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

6 months to
10 Apr 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 70 60 56
Rank change year-on-year -10 -4 +12
Contract jobs citing Service Management 732 494 720
As % of all contract jobs in the UK excluding London 3.17% 3.90% 3.44%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 3.85% 4.31% 4.04%
Number of daily rates quoted 496 314 524
10th Percentile £202 £215 £281
25th Percentile £374 £396 £425
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £510 £525 £526
Median % change year-on-year -2.86% -0.24% +10.79%
75th Percentile £611 £606 £600
90th Percentile £738 £688 £715
UK median daily rate £520 £525 £525
% change year-on-year -0.95% - +5.00%
Number of hourly rates quoted 58 32 18
10th Percentile £15.24 - £12.53
25th Percentile £16.17 £12.62 £15.46
Median hourly rate £60.00 £22.14 £17.72
Median % change year-on-year +171.00% +24.94% -63.46%
75th Percentile £78.57 £30.47 £20.31
90th Percentile £97.50 £68.63 £33.53
UK median hourly rate £45.46 £22.14 £18.36
% change year-on-year +105.33% +20.59% -62.14%

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 19,005 11,454 17,802
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK excluding London 82.19% 90.51% 85.09%
Number of daily rates quoted 11,586 7,295 10,807
10th Percentile £280 £240 £236
25th Percentile £400 £381 £381
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £487 £488 £500
Median % change year-on-year -0.05% -2.50% -
75th Percentile £581 £588 £600
90th Percentile £675 £665 £688
UK median daily rate £500 £525 £525
% change year-on-year -4.76% - -4.55%
Number of hourly rates quoted 1,986 769 1,981
10th Percentile £14.50 £14.74 £12.38
25th Percentile £18.50 £18.50 £15.17
Median hourly rate £36.71 £29.23 £33.07
Median % change year-on-year +25.59% -11.60% -7.64%
75th Percentile £65.00 £65.00 £59.00
90th Percentile £77.75 £76.25 £71.25
UK median hourly rate £36.71 £31.04 £33.07
% change year-on-year +18.27% -6.12% -8.15%

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 April 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 April 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 April 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 +25 212 £514 +10.48% 109
South West -11 176 £578 +4.81% 34
North of England -13 169 £500 +5.26% 73
North West +14 101 £550 +7.71% 39
Midlands -21 98 £410 -21.90% 50
West Midlands -35 74 £408 -25.91% 35
Yorkshire -30 56 £475 +11.76% 28
East of England -22 50 £475 -13.64% 45
Scotland -33 27 £500 - 13
East Midlands -14 24 £418 +9.15% 15
North East -10 15 £420 +115.38% 7
Wales -14 3 £340 -25.48% 6
Northern Ireland - 1 £500 -
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 68 (9.29%) Confluence
2 39 (5.33%) Microsoft Exchange
3 26 (3.55%) SharePoint
4 9 (1.23%) Skype for Business
5 5 (0.68%) Mattermost
6 2 (0.27%) Apache
6 2 (0.27%) IIS
