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

6 months to
1 May 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 43 23 21
Rank change year-on-year -20 -2 +2
Contract jobs citing Project Management 2,139 2,318 3,450
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 4.53% 7.92% 7.92%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 5.35% 8.72% 9.17%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,342 1,382 2,122
10th Percentile £325 £300 £313
25th Percentile £413 £401 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £512 £500 £525
Median % change year-on-year +2.38% -4.76% -
75th Percentile £618 £600 £625
90th Percentile £725 £702 £725
UK excluding London median daily rate £500 £475 £500
% change year-on-year +5.26% -5.00% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 112 119 266
10th Percentile £14.86 £22.22 £18.35
25th Percentile £21.00 £30.95 £26.66
Median hourly rate £37.54 £43.08 £38.12
Median % change year-on-year -12.85% +13.00% -22.20%
75th Percentile £57.50 £60.00 £49.75
90th Percentile £73.75 £75.00 £61.25
UK excluding London median hourly rate £36.00 £54.51 £38.12
% change year-on-year -33.96% +43.00% -22.20%

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 39,989 26,597 37,605
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 84.62% 90.89% 86.33%
Number of daily rates quoted 25,206 17,155 24,229
10th Percentile £319 £308 £300
25th Percentile £413 £413 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £520 £525
Median % change year-on-year -3.85% -0.95% -4.55%
75th Percentile £613 £630 £638
90th Percentile £725 £743 £750
UK excluding London median daily rate £488 £485 £500
% change year-on-year +0.62% -3.10% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 2,387 1,068 2,445
10th Percentile £14.99 £14.65 £12.75
25th Percentile £19.96 £18.50 £16.00
Median hourly rate £41.56 £29.00 £35.65
Median % change year-on-year +43.29% -18.65% -4.42%
75th Percentile £66.00 £60.84 £59.95
90th Percentile £78.75 £75.00 £72.50
UK excluding London median hourly rate £43.69 £27.76 £37.18
% change year-on-year +57.38% -25.34% +3.28%

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 1 May 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 1 May 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 1 May 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 -21 1,897 £525 +5.00% 1,270
UK excluding London -23 1,076 £500 +5.26% 975
London -17 887 £550 +4.76% 445
Work from Home -16 640 £501 +0.10% 504
North of England -23 284 £474 -3.27% 239
South East -12 280 £525 +5.00% 295
Midlands -30 201 £496 +5.76% 165
North West -13 160 £463 -2.63% 131
South West -13 146 £450 -4.66% 102
West Midlands -34 132 £500 - 97
Yorkshire -32 116 £480 +1.05% 75
East of England -23 75 £510 -1.73% 123
Scotland -29 73 £450 - 39
East Midlands -16 71 £398 -2.84% 67
Wales +6 23 £214 -56.74% 26
Northern Ireland -1 15 £488 +21.88% 14
North East -22 12 £430 -20.00% 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
1 154 (7.20%) Confluence
2 82 (3.83%) SharePoint
3 22 (1.03%) CMS
4 15 (0.70%) Microsoft Exchange
5 9 (0.42%) Apache
