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

6 months to
2 Feb 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 68 70 62
Rank change year-on-year +2 -8 +5
Contract jobs citing Service Management 662 428 683
As % of all contract jobs in the UK excluding London 3.45% 3.15% 3.24%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 4.09% 3.55% 3.75%
Number of daily rates quoted 454 266 510
10th Percentile £185 £203 £270
25th Percentile £306 £375 £416
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £510 £525
Median % change year-on-year -2.01% -2.81% +10.99%
75th Percentile £594 £613 £600
90th Percentile £738 £688 £700
UK median daily rate £500 £525 £530
% change year-on-year -4.76% -0.94% +6.00%
Number of hourly rates quoted 65 19 13
10th Percentile £13.25 £19.27 £12.53
25th Percentile £16.40 £24.18 £15.46
Median hourly rate £26.50 £30.40 £17.29
Median % change year-on-year -12.83% +75.88% -43.20%
75th Percentile £60.00 £37.00 £17.78
90th Percentile £74.26 £69.00 £43.30
UK median hourly rate £26.40 £30.20 £17.72
% change year-on-year -12.58% +70.43% -29.12%

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 16,174 12,053 18,220
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK excluding London 84.27% 88.63% 86.44%
Number of daily rates quoted 9,910 7,062 11,418
10th Percentile £230 £232 £248
25th Percentile £380 £380 £396
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £479 £499 £500
Median % change year-on-year -4.06% -0.15% -
75th Percentile £575 £594 £600
90th Percentile £675 £676 £688
UK median daily rate £500 £525 £525
% change year-on-year -4.76% - -4.55%
Number of hourly rates quoted 1,740 662 1,704
10th Percentile £14.25 £15.45 £13.02
25th Percentile £17.13 £20.12 £15.57
Median hourly rate £24.71 £30.98 £35.25
Median % change year-on-year -20.23% -12.12% +21.55%
75th Percentile £58.75 £63.75 £62.00
90th Percentile £69.68 £74.37 £73.75
UK median hourly rate £25.15 £32.50 £35.00
% change year-on-year -22.62% -7.14% +7.69%

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 2 February 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 2 February 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 2 February 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 +27 167 £425 -5.56% 102
North of England -5 162 £500 +17.65% 74
South West +1 154 £575 +3.05% 24
Midlands -5 106 £425 -26.72% 42
North West -1 89 £550 +25.71% 41
West Midlands -10 78 £475 -18.10% 25
Yorkshire -23 58 £476 +105.72% 24
East of England -7 45 £330 -39.31% 28
East Midlands +1 28 £411 -14.77% 17
Scotland -14 27 £488 -1.52% 9
North East -6 18 £280 -53.04% 9
Northern Ireland - 4 £325 - 2
Wales -2 3 £160 -58.71% 11
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 61 (9.21%) Confluence
2 57 (8.61%) Microsoft Exchange
