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

6 months to
27 May 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 45 24 21
Rank change year-on-year -21 -3 +2
Contract jobs citing Project Management 2,076 2,211 3,302
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 4.26% 7.74% 7.74%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 5.04% 8.50% 9.02%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,291 1,356 2,011
10th Percentile £322 £300 £311
25th Percentile £413 £406 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £514 £500 £523
Median % change year-on-year +2.80% -4.47% -0.31%
75th Percentile £623 £600 £614
90th Percentile £725 £719 £713
UK excluding London median daily rate £500 £473 £500
% change year-on-year +5.70% -5.40% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 108 101 279
10th Percentile £14.64 £21.39 £18.35
25th Percentile £21.00 £31.76 £26.54
Median hourly rate £35.77 £46.30 £38.12
Median % change year-on-year -22.75% +21.46% -22.20%
75th Percentile £57.50 £63.75 £48.88
90th Percentile £73.49 £75.00 £61.30
UK excluding London median hourly rate £35.53 £52.99 £38.12
% change year-on-year -32.95% +39.01% -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 41,181 26,010 36,599
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 84.50% 91.03% 85.78%
Number of daily rates quoted 25,765 16,696 23,578
10th Percentile £325 £303 £300
25th Percentile £413 £409 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £512 £513 £525
Median % change year-on-year -0.14% -2.38% -4.55%
75th Percentile £613 £625 £638
90th Percentile £725 £738 £750
UK excluding London median daily rate £500 £475 £500
% change year-on-year +5.26% -5.00% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 2,462 1,066 2,486
10th Percentile £14.68 £14.20 £12.75
25th Percentile £19.73 £17.92 £16.00
Median hourly rate £41.94 £27.45 £36.02
Median % change year-on-year +52.79% -23.80% -2.64%
75th Percentile £67.50 £57.50 £60.00
90th Percentile £80.05 £75.00 £72.50
UK excluding London median hourly rate £42.69 £25.15 £37.75
% change year-on-year +69.72% -33.38% +7.86%

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 27 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 27 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 27 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 -19 1,860 £525 +2.44% 1,251
UK excluding London -23 1,045 £500 +5.70% 900
London -19 874 £550 +1.85% 500
Work from Home -19 612 £500 +1.01% 491
North of England -23 291 £475 - 224
South East -14 266 £520 +8.79% 243
Midlands -31 188 £492 +7.07% 149
North West -14 162 £468 -1.58% 127
South West -15 143 £450 -10.00% 100
West Midlands -38 129 £502 +1.83% 98
Yorkshire -25 122 £480 +1.05% 75
East of England -13 79 £518 +1.57% 107
Scotland -34 69 £475 +6.26% 52
East Midlands -14 61 £390 -4.65% 51
Northern Ireland -5 16 £463 -11.90% 28
Wales -10 15 £213 -56.96% 18
North East -23 12 £410 -20.00% 25

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
1 139 (6.70%) Confluence
2 96 (4.62%) SharePoint
3 19 (0.92%) CMS
4 17 (0.82%) Microsoft Exchange
5 9 (0.43%) Oracle Workflow
6 8 (0.39%) Apache
