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

6 months to
24 Sep 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 64 56 71
Rank change year-on-year -8 +15 -4
Contract jobs citing Service Management 958 627 495
As % of all contract jobs in the UK excluding London 3.38% 4.05% 2.80%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 4.18% 4.54% 3.36%
Number of daily rates quoted 654 364 342
10th Percentile £262 £185 £188
25th Percentile £421 £279 £350
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £490 £500
Median % change year-on-year +7.20% -2.05% -
75th Percentile £625 £569 £600
90th Percentile £725 £638 £661
UK median daily rate £525 £488 £501
% change year-on-year +7.69% -2.60% -4.67%
Number of hourly rates quoted 73 80 11
10th Percentile £14.50 £12.62 £15.17
25th Percentile £17.21 £12.82 £26.25
Median hourly rate £55.00 £20.79 £47.50
Median % change year-on-year +164.55% -56.23% +116.85%
75th Percentile £85.00 £33.75 £49.38
90th Percentile £94.51 £60.00 £53.75
UK median hourly rate £55.00 £20.83 £47.50
% change year-on-year +164.04% -56.15% -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 22,903 13,806 14,720
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK excluding London 80.83% 89.20% 83.24%
Number of daily rates quoted 12,948 8,312 8,367
10th Percentile £300 £231 £243
25th Percentile £409 £369 £387
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 £669 £688
UK median daily rate £525 £500 £525
% change year-on-year +5.00% -4.76% -2.78%
Number of hourly rates quoted 2,757 1,470 1,161
10th Percentile £13.50 £14.13 £14.84
25th Percentile £17.00 £17.29 £18.11
Median hourly rate £40.00 £22.32 £43.00
Median % change year-on-year +79.25% -48.10% +1.18%
75th Percentile £67.50 £41.00 £65.00
90th Percentile £77.70 £67.00 £74.50
UK median hourly rate £40.00 £25.15 £43.00
% change year-on-year +59.05% -41.51% -

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 24 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 24 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 24 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 +13 309 £575 +27.78% 260
North of England -19 268 £475 +5.56% 224
North West -11 157 £480 +3.45% 126
Midlands -37 123 £525 +4.48% 124
West Midlands -13 117 £525 +1.94% 78
Yorkshire -6 103 £450 +26.76% 77
South West -30 103 £600 +9.09% 106
Scotland +14 96 £535 +15.68% 72
East of England -7 59 £525 -4.55% 99
Wales -6 13 £800 +247.83% 22
Northern Ireland +8 8 - - 36
North East -46 8 £535 +174.36% 23
East Midlands -35 6 £163 -45.83% 45
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 60 (6.26%) SharePoint
2 38 (3.97%) Microsoft Exchange
3 33 (3.44%) Confluence
4 15 (1.57%) Skype for Business
5 4 (0.42%) IBM Transformation Extender
6 3 (0.31%) CMS
6 3 (0.31%) OpenStack
7 1 (0.10%) CICS
7 1 (0.10%) IIS
7 1 (0.10%) Mattermost
Applications
1 68 (7.10%) Microsoft Office
2 22 (2.30%) Microsoft Excel
