Service Management Contract Job Trends in the UK excluding London

Service Management
UK > UK excluding London

The table below provides summary statistics and contractor rates for jobs advertised in the UK excluding London requiring Service Management skills. It covers contract job vacancies from the 6 months leading up to 25 June 2026, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
25 Jun 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 81 55 56
Rank change year-on-year -26 +1 +7
Contract jobs citing Service Management 718 548 670
As % of all contract jobs in the UK excluding London 2.76% 4.05% 3.15%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 3.37% 4.48% 3.81%
Number of daily rates quoted 476 324 489
10th Percentile £211 £205 £250
25th Percentile £385 £313 £425
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £500 £525
Median % change year-on-year - -4.76% +10.53%
75th Percentile £589 £600 £608
90th Percentile £650 £688 £700
UK median daily rate £520 £500 £525
% change year-on-year +4.00% -4.76% +0.96%
Number of hourly rates quoted 63 51 17
10th Percentile £16.09 - £12.53
25th Percentile £18.24 £12.62 £15.17
Median hourly rate £60.00 £21.28 £19.00
Median % change year-on-year +181.95% +12.00% -13.24%
75th Percentile £83.88 £22.35 £28.75
90th Percentile £105.90 £33.75 £48.50
UK median hourly rate £60.00 £21.28 £19.87
% change year-on-year +181.95% +7.10% -52.55%

All Process & Methodology Skills
UK excluding London

Service Management falls under the Processes and Methodologies category. For comparison with the information above, the following table provides summary statistics for all contract job vacancies requiring process or methodology skills in the UK excluding London.

Contract vacancies with a requirement for process or methodology skills 21,324 12,241 17,563
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK excluding London 81.90% 90.48% 82.67%
Number of daily rates quoted 12,663 7,532 10,300
10th Percentile £300 £235 £250
25th Percentile £404 £367 £380
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £475 £500
Median % change year-on-year +5.26% -5.00% -
75th Percentile £593 £575 £600
90th Percentile £688 £650 £688
UK median daily rate £514 £505 £525
% change year-on-year +1.78% -3.81% -4.55%
Number of hourly rates quoted 2,255 992 2,193
10th Percentile £14.25 £14.13 £12.50
25th Percentile £19.33 £16.95 £15.50
Median hourly rate £45.00 £25.04 £38.12
Median % change year-on-year +79.73% -34.32% +17.29%
75th Percentile £68.00 £55.00 £61.60
90th Percentile £81.05 £73.75 £73.75
UK median hourly rate £43.96 £25.15 £37.50
% change year-on-year +74.79% -32.93% +7.14%

Service Management
Job Vacancy Trend in the UK excluding London

Historical trend showing the proportion of contract IT job postings citing Service Management relative to all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK excluding London.

Service Management job vacancy trend in the UK excluding London

Service Management
Daily Rate Trend in the UK excluding London

Contractor daily rate distribution trend for jobs in the UK excluding London citing Service Management.

Contractor daily rate distribution trend for jobs in the UK excluding London citing Service Management

Service Management
Daily Rate Histogram in the UK excluding London

Daily rate distribution for jobs citing Service Management in the UK excluding London over the 6 months to 25 June 2026.

Daily rate histogram for Service Management in the UK excluding London

Service Management
Hourly Rate Trend in the UK excluding London

Contractor hourly rate distribution trend for jobs in the UK excluding London citing Service Management.

Contractor hourly rate distribution trend for jobs in the UK excluding London citing Service Management

Service Management
Hourly Rate Histogram in the UK excluding London

Hourly rate distribution of jobs citing Service Management in the UK excluding London over the 6 months to 25 June 2026.

Hourly rate histogram for Service Management in the UK excluding London

Service Management
Contract Job Locations in the UK excluding London

The table below looks at the demand and provides a guide to the median contractor rates quoted in IT jobs citing Service Management within the UK excluding London region over the 6 months to 25 June 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
South East +26 208 £525 +33.76% 95
North of England -25 204 £491 +5.54% 83
South West -33 121 £500 -11.50% 35
North West -17 114 £513 +3.64% 42
Yorkshire -24 83 £456 +1.39% 33
Midlands -49 79 £475 -5.10% 46
West Midlands -46 68 £476 -8.46% 30
Scotland -20 54 £500 - 5
East of England -24 42 £475 -13.64% 30
Wales -5 13 £800 +188.29% 6
East Midlands -17 11 £200 -54.13% 16
North East -32 7 £440 +125.64% 9
Northern Ireland +4 4 - - 5
Service Management
UK

