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

6 months to
28 Apr 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 43 23 21
Rank change year-on-year -20 -2 +2
Contract jobs citing Project Management 2,153 2,322 3,425
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 4.58% 7.91% 7.91%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 5.42% 8.71% 9.16%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,353 1,386 2,115
10th Percentile £325 £300 £313
25th Percentile £413 £405 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £510 £500 £525
Median % change year-on-year +2.00% -4.76% -
75th Percentile £618 £600 £625
90th Percentile £725 £700 £725
UK excluding London median daily rate £500 £475 £500
% change year-on-year +5.26% -5.00% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 118 121 264
10th Percentile £16.18 £22.27 £18.35
25th Percentile £21.00 £31.25 £26.60
Median hourly rate £39.25 £44.50 £38.12
Median % change year-on-year -11.80% +16.74% -22.20%
75th Percentile £57.50 £63.75 £49.00
90th Percentile £73.75 £75.00 £61.25
UK excluding London median hourly rate £40.00 £54.76 £38.12
% change year-on-year -26.95% +43.64% -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 39,735 26,655 37,382
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 84.58% 90.81% 86.33%
Number of daily rates quoted 25,044 17,231 24,097
10th Percentile £319 £306 £300
25th Percentile £413 £413 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £523 £525
Median % change year-on-year -4.40% -0.38% -4.55%
75th Percentile £613 £631 £638
90th Percentile £725 £744 £750
UK excluding London median daily rate £485 £485 £500
% change year-on-year - -3.00% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 2,400 1,068 2,424
10th Percentile £14.96 £14.84 £12.75
25th Percentile £19.98 £18.51 £16.00
Median hourly rate £40.25 £29.15 £35.00
Median % change year-on-year +38.08% -16.71% -6.27%
75th Percentile £65.60 £62.24 £59.44
90th Percentile £78.75 £75.00 £72.50
UK excluding London median hourly rate £42.00 £28.00 £35.98
% change year-on-year +50.00% -22.17% -0.07%

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 April 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 April 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 April 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 1,901 £525 +5.00% 1,173
UK excluding London -23 1,086 £500 +5.26% 966
London -15 891 £550 +4.76% 418
Work from Home -17 646 £501 +0.20% 440
North of England -20 291 £474 -3.27% 224
South East -15 277 £525 +5.00% 302
Midlands -29 199 £496 +5.76% 155
North West -10 166 £463 -2.63% 119
South West -15 143 £450 -4.05% 106
West Midlands -33 133 £500 - 88
Yorkshire -34 117 £480 +1.05% 76
Scotland -25 83 £450 - 41
East of England -26 75 £510 -1.73% 126
East Midlands -17 68 £402 -1.83% 65
Wales +4 24 £293 -40.66% 28
Northern Ireland -1 15 £488 +21.88% 19
North East -21 12 £430 -21.82% 36

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
1 160 (7.43%) Confluence
2 81 (3.76%) SharePoint
3 23 (1.07%) CMS
4 14 (0.65%) Microsoft Exchange
