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

6 months to
4 Oct 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 62 30 22
Rank change year-on-year -32 -8 0
Contract jobs citing Project Management 1,999 2,045 2,911
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 3.66% 6.16% 7.66%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 4.33% 6.80% 8.92%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,209 1,250 1,652
10th Percentile £308 £313 £300
25th Percentile £413 £406 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £513 £513 £521
Median % change year-on-year +0.10% -1.68% -0.71%
75th Percentile £619 £625 £613
90th Percentile £725 £726 £719
UK excluding London median daily rate £500 £475 £500
% change year-on-year +5.26% -5.00% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 128 124 138
10th Percentile £21.00 £20.24 £21.25
25th Percentile £30.90 £24.25 £26.68
Median hourly rate £49.00 £34.17 £35.00
Median % change year-on-year +43.40% -2.37% -17.65%
75th Percentile £64.31 £58.69 £53.75
90th Percentile £79.00 £65.00 £65.83
UK excluding London median hourly rate £54.12 £34.42 £35.00
% change year-on-year +57.22% -1.66% -17.65%

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 46,144 30,062 32,646
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 84.46% 90.58% 85.93%
Number of daily rates quoted 27,776 18,666 19,743
10th Percentile £325 £300 £308
25th Percentile £425 £404 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £500 £525
Median % change year-on-year +5.00% -4.76% -2.78%
75th Percentile £634 £625 £638
90th Percentile £736 £725 £750
UK excluding London median daily rate £500 £475 £500
% change year-on-year +5.26% -5.00% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 3,300 1,877 1,341
10th Percentile £13.65 £14.33 £15.00
25th Percentile £17.12 £17.30 £20.12
Median hourly rate £38.62 £25.15 £42.50
Median % change year-on-year +53.57% -40.82% -
75th Percentile £65.06 £43.75 £65.00
90th Percentile £77.50 £65.18 £74.44
UK excluding London median hourly rate £39.00 £22.32 £43.00
% change year-on-year +74.77% -48.10% +1.18%

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 4 October 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 4 October 2026.

Hourly rate histogram for Project Management in the UK

Project Management
Top 18 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 4 October 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 -30 1,753 £525 - 4,399
UK excluding London -36 944 £500 +5.26% 2,968
London -31 851 £550 - 2,033
Work from Home -19 620 £500 +1.63% 2,070
North of England -30 262 £473 -5.50% 605
South East -26 247 £500 - 734
North West -27 150 £495 +0.61% 318
Midlands -49 142 £550 +15.79% 424
South West -22 130 £475 +5.56% 280
Yorkshire -13 106 £465 -11.43% 205
West Midlands -57 92 £550 +11.79% 242
Scotland -31 78 £500 +11.11% 350
East of England -19 72 £510 -2.39% 289
East Midlands -16 50 £550 +22.22% 182
Wales -26 11 £475 +35.71% 168
Northern Ireland -13 9 £394 -28.41% 165
North East -41 8 £420 +3.07% 86
Channel Islands - 3 £600 - 1

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
1 128 (6.40%) SharePoint
2 98 (4.90%) Confluence
