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 2 March 2026, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
2 Mar 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 70 62 58
Rank change year-on-year -8 -4 +10
Contract jobs citing Service Management 692 468 684
As % of all contract jobs in the UK excluding London 3.35% 3.56% 3.25%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 4.01% 3.96% 3.78%
Number of daily rates quoted 459 302 507
10th Percentile £193 £208 £284
25th Percentile £314 £387 £425
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £525 £545
Median % change year-on-year -4.76% -3.67% +14.74%
75th Percentile £600 £605 £608
90th Percentile £738 £688 £725
UK median daily rate £500 £525 £545
% change year-on-year -4.76% -3.67% +9.00%
Number of hourly rates quoted 75 26 13
10th Percentile £14.25 £12.62 £12.53
25th Percentile £16.17 £22.14 £15.46
Median hourly rate £29.60 £29.00 £17.29
Median % change year-on-year +2.07% +67.78% -73.41%
75th Percentile £73.13 £36.19 £17.78
90th Percentile £82.40 £69.38 £42.80
UK median hourly rate £29.60 £29.00 £17.72
% change year-on-year +2.07% +63.66% -39.22%

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 17,276 11,825 18,090
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK excluding London 83.55% 90.03% 85.97%
Number of daily rates quoted 10,491 7,204 11,148
10th Percentile £256 £230 £250
25th Percentile £394 £375 £388
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £482 £493 £500
Median % change year-on-year -2.13% -1.50% -
75th Percentile £575 £588 £600
90th Percentile £675 £675 £688
UK median daily rate £500 £525 £525
% change year-on-year -4.76% - -4.55%
Number of hourly rates quoted 1,851 679 1,856
10th Percentile £14.38 £15.25 £13.00
25th Percentile £17.69 £20.25 £15.50
Median hourly rate £25.15 £32.00 £34.36
Median % change year-on-year -21.41% -6.85% -1.84%
75th Percentile £63.75 £65.00 £59.96
90th Percentile £72.50 £75.00 £71.87
UK median hourly rate £27.61 £32.50 £33.03
% change year-on-year -15.06% -1.61% -5.62%

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 2 March 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 2 March 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 2 March 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 +32 192 £500 +11.11% 95
North of England -7 170 £500 +17.65% 64
South West -10 157 £571 +1.33% 39
Midlands -16 101 £415 -24.68% 57
North West -4 93 £550 +17.27% 42
West Midlands -25 77 £415 -25.73% 29
Yorkshire -27 64 £468 +108.00% 19
East of England -11 47 £452 -16.87% 32
Scotland -21 28 £488 -3.51% 10
East Midlands -12 24 £419 -9.95% 24
North East -4 16 £280 -53.04% 3
Wales -8 2 £245 -36.77% 6
Northern Ireland - 1 £500 - 2
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 71 (10.26%) Confluence
