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

6 months to
15 May 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 75 58 56
Rank change year-on-year -17 -2 +13
Contract jobs citing Service Management 707 482 696
As % of all contract jobs in the UK excluding London 2.91% 3.78% 3.42%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 3.59% 4.17% 4.06%
Number of daily rates quoted 477 289 502
10th Percentile £210 £220 £280
25th Percentile £364 £368 £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 £713
UK median daily rate £514 £516 £525
% change year-on-year -0.39% -1.67% +5.00%
Number of hourly rates quoted 57 27 16
10th Percentile £16.09 - £12.53
25th Percentile £16.17 £12.62 £14.91
Median hourly rate £60.00 £15.80 £17.50
Median % change year-on-year +279.75% -9.73% -63.91%
75th Percentile £85.00 £22.14 £19.00
90th Percentile £136.30 £41.85 £23.62
UK median hourly rate £60.00 £21.28 £17.72
% change year-on-year +181.95% +20.09% -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 19,682 11,550 17,159
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK excluding London 81.09% 90.47% 84.41%
Number of daily rates quoted 11,849 7,222 10,227
10th Percentile £300 £235 £250
25th Percentile £400 £375 £378
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £492 £475 £500
Median % change year-on-year +3.58% -5.00% -
75th Percentile £588 £581 £600
90th Percentile £681 £656 £688
UK median daily rate £505 £515 £525
% change year-on-year -1.94% -1.90% -4.55%
Number of hourly rates quoted 2,063 831 2,055
10th Percentile £14.50 £14.20 £12.32
25th Percentile £18.95 £17.31 £15.25
Median hourly rate £45.00 £26.50 £38.00
Median % change year-on-year +69.81% -30.26% +8.57%
75th Percentile £67.50 £63.75 £61.25
90th Percentile £80.00 £75.00 £72.74
UK median hourly rate £42.50 £28.75 £36.50
% change year-on-year +47.83% -21.23% +0.29%

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 15 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 15 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 15 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 +29 211 £520 +15.56% 102
North of England -16 180 £494 +4.00% 74
South West -20 144 £551 +0.23% 27
North West +8 98 £550 +6.40% 34
Midlands -29 87 £410 -25.45% 46
Yorkshire -32 73 £475 +11.76% 36
West Midlands -39 66 £415 -24.68% 35
East of England -19 43 £475 -13.64% 32
Scotland -26 35 £500 -3.94% 10
East Midlands -12 21 £405 -7.11% 11
North East -16 9 £400 +105.13% 5
Wales -4 7 £340 -4.56% 7
Northern Ireland - 4 - - 3
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 47 (6.65%) Confluence
2 28 (3.96%) Microsoft Exchange
3 22 (3.11%) SharePoint
4 9 (1.27%) 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 74 (10.47%) Microsoft Office
2 30 (4.24%) Microsoft Project
3 16 (2.26%) Microsoft Excel
4 9 (1.27%) 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 40 (5.66%) Remedy ITSM
2 11 (1.56%) SAP S/4HANA
3 8 (1.13%) Oracle EBS
3 8 (1.13%) 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 (13.30%) Azure
2 52 (7.36%) Microsoft 365
3 45 (6.36%) AWS
4 42 (5.94%) Power Platform
5 27 (3.82%) GCP
6 23 (3.25%) SaaS
7 18 (2.55%) Entra ID
8 12 (1.70%) Azure DevOps
9 10 (1.41%) OneDrive
10 9 (1.27%) PaaS
11 8 (1.13%) GitHub
12 7 (0.99%) IaaS
12 7 (0.99%) 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 (4.81%) Firewall