3 33 (1.65%) CMS
4 24 (1.20%) Microsoft Exchange
5 22 (1.10%) Adobe Experience Manager
6 8 (0.40%) Sitecore CMS
7 7 (0.35%) WebLogic
7 7 (0.35%) WebSphere
8 6 (0.30%) Apache
8 6 (0.30%) ArcGIS
8 6 (0.30%) JBoss
8 6 (0.30%) SAS
8 6 (0.30%) WordPress
9 5 (0.25%) Moodle
10 3 (0.15%) Apache Airflow
11 2 (0.10%) FactoryTalk
11 2 (0.10%) Oracle Workflow
11 2 (0.10%) WinCC
12 1 (0.050%) CICS
12 1 (0.050%) Tomcat
Applications
1 194 (9.70%) Microsoft Excel
2 167 (8.35%) Microsoft Project
3 156 (7.80%) Microsoft Office
4 117 (5.85%) Microsoft PowerPoint
5 38 (1.90%) MS Visio
6 22 (1.10%) Spreadsheet
7 13 (0.65%) Trello
8 9 (0.45%) Adobe Creative Suite
9 6 (0.30%) Windchill
10 4 (0.20%) Chatbot
10 4 (0.20%) Simulink
10 4 (0.20%) Stateflow
11 3 (0.15%) AutoCAD
11 3 (0.15%) Photoshop
12 2 (0.10%) Adobe Illustrator
12 2 (0.10%) Houdini
12 2 (0.10%) InDesign
12 2 (0.10%) NUKE
13 1 (0.050%) Navisworks
13 1 (0.050%) Notion
Business Applications
1 57 (2.85%) SAP S/4HANA
2 23 (1.15%) Primavera
3 13 (0.65%) Adobe Campaign
3 13 (0.65%) Magento
4 12 (0.60%) SAP PS
5 11 (0.55%) SAP CO
5 11 (0.55%) SAP FI
6 9 (0.45%) Dynamics CRM
6 9 (0.45%) SAP MM
7 8 (0.40%) NetSuite
8 7 (0.35%) NEC Housing
8 7 (0.35%) Oracle Receivables
8 7 (0.35%) Teamcenter
9 6 (0.30%) Oracle Payables
9 6 (0.30%) Remedy ITSM
9 6 (0.30%) SAP FI/CO
9 6 (0.30%) SAP SD
10 5 (0.25%) Oracle ERP
10 5 (0.25%) SAP PM
10 5 (0.25%) Workday HCM
Cloud Services
1 178 (8.90%) Azure
2 137 (6.85%) Power Platform
3 82 (4.10%) SaaS
4 81 (4.05%) Microsoft 365
5 71 (3.55%) Azure DevOps
6 66 (3.30%) AWS
7 36 (1.80%) Smartsheet
8 33 (1.65%) Google Workspace
9 29 (1.45%) Dynamics 365
10 27 (1.35%) Entra ID
11 26 (1.30%) GCP
12 18 (0.90%) Asana
13 17 (0.85%) PowerApps
14 16 (0.80%) GitHub
14 16 (0.80%) OneDrive
15 15 (0.75%) Microsoft Copilot
16 14 (0.70%) Power Automate
16 14 (0.70%) SuccessFactors
17 11 (0.55%) Snowflake
18 10 (0.50%) IaaS
Communications & Networking
1 37 (1.85%) Network Security
2 24 (1.20%) DNS
2 24 (1.20%) WAN
3 23 (1.15%) Firewall
4 20 (1.00%) LAN
5 18 (0.90%) TCP/IP
6 17 (0.85%) Structured Cabling
7 13 (0.65%) Wi-Fi
8 12 (0.60%) VPN
9 11 (0.55%) Intranet
9 11 (0.55%) Wireless
10 10 (0.50%) BGP
10 10 (0.50%) DHCP
11 9 (0.45%) Internet
11 9 (0.45%) Radio Access Network
12 8 (0.40%) 4G
12 8 (0.40%) 5G
12 8 (0.40%) LTE
12 8 (0.40%) VLAN
12 8 (0.40%) Wireshark
Database & Business Intelligence
1 124 (6.20%) Power BI
2 19 (0.95%) Data Warehouse
3 18 (0.90%) Metadata
4 16 (0.80%) Tableau
5 15 (0.75%) Data Lake
6 14 (0.70%) SQL Server
7 9 (0.45%) GIS
8 8 (0.40%) Power Query
9 7 (0.35%) Amazon RDS
10 6 (0.30%) Big Data
10 6 (0.30%) Relational Database
11 5 (0.25%) DynamoDB
11 5 (0.25%) Hadoop
11 5 (0.25%) Looker
11 5 (0.25%) Oracle Reports
11 5 (0.25%) Qlik Sense
12 4 (0.20%) Amazon Redshift
12 4 (0.20%) BigQuery
12 4 (0.20%) EDMS
13 3 (0.15%) SAP HANA
Development Applications
1 261 (13.06%) JIRA
2 30 (1.50%) Git
3 19 (0.95%) Jenkins
4 10 (0.50%) Rational DOORS
5 8 (0.40%) Subversion
6 7 (0.35%) Rational Rhapsody
7 4 (0.20%) Bitbucket
7 4 (0.20%) GitLab
8 3 (0.15%) Visual Studio
9 2 (0.10%) Selenium
9 2 (0.10%) Zephyr
10 1 (0.050%) Artifactory
10 1 (0.050%) Capybara
