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 23 April 2026, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
23 Apr 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 70 61 53
Rank change year-on-year -9 -8 +13
Contract jobs citing Service Management 729 488 734
As % of all contract jobs in the UK excluding London 3.11% 3.81% 3.53%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 3.81% 4.21% 4.15%
Number of daily rates quoted 493 304 534
10th Percentile £210 £215 £287
25th Percentile £375 £383 £425
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £510 £525 £525
Median % change year-on-year -2.86% - +10.53%
75th Percentile £613 £607 £600
90th Percentile £738 £688 £713
UK median daily rate £519 £525 £525
% change year-on-year -1.19% - +5.00%
Number of hourly rates quoted 58 31 19
10th Percentile £15.61 - £12.53
25th Percentile £16.17 £12.62 £15.32
Median hourly rate £60.00 £22.14 £17.72
Median % change year-on-year +171.00% +24.94% -63.46%
75th Percentile £83.94 £30.54 £19.87
90th Percentile £102.40 £68.75 £31.35
UK median hourly rate £60.00 £22.14 £17.72
% change year-on-year +171.00% +24.94% -65.76%

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 19,141 11,599 17,672
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK excluding London 81.57% 90.46% 84.95%
Number of daily rates quoted 11,616 7,318 10,671
10th Percentile £282 £240 £243
25th Percentile £400 £379 £381
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £485 £485 £500
Median % change year-on-year - -3.00% -
75th Percentile £588 £588 £600
90th Percentile £675 £663 £688
UK median daily rate £500 £521 £525
% change year-on-year -4.03% -0.76% -4.55%
Number of hourly rates quoted 2,019 809 2,018
10th Percentile £14.50 £14.66 £12.30
25th Percentile £18.87 £18.13 £15.13
Median hourly rate £41.56 £28.18 £35.00
Median % change year-on-year +47.46% -19.49% -6.17%
75th Percentile £66.00 £65.00 £59.99
90th Percentile £78.75 £76.25 £72.50
UK median hourly rate £39.50 £29.90 £35.00
% change year-on-year +32.11% -14.57% -6.67%

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 23 April 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 23 April 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 23 April 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 +33 211 £510 +2.00% 91
North of England -5 175 £500 +5.26% 71
South West -12 165 £600 +8.89% 30
North West +12 102 £550 +5.26% 28
Midlands -20 96 £406 -24.42% 46
West Midlands -36 74 £406 -26.20% 34
Yorkshire -32 61 £468 +10.12% 38
East of England -12 48 £475 -13.64% 48
Scotland -30 32 £500 -1.04% 14
East Midlands -16 22 £405 +5.88% 12
North East -12 15 £420 +115.38% 5
Wales -9 3 £340 -12.26% 12
Northern Ireland - 3 £500 - 12
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 59 (8.09%) Confluence
2 39 (5.35%) Microsoft Exchange
3 26 (3.57%) SharePoint
4 9 (1.23%) Skype for Business
