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

6 months to
13 May 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 71 59 52
Rank change year-on-year -12 -7 +14
Contract jobs citing Service Management 703 478 700
As % of all contract jobs in the UK excluding London 2.92% 3.76% 3.44%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 3.61% 4.15% 4.07%
Number of daily rates quoted 475 287 506
10th Percentile £210 £220 £280
25th Percentile £363 £383 £425
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £525 £525
Median % change year-on-year -4.76% - +10.53%
75th Percentile £610 £601 £600
90th Percentile £738 £688 £715
UK median daily rate £516 £521 £525
% change year-on-year -1.01% -0.71% +5.00%
Number of hourly rates quoted 58 26 16
10th Percentile £16.09 - £12.53
25th Percentile £16.17 £12.62 £14.91
Median hourly rate £60.00 £14.31 £17.50
Median % change year-on-year +319.29% -18.24% -63.91%
75th Percentile £84.75 £22.14 £19.00
90th Percentile £129.23 £32.08 £23.62
UK median hourly rate £55.00 £18.54 £17.72
% change year-on-year +196.66% +4.63% -65.76%

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 19,496 11,513 17,196
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK excluding London 81.10% 90.45% 84.44%
Number of daily rates quoted 11,734 7,198 10,233
10th Percentile £300 £235 £250
25th Percentile £400 £375 £379
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £492 £479 £500
Median % change year-on-year +2.71% -4.20% -
75th Percentile £588 £581 £600
90th Percentile £681 £656 £688
UK median daily rate £505 £516 £525
% change year-on-year -2.13% -1.71% -4.55%
Number of hourly rates quoted 2,051 824 2,051
10th Percentile £14.50 £14.20 £12.30
25th Percentile £18.87 £17.30 £15.24
Median hourly rate £45.00 £25.78 £38.00
Median % change year-on-year +74.59% -32.17% +8.57%
75th Percentile £67.50 £63.75 £61.25
90th Percentile £80.00 £75.00 £72.90
UK median hourly rate £42.50 £28.60 £36.50
% change year-on-year +48.60% -21.64% +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 13 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 13 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 13 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 +35 210 £520 +15.56% 90
North of England -14 177 £497 +4.63% 74
South West -23 144 £551 +0.14% 32
North West +7 96 £550 +6.40% 36
Midlands -22 87 £413 -25.00% 48
Yorkshire -33 71 £475 +11.76% 36
West Midlands -38 66 £420 -23.77% 35
East of England -16 43 £475 -13.64% 37
Scotland -23 35 £500 -3.94% 10
East Midlands -12 21 £405 -7.11% 13
North East -15 10 £330 +69.23% 2
Wales -8 7 £340 -4.56% 6
Northern Ireland - 4 - - 2
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 49 (6.97%) Confluence
2 26 (3.70%) Microsoft Exchange
3 22 (3.13%) SharePoint
4 8 (1.14%) Skype for Business
5 6 (0.85%) Mattermost
6 2 (0.28%) IIS
