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

6 months to
23 Jul 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 52 26 22
Rank change year-on-year -26 -4 +2
Contract jobs citing Project Management 2,046 2,327 3,054
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 3.88% 7.12% 7.43%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 4.56% 7.89% 8.70%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,259 1,426 1,832
10th Percentile £310 £308 £308
25th Percentile £413 £407 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £510 £500 £513
Median % change year-on-year +2.00% -2.44% -2.38%
75th Percentile £625 £612 £608
90th Percentile £734 £725 £722
UK excluding London median daily rate £500 £475 £500
% change year-on-year +5.26% -5.00% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 135 131 254
10th Percentile £17.87 £21.50 £21.06
25th Percentile £23.06 £28.25 £28.00
Median hourly rate £39.50 £40.50 £38.12
Median % change year-on-year -2.47% +6.24% -13.36%
75th Percentile £60.38 £60.00 £49.75
90th Percentile £85.00 £75.00 £65.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £39.04 £42.53 £38.12
% change year-on-year -8.21% +11.57% -13.36%

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 44,826 29,510 35,120
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 85.01% 90.34% 85.50%
Number of daily rates quoted 27,774 18,532 22,551
10th Percentile £325 £300 £306
25th Percentile £419 £404 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £520 £500 £525
Median % change year-on-year +4.00% -4.76% -4.11%
75th Percentile £625 £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 2,642 1,578 2,152
10th Percentile £14.82 £14.20 £13.25
25th Percentile £20.01 £17.46 £17.00
Median hourly rate £43.96 £25.15 £39.50
Median % change year-on-year +74.79% -36.33% -7.06%
75th Percentile £68.55 £50.94 £62.76
90th Percentile £83.00 £69.13 £73.75
UK excluding London median hourly rate £45.00 £24.34 £40.00
% change year-on-year +84.88% -39.15% -1.45%

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 23 July 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 23 July 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 23 July 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 -25 1,820 £520 +1.46% 1,186
UK excluding London -27 1,017 £500 +5.26% 893
London -26 854 £563 +4.17% 471
Work from Home -24 618 £500 +4.17% 420
North of England -27 289 £475 -3.55% 231
South East -24 268 £500 +2.56% 265
North West -13 183 £475 - 120
Midlands -45 150 £514 +14.22% 136
South West -21 136 £450 - 100
West Midlands -54 103 £545 +16.20% 84
Yorkshire -42 98 £498 -0.50% 84
East of England -9 90 £525 +0.96% 96
Scotland -42 62 £500 +11.11% 41
East Midlands -14 47 £488 +22.95% 52
Northern Ireland +1 18 £449 -14.57% 22
Wales -20 15 £400 -13.98% 25
North East -37 11 £420 -18.05% 29

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
1 111 (5.43%) Confluence
2 107 (5.23%) SharePoint
3 29 (1.42%) CMS
4 21 (1.03%) Microsoft Exchange
5 11 (0.54%) Adobe Experience Manager
6 7 (0.34%) Apache
6 7 (0.34%) WebLogic
6 7 (0.34%) WebSphere
7 6 (0.29%) WordPress
