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

6 months to
2 May 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 44 23 21
Rank change year-on-year -21 -2 +2
Contract jobs citing Project Management 2,145 2,319 3,446
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 4.53% 7.91% 7.92%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 5.36% 8.70% 9.17%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,348 1,380 2,116
10th Percentile £325 £300 £313
25th Percentile £413 £401 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £511 £500 £525
Median % change year-on-year +2.23% -4.76% -
75th Percentile £618 £600 £625
90th Percentile £725 £706 £725
UK excluding London median daily rate £500 £475 £500
% change year-on-year +5.26% -5.00% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 110 115 265
10th Percentile £14.64 £22.27 £18.35
25th Percentile £21.00 £30.95 £26.66
Median hourly rate £37.54 £42.50 £38.12
Median % change year-on-year -11.67% +11.49% -22.20%
75th Percentile £57.50 £61.88 £49.00
90th Percentile £74.38 £75.00 £61.25
UK excluding London median hourly rate £36.00 £50.00 £38.12
% change year-on-year -28.00% +31.16% -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 40,021 26,651 37,570
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 84.60% 90.87% 86.35%
Number of daily rates quoted 25,214 17,176 24,190
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 £745 £750
UK excluding London median daily rate £488 £485 £500
% change year-on-year +0.62% -3.10% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 2,391 1,063 2,453
10th Percentile £14.96 £14.63 £12.75
25th Percentile £19.91 £18.50 £16.00
Median hourly rate £41.56 £29.00 £35.50
Median % change year-on-year +43.29% -18.31% -2.53%
75th Percentile £66.00 £61.87 £59.95
90th Percentile £78.75 £75.00 £72.50
UK excluding London median hourly rate £43.31 £27.94 £36.50
% change year-on-year +54.99% -23.45% +4.29%

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 2 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 2 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 2 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 1,903 £525 +5.00% 1,221
UK excluding London -23 1,080 £500 +5.26% 901
London -18 889 £550 +4.76% 447
Work from Home -15 643 £500 - 523
North of England -20 285 £474 -3.27% 240
South East -14 281 £525 +8.25% 272
Midlands -27 202 £500 +8.81% 155
North West -15 163 £463 -2.63% 132
South West -17 147 £450 -4.05% 94
West Midlands -34 133 £500 - 94
Yorkshire -33 114 £480 +1.05% 78
East of England -24 75 £510 -1.73% 107
Scotland -27 73 £450 - 34
East Midlands -15 71 £398 -2.84% 61
Wales +7 23 £214 -56.74% 18
Northern Ireland -1 15 £488 +21.88% 10
North East -22 12 £430 -20.00% 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
1 155 (7.23%) Confluence
2 83 (3.87%) SharePoint
3 22 (1.03%) CMS
4 15 (0.70%) Microsoft Exchange
5 9 (0.42%) Oracle Workflow
6 8 (0.37%) Apache
7 4 (0.19%) Oracle Self-Service HR
8 3 (0.14%) Adobe Experience Manager
8 3 (0.14%) Anypoint
8 3 (0.14%) Apache Airflow
8 3 (0.14%) Moodle
8 3 (0.14%) MS Project Server
9 2 (0.093%) SAS
9 2 (0.093%) Umbraco
9 2 (0.093%) WordPress
10 1 (0.047%) IBM HTTP Server
10 1 (0.047%) IIS
10 1 (0.047%) nginx
10 1 (0.047%) Oracle SOA Suite
10 1 (0.047%) WebSphere
Applications
1 213 (9.93%) Microsoft Project
