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

6 months to
31 Jul 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 72 55 57
Rank change year-on-year -17 +2 +6
Contract jobs citing Service Management 815 626 619
As % of all contract jobs in the UK excluding London 3.00% 4.15% 3.28%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 3.68% 4.65% 3.95%
Number of daily rates quoted 531 370 443
10th Percentile £234 £200 £213
25th Percentile £407 £313 £425
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £510 £497 £525
Median % change year-on-year +2.72% -5.43% +6.06%
75th Percentile £600 £575 £601
90th Percentile £700 £649 £675
UK median daily rate £520 £493 £525
% change year-on-year +5.48% -6.10% +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 £60.00 £18.73 £27.25
Median % change year-on-year +220.34% -31.27% +27.87%
75th Percentile £85.06 £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 22,171 13,475 15,674
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK excluding London 81.71% 89.35% 82.97%
Number of daily rates quoted 13,053 8,152 9,412
10th Percentile £300 £240 £250
25th Percentile £406 £366 £385
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £475 £500
Median % change year-on-year +5.26% -5.00% -
75th Percentile £594 £575 £600
90th Percentile £680 £650 £688
UK median daily rate £525 £500 £525
% change year-on-year +5.00% -4.76% -4.55%
Number of hourly rates quoted 2,360 1,285 1,677
10th Percentile £14.25 £14.00 £13.25
25th Percentile £19.33 £17.25 £16.30
Median hourly rate £43.96 £24.00 £40.33
Median % change year-on-year +83.17% -40.48% +0.81%
75th Percentile £68.60 £50.00 £65.00
90th Percentile £82.25 £70.81 £74.52
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 31 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 31 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 31 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 +21 280 £550 +10.00% 121
North of England -28 204 £450 +0.67% 88
South West -31 119 £513 -6.82% 42
North West -38 114 £481 +3.22% 47
Midlands -42 96 £475 -5.00% 53
West Midlands -43 88 £476 -7.57% 36
Yorkshire -30 85 £443 +26.84% 30
Scotland -14 62 £500 +1.42% 16
East of England -18 41 £563 +2.27% 38
Wales -10 12 £800 +247.83% 6
Northern Ireland +7 8 - - 10
East Midlands -19 8 £450 +50.00% 17
North East -44 5 £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 46 (5.64%) SharePoint
2 29 (3.56%) Confluence
3 27 (3.31%) 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 23 (2.82%) Microsoft Excel
3 15 (1.84%) 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 52 (6.38%) Remedy ITSM
2 6 (0.74%) SAP S/4HANA
3 5 (0.61%) ContrOCC
4 4 (0.49%) Teamcenter
5 2 (0.25%) NEC Housing
5 2 (0.25%) Oracle Applications
5 2 (0.25%) Primavera
6 1 (0.12%) Remedy AR System
6 1 (0.12%) SAP HR
6 1 (0.12%) SAP Payroll
Cloud Services
1 121 (14.85%) Azure
2 84 (10.31%) Microsoft 365
3 49 (6.01%) Entra ID
3 49 (6.01%) Power Platform
4 38 (4.66%) AWS
5 24 (2.94%) SaaS
6 23 (2.82%) OneDrive
7 19 (2.33%) Azure DevOps
8 17 (2.09%) GCP
9 10 (1.23%) Azure Monitor