3 44 (6.65%) SharePoint
4 14 (2.11%) Skype for Business
5 6 (0.91%) Apache
5 6 (0.91%) WebLogic
6 5 (0.76%) SharePoint Server
7 2 (0.30%) JBoss
8 1 (0.15%) CMS
8 1 (0.15%) HCL Notes
Applications
1 85 (12.84%) Microsoft Office
2 35 (5.29%) Microsoft Project
3 15 (2.27%) Microsoft Excel
4 6 (0.91%) Microsoft PowerPoint
5 4 (0.60%) MS Visio
6 3 (0.45%) PTC Creo
Business Applications
1 14 (2.11%) Remedy ITSM
2 13 (1.96%) Oracle EBS
3 6 (0.91%) SAP S/4HANA
4 4 (0.60%) Teamcenter
5 3 (0.45%) assyst
6 2 (0.30%) Dynamics CRM
6 2 (0.30%) Salesforce CRM
7 1 (0.15%) NetSuite
7 1 (0.15%) SAP ERP
7 1 (0.15%) SystmOne
Cloud Services
1 107 (16.16%) Azure
2 71 (10.73%) AWS
2 71 (10.73%) Microsoft 365
3 38 (5.74%) GCP
4 27 (4.08%) Entra ID
5 20 (3.02%) Power Platform
6 15 (2.27%) OneDrive
6 15 (2.27%) SaaS
7 11 (1.66%) Azure DevOps
8 8 (1.21%) PowerApps
9 7 (1.06%) Salesforce Service Cloud
10 6 (0.91%) Azure Monitor
10 6 (0.91%) IaaS
11 5 (0.76%) Dynamics 365
11 5 (0.76%) OpenShift
11 5 (0.76%) Power Automate
12 4 (0.60%) AWS Lambda
12 4 (0.60%) GitHub
12 4 (0.60%) PaaS
12 4 (0.60%) Serverless
Communications & Networking
1 42 (6.34%) DNS
2 29 (4.38%) DHCP
3 25 (3.78%) VLAN
4 24 (3.63%) Skype
5 22 (3.32%) Firewall
6 19 (2.87%) VPN
7 17 (2.57%) Cisco Firepower
7 17 (2.57%) Cisco IOS
7 17 (2.57%) Cisco ISE
7 17 (2.57%) Junos
8 16 (2.42%) TCP/IP
9 15 (2.27%) LAN
9 15 (2.27%) Network Security
10 13 (1.96%) WAN
10 13 (1.96%) Wi-Fi
11 8 (1.21%) WebEx
12 5 (0.76%) BGP
12 5 (0.76%) Software-Defined Networking
12 5 (0.76%) Structured Cabling
12 5 (0.76%) Unified Communications
Database & Business Intelligence
1 14 (2.11%) Relational Database
2 11 (1.66%) Power BI
3 7 (1.06%) SQL Server
4 4 (0.60%) Amazon RDS
4 4 (0.60%) InfluxDB
4 4 (0.60%) Metadata
5 3 (0.45%) PostgreSQL
6 2 (0.30%) Azure SQL Database
6 2 (0.30%) Big Data
6 2 (0.30%) Data Mining
6 2 (0.30%) GIS
6 2 (0.30%) MongoDB
7 1 (0.15%) BusinessObjects
7 1 (0.15%) Electronic Patient Records
7 1 (0.15%) Oracle Database
7 1 (0.15%) Oracle Discoverer
7 1 (0.15%) Oracle Reports
7 1 (0.15%) RDBMS
Development Applications
1 89 (13.44%) JIRA
2 12 (1.81%) Jenkins
3 6 (0.91%) Bitbucket
3 6 (0.91%) Git
4 4 (0.60%) GitLab
5 2 (0.30%) ScriptRunner
6 1 (0.15%) Atlassian Bamboo
6 1 (0.15%) MLflow
6 1 (0.15%) Visual Studio Code
General
1 276 (41.69%) Social Skills
2 135 (20.39%) Analytical Skills
3 92 (13.90%) Public Sector
4 73 (11.03%) Finance
5 42 (6.34%) Military
6 40 (6.04%) Legal
7 30 (4.53%) Organisational Skills
8 24 (3.63%) Manufacturing
9 21 (3.17%) Telecoms
10 19 (2.87%) Documentation Skills
11 18 (2.72%) Retail
12 14 (2.11%) Banking
13 13 (1.96%) Influencing Skills
14 10 (1.51%) Electronics
14 10 (1.51%) Marketing
15 7 (1.06%) Presentation Skills
16 6 (0.91%) Investment Banking
