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 3 December 2025, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
3 Dec 2025
Same period 2024 Same period 2023
Rank 54 69 62
Rank change year-on-year +15 -7 +2
Contract jobs citing Service Management 741 466 671
As % of all contract jobs in the UK excluding London 4.16% 2.93% 3.34%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 4.78% 3.41% 3.78%
Number of daily rates quoted 501 301 504
10th Percentile £185 £200 £233
25th Percentile £306 £350 £400
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £501 £525
Median % change year-on-year -0.10% -4.67% +10.53%
75th Percentile £575 £604 £600
90th Percentile £700 £675 £675
UK median daily rate £500 £525 £530
% change year-on-year -4.76% -0.94% +6.00%
Number of hourly rates quoted 85 24 11
10th Percentile £12.62 £21.05 £17.72
25th Percentile £16.55 £27.80 £19.11
Median hourly rate £20.79 £34.25 £21.31
Median % change year-on-year -39.30% +60.72% -0.88%
75th Percentile £60.00 £49.06 £36.25
90th Percentile £74.26 £63.75 £55.00
UK median hourly rate £20.83 £32.25 £35.00
% change year-on-year -35.40% -7.87% +62.79%

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 15,503 13,646 17,745
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK excluding London 86.93% 85.69% 88.39%
Number of daily rates quoted 9,453 7,857 11,502
10th Percentile £215 £243 £250
25th Percentile £369 £381 £400
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £475 £500 £500
Median % change year-on-year -5.00% - -
75th Percentile £575 £600 £600
90th Percentile £675 £688 £688
UK median daily rate £500 £525 £533
% change year-on-year -4.76% -1.50% -3.09%
Number of hourly rates quoted 1,742 870 1,250
10th Percentile £14.35 £15.10 £14.25
25th Percentile £17.30 £19.43 £17.72
Median hourly rate £22.85 £32.39 £43.95
Median % change year-on-year -29.45% -26.30% +40.82%
75th Percentile £45.46 £64.73 £65.00
90th Percentile £67.50 £72.50 £77.50
UK median hourly rate £25.15 £32.50 £43.75
% change year-on-year -22.62% -25.71% +25.00%

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 3 December 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 3 December 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 3 December 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
South East +28 194 £500 -4.76% 100
North of England 0 187 £445 +4.71% 68
South West +22 145 £564 -1.96% 41
Midlands +22 129 £463 -18.36% 60
North West +13 114 £475 +18.75% 38
West Midlands +13 104 £500 -11.74% 36
Yorkshire -11 58 £355 -26.42% 18
Scotland +7 41 £470 +5.62% 21
East of England -10 38 £454 -17.45% 25
East Midlands 0 25 £419 -24.72% 23
North East +1 18 £260 -56.39% 13
Wales -17 5 £175 -21.76% 13
Northern Ireland - 5 £325 - 7
Channel Islands - 3 £725 -
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 61 (8.23%) Confluence
2 55 (7.42%) Microsoft Exchange