5 9 (0.42%) Oracle Workflow
6 4 (0.19%) Oracle Self-Service HR
7 3 (0.14%) Anypoint
7 3 (0.14%) Apache Airflow
7 3 (0.14%) Moodle
7 3 (0.14%) MS Project Server
8 2 (0.094%) Adobe Experience Manager
8 2 (0.094%) SAS
8 2 (0.094%) Umbraco
8 2 (0.094%) WordPress
9 1 (0.047%) Apache Spark
9 1 (0.047%) Apache Superset
9 1 (0.047%) IBM HTTP Server
9 1 (0.047%) nginx
9 1 (0.047%) Oracle SOA Suite
Applications
1 210 (9.82%) Microsoft Project
2 188 (8.79%) Microsoft Excel
3 144 (6.73%) Microsoft Office
4 116 (5.42%) Microsoft PowerPoint
5 46 (2.15%) MS Visio
6 21 (0.98%) Spreadsheet
7 16 (0.75%) Trello
8 6 (0.28%) Chatbot
9 5 (0.23%) Photoshop
10 4 (0.19%) Adobe Creative Suite
11 3 (0.14%) Adobe After Effects
12 2 (0.094%) Adobe Illustrator
12 2 (0.094%) Adobe XD
12 2 (0.094%) AutoCAD
12 2 (0.094%) InDesign
12 2 (0.094%) InVision
12 2 (0.094%) Sketch
12 2 (0.094%) Windchill
13 1 (0.047%) Camtasia
13 1 (0.047%) Oracle Smart View
Business Applications
1 84 (3.93%) SAP S/4HANA
2 16 (0.75%) Primavera
3 11 (0.51%) Loan IQ
3 11 (0.51%) Oracle EBS
3 11 (0.51%) Oracle Payables
4 10 (0.47%) Oracle ERP
4 10 (0.47%) Oracle Subledger Accounting
4 10 (0.47%) Shopify
5 9 (0.42%) Dynamics CRM
5 9 (0.42%) Oracle Assets
6 8 (0.37%) Oracle Procure-to-Pay
6 8 (0.37%) SAP Payroll
7 6 (0.28%) Oracle General Ledger
7 6 (0.28%) Oracle Receivables
7 6 (0.28%) SAP CO
7 6 (0.28%) SAP FI
7 6 (0.28%) SAP MM
7 6 (0.28%) Teamcenter
8 5 (0.23%) NetSuite
8 5 (0.23%) SAP HCM
Cloud Services
1 157 (7.34%) Azure
2 91 (4.25%) Power Platform
3 84 (3.93%) AWS
4 83 (3.88%) SaaS
5 77 (3.60%) Microsoft 365
6 49 (2.29%) Azure DevOps
7 29 (1.36%) GCP
8 26 (1.22%) Smartsheet
9 25 (1.17%) Dynamics 365
10 24 (1.12%) Google Workspace
11 22 (1.03%) Asana
12 15 (0.70%) Entra ID
13 14 (0.65%) Microsoft Copilot
13 14 (0.65%) OpenShift
14 13 (0.61%) GitHub
15 12 (0.56%) Snowflake
16 11 (0.51%) Cloud Computing
16 11 (0.51%) OCI
17 10 (0.47%) BigCommerce
17 10 (0.47%) PaaS
Communications & Networking
1 29 (1.36%) WAN
2 28 (1.31%) Network Security
3 25 (1.17%) Firewall
4 19 (0.89%) DNS
5 18 (0.84%) LAN
5 18 (0.84%) SD-WAN
6 17 (0.79%) TCP/IP
7 16 (0.75%) Wi-Fi
8 15 (0.70%) MPLS
9 14 (0.65%) Internet
9 14 (0.65%) Structured Cabling
10 12 (0.56%) VPN
11 10 (0.47%) DHCP
12 8 (0.37%) BGP
13 7 (0.33%) BIG-IP
14 6 (0.28%) Intranet
14 6 (0.28%) IPsec
14 6 (0.28%) SAN
14 6 (0.28%) SSL
15 5 (0.23%) Kerberos
Database & Business Intelligence
1 87 (4.07%) Power BI
2 21 (0.98%) Tableau
3 19 (0.89%) Metadata
4 18 (0.84%) Data Warehouse
5 15 (0.70%) SQL Server
6 13 (0.61%) Data Lake
7 10 (0.47%) Electronic Patient Records
7 10 (0.47%) Oracle Reports
8 8 (0.37%) Relational Database
9 6 (0.28%) SAP HANA
10 4 (0.19%) Big Data
10 4 (0.19%) Elasticsearch
10 4 (0.19%) Oracle BI Publisher
10 4 (0.19%) Power Query
10 4 (0.19%) SQL Server Integration Services
11 3 (0.14%) Amazon RDS
11 3 (0.14%) Amazon Redshift
11 3 (0.14%) BigQuery
11 3 (0.14%) GIS
11 3 (0.14%) NoSQL
Development Applications
1 313 (14.63%) JIRA
2 20 (0.94%) Git
3 11 (0.51%) Jenkins
4 10 (0.47%) GitLab
5 5 (0.23%) Bitbucket
6 4 (0.19%) SonarQube
7 3 (0.14%) Selenium
8 2 (0.094%) Axure RP