7 1 (0.14%) HCL Notes
7 1 (0.14%) JBoss
7 1 (0.14%) LiveCycle
7 1 (0.14%) OpenStack
7 1 (0.14%) SharePoint Server
7 1 (0.14%) WebLogic
Applications
1 77 (10.52%) Microsoft Office
2 35 (4.78%) Microsoft Project
3 16 (2.19%) Microsoft Excel
4 7 (0.96%) Microsoft PowerPoint
5 4 (0.55%) PTC Creo
6 3 (0.41%) MS Visio
7 1 (0.14%) Camtasia
Business Applications
1 32 (4.37%) Remedy ITSM
2 13 (1.78%) Oracle EBS
3 9 (1.23%) SAP S/4HANA
4 6 (0.82%) Teamcenter
5 2 (0.27%) Oracle Applications
5 2 (0.27%) Salesforce CRM
6 1 (0.14%) assyst
6 1 (0.14%) NetSuite
6 1 (0.14%) SAP ERP
6 1 (0.14%) SAP HR
6 1 (0.14%) SAP Payroll
6 1 (0.14%) SystmOne
Cloud Services
1 92 (12.57%) Azure
2 59 (8.06%) Microsoft 365
3 54 (7.38%) AWS
4 39 (5.33%) Power Platform
5 33 (4.51%) GCP
6 25 (3.42%) SaaS
7 19 (2.60%) Entra ID
8 11 (1.50%) Azure DevOps
9 8 (1.09%) PaaS
10 7 (0.96%) GitHub
10 7 (0.96%) OneDrive
11 6 (0.82%) IaaS
11 6 (0.82%) OCI
11 6 (0.82%) OpenShift
11 6 (0.82%) PowerApps
11 6 (0.82%) Salesforce Service Cloud
12 5 (0.68%) AWS Lambda
12 5 (0.68%) Dynamics 365
12 5 (0.68%) Power Automate
12 5 (0.68%) Serverless
Communications & Networking
1 40 (5.46%) Firewall
2 36 (4.92%) DNS
3 29 (3.96%) LAN
4 25 (3.42%) Network Security
4 25 (3.42%) WAN
5 24 (3.28%) DHCP
5 24 (3.28%) VPN
6 19 (2.60%) BGP
6 19 (2.60%) VLAN
7 15 (2.05%) Cisco ISE
8 14 (1.91%) Wi-Fi
9 13 (1.78%) OSPF
10 12 (1.64%) BIG-IP
10 12 (1.64%) Junos
10 12 (1.64%) Skype
11 11 (1.50%) TCP/IP
11 11 (1.50%) WebEx
12 10 (1.37%) Wireless
13 8 (1.09%) Ethernet VPN
13 8 (1.09%) VXLAN
Database & Business Intelligence
1 30 (4.10%) Power BI
2 11 (1.50%) SQL Server
3 8 (1.09%) Relational Database
4 4 (0.55%) Amazon RDS
4 4 (0.55%) InfluxDB
4 4 (0.55%) Metadata
4 4 (0.55%) Oracle Reports
4 4 (0.55%) PostgreSQL
5 3 (0.41%) Azure SQL Database
6 2 (0.27%) Big Data
6 2 (0.27%) GIS
6 2 (0.27%) SQL Server Analysis Services
6 2 (0.27%) SQL Server Integration Services
6 2 (0.27%) SQL Server Reporting Services
7 1 (0.14%) DTS
7 1 (0.14%) Electronic Patient Records
7 1 (0.14%) Microsoft Analysis Services
7 1 (0.14%) MongoDB
7 1 (0.14%) OpenStack Swift
Development Applications
1 112 (15.30%) JIRA
2 11 (1.50%) Bitbucket
2 11 (1.50%) Git
3 10 (1.37%) Jenkins
4 8 (1.09%) GitLab
5 6 (0.82%) Atlassian Bamboo
6 4 (0.55%) MLflow
7 2 (0.27%) IntelliJ
7 2 (0.27%) ScriptRunner
8 1 (0.14%) Browser DevTools
8 1 (0.14%) Fiddler
8 1 (0.14%) Hudson
8 1 (0.14%) MSI
8 1 (0.14%) Rational DOORS
8 1 (0.14%) Visual Studio Code
General
1 281 (38.39%) Social Skills
2 113 (15.44%) Analytical Skills
3 80 (10.93%) Finance
3 80 (10.93%) Public Sector
4 53 (7.24%) Legal
5 48 (6.56%) Military
6 26 (3.55%) Organisational Skills
7 16 (2.19%) Documentation Skills
8 15 (2.05%) Influencing Skills
8 15 (2.05%) Retail
8 15 (2.05%) Telecoms
9 12 (1.64%) Banking
10 11 (1.50%) Aerospace
11 7 (0.96%) Manufacturing
12 6 (0.82%) Inclusion and Diversity