3 45 (6.07%) SharePoint
4 18 (2.43%) Apache
5 14 (1.89%) WebLogic
6 10 (1.35%) Skype for Business
7 5 (0.67%) SharePoint Server
8 4 (0.54%) IIS
8 4 (0.54%) WebSphere
9 2 (0.27%) JBoss
10 1 (0.13%) CMS
10 1 (0.13%) HCL Notes
10 1 (0.13%) Oracle Self-Service HR
10 1 (0.13%) Oracle Workflow
Applications
1 88 (11.88%) Microsoft Office
2 36 (4.86%) Microsoft Project
3 25 (3.37%) Microsoft Excel
4 11 (1.48%) Microsoft PowerPoint
5 10 (1.35%) MS Visio
6 1 (0.13%) Trello
Business Applications
1 15 (2.02%) Remedy ITSM
2 12 (1.62%) Oracle EBS
3 6 (0.81%) SAP S/4HANA
4 4 (0.54%) Maximo
5 3 (0.40%) assyst
5 3 (0.40%) Dynamics CRM
6 2 (0.27%) Salesforce CRM
7 1 (0.13%) Oracle ERP
7 1 (0.13%) SAP ERP
7 1 (0.13%) SAP HR
7 1 (0.13%) SAP LE
7 1 (0.13%) SAP PM
7 1 (0.13%) SAP WM
7 1 (0.13%) SystmOne
Cloud Services
1 108 (14.57%) Azure
2 77 (10.39%) AWS
3 72 (9.72%) Microsoft 365
4 32 (4.32%) GCP
5 23 (3.10%) Entra ID
6 21 (2.83%) Power Platform
7 16 (2.16%) OneDrive
7 16 (2.16%) SaaS
8 14 (1.89%) Azure Monitor
9 11 (1.48%) Azure DevOps
10 8 (1.08%) PowerApps
11 7 (0.94%) Salesforce Service Cloud
12 6 (0.81%) IaaS
13 5 (0.67%) Power Automate
13 5 (0.67%) Serverless
14 4 (0.54%) Amazon S3
15 3 (0.40%) Asana
15 3 (0.40%) AWS Lambda
15 3 (0.40%) Dynamics 365
15 3 (0.40%) OpenShift
Communications & Networking
1 43 (5.80%) DNS
2 31 (4.18%) Firewall
3 29 (3.91%) DHCP
4 26 (3.51%) LAN
5 25 (3.37%) WAN
6 22 (2.97%) VLAN
7 20 (2.70%) Skype
7 20 (2.70%) TCP/IP
8 17 (2.29%) Cisco Firepower
8 17 (2.29%) Cisco IOS
8 17 (2.29%) Cisco ISE
8 17 (2.29%) Junos
8 17 (2.29%) VPN
9 11 (1.48%) Network Security
10 10 (1.35%) Wi-Fi
11 8 (1.08%) WebEx
12 6 (0.81%) SSH
12 6 (0.81%) Wireless
13 5 (0.67%) BGP
13 5 (0.67%) SAN
Database & Business Intelligence
1 16 (2.16%) Relational Database
2 15 (2.02%) Power BI
3 12 (1.62%) SQL Server
4 8 (1.08%) Amazon RDS
5 4 (0.54%) Data Mining
5 4 (0.54%) DB2
5 4 (0.54%) Metadata
5 4 (0.54%) Oracle Reports
6 3 (0.40%) InfluxDB
7 2 (0.27%) Amazon Aurora
7 2 (0.27%) Azure SQL Database
7 2 (0.27%) Big Data
7 2 (0.27%) MariaDB
7 2 (0.27%) MySQL
7 2 (0.27%) PostgreSQL
8 1 (0.13%) MongoDB
8 1 (0.13%) OLTP
8 1 (0.13%) Oracle Discoverer
8 1 (0.13%) RDBMS
8 1 (0.13%) SQL Server Integration Services
Development Applications
1 99 (13.36%) JIRA
2 14 (1.89%) Jenkins
3 5 (0.67%) Git
3 5 (0.67%) webpack
4 4 (0.54%) Bitbucket
5 1 (0.13%) Cucumber
5 1 (0.13%) GitLab
5 1 (0.13%) MLflow
5 1 (0.13%) Selenium
5 1 (0.13%) SoapUI
5 1 (0.13%) Visual Studio Code
5 1 (0.13%) WebDriver
General
1 290 (39.14%) Social Skills
2 150 (20.24%) Analytical Skills
3 90 (12.15%) Finance
4 89 (12.01%) Public Sector
5 48 (6.48%) Military
6 30 (4.05%) Legal
7 29 (3.91%) Manufacturing
8 26 (3.51%) Telecoms
9 24 (3.24%) Organisational Skills
10 20 (2.70%) Banking
11 17 (2.29%) Influencing Skills
12 16 (2.16%) Documentation Skills
