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 November 2025, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
27 Nov 2025
Same period 2024 Same period 2023
Rank 53 72 63
Rank change year-on-year +19 -9 +2
Contract jobs citing Service Management 741 480 675
As % of all contract jobs in the UK excluding London 4.18% 2.91% 3.34%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 4.78% 3.42% 3.78%
Number of daily rates quoted 491 309 509
10th Percentile £185 £200 £231
25th Percentile £295 £356 £400
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £510 £525
Median % change year-on-year -1.96% -2.86% +9.38%
75th Percentile £575 £608 £600
90th Percentile £688 £675 £681
UK median daily rate £500 £525 £530
% change year-on-year -4.76% -0.94% +6.00%
Number of hourly rates quoted 90 25 9
10th Percentile £12.62 £21.05 £19.49
25th Percentile £16.44 £26.25 £20.50
Median hourly rate £20.79 £32.50 £21.31
Median % change year-on-year -36.03% +52.51% -0.88%
75th Percentile £60.00 £48.75 £48.75
90th Percentile £74.26 £62.50 £58.00
UK median hourly rate £20.81 £31.35 £41.38
% change year-on-year -33.62% -24.24% +89.14%

All Process and 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 15,506 14,029 17,849
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK excluding London 87.39% 85.17% 88.27%
Number of daily rates quoted 9,424 8,005 11,616
10th Percentile £219 £243 £250
25th Percentile £368 £381 £400
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £475 £500 £500
Median % change year-on-year -5.00% - -
75th Percentile £575 £600 £600
90th Percentile £675 £688 £688
UK median daily rate £500 £525 £533
% change year-on-year -4.76% -1.50% -3.09%
Number of hourly rates quoted 1,752 914 1,257
10th Percentile £14.32 £15.10 £14.25
25th Percentile £17.30 £19.43 £17.75
Median hourly rate £23.00 £32.50 £44.50
Median % change year-on-year -29.23% -26.97% +41.14%
75th Percentile £45.00 £65.00 £65.00
90th Percentile £67.50 £72.50 £77.50
UK median hourly rate £25.15 £34.75 £44.00
% change year-on-year -27.63% -21.02% +25.71%

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 November 2025.

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 November 2025.

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 November 2025. 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 +8 198 £439 +3.24% 52
South East +22 185 £488 -11.36% 112
South West +26 145 £568 -1.30% 46
Midlands +20 126 £450 -21.16% 58
North West +17 123 £464 +16.00% 32
West Midlands +11 103 £500 -12.40% 38
Yorkshire -24 60 £355 -29.07% 12
Scotland +2 42 £466 +4.78% 24
East of England -9 37 £454 -14.42% 26
East Midlands +3 23 £413 -25.84% 20
North East 0 18 £260 -56.39% 8
Wales -13 7 £205 +2.50% 13
Northern Ireland 0 5 £325 -40.91% 7
Channel Islands - 3 £725 -
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 59 (7.96%) Confluence