10 1 (0.050%) Gradle
10 1 (0.050%) Hudson
10 1 (0.050%) Maven
10 1 (0.050%) RSpec
10 1 (0.050%) Team Foundation Server
10 1 (0.050%) TestDirector
10 1 (0.050%) Toad
General
1 897 (44.87%) Social Skills
2 772 (38.62%) Finance
3 317 (15.86%) Analytical Skills
4 214 (10.71%) Organisational Skills
5 174 (8.70%) Public Sector
6 173 (8.65%) Banking
7 124 (6.20%) Marketing
8 112 (5.60%) Retail
9 102 (5.10%) Influencing Skills
10 83 (4.15%) Manufacturing
11 70 (3.50%) Legal
12 65 (3.25%) Telecoms
13 59 (2.95%) Presentation Skills
14 39 (1.95%) Aerospace
15 35 (1.75%) Investment Banking
16 30 (1.50%) Local Government
17 29 (1.45%) Inclusion and Diversity
18 27 (1.35%) Pharmaceutical
19 26 (1.30%) Front Office
20 24 (1.20%) Aviation
Job Titles
1 801 (40.07%) Project Manager
2 181 (9.05%) Senior
3 170 (8.50%) Lead
4 137 (6.85%) Senior Manager
5 124 (6.20%) Analyst
6 118 (5.90%) IT Manager
7 100 (5.00%) Senior Project Manager
8 92 (4.60%) Programme Manager
9 90 (4.50%) IT Project Manager
10 83 (4.15%) Delivery Manager
11 78 (3.90%) Technical Manager
12 73 (3.65%) Consultant
13 68 (3.40%) Business Analyst
14 59 (2.95%) Technical Project Manager
15 44 (2.20%) Coordinator
15 44 (2.20%) Project Officer
16 40 (2.00%) Infrastructure Manager
17 39 (1.95%) SC Cleared Project Manager
18 38 (1.90%) Project Coordinator
18 38 (1.90%) Transformation Manager
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 22 (1.10%) Middleware
2 17 (0.85%) ADO
3 13 (0.65%) Oracle Fusion
4 12 (0.60%) HTML
5 11 (0.55%) REST
6 10 (0.50%) OAuth
6 10 (0.50%) VML
7 9 (0.45%) .NET
7 9 (0.45%) pytest
7 9 (0.45%) Web Services
8 8 (0.40%) JSON
8 8 (0.40%) Terraform
9 7 (0.35%) React
9 7 (0.35%) SOAP
10 6 (0.30%) FastAPI
11 5 (0.25%) CSS
11 5 (0.25%) DAO
11 5 (0.25%) XML
12 4 (0.20%) EDI
12 4 (0.20%) Lightning Web Components
Miscellaneous
1 117 (5.85%) Management Information System
2 98 (4.90%) Onboarding
3 93 (4.65%) Product Ownership
4 63 (3.15%) Data Centre
5 50 (2.50%) Data Protection Act
6 47 (2.35%) Virtual Team
7 36 (1.80%) PMI
8 31 (1.55%) Operational Technology
9 30 (1.50%) Enterprise Software
10 27 (1.35%) Legacy Systems
10 27 (1.35%) Life Science
11 25 (1.25%) FMCG
12 24 (1.20%) Social Media
13 23 (1.15%) AI Agents
14 21 (1.05%) Self-Motivation
15 20 (1.00%) Credit Risk
16 18 (0.90%) Analytical Mindset
17 17 (0.85%) NHS
18 16 (0.80%) Fixed Income
18 16 (0.80%) Foreign Exchange (FX)
Operating Systems
1 58 (2.90%) Linux
2 51 (2.55%) Windows
3 23 (1.15%) Windows Server
4 22 (1.10%) Unix
5 10 (0.50%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
6 6 (0.30%) FreeRTOS
6 6 (0.30%) zOS
7 5 (0.25%) Apple iOS
7 5 (0.25%) Windows 10
8 4 (0.20%) Android
9 2 (0.10%) Windows Server 2019
10 1 (0.050%) AIX
10 1 (0.050%) Mac OS
10 1 (0.050%) Mac OS X
10 1 (0.050%) Rocky
10 1 (0.050%) Solaris
10 1 (0.050%) Windows 7
10 1 (0.050%) Windows Server 2003
10 1 (0.050%) Windows Server 2012
10 1 (0.050%) Windows Server 2016
Processes & Methodologies
1 917 (45.87%) Stakeholder Management
2 758 (37.92%) Agile
3 595 (29.76%) Project Delivery
4 453 (22.66%) PRINCE2
5 347 (17.36%) Problem-Solving
6 334 (16.71%) Continuous Improvement
7 316 (15.81%) Change Management