5 5 (0.69%) Mattermost
6 2 (0.27%) Apache
6 2 (0.27%) IIS
7 1 (0.14%) HCL Notes
7 1 (0.14%) JBoss
7 1 (0.14%) LiveCycle
7 1 (0.14%) OpenStack
7 1 (0.14%) SharePoint Server
7 1 (0.14%) WebLogic
Applications
1 79 (10.84%) Microsoft Office
2 35 (4.80%) Microsoft Project
3 17 (2.33%) Microsoft Excel
4 9 (1.23%) Microsoft PowerPoint
5 4 (0.55%) PTC Creo
6 3 (0.41%) MS Visio
7 1 (0.14%) Camtasia
Business Applications
1 34 (4.66%) Remedy ITSM
2 11 (1.51%) Oracle EBS
3 9 (1.23%) SAP S/4HANA
4 6 (0.82%) Teamcenter
5 2 (0.27%) Oracle Applications
6 1 (0.14%) NetSuite
6 1 (0.14%) Salesforce CRM
6 1 (0.14%) SAP HR
6 1 (0.14%) SAP Payroll
6 1 (0.14%) SystmOne
Cloud Services
1 92 (12.62%) Azure
2 58 (7.96%) Microsoft 365
3 54 (7.41%) AWS
4 39 (5.35%) Power Platform
5 33 (4.53%) GCP
6 24 (3.29%) SaaS
7 20 (2.74%) Entra ID
8 10 (1.37%) Azure DevOps
9 8 (1.10%) IaaS
9 8 (1.10%) OneDrive
9 8 (1.10%) PaaS
10 7 (0.96%) GitHub
10 7 (0.96%) OCI
11 6 (0.82%) OpenShift
11 6 (0.82%) PowerApps
12 5 (0.69%) AWS Lambda
12 5 (0.69%) Dynamics 365
12 5 (0.69%) Power Automate
12 5 (0.69%) Salesforce Service Cloud
12 5 (0.69%) Serverless
Communications & Networking
1 40 (5.49%) Firewall
2 37 (5.08%) DNS
3 29 (3.98%) LAN
4 26 (3.57%) Network Security
4 26 (3.57%) WAN
5 24 (3.29%) DHCP
5 24 (3.29%) VPN
6 20 (2.74%) VLAN
7 19 (2.61%) BGP
8 14 (1.92%) Wi-Fi
9 13 (1.78%) OSPF
10 12 (1.65%) BIG-IP
10 12 (1.65%) Cisco ISE
10 12 (1.65%) TCP/IP
11 11 (1.51%) Skype
11 11 (1.51%) WebEx
12 10 (1.37%) Wireless
13 9 (1.23%) Junos
14 8 (1.10%) Ethernet VPN
14 8 (1.10%) VXLAN
Database & Business Intelligence
1 30 (4.12%) Power BI
2 11 (1.51%) SQL Server
3 7 (0.96%) Relational Database
4 5 (0.69%) Oracle Reports
4 5 (0.69%) PostgreSQL
5 4 (0.55%) Amazon RDS
5 4 (0.55%) InfluxDB
6 3 (0.41%) Azure SQL Database
7 2 (0.27%) GIS
7 2 (0.27%) Oracle Database
7 2 (0.27%) SQL Server Analysis Services
7 2 (0.27%) SQL Server Integration Services
7 2 (0.27%) SQL Server Reporting Services
8 1 (0.14%) DTS
8 1 (0.14%) MariaDB
8 1 (0.14%) Microsoft Analysis Services
8 1 (0.14%) MongoDB
8 1 (0.14%) MySQL
8 1 (0.14%) OpenStack Swift
8 1 (0.14%) Oracle Database 11g
Development Applications
1 106 (14.54%) JIRA
2 12 (1.65%) Git
3 11 (1.51%) Bitbucket
3 11 (1.51%) Jenkins
4 8 (1.10%) GitLab
5 6 (0.82%) Atlassian Bamboo
6 4 (0.55%) MLflow
7 3 (0.41%) Browser DevTools
8 2 (0.27%) Fiddler
8 2 (0.27%) IntelliJ
8 2 (0.27%) ScriptRunner
9 1 (0.14%) Firebug
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%) Visual Studio Code
General
1 277 (38.00%) Social Skills
2 111 (15.23%) Analytical Skills
3 85 (11.66%) Finance
4 73 (10.01%) Public Sector
5 55 (7.54%) Legal
6 44 (6.04%) Military
7 26 (3.57%) Organisational Skills
8 17 (2.33%) Telecoms
9 16 (2.19%) Retail
10 15 (2.06%) Influencing Skills
11 14 (1.92%) Documentation Skills
12 11 (1.51%) Aerospace
13 10 (1.37%) Banking
