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 11 July 2026, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
11 Jul 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 78 58 58
Rank change year-on-year -20 0 +5
Contract jobs citing Service Management 785 586 665
As % of all contract jobs in the UK excluding London 2.90% 3.97% 3.19%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 3.53% 4.45% 3.84%
Number of daily rates quoted 518 343 478
10th Percentile £220 £200 £213
25th Percentile £400 £308 £425
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £510 £496 £525
Median % change year-on-year +2.77% -5.52% +6.06%
75th Percentile £599 £588 £600
90th Percentile £677 £685 £675
UK median daily rate £522 £500 £525
% change year-on-year +4.30% -4.76% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 73 60 19
10th Percentile £15.00 - £13.81
25th Percentile £16.17 £12.62 £17.26
Median hourly rate £60.00 £20.79 £26.00
Median % change year-on-year +188.60% -20.04% +22.01%
75th Percentile £85.00 £22.25 £48.13
90th Percentile £97.00 £35.78 £50.75
UK median hourly rate £60.00 £20.79 £26.00
% change year-on-year +188.60% -20.04% -37.91%

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 22,230 13,171 17,309
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK excluding London 82.21% 89.31% 83.03%
Number of daily rates quoted 13,202 8,040 10,247
10th Percentile £300 £235 £250
25th Percentile £405 £366 £381
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £475 £500
Median % change year-on-year +5.26% -5.00% -
75th Percentile £588 £575 £600
90th Percentile £680 £650 £688
UK median daily rate £518 £501 £525
% change year-on-year +3.40% -4.67% -4.55%
Number of hourly rates quoted 2,310 1,165 2,091
10th Percentile £14.50 £14.05 £12.50
25th Percentile £19.33 £16.95 £15.62
Median hourly rate £44.50 £24.66 £38.12
Median % change year-on-year +80.45% -35.31% -2.91%
75th Percentile £68.00 £51.80 £62.50
90th Percentile £82.25 £72.50 £73.75
UK median hourly rate £43.96 £25.15 £38.12
% change year-on-year +74.79% -34.02% -4.70%

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 11 July 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 11 July 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 11 July 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 +36 243 £538 +36.94% 127
North of England -28 213 £475 +4.17% 88
South West -27 127 £500 -9.09% 45
North West -26 120 £517 +8.05% 47
Midlands -44 91 £475 -2.06% 54
Yorkshire -19 87 £450 +20.00% 26
West Midlands -49 80 £486 -4.24% 33
Scotland -14 58 £475 -5.00% 8
East of England -28 41 £525 -4.55% 24
Wales -7 13 £800 +188.29% 8
East Midlands -21 11 £250 -42.66% 21
Northern Ireland +10 6 - - 14
North East -32 6 £440 +125.64% 17
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 43 (5.48%) SharePoint
2 31 (3.95%) Microsoft Exchange
3 25 (3.18%) Confluence
4 11 (1.40%) Skype for Business
5 6 (0.76%) Mattermost
