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 10 October 2026, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
10 Oct 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 59 55 72
Rank change year-on-year -4 +17 -6
Contract jobs citing Service Management 985 631 495
As % of all contract jobs in the UK excluding London 3.50% 3.98% 2.83%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 4.31% 4.47% 3.39%
Number of daily rates quoted 661 374 333
10th Percentile £275 £185 £200
25th Percentile £435 £276 £350
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £531 £481 £500
Median % change year-on-year +10.39% -3.75% -1.96%
75th Percentile £625 £556 £600
90th Percentile £725 £614 £650
UK median daily rate £525 £486 £515
% change year-on-year +7.97% -5.58% -1.90%
Number of hourly rates quoted 78 86 14
10th Percentile £14.50 £12.62 £21.99
25th Percentile £15.06 £13.86 £26.25
Median hourly rate £31.77 £20.77 £40.50
Median % change year-on-year +52.94% -48.72% +84.89%
75th Percentile £83.75 £33.75 £48.75
90th Percentile £89.55 £60.00 £52.63
UK median hourly rate £35.53 £20.81 £36.00
% change year-on-year +70.74% -42.19% -19.33%

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 22,837 14,117 14,616
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK excluding London 81.09% 89.12% 83.63%
Number of daily rates quoted 12,661 8,480 8,261
10th Percentile £300 £225 £243
25th Percentile £409 £368 £380
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 £671 £688
UK median daily rate £525 £500 £525
% change year-on-year +5.00% -4.76% -2.78%
Number of hourly rates quoted 2,888 1,547 1,050
10th Percentile £13.48 £14.05 £14.98
25th Percentile £16.50 £17.11 £18.15
Median hourly rate £37.50 £22.27 £41.50
Median % change year-on-year +68.43% -46.35% -2.35%
75th Percentile £65.88 £40.00 £66.61
90th Percentile £77.50 £66.20 £73.75
UK median hourly rate £37.50 £25.15 £40.16
% change year-on-year +49.11% -37.38% -8.38%

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 10 October 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 10 October 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 10 October 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 +10 314 £575 +27.78% 235
North of England -13 280 £480 +7.02% 202
North West -14 164 £483 +6.62% 105
Midlands -27 127 £525 +4.48% 128
West Midlands -12 120 £525 +0.96% 79
Yorkshire +3 110 £461 +29.93% 79
Scotland +28 103 £566 +22.38% 70
South West -36 102 £558 +1.36% 107
East of England 0 67 £575 +6.38% 100
Wales -6 13 £800 +247.83% 14
Northern Ireland +10 8 - - 18
East Midlands -29 7 £206 -50.75% 47
North East -45 6 £600 +207.69% 19
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 62 (6.29%) SharePoint
2 39 (3.96%) Confluence
2 39 (3.96%) Microsoft Exchange
3 15 (1.52%) Skype for Business
4 5 (0.51%) CMS
5 4 (0.41%) IBM Transformation Extender
6 3 (0.30%) IIS
6 3 (0.30%) OpenStack
7 2 (0.20%) Apache
7 2 (0.20%) Tomcat
8 1 (0.10%) CICS
8 1 (0.10%) Documentum