9 10 (1.23%) Microsoft Copilot
9 10 (1.23%) OCI
10 8 (0.98%) GitHub
11 7 (0.86%) PaaS
12 6 (0.74%) Azure AKS
13 5 (0.61%) Azure Machine Learning
13 5 (0.61%) Azure Sentinel
13 5 (0.61%) Azure Synapse Analytics
13 5 (0.61%) Google App Engine
14 4 (0.49%) IaaS
Communications & Networking
1 44 (5.40%) Firewall
2 37 (4.54%) DNS
3 24 (2.94%) LAN
3 24 (2.94%) Network Security
4 23 (2.82%) DHCP
5 22 (2.70%) VPN
6 19 (2.33%) BGP
6 19 (2.33%) TCP/IP
7 18 (2.21%) WAN
8 16 (1.96%) OSPF
9 14 (1.72%) Wireless
10 12 (1.47%) BIG-IP
10 12 (1.47%) Cisco ISE
11 10 (1.23%) Junos
11 10 (1.23%) VXLAN
12 9 (1.10%) Ethernet VPN
12 9 (1.10%) SSH
12 9 (1.10%) VLAN
13 8 (0.98%) Skype
14 7 (0.86%) Wi-Fi
Database & Business Intelligence
1 42 (5.15%) 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%) Data Warehouse
8 1 (0.12%) DTS
8 1 (0.12%) InfluxDB
8 1 (0.12%) Looker
8 1 (0.12%) OpenStack Swift
8 1 (0.12%) Oracle Database 11g
Development Applications
1 78 (9.57%) 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%) Claude Code
11 1 (0.12%) Gemini Tracker
11 1 (0.12%) IBM UrbanCode
11 1 (0.12%) Snyk
11 1 (0.12%) Sonatype Nexus
11 1 (0.12%) SQL Server Management Studio (SSMS)
11 1 (0.12%) Visual Studio Code
General
1 301 (36.93%) Social Skills
2 120 (14.72%) Analytical Skills
3 119 (14.60%) Finance
4 79 (9.69%) Public Sector
5 37 (4.54%) Influencing Skills
6 33 (4.05%) Legal
7 32 (3.93%) Documentation Skills
8 24 (2.94%) Military
9 21 (2.58%) Organisational Skills
9 21 (2.58%) Telecoms
10 16 (1.96%) Aerospace
11 15 (1.84%) Banking
11 15 (1.84%) Inclusion and Diversity
11 15 (1.84%) Presentation Skills
12 12 (1.47%) Local Government
13 4 (0.49%) Financial Institution
13 4 (0.49%) Law
14 3 (0.37%) Publishing
14 3 (0.37%) Retail
15 2 (0.25%) Police
Job Titles
1 101 (12.39%) Analyst
2 89 (10.92%) Lead
3 80 (9.82%) Service Manager
4 74 (9.08%) Senior
5 55 (6.75%) Architect
6 49 (6.01%) IT Manager
6 49 (6.01%) Service Analyst
7 31 (3.80%) Delivery Manager
7 31 (3.80%) Project Manager
8 28 (3.44%) Network Engineer
8 28 (3.44%) Support Engineer
9 27 (3.31%) Service Architect
10 25 (3.07%) Consultant
11 23 (2.82%) IT Analyst
12 22 (2.70%) Service Delivery Manager
13 21 (2.58%) Infrastructure Engineer
14 20 (2.45%) Administrator
14 20 (2.45%) Transition Manager
15 19 (2.33%) IT Services Manager
16 18 (2.21%) Developer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 30 (3.68%) REST
2 11 (1.35%) SOAP
3 9 (1.10%) OAuth
4 8 (0.98%) 802.1X
4 8 (0.98%) 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 72 (8.83%) Onboarding
2 40 (4.91%) CMDB
3 39 (4.79%) Product Ownership
4 37 (4.54%) Management Information System
5 31 (3.80%) PKI
6 26 (3.19%) Data Centre
7 25 (3.07%) Clustering
8 18 (2.21%) Enterprise Software
9 15 (1.84%) Data Protection Act
10 14 (1.72%) Operational Technology
10 14 (1.72%) Self-Motivation
10 14 (1.72%) Virtual Team
11 13 (1.60%) Analytical Mindset
12 12 (1.47%) Hybrid Cloud
13 8 (0.98%) Cloud Native
13 8 (0.98%) Replication
13 8 (0.98%) Security Posture
14 7 (0.86%) Cyber Threat
14 7 (0.86%) Driving Licence
