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

6 months to
7 Feb 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 39 23 19
Rank change year-on-year -16 -4 +5
Contract jobs citing Project Management 2,000 2,585 3,700
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 5.12% 8.31% 8.19%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 5.88% 9.30% 9.41%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,241 1,447 2,377
10th Percentile £313 £275 £318
25th Percentile £413 £401 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £507 £501 £525
Median % change year-on-year +1.30% -4.67% -
75th Percentile £610 £600 £625
90th Percentile £700 £725 £713
UK excluding London median daily rate £500 £500 £500
% change year-on-year - - +0.40%
Number of hourly rates quoted 112 113 206
10th Percentile £14.73 £22.05 £18.32
25th Percentile £20.79 £30.25 £24.64
Median hourly rate £39.75 £36.00 £38.12
Median % change year-on-year +10.42% -5.56% -22.20%
75th Percentile £63.49 £58.75 £60.00
90th Percentile £65.24 £66.00 £65.50
UK excluding London median hourly rate £43.50 £38.48 £41.25
% change year-on-year +13.05% -6.72% -21.44%

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 33,986 27,793 39,321
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 87.08% 89.38% 87.05%
Number of daily rates quoted 21,549 16,924 25,862
10th Percentile £306 £306 £300
25th Percentile £406 £413 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £525 £525
Median % change year-on-year -4.76% - -4.55%
75th Percentile £613 £638 £638
90th Percentile £716 £738 £738
UK excluding London median daily rate £477 £496 £500
% change year-on-year -3.88% -0.80% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 2,070 859 2,130
10th Percentile £14.50 £15.62 £13.29
25th Percentile £17.69 £21.00 £16.35
Median hourly rate £25.15 £32.50 £35.00
Median % change year-on-year -22.62% -7.14% +7.69%
75th Percentile £58.75 £63.50 £61.13
90th Percentile £70.00 £75.00 £73.75
UK excluding London median hourly rate £25.15 £31.51 £35.00
% change year-on-year -20.20% -9.97% +11.43%

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 7 February 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 7 February 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 7 February 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 -16 1,737 £525 +0.96% 1,338
UK excluding London -19 1,029 £500 - 1,126
London -18 804 £540 +2.86% 440
Work from Home -18 569 £521 +4.25% 482
South East -10 277 £525 - 347
North of England -22 266 £488 +6.85% 218
Midlands -23 197 £492 -6.29% 191
North West -18 150 £500 +11.11% 118
West Midlands -25 139 £500 -12.43% 118
South West -26 107 £450 -10.00% 127
Yorkshire -21 106 £480 +6.67% 77
Scotland -11 93 £444 +1.89% 63
East Midlands -17 60 £424 +2.29% 73
East of England -39 59 £438 -12.50% 139
Wales +5 31 £304 -42.69% 50
Northern Ireland -5 19 £425 +21.43% 20
North East -28 14 £410 -28.70% 28

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
1 167 (8.35%) Confluence
2 104 (5.20%) SharePoint
3 23 (1.15%) CMS
4 13 (0.65%) Microsoft Exchange
