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 6 November 2025, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
6 Nov 2025
Same period 2024 Same period 2023
Rank 55 73 65
Rank change year-on-year +18 -8 0
Contract jobs citing Service Management 699 464 687
As % of all contract jobs in the UK excluding London 4.15% 2.77% 3.34%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 4.69% 3.31% 3.78%
Number of daily rates quoted 423 308 520
10th Percentile £185 £200 £232
25th Percentile £293 £350 £374
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £500 £525
Median % change year-on-year - -4.76% +7.14%
75th Percentile £569 £600 £600
90th Percentile £619 £675 £669
UK median daily rate £500 £518 £528
% change year-on-year -3.38% -1.90% +2.93%
Number of hourly rates quoted 97 19 8
10th Percentile £12.62 £23.55 £20.50
25th Percentile £15.75 £26.25 £21.06
Median hourly rate £20.79 £45.00 £21.91
Median % change year-on-year -53.80% +105.43% +3.08%
75th Percentile £33.75 £51.88 £58.75
90th Percentile £61.00 £67.75 £70.00
UK median hourly rate £20.79 £36.00 £44.63
% change year-on-year -42.25% -19.33% +110.00%

All Process and 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 14,917 14,028 18,162
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK excluding London 88.50% 83.85% 88.32%
Number of daily rates quoted 9,063 8,023 11,882
10th Percentile £220 £248 £250
25th Percentile £368 £382 £400
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £475 £500 £500
Median % change year-on-year -5.00% - -
75th Percentile £575 £600 £600
90th Percentile £672 £685 £688
UK median daily rate £500 £525 £535
% change year-on-year -4.76% -1.87% -2.73%
Number of hourly rates quoted 1,675 882 1,286
10th Percentile £14.23 £15.00 £14.25
25th Percentile £17.14 £18.13 £17.72
Median hourly rate £22.58 £35.00 £44.25
Median % change year-on-year -35.50% -20.90% +50.00%
75th Percentile £41.94 £65.00 £65.00
90th Percentile £67.00 £72.50 £77.50
UK median hourly rate £25.15 £35.00 £44.25
% change year-on-year -28.14% -20.90% +26.43%

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 6 November 2025.

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 6 November 2025.

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 6 November 2025. 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
North of England +16 200 £463 +2.78% 112
South East +19 153 £463 -11.90% 221
South West +24 132 £550 -2.22% 79
North West +28 130 £466 +12.85% 49
Midlands +21 118 £510 -6.55% 93
West Midlands +19 93 £515 -9.77% 59
Yorkshire -15 60 £375 -26.47% 40
Scotland +6 45 £466 +4.19% 26
East of England -3 41 £516 -1.81% 51
East Midlands -2 25 £425 -17.07% 32
North East -5 13 £550 +42.86% 23
Wales -12 8 £230 +2.83% 21
Northern Ireland -4 4 £150 -72.73% 12
Channel Islands - 3 £725 - 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 52 (7.44%) Microsoft Exchange
