Project Manager Contract Job Trends

Project Manager
UK

The median Project Manager daily rate in the UK is £525, according to job vacancies posted in the 6 months leading up to 19 April 2026.

The table below compares current contractor rates and summary statistics with the previous two years.

6 months to
19 Apr 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 56 39 29
Rank change year-on-year -17 -10 -2
Contract jobs requiring a Project Manager 1,771 1,481 2,550
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 3.83% 5.03% 5.83%
As % of the Job Titles category 4.16% 5.44% 6.29%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,234 982 1,800
10th Percentile £363 £358 £355
25th Percentile £443 £447 £440
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £520 £525
Median % change year-on-year +0.96% -0.95% -
75th Percentile £625 £600 £619
90th Percentile £725 £700 £700
UK excluding London median daily rate £500 £500 £500
Number of hourly rates quoted 25 52 127
10th Percentile £19.96 £21.25 £18.32
25th Percentile £56.25 £29.73 £27.50
Median hourly rate £63.50 £44.50 £36.34
Median % change year-on-year +42.70% +22.47% -44.10%
75th Percentile £70.00 £63.50 £52.63
90th Percentile £91.05 £78.37 £62.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £63.50 £33.00 £35.50
% change year-on-year +92.42% -7.04% -45.38%

All Contract IT Job Roles
UK

For comparison with the information above, the following table provides summary statistics for all contract IT job vacancies. Most job vacancies include a discernible job title that can be normalized. As such, the figures in the second row provide an indication of the number of contract jobs in our overall sample.

Contract vacancies in the UK with a recognized job title 42,592 27,248 40,561
% of contract IT jobs with a recognized job title 92.22% 92.60% 92.79%
Number of daily rates quoted 26,414 17,867 26,505
10th Percentile £313 £300 £275
25th Percentile £413 £406 £409
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £515 £525
Median % change year-on-year -2.91% -1.90% -2.78%
75th Percentile £613 £625 £638
90th Percentile £725 £738 £745
UK excluding London median daily rate £488 £475 £493
% change year-on-year +2.63% -3.65% -1.40%
Number of hourly rates quoted 2,707 994 2,611
10th Percentile £14.96 £14.55 £12.86
25th Percentile £20.35 £19.00 £16.25
Median hourly rate £41.94 £30.45 £35.00
Median % change year-on-year +37.73% -13.00% -22.22%
75th Percentile £65.60 £63.75 £60.00
90th Percentile £77.70 £75.43 £72.50
UK excluding London median hourly rate £43.00 £29.53 £36.27
% change year-on-year +45.64% -18.60% -14.17%

Project Manager
Job Vacancy Trend

Historical trend showing the proportion of contract IT job postings featuring 'Project Manager' in the job title relative to all contract IT jobs advertised.

Project Manager job vacancy trend in the UK

Project Manager
Daily Rate Trend

Contractor daily rate distribution trend for Project Manager job vacancies in the UK.

Contractor daily rate distribution trend for Project Manager job vacancies in the UK

Project Manager
Daily Rate Histogram

Daily rate distribution for jobs citing Project Manager over the 6 months to 19 April 2026.

Daily rate histogram for Project Manager in the UK

Project Manager
Hourly Rate Trend

Contractor hourly rate distribution trend for Project Manager job vacancies in the UK.

Contractor hourly rate distribution trend for Project Manager job vacancies in the UK

Project Manager
Hourly Rate Histogram

Hourly rate distribution of jobs citing Project Manager over the 6 months to 19 April 2026.

Hourly rate histogram for Project Manager in the UK

Project Manager
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 Manager within the UK over the 6 months to 19 April 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 -20 1,527 £538 +2.38% 475
UK excluding London -20 881 £500 - 374
London -17 715 £550 - 159
Work from Home -11 508 £550 +4.76% 173
North of England -25 229 £480 -4.00% 89
South East -7 218 £550 +8.64% 124
Midlands -27 174 £498 +2.68% 72
West Midlands -26 126 £550 +4.76% 53
Yorkshire -17 112 £480 -4.00% 25
North West -25 112 £488 -1.22% 60
South West -9 86 £475 -5.00% 35
East of England -2 79 £575 +9.52% 26
Scotland -14 66 £450 -6.35% 21
East Midlands -20 49 £425 +3.03% 18
Wales +1 24 £303 -30.80% 6
Northern Ireland +6 21 £450 +5.88% 4
North East -22 7 £475 +1.33% 5

Project Manager Skill Set
Top 30 Co-Occurring Skills & Capabilities

For the 6 months to 19 April 2026, Project Manager contract job roles required the following skills and capabilities in order of popularity. The figures indicate the absolute number of co-occurrences and as a proportion of all contract job ads featuring Project Manager in the job title.

