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

6 months to
16 Sep 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 66 53 68
Rank change year-on-year -13 +15 -1
Contract jobs citing Service Management 926 633 505
As % of all contract jobs in the UK excluding London 3.31% 4.09% 2.84%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 4.09% 4.59% 3.42%
Number of daily rates quoted 629 372 350
10th Percentile £250 £185 £188
25th Percentile £413 £292 £363
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £498 £500
Median % change year-on-year +5.42% -0.45% +0.05%
75th Percentile £625 £575 £600
90th Percentile £725 £638 £651
UK median daily rate £525 £496 £510
% change year-on-year +5.95% -2.84% -2.86%
Number of hourly rates quoted 73 77 11
10th Percentile £14.50 £12.62 £15.17
25th Percentile £17.21 £12.82 £26.25
Median hourly rate £55.00 £18.73 £47.50
Median % change year-on-year +193.65% -60.57% +116.85%
75th Percentile £85.00 £33.00 £49.38
90th Percentile £94.51 £60.00 £53.75
UK median hourly rate £55.00 £20.66 £47.50
% change year-on-year +166.21% -56.51% -13.64%

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 22,668 13,800 14,779
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK excluding London 80.93% 89.21% 83.00%
Number of daily rates quoted 12,965 8,307 8,521
10th Percentile £300 £235 £242
25th Percentile £409 £368 £388
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 £663 £688
UK median daily rate £525 £500 £525
% change year-on-year +5.00% -4.76% -2.78%
Number of hourly rates quoted 2,657 1,435 1,212
10th Percentile £13.50 £14.10 £14.51
25th Percentile £17.12 £17.21 £17.94
Median hourly rate £41.56 £22.63 £43.00
Median % change year-on-year +83.63% -47.37% +5.81%
75th Percentile £67.50 £42.50 £66.00
90th Percentile £78.75 £67.25 £75.00
UK median hourly rate £40.00 £25.15 £43.00
% change year-on-year +59.05% -41.51% +1.18%

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 September 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 September 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 September 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 +13 299 £575 +24.32% 310
North of England -14 259 £473 +2.89% 282
North West -15 155 £480 +2.07% 159
Midlands -35 114 £500 -0.50% 165
West Midlands -27 108 £500 -2.91% 99
South West -33 106 £600 +11.11% 108
Yorkshire -16 96 £443 +21.37% 103
Scotland +11 92 £520 +11.53% 86
East of England -5 54 £518 -5.91% 113
Wales -6 13 £800 +247.83% 24
Northern Ireland +8 8 - - 49
North East -40 8 £535 +174.36% 23
East Midlands -27 6 £206 -31.25% 66
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 58 (6.26%) SharePoint
2 36 (3.89%) Microsoft Exchange
3 31 (3.35%) Confluence
4 15 (1.62%) Skype for Business
5 3 (0.32%) CMS
5 3 (0.32%) IBM Transformation Extender
5 3 (0.32%) OpenStack
6 1 (0.11%) CICS
6 1 (0.11%) Mattermost
Applications
1 67 (7.24%) Microsoft Office
2 21 (2.27%) Microsoft Excel