2 52 (7.51%) Microsoft Exchange
3 45 (6.50%) SharePoint
4 13 (1.88%) Skype for Business
5 5 (0.72%) Mattermost
5 5 (0.72%) SharePoint Server
6 1 (0.14%) Apache
6 1 (0.14%) HCL Notes
6 1 (0.14%) JBoss
6 1 (0.14%) LiveCycle
6 1 (0.14%) WebLogic
Applications
1 84 (12.14%) Microsoft Office
2 36 (5.20%) Microsoft Project
3 17 (2.46%) Microsoft Excel
4 5 (0.72%) Microsoft PowerPoint
5 4 (0.58%) PTC Creo
6 3 (0.43%) MS Visio
7 1 (0.14%) Camtasia
Business Applications
1 22 (3.18%) Remedy ITSM
2 13 (1.88%) Oracle EBS
3 9 (1.30%) SAP S/4HANA
4 6 (0.87%) Teamcenter
5 2 (0.29%) Salesforce CRM
6 1 (0.14%) assyst
6 1 (0.14%) Dynamics CRM
6 1 (0.14%) NetSuite
6 1 (0.14%) SAP ERP
6 1 (0.14%) SystmOne
Cloud Services
1 101 (14.60%) Azure
2 68 (9.83%) Microsoft 365
3 63 (9.10%) AWS
4 42 (6.07%) GCP
5 26 (3.76%) Power Platform
6 24 (3.47%) Entra ID
7 20 (2.89%) SaaS
8 16 (2.31%) OneDrive
9 11 (1.59%) Azure DevOps
10 7 (1.01%) PowerApps
10 7 (1.01%) Salesforce Service Cloud
11 6 (0.87%) IaaS
12 5 (0.72%) Amazon EC2
12 5 (0.72%) AWS Lambda
12 5 (0.72%) Dynamics 365
12 5 (0.72%) GitHub
12 5 (0.72%) OpenShift
12 5 (0.72%) PaaS
12 5 (0.72%) Power Automate
12 5 (0.72%) Serverless
Communications & Networking
1 45 (6.50%) DNS
2 30 (4.34%) Firewall
3 29 (4.19%) DHCP
4 25 (3.61%) LAN
5 22 (3.18%) VLAN
5 22 (3.18%) WAN
6 21 (3.03%) Skype
6 21 (3.03%) VPN
7 19 (2.75%) Junos
7 19 (2.75%) Network Security
8 18 (2.60%) Cisco ISE
9 15 (2.17%) BGP
10 13 (1.88%) Wi-Fi
11 12 (1.73%) Cisco Firepower
11 12 (1.73%) Cisco IOS
12 11 (1.59%) TCP/IP
12 11 (1.59%) WebEx
13 9 (1.30%) OSPF
14 8 (1.16%) BIG-IP
15 7 (1.01%) VXLAN
Database & Business Intelligence
1 17 (2.46%) Power BI
2 13 (1.88%) Relational Database
3 10 (1.45%) SQL Server
4 4 (0.58%) Amazon RDS
4 4 (0.58%) InfluxDB
4 4 (0.58%) Metadata
5 3 (0.43%) PostgreSQL
6 2 (0.29%) Azure SQL Database
6 2 (0.29%) Big Data
6 2 (0.29%) GIS
6 2 (0.29%) MongoDB
7 1 (0.14%) Data Mining
7 1 (0.14%) Electronic Patient Records
7 1 (0.14%) RDBMS
Development Applications
1 105 (15.17%) JIRA
2 13 (1.88%) Jenkins
3 12 (1.73%) Bitbucket
4 11 (1.59%) Git
5 7 (1.01%) GitLab
6 6 (0.87%) Atlassian Bamboo
7 2 (0.29%) ScriptRunner
8 1 (0.14%) MLflow
8 1 (0.14%) Rational DOORS
8 1 (0.14%) Visual Studio Code
General
1 277 (40.03%) Social Skills
2 122 (17.63%) Analytical Skills
3 85 (12.28%) Public Sector
4 71 (10.26%) Finance
5 47 (6.79%) Legal
6 43 (6.21%) Military
7 29 (4.19%) Organisational Skills
8 18 (2.60%) Retail
9 16 (2.31%) Influencing Skills
10 15 (2.17%) Documentation Skills
11 14 (2.02%) Banking
12 11 (1.59%) Aerospace
12 11 (1.59%) Telecoms
13 10 (1.45%) Manufacturing
14 7 (1.01%) Presentation Skills
15 5 (0.72%) Investment Banking
16 4 (0.58%) Inclusion and Diversity
