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

6 months to
28 Jul 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 72 54 57
Rank change year-on-year -18 +3 +8
Contract jobs citing Service Management 815 618 621
As % of all contract jobs in the UK excluding London 3.01% 4.11% 3.24%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 3.69% 4.60% 3.91%
Number of daily rates quoted 535 365 445
10th Percentile £230 £196 £213
25th Percentile £400 £308 £425
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £496 £525
Median % change year-on-year +0.81% -5.52% +5.00%
75th Percentile £600 £575 £600
90th Percentile £688 £663 £675
UK median daily rate £520 £494 £525
% change year-on-year +5.37% -6.00% +0.96%
Number of hourly rates quoted 76 70 18
10th Percentile £14.50 - £16.31
25th Percentile £16.17 £12.62 £19.00
Median hourly rate £57.50 £18.73 £27.25
Median % change year-on-year +206.99% -31.27% +27.87%
75th Percentile £85.00 £22.14 £48.75
90th Percentile £99.63 £54.35 £51.13
UK median hourly rate £60.00 £18.73 £27.25
% change year-on-year +220.34% -31.27% -43.81%

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 22,108 13,425 15,894
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK excluding London 81.74% 89.27% 82.96%
Number of daily rates quoted 13,058 8,130 9,549
10th Percentile £300 £236 £250
25th Percentile £406 £365 £381
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £475 £500
Median % change year-on-year +5.26% -5.00% -
75th Percentile £592 £575 £600
90th Percentile £676 £650 £688
UK median daily rate £521 £500 £525
% change year-on-year +4.10% -4.76% -3.67%
Number of hourly rates quoted 2,312 1,277 1,720
10th Percentile £14.45 £14.00 £13.18
25th Percentile £19.69 £16.95 £16.06
Median hourly rate £43.96 £23.50 £40.00
Median % change year-on-year +87.06% -41.25% -
75th Percentile £68.75 £50.00 £63.75
90th Percentile £82.49 £70.16 £74.04
UK median hourly rate £43.96 £25.15 £40.00
% change year-on-year +74.79% -37.13% -5.88%

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 28 July 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 28 July 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 28 July 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 +26 277 £550 +14.29% 110
North of England -31 204 £450 +0.67% 82
South West -24 123 £500 -9.09% 34
North West -35 112 £488 +1.88% 38
Midlands -41 97 £475 -5.00% 48
West Midlands -37 88 £476 -7.57% 33
Yorkshire -19 86 £443 +26.57% 33
Scotland -21 61 £494 +5.05% 17
East of England -21 39 £563 +2.27% 33
Wales -8 13 £800 +247.83% 6
East Midlands -17 9 £450 +50.00% 15
Northern Ireland +7 8 - - 6
North East -41 6 £440 +125.64% 12
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 (5.77%) SharePoint
2 31 (3.80%) Confluence
3 28 (3.44%) Microsoft Exchange
4 8 (0.98%) Skype for Business
5 6 (0.74%) Mattermost
6 3 (0.37%) CMS
6 3 (0.37%) OpenStack
7 2 (0.25%) IIS
8 1 (0.12%) Apache
8 1 (0.12%) JBoss
