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 1 October 2026, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
1 Oct 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 60 55 72
Rank change year-on-year -5 +17 -7
Contract jobs citing Service Management 959 638 486
As % of all contract jobs in the UK excluding London 3.39% 4.08% 2.78%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 4.18% 4.57% 3.34%
Number of daily rates quoted 648 373 332
10th Percentile £271 £185 £189
25th Percentile £439 £293 £350
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £527 £478 £500
Median % change year-on-year +10.26% -4.50% -
75th Percentile £625 £564 £600
90th Percentile £725 £634 £650
UK median daily rate £525 £485 £504
% change year-on-year +8.25% -3.72% -4.05%
Number of hourly rates quoted 71 83 13
10th Percentile £14.50 £12.62 £16.35
25th Percentile £16.11 £13.31 £24.18
Median hourly rate £35.53 £20.83 £45.00
Median % change year-on-year +70.57% -53.71% +100.00%
75th Percentile £84.38 £33.75 £48.75
90th Percentile £92.50 £60.00 £53.00
UK median hourly rate £55.00 £21.06 £36.25
% change year-on-year +161.22% -41.92% -34.09%

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 22,922 13,974 14,559
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK excluding London 80.92% 89.39% 83.35%
Number of daily rates quoted 12,873 8,417 8,228
10th Percentile £300 £230 £238
25th Percentile £409 £368 £381
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £475 £500
Median % change year-on-year +5.26% -5.00% -
75th Percentile £600 £575 £600
90th Percentile £688 £670 £688
UK median daily rate £525 £500 £525
% change year-on-year +5.00% -4.76% -2.78%
Number of hourly rates quoted 2,796 1,504 1,105
10th Percentile £13.50 £14.13 £14.99
25th Percentile £16.72 £17.23 £18.19
Median hourly rate £39.50 £22.32 £43.00
Median % change year-on-year +77.01% -48.10% +1.18%
75th Percentile £66.00 £40.65 £66.61
90th Percentile £77.50 £66.85 £74.00
UK median hourly rate £39.00 £25.15 £42.50
% change year-on-year +55.07% -40.82% -

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 1 October 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 1 October 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 1 October 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 +13 306 £575 +28.64% 217
North of England -16 273 £481 +6.78% 215
North West -13 160 £483 +5.17% 116
Midlands -38 125 £525 +3.96% 130
West Midlands -9 119 £525 +1.94% 80
Yorkshire -5 108 £463 +30.28% 84
Scotland +24 103 £566 +22.38% 79
South West -41 98 £570 +3.64% 105
East of England -1 62 £550 - 97
Wales -9 13 £800 +247.83% 21
Northern Ireland +11 8 - - 16
East Midlands -31 6 £163 -48.66% 49
North East -41 5 £600 +207.69% 18
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 60 (6.26%) SharePoint
2 38 (3.96%) Microsoft Exchange
3 37 (3.86%) Confluence
4 15 (1.56%) Skype for Business
5 4 (0.42%) CMS
5 4 (0.42%) IBM Transformation Extender
6 3 (0.31%) IIS
6 3 (0.31%) OpenStack
7 2 (0.21%) Apache
