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

6 months to
30 May 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 46 25 21
Rank change year-on-year -21 -4 +2
Contract jobs citing Project Management 2,093 2,209 3,293
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 4.26% 7.65% 7.67%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 5.03% 8.40% 8.96%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,298 1,352 1,999
10th Percentile £314 £303 £306
25th Percentile £413 £408 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £510 £500 £515
Median % change year-on-year +2.00% -2.91% -1.90%
75th Percentile £619 £601 £608
90th Percentile £725 £725 £707
UK excluding London median daily rate £500 £471 £500
% change year-on-year +6.27% -5.90% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 108 108 280
10th Percentile £14.64 £21.47 £18.35
25th Percentile £21.00 £31.44 £26.66
Median hourly rate £35.77 £46.22 £38.12
Median % change year-on-year -22.61% +21.24% -22.20%
75th Percentile £57.50 £63.75 £48.75
90th Percentile £73.49 £75.00 £61.28
UK excluding London median hourly rate £35.53 £50.49 £38.12
% change year-on-year -29.63% +32.46% -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 41,610 26,282 36,757
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 84.67% 91.03% 85.65%
Number of daily rates quoted 26,026 16,812 23,631
10th Percentile £325 £300 £300
25th Percentile £413 £408 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £513 £513 £525
Median % change year-on-year - -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 2,481 1,100 2,513
10th Percentile £14.68 £14.20 £12.75
25th Percentile £19.91 £17.87 £16.00
Median hourly rate £42.30 £27.97 £36.50
Median % change year-on-year +51.26% -23.38% -1.35%
75th Percentile £67.84 £57.50 £60.00
90th Percentile £81.00 £73.88 £72.50
UK excluding London median hourly rate £45.00 £25.15 £38.00
% change year-on-year +78.93% -33.82% +8.57%

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 30 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 30 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 30 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 1,875 £520 +1.46% 1,069
UK excluding London -21 1,053 £500 +6.27% 818
London -18 882 £550 - 419
Work from Home -20 619 £500 - 405
North of England -22 295 £475 - 198
South East -18 264 £512 +6.21% 229
Midlands -30 187 £488 +8.33% 133
North West -11 164 £468 -1.58% 115
South West -17 142 £444 -11.25% 83
West Midlands -38 128 £500 +5.26% 83
Yorkshire -29 124 £480 +1.05% 62
East of England -18 81 £518 -0.29% 101
Scotland -34 70 £475 +5.56% 47
East Midlands -14 61 £390 -4.88% 50
Northern Ireland -3 17 £450 -5.26% 28
Wales -8 16 £256 -46.05% 21
North East -23 12 £410 -20.00% 24

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 (6.64%) Confluence
2 102 (4.87%) SharePoint
3 20 (0.96%) CMS
4 17 (0.81%) Microsoft Exchange
5 9 (0.43%) Oracle Workflow
6 8 (0.38%) Apache
7 6 (0.29%) Adobe Experience Manager
8 5 (0.24%) WordPress