3 12 (1.30%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 5 (0.54%) Chatbot
4 5 (0.54%) Microsoft Project
5 2 (0.22%) Spreadsheet
6 1 (0.11%) Maple
Business Applications
1 42 (4.54%) Remedy ITSM
2 8 (0.86%) Dynamics CRM
3 5 (0.54%) ContrOCC
4 4 (0.43%) SAP S/4HANA
4 4 (0.43%) Workday HCM
5 3 (0.32%) NEC Housing
6 2 (0.22%) Oracle Applications
6 2 (0.22%) Oracle EBS
6 2 (0.22%) Primavera
6 2 (0.22%) Remedy AR System
6 2 (0.22%) Salesforce CRM
6 2 (0.22%) SAP CX
6 2 (0.22%) Teamcenter
7 1 (0.11%) Cloudability
7 1 (0.11%) SAP HR
7 1 (0.11%) SAP Payroll
Cloud Services
1 157 (16.95%) Azure
2 103 (11.12%) Microsoft 365
3 73 (7.88%) Entra ID
4 58 (6.26%) AWS
5 45 (4.86%) Power Platform
6 37 (4.00%) SaaS
7 28 (3.02%) Azure DevOps
8 22 (2.38%) GCP
8 22 (2.38%) OneDrive
9 12 (1.30%) Azure Monitor
9 12 (1.30%) Dynamics 365
10 11 (1.19%) Microsoft Copilot
11 9 (0.97%) Power Automate
11 9 (0.97%) Serverless
12 8 (0.86%) Azure Functions
12 8 (0.86%) GitHub
12 8 (0.86%) IaaS
12 8 (0.86%) OCI
13 7 (0.76%) PaaS
14 6 (0.65%) Azure Sentinel
Communications & Networking
1 43 (4.64%) DNS
1 43 (4.64%) Firewall
2 35 (3.78%) VPN
3 31 (3.35%) DHCP
4 25 (2.70%) Network Security
5 20 (2.16%) LAN
5 20 (2.16%) TCP/IP
6 16 (1.73%) Skype
6 16 (1.73%) WAN
7 13 (1.40%) Wireless
8 12 (1.30%) Wi-Fi
9 11 (1.19%) VLAN
10 10 (1.08%) SSH
11 7 (0.76%) BGP
11 7 (0.76%) Intrusion Detection
12 6 (0.65%) NetScaler
12 6 (0.65%) Software-Defined Networking
12 6 (0.65%) SSL
13 5 (0.54%) Internet
13 5 (0.54%) OSPF
Database & Business Intelligence
1 28 (3.02%) Power BI
1 28 (3.02%) SQL Server
2 18 (1.94%) Metadata
3 8 (0.86%) SQL Server Integration Services
4 6 (0.65%) MySQL
5 5 (0.54%) MariaDB
5 5 (0.54%) Oracle Reports
5 5 (0.54%) SQL Server Reporting Services
6 4 (0.43%) Amazon RDS
6 4 (0.43%) Relational Database
6 4 (0.43%) SQL Server Analysis Services
7 3 (0.32%) Amazon Aurora
7 3 (0.32%) PostgreSQL
8 2 (0.22%) EDRMS
8 2 (0.22%) Looker
8 2 (0.22%) Microsoft Analysis Services
8 2 (0.22%) Oracle Database
9 1 (0.11%) Azure SQL Database
9 1 (0.11%) InfluxDB
9 1 (0.11%) Oracle Database 11g
Development Applications
1 74 (7.99%) JIRA
2 21 (2.27%) Git
3 9 (0.97%) Jenkins
4 8 (0.86%) Atlassian Bamboo
4 8 (0.86%) Bitbucket
5 5 (0.54%) Browser DevTools
6 4 (0.43%) webpack
7 3 (0.32%) Fiddler
7 3 (0.32%) GitLab
7 3 (0.32%) Gradle
7 3 (0.32%) Maven
7 3 (0.32%) Rational DOORS
8 2 (0.22%) Firebug
8 2 (0.22%) Sonatype Nexus
9 1 (0.11%) Artifactory
9 1 (0.11%) eggPlant
9 1 (0.11%) Hudson
9 1 (0.11%) IntelliJ
9 1 (0.11%) SQL Server Management Studio (SSMS)
9 1 (0.11%) Visual Studio Code
General
1 369 (39.85%) Social Skills
2 144 (15.55%) Analytical Skills
3 134 (14.47%) Finance
4 105 (11.34%) Public Sector
5 45 (4.86%) Documentation Skills
6 38 (4.10%) Influencing Skills
7 37 (4.00%) Organisational Skills
8 32 (3.46%) Legal
9 26 (2.81%) Aerospace
10 24 (2.59%) Telecoms
11 23 (2.48%) Inclusion and Diversity