5 8 (0.40%) Skype for Business
6 7 (0.35%) Exchange Server 2013
7 6 (0.30%) WordPress
8 5 (0.25%) Apache
8 5 (0.25%) nginx
8 5 (0.25%) Oracle Workflow
9 3 (0.15%) MS Project Server
10 2 (0.10%) SAS
11 1 (0.050%) Adobe Experience Manager
11 1 (0.050%) Apache Spark
11 1 (0.050%) IIS
11 1 (0.050%) Moodle
11 1 (0.050%) Oracle SOA Suite
11 1 (0.050%) Orchard CMS
11 1 (0.050%) Umbraco
11 1 (0.050%) WebSphere
Applications
1 215 (10.75%) Microsoft Excel
2 213 (10.65%) Microsoft Project
3 162 (8.10%) Microsoft Office
4 121 (6.05%) Microsoft PowerPoint
5 56 (2.80%) MS Visio
6 25 (1.25%) Trello
7 16 (0.80%) Spreadsheet
8 7 (0.35%) Chatbot
9 4 (0.20%) Adobe After Effects
9 4 (0.20%) Adobe Creative Suite
9 4 (0.20%) Adobe XD
9 4 (0.20%) Revit
10 3 (0.15%) InVision
10 3 (0.15%) Navisworks
10 3 (0.15%) Sketch
11 2 (0.10%) Adobe Illustrator
11 2 (0.10%) AutoCAD
11 2 (0.10%) InDesign
11 2 (0.10%) Photoshop
11 2 (0.10%) ProjectWise
Business Applications
1 51 (2.55%) SAP S/4HANA
2 18 (0.90%) Primavera
3 14 (0.70%) Oracle EBS
4 13 (0.65%) Loan IQ
4 13 (0.65%) Oracle Payables
5 11 (0.55%) Dynamics CRM
6 9 (0.45%) Oracle ERP
6 9 (0.45%) Oracle Subledger Accounting
6 9 (0.45%) SAP Payroll
7 8 (0.40%) Shopify
8 7 (0.35%) NetSuite
8 7 (0.35%) Salesforce CRM
9 6 (0.30%) Oracle Financials
9 6 (0.30%) Oracle General Ledger
9 6 (0.30%) SAP PM
10 5 (0.25%) Oracle Procure-to-Pay
10 5 (0.25%) SAP CO
10 5 (0.25%) SAP ERP
10 5 (0.25%) SAP FI
10 5 (0.25%) SAP MM
Cloud Services
1 171 (8.55%) Azure
2 104 (5.20%) AWS
3 95 (4.75%) Power Platform
4 68 (3.40%) Microsoft 365
5 53 (2.65%) SaaS
6 46 (2.30%) Azure DevOps
7 30 (1.50%) GCP
8 24 (1.20%) Asana
9 22 (1.10%) Dynamics 365
10 19 (0.95%) OpenShift
11 18 (0.90%) Smartsheet
12 17 (0.85%) Google Workspace
13 15 (0.75%) GitHub
14 14 (0.70%) OneDrive
14 14 (0.70%) Serverless
15 13 (0.65%) Cloud Computing
15 13 (0.65%) IaaS
16 12 (0.60%) PaaS
17 11 (0.55%) Figma
17 11 (0.55%) Microsoft Copilot
Communications & Networking
1 38 (1.90%) Firewall
2 27 (1.35%) WAN
3 19 (0.95%) LAN
4 17 (0.85%) DNS
5 16 (0.80%) Network Security
5 16 (0.80%) Wi-Fi
6 14 (0.70%) Structured Cabling
7 13 (0.65%) SD-WAN
8 12 (0.60%) VPN
9 11 (0.55%) SSH
10 10 (0.50%) HTTP
10 10 (0.50%) SSL
10 10 (0.50%) TCP/IP
11 9 (0.45%) Internet
11 9 (0.45%) MPLS
11 9 (0.45%) Skype
12 8 (0.40%) BGP
13 7 (0.35%) Broadband
13 7 (0.35%) DHCP
14 6 (0.30%) IPsec
Database & Business Intelligence
1 88 (4.40%) Power BI
2 32 (1.60%) Tableau
3 21 (1.05%) SQL Server
4 20 (1.00%) Metadata
5 17 (0.85%) Data Warehouse
6 10 (0.50%) Data Lake
7 7 (0.35%) Oracle Reports
7 7 (0.35%) SAP HANA
8 6 (0.30%) Elasticsearch
8 6 (0.30%) Electronic Patient Records
8 6 (0.30%) Relational Database
9 4 (0.20%) Amazon RDS
9 4 (0.20%) Azure SQL Database
9 4 (0.20%) BigQuery
9 4 (0.20%) GIS
9 4 (0.20%) Oracle Database
9 4 (0.20%) Power Query
10 3 (0.15%) Big Data
10 3 (0.15%) Enterprise Data Warehouse
10 3 (0.15%) Star Schema
Development Applications
1 320 (16.00%) JIRA
2 20 (1.00%) Git
3 10 (0.50%) Jenkins
4 9 (0.45%) GitLab
5 4 (0.20%) Selenium
6 3 (0.15%) Axure RP