14 7 (0.96%) Presentation Skills
15 6 (0.82%) Inclusion and Diversity
16 4 (0.55%) Manufacturing
17 3 (0.41%) Financial Institution
18 2 (0.27%) Pharmaceutical
18 2 (0.27%) Publishing
19 1 (0.14%) Automotive
Job Titles
1 88 (12.07%) Service Manager
2 85 (11.66%) Architect
3 76 (10.43%) Analyst
4 74 (10.15%) Lead
5 47 (6.45%) Service Architect
6 45 (6.17%) Senior
7 42 (5.76%) IT Manager
8 35 (4.80%) Hardware Engineer
9 27 (3.70%) Service Analyst
10 26 (3.57%) Consultant
10 26 (3.57%) Delivery Manager
11 25 (3.43%) IT Analyst
11 25 (3.43%) Project Manager
12 24 (3.29%) Network Engineer
13 23 (3.16%) Field Engineer
13 23 (3.16%) IT Support
14 22 (3.02%) IT Services Manager
15 21 (2.88%) Field Hardware Engineer
15 21 (2.88%) Service Delivery Manager
16 20 (2.74%) Administrator
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 28 (3.84%) REST
2 12 (1.65%) SOAP
3 11 (1.51%) XMPP
4 8 (1.10%) 802.1X
5 6 (0.82%) OAuth
6 5 (0.69%) .NET
6 5 (0.69%) Oracle Fusion
7 4 (0.55%) RabbitMQ
7 4 (0.55%) Web Services
8 3 (0.41%) Microsoft Graph
8 3 (0.41%) Middleware
8 3 (0.41%) OAuth2
8 3 (0.41%) OpenID
8 3 (0.41%) SAML
8 3 (0.41%) XML
9 2 (0.27%) CSS
9 2 (0.27%) FIDO
9 2 (0.27%) HTML
9 2 (0.27%) JSON
9 2 (0.27%) Lightning Web Components
Miscellaneous
1 73 (10.01%) Product Ownership
2 42 (5.76%) Onboarding
3 37 (5.08%) CMDB
4 26 (3.57%) Data Centre
5 21 (2.88%) Management Information System
5 21 (2.88%) Virtual Team
6 20 (2.74%) PKI
7 19 (2.61%) Driving Licence
8 18 (2.47%) Clustering
9 13 (1.78%) Enterprise Software
9 13 (1.78%) PMI
10 10 (1.37%) Data Protection Act
11 9 (1.23%) Analytical Mindset
11 9 (1.23%) Operational Technology
11 9 (1.23%) Self-Motivation
12 6 (0.82%) Cloud Native
12 6 (0.82%) NHS
13 5 (0.69%) Fat Client
13 5 (0.69%) Hybrid Cloud
13 5 (0.69%) Thin Client
Operating Systems
1 144 (19.75%) Windows
2 52 (7.13%) Linux
3 46 (6.31%) Windows Server
4 36 (4.94%) Windows 10
5 14 (1.92%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
6 11 (1.51%) Windows 7
7 9 (1.23%) Unix
8 6 (0.82%) Ubuntu
9 5 (0.69%) Mac OS
9 5 (0.69%) Windows Server 2012
10 2 (0.27%) CentOS
10 2 (0.27%) Solaris
10 2 (0.27%) Windows Server 2003
10 2 (0.27%) Windows Server 2019
11 1 (0.14%) Android
11 1 (0.14%) Apple iOS
11 1 (0.14%) Windows Server 2008
11 1 (0.14%) Windows Server 2016
11 1 (0.14%) Windows XP
11 1 (0.14%) zOS
Processes & Methodologies
1 427 (58.57%) ITIL
2 319 (43.76%) ITSM
3 167 (22.91%) Continuous Improvement
4 156 (21.40%) Agile
5 140 (19.20%) Stakeholder Management
6 137 (18.79%) Problem-Solving
7 119 (16.32%) Service Delivery
8 102 (13.99%) Change Management
9 101 (13.85%) Stakeholder Engagement
10 80 (10.97%) Customer Service
11 74 (10.15%) DevOps
11 74 (10.15%) Service Design
12 66 (9.05%) Acceptance Criteria
13 57 (7.82%) Configuration Management
14 54 (7.41%) Problem Management
15 53 (7.27%) Incident Management
16 51 (7.00%) Knowledge Transfer