2 189 (8.81%) Microsoft Excel
3 145 (6.76%) Microsoft Office
4 117 (5.45%) Microsoft PowerPoint
5 46 (2.14%) 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 (0.093%) Adobe Illustrator
12 2 (0.093%) Adobe XD
12 2 (0.093%) AutoCAD
12 2 (0.093%) InDesign
12 2 (0.093%) InVision
12 2 (0.093%) Sketch
12 2 (0.093%) Windchill
13 1 (0.047%) Camtasia
13 1 (0.047%) Oracle Smart View
Business Applications
1 84 (3.92%) 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%) NEC Housing
8 5 (0.23%) NetSuite
Cloud Services
1 157 (7.32%) Azure
2 91 (4.24%) Power Platform
3 84 (3.92%) SaaS
4 83 (3.87%) AWS
5 78 (3.64%) Microsoft 365
6 50 (2.33%) Azure DevOps
7 28 (1.31%) GCP
8 26 (1.21%) Smartsheet
9 25 (1.17%) Dynamics 365
9 25 (1.17%) Google Workspace
10 22 (1.03%) Asana
11 15 (0.70%) Entra ID
12 14 (0.65%) Microsoft Copilot
12 14 (0.65%) OpenShift
13 13 (0.61%) GitHub
14 12 (0.56%) OCI
14 12 (0.56%) Snowflake
15 11 (0.51%) Cloud Computing
16 10 (0.47%) Azure Synapse Analytics
16 10 (0.47%) PaaS
Communications & Networking
1 29 (1.35%) 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%) Internet
8 15 (0.70%) MPLS
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 (4.06%) Power BI
2 21 (0.98%) Tableau
3 19 (0.89%) Data Warehouse
3 19 (0.89%) Metadata
4 15 (0.70%) SQL Server
5 13 (0.61%) Data Lake
6 11 (0.51%) 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%) Oracle Database
Development Applications
1 315 (14.69%) JIRA
2 20 (0.93%) 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 (0.093%) Axure RP
8 2 (0.093%) Hudson
8 2 (0.093%) Subversion
8 2 (0.093%) Visual Studio
8 2 (0.093%) Zephyr
9 1 (0.047%) Appium
9 1 (0.047%) Capybara
9 1 (0.047%) Gradle
9 1 (0.047%) MSI
9 1 (0.047%) Rational Rhapsody
9 1 (0.047%) SoapUI
9 1 (0.047%) TestDirector
9 1 (0.047%) Toad
General
1 985 (45.92%) Social Skills
2 799 (37.25%) Finance
3 358 (16.69%) Analytical Skills
4 215 (10.02%) Organisational Skills
5 203 (9.46%) Public Sector
6 163 (7.60%) Banking
7 115 (5.36%) Retail
8 108 (5.03%) Marketing
9 85 (3.96%) Legal
10 79 (3.68%) Influencing Skills
11 77 (3.59%) Manufacturing
12 60 (2.80%) Telecoms
13 51 (2.38%) Presentation Skills
14 39 (1.82%) Investment Banking
15 35 (1.63%) Financial Institution
16 34 (1.59%) 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
1 850 (39.63%) Project Manager
2 248 (11.56%) Analyst
3 199 (9.28%) Senior
4 170 (7.93%) Lead
5 137 (6.39%) Senior Manager
6 128 (5.97%) Business Analyst
7 118 (5.50%) Senior Project Manager
8 109 (5.08%) IT Manager
9 97 (4.52%) IT Project Manager
10 81 (3.78%) Programme Manager
11 72 (3.36%) Consultant
12 67 (3.12%) Technical Manager
13 65 (3.03%) Delivery Manager
14 57 (2.66%) Architect
14 57 (2.66%) Project Officer
15 55 (2.56%) Infrastructure Manager
16 49 (2.28%) Technical Project Manager
17 44 (2.05%) SC Cleared Project Manager
18 43 (2.00%) Change Manager
18 43 (2.00%) Infrastructure Project Manager
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 25 (1.17%) Middleware
2 24 (1.12%) REST
3 20 (0.93%) 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%) .NET
9 10 (0.47%) EDI
9 10 (0.47%) VML
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
1 118 (5.50%) Management Information System
2 98 (4.57%) Onboarding
3 76 (3.54%) PMI
4 73 (3.40%) Data Centre
5 65 (3.03%) Data Protection Act
