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

6 months to
21 Jul 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 76 55 58
Rank change year-on-year -21 +3 +3
Contract jobs citing Service Management 792 594 641
As % of all contract jobs in the UK excluding London 2.93% 4.00% 3.22%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 3.58% 4.48% 3.88%
Number of daily rates quoted 519 348 458
10th Percentile £225 £196 £213
25th Percentile £400 £308 £425
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £510 £492 £525
Median % change year-on-year +3.56% -6.29% +6.06%
75th Percentile £600 £588 £600
90th Percentile £688 £675 £675
UK median daily rate £520 £495 £525
% change year-on-year +5.05% -5.71% +0.96%
Number of hourly rates quoted 73 66 17
10th Percentile £14.60 - £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 £97.00 £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 22,100 13,253 16,504
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK excluding London 81.89% 89.22% 82.98%
Number of daily rates quoted 13,083 8,023 9,860
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% -4.11%
Number of hourly rates quoted 2,291 1,233 1,853
10th Percentile £14.50 £14.00 £12.79
25th Percentile £19.34 £16.95 £16.06
Median hourly rate £45.00 £24.00 £40.00
Median % change year-on-year +87.50% -40.00% -1.45%
75th Percentile £68.75 £50.00 £63.75
90th Percentile £82.50 £71.49 £73.75
UK median hourly rate £43.96 £25.15 £38.12
% change year-on-year +74.79% -34.02% -10.31%

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 21 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 21 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 21 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 +28 267 £544 +20.83% 112
North of England -29 199 £450 -1.32% 95
South West -27 127 £513 -6.82% 38
North West -37 110 £488 +1.88% 54
Midlands -35 90 £486 +2.32% 43
Yorkshire -24 83 £443 +18.13% 33
West Midlands -39 79 £500 -0.50% 26
Scotland -25 58 £500 - 13
East of England -24 38 £525 -4.55% 32
Wales -8 13 £800 +188.29% 6
East Midlands -15 11 £250 -16.67% 17
Northern Ireland +8 7 - - 3
North East -42 6 £440 +125.64% 10
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 45 (5.68%) SharePoint
2 28 (3.54%) Microsoft Exchange
3 24 (3.03%) Confluence
4 7 (0.88%) Skype for Business
5 6 (0.76%) 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 52 (6.57%) Microsoft Office
2 21 (2.65%) Microsoft Excel
3 13 (1.64%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 4 (0.51%) Chatbot
5 3 (0.38%) Microsoft Project
6 2 (0.25%) MS Visio
6 2 (0.25%) PTC Creo
7 1 (0.13%) Camtasia
7 1 (0.13%) Maple
Business Applications
1 49 (6.19%) Remedy ITSM
2 7 (0.88%) SAP S/4HANA
3 5 (0.63%) ContrOCC
3 5 (0.63%) Teamcenter
4 2 (0.25%) Oracle Applications
4 2 (0.25%) Primavera
5 1 (0.13%) NetSuite
5 1 (0.13%) SAP HR
5 1 (0.13%) SAP Payroll
Cloud Services
1 118 (14.90%) Azure
2 77 (9.72%) Microsoft 365
3 47 (5.93%) Entra ID
3 47 (5.93%) Power Platform
4 37 (4.67%) AWS
5 22 (2.78%) OneDrive
5 22 (2.78%) SaaS
6 21 (2.65%) Azure DevOps
7 17 (2.15%) GCP
8 10 (1.26%) 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 (0.76%) Azure AKS
12 5 (0.63%) Azure Machine Learning
12 5 (0.63%) Azure Sentinel
12 5 (0.63%) Azure Synapse Analytics
12 5 (0.63%) Google App Engine
12 5 (0.63%) IaaS
Communications & Networking
1 40 (5.05%) Firewall
2 36 (4.55%) DNS
3 26 (3.28%) LAN
4 23 (2.90%) DHCP
5 21 (2.65%) Network Security