3 12 (1.25%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 5 (0.52%) Chatbot
4 5 (0.52%) Microsoft Project
5 2 (0.21%) Spreadsheet
6 1 (0.10%) Maple
Business Applications
1 42 (4.38%) Remedy ITSM
2 8 (0.84%) Dynamics CRM
3 5 (0.52%) ContrOCC
4 4 (0.42%) SAP S/4HANA
4 4 (0.42%) Workday HCM
5 3 (0.31%) NEC Housing
6 2 (0.21%) Oracle EBS
6 2 (0.21%) Primavera
6 2 (0.21%) Remedy AR System
6 2 (0.21%) Salesforce CRM
6 2 (0.21%) SAP CX
6 2 (0.21%) Teamcenter
7 1 (0.10%) Cloudability
7 1 (0.10%) SystmOne
Cloud Services
1 160 (16.70%) Azure
2 112 (11.69%) Microsoft 365
3 78 (8.14%) Entra ID
4 63 (6.58%) AWS
5 49 (5.11%) Power Platform
6 36 (3.76%) SaaS
7 27 (2.82%) Azure DevOps
7 27 (2.82%) GCP
8 23 (2.40%) OneDrive
9 14 (1.46%) Azure Monitor
10 13 (1.36%) Dynamics 365
11 10 (1.04%) GitHub
11 10 (1.04%) Microsoft Copilot
12 9 (0.94%) Power Automate
12 9 (0.94%) Serverless
13 8 (0.84%) Azure Functions
13 8 (0.84%) IaaS
14 6 (0.63%) Azure Sentinel
14 6 (0.63%) Google Workspace
14 6 (0.63%) OCI
Communications & Networking
1 45 (4.70%) DNS
2 44 (4.59%) Firewall
3 38 (3.97%) VPN
4 33 (3.44%) DHCP
5 31 (3.24%) Network Security
6 23 (2.40%) TCP/IP
7 22 (2.30%) LAN
8 17 (1.77%) WAN
9 16 (1.67%) Skype
10 13 (1.36%) Wireless
11 12 (1.25%) VLAN
11 12 (1.25%) Wi-Fi
12 10 (1.04%) SSH
13 8 (0.84%) BGP
14 7 (0.73%) Intrusion Detection
14 7 (0.73%) NetScaler
15 6 (0.63%) Internet
15 6 (0.63%) OSPF
15 6 (0.63%) SAN
15 6 (0.63%) Software-Defined Networking
Database & Business Intelligence
1 30 (3.13%) Power BI
2 26 (2.71%) SQL Server
3 20 (2.09%) Metadata
4 7 (0.73%) SQL Server Integration Services
5 6 (0.63%) MySQL
6 5 (0.52%) Looker
6 5 (0.52%) MariaDB
7 4 (0.42%) Amazon RDS
7 4 (0.42%) Oracle Reports
7 4 (0.42%) Relational Database
7 4 (0.42%) SQL Server Reporting Services
8 3 (0.31%) Amazon Aurora
8 3 (0.31%) BigQuery
8 3 (0.31%) PostgreSQL
8 3 (0.31%) SQL Server Analysis Services
9 2 (0.21%) EDRMS
9 2 (0.21%) Microsoft Analysis Services
9 2 (0.21%) Oracle Database
10 1 (0.10%) Data Warehouse
10 1 (0.10%) Oracle Database 11g
Development Applications
1 74 (7.72%) JIRA
2 22 (2.30%) Git
3 9 (0.94%) Jenkins
4 8 (0.84%) Atlassian Bamboo
4 8 (0.84%) Bitbucket
5 5 (0.52%) Browser DevTools
6 4 (0.42%) webpack
7 3 (0.31%) Fiddler
7 3 (0.31%) GitLab
7 3 (0.31%) Gradle
7 3 (0.31%) Maven
7 3 (0.31%) Rational DOORS
8 2 (0.21%) Firebug
8 2 (0.21%) Sonatype Nexus
9 1 (0.10%) Artifactory
9 1 (0.10%) eggPlant
9 1 (0.10%) Hudson
9 1 (0.10%) IntelliJ
9 1 (0.10%) SQL Server Management Studio (SSMS)
9 1 (0.10%) Visual Studio Code
General
1 392 (40.92%) Social Skills
2 154 (16.08%) Analytical Skills
3 141 (14.72%) Finance
4 107 (11.17%) Public Sector
5 46 (4.80%) Documentation Skills
6 41 (4.28%) Influencing Skills
7 40 (4.18%) Organisational Skills
8 32 (3.34%) Aerospace
9 30 (3.13%) Legal
10 24 (2.51%) Inclusion and Diversity
11 23 (2.40%) Banking
11 23 (2.40%) Telecoms
12 21 (2.19%) Military
13 18 (1.88%) Presentation Skills
