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

6 months to
8 May 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 70 61 54
Rank change year-on-year -9 -7 +16
Contract jobs citing Service Management 715 476 717
As % of all contract jobs in the UK excluding London 2.96% 3.74% 3.49%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 3.65% 4.13% 4.13%
Number of daily rates quoted 489 288 516
10th Percentile £209 £219 £281
25th Percentile £358 £378 £425
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £525 £525
Median % change year-on-year -4.76% - +10.53%
75th Percentile £613 £602 £600
90th Percentile £738 £688 £720
UK median daily rate £510 £521 £525
% change year-on-year -2.16% -0.71% +5.00%
Number of hourly rates quoted 57 27 18
10th Percentile £16.09 - £12.53
25th Percentile £16.17 £12.62 £15.24
Median hourly rate £60.00 £15.80 £17.50
Median % change year-on-year +279.75% -9.73% -66.18%
75th Percentile £85.00 £22.14 £19.00
90th Percentile £136.30 £31.74 £26.65
UK median hourly rate £60.00 £21.28 £17.72
% change year-on-year +181.95% +20.09% -67.78%

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 19,599 11,525 17,360
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK excluding London 81.25% 90.51% 84.57%
Number of daily rates quoted 11,852 7,212 10,335
10th Percentile £300 £235 £250
25th Percentile £400 £375 £375
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £488 £479 £500
Median % change year-on-year +1.77% -4.20% -
75th Percentile £588 £588 £600
90th Percentile £678 £660 £688
UK median daily rate £500 £520 £525
% change year-on-year -3.85% -0.95% -4.55%
Number of hourly rates quoted 2,058 827 2,044
10th Percentile £14.50 £14.20 £12.30
25th Percentile £19.00 £17.44 £15.19
Median hourly rate £44.00 £27.35 £37.50
Median % change year-on-year +60.88% -27.07% +7.14%
75th Percentile £67.50 £64.50 £60.75
90th Percentile £80.00 £75.00 £72.78
UK median hourly rate £42.00 £28.75 £36.50
% change year-on-year +46.09% -21.23% +1.39%

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 8 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 8 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 8 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 +30 211 £519 +15.28% 87
North of England -14 176 £491 +3.32% 69
South West -20 151 £575 +4.45% 28
North West +2 95 £550 +5.26% 32
Midlands -32 91 £408 -25.91% 33
Yorkshire -30 70 £475 +11.76% 35
West Midlands -35 70 £408 -26.04% 27
East of England -13 45 £475 -13.64% 35
Scotland -33 33 £500 -3.94% 10
East Midlands -12 21 £405 -7.11% 6
North East -12 11 £280 +43.59% 3
Wales -5 7 £340 -12.26% 8
Northern Ireland - 5 £500 - 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 51 (7.13%) Confluence
2 28 (3.92%) Microsoft Exchange