17 5 (0.76%) Inclusion and Diversity
18 2 (0.30%) Aerospace
18 2 (0.30%) Billing
Job Titles
1 81 (12.24%) Analyst
2 73 (11.03%) Architect
3 72 (10.88%) Lead
4 58 (8.76%) Service Manager
5 53 (8.01%) Support Engineer
6 41 (6.19%) Service Architect
7 40 (6.04%) IT Support
8 29 (4.38%) Hardware Engineer
9 28 (4.23%) Support Analyst
10 26 (3.93%) 2nd Line Support
11 24 (3.63%) Consultant
12 22 (3.32%) Desktop Support
13 21 (3.17%) IT Analyst
13 21 (3.17%) Network Engineer
14 20 (3.02%) 3rd Line Support
15 19 (2.87%) 3rd Line Engineer
15 19 (2.87%) Break Fix Engineer
16 18 (2.72%) Cloud Engineer
16 18 (2.72%) Platform Engineer
16 18 (2.72%) Service Analyst
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 21 (3.17%) REST
2 8 (1.21%) XMPP
3 6 (0.91%) SOAP
4 5 (0.76%) RFC 2544
5 4 (0.60%) .NET
5 4 (0.60%) Elastic Stack
5 4 (0.60%) RabbitMQ
6 3 (0.45%) Web Services
7 2 (0.30%) CSS
7 2 (0.30%) Middleware
7 2 (0.30%) ModSecurity
7 2 (0.30%) Spring Boot
8 1 (0.15%) ARM Templates
8 1 (0.15%) HTML
8 1 (0.15%) LDAP
8 1 (0.15%) Lightning Web Components
8 1 (0.15%) Oracle GoldenGate
8 1 (0.15%) Software Packaging
Miscellaneous
1 52 (7.85%) Product Ownership
2 31 (4.68%) CMDB
3 27 (4.08%) Onboarding
4 25 (3.78%) Data Centre
5 24 (3.63%) Management Information System
6 20 (3.02%) Virtual Team
7 18 (2.72%) Driving Licence
7 18 (2.72%) PKI
7 18 (2.72%) Self-Motivation
8 15 (2.27%) Analytical Mindset
9 10 (1.51%) PMI
10 8 (1.21%) Mainframe
10 8 (1.21%) NHS
11 7 (1.06%) Enterprise Software
12 5 (0.76%) Fibre Optics
12 5 (0.76%) Smartphone
13 4 (0.60%) Data Protection Act
13 4 (0.60%) Data Structures
13 4 (0.60%) Hybrid Cloud
13 4 (0.60%) Mobile App
Operating Systems
1 178 (26.89%) Windows
2 61 (9.21%) Linux
3 52 (7.85%) Windows Server
4 50 (7.55%) Windows 10
5 12 (1.81%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
6 11 (1.66%) Windows 7
7 10 (1.51%) Unix
8 9 (1.36%) Mac OS
9 8 (1.21%) Apple iOS
10 7 (1.06%) Android
10 7 (1.06%) Windows Server 2012
11 4 (0.60%) Ubuntu
11 4 (0.60%) Windows Server 2003
11 4 (0.60%) Windows Server 2016
11 4 (0.60%) Windows Server 2019
12 3 (0.45%) CentOS
12 3 (0.45%) Windows Server 2008
13 1 (0.15%) AIX
13 1 (0.15%) Solaris
13 1 (0.15%) Windows XP
Processes & Methodologies
1 400 (60.42%) ITIL
2 296 (44.71%) ITSM
3 143 (21.60%) Problem-Solving
4 118 (17.82%) Continuous Improvement
5 114 (17.22%) Change Management
6 110 (16.62%) Agile
7 94 (14.20%) Stakeholder Management
8 92 (13.90%) Stakeholder Engagement
9 90 (13.60%) Customer Service
10 81 (12.24%) Service Delivery
11 68 (10.27%) Service Design
12 58 (8.76%) Problem Management
12 58 (8.76%) Project Management
13 57 (8.61%) Knowledge Transfer
14 54 (8.16%) Incident Management
15 51 (7.70%) Acceptance Criteria
16 50 (7.55%) DevOps
17 49 (7.40%) Performance Metrics