7 2 (0.21%) Tomcat
8 1 (0.10%) CICS
8 1 (0.10%) Mattermost
Applications
1 62 (6.47%) Microsoft Office
2 21 (2.19%) Microsoft Excel
3 11 (1.15%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 5 (0.52%) Chatbot
4 5 (0.52%) Microsoft Project
5 2 (0.21%) Spreadsheet
6 1 (0.10%) Maple
Business Applications
1 44 (4.59%) Remedy ITSM
2 8 (0.83%) Dynamics CRM
3 5 (0.52%) ContrOCC
3 5 (0.52%) SAP S/4HANA
4 4 (0.42%) Workday HCM
5 3 (0.31%) NEC Housing
6 2 (0.21%) Oracle EBS
6 2 (0.21%) Primavera
6 2 (0.21%) Remedy AR System
6 2 (0.21%) Salesforce CRM
6 2 (0.21%) SAP CX
6 2 (0.21%) SystmOne
6 2 (0.21%) Teamcenter
7 1 (0.10%) Cloudability
7 1 (0.10%) SAP Oil and Gas
Cloud Services
1 158 (16.48%) Azure
2 111 (11.57%) Microsoft 365
3 79 (8.24%) Entra ID
4 63 (6.57%) AWS
5 47 (4.90%) Power Platform
6 37 (3.86%) SaaS
7 27 (2.82%) Azure DevOps
7 27 (2.82%) GCP
8 24 (2.50%) OneDrive
9 14 (1.46%) Azure Monitor
10 13 (1.36%) Dynamics 365
11 10 (1.04%) GitHub
11 10 (1.04%) Microsoft Copilot
12 9 (0.94%) Power Automate
12 9 (0.94%) Serverless
13 8 (0.83%) Azure Functions
13 8 (0.83%) IaaS
14 6 (0.63%) Azure Sentinel
14 6 (0.63%) Google Workspace
14 6 (0.63%) OCI
Communications & Networking
1 44 (4.59%) DNS
2 40 (4.17%) Firewall
2 40 (4.17%) VPN
3 32 (3.34%) DHCP
4 29 (3.02%) Network Security
5 24 (2.50%) TCP/IP
6 22 (2.29%) LAN
7 17 (1.77%) WAN
8 16 (1.67%) Skype
9 13 (1.36%) Wi-Fi
10 12 (1.25%) VLAN
11 10 (1.04%) SSH
11 10 (1.04%) Wireless
12 8 (0.83%) BGP
13 7 (0.73%) Intrusion Detection
13 7 (0.73%) NetScaler
14 6 (0.63%) OSPF
14 6 (0.63%) Software-Defined Networking
15 5 (0.52%) MPLS
15 5 (0.52%) Wireshark
Database & Business Intelligence
1 28 (2.92%) Power BI
2 26 (2.71%) SQL Server
3 20 (2.09%) Metadata
4 7 (0.73%) SQL Server Integration Services
5 6 (0.63%) Looker
5 6 (0.63%) MySQL
6 5 (0.52%) MariaDB
7 4 (0.42%) Amazon RDS
7 4 (0.42%) BigQuery
7 4 (0.42%) Relational Database
7 4 (0.42%) SQL Server Reporting Services
8 3 (0.31%) Amazon Aurora
8 3 (0.31%) Oracle Reports
8 3 (0.31%) PostgreSQL
8 3 (0.31%) SQL Server Analysis Services
9 2 (0.21%) EDRMS
9 2 (0.21%) Microsoft Analysis Services
9 2 (0.21%) Oracle Database
10 1 (0.10%) Data Warehouse
10 1 (0.10%) Oracle Database 11g
Development Applications
1 71 (7.40%) JIRA
2 22 (2.29%) Git
3 9 (0.94%) Jenkins
4 8 (0.83%) Atlassian Bamboo
4 8 (0.83%) Bitbucket
5 5 (0.52%) Browser DevTools
6 4 (0.42%) webpack
7 3 (0.31%) Fiddler
7 3 (0.31%) GitLab
7 3 (0.31%) Gradle
7 3 (0.31%) Maven
7 3 (0.31%) Rational DOORS
8 2 (0.21%) Firebug
8 2 (0.21%) Sonatype Nexus
9 1 (0.10%) eggPlant
9 1 (0.10%) Gemini Tracker
9 1 (0.10%) IBM UrbanCode
9 1 (0.10%) MLflow
9 1 (0.10%) Snyk
9 1 (0.10%) SQL Server Management Studio (SSMS)
General
1 393 (40.98%) Social Skills
2 156 (16.27%) Analytical Skills
3 142 (14.81%) Finance
4 104 (10.84%) Public Sector
5 47 (4.90%) Documentation Skills
6 46 (4.80%) Organisational Skills
7 42 (4.38%) Influencing Skills
8 33 (3.44%) Aerospace
9 27 (2.82%) Legal
10 24 (2.50%) Inclusion and Diversity
