Project Manager Contracts

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 10 July 2025.

The table below provides contractor rate benchmarking and summary statistics, comparing them to the same period in the previous two years.

6 months to
10 Jul 2025
Same period 2024 Same period 2023
Rank 44 31 27
Rank change year-on-year -13 -4 -7
Contract jobs requiring a Project Manager 1,514 2,418 3,882
As % of all contract jobs advertised in the UK 4.67% 5.60% 6.79%
As % of the Job Titles category 5.08% 6.02% 7.18%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,038 1,620 2,838
10th Percentile £375 £355 £400
25th Percentile £448 £450 £456
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £525 £530
Median % change year-on-year - -0.94% +0.95%
75th Percentile £601 £614 £625
90th Percentile £713 £700 £700
UK excluding London median daily rate £500 £500 £510
% change year-on-year - -1.96% +3.03%
Number of hourly rates quoted 23 117 63
10th Percentile £29.56 £22.50 £30.54
25th Percentile £34.52 £29.17 £40.75
Median hourly rate £60.00 £37.50 £62.50
Median % change year-on-year +60.00% -40.00% +14.68%
75th Percentile £70.00 £60.00 £66.00
90th Percentile £81.75 £71.75 £71.86
UK excluding London median hourly rate £57.50 £37.50 £58.88
% change year-on-year +53.33% -36.31% +42.74%

All Contract IT Job Vacancies
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 29,779 40,145 54,063
% of contract IT jobs with a recognized job title 91.87% 92.99% 94.55%
Number of daily rates quoted 18,981 25,838 37,549
10th Percentile £288 £288 £313
25th Percentile £401 £409 £425
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £525 £538
Median % change year-on-year -4.76% -2.33% +0.94%
75th Percentile £625 £638 £650
90th Percentile £738 £750 £750
UK excluding London median daily rate £475 £493 £500
% change year-on-year -3.65% -1.40% +3.09%
Number of hourly rates quoted 1,369 2,770 1,583
10th Percentile £13.75 £12.88 £14.25
25th Percentile £17.30 £16.79 £19.06
Median hourly rate £26.32 £37.50 £43.63
Median % change year-on-year -29.81% -14.05% +71.10%
75th Percentile £56.00 £62.50 £65.00
90th Percentile £73.35 £73.75 £77.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £25.15 £40.00 £39.80
% change year-on-year -37.13% +0.50% +96.64%

Project Manager
Job Vacancy Trend

Job postings that featured Project Manager in the job title as a proportion of all IT jobs advertised.

Job vacancy trend for Project Manager in the UK

Project Manager
Contractor Daily Rate Trend

3-month moving average daily rate quoted in jobs citing Project Manager.

Daily rate trend for Project Manager in the UK

Project Manager
Daily Rate Histogram

Daily rate distribution for jobs citing Project Manager over the 6 months to 10 July 2025.

Daily rate histogram for Project Manager in the UK

Project Manager
Contractor Hourly Rate Trend

3-month moving average hourly rates quoted in jobs citing Project Manager.

Hourly rate trend for Project Manager in the UK

Project Manager
Hourly Rate Histogram

Hourly rate distribution of jobs citing Project Manager over the 6 months to 10 July 2025.

Hourly rate histogram for Project Manager in the UK

Project Manager
Top 17 Contract 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 10 July 2025. 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 -14 1,284 £525 - 983
London -7 689 £550 - 443
UK excluding London -19 662 £500 - 693
Work from Home -15 500 £515 +2.90% 411
North of England -25 162 £500 - 139
South East -16 143 £525 - 209
Midlands -17 115 £511 -2.67% 101
West Midlands -10 90 £525 - 69
Scotland -16 83 £494 +2.60% 53
Yorkshire +1 78 £500 - 45
South West -18 78 £475 -5.00% 61
North West -34 74 £500 - 83
East of England -7 53 £488 +8.33% 80
East Midlands -21 23 £475 +5.56% 32
Wales -4 18 £444 -13.83% 34
Northern Ireland -5 11 £475 -9.52% 25
North East -3 10 £456 -17.05% 13

Project Manager Skill Set
Top 30 Co-occurring Skills and Capabilities

For the 6 months to 10 July 2025, Project Manager contract job roles required the following skills and capabilities in order of popularity. The figures indicate the absolute number co-occurrences and as a proportion of all contract job ads featuring Project Manager in the job title.