8 1 (0.12%) LiveCycle
Applications
1 54 (6.63%) Microsoft Office
2 22 (2.70%) Microsoft Excel
3 14 (1.72%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 4 (0.49%) Chatbot
5 3 (0.37%) Microsoft Project
6 2 (0.25%) MS Visio
7 1 (0.12%) Camtasia
7 1 (0.12%) Maple
7 1 (0.12%) PTC Creo
Business Applications
1 50 (6.13%) Remedy ITSM
2 6 (0.74%) SAP S/4HANA
3 5 (0.61%) ContrOCC
4 4 (0.49%) Teamcenter
5 2 (0.25%) Oracle Applications
5 2 (0.25%) Primavera
6 1 (0.12%) NEC Housing
6 1 (0.12%) NetSuite
6 1 (0.12%) SAP HR
6 1 (0.12%) SAP Payroll
Cloud Services
1 120 (14.72%) Azure
2 80 (9.82%) Microsoft 365
3 49 (6.01%) Power Platform
4 46 (5.64%) Entra ID
5 38 (4.66%) AWS
6 23 (2.82%) OneDrive
7 22 (2.70%) SaaS
8 21 (2.58%) Azure DevOps
9 17 (2.09%) GCP
10 10 (1.23%) Azure Monitor
10 10 (1.23%) Microsoft Copilot
10 10 (1.23%) OCI
11 8 (0.98%) GitHub
12 7 (0.86%) PaaS
13 6 (0.74%) Azure AKS
14 5 (0.61%) Azure Machine Learning
14 5 (0.61%) Azure Sentinel
14 5 (0.61%) Azure Synapse Analytics
14 5 (0.61%) Google App Engine
15 4 (0.49%) IaaS
Communications & Networking
1 42 (5.15%) Firewall
2 37 (4.54%) DNS
3 26 (3.19%) LAN
4 24 (2.94%) Network Security
5 23 (2.82%) DHCP
6 21 (2.58%) VPN
7 19 (2.33%) BGP
7 19 (2.33%) TCP/IP
8 18 (2.21%) WAN
9 16 (1.96%) OSPF
10 14 (1.72%) Wireless
11 12 (1.47%) BIG-IP
11 12 (1.47%) Cisco ISE
12 10 (1.23%) Junos
12 10 (1.23%) VXLAN
13 9 (1.10%) Ethernet VPN
13 9 (1.10%) SSH
13 9 (1.10%) VLAN
13 9 (1.10%) Wi-Fi
14 8 (0.98%) Skype
Database & Business Intelligence
1 43 (5.28%) Power BI
2 18 (2.21%) SQL Server
3 6 (0.74%) SQL Server Integration Services
4 5 (0.61%) Oracle Reports
4 5 (0.61%) PostgreSQL
4 5 (0.61%) Relational Database
4 5 (0.61%) SQL Server Reporting Services
5 4 (0.49%) MySQL
5 4 (0.49%) SQL Server Analysis Services
6 3 (0.37%) Azure SQL Database
6 3 (0.37%) MariaDB
7 2 (0.25%) Amazon RDS
7 2 (0.25%) Microsoft Analysis Services
7 2 (0.25%) Oracle Database
8 1 (0.12%) Amazon Aurora
8 1 (0.12%) Data Warehouse
8 1 (0.12%) DTS
8 1 (0.12%) InfluxDB
8 1 (0.12%) OpenStack Swift
8 1 (0.12%) Oracle Database 11g
Development Applications
1 81 (9.94%) JIRA
2 16 (1.96%) Git
3 13 (1.60%) Bitbucket
4 12 (1.47%) Atlassian Bamboo
5 8 (0.98%) Jenkins
6 7 (0.86%) GitLab
7 5 (0.61%) Browser DevTools
8 4 (0.49%) MLflow
8 4 (0.49%) Rational DOORS
9 3 (0.37%) Fiddler
10 2 (0.25%) Firebug
10 2 (0.25%) IntelliJ
10 2 (0.25%) webpack
11 1 (0.12%) Gemini Tracker
11 1 (0.12%) IBM UrbanCode
11 1 (0.12%) Maven
11 1 (0.12%) MSI
11 1 (0.12%) Snyk
11 1 (0.12%) Sonatype Nexus
11 1 (0.12%) Visual Studio Code
General
1 294 (36.07%) Social Skills
2 119 (14.60%) Analytical Skills
3 116 (14.23%) Finance
4 80 (9.82%) Public Sector
5 37 (4.54%) Legal
6 36 (4.42%) Influencing Skills
7 29 (3.56%) Documentation Skills
8 25 (3.07%) Military
9 22 (2.70%) Organisational Skills
9 22 (2.70%) Telecoms
10 15 (1.84%) Aerospace
10 15 (1.84%) Inclusion and Diversity
10 15 (1.84%) Presentation Skills