11 23 (2.40%) Banking
12 19 (1.98%) Military
12 19 (1.98%) Presentation Skills
12 19 (1.98%) Telecoms
13 16 (1.67%) Local Government
13 16 (1.67%) Manufacturing
14 5 (0.52%) Retail
15 4 (0.42%) Law
16 3 (0.31%) Police
17 2 (0.21%) Automotive
Job Titles
1 108 (11.26%) Lead
2 99 (10.32%) Analyst
3 88 (9.18%) Architect
4 70 (7.30%) Senior
5 57 (5.94%) Service Manager
6 50 (5.21%) Delivery Manager
7 42 (4.38%) Consultant
7 42 (4.38%) Service Analyst
7 42 (4.38%) Support Engineer
8 38 (3.96%) Developer
9 36 (3.75%) Service Architect
10 33 (3.44%) IT Manager
11 29 (3.02%) Project Manager
12 26 (2.71%) Desktop Engineer
12 26 (2.71%) Technical Leader
13 24 (2.50%) Administrator
13 24 (2.50%) Change Manager
14 22 (2.29%) 2nd Line Support
14 22 (2.29%) Desktop Support
15 21 (2.19%) Infrastructure Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 41 (4.28%) Terraform
2 32 (3.34%) REST
3 18 (1.88%) Middleware
4 17 (1.77%) XML
5 12 (1.25%) JSON
6 10 (1.04%) SAML
6 10 (1.04%) Web Services
7 8 (0.83%) SOAP
7 8 (0.83%) XSLT
8 7 (0.73%) OAuth
9 6 (0.63%) .NET
9 6 (0.63%) ARM Templates
9 6 (0.63%) LDAP
10 5 (0.52%) OpenID
10 5 (0.52%) SailPoint
11 4 (0.42%) AngularJS
11 4 (0.42%) Node.js
11 4 (0.42%) OAuth2
11 4 (0.42%) React
11 4 (0.42%) RESTful
Miscellaneous
1 88 (9.18%) Onboarding
2 65 (6.78%) Management Information System
3 55 (5.74%) CMDB
4 38 (3.96%) Data Centre
5 37 (3.86%) Enterprise Software
6 30 (3.13%) PKI
7 25 (2.61%) Data Protection Act
7 25 (2.61%) Product Ownership
8 21 (2.19%) Hybrid Cloud
9 16 (1.67%) Operational Technology
9 16 (1.67%) Security Operations Centre
10 14 (1.46%) Analytical Mindset
10 14 (1.46%) Cyber Threat
10 14 (1.46%) Virtual Team
11 13 (1.36%) Self-Motivation
12 12 (1.25%) Clustering
12 12 (1.25%) Security Posture
13 9 (0.94%) Cloud Native
13 9 (0.94%) Taxonomies
14 8 (0.83%) Cyber Defence
Operating Systems
1 220 (22.94%) Windows
2 61 (6.36%) Windows Server
3 58 (6.05%) Linux
4 48 (5.01%) Windows 10
5 17 (1.77%) Windows 7
6 15 (1.56%) Unix
7 13 (1.36%) Android
7 13 (1.36%) Apple iOS
7 13 (1.36%) Mac OS
8 6 (0.63%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
9 3 (0.31%) AIX
9 3 (0.31%) Solaris
9 3 (0.31%) SUSE Linux Enterprise Server
9 3 (0.31%) Windows Server 2012
10 2 (0.21%) Windows XP
10 2 (0.21%) zOS
11 1 (0.10%) SUSE
11 1 (0.10%) Windows Server 2008
11 1 (0.10%) Windows Server 2016
11 1 (0.10%) Windows Server 2019
Processes & Methodologies
1 548 (57.14%) ITIL
2 389 (40.56%) ITSM
3 297 (30.97%) Stakeholder Management
4 281 (29.30%) Continuous Improvement
5 216 (22.52%) Service Delivery
6 187 (19.50%) Agile
7 183 (19.08%) Problem-Solving
8 149 (15.54%) Stakeholder Engagement
9 148 (15.43%) Change Management
10 132 (13.76%) Roadmaps
11 125 (13.03%) Cybersecurity
12 114 (11.89%) Incident Management
13 112 (11.68%) Customer Service
14 90 (9.38%) Project Delivery
15 89 (9.28%) DevOps
16 79 (8.24%) Risk Management
17 78 (8.13%) Data Protection
18 76 (7.92%) Decision-Making
19 74 (7.72%) Service Design
20 72 (7.51%) Technical Leadership