1 772 (50.99%) Project Management
2 581 (38.38%) Finance
3 574 (37.91%) Social Skills
4 500 (33.03%) Stakeholder Management
5 474 (31.31%) Agile
6 349 (23.05%) Project Delivery
7 257 (16.97%) PRINCE2
8 246 (16.25%) Migration
9 223 (14.73%) Problem-Solving
10 216 (14.27%) Stakeholder Engagement
11 186 (12.29%) Change Management
12 175 (11.56%) PMI Certification
13 173 (11.43%) PMP
13 173 (11.43%) Risk Management
14 168 (11.10%) Waterfall
15 159 (10.50%) Banking
16 155 (10.24%) Microsoft
17 152 (10.04%) JIRA
18 142 (9.38%) SAP
19 133 (8.78%) Security Cleared
20 128 (8.45%) Scrum
21 127 (8.39%) Degree
21 127 (8.39%) Budget Management
22 122 (8.06%) Analytical Skills
23 119 (7.86%) Microsoft Project
24 110 (7.27%) Azure
25 102 (6.74%) Project Governance
26 101 (6.67%) Project Planning
27 97 (6.41%) SC Cleared
28 93 (6.14%) Legal

Project Manager Skill Set
Co-occurring Skills and Capabilities by Category

The follow tables expand on the table above by listing co-occurrences grouped by category. The same employment type, locality and period is covered with up to 20 co-occurrences shown in each of the following categories:

