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 16 May 2026, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
16 May 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 74 62 55
Rank change year-on-year -12 -7 +11
Contract jobs citing Service Management 713 487 688
As % of all contract jobs in the UK excluding London 2.92% 3.80% 3.40%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 3.60% 4.20% 4.02%
Number of daily rates quoted 481 290 496
10th Percentile £210 £220 £275
25th Percentile £365 £367 £425
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £525 £525
Median % change year-on-year -4.76% - +10.53%
75th Percentile £610 £601 £600
90th Percentile £725 £688 £706
UK median daily rate £514 £513 £525
% change year-on-year +0.34% -2.38% +5.00%
Number of hourly rates quoted 58 30 16
10th Percentile £16.09 - £12.53
25th Percentile £16.17 £12.62 £14.91
Median hourly rate £60.00 £18.54 £17.50
Median % change year-on-year +223.62% +5.93% -63.91%
75th Percentile £84.75 £22.14 £19.00
90th Percentile £129.23 £35.78 £23.62
UK median hourly rate £60.00 £21.28 £17.72
% change year-on-year +181.95% +20.09% -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 19,829 11,598 17,114
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK excluding London 81.11% 90.48% 84.46%
Number of daily rates quoted 11,938 7,261 10,201
10th Percentile £300 £235 £250
25th Percentile £400 £375 £380
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £492 £475 £500
Median % change year-on-year +3.58% -5.00% -
75th Percentile £588 £581 £600
90th Percentile £680 £656 £688
UK median daily rate £505 £515 £525
% change year-on-year -1.94% -1.90% -4.55%
Number of hourly rates quoted 2,075 832 2,055
10th Percentile £14.50 £14.20 £12.32
25th Percentile £18.87 £17.30 £15.25
Median hourly rate £45.00 £25.43 £37.50
Median % change year-on-year +76.96% -32.19% +7.14%
75th Percentile £67.67 £63.75 £61.25
90th Percentile £80.00 £75.00 £72.74
UK median hourly rate £42.50 £28.41 £36.02
% change year-on-year +49.60% -21.13% +0.06%

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 16 May 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 16 May 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 16 May 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 +25 213 £520 +15.56% 99
North of England -18 183 £497 +4.63% 80
South West -24 144 £550 - 28
North West +5 101 £550 +7.57% 36
Midlands -31 87 £410 -25.45% 44
Yorkshire -31 73 £475 +11.76% 37
West Midlands -42 66 £415 -24.68% 33
East of England -18 44 £475 -13.64% 32
Scotland -30 35 £500 -3.94% 11
East Midlands -9 21 £405 -7.11% 11
North East -18 9 £400 +105.13% 8
Wales -8 7 £340 -4.56% 7
Northern Ireland - 4 - - 3
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 (6.45%) Confluence
2 28 (3.93%) Microsoft Exchange
3 22 (3.09%) SharePoint
4 9 (1.26%) Skype for Business
5 6 (0.84%) Mattermost