Programming Languages
1 104 (10.84%) PowerShell
2 63 (6.57%) Python
3 36 (3.75%) SQL
4 35 (3.65%) Bash
5 29 (3.02%) JavaScript
6 19 (1.98%) VBScript
7 15 (1.56%) VB
8 12 (1.25%) Java
9 11 (1.15%) C#
10 7 (0.73%) Bicep
10 7 (0.73%) Shell Script
11 4 (0.42%) C
11 4 (0.42%) TypeScript
12 3 (0.31%) Google Apps Script
12 3 (0.31%) Groovy
12 3 (0.31%) Lua
12 3 (0.31%) Perl
12 3 (0.31%) T-SQL
13 2 (0.21%) Go
13 2 (0.21%) Search Processing Language
Qualifications
1 449 (46.82%) Security Cleared
2 288 (30.03%) SC Cleared
3 137 (14.29%) DV Cleared
4 101 (10.53%) Degree
5 36 (3.75%) BPSS Clearance
6 30 (3.13%) PMP
7 29 (3.02%) ITIL Certification
7 29 (3.02%) PMI Certification
8 27 (2.82%) Microsoft Certification
9 23 (2.40%) DBS Check
10 16 (1.67%) Azure Certification
11 15 (1.56%) Cisco Certification
11 15 (1.56%) CISSP
11 15 (1.56%) Computer Science Degree
12 14 (1.46%) ITIL Foundation Certificate
13 12 (1.25%) CISM
14 11 (1.15%) A+ Certification
15 8 (0.83%) AWS Certification
15 8 (0.83%) BC Cleared
16 7 (0.73%) VMware Certified Professional (VCP)
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 80 (8.34%) SLA
2 38 (3.96%) Data Quality
3 30 (3.13%) ISO/IEC 20000
3 30 (3.13%) QA
4 28 (2.92%) GRC
5 27 (2.82%) ISO/IEC 27001
6 21 (2.19%) GDPR
7 20 (2.09%) NCSC
8 18 (1.88%) NIST
8 18 (1.88%) PMO
9 17 (1.77%) ISO 9001
10 10 (1.04%) Accessibility
11 9 (0.94%) COBIT
12 8 (0.83%) Disclosure Scotland
12 8 (0.83%) WCAG
13 7 (0.73%) ISO 31000
13 7 (0.73%) ISO/IEC 27005
14 6 (0.63%) Cyber Essentials
14 6 (0.63%) ISO 22301
15 5 (0.52%) PCI DSS
System Software
1 113 (11.78%) Active Directory
2 62 (6.47%) VMware Infrastructure
3 23 (2.40%) Hyper-V
3 23 (2.40%) VMware ESXi
4 17 (1.77%) VMware NSX
5 16 (1.67%) BitLocker
5 16 (1.67%) Docker
6 15 (1.56%) Virtual Desktop
7 14 (1.46%) vSphere
8 13 (1.36%) vCloud
9 8 (0.83%) Firmware
10 7 (0.73%) Citrix Hypervisor
10 7 (0.73%) XenApp
10 7 (0.73%) XenDesktop
11 3 (0.31%) Microsoft Virtual Server
11 3 (0.31%) NFS
11 3 (0.31%) Virtual Servers
12 2 (0.21%) KVM
12 2 (0.21%) UAG
12 2 (0.21%) Virtual Machines
Systems Management
1 61 (6.36%) SCCM
2 55 (5.74%) Microsoft Intune
3 34 (3.55%) Ansible
4 20 (2.09%) SCOM
5 17 (1.77%) vCenter Server
6 16 (1.67%) Kubernetes
7 14 (1.46%) Single Sign-On
8 7 (0.73%) Jamf Pro
8 7 (0.73%) Progress Chef
9 5 (0.52%) NetBackup
10 4 (0.42%) PowerCLI
10 4 (0.42%) Tivoli
10 4 (0.42%) Tivoli Monitoring
10 4 (0.42%) vMotion
10 4 (0.42%) WSUS
11 3 (0.31%) Dell DRAC
11 3 (0.31%) OPNET
11 3 (0.31%) Systems Management Server (SMS)
11 3 (0.31%) vRealize
12 2 (0.21%) SysTrack
Vendors
1 241 (25.13%) Microsoft
2 231 (24.09%) ServiceNow
3 82 (8.55%) VMware
4 48 (5.01%) Remedy
5 31 (3.23%) BMC
6 28 (2.92%) Cisco
7 19 (1.98%) Oracle
8 18 (1.88%) IBM
9 17 (1.77%) Atlassian
9 17 (1.77%) CyberArk
10 15 (1.56%) Dynatrace
10 15 (1.56%) SAP
11 14 (1.46%) Citrix
12 13 (1.36%) Apple
12 13 (1.36%) SolarWinds
13 12 (1.25%) Google
14 10 (1.04%) Palo Alto
14 10 (1.04%) Qualys
15 8 (0.83%) Red Hat
15 8 (0.83%) Splunk