Application Platforms
1 66 (4.36%) Confluence
2 24 (1.59%) SharePoint
3 18 (1.19%) CMS
4 5 (0.33%) IBM Domino
4 5 (0.33%) Microsoft Exchange
5 3 (0.20%) Apache Spark
5 3 (0.20%) Sitecore CMS
6 2 (0.13%) Headless CMS
6 2 (0.13%) MS Project Server
7 1 (0.066%) Adobe Experience Manager
7 1 (0.066%) Apache
7 1 (0.066%) Apache Airflow
7 1 (0.066%) Kentico
7 1 (0.066%) Skype for Business
7 1 (0.066%) Umbraco
7 1 (0.066%) WordPress
Applications
1 119 (7.86%) Microsoft Project
2 46 (3.04%) Microsoft Excel
3 43 (2.84%) Microsoft Office
4 38 (2.51%) Microsoft PowerPoint
5 20 (1.32%) Trello
6 15 (0.99%) MS Visio
7 6 (0.40%) Chatbot
7 6 (0.40%) Spreadsheet
Business Applications
1 50 (3.30%) SAP S/4HANA
2 18 (1.19%) Dynamics CRM
3 7 (0.46%) Oracle EBS
3 7 (0.46%) SAP Oil and Gas
4 6 (0.40%) Teamcenter
4 6 (0.40%) Unit4 Business World
5 4 (0.26%) SAP GTS
5 4 (0.26%) Shopify
5 4 (0.26%) Workday HCM
6 3 (0.20%) Oracle Payables
6 3 (0.20%) Oracle Procure-to-Pay
6 3 (0.20%) Oracle Receivables
6 3 (0.20%) SAP BPC
6 3 (0.20%) SAP EWM
6 3 (0.20%) SAP FI
6 3 (0.20%) SAP HCM
6 3 (0.20%) SAP IBP
6 3 (0.20%) SAP PLM
6 3 (0.20%) Workfront
7 2 (0.13%) SAP ERP
Cloud Services
1 110 (7.27%) Azure
2 58 (3.83%) AWS
3 54 (3.57%) SaaS
4 38 (2.51%) Microsoft 365
5 33 (2.18%) Power Platform
6 30 (1.98%) Azure DevOps
7 27 (1.78%) Asana
8 16 (1.06%) GCP
9 15 (0.99%) Smartsheet
10 13 (0.86%) Dynamics 365
11 12 (0.79%) Entra ID
11 12 (0.79%) Microsoft Purview
12 11 (0.73%) SuccessFactors
13 10 (0.66%) Google Workspace
14 8 (0.53%) IaaS
14 8 (0.53%) PaaS
15 7 (0.46%) OCI
15 7 (0.46%) Salesforce Sales Cloud
16 6 (0.40%) OneDrive
16 6 (0.40%) Power Automate
Communications & Networking
1 36 (2.38%) Firewall
2 17 (1.12%) WAN
3 14 (0.92%) VPN
4 13 (0.86%) Wi-Fi
5 12 (0.79%) 5G
6 11 (0.73%) Network Security
6 11 (0.73%) SD-WAN
7 9 (0.59%) LAN
8 7 (0.46%) Wireless
9 6 (0.40%) Structured Cabling
10 4 (0.26%) DNS
10 4 (0.26%) Intrusion Detection
11 3 (0.20%) 4G
11 3 (0.20%) Internet
11 3 (0.20%) LTE
11 3 (0.20%) Radio Access Network
11 3 (0.20%) WLAN
12 2 (0.13%) F5 BIG-IP GTM
12 2 (0.13%) F5 BIG-IP LTM
12 2 (0.13%) Unified Communications
Database & Business Intelligence
1 28 (1.85%) Power BI
2 23 (1.52%) Data Lake
3 12 (0.79%) Data Warehouse
4 8 (0.53%) GIS
5 6 (0.40%) Metadata
6 4 (0.26%) Oracle Database
6 4 (0.26%) Oracle Reports
6 4 (0.26%) SQL Server
6 4 (0.26%) Tableau
7 3 (0.20%) Big Data
7 3 (0.20%) BigQuery
7 3 (0.20%) IBM InfoSphere
7 3 (0.20%) QlikView
8 2 (0.13%) Delta Lake
8 2 (0.13%) EDRMS
8 2 (0.13%) Electronic Patient Records
8 2 (0.13%) Geospatial Data
8 2 (0.13%) Hadoop
8 2 (0.13%) Looker
8 2 (0.13%) SAP Data Services
Development Applications
1 152 (10.04%) JIRA
2 4 (0.26%) Git
2 4 (0.26%) Jenkins
3 3 (0.20%) Snyk
4 2 (0.13%) Oracle Forms
4 2 (0.13%) Subversion
5 1 (0.066%) Hudson
5 1 (0.066%) LSMW
5 1 (0.066%) MLflow
5 1 (0.066%) MSI
General
1 581 (38.38%) Finance
2 574 (37.91%) Social Skills
3 159 (10.50%) Banking
4 122 (8.06%) Analytical Skills
5 93 (6.14%) Legal
6 88 (5.81%) Public Sector
7 78 (5.15%) Marketing
8 75 (4.95%) Retail
9 66 (4.36%) Organisational Skills
10 57 (3.76%) Manufacturing
11 45 (2.97%) Telecoms
12 42 (2.77%) Influencing Skills
13 38 (2.51%) Local Government
14 37 (2.44%) Inclusion and Diversity
15 34 (2.25%) Pharmaceutical
16 27 (1.78%) Investment Banking
17 26 (1.72%) Law
18 24 (1.59%) Billing
19 23 (1.52%) Presentation Skills
20 22 (1.45%) Front Office
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 9 (0.59%) ADO
2 8 (0.53%) Oracle Fusion
3 7 (0.46%) .NET
3 7 (0.46%) SailPoint
4 5 (0.33%) HTML
4 5 (0.33%) Middleware
5 3 (0.20%) .NET Framework
6 2 (0.13%) CSS
6 2 (0.13%) LDAP
6 2 (0.13%) SAML
6 2 (0.13%) SAP Fiori
6 2 (0.13%) VML
6 2 (0.13%) Yocto
7 1 (0.066%) .NET Core
7 1 (0.066%) ARM Templates
7 1 (0.066%) FHIR
7 1 (0.066%) FIDO
7 1 (0.066%) Flash
7 1 (0.066%) Lightning Web Components
7 1 (0.066%) REST
Miscellaneous