6 3 (0.38%) OpenStack
7 2 (0.25%) IIS
8 1 (0.13%) Apache
8 1 (0.13%) CMS
8 1 (0.13%) JBoss
8 1 (0.13%) LiveCycle
Applications
1 54 (6.88%) Microsoft Office
2 20 (2.55%) Microsoft Excel
3 11 (1.40%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 4 (0.51%) Chatbot
4 4 (0.51%) PTC Creo
5 3 (0.38%) Microsoft Project
6 2 (0.25%) MS Visio
7 1 (0.13%) Camtasia
Business Applications
1 48 (6.11%) Remedy ITSM
2 10 (1.27%) SAP S/4HANA
3 8 (1.02%) Teamcenter
4 5 (0.64%) ContrOCC
5 2 (0.25%) Oracle Applications
5 2 (0.25%) Primavera
6 1 (0.13%) NetSuite
6 1 (0.13%) SAP HR
6 1 (0.13%) SAP Payroll
Cloud Services
1 113 (14.39%) Azure
2 77 (9.81%) Microsoft 365
3 46 (5.86%) Power Platform
4 41 (5.22%) Entra ID
5 39 (4.97%) AWS
6 21 (2.68%) OneDrive
7 20 (2.55%) Azure DevOps
7 20 (2.55%) SaaS
8 18 (2.29%) GCP
9 9 (1.15%) PaaS
10 8 (1.02%) OCI
11 7 (0.89%) GitHub
11 7 (0.89%) Microsoft Copilot
12 6 (0.76%) Azure AKS
13 5 (0.64%) Azure Machine Learning
13 5 (0.64%) Azure Monitor
13 5 (0.64%) Azure Synapse Analytics
13 5 (0.64%) Google App Engine
14 4 (0.51%) Dynamics 365
14 4 (0.51%) IaaS
Communications & Networking
1 34 (4.33%) DNS
1 34 (4.33%) Firewall
2 29 (3.69%) LAN
3 22 (2.80%) DHCP
4 21 (2.68%) WAN
5 18 (2.29%) Network Security
5 18 (2.29%) VPN
6 16 (2.04%) BGP
7 15 (1.91%) OSPF
8 14 (1.78%) Wireless
9 13 (1.66%) VLAN
10 12 (1.53%) BIG-IP
10 12 (1.53%) Cisco ISE
10 12 (1.53%) TCP/IP
10 12 (1.53%) Wi-Fi
11 11 (1.40%) Skype
12 10 (1.27%) Junos
13 9 (1.15%) VXLAN
14 8 (1.02%) Ethernet VPN
15 5 (0.64%) SSL
Database & Business Intelligence
1 41 (5.22%) Power BI
2 15 (1.91%) SQL Server
3 5 (0.64%) Oracle Reports
3 5 (0.64%) PostgreSQL
3 5 (0.64%) Relational Database
4 4 (0.51%) MySQL
4 4 (0.51%) SQL Server Integration Services
5 3 (0.38%) Azure SQL Database
5 3 (0.38%) MariaDB
5 3 (0.38%) SQL Server Analysis Services
5 3 (0.38%) SQL Server Reporting Services
6 2 (0.25%) Amazon RDS
6 2 (0.25%) Microsoft Analysis Services
6 2 (0.25%) Oracle Database
7 1 (0.13%) Amazon Aurora
7 1 (0.13%) DTS
7 1 (0.13%) GIS
7 1 (0.13%) InfluxDB
7 1 (0.13%) OpenStack Swift
7 1 (0.13%) Oracle Database 11g
Development Applications
1 74 (9.43%) JIRA
2 16 (2.04%) Git
3 7 (0.89%) Jenkins
4 6 (0.76%) Bitbucket
4 6 (0.76%) GitLab
5 5 (0.64%) Atlassian Bamboo
5 5 (0.64%) Browser DevTools
6 4 (0.51%) MLflow
7 3 (0.38%) Fiddler
7 3 (0.38%) Rational DOORS
8 2 (0.25%) Firebug
8 2 (0.25%) IntelliJ
8 2 (0.25%) webpack
9 1 (0.13%) Gemini Tracker
9 1 (0.13%) Gradle
9 1 (0.13%) Hudson
9 1 (0.13%) IBM UrbanCode
9 1 (0.13%) Maven
9 1 (0.13%) MSI
9 1 (0.13%) Visual Studio Code
General
1 274 (34.90%) Social Skills
2 114 (14.52%) Finance
3 106 (13.50%) Analytical Skills
4 73 (9.30%) Public Sector
5 38 (4.84%) Legal
6 30 (3.82%) Influencing Skills
7 26 (3.31%) Documentation Skills
8 21 (2.68%) Telecoms
9 20 (2.55%) Military
9 20 (2.55%) Organisational Skills
10 15 (1.91%) Inclusion and Diversity
11 14 (1.78%) Aerospace
12 13 (1.66%) Presentation Skills