7 6 (0.29%) Adobe Experience Manager
8 5 (0.24%) WordPress
9 4 (0.19%) Apache Airflow
9 4 (0.19%) Oracle Self-Service HR
10 3 (0.14%) Anypoint
10 3 (0.14%) Moodle
10 3 (0.14%) MS Project Server
11 2 (0.096%) IIS
11 2 (0.096%) SAS
12 1 (0.048%) IBM HTTP Server
12 1 (0.048%) JBoss
12 1 (0.048%) Tomcat
12 1 (0.048%) Umbraco
12 1 (0.048%) WebSphere
Applications
1 189 (9.10%) Microsoft Project
2 168 (8.09%) Microsoft Excel
3 138 (6.65%) Microsoft Office
4 108 (5.20%) Microsoft PowerPoint
5 46 (2.22%) MS Visio
6 15 (0.72%) Spreadsheet
7 13 (0.63%) Trello
8 8 (0.39%) Chatbot
9 5 (0.24%) Photoshop
10 4 (0.19%) Simulink
10 4 (0.19%) Stateflow
11 2 (0.096%) Adobe After Effects
11 2 (0.096%) Adobe Creative Suite
11 2 (0.096%) Adobe Illustrator
11 2 (0.096%) AutoCAD
11 2 (0.096%) InDesign
12 1 (0.048%) Adobe XD
12 1 (0.048%) InVision
12 1 (0.048%) Oracle Smart View
12 1 (0.048%) Windchill
Business Applications
1 86 (4.14%) SAP S/4HANA
2 15 (0.72%) Primavera
3 11 (0.53%) Oracle Payables
4 10 (0.48%) Oracle Subledger Accounting
4 10 (0.48%) Shopify
5 9 (0.43%) Dynamics CRM
5 9 (0.43%) Oracle Assets
5 9 (0.43%) Oracle EBS
6 8 (0.39%) Loan IQ
6 8 (0.39%) Oracle ERP
6 8 (0.39%) Oracle Procure-to-Pay
7 7 (0.34%) NEC Housing
8 6 (0.29%) Oracle General Ledger
8 6 (0.29%) Oracle Receivables
8 6 (0.29%) ProductWriter
8 6 (0.29%) SAP CO
8 6 (0.29%) SAP FI
8 6 (0.29%) SAP MM
9 5 (0.24%) SAP FI/CO
9 5 (0.24%) Teamcenter
Cloud Services
1 154 (7.42%) Azure
2 100 (4.82%) Power Platform
3 81 (3.90%) Microsoft 365
3 81 (3.90%) SaaS
4 79 (3.81%) AWS
5 48 (2.31%) Azure DevOps
6 27 (1.30%) Smartsheet
7 25 (1.20%) Dynamics 365
7 25 (1.20%) GCP
7 25 (1.20%) Google Workspace
8 22 (1.06%) Asana
9 17 (0.82%) Entra ID
10 14 (0.67%) Microsoft Copilot
10 14 (0.67%) OpenShift
11 11 (0.53%) Azure Data Factory
11 11 (0.53%) Azure Synapse Analytics
11 11 (0.53%) GitHub
11 11 (0.53%) Snowflake
12 10 (0.48%) BigCommerce
12 10 (0.48%) Google Sheets
Communications & Networking
1 29 (1.40%) WAN
2 23 (1.11%) Firewall
3 22 (1.06%) Network Security
4 20 (0.96%) TCP/IP
5 19 (0.92%) DNS
5 19 (0.92%) LAN
6 17 (0.82%) SD-WAN
7 16 (0.77%) Wi-Fi
8 15 (0.72%) MPLS
8 15 (0.72%) Structured Cabling
9 12 (0.58%) BGP
9 12 (0.58%) Internet
10 11 (0.53%) VPN
11 8 (0.39%) DHCP
11 8 (0.39%) SAN
12 7 (0.34%) BIG-IP
12 7 (0.34%) DKIM
12 7 (0.34%) DMARC
12 7 (0.34%) Intranet
13 6 (0.29%) IPsec
Database & Business Intelligence
1 94 (4.53%) Power BI
2 18 (0.87%) Metadata
2 18 (0.87%) Tableau
3 17 (0.82%) Data Warehouse
4 13 (0.63%) Data Lake
4 13 (0.63%) SQL Server
5 10 (0.48%) Electronic Patient Records
5 10 (0.48%) Oracle Reports
6 9 (0.43%) Relational Database
7 6 (0.29%) Power Query
7 6 (0.29%) SAP HANA
8 4 (0.19%) Oracle BI Publisher
8 4 (0.19%) SQL Server Integration Services
9 3 (0.14%) Amazon RDS
9 3 (0.14%) Amazon Redshift
9 3 (0.14%) BigQuery
9 3 (0.14%) NoSQL
10 2 (0.096%) Elasticsearch
10 2 (0.096%) Oracle Database
10 2 (0.096%) PowerPivot
Development Applications
1 285 (13.73%) JIRA
2 23 (1.11%) Git
3 14 (0.67%) Jenkins
4 11 (0.53%) GitLab
5 5 (0.24%) Subversion
6 4 (0.19%) Bitbucket
7 3 (0.14%) Selenium
7 3 (0.14%) SonarQube
8 2 (0.096%) Hudson