2 41 (5.87%) SharePoint
3 39 (5.58%) Confluence
4 21 (3.00%) Apache
5 14 (2.00%) WebLogic
6 10 (1.43%) Skype for Business
7 7 (1.00%) IIS
7 7 (1.00%) WebSphere
8 5 (0.72%) SharePoint Server
9 2 (0.29%) JBoss
10 1 (0.14%) CMS
10 1 (0.14%) Oracle Self-Service HR
10 1 (0.14%) Oracle Workflow
10 1 (0.14%) Umbraco
Applications
1 74 (10.59%) Microsoft Office
2 27 (3.86%) Microsoft Excel
3 12 (1.72%) Microsoft PowerPoint
3 12 (1.72%) MS Visio
4 6 (0.86%) Microsoft Project
5 1 (0.14%) Trello
Business Applications
1 19 (2.72%) Remedy ITSM
2 7 (1.00%) assyst
2 7 (1.00%) Maximo
3 5 (0.72%) Oracle EBS
3 5 (0.72%) SAP S/4HANA
4 3 (0.43%) Dynamics CRM
5 2 (0.29%) Oracle ERP
5 2 (0.29%) Salesforce CRM
6 1 (0.14%) SAP ERP
6 1 (0.14%) SAP HR
6 1 (0.14%) SAP LE
6 1 (0.14%) SAP PM
6 1 (0.14%) SAP WM
6 1 (0.14%) SystmOne
Cloud Services
1 86 (12.30%) Azure
2 74 (10.59%) Microsoft 365
3 53 (7.58%) AWS
4 25 (3.58%) Entra ID
5 17 (2.43%) Power Platform
6 15 (2.15%) OneDrive
7 14 (2.00%) Azure Monitor
8 12 (1.72%) SaaS
9 11 (1.57%) Azure DevOps
9 11 (1.57%) GCP
10 6 (0.86%) PowerApps
10 6 (0.86%) Salesforce Service Cloud
11 5 (0.72%) Google Workspace
12 3 (0.43%) Lucidchart
13 2 (0.29%) Asana
13 2 (0.29%) Azure AKS
13 2 (0.29%) Azure Cosmos DB
13 2 (0.29%) Oracle CX
13 2 (0.29%) Power Automate
13 2 (0.29%) Serverless
Communications & Networking
1 51 (7.30%) DNS
2 47 (6.72%) Firewall
3 33 (4.72%) DHCP
4 29 (4.15%) WAN
5 28 (4.01%) LAN
6 23 (3.29%) VPN
7 22 (3.15%) VLAN
8 19 (2.72%) Skype
8 19 (2.72%) TCP/IP
9 17 (2.43%) Cisco Firepower
9 17 (2.43%) Cisco IOS
9 17 (2.43%) Cisco ISE
9 17 (2.43%) Junos
10 13 (1.86%) BGP
11 12 (1.72%) Unified Communications
11 12 (1.72%) Wi-Fi
12 11 (1.57%) Network Security
13 10 (1.43%) Wireless
14 8 (1.14%) MPLS
15 7 (1.00%) IPsec
Database & Business Intelligence
1 16 (2.29%) SQL Server
2 15 (2.15%) Power BI
2 15 (2.15%) Relational Database
3 9 (1.29%) Amazon RDS
3 9 (1.29%) DB2
4 4 (0.57%) Data Mining
4 4 (0.57%) Metadata
4 4 (0.57%) Oracle Reports
5 3 (0.43%) Amazon Aurora
5 3 (0.43%) Big Data
5 3 (0.43%) MariaDB
5 3 (0.43%) MySQL
6 2 (0.29%) Azure SQL Database
6 2 (0.29%) Data Warehouse
6 2 (0.29%) PostgreSQL
7 1 (0.14%) Electronic Patient Records
7 1 (0.14%) MongoDB
7 1 (0.14%) Oracle Database
7 1 (0.14%) Sqoop
7 1 (0.14%) Tableau
Development Applications
1 72 (10.30%) JIRA
2 12 (1.72%) Jenkins
3 7 (1.00%) webpack
4 2 (0.29%) Bitbucket
4 2 (0.29%) Git
5 1 (0.14%) Cucumber
5 1 (0.14%) MLflow
5 1 (0.14%) Selenium
5 1 (0.14%) SoapUI
5 1 (0.14%) WebDriver
General
1 250 (35.77%) Social Skills
2 141 (20.17%) Analytical Skills
3 86 (12.30%) Public Sector
4 85 (12.16%) Finance
5 31 (4.43%) Telecoms
6 29 (4.15%) Manufacturing
7 24 (3.43%) Legal
8 23 (3.29%) Military
9 22 (3.15%) Inclusion and Diversity
10 19 (2.72%) Influencing Skills