17 3 (0.43%) Financial Institution
17 3 (0.43%) Publishing
18 1 (0.14%) Advertising
Job Titles
1 82 (11.85%) Analyst
2 79 (11.42%) Architect
3 78 (11.27%) Lead
4 72 (10.40%) Service Manager
5 43 (6.21%) Service Architect
6 38 (5.49%) Support Engineer
7 33 (4.77%) Hardware Engineer
8 32 (4.62%) IT Support
9 28 (4.05%) Senior
10 27 (3.90%) Network Engineer
11 26 (3.76%) IT Manager
11 26 (3.76%) Service Analyst
12 24 (3.47%) Consultant
13 22 (3.18%) 2nd Line Support
14 21 (3.03%) Delivery Manager
14 21 (3.03%) Field Engineer
14 21 (3.03%) Support Analyst
15 20 (2.89%) Administrator
15 20 (2.89%) Platform Engineer
16 19 (2.75%) Field Hardware Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 31 (4.48%) REST
2 11 (1.59%) SOAP
2 11 (1.59%) XMPP
3 7 (1.01%) 802.1X
4 5 (0.72%) Web Services
5 4 (0.58%) .NET
5 4 (0.58%) RabbitMQ
5 4 (0.58%) RFC 2544
6 3 (0.43%) Elastic Stack
6 3 (0.43%) OAuth
7 2 (0.29%) CSS
7 2 (0.29%) JSON
7 2 (0.29%) Middleware
7 2 (0.29%) Spring Boot
8 1 (0.14%) ARM Templates
8 1 (0.14%) HTML
8 1 (0.14%) Lightning Web Components
8 1 (0.14%) Microsoft Graph
8 1 (0.14%) Oracle GoldenGate
8 1 (0.14%) XML
Miscellaneous
1 63 (9.10%) Product Ownership
2 32 (4.62%) CMDB
3 30 (4.34%) Data Centre
4 27 (3.90%) Management Information System
4 27 (3.90%) Onboarding
5 25 (3.61%) Virtual Team
6 23 (3.32%) PKI
7 17 (2.46%) Driving Licence
7 17 (2.46%) Self-Motivation
8 11 (1.59%) Analytical Mindset
8 11 (1.59%) PMI
9 10 (1.45%) Clustering
10 8 (1.16%) Enterprise Software
11 7 (1.01%) Data Protection Act
11 7 (1.01%) NHS
12 5 (0.72%) Fat Client
12 5 (0.72%) Hybrid Cloud
12 5 (0.72%) Mainframe
12 5 (0.72%) Thin Client
13 4 (0.58%) Data Structures
Operating Systems
1 166 (23.99%) Windows
2 50 (7.23%) Windows Server
3 49 (7.08%) Linux
4 43 (6.21%) Windows 10
5 13 (1.88%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
6 11 (1.59%) Windows 7
7 7 (1.01%) Mac OS
7 7 (1.01%) Windows Server 2012
8 6 (0.87%) Unix
9 5 (0.72%) Android
9 5 (0.72%) Apple iOS
9 5 (0.72%) Ubuntu
10 4 (0.58%) Windows Server 2003
10 4 (0.58%) Windows Server 2016
11 3 (0.43%) CentOS
12 1 (0.14%) Data ONTAP
12 1 (0.14%) Windows Server 2019
12 1 (0.14%) Windows XP
Processes & Methodologies
1 425 (61.42%) ITIL
2 312 (45.09%) ITSM
3 149 (21.53%) Agile
4 145 (20.95%) Problem-Solving
5 138 (19.94%) Continuous Improvement
6 108 (15.61%) Change Management
7 102 (14.74%) Stakeholder Management
8 98 (14.16%) Service Delivery
9 92 (13.29%) Stakeholder Engagement
10 80 (11.56%) Customer Service
11 74 (10.69%) Service Design
12 66 (9.54%) DevOps
13 59 (8.53%) Acceptance Criteria
14 58 (8.38%) Configuration Management
15 54 (7.80%) Problem Management
16 53 (7.66%) Knowledge Transfer
17 51 (7.37%) Performance Metrics
18 49 (7.08%) Incident Management
19 47 (6.79%) Project Management
