%) GitHub
10 17 (0.86%) OpenShift
10 17 (0.86%) SuccessFactors
11 16 (0.81%) Google Workspace
12 15 (0.76%) OneDrive
13 14 (0.70%) Cloud Computing
14 11 (0.55%) Microsoft Copilot
15 10 (0.50%) Entra ID
15 10 (0.50%) Serverless
16 9 (0.45%) Figma
Communications & Networking
1 44 (2.22%) Firewall
2 23 (1.16%) WAN
3 16 (0.81%) DNS
3 16 (0.81%) LAN
4 15 (0.76%) Network Security
4 15 (0.76%) SSH
5 13 (0.65%) Structured Cabling
5 13 (0.65%) Wi-Fi
6 12 (0.60%) SD-WAN
7 10 (0.50%) HTTP
8 9 (0.45%) Skype
8 9 (0.45%) VPN
9 8 (0.40%) Internet
9 8 (0.40%) TCP/IP
10 6 (0.30%) Broadband
10 6 (0.30%) DHCP
10 6 (0.30%) SSL
11 5 (0.25%) Multicast
11 5 (0.25%) VXLAN
12 4 (0.20%) MPLS
Database & Business Intelligence
1 97 (4.88%) Power BI
2 28 (1.41%) Tableau
3 25 (1.26%) SQL Server
4 19 (0.96%) Metadata
5 18 (0.91%) Data Warehouse
6 12 (0.60%) SAP HANA
7 10 (0.50%) Data Lake
8 6 (0.30%) Elasticsearch
8 6 (0.30%) Electronic Patient Records
8 6 (0.30%) Oracle Reports
8 6 (0.30%) Relational Database
9 5 (0.25%) Amazon RDS
9 5 (0.25%) Power Query
10 4 (0.20%) Azure SQL Database
11 3 (0.15%) Big Data
11 3 (0.15%) GIS
11 3 (0.15%) Oracle Database
11 3 (0.15%) Star Schema
12 2 (0.10%) DataStage
12 2 (0.10%) PostgreSQL
Development Applications
1 324 (16.31%) JIRA
2 21 (1.06%) Git
3 11 (0.55%) Jenkins
4 8 (0.40%) 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 2 (0.10%) Artifactory
8 1 (0.050%) Ant
8 1 (0.050%) Appium
8 1 (0.050%) Atlassian Bamboo
8 1 (0.050%) Gradle
8 1 (0.050%) JUnit
8 1 (0.050%) Oracle Forms
8 1 (0.050%) SoapUI
8 1 (0.050%) TestDirector
8 1 (0.050%) Toad
8 1 (0.050%) Visual Studio
General
1 982 (49.45%) Social Skills
2 703 (35.40%) Finance
3 342 (17.22%) Analytical Skills
4 209 (10.52%) Public Sector
5 180 (9.06%) Organisational Skills
6 178 (8.96%) Banking
7 93 (4.68%) Retail
8 89 (4.48%) Legal
9 86 (4.33%) Marketing
10 82 (4.13%) Manufacturing
11 72 (3.63%) Influencing Skills
12 51 (2.57%) Telecoms
13 46 (2.32%) Presentation Skills
14 45 (2.27%) Investment Banking
15 41 (2.06%) Local Government
16 35 (1.76%) Inclusion and Diversity
17 31 (1.56%) Front Office
18 29 (1.46%) Documentation Skills
19 27 (1.36%) Pharmaceutical
20 26 (1.31%) Financial Institution
Job Titles
1 736 (37.06%) Project Manager
2 255 (12.84%) Analyst
3 170 (8.56%) Lead
4 156 (7.85%) Senior
5 133 (6.70%) Business Analyst
6 105 (5.29%) IT Manager
7 100 (5.04%) Senior Manager
8 92 (4.63%) IT Project Manager
9 83 (4.18%) Consultant
10 80 (4.03%) Senior Project Manager
