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

6 months to
9 Jun 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 78 55 58
Rank change year-on-year -23 +3 +4
Contract jobs citing Service Management 664 533 659
As % of all contract jobs in the UK excluding London 2.62% 4.05% 3.13%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 3.21% 4.48% 3.77%
Number of daily rates quoted 437 305 478
10th Percentile £204 £209 £256
25th Percentile £375 £350 £425
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £510 £525
Median % change year-on-year -1.96% -2.86% +10.53%
75th Percentile £588 £600 £608
90th Percentile £650 £688 £700
UK median daily rate £518 £500 £525
% change year-on-year +3.50% -4.76% +2.69%
Number of hourly rates quoted 60 46 15
10th Percentile £16.09 - £12.53
25th Percentile £16.17 £12.62 £14.65
Median hourly rate £60.00 £21.71 £17.72
Median % change year-on-year +176.37% +22.52% -50.78%
75th Percentile £83.81 £29.80 £23.62
90th Percentile £115.08 £33.75 £28.05
UK median hourly rate £60.00 £22.14 £18.36
% change year-on-year +171.00% +20.59% -56.16%

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 20,674 11,899 17,478
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK excluding London 81.63% 90.45% 82.94%
Number of daily rates quoted 12,309 7,359 10,286
10th Percentile £300 £235 £250
25th Percentile £402 £370 £375
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £475 £500
Median % change year-on-year +5.26% -5.00% -
75th Percentile £588 £575 £600
90th Percentile £677 £650 £688
UK median daily rate £513 £510 £525
% change year-on-year +0.49% -2.86% -4.55%
Number of hourly rates quoted 2,211 895 2,171
10th Percentile £14.25 £13.99 £12.50
25th Percentile £19.29 £16.95 £15.43
Median hourly rate £45.00 £25.15 £38.12
Median % change year-on-year +78.93% -34.02% +8.91%
75th Percentile £68.00 £60.00 £61.30
90th Percentile £81.05 £75.00 £72.50
UK median hourly rate £43.96 £27.50 £36.50
% change year-on-year +59.85% -24.66% +1.67%

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 9 June 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 9 June 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 9 June 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
North of England -19 195 £500 +6.61% 90
South East +17 186 £525 +26.51% 121
South West -33 111 £500 -11.11% 27
North West -4 109 £550 +9.78% 40
Yorkshire -29 80 £468 +10.12% 40
Midlands -45 74 £450 -18.18% 48
West Midlands -48 60 £475 -13.81% 37
East of England -19 44 £475 -13.64% 28
Scotland -27 44 £475 -8.74% 9
East Midlands -24 14 £200 -54.13% 11
Wales -12 7 £340 +4.62% 6
North East -22 6 £440 +125.64% 11
Northern Ireland - 4 - - 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 29 (4.37%) SharePoint
2 28 (4.22%) Microsoft Exchange
3 22 (3.31%) Confluence
4 11 (1.66%) Skype for Business
5 6 (0.90%) Mattermost
6 2 (0.30%) IIS
7 1 (0.15%) Apache
7 1 (0.15%) CMS