6 2 (0.28%) IIS
7 1 (0.14%) Apache
7 1 (0.14%) CMS
7 1 (0.14%) JBoss
7 1 (0.14%) LiveCycle
7 1 (0.14%) OpenStack
Applications
1 73 (10.24%) Microsoft Office
2 29 (4.07%) Microsoft Project
3 16 (2.24%) Microsoft Excel
4 9 (1.26%) Microsoft PowerPoint
5 4 (0.56%) Chatbot
5 4 (0.56%) PTC Creo
6 2 (0.28%) MS Visio
7 1 (0.14%) Camtasia
Business Applications
1 40 (5.61%) Remedy ITSM
2 11 (1.54%) SAP S/4HANA
3 8 (1.12%) Oracle EBS
3 8 (1.12%) Teamcenter
4 2 (0.28%) Oracle Applications
5 1 (0.14%) NetSuite
5 1 (0.14%) SAP HR
5 1 (0.14%) SAP Payroll
Cloud Services
1 95 (13.32%) Azure
2 52 (7.29%) Microsoft 365
3 45 (6.31%) AWS
4 42 (5.89%) Power Platform
5 28 (3.93%) GCP
6 23 (3.23%) SaaS
7 18 (2.52%) Entra ID
8 13 (1.82%) Azure DevOps
9 10 (1.40%) OneDrive
10 9 (1.26%) PaaS
11 8 (1.12%) GitHub
12 7 (0.98%) IaaS
12 7 (0.98%) OCI
13 6 (0.84%) Microsoft Copilot
13 6 (0.84%) PowerApps
14 5 (0.70%) Azure Machine Learning
14 5 (0.70%) Azure Synapse Analytics
14 5 (0.70%) Dynamics 365
14 5 (0.70%) OpenShift
14 5 (0.70%) Power Automate
Communications & Networking
1 34 (4.77%) Firewall
2 29 (4.07%) DNS
3 25 (3.51%) LAN
4 22 (3.09%) Network Security
4 22 (3.09%) WAN
5 18 (2.52%) DHCP
6 16 (2.24%) VPN
7 14 (1.96%) BGP
8 13 (1.82%) OSPF
9 12 (1.68%) BIG-IP
10 11 (1.54%) Cisco ISE
10 11 (1.54%) VLAN
11 9 (1.26%) Skype
11 9 (1.26%) Wi-Fi
11 9 (1.26%) Wireless
12 8 (1.12%) Ethernet VPN
12 8 (1.12%) Junos
12 8 (1.12%) TCP/IP
12 8 (1.12%) VXLAN
13 4 (0.56%) SSL
Database & Business Intelligence
1 31 (4.35%) Power BI
2 13 (1.82%) SQL Server
3 7 (0.98%) Relational Database
4 6 (0.84%) PostgreSQL
5 5 (0.70%) Oracle Reports
6 3 (0.42%) Amazon RDS
6 3 (0.42%) Azure SQL Database
6 3 (0.42%) InfluxDB
6 3 (0.42%) SQL Server Analysis Services
6 3 (0.42%) SQL Server Integration Services
6 3 (0.42%) SQL Server Reporting Services
7 2 (0.28%) GIS
7 2 (0.28%) MariaDB
7 2 (0.28%) Microsoft Analysis Services
7 2 (0.28%) MySQL
7 2 (0.28%) Oracle Database
8 1 (0.14%) DTS
8 1 (0.14%) MongoDB
8 1 (0.14%) OpenStack Swift
8 1 (0.14%) Oracle Database 11g
Development Applications
1 91 (12.76%) JIRA
2 14 (1.96%) Git
3 10 (1.40%) GitLab
4 9 (1.26%) Bitbucket
4 9 (1.26%) Jenkins
5 6 (0.84%) Atlassian Bamboo
6 5 (0.70%) Browser DevTools
7 4 (0.56%) MLflow
8 3 (0.42%) Fiddler
9 2 (0.28%) Firebug
9 2 (0.28%) IntelliJ
9 2 (0.28%) ScriptRunner
9 2 (0.28%) Visual Studio Code
10 1 (0.14%) Claude Code
10 1 (0.14%) Gemini Tracker
10 1 (0.14%) Hudson
10 1 (0.14%) IBM UrbanCode
10 1 (0.14%) MSI
10 1 (0.14%) Rational DOORS
General
1 269 (37.73%) Social Skills
2 101 (14.17%) Analytical Skills
3 94 (13.18%) Finance
4 68 (9.54%) Public Sector
5 46 (6.45%) Legal
6 40 (5.61%) Military
7 27 (3.79%) Organisational Skills
8 18 (2.52%) Telecoms
9 14 (1.96%) Documentation Skills
9 14 (1.96%) Influencing Skills
10 13 (1.82%) Retail
11 11 (1.54%) Aerospace
11 11 (1.54%) Banking