1 844 (47.66%) Project Management
2 725 (40.94%) Stakeholder Management
3 569 (32.13%) Agile
4 485 (27.39%) Project Delivery
5 352 (19.88%) PRINCE2
6 304 (17.17%) Migration
7 296 (16.71%) Stakeholder Engagement
8 289 (16.32%) PMP
9 247 (13.95%) PMI Certification
10 217 (12.25%) Change Management
11 214 (12.08%) Security Cleared
12 206 (11.63%) Problem-Solving
13 199 (11.24%) Risk Management
14 187 (10.56%) Degree
15 183 (10.33%) SAP
16 181 (10.22%) Microsoft
17 167 (9.43%) Scrum
18 163 (9.20%) JIRA
19 161 (9.09%) Waterfall
20 160 (9.03%) ERP
20 160 (9.03%) Project Governance
20 160 (9.03%) SC Cleared
21 154 (8.70%) Budget Management
22 151 (8.53%) PMO
23 139 (7.85%) Cybersecurity
24 137 (7.74%) Microsoft Project
25 136 (7.68%) Azure
26 135 (7.62%) Decision-Making
27 133 (7.51%) Continuous Improvement
28 128 (7.23%) Roadmaps

Project Manager Skill Set
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 88 (4.97%) Confluence
2 52 (2.94%) SharePoint
3 13 (0.73%) CMS
4 11 (0.62%) Microsoft Exchange
5 4 (0.23%) Adobe Experience Manager
6 2 (0.11%) Apache Pulsar
6 2 (0.11%) IBM HTTP Server
7 1 (0.056%) Appian
7 1 (0.056%) Documentum
7 1 (0.056%) Oracle Workflow
7 1 (0.056%) Sitecore CMS
7 1 (0.056%) Sitefinity
7 1 (0.056%) ThingWorx
7 1 (0.056%) Umbraco
Applications
1 137 (7.74%) Microsoft Project
2 50 (2.82%) Microsoft Excel
3 32 (1.81%) Microsoft Office
3 32 (1.81%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 11 (0.62%) Trello
5 10 (0.56%) MS Visio
6 7 (0.40%) Chatbot
7 3 (0.17%) Revit
8 1 (0.056%) AutoCAD
8 1 (0.056%) Notion
8 1 (0.056%) Spreadsheet
8 1 (0.056%) Windchill
Business Applications
1 73 (4.12%) SAP S/4HANA
2 14 (0.79%) Oracle EBS
3 10 (0.56%) SAP CO
3 10 (0.56%) SAP FI
3 10 (0.56%) Unit4 Business World
4 9 (0.51%) SAP FI/CO
5 7 (0.40%) SAP ERP
6 6 (0.34%) Dynamics CRM
6 6 (0.34%) NetSuite
7 5 (0.28%) Oracle ERP
7 5 (0.28%) Shopify
8 4 (0.23%) NEC Housing
8 4 (0.23%) Oracle EBS R12
8 4 (0.23%) Oracle General Ledger
8 4 (0.23%) Oracle Payables
8 4 (0.23%) Oracle Procure-to-Pay
8 4 (0.23%) Oracle Receivables
8 4 (0.23%) SAP MM
8 4 (0.23%) SAP Payroll
8 4 (0.23%) SAP PP
Cloud Services
1 136 (7.68%) Azure
2 58 (3.27%) SaaS
3 57 (3.22%) Microsoft 365
4 51 (2.88%) Power Platform
5 50 (2.82%) AWS
6 35 (1.98%) Azure DevOps
7 34 (1.92%) Dynamics 365
8 23 (1.30%) Entra ID
9 22 (1.24%) GCP
10 20 (1.13%) OpenShift
11 16 (0.90%) Microsoft Copilot
11 16 (0.90%) Smartsheet
12 13 (0.73%) OneDrive
13 12 (0.68%) Asana
14 11 (0.62%) OCI
15 9 (0.51%) SuccessFactors
16 6 (0.34%) Azure Data Factory
16 6 (0.34%) Azure Synapse Analytics
16 6 (0.34%) Microsoft Purview
16 6 (0.34%) Miro
Communications & Networking
1 26 (1.47%) WAN
2 20 (1.13%) Firewall
3 18 (1.02%) LAN
3 18 (1.02%) Network Security
4 16 (0.90%) Wi-Fi
5 15 (0.85%) Structured Cabling
6 13 (0.73%) SD-WAN