7 1 (0.15%) JBoss
7 1 (0.15%) LiveCycle
7 1 (0.15%) OpenStack
Applications
1 50 (7.53%) Microsoft Office
2 16 (2.41%) Microsoft Excel
3 8 (1.20%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 4 (0.60%) Chatbot
4 4 (0.60%) PTC Creo
5 2 (0.30%) Microsoft Project
5 2 (0.30%) MS Visio
6 1 (0.15%) Camtasia
Business Applications
1 43 (6.48%) Remedy ITSM
2 10 (1.51%) SAP S/4HANA
3 8 (1.20%) Teamcenter
4 2 (0.30%) Oracle Applications
4 2 (0.30%) Primavera
5 1 (0.15%) ContrOCC
5 1 (0.15%) NetSuite
5 1 (0.15%) SAP HR
5 1 (0.15%) SAP Payroll
Cloud Services
1 92 (13.86%) Azure
2 59 (8.89%) Microsoft 365
3 39 (5.87%) Power Platform
4 29 (4.37%) AWS
5 26 (3.92%) Entra ID
6 17 (2.56%) SaaS
7 16 (2.41%) Azure DevOps
7 16 (2.41%) GCP
7 16 (2.41%) OneDrive
8 8 (1.20%) PaaS
9 7 (1.05%) GitHub
9 7 (1.05%) OCI
10 6 (0.90%) Microsoft Copilot
11 5 (0.75%) Azure Machine Learning
11 5 (0.75%) Azure Synapse Analytics
11 5 (0.75%) Google App Engine
12 4 (0.60%) Azure AKS
13 3 (0.45%) AWS Lambda
13 3 (0.45%) Azure Cosmos DB
13 3 (0.45%) OpenShift
Communications & Networking
1 34 (5.12%) Firewall
2 30 (4.52%) DNS
3 24 (3.61%) LAN
4 20 (3.01%) WAN
5 19 (2.86%) DHCP
6 18 (2.71%) Network Security
7 15 (2.26%) VPN
8 14 (2.11%) BGP
9 13 (1.96%) OSPF
10 12 (1.81%) BIG-IP
11 11 (1.66%) Cisco ISE
11 11 (1.66%) Skype
11 11 (1.66%) VLAN
11 11 (1.66%) Wi-Fi
11 11 (1.66%) Wireless
12 8 (1.20%) Ethernet VPN
12 8 (1.20%) Junos
12 8 (1.20%) TCP/IP
12 8 (1.20%) VXLAN
13 4 (0.60%) SSL
Database & Business Intelligence
1 33 (4.97%) Power BI
2 13 (1.96%) SQL Server
3 6 (0.90%) PostgreSQL
3 6 (0.90%) Relational Database
4 5 (0.75%) Oracle Reports
5 3 (0.45%) Azure SQL Database
5 3 (0.45%) SQL Server Analysis Services
5 3 (0.45%) SQL Server Integration Services
5 3 (0.45%) SQL Server Reporting Services
6 2 (0.30%) Amazon RDS
6 2 (0.30%) InfluxDB
6 2 (0.30%) MariaDB
6 2 (0.30%) Microsoft Analysis Services
6 2 (0.30%) MySQL
6 2 (0.30%) Oracle Database
7 1 (0.15%) DTS
7 1 (0.15%) GIS
7 1 (0.15%) MongoDB
7 1 (0.15%) OpenStack Swift
7 1 (0.15%) Oracle Database 11g
Development Applications
1 67 (10.09%) JIRA
2 13 (1.96%) Git
3 9 (1.36%) Bitbucket
4 8 (1.20%) GitLab
4 8 (1.20%) Jenkins
5 5 (0.75%) Atlassian Bamboo
5 5 (0.75%) Browser DevTools
6 4 (0.60%) MLflow
7 3 (0.45%) Fiddler
8 2 (0.30%) Firebug
8 2 (0.30%) IntelliJ
8 2 (0.30%) ScriptRunner
9 1 (0.15%) Claude Code
9 1 (0.15%) Gemini Tracker
9 1 (0.15%) Hudson
9 1 (0.15%) IBM UrbanCode
9 1 (0.15%) MSI
9 1 (0.15%) Rational DOORS
9 1 (0.15%) Visual Studio Code
9 1 (0.15%) webpack
General
1 228 (34.34%) Social Skills
2 92 (13.86%) Finance
3 84 (12.65%) Analytical Skills
4 61 (9.19%) Public Sector
5 40 (6.02%) Legal
6 21 (3.16%) Organisational Skills
7 18 (2.71%) Documentation Skills
8 17 (2.56%) Military
9 16 (2.41%) Influencing Skills
9 16 (2.41%) Telecoms
10 13 (1.96%) Inclusion and Diversity
11 12 (1.81%) Banking
12 11 (1.66%) Aerospace
13 10 (1.51%) Retail