6 20 (2.53%) VPN
7 18 (2.27%) TCP/IP
8 17 (2.15%) BGP
8 17 (2.15%) WAN
9 15 (1.89%) OSPF
10 14 (1.77%) Wireless
11 12 (1.52%) BIG-IP
11 12 (1.52%) Cisco ISE
12 10 (1.26%) Junos
13 9 (1.14%) SSH
13 9 (1.14%) VLAN
13 9 (1.14%) VXLAN
13 9 (1.14%) Wi-Fi
14 8 (1.01%) Ethernet VPN
15 7 (0.88%) Skype
Database & Business Intelligence
1 42 (5.30%) Power BI
2 16 (2.02%) 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 (0.51%) MySQL
4 4 (0.51%) SQL Server Analysis Services
4 4 (0.51%) 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 73 (9.22%) JIRA
2 16 (2.02%) Git
3 7 (0.88%) Jenkins
4 6 (0.76%) Bitbucket
4 6 (0.76%) GitLab
5 5 (0.63%) Atlassian Bamboo
5 5 (0.63%) Browser DevTools
6 4 (0.51%) MLflow
6 4 (0.51%) Rational DOORS
7 3 (0.38%) Fiddler
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%) Gradle
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%) Visual Studio Code
General
1 282 (35.61%) Social Skills
2 113 (14.27%) Finance
3 111 (14.02%) Analytical Skills
4 75 (9.47%) Public Sector
5 38 (4.80%) Legal
6 33 (4.17%) Influencing Skills
7 28 (3.54%) Documentation Skills
8 24 (3.03%) Military
9 23 (2.90%) Telecoms
10 21 (2.65%) Organisational Skills
11 15 (1.89%) Inclusion and Diversity
12 14 (1.77%) Aerospace
13 13 (1.64%) Banking
13 13 (1.64%) Presentation Skills
14 10 (1.26%) Local Government
15 5 (0.63%) Financial Institution
15 5 (0.63%) Retail
16 3 (0.38%) Publishing
17 1 (0.13%) Automotive
17 1 (0.13%) Manufacturing
Job Titles
1 103 (13.01%) Analyst
2 89 (11.24%) Service Manager
3 81 (10.23%) Lead
4 72 (9.09%) Senior
5 50 (6.31%) Service Analyst
6 49 (6.19%) Architect
7 45 (5.68%) IT Manager
8 30 (3.79%) Delivery Manager
8 30 (3.79%) Project Manager
9 27 (3.41%) Network Engineer
10 26 (3.28%) Support Engineer
11 24 (3.03%) IT Analyst
12 23 (2.90%) Consultant
13 22 (2.78%) Service Delivery Manager
14 21 (2.65%) Infrastructure Engineer
14 21 (2.65%) Service Architect
15 20 (2.53%) Administrator
15 20 (2.53%) Transition Manager
16 19 (2.40%) IT Services Manager
17 18 (2.27%) Service Transition Manager
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 25 (3.16%) REST
2 9 (1.14%) OAuth
2 9 (1.14%) SOAP
3 8 (1.01%) 802.1X
4 7 (0.88%) SAML
5 5 (0.63%) ARM Templates
5 5 (0.63%) OpenID
5 5 (0.63%) Oracle Fusion
5 5 (0.63%) XML
6 4 (0.51%) OAuth2
6 4 (0.51%) 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 (8.59%) Onboarding
2 41 (5.18%) CMDB
3 39 (4.92%) Product Ownership
4 34 (4.29%) Management Information System
5 29 (3.66%) PKI
6 25 (3.16%) Data Centre
7 24 (3.03%) Clustering
8 17 (2.15%) Enterprise Software
9 16 (2.02%) Virtual Team
10 15 (1.89%) Data Protection Act
11 14 (1.77%) Operational Technology
12 13 (1.64%) Analytical Mindset
13 12 (1.52%) Self-Motivation
14 9 (1.14%) Driving Licence
14 9 (1.14%) Hybrid Cloud
15 8 (1.01%) Cloud Native
15 8 (1.01%) Replication
15 8 (1.01%) Security Posture
16 7 (0.88%) Cyber Threat
16 7 (0.88%) Video Conferencing
Operating Systems
1 173 (21.84%) Windows
2 40 (5.05%) Linux
2 40 (5.05%) Windows Server
3 33 (4.17%) Windows 10
4 11 (1.39%) Mac OS
5 10 (1.26%) Unix
5 10 (1.26%) Windows 7
6 5 (0.63%) Android
6 5 (0.63%) Apple iOS
6 5 (0.63%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
7 2 (0.25%) Solaris
7 2 (0.25%) Ubuntu
7 2 (0.25%) Windows Server 2012
7 2 (0.25%) Windows XP
8 1 (0.13%) Rocky
8 1 (0.13%) Windows Server 2008
8 1 (0.13%) Windows Server 2016
8 1 (0.13%) Windows Server 2019