2 55 (7.42%) Microsoft Exchange
3 44 (5.94%) SharePoint
4 18 (2.43%) Apache
5 14 (1.89%) WebLogic
6 10 (1.35%) Skype for Business
7 5 (0.67%) SharePoint Server
8 4 (0.54%) IIS
8 4 (0.54%) WebSphere
9 2 (0.27%) JBoss
10 1 (0.13%) CMS
10 1 (0.13%) HCL Notes
10 1 (0.13%) Oracle Self-Service HR
10 1 (0.13%) Oracle Workflow
Applications
1 88 (11.88%) Microsoft Office
2 28 (3.78%) Microsoft Project
3 27 (3.64%) Microsoft Excel
4 12 (1.62%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 12 (1.62%) MS Visio
5 1 (0.13%) Trello
Business Applications
1 18 (2.43%) Remedy ITSM
2 9 (1.21%) Oracle EBS
3 6 (0.81%) SAP S/4HANA
4 4 (0.54%) assyst
4 4 (0.54%) Maximo
5 3 (0.40%) Dynamics CRM
6 2 (0.27%) Oracle ERP
6 2 (0.27%) Salesforce CRM
7 1 (0.13%) SAP ERP
7 1 (0.13%) SAP HR
7 1 (0.13%) SAP LE
7 1 (0.13%) SAP PM
7 1 (0.13%) SAP WM
7 1 (0.13%) SystmOne
Cloud Services
1 105 (14.17%) Azure
2 75 (10.12%) Microsoft 365
3 74 (9.99%) AWS
4 27 (3.64%) GCP
5 23 (3.10%) Entra ID
6 20 (2.70%) Power Platform
7 16 (2.16%) OneDrive
7 16 (2.16%) SaaS
8 14 (1.89%) Azure Monitor
9 11 (1.48%) Azure DevOps
10 7 (0.94%) PowerApps
11 6 (0.81%) Salesforce Service Cloud
12 5 (0.67%) Power Automate
12 5 (0.67%) Serverless
13 4 (0.54%) Amazon S3
13 4 (0.54%) IaaS
13 4 (0.54%) Lucidchart
14 3 (0.40%) AWS Lambda
14 3 (0.40%) Dynamics 365
14 3 (0.40%) OpenShift
Communications & Networking
1 47 (6.34%) DNS
2 37 (4.99%) Firewall
3 30 (4.05%) DHCP
4 26 (3.51%) LAN
4 26 (3.51%) WAN
5 22 (2.97%) VLAN
6 20 (2.70%) Skype
6 20 (2.70%) TCP/IP
6 20 (2.70%) VPN
7 17 (2.29%) Cisco Firepower
7 17 (2.29%) Cisco IOS
7 17 (2.29%) Cisco ISE
7 17 (2.29%) Junos
8 11 (1.48%) Network Security
9 10 (1.35%) BGP
9 10 (1.35%) Wi-Fi
10 9 (1.21%) Unified Communications
11 8 (1.08%) WebEx
12 7 (0.94%) Wireless
13 6 (0.81%) SSH
Database & Business Intelligence
1 18 (2.43%) Relational Database
2 15 (2.02%) Power BI
3 14 (1.89%) SQL Server
4 8 (1.08%) Amazon RDS
5 6 (0.81%) DB2
6 4 (0.54%) Data Mining
6 4 (0.54%) Metadata
6 4 (0.54%) Oracle Reports
7 3 (0.40%) InfluxDB
8 2 (0.27%) Amazon Aurora
8 2 (0.27%) Azure SQL Database
8 2 (0.27%) Big Data
8 2 (0.27%) Data Warehouse
8 2 (0.27%) MariaDB
8 2 (0.27%) MySQL
8 2 (0.27%) PostgreSQL
9 1 (0.13%) BusinessObjects
9 1 (0.13%) GIS
9 1 (0.13%) OLTP
9 1 (0.13%) Oracle Discoverer
Development Applications
1 96 (12.96%) JIRA
2 14 (1.89%) Jenkins
3 5 (0.67%) webpack
4 4 (0.54%) Bitbucket
4 4 (0.54%) Git
5 1 (0.13%) Cucumber
5 1 (0.13%) GitLab
5 1 (0.13%) MLflow
5 1 (0.13%) Selenium
5 1 (0.13%) SoapUI
5 1 (0.13%) WebDriver
General
1 288 (38.87%) Social Skills
2 158 (21.32%) Analytical Skills
3 92 (12.42%) Finance
4 82 (11.07%) Public Sector
5 41 (5.53%) Military
6 32 (4.32%) Legal
7 29 (3.91%) Manufacturing
7 29 (3.91%) Telecoms
8 24 (3.24%) Organisational Skills
9 20 (2.70%) Banking
10 19 (2.56%) Documentation Skills
