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

6 months to
11 Sep 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 67 54 69
Rank change year-on-year -13 +15 -1
Contract jobs citing Service Management 931 631 514
As % of all contract jobs in the UK excluding London 3.31% 4.08% 2.86%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 4.07% 4.58% 3.45%
Number of daily rates quoted 632 369 356
10th Percentile £250 £188 £200
25th Percentile £413 £293 £363
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £493 £500
Median % change year-on-year +6.49% -1.40% -
75th Percentile £625 £575 £600
90th Percentile £725 £638 £650
UK median daily rate £525 £496 £501
% change year-on-year +5.85% -0.90% -4.67%
Number of hourly rates quoted 74 73 14
10th Percentile £14.50 £12.62 £16.84
25th Percentile £16.11 £12.82 £25.69
Median hourly rate £45.27 £18.73 £36.25
Median % change year-on-year +141.67% -48.33% +61.11%
75th Percentile £84.69 £31.40 £48.75
90th Percentile £94.26 £49.95 £52.63
UK median hourly rate £55.00 £18.73 £36.25
% change year-on-year +193.65% -48.33% -34.09%

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 22,860 13,784 14,895
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK excluding London 81.15% 89.12% 82.93%
Number of daily rates quoted 13,139 8,283 8,644
10th Percentile £300 £235 £250
25th Percentile £408 £368 £391
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 £656 £688
UK median daily rate £525 £500 £525
% change year-on-year +5.00% -4.76% -2.78%
Number of hourly rates quoted 2,640 1,418 1,259
10th Percentile £13.50 £14.00 £14.50
25th Percentile £17.01 £16.95 £18.06
Median hourly rate £40.00 £22.63 £43.00
Median % change year-on-year +76.76% -47.37% +8.72%
75th Percentile £67.50 £43.00 £65.00
90th Percentile £78.75 £68.00 £75.00
UK median hourly rate £40.00 £25.15 £43.00
% change year-on-year +59.05% -41.51% +3.61%

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 11 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 11 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 11 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 +17 304 £575 +21.05% 224
North of England -17 259 £474 +4.64% 167
North West -17 157 £481 +3.33% 91
Midlands -41 114 £500 - 106
West Midlands -23 107 £500 -2.91% 62
South West -34 107 £575 +6.48% 82
Yorkshire -12 94 £443 +21.37% 65
Scotland +17 93 £520 +11.53% 30
East of England -16 51 £510 -7.27% 71
Wales -9 13 £800 +247.83% 19
Northern Ireland +6 8 - - 17
North East -48 8 £535 +174.36% 13
East Midlands -29 7 £206 -31.25% 44
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 55 (5.91%) SharePoint
2 35 (3.76%) Microsoft Exchange
3 32 (3.44%) Confluence
4 15 (1.61%) Skype for Business
5 3 (0.32%) CMS
5 3 (0.32%) OpenStack
6 1 (0.11%) CICS
6 1 (0.11%) Mattermost
Applications
1 68 (7.30%) Microsoft Office
2 24 (2.58%) Microsoft Excel