12 8 (1.12%) Presentation Skills
13 5 (0.70%) Inclusion and Diversity
14 3 (0.42%) Financial Institution
15 2 (0.28%) Local Government
15 2 (0.28%) Pharmaceutical
15 2 (0.28%) Publishing
16 1 (0.14%) German Language
Job Titles
1 90 (12.62%) Service Manager
2 75 (10.52%) Lead
3 74 (10.38%) Analyst
3 74 (10.38%) Architect
4 46 (6.45%) Senior
5 41 (5.75%) IT Manager
5 41 (5.75%) Service Architect
6 35 (4.91%) Hardware Engineer
7 30 (4.21%) Service Analyst
8 29 (4.07%) Delivery Manager
9 25 (3.51%) Project Manager
10 24 (3.37%) Consultant
10 24 (3.37%) Network Engineer
11 22 (3.09%) Service Delivery Manager
12 21 (2.95%) Field Engineer
12 21 (2.95%) Field Hardware Engineer
12 21 (2.95%) IT Analyst
12 21 (2.95%) IT Services Manager
12 21 (2.95%) Support Engineer
13 20 (2.81%) Infrastructure Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 25 (3.51%) REST
2 14 (1.96%) SOAP
3 8 (1.12%) 802.1X
3 8 (1.12%) OAuth
4 5 (0.70%) .NET
4 5 (0.70%) Oracle Fusion
5 4 (0.56%) OAuth2
5 4 (0.56%) OpenID
5 4 (0.56%) SAML
5 4 (0.56%) Web Services
5 4 (0.56%) XML
5 4 (0.56%) XMPP
6 3 (0.42%) CSS
6 3 (0.42%) FIDO
6 3 (0.42%) Flash
6 3 (0.42%) HTML
6 3 (0.42%) Microsoft Graph
6 3 (0.42%) Middleware
6 3 (0.42%) RabbitMQ
7 2 (0.28%) JSON
Miscellaneous
1 56 (7.85%) Product Ownership
2 41 (5.75%) Onboarding
3 35 (4.91%) CMDB
4 29 (4.07%) Data Centre
5 24 (3.37%) PKI
6 21 (2.95%) Virtual Team
7 20 (2.81%) Clustering
8 18 (2.52%) Management Information System
9 17 (2.38%) Driving Licence
10 15 (2.10%) Enterprise Software
11 13 (1.82%) PMI
12 11 (1.54%) Operational Technology
13 10 (1.40%) Data Protection Act
14 7 (0.98%) Replication
15 6 (0.84%) Analytical Mindset
15 6 (0.84%) Cloud Native
15 6 (0.84%) Self-Motivation
16 5 (0.70%) Legacy Systems
17 4 (0.56%) Distributed Systems
17 4 (0.56%) Hybrid Cloud
Operating Systems
1 138 (19.35%) Windows
2 38 (5.33%) Linux
3 33 (4.63%) Windows 10
3 33 (4.63%) Windows Server
4 11 (1.54%) Windows 7
5 10 (1.40%) Unix
6 5 (0.70%) Mac OS
6 5 (0.70%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
6 5 (0.70%) Ubuntu
7 2 (0.28%) Solaris
7 2 (0.28%) Windows Server 2019
8 1 (0.14%) Android
8 1 (0.14%) Apple iOS
8 1 (0.14%) Data ONTAP
8 1 (0.14%) Rocky
8 1 (0.14%) Windows Server 2008
8 1 (0.14%) Windows Server 2012
8 1 (0.14%) Windows Server 2016
8 1 (0.14%) Windows XP
8 1 (0.14%) zOS
Processes & Methodologies
1 412 (57.78%) ITIL
2 306 (42.92%) ITSM
3 162 (22.72%) Continuous Improvement
4 152 (21.32%) Agile
5 143 (20.06%) Stakeholder Management
6 129 (18.09%) Problem-Solving
7 119 (16.69%) Service Delivery
8 105 (14.73%) Stakeholder Engagement
9 90 (12.62%) Change Management
10 85 (11.92%) Customer Service
11 72 (10.10%) DevOps
12 70 (9.82%) Service Design
13 58 (8.13%) Configuration Management
14 53 (7.43%) Problem Management
15 50 (7.01%) Knowledge Transfer
16 48 (6.73%) Acceptance Criteria
16 48 (6.73%) Incident Management
