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 6 October 2026, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
6 Oct 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 62 30 22
Rank change year-on-year -32 -8 0
Contract jobs citing Project Management 1,997 2,015 2,892
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 3.65% 6.14% 7.68%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 4.32% 6.78% 8.93%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,210 1,240 1,633
10th Percentile £308 £312 £300
25th Percentile £413 £406 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £514 £512 £523
Median % change year-on-year +0.29% -1.96% -0.48%
75th Percentile £619 £625 £613
90th Percentile £725 £726 £716
UK excluding London median daily rate £500 £475 £500
% change year-on-year +5.26% -5.00% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 127 124 135
10th Percentile £21.00 £20.20 £21.25
25th Percentile £30.70 £23.50 £26.55
Median hourly rate £48.00 £34.00 £35.00
Median % change year-on-year +41.18% -2.86% -17.65%
75th Percentile £64.25 £58.69 £51.00
90th Percentile £79.50 £65.00 £66.65
UK excluding London median hourly rate £53.73 £34.34 £35.00
% change year-on-year +56.46% -1.89% -17.65%

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 46,176 29,707 32,376
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 84.50% 90.53% 85.94%
Number of daily rates quoted 27,774 18,450 19,527
10th Percentile £325 £297 £308
25th Percentile £425 £404 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £500 £525
Median % change year-on-year +5.00% -4.76% -2.78%
75th Percentile £638 £623 £638
90th Percentile £738 £725 £750
UK excluding London median daily rate £500 £475 £500
% change year-on-year +5.26% -5.00% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 3,315 1,863 1,324
10th Percentile £13.69 £14.38 £15.00
25th Percentile £17.14 £17.30 £20.12
Median hourly rate £38.50 £25.15 £41.08
Median % change year-on-year +53.08% -38.77% -3.91%
75th Percentile £65.41 £43.21 £65.00
90th Percentile £78.40 £65.00 £74.31
UK excluding London median hourly rate £38.72 £22.32 £42.50
% change year-on-year +73.52% -47.49% -

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 6 October 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 6 October 2026.

Hourly rate histogram for Project Management in the UK

Project Management
Top 18 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 6 October 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 -30 1,753 £525 - 4,337
UK excluding London -39 949 £500 +5.26% 2,767
London -29 845 £550 - 1,960
Work from Home -24 615 £500 +1.63% 1,891
North of England -33 262 £473 -5.50% 592
South East -25 255 £505 +1.00% 729
North West -26 150 £498 +1.12% 314
Midlands -51 142 £550 +15.79% 437
South West -25 128 £475 +5.56% 285
Yorkshire -11 106 £465 -7.00% 212
West Midlands -58 93 £550 +11.79% 246
Scotland -37 77 £490 +8.89% 242
East of England -22 72 £510 -2.39% 296
East Midlands -13 49 £544 +20.83% 191
Wales -27 11 £475 +35.71% 112
Northern Ireland -12 9 £394 -28.41% 119
North East -39 8 £420 +3.07% 69
Channel Islands - 3 £600 - 2

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