18 45 (6.80%) Critical Thinking
19 44 (6.65%) Configuration Management
Programming Languages
1 67 (10.12%) PowerShell
2 48 (7.25%) Python
3 43 (6.50%) SQL
4 15 (2.27%) Perl
5 14 (2.11%) Shell Script
6 11 (1.66%) Bash
7 9 (1.36%) VB
7 9 (1.36%) VBScript
8 8 (1.21%) Java
9 5 (0.76%) JavaScript
10 4 (0.60%) Go
11 2 (0.30%) PHP
12 1 (0.15%) Apex Code
12 1 (0.15%) C#
12 1 (0.15%) PL/SQL
12 1 (0.15%) T-SQL
12 1 (0.15%) VBA
Qualifications
1 324 (48.94%) Security Cleared
2 249 (37.61%) SC Cleared
3 95 (14.35%) Degree
4 92 (13.90%) DV Cleared
5 36 (5.44%) ITIL Certification
6 34 (5.14%) Microsoft Certification
7 30 (4.53%) TOGAF Certification
8 16 (2.42%) MCSE
8 16 (2.42%) PMI Certification
9 15 (2.27%) A+ Certification
9 15 (2.27%) PMP
10 14 (2.11%) Azure Certification
10 14 (2.11%) Computer Science Degree
10 14 (2.11%) Network+ Certification
11 13 (1.96%) BPSS Clearance
11 13 (1.96%) Cisco Certification
12 12 (1.81%) CCNP
13 11 (1.66%) CCNA
13 11 (1.66%) Server+ Certification
14 8 (1.21%) ITIL Foundation Certificate
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 28 (4.23%) SLA
2 12 (1.81%) Data Quality
3 11 (1.66%) ISO/IEC 27001
4 9 (1.36%) PMO
5 8 (1.21%) GDPR
5 8 (1.21%) QA
6 5 (0.76%) Cyber Essentials
6 5 (0.76%) ISO/IEC 20000
7 4 (0.60%) Disclosure Scotland
8 3 (0.45%) ISO 9001
8 3 (0.45%) NCSC
9 2 (0.30%) Accessibility
9 2 (0.30%) GRC
9 2 (0.30%) GxP
9 2 (0.30%) HMG Security Policy Framework
9 2 (0.30%) NIST
10 1 (0.15%) Actionable Recommendations
10 1 (0.15%) PCI DSS
System Software
1 90 (13.60%) Active Directory
2 34 (5.14%) VMware Infrastructure
3 21 (3.17%) VMware NSX
4 13 (1.96%) Hyper-V
5 9 (1.36%) BitLocker
6 7 (1.06%) Docker
7 6 (0.91%) Virtual Desktop
7 6 (0.91%) Virtual Servers
8 5 (0.76%) Microsoft Virtual Server
9 3 (0.45%) Virtual Machines
10 2 (0.30%) VMware ESXi
11 1 (0.15%) Slurm Workload Manager
Systems Management
1 32 (4.83%) OPNET
2 28 (4.23%) SCCM
3 24 (3.63%) vCenter Server
4 19 (2.87%) Ansible
5 16 (2.42%) Microsoft Intune
5 16 (2.42%) Terraform
6 15 (2.27%) Kubernetes
7 12 (1.81%) Active Directory Federation Services
8 11 (1.66%) WSUS
9 5 (0.76%) Grafana
9 5 (0.76%) Jamf Pro
10 4 (0.60%) Nessus
10 4 (0.60%) Packer
10 4 (0.60%) Progress Chef
10 4 (0.60%) Prometheus
11 2 (0.30%) Docker Swarm
11 2 (0.30%) FortiGate
11 2 (0.30%) PowerCLI
11 2 (0.30%) Puppet
11 2 (0.30%) SCOM
Vendors
1 149 (22.51%) ServiceNow
2 136 (20.54%) Microsoft
3 59 (8.91%) Cisco
4 56 (8.46%) Atlassian
5 51 (7.70%) Remedy
6 46 (6.95%) VMware
7 34 (5.14%) Oracle
8 33 (4.98%) SolarWinds
9 32 (4.83%) Google
10 29 (4.38%) HP
11 24 (3.63%) SAP
11 24 (3.63%) Splunk
12 19 (2.87%) Juniper
13 13 (1.96%) Dynatrace
13 13 (1.96%) Red Hat
13 13 (1.96%) Salesforce
13 13 (1.96%) Veeam
14 12 (1.81%) AppDynamics
15 10 (1.51%) Citrix
15 10 (1.51%) Dell