8 5 (0.24%) ArcGIS
8 5 (0.24%) Moodle
9 4 (0.20%) Oracle Workflow
10 3 (0.15%) Apache Airflow
10 3 (0.15%) Oracle Self-Service HR
10 3 (0.15%) Sitecore CMS
11 2 (0.098%) Anypoint
11 2 (0.098%) SAS
12 1 (0.049%) CICS
12 1 (0.049%) IIS
12 1 (0.049%) JBoss
Applications
1 188 (9.19%) Microsoft Excel
2 176 (8.60%) Microsoft Project
3 145 (7.09%) Microsoft Office
4 120 (5.87%) Microsoft PowerPoint
5 43 (2.10%) MS Visio
6 23 (1.12%) Spreadsheet
7 13 (0.64%) Trello
8 8 (0.39%) Adobe Creative Suite
9 7 (0.34%) Chatbot
10 6 (0.29%) Photoshop
11 4 (0.20%) Simulink
11 4 (0.20%) Stateflow
12 3 (0.15%) Adobe Illustrator
12 3 (0.15%) InDesign
12 3 (0.15%) Windchill
13 2 (0.098%) Houdini
13 2 (0.098%) NUKE
14 1 (0.049%) Adobe After Effects
14 1 (0.049%) Notion
14 1 (0.049%) Oracle Smart View
Business Applications
1 84 (4.11%) SAP S/4HANA
2 23 (1.12%) Primavera
3 9 (0.44%) Dynamics CRM
3 9 (0.44%) Magento
3 9 (0.44%) NetSuite
4 8 (0.39%) Adobe Campaign
4 8 (0.39%) SAP HCM
5 7 (0.34%) Oracle Payables
5 7 (0.34%) Oracle Receivables
5 7 (0.34%) SAP CO
5 7 (0.34%) SAP FI
5 7 (0.34%) SAP FI/CO
6 6 (0.29%) NEC Housing
6 6 (0.29%) Oracle ERP
6 6 (0.29%) ProductWriter
6 6 (0.29%) SAP MM
6 6 (0.29%) SAP Payroll
6 6 (0.29%) Shopify
6 6 (0.29%) Teamcenter
7 5 (0.24%) Salesforce CRM
Cloud Services
1 178 (8.70%) Azure
2 110 (5.38%) Power Platform
3 92 (4.50%) SaaS
4 81 (3.96%) AWS
5 76 (3.71%) Microsoft 365
6 60 (2.93%) Azure DevOps
7 35 (1.71%) Smartsheet
8 27 (1.32%) Google Workspace
9 26 (1.27%) Dynamics 365
10 23 (1.12%) GCP
11 21 (1.03%) Asana
11 21 (1.03%) Entra ID
12 17 (0.83%) GitHub
13 13 (0.64%) Microsoft Copilot
14 12 (0.59%) Google Sheets
14 12 (0.59%) IaaS
14 12 (0.59%) SuccessFactors
15 11 (0.54%) OCI
16 10 (0.49%) Cloud Computing
16 10 (0.49%) Snowflake
Communications & Networking
1 29 (1.42%) Network Security
2 26 (1.27%) WAN
3 24 (1.17%) TCP/IP
4 22 (1.08%) DNS
5 21 (1.03%) LAN
6 20 (0.98%) Structured Cabling
7 18 (0.88%) Firewall
8 16 (0.78%) Wi-Fi
9 14 (0.68%) Intranet
9 14 (0.68%) MPLS
9 14 (0.68%) SD-WAN
10 13 (0.64%) DHCP
10 13 (0.64%) VPN
11 11 (0.54%) BGP
11 11 (0.54%) Internet
12 9 (0.44%) BIG-IP
13 8 (0.39%) SAN
13 8 (0.39%) Wireless
14 7 (0.34%) DKIM
14 7 (0.34%) DMARC
Database & Business Intelligence
1 101 (4.94%) Power BI
2 16 (0.78%) Tableau
3 15 (0.73%) Data Warehouse
4 14 (0.68%) SQL Server
5 12 (0.59%) Data Lake
5 12 (0.59%) Metadata
6 9 (0.44%) Oracle Reports
6 9 (0.44%) Relational Database
7 8 (0.39%) Amazon RDS
7 8 (0.39%) Power Query
7 8 (0.39%) SAP HANA
8 7 (0.34%) Electronic Patient Records
9 6 (0.29%) GIS
10 5 (0.24%) DynamoDB
11 4 (0.20%) SQL Server Integration Services
12 3 (0.15%) EDMS
12 3 (0.15%) Oracle BI Publisher
12 3 (0.15%) Oracle Database
12 3 (0.15%) QlikView
13 2 (0.098%) Amazon Redshift
Development Applications
1 252 (12.32%) JIRA
2 24 (1.17%) Git
3 21 (1.03%) Jenkins
4 9 (0.44%) Subversion
5 7 (0.34%) Bitbucket
5 7 (0.34%) GitLab
6 3 (0.15%) Visual Studio
7 2 (0.098%) Hudson
7 2 (0.098%) Rational Rhapsody
7 2 (0.098%) SonarQube
7 2 (0.098%) Zephyr
8 1 (0.049%) Appium
8 1 (0.049%) Artifactory
8 1 (0.049%) Capybara
8 1 (0.049%) git-flow