Service Management
Co-Occurring Skills & Capabilities in the UK excluding London 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 37 (5.15%) SharePoint
2 29 (4.04%) Microsoft Exchange
3 23 (3.20%) Confluence
4 11 (1.53%) Skype for Business
5 6 (0.84%) Mattermost
6 2 (0.28%) IIS
7 1 (0.14%) Apache
7 1 (0.14%) CMS
7 1 (0.14%) JBoss
7 1 (0.14%) LiveCycle
7 1 (0.14%) OpenStack
Applications
1 49 (6.82%) Microsoft Office
2 17 (2.37%) Microsoft Excel
3 8 (1.11%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 4 (0.56%) Chatbot
4 4 (0.56%) PTC Creo
5 3 (0.42%) Microsoft Project
6 2 (0.28%) MS Visio
7 1 (0.14%) Camtasia
Business Applications
1 47 (6.55%) Remedy ITSM
2 10 (1.39%) SAP S/4HANA
3 8 (1.11%) Teamcenter
4 3 (0.42%) ContrOCC
5 2 (0.28%) Oracle Applications
5 2 (0.28%) Primavera
6 1 (0.14%) NetSuite
6 1 (0.14%) SAP HR
6 1 (0.14%) SAP Payroll
Cloud Services
1 102 (14.21%) Azure
2 68 (9.47%) Microsoft 365
3 42 (5.85%) Power Platform
4 33 (4.60%) Entra ID
5 31 (4.32%) AWS
6 18 (2.51%) OneDrive
6 18 (2.51%) SaaS
7 17 (2.37%) Azure DevOps
8 16 (2.23%) GCP
9 9 (1.25%) PaaS
10 7 (0.97%) Microsoft Copilot
10 7 (0.97%) OCI
11 5 (0.70%) Azure Machine Learning
11 5 (0.70%) Azure Synapse Analytics
11 5 (0.70%) GitHub
11 5 (0.70%) Google App Engine
12 4 (0.56%) Azure AKS
12 4 (0.56%) IaaS
13 3 (0.42%) Azure Cosmos DB
13 3 (0.42%) Datadog
Communications & Networking
1 33 (4.60%) Firewall
2 29 (4.04%) DNS
3 26 (3.62%) LAN
4 20 (2.79%) WAN
5 19 (2.65%) DHCP
6 15 (2.09%) VPN
7 14 (1.95%) BGP
7 14 (1.95%) Network Security
8 13 (1.81%) OSPF
8 13 (1.81%) Wireless
9 12 (1.67%) BIG-IP
9 12 (1.67%) Cisco ISE
9 12 (1.67%) Wi-Fi
10 11 (1.53%) Skype
10 11 (1.53%) VLAN
11 10 (1.39%) Junos
12 9 (1.25%) VXLAN
13 8 (1.11%) Ethernet VPN
13 8 (1.11%) TCP/IP
14 4 (0.56%) SSL
Database & Business Intelligence
1 37 (5.15%) Power BI
2 13 (1.81%) SQL Server
3 5 (0.70%) Oracle Reports
3 5 (0.70%) PostgreSQL
3 5 (0.70%) Relational Database
4 3 (0.42%) Azure SQL Database
4 3 (0.42%) SQL Server Analysis Services
4 3 (0.42%) SQL Server Integration Services
4 3 (0.42%) SQL Server Reporting Services
5 2 (0.28%) MariaDB
5 2 (0.28%) Microsoft Analysis Services
5 2 (0.28%) MySQL
5 2 (0.28%) Oracle Database
6 1 (0.14%) Amazon RDS
6 1 (0.14%) DTS
6 1 (0.14%) GIS
6 1 (0.14%) InfluxDB
6 1 (0.14%) OpenStack Swift
6 1 (0.14%) Oracle Database 11g
Development Applications
1 71 (9.89%) JIRA
2 12 (1.67%) Git
3 7 (0.97%) Bitbucket
4 6 (0.84%) GitLab
4 6 (0.84%) Jenkins
5 5 (0.70%) Atlassian Bamboo
5 5 (0.70%) Browser DevTools
6 4 (0.56%) MLflow
7 3 (0.42%) Fiddler
8 2 (0.28%) Firebug
8 2 (0.28%) IntelliJ
9 1 (0.14%) Claude Code
9 1 (0.14%) Gemini Tracker
9 1 (0.14%) Hudson
9 1 (0.14%) IBM UrbanCode
9 1 (0.14%) MSI
9 1 (0.14%) Rational DOORS
9 1 (0.14%) ScriptRunner
9 1 (0.14%) Visual Studio Code
9 1 (0.14%) webpack
General
1 240 (33.43%) Social Skills
2 103 (14.35%) Finance
3 96 (13.37%) Analytical Skills
4 64 (8.91%) Public Sector
5 38 (5.29%) Legal
6 24 (3.34%) Influencing Skills
7 22 (3.06%) Organisational Skills