8 1 (0.10%) Mattermost
8 1 (0.10%) NetWeaver
8 1 (0.10%) SharePoint Server
Applications
1 62 (6.29%) Microsoft Office
2 22 (2.23%) Microsoft Excel
3 12 (1.22%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 5 (0.51%) Chatbot
4 5 (0.51%) Microsoft Project
5 2 (0.20%) MS Visio
5 2 (0.20%) Spreadsheet
6 1 (0.10%) Maple
6 1 (0.10%) PTC Creo
Business Applications
1 45 (4.57%) Remedy ITSM
2 8 (0.81%) Dynamics CRM
3 7 (0.71%) SAP S/4HANA
4 5 (0.51%) ContrOCC
5 4 (0.41%) Workday HCM
6 3 (0.30%) NEC Housing
6 3 (0.30%) SystmOne
6 3 (0.30%) Teamcenter
7 2 (0.20%) Oracle EBS
7 2 (0.20%) Primavera
7 2 (0.20%) Remedy AR System
7 2 (0.20%) Salesforce CRM
7 2 (0.20%) SAP CX
8 1 (0.10%) Cloudability
8 1 (0.10%) SAP Oil and Gas
Cloud Services
1 159 (16.14%) Azure
2 117 (11.88%) Microsoft 365
3 82 (8.32%) Entra ID
4 63 (6.40%) AWS
5 50 (5.08%) Power Platform
6 36 (3.65%) SaaS
7 28 (2.84%) Azure DevOps
8 27 (2.74%) GCP
9 24 (2.44%) OneDrive
10 17 (1.73%) Azure Monitor
11 13 (1.32%) Dynamics 365
12 9 (0.91%) Azure Sentinel
12 9 (0.91%) GitHub
12 9 (0.91%) IaaS
12 9 (0.91%) Microsoft Copilot
12 9 (0.91%) Power Automate
12 9 (0.91%) Serverless
13 8 (0.81%) Azure Functions
14 7 (0.71%) Azure ExpressRoute
14 7 (0.71%) Google Workspace
Communications & Networking
1 48 (4.87%) DNS
2 45 (4.57%) Firewall
3 44 (4.47%) VPN
4 36 (3.65%) DHCP
5 32 (3.25%) Network Security
6 31 (3.15%) TCP/IP
7 23 (2.34%) LAN
8 18 (1.83%) WAN
9 16 (1.62%) Skype
10 15 (1.52%) VLAN
11 13 (1.32%) Wi-Fi
12 12 (1.22%) SSH
13 10 (1.02%) BGP
14 9 (0.91%) Wireless
15 8 (0.81%) NetScaler
15 8 (0.81%) OSPF
16 7 (0.71%) Intrusion Detection
16 7 (0.71%) MPLS
17 6 (0.61%) Software-Defined Networking
18 5 (0.51%) Wireshark
Database & Business Intelligence
1 31 (3.15%) Power BI
2 25 (2.54%) SQL Server
3 20 (2.03%) Metadata
4 8 (0.81%) Looker
5 6 (0.61%) BigQuery
5 6 (0.61%) MySQL
5 6 (0.61%) SQL Server Integration Services
6 5 (0.51%) MariaDB
7 4 (0.41%) Amazon RDS
7 4 (0.41%) Relational Database
8 3 (0.30%) Amazon Aurora
8 3 (0.30%) SQL Server Reporting Services
9 2 (0.20%) EDRMS
9 2 (0.20%) Oracle Database
9 2 (0.20%) PostgreSQL
9 2 (0.20%) SQL Server Analysis Services
10 1 (0.10%) Db2
10 1 (0.10%) EDMS
10 1 (0.10%) InfluxDB
10 1 (0.10%) SAP HANA
Development Applications
1 72 (7.31%) JIRA
2 24 (2.44%) Git
3 10 (1.02%) Atlassian Bamboo
3 10 (1.02%) Bitbucket
4 9 (0.91%) Jenkins
5 4 (0.41%) Browser DevTools
5 4 (0.41%) webpack
6 3 (0.30%) GitLab
6 3 (0.30%) Gradle
6 3 (0.30%) Maven
6 3 (0.30%) Rational DOORS
7 2 (0.20%) Fiddler
7 2 (0.20%) Firebug
7 2 (0.20%) Sonatype Nexus
8 1 (0.10%) Artifactory
8 1 (0.10%) eggPlant
8 1 (0.10%) MLflow
8 1 (0.10%) Snyk
8 1 (0.10%) SQL Server Management Studio (SSMS)
8 1 (0.10%) Visual Studio Code
General
1 408 (41.42%) Social Skills
2 162 (16.45%) Analytical Skills
3 146 (14.82%) Finance
4 106 (10.76%) Public Sector
5 52 (5.28%) Organisational Skills
6 48 (4.87%) Documentation Skills
7 44 (4.47%) Influencing Skills
8 39 (3.96%) Aerospace