8 1 (0.049%) Gradle
8 1 (0.049%) IBM UrbanCode
8 1 (0.049%) ScriptRunner
8 1 (0.049%) Sonatype Nexus
8 1 (0.049%) Visual Studio Code
General
1 900 (43.99%) Social Skills
2 754 (36.85%) Finance
3 327 (15.98%) Analytical Skills
4 202 (9.87%) Organisational Skills
5 179 (8.75%) Public Sector
6 142 (6.94%) Banking
7 135 (6.60%) Marketing
8 116 (5.67%) Retail
9 81 (3.96%) Influencing Skills
10 79 (3.86%) Manufacturing
11 76 (3.71%) Legal
12 53 (2.59%) Telecoms
13 50 (2.44%) Presentation Skills
14 38 (1.86%) Investment Banking
15 32 (1.56%) Documentation Skills
16 31 (1.52%) Financial Institution
17 30 (1.47%) Pharmaceutical
18 29 (1.42%) Aerospace
19 28 (1.37%) Front Office
20 25 (1.22%) Inclusion and Diversity
Job Titles
1 814 (39.78%) Project Manager
2 206 (10.07%) Senior
3 189 (9.24%) Analyst
4 167 (8.16%) Lead
5 152 (7.43%) Senior Manager
6 129 (6.30%) Senior Project Manager
7 107 (5.23%) IT Manager
8 93 (4.55%) Business Analyst
9 87 (4.25%) IT Project Manager
9 87 (4.25%) Programme Manager
10 66 (3.23%) Consultant
10 66 (3.23%) Technical Manager
11 60 (2.93%) Delivery Manager
12 56 (2.74%) Infrastructure Manager
13 53 (2.59%) Technical Project Manager
14 46 (2.25%) Project Officer
15 45 (2.20%) Architect
16 43 (2.10%) Infrastructure Project Manager
17 41 (2.00%) Coordinator
18 39 (1.91%) SC Cleared Project Manager
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 25 (1.22%) Middleware
2 22 (1.08%) REST
3 15 (0.73%) HTML
3 15 (0.73%) Oracle Fusion
4 14 (0.68%) OAuth
5 13 (0.64%) ADO
5 13 (0.64%) VML
5 13 (0.64%) Web Services
6 12 (0.59%) JSON
6 12 (0.59%) SOAP
7 11 (0.54%) CSS
8 9 (0.44%) .NET
8 9 (0.44%) React
9 8 (0.39%) RESTful
10 7 (0.34%) SAML
10 7 (0.34%) XML
11 6 (0.29%) FastAPI
11 6 (0.29%) OpenID
11 6 (0.29%) SailPoint
12 5 (0.24%) AngularJS
Miscellaneous
1 111 (5.43%) Management Information System
2 86 (4.20%) Onboarding
3 82 (4.01%) Product Ownership
4 70 (3.42%) Data Centre
5 59 (2.88%) Data Protection Act
6 53 (2.59%) PMI
7 45 (2.20%) Virtual Team
8 34 (1.66%) Self-Motivation
9 28 (1.37%) Legacy Systems
10 27 (1.32%) FMCG
11 26 (1.27%) Analytical Mindset
12 25 (1.22%) Enterprise Software
12 25 (1.22%) Social Media
13 24 (1.17%) Operational Technology
14 21 (1.03%) Life Science
15 20 (0.98%) Data Structures
16 18 (0.88%) AI Agents
17 17 (0.83%) EPoS
18 16 (0.78%) Foreign Exchange (FX)
18 16 (0.78%) NHS
Operating Systems
1 53 (2.59%) Windows
2 32 (1.56%) Linux
3 21 (1.03%) Unix
4 15 (0.73%) Windows Server
5 6 (0.29%) Windows 10
6 5 (0.24%) zOS
7 3 (0.15%) Apple iOS
7 3 (0.15%) Solaris
8 2 (0.098%) Mac OS X
8 2 (0.098%) Windows 7
8 2 (0.098%) Windows Server 2012
8 2 (0.098%) Windows Server 2019
9 1 (0.049%) AIX
9 1 (0.049%) Android
9 1 (0.049%) FreeRTOS
9 1 (0.049%) Mac OS
9 1 (0.049%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
9 1 (0.049%) Windows Server 2003
9 1 (0.049%) Windows Server 2016
Processes & Methodologies
1 773 (37.78%) Stakeholder Management
2 750 (36.66%) Agile
3 535 (26.15%) Project Delivery
4 425 (20.77%) PRINCE2
5 376 (18.38%) Problem-Solving
6 345 (16.86%) Change Management
7 337 (16.47%) Continuous Improvement