8 1 (0.13%) zOS
Processes & Methodologies
1 461 (58.21%) ITIL
2 350 (44.19%) ITSM
3 209 (26.39%) Continuous Improvement
4 192 (24.24%) Stakeholder Management
5 191 (24.12%) Service Delivery
6 155 (19.57%) Problem-Solving
7 154 (19.44%) Agile
8 125 (15.78%) Change Management
9 114 (14.39%) Stakeholder Engagement
10 92 (11.62%) Customer Service
11 81 (10.23%) DevOps
12 77 (9.72%) Incident Management
13 66 (8.33%) Cybersecurity
13 66 (8.33%) Project Delivery
14 65 (8.21%) Problem Management
15 59 (7.45%) Configuration Management
15 59 (7.45%) Roadmaps
16 55 (6.94%) Service Design
17 51 (6.44%) Risk Management
18 50 (6.31%) Computer Science
Programming Languages
1 72 (9.09%) PowerShell
2 50 (6.31%) Python
3 41 (5.18%) SQL
4 24 (3.03%) Bash
5 22 (2.78%) JavaScript
6 8 (1.01%) Java
7 7 (0.88%) VB
7 7 (0.88%) VBScript
8 5 (0.63%) Bicep
9 4 (0.51%) C
9 4 (0.51%) C#
9 4 (0.51%) Perl
9 4 (0.51%) PL/SQL
9 4 (0.51%) T-SQL
10 3 (0.38%) Lua
10 3 (0.38%) Shell Script
11 2 (0.25%) Apex Code
11 2 (0.25%) Search Processing Language
11 2 (0.25%) TypeScript
11 2 (0.25%) VBA
Qualifications
1 371 (46.84%) Security Cleared
2 226 (28.54%) SC Cleared
3 138 (17.42%) DV Cleared
4 76 (9.60%) Degree
5 39 (4.92%) ITIL Certification
6 24 (3.03%) Cisco Certification
7 23 (2.90%) PMP
8 22 (2.78%) PMI Certification
9 21 (2.65%) BPSS Clearance
10 15 (1.89%) Computer Science Degree
10 15 (1.89%) Microsoft Certification
11 13 (1.64%) CCNA
12 12 (1.52%) DBS Check
13 11 (1.39%) A+ Certification
13 11 (1.39%) ITIL Foundation Certificate
14 10 (1.26%) CCNP
15 9 (1.14%) JNCIA
15 9 (1.14%) JNCIP
15 9 (1.14%) JNCIS
16 7 (0.88%) VMware Certified Professional (VCP)
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 55 (6.94%) SLA
2 28 (3.54%) Data Quality
3 27 (3.41%) ISO/IEC 20000
4 22 (2.78%) ISO/IEC 27001
4 22 (2.78%) PMO
5 21 (2.65%) QA
6 16 (2.02%) GRC
6 16 (2.02%) NCSC
7 15 (1.89%) ISO 9001
8 13 (1.64%) GDPR
9 10 (1.26%) COBIT
10 8 (1.01%) Disclosure Scotland
11 7 (0.88%) Government Security Classifications
12 6 (0.76%) ISO 31000
12 6 (0.76%) ISO/IEC 27005
13 5 (0.63%) Accessibility
13 5 (0.63%) Cyber Essentials
14 4 (0.51%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
14 4 (0.51%) GMP
14 4 (0.51%) NIST
System Software
1 96 (12.12%) Active Directory
2 41 (5.18%) VMware Infrastructure
3 19 (2.40%) VMware ESXi
4 12 (1.52%) Docker
5 11 (1.39%) VMware NSX
6 9 (1.14%) vSphere
7 8 (1.01%) BitLocker
7 8 (1.01%) vCloud
8 5 (0.63%) Virtual Desktop
8 5 (0.63%) Virtual Machines
9 4 (0.51%) Hyper-V
9 4 (0.51%) NFS
10 3 (0.38%) Firmware
11 2 (0.25%) GPFS
11 2 (0.25%) KVM
12 1 (0.13%) iptables
12 1 (0.13%) Oracle RAC
12 1 (0.13%) Samba
12 1 (0.13%) Slurm Workload Manager
Systems Management
1 44 (5.56%) SCCM
2 40 (5.05%) Microsoft Intune
3 26 (3.28%) Ansible
4 25 (3.16%) Terraform
5 12 (1.52%) SCOM
6 11 (1.39%) Kubernetes
6 11 (1.39%) vCenter Server
7 10 (1.26%) Single Sign-On
8 8 (1.01%) FortiGate
8 8 (1.01%) Jamf Pro
9 4 (0.51%) PowerCLI
9 4 (0.51%) Progress Chef
9 4 (0.51%) 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
1 193 (24.37%) ServiceNow
2 149 (18.81%) Microsoft
3 56 (7.07%) VMware
4 51 (6.44%) Remedy
5 36 (4.55%) Cisco
6 25 (3.16%) BMC
7 18 (2.27%) Splunk
8 17 (2.15%) Oracle
8 17 (2.15%) SolarWinds
9 14 (1.77%) Juniper
10 12 (1.52%) F5
10 12 (1.52%) SAP
11 11 (1.39%) Atlassian
11 11 (1.39%) IBM
12 10 (1.26%) Dell
12 10 (1.26%) Dynatrace
12 10 (1.26%) Qualys
13 9 (1.14%) Citrix
13 9 (1.14%) HP
13 9 (1.14%) IFS