Project Manager Contracts

Project Manager
UK

The median Project Manager daily rate in the UK is £530 according to job vacancies posted during the 6 months to 9 December 2023.

The first table below provides contractor rate benchmarking and summary statistics including a comparison to same period in the previous 2 years.

6 months to
9 Dec 2023
Same period 2022 Same period 2021
Rank 31 27 27
Rank change year-on-year -4 0 +28
Contract jobs requiring a Project Manager 2,610 5,536 5,958
As % of all contract jobs advertised in the UK 5.87% 7.20% 6.64%
As % of the Job Titles category 6.28% 7.57% 6.95%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,862 3,959 4,395
10th Percentile £381 £388 £355
25th Percentile £463 £450 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £530 £525 £498
Median % change year-on-year +0.95% +5.42% +10.67%
75th Percentile £631 £614 £575
90th Percentile £700 £700 £650
UK excluding London median daily rate £500 £500 £468
% change year-on-year - +6.95% +10.00%
Number of hourly rates quoted 49 74 67
10th Percentile £21.90 £30.95 £24.25
25th Percentile £33.00 £36.66 £35.50
Median hourly rate £55.00 £65.00 £45.00
Median % change year-on-year -15.38% +44.44% +59.12%
75th Percentile £60.00 £69.84 £60.50
90th Percentile £65.00 £86.98 £71.38
UK excluding London median hourly rate £60.00 £65.00 £40.45
% change year-on-year -7.69% +60.69% +43.03%

All Contract IT Job Vacancies
UK

The following table is for comparison with the above and includes 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 41,552 73,161 85,704
% of contract IT jobs with a recognized job title 93.42% 95.16% 95.55%
Number of daily rates quoted 27,976 50,990 60,003
10th Percentile £292 £313 £301
25th Percentile £413 £425 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £550 £513
Median % change year-on-year -4.55% +7.32% +7.89%
75th Percentile £644 £650 £613
90th Percentile £740 £750 £700
UK excluding London median daily rate £500 £500 £450
% change year-on-year - +11.11% +5.88%
Number of hourly rates quoted 1,472 1,722 2,210
10th Percentile £15.16 £13.25 £12.00
25th Percentile £19.06 £17.00 £14.00
Median hourly rate £44.50 £30.00 £20.15
Median % change year-on-year +48.33% +48.90% -15.61%
75th Percentile £65.00 £63.75 £46.00
90th Percentile £77.50 £72.48 £63.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £44.50 £24.79 £17.64
% change year-on-year +79.51% +40.53% -11.80%

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 9 December 2023.

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 9 December 2023.

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 9 December 2023. 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 0 2,240 £549 +4.52% 958
London +8 1,249 £575 +4.55% 298
UK excluding London -7 1,119 £500 - 709
Work from Home -9 1,023 £525 - 643
North of England 0 282 £500 - 157
South East -27 229 £525 +2.69% 184
Midlands -3 162 £528 +5.50% 138
South West -13 151 £500 -1.23% 98
Scotland -7 149 £500 +5.26% 55
North West -5 146 £489 +1.88% 84
West Midlands -1 121 £550 +10.00% 103
Yorkshire -8 117 £516 -1.71% 60
East of England +1 101 £500 - 73
Wales -1 39 £500 +17.65% 26
East Midlands -7 37 £500 - 33
North East +29 17 £538 +26.47% 15
Northern Ireland +9 12 £250 -37.50% 6

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

For the 6 months to 9 December 2023, 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 1,279 (49.00%) Project Management
2 855 (32.76%) Finance
3 757 (29.00%) Agile
4 707 (27.09%) Stakeholder Management
5 669 (25.63%) Social Skills
6 528 (20.23%) Project Delivery
7 385 (14.75%) Migration
8 380 (14.56%) PRINCE2
9 311 (11.92%) Change Management
10 286 (10.96%) Microsoft
11 265 (10.15%) Security Cleared
12 258 (9.89%) Waterfall
13 254 (9.73%) Public Sector
14 241 (9.23%) Risk Management
15 237 (9.08%) Problem-Solving
16 222 (8.51%) Degree
17 209 (8.01%) Banking
18 207 (7.93%) Azure
19 204 (7.82%) SC Cleared
20 203 (7.78%) Business Case
21 197 (7.55%) SAP
22 186 (7.13%) Budget Management
23 149 (5.71%) Scrum
24 145 (5.56%) PMP
25 143 (5.48%) Decision-Making
26 142 (5.44%) PMI Certification
27 138 (5.29%) Cybersecurity
28 137 (5.25%) Analytical Skills
28 137 (5.25%) Microsoft Project
28 137 (5.25%) ERP