5 9 (0.42%) Oracle Workflow
6 7 (0.33%) Apache
7 6 (0.28%) nginx
8 4 (0.19%) Oracle Self-Service HR
9 3 (0.14%) Anypoint
9 3 (0.14%) Apache Airflow
9 3 (0.14%) Moodle
9 3 (0.14%) MS Project Server
10 2 (0.093%) Adobe Experience Manager
10 2 (0.093%) SAS
10 2 (0.093%) Umbraco
10 2 (0.093%) WordPress
11 1 (0.046%) Apache Spark
11 1 (0.046%) Apache Superset
11 1 (0.046%) Oracle SOA Suite
11 1 (0.046%) Orchard CMS
Applications
1 213 (9.89%) Microsoft Project
2 187 (8.69%) Microsoft Excel
3 147 (6.83%) Microsoft Office
4 114 (5.29%) Microsoft PowerPoint
5 45 (2.09%) MS Visio
6 19 (0.88%) Spreadsheet
7 17 (0.79%) 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
11 3 (0.14%) Adobe XD
11 3 (0.14%) InVision
11 3 (0.14%) Sketch
12 2 (0.093%) Adobe Illustrator
12 2 (0.093%) AutoCAD
12 2 (0.093%) InDesign
12 2 (0.093%) Windchill
13 1 (0.046%) Camtasia
13 1 (0.046%) Oracle Smart View
Business Applications
1 81 (3.76%) SAP S/4HANA
2 17 (0.79%) Primavera
3 12 (0.56%) Loan IQ
3 12 (0.56%) Oracle EBS
4 11 (0.51%) Oracle ERP
4 11 (0.51%) Oracle Payables
5 10 (0.46%) Dynamics CRM
5 10 (0.46%) Oracle Subledger Accounting
6 9 (0.42%) Oracle Assets
6 9 (0.42%) Shopify
7 8 (0.37%) Oracle Procure-to-Pay
7 8 (0.37%) SAP Payroll
8 6 (0.28%) Oracle General Ledger
8 6 (0.28%) Oracle Receivables
8 6 (0.28%) SAP CO
8 6 (0.28%) SAP FI
8 6 (0.28%) SAP MM
8 6 (0.28%) SAP PM
8 6 (0.28%) Teamcenter
9 5 (0.23%) NetSuite
Cloud Services
1 158 (7.34%) Azure
2 92 (4.27%) Power Platform
3 91 (4.23%) AWS
4 81 (3.76%) SaaS
5 73 (3.39%) Microsoft 365
6 50 (2.32%) Azure DevOps
7 29 (1.35%) GCP
8 26 (1.21%) Smartsheet
9 25 (1.16%) Dynamics 365
9 25 (1.16%) Google Workspace
10 24 (1.11%) Asana
11 15 (0.70%) Microsoft Copilot
11 15 (0.70%) OpenShift
12 12 (0.56%) Entra ID
12 12 (0.56%) Snowflake
13 11 (0.51%) Cloud Computing
13 11 (0.51%) GitHub
13 11 (0.51%) OCI
14 10 (0.46%) Azure Synapse Analytics
14 10 (0.46%) PaaS
Communications & Networking
1 29 (1.35%) WAN
2 27 (1.25%) Network Security
3 26 (1.21%) Firewall
4 18 (0.84%) DNS
4 18 (0.84%) LAN
4 18 (0.84%) SD-WAN
5 16 (0.74%) TCP/IP
5 16 (0.74%) Wi-Fi
6 15 (0.70%) MPLS
7 14 (0.65%) Internet
7 14 (0.65%) Structured Cabling
8 12 (0.56%) VPN
9 9 (0.42%) DHCP
10 8 (0.37%) BGP
11 6 (0.28%) BIG-IP
11 6 (0.28%) Intranet
11 6 (0.28%) IPsec
11 6 (0.28%) SSL
12 5 (0.23%) Kerberos
12 5 (0.23%) SAN
Database & Business Intelligence
1 88 (4.09%) Power BI
2 23 (1.07%) Tableau
3 20 (0.93%) Metadata
4 19 (0.88%) Data Warehouse
5 14 (0.65%) SQL Server
6 13 (0.60%) Data Lake
7 11 (0.51%) Electronic Patient Records
7 11 (0.51%) Oracle Reports
8 8 (0.37%) Relational Database
9 6 (0.28%) SAP HANA
10 4 (0.19%) Big Data
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%) Elasticsearch
11 3 (0.14%) GIS
12 2 (0.093%) DataStage
Development Applications
1 323 (15.00%) JIRA
2 20 (0.93%) Git
3 10 (0.46%) Jenkins
4 9 (0.42%) GitLab
5 5 (0.23%) Bitbucket
6 4 (0.19%) SonarQube
7 3 (0.14%) Selenium
8 2 (0.093%) Axure RP
8 2 (0.093%) Hudson
8 2 (0.093%) Visual Studio
9 1 (0.046%) Artifactory
9 1 (0.046%) Capybara
9 1 (0.046%) CircleCI