9 4 (0.19%) Moodle
9 4 (0.19%) Oracle Self-Service HR
10 3 (0.14%) Anypoint
10 3 (0.14%) Apache Airflow
10 3 (0.14%) MS Project Server
11 2 (0.096%) IIS
11 2 (0.096%) SAS
11 2 (0.096%) WebSphere
12 1 (0.048%) CICS
12 1 (0.048%) JBoss
12 1 (0.048%) Tomcat
12 1 (0.048%) WebLogic
Applications
1 185 (8.84%) Microsoft Project
2 173 (8.27%) Microsoft Excel
3 138 (6.59%) Microsoft Office
4 112 (5.35%) Microsoft PowerPoint
5 46 (2.20%) MS Visio
6 15 (0.72%) Spreadsheet
7 12 (0.57%) Trello
8 8 (0.38%) Chatbot
9 5 (0.24%) Photoshop
10 4 (0.19%) Simulink
10 4 (0.19%) Stateflow
11 3 (0.14%) Adobe Creative Suite
12 2 (0.096%) Adobe After Effects
12 2 (0.096%) Adobe Illustrator
12 2 (0.096%) AutoCAD
12 2 (0.096%) InDesign
13 1 (0.048%) Adobe XD
13 1 (0.048%) InVision
13 1 (0.048%) Oracle Smart View
13 1 (0.048%) Windchill
Business Applications
1 88 (4.20%) SAP S/4HANA
2 16 (0.76%) Primavera
3 11 (0.53%) Oracle Payables
4 10 (0.48%) Dynamics CRM
4 10 (0.48%) Oracle Subledger Accounting
4 10 (0.48%) Shopify
5 9 (0.43%) Oracle Assets
6 8 (0.38%) Loan IQ
6 8 (0.38%) Oracle ERP
6 8 (0.38%) Oracle Procure-to-Pay
7 7 (0.33%) NEC Housing
8 6 (0.29%) Oracle EBS
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
1 152 (7.26%) Azure
2 101 (4.83%) Power Platform
3 83 (3.97%) Microsoft 365
4 82 (3.92%) SaaS
5 77 (3.68%) AWS
6 47 (2.25%) Azure DevOps
7 27 (1.29%) Smartsheet
8 26 (1.24%) Dynamics 365
9 25 (1.19%) Google Workspace
10 24 (1.15%) GCP
11 20 (0.96%) Asana
12 17 (0.81%) Entra ID
13 14 (0.67%) Microsoft Copilot
13 14 (0.67%) OpenShift
14 11 (0.53%) GitHub
14 11 (0.53%) Snowflake
15 10 (0.48%) Azure Synapse Analytics
15 10 (0.48%) BigCommerce
15 10 (0.48%) Google Sheets
16 9 (0.43%) OCI
Communications & Networking
1 30 (1.43%) WAN
2 24 (1.15%) Firewall
2 24 (1.15%) Network Security
3 22 (1.05%) TCP/IP
4 20 (0.96%) DNS
5 19 (0.91%) LAN
6 17 (0.81%) SD-WAN
7 16 (0.76%) Wi-Fi
8 15 (0.72%) Structured Cabling
9 14 (0.67%) MPLS
10 12 (0.57%) Internet
11 11 (0.53%) BGP
12 10 (0.48%) DHCP
12 10 (0.48%) VPN
13 9 (0.43%) BIG-IP
14 8 (0.38%) SAN
15 7 (0.33%) DKIM
15 7 (0.33%) DMARC
15 7 (0.33%) Intranet
16 6 (0.29%) SSL
Database & Business Intelligence
1 95 (4.54%) Power BI
2 18 (0.86%) Tableau
3 17 (0.81%) Metadata
4 16 (0.76%) Data Warehouse
5 13 (0.62%) Data Lake
5 13 (0.62%) SQL Server
6 10 (0.48%) Electronic Patient Records
7 9 (0.43%) Oracle Reports
7 9 (0.43%) Relational Database
8 6 (0.29%) Power Query
8 6 (0.29%) SAP HANA
9 4 (0.19%) Oracle BI Publisher
10 3 (0.14%) Amazon RDS
10 3 (0.14%) BigQuery
10 3 (0.14%) NoSQL
10 3 (0.14%) QlikView
10 3 (0.14%) SQL Server Integration Services
11 2 (0.096%) Elasticsearch
11 2 (0.096%) MongoDB
11 2 (0.096%) Oracle Database
Development Applications
1 283 (13.52%) JIRA
2 23 (1.10%) Git
3 15 (0.72%) Jenkins
4 11 (0.53%) GitLab
5 5 (0.24%) Subversion
6 4 (0.19%) Bitbucket
7 3 (0.14%) Selenium
8 2 (0.096%) Hudson
8 2 (0.096%) Rational Rhapsody
8 2 (0.096%) SonarQube
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
1 926 (44.24%) Social Skills