7 1 (0.14%) Apache
7 1 (0.14%) CMS
7 1 (0.14%) JBoss
7 1 (0.14%) LiveCycle
7 1 (0.14%) OpenStack
Applications
1 73 (10.38%) Microsoft Office
2 31 (4.41%) Microsoft Project
3 16 (2.28%) Microsoft Excel
4 9 (1.28%) Microsoft PowerPoint
5 4 (0.57%) Chatbot
5 4 (0.57%) PTC Creo
6 2 (0.28%) MS Visio
7 1 (0.14%) Camtasia
Business Applications
1 39 (5.55%) Remedy ITSM
2 11 (1.56%) SAP S/4HANA
3 8 (1.14%) Oracle EBS
3 8 (1.14%) Teamcenter
4 2 (0.28%) Oracle Applications
5 1 (0.14%) NetSuite
5 1 (0.14%) SAP HR
5 1 (0.14%) SAP Payroll
Cloud Services
1 94 (13.37%) Azure
2 51 (7.25%) Microsoft 365
3 47 (6.69%) AWS
4 42 (5.97%) Power Platform
5 28 (3.98%) GCP
6 23 (3.27%) SaaS
7 18 (2.56%) Entra ID
8 11 (1.56%) Azure DevOps
9 10 (1.42%) OneDrive
10 9 (1.28%) PaaS
11 8 (1.14%) GitHub
12 7 (1.00%) IaaS
12 7 (1.00%) OCI
13 6 (0.85%) Microsoft Copilot
13 6 (0.85%) PowerApps
14 5 (0.71%) Azure Machine Learning
14 5 (0.71%) Azure Synapse Analytics
14 5 (0.71%) Dynamics 365
14 5 (0.71%) OpenShift
14 5 (0.71%) Power Automate
Communications & Networking
1 34 (4.84%) Firewall
2 26 (3.70%) DNS
3 25 (3.56%) LAN
4 22 (3.13%) Network Security
4 22 (3.13%) WAN
5 17 (2.42%) DHCP
6 16 (2.28%) VPN
7 14 (1.99%) BGP
8 13 (1.85%) OSPF
9 12 (1.71%) BIG-IP
10 11 (1.56%) Cisco ISE
11 10 (1.42%) VLAN
12 9 (1.28%) Wi-Fi
12 9 (1.28%) Wireless
13 8 (1.14%) Ethernet VPN
13 8 (1.14%) Junos
13 8 (1.14%) Skype
13 8 (1.14%) TCP/IP
13 8 (1.14%) VXLAN
14 4 (0.57%) SSL
Database & Business Intelligence
1 31 (4.41%) Power BI
2 13 (1.85%) SQL Server
3 7 (1.00%) Relational Database
4 6 (0.85%) PostgreSQL
5 5 (0.71%) Oracle Reports
6 3 (0.43%) Amazon RDS
6 3 (0.43%) Azure SQL Database
6 3 (0.43%) InfluxDB
6 3 (0.43%) SQL Server Analysis Services
6 3 (0.43%) SQL Server Integration Services
6 3 (0.43%) SQL Server Reporting Services
7 2 (0.28%) GIS
7 2 (0.28%) MariaDB
7 2 (0.28%) Microsoft Analysis Services
7 2 (0.28%) MySQL
7 2 (0.28%) Oracle Database
8 1 (0.14%) DTS
8 1 (0.14%) MongoDB
8 1 (0.14%) OpenStack Swift
8 1 (0.14%) Oracle Database 11g
Development Applications
1 94 (13.37%) JIRA
2 12 (1.71%) Git
3 9 (1.28%) Bitbucket
3 9 (1.28%) Jenkins
4 8 (1.14%) GitLab
5 6 (0.85%) Atlassian Bamboo
6 5 (0.71%) Browser DevTools
7 4 (0.57%) MLflow
8 3 (0.43%) Fiddler
9 2 (0.28%) Firebug
9 2 (0.28%) IntelliJ
9 2 (0.28%) ScriptRunner
9 2 (0.28%) Visual Studio Code
10 1 (0.14%) Claude Code
10 1 (0.14%) Gemini Tracker
10 1 (0.14%) Hudson
10 1 (0.14%) IBM UrbanCode
10 1 (0.14%) MSI
10 1 (0.14%) Rational DOORS
General
1 268 (38.12%) Social Skills
2 102 (14.51%) Analytical Skills
3 90 (12.80%) Finance
4 65 (9.25%) Public Sector
5 46 (6.54%) Legal
6 40 (5.69%) Military
7 27 (3.84%) Organisational Skills
8 18 (2.56%) Telecoms
9 14 (1.99%) Documentation Skills
10 13 (1.85%) Influencing Skills
10 13 (1.85%) Retail
11 11 (1.56%) Aerospace