14 15 (1.57%) Local Government
14 15 (1.57%) Manufacturing
15 5 (0.52%) Retail
16 4 (0.42%) Law
17 3 (0.31%) Police
18 2 (0.21%) Automotive
Job Titles
1 110 (11.48%) Lead
2 97 (10.13%) Analyst
3 85 (8.87%) Architect
4 69 (7.20%) Senior
5 64 (6.68%) Service Manager
6 48 (5.01%) Delivery Manager
7 45 (4.70%) IT Manager
8 43 (4.49%) Service Analyst
8 43 (4.49%) Support Engineer
9 36 (3.76%) Consultant
10 34 (3.55%) Developer
11 33 (3.44%) Service Architect
12 31 (3.24%) Project Manager
13 26 (2.71%) Desktop Engineer
14 25 (2.61%) Administrator
14 25 (2.61%) Technical Leader
15 24 (2.51%) Change Manager
16 22 (2.30%) 2nd Line Support
16 22 (2.30%) Desktop Support
17 21 (2.19%) Network Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 39 (4.07%) Terraform
2 32 (3.34%) REST
3 17 (1.77%) XML
4 15 (1.57%) Middleware
5 12 (1.25%) JSON
6 10 (1.04%) SAML
7 9 (0.94%) SOAP
8 8 (0.84%) Web Services
8 8 (0.84%) XSLT
9 7 (0.73%) OAuth
10 6 (0.63%) .NET
10 6 (0.63%) ARM Templates
11 5 (0.52%) OpenID
11 5 (0.52%) SailPoint
12 4 (0.42%) AngularJS
12 4 (0.42%) HTML
12 4 (0.42%) Node.js
12 4 (0.42%) OAuth2
12 4 (0.42%) React
12 4 (0.42%) RESTful
Miscellaneous
1 91 (9.50%) Onboarding
2 63 (6.58%) Management Information System
3 53 (5.53%) CMDB
4 38 (3.97%) Data Centre
5 34 (3.55%) Enterprise Software
6 29 (3.03%) PKI
7 24 (2.51%) Product Ownership
8 23 (2.40%) Data Protection Act
9 21 (2.19%) Hybrid Cloud
10 16 (1.67%) Operational Technology
11 15 (1.57%) Virtual Team
12 14 (1.46%) Analytical Mindset
13 13 (1.36%) Cyber Threat
13 13 (1.36%) Self-Motivation
14 12 (1.25%) Clustering
14 12 (1.25%) Security Operations Centre
15 11 (1.15%) Security Posture
16 9 (0.94%) Cloud Native
16 9 (0.94%) NHS
16 9 (0.94%) Taxonomies
Operating Systems
1 221 (23.07%) Windows
2 64 (6.68%) Windows Server
3 58 (6.05%) Linux
4 50 (5.22%) Windows 10
5 17 (1.77%) Windows 7
6 16 (1.67%) Unix
7 13 (1.36%) Mac OS
8 12 (1.25%) Android
8 12 (1.25%) Apple iOS
9 6 (0.63%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
10 4 (0.42%) Solaris
11 3 (0.31%) AIX
11 3 (0.31%) SUSE Linux Enterprise Server
11 3 (0.31%) Windows Server 2012
12 2 (0.21%) Windows XP
12 2 (0.21%) zOS
13 1 (0.10%) SUSE
13 1 (0.10%) Windows Server 2008
13 1 (0.10%) Windows Server 2016
13 1 (0.10%) Windows Server 2019
Processes & Methodologies
1 546 (56.99%) ITIL
2 404 (42.17%) ITSM
3 294 (30.69%) Stakeholder Management
4 280 (29.23%) Continuous Improvement
5 213 (22.23%) Service Delivery
6 185 (19.31%) Problem-Solving
7 182 (19.00%) Agile
8 154 (16.08%) Stakeholder Engagement
9 152 (15.87%) Change Management
10 126 (13.15%) Roadmaps
11 115 (12.00%) Cybersecurity
12 114 (11.90%) Customer Service
13 110 (11.48%) Incident Management
14 90 (9.39%) Project Delivery
15 87 (9.08%) DevOps
16 80 (8.35%) Risk Management
17 76 (7.93%) Decision-Making
18 75 (7.83%) Data Protection
19 70 (7.31%) Service Design
19 70 (7.31%) User Experience
Programming Languages