8 20 (2.79%) Documentation Skills
9 19 (2.65%) Telecoms
10 18 (2.51%) Military
11 15 (2.09%) Inclusion and Diversity
12 13 (1.81%) Aerospace
13 12 (1.67%) Banking
13 12 (1.67%) Presentation Skills
14 9 (1.25%) Local Government
14 9 (1.25%) Retail
15 5 (0.70%) Financial Institution
16 3 (0.42%) Publishing
17 1 (0.14%) Games
17 1 (0.14%) Manufacturing
Job Titles
1 94 (13.09%) Analyst
2 92 (12.81%) Service Manager
3 72 (10.03%) Lead
4 56 (7.80%) Senior
5 46 (6.41%) Architect
6 45 (6.27%) IT Manager
7 43 (5.99%) Service Analyst
8 29 (4.04%) Delivery Manager
9 28 (3.90%) Project Manager
10 25 (3.48%) Network Engineer
11 23 (3.20%) IT Analyst
12 22 (3.06%) Consultant
12 22 (3.06%) IT Services Manager
12 22 (3.06%) Support Engineer
13 21 (2.92%) Service Delivery Manager
14 19 (2.65%) Administrator
14 19 (2.65%) Hardware Engineer
14 19 (2.65%) Service Transition Manager
14 19 (2.65%) Transition Manager
15 17 (2.37%) Service Designer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 21 (2.92%) REST
2 9 (1.25%) OAuth
2 9 (1.25%) SOAP
3 8 (1.11%) 802.1X
4 5 (0.70%) OpenID
4 5 (0.70%) Oracle Fusion
4 5 (0.70%) SAML
4 5 (0.70%) XML
5 4 (0.56%) Middleware
5 4 (0.56%) OAuth2
5 4 (0.56%) Software Packaging
5 4 (0.56%) XMPP
6 3 (0.42%) CSS
6 3 (0.42%) Elastic Stack
6 3 (0.42%) FIDO
6 3 (0.42%) Flash
6 3 (0.42%) HTML
6 3 (0.42%) JSON
6 3 (0.42%) Microsoft Graph
7 2 (0.28%) .NET
Miscellaneous
1 48 (6.69%) Onboarding
2 44 (6.13%) CMDB
3 37 (5.15%) Product Ownership
4 28 (3.90%) Data Centre
5 25 (3.48%) Management Information System
5 25 (3.48%) PKI
6 21 (2.92%) Clustering
7 19 (2.65%) Enterprise Software
7 19 (2.65%) Virtual Team
8 16 (2.23%) Data Protection Act
9 12 (1.67%) Driving Licence
9 12 (1.67%) Operational Technology
10 11 (1.53%) Self-Motivation
11 9 (1.25%) Analytical Mindset
12 8 (1.11%) Cyber Threat
12 8 (1.11%) Security Posture
13 7 (0.97%) PMI
13 7 (0.97%) Replication
14 6 (0.84%) Cloud Native
14 6 (0.84%) Smartphone
Operating Systems
1 161 (22.42%) Windows
2 38 (5.29%) Windows 10
3 34 (4.74%) Linux
4 31 (4.32%) Windows Server
5 15 (2.09%) Windows 7
6 10 (1.39%) Unix
7 7 (0.97%) Mac OS
8 5 (0.70%) Android
8 5 (0.70%) Apple iOS
8 5 (0.70%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
9 3 (0.42%) Windows XP
10 2 (0.28%) Solaris
10 2 (0.28%) Ubuntu
11 1 (0.14%) Rocky
11 1 (0.14%) Windows Server 2008
11 1 (0.14%) Windows Server 2012
11 1 (0.14%) Windows Server 2016
11 1 (0.14%) Windows Server 2019
11 1 (0.14%) zOS
Processes & Methodologies
1 401 (55.85%) ITIL
2 312 (43.45%) ITSM
3 180 (25.07%) Continuous Improvement
4 170 (23.68%) Stakeholder Management
5 146 (20.33%) Service Delivery
6 142 (19.78%) Agile
7 136 (18.94%) Problem-Solving
8 103 (14.35%) Stakeholder Engagement
9 97 (13.51%) Change Management
10 80 (11.14%) Customer Service
11 72 (10.03%) DevOps
12 61 (8.50%) Problem Management
13 59 (8.22%) Incident Management
14 58 (8.08%) Configuration Management
14 58 (8.08%) Cybersecurity
15 56 (7.80%) Roadmaps
16 54 (7.52%) Project Delivery
