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

6 months to
18 Jul 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 75 55 59
Rank change year-on-year -20 +4 +5
Contract jobs citing Service Management 796 593 641
As % of all contract jobs in the UK excluding London 2.95% 4.00% 3.15%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 3.59% 4.48% 3.80%
Number of daily rates quoted 524 347 456
10th Percentile £225 £199 £213
25th Percentile £400 £308 £425
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £510 £492 £525
Median % change year-on-year +3.56% -6.29% +7.69%
75th Percentile £600 £588 £600
90th Percentile £688 £675 £675
UK median daily rate £520 £492 £525
% change year-on-year +5.69% -6.29% +0.48%
Number of hourly rates quoted 74 66 17
10th Percentile £14.65 - £16.14
25th Percentile £16.17 £12.62 £19.00
Median hourly rate £60.00 £19.74 £27.00
Median % change year-on-year +203.95% -26.89% +23.26%
75th Percentile £85.00 £22.46 £48.75
90th Percentile £96.75 £55.75 £51.50
UK median hourly rate £60.00 £20.66 £27.00
% change year-on-year +190.42% -23.48% -44.33%

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 22,173 13,223 16,885
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK excluding London 82.04% 89.23% 82.94%
Number of daily rates quoted 13,152 8,027 10,044
10th Percentile £300 £235 £250
25th Percentile £406 £367 £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 £675 £650 £688
UK median daily rate £520 £500 £525
% change year-on-year +4.00% -4.76% -4.55%
Number of hourly rates quoted 2,295 1,217 1,950
10th Percentile £14.50 £14.00 £12.75
25th Percentile £19.34 £16.95 £15.99
Median hourly rate £45.00 £24.33 £38.20
Median % change year-on-year +84.96% -36.30% -4.51%
75th Percentile £68.75 £50.00 £62.96
90th Percentile £82.25 £71.50 £73.75
UK median hourly rate £43.96 £25.15 £38.12
% change year-on-year +74.79% -34.02% -5.88%

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 18 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 18 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 18 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 +37 263 £538 +29.52% 102
North of England -34 203 £475 +2.59% 90
South West -28 127 £500 -9.09% 38
North West -39 112 £496 +0.81% 44
Midlands -42 91 £486 +2.32% 47
Yorkshire -15 85 £447 +19.07% 37
West Midlands -45 80 £500 -1.48% 27
Scotland -23 58 £500 - 10
East of England -18 41 £525 -4.55% 27
Wales -6 13 £800 +188.29% 4
East Midlands -15 11 £250 -16.67% 20
Northern Ireland +7 7 - - 3
North East -33 6 £440 +125.64% 13
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 46 (5.78%) SharePoint
2 29 (3.64%) Microsoft Exchange
3 25 (3.14%) Confluence
4 8 (1.01%) Skype for Business
5 6 (0.75%) Mattermost
6 3 (0.38%) CMS
6 3 (0.38%) OpenStack