10 19 (2.56%) Influencing Skills
11 15 (2.02%) Presentation Skills
12 14 (1.89%) Inclusion and Diversity
12 14 (1.89%) Marketing
13 12 (1.62%) Electronics
14 11 (1.48%) Retail
15 10 (1.35%) Police
16 8 (1.08%) Investment Banking
17 5 (0.67%) Billing
Job Titles
1 109 (14.71%) Analyst
2 83 (11.20%) Architect
3 62 (8.37%) Support Engineer
4 58 (7.83%) Lead
5 55 (7.42%) Service Manager
6 54 (7.29%) Service Architect
7 40 (5.40%) IT Support
7 40 (5.40%) Support Analyst
8 37 (4.99%) 2nd Line Support
9 33 (4.45%) Network Engineer
10 31 (4.18%) Desktop Support
11 26 (3.51%) IT Analyst
12 25 (3.37%) Delivery Manager
12 25 (3.37%) Platform Engineer
13 24 (3.24%) Project Manager
14 23 (3.10%) Senior
14 23 (3.10%) Service Analyst
14 23 (3.10%) Service Delivery Manager
15 21 (2.83%) Consultant
15 21 (2.83%) IT Technician
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 19 (2.56%) REST
2 14 (1.89%) RFC 2544
3 11 (1.48%) CSS
3 11 (1.48%) HTML
3 11 (1.48%) Web Services
4 9 (1.21%) SOAP
5 8 (1.08%) XMPP
6 6 (0.81%) RESTful
7 5 (0.67%) CSS3
7 5 (0.67%) Elastic Stack
7 5 (0.67%) HTML5
7 5 (0.67%) Node.js
7 5 (0.67%) React
7 5 (0.67%) Redux
7 5 (0.67%) XML
8 4 (0.54%) .NET
8 4 (0.54%) AngularJS
8 4 (0.54%) NETCONF
8 4 (0.54%) RESTCONF
9 3 (0.40%) LDAP
Miscellaneous
1 49 (6.61%) Product Ownership
2 40 (5.40%) Data Centre
3 36 (4.86%) Management Information System
4 25 (3.37%) PKI
5 24 (3.24%) CMDB
6 21 (2.83%) Onboarding
7 20 (2.70%) Self-Motivation
8 18 (2.43%) Virtual Team
9 15 (2.02%) Analytical Mindset
10 14 (1.89%) Driving Licence
11 12 (1.62%) Mainframe
11 12 (1.62%) NHS
12 11 (1.48%) Fibre Optics
13 6 (0.81%) Enterprise Software
13 6 (0.81%) Public Cloud
13 6 (0.81%) Tandem
13 6 (0.81%) Video Conferencing
14 5 (0.67%) Distributed Systems
14 5 (0.67%) PMI
15 4 (0.54%) Data Protection Act
Operating Systems
1 178 (24.02%) Windows
2 63 (8.50%) Linux
3 53 (7.15%) Windows Server
4 42 (5.67%) Windows 10
5 24 (3.24%) Unix
6 12 (1.62%) Mac OS
6 12 (1.62%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
7 8 (1.08%) Apple iOS
8 7 (0.94%) Windows Server 2012
9 6 (0.81%) Android
10 5 (0.67%) Windows 7
11 4 (0.54%) Windows Server 2003
11 4 (0.54%) Windows Server 2016
12 3 (0.40%) CentOS
12 3 (0.40%) Ubuntu
12 3 (0.40%) Windows Server 2008
12 3 (0.40%) Windows Server 2019
13 1 (0.13%) AIX
13 1 (0.13%) Solaris
Processes & Methodologies
1 431 (58.16%) ITIL
2 323 (43.59%) ITSM
3 157 (21.19%) Problem-Solving
4 123 (16.60%) Change Management
5 113 (15.25%) Agile
6 105 (14.17%) Stakeholder Management
7 102 (13.77%) Continuous Improvement
8 101 (13.63%) Customer Service
9 99 (13.36%) Service Delivery
10 96 (12.96%) Service Design
11 77 (10.39%) Stakeholder Engagement
12 72 (9.72%) Incident Management
13 70 (9.45%) Project Delivery
13 70 (9.45%) Project Management
14 56 (7.56%) DevOps
15 48 (6.48%) Problem Management