16 48 (6.73%) Project Delivery
17 45 (6.31%) Roadmaps
18 39 (5.47%) CI/CD
Programming Languages
1 47 (6.59%) PowerShell
2 40 (5.61%) SQL
3 26 (3.65%) Python
4 21 (2.95%) JavaScript
5 9 (1.26%) VB
5 9 (1.26%) VBScript
6 7 (0.98%) Bash
7 5 (0.70%) C#
7 5 (0.70%) Java
8 4 (0.56%) PL/SQL
8 4 (0.56%) Shell Script
8 4 (0.56%) T-SQL
9 3 (0.42%) Apex Code
9 3 (0.42%) Go
10 2 (0.28%) PHP
10 2 (0.28%) Search Processing Language
11 1 (0.14%) Bicep
11 1 (0.14%) C
11 1 (0.14%) Perl
11 1 (0.14%) VBA
Qualifications
1 359 (50.35%) Security Cleared
2 251 (35.20%) SC Cleared
3 112 (15.71%) DV Cleared
4 92 (12.90%) Degree
5 37 (5.19%) ITIL Certification
6 26 (3.65%) Cisco Certification
7 25 (3.51%) TOGAF Certification
8 24 (3.37%) PMI Certification
9 23 (3.23%) PMP
10 18 (2.52%) Computer Science Degree
11 15 (2.10%) BPSS Clearance
12 14 (1.96%) CCNA
13 13 (1.82%) Microsoft Certification
14 11 (1.54%) CCNP
15 10 (1.40%) A+ Certification
16 9 (1.26%) JNCIA
16 9 (1.26%) JNCIP
16 9 (1.26%) JNCIS
16 9 (1.26%) MAPM
16 9 (1.26%) Network+ Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 36 (5.05%) SLA
2 23 (3.23%) Data Quality
3 19 (2.66%) PMO
4 14 (1.96%) ISO/IEC 20000
4 14 (1.96%) ISO/IEC 27001
4 14 (1.96%) QA
5 12 (1.68%) GDPR
6 10 (1.40%) NCSC
7 9 (1.26%) GRC
8 8 (1.12%) Cyber Essentials
9 7 (0.98%) COBIT
9 7 (0.98%) Government Security Classifications
10 6 (0.84%) Accessibility
10 6 (0.84%) ISO 31000
10 6 (0.84%) ISO/IEC 27005
11 5 (0.70%) Disclosure Scotland
12 4 (0.56%) GMP
12 4 (0.56%) ISO 9001
13 3 (0.42%) JSP 440
14 2 (0.28%) HMG Security Policy Framework
System Software
1 66 (9.26%) Active Directory
2 32 (4.49%) VMware Infrastructure
3 13 (1.82%) VMware ESXi
4 9 (1.26%) BitLocker
5 8 (1.12%) Docker
6 6 (0.84%) vSphere
7 5 (0.70%) VMware NSX
8 4 (0.56%) NFS
8 4 (0.56%) vCloud
8 4 (0.56%) Virtual Machines
9 3 (0.42%) Hyper-V
10 2 (0.28%) GPFS
11 1 (0.14%) iptables
11 1 (0.14%) Oracle RAC
11 1 (0.14%) Samba
11 1 (0.14%) Slurm Workload Manager
11 1 (0.14%) Virtual Desktop
Systems Management
1 25 (3.51%) Ansible
1 25 (3.51%) OPNET
2 20 (2.81%) SCCM
3 16 (2.24%) Terraform
4 14 (1.96%) Kubernetes
5 12 (1.68%) Microsoft Intune
6 8 (1.12%) FortiGate
7 7 (0.98%) Single Sign-On
7 7 (0.98%) vCenter Server
8 6 (0.84%) Grafana
8 6 (0.84%) Progress Chef
9 5 (0.70%) Puppet
9 5 (0.70%) SCOM
10 4 (0.56%) Jamf Pro
10 4 (0.56%) PowerCLI
10 4 (0.56%) vMotion
11 3 (0.42%) Nessus
11 3 (0.42%) Packer
11 3 (0.42%) Prometheus
11 3 (0.42%) vRealize
Vendors
1 166 (23.28%) ServiceNow
2 114 (15.99%) Microsoft
3 69 (9.68%) Remedy
4 48 (6.73%) VMware
5 39 (5.47%) Atlassian
6 38 (5.33%) Cisco
7 34 (4.77%) HP
8 30 (4.21%) Oracle
9 18 (2.52%) BMC
9 18 (2.52%) SAP
10 17 (2.38%) Dell
11 16 (2.24%) Splunk
12 15 (2.10%) Canon
12 15 (2.10%) Google
13 12 (1.68%) F5
13 12 (1.68%) SolarWinds
14 11 (1.54%) Juniper
15 10 (1.40%) Palo Alto
16 9 (1.26%) IFS
17 8 (1.12%) Extreme Networks