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

6 months to
5 Nov 2025
Same period 2024 Same period 2023
Rank 55 72 65
Rank change year-on-year +17 -7 -3
Contract jobs citing Service Management 699 464 688
As % of all contract jobs in the UK excluding London 4.15% 2.77% 3.35%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 4.68% 3.31% 3.79%
Number of daily rates quoted 420 307 521
10th Percentile £185 £200 £233
25th Percentile £293 £345 £375
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £500 £525
Median % change year-on-year - -4.76% +7.14%
75th Percentile £569 £600 £600
90th Percentile £621 £675 £669
UK median daily rate £500 £520 £526
% change year-on-year -3.85% -1.19% +2.68%
Number of hourly rates quoted 97 19 8
10th Percentile £12.62 £23.55 £20.50
25th Percentile £15.75 £26.25 £21.06
Median hourly rate £20.79 £45.00 £21.91
Median % change year-on-year -53.80% +105.43% +3.08%
75th Percentile £33.75 £51.88 £58.75
90th Percentile £61.00 £67.75 £70.00
UK median hourly rate £20.79 £36.00 £44.63
% change year-on-year -42.25% -19.33% +110.00%

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 14,926 14,015 18,156
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK excluding London 88.58% 83.82% 88.32%
Number of daily rates quoted 9,059 8,008 11,881
10th Percentile £220 £247 £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 £685 £688
UK median daily rate £500 £525 £535
% change year-on-year -4.76% -1.87% -2.73%
Number of hourly rates quoted 1,674 885 1,289
10th Percentile £14.23 £15.00 £14.25
25th Percentile £17.14 £18.13 £17.72
Median hourly rate £22.58 £35.00 £44.50
Median % change year-on-year -35.50% -21.35% +51.85%
75th Percentile £41.34 £65.00 £65.00
90th Percentile £67.00 £72.50 £77.50
UK median hourly rate £25.15 £35.36 £44.50
% change year-on-year -28.87% -20.54% +27.14%

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 5 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 5 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 5 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 +11 202 £463 +2.78% 85
South East +13 152 £475 -9.52% 211
South West +25 131 £550 - 68
North West +23 130 £466 +16.38% 38
Midlands +31 117 £515 -5.64% 89
West Midlands +22 92 £520 -8.89% 52
Yorkshire -14 62 £375 -26.47% 29
Scotland +4 46 £466 +1.08% 18
East of England -3 41 £516 -1.81% 46
East Midlands +1 25 £425 -17.07% 34
North East -5 13 £550 +42.86% 18
Wales -10 8 £230 +2.83% 19
Northern Ireland -5 4 £150 -72.73% 4
Channel Islands - 3 £725 - 9
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 52 (7.44%) Microsoft Exchange
2 41 (5.87%) SharePoint
3 38 (5.44%) Confluence
4 21 (3.00%) Apache
5 14 (2.00%) WebLogic
6 10 (1.43%) Skype for Business
7 7 (1.00%) IIS
7 7 (1.00%) WebSphere