8 2 (0.094%) Hudson
8 2 (0.094%) Subversion
8 2 (0.094%) Visual Studio
8 2 (0.094%) Zephyr
9 1 (0.047%) Appium
9 1 (0.047%) CircleCI
9 1 (0.047%) Claude Code
9 1 (0.047%) git-flow
9 1 (0.047%) IBM UrbanCode
9 1 (0.047%) minitest
9 1 (0.047%) ScriptRunner
9 1 (0.047%) Travis CI
General
1 981 (45.86%) Social Skills
2 792 (37.03%) Finance
3 356 (16.64%) Analytical Skills
4 210 (9.82%) Organisational Skills
5 201 (9.40%) Public Sector
6 163 (7.62%) Banking
7 114 (5.33%) Retail
8 108 (5.05%) Marketing
9 84 (3.93%) Legal
10 79 (3.69%) Influencing Skills
11 77 (3.60%) Manufacturing
12 60 (2.81%) Telecoms
13 50 (2.34%) Presentation Skills
14 39 (1.82%) Investment Banking
15 35 (1.64%) Financial Institution
16 33 (1.54%) Local Government
17 31 (1.45%) Documentation Skills
18 28 (1.31%) Inclusion and Diversity
18 28 (1.31%) Pharmaceutical
19 24 (1.12%) Front Office
Job Titles
1 843 (39.41%) Project Manager
2 248 (11.59%) Analyst
3 199 (9.30%) Senior
4 171 (7.99%) Lead
5 137 (6.40%) Senior Manager
6 128 (5.98%) Business Analyst
7 118 (5.52%) Senior Project Manager
8 108 (5.05%) IT Manager
9 96 (4.49%) IT Project Manager
10 79 (3.69%) Programme Manager
11 71 (3.32%) Consultant
12 66 (3.09%) Technical Manager
13 64 (2.99%) Delivery Manager
14 57 (2.66%) Architect
14 57 (2.66%) Project Officer
15 55 (2.57%) Infrastructure Manager
16 48 (2.24%) Technical Project Manager
17 43 (2.01%) Change Manager
17 43 (2.01%) Coordinator
17 43 (2.01%) Infrastructure Project Manager
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 25 (1.17%) Middleware
2 24 (1.12%) REST
3 20 (0.94%) Oracle Fusion
4 16 (0.75%) SOAP
5 15 (0.70%) Web Services
6 14 (0.65%) HTML
7 13 (0.61%) OAuth
8 12 (0.56%) CSS
9 10 (0.47%) EDI
9 10 (0.47%) VML
10 9 (0.42%) .NET
10 9 (0.42%) RESTful
10 9 (0.42%) XML
11 8 (0.37%) JSON
11 8 (0.37%) SailPoint
11 8 (0.37%) SAML
12 7 (0.33%) ADO
12 7 (0.33%) AngularJS
12 7 (0.33%) OpenID
13 6 (0.28%) OAuth2
Miscellaneous
1 119 (5.56%) Management Information System
2 100 (4.68%) Onboarding
3 76 (3.55%) PMI
4 73 (3.41%) Data Centre
5 67 (3.13%) Data Protection Act
6 63 (2.95%) Product Ownership
7 53 (2.48%) Virtual Team
8 44 (2.06%) Self-Motivation
9 36 (1.68%) Legacy Systems
10 24 (1.12%) Operational Technology
11 23 (1.08%) NHS
12 22 (1.03%) CMDB
13 21 (0.98%) Analytical Mindset
13 21 (0.98%) Data Structures
14 19 (0.89%) Life Science
15 18 (0.84%) Enterprise Software
16 17 (0.79%) Social Media
17 16 (0.75%) EPoS
17 16 (0.75%) Web Conferencing
18 14 (0.65%) Public Cloud
Operating Systems
1 50 (2.34%) Windows
2 27 (1.26%) Linux
3 13 (0.61%) Windows Server
4 10 (0.47%) Unix
5 8 (0.37%) Windows 10
6 5 (0.23%) zOS
7 3 (0.14%) Solaris
7 3 (0.14%) Windows Server 2019
8 2 (0.094%) AIX
8 2 (0.094%) Apple iOS
8 2 (0.094%) Mac OS X
8 2 (0.094%) Ubuntu
8 2 (0.094%) Windows 7
8 2 (0.094%) Windows Server 2016
9 1 (0.047%) Android
9 1 (0.047%) FreeRTOS
9 1 (0.047%) Windows Server 2012
Processes & Methodologies
1 782 (36.56%) Agile
2 719 (33.61%) Stakeholder Management
3 551 (25.76%) Project Delivery
4 461 (21.55%) Problem-Solving
5 423 (19.78%) PRINCE2
6 346 (16.18%) Stakeholder Engagement