11 23 (2.48%) Military
12 17 (1.84%) Banking
13 15 (1.62%) Presentation Skills
14 14 (1.51%) Local Government
15 11 (1.19%) Manufacturing
16 5 (0.54%) Retail
17 4 (0.43%) Law
18 3 (0.32%) Police
19 2 (0.22%) Automotive
Job Titles
1 112 (12.10%) Lead
2 96 (10.37%) Analyst
3 79 (8.53%) Architect
4 68 (7.34%) Senior
5 64 (6.91%) Service Manager
6 45 (4.86%) Delivery Manager
7 43 (4.64%) Support Engineer
8 42 (4.54%) IT Manager
8 42 (4.54%) Service Analyst
9 33 (3.56%) Consultant
10 32 (3.46%) Service Architect
11 31 (3.35%) Project Manager
12 29 (3.13%) Developer
13 25 (2.70%) Technical Leader
14 24 (2.59%) Desktop Engineer
15 23 (2.48%) Administrator
16 22 (2.38%) Change Manager
16 22 (2.38%) IT Analyst
17 21 (2.27%) 2nd Line Support
18 20 (2.16%) Desktop Support
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 37 (4.00%) Terraform
2 29 (3.13%) REST
3 17 (1.84%) XML
4 12 (1.30%) JSON
4 12 (1.30%) Middleware
5 10 (1.08%) SAML
6 9 (0.97%) SOAP
7 8 (0.86%) Web Services
7 8 (0.86%) XSLT
8 7 (0.76%) .NET
8 7 (0.76%) OAuth
9 6 (0.65%) ARM Templates
10 5 (0.54%) OpenID
10 5 (0.54%) SailPoint
11 4 (0.43%) AngularJS
11 4 (0.43%) Node.js
11 4 (0.43%) OAuth2
11 4 (0.43%) Oracle Fusion
11 4 (0.43%) Redux
11 4 (0.43%) RESTful
Miscellaneous
1 85 (9.18%) Onboarding
2 59 (6.37%) Management Information System
3 46 (4.97%) CMDB
4 34 (3.67%) Enterprise Software
5 32 (3.46%) Data Centre
6 29 (3.13%) PKI
7 24 (2.59%) Product Ownership
8 23 (2.48%) Data Protection Act
9 19 (2.05%) Hybrid Cloud
10 16 (1.73%) Operational Technology
11 15 (1.62%) Clustering
11 15 (1.62%) Virtual Team
12 14 (1.51%) Analytical Mindset
13 13 (1.40%) Self-Motivation
14 12 (1.30%) Security Operations Centre
15 11 (1.19%) Cyber Threat
16 9 (0.97%) NHS
16 9 (0.97%) Security Posture
17 8 (0.86%) SCADA
17 8 (0.86%) Taxonomies
Operating Systems
1 216 (23.33%) Windows
2 66 (7.13%) Windows Server
3 55 (5.94%) Linux
4 48 (5.18%) Windows 10
5 17 (1.84%) Windows 7
6 14 (1.51%) Unix
7 11 (1.19%) Mac OS
8 10 (1.08%) Android
8 10 (1.08%) Apple iOS
9 3 (0.32%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
9 3 (0.32%) Windows Server 2012
10 2 (0.22%) Solaris
10 2 (0.22%) Windows XP
10 2 (0.22%) zOS
11 1 (0.11%) Windows Server 2008
11 1 (0.11%) Windows Server 2016
11 1 (0.11%) Windows Server 2019
Processes & Methodologies
1 519 (56.05%) ITIL
2 387 (41.79%) ITSM
3 276 (29.81%) Stakeholder Management
4 268 (28.94%) Continuous Improvement
5 205 (22.14%) Service Delivery
6 179 (19.33%) Agile
7 174 (18.79%) Problem-Solving
8 156 (16.85%) Stakeholder Engagement
9 148 (15.98%) Change Management
10 114 (12.31%) Roadmaps
11 110 (11.88%) Incident Management
12 108 (11.66%) Customer Service
13 107 (11.56%) Cybersecurity
14 87 (9.40%) DevOps
15 83 (8.96%) Project Delivery
16 72 (7.78%) Decision-Making
17 71 (7.67%) Risk Management
18 70 (7.56%) Data Protection
19 67 (7.24%) Service Design
19 67 (7.24%) Technical Leadership
Programming Languages