11 18 (2.58%) Banking
11 18 (2.58%) Documentation Skills
12 16 (2.29%) Presentation Skills
13 15 (2.15%) Organisational Skills
14 14 (2.00%) Marketing
15 13 (1.86%) Retail
16 12 (1.72%) Electronics
17 11 (1.57%) Police
18 8 (1.14%) Investment Banking
19 5 (0.72%) Billing
Job Titles
1 124 (17.74%) Analyst
2 61 (8.73%) Architect
3 60 (8.58%) Support Engineer
4 52 (7.44%) Service Manager
5 51 (7.30%) Support Analyst
6 49 (7.01%) IT Support
7 42 (6.01%) Desktop Support
8 38 (5.44%) Lead
8 38 (5.44%) Network Engineer
9 35 (5.01%) 2nd Line Support
10 34 (4.86%) Service Architect
11 29 (4.15%) IT Analyst
12 26 (3.72%) Senior
12 26 (3.72%) Service Analyst
13 24 (3.43%) Consultant
14 23 (3.29%) Platform Engineer
15 22 (3.15%) IT Manager
15 22 (3.15%) IT Support Analyst
16 20 (2.86%) Data Analyst
16 20 (2.86%) Developer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 20 (2.86%) REST
2 16 (2.29%) RFC 2544
3 14 (2.00%) Web Services
4 13 (1.86%) CSS
4 13 (1.86%) HTML
4 13 (1.86%) SOAP
5 8 (1.14%) RESTful
5 8 (1.14%) XML
6 7 (1.00%) CSS3
6 7 (1.00%) HTML5
6 7 (1.00%) NETCONF
6 7 (1.00%) Node.js
6 7 (1.00%) React
6 7 (1.00%) Redux
6 7 (1.00%) RESTCONF
6 7 (1.00%) XMPP
7 6 (0.86%) Elastic Stack
8 5 (0.72%) AngularJS
9 3 (0.43%) .NET
9 3 (0.43%) LDAP
Miscellaneous
1 42 (6.01%) Data Centre
2 39 (5.58%) Management Information System
3 27 (3.86%) CMDB
3 27 (3.86%) Product Ownership
4 24 (3.43%) PKI
5 21 (3.00%) Self-Motivation
6 18 (2.58%) Virtual Team
7 15 (2.15%) Analytical Mindset
8 13 (1.86%) Fibre Optics
9 12 (1.72%) Onboarding
10 11 (1.57%) Driving Licence
10 11 (1.57%) NHS
11 10 (1.43%) iPhone
11 10 (1.43%) Mainframe
12 7 (1.00%) Enterprise Software
12 7 (1.00%) Public Cloud
13 6 (0.86%) Smartphone
13 6 (0.86%) Tandem
13 6 (0.86%) Video Conferencing
14 5 (0.72%) Distributed Systems
Operating Systems
1 176 (25.18%) Windows
2 54 (7.73%) Linux
3 52 (7.44%) Windows Server
4 42 (6.01%) Windows 10
5 24 (3.43%) Unix
6 17 (2.43%) Mac OS
7 13 (1.86%) Apple iOS
8 12 (1.72%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
9 8 (1.14%) Android
10 6 (0.86%) Windows Server 2012
11 5 (0.72%) Windows 7
12 4 (0.57%) Windows Server 2003
12 4 (0.57%) Windows Server 2016
13 3 (0.43%) Windows Server 2008
13 3 (0.43%) Windows Server 2019
14 2 (0.29%) CentOS
15 1 (0.14%) AIX
15 1 (0.14%) Solaris
Processes & Methodologies
1 392 (56.08%) ITIL
2 314 (44.92%) ITSM
3 153 (21.89%) Problem-Solving
4 116 (16.60%) Customer Service
5 112 (16.02%) Change Management
6 100 (14.31%) Stakeholder Management
7 96 (13.73%) Service Delivery
8 91 (13.02%) Agile
9 85 (12.16%) Continuous Improvement
10 83 (11.87%) Service Design
11 68 (9.73%) Incident Management
12 65 (9.30%) Stakeholder Engagement
13 63 (9.01%) Project Management
14 62 (8.87%) Project Delivery
15 60 (8.58%) DevOps
16 49 (7.01%) Problem Management