9 1 (0.046%) Gradle
9 1 (0.046%) IBM UrbanCode
9 1 (0.046%) minitest
9 1 (0.046%) Rational DOORS
9 1 (0.046%) Rational Rhapsody
9 1 (0.046%) SoapUI
9 1 (0.046%) Travis CI
General
1 997 (46.31%) Social Skills
2 805 (37.39%) Finance
3 358 (16.63%) Analytical Skills
4 210 (9.75%) Organisational Skills
5 208 (9.66%) Public Sector
6 166 (7.71%) Banking
7 116 (5.39%) Retail
8 110 (5.11%) Marketing
9 84 (3.90%) Legal
10 80 (3.72%) Influencing Skills
11 77 (3.58%) Manufacturing
12 63 (2.93%) Telecoms
13 51 (2.37%) Presentation Skills
14 41 (1.90%) Investment Banking
15 34 (1.58%) Financial Institution
15 34 (1.58%) Local Government
16 32 (1.49%) Documentation Skills
17 28 (1.30%) Inclusion and Diversity
18 27 (1.25%) Pharmaceutical
19 23 (1.07%) Front Office
Job Titles
1 843 (39.15%) Project Manager
2 247 (11.47%) Analyst
3 199 (9.24%) Senior
4 176 (8.17%) Lead
5 137 (6.36%) Senior Manager
6 127 (5.90%) Business Analyst
7 118 (5.48%) Senior Project Manager
8 106 (4.92%) IT Manager
9 95 (4.41%) IT Project Manager
10 79 (3.67%) Programme Manager
11 71 (3.30%) Consultant
12 66 (3.07%) Technical Manager
13 65 (3.02%) Delivery Manager
14 58 (2.69%) Project Officer
15 55 (2.55%) Architect
15 55 (2.55%) Infrastructure Manager
16 47 (2.18%) Technical Project Manager
17 44 (2.04%) Developer
18 43 (2.00%) Change Manager
18 43 (2.00%) Infrastructure Project Manager
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 25 (1.16%) Middleware
2 23 (1.07%) REST
3 21 (0.98%) Oracle Fusion
4 15 (0.70%) HTML
4 15 (0.70%) Web Services
5 14 (0.65%) SOAP
6 13 (0.60%) CSS
7 12 (0.56%) OAuth
8 10 (0.46%) .NET
8 10 (0.46%) EDI
9 9 (0.42%) VML
9 9 (0.42%) XML
10 8 (0.37%) RESTful
10 8 (0.37%) SailPoint
10 8 (0.37%) SAML
11 7 (0.33%) ADO
11 7 (0.33%) AngularJS
11 7 (0.33%) React
12 6 (0.28%) JSON
12 6 (0.28%) OpenID
Miscellaneous
1 120 (5.57%) Management Information System
2 102 (4.74%) Onboarding
3 78 (3.62%) PMI
4 70 (3.25%) Data Centre
5 69 (3.20%) Data Protection Act
6 63 (2.93%) Product Ownership
7 55 (2.55%) Virtual Team
8 45 (2.09%) Self-Motivation
9 37 (1.72%) Legacy Systems
10 27 (1.25%) CMDB
11 24 (1.11%) NHS
12 23 (1.07%) Operational Technology
13 21 (0.98%) Analytical Mindset
13 21 (0.98%) Data Structures
14 19 (0.88%) Enterprise Software
15 18 (0.84%) Life Science
16 17 (0.79%) EPoS
16 17 (0.79%) Web Conferencing
17 16 (0.74%) Social Media
18 15 (0.70%) Cloud Native
Operating Systems
1 49 (2.28%) Windows
2 28 (1.30%) Linux
3 12 (0.56%) Windows Server
4 9 (0.42%) Unix
5 8 (0.37%) Windows 10
6 4 (0.19%) zOS
7 3 (0.14%) Solaris
8 2 (0.093%) AIX
8 2 (0.093%) Apple iOS
8 2 (0.093%) Mac OS X
8 2 (0.093%) Ubuntu
8 2 (0.093%) Windows 7
8 2 (0.093%) Windows Server 2019
9 1 (0.046%) Android
9 1 (0.046%) FreeRTOS
9 1 (0.046%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
9 1 (0.046%) Windows Server 2012
9 1 (0.046%) Windows Server 2016
Processes & Methodologies
1 795 (36.93%) Agile
2 717 (33.30%) Stakeholder Management
3 556 (25.82%) Project Delivery
4 467 (21.69%) Problem-Solving
5 432 (20.07%) PRINCE2
6 346 (16.07%) Stakeholder Engagement