7 325 (15.19%) Change Management
8 324 (15.15%) Continuous Improvement
9 322 (15.05%) Migration
10 259 (12.11%) Decision-Making
11 252 (11.78%) Waterfall
12 248 (11.59%) Risk Management
13 201 (9.40%) Scrum
14 188 (8.79%) Budget Management
15 184 (8.60%) ERP
16 153 (7.15%) Roadmaps
17 147 (6.87%) DevOps
18 144 (6.73%) Project Planning
19 142 (6.64%) AI
20 138 (6.45%) Analytics
Programming Languages
1 91 (4.25%) SQL
2 46 (2.15%) Python
3 20 (0.94%) Java
4 19 (0.89%) JavaScript
5 12 (0.56%) VBA
6 11 (0.51%) C#
7 10 (0.47%) C++
8 9 (0.42%) ABAP
9 8 (0.37%) C
9 8 (0.37%) PowerShell
10 6 (0.28%) TypeScript
11 5 (0.23%) PL/SQL
11 5 (0.23%) R
12 4 (0.19%) Ada
12 4 (0.19%) Perl
12 4 (0.19%) T-SQL
13 3 (0.14%) Google Apps Script
13 3 (0.14%) JCL
13 3 (0.14%) Shell Script
13 3 (0.14%) SOQL
Qualifications
1 356 (16.64%) Security Cleared
2 345 (16.13%) Degree
3 306 (14.31%) PMP
4 280 (13.09%) PMI Certification
5 260 (12.16%) SC Cleared
6 76 (3.55%) DV Cleared
7 52 (2.43%) Master's Degree
8 48 (2.24%) PRINCE2 Practitioner
9 42 (1.96%) BPSS Clearance
10 39 (1.82%) APMP
11 30 (1.40%) ACCA
11 30 (1.40%) CIMA
12 28 (1.31%) Computer Science Degree
13 24 (1.12%) CISSP
14 23 (1.08%) MBA
15 21 (0.98%) CISM
16 19 (0.89%) PRINCE2 Certification
17 17 (0.79%) CBAP
18 12 (0.56%) APMG
18 12 (0.56%) IIBA
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 260 (12.16%) PMO
2 147 (6.87%) QA
3 76 (3.55%) Data Quality
4 54 (2.52%) GDPR
5 47 (2.20%) ISO/IEC 27001
6 33 (1.54%) NIST
6 33 (1.54%) SLA
7 18 (0.84%) Accessibility
8 14 (0.65%) GRC
9 11 (0.51%) Basel III
10 10 (0.47%) ISO 9001
11 9 (0.42%) EMIR
11 9 (0.42%) MiFID
11 9 (0.42%) Sarbanes-Oxley
12 8 (0.37%) PCI DSS
13 7 (0.33%) Disclosure Scotland
13 7 (0.33%) GMP
14 6 (0.28%) Actionable Recommendations
14 6 (0.28%) Cyber Essentials
14 6 (0.28%) SOC 2
System Software
1 31 (1.45%) Active Directory
2 9 (0.42%) VMware Infrastructure
3 8 (0.37%) Docker
4 5 (0.23%) RACF
5 3 (0.14%) NFS
5 3 (0.14%) Time Sharing Option
5 3 (0.14%) VMware ESXi
6 2 (0.094%) Virtual Desktop
6 2 (0.094%) Virtual Machines
7 1 (0.047%) Hyper-V
7 1 (0.047%) Microsoft App-V
7 1 (0.047%) PowerHA
7 1 (0.047%) Sendmail
7 1 (0.047%) VMware NSX
7 1 (0.047%) vSphere
Systems Management
1 15 (0.70%) Single Sign-On
2 11 (0.51%) Ansible
2 11 (0.51%) Kubernetes
3 9 (0.42%) Microsoft Intune
4 5 (0.23%) RSA Archer
4 5 (0.23%) Tivoli Storage Manager
5 4 (0.19%) logstash
6 3 (0.14%) FortiGate
6 3 (0.14%) Kibana
6 3 (0.14%) SCCM
6 3 (0.14%) Terraform
6 3 (0.14%) vCenter Server
7 2 (0.094%) Grafana
7 2 (0.094%) SCOM
8 1 (0.047%) Active Directory Federation Services
8 1 (0.047%) Docker Swarm
8 1 (0.047%) Prometheus
8 1 (0.047%) Puppet
8 1 (0.047%) vRealize
8 1 (0.047%) ZABBIX
Vendors
1 308 (14.40%) Microsoft
2 199 (9.30%) SAP
3 119 (5.56%) ServiceNow
4 73 (3.41%) Oracle
5 57 (2.66%) Salesforce
6 42 (1.96%) Google
7 32 (1.50%) Adobe
8 29 (1.36%) Workday
9 28 (1.31%) Cisco
10 21 (0.98%) Atlassian
11 20 (0.94%) Ariba
11 20 (0.94%) Databricks
12 18 (0.84%) VMware
13 17 (0.79%) CyberArk
14 14 (0.65%) Sage
14 14 (0.65%) Sitecore
15 13 (0.61%) NEC
16 11 (0.51%) IBM
17 10 (0.47%) IFS
18 9 (0.42%) Planview