11 61 (3.07%) Technical Manager
12 54 (2.72%) Delivery Manager
12 54 (2.72%) Infrastructure Manager
13 49 (2.47%) Programme Manager
14 47 (2.37%) Coordinator
15 45 (2.27%) Infrastructure Project Manager
16 42 (2.11%) Developer
16 42 (2.11%) SAP Manager
16 42 (2.11%) Technical Project Manager
17 40 (2.01%) Architect
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 24 (1.21%) Oracle Fusion
2 18 (0.91%) Middleware
3 14 (0.70%) REST
4 13 (0.65%) .NET
4 13 (0.65%) SOAP
5 12 (0.60%) EDI
6 10 (0.50%) ADO
6 10 (0.50%) HTML
6 10 (0.50%) XML
7 9 (0.45%) AngularJS
8 8 (0.40%) React
8 8 (0.40%) Web Services
9 7 (0.35%) LDAP
9 7 (0.35%) RESTful
10 6 (0.30%) CSS
10 6 (0.30%) Elastic Stack
10 6 (0.30%) LangChain
11 5 (0.25%) .NET Framework
11 5 (0.25%) Entity Framework
12 4 (0.20%) VML
Miscellaneous
1 115 (5.79%) Onboarding
2 111 (5.59%) Management Information System
3 65 (3.27%) PMI
4 59 (2.97%) Data Centre
5 58 (2.92%) Data Protection Act
6 54 (2.72%) Product Ownership
7 50 (2.52%) Virtual Team
8 48 (2.42%) Self-Motivation
9 38 (1.91%) Legacy Systems
10 26 (1.31%) Enterprise Software
10 26 (1.31%) NHS
11 24 (1.21%) Analytical Mindset
12 22 (1.11%) CMDB
13 20 (1.01%) Operational Technology
14 16 (0.81%) Life Science
14 16 (0.81%) SCADA
14 16 (0.81%) Social Media
15 13 (0.65%) Cloud Native
15 13 (0.65%) Public Cloud
16 12 (0.60%) Mobile App
Operating Systems
1 76 (3.83%) Windows
2 16 (0.81%) Linux
3 14 (0.70%) Unix
3 14 (0.70%) Windows Server
4 12 (0.60%) Windows 10
5 3 (0.15%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
5 3 (0.15%) Windows Server 2019
6 2 (0.10%) AIX
6 2 (0.10%) Apple iOS
6 2 (0.10%) Windows Server 2016
7 1 (0.050%) Android
7 1 (0.050%) Solaris
7 1 (0.050%) VMS
7 1 (0.050%) Windows Server 2012
7 1 (0.050%) zOS
Processes & Methodologies
1 753 (37.92%) Agile
2 645 (32.48%) Stakeholder Management
3 491 (24.72%) Problem-Solving
4 476 (23.97%) Project Delivery
5 416 (20.95%) PRINCE2
6 355 (17.88%) Stakeholder Engagement
7 329 (16.57%) Change Management
8 265 (13.34%) Migration
9 250 (12.59%) Continuous Improvement
10 239 (12.03%) Waterfall
11 214 (10.78%) Decision-Making
12 209 (10.52%) Risk Management
13 184 (9.26%) Scrum
14 164 (8.26%) Budget Management
15 163 (8.21%) ITIL
16 157 (7.91%) Project Governance
17 152 (7.65%) DevOps
18 142 (7.15%) ERP
19 137 (6.90%) Cybersecurity
19 137 (6.90%) Roadmaps
Programming Languages
1 87 (4.38%) SQL
2 44 (2.22%) Python
3 18 (0.91%) Java
4 15 (0.76%) JavaScript
5 12 (0.60%) C#