13 5 (0.68%) Presentation Skills
14 3 (0.41%) Financial Institution
14 3 (0.41%) Investment Banking
15 2 (0.27%) Pharmaceutical
15 2 (0.27%) Publishing
Job Titles
1 89 (12.16%) Service Manager
2 86 (11.75%) Architect
3 79 (10.79%) Analyst
4 77 (10.52%) Lead
5 48 (6.56%) Service Architect
6 42 (5.74%) Senior
7 39 (5.33%) IT Manager
8 35 (4.78%) Hardware Engineer
9 29 (3.96%) Consultant
10 26 (3.55%) Delivery Manager
10 26 (3.55%) Service Analyst
11 25 (3.42%) IT Support
11 25 (3.42%) Network Engineer
12 24 (3.28%) IT Analyst
13 23 (3.14%) Field Engineer
14 22 (3.01%) Service Delivery Manager
14 22 (3.01%) Support Engineer
15 21 (2.87%) Administrator
15 21 (2.87%) Field Hardware Engineer
15 21 (2.87%) IT Services Manager
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 34 (4.64%) REST
2 11 (1.50%) SOAP
2 11 (1.50%) XMPP
3 8 (1.09%) 802.1X
4 5 (0.68%) .NET
5 4 (0.55%) OAuth
5 4 (0.55%) Oracle Fusion
5 4 (0.55%) RabbitMQ
5 4 (0.55%) Web Services
6 2 (0.27%) JSON
6 2 (0.27%) Lightning Web Components
6 2 (0.27%) Microsoft Graph
6 2 (0.27%) Middleware
6 2 (0.27%) RFC 2544
7 1 (0.14%) ARM Templates
7 1 (0.14%) CSS
7 1 (0.14%) FIDO
7 1 (0.14%) OAuth2
7 1 (0.14%) Software Packaging
7 1 (0.14%) Spring Boot
Miscellaneous
1 70 (9.56%) Product Ownership
2 38 (5.19%) Onboarding
3 37 (5.05%) CMDB
4 25 (3.42%) Data Centre
4 25 (3.42%) Virtual Team
5 22 (3.01%) Management Information System
6 20 (2.73%) PKI
7 19 (2.60%) Driving Licence
8 16 (2.19%) Clustering
9 12 (1.64%) PMI
9 12 (1.64%) Self-Motivation
10 11 (1.50%) Enterprise Software
11 10 (1.37%) Data Protection Act
12 9 (1.23%) Analytical Mindset
13 8 (1.09%) NHS
14 6 (0.82%) Operational Technology
15 5 (0.68%) Fat Client
15 5 (0.68%) Hybrid Cloud
15 5 (0.68%) Thin Client
16 4 (0.55%) Data Structures
Operating Systems
1 144 (19.67%) Windows
2 49 (6.69%) Linux
3 48 (6.56%) Windows Server
4 35 (4.78%) Windows 10
5 14 (1.91%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
6 11 (1.50%) Windows 7
7 8 (1.09%) Windows Server 2012
8 6 (0.82%) Ubuntu
8 6 (0.82%) Unix
9 5 (0.68%) Mac OS
10 4 (0.55%) Windows Server 2003
11 3 (0.41%) CentOS
12 2 (0.27%) Solaris
13 1 (0.14%) Android
13 1 (0.14%) Apple iOS
13 1 (0.14%) Data ONTAP
13 1 (0.14%) Windows Server 2008
13 1 (0.14%) Windows Server 2016
13 1 (0.14%) Windows Server 2019
13 1 (0.14%) Windows XP
Processes & Methodologies
1 441 (60.25%) ITIL
2 333 (45.49%) ITSM
3 166 (22.68%) Agile
4 162 (22.13%) Continuous Improvement
5 142 (19.40%) Problem-Solving
6 129 (17.62%) Stakeholder Management
7 124 (16.94%) Service Delivery
8 109 (14.89%) Change Management
9 101 (13.80%) Stakeholder Engagement
10 80 (10.93%) Customer Service
11 76 (10.38%) Service Design
12 74 (10.11%) DevOps
13 64 (8.74%) Acceptance Criteria
14 62 (8.47%) Configuration Management
14 62 (8.47%) Problem Management
15 57 (7.79%) Incident Management