7 2 (0.25%) IIS
8 1 (0.13%) Apache
8 1 (0.13%) JBoss
8 1 (0.13%) LiveCycle
Applications
1 53 (6.66%) Microsoft Office
2 21 (2.64%) Microsoft Excel
3 13 (1.63%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 4 (0.50%) Chatbot
5 3 (0.38%) Microsoft Project
5 3 (0.38%) PTC Creo
6 2 (0.25%) MS Visio
7 1 (0.13%) Camtasia
7 1 (0.13%) Maple
Business Applications
1 49 (6.16%) Remedy ITSM
2 8 (1.01%) SAP S/4HANA
3 7 (0.88%) Teamcenter
4 5 (0.63%) 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
1 120 (15.08%) Azure
2 78 (9.80%) Microsoft 365
3 48 (6.03%) Power Platform
4 46 (5.78%) Entra ID
5 37 (4.65%) AWS
6 22 (2.76%) Azure DevOps
6 22 (2.76%) OneDrive
6 22 (2.76%) SaaS
7 17 (2.14%) GCP
8 9 (1.13%) Azure Monitor
9 8 (1.01%) Microsoft Copilot
9 8 (1.01%) OCI
9 8 (1.01%) PaaS
10 7 (0.88%) GitHub
11 6 (0.75%) Azure AKS
12 5 (0.63%) Azure Machine Learning
12 5 (0.63%) Azure Synapse Analytics
12 5 (0.63%) Google App Engine
12 5 (0.63%) IaaS
13 4 (0.50%) Azure Sentinel
Communications & Networking
1 39 (4.90%) Firewall
2 36 (4.52%) DNS
3 27 (3.39%) LAN
4 23 (2.89%) DHCP
5 20 (2.51%) Network Security
5 20 (2.51%) VPN
6 18 (2.26%) WAN
7 17 (2.14%) BGP
7 17 (2.14%) TCP/IP
8 15 (1.88%) OSPF
9 14 (1.76%) Wireless
10 12 (1.51%) BIG-IP
10 12 (1.51%) Cisco ISE
11 10 (1.26%) Junos
11 10 (1.26%) VLAN
11 10 (1.26%) Wi-Fi
12 9 (1.13%) VXLAN
13 8 (1.01%) Ethernet VPN
13 8 (1.01%) Skype
13 8 (1.01%) SSH
Database & Business Intelligence
1 42 (5.28%) Power BI
2 16 (2.01%) SQL Server
3 5 (0.63%) Oracle Reports
3 5 (0.63%) PostgreSQL
3 5 (0.63%) Relational Database
3 5 (0.63%) SQL Server Integration Services
4 4 (0.50%) MySQL
4 4 (0.50%) SQL Server Analysis Services
4 4 (0.50%) SQL Server Reporting Services
5 3 (0.38%) Azure SQL Database
5 3 (0.38%) MariaDB
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%) Data Warehouse
7 1 (0.13%) DTS
7 1 (0.13%) InfluxDB
7 1 (0.13%) OpenStack Swift
7 1 (0.13%) Oracle Database 11g
Development Applications
1 74 (9.30%) JIRA
2 16 (2.01%) Git
3 7 (0.88%) Jenkins
4 6 (0.75%) Bitbucket
4 6 (0.75%) GitLab
5 5 (0.63%) Atlassian Bamboo
5 5 (0.63%) Browser DevTools
6 4 (0.50%) 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%) Hudson
9 1 (0.13%) IBM UrbanCode
9 1 (0.13%) Maven
9 1 (0.13%) MSI
9 1 (0.13%) Snyk
9 1 (0.13%) Visual Studio Code
General
1 286 (35.93%) Social Skills
2 112 (14.07%) Finance
3 109 (13.69%) Analytical Skills
4 74 (9.30%) Public Sector
5 39 (4.90%) Legal
6 32 (4.02%) Influencing Skills
7 28 (3.52%) Documentation Skills
8 23 (2.89%) Military
8 23 (2.89%) Telecoms
9 21 (2.64%) Organisational Skills
10 15 (1.88%) Inclusion and Diversity
11 14 (1.76%) Aerospace
12 13 (1.63%) Banking
12 13 (1.63%) Presentation Skills
13 11 (1.38%) Local Government
14 6 (0.75%) Retail
15 5 (0.63%) Financial Institution