7 340 (15.79%) Change Management
8 327 (15.19%) Continuous Improvement
9 319 (14.82%) Migration
10 257 (11.94%) Decision-Making
11 251 (11.66%) Risk Management
12 250 (11.61%) Waterfall
13 207 (9.61%) Scrum
14 192 (8.92%) Budget Management
15 186 (8.64%) ERP
16 157 (7.29%) DevOps
17 150 (6.97%) Roadmaps
18 145 (6.73%) AI
18 145 (6.73%) Project Planning
19 140 (6.50%) Data Migration
Programming Languages
1 90 (4.18%) SQL
2 42 (1.95%) Python
3 19 (0.88%) Java
3 19 (0.88%) JavaScript
4 12 (0.56%) ABAP
4 12 (0.56%) C#
5 11 (0.51%) VBA
6 9 (0.42%) C++
7 7 (0.33%) PowerShell
8 6 (0.28%) C
8 6 (0.28%) TypeScript
9 5 (0.23%) Perl
9 5 (0.23%) PL/SQL
9 5 (0.23%) R
10 4 (0.19%) T-SQL
11 3 (0.14%) Ada
11 3 (0.14%) Google Apps Script
11 3 (0.14%) SOQL
12 2 (0.093%) Apex Code
12 2 (0.093%) Korn
Qualifications
1 355 (16.49%) Security Cleared
2 348 (16.16%) Degree
3 309 (14.35%) PMP
4 286 (13.28%) PMI Certification
5 262 (12.17%) SC Cleared
6 72 (3.34%) DV Cleared
7 52 (2.42%) PRINCE2 Practitioner
8 51 (2.37%) Master's Degree
9 46 (2.14%) BPSS Clearance
10 40 (1.86%) APMP
11 30 (1.39%) ACCA
11 30 (1.39%) CIMA
11 30 (1.39%) Computer Science Degree
12 24 (1.11%) MBA
13 23 (1.07%) CISSP
14 22 (1.02%) PRINCE2 Certification
15 20 (0.93%) CISM
16 17 (0.79%) CBAP
17 12 (0.56%) APMG
17 12 (0.56%) IIBA
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 258 (11.98%) PMO
2 147 (6.83%) QA
3 75 (3.48%) Data Quality
4 55 (2.55%) GDPR
5 46 (2.14%) ISO/IEC 27001
6 33 (1.53%) SLA
7 32 (1.49%) NIST
8 19 (0.88%) Accessibility
9 15 (0.70%) GRC
10 11 (0.51%) Basel III
11 10 (0.46%) ISO 9001
12 9 (0.42%) Disclosure Scotland
12 9 (0.42%) EMIR
12 9 (0.42%) MiFID
12 9 (0.42%) Sarbanes-Oxley
13 8 (0.37%) PCI DSS
14 7 (0.33%) GMP
15 6 (0.28%) Actionable Recommendations
15 6 (0.28%) P3O
15 6 (0.28%) SOC 2
System Software
1 30 (1.39%) Active Directory
2 11 (0.51%) Docker
3 8 (0.37%) VMware Infrastructure
4 5 (0.23%) RACF
5 3 (0.14%) VMware ESXi
6 2 (0.093%) NFS
6 2 (0.093%) Time Sharing Option
6 2 (0.093%) Virtual Desktop
6 2 (0.093%) Virtual Machines
7 1 (0.046%) Hyper-V
7 1 (0.046%) Microsoft App-V
7 1 (0.046%) PowerHA
7 1 (0.046%) Sendmail
7 1 (0.046%) VMware NSX
7 1 (0.046%) vSphere
Systems Management
1 15 (0.70%) Single Sign-On
2 14 (0.65%) Kubernetes
3 10 (0.46%) Ansible
4 9 (0.42%) Microsoft Intune
5 8 (0.37%) Terraform
6 6 (0.28%) RSA Archer
7 4 (0.19%) Consul
7 4 (0.19%) logstash
7 4 (0.19%) Packer
7 4 (0.19%) Tivoli Storage Manager
8 3 (0.14%) FortiGate
8 3 (0.14%) Kibana
8 3 (0.14%) vCenter Server
9 2 (0.093%) Grafana
9 2 (0.093%) ITRS Geneos
9 2 (0.093%) SCCM
9 2 (0.093%) SCOM
9 2 (0.093%) ZABBIX
10 1 (0.046%) Progress Chef
10 1 (0.046%) Puppet
Vendors
1 310 (14.40%) Microsoft
2 201 (9.34%) SAP
3 123 (5.71%) ServiceNow
4 75 (3.48%) Oracle
5 60 (2.79%) Salesforce
6 42 (1.95%) Google
7 35 (1.63%) Adobe
8 29 (1.35%) Cisco
8 29 (1.35%) Workday
9 20 (0.93%) Ariba
9 20 (0.93%) Databricks
10 19 (0.88%) Atlassian
11 17 (0.79%) CyberArk
11 17 (0.79%) VMware
12 14 (0.65%) Sage
13 13 (0.60%) IBM
13 13 (0.60%) Sitecore
14 12 (0.56%) NEC
15 10 (0.46%) IFS
16 9 (0.42%) Palo Alto