6 3 (0.15%) SonarQube
7 2 (0.10%) Bitbucket
7 2 (0.10%) SpecFlow
8 1 (0.050%) Ant
8 1 (0.050%) Appium
8 1 (0.050%) Artifactory
8 1 (0.050%) Atlassian Bamboo
8 1 (0.050%) CircleCI
8 1 (0.050%) Claude Code
8 1 (0.050%) JUnit
8 1 (0.050%) SoapUI
8 1 (0.050%) Travis CI
8 1 (0.050%) Tricentis qTest
8 1 (0.050%) Visual Studio
General
1 996 (49.80%) Social Skills
2 732 (36.60%) Finance
3 334 (16.70%) Analytical Skills
4 210 (10.50%) Public Sector
5 196 (9.80%) Organisational Skills
6 182 (9.10%) Banking
7 100 (5.00%) Retail
8 84 (4.20%) Legal
9 82 (4.10%) Marketing
10 80 (4.00%) Influencing Skills
11 77 (3.85%) Manufacturing
12 53 (2.65%) Presentation Skills
13 51 (2.55%) Telecoms
14 48 (2.40%) Investment Banking
15 36 (1.80%) Local Government
16 33 (1.65%) Inclusion and Diversity
17 32 (1.60%) Front Office
18 26 (1.30%) Financial Institution
19 25 (1.25%) Documentation Skills
20 19 (0.95%) Corporate Banking
Job Titles
1 755 (37.75%) Project Manager
2 248 (12.40%) Analyst
3 174 (8.70%) Lead
4 162 (8.10%) Senior
5 134 (6.70%) Business Analyst
6 106 (5.30%) Senior Manager
7 96 (4.80%) IT Manager
8 87 (4.35%) Senior Project Manager
9 86 (4.30%) IT Project Manager
10 80 (4.00%) Consultant
11 63 (3.15%) Technical Manager
12 59 (2.95%) Delivery Manager
13 51 (2.55%) Coordinator
13 51 (2.55%) Infrastructure Manager
14 50 (2.50%) Programme Manager
15 44 (2.20%) Architect
15 44 (2.20%) SAP Manager
15 44 (2.20%) Technical Project Manager
16 43 (2.15%) Developer
17 42 (2.10%) Infrastructure Project Manager
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 22 (1.10%) Middleware
2 20 (1.00%) Oracle Fusion
3 14 (0.70%) Web Services
4 13 (0.65%) REST
4 13 (0.65%) SOAP
5 12 (0.60%) .NET
5 12 (0.60%) EDI
6 10 (0.50%) XML
7 9 (0.45%) CSS
7 9 (0.45%) LDAP
8 8 (0.40%) ADO
8 8 (0.40%) HTML
9 7 (0.35%) AngularJS
9 7 (0.35%) OAuth
9 7 (0.35%) React
10 6 (0.30%) Elastic Stack
10 6 (0.30%) OpenID
10 6 (0.30%) SAML
11 5 (0.25%) RESTful
11 5 (0.25%) XACML
Miscellaneous
1 121 (6.05%) Onboarding
2 102 (5.10%) Management Information System
3 69 (3.45%) Data Protection Act
4 61 (3.05%) Data Centre
5 60 (3.00%) PMI
6 53 (2.65%) Product Ownership
7 48 (2.40%) Virtual Team
8 41 (2.05%) Self-Motivation
9 35 (1.75%) Legacy Systems
10 27 (1.35%) NHS
11 23 (1.15%) Enterprise Software
12 22 (1.10%) CMDB
12 22 (1.10%) Operational Technology
13 21 (1.05%) Analytical Mindset
14 17 (0.85%) SCADA
14 17 (0.85%) Social Media
15 14 (0.70%) Cloud Native
16 13 (0.65%) Derivative
17 12 (0.60%) Mobile App
17 12 (0.60%) Public Cloud
Operating Systems
1 64 (3.20%) Windows
2 16 (0.80%) Linux
3 12 (0.60%) Unix
3 12 (0.60%) Windows Server
4 11 (0.55%) Windows 10
5 2 (0.10%) Ubuntu
5 2 (0.10%) Windows Server 2019
6 1 (0.050%) AIX
6 1 (0.050%) Apple iOS
6 1 (0.050%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
6 1 (0.050%) VMS
6 1 (0.050%) Windows Server 2016
6 1 (0.050%) zOS
Processes & Methodologies
1 766 (38.30%) Agile
2 647 (32.35%) Stakeholder Management
3 479 (23.95%) Problem-Solving
4 467 (23.35%) Project Delivery
5 416 (20.80%) PRINCE2
6 350 (17.50%) Stakeholder Engagement
