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

6 months to
5 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 2,146 2,309 3,406
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 4.51% 7.88% 7.89%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 5.34% 8.67% 9.14%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,353 1,379 2,100
10th Percentile £325 £300 £313
25th Percentile £413 £402 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £510 £500 £525
Median % change year-on-year +2.00% -4.76% -
75th Percentile £616 £600 £625
90th Percentile £725 £719 £725
UK excluding London median daily rate £500 £475 £500
% change year-on-year +5.26% -5.00% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 104 118 263
10th Percentile £14.64 £22.19 £18.35
25th Percentile £21.00 £30.87 £26.54
Median hourly rate £35.75 £42.79 £38.12
Median % change year-on-year -16.45% +12.24% -22.20%
75th Percentile £62.81 £62.81 £49.00
90th Percentile £78.13 £75.00 £61.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £30.58 £49.00 £38.12
% change year-on-year -37.59% +28.54% -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 40,158 26,632 37,270
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 84.47% 90.92% 86.37%
Number of daily rates quoted 25,255 17,168 24,015
10th Percentile £320 £306 £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 £481 £500
% change year-on-year +1.46% -3.90% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 2,399 1,080 2,442
10th Percentile £14.95 £14.63 £12.75
25th Percentile £19.91 £18.50 £16.00
Median hourly rate £41.94 £29.00 £35.83
Median % change year-on-year +44.62% -19.06% -0.47%
75th Percentile £67.25 £61.69 £60.00
90th Percentile £79.88 £75.00 £72.50
UK excluding London median hourly rate £44.00 £27.57 £37.50
% change year-on-year +59.59% -26.48% +7.14%

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 5 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 5 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 5 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 1,904 £525 +5.00% 1,400
UK excluding London -24 1,079 £500 +5.26% 1,072
London -16 890 £550 +4.76% 504
Work from Home -15 637 £500 - 531
North of England -20 284 £474 -3.27% 276
South East -14 281 £525 +6.60% 302
Midlands -29 202 £496 +7.94% 173
North West -14 159 £463 -2.63% 142
South West -18 147 £450 -4.05% 119
West Midlands -32 134 £500 - 97
Yorkshire -30 116 £480 +1.05% 97
East of England -28 76 £510 -1.73% 137
Scotland -29 74 £450 - 45
East Midlands -14 70 £398 -2.84% 76
Wales 0 21 £214 -56.74% 30
Northern Ireland -5 15 £488 +14.71% 23
North East -20 13 £410 -23.72% 43