8 5 (0.72%) SharePoint Server
9 2 (0.29%) JBoss
10 1 (0.14%) CMS
10 1 (0.14%) Oracle Self-Service HR
10 1 (0.14%) Oracle Workflow
10 1 (0.14%) Umbraco
Applications
1 75 (10.73%) Microsoft Office
2 27 (3.86%) Microsoft Excel
3 12 (1.72%) Microsoft PowerPoint
3 12 (1.72%) MS Visio
4 6 (0.86%) Microsoft Project
5 1 (0.14%) Trello
Business Applications
1 19 (2.72%) Remedy ITSM
2 7 (1.00%) assyst
2 7 (1.00%) Maximo
3 5 (0.72%) Oracle EBS
3 5 (0.72%) SAP S/4HANA
4 3 (0.43%) Dynamics CRM
5 2 (0.29%) Oracle ERP
5 2 (0.29%) Salesforce CRM
6 1 (0.14%) SAP ERP
6 1 (0.14%) SAP HR
6 1 (0.14%) SAP LE
6 1 (0.14%) SAP PM
6 1 (0.14%) SAP WM
6 1 (0.14%) SystmOne
Cloud Services
1 86 (12.30%) Azure
2 75 (10.73%) Microsoft 365
3 53 (7.58%) AWS
4 27 (3.86%) Entra ID
5 17 (2.43%) Power Platform
6 15 (2.15%) OneDrive
7 14 (2.00%) Azure Monitor
8 12 (1.72%) SaaS
9 11 (1.57%) Azure DevOps
9 11 (1.57%) GCP
10 6 (0.86%) PowerApps
10 6 (0.86%) Salesforce Service Cloud
11 5 (0.72%) Google Workspace
12 3 (0.43%) Lucidchart
13 2 (0.29%) Asana
13 2 (0.29%) Azure AKS
13 2 (0.29%) Azure Cosmos DB
13 2 (0.29%) Oracle CX
13 2 (0.29%) Power Automate
13 2 (0.29%) Serverless
Communications & Networking
1 50 (7.15%) DNS
2 47 (6.72%) Firewall
3 33 (4.72%) DHCP
4 29 (4.15%) WAN
5 28 (4.01%) LAN
6 22 (3.15%) VLAN
6 22 (3.15%) VPN
7 19 (2.72%) Skype
8 18 (2.58%) TCP/IP
9 17 (2.43%) Cisco Firepower
9 17 (2.43%) Cisco IOS
9 17 (2.43%) Cisco ISE
9 17 (2.43%) Junos
10 13 (1.86%) BGP
11 12 (1.72%) Unified Communications
11 12 (1.72%) Wi-Fi
12 11 (1.57%) Network Security
13 10 (1.43%) Wireless
14 8 (1.14%) MPLS
15 7 (1.00%) IPsec
Database & Business Intelligence
1 16 (2.29%) SQL Server
2 15 (2.15%) Power BI
2 15 (2.15%) Relational Database
3 9 (1.29%) Amazon RDS
3 9 (1.29%) DB2
4 5 (0.72%) Oracle Reports
5 4 (0.57%) Data Mining
5 4 (0.57%) Metadata
6 3 (0.43%) Amazon Aurora
6 3 (0.43%) Big Data
6 3 (0.43%) MariaDB
6 3 (0.43%) MySQL
7 2 (0.29%) Azure SQL Database
7 2 (0.29%) Data Warehouse
7 2 (0.29%) PostgreSQL
8 1 (0.14%) Electronic Patient Records
8 1 (0.14%) MongoDB
8 1 (0.14%) Oracle Database
8 1 (0.14%) Sqoop
8 1 (0.14%) Tableau
Development Applications
1 70 (10.01%) JIRA
2 12 (1.72%) Jenkins
3 7 (1.00%) webpack
4 2 (0.29%) Bitbucket
4 2 (0.29%) Git
5 1 (0.14%) Cucumber
5 1 (0.14%) MLflow
5 1 (0.14%) Selenium
5 1 (0.14%) SoapUI
5 1 (0.14%) WebDriver
General
1 252 (36.05%) Social Skills
2 142 (20.31%) Analytical Skills
3 86 (12.30%) Public Sector
4 85 (12.16%) Finance
5 31 (4.43%) Telecoms
6 29 (4.15%) Manufacturing
7 24 (3.43%) Inclusion and Diversity
8 23 (3.29%) Legal
8 23 (3.29%) Military
9 19 (2.72%) Influencing Skills
10 18 (2.58%) Banking
10 18 (2.58%) Documentation Skills
11 16 (2.29%) Presentation Skills
12 15 (2.15%) Organisational Skills