1 128 (6.41%) SharePoint
2 96 (4.81%) Confluence
3 33 (1.65%) CMS
4 24 (1.20%) Microsoft Exchange
5 22 (1.10%) Adobe Experience Manager
6 8 (0.40%) Sitecore CMS
7 7 (0.35%) WebLogic
7 7 (0.35%) WebSphere
8 6 (0.30%) Apache
8 6 (0.30%) ArcGIS
8 6 (0.30%) JBoss
8 6 (0.30%) SAS
8 6 (0.30%) WordPress
9 5 (0.25%) Moodle
10 3 (0.15%) Apache Airflow
11 2 (0.10%) FactoryTalk
11 2 (0.10%) WinCC
12 1 (0.050%) Apache Spark
12 1 (0.050%) nginx
12 1 (0.050%) Oracle Workflow
Applications
1 196 (9.81%) Microsoft Excel
2 169 (8.46%) Microsoft Project
3 155 (7.76%) Microsoft Office
4 118 (5.91%) Microsoft PowerPoint
5 38 (1.90%) MS Visio
6 23 (1.15%) Spreadsheet
7 13 (0.65%) Trello
8 9 (0.45%) Adobe Creative Suite
9 6 (0.30%) Windchill
10 5 (0.25%) Chatbot
11 4 (0.20%) Simulink
11 4 (0.20%) Stateflow
12 3 (0.15%) AutoCAD
12 3 (0.15%) Photoshop
13 2 (0.10%) Adobe Illustrator
13 2 (0.10%) Houdini
13 2 (0.10%) InDesign
13 2 (0.10%) NUKE
14 1 (0.050%) Navisworks
14 1 (0.050%) Notion
Business Applications
1 57 (2.85%) SAP S/4HANA
2 23 (1.15%) Primavera
3 13 (0.65%) Adobe Campaign
3 13 (0.65%) Magento
4 12 (0.60%) SAP PS
5 11 (0.55%) SAP CO
5 11 (0.55%) SAP FI
6 9 (0.45%) Dynamics CRM
6 9 (0.45%) SAP MM
7 8 (0.40%) NetSuite
7 8 (0.40%) Teamcenter
8 7 (0.35%) NEC Housing
8 7 (0.35%) Oracle Receivables
9 6 (0.30%) Oracle Payables
9 6 (0.30%) Remedy ITSM
9 6 (0.30%) SAP FI/CO
9 6 (0.30%) SAP SD
9 6 (0.30%) Workday HCM
10 5 (0.25%) Oracle ERP
10 5 (0.25%) SAP PM
Cloud Services
1 176 (8.81%) Azure
2 137 (6.86%) Power Platform
3 85 (4.26%) SaaS
4 80 (4.01%) Microsoft 365
5 70 (3.51%) Azure DevOps
6 66 (3.30%) AWS
7 36 (1.80%) Smartsheet
8 33 (1.65%) Google Workspace
9 29 (1.45%) Dynamics 365
10 27 (1.35%) Entra ID
11 26 (1.30%) GCP
12 19 (0.95%) Asana
13 17 (0.85%) PowerApps
14 16 (0.80%) GitHub
14 16 (0.80%) Microsoft Copilot
14 16 (0.80%) OneDrive
15 14 (0.70%) Power Automate
15 14 (0.70%) SuccessFactors
16 11 (0.55%) Snowflake
17 10 (0.50%) IaaS
Communications & Networking
1 37 (1.85%) Network Security
2 24 (1.20%) DNS
2 24 (1.20%) WAN
3 23 (1.15%) Firewall
4 20 (1.00%) LAN
5 18 (0.90%) TCP/IP
6 17 (0.85%) Structured Cabling
7 13 (0.65%) Wi-Fi
8 12 (0.60%) VPN
9 11 (0.55%) Intranet
9 11 (0.55%) Wireless
10 10 (0.50%) BGP
10 10 (0.50%) DHCP
11 9 (0.45%) Internet
11 9 (0.45%) Radio Access Network
12 8 (0.40%) 3GPP
12 8 (0.40%) 5G
12 8 (0.40%) LTE
12 8 (0.40%) VLAN
12 8 (0.40%) Wireshark
Database & Business Intelligence
1 123 (6.16%) Power BI
2 19 (0.95%) Data Warehouse
3 18 (0.90%) Metadata
4 16 (0.80%) Tableau
5 15 (0.75%) Data Lake
6 14 (0.70%) SQL Server
7 9 (0.45%) GIS
8 8 (0.40%) Power Query
9 7 (0.35%) Amazon RDS
10 6 (0.30%) Big Data
10 6 (0.30%) Relational Database
11 5 (0.25%) DynamoDB
11 5 (0.25%) Hadoop
11 5 (0.25%) Looker
11 5 (0.25%) Oracle Reports
11 5 (0.25%) Qlik Sense
12 4 (0.20%) Amazon Redshift
12 4 (0.20%) BigQuery
12 4 (0.20%) EDMS
13 3 (0.15%) SAP HANA
Development Applications
1 260 (13.02%) JIRA
2 30 (1.50%) Git
3 19 (0.95%) Jenkins
4 10 (0.50%) Rational DOORS
5 8 (0.40%) Subversion
6 6 (0.30%) Rational Rhapsody
7 4 (0.20%) Bitbucket
7 4 (0.20%) GitLab
8 3 (0.15%) Visual Studio
9 2 (0.10%) Selenium
9 2 (0.10%) Zephyr
10 1 (0.050%) Gemini Tracker