17 43 (6.15%) Analytics
17 43 (6.15%) Business Intelligence
18 40 (5.72%) Visualisation
19 38 (5.44%) Incident Response
Programming Languages
1 62 (8.87%) SQL
2 57 (8.15%) Python
3 53 (7.58%) PowerShell
4 23 (3.29%) JavaScript
5 15 (2.15%) Perl
6 14 (2.00%) Bash
7 12 (1.72%) Shell Script
8 10 (1.43%) Java
9 7 (1.00%) TypeScript
10 5 (0.72%) VB
10 5 (0.72%) VBScript
11 2 (0.29%) Apex Code
11 2 (0.29%) C#
12 1 (0.14%) HiveQL
12 1 (0.14%) PL/SQL
12 1 (0.14%) VBA
Qualifications
1 284 (40.63%) Security Cleared
2 222 (31.76%) SC Cleared
3 83 (11.87%) Degree
4 58 (8.30%) DV Cleared
5 46 (6.58%) ITIL Certification
6 39 (5.58%) Microsoft Certification
7 29 (4.15%) Cisco Certification
8 26 (3.72%) CCNP
9 19 (2.72%) A+ Certification
10 16 (2.29%) Computer Science Degree
11 15 (2.15%) Azure Certification
12 14 (2.00%) Server+ Certification
13 13 (1.86%) CCNA
14 12 (1.72%) MCSE
15 11 (1.57%) Network+ Certification
16 10 (1.43%) BPSS Clearance
16 10 (1.43%) ITIL Foundation Certificate
17 6 (0.86%) HNC
17 6 (0.86%) Master's Degree
18 5 (0.72%) HND
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 57 (8.15%) SLA
2 31 (4.43%) ISO/IEC 20000
3 15 (2.15%) GDPR
4 12 (1.72%) QA
5 8 (1.14%) Data Quality
5 8 (1.14%) ISO/IEC 27001
5 8 (1.14%) NCSC
6 5 (0.72%) Disclosure Scotland
6 5 (0.72%) GxP
6 5 (0.72%) ISO 9001
6 5 (0.72%) PMO
6 5 (0.72%) Sarbanes-Oxley
7 3 (0.43%) Accessibility
7 3 (0.43%) COBIT
7 3 (0.43%) GRC
8 2 (0.29%) Cyber Essentials
8 2 (0.29%) HIPAA
8 2 (0.29%) WCAG
9 1 (0.14%) Actionable Recommendations
9 1 (0.14%) NIST
System Software
1 89 (12.73%) Active Directory
2 32 (4.58%) VMware Infrastructure
3 21 (3.00%) VMware NSX
4 13 (1.86%) Hyper-V
5 11 (1.57%) VMware ESXi
6 6 (0.86%) Docker
6 6 (0.86%) Virtual Desktop
6 6 (0.86%) Virtual Servers
7 5 (0.72%) BitLocker
7 5 (0.72%) Microsoft Virtual Server
8 3 (0.43%) Virtual Machines
9 1 (0.14%) Slurm Workload Manager
Systems Management
1 25 (3.58%) vCenter Server
2 18 (2.58%) SCCM
3 13 (1.86%) Microsoft Intune
4 12 (1.72%) Ansible
5 11 (1.57%) Active Directory Federation Services
6 10 (1.43%) WSUS
7 7 (1.00%) Kubernetes
8 6 (0.86%) Jamf Pro
8 6 (0.86%) Terraform
9 5 (0.72%) NSN NetAct
10 4 (0.57%) OpenView
11 3 (0.43%) Check_MK
11 3 (0.43%) Single Sign-On
12 2 (0.29%) FortiGate
12 2 (0.29%) Grafana
12 2 (0.29%) OPNET
12 2 (0.29%) Prometheus
12 2 (0.29%) SCOM
13 1 (0.14%) NetBackup
13 1 (0.14%) Tivoli
Vendors
1 168 (24.03%) Microsoft
2 160 (22.89%) ServiceNow
3 99 (14.16%) Cisco
4 41 (5.87%) VMware
5 36 (5.15%) Oracle
6 35 (5.01%) Splunk
7 30 (4.29%) SAP
7 30 (4.29%) SolarWinds
8 28 (4.01%) Atlassian
9 25 (3.58%) Juniper
9 25 (3.58%) Remedy
10 19 (2.72%) Dynatrace
11 18 (2.58%) AppDynamics
12 17 (2.43%) IBM
13 16 (2.29%) Google
14 13 (1.86%) Red Hat
15 12 (1.72%) Salesforce
16 11 (1.57%) Veeam
17 10 (1.43%) Apple
18 7 (1.00%) Citrix