16 46 (6.21%) Acceptance Criteria
17 44 (5.94%) Analytics
17 44 (5.94%) Business Intelligence
17 44 (5.94%) Performance Metrics
Programming Languages
1 65 (8.77%) SQL
2 58 (7.83%) PowerShell
3 55 (7.42%) Python
4 18 (2.43%) JavaScript
5 15 (2.02%) Perl
6 14 (1.89%) Shell Script
7 12 (1.62%) Bash
7 12 (1.62%) Java
8 5 (0.67%) TypeScript
8 5 (0.67%) VB
8 5 (0.67%) VBScript
9 3 (0.40%) Go
10 2 (0.27%) Apex Code
11 1 (0.13%) C#
11 1 (0.13%) PL/SQL
11 1 (0.13%) T-SQL
11 1 (0.13%) VBA
Qualifications
1 323 (43.59%) Security Cleared
2 264 (35.63%) SC Cleared
3 108 (14.57%) Degree
4 60 (8.10%) DV Cleared
5 47 (6.34%) ITIL Certification
6 41 (5.53%) Microsoft Certification
7 23 (3.10%) Cisco Certification
8 21 (2.83%) TOGAF Certification
9 20 (2.70%) CCNP
10 19 (2.56%) A+ Certification
11 16 (2.16%) Computer Science Degree
12 15 (2.02%) Azure Certification
12 15 (2.02%) MCSE
13 14 (1.89%) Server+ Certification
14 13 (1.75%) BPSS Clearance
15 12 (1.62%) CCNA
15 12 (1.62%) PMP
16 11 (1.48%) Network+ Certification
17 10 (1.35%) ITIL Foundation Certificate
17 10 (1.35%) PMI Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 48 (6.48%) SLA
2 31 (4.18%) ISO/IEC 20000
3 15 (2.02%) GDPR
4 10 (1.35%) ISO/IEC 27001
4 10 (1.35%) PMO
5 9 (1.21%) QA
6 8 (1.08%) Data Quality
6 8 (1.08%) NCSC
7 5 (0.67%) Disclosure Scotland
7 5 (0.67%) GxP
7 5 (0.67%) ISO 9001
7 5 (0.67%) Sarbanes-Oxley
8 3 (0.40%) COBIT
9 2 (0.27%) Accessibility
9 2 (0.27%) Cyber Essentials
9 2 (0.27%) GRC
10 1 (0.13%) Actionable Recommendations
10 1 (0.13%) HIPAA
10 1 (0.13%) NIST
10 1 (0.13%) WCAG
System Software
1 91 (12.28%) Active Directory
2 32 (4.32%) VMware Infrastructure
3 21 (2.83%) VMware NSX
4 14 (1.89%) Hyper-V
5 8 (1.08%) VMware ESXi
6 6 (0.81%) Docker
6 6 (0.81%) Virtual Desktop
6 6 (0.81%) Virtual Servers
7 5 (0.67%) BitLocker
7 5 (0.67%) Microsoft Virtual Server
8 3 (0.40%) Virtual Machines
9 1 (0.13%) Slurm Workload Manager
Systems Management
1 25 (3.37%) vCenter Server
2 23 (3.10%) OPNET
3 19 (2.56%) Ansible
4 17 (2.29%) SCCM
5 15 (2.02%) Terraform
6 14 (1.89%) Microsoft Intune
7 12 (1.62%) Kubernetes
8 11 (1.48%) Active Directory Federation Services
8 11 (1.48%) WSUS
9 3 (0.40%) Check_MK
9 3 (0.40%) Grafana
9 3 (0.40%) Jamf Pro
9 3 (0.40%) Nessus
9 3 (0.40%) Packer
9 3 (0.40%) Progress Chef
9 3 (0.40%) Prometheus
9 3 (0.40%) Single Sign-On
10 2 (0.27%) FortiGate
10 2 (0.27%) NSN NetAct
10 2 (0.27%) PowerCLI
Vendors
1 172 (23.21%) ServiceNow
2 162 (21.86%) Microsoft
3 91 (12.28%) Cisco
4 47 (6.34%) Atlassian
5 45 (6.07%) Remedy
6 44 (5.94%) Oracle
6 44 (5.94%) VMware
7 35 (4.72%) Splunk
8 31 (4.18%) SAP
8 31 (4.18%) SolarWinds
9 27 (3.64%) Google
10 23 (3.10%) Juniper
11 19 (2.56%) AppDynamics
11 19 (2.56%) Dynatrace
12 14 (1.89%) IBM
13 13 (1.75%) Red Hat
13 13 (1.75%) Veeam
14 12 (1.62%) Salesforce
15 10 (1.35%) Citrix
16 8 (1.08%) HP