10 1 (0.050%) git-flow
10 1 (0.050%) Hudson
10 1 (0.050%) IBM UrbanCode
10 1 (0.050%) ScriptRunner
10 1 (0.050%) SonarQube
10 1 (0.050%) Sonatype Nexus
10 1 (0.050%) TestRail
10 1 (0.050%) Visual Studio Code
General
1 898 (44.97%) Social Skills
2 776 (38.86%) Finance
3 316 (15.82%) Analytical Skills
4 214 (10.72%) Organisational Skills
5 175 (8.76%) Banking
6 172 (8.61%) Public Sector
7 123 (6.16%) Marketing
8 109 (5.46%) Retail
9 101 (5.06%) Influencing Skills
10 85 (4.26%) Manufacturing
11 70 (3.51%) Legal
12 65 (3.25%) Telecoms
13 60 (3.00%) Presentation Skills
14 42 (2.10%) Aerospace
15 36 (1.80%) Investment Banking
16 31 (1.55%) Local Government
17 29 (1.45%) Inclusion and Diversity
18 27 (1.35%) Pharmaceutical
19 26 (1.30%) Front Office
20 24 (1.20%) Aviation
Job Titles
1 806 (40.36%) Project Manager
2 178 (8.91%) Senior
3 169 (8.46%) Lead
4 135 (6.76%) Senior Manager
5 124 (6.21%) Analyst
6 116 (5.81%) IT Manager
7 99 (4.96%) Senior Project Manager
8 89 (4.46%) Programme Manager
9 88 (4.41%) IT Project Manager
10 83 (4.16%) Delivery Manager
11 82 (4.11%) Technical Manager
12 73 (3.66%) Consultant
13 67 (3.36%) Business Analyst
14 63 (3.15%) Technical Project Manager
15 46 (2.30%) Project Officer
16 44 (2.20%) Coordinator
17 40 (2.00%) SC Cleared Project Manager
18 39 (1.95%) Infrastructure Manager
19 38 (1.90%) Project Coordinator
19 38 (1.90%) Transformation Manager
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 22 (1.10%) Middleware
2 17 (0.85%) ADO
3 13 (0.65%) Oracle Fusion
4 12 (0.60%) HTML
4 12 (0.60%) REST
5 10 (0.50%) OAuth
5 10 (0.50%) VML
6 9 (0.45%) .NET
6 9 (0.45%) pytest
6 9 (0.45%) Web Services
7 8 (0.40%) JSON
7 8 (0.40%) Terraform
8 7 (0.35%) React
8 7 (0.35%) SOAP
9 6 (0.30%) FastAPI
10 5 (0.25%) CSS
10 5 (0.25%) DAO
10 5 (0.25%) XML
11 4 (0.20%) EDI
11 4 (0.20%) Lightning Web Components
Miscellaneous
1 118 (5.91%) Management Information System
2 100 (5.01%) Onboarding
3 93 (4.66%) Product Ownership
4 63 (3.15%) Data Centre
5 50 (2.50%) Data Protection Act
6 48 (2.40%) Virtual Team
7 36 (1.80%) Enterprise Software
7 36 (1.80%) PMI
8 31 (1.55%) Operational Technology
9 27 (1.35%) Legacy Systems
10 26 (1.30%) Life Science
11 25 (1.25%) FMCG
12 24 (1.20%) Social Media
13 23 (1.15%) AI Agents
14 21 (1.05%) Self-Motivation
15 20 (1.00%) Credit Risk
16 18 (0.90%) Analytical Mindset
17 17 (0.85%) Fixed Income
17 17 (0.85%) NHS
18 16 (0.80%) Foreign Exchange (FX)
Operating Systems
1 57 (2.85%) Linux
2 51 (2.55%) Windows
3 23 (1.15%) Windows Server
4 22 (1.10%) Unix
5 10 (0.50%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
6 6 (0.30%) zOS
7 5 (0.25%) Apple iOS
7 5 (0.25%) FreeRTOS
7 5 (0.25%) Windows 10
8 4 (0.20%) Android
9 2 (0.10%) Windows Server 2019
10 1 (0.050%) AIX
10 1 (0.050%) Mac OS
10 1 (0.050%) Mac OS X
10 1 (0.050%) Rocky
10 1 (0.050%) Solaris
10 1 (0.050%) Windows 7
10 1 (0.050%) Windows Server 2003
10 1 (0.050%) Windows Server 2012
10 1 (0.050%) Windows Server 2016
Processes & Methodologies
1 920 (46.07%) Stakeholder Management
2 760 (38.06%) Agile
3 597 (29.89%) Project Delivery
4 452 (22.63%) PRINCE2
5 347 (17.38%) Problem-Solving
6 332 (16.62%) Continuous Improvement