2 784 (37.46%) Finance
3 337 (16.10%) Analytical Skills
4 213 (10.18%) Organisational Skills
5 179 (8.55%) Public Sector
6 154 (7.36%) Banking
7 120 (5.73%) Retail
8 114 (5.45%) Marketing
9 83 (3.97%) Legal
10 75 (3.58%) Manufacturing
11 72 (3.44%) Influencing Skills
12 53 (2.53%) Telecoms
13 47 (2.25%) Presentation Skills
14 38 (1.82%) Investment Banking
15 34 (1.62%) Financial Institution
16 30 (1.43%) Documentation Skills
17 27 (1.29%) Front Office
17 27 (1.29%) Pharmaceutical
18 25 (1.19%) Aerospace
19 24 (1.15%) Local Government
Job Titles
1 830 (39.66%) Project Manager
2 247 (11.80%) Analyst
3 212 (10.13%) Senior
4 161 (7.69%) Lead
5 146 (6.98%) Senior Manager
6 124 (5.92%) Senior Project Manager
7 123 (5.88%) Business Analyst
8 101 (4.83%) IT Manager
9 91 (4.35%) IT Project Manager
10 75 (3.58%) Programme Manager
11 73 (3.49%) Consultant
12 62 (2.96%) Delivery Manager
13 61 (2.91%) Technical Manager
14 56 (2.68%) Architect
14 56 (2.68%) Infrastructure Manager
15 48 (2.29%) Technical Project Manager
16 47 (2.25%) SC Cleared Project Manager
17 42 (2.01%) Infrastructure Project Manager
18 41 (1.96%) Project Officer
18 41 (1.96%) SAP Manager
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 27 (1.29%) Middleware
2 23 (1.10%) REST
3 17 (0.81%) Oracle Fusion
4 15 (0.72%) OAuth
5 14 (0.67%) SOAP
5 14 (0.67%) Web Services
6 13 (0.62%) VML
7 12 (0.57%) HTML
8 11 (0.53%) CSS
9 10 (0.48%) JSON
10 9 (0.43%) ADO
11 8 (0.38%) .NET
11 8 (0.38%) RESTful
11 8 (0.38%) SailPoint
11 8 (0.38%) SAML
12 7 (0.33%) OpenID
13 6 (0.29%) OAuth2
13 6 (0.29%) XML
14 5 (0.24%) AngularJS
14 5 (0.24%) FHIR
Miscellaneous
1 107 (5.11%) Management Information System
2 92 (4.40%) Onboarding
3 76 (3.63%) Data Centre
4 69 (3.30%) Product Ownership
5 66 (3.15%) Data Protection Act
6 65 (3.11%) PMI
7 39 (1.86%) Self-Motivation
8 38 (1.82%) Virtual Team
9 33 (1.58%) Legacy Systems
10 22 (1.05%) Analytical Mindset
11 21 (1.00%) Operational Technology
11 21 (1.00%) Social Media
12 20 (0.96%) CMDB
12 20 (0.96%) Data Structures
12 20 (0.96%) FMCG
12 20 (0.96%) Life Science
12 20 (0.96%) NHS
13 18 (0.86%) Enterprise Software
14 16 (0.76%) EPoS
15 13 (0.62%) PKI
Operating Systems
1 53 (2.53%) Windows
2 31 (1.48%) Linux
3 17 (0.81%) Unix
4 14 (0.67%) Windows Server
5 9 (0.43%) Windows 10
6 6 (0.29%) zOS
7 3 (0.14%) Apple iOS
7 3 (0.14%) Solaris
7 3 (0.14%) Windows Server 2019
8 2 (0.096%) Mac OS X
8 2 (0.096%) Ubuntu
8 2 (0.096%) Windows 7
8 2 (0.096%) Windows Server 2012
8 2 (0.096%) Windows Server 2016
9 1 (0.048%) AIX
9 1 (0.048%) Android
9 1 (0.048%) FreeRTOS
9 1 (0.048%) Mac OS
9 1 (0.048%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
9 1 (0.048%) Windows Server 2003
Processes & Methodologies
1 753 (35.98%) Agile
2 729 (34.83%) Stakeholder Management
3 541 (25.85%) Project Delivery
4 440 (21.02%) Problem-Solving
5 389 (18.59%) PRINCE2
6 316 (15.10%) Migration
7 313 (14.95%) Continuous Improvement
8 306 (14.62%) Stakeholder Engagement
9 303 (14.48%) Change Management
10 261 (12.47%) Decision-Making