2 28 (3.96%) DNS
3 25 (3.54%) LAN
4 22 (3.11%) Network Security
4 22 (3.11%) WAN
5 18 (2.55%) DHCP
6 16 (2.26%) VPN
7 14 (1.98%) BGP
8 13 (1.84%) OSPF
9 12 (1.70%) BIG-IP
10 11 (1.56%) Cisco ISE
10 11 (1.56%) VLAN
11 9 (1.27%) Skype
11 9 (1.27%) Wi-Fi
11 9 (1.27%) Wireless
12 8 (1.13%) Ethernet VPN
12 8 (1.13%) Junos
12 8 (1.13%) TCP/IP
12 8 (1.13%) VXLAN
13 4 (0.57%) SSL
Database & Business Intelligence
1 31 (4.38%) Power BI
2 13 (1.84%) SQL Server
3 7 (0.99%) Relational Database
4 6 (0.85%) PostgreSQL
5 5 (0.71%) Oracle Reports
6 3 (0.42%) Amazon RDS
6 3 (0.42%) Azure SQL Database
6 3 (0.42%) InfluxDB
6 3 (0.42%) SQL Server Analysis Services
6 3 (0.42%) SQL Server Integration Services
6 3 (0.42%) 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 92 (13.01%) JIRA
2 13 (1.84%) Git
3 9 (1.27%) Bitbucket
3 9 (1.27%) GitLab
3 9 (1.27%) Jenkins
4 6 (0.85%) Atlassian Bamboo
5 5 (0.71%) Browser DevTools
6 4 (0.57%) MLflow
7 3 (0.42%) Fiddler
8 2 (0.28%) Firebug
8 2 (0.28%) IntelliJ
8 2 (0.28%) ScriptRunner
8 2 (0.28%) Visual Studio Code
9 1 (0.14%) Claude Code
9 1 (0.14%) Gemini Tracker
9 1 (0.14%) Hudson
9 1 (0.14%) IBM UrbanCode
9 1 (0.14%) MSI
9 1 (0.14%) Rational DOORS
General
1 268 (37.91%) Social Skills
2 101 (14.29%) Analytical Skills
3 93 (13.15%) Finance
4 66 (9.34%) Public Sector
5 46 (6.51%) Legal
6 40 (5.66%) Military
7 27 (3.82%) Organisational Skills
8 18 (2.55%) Telecoms
9 14 (1.98%) Documentation Skills
10 13 (1.84%) Influencing Skills
10 13 (1.84%) Retail
11 11 (1.56%) Aerospace
11 11 (1.56%) Banking
12 8 (1.13%) Presentation Skills
13 5 (0.71%) Inclusion and Diversity
14 3 (0.42%) 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 88 (12.45%) Service Manager
2 75 (10.61%) Architect
3 74 (10.47%) Lead
4 73 (10.33%) Analyst
5 46 (6.51%) Senior
6 42 (5.94%) Service Architect
7 40 (5.66%) IT Manager
8 35 (4.95%) Hardware Engineer
9 30 (4.24%) Service Analyst
10 29 (4.10%) Delivery Manager
11 25 (3.54%) Project Manager
12 24 (3.39%) Consultant
12 24 (3.39%) Network Engineer
13 22 (3.11%) Service Delivery Manager
14 21 (2.97%) Field Engineer
14 21 (2.97%) Field Hardware Engineer
14 21 (2.97%) IT Analyst
14 21 (2.97%) IT Services Manager
15 20 (2.83%) Infrastructure Engineer
15 20 (2.83%) Support Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 24 (3.39%) REST
2 13 (1.84%) SOAP
3 8 (1.13%) 802.1X
4 7 (0.99%) 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 (0.42%) CSS
7 3 (0.42%) FIDO
7 3 (0.42%) Flash
7 3 (0.42%) HTML
7 3 (0.42%) Microsoft Graph
7 3 (0.42%) Middleware
7 3 (0.42%) RabbitMQ
8 2 (0.28%) JSON
Miscellaneous
1 57 (8.06%) Product Ownership
2 40 (5.66%) Onboarding
3 35 (4.95%) CMDB
4 29 (4.10%) Data Centre
5 24 (3.39%) PKI
6 21 (2.97%) Virtual Team
7 20 (2.83%) Clustering
8 18 (2.55%) Management Information System
9 17 (2.40%) Driving Licence
10 15 (2.12%) Enterprise Software
11 13 (1.84%) PMI
12 11 (1.56%) Operational Technology
13 10 (1.41%) Data Protection Act
14 7 (0.99%) Replication
15 6 (0.85%) Analytical Mindset
15 6 (0.85%) Cloud Native
15 6 (0.85%) Self-Motivation
16 5 (0.71%) Legacy Systems
17 4 (0.57%) Hybrid Cloud
17 4 (0.57%) Mainframe
Operating Systems
1 137 (19.38%) Windows
2 38 (5.37%) Linux
3 33 (4.67%) Windows 10
4 32 (4.53%) Windows Server
5 11 (1.56%) Windows 7
6 10 (1.41%) Unix
7 5 (0.71%) Mac OS