11 14 (1.72%) Banking
12 11 (1.35%) Local Government
13 5 (0.61%) Financial Institution
14 3 (0.37%) Publishing
14 3 (0.37%) Retail
15 2 (0.25%) Law
15 2 (0.25%) Police
Job Titles
1 102 (12.52%) Analyst
2 85 (10.43%) Lead
3 84 (10.31%) Service Manager
4 73 (8.96%) Senior
5 52 (6.38%) Architect
6 49 (6.01%) IT Manager
7 48 (5.89%) Service Analyst
8 31 (3.80%) Project Manager
9 30 (3.68%) Delivery Manager
10 28 (3.44%) Network Engineer
11 27 (3.31%) Support Engineer
12 25 (3.07%) Service Architect
13 22 (2.70%) Consultant
13 22 (2.70%) IT Analyst
13 22 (2.70%) Service Delivery Manager
14 21 (2.58%) Administrator
14 21 (2.58%) Infrastructure Engineer
15 20 (2.45%) IT Services Manager
15 20 (2.45%) Transition Manager
16 18 (2.21%) Service Transition Manager
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 28 (3.44%) REST
2 9 (1.10%) OAuth
2 9 (1.10%) SOAP
3 8 (0.98%) 802.1X
4 7 (0.86%) SAML
5 5 (0.61%) OpenID
5 5 (0.61%) Oracle Fusion
5 5 (0.61%) XML
6 4 (0.49%) ARM Templates
6 4 (0.49%) JSON
6 4 (0.49%) Middleware
6 4 (0.49%) OAuth2
6 4 (0.49%) XMPP
7 3 (0.37%) CSS
7 3 (0.37%) Elastic Stack
7 3 (0.37%) FIDO
7 3 (0.37%) Flash
7 3 (0.37%) Microsoft Graph
7 3 (0.37%) Software Packaging
7 3 (0.37%) YAML
Miscellaneous
1 69 (8.47%) Onboarding
2 40 (4.91%) CMDB
3 39 (4.79%) Product Ownership
4 35 (4.29%) Management Information System
5 31 (3.80%) PKI
6 27 (3.31%) Data Centre
7 25 (3.07%) Clustering
8 17 (2.09%) Enterprise Software
9 16 (1.96%) Data Protection Act
10 14 (1.72%) Analytical Mindset
10 14 (1.72%) Operational Technology
10 14 (1.72%) Self-Motivation
10 14 (1.72%) Virtual Team
11 10 (1.23%) Hybrid Cloud
12 8 (0.98%) Cloud Native
12 8 (0.98%) Replication
12 8 (0.98%) Security Posture
13 7 (0.86%) Cyber Threat
13 7 (0.86%) Driving Licence
13 7 (0.86%) Video Conferencing
Operating Systems
1 177 (21.72%) Windows
2 46 (5.64%) Windows Server
3 41 (5.03%) Linux
4 33 (4.05%) Windows 10
5 12 (1.47%) Unix
6 11 (1.35%) Mac OS
6 11 (1.35%) Windows 7
7 6 (0.74%) Android
7 6 (0.74%) Apple iOS
7 6 (0.74%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
8 3 (0.37%) Windows Server 2012
9 2 (0.25%) Solaris
9 2 (0.25%) Ubuntu
9 2 (0.25%) Windows XP
10 1 (0.12%) Rocky
10 1 (0.12%) Windows Server 2008
10 1 (0.12%) Windows Server 2016
10 1 (0.12%) Windows Server 2019
10 1 (0.12%) zOS
Processes & Methodologies
1 473 (58.04%) ITIL
2 369 (45.28%) ITSM
3 214 (26.26%) Continuous Improvement
4 203 (24.91%) Stakeholder Management
5 199 (24.42%) Service Delivery
6 167 (20.49%) Agile
7 159 (19.51%) Problem-Solving
8 127 (15.58%) Change Management
9 117 (14.36%) Stakeholder Engagement
10 93 (11.41%) Customer Service
11 89 (10.92%) DevOps
12 79 (9.69%) Incident Management
13 71 (8.71%) Project Delivery
14 68 (8.34%) Cybersecurity
15 63 (7.73%) Service Design
16 60 (7.36%) Roadmaps
17 58 (7.12%) Configuration Management
17 58 (7.12%) Problem Management
18 56 (6.87%) Risk Management
19 55 (6.75%) Project Management