3 15 (1.61%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 5 (0.54%) Chatbot
4 5 (0.54%) Microsoft Project
5 2 (0.21%) Spreadsheet
6 1 (0.11%) Maple
Business Applications
1 45 (4.83%) Remedy ITSM
2 6 (0.64%) Dynamics CRM
3 5 (0.54%) ContrOCC
4 4 (0.43%) SAP S/4HANA
4 4 (0.43%) Workday HCM
5 3 (0.32%) NEC Housing
6 2 (0.21%) Oracle Applications
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 (0.11%) Cloudability
7 1 (0.11%) SAP HR
7 1 (0.11%) SAP Payroll
Cloud Services
1 153 (16.43%) Azure
2 100 (10.74%) Microsoft 365
3 68 (7.30%) Entra ID
4 57 (6.12%) AWS
5 50 (5.37%) Power Platform
6 36 (3.87%) SaaS
7 26 (2.79%) Azure DevOps
8 21 (2.26%) GCP
8 21 (2.26%) OneDrive
9 11 (1.18%) Azure Monitor
9 11 (1.18%) Microsoft Copilot
10 9 (0.97%) Dynamics 365
10 9 (0.97%) GitHub
11 8 (0.86%) IaaS
11 8 (0.86%) OCI
12 7 (0.75%) PaaS
12 7 (0.75%) Power Automate
12 7 (0.75%) Serverless
13 6 (0.64%) Azure Functions
13 6 (0.64%) Azure Sentinel
Communications & Networking
1 45 (4.83%) Firewall
2 44 (4.73%) DNS
3 34 (3.65%) VPN
4 32 (3.44%) DHCP
5 26 (2.79%) Network Security
6 22 (2.36%) LAN
6 22 (2.36%) TCP/IP
7 18 (1.93%) WAN
8 16 (1.72%) Skype
9 15 (1.61%) Wireless
10 12 (1.29%) Wi-Fi
11 11 (1.18%) VLAN
12 10 (1.07%) BGP
12 10 (1.07%) SSH
13 8 (0.86%) OSPF
14 7 (0.75%) Intrusion Detection
15 6 (0.64%) NetScaler
15 6 (0.64%) Software-Defined Networking
15 6 (0.64%) SSL
16 5 (0.54%) Cisco ISE
Database & Business Intelligence
1 36 (3.87%) Power BI
2 27 (2.90%) SQL Server
3 17 (1.83%) Metadata
4 8 (0.86%) SQL Server Integration Services
5 6 (0.64%) MySQL
6 5 (0.54%) MariaDB
6 5 (0.54%) Oracle Reports
6 5 (0.54%) SQL Server Reporting Services
7 4 (0.43%) Amazon RDS
7 4 (0.43%) PostgreSQL
7 4 (0.43%) Relational Database
7 4 (0.43%) SQL Server Analysis Services
8 3 (0.32%) Amazon Aurora
9 2 (0.21%) Azure SQL Database
9 2 (0.21%) EDRMS
9 2 (0.21%) Looker
9 2 (0.21%) Microsoft Analysis Services
9 2 (0.21%) Oracle Database
10 1 (0.11%) InfluxDB
10 1 (0.11%) Oracle Database 11g
Development Applications
1 75 (8.06%) JIRA
2 18 (1.93%) Git
3 9 (0.97%) Jenkins
4 8 (0.86%) Atlassian Bamboo
4 8 (0.86%) Bitbucket
5 5 (0.54%) Browser DevTools
6 4 (0.43%) GitLab
6 4 (0.43%) webpack
7 3 (0.32%) Fiddler
7 3 (0.32%) Gradle
7 3 (0.32%) Maven
7 3 (0.32%) Rational DOORS
8 2 (0.21%) Firebug
8 2 (0.21%) IntelliJ
8 2 (0.21%) MLflow
8 2 (0.21%) Sonatype Nexus
9 1 (0.11%) Claude Code
9 1 (0.11%) Gemini Tracker
9 1 (0.11%) IBM UrbanCode
9 1 (0.11%) Snyk
General
1 370 (39.74%) Social Skills
2 144 (15.47%) Analytical Skills
3 132 (14.18%) Finance
4 103 (11.06%) Public Sector
5 44 (4.73%) Documentation Skills
6 38 (4.08%) Influencing Skills
7 36 (3.87%) Organisational Skills
8 30 (3.22%) Legal
9 26 (2.79%) Aerospace
10 25 (2.69%) Military
11 24 (2.58%) Telecoms
12 22 (2.36%) Inclusion and Diversity
13 18 (1.93%) Banking
14 15 (1.61%) Presentation Skills
15 14 (1.50%) Local Government