3 20 (2.80%) SharePoint
4 8 (1.12%) 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%) HCL Notes
7 1 (0.14%) JBoss
7 1 (0.14%) LiveCycle
7 1 (0.14%) OpenStack
Applications
1 76 (10.63%) Microsoft Office
2 34 (4.76%) 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 3 (0.42%) MS Visio
7 1 (0.14%) Camtasia
Business Applications
1 38 (5.31%) Remedy ITSM
2 9 (1.26%) SAP S/4HANA
3 8 (1.12%) Oracle EBS
4 6 (0.84%) Teamcenter
5 2 (0.28%) Oracle Applications
6 1 (0.14%) NetSuite
6 1 (0.14%) SAP HR
6 1 (0.14%) SAP Payroll
Cloud Services
1 96 (13.43%) Azure
2 52 (7.27%) AWS
2 52 (7.27%) Microsoft 365
3 41 (5.73%) Power Platform
4 33 (4.62%) GCP
5 23 (3.22%) SaaS
6 17 (2.38%) Entra ID
7 11 (1.54%) Azure DevOps
8 10 (1.40%) OneDrive
9 9 (1.26%) PaaS
10 8 (1.12%) GitHub
10 8 (1.12%) IaaS
11 7 (0.98%) OCI
12 6 (0.84%) Microsoft Copilot
12 6 (0.84%) OpenShift
12 6 (0.84%) PowerApps
13 5 (0.70%) Azure Synapse Analytics
13 5 (0.70%) Dynamics 365
13 5 (0.70%) Power Automate
13 5 (0.70%) Serverless
Communications & Networking
1 34 (4.76%) Firewall
2 28 (3.92%) DNS
3 25 (3.50%) LAN
4 23 (3.22%) Network Security
5 22 (3.08%) WAN
6 17 (2.38%) DHCP
6 17 (2.38%) VPN
7 14 (1.96%) BGP
8 13 (1.82%) OSPF
9 12 (1.68%) BIG-IP
10 11 (1.54%) Cisco ISE
11 10 (1.40%) VLAN
12 9 (1.26%) Skype
12 9 (1.26%) TCP/IP
12 9 (1.26%) Wi-Fi
12 9 (1.26%) Wireless
13 8 (1.12%) Ethernet VPN
13 8 (1.12%) Junos
13 8 (1.12%) VXLAN
14 4 (0.56%) WebEx
Database & Business Intelligence
1 30 (4.20%) Power BI
2 12 (1.68%) SQL Server
3 8 (1.12%) Relational Database
4 6 (0.84%) PostgreSQL
5 5 (0.70%) Oracle Reports
6 4 (0.56%) Amazon RDS
6 4 (0.56%) InfluxDB
7 3 (0.42%) Azure SQL Database
7 3 (0.42%) SQL Server Analysis Services
7 3 (0.42%) SQL Server Integration Services
7 3 (0.42%) SQL Server Reporting Services
8 2 (0.28%) GIS
8 2 (0.28%) MariaDB
8 2 (0.28%) Microsoft Analysis Services
8 2 (0.28%) MySQL
8 2 (0.28%) Oracle Database
9 1 (0.14%) DTS
9 1 (0.14%) MongoDB
9 1 (0.14%) OpenStack Swift
9 1 (0.14%) Oracle Database 11g
Development Applications
1 98 (13.71%) JIRA
2 13 (1.82%) Git
3 11 (1.54%) Jenkins
4 10 (1.40%) Bitbucket
5 8 (1.12%) GitLab
6 6 (0.84%) Atlassian Bamboo
7 5 (0.70%) Browser DevTools
8 4 (0.56%) MLflow
9 3 (0.42%) Fiddler
10 2 (0.28%) Firebug
10 2 (0.28%) IntelliJ
10 2 (0.28%) ScriptRunner
10 2 (0.28%) Visual Studio Code
11 1 (0.14%) Claude Code
11 1 (0.14%) Gemini Tracker
11 1 (0.14%) Hudson
11 1 (0.14%) IBM UrbanCode
11 1 (0.14%) MSI
11 1 (0.14%) Rational DOORS
General
1 275 (38.46%) Social Skills
2 110 (15.38%) Analytical Skills
3 91 (12.73%) Finance
4 67 (9.37%) Public Sector
5 47 (6.57%) Legal
6 43 (6.01%) Military
7 28 (3.92%) Organisational Skills
8 18 (2.52%) Telecoms
9 14 (1.96%) Documentation Skills