1 101 (10.54%) PowerShell
2 60 (6.26%) Python
3 36 (3.76%) SQL
4 32 (3.34%) Bash
5 28 (2.92%) JavaScript
6 19 (1.98%) VBScript
7 15 (1.57%) VB
8 12 (1.25%) Java
9 11 (1.15%) C#
10 7 (0.73%) Bicep
10 7 (0.73%) Shell Script
11 4 (0.42%) C
11 4 (0.42%) TypeScript
12 3 (0.31%) Google Apps Script
12 3 (0.31%) Groovy
12 3 (0.31%) Lua
12 3 (0.31%) Perl
12 3 (0.31%) T-SQL
13 2 (0.21%) Apex Code
13 2 (0.21%) PL/SQL
Qualifications
1 444 (46.35%) Security Cleared
2 284 (29.65%) SC Cleared
3 133 (13.88%) DV Cleared
4 107 (11.17%) Degree
5 37 (3.86%) BPSS Clearance
6 34 (3.55%) ITIL Certification
7 31 (3.24%) PMP
8 30 (3.13%) PMI Certification
9 28 (2.92%) Microsoft Certification
10 18 (1.88%) Cisco Certification
11 17 (1.77%) Computer Science Degree
12 16 (1.67%) Azure Certification
13 15 (1.57%) CISSP
13 15 (1.57%) DBS Check
13 15 (1.57%) ITIL Foundation Certificate
14 12 (1.25%) A+ Certification
14 12 (1.25%) CISM
15 10 (1.04%) CCNP
16 9 (0.94%) CCNA
17 8 (0.84%) AWS Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 70 (7.31%) SLA
2 38 (3.97%) Data Quality
3 30 (3.13%) GRC
3 30 (3.13%) QA
4 29 (3.03%) ISO/IEC 27001
5 27 (2.82%) ISO/IEC 20000
6 20 (2.09%) GDPR
6 20 (2.09%) NCSC
7 19 (1.98%) PMO
8 17 (1.77%) ISO 9001
8 17 (1.77%) NIST
9 10 (1.04%) Accessibility
10 9 (0.94%) COBIT
10 9 (0.94%) Disclosure Scotland
11 8 (0.84%) WCAG
12 7 (0.73%) ISO 31000
12 7 (0.73%) ISO/IEC 27005
13 6 (0.63%) Cyber Essentials
13 6 (0.63%) ISO 22301
14 5 (0.52%) JSP 440
System Software
1 113 (11.80%) Active Directory
2 65 (6.78%) VMware Infrastructure
3 24 (2.51%) Hyper-V
4 23 (2.40%) VMware ESXi
5 17 (1.77%) VMware NSX
6 16 (1.67%) BitLocker
7 15 (1.57%) Docker
7 15 (1.57%) Virtual Desktop
8 14 (1.46%) vSphere
9 13 (1.36%) vCloud
10 7 (0.73%) Citrix Hypervisor
10 7 (0.73%) Firmware
10 7 (0.73%) XenApp
10 7 (0.73%) XenDesktop
11 3 (0.31%) Microsoft Virtual Server
11 3 (0.31%) NFS
11 3 (0.31%) Virtual Machines
11 3 (0.31%) Virtual Servers
12 2 (0.21%) GPFS
12 2 (0.21%) KVM
Systems Management
1 60 (6.26%) SCCM
2 55 (5.74%) Microsoft Intune
3 36 (3.76%) Ansible
4 20 (2.09%) SCOM
5 17 (1.77%) vCenter Server
6 14 (1.46%) Kubernetes
6 14 (1.46%) Single Sign-On
7 7 (0.73%) Jamf Pro
8 6 (0.63%) Progress Chef
9 5 (0.52%) NetBackup
10 4 (0.42%) PowerCLI
10 4 (0.42%) Tivoli
10 4 (0.42%) Tivoli Monitoring
10 4 (0.42%) vMotion
10 4 (0.42%) WSUS
11 3 (0.31%) Cisco Prime
11 3 (0.31%) Dell DRAC
11 3 (0.31%) OPNET
11 3 (0.31%) Systems Management Server (SMS)
11 3 (0.31%) vRealize
Vendors
1 242 (25.26%) Microsoft
2 237 (24.74%) ServiceNow
3 85 (8.87%) VMware
4 45 (4.70%) Remedy
5 31 (3.24%) BMC
6 30 (3.13%) Cisco
7 21 (2.19%) Oracle
8 20 (2.09%) CyberArk
9 18 (1.88%) IBM
10 17 (1.77%) Atlassian
11 15 (1.57%) Dynatrace
12 14 (1.46%) Citrix
13 13 (1.36%) Apple
13 13 (1.36%) SAP
13 13 (1.36%) SolarWinds
14 12 (1.25%) Google
15 11 (1.15%) Splunk
16 10 (1.04%) Palo Alto
16 10 (1.04%) Qualys
17 8 (0.84%) Red Hat