Programming Languages
1 74 (9.08%) PowerShell
2 51 (6.26%) Python
3 42 (5.15%) SQL
4 25 (3.07%) Bash
5 23 (2.82%) JavaScript
6 8 (0.98%) Java
6 8 (0.98%) VB
6 8 (0.98%) VBScript
7 5 (0.61%) Bicep
8 4 (0.49%) C
8 4 (0.49%) C#
8 4 (0.49%) Perl
8 4 (0.49%) PL/SQL
8 4 (0.49%) T-SQL
9 3 (0.37%) Lua
9 3 (0.37%) Shell Script
10 2 (0.25%) Apex Code
10 2 (0.25%) Search Processing Language
10 2 (0.25%) TypeScript
10 2 (0.25%) VBA
Qualifications
1 383 (46.99%) Security Cleared
2 229 (28.10%) SC Cleared
3 139 (17.06%) DV Cleared
4 80 (9.82%) Degree
5 40 (4.91%) ITIL Certification
6 26 (3.19%) BPSS Clearance
7 25 (3.07%) Cisco Certification
7 25 (3.07%) PMP
8 24 (2.94%) PMI Certification
9 15 (1.84%) Computer Science Degree
10 13 (1.60%) CCNA
10 13 (1.60%) DBS Check
10 13 (1.60%) Microsoft Certification
11 11 (1.35%) CCNP
11 11 (1.35%) ITIL Foundation Certificate
12 10 (1.23%) A+ Certification
13 9 (1.10%) JNCIA
13 9 (1.10%) JNCIP
13 9 (1.10%) JNCIS
14 8 (0.98%) BC Cleared
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 58 (7.12%) SLA
2 30 (3.68%) ISO/IEC 20000
3 29 (3.56%) Data Quality
4 23 (2.82%) ISO/IEC 27001
4 23 (2.82%) QA
5 22 (2.70%) PMO
6 17 (2.09%) GRC
7 16 (1.96%) NCSC
8 15 (1.84%) ISO 9001
9 13 (1.60%) GDPR
10 10 (1.23%) COBIT
11 8 (0.98%) Disclosure Scotland
12 7 (0.86%) Government Security Classifications
13 6 (0.74%) Cyber Essentials
13 6 (0.74%) ISO 31000
13 6 (0.74%) ISO/IEC 27005
14 5 (0.61%) Accessibility
15 4 (0.49%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
15 4 (0.49%) GMP
15 4 (0.49%) NIST
System Software
1 95 (11.66%) Active Directory
2 42 (5.15%) VMware Infrastructure
3 20 (2.45%) VMware ESXi
4 13 (1.60%) Docker
4 13 (1.60%) VMware NSX
5 9 (1.10%) BitLocker
5 9 (1.10%) vCloud
5 9 (1.10%) vSphere
6 5 (0.61%) Hyper-V
6 5 (0.61%) Virtual Desktop
6 5 (0.61%) Virtual Machines
7 4 (0.49%) NFS
8 3 (0.37%) Firmware
9 2 (0.25%) GPFS
9 2 (0.25%) KVM
10 1 (0.12%) iptables
10 1 (0.12%) Oracle RAC
10 1 (0.12%) Samba
10 1 (0.12%) Slurm Workload Manager
Systems Management
1 45 (5.52%) SCCM
2 42 (5.15%) Microsoft Intune
3 26 (3.19%) Ansible
4 25 (3.07%) Terraform
5 13 (1.60%) SCOM
6 12 (1.47%) Kubernetes
6 12 (1.47%) vCenter Server
7 9 (1.10%) Single Sign-On
8 8 (0.98%) FortiGate
8 8 (0.98%) Jamf Pro
9 5 (0.61%) Progress Chef
10 4 (0.49%) PowerCLI
10 4 (0.49%) Puppet
10 4 (0.49%) vMotion
11 3 (0.37%) Cisco Prime
11 3 (0.37%) Dell DRAC
11 3 (0.37%) Grafana
11 3 (0.37%) Systems Management Server (SMS)
11 3 (0.37%) vRealize
12 2 (0.25%) Nagios
Vendors
1 206 (25.28%) ServiceNow
2 157 (19.26%) Microsoft
3 59 (7.24%) VMware
4 52 (6.38%) Remedy
5 39 (4.79%) Cisco
6 27 (3.31%) BMC
7 19 (2.33%) Oracle
8 18 (2.21%) Atlassian
8 18 (2.21%) Splunk
9 17 (2.09%) SolarWinds
10 15 (1.84%) Juniper
11 13 (1.60%) F5
12 12 (1.47%) SAP
13 11 (1.35%) IBM
14 10 (1.23%) Dynatrace
14 10 (1.23%) Qualys
15 9 (1.10%) Citrix
15 9 (1.10%) CyberArk
15 9 (1.10%) IFS
16 8 (0.98%) Red Hat