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

6 months to
27 Mar 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 68 57 56
Rank change year-on-year -11 -1 +11
Contract jobs citing Service Management 708 495 717
As % of all contract jobs in the UK excluding London 3.20% 3.94% 3.41%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 3.87% 4.35% 3.99%
Number of daily rates quoted 478 321 516
10th Percentile £200 £215 £280
25th Percentile £363 £395 £425
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £510 £525 £528
Median % change year-on-year -2.95% -0.47% +11.05%
75th Percentile £610 £601 £600
90th Percentile £738 £688 £713
UK median daily rate £513 £525 £528
% change year-on-year -2.38% -0.47% +5.50%
Number of hourly rates quoted 61 34 17
10th Percentile £13.25 £12.62 £12.53
25th Percentile £16.17 £20.74 £15.46
Median hourly rate £22.50 £23.16 £17.72
Median % change year-on-year -2.85% +30.70% -57.58%
75th Percentile £74.26 £30.68 £20.74
90th Percentile £88.00 £68.38 £35.70
UK median hourly rate £26.31 £24.18 £18.36
% change year-on-year +8.79% +31.70% -47.58%

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 18,310 11,377 17,957
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK excluding London 82.65% 90.55% 85.38%
Number of daily rates quoted 11,131 7,282 10,951
10th Percentile £273 £245 £235
25th Percentile £400 £380 £381
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £485 £488 £500
Median % change year-on-year -0.51% -2.50% -
75th Percentile £580 £588 £600
90th Percentile £675 £671 £688
UK median daily rate £500 £525 £525
% change year-on-year -4.76% - -4.55%
Number of hourly rates quoted 1,910 735 1,949
10th Percentile £14.50 £14.99 £12.40
25th Percentile £18.25 £19.00 £15.13
Median hourly rate £30.50 £31.64 £31.50
Median % change year-on-year -3.60% +0.44% -13.10%
75th Percentile £65.00 £65.00 £58.75
90th Percentile £76.03 £76.81 £71.25
UK median hourly rate £35.00 £32.00 £32.50
% change year-on-year +9.38% -1.54% -9.72%

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 27 March 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 27 March 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 27 March 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 +28 206 £520 +11.83% 109
North of England -6 171 £500 +7.07% 73
South West -13 162 £575 +2.22% 34
Midlands -26 99 £413 -25.14% 50
North West +4 98 £550 +10.00% 39
West Midlands -36 74 £408 -28.07% 35
Yorkshire -18 62 £468 +42.57% 28
East of England -17 47 £475 -13.64% 45
East Midlands -10 25 £419 +9.48% 15
Scotland -45 23 £475 -5.00% 13
North East -7 14 £440 +125.64% 7
Wales -11 3 £340 -25.48% 6
Northern Ireland - 1 £500 -
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 70 (9.89%) Confluence
2 37 (5.23%) Microsoft Exchange
3 30 (4.24%) SharePoint
4 9 (1.27%) Skype for Business