13 14 (1.89%) Marketing
14 13 (1.75%) Inclusion and Diversity
14 13 (1.75%) Presentation Skills
15 12 (1.62%) Electronics
15 12 (1.62%) Retail
16 8 (1.08%) Investment Banking
16 8 (1.08%) Police
17 5 (0.67%) Billing
Job Titles
1 103 (13.90%) Analyst
2 93 (12.55%) Architect
3 65 (8.77%) Lead
4 62 (8.37%) Service Architect
5 60 (8.10%) Support Engineer
6 53 (7.15%) Service Manager
7 38 (5.13%) 2nd Line Support
7 38 (5.13%) IT Support
8 36 (4.86%) Support Analyst
9 28 (3.78%) Desktop Support
9 28 (3.78%) Network Engineer
10 25 (3.37%) Delivery Manager
10 25 (3.37%) IT Analyst
11 24 (3.24%) Project Manager
12 23 (3.10%) Consultant
12 23 (3.10%) Platform Engineer
12 23 (3.10%) Service Delivery Manager
13 22 (2.97%) Senior
13 22 (2.97%) Service Analyst
14 21 (2.83%) Data Analyst
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 22 (2.97%) REST
2 12 (1.62%) CSS
2 12 (1.62%) HTML
2 12 (1.62%) RFC 2544
2 12 (1.62%) SOAP
3 11 (1.48%) Web Services
4 8 (1.08%) XMPP
5 6 (0.81%) RESTful
6 5 (0.67%) .NET
6 5 (0.67%) CSS3
6 5 (0.67%) Elastic Stack
6 5 (0.67%) HTML5
6 5 (0.67%) Node.js
6 5 (0.67%) React
6 5 (0.67%) Redux
6 5 (0.67%) XML
7 4 (0.54%) AngularJS
8 3 (0.40%) LDAP
8 3 (0.40%) Middleware
8 3 (0.40%) RabbitMQ
Miscellaneous
1 56 (7.56%) Product Ownership
2 36 (4.86%) Data Centre
3 32 (4.32%) Management Information System
4 24 (3.24%) CMDB
5 21 (2.83%) Onboarding
5 21 (2.83%) PKI
5 21 (2.83%) Self-Motivation
6 18 (2.43%) Virtual Team
7 15 (2.02%) Analytical Mindset
8 14 (1.89%) Driving Licence
9 13 (1.75%) Mainframe
10 12 (1.62%) NHS
11 9 (1.21%) Fibre Optics
12 6 (0.81%) Public Cloud
12 6 (0.81%) Tandem
12 6 (0.81%) Video Conferencing
13 5 (0.67%) Distributed Systems
13 5 (0.67%) PMI
14 4 (0.54%) Hybrid Cloud
14 4 (0.54%) Mobile App
Operating Systems
1 175 (23.62%) Windows
2 62 (8.37%) Linux
3 54 (7.29%) Windows Server
4 39 (5.26%) Windows 10
5 24 (3.24%) Unix
6 12 (1.62%) Mac OS
6 12 (1.62%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
7 8 (1.08%) Apple iOS
8 7 (0.94%) Windows Server 2012
9 6 (0.81%) Android
10 5 (0.67%) Windows 7
11 4 (0.54%) Ubuntu
11 4 (0.54%) Windows Server 2003
11 4 (0.54%) Windows Server 2016
11 4 (0.54%) Windows Server 2019
12 3 (0.40%) CentOS
12 3 (0.40%) Windows Server 2008
13 1 (0.13%) AIX
13 1 (0.13%) Data ONTAP
13 1 (0.13%) Solaris
Processes & Methodologies
1 445 (60.05%) ITIL
2 326 (43.99%) ITSM
3 155 (20.92%) Problem-Solving
4 124 (16.73%) Change Management
5 123 (16.60%) Agile
6 106 (14.30%) Stakeholder Management
7 105 (14.17%) Continuous Improvement
8 101 (13.63%) Service Design
9 95 (12.82%) Customer Service
10 92 (12.42%) Service Delivery
11 83 (11.20%) Stakeholder Engagement
12 72 (9.72%) Incident Management
13 70 (9.45%) Project Management
14 68 (9.18%) Project Delivery
15 55 (7.42%) DevOps
16 53 (7.15%) Knowledge Transfer
17 52 (7.02%) Acceptance Criteria