13 14 (2.00%) Marketing
13 14 (2.00%) Retail
14 12 (1.72%) Electronics
15 11 (1.57%) Police
16 8 (1.14%) Investment Banking
17 5 (0.72%) Billing
Job Titles
1 123 (17.60%) Analyst
2 61 (8.73%) Architect
3 59 (8.44%) Support Engineer
4 52 (7.44%) Service Manager
5 51 (7.30%) IT Support
5 51 (7.30%) Support Analyst
6 42 (6.01%) Desktop Support
7 38 (5.44%) Lead
7 38 (5.44%) Network Engineer
8 35 (5.01%) 2nd Line Support
9 34 (4.86%) Service Architect
10 29 (4.15%) IT Analyst
11 26 (3.72%) Senior
11 26 (3.72%) Service Analyst
12 24 (3.43%) Consultant
12 24 (3.43%) IT Manager
13 23 (3.29%) Platform Engineer
14 22 (3.15%) IT Support Analyst
15 20 (2.86%) Data Analyst
15 20 (2.86%) Project Manager
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 19 (2.72%) REST
2 16 (2.29%) RFC 2544
3 14 (2.00%) Web Services
4 13 (1.86%) CSS
4 13 (1.86%) HTML
4 13 (1.86%) SOAP
5 8 (1.14%) RESTful
5 8 (1.14%) XML
6 7 (1.00%) CSS3
6 7 (1.00%) HTML5
6 7 (1.00%) NETCONF
6 7 (1.00%) Node.js
6 7 (1.00%) React
6 7 (1.00%) Redux
6 7 (1.00%) RESTCONF
6 7 (1.00%) XMPP
7 6 (0.86%) Elastic Stack
8 5 (0.72%) AngularJS
9 3 (0.43%) .NET
9 3 (0.43%) LDAP
Miscellaneous
1 42 (6.01%) Data Centre
2 39 (5.58%) Management Information System
3 27 (3.86%) CMDB
3 27 (3.86%) Product Ownership
4 24 (3.43%) PKI
5 21 (3.00%) Self-Motivation
6 18 (2.58%) Virtual Team
7 15 (2.15%) Analytical Mindset
8 13 (1.86%) Fibre Optics
9 12 (1.72%) iPhone
9 12 (1.72%) Onboarding
10 11 (1.57%) Driving Licence
10 11 (1.57%) NHS
11 10 (1.43%) Mainframe
12 8 (1.14%) Smartphone
13 7 (1.00%) Enterprise Software
13 7 (1.00%) Public Cloud
14 6 (0.86%) Tandem
14 6 (0.86%) Video Conferencing
15 5 (0.72%) Distributed Systems
Operating Systems
1 176 (25.18%) Windows
2 55 (7.87%) Linux
3 53 (7.58%) Windows Server
4 42 (6.01%) Windows 10
5 25 (3.58%) Unix
6 19 (2.72%) Mac OS
7 13 (1.86%) Apple iOS
8 12 (1.72%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
9 8 (1.14%) Android
10 6 (0.86%) Windows Server 2012
11 5 (0.72%) Windows 7
12 4 (0.57%) Windows Server 2003
12 4 (0.57%) Windows Server 2016
13 3 (0.43%) Windows Server 2008
13 3 (0.43%) Windows Server 2019
14 2 (0.29%) CentOS
14 2 (0.29%) Solaris
15 1 (0.14%) AIX
Processes & Methodologies
1 394 (56.37%) ITIL
2 314 (44.92%) ITSM
3 152 (21.75%) Problem-Solving
4 118 (16.88%) Customer Service
5 111 (15.88%) Change Management
6 100 (14.31%) Stakeholder Management
7 96 (13.73%) Service Delivery
8 90 (12.88%) Agile
9 85 (12.16%) Continuous Improvement
10 83 (11.87%) Service Design
11 69 (9.87%) Incident Management
12 65 (9.30%) Stakeholder Engagement
13 63 (9.01%) Project Management
14 62 (8.87%) Project Delivery
15 59 (8.44%) DevOps
16 48 (6.87%) Problem Management
17 43 (6.15%) Analytics
17 43 (6.15%) Business Intelligence