17 48 (6.58%) Project Delivery
18 46 (6.31%) Business Continuity
19 44 (6.04%) TOGAF
Programming Languages
1 67 (9.19%) PowerShell
2 39 (5.35%) Python
3 36 (4.94%) SQL
4 17 (2.33%) Bash
5 16 (2.19%) JavaScript
6 9 (1.23%) Perl
6 9 (1.23%) VB
6 9 (1.23%) VBScript
7 6 (0.82%) Java
8 5 (0.69%) C#
8 5 (0.69%) Shell Script
9 4 (0.55%) Go
9 4 (0.55%) PL/SQL
10 3 (0.41%) Apex Code
10 3 (0.41%) T-SQL
11 2 (0.27%) PHP
12 1 (0.14%) C
12 1 (0.14%) REXX
12 1 (0.14%) Scala
12 1 (0.14%) VBA
Qualifications
1 379 (51.99%) Security Cleared
2 284 (38.96%) SC Cleared
3 110 (15.09%) DV Cleared
4 102 (13.99%) Degree
5 38 (5.21%) ITIL Certification
6 30 (4.12%) TOGAF Certification
7 26 (3.57%) Cisco Certification
7 26 (3.57%) PMI Certification
8 25 (3.43%) PMP
9 18 (2.47%) BPSS Clearance
9 18 (2.47%) Microsoft Certification
10 16 (2.19%) CCNP
10 16 (2.19%) Computer Science Degree
11 15 (2.06%) CCNA
12 11 (1.51%) A+ Certification
13 9 (1.23%) JNCIA
13 9 (1.23%) JNCIP
13 9 (1.23%) JNCIS
13 9 (1.23%) MAPM
14 8 (1.10%) Network+ Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 30 (4.12%) SLA
2 22 (3.02%) Data Quality
3 15 (2.06%) ISO/IEC 27001
3 15 (2.06%) PMO
4 14 (1.92%) ISO/IEC 20000
5 11 (1.51%) QA
6 10 (1.37%) NCSC
7 9 (1.23%) GDPR
7 9 (1.23%) GRC
8 7 (0.96%) COBIT
8 7 (0.96%) Cyber Essentials
8 7 (0.96%) Government Security Classifications
9 6 (0.82%) Accessibility
9 6 (0.82%) Disclosure Scotland
9 6 (0.82%) ISO 31000
9 6 (0.82%) ISO/IEC 27005
10 5 (0.69%) ISO 9001
11 4 (0.55%) GMP
12 2 (0.27%) GxP
12 2 (0.27%) HMG Security Policy Framework
System Software
1 72 (9.88%) Active Directory
2 31 (4.25%) VMware Infrastructure
3 10 (1.37%) Docker
4 9 (1.23%) BitLocker
5 4 (0.55%) Hyper-V
5 4 (0.55%) Virtual Machines
6 3 (0.41%) VMware ESXi
7 2 (0.27%) Slurm Workload Manager
7 2 (0.27%) VMware NSX
8 1 (0.14%) iptables
8 1 (0.14%) NFS
8 1 (0.14%) Oracle RAC
8 1 (0.14%) Samba
8 1 (0.14%) Virtual Desktop
Systems Management
1 30 (4.12%) OPNET
2 25 (3.43%) Ansible
3 22 (3.02%) SCCM
4 20 (2.74%) Terraform
5 18 (2.47%) Kubernetes
6 13 (1.78%) Microsoft Intune
7 10 (1.37%) FortiGate
8 7 (0.96%) Grafana
8 7 (0.96%) Progress Chef
9 6 (0.82%) Active Directory Federation Services
10 5 (0.69%) Puppet
11 4 (0.55%) Jamf Pro
11 4 (0.55%) Nessus
11 4 (0.55%) Packer
11 4 (0.55%) Prometheus
11 4 (0.55%) Single Sign-On
11 4 (0.55%) vCenter Server
12 3 (0.41%) Cisco Prime
13 2 (0.27%) Nagios
13 2 (0.27%) Systems Management Server (SMS)
Vendors
1 168 (23.05%) ServiceNow
2 128 (17.56%) Microsoft
3 68 (9.33%) Remedy
4 54 (7.41%) Atlassian
5 49 (6.72%) Cisco
6 47 (6.45%) VMware
7 34 (4.66%) HP
7 34 (4.66%) Oracle
8 23 (3.16%) Google
9 20 (2.74%) Splunk
10 18 (2.47%) Red Hat
11 17 (2.33%) Dell
12 15 (2.06%) Canon
12 15 (2.06%) Citrix
12 15 (2.06%) SAP
12 15 (2.06%) SolarWinds
13 14 (1.92%) BMC
14 12 (1.65%) F5
14 12 (1.65%) Juniper
14 12 (1.65%) Palo Alto