Where these figures come from
Every band in this guide is a SOMA benchmark, Q3 2026, from engagements and advertised roles we track. It is not market data, a published survey or agency placement data, and we do not publish a sample size. Use it to sense-check a budget, not to set a contract price.
Rates are outside-IR35 contractor day rates, before VAT. The experience bands are SOMA's working definitions of each grade, not an industry standard. The range runs from around £280 for a junior planner to £1,300 for a Head of Project Controls. The highest specialist band is the Senior QRA Specialist, at up to £1,100. No figure in this guide is higher than the table. We review the benchmark each quarter.
Reading the table
Each range is cross-sector. In our experience the upper end goes to people with nuclear, rail or defence experience, where sector rules shape the work, for example possession planning or nuclear baseline control. We have not quantified that premium, and no band is stretched past its stated top figure for sector.
Cost estimators have no separate band. An estimator who can produce Class 1 to Class 3 estimates (semi-detailed to detailed unit-rate build-up) sits towards the top of the Cost Engineer range. Class 4 and Class 5 estimates are factored or parametric, and Class 5 is the least defined, used for concept screening with typical ranges of -20% to -50% on the low side and +30% to +100% on the high side. See AACE International RP 17R-97 Cost Estimate Classification System.
The EVMS Specialist band is for people who have implemented a system against ANSI/EIA-748 (current revision). We do not give bands for forensic delay analysts, PMO analysts or commercial managers and quantity surveyors, because the roles vary too much to benchmark here.
Why senior QRA specialists sit at the top of the specialist bands
A Senior QRA Specialist is benchmarked at £750 to £1,100, above the QRA Analyst (£550 to £750), the EVMS Specialist (£650 to £950) and the Risk Manager (£420 to £600). Four things drive the difference.
Scarcity: in our experience few practitioners can run an integrated cost and schedule risk analysis and defend it. Timing: a QRA usually feeds a funding or Gateway decision on a fixed date, so a weak model is costly to redo and there is rarely time to run it twice. Scrutiny: the confidence levels you report are tested at NISTA (formerly the IPA) assurance, Gateway Reviews and client challenge, and the analyst has to explain every input. Method: the work follows published practice, such as AACE International RP 57R-09 Integrated Cost and Schedule Risk Analysis Using Risk Drivers and Monte Carlo Simulation of a CPM Model and RP 65R-11 Integrated Cost and Schedule Risk Analysis and Contingency Determination Using Expected Value, on a schedule that has first been checked against the DCMA 14-point assessment.
The premium pays for a model that holds up under challenge, not for software run time.
Inside IR35: a worked illustration
The table has no inside-IR35 column. An inside-IR35 figure is not a separate market rate: it follows from how the engagement is paid. The example below shows the arithmetic for one rate. It is an illustration with stated assumptions, not tax advice.
The rules first. Public sector clients have determined off-payroll status since April 2017, and medium and large private sector clients since April 2021. There is no default inside: status is decided for each engagement. Where a worker is inside, tax and National Insurance are deducted before the worker is paid. Take employment-tax advice on any specific engagement.
Assumptions: a £600 day rate, which sits in the Senior Planner band; an umbrella margin of £25 a day; employer National Insurance at 15% (the rate from April 2025); apprenticeship levy at 0.5% of pay; no holiday pay accrual; the employer NI secondary threshold ignored, which slightly understates gross pay. Employer costs come out of the £600. They are not added to it.
Arithmetic: £600 less the £25 margin leaves £575. Gross pay is £575 divided by 1.155, which is £497.84 a day. Employer NI is £74.68 and the levy £2.49, and pay plus both add back to £575 within a penny. Gross pay is therefore about 83% of the day rate (£497.84 divided by £600), and income tax and employee NI then come off that. Take-home depends on the individual, so we do not quote one.
For budgeting, this is why an inside engagement at an unchanged rate often gets renegotiated: the worker receives about 17% less gross pay than the day rate suggests. The size of any uplift is for the parties to agree on each contract.
From day rate to annual cost
Day rates exclude holiday, sickness, pension, professional indemnity cover and unbilled time. A contractor billing 200 days a year at £600 invoices £120,000, against £156,000 for 260 weekdays at the same rate, a gap of £36,000. The 200 days is our working assumption. Budget on days actually worked and expect the gap to be priced in.
Contractor, consultancy or fixed-price study
Choose a contractor when you need a named individual working under your direction, on your methods, for months. Choose a consultancy when you need a defined output to a date, with review and cover behind it. Choose a fixed-price study when the output is a QSRA, QCRA or independent validation with a clear scope and a gate date.
A consultancy day rate for senior planning or QRA work sits above the contractor bands in this table. It buys what a contractor day rate does not: the firm's method and templates, review of the model before issue, cover if the lead is unavailable, and a contract under which the firm is responsible for the deliverable. Compare total cost per deliverable, not day rate to day rate.
On IR35, a bona fide fully contracted-out service is outside the off-payroll rules for the client. The supplier's own people still carry status, whether they are employees or work through their own companies, so ask any supplier how its individuals are engaged.
On a QSRA we agree the scope, programme basis and reporting confidence levels in writing before modelling starts, check the schedule against the DCMA 14-point assessment, and review the model before it is issued. Where the scope is clear we quote a fixed price for the study.