18 40 (5.72%) Visualisation
19 38 (5.44%) Incident Response
Programming Languages
1 62 (8.87%) SQL
2 56 (8.01%) Python
3 52 (7.44%) PowerShell
4 23 (3.29%) JavaScript
5 15 (2.15%) Perl
6 14 (2.00%) Bash
7 12 (1.72%) Shell Script
8 10 (1.43%) Java
9 7 (1.00%) TypeScript
10 5 (0.72%) VB
10 5 (0.72%) VBScript
11 2 (0.29%) Apex Code
11 2 (0.29%) C#
12 1 (0.14%) HiveQL
12 1 (0.14%) PL/SQL
12 1 (0.14%) VBA
Qualifications
1 282 (40.34%) Security Cleared
2 220 (31.47%) SC Cleared
3 84 (12.02%) Degree
4 58 (8.30%) DV Cleared
5 46 (6.58%) ITIL Certification
6 39 (5.58%) Microsoft Certification
7 29 (4.15%) Cisco Certification
8 26 (3.72%) CCNP
9 19 (2.72%) A+ Certification
10 16 (2.29%) Computer Science Degree
11 15 (2.15%) Azure Certification
12 14 (2.00%) Server+ Certification
13 13 (1.86%) CCNA
14 12 (1.72%) MCSE
15 11 (1.57%) Network+ Certification
16 10 (1.43%) BPSS Clearance
16 10 (1.43%) ITIL Foundation Certificate
17 6 (0.86%) HNC
17 6 (0.86%) Master's Degree
18 5 (0.72%) HND
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 57 (8.15%) SLA
2 31 (4.43%) ISO/IEC 20000
3 15 (2.15%) GDPR
4 12 (1.72%) QA
5 8 (1.14%) Data Quality
5 8 (1.14%) ISO/IEC 27001
5 8 (1.14%) NCSC
6 6 (0.86%) Disclosure Scotland
7 5 (0.72%) GxP
7 5 (0.72%) ISO 9001
7 5 (0.72%) PMO
7 5 (0.72%) Sarbanes-Oxley
8 3 (0.43%) Accessibility
8 3 (0.43%) COBIT
8 3 (0.43%) GRC
9 2 (0.29%) Cyber Essentials
9 2 (0.29%) HIPAA
9 2 (0.29%) WCAG
10 1 (0.14%) Actionable Recommendations
10 1 (0.14%) NIST
System Software
1 91 (13.02%) Active Directory
2 32 (4.58%) VMware Infrastructure
3 21 (3.00%) VMware NSX
4 13 (1.86%) Hyper-V
5 11 (1.57%) VMware ESXi
6 6 (0.86%) Docker
6 6 (0.86%) Virtual Desktop
6 6 (0.86%) Virtual Servers
7 5 (0.72%) BitLocker
7 5 (0.72%) Microsoft Virtual Server
8 3 (0.43%) Virtual Machines
9 1 (0.14%) Slurm Workload Manager
Systems Management
1 25 (3.58%) vCenter Server
2 18 (2.58%) SCCM
3 13 (1.86%) Microsoft Intune
4 12 (1.72%) Ansible
5 11 (1.57%) Active Directory Federation Services
6 10 (1.43%) WSUS
7 8 (1.14%) Jamf Pro
8 7 (1.00%) Kubernetes
9 6 (0.86%) Terraform
10 5 (0.72%) NSN NetAct
11 4 (0.57%) OpenView
12 3 (0.43%) Check_MK
12 3 (0.43%) Single Sign-On
13 2 (0.29%) FortiGate
13 2 (0.29%) Grafana
13 2 (0.29%) OPNET
13 2 (0.29%) Prometheus
13 2 (0.29%) SCOM
14 1 (0.14%) NetBackup
14 1 (0.14%) Tivoli
Vendors
1 169 (24.18%) Microsoft
2 160 (22.89%) ServiceNow
3 99 (14.16%) Cisco
4 41 (5.87%) VMware
5 37 (5.29%) Oracle
6 35 (5.01%) Splunk
7 30 (4.29%) SAP
7 30 (4.29%) SolarWinds
8 27 (3.86%) Atlassian
9 25 (3.58%) Juniper
9 25 (3.58%) Remedy
10 19 (2.72%) Dynatrace
11 18 (2.58%) AppDynamics
12 17 (2.43%) IBM
13 16 (2.29%) Google
14 13 (1.86%) Red Hat
15 12 (1.72%) Apple
15 12 (1.72%) Salesforce
16 11 (1.57%) Veeam
17 7 (1.00%) Fortinet