11 254 (12.14%) Waterfall
12 247 (11.80%) Risk Management
13 191 (9.13%) Scrum
14 184 (8.79%) ERP
15 170 (8.12%) Budget Management
16 160 (7.64%) AI
17 142 (6.78%) Roadmaps
18 134 (6.40%) Analytics
18 134 (6.40%) DevOps
18 134 (6.40%) Validation
Programming Languages
1 88 (4.20%) SQL
2 52 (2.48%) Python
3 19 (0.91%) JavaScript
4 17 (0.81%) Java
5 14 (0.67%) VBA
6 11 (0.53%) C#
7 9 (0.43%) C++
8 8 (0.38%) C
9 6 (0.29%) ABAP
9 6 (0.29%) PowerShell
10 5 (0.24%) R
10 5 (0.24%) TypeScript
11 4 (0.19%) Ada
11 4 (0.19%) JCL
11 4 (0.19%) MATLAB
11 4 (0.19%) PL/SQL
12 3 (0.14%) Perl
12 3 (0.14%) REXX
12 3 (0.14%) Shell Script
12 3 (0.14%) T-SQL
Qualifications
1 326 (15.58%) Security Cleared
2 313 (14.95%) Degree
3 287 (13.71%) PMP
4 250 (11.94%) PMI Certification
5 242 (11.56%) SC Cleared
6 62 (2.96%) DV Cleared
7 43 (2.05%) Master's Degree
8 42 (2.01%) PRINCE2 Practitioner
9 34 (1.62%) ACCA
9 34 (1.62%) CIMA
10 31 (1.48%) BPSS Clearance
11 30 (1.43%) APMP
12 22 (1.05%) CISSP
13 21 (1.00%) Computer Science Degree
14 19 (0.91%) CISM
14 19 (0.91%) MBA
15 17 (0.81%) CBAP
16 16 (0.76%) PRINCE2 Certification
17 12 (0.57%) IIBA
18 10 (0.48%) ITIL Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 261 (12.47%) PMO
2 128 (6.12%) QA
3 73 (3.49%) Data Quality
4 49 (2.34%) GDPR
5 41 (1.96%) ISO/IEC 27001
6 36 (1.72%) SLA
7 32 (1.53%) NIST
8 20 (0.96%) Accessibility
9 14 (0.67%) GRC
10 10 (0.48%) Basel III
11 9 (0.43%) EMIR
12 8 (0.38%) ISO 9001
13 7 (0.33%) GMP
13 7 (0.33%) MiFID
13 7 (0.33%) PCI DSS
14 6 (0.29%) Cyber Essentials
14 6 (0.29%) Sarbanes-Oxley
14 6 (0.29%) SOC 2
15 5 (0.24%) GxP
15 5 (0.24%) HL7
System Software
1 29 (1.39%) Active Directory
2 8 (0.38%) VMware Infrastructure
3 6 (0.29%) RACF
4 4 (0.19%) Docker
4 4 (0.19%) NFS
4 4 (0.19%) Time Sharing Option
4 4 (0.19%) Virtual Machines
5 2 (0.096%) Firmware
5 2 (0.096%) Virtual Desktop
5 2 (0.096%) VMware ESXi
6 1 (0.048%) ACF2
6 1 (0.048%) Hyper-V
6 1 (0.048%) Microsoft App-V
6 1 (0.048%) Sendmail
6 1 (0.048%) Virtual Servers
6 1 (0.048%) VMware NSX
6 1 (0.048%) vSphere
Systems Management
1 19 (0.91%) Single Sign-On
2 18 (0.86%) Ansible
3 9 (0.43%) Kubernetes
3 9 (0.43%) Microsoft Intune
4 7 (0.33%) Tivoli Storage Manager
5 4 (0.19%) RSA Archer
5 4 (0.19%) Terraform
6 3 (0.14%) FortiGate
6 3 (0.14%) SCCM
7 2 (0.096%) Grafana
7 2 (0.096%) logstash
7 2 (0.096%) vCenter Server
8 1 (0.048%) Active Directory Federation Services
8 1 (0.048%) Docker Swarm
8 1 (0.048%) ITRS Geneos
8 1 (0.048%) Kibana
8 1 (0.048%) Progress Chef
8 1 (0.048%) Prometheus
8 1 (0.048%) SCOM
8 1 (0.048%) vRealize
Vendors
1 304 (14.52%) Microsoft
2 188 (8.98%) SAP
3 111 (5.30%) ServiceNow
4 68 (3.25%) Oracle
5 50 (2.39%) Salesforce
6 43 (2.05%) Google
7 31 (1.48%) Cisco
8 30 (1.43%) Adobe
9 25 (1.19%) Workday
10 20 (0.96%) Databricks
10 20 (0.96%) Sitecore
11 18 (0.86%) VMware
12 15 (0.72%) NEC
13 14 (0.67%) Ariba
13 14 (0.67%) Atlassian
13 14 (0.67%) CyberArk
13 14 (0.67%) IBM
13 14 (0.67%) Sage
14 11 (0.53%) F5
15 10 (0.48%) IFS