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 71 (2.72%) SharePoint
2 42 (1.61%) Confluence
3 17 (0.65%) CMS
4 8 (0.31%) MS Project Server
5 4 (0.15%) LiveLink
6 3 (0.11%) Adobe Experience Manager
6 3 (0.11%) Mendix
6 3 (0.11%) MS Exchange
7 2 (0.077%) ArcGIS
7 2 (0.077%) Documentum
7 2 (0.077%) Exchange Server 2010
7 2 (0.077%) JCAPS
7 2 (0.077%) WebSphere
8 1 (0.038%) Drupal
8 1 (0.038%) Moodle
8 1 (0.038%) Oracle Workflow
8 1 (0.038%) PowerExchange
8 1 (0.038%) Sitecore CMS
8 1 (0.038%) WebLogic
8 1 (0.038%) WordPress
Applications
1 137 (5.25%) Microsoft Project
2 102 (3.91%) Microsoft Office
3 80 (3.07%) Microsoft Excel
4 70 (2.68%) Microsoft PowerPoint
5 26 (1.00%) MS Visio
6 9 (0.34%) Spreadsheet
7 6 (0.23%) Trello
8 3 (0.11%) Chatbot
9 1 (0.038%) Adobe Premiere
9 1 (0.038%) Photoshop
Business Applications
1 64 (2.45%) SAP S/4HANA
2 24 (0.92%) Dynamics CRM
3 8 (0.31%) Loan IQ
3 8 (0.31%) Magento
4 7 (0.27%) Oracle ERP
5 6 (0.23%) NetSuite
6 5 (0.19%) Aladdin
6 5 (0.19%) SAP ERP
6 5 (0.19%) SAP FI
6 5 (0.19%) Siebel CRM
6 5 (0.19%) Workday HCM
7 4 (0.15%) Eloqua
7 4 (0.15%) iTrent
7 4 (0.15%) SAP Payroll
7 4 (0.15%) SAP PM
7 4 (0.15%) SAP Retail
8 3 (0.11%) ResourceLink
8 3 (0.11%) SAP HCM
8 3 (0.11%) SAP Oil and Gas
8 3 (0.11%) Teamcenter
Cloud Services
1 207 (7.93%) Azure
2 78 (2.99%) Microsoft 365
3 75 (2.87%) Dynamics 365
4 63 (2.41%) SaaS
5 53 (2.03%) AWS
6 46 (1.76%) Power Platform
7 32 (1.23%) SuccessFactors
8 23 (0.88%) Azure DevOps
9 14 (0.54%) Google Workspace
9 14 (0.54%) WhatsApp
10 12 (0.46%) Smartsheet
11 10 (0.38%) Entra ID
11 10 (0.38%) GCP
11 10 (0.38%) OCI
11 10 (0.38%) PowerApps
12 8 (0.31%) GitHub
13 7 (0.27%) Cloud Computing
14 6 (0.23%) Asana
14 6 (0.23%) GitHub Actions
15 5 (0.19%) OneDrive
Communications & Networking
1 30 (1.15%) LAN
2 29 (1.11%) Firewall
3 28 (1.07%) WAN
4 26 (1.00%) Network Security
5 22 (0.84%) Wi-Fi
6 15 (0.57%) Internet
7 11 (0.42%) VoIP
7 11 (0.42%) VPN
7 11 (0.42%) Wireless
8 10 (0.38%) SD-WAN
8 10 (0.38%) Structured Cabling
9 7 (0.27%) 5G
9 7 (0.27%) Broadband
9 7 (0.27%) Intranet
10 6 (0.23%) 4G
11 5 (0.19%) GSM
12 3 (0.11%) Cisco Nexus
12 3 (0.11%) Ethernet
12 3 (0.11%) PSTN
12 3 (0.11%) Unified Communications
Database & Business Intelligence
1 43 (1.65%) Power BI
2 30 (1.15%) Data Warehouse
3 17 (0.65%) SQL Server
4 13 (0.50%) Electronic Patient Records
5 12 (0.46%) Oracle Reports
6 11 (0.42%) Data Lake
7 10 (0.38%) SAP BW
8 8 (0.31%) Metadata
9 6 (0.23%) MySQL
9 6 (0.23%) SAP HANA
10 5 (0.19%) BusinessObjects
10 5 (0.19%) EDRMS
10 5 (0.19%) GIS
10 5 (0.19%) Oracle Database
10 5 (0.19%) Tableau