16 3 (0.38%) Publishing
17 1 (0.13%) Games
17 1 (0.13%) Manufacturing
Job Titles
1 105 (13.19%) Analyst
2 90 (11.31%) Service Manager
3 81 (10.18%) Lead
4 71 (8.92%) Senior
5 51 (6.41%) Service Analyst
6 50 (6.28%) Architect
7 46 (5.78%) IT Manager
8 30 (3.77%) Delivery Manager
8 30 (3.77%) Project Manager
9 27 (3.39%) Network Engineer
10 25 (3.14%) Support Engineer
11 24 (3.02%) Consultant
11 24 (3.02%) IT Analyst
12 22 (2.76%) Service Delivery Manager
13 21 (2.64%) Infrastructure Engineer
13 21 (2.64%) Transition Manager
14 20 (2.51%) Administrator
14 20 (2.51%) Service Architect
15 19 (2.39%) IT Services Manager
15 19 (2.39%) Service Transition Manager
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 25 (3.14%) REST
2 9 (1.13%) OAuth
2 9 (1.13%) SOAP
3 8 (1.01%) 802.1X
4 7 (0.88%) SAML
5 5 (0.63%) OpenID
5 5 (0.63%) Oracle Fusion
5 5 (0.63%) XML
6 4 (0.50%) ARM Templates
6 4 (0.50%) OAuth2
6 4 (0.50%) XMPP
7 3 (0.38%) .NET
7 3 (0.38%) CSS
7 3 (0.38%) Elastic Stack
7 3 (0.38%) FIDO
7 3 (0.38%) Flash
7 3 (0.38%) HTML
7 3 (0.38%) JSON
7 3 (0.38%) Microsoft Graph
7 3 (0.38%) Software Packaging
Miscellaneous
1 68 (8.54%) Onboarding
2 42 (5.28%) CMDB
3 39 (4.90%) Product Ownership
4 33 (4.15%) Management Information System
5 29 (3.64%) PKI
6 25 (3.14%) Data Centre
7 24 (3.02%) Clustering
8 18 (2.26%) Enterprise Software
9 16 (2.01%) Virtual Team
10 15 (1.88%) Data Protection Act
11 14 (1.76%) Operational Technology
12 12 (1.51%) Analytical Mindset
12 12 (1.51%) Self-Motivation
13 9 (1.13%) Driving Licence
14 8 (1.01%) Cloud Native
14 8 (1.01%) Cyber Threat
14 8 (1.01%) Hybrid Cloud
14 8 (1.01%) Replication
14 8 (1.01%) Security Posture
15 7 (0.88%) Video Conferencing
Operating Systems
1 175 (21.98%) Windows
2 39 (4.90%) Linux
2 39 (4.90%) Windows Server
3 34 (4.27%) Windows 10
4 11 (1.38%) Mac OS
4 11 (1.38%) Windows 7
5 10 (1.26%) Unix
6 5 (0.63%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
7 4 (0.50%) Android
7 4 (0.50%) Apple iOS
8 2 (0.25%) Solaris
8 2 (0.25%) Ubuntu
8 2 (0.25%) Windows Server 2012
8 2 (0.25%) Windows XP
9 1 (0.13%) Rocky
9 1 (0.13%) Windows Server 2008
9 1 (0.13%) Windows Server 2016
9 1 (0.13%) Windows Server 2019
9 1 (0.13%) zOS
Processes & Methodologies
1 462 (58.04%) ITIL
2 351 (44.10%) ITSM
3 211 (26.51%) Continuous Improvement
4 193 (24.25%) Stakeholder Management
5 190 (23.87%) Service Delivery
6 155 (19.47%) Agile
7 153 (19.22%) Problem-Solving
8 124 (15.58%) Change Management
9 116 (14.57%) Stakeholder Engagement
10 93 (11.68%) Customer Service
11 81 (10.18%) DevOps
12 78 (9.80%) Incident Management
13 67 (8.42%) Project Delivery
14 65 (8.17%) Cybersecurity
14 65 (8.17%) Problem Management
15 60 (7.54%) Configuration Management
16 58 (7.29%) Roadmaps
17 54 (6.78%) Service Design