10 13 (1.82%) 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%) Investment Banking
Job Titles
1 87 (12.17%) Service Manager
2 79 (11.05%) Architect
3 78 (10.91%) Lead
4 73 (10.21%) Analyst
5 46 (6.43%) Service Architect
6 45 (6.29%) Senior
7 39 (5.45%) IT Manager
8 35 (4.90%) Hardware Engineer
9 29 (4.06%) Service Analyst
10 28 (3.92%) Delivery Manager
11 25 (3.50%) Project Manager
12 24 (3.36%) Consultant
12 24 (3.36%) Network Engineer
13 22 (3.08%) Service Delivery Manager
14 21 (2.94%) Field Engineer
14 21 (2.94%) Field Hardware Engineer
14 21 (2.94%) IT Analyst
14 21 (2.94%) IT Services Manager
15 20 (2.80%) Support Engineer
16 19 (2.66%) Infrastructure Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 22 (3.08%) REST
2 12 (1.68%) SOAP
3 8 (1.12%) 802.1X
4 7 (0.98%) OAuth
5 5 (0.70%) .NET
5 5 (0.70%) Oracle Fusion
5 5 (0.70%) XMPP
6 4 (0.56%) OAuth2
6 4 (0.56%) OpenID
6 4 (0.56%) RabbitMQ
6 4 (0.56%) SAML
6 4 (0.56%) Web Services
6 4 (0.56%) XML
7 3 (0.42%) CSS
7 3 (0.42%) FIDO
7 3 (0.42%) HTML
7 3 (0.42%) Microsoft Graph
7 3 (0.42%) Middleware
8 2 (0.28%) Flash
8 2 (0.28%) JSON
Miscellaneous
1 63 (8.81%) Product Ownership
2 43 (6.01%) Onboarding
3 35 (4.90%) CMDB
4 28 (3.92%) Data Centre
5 21 (2.94%) PKI
5 21 (2.94%) Virtual Team
6 19 (2.66%) Clustering
6 19 (2.66%) Driving Licence
7 16 (2.24%) Management Information System
8 15 (2.10%) Enterprise Software
9 13 (1.82%) PMI
10 10 (1.40%) Data Protection Act
10 10 (1.40%) Operational Technology
11 6 (0.84%) Analytical Mindset
11 6 (0.84%) Cloud Native
11 6 (0.84%) Replication
11 6 (0.84%) Self-Motivation
12 4 (0.56%) Hybrid Cloud
12 4 (0.56%) Mainframe
12 4 (0.56%) Thin Client
Operating Systems
1 133 (18.60%) Windows
2 40 (5.59%) Linux
3 33 (4.62%) Windows 10
4 32 (4.48%) Windows Server
5 10 (1.40%) Windows 7
6 8 (1.12%) Unix
7 6 (0.84%) Ubuntu
8 5 (0.70%) Mac OS
9 4 (0.56%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
10 2 (0.28%) Solaris
10 2 (0.28%) Windows Server 2012
10 2 (0.28%) Windows Server 2019
11 1 (0.14%) Android
11 1 (0.14%) Apple iOS
11 1 (0.14%) CentOS
11 1 (0.14%) Data ONTAP
11 1 (0.14%) Windows Server 2008
11 1 (0.14%) Windows Server 2016
11 1 (0.14%) Windows XP
11 1 (0.14%) zOS
Processes & Methodologies
1 420 (58.74%) ITIL
2 306 (42.80%) ITSM
3 165 (23.08%) Continuous Improvement
4 155 (21.68%) Agile
5 138 (19.30%) Stakeholder Management
6 132 (18.46%) Problem-Solving
7 117 (16.36%) Service Delivery
8 103 (14.41%) Stakeholder Engagement
9 92 (12.87%) Change Management
10 87 (12.17%) Customer Service
11 75 (10.49%) Service Design
12 71 (9.93%) DevOps
13 57 (7.97%) Configuration Management
14 55 (7.69%) Acceptance Criteria
14 55 (7.69%) Knowledge Transfer
15 52 (7.27%) Problem Management
16 49 (6.85%) Project Delivery
17 47 (6.57%) Incident Management