7 320 (16.00%) Change Management
8 290 (14.50%) Migration
9 252 (12.60%) Continuous Improvement
10 228 (11.40%) Waterfall
11 222 (11.10%) Decision-Making
12 212 (10.60%) Risk Management
13 202 (10.10%) Scrum
14 180 (9.00%) Budget Management
15 157 (7.85%) DevOps
16 149 (7.45%) ITIL
17 148 (7.40%) ERP
18 145 (7.25%) Cybersecurity
19 141 (7.05%) Project Governance
20 140 (7.00%) Business Analysis
Programming Languages
1 90 (4.50%) SQL
2 47 (2.35%) Python
3 15 (0.75%) Java
4 14 (0.70%) JavaScript
5 13 (0.65%) C#
6 10 (0.50%) ABAP
7 7 (0.35%) PowerShell
8 6 (0.30%) VBA
9 5 (0.25%) Perl
10 4 (0.20%) C++
10 4 (0.20%) Go
10 4 (0.20%) PL/SQL
10 4 (0.20%) R
10 4 (0.20%) Ruby
10 4 (0.20%) T-SQL
11 3 (0.15%) C
11 3 (0.15%) Data Analysis Expressions
11 3 (0.15%) Korn
11 3 (0.15%) SOQL
12 2 (0.10%) VB
Qualifications
1 365 (18.25%) Degree
2 284 (14.20%) Security Cleared
3 280 (14.00%) PMP
4 265 (13.25%) PMI Certification
5 207 (10.35%) SC Cleared
6 59 (2.95%) DV Cleared
7 50 (2.50%) Master's Degree
8 47 (2.35%) BPSS Clearance
9 41 (2.05%) APMP
10 29 (1.45%) Computer Science Degree
11 28 (1.40%) PRINCE2 Practitioner
12 25 (1.25%) PRINCE2 Certification
13 23 (1.15%) CISSP
14 22 (1.10%) MBA
15 20 (1.00%) CISM
16 16 (0.80%) CBAP
17 15 (0.75%) IIBA
18 9 (0.45%) Cisco Certification
18 9 (0.45%) Microsoft Certification
19 8 (0.40%) ACCA
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 215 (10.75%) PMO
2 137 (6.85%) QA
3 66 (3.30%) Data Quality
4 59 (2.95%) GDPR
5 45 (2.25%) ISO/IEC 27001
6 30 (1.50%) NIST
7 20 (1.00%) Sarbanes-Oxley
8 19 (0.95%) PCI DSS
9 16 (0.80%) Accessibility
10 15 (0.75%) GRC
11 12 (0.60%) SLA
12 10 (0.50%) Basel III
12 10 (0.50%) Disclosure Scotland
13 7 (0.35%) ISO 19650
13 7 (0.35%) ISO 9001
13 7 (0.35%) P3O
13 7 (0.35%) PSD2
13 7 (0.35%) WCAG
14 6 (0.30%) EMIR
14 6 (0.30%) MiFID
System Software
1 37 (1.85%) Active Directory
2 14 (0.70%) Docker
3 13 (0.65%) VMware Infrastructure
4 5 (0.25%) RACF
4 5 (0.25%) VMware ESXi
5 4 (0.20%) Virtual Machines
6 3 (0.15%) Virtual Desktop
7 1 (0.050%) Embedded Firmware
7 1 (0.050%) Firmware
7 1 (0.050%) PowerHA
7 1 (0.050%) VMware NSX
7 1 (0.050%) vSphere
Systems Management
1 16 (0.80%) Kubernetes
2 14 (0.70%) Single Sign-On
2 14 (0.70%) Terraform
3 12 (0.60%) Ansible
3 12 (0.60%) SCCM
4 9 (0.45%) Microsoft Intune
5 6 (0.30%) Kibana
5 6 (0.30%) logstash
6 4 (0.20%) Consul
6 4 (0.20%) FortiGate
6 4 (0.20%) Packer
7 3 (0.15%) Grafana
7 3 (0.15%) Puppet
7 3 (0.15%) RSA Archer
7 3 (0.15%) vCenter Server
8 1 (0.050%) Active Directory Federation Services
8 1 (0.050%) Argo
8 1 (0.050%) CASB
8 1 (0.050%) Docker Swarm
8 1 (0.050%) Prometheus
Vendors
1 320 (16.00%) Microsoft
2 167 (8.35%) SAP
3 100 (5.00%) ServiceNow
4 79 (3.95%) Oracle
5 64 (3.20%) Salesforce
6 33 (1.65%) Google
7 32 (1.60%) Cisco
8 27 (1.35%) Adobe
9 22 (1.10%) Workday
10 20 (1.00%) Atlassian
10 20 (1.00%) VMware
11 18 (0.90%) Databricks
11 18 (0.90%) Planview
12 14 (0.70%) IBM
13 13 (0.65%) Ariba
13 13 (0.65%) CyberArk
13 13 (0.65%) Palo Alto
14 12 (0.60%) Sage
15 10 (0.50%) Juniper
16 9 (0.45%) CheckPoint