8 2 (0.096%) Rational Rhapsody
8 2 (0.096%) Visual Studio
8 2 (0.096%) Zephyr
9 1 (0.048%) Appium
9 1 (0.048%) Capybara
9 1 (0.048%) CircleCI
9 1 (0.048%) git-flow
9 1 (0.048%) Gradle
9 1 (0.048%) LSMW
9 1 (0.048%) MSI
9 1 (0.048%) Travis CI
General
1 912 (43.93%) Social Skills
2 788 (37.96%) Finance
3 338 (16.28%) Analytical Skills
4 213 (10.26%) Organisational Skills
5 179 (8.62%) Public Sector
6 154 (7.42%) Banking
7 118 (5.68%) Retail
8 112 (5.39%) Marketing
9 84 (4.05%) Legal
10 74 (3.56%) Manufacturing
11 72 (3.47%) Influencing Skills
12 55 (2.65%) Telecoms
13 45 (2.17%) Presentation Skills
14 38 (1.83%) Investment Banking
15 34 (1.64%) Financial Institution
16 29 (1.40%) Documentation Skills
17 28 (1.35%) Pharmaceutical
18 27 (1.30%) Front Office
19 24 (1.16%) Aerospace
19 24 (1.16%) Local Government
Job Titles
1 821 (39.55%) Project Manager
2 243 (11.71%) Analyst
3 212 (10.21%) Senior
4 158 (7.61%) Lead
5 146 (7.03%) Senior Manager
6 125 (6.02%) Senior Project Manager
7 120 (5.78%) Business Analyst
8 98 (4.72%) IT Manager
9 88 (4.24%) IT Project Manager
10 75 (3.61%) Programme Manager
11 71 (3.42%) Consultant
12 62 (2.99%) Delivery Manager
12 62 (2.99%) Technical Manager
13 56 (2.70%) Architect
14 55 (2.65%) Infrastructure Manager
15 48 (2.31%) Technical Project Manager
16 46 (2.22%) SC Cleared Project Manager
17 42 (2.02%) Developer
17 42 (2.02%) Infrastructure Project Manager
18 41 (1.97%) Project Officer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 25 (1.20%) Middleware
2 23 (1.11%) REST
3 17 (0.82%) Oracle Fusion
4 15 (0.72%) OAuth
5 14 (0.67%) SOAP
5 14 (0.67%) Web Services
6 13 (0.63%) VML
7 12 (0.58%) HTML
8 11 (0.53%) CSS
9 9 (0.43%) ADO
10 8 (0.39%) .NET
10 8 (0.39%) JSON
10 8 (0.39%) RESTful
10 8 (0.39%) SailPoint
10 8 (0.39%) SAML
11 7 (0.34%) OpenID
12 6 (0.29%) OAuth2
12 6 (0.29%) XML
13 5 (0.24%) FHIR
13 5 (0.24%) XACML
Miscellaneous
1 105 (5.06%) Management Information System
2 92 (4.43%) Onboarding
3 73 (3.52%) Data Centre
4 68 (3.28%) Product Ownership
5 66 (3.18%) Data Protection Act
6 64 (3.08%) PMI
7 39 (1.88%) Virtual Team
8 38 (1.83%) Self-Motivation
9 35 (1.69%) Legacy Systems
10 22 (1.06%) Analytical Mindset
11 21 (1.01%) Operational Technology
11 21 (1.01%) Social Media
12 20 (0.96%) CMDB
12 20 (0.96%) Data Structures
12 20 (0.96%) Life Science
12 20 (0.96%) NHS
13 17 (0.82%) Enterprise Software
13 17 (0.82%) FMCG
14 16 (0.77%) EPoS
15 12 (0.58%) Foreign Exchange (FX)
Operating Systems
1 50 (2.41%) Windows
2 30 (1.45%) Linux
3 13 (0.63%) Unix
4 12 (0.58%) Windows Server
5 9 (0.43%) Windows 10
6 5 (0.24%) zOS
7 4 (0.19%) Windows Server 2019
8 3 (0.14%) Apple iOS
8 3 (0.14%) Solaris
9 2 (0.096%) Mac OS X
9 2 (0.096%) Ubuntu
9 2 (0.096%) Windows 7
9 2 (0.096%) Windows Server 2012
9 2 (0.096%) Windows Server 2016
10 1 (0.048%) AIX
10 1 (0.048%) Android
10 1 (0.048%) FreeRTOS
10 1 (0.048%) Mac OS
10 1 (0.048%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
10 1 (0.048%) Windows Server 2003
Processes & Methodologies
1 756 (36.42%) Agile
2 719 (34.63%) Stakeholder Management
3 540 (26.01%) Project Delivery
4 442 (21.29%) Problem-Solving
5 386 (18.59%) PRINCE2