7 8 (0.45%) VPN
8 7 (0.40%) MPLS
8 7 (0.40%) Unified Communications
9 6 (0.34%) Internet
10 5 (0.28%) BGP
10 5 (0.28%) NAS
10 5 (0.28%) OSPF
10 5 (0.28%) SAN
11 4 (0.23%) 3G
11 4 (0.23%) 4G
11 4 (0.23%) 5G
11 4 (0.23%) TCP/IP
12 3 (0.17%) DNS
Database & Business Intelligence
1 44 (2.48%) Power BI
2 15 (0.85%) Data Warehouse
3 11 (0.62%) Data Lake
4 10 (0.56%) Electronic Patient Records
5 9 (0.51%) Oracle Reports
6 7 (0.40%) SQL Server
7 5 (0.28%) Tableau
8 4 (0.23%) Metadata
8 4 (0.23%) Oracle BI Publisher
9 3 (0.17%) Amazon RDS
9 3 (0.17%) BusinessObjects
9 3 (0.17%) DynamoDB
9 3 (0.17%) GIS
9 3 (0.17%) Qlik Sense
10 2 (0.11%) EDMS
10 2 (0.11%) EDRMS
10 2 (0.11%) Looker
10 2 (0.11%) QlikView
10 2 (0.11%) SAP BW
10 2 (0.11%) SAP HANA
Development Applications
1 163 (9.20%) JIRA
2 5 (0.28%) Git
3 4 (0.23%) Jenkins
4 2 (0.11%) LSMW
5 1 (0.056%) GitLab
5 1 (0.056%) Sonatype Nexus
General
1 672 (37.94%) Finance
2 605 (34.16%) Social Skills
3 134 (7.57%) Public Sector
4 129 (7.28%) Banking
5 122 (6.89%) Analytical Skills
6 112 (6.32%) Retail
7 106 (5.99%) Organisational Skills
8 64 (3.61%) Manufacturing
9 62 (3.50%) Legal
10 40 (2.26%) Influencing Skills
11 39 (2.20%) Telecoms
12 34 (1.92%) Marketing
13 27 (1.52%) Law
14 24 (1.36%) Local Government
14 24 (1.36%) Pharmaceutical
15 21 (1.19%) Presentation Skills
16 19 (1.07%) Financial Institution
16 19 (1.07%) Investment Banking
17 18 (1.02%) Front Office
18 14 (0.79%) Inclusion and Diversity
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 16 (0.90%) Middleware
2 14 (0.79%) Oracle Fusion
3 12 (0.68%) ADO
3 12 (0.68%) SailPoint
4 7 (0.40%) SAP Fiori
5 5 (0.28%) OAuth
5 5 (0.28%) OpenID
6 4 (0.23%) Node.js
6 4 (0.23%) OAuth2
6 4 (0.23%) SAML
6 4 (0.23%) VML
6 4 (0.23%) YAML
7 3 (0.17%) Kafka
8 2 (0.11%) GraphQL
8 2 (0.11%) Microsoft Graph
8 2 (0.11%) ModSecurity
8 2 (0.11%) OpenTelemetry
8 2 (0.11%) REST
8 2 (0.11%) RESTful
8 2 (0.11%) Spring Boot
Miscellaneous
1 79 (4.46%) Data Centre
2 76 (4.29%) Onboarding
3 51 (2.88%) PMI
4 42 (2.37%) Product Ownership
5 36 (2.03%) Legacy Systems
6 35 (1.98%) Data Protection Act
6 35 (1.98%) Virtual Team
7 31 (1.75%) Management Information System
7 31 (1.75%) NHS
8 27 (1.52%) Self-Motivation
9 24 (1.36%) Operational Technology
10 15 (0.85%) Life Science
11 14 (0.79%) Data Structures
11 14 (0.79%) Reinsurance
12 13 (0.73%) Cloud Native
12 13 (0.73%) Enterprise Software
12 13 (0.73%) FMCG
13 11 (0.62%) Analytical Mindset
14 10 (0.56%) CMDB
15 9 (0.51%) SCADA
Operating Systems
1 32 (1.81%) Windows
2 6 (0.34%) Linux
3 4 (0.23%) Windows 10
4 3 (0.17%) VMS
4 3 (0.17%) Windows Server
5 2 (0.11%) OpenVMS
5 2 (0.11%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
6 1 (0.056%) Android
6 1 (0.056%) Unix
Processes & Methodologies
1 844 (47.66%) Project Management
2 725 (40.94%) Stakeholder Management