14 8 (1.20%) Presentation Skills
15 5 (0.75%) Local Government
16 4 (0.60%) Financial Institution
17 2 (0.30%) Pharmaceutical
17 2 (0.30%) Publishing
18 1 (0.15%) Back Office
Job Titles
1 86 (12.95%) Service Manager
2 78 (11.75%) Analyst
3 61 (9.19%) Lead
4 50 (7.53%) Senior
5 47 (7.08%) Architect
6 43 (6.48%) IT Manager
7 34 (5.12%) Service Analyst
8 27 (4.07%) Delivery Manager
8 27 (4.07%) Hardware Engineer
9 25 (3.77%) Project Manager
10 24 (3.61%) Consultant
10 24 (3.61%) Network Engineer
11 23 (3.46%) Support Engineer
12 21 (3.16%) IT Services Manager
13 19 (2.86%) IT Analyst
13 19 (2.86%) Service Delivery Manager
14 17 (2.56%) Service Transition Manager
14 17 (2.56%) Transition Manager
15 16 (2.41%) Designer
15 16 (2.41%) Service Designer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 22 (3.31%) REST
2 10 (1.51%) SOAP
3 9 (1.36%) OAuth
4 8 (1.20%) 802.1X
5 5 (0.75%) OpenID
5 5 (0.75%) Oracle Fusion
5 5 (0.75%) SAML
6 4 (0.60%) OAuth2
6 4 (0.60%) Software Packaging
6 4 (0.60%) XML
6 4 (0.60%) XMPP
7 3 (0.45%) .NET
7 3 (0.45%) CSS
7 3 (0.45%) FIDO
7 3 (0.45%) Flash
7 3 (0.45%) HTML
7 3 (0.45%) Microsoft Graph
7 3 (0.45%) Middleware
7 3 (0.45%) Web Services
8 2 (0.30%) ADO
Miscellaneous
1 43 (6.48%) Onboarding
2 38 (5.72%) CMDB
3 33 (4.97%) Product Ownership
4 28 (4.22%) Data Centre
5 23 (3.46%) PKI
6 21 (3.16%) Clustering
7 20 (3.01%) Virtual Team
8 19 (2.86%) Enterprise Software
8 19 (2.86%) Management Information System
9 15 (2.26%) Driving Licence
10 13 (1.96%) Data Protection Act
11 11 (1.66%) Operational Technology
12 8 (1.20%) PMI
13 7 (1.05%) Analytical Mindset
13 7 (1.05%) Replication
14 6 (0.90%) Cloud Native
14 6 (0.90%) Self-Motivation
14 6 (0.90%) Smartphone
15 5 (0.75%) Distributed Systems
15 5 (0.75%) Legacy Systems
Operating Systems
1 150 (22.59%) Windows
2 36 (5.42%) Linux
3 35 (5.27%) Windows 10
4 34 (5.12%) Windows Server
5 15 (2.26%) Windows 7
6 11 (1.66%) Unix
7 5 (0.75%) Mac OS
7 5 (0.75%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
8 3 (0.45%) Android
8 3 (0.45%) Apple iOS
8 3 (0.45%) Windows XP
9 2 (0.30%) Solaris
9 2 (0.30%) Ubuntu
10 1 (0.15%) Rocky
10 1 (0.15%) Windows Server 2008
10 1 (0.15%) Windows Server 2012
10 1 (0.15%) Windows Server 2016
10 1 (0.15%) Windows Server 2019
10 1 (0.15%) zOS
Processes & Methodologies
1 358 (53.92%) ITIL
2 289 (43.52%) ITSM
3 163 (24.55%) Continuous Improvement
4 143 (21.54%) Stakeholder Management
5 127 (19.13%) Agile
6 123 (18.52%) Problem-Solving
7 117 (17.62%) Service Delivery
8 100 (15.06%) Stakeholder Engagement
9 94 (14.16%) Change Management
10 74 (11.14%) Customer Service
11 70 (10.54%) DevOps
12 59 (8.89%) Configuration Management
13 57 (8.58%) Problem Management
14 51 (7.68%) Incident Management
15 47 (7.08%) Project Delivery
16 44 (6.63%) Service Design
17 43 (6.48%) Cybersecurity
17 43 (6.48%) Roadmaps
18 38 (5.72%) Data Protection
19 37 (5.57%) CI/CD
Programming Languages