16 10 (1.07%) Manufacturing
17 5 (0.54%) Retail
18 4 (0.43%) Law
19 3 (0.32%) Police
20 2 (0.21%) Back Office
Job Titles
1 110 (11.82%) Lead
2 99 (10.63%) Analyst
3 79 (8.49%) Architect
4 70 (7.52%) Senior
5 67 (7.20%) Service Manager
6 44 (4.73%) Delivery Manager
7 43 (4.62%) Service Analyst
7 43 (4.62%) Support Engineer
8 42 (4.51%) IT Manager
9 34 (3.65%) Consultant
10 33 (3.54%) Project Manager
10 33 (3.54%) Service Architect
11 27 (2.90%) Developer
12 25 (2.69%) Technical Leader
13 24 (2.58%) Desktop Engineer
14 23 (2.47%) Administrator
15 22 (2.36%) IT Analyst
16 21 (2.26%) 2nd Line Support
17 20 (2.15%) Desktop Support
17 20 (2.15%) Network Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 37 (3.97%) Terraform
2 29 (3.11%) REST
3 14 (1.50%) XML
4 10 (1.07%) SAML
5 9 (0.97%) JSON
5 9 (0.97%) SOAP
6 8 (0.86%) Middleware
7 7 (0.75%) .NET
7 7 (0.75%) Web Services
8 6 (0.64%) ARM Templates
8 6 (0.64%) OAuth
8 6 (0.64%) XSLT
9 5 (0.54%) OpenID
10 4 (0.43%) AngularJS
10 4 (0.43%) Node.js
10 4 (0.43%) OAuth2
10 4 (0.43%) Oracle Fusion
10 4 (0.43%) React
10 4 (0.43%) RESTful
10 4 (0.43%) SailPoint
Miscellaneous
1 83 (8.92%) Onboarding
2 56 (6.02%) Management Information System
3 48 (5.16%) CMDB
4 33 (3.54%) Enterprise Software
5 32 (3.44%) Data Centre
6 30 (3.22%) PKI
7 27 (2.90%) Product Ownership
8 24 (2.58%) Data Protection Act
9 18 (1.93%) Virtual Team
10 17 (1.83%) Hybrid Cloud
10 17 (1.83%) Operational Technology
11 16 (1.72%) Clustering
12 15 (1.61%) Analytical Mindset
13 13 (1.40%) Self-Motivation
14 12 (1.29%) Security Operations Centre
15 10 (1.07%) Cyber Threat
16 9 (0.97%) Cloud Native
16 9 (0.97%) NHS
17 8 (0.86%) Video Conferencing
18 7 (0.75%) SCADA
Operating Systems
1 215 (23.09%) Windows
2 66 (7.09%) Windows Server
3 52 (5.59%) Linux
4 47 (5.05%) Windows 10
5 17 (1.83%) Windows 7
6 14 (1.50%) Unix
7 10 (1.07%) Mac OS
8 9 (0.97%) Android
8 9 (0.97%) Apple iOS
9 3 (0.32%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
9 3 (0.32%) Windows Server 2012
10 2 (0.21%) Solaris
10 2 (0.21%) Windows XP
10 2 (0.21%) zOS
11 1 (0.11%) Windows Server 2008
11 1 (0.11%) Windows Server 2016
11 1 (0.11%) Windows Server 2019
Processes & Methodologies
1 523 (56.18%) ITIL
2 395 (42.43%) ITSM
3 275 (29.54%) Stakeholder Management
4 267 (28.68%) Continuous Improvement
5 208 (22.34%) Service Delivery
6 181 (19.44%) Agile
7 178 (19.12%) Problem-Solving
8 155 (16.65%) Stakeholder Engagement
9 150 (16.11%) Change Management
10 111 (11.92%) Customer Service
11 106 (11.39%) Roadmaps
12 105 (11.28%) Incident Management
13 103 (11.06%) Cybersecurity
14 88 (9.45%) DevOps
15 85 (9.13%) Project Delivery
16 70 (7.52%) Decision-Making
16 70 (7.52%) Risk Management
17 68 (7.30%) Data Protection
17 68 (7.30%) Service Design
18 65 (6.98%) User Experience
Programming Languages
1 97 (10.42%) PowerShell
2 54 (5.80%) Python