13 12 (1.53%) Banking
14 11 (1.40%) Local Government
15 9 (1.15%) Retail
16 5 (0.64%) Financial Institution
17 3 (0.38%) Publishing
18 1 (0.13%) Automotive
18 1 (0.13%) Games
Job Titles
1 105 (13.38%) Analyst
2 92 (11.72%) Service Manager
3 80 (10.19%) Lead
4 66 (8.41%) Senior
5 52 (6.62%) Service Analyst
6 51 (6.50%) Architect
7 46 (5.86%) IT Manager
8 29 (3.69%) Delivery Manager
8 29 (3.69%) Project Manager
9 27 (3.44%) Network Engineer
10 25 (3.18%) Consultant
10 25 (3.18%) IT Analyst
11 23 (2.93%) Support Engineer
12 21 (2.68%) IT Services Manager
12 21 (2.68%) Service Delivery Manager
13 20 (2.55%) Administrator
14 19 (2.42%) Transition Manager
15 18 (2.29%) Service Transition Manager
16 17 (2.17%) Infrastructure Engineer
16 17 (2.17%) Service Delivery Analyst
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 24 (3.06%) REST
2 9 (1.15%) OAuth
2 9 (1.15%) SOAP
3 8 (1.02%) 802.1X
4 5 (0.64%) OpenID
4 5 (0.64%) Oracle Fusion
4 5 (0.64%) SAML
4 5 (0.64%) XML
5 4 (0.51%) Middleware
5 4 (0.51%) OAuth2
5 4 (0.51%) XMPP
6 3 (0.38%) .NET
6 3 (0.38%) CSS
6 3 (0.38%) Elastic Stack
6 3 (0.38%) FIDO
6 3 (0.38%) Flash
6 3 (0.38%) HTML
6 3 (0.38%) JSON
6 3 (0.38%) Microsoft Graph
6 3 (0.38%) Software Packaging
Miscellaneous
1 64 (8.15%) Onboarding
2 46 (5.86%) CMDB
3 37 (4.71%) Product Ownership
4 30 (3.82%) Management Information System
5 27 (3.44%) Data Centre
5 27 (3.44%) PKI
6 23 (2.93%) Clustering
7 18 (2.29%) Virtual Team
8 17 (2.17%) Enterprise Software
9 16 (2.04%) Data Protection Act
10 13 (1.66%) Self-Motivation
11 12 (1.53%) Analytical Mindset
11 12 (1.53%) Operational Technology
12 11 (1.40%) Driving Licence
13 8 (1.02%) Cloud Native
13 8 (1.02%) Cyber Threat
13 8 (1.02%) PMI
13 8 (1.02%) Replication
13 8 (1.02%) Security Posture
14 6 (0.76%) Distributed Systems
Operating Systems
1 173 (22.04%) Windows
2 38 (4.84%) Windows 10
3 36 (4.59%) Linux
4 32 (4.08%) Windows Server
5 14 (1.78%) Windows 7
6 11 (1.40%) Unix
7 10 (1.27%) Mac OS
8 5 (0.64%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
9 4 (0.51%) Android
9 4 (0.51%) Apple iOS
10 2 (0.25%) Solaris
10 2 (0.25%) Ubuntu
10 2 (0.25%) Windows XP
11 1 (0.13%) Rocky
11 1 (0.13%) Windows Server 2008
11 1 (0.13%) Windows Server 2012
11 1 (0.13%) Windows Server 2016
11 1 (0.13%) Windows Server 2019
11 1 (0.13%) zOS
Processes & Methodologies
1 451 (57.45%) ITIL
2 356 (45.35%) ITSM
3 211 (26.88%) Continuous Improvement
4 192 (24.46%) Stakeholder Management
5 180 (22.93%) Service Delivery
6 154 (19.62%) Problem-Solving
7 153 (19.49%) Agile
8 120 (15.29%) Stakeholder Engagement
9 115 (14.65%) Change Management
10 90 (11.46%) Customer Service
11 77 (9.81%) DevOps
12 73 (9.30%) Incident Management
13 65 (8.28%) Project Delivery
14 64 (8.15%) Configuration Management
14 64 (8.15%) Problem Management
15 61 (7.77%) Cybersecurity
15 61 (7.77%) Roadmaps
16 49 (6.24%) Risk Management
16 49 (6.24%) Service Design