16 53 (7.24%) Knowledge Transfer
17 49 (6.69%) Performance Metrics
18 47 (6.42%) Business Continuity
19 46 (6.28%) TOGAF
Programming Languages
1 73 (9.97%) PowerShell
2 44 (6.01%) Python
3 38 (5.19%) SQL
4 16 (2.19%) Bash
5 13 (1.78%) JavaScript
6 9 (1.23%) Perl
6 9 (1.23%) VB
6 9 (1.23%) VBScript
7 6 (0.82%) Java
8 5 (0.68%) C#
8 5 (0.68%) Shell Script
9 4 (0.55%) Go
10 3 (0.41%) Apex Code
10 3 (0.41%) PL/SQL
10 3 (0.41%) T-SQL
11 2 (0.27%) PHP
12 1 (0.14%) Bicep
12 1 (0.14%) C
12 1 (0.14%) Search Processing Language
12 1 (0.14%) VBA
Qualifications
1 390 (53.28%) Security Cleared
2 292 (39.89%) SC Cleared
3 118 (16.12%) DV Cleared
4 104 (14.21%) Degree
5 41 (5.60%) ITIL Certification
6 30 (4.10%) TOGAF Certification
7 26 (3.55%) Cisco Certification
8 24 (3.28%) PMI Certification
9 23 (3.14%) PMP
10 20 (2.73%) BPSS Clearance
11 18 (2.46%) Microsoft Certification
12 16 (2.19%) CCNP
13 15 (2.05%) CCNA
13 15 (2.05%) Computer Science Degree
14 11 (1.50%) A+ Certification
15 10 (1.37%) MCSE
16 9 (1.23%) JNCIA
16 9 (1.23%) JNCIP
16 9 (1.23%) JNCIS
17 8 (1.09%) HNC
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 31 (4.23%) SLA
2 22 (3.01%) Data Quality
3 19 (2.60%) ISO/IEC 27001
4 15 (2.05%) ISO/IEC 20000
5 14 (1.91%) PMO
6 11 (1.50%) GDPR
7 10 (1.37%) NCSC
8 9 (1.23%) QA
9 8 (1.09%) GRC
10 7 (0.96%) Cyber Essentials
10 7 (0.96%) Government Security Classifications
11 6 (0.82%) Accessibility
12 5 (0.68%) Disclosure Scotland
12 5 (0.68%) ISO 9001
13 4 (0.55%) COBIT
14 3 (0.41%) ISO 31000
14 3 (0.41%) ISO/IEC 27005
15 2 (0.27%) Actionable Recommendations
15 2 (0.27%) HMG Security Policy Framework
15 2 (0.27%) NIST
System Software
1 72 (9.84%) Active Directory
2 27 (3.69%) VMware Infrastructure
3 10 (1.37%) Docker
4 9 (1.23%) BitLocker
5 5 (0.68%) VMware NSX
6 4 (0.55%) Virtual Machines
7 3 (0.41%) Hyper-V
7 3 (0.41%) VMware ESXi
8 2 (0.27%) Slurm Workload Manager
9 1 (0.14%) iptables
9 1 (0.14%) NFS
9 1 (0.14%) Samba
Systems Management
1 30 (4.10%) OPNET
2 25 (3.42%) SCCM
3 23 (3.14%) Ansible
4 19 (2.60%) Kubernetes
4 19 (2.60%) Terraform
5 14 (1.91%) Microsoft Intune
6 10 (1.37%) FortiGate
7 7 (0.96%) Grafana
7 7 (0.96%) Progress Chef
8 6 (0.82%) Active Directory Federation Services
8 6 (0.82%) vCenter Server
9 5 (0.68%) Puppet
10 4 (0.55%) Jamf Pro
10 4 (0.55%) Nessus
10 4 (0.55%) Packer
10 4 (0.55%) Prometheus
11 3 (0.41%) Cisco Prime
11 3 (0.41%) Single Sign-On
11 3 (0.41%) WSUS
12 2 (0.27%) PowerCLI
Vendors
1 166 (22.68%) ServiceNow
2 123 (16.80%) Microsoft
3 66 (9.02%) Remedy
4 63 (8.61%) Atlassian
5 51 (6.97%) Cisco
6 44 (6.01%) VMware
7 34 (4.64%) HP
8 33 (4.51%) Oracle
9 23 (3.14%) Google
10 21 (2.87%) Splunk
11 18 (2.46%) Red Hat
12 17 (2.32%) SolarWinds
13 16 (2.19%) Dell
13 16 (2.19%) SAP
14 15 (2.05%) Canon
14 15 (2.05%) Juniper
15 14 (1.91%) Citrix
16 13 (1.78%) BMC
16 13 (1.78%) Salesforce
17 12 (1.64%) F5