1 51 (7.68%) PowerShell
2 37 (5.57%) SQL
3 28 (4.22%) Python
4 21 (3.16%) JavaScript
5 11 (1.66%) VB
5 11 (1.66%) VBScript
6 9 (1.36%) Bash
7 5 (0.75%) C#
7 5 (0.75%) Java
8 4 (0.60%) PL/SQL
9 3 (0.45%) Shell Script
9 3 (0.45%) T-SQL
10 2 (0.30%) Apex Code
10 2 (0.30%) Go
10 2 (0.30%) Search Processing Language
11 1 (0.15%) Bicep
11 1 (0.15%) Perl
11 1 (0.15%) PHP
11 1 (0.15%) Scala
11 1 (0.15%) TypeScript
Qualifications
1 318 (47.89%) Security Cleared
2 211 (31.78%) SC Cleared
3 107 (16.11%) DV Cleared
4 59 (8.89%) Degree
5 36 (5.42%) ITIL Certification
6 24 (3.61%) Cisco Certification
7 17 (2.56%) PMI Certification
8 16 (2.41%) Computer Science Degree
9 15 (2.26%) PMP
10 14 (2.11%) BPSS Clearance
10 14 (2.11%) CCNA
11 12 (1.81%) Microsoft Certification
12 10 (1.51%) A+ Certification
13 9 (1.36%) CCNP
13 9 (1.36%) JNCIA
13 9 (1.36%) JNCIP
13 9 (1.36%) JNCIS
13 9 (1.36%) Network+ Certification
14 8 (1.20%) DBS Check
15 7 (1.05%) Master's Degree
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 41 (6.17%) SLA
2 27 (4.07%) Data Quality
3 20 (3.01%) PMO
4 14 (2.11%) ISO/IEC 27001
5 13 (1.96%) ISO/IEC 20000
5 13 (1.96%) NCSC
5 13 (1.96%) QA
6 12 (1.81%) GRC
7 11 (1.66%) GDPR
8 10 (1.51%) Cyber Essentials
9 9 (1.36%) COBIT
10 7 (1.05%) Government Security Classifications
11 6 (0.90%) Accessibility
11 6 (0.90%) ISO 31000
11 6 (0.90%) ISO/IEC 27005
12 4 (0.60%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
12 4 (0.60%) Disclosure Scotland
12 4 (0.60%) GMP
12 4 (0.60%) ISO 9001
12 4 (0.60%) NIST
System Software
1 76 (11.45%) Active Directory
2 34 (5.12%) VMware Infrastructure
3 15 (2.26%) VMware ESXi
4 12 (1.81%) BitLocker
5 10 (1.51%) Docker
6 7 (1.05%) VMware NSX
7 6 (0.90%) vCloud
7 6 (0.90%) vSphere
8 4 (0.60%) NFS
8 4 (0.60%) Virtual Machines
9 3 (0.45%) Firmware
10 2 (0.30%) GPFS
10 2 (0.30%) Hyper-V
10 2 (0.30%) KVM
11 1 (0.15%) iptables
11 1 (0.15%) Oracle RAC
11 1 (0.15%) Samba
11 1 (0.15%) Slurm Workload Manager
11 1 (0.15%) Virtual Desktop
Systems Management
1 26 (3.92%) SCCM
2 21 (3.16%) Microsoft Intune
3 20 (3.01%) Ansible
4 11 (1.66%) Kubernetes
4 11 (1.66%) Terraform
5 8 (1.20%) FortiGate
5 8 (1.20%) Single Sign-On
5 8 (1.20%) vCenter Server
6 6 (0.90%) Jamf Pro
6 6 (0.90%) SCOM
7 5 (0.75%) Grafana
7 5 (0.75%) Progress Chef
8 4 (0.60%) PowerCLI
8 4 (0.60%) Puppet
8 4 (0.60%) vMotion
9 3 (0.45%) Cisco Prime
9 3 (0.45%) Dell DRAC
9 3 (0.45%) Systems Management Server (SMS)
9 3 (0.45%) vRealize
10 2 (0.30%) Docker Swarm
Vendors
1 144 (21.69%) ServiceNow
2 113 (17.02%) Microsoft
3 47 (7.08%) Remedy
3 47 (7.08%) VMware
4 37 (5.57%) Cisco
5 27 (4.07%) HP
6 19 (2.86%) BMC
7 18 (2.71%) Oracle
8 17 (2.56%) Dell
8 17 (2.56%) Splunk
9 15 (2.26%) SAP
10 14 (2.11%) Canon
11 13 (1.96%) Atlassian
12 12 (1.81%) F5
12 12 (1.81%) SolarWinds
13 10 (1.51%) Juniper
14 9 (1.36%) Dynatrace
14 9 (1.36%) IFS
15 8 (1.20%) Extreme Networks
15 8 (1.20%) Palo Alto