9 30 (3.05%) Legal
10 25 (2.54%) Banking
11 24 (2.44%) Inclusion and Diversity
12 20 (2.03%) Military
13 19 (1.93%) Presentation Skills
13 19 (1.93%) Telecoms
14 18 (1.83%) Manufacturing
15 17 (1.73%) Local Government
16 5 (0.51%) Law
16 5 (0.51%) Retail
17 3 (0.30%) Police
18 2 (0.20%) Automotive
Job Titles
1 111 (11.27%) Lead
2 105 (10.66%) Analyst
3 86 (8.73%) Architect
4 70 (7.11%) Senior
5 60 (6.09%) Service Manager
6 52 (5.28%) Delivery Manager
7 44 (4.47%) Consultant
7 44 (4.47%) Support Engineer
8 42 (4.26%) Service Analyst
9 41 (4.16%) Developer
10 35 (3.55%) Service Architect
11 33 (3.35%) IT Manager
12 31 (3.15%) Project Manager
13 28 (2.84%) Desktop Engineer
14 27 (2.74%) Administrator
15 26 (2.64%) Technical Leader
16 24 (2.44%) 2nd Line Support
16 24 (2.44%) Change Manager
16 24 (2.44%) Desktop Support
17 22 (2.23%) Network Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 42 (4.26%) Terraform
2 32 (3.25%) REST
3 21 (2.13%) Middleware
4 18 (1.83%) XML
5 14 (1.42%) JSON
6 11 (1.12%) Web Services
7 9 (0.91%) ARM Templates
7 9 (0.91%) SAML
8 8 (0.81%) SOAP
8 8 (0.81%) XSLT
9 7 (0.71%) .NET
9 7 (0.71%) LDAP
10 6 (0.61%) OAuth
10 6 (0.61%) SailPoint
11 4 (0.41%) AngularJS
11 4 (0.41%) HTML
11 4 (0.41%) Node.js
11 4 (0.41%) OpenID
11 4 (0.41%) React
11 4 (0.41%) RESTful
Miscellaneous
1 95 (9.64%) Onboarding
2 71 (7.21%) Management Information System
3 60 (6.09%) CMDB
4 42 (4.26%) Enterprise Software
5 38 (3.86%) Data Centre
6 28 (2.84%) PKI
7 26 (2.64%) Data Protection Act
8 25 (2.54%) Product Ownership
9 24 (2.44%) Hybrid Cloud
10 16 (1.62%) Security Operations Centre
11 14 (1.42%) Cyber Threat
12 13 (1.32%) Analytical Mindset
12 13 (1.32%) Operational Technology
12 13 (1.32%) Self-Motivation
12 13 (1.32%) Virtual Team
13 11 (1.12%) Security Posture
14 10 (1.02%) Clustering
15 9 (0.91%) Taxonomies
16 8 (0.81%) Mainframe
16 8 (0.81%) NHS
Operating Systems
1 226 (22.94%) Windows
2 64 (6.50%) Linux
3 62 (6.29%) Windows Server
4 48 (4.87%) Windows 10
5 17 (1.73%) Windows 7
6 16 (1.62%) Unix
7 15 (1.52%) Android
7 15 (1.52%) Apple iOS
7 15 (1.52%) Mac OS
8 9 (0.91%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
9 3 (0.30%) AIX
9 3 (0.30%) SUSE Linux Enterprise Server
10 2 (0.20%) Solaris
10 2 (0.20%) Windows Server 2012
10 2 (0.20%) Windows XP
10 2 (0.20%) zOS
11 1 (0.10%) SUSE
11 1 (0.10%) Windows Server 2019
Processes & Methodologies
1 559 (56.75%) ITIL
2 408 (41.42%) ITSM
3 309 (31.37%) Stakeholder Management
4 285 (28.93%) Continuous Improvement
5 215 (21.83%) Service Delivery
6 189 (19.19%) Agile
6 189 (19.19%) Problem-Solving
7 150 (15.23%) Stakeholder Engagement
8 147 (14.92%) Change Management
9 143 (14.52%) Roadmaps
10 134 (13.60%) Cybersecurity
11 121 (12.28%) Customer Service
12 119 (12.08%) Incident Management
13 95 (9.64%) Project Delivery
14 89 (9.04%) DevOps
15 82 (8.32%) Data Protection
16 79 (8.02%) Decision-Making
17 78 (7.92%) Risk Management
18 73 (7.41%) Migration
18 73 (7.41%) Validation