1 99 (10.69%) PowerShell
2 53 (5.72%) Python
3 38 (4.10%) SQL
4 31 (3.35%) Bash
5 27 (2.92%) JavaScript
6 17 (1.84%) VBScript
7 15 (1.62%) VB
8 12 (1.30%) Java
9 11 (1.19%) C#
10 7 (0.76%) Bicep
11 5 (0.54%) Shell Script
12 4 (0.43%) C
12 4 (0.43%) PL/SQL
12 4 (0.43%) T-SQL
12 4 (0.43%) TypeScript
13 3 (0.32%) Groovy
13 3 (0.32%) Lua
13 3 (0.32%) Perl
14 2 (0.22%) Apex Code
14 2 (0.22%) Search Processing Language
Qualifications
1 428 (46.22%) Security Cleared
2 272 (29.37%) SC Cleared
3 133 (14.36%) DV Cleared
4 101 (10.91%) Degree
5 34 (3.67%) ITIL Certification
6 33 (3.56%) BPSS Clearance
7 30 (3.24%) PMP
8 29 (3.13%) PMI Certification
9 27 (2.92%) Microsoft Certification
10 17 (1.84%) Cisco Certification
10 17 (1.84%) Computer Science Degree
11 16 (1.73%) Azure Certification
12 15 (1.62%) DBS Check
12 15 (1.62%) ITIL Foundation Certificate
13 14 (1.51%) CISSP
14 11 (1.19%) A+ Certification
14 11 (1.19%) CISM
15 9 (0.97%) CCNA
15 9 (0.97%) CCNP
16 8 (0.86%) BC Cleared
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 70 (7.56%) SLA
2 34 (3.67%) Data Quality
3 28 (3.02%) QA
4 27 (2.92%) ISO/IEC 27001
5 25 (2.70%) GRC
5 25 (2.70%) ISO/IEC 20000
6 23 (2.48%) PMO
7 22 (2.38%) GDPR
8 20 (2.16%) NCSC
9 15 (1.62%) ISO 9001
10 13 (1.40%) NIST
11 12 (1.30%) Accessibility
12 9 (0.97%) COBIT
12 9 (0.97%) Disclosure Scotland
13 8 (0.86%) WCAG
14 7 (0.76%) Cyber Essentials
15 6 (0.65%) ISO 31000
15 6 (0.65%) ISO/IEC 27005
16 5 (0.54%) ISO 22301
16 5 (0.54%) JSP 440
System Software
1 109 (11.77%) Active Directory
2 63 (6.80%) VMware Infrastructure
3 23 (2.48%) VMware ESXi
4 22 (2.38%) Hyper-V
5 17 (1.84%) VMware NSX
6 16 (1.73%) BitLocker
7 15 (1.62%) Docker
7 15 (1.62%) Virtual Desktop
8 13 (1.40%) vCloud
8 13 (1.40%) vSphere
9 6 (0.65%) Citrix Hypervisor
9 6 (0.65%) Firmware
9 6 (0.65%) XenApp
9 6 (0.65%) XenDesktop
10 5 (0.54%) Virtual Machines
11 3 (0.32%) Microsoft Virtual Server
11 3 (0.32%) NFS
11 3 (0.32%) Virtual Servers
12 2 (0.22%) GPFS
12 2 (0.22%) UAG
Systems Management
1 57 (6.16%) SCCM
2 51 (5.51%) Microsoft Intune
3 35 (3.78%) Ansible
4 20 (2.16%) SCOM
5 17 (1.84%) vCenter Server
6 14 (1.51%) Kubernetes
6 14 (1.51%) Single Sign-On
7 6 (0.65%) Jamf Pro
8 5 (0.54%) Progress Chef
9 4 (0.43%) PowerCLI
9 4 (0.43%) vMotion
10 3 (0.32%) Cisco Prime
10 3 (0.32%) Dell DRAC
10 3 (0.32%) NetBackup
10 3 (0.32%) OPNET
10 3 (0.32%) Systems Management Server (SMS)
10 3 (0.32%) Tivoli
10 3 (0.32%) Tivoli Monitoring
10 3 (0.32%) vRealize
10 3 (0.32%) WSUS
Vendors
1 226 (24.41%) Microsoft
2 225 (24.30%) ServiceNow
3 84 (9.07%) VMware
4 45 (4.86%) Remedy
5 33 (3.56%) BMC
6 28 (3.02%) Cisco
7 25 (2.70%) Oracle
8 20 (2.16%) CyberArk
9 16 (1.73%) Atlassian
9 16 (1.73%) IBM
10 14 (1.51%) Dynatrace
11 13 (1.40%) Citrix
11 13 (1.40%) SAP
12 11 (1.19%) SolarWinds
12 11 (1.19%) Splunk
13 10 (1.08%) Qualys
14 9 (0.97%) Apple
14 9 (0.97%) IFS
14 9 (0.97%) Palo Alto
15 8 (0.86%) BeyondTrust