1 50 (3.30%) Data Centre
2 39 (2.58%) PMI
3 34 (2.25%) Legacy Systems
3 34 (2.25%) Onboarding
4 29 (1.92%) Product Ownership
5 26 (1.72%) Self-Motivation
6 23 (1.52%) Virtual Team
7 22 (1.45%) Data Protection Act
8 21 (1.39%) Management Information System
9 16 (1.06%) NHS
10 15 (0.99%) Mobile App
11 14 (0.92%) Life Science
12 13 (0.86%) Renewable Energy
13 12 (0.79%) Analytical Mindset
13 12 (0.79%) FMCG
13 12 (0.79%) Operational Technology
14 10 (0.66%) Greenfield Project
15 9 (0.59%) Cloud Native
15 9 (0.59%) Credit Risk
15 9 (0.59%) Derivative
Operating Systems
1 45 (2.97%) Windows
2 10 (0.66%) Linux
3 7 (0.46%) Windows 10
4 3 (0.20%) Unix
4 3 (0.20%) Windows Server
5 2 (0.13%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
6 1 (0.066%) Apple iOS
6 1 (0.066%) Windows Server 2012
Processes & Methodologies
1 772 (50.99%) Project Management
2 500 (33.03%) Stakeholder Management
3 474 (31.31%) Agile
4 349 (23.05%) Project Delivery
5 257 (16.97%) PRINCE2
6 246 (16.25%) Migration
7 223 (14.73%) Problem-Solving
8 216 (14.27%) Stakeholder Engagement
9 186 (12.29%) Change Management
10 173 (11.43%) Risk Management
11 168 (11.10%) Waterfall
12 128 (8.45%) Scrum
13 127 (8.39%) Budget Management
14 102 (6.74%) Project Governance
15 101 (6.67%) Project Planning
16 86 (5.68%) Decision-Making
17 83 (5.48%) Continuous Improvement
17 83 (5.48%) ERP
18 81 (5.35%) Cybersecurity
19 78 (5.15%) Data Migration
Programming Languages
1 23 (1.52%) SQL
2 9 (0.59%) C#
3 6 (0.40%) Python
4 5 (0.33%) Bicep
4 5 (0.33%) Java
5 4 (0.26%) PL/SQL
6 2 (0.13%) C++
6 2 (0.13%) Data Analysis Expressions
6 2 (0.13%) Shell Script
7 1 (0.066%) ABAP
7 1 (0.066%) C
7 1 (0.066%) JavaScript
7 1 (0.066%) PowerShell
Qualifications
1 175 (11.56%) PMI Certification
2 173 (11.43%) PMP
3 133 (8.78%) Security Cleared
4 127 (8.39%) Degree
5 97 (6.41%) SC Cleared
6 27 (1.78%) DV Cleared
7 23 (1.52%) PRINCE2 Certification
7 23 (1.52%) PRINCE2 Practitioner
8 19 (1.25%) BPSS Clearance
9 15 (0.99%) Master's Degree
10 12 (0.79%) APMP
11 10 (0.66%) Computer Science Degree
12 7 (0.46%) Azure Certification
13 5 (0.33%) CISSP
13 5 (0.33%) RIBA
14 4 (0.26%) ISEB
15 2 (0.13%) APMG
15 2 (0.13%) CIMA
15 2 (0.13%) CISM
15 2 (0.13%) SAP Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 83 (5.48%) PMO
2 45 (2.97%) QA
3 19 (1.25%) GDPR
4 17 (1.12%) NIST
5 14 (0.92%) Accessibility
6 11 (0.73%) ISO/IEC 27001
7 7 (0.46%) Data Quality
7 7 (0.46%) PMBOK
7 7 (0.46%) Sarbanes-Oxley
8 6 (0.40%) GxP
8 6 (0.40%) MiFID
9 4 (0.26%) 21 CFR Part 11
9 4 (0.26%) GRC
9 4 (0.26%) HIPAA
9 4 (0.26%) PSD2
9 4 (0.26%) SLA
10 3 (0.20%) Cyber Essentials
10 3 (0.20%) IFRS
10 3 (0.20%) ISO 20022
10 3 (0.20%) PCI DSS
System Software
1 17 (1.12%) Active Directory
2 12 (0.79%) VMware Infrastructure
3 7 (0.46%) Virtual Desktop
4 5 (0.33%) Virtual Machines
4 5 (0.33%) VMware ESXi
5 4 (0.26%) Docker
6 3 (0.20%) Microsoft App-V
7 2 (0.13%) vSphere
8 1 (0.066%) BitLocker
8 1 (0.066%) Hyper-V
8 1 (0.066%) KVM
8 1 (0.066%) VMware Server
8 1 (0.066%) XenApp
8 1 (0.066%) XenDesktop
Systems Management
1 8 (0.53%) Amdocs OSS
1 8 (0.53%) NSN NetAct
2 7 (0.46%) SCCM
2 7 (0.46%) Terraform
3 6 (0.40%) Kubernetes
3 6 (0.40%) Single Sign-On
4 5 (0.33%) Microsoft Intune
5 4 (0.26%) Ansible
6 3 (0.20%) vCenter Server
7 2 (0.13%) Cisco CUCM
7 2 (0.13%) Systems Management Server (SMS)
8 1 (0.066%) FortiGate
8 1 (0.066%) HP ALM
8 1 (0.066%) MOM
8 1 (0.066%) NetBackup
8 1 (0.066%) QRadar
8 1 (0.066%) SCOM
8 1 (0.066%) SCSM
Vendors
1 155 (10.24%) Microsoft
2 142 (9.38%) SAP
3 42 (2.77%) Salesforce
4 40 (2.64%) Oracle
5 33 (2.18%) Ariba
5 33 (2.18%) ServiceNow
6 27 (1.78%) Workday
7 23 (1.52%) Cisco
8 21 (1.39%) Google
9 15 (0.99%) VMware
10 14 (0.92%) Ericsson
10 14 (0.92%) Nokia
11 13 (0.86%) Citrix
12 11 (0.73%) Adobe
13 9 (0.59%) CyberArk
13 9 (0.59%) Databricks
14 7 (0.46%) Pega
15 6 (0.40%) Civica
15 6 (0.40%) NetCracker
15 6 (0.40%) Planview