3 569 (32.13%) Agile
4 485 (27.39%) Project Delivery
5 352 (19.88%) PRINCE2
6 304 (17.17%) Migration
7 296 (16.71%) Stakeholder Engagement
8 217 (12.25%) Change Management
9 206 (11.63%) Problem-Solving
10 199 (11.24%) Risk Management
11 167 (9.43%) Scrum
12 161 (9.09%) Waterfall
13 160 (9.03%) ERP
13 160 (9.03%) Project Governance
14 154 (8.70%) Budget Management
15 139 (7.85%) Cybersecurity
16 135 (7.62%) Decision-Making
17 133 (7.51%) Continuous Improvement
18 128 (7.23%) Roadmaps
19 114 (6.44%) Project Planning
Programming Languages
1 16 (0.90%) Python
2 15 (0.85%) SQL
3 5 (0.28%) ABAP
3 5 (0.28%) Java
4 2 (0.11%) Bicep
4 2 (0.11%) Korn
4 2 (0.11%) PowerShell
5 1 (0.056%) C++
5 1 (0.056%) JavaScript
5 1 (0.056%) PHP
5 1 (0.056%) Ruby
Qualifications
1 289 (16.32%) PMP
2 247 (13.95%) PMI Certification
3 214 (12.08%) Security Cleared
4 187 (10.56%) Degree
5 160 (9.03%) SC Cleared
6 52 (2.94%) DV Cleared
7 29 (1.64%) CISSP
7 29 (1.64%) PRINCE2 Practitioner
8 28 (1.58%) Master's Degree
9 26 (1.47%) CISM
10 24 (1.36%) APMP
11 19 (1.07%) BPSS Clearance
12 16 (0.90%) PRINCE2 Certification
13 14 (0.79%) Computer Science Degree
14 12 (0.68%) MBA
15 9 (0.51%) SAFe Agilist
16 6 (0.34%) MAPM
17 5 (0.28%) SAP Certification
18 4 (0.23%) CRISC
19 3 (0.17%) Six Sigma Green Belt
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 151 (8.53%) PMO
2 83 (4.69%) QA
3 57 (3.22%) GDPR
4 48 (2.71%) NIST
5 46 (2.60%) ISO/IEC 27001
6 32 (1.81%) Data Quality
7 20 (1.13%) SOC 2
8 12 (0.68%) GRC
9 8 (0.45%) Basel III
9 8 (0.45%) Cyber Essentials
10 7 (0.40%) MiFID
10 7 (0.40%) PCI DSS
11 6 (0.34%) SLA
12 5 (0.28%) GxP
12 5 (0.28%) Sarbanes-Oxley
13 4 (0.23%) EU AI Act
13 4 (0.23%) JSP 440
13 4 (0.23%) NCSC
14 3 (0.17%) Accessibility
14 3 (0.17%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
System Software
1 21 (1.19%) Active Directory
2 2 (0.11%) Docker
2 2 (0.11%) Virtual Machines
3 1 (0.056%) EMC RecoverPoint
3 1 (0.056%) Sendmail
3 1 (0.056%) Virtual Desktop
3 1 (0.056%) VMware Infrastructure
Systems Management
1 11 (0.62%) Single Sign-On
2 9 (0.51%) Kubernetes
3 7 (0.40%) Microsoft Intune
4 5 (0.28%) Ansible
4 5 (0.28%) RSA Archer
5 4 (0.23%) Terraform
6 2 (0.11%) Grafana
6 2 (0.11%) Istio
6 2 (0.11%) linkerd
6 2 (0.11%) Prometheus
7 1 (0.056%) Avamar
7 1 (0.056%) Cisco CUCM
7 1 (0.056%) EMC VPLEX
7 1 (0.056%) Jamf Pro
7 1 (0.056%) logstash
7 1 (0.056%) SCCM
Vendors
1 183 (10.33%) SAP
2 181 (10.22%) Microsoft
3 81 (4.57%) Oracle
4 76 (4.29%) ServiceNow
5 45 (2.54%) Salesforce
6 26 (1.47%) Workday
7 25 (1.41%) Ariba
8 23 (1.30%) CyberArk
9 21 (1.19%) Cisco
10 12 (0.68%) Databricks
11 11 (0.62%) Adobe
11 11 (0.62%) Google
12 8 (0.45%) Atlassian
12 8 (0.45%) Planview
12 8 (0.45%) Red Hat
13 7 (0.40%) BT
13 7 (0.40%) IBM
13 7 (0.40%) Okta
13 7 (0.40%) Sitecore
14 6 (0.34%) MuleSoft