Rate benchmark · Data as of 21 August 2026
UK Consultant Day Rate Benchmark
Median contract day rates for nine consulting and adjacent contract job titles, from 3,659 quoted rates in advertised UK vacancies over the six months to 21 August 2026. Every figure carries its sample size, and every figure was checked against its source page before publication.
Nine job titles, ranked by annual change
| Job title | Median | Year ago | Change | Sample |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Cybersecurity Consultant | £599 | £492 | +21.75% | 43 |
| Data Scientist | £600 | £531 | +12.94% | 217 |
| Change Manager | £550 | £500 | +10.00% | 155 |
| Project Manager | £540 | £525 | +2.86% | 1,287 |
| IT Consultant | £525 | £516 | +1.69% | 45 |
| Business Analyst | £500 | £500 | not published | 1,376 |
| SAP Consultant | £550 | £560 | −1.79% | 240 |
| Cloud Architect | £600 | £633 | −5.14% | 229 |
| Management Consultant | £550 | £625 | −12.00% | 67 |
| Total quoted rates | 3,659 | |||
Business Analyst has no published change figure. The source prints a dash rather than a percentage for that title this period. Both medians are £500, so the change is zero — but this table says "not published" rather than showing a 0.00% the source does not publish.
Why some percentages do not reproduce from the medians shown. The change column is the source's own figure, computed on its unrounded series, while the medians are rounded to the nearest pound. Dividing £600 by £531 gives 12.99%, not the 12.94% published for Data Scientist. Quote the change as published rather than recalculating it.
Reported separately: two skill markers, not job titles
| Skill cited in vacancy | Median | Year ago | Change | Sample |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Machine Learning | £575 | £556 | +3.42% | 1,018 |
| Artificial Intelligence | £559 | £550 | +1.64% | 3,018 |
These two rows cannot be added to the table above. The source files them under Processes & Methodologies and counts vacancies citing the skill, where the nine rows above count vacancies requiring a named job title. A Business Analyst vacancy mentioning AI appears in both populations, so summing the two tables would double-count. They measure the rate across every contract role citing that skill — not the rate for an "AI consultant", which is not a job title this source tracks.
What the numbers show
The figures above are the source's. The readings below are ours.
The most useful thing here is not any individual rate. It is the spread. Cybersecurity rose 21.75% while management consulting fell 12.00%, in the same market, over the same twelve months, among people who would both call themselves consultants. A year ago the Management Consultant median sat £133 a day above the Cybersecurity Consultant median. It now sits £49 below — a swing of £182.
A falling rate is not a shrinking role. Cloud Architect fell 5.14% to £600, but the source also shows 229 quoted rates this period against 136 a year earlier. More vacancies quoted a rate, not fewer.
And the AI figure is not the one most people expect. Vacancies citing AI carry a £559 median, up just 1.64%, on the largest sample here at 3,018 quoted rates. That is a skill marker spanning every contract role that mentions AI, which is precisely why it tracks close to the broad market. It says nothing about what a specialist AI advisory engagement costs, and this benchmark has no data on that.
The two largest movements sit on the two smallest samples — 43 quoted rates for Cybersecurity Consultant and 67 for Management Consultant. Treat the direction of both as credible and the magnitude as soft, and carry the sample size with the figure wherever you quote it.
Median advertised daily rates for individual contract and interim roles on the UK market. Not consultancy billing rates, and not permanent salaries.
- Source
- IT Jobs Watch, which derives medians from daily rates quoted in advertised UK contract vacancies. No figure here is modelled, estimated or survey-derived.
- Window
- The six months ending 21 August 2026, against the same period in 2025. This is the source's own reporting window, not one we selected.
- How the nine titles were chosen
- They are the consulting and adjacent contract job titles covered by our published rate analyses. This is an editorial selection, not a statistical sample of the market, and no title was dropped after its figures were seen.
- Verification
- All 36 values in the main table, and both skill-marker rows, were checked against the source's per-title pages on 22 August 2026 and match as published. Where the source prints no figure, this page prints none.
- Regional figures
- Cloud Architect: £630 in London on 119 quoted rates, against £600 for the UK excluding London — a premium of 5.0%. SAP Consultant: £610 in London on 55 quoted rates, against £540 for the UK excluding London.
- Known limits
- Advertised rates are asking rates. They indicate what is being offered, not what was finally paid, and they cover only vacancies that published a number.
- Review cycle
- Reviewed quarterly against the same source. Figures are restated rather than revised, so a superseded edition stays quotable.
ConsultingDemand, “UK Consultant Day Rate Benchmark 2026”, data as of 21 August 2026. https://consultingdemand.com/reports/uk-consultant-day-rate-benchmark/
Reuse
The tables and figures on this page may be reproduced, including commercially, with attribution to ConsultingDemand and a link back to this page. You do not need to ask. If you quote a single title, please carry its sample size with it — that is the number telling your reader how much weight the figure will bear.