20 42 (6.07%) Critical Thinking
Programming Languages
1 75 (10.84%) PowerShell
2 51 (7.37%) Python
3 36 (5.20%) SQL
4 15 (2.17%) Bash
5 13 (1.88%) Perl
6 12 (1.73%) JavaScript
7 11 (1.59%) Shell Script
8 9 (1.30%) VB
8 9 (1.30%) VBScript
9 7 (1.01%) Java
10 4 (0.58%) C#
10 4 (0.58%) Go
11 2 (0.29%) PHP
12 1 (0.14%) Apex Code
12 1 (0.14%) PL/SQL
12 1 (0.14%) Scala
12 1 (0.14%) Search Processing Language
12 1 (0.14%) T-SQL
12 1 (0.14%) VBA
Qualifications
1 355 (51.30%) Security Cleared
2 259 (37.43%) SC Cleared
3 111 (16.04%) DV Cleared
4 94 (13.58%) Degree
5 39 (5.64%) ITIL Certification
6 30 (4.34%) TOGAF Certification
7 27 (3.90%) Microsoft Certification
8 25 (3.61%) Cisco Certification
9 20 (2.89%) PMI Certification
10 19 (2.75%) PMP
11 17 (2.46%) CCNP
12 16 (2.31%) BPSS Clearance
13 15 (2.17%) CCNA
13 15 (2.17%) MCSE
14 14 (2.02%) Computer Science Degree
15 10 (1.45%) A+ Certification
16 8 (1.16%) JNCIA
16 8 (1.16%) JNCIP
16 8 (1.16%) JNCIS
16 8 (1.16%) Network+ Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 25 (3.61%) SLA
2 16 (2.31%) Data Quality
3 12 (1.73%) ISO/IEC 27001
4 10 (1.45%) GDPR
4 10 (1.45%) PMO
4 10 (1.45%) QA
5 7 (1.01%) ISO/IEC 20000
6 5 (0.72%) Cyber Essentials
7 3 (0.43%) Disclosure Scotland
7 3 (0.43%) ISO 9001
7 3 (0.43%) NCSC
8 2 (0.29%) Accessibility
8 2 (0.29%) Actionable Recommendations
8 2 (0.29%) GxP
8 2 (0.29%) HMG Security Policy Framework
8 2 (0.29%) NIST
9 1 (0.14%) COBIT
9 1 (0.14%) GRC
9 1 (0.14%) PCI DSS
System Software
1 89 (12.86%) Active Directory
2 30 (4.34%) VMware Infrastructure
3 17 (2.46%) VMware NSX
4 9 (1.30%) BitLocker
5 7 (1.01%) Docker
5 7 (1.01%) Hyper-V
6 4 (0.58%) Microsoft Virtual Server
6 4 (0.58%) Virtual Desktop
6 4 (0.58%) Virtual Servers
7 3 (0.43%) Virtual Machines
8 2 (0.29%) VMware ESXi
9 1 (0.14%) Slurm Workload Manager
Systems Management
1 30 (4.34%) OPNET
2 29 (4.19%) SCCM
3 22 (3.18%) Ansible
4 19 (2.75%) Microsoft Intune
5 18 (2.60%) vCenter Server
6 17 (2.46%) Terraform
7 15 (2.17%) Kubernetes
8 10 (1.45%) Active Directory Federation Services
8 10 (1.45%) WSUS
9 9 (1.30%) FortiGate
10 7 (1.01%) Progress Chef
11 6 (0.87%) Grafana
12 5 (0.72%) Puppet
13 4 (0.58%) Jamf Pro
13 4 (0.58%) Nessus
13 4 (0.58%) Packer
13 4 (0.58%) Prometheus
14 2 (0.29%) Docker Swarm
14 2 (0.29%) PowerCLI
14 2 (0.29%) Single Sign-On
Vendors
1 159 (22.98%) ServiceNow
2 127 (18.35%) Microsoft
3 62 (8.96%) Atlassian
4 61 (8.82%) Cisco
5 56 (8.09%) Remedy
6 45 (6.50%) VMware
7 33 (4.77%) SolarWinds
8 32 (4.62%) Google
8 32 (4.62%) HP
9 28 (4.05%) Oracle
10 25 (3.61%) Splunk
11 21 (3.03%) Juniper
12 18 (2.60%) SAP
13 15 (2.17%) Red Hat
14 14 (2.02%) Citrix
14 14 (2.02%) Dell
15 13 (1.88%) Canon
15 13 (1.88%) Salesforce
16 12 (1.73%) Veeam
17 9 (1.30%) Palo Alto