5 5 (0.71%) Mattermost
6 2 (0.28%) Apache
6 2 (0.28%) IIS
6 2 (0.28%) JBoss
6 2 (0.28%) SharePoint Server
7 1 (0.14%) HCL Notes
7 1 (0.14%) LiveCycle
7 1 (0.14%) OpenStack
7 1 (0.14%) WebLogic
Applications
1 77 (10.88%) Microsoft Office
2 36 (5.08%) Microsoft Project
3 16 (2.26%) Microsoft Excel
4 7 (0.99%) Microsoft PowerPoint
5 4 (0.56%) PTC Creo
6 3 (0.42%) MS Visio
7 1 (0.14%) Camtasia
Business Applications
1 29 (4.10%) Remedy ITSM
2 13 (1.84%) Oracle EBS
3 9 (1.27%) SAP S/4HANA
4 6 (0.85%) Teamcenter
5 2 (0.28%) Oracle Applications
5 2 (0.28%) Salesforce CRM
6 1 (0.14%) assyst
6 1 (0.14%) Dynamics CRM
6 1 (0.14%) NetSuite
6 1 (0.14%) SAP ERP
6 1 (0.14%) SAP HR
6 1 (0.14%) SAP Payroll
6 1 (0.14%) SystmOne
Cloud Services
1 92 (12.99%) Azure
2 57 (8.05%) Microsoft 365
3 54 (7.63%) AWS
4 36 (5.08%) Power Platform
5 34 (4.80%) GCP
6 22 (3.11%) SaaS
7 21 (2.97%) Entra ID
8 12 (1.69%) Azure DevOps
9 9 (1.27%) OneDrive
10 7 (0.99%) PaaS
10 7 (0.99%) Salesforce Service Cloud
11 6 (0.85%) GitHub
11 6 (0.85%) IaaS
11 6 (0.85%) OpenShift
11 6 (0.85%) PowerApps
12 5 (0.71%) Amazon EC2
12 5 (0.71%) AWS Lambda
12 5 (0.71%) Dynamics 365
12 5 (0.71%) Power Automate
12 5 (0.71%) Serverless
Communications & Networking
1 39 (5.51%) Firewall
2 34 (4.80%) DNS
3 28 (3.95%) LAN
4 25 (3.53%) Network Security
5 24 (3.39%) WAN
6 21 (2.97%) DHCP
6 21 (2.97%) VPN
7 19 (2.68%) BGP
7 19 (2.68%) Cisco ISE
8 18 (2.54%) VLAN
9 16 (2.26%) Junos
10 13 (1.84%) OSPF
10 13 (1.84%) Skype
10 13 (1.84%) Wi-Fi
11 12 (1.69%) BIG-IP
12 11 (1.55%) Cisco Firepower
12 11 (1.55%) WebEx
13 9 (1.27%) TCP/IP
14 8 (1.13%) Cisco IOS
14 8 (1.13%) Wireless
Database & Business Intelligence
1 27 (3.81%) Power BI
2 10 (1.41%) SQL Server
3 9 (1.27%) Relational Database
4 4 (0.56%) Amazon RDS
4 4 (0.56%) InfluxDB
4 4 (0.56%) Metadata
5 3 (0.42%) PostgreSQL
6 2 (0.28%) Azure SQL Database
6 2 (0.28%) Big Data
6 2 (0.28%) GIS
6 2 (0.28%) MongoDB
6 2 (0.28%) Oracle Reports
7 1 (0.14%) Electronic Patient Records
7 1 (0.14%) OpenStack Swift
7 1 (0.14%) SQL Server Analysis Services
7 1 (0.14%) SQL Server Integration Services
7 1 (0.14%) SQL Server Reporting Services
Development Applications
1 110 (15.54%) JIRA
2 13 (1.84%) Jenkins
3 12 (1.69%) Bitbucket
3 12 (1.69%) Git
4 8 (1.13%) GitLab
5 6 (0.85%) Atlassian Bamboo
6 4 (0.56%) MLflow
7 2 (0.28%) ScriptRunner
8 1 (0.14%) IntelliJ
8 1 (0.14%) Rational DOORS
8 1 (0.14%) Visual Studio Code
General
1 268 (37.85%) Social Skills
2 110 (15.54%) Analytical Skills
3 80 (11.30%) Public Sector
4 74 (10.45%) Finance
5 50 (7.06%) Legal
6 45 (6.36%) Military
7 26 (3.67%) Organisational Skills
8 17 (2.40%) Influencing Skills
8 17 (2.40%) Retail
9 16 (2.26%) Documentation Skills
10 13 (1.84%) Telecoms
11 12 (1.69%) Banking
12 11 (1.55%) Aerospace
13 8 (1.13%) Manufacturing
14 4 (0.56%) Inclusion and Diversity