6 316 (15.22%) Migration
7 312 (15.03%) Continuous Improvement
8 307 (14.79%) Change Management
9 296 (14.26%) Stakeholder Engagement
10 256 (12.33%) Decision-Making
11 253 (12.19%) Waterfall
12 239 (11.51%) Risk Management
13 195 (9.39%) Scrum
14 186 (8.96%) ERP
15 170 (8.19%) Budget Management
16 156 (7.51%) AI
17 141 (6.79%) Roadmaps
18 136 (6.55%) Validation
19 134 (6.45%) Analytics
19 134 (6.45%) DevOps
Programming Languages
1 88 (4.24%) SQL
2 49 (2.36%) Python
3 17 (0.82%) Java
3 17 (0.82%) JavaScript
4 12 (0.58%) VBA
5 11 (0.53%) C#
6 9 (0.43%) C++
7 8 (0.39%) C
8 7 (0.34%) PowerShell
9 6 (0.29%) ABAP
10 5 (0.24%) R
10 5 (0.24%) TypeScript
11 4 (0.19%) Ada
11 4 (0.19%) MATLAB
11 4 (0.19%) PL/SQL
12 3 (0.14%) JCL
12 3 (0.14%) Perl
12 3 (0.14%) Shell Script
12 3 (0.14%) SOQL
12 3 (0.14%) T-SQL
Qualifications
1 332 (15.99%) Security Cleared
2 316 (15.22%) Degree
3 284 (13.68%) PMP
4 247 (11.90%) PMI Certification
5 244 (11.75%) SC Cleared
6 65 (3.13%) DV Cleared
7 44 (2.12%) Master's Degree
8 42 (2.02%) PRINCE2 Practitioner
9 34 (1.64%) ACCA
9 34 (1.64%) CIMA
10 31 (1.49%) APMP
10 31 (1.49%) BPSS Clearance
11 22 (1.06%) CISSP
12 21 (1.01%) Computer Science Degree
13 20 (0.96%) MBA
14 19 (0.92%) CISM
15 17 (0.82%) CBAP
16 14 (0.67%) PRINCE2 Certification
17 12 (0.58%) IIBA
18 10 (0.48%) APMG
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 259 (12.48%) PMO
2 126 (6.07%) QA
3 73 (3.52%) Data Quality
4 51 (2.46%) GDPR
5 42 (2.02%) ISO/IEC 27001
6 35 (1.69%) SLA
7 32 (1.54%) NIST
8 20 (0.96%) Accessibility
9 14 (0.67%) GRC
10 10 (0.48%) Basel III
11 9 (0.43%) EMIR
12 8 (0.39%) ISO 9001
13 7 (0.34%) GMP
13 7 (0.34%) MiFID
13 7 (0.34%) PCI DSS
13 7 (0.34%) Sarbanes-Oxley
14 6 (0.29%) Cyber Essentials
14 6 (0.29%) SOC 2
15 5 (0.24%) Disclosure Scotland
15 5 (0.24%) HL7
System Software
1 30 (1.45%) Active Directory
2 9 (0.43%) VMware Infrastructure
3 5 (0.24%) RACF
4 4 (0.19%) Docker
4 4 (0.19%) Virtual Machines
5 3 (0.14%) NFS
5 3 (0.14%) Time Sharing Option
6 2 (0.096%) Firmware
6 2 (0.096%) Virtual Desktop
6 2 (0.096%) VMware ESXi
7 1 (0.048%) Hyper-V
7 1 (0.048%) Microsoft App-V
7 1 (0.048%) Sendmail
7 1 (0.048%) Virtual Servers
7 1 (0.048%) VMware NSX
7 1 (0.048%) vSphere
Systems Management
1 19 (0.92%) Single Sign-On
2 15 (0.72%) Ansible
3 9 (0.43%) Kubernetes
3 9 (0.43%) Microsoft Intune
4 6 (0.29%) Tivoli Storage Manager
5 4 (0.19%) RSA Archer
5 4 (0.19%) SCCM
5 4 (0.19%) Terraform
6 3 (0.14%) FortiGate
6 3 (0.14%) vCenter Server
7 2 (0.096%) Grafana
7 2 (0.096%) logstash
7 2 (0.096%) SCOM
8 1 (0.048%) Active Directory Federation Services
8 1 (0.048%) Docker Swarm
8 1 (0.048%) Kibana
8 1 (0.048%) Prometheus
8 1 (0.048%) Puppet
8 1 (0.048%) vRealize
8 1 (0.048%) ZABBIX
Vendors
1 300 (14.45%) Microsoft
2 190 (9.15%) SAP
3 113 (5.44%) ServiceNow
4 70 (3.37%) Oracle
5 50 (2.41%) Salesforce
6 43 (2.07%) Google
7 31 (1.49%) Cisco
8 29 (1.40%) Adobe
9 25 (1.20%) Workday
10 21 (1.01%) Databricks
11 20 (0.96%) Sitecore
12 19 (0.92%) VMware
13 15 (0.72%) Ariba
13 15 (0.72%) Atlassian
13 15 (0.72%) CyberArk
13 15 (0.72%) NEC
14 14 (0.67%) Sage
15 11 (0.53%) IBM
16 10 (0.48%) IFS
17 9 (0.43%) F5