18 46 (6.43%) Roadmaps
19 44 (6.15%) Business Continuity
Programming Languages
1 46 (6.43%) PowerShell
2 39 (5.45%) SQL
3 25 (3.50%) Python
4 18 (2.52%) JavaScript
5 8 (1.12%) VB
5 8 (1.12%) VBScript
6 6 (0.84%) Bash
6 6 (0.84%) Java
7 5 (0.70%) C#
7 5 (0.70%) Shell Script
8 4 (0.56%) Go
8 4 (0.56%) PL/SQL
8 4 (0.56%) T-SQL
9 3 (0.42%) Apex Code
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
1 367 (51.33%) Security Cleared
2 266 (37.20%) SC Cleared
3 108 (15.10%) DV Cleared
4 96 (13.43%) Degree
5 36 (5.03%) ITIL Certification
6 30 (4.20%) TOGAF Certification
7 26 (3.64%) Cisco Certification
8 23 (3.22%) PMI Certification
9 22 (3.08%) PMP
10 16 (2.24%) BPSS Clearance
10 16 (2.24%) Computer Science Degree
11 15 (2.10%) Microsoft Certification
12 14 (1.96%) CCNA
13 11 (1.54%) CCNP
14 10 (1.40%) A+ Certification
15 9 (1.26%) JNCIA
15 9 (1.26%) JNCIP
15 9 (1.26%) JNCIS
15 9 (1.26%) MAPM
15 9 (1.26%) Network+ Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 36 (5.03%) SLA
2 23 (3.22%) Data Quality
3 18 (2.52%) PMO
4 14 (1.96%) ISO/IEC 20000
4 14 (1.96%) ISO/IEC 27001
4 14 (1.96%) QA
5 11 (1.54%) GDPR
6 10 (1.40%) NCSC
7 9 (1.26%) GRC
8 7 (0.98%) COBIT
8 7 (0.98%) Cyber Essentials
8 7 (0.98%) Government Security Classifications
9 6 (0.84%) Accessibility
9 6 (0.84%) ISO 31000
9 6 (0.84%) ISO/IEC 27005
10 5 (0.70%) Disclosure Scotland
11 4 (0.56%) GMP
11 4 (0.56%) ISO 9001
12 3 (0.42%) JSP 440
13 2 (0.28%) GxP
System Software
1 64 (8.95%) Active Directory
2 31 (4.34%) VMware Infrastructure
3 10 (1.40%) VMware ESXi
4 8 (1.12%) BitLocker
4 8 (1.12%) Docker
5 5 (0.70%) vSphere
6 4 (0.56%) Virtual Machines
7 3 (0.42%) Hyper-V
7 3 (0.42%) VMware NSX
8 2 (0.28%) NFS
8 2 (0.28%) vCloud
9 1 (0.14%) GPFS
9 1 (0.14%) iptables
9 1 (0.14%) Oracle RAC
9 1 (0.14%) Samba
9 1 (0.14%) Slurm Workload Manager
9 1 (0.14%) Virtual Desktop
Systems Management
1 30 (4.20%) OPNET
2 28 (3.92%) Ansible
3 19 (2.66%) Terraform
4 18 (2.52%) SCCM
5 16 (2.24%) Kubernetes
6 11 (1.54%) Microsoft Intune
7 8 (1.12%) FortiGate
8 7 (0.98%) Grafana
8 7 (0.98%) Progress Chef
9 6 (0.84%) Single Sign-On
10 5 (0.70%) PowerCLI
10 5 (0.70%) Puppet
10 5 (0.70%) vCenter Server
11 4 (0.56%) Jamf Pro
11 4 (0.56%) Nessus
11 4 (0.56%) Packer
11 4 (0.56%) Prometheus
11 4 (0.56%) vMotion
12 3 (0.42%) SCOM
12 3 (0.42%) Systems Management Server (SMS)
Vendors
1 167 (23.36%) ServiceNow
2 114 (15.94%) Microsoft
3 72 (10.07%) Remedy
4 47 (6.57%) VMware
5 45 (6.29%) Atlassian
6 39 (5.45%) Cisco
7 34 (4.76%) HP
8 30 (4.20%) Oracle
9 22 (3.08%) Google
10 17 (2.38%) Dell
10 17 (2.38%) Splunk
11 16 (2.24%) BMC
11 16 (2.24%) SAP
12 15 (2.10%) Canon
13 13 (1.82%) SolarWinds
14 12 (1.68%) F5
15 11 (1.54%) Juniper
16 10 (1.40%) Palo Alto
17 9 (1.26%) IFS
18 8 (1.12%) Extreme Networks