Programming Languages
1 103 (10.46%) PowerShell
2 66 (6.70%) Python
3 38 (3.86%) Bash
4 36 (3.65%) SQL
5 30 (3.05%) JavaScript
6 19 (1.93%) VBScript
7 17 (1.73%) Java
8 15 (1.52%) VB
9 12 (1.22%) C#
10 9 (0.91%) Bicep
11 7 (0.71%) Shell Script
12 4 (0.41%) TypeScript
13 3 (0.30%) C
13 3 (0.30%) Google Apps Script
13 3 (0.30%) Groovy
13 3 (0.30%) Lua
13 3 (0.30%) Perl
14 2 (0.20%) Go
14 2 (0.20%) Search Processing Language
14 2 (0.20%) T-SQL
Qualifications
1 467 (47.41%) Security Cleared
2 298 (30.25%) SC Cleared
3 146 (14.82%) DV Cleared
4 102 (10.36%) Degree
5 37 (3.76%) BPSS Clearance
6 32 (3.25%) PMP
7 31 (3.15%) PMI Certification
8 27 (2.74%) ITIL Certification
8 27 (2.74%) Microsoft Certification
9 23 (2.34%) DBS Check
10 15 (1.52%) CISSP
10 15 (1.52%) Computer Science Degree
11 14 (1.42%) Azure Certification
11 14 (1.42%) Cisco Certification
12 13 (1.32%) ITIL Foundation Certificate
13 12 (1.22%) CISM
14 11 (1.12%) A+ Certification
15 8 (0.81%) AWS Certification
15 8 (0.81%) BC Cleared
16 7 (0.71%) PRINCE2 Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 82 (8.32%) SLA
2 40 (4.06%) Data Quality
3 34 (3.45%) QA
4 33 (3.35%) ISO/IEC 20000
5 29 (2.94%) ISO/IEC 27001
6 24 (2.44%) GRC
7 22 (2.23%) GDPR
8 20 (2.03%) NCSC
8 20 (2.03%) NIST
9 18 (1.83%) PMO
10 16 (1.62%) ISO 9001
11 10 (1.02%) Accessibility
12 8 (0.81%) WCAG
13 7 (0.71%) Disclosure Scotland
13 7 (0.71%) ISO 22301
14 6 (0.61%) COBIT
14 6 (0.61%) Cyber Essentials
15 5 (0.51%) JSP 440
15 5 (0.51%) PCI DSS
16 4 (0.41%) ISO/IEC 27005
System Software
1 121 (12.28%) Active Directory
2 65 (6.60%) VMware Infrastructure
3 24 (2.44%) Hyper-V
4 23 (2.34%) VMware ESXi
5 17 (1.73%) BitLocker
5 17 (1.73%) Docker
5 17 (1.73%) VMware NSX
6 15 (1.52%) Virtual Desktop
7 14 (1.42%) vSphere
8 13 (1.32%) vCloud
9 9 (0.91%) Firmware
10 8 (0.81%) Citrix Hypervisor
10 8 (0.81%) XenApp
10 8 (0.81%) XenDesktop
11 5 (0.51%) KVM
11 5 (0.51%) Virtual Machines
12 3 (0.30%) Microsoft Virtual Server
12 3 (0.30%) NFS
12 3 (0.30%) Virtual Servers
13 2 (0.20%) GPFS
Systems Management
1 67 (6.80%) SCCM
2 58 (5.89%) Microsoft Intune
3 39 (3.96%) Ansible
4 20 (2.03%) SCOM
5 17 (1.73%) vCenter Server
6 16 (1.62%) Kubernetes
7 14 (1.42%) Single Sign-On
8 8 (0.81%) Jamf Pro
9 7 (0.71%) Progress Chef
10 5 (0.51%) NetBackup
11 4 (0.41%) PowerCLI
11 4 (0.41%) Tivoli
11 4 (0.41%) Tivoli Monitoring
11 4 (0.41%) vMotion
11 4 (0.41%) WSUS
12 3 (0.30%) BMC PATROL
12 3 (0.30%) BMC Performance Manager
12 3 (0.30%) Dell DRAC
12 3 (0.30%) Perfmon
12 3 (0.30%) vRealize
Vendors
1 252 (25.58%) Microsoft
2 233 (23.65%) ServiceNow
3 84 (8.53%) VMware
4 51 (5.18%) Remedy
5 31 (3.15%) Cisco
6 30 (3.05%) BMC
7 21 (2.13%) IBM
8 20 (2.03%) Oracle
9 19 (1.93%) SAP
10 18 (1.83%) Atlassian
11 17 (1.73%) CyberArk
12 16 (1.62%) Citrix
13 15 (1.52%) Apple
13 15 (1.52%) Dynatrace
14 13 (1.32%) Google
14 13 (1.32%) SolarWinds
15 12 (1.22%) Palo Alto
16 11 (1.12%) Splunk
17 10 (1.02%) Qualys
18 9 (0.91%) Juniper