8 312 (15.25%) Migration
9 308 (15.05%) Stakeholder Engagement
10 261 (12.76%) Decision-Making
11 256 (12.51%) Risk Management
12 242 (11.83%) Waterfall
13 197 (9.63%) AI
14 194 (9.48%) Scrum
15 158 (7.72%) ERP
16 148 (7.23%) Budget Management
17 145 (7.09%) Roadmaps
18 141 (6.89%) ITIL
19 138 (6.74%) Analytics
20 135 (6.60%) Project Planning
Programming Languages
1 83 (4.06%) SQL
2 64 (3.13%) Python
3 21 (1.03%) JavaScript
4 13 (0.64%) Java
4 13 (0.64%) VBA
5 10 (0.49%) C++
5 10 (0.49%) TypeScript
6 9 (0.44%) C#
6 9 (0.44%) PowerShell
7 8 (0.39%) ABAP
7 8 (0.39%) C
8 5 (0.24%) MATLAB
8 5 (0.24%) Shell Script
9 4 (0.20%) Ada
9 4 (0.20%) Apex Code
9 4 (0.20%) JCL
10 3 (0.15%) R
10 3 (0.15%) REXX
10 3 (0.15%) T-SQL
11 2 (0.098%) PL/SQL
Qualifications
1 318 (15.54%) Security Cleared
2 311 (15.20%) Degree
3 302 (14.76%) PMP
4 268 (13.10%) PMI Certification
5 225 (11.00%) SC Cleared
6 70 (3.42%) DV Cleared
7 62 (3.03%) PRINCE2 Practitioner
8 32 (1.56%) BPSS Clearance
8 32 (1.56%) Master's Degree
9 30 (1.47%) ACCA
9 30 (1.47%) CIMA
10 21 (1.03%) Computer Science Degree
11 18 (0.88%) PRINCE2 Certification
12 17 (0.83%) ITIL Certification
13 16 (0.78%) CISSP
14 14 (0.68%) APMP
15 13 (0.64%) Azure Certification
16 12 (0.59%) CISM
17 10 (0.49%) CIPFA
17 10 (0.49%) MBA
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 249 (12.17%) PMO
2 106 (5.18%) QA
3 59 (2.88%) Data Quality
4 37 (1.81%) SLA
5 36 (1.76%) GDPR
6 28 (1.37%) ISO/IEC 27001
7 25 (1.22%) NIST
8 23 (1.12%) GRC
9 21 (1.03%) Accessibility
10 9 (0.44%) EMIR
11 7 (0.34%) MiFID
11 7 (0.34%) Sarbanes-Oxley
12 6 (0.29%) FINREP
12 6 (0.29%) GMP
12 6 (0.29%) P3O
12 6 (0.29%) SOC 2
13 5 (0.24%) COREP
13 5 (0.24%) Cyber Essentials
13 5 (0.24%) HL7
13 5 (0.24%) ISO 9001
System Software
1 38 (1.86%) Active Directory
2 14 (0.68%) VMware Infrastructure
3 7 (0.34%) Virtual Desktop
3 7 (0.34%) Virtual Machines
4 5 (0.24%) RACF
4 5 (0.24%) VMware NSX
5 4 (0.20%) NFS
5 4 (0.20%) Time Sharing Option
5 4 (0.20%) vSphere
6 3 (0.15%) Docker
7 2 (0.098%) Firmware
8 1 (0.049%) ACF2
8 1 (0.049%) Hyper-V
8 1 (0.049%) IAG
8 1 (0.049%) Microsoft App-V
8 1 (0.049%) Sendmail
8 1 (0.049%) Virtual Servers
8 1 (0.049%) VMware ESXi
Systems Management
1 19 (0.93%) Ansible
2 17 (0.83%) Single Sign-On
3 11 (0.54%) Microsoft Intune
4 6 (0.29%) Tivoli Storage Manager
5 4 (0.20%) ITRS Geneos
5 4 (0.20%) Kubernetes
5 4 (0.20%) RSA Archer
5 4 (0.20%) Terraform
6 3 (0.15%) SCCM
7 2 (0.098%) ZABBIX
8 1 (0.049%) FortiGate
8 1 (0.049%) HP Quality Center
8 1 (0.049%) Nagios
8 1 (0.049%) Nessus
8 1 (0.049%) OMEGAMON
8 1 (0.049%) Progress Chef
8 1 (0.049%) Puppet
8 1 (0.049%) SCOM
8 1 (0.049%) Tivoli
8 1 (0.049%) vRealize
Vendors
1 328 (16.03%) Microsoft
2 191 (9.34%) SAP
3 119 (5.82%) ServiceNow
4 82 (4.01%) Oracle
5 56 (2.74%) Salesforce
6 51 (2.49%) Google
7 39 (1.91%) Adobe
8 27 (1.32%) Cisco
9 26 (1.27%) VMware
10 21 (1.03%) Workday
11 19 (0.93%) Sitecore
12 18 (0.88%) Ariba
13 17 (0.83%) Atlassian
13 17 (0.83%) Databricks
14 16 (0.78%) NEC
15 15 (0.73%) IBM
16 12 (0.59%) F5
17 11 (0.54%) IFS
17 11 (0.54%) JD Edwards
18 10 (0.49%) Alteryx