18 49 (6.61%) Problem Management
19 45 (6.07%) Business Continuity
20 44 (5.94%) Performance Metrics
Programming Languages
1 64 (8.64%) SQL
2 59 (7.96%) PowerShell
3 51 (6.88%) Python
4 19 (2.56%) JavaScript
5 15 (2.02%) Perl
6 14 (1.89%) Shell Script
7 12 (1.62%) Bash
7 12 (1.62%) Java
8 5 (0.67%) TypeScript
8 5 (0.67%) VB
8 5 (0.67%) VBScript
9 3 (0.40%) Apex Code
9 3 (0.40%) Go
10 1 (0.13%) C#
10 1 (0.13%) PL/SQL
10 1 (0.13%) T-SQL
10 1 (0.13%) VBA
Qualifications
1 328 (44.26%) Security Cleared
2 265 (35.76%) SC Cleared
3 109 (14.71%) Degree
4 64 (8.64%) DV Cleared
5 46 (6.21%) ITIL Certification
6 40 (5.40%) Microsoft Certification
7 28 (3.78%) TOGAF Certification
8 19 (2.56%) A+ Certification
9 18 (2.43%) Cisco Certification
10 17 (2.29%) Computer Science Degree
11 15 (2.02%) Azure Certification
11 15 (2.02%) CCNP
11 15 (2.02%) MCSE
12 14 (1.89%) Server+ Certification
13 13 (1.75%) BPSS Clearance
13 13 (1.75%) PMP
14 12 (1.62%) CCNA
15 11 (1.48%) Network+ Certification
15 11 (1.48%) PMI Certification
16 10 (1.35%) ITIL Foundation Certificate
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 45 (6.07%) SLA
2 32 (4.32%) ISO/IEC 20000
3 15 (2.02%) GDPR
4 11 (1.48%) PMO
5 10 (1.35%) ISO/IEC 27001
5 10 (1.35%) QA
6 8 (1.08%) Data Quality
6 8 (1.08%) NCSC
7 6 (0.81%) Disclosure Scotland
8 5 (0.67%) GxP
8 5 (0.67%) ISO 9001
8 5 (0.67%) Sarbanes-Oxley
9 3 (0.40%) COBIT
10 2 (0.27%) Accessibility
10 2 (0.27%) Cyber Essentials
11 1 (0.13%) Actionable Recommendations
11 1 (0.13%) California Consumer Privacy Act
11 1 (0.13%) GRC
11 1 (0.13%) NIST
11 1 (0.13%) WCAG
System Software
1 92 (12.42%) Active Directory
2 29 (3.91%) VMware Infrastructure
3 21 (2.83%) VMware NSX
4 14 (1.89%) Hyper-V
5 6 (0.81%) Docker
5 6 (0.81%) Virtual Desktop
5 6 (0.81%) Virtual Servers
6 5 (0.67%) BitLocker
6 5 (0.67%) Microsoft Virtual Server
7 4 (0.54%) VMware ESXi
8 3 (0.40%) Virtual Machines
9 1 (0.13%) Slurm Workload Manager
Systems Management
1 30 (4.05%) OPNET
2 26 (3.51%) vCenter Server
3 19 (2.56%) SCCM
4 17 (2.29%) Ansible
4 17 (2.29%) Terraform
5 14 (1.89%) Microsoft Intune
6 13 (1.75%) Kubernetes
7 11 (1.48%) Active Directory Federation Services
7 11 (1.48%) WSUS
8 4 (0.54%) Nessus
8 4 (0.54%) Packer
9 3 (0.40%) Check_MK
9 3 (0.40%) Grafana
9 3 (0.40%) Jamf Pro
9 3 (0.40%) Progress Chef
9 3 (0.40%) Prometheus
9 3 (0.40%) Single Sign-On
10 2 (0.27%) FortiGate
10 2 (0.27%) PowerCLI
10 2 (0.27%) SCOM
Vendors
1 178 (24.02%) ServiceNow
2 153 (20.65%) Microsoft
3 83 (11.20%) Cisco
4 51 (6.88%) Atlassian
5 49 (6.61%) Remedy
6 46 (6.21%) Oracle
7 42 (5.67%) VMware
8 35 (4.72%) Splunk
9 31 (4.18%) SAP
9 31 (4.18%) SolarWinds
10 29 (3.91%) Google
11 22 (2.97%) Juniper
12 19 (2.56%) AppDynamics
12 19 (2.56%) Dynatrace
13 14 (1.89%) Salesforce
14 13 (1.75%) Red Hat
14 13 (1.75%) Veeam
15 12 (1.62%) IBM
16 10 (1.35%) Citrix
17 9 (1.21%) Palo Alto