15 3 (0.42%) Financial Institution
15 3 (0.42%) Investment Banking
15 3 (0.42%) Presentation Skills
16 2 (0.28%) Pharmaceutical
16 2 (0.28%) Publishing
Job Titles
1 83 (11.72%) Architect
2 79 (11.16%) Service Manager
3 78 (11.02%) Analyst
4 77 (10.88%) Lead
5 47 (6.64%) Service Architect
6 37 (5.23%) Senior
7 35 (4.94%) Hardware Engineer
8 30 (4.24%) IT Support
9 29 (4.10%) Network Engineer
10 27 (3.81%) Consultant
10 27 (3.81%) IT Manager
10 27 (3.81%) Service Analyst
11 26 (3.67%) Support Engineer
12 25 (3.53%) Delivery Manager
13 23 (3.25%) Field Engineer
13 23 (3.25%) IT Analyst
14 22 (3.11%) Service Delivery Manager
15 21 (2.97%) Field Hardware Engineer
16 20 (2.82%) Administrator
16 20 (2.82%) Project Manager
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 34 (4.80%) REST
2 11 (1.55%) SOAP
2 11 (1.55%) XMPP
3 8 (1.13%) 802.1X
4 5 (0.71%) .NET
4 5 (0.71%) Web Services
5 4 (0.56%) RabbitMQ
6 3 (0.42%) Elastic Stack
6 3 (0.42%) OAuth
6 3 (0.42%) Oracle Fusion
7 2 (0.28%) CSS
7 2 (0.28%) JSON
7 2 (0.28%) Middleware
7 2 (0.28%) RFC 2544
7 2 (0.28%) Spring Boot
8 1 (0.14%) Flash
8 1 (0.14%) HTML
8 1 (0.14%) LDAP
8 1 (0.14%) Software Packaging
8 1 (0.14%) XML
Miscellaneous
1 71 (10.03%) Product Ownership
2 36 (5.08%) CMDB
3 34 (4.80%) Onboarding
4 27 (3.81%) Virtual Team
5 24 (3.39%) Management Information System
6 23 (3.25%) Data Centre
7 19 (2.68%) Driving Licence
7 19 (2.68%) PKI
8 14 (1.98%) Clustering
8 14 (1.98%) Self-Motivation
9 11 (1.55%) PMI
10 9 (1.27%) Data Protection Act
10 9 (1.27%) Enterprise Software
11 8 (1.13%) Analytical Mindset
12 7 (0.99%) NHS
13 5 (0.71%) Fat Client
13 5 (0.71%) Hybrid Cloud
13 5 (0.71%) Thin Client
14 4 (0.56%) Data Structures
14 4 (0.56%) Smartphone
Operating Systems
1 146 (20.62%) Windows
2 49 (6.92%) Linux
2 49 (6.92%) Windows Server
3 34 (4.80%) Windows 10
4 15 (2.12%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
5 11 (1.55%) Windows 7
6 7 (0.99%) Windows Server 2012
7 6 (0.85%) Ubuntu
8 5 (0.71%) Mac OS
8 5 (0.71%) Unix
9 4 (0.56%) Windows Server 2003
10 3 (0.42%) CentOS
11 2 (0.28%) Android
11 2 (0.28%) Apple iOS
12 1 (0.14%) Data ONTAP
12 1 (0.14%) Rocky
12 1 (0.14%) Solaris
12 1 (0.14%) Windows Server 2016
12 1 (0.14%) Windows Server 2019
12 1 (0.14%) Windows XP
Processes & Methodologies
1 426 (60.17%) ITIL
2 315 (44.49%) ITSM
3 164 (23.16%) Agile
4 145 (20.48%) Continuous Improvement
5 143 (20.20%) Problem-Solving
6 116 (16.38%) Stakeholder Management
7 113 (15.96%) Service Delivery
8 107 (15.11%) Change Management
9 99 (13.98%) Stakeholder Engagement
10 76 (10.73%) Customer Service
11 74 (10.45%) Service Design
12 73 (10.31%) DevOps
13 64 (9.04%) Acceptance Criteria
14 61 (8.62%) Problem Management
15 60 (8.47%) Configuration Management
16 53 (7.49%) Incident Management
17 51 (7.20%) Knowledge Transfer
18 47 (6.64%) Performance Metrics