8 301 (15.06%) Stakeholder Engagement
9 283 (14.16%) Decision-Making
10 267 (13.36%) Migration
11 263 (13.16%) Risk Management
12 240 (12.01%) Waterfall
13 223 (11.16%) AI
14 212 (10.61%) Scrum
15 210 (10.51%) Project Governance
16 172 (8.60%) Roadmaps
17 170 (8.50%) Project Planning
18 166 (8.30%) Programme Management
19 164 (8.20%) Change Control
20 145 (7.25%) Analytics
Programming Languages
1 77 (3.85%) SQL
2 68 (3.40%) Python
3 15 (0.75%) Java
4 13 (0.65%) C++
5 12 (0.60%) JavaScript
5 12 (0.60%) VBA
6 10 (0.50%) Bash
7 9 (0.45%) Ada
7 9 (0.45%) C#
8 8 (0.40%) Korn
8 8 (0.40%) PowerShell
9 6 (0.30%) C
9 6 (0.30%) TypeScript
10 5 (0.25%) MATLAB
10 5 (0.25%) Shell Script
11 4 (0.20%) Apex Code
12 3 (0.15%) ABAP
12 3 (0.15%) JCL
12 3 (0.15%) REXX
13 2 (0.10%) Ruby
Qualifications
1 319 (15.96%) Security Cleared
2 305 (15.26%) Degree
3 291 (14.56%) PMP
4 253 (12.66%) PMI Certification
5 222 (11.11%) SC Cleared
6 77 (3.85%) PRINCE2 Practitioner
7 76 (3.80%) DV Cleared
8 35 (1.75%) BPSS Clearance
9 20 (1.00%) Master's Degree
10 19 (0.95%) PRINCE2 Certification
11 16 (0.80%) ISTQB
11 16 (0.80%) ITIL Certification
12 15 (0.75%) Azure Certification
13 13 (0.65%) ACCA
13 13 (0.65%) APMP
13 13 (0.65%) CIMA
13 13 (0.65%) CISSP
13 13 (0.65%) DBS Check
14 10 (0.50%) Cisco Certification
14 10 (0.50%) CISM
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 256 (12.81%) PMO
2 91 (4.55%) QA
3 54 (2.70%) Data Quality
4 31 (1.55%) GDPR
5 26 (1.30%) GRC
6 23 (1.15%) Accessibility
7 21 (1.05%) SLA
8 16 (0.80%) ISO/IEC 27001
9 14 (0.70%) NIST
10 10 (0.50%) P3O
11 7 (0.35%) Cyber Essentials
11 7 (0.35%) GMP
12 6 (0.30%) FINREP
12 6 (0.30%) Sarbanes-Oxley
13 5 (0.25%) COREP
13 5 (0.25%) ISO 9001
13 5 (0.25%) WCAG
14 4 (0.20%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
14 4 (0.20%) Disclosure Scotland
14 4 (0.20%) EMIR
System Software
1 34 (1.70%) Active Directory
2 30 (1.50%) VMware Infrastructure
3 12 (0.60%) vSphere
4 8 (0.40%) Virtual Desktop
4 8 (0.40%) Virtual Machines
5 7 (0.35%) VMware ESXi
6 5 (0.25%) Hyper-V
6 5 (0.25%) VMware NSX
7 3 (0.15%) NFS
7 3 (0.15%) Time Sharing Option
8 2 (0.10%) Docker
8 2 (0.10%) Firmware
9 1 (0.050%) ACF2
9 1 (0.050%) IAG
9 1 (0.050%) RACF
9 1 (0.050%) Virtual Servers
Systems Management
1 18 (0.90%) Ansible
2 10 (0.50%) Single Sign-On
3 8 (0.40%) Microsoft Intune
4 7 (0.35%) Puppet
5 5 (0.25%) Failover Clustering
5 5 (0.25%) Red Hat Satellite
5 5 (0.25%) Tivoli Storage Manager
6 4 (0.20%) ITRS Geneos
6 4 (0.20%) Kubernetes
7 3 (0.15%) SCCM
8 2 (0.10%) BMC PATROL
8 2 (0.10%) BMC Performance Manager
8 2 (0.10%) Perfmon
8 2 (0.10%) ZABBIX
9 1 (0.050%) HP Quality Center
9 1 (0.050%) Nagios
9 1 (0.050%) Nessus
9 1 (0.050%) OMEGAMON
9 1 (0.050%) Progress Chef
9 1 (0.050%) Tivoli
Vendors
1 362 (18.11%) Microsoft
2 161 (8.05%) SAP
3 88 (4.40%) ServiceNow
4 76 (3.80%) Oracle
5 51 (2.55%) Salesforce
6 46 (2.30%) Google
7 43 (2.15%) VMware
8 42 (2.10%) Adobe
9 28 (1.40%) Cisco
10 21 (1.05%) Ariba
10 21 (1.05%) Atlassian
11 20 (1.00%) IBM
12 19 (0.95%) NEC
12 19 (0.95%) Workday
13 18 (0.90%) Databricks
13 18 (0.90%) Sitecore
14 15 (0.75%) Planview
15 12 (0.60%) Alteryx
16 11 (0.55%) JD Edwards
17 9 (0.45%) Murex