11 4 (0.15%) Big Data
11 4 (0.15%) Data Hub
11 4 (0.15%) Relational Database
12 3 (0.11%) DB2
12 3 (0.11%) SQL Server Integration Services
Development Applications
1 131 (5.02%) JIRA
2 4 (0.15%) Eclipse
3 3 (0.11%) Team Foundation Server
4 2 (0.077%) Oracle Forms
5 1 (0.038%) Dreamweaver
5 1 (0.038%) Jenkins
5 1 (0.038%) Oracle APEX
5 1 (0.038%) SonarQube
5 1 (0.038%) Sonatype Nexus
5 1 (0.038%) TeamCity
General
1 855 (32.76%) Finance
2 669 (25.63%) Social Skills
3 254 (9.73%) Public Sector
4 209 (8.01%) Banking
5 137 (5.25%) Analytical Skills
6 104 (3.98%) Legal
7 95 (3.64%) Telecoms
8 94 (3.60%) Retail
9 80 (3.07%) Inclusion and Diversity
10 78 (2.99%) Marketing
11 70 (2.68%) Presentation Skills
12 69 (2.64%) Influencing Skills
13 60 (2.30%) Manufacturing
14 54 (2.07%) Pharmaceutical
15 52 (1.99%) Organisational Skills
16 51 (1.95%) Investment Banking
17 43 (1.65%) Front Office
18 36 (1.38%) Law
18 36 (1.38%) Local Government
19 25 (0.96%) Documentation Skills
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 17 (0.65%) Oracle Fusion
2 13 (0.50%) SailPoint
3 11 (0.42%) Velocity
4 10 (0.38%) .NET
5 6 (0.23%) ADO
6 5 (0.19%) XML
7 4 (0.15%) Middleware
8 3 (0.11%) EDI
8 3 (0.11%) HTML
9 2 (0.077%) CSS
9 2 (0.077%) OpenID
9 2 (0.077%) SAML
10 1 (0.038%) ActiveX
10 1 (0.038%) FIX Protocol
10 1 (0.038%) Flash
10 1 (0.038%) JSON
10 1 (0.038%) SAP PI
10 1 (0.038%) Silverlight
10 1 (0.038%) WF
Miscellaneous
1 93 (3.56%) Data Centre
2 79 (3.03%) Management Information System
3 56 (2.15%) Product Ownership
4 52 (1.99%) NHS
5 45 (1.72%) Data Protection Act
6 42 (1.61%) Legacy Systems
7 40 (1.53%) PMI
8 38 (1.46%) Virtual Team
9 30 (1.15%) Onboarding
10 27 (1.03%) Greenfield Project
11 26 (1.00%) Self-Motivation
12 24 (0.92%) Derivative
13 17 (0.65%) Mobile App
14 14 (0.54%) Reinsurance
15 12 (0.46%) Equities
15 12 (0.46%) Fixed Income
16 11 (0.42%) Analytical Mindset
16 11 (0.42%) CCTV
16 11 (0.42%) FMCG
17 10 (0.38%) Housing Association
Operating Systems
1 65 (2.49%) Windows
2 21 (0.80%) Windows 10
3 16 (0.61%) Linux
3 16 (0.61%) Unix
4 11 (0.42%) Windows Server
5 5 (0.19%) Apple iOS
6 4 (0.15%) AIX
6 4 (0.15%) Android
7 3 (0.11%) Windows Server 2012
8 2 (0.077%) Windows 7
8 2 (0.077%) zOS
9 1 (0.038%) Windows Server 2019
Processes & Methodologies
1 1,279 (49.00%) Project Management
2 757 (29.00%) Agile
3 707 (27.09%) Stakeholder Management
4 528 (20.23%) Project Delivery
5 385 (14.75%) Migration
6 380 (14.56%) PRINCE2
7 311 (11.92%) Change Management
8 258 (9.89%) Waterfall
9 241 (9.23%) Risk Management
10 237 (9.08%) Problem-Solving
11 203 (7.78%) Business Case