18 51 (6.41%) Risk Management
19 49 (6.16%) Project Management
Programming Languages
1 72 (9.05%) PowerShell
2 49 (6.16%) Python
3 42 (5.28%) SQL
4 23 (2.89%) Bash
5 22 (2.76%) JavaScript
6 8 (1.01%) VB
6 8 (1.01%) VBScript
7 7 (0.88%) Java
8 4 (0.50%) Bicep
8 4 (0.50%) C#
8 4 (0.50%) Perl
8 4 (0.50%) PL/SQL
8 4 (0.50%) 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
10 2 (0.25%) VBA
Qualifications
1 371 (46.61%) Security Cleared
2 227 (28.52%) SC Cleared
3 137 (17.21%) DV Cleared
4 75 (9.42%) Degree
5 40 (5.03%) ITIL Certification
6 24 (3.02%) Cisco Certification
7 23 (2.89%) BPSS Clearance
7 23 (2.89%) PMP
8 22 (2.76%) PMI Certification
9 15 (1.88%) Computer Science Degree
9 15 (1.88%) Microsoft Certification
10 13 (1.63%) CCNA
11 12 (1.51%) DBS Check
12 11 (1.38%) A+ Certification
12 11 (1.38%) ITIL Foundation Certificate
13 10 (1.26%) CCNP
14 9 (1.13%) JNCIA
14 9 (1.13%) JNCIP
14 9 (1.13%) JNCIS
15 7 (0.88%) VMware Certified Professional (VCP)
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 55 (6.91%) SLA
2 28 (3.52%) Data Quality
3 25 (3.14%) ISO/IEC 20000
4 22 (2.76%) ISO/IEC 27001
4 22 (2.76%) PMO
4 22 (2.76%) QA
5 16 (2.01%) GRC
5 16 (2.01%) NCSC
6 14 (1.76%) ISO 9001
7 13 (1.63%) GDPR
8 10 (1.26%) COBIT
9 8 (1.01%) Disclosure Scotland
10 7 (0.88%) Government Security Classifications
11 6 (0.75%) ISO 31000
11 6 (0.75%) ISO/IEC 27005
12 5 (0.63%) Accessibility
12 5 (0.63%) Cyber Essentials
13 4 (0.50%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
13 4 (0.50%) GMP
13 4 (0.50%) NIST
System Software
1 96 (12.06%) Active Directory
2 40 (5.03%) VMware Infrastructure
3 19 (2.39%) VMware ESXi
4 11 (1.38%) Docker
4 11 (1.38%) VMware NSX
5 9 (1.13%) BitLocker
5 9 (1.13%) vSphere
6 8 (1.01%) vCloud
7 5 (0.63%) Virtual Desktop
7 5 (0.63%) Virtual Machines
8 4 (0.50%) Hyper-V
8 4 (0.50%) NFS
9 3 (0.38%) Firmware
10 2 (0.25%) GPFS
10 2 (0.25%) KVM
11 1 (0.13%) iptables
11 1 (0.13%) Oracle RAC
11 1 (0.13%) Samba
11 1 (0.13%) Slurm Workload Manager
Systems Management
1 44 (5.53%) SCCM
2 39 (4.90%) Microsoft Intune
3 25 (3.14%) Ansible
4 24 (3.02%) Terraform
5 12 (1.51%) SCOM
6 11 (1.38%) Kubernetes
6 11 (1.38%) vCenter Server
7 10 (1.26%) Single Sign-On
8 8 (1.01%) FortiGate
8 8 (1.01%) Jamf Pro
9 4 (0.50%) PowerCLI
9 4 (0.50%) Progress Chef
9 4 (0.50%) 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
1 194 (24.37%) ServiceNow
2 153 (19.22%) Microsoft
3 55 (6.91%) VMware
4 51 (6.41%) Remedy
5 36 (4.52%) Cisco
6 26 (3.27%) BMC
7 18 (2.26%) Splunk
8 17 (2.14%) Oracle
8 17 (2.14%) SolarWinds
9 14 (1.76%) Juniper
10 13 (1.63%) SAP
11 12 (1.51%) F5
12 11 (1.38%) Atlassian
13 10 (1.26%) Dell
13 10 (1.26%) Dynatrace
13 10 (1.26%) IBM
13 10 (1.26%) Qualys
14 9 (1.13%) Citrix
14 9 (1.13%) HP
14 9 (1.13%) IFS