11 11 (1.56%) Banking
12 8 (1.14%) Presentation Skills
13 5 (0.71%) Inclusion and Diversity
14 3 (0.43%) Financial Institution
15 2 (0.28%) Local Government
15 2 (0.28%) Pharmaceutical
15 2 (0.28%) Publishing
16 1 (0.14%) German Language
Job Titles
1 87 (12.38%) Service Manager
2 76 (10.81%) Architect
2 76 (10.81%) Lead
3 73 (10.38%) Analyst
4 46 (6.54%) Senior
5 43 (6.12%) Service Architect
6 40 (5.69%) IT Manager
7 35 (4.98%) Hardware Engineer
8 30 (4.27%) Service Analyst
9 28 (3.98%) Delivery Manager
10 25 (3.56%) Consultant
10 25 (3.56%) Project Manager
11 24 (3.41%) Network Engineer
12 22 (3.13%) Service Delivery Manager
13 21 (2.99%) Field Engineer
13 21 (2.99%) Field Hardware Engineer
13 21 (2.99%) IT Analyst
13 21 (2.99%) IT Services Manager
14 19 (2.70%) Break Fix Engineer
14 19 (2.70%) Designer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 23 (3.27%) REST
2 12 (1.71%) SOAP
3 8 (1.14%) 802.1X
4 7 (1.00%) OAuth
5 5 (0.71%) .NET
5 5 (0.71%) Oracle Fusion
6 4 (0.57%) OAuth2
6 4 (0.57%) OpenID
6 4 (0.57%) SAML
6 4 (0.57%) Web Services
6 4 (0.57%) XML
6 4 (0.57%) XMPP
7 3 (0.43%) CSS
7 3 (0.43%) FIDO
7 3 (0.43%) Flash
7 3 (0.43%) HTML
7 3 (0.43%) Microsoft Graph
7 3 (0.43%) Middleware
7 3 (0.43%) RabbitMQ
8 2 (0.28%) JSON
Miscellaneous
1 59 (8.39%) Product Ownership
2 40 (5.69%) Onboarding
3 35 (4.98%) CMDB
4 28 (3.98%) Data Centre
5 24 (3.41%) PKI
6 21 (2.99%) Virtual Team
7 20 (2.84%) Clustering
8 18 (2.56%) Management Information System
9 17 (2.42%) Driving Licence
10 15 (2.13%) Enterprise Software
11 13 (1.85%) PMI
12 10 (1.42%) Data Protection Act
12 10 (1.42%) Operational Technology
13 7 (1.00%) Replication
14 6 (0.85%) Analytical Mindset
14 6 (0.85%) Cloud Native
14 6 (0.85%) Self-Motivation
15 5 (0.71%) Legacy Systems
16 4 (0.57%) Hybrid Cloud
16 4 (0.57%) Mainframe
Operating Systems
1 134 (19.06%) Windows
2 37 (5.26%) Linux
3 32 (4.55%) Windows 10
4 31 (4.41%) Windows Server
5 10 (1.42%) Unix
5 10 (1.42%) Windows 7
6 5 (0.71%) Mac OS
6 5 (0.71%) Ubuntu
7 4 (0.57%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
8 2 (0.28%) Solaris
8 2 (0.28%) Windows Server 2019
9 1 (0.14%) Android
9 1 (0.14%) Apple iOS
9 1 (0.14%) Data ONTAP
9 1 (0.14%) Rocky
9 1 (0.14%) Windows Server 2008
9 1 (0.14%) Windows Server 2012
9 1 (0.14%) Windows Server 2016
9 1 (0.14%) Windows XP
9 1 (0.14%) zOS
Processes & Methodologies
1 409 (58.18%) ITIL
2 300 (42.67%) ITSM
3 162 (23.04%) Continuous Improvement
4 152 (21.62%) Agile
5 139 (19.77%) Stakeholder Management
6 126 (17.92%) Problem-Solving
7 116 (16.50%) Service Delivery
8 103 (14.65%) Stakeholder Engagement
9 88 (12.52%) Change Management
10 86 (12.23%) Customer Service
11 72 (10.24%) Service Design
12 70 (9.96%) DevOps
13 58 (8.25%) Configuration Management
14 52 (7.40%) Knowledge Transfer
15 51 (7.25%) Problem Management