6 62 (2.89%) Product Ownership
7 53 (2.47%) Virtual Team
8 44 (2.05%) Self-Motivation
9 36 (1.68%) Legacy Systems
10 24 (1.12%) NHS
10 24 (1.12%) Operational Technology
11 22 (1.03%) CMDB
12 21 (0.98%) Analytical Mindset
12 21 (0.98%) Data Structures
13 19 (0.89%) Life Science
14 18 (0.84%) Enterprise Software
15 17 (0.79%) Social Media
16 16 (0.75%) EPoS
16 16 (0.75%) Web Conferencing
17 14 (0.65%) Public Cloud
Operating Systems
1 49 (2.28%) 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 (0.093%) 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 2016
9 1 (0.047%) Android
9 1 (0.047%) FreeRTOS
9 1 (0.047%) Windows Server 2012
Processes & Methodologies
1 786 (36.64%) Agile
2 721 (33.61%) Stakeholder Management
3 551 (25.69%) Project Delivery
4 461 (21.49%) Problem-Solving
5 427 (19.91%) PRINCE2
6 343 (15.99%) Stakeholder Engagement
7 325 (15.15%) Change Management
8 323 (15.06%) Continuous Improvement
8 323 (15.06%) Migration
9 261 (12.17%) Decision-Making
10 254 (11.84%) Waterfall
11 249 (11.61%) Risk Management
12 202 (9.42%) Scrum
13 190 (8.86%) Budget Management
14 186 (8.67%) ERP
15 152 (7.09%) Roadmaps
16 147 (6.85%) DevOps
17 143 (6.67%) AI
17 143 (6.67%) Project Planning
18 139 (6.48%) Project Governance
Programming Languages
1 91 (4.24%) SQL
2 46 (2.14%) Python
3 19 (0.89%) Java
3 19 (0.89%) JavaScript
4 12 (0.56%) VBA
5 11 (0.51%) C#
6 10 (0.47%) C++
7 9 (0.42%) ABAP
8 8 (0.37%) C
8 8 (0.37%) PowerShell
9 6 (0.28%) TypeScript
10 5 (0.23%) PL/SQL
10 5 (0.23%) R
11 4 (0.19%) Ada
11 4 (0.19%) Perl
11 4 (0.19%) T-SQL
12 3 (0.14%) Google Apps Script
12 3 (0.14%) JCL
12 3 (0.14%) Shell Script
12 3 (0.14%) SOQL
Qualifications
1 360 (16.78%) Security Cleared
2 344 (16.04%) Degree
3 308 (14.36%) PMP
4 281 (13.10%) PMI Certification
5 264 (12.31%) SC Cleared
6 76 (3.54%) DV Cleared
7 51 (2.38%) Master's Degree
8 47 (2.19%) PRINCE2 Practitioner
9 42 (1.96%) BPSS Clearance
10 39 (1.82%) APMP
11 30 (1.40%) ACCA
11 30 (1.40%) CIMA
12 27 (1.26%) Computer Science Degree
13 24 (1.12%) CISSP
14 23 (1.07%) 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
1 263 (12.26%) PMO
2 147 (6.85%) QA
3 75 (3.50%) Data Quality
4 54 (2.52%) GDPR
5 47 (2.19%) ISO/IEC 27001
6 33 (1.54%) NIST
6 33 (1.54%) SLA
7 19 (0.89%) 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%) P3O
14 6 (0.28%) SOC 2
System Software
1 31 (1.45%) Active Directory
2 9 (0.42%) VMware Infrastructure
3 7 (0.33%) 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 (0.093%) Virtual Desktop
6 2 (0.093%) 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
3 10 (0.47%) Kubernetes
4 9 (0.42%) Microsoft Intune
5 5 (0.23%) RSA Archer
5 5 (0.23%) Tivoli Storage Manager
6 4 (0.19%) logstash
7 3 (0.14%) FortiGate
7 3 (0.14%) Kibana
7 3 (0.14%) SCCM
7 3 (0.14%) Terraform
7 3 (0.14%) vCenter Server
8 2 (0.093%) Grafana
8 2 (0.093%) SCOM
9 1 (0.047%) Active Directory Federation Services
9 1 (0.047%) Docker Swarm
9 1 (0.047%) Prometheus
9 1 (0.047%) Puppet
9 1 (0.047%) vRealize
9 1 (0.047%) ZABBIX
Vendors
1 310 (14.45%) Microsoft
2 200 (9.32%) SAP
3 119 (5.55%) ServiceNow
4 75 (3.50%) Oracle
5 57 (2.66%) Salesforce
6 42 (1.96%) Google
7 33 (1.54%) Adobe
8 29 (1.35%) Workday
9 28 (1.31%) Cisco
10 21 (0.98%) Atlassian
11 20 (0.93%) Ariba
11 20 (0.93%) 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