7 317 (15.87%) Change Management
8 299 (14.97%) Stakeholder Engagement
9 282 (14.12%) Decision-Making
10 267 (13.37%) Migration
11 264 (13.22%) Risk Management
12 239 (11.97%) Waterfall
13 224 (11.22%) AI
14 212 (10.62%) Project Governance
15 211 (10.57%) Scrum
16 173 (8.66%) Roadmaps
17 170 (8.51%) Project Planning
18 165 (8.26%) Change Control
19 164 (8.21%) Programme Management
20 145 (7.26%) Analytics
Programming Languages
1 77 (3.86%) SQL
2 67 (3.36%) Python
3 15 (0.75%) Java
4 12 (0.60%) C++
4 12 (0.60%) JavaScript
4 12 (0.60%) VBA
5 10 (0.50%) Bash
6 9 (0.45%) C#
7 8 (0.40%) Ada
7 8 (0.40%) Korn
7 8 (0.40%) PowerShell
8 6 (0.30%) TypeScript
9 5 (0.25%) C
9 5 (0.25%) MATLAB
9 5 (0.25%) Shell Script
10 4 (0.20%) Apex Code
11 3 (0.15%) ABAP
11 3 (0.15%) JCL
11 3 (0.15%) REXX
12 2 (0.10%) Ruby
Qualifications
1 325 (16.27%) Security Cleared
2 305 (15.27%) Degree
3 290 (14.52%) PMP
4 252 (12.62%) PMI Certification
5 227 (11.37%) SC Cleared
6 77 (3.86%) DV Cleared
6 77 (3.86%) PRINCE2 Practitioner
7 35 (1.75%) BPSS Clearance
8 20 (1.00%) Master's Degree
9 18 (0.90%) PRINCE2 Certification
10 16 (0.80%) ISTQB
10 16 (0.80%) ITIL Certification
11 14 (0.70%) Azure Certification
12 13 (0.65%) ACCA
12 13 (0.65%) APMP
12 13 (0.65%) CIMA
12 13 (0.65%) DBS Check
13 12 (0.60%) CISSP
14 10 (0.50%) Cisco Certification
14 10 (0.50%) Computer Science Degree
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 255 (12.77%) PMO
2 90 (4.51%) QA
3 53 (2.65%) Data Quality
4 31 (1.55%) GDPR
5 27 (1.35%) GRC
6 23 (1.15%) Accessibility
7 21 (1.05%) SLA
8 17 (0.85%) ISO/IEC 27001
9 14 (0.70%) NIST
10 10 (0.50%) P3O
11 7 (0.35%) Cyber Essentials
12 6 (0.30%) FINREP
12 6 (0.30%) GMP
12 6 (0.30%) Sarbanes-Oxley
13 5 (0.25%) COREP
13 5 (0.25%) WCAG
14 4 (0.20%) Disclosure Scotland
14 4 (0.20%) ISO 9001
14 4 (0.20%) MISRA
14 4 (0.20%) MISRA C
System Software
1 34 (1.70%) Active Directory
2 33 (1.65%) VMware Infrastructure
3 12 (0.60%) vSphere
4 8 (0.40%) Virtual Desktop
4 8 (0.40%) Virtual Machines
5 7 (0.35%) VMware ESXi
6 5 (0.25%) Hyper-V
6 5 (0.25%) VMware NSX
7 3 (0.15%) NFS
7 3 (0.15%) Time Sharing Option
8 2 (0.10%) Docker
8 2 (0.10%) Firmware
9 1 (0.050%) ACF2
9 1 (0.050%) IAG
9 1 (0.050%) RACF
9 1 (0.050%) Virtual Servers
Systems Management
1 18 (0.90%) Ansible
2 10 (0.50%) Single Sign-On
3 9 (0.45%) Kubernetes
4 8 (0.40%) Microsoft Intune
5 7 (0.35%) Puppet
6 5 (0.25%) Failover Clustering
6 5 (0.25%) Red Hat Satellite
6 5 (0.25%) Tivoli Storage Manager
7 4 (0.20%) ITRS Geneos
8 3 (0.15%) SCCM
9 2 (0.10%) BMC PATROL
9 2 (0.10%) BMC Performance Manager
9 2 (0.10%) Perfmon
9 2 (0.10%) ZABBIX
10 1 (0.050%) HP Quality Center
10 1 (0.050%) Nagios
10 1 (0.050%) Nessus
10 1 (0.050%) OMEGAMON
10 1 (0.050%) Progress Chef
10 1 (0.050%) vCenter Server
Vendors
1 366 (18.33%) Microsoft
2 160 (8.01%) SAP
3 89 (4.46%) ServiceNow
4 76 (3.81%) Oracle
5 52 (2.60%) Salesforce
6 48 (2.40%) VMware
7 46 (2.30%) Google
8 42 (2.10%) Adobe
9 27 (1.35%) Cisco
10 21 (1.05%) Ariba
10 21 (1.05%) Atlassian
10 21 (1.05%) IBM
11 19 (0.95%) NEC
11 19 (0.95%) Workday
12 18 (0.90%) Databricks
12 18 (0.90%) Sitecore
13 15 (0.75%) Planview
14 12 (0.60%) Alteryx
15 11 (0.55%) JD Edwards
16 9 (0.45%) Murex