12 186 (7.13%) Budget Management
13 149 (5.71%) Scrum
14 143 (5.48%) Decision-Making
15 138 (5.29%) Cybersecurity
16 137 (5.25%) ERP
17 131 (5.02%) Programme Management
18 129 (4.94%) Project Governance
19 126 (4.83%) Project Planning
20 114 (4.37%) Stakeholder Engagement
Programming Languages
1 30 (1.15%) SQL
2 11 (0.42%) Python
3 7 (0.27%) Java
3 7 (0.27%) PHP
4 3 (0.11%) C#
4 3 (0.11%) JavaScript
5 2 (0.077%) Perl
5 2 (0.077%) PowerShell
5 2 (0.077%) Shell Script
6 1 (0.038%) C
6 1 (0.038%) COBOL
6 1 (0.038%) TypeScript
6 1 (0.038%) VBA
Qualifications
1 265 (10.15%) Security Cleared
2 222 (8.51%) Degree
3 204 (7.82%) SC Cleared
4 145 (5.56%) PMP
5 142 (5.44%) PMI Certification
6 61 (2.34%) PRINCE2 Practitioner
7 53 (2.03%) DV Cleared
8 34 (1.30%) APMP
9 33 (1.26%) PRINCE2 Certification
10 20 (0.77%) Master's Degree
11 18 (0.69%) BPSS Clearance
12 17 (0.65%) CISSP
13 16 (0.61%) CISM
14 12 (0.46%) Cisco Certification
14 12 (0.46%) ISEB
15 11 (0.42%) Computer Science Degree
16 10 (0.38%) CCIE
16 10 (0.38%) CCIE Security
17 6 (0.23%) CAPM
18 5 (0.19%) MBA
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 135 (5.17%) PMO
2 67 (2.57%) QA
3 18 (0.69%) Data Quality
4 17 (0.65%) NIST
5 14 (0.54%) EMIR
5 14 (0.54%) GDPR
6 10 (0.38%) ISO/IEC 27001
7 9 (0.34%) Disclosure Scotland
7 9 (0.34%) GRC
7 9 (0.34%) MiFID
7 9 (0.34%) PMBOK
8 7 (0.27%) SLA
9 6 (0.23%) Cyber Essentials
10 5 (0.19%) ISO 20022
11 4 (0.15%) Dodd-Frank
11 4 (0.15%) ISO/IEC 27002 (supersedes ISO/IEC 17799)
11 4 (0.15%) Solvency II
12 2 (0.077%) COBIT
12 2 (0.077%) PCI DSS
12 2 (0.077%) Sarbanes-Oxley
System Software
1 23 (0.88%) Active Directory
2 10 (0.38%) Virtual Desktop
3 4 (0.15%) VMware Infrastructure
4 2 (0.077%) Virtual Machines
4 2 (0.077%) Virtual Servers
5 1 (0.038%) Docker
5 1 (0.038%) Microsoft Virtual Server
Systems Management
1 13 (0.50%) Single Sign-On
2 10 (0.38%) SCCM
3 8 (0.31%) Microsoft Intune
4 7 (0.27%) EMC NetWorker
5 6 (0.23%) Argo
6 4 (0.15%) MOM
7 3 (0.11%) HP ALM
7 3 (0.11%) TrustSec
8 2 (0.077%) Nexpose
9 1 (0.038%) Amdocs OSS
9 1 (0.038%) Jamf Pro
9 1 (0.038%) Kubernetes
9 1 (0.038%) SCOM
9 1 (0.038%) Symantec Endpoint Protection
9 1 (0.038%) Terraform
Vendors
1 286 (10.96%) Microsoft
2 197 (7.55%) SAP
3 81 (3.10%) Oracle
4 61 (2.34%) Salesforce
5 43 (1.65%) ServiceNow
6 36 (1.38%) Cisco
7 25 (0.96%) Workday
8 23 (0.88%) Ariba
9 20 (0.77%) Google
10 17 (0.65%) Atlassian
11 11 (0.42%) Citrix
12 10 (0.38%) CyberArk
13 9 (0.34%) Adobe
13 9 (0.34%) IBM
14 8 (0.31%) BT
14 8 (0.31%) Concur
15 7 (0.27%) Fortinet
15 7 (0.27%) MuleSoft
16 6 (0.23%) Databricks
16 6 (0.23%) Juniper