17 46 (6.41%) Risk Management
18 45 (6.27%) Decision-Making
19 44 (6.13%) Data Protection
Programming Languages
1 61 (8.50%) PowerShell
2 37 (5.15%) Python
2 37 (5.15%) SQL
3 20 (2.79%) JavaScript
4 12 (1.67%) Bash
5 11 (1.53%) VB
5 11 (1.53%) VBScript
6 4 (0.56%) C#
6 4 (0.56%) Java
6 4 (0.56%) Perl
6 4 (0.56%) PL/SQL
7 3 (0.42%) T-SQL
8 2 (0.28%) Apex Code
8 2 (0.28%) Search Processing Language
8 2 (0.28%) Shell Script
9 1 (0.14%) Bicep
9 1 (0.14%) Go
9 1 (0.14%) Scala
9 1 (0.14%) TypeScript
9 1 (0.14%) VBA
Qualifications
1 328 (45.68%) Security Cleared
2 212 (29.53%) SC Cleared
3 119 (16.57%) DV Cleared
4 63 (8.77%) Degree
5 37 (5.15%) ITIL Certification
6 24 (3.34%) Cisco Certification
7 17 (2.37%) PMI Certification
8 16 (2.23%) BPSS Clearance
8 16 (2.23%) Computer Science Degree
8 16 (2.23%) PMP
9 13 (1.81%) CCNA
9 13 (1.81%) Microsoft Certification
10 11 (1.53%) A+ Certification
11 10 (1.39%) CCNP
12 9 (1.25%) JNCIA
12 9 (1.25%) JNCIP
12 9 (1.25%) JNCIS
12 9 (1.25%) Network+ Certification
13 8 (1.11%) DBS Check
14 7 (0.97%) ITIL Foundation Certificate
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 43 (5.99%) SLA
2 29 (4.04%) Data Quality
3 22 (3.06%) PMO
4 21 (2.92%) ISO/IEC 27001
5 17 (2.37%) QA
6 16 (2.23%) ISO/IEC 20000
6 16 (2.23%) NCSC
7 13 (1.81%) GDPR
7 13 (1.81%) GRC
8 9 (1.25%) COBIT
9 7 (0.97%) Cyber Essentials
9 7 (0.97%) Government Security Classifications
9 7 (0.97%) ISO 9001
10 6 (0.84%) ISO 31000
10 6 (0.84%) ISO/IEC 27005
11 5 (0.70%) Accessibility
12 4 (0.56%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
12 4 (0.56%) Disclosure Scotland
12 4 (0.56%) GMP
12 4 (0.56%) NIST
System Software
1 81 (11.28%) Active Directory
2 33 (4.60%) VMware Infrastructure
3 16 (2.23%) VMware ESXi
4 12 (1.67%) BitLocker
5 8 (1.11%) Docker
6 7 (0.97%) VMware NSX
6 7 (0.97%) vSphere
7 6 (0.84%) vCloud
8 4 (0.56%) NFS
8 4 (0.56%) Virtual Machines
9 3 (0.42%) Firmware
9 3 (0.42%) Virtual Desktop
10 2 (0.28%) GPFS
10 2 (0.28%) Hyper-V
10 2 (0.28%) KVM
11 1 (0.14%) iptables
11 1 (0.14%) Oracle RAC
11 1 (0.14%) Samba
11 1 (0.14%) Slurm Workload Manager
Systems Management
1 40 (5.57%) SCCM
2 32 (4.46%) Microsoft Intune
3 18 (2.51%) Ansible
4 10 (1.39%) Terraform
5 9 (1.25%) Kubernetes
6 8 (1.11%) FortiGate
6 8 (1.11%) Single Sign-On
6 8 (1.11%) vCenter Server
7 6 (0.84%) Jamf Pro
7 6 (0.84%) SCOM
8 4 (0.56%) PowerCLI
8 4 (0.56%) Progress Chef
8 4 (0.56%) vMotion
9 3 (0.42%) Cisco Prime
9 3 (0.42%) Dell DRAC
9 3 (0.42%) Grafana
9 3 (0.42%) Puppet
9 3 (0.42%) Systems Management Server (SMS)
9 3 (0.42%) vRealize
10 2 (0.28%) Nagios
Vendors
1 173 (24.09%) ServiceNow
2 126 (17.55%) Microsoft
3 51 (7.10%) Remedy
4 45 (6.27%) VMware
5 35 (4.87%) Cisco
6 24 (3.34%) BMC
7 18 (2.51%) HP
8 17 (2.37%) Oracle
8 17 (2.37%) SolarWinds
9 16 (2.23%) SAP
9 16 (2.23%) Splunk
10 13 (1.81%) Dell
11 12 (1.67%) F5
11 12 (1.67%) Juniper
12 11 (1.53%) Atlassian
12 11 (1.53%) Canon
13 10 (1.39%) Qualys
14 9 (1.25%) Dynatrace
14 9 (1.25%) IFS
15 8 (1.11%) Extreme Networks