3 41 (4.40%) SQL
4 30 (3.22%) Bash
5 26 (2.79%) JavaScript
6 17 (1.83%) VBScript
7 15 (1.61%) VB
8 11 (1.18%) Java
9 10 (1.07%) C#
10 7 (0.75%) Bicep
11 5 (0.54%) Shell Script
12 4 (0.43%) C
12 4 (0.43%) PL/SQL
12 4 (0.43%) T-SQL
12 4 (0.43%) TypeScript
13 3 (0.32%) Groovy
13 3 (0.32%) Lua
13 3 (0.32%) Perl
14 2 (0.21%) Apex Code
14 2 (0.21%) Search Processing Language
Qualifications
1 435 (46.72%) Security Cleared
2 273 (29.32%) SC Cleared
3 138 (14.82%) DV Cleared
4 102 (10.96%) Degree
5 35 (3.76%) ITIL Certification
6 31 (3.33%) BPSS Clearance
7 30 (3.22%) PMP
8 29 (3.11%) PMI Certification
9 25 (2.69%) Microsoft Certification
10 18 (1.93%) Cisco Certification
10 18 (1.93%) Computer Science Degree
11 16 (1.72%) CISSP
12 15 (1.61%) DBS Check
12 15 (1.61%) ITIL Foundation Certificate
13 14 (1.50%) Azure Certification
14 13 (1.40%) CISM
15 11 (1.18%) A+ Certification
16 9 (0.97%) CCNA
16 9 (0.97%) CCNP
17 8 (0.86%) BC Cleared
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 73 (7.84%) SLA
2 37 (3.97%) Data Quality
3 28 (3.01%) ISO/IEC 27001
4 27 (2.90%) QA
5 26 (2.79%) ISO/IEC 20000
6 23 (2.47%) GRC
6 23 (2.47%) PMO
7 20 (2.15%) GDPR
8 19 (2.04%) NCSC
9 15 (1.61%) ISO 9001
10 12 (1.29%) NIST
11 10 (1.07%) Accessibility
12 9 (0.97%) COBIT
12 9 (0.97%) Disclosure Scotland
13 7 (0.75%) Cyber Essentials
14 6 (0.64%) ISO 31000
14 6 (0.64%) ISO/IEC 27005
14 6 (0.64%) WCAG
15 5 (0.54%) ISO 22301
15 5 (0.54%) JSP 440
System Software
1 107 (11.49%) Active Directory
2 64 (6.87%) VMware Infrastructure
3 23 (2.47%) VMware ESXi
4 21 (2.26%) Hyper-V
5 17 (1.83%) VMware NSX
6 16 (1.72%) BitLocker
6 16 (1.72%) Docker
7 14 (1.50%) Virtual Desktop
8 13 (1.40%) vCloud
9 12 (1.29%) vSphere
10 6 (0.64%) Citrix Hypervisor
10 6 (0.64%) Firmware
10 6 (0.64%) XenApp
10 6 (0.64%) XenDesktop
11 5 (0.54%) Virtual Machines
12 3 (0.32%) Microsoft Virtual Server
12 3 (0.32%) NFS
12 3 (0.32%) Virtual Servers
13 2 (0.21%) GPFS
13 2 (0.21%) UAG
Systems Management
1 55 (5.91%) SCCM
2 47 (5.05%) Microsoft Intune
3 34 (3.65%) Ansible
4 20 (2.15%) SCOM
5 17 (1.83%) vCenter Server
6 15 (1.61%) Kubernetes
7 14 (1.50%) Single Sign-On
8 6 (0.64%) Jamf Pro
9 4 (0.43%) PowerCLI
9 4 (0.43%) Progress Chef
9 4 (0.43%) vMotion
10 3 (0.32%) Cisco Prime
10 3 (0.32%) Dell DRAC
10 3 (0.32%) NetBackup
10 3 (0.32%) OPNET
10 3 (0.32%) Systems Management Server (SMS)
10 3 (0.32%) vRealize
10 3 (0.32%) WSUS
11 2 (0.21%) Istio
11 2 (0.21%) SysTrack
Vendors
1 228 (24.49%) ServiceNow
2 222 (23.85%) Microsoft
3 86 (9.24%) VMware
4 48 (5.16%) Remedy
5 33 (3.54%) BMC
6 31 (3.33%) Cisco
7 25 (2.69%) Oracle
8 19 (2.04%) CyberArk
9 17 (1.83%) Atlassian
10 14 (1.50%) Dynatrace
10 14 (1.50%) SAP
11 13 (1.40%) Citrix
12 12 (1.29%) IBM
12 12 (1.29%) SolarWinds
12 12 (1.29%) Splunk
13 11 (1.18%) Palo Alto
14 10 (1.07%) Qualys
15 9 (0.97%) IFS
16 8 (0.86%) BeyondTrust
16 8 (0.86%) Juniper