14 7 (0.86%) Video Conferencing
Operating Systems
1 177 (21.72%) Windows
2 48 (5.89%) Windows Server
3 41 (5.03%) Linux
4 32 (3.93%) Windows 10
5 12 (1.47%) Unix
6 10 (1.23%) Windows 7
7 9 (1.10%) Mac OS
8 6 (0.74%) Android
8 6 (0.74%) Apple iOS
8 6 (0.74%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
9 3 (0.37%) Windows Server 2012
10 2 (0.25%) Solaris
10 2 (0.25%) Ubuntu
10 2 (0.25%) Windows XP
11 1 (0.12%) Rocky
11 1 (0.12%) Windows Server 2008
11 1 (0.12%) Windows Server 2016
11 1 (0.12%) Windows Server 2019
11 1 (0.12%) zOS
Processes & Methodologies
1 472 (57.91%) ITIL
2 371 (45.52%) ITSM
3 218 (26.75%) Continuous Improvement
4 208 (25.52%) Stakeholder Management
5 203 (24.91%) Service Delivery
6 168 (20.61%) Agile
7 159 (19.51%) Problem-Solving
8 127 (15.58%) Change Management
9 116 (14.23%) Stakeholder Engagement
10 92 (11.29%) Customer Service
11 87 (10.67%) DevOps
12 81 (9.94%) Incident Management
13 71 (8.71%) Project Delivery
14 69 (8.47%) Cybersecurity
15 65 (7.98%) Service Design
16 62 (7.61%) Roadmaps
17 59 (7.24%) Risk Management
18 57 (6.99%) Configuration Management
18 57 (6.99%) Project Management
19 55 (6.75%) Problem Management
Programming Languages
1 75 (9.20%) PowerShell
2 52 (6.38%) Python
3 42 (5.15%) SQL
4 26 (3.19%) 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
1 380 (46.63%) Security Cleared
2 227 (27.85%) SC Cleared
3 133 (16.32%) DV Cleared
4 83 (10.18%) Degree
5 40 (4.91%) ITIL Certification
6 26 (3.19%) BPSS Clearance
6 26 (3.19%) PMP
7 25 (3.07%) Cisco Certification
7 25 (3.07%) PMI Certification
8 15 (1.84%) Computer Science Degree
9 13 (1.60%) CCNA
9 13 (1.60%) DBS Check
9 13 (1.60%) Microsoft Certification
10 12 (1.47%) ITIL Foundation Certificate
11 11 (1.35%) CCNP
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 59 (7.24%) SLA
2 30 (3.68%) ISO/IEC 20000
3 28 (3.44%) Data Quality
4 22 (2.70%) PMO
5 21 (2.58%) ISO/IEC 27001
5 21 (2.58%) QA
6 18 (2.21%) 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 94 (11.53%) 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 7 (0.86%) Hyper-V
7 5 (0.61%) Virtual Desktop
7 5 (0.61%) Virtual Machines
8 4 (0.49%) NFS
9 3 (0.37%) Firmware
10 2 (0.25%) GPFS
10 2 (0.25%) KVM
11 1 (0.12%) iptables
11 1 (0.12%) Oracle RAC
11 1 (0.12%) Samba
11 1 (0.12%) Slurm Workload Manager
Systems Management
1 43 (5.28%) 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 10 (1.23%) Single Sign-On
8 8 (0.98%) FortiGate
9 6 (0.74%) Jamf Pro
10 5 (0.61%) Progress Chef
11 4 (0.49%) PowerCLI
11 4 (0.49%) Puppet
11 4 (0.49%) vMotion
12 3 (0.37%) Cisco Prime
12 3 (0.37%) Dell DRAC
12 3 (0.37%) Grafana
12 3 (0.37%) Systems Management Server (SMS)
12 3 (0.37%) vRealize
13 2 (0.25%) Nagios
Vendors
1 211 (25.89%) ServiceNow
2 161 (19.75%) Microsoft
3 59 (7.24%) VMware
4 54 (6.63%) Remedy
5 41 (5.03%) Cisco
6 28 (3.44%) 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
11 13 (1.60%) SAP
12 11 (1.35%) IBM
13 10 (1.23%) Dynatrace
13 10 (1.23%) Qualys
14 9 (1.10%) Citrix
14 9 (1.10%) CyberArk
14 9 (1.10%) IFS
15 8 (0.98%) Red Hat