17 47 (5.99%) Decision-Making
Programming Languages
1 69 (8.79%) PowerShell
2 49 (6.24%) Python
3 40 (5.10%) SQL
4 21 (2.68%) JavaScript
5 20 (2.55%) Bash
6 11 (1.40%) VB
6 11 (1.40%) VBScript
7 7 (0.89%) Java
8 4 (0.51%) C#
8 4 (0.51%) Perl
8 4 (0.51%) PL/SQL
8 4 (0.51%) T-SQL
9 3 (0.38%) C
9 3 (0.38%) Shell Script
10 2 (0.25%) Apex Code
10 2 (0.25%) Lua
10 2 (0.25%) Search Processing Language
10 2 (0.25%) TypeScript
11 1 (0.13%) Bicep
11 1 (0.13%) Go
Qualifications
1 362 (46.11%) Security Cleared
2 228 (29.04%) SC Cleared
3 130 (16.56%) DV Cleared
4 70 (8.92%) Degree
5 38 (4.84%) ITIL Certification
6 24 (3.06%) Cisco Certification
7 22 (2.80%) PMI Certification
8 21 (2.68%) BPSS Clearance
8 21 (2.68%) PMP
9 16 (2.04%) Microsoft Certification
10 15 (1.91%) Computer Science Degree
11 13 (1.66%) CCNA
12 12 (1.53%) A+ Certification
13 11 (1.40%) DBS Check
14 10 (1.27%) CCNP
14 10 (1.27%) ITIL Foundation Certificate
15 9 (1.15%) JNCIA
15 9 (1.15%) JNCIP
15 9 (1.15%) JNCIS
16 8 (1.02%) CISM
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 54 (6.88%) SLA
2 30 (3.82%) Data Quality
3 23 (2.93%) ISO/IEC 20000
4 22 (2.80%) ISO/IEC 27001
4 22 (2.80%) PMO
5 21 (2.68%) QA
6 17 (2.17%) NCSC
7 14 (1.78%) ISO 9001
8 13 (1.66%) GDPR
8 13 (1.66%) GRC
9 9 (1.15%) COBIT
10 7 (0.89%) Disclosure Scotland
10 7 (0.89%) Government Security Classifications
11 6 (0.76%) ISO 31000
11 6 (0.76%) ISO/IEC 27005
12 5 (0.64%) Accessibility
12 5 (0.64%) Cyber Essentials
13 4 (0.51%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
13 4 (0.51%) GMP
13 4 (0.51%) NIST
System Software
1 88 (11.21%) Active Directory
2 40 (5.10%) VMware Infrastructure
3 17 (2.17%) VMware ESXi
4 12 (1.53%) BitLocker
5 11 (1.40%) Docker
6 10 (1.27%) VMware NSX
7 9 (1.15%) vSphere
8 7 (0.89%) vCloud
9 5 (0.64%) Virtual Machines
10 4 (0.51%) Hyper-V
10 4 (0.51%) NFS
10 4 (0.51%) Virtual Desktop
11 3 (0.38%) Firmware
12 2 (0.25%) GPFS
12 2 (0.25%) KVM
13 1 (0.13%) iptables
13 1 (0.13%) Oracle RAC
13 1 (0.13%) Samba
13 1 (0.13%) Slurm Workload Manager
Systems Management
1 45 (5.73%) SCCM
2 36 (4.59%) Microsoft Intune
3 22 (2.80%) Ansible
4 21 (2.68%) Terraform
5 11 (1.40%) Kubernetes
6 10 (1.27%) SCOM
7 9 (1.15%) vCenter Server
8 8 (1.02%) FortiGate
8 8 (1.02%) Jamf Pro
8 8 (1.02%) Single Sign-On
9 4 (0.51%) PowerCLI
9 4 (0.51%) Progress Chef
9 4 (0.51%) vMotion
10 3 (0.38%) Cisco Prime
10 3 (0.38%) Dell DRAC
10 3 (0.38%) Grafana
10 3 (0.38%) Puppet
10 3 (0.38%) Systems Management Server (SMS)
10 3 (0.38%) vRealize
11 2 (0.25%) Nagios
Vendors
1 196 (24.97%) ServiceNow
2 149 (18.98%) Microsoft
3 53 (6.75%) VMware
4 50 (6.37%) Remedy
5 35 (4.46%) Cisco
6 26 (3.31%) BMC
7 19 (2.42%) SolarWinds
8 18 (2.29%) Oracle
8 18 (2.29%) Splunk
9 16 (2.04%) SAP
10 13 (1.66%) Juniper
11 12 (1.53%) Dell
11 12 (1.53%) Dynatrace
11 12 (1.53%) F5
11 12 (1.53%) HP
12 10 (1.27%) Atlassian
12 10 (1.27%) Canon
12 10 (1.27%) IBM
12 10 (1.27%) Qualys
13 9 (1.15%) IFS