16 50 (7.11%) Acceptance Criteria
16 50 (7.11%) Project Delivery
17 47 (6.69%) Incident Management
18 45 (6.40%) Roadmaps
19 41 (5.83%) Business Continuity
Programming Languages
1 44 (6.26%) PowerShell
2 38 (5.41%) SQL
3 25 (3.56%) Python
4 19 (2.70%) JavaScript
5 8 (1.14%) VB
5 8 (1.14%) VBScript
6 6 (0.85%) Bash
7 5 (0.71%) C#
7 5 (0.71%) Java
8 4 (0.57%) PL/SQL
8 4 (0.57%) Shell Script
8 4 (0.57%) T-SQL
9 3 (0.43%) Apex Code
9 3 (0.43%) Go
10 2 (0.28%) PHP
10 2 (0.28%) Search Processing Language
11 1 (0.14%) C
11 1 (0.14%) Perl
11 1 (0.14%) REXX
11 1 (0.14%) VBA
Qualifications
1 356 (50.64%) Security Cleared
2 251 (35.70%) SC Cleared
3 107 (15.22%) DV Cleared
4 93 (13.23%) Degree
5 36 (5.12%) ITIL Certification
6 27 (3.84%) TOGAF Certification
7 26 (3.70%) Cisco Certification
8 23 (3.27%) PMI Certification
9 22 (3.13%) PMP
10 18 (2.56%) Computer Science Degree
11 15 (2.13%) BPSS Clearance
12 14 (1.99%) CCNA
13 13 (1.85%) Microsoft Certification
14 11 (1.56%) CCNP
15 10 (1.42%) A+ Certification
16 9 (1.28%) JNCIA
16 9 (1.28%) JNCIP
16 9 (1.28%) JNCIS
16 9 (1.28%) MAPM
16 9 (1.28%) Network+ Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 37 (5.26%) SLA
2 23 (3.27%) Data Quality
3 18 (2.56%) PMO
4 15 (2.13%) ISO/IEC 27001
5 14 (1.99%) ISO/IEC 20000
5 14 (1.99%) QA
6 11 (1.56%) GDPR
7 10 (1.42%) NCSC
8 9 (1.28%) GRC
9 8 (1.14%) Cyber Essentials
10 7 (1.00%) COBIT
10 7 (1.00%) Government Security Classifications
11 6 (0.85%) Accessibility
11 6 (0.85%) ISO 31000
11 6 (0.85%) ISO/IEC 27005
12 5 (0.71%) Disclosure Scotland
13 4 (0.57%) GMP
13 4 (0.57%) ISO 9001
14 3 (0.43%) JSP 440
15 2 (0.28%) GxP
System Software
1 63 (8.96%) Active Directory
2 30 (4.27%) VMware Infrastructure
3 11 (1.56%) VMware ESXi
4 8 (1.14%) BitLocker
4 8 (1.14%) Docker
5 6 (0.85%) vSphere
6 4 (0.57%) Virtual Machines
7 3 (0.43%) Hyper-V
7 3 (0.43%) NFS
7 3 (0.43%) VMware NSX
8 2 (0.28%) GPFS
8 2 (0.28%) vCloud
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 27 (3.84%) OPNET
2 25 (3.56%) Ansible
3 18 (2.56%) SCCM
4 16 (2.28%) Terraform
5 14 (1.99%) Kubernetes
6 11 (1.56%) Microsoft Intune
7 8 (1.14%) FortiGate
8 7 (1.00%) Single Sign-On
9 6 (0.85%) Grafana
9 6 (0.85%) Progress Chef
10 5 (0.71%) Puppet
10 5 (0.71%) vCenter Server
11 4 (0.57%) Jamf Pro
11 4 (0.57%) PowerCLI
11 4 (0.57%) vMotion
12 3 (0.43%) Nessus
12 3 (0.43%) Packer
12 3 (0.43%) Prometheus
12 3 (0.43%) SCOM
12 3 (0.43%) vRealize
Vendors
1 164 (23.33%) ServiceNow
2 111 (15.79%) Microsoft
3 70 (9.96%) Remedy
4 46 (6.54%) VMware
5 41 (5.83%) Atlassian
6 38 (5.41%) Cisco
7 34 (4.84%) HP
8 30 (4.27%) Oracle
9 18 (2.56%) SAP
10 17 (2.42%) BMC
10 17 (2.42%) Dell
10 17 (2.42%) Google
11 16 (2.28%) Splunk
12 15 (2.13%) Canon
13 12 (1.71%) F5
13 12 (1.71%) SolarWinds
14 11 (1.56%) Juniper
15 10 (1.42%) Palo Alto
16 9 (1.28%) IFS
17 8 (1.14%) Extreme Networks