7 5 (0.71%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
7 5 (0.71%) Ubuntu
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 (57.85%) ITIL
2 302 (42.72%) ITSM
3 160 (22.63%) Continuous Improvement
4 152 (21.50%) Agile
5 141 (19.94%) Stakeholder Management
6 128 (18.10%) Problem-Solving
7 117 (16.55%) Service Delivery
8 102 (14.43%) Stakeholder Engagement
9 89 (12.59%) Change Management
10 85 (12.02%) Customer Service
11 71 (10.04%) Service Design
12 70 (9.90%) DevOps
13 58 (8.20%) Configuration Management
14 53 (7.50%) Problem Management
15 51 (7.21%) Knowledge Transfer
16 49 (6.93%) Acceptance Criteria
17 48 (6.79%) Incident Management
17 48 (6.79%) Project Delivery
18 45 (6.36%) Roadmaps
19 39 (5.52%) TOGAF
Programming Languages
1 46 (6.51%) PowerShell
2 39 (5.52%) SQL
3 26 (3.68%) Python
4 20 (2.83%) JavaScript
5 9 (1.27%) VB
5 9 (1.27%) VBScript
6 7 (0.99%) 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 (0.42%) Apex Code
9 3 (0.42%) 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 (50.35%) Security Cleared
2 249 (35.22%) SC Cleared
3 110 (15.56%) DV Cleared
4 93 (13.15%) Degree
5 35 (4.95%) ITIL Certification
6 26 (3.68%) Cisco Certification
6 26 (3.68%) TOGAF Certification
7 24 (3.39%) PMI Certification
8 23 (3.25%) PMP
9 18 (2.55%) Computer Science Degree
10 15 (2.12%) BPSS Clearance
11 14 (1.98%) CCNA
12 13 (1.84%) Microsoft Certification
13 11 (1.56%) CCNP
14 10 (1.41%) A+ Certification
15 9 (1.27%) JNCIA
15 9 (1.27%) JNCIP
15 9 (1.27%) JNCIS
15 9 (1.27%) MAPM
15 9 (1.27%) Network+ Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 36 (5.09%) SLA
2 23 (3.25%) Data Quality
3 18 (2.55%) PMO
4 14 (1.98%) ISO/IEC 20000
4 14 (1.98%) ISO/IEC 27001
4 14 (1.98%) QA
5 11 (1.56%) GDPR
6 10 (1.41%) NCSC
7 9 (1.27%) GRC
8 8 (1.13%) Cyber Essentials
9 7 (0.99%) COBIT
9 7 (0.99%) Government Security Classifications
10 6 (0.85%) Accessibility
10 6 (0.85%) ISO 31000
10 6 (0.85%) ISO/IEC 27005
11 5 (0.71%) Disclosure Scotland
12 4 (0.57%) GMP
12 4 (0.57%) ISO 9001
13 3 (0.42%) JSP 440
14 2 (0.28%) GxP
System Software
1 65 (9.19%) Active Directory
2 31 (4.38%) VMware Infrastructure
3 12 (1.70%) VMware ESXi
4 9 (1.27%) BitLocker
5 8 (1.13%) Docker
6 6 (0.85%) vSphere
7 4 (0.57%) NFS
7 4 (0.57%) Virtual Machines
7 4 (0.57%) VMware NSX
8 3 (0.42%) Hyper-V
8 3 (0.42%) vCloud
9 2 (0.28%) GPFS
10 1 (0.14%) iptables
10 1 (0.14%) Oracle RAC
10 1 (0.14%) Samba
10 1 (0.14%) Slurm Workload Manager
10 1 (0.14%) Virtual Desktop
Systems Management
1 26 (3.68%) OPNET
2 25 (3.54%) Ansible
3 20 (2.83%) SCCM
4 16 (2.26%) Terraform
5 14 (1.98%) Kubernetes
6 12 (1.70%) Microsoft Intune
7 8 (1.13%) FortiGate
8 7 (0.99%) Single Sign-On
9 6 (0.85%) Grafana
9 6 (0.85%) Progress Chef
9 6 (0.85%) vCenter Server
10 5 (0.71%) Puppet
11 4 (0.57%) Jamf Pro
11 4 (0.57%) PowerCLI
11 4 (0.57%) SCOM
11 4 (0.57%) vMotion
12 3 (0.42%) Nessus
12 3 (0.42%) Packer
12 3 (0.42%) Prometheus
12 3 (0.42%) vRealize
Vendors
1 166 (23.48%) ServiceNow
2 114 (16.12%) Microsoft
3 70 (9.90%) Remedy
4 47 (6.65%) VMware
5 40 (5.66%) Atlassian
6 38 (5.37%) Cisco
7 34 (4.81%) HP
8 30 (4.24%) Oracle
9 18 (2.55%) BMC
9 18 (2.55%) SAP
10 17 (2.40%) Dell
11 16 (2.26%) Splunk
12 15 (2.12%) Canon
12 15 (2.12%) Google
13 12 (1.70%) F5
13 12 (1.70%) SolarWinds
14 11 (1.56%) Juniper
15 10 (1.41%) Palo Alto
16 9 (1.27%) IFS
17 8 (1.13%) Extreme Networks