19 46 (6.50%) Business Continuity
19 46 (6.50%) TOGAF
Programming Languages
1 69 (9.75%) PowerShell
2 46 (6.50%) Python
3 37 (5.23%) SQL
4 16 (2.26%) Bash
5 14 (1.98%) JavaScript
6 9 (1.27%) Perl
6 9 (1.27%) VB
6 9 (1.27%) VBScript
7 7 (0.99%) Java
7 7 (0.99%) Shell Script
8 5 (0.71%) C#
9 4 (0.56%) Go
9 4 (0.56%) PL/SQL
10 2 (0.28%) Apex Code
10 2 (0.28%) PHP
10 2 (0.28%) T-SQL
11 1 (0.14%) Scala
11 1 (0.14%) Search Processing Language
11 1 (0.14%) VBA
Qualifications
1 378 (53.39%) Security Cleared
2 276 (38.98%) SC Cleared
3 122 (17.23%) DV Cleared
4 101 (14.27%) Degree
5 35 (4.94%) ITIL Certification
6 30 (4.24%) TOGAF Certification
7 25 (3.53%) Cisco Certification
8 23 (3.25%) PMI Certification
9 22 (3.11%) PMP
10 18 (2.54%) BPSS Clearance
10 18 (2.54%) Microsoft Certification
11 16 (2.26%) CCNP
12 14 (1.98%) CCNA
13 13 (1.84%) Computer Science Degree
14 11 (1.55%) A+ Certification
14 11 (1.55%) MCSE
15 9 (1.27%) JNCIA
15 9 (1.27%) JNCIP
15 9 (1.27%) JNCIS
16 7 (0.99%) MAPM
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 27 (3.81%) SLA
2 20 (2.82%) Data Quality
3 17 (2.40%) ISO/IEC 20000
4 16 (2.26%) ISO/IEC 27001
5 13 (1.84%) PMO
6 11 (1.55%) GDPR
7 10 (1.41%) NCSC
8 9 (1.27%) QA
9 7 (0.99%) Government Security Classifications
10 6 (0.85%) Accessibility
10 6 (0.85%) Cyber Essentials
11 4 (0.56%) Disclosure Scotland
12 3 (0.42%) GRC
12 3 (0.42%) ISO 9001
13 2 (0.28%) Actionable Recommendations
13 2 (0.28%) GxP
13 2 (0.28%) HMG Security Policy Framework
13 2 (0.28%) NIST
14 1 (0.14%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
14 1 (0.14%) WCAG
System Software
1 75 (10.59%) Active Directory
2 26 (3.67%) VMware Infrastructure
3 10 (1.41%) Docker
3 10 (1.41%) VMware NSX
4 9 (1.27%) BitLocker
5 5 (0.71%) Virtual Machines
6 3 (0.42%) VMware ESXi
7 2 (0.28%) Hyper-V
7 2 (0.28%) Slurm Workload Manager
8 1 (0.14%) iptables
8 1 (0.14%) NFS
8 1 (0.14%) Samba
Systems Management
1 30 (4.24%) OPNET
2 26 (3.67%) Ansible
3 25 (3.53%) SCCM
4 18 (2.54%) Kubernetes
4 18 (2.54%) Terraform
5 16 (2.26%) Microsoft Intune
6 11 (1.55%) vCenter Server
7 10 (1.41%) FortiGate
8 7 (0.99%) Active Directory Federation Services
8 7 (0.99%) Grafana
8 7 (0.99%) Progress Chef
9 5 (0.71%) Puppet
10 4 (0.56%) Jamf Pro
10 4 (0.56%) Nessus
10 4 (0.56%) Packer
10 4 (0.56%) Prometheus
10 4 (0.56%) WSUS
11 3 (0.42%) Cisco Prime
12 2 (0.28%) Docker Swarm
12 2 (0.28%) Single Sign-On
Vendors
1 160 (22.60%) ServiceNow
2 117 (16.53%) Microsoft
3 63 (8.90%) Atlassian
3 63 (8.90%) Remedy
4 55 (7.77%) Cisco
5 43 (6.07%) VMware
6 34 (4.80%) HP
7 33 (4.66%) Oracle
8 24 (3.39%) Google
9 23 (3.25%) SolarWinds
10 21 (2.97%) Splunk
11 18 (2.54%) Juniper
11 18 (2.54%) Red Hat
11 18 (2.54%) SAP
12 16 (2.26%) Dell
13 15 (2.12%) Canon
14 14 (1.98%) Citrix
14 14 (1.98%) Salesforce
15 12 (1.69%) F5
15 12 (1.69%) Palo Alto