6 10 (0.50%) ABAP
7 8 (0.40%) PowerShell
8 6 (0.30%) Perl
9 5 (0.25%) PL/SQL
9 5 (0.25%) VBA
10 4 (0.20%) C++
10 4 (0.20%) Go
10 4 (0.20%) R
10 4 (0.20%) Ruby
10 4 (0.20%) T-SQL
11 3 (0.15%) Data Analysis Expressions
11 3 (0.15%) Korn
11 3 (0.15%) VB
12 2 (0.10%) C
12 2 (0.10%) Shell Script
Qualifications
1 366 (18.43%) Degree
2 274 (13.80%) PMP
3 269 (13.54%) PMI Certification
4 261 (13.14%) Security Cleared
5 187 (9.42%) SC Cleared
6 57 (2.87%) DV Cleared
7 46 (2.32%) Master's Degree
8 40 (2.01%) APMP
9 39 (1.96%) BPSS Clearance
10 31 (1.56%) Computer Science Degree
11 28 (1.41%) PRINCE2 Certification
12 26 (1.31%) PRINCE2 Practitioner
13 21 (1.06%) CISSP
14 20 (1.01%) MBA
15 19 (0.96%) CISM
16 12 (0.60%) CBAP
17 10 (0.50%) A+ Certification
17 10 (0.50%) IIBA
17 10 (0.50%) ITIL Certification
18 9 (0.45%) Cisco Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 222 (11.18%) PMO
2 120 (6.04%) QA
3 59 (2.97%) GDPR
4 58 (2.92%) Data Quality
5 48 (2.42%) ISO/IEC 27001
6 29 (1.46%) NIST
7 23 (1.16%) Sarbanes-Oxley
8 16 (0.81%) PCI DSS
9 15 (0.76%) Accessibility
9 15 (0.76%) GRC
10 13 (0.65%) P3O
11 12 (0.60%) Disclosure Scotland
12 10 (0.50%) SLA
13 9 (0.45%) Basel III
14 8 (0.40%) GxP
15 7 (0.35%) ISO 19650
15 7 (0.35%) ISO 9001
15 7 (0.35%) WCAG
16 5 (0.25%) GMP
16 5 (0.25%) MiFID
System Software
1 40 (2.01%) Active Directory
2 14 (0.70%) Docker
3 11 (0.55%) VMware Infrastructure
4 4 (0.20%) Virtual Machines
5 3 (0.15%) Virtual Desktop
5 3 (0.15%) VMware ESXi
6 2 (0.10%) Firmware
7 1 (0.050%) Embedded Firmware
7 1 (0.050%) PowerHA
7 1 (0.050%) RACF
7 1 (0.050%) VMware NSX
7 1 (0.050%) vSphere
Systems Management
1 16 (0.81%) Kubernetes
2 14 (0.70%) Terraform
3 13 (0.65%) Ansible
3 13 (0.65%) SCCM
4 9 (0.45%) Microsoft Intune
4 9 (0.45%) Single Sign-On
5 6 (0.30%) Kibana
6 5 (0.25%) 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
9 2 (0.10%) ITRS Geneos
9 2 (0.10%) ZABBIX
10 1 (0.050%) Cisco UCCE
10 1 (0.050%) SCOM
10 1 (0.050%) Systems Management Server (SMS)
10 1 (0.050%) Tivoli Storage Manager
Vendors
1 319 (16.06%) Microsoft
2 169 (8.51%) SAP
3 88 (4.43%) ServiceNow
4 83 (4.18%) Oracle
5 65 (3.27%) Salesforce
6 37 (1.86%) Google
7 30 (1.51%) Cisco
8 26 (1.31%) Adobe
8 26 (1.31%) Workday
9 22 (1.11%) Atlassian
10 21 (1.06%) Planview
11 18 (0.91%) IBM
11 18 (0.91%) VMware
12 17 (0.86%) Databricks
13 13 (0.65%) Ariba
14 12 (0.60%) CyberArk
14 12 (0.60%) Palo Alto
15 10 (0.50%) Juniper
16 8 (0.40%) NEC
16 8 (0.40%) Remedy