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
1 158 (7.36%) Confluence
2 83 (3.87%) SharePoint
3 23 (1.07%) 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%) nginx
10 1 (0.047%) Oracle SOA Suite
10 1 (0.047%) Sitecore CMS
10 1 (0.047%) WebSphere
Applications
1 213 (9.93%) Microsoft Project
2 189 (8.81%) Microsoft Excel
3 146 (6.80%) Microsoft Office
4 118 (5.50%) Microsoft PowerPoint
5 46 (2.14%) MS Visio
6 20 (0.93%) Spreadsheet
7 16 (0.75%) Trello
8 7 (0.33%) 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 85 (3.96%) 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
1 160 (7.46%) Azure
2 91 (4.24%) Power Platform
3 84 (3.91%) AWS
3 84 (3.91%) SaaS
4 78 (3.63%) Microsoft 365
5 51 (2.38%) Azure DevOps
6 28 (1.30%) GCP
7 26 (1.21%) Google Workspace
7 26 (1.21%) Smartsheet
8 25 (1.16%) Dynamics 365
9 23 (1.07%) Asana
10 15 (0.70%) Entra ID
10 15 (0.70%) Microsoft Copilot
11 14 (0.65%) OpenShift
12 13 (0.61%) GitHub
13 12 (0.56%) OCI
13 12 (0.56%) Snowflake
14 11 (0.51%) Cloud Computing
15 10 (0.47%) BigCommerce
15 10 (0.47%) PaaS
Communications & Networking
1 29 (1.35%) WAN
2 28 (1.30%) Network Security
3 25 (1.16%) Firewall
4 19 (0.89%) DNS
4 19 (0.89%) LAN
5 18 (0.84%) SD-WAN
5 18 (0.84%) TCP/IP
6 16 (0.75%) Wi-Fi
7 15 (0.70%) Internet
7 15 (0.70%) MPLS
7 15 (0.70%) Structured Cabling
8 12 (0.56%) VPN
9 10 (0.47%) DHCP
10 9 (0.42%) BGP
11 7 (0.33%) BIG-IP
12 6 (0.28%) Intranet
12 6 (0.28%) IPsec
12 6 (0.28%) SAN
12 6 (0.28%) SSL
13 5 (0.23%) Kerberos
Database & Business Intelligence
1 87 (4.05%) 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%) NoSQL
11 3 (0.14%) Oracle Database
Development Applications
1 313 (14.59%) JIRA
2 21 (0.98%) Git
3 12 (0.56%) Jenkins
4 10 (0.47%) GitLab
5 5 (0.23%) Bitbucket
6 4 (0.19%) SonarQube
7 3 (0.14%) Selenium
7 3 (0.14%) Subversion
8 2 (0.093%) Axure RP
8 2 (0.093%) Hudson
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%) git-flow
9 1 (0.047%) Gradle
9 1 (0.047%) Rational DOORS
9 1 (0.047%) Rational Rhapsody
9 1 (0.047%) SoapUI
9 1 (0.047%) Travis CI
General
1 979 (45.62%) Social Skills
2 797 (37.14%) Finance
3 358 (16.68%) Analytical Skills
4 219 (10.21%) Organisational Skills
5 200 (9.32%) Public Sector
6 162 (7.55%) Banking
7 117 (5.45%) Retail
8 109 (5.08%) Marketing
9 85 (3.96%) Legal
10 78 (3.63%) Influencing Skills
11 76 (3.54%) Manufacturing
12 59 (2.75%) Telecoms
13 51 (2.38%) Presentation Skills
14 39 (1.82%) Investment Banking
15 35 (1.63%) Financial Institution
16 33 (1.54%) Local Government
17 31 (1.44%) Documentation Skills
18 28 (1.30%) Pharmaceutical
19 27 (1.26%) Inclusion and Diversity
20 24 (1.12%) Front Office
Job Titles
1 855 (39.84%) Project Manager
2 248 (11.56%) Analyst
3 204 (9.51%) Senior
4 163 (7.60%) Lead
5 141 (6.57%) Senior Manager
6 128 (5.96%) Business Analyst
7 122 (5.68%) Senior Project Manager
8 107 (4.99%) IT Manager
9 95 (4.43%) IT Project Manager
10 81 (3.77%) Programme Manager
11 72 (3.36%) Consultant
12 67 (3.12%) Technical Manager
13 66 (3.08%) Delivery Manager
14 57 (2.66%) Architect
15 55 (2.56%) Infrastructure Manager
15 55 (2.56%) Project Officer
16 49 (2.28%) Technical Project Manager
17 44 (2.05%) SC Cleared Project Manager
18 43 (2.00%) Infrastructure Project Manager
18 43 (2.00%) SAP Manager
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 25 (1.16%) 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 11 (0.51%) VML
10 10 (0.47%) .NET
10 10 (0.47%) ADO
11 9 (0.42%) EDI
11 9 (0.42%) RESTful
11 9 (0.42%) XML
12 8 (0.37%) JSON
12 8 (0.37%) SailPoint
12 8 (0.37%) SAML
13 7 (0.33%) AngularJS
13 7 (0.33%) OpenID
14 6 (0.28%) OAuth2
Miscellaneous
1 117 (5.45%) Management Information System
2 99 (4.61%) Onboarding
3 75 (3.49%) Data Centre
3 75 (3.49%) PMI
4 65 (3.03%) Data Protection Act
5 62 (2.89%) Product Ownership
6 47 (2.19%) Virtual Team
7 44 (2.05%) Self-Motivation
8 36 (1.68%) Legacy Systems
9 23 (1.07%) Operational Technology
10 22 (1.03%) CMDB
10 22 (1.03%) NHS
11 21 (0.98%) Analytical Mindset
11 21 (0.98%) Data Structures
12 19 (0.89%) Life Science
13 18 (0.84%) Enterprise Software
14 17 (0.79%) Social Media
15 16 (0.75%) EPoS
15 16 (0.75%) Web Conferencing
16 14 (0.65%) Public Cloud
Operating Systems
1 48 (2.24%) 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
1 785 (36.58%) Agile
2 721 (33.60%) Stakeholder Management
3 553 (25.77%) Project Delivery
4 460 (21.44%) Problem-Solving
5 421 (19.62%) PRINCE2
6 345 (16.08%) Stakeholder Engagement
7 328 (15.28%) Migration
8 319 (14.86%) Change Management
9 317 (14.77%) Continuous Improvement
10 260 (12.12%) Decision-Making
11 259 (12.07%) Waterfall
12 249 (11.60%) Risk Management
13 202 (9.41%) Scrum
14 189 (8.81%) Budget Management
15 188 (8.76%) ERP
16 152 (7.08%) Roadmaps
17 144 (6.71%) AI
17 144 (6.71%) DevOps
18 142 (6.62%) Project Planning
19 139 (6.48%) Analytics
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 8 (0.37%) C
7 8 (0.37%) PowerShell
8 7 (0.33%) ABAP
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
1 356 (16.59%) Security Cleared
2 339 (15.80%) Degree
3 312 (14.54%) PMP
4 284 (13.23%) PMI Certification
5 261 (12.16%) SC Cleared
6 76 (3.54%) DV Cleared
7 51 (2.38%) Master's Degree
8 42 (1.96%) BPSS Clearance
8 42 (1.96%) PRINCE2 Practitioner
9 38 (1.77%) APMP
10 30 (1.40%) ACCA
10 30 (1.40%) CIMA
11 27 (1.26%) Computer Science Degree
12 25 (1.16%) CISSP
13 23 (1.07%) MBA
14 22 (1.03%) CISM
15 18 (0.84%) PRINCE2 Certification
16 17 (0.79%) CBAP
17 12 (0.56%) IIBA
18 11 (0.51%) APMG
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 266 (12.40%) PMO
2 146 (6.80%) QA
3 75 (3.49%) Data Quality
4 54 (2.52%) GDPR
5 47 (2.19%) ISO/IEC 27001
6 34 (1.58%) NIST
7 33 (1.54%) SLA
8 19 (0.89%) Accessibility
9 14 (0.65%) GRC
10 11 (0.51%) Basel III
11 10 (0.47%) ISO 9001
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%) Disclosure Scotland
14 7 (0.33%) GMP
15 6 (0.28%) Cyber Essentials
15 6 (0.28%) P3O
15 6 (0.28%) SOC 2
System Software
1 30 (1.40%) 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 12 (0.56%) 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
1 309 (14.40%) Microsoft
2 200 (9.32%) SAP
3 117 (5.45%) ServiceNow
4 75 (3.49%) Oracle
5 56 (2.61%) Salesforce
6 43 (2.00%) Google
7 31 (1.44%) Adobe
8 30 (1.40%) Cisco
9 29 (1.35%) Workday
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 15 (0.70%) Sitecore
15 14 (0.65%) Sage
16 13 (0.61%) NEC
17 11 (0.51%) IBM
18 10 (0.47%) IFS
18 10 (0.47%) Juniper