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

6 months to
2 Aug 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 72 52 56
Rank change year-on-year -20 +4 +10
Contract jobs citing Service Management 821 632 599
As % of all contract jobs in the UK excluding London 3.01% 4.15% 3.24%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 3.68% 4.64% 3.90%
Number of daily rates quoted 537 373 435
10th Percentile £232 £196 £213
25th Percentile £413 £308 £425
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £510 £493 £525
Median % change year-on-year +3.45% -6.10% +9.38%
75th Percentile £600 £575 £600
90th Percentile £700 £649 £675
UK median daily rate £520 £492 £525
% change year-on-year +5.69% -6.29% +0.96%
Number of hourly rates quoted 76 71 16
10th Percentile £14.50 - £17.09
25th Percentile £16.17 £12.62 £20.31
Median hourly rate £60.00 £18.73 £27.50
Median % change year-on-year +220.34% -31.89% +29.05%
75th Percentile £85.06 £22.14 £48.75
90th Percentile £99.63 £54.01 £51.88
UK median hourly rate £60.00 £18.73 £27.50
% change year-on-year +220.34% -31.89% -43.30%

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 22,293 13,611 15,372
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK excluding London 81.78% 89.28% 83.06%
Number of daily rates quoted 13,125 8,216 9,257
10th Percentile £300 £235 £250
25th Percentile £406 £365 £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 2,367 1,309 1,608
10th Percentile £14.22 £13.89 £13.69
25th Percentile £19.33 £17.00 £16.50
Median hourly rate £43.96 £23.50 £41.25
Median % change year-on-year +87.06% -43.03% +3.13%
75th Percentile £68.55 £47.12 £65.00
90th Percentile £82.25 £70.16 £75.00
UK median hourly rate £43.96 £25.15 £40.50
% change year-on-year +74.79% -37.90% -4.71%

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 August 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 August 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 August 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 +22 280 £550 +10.00% 130
North of England -37 205 £450 +2.27% 94
South West -30 120 £525 -4.55% 50
North West -36 114 £481 +3.33% 46
Midlands -42 97 £476 -4.80% 68
West Midlands -40 89 £477 -7.38% 49
Yorkshire -23 86 £443 +26.84% 35
Scotland -9 64 £500 +1.42% 32
East of England -12 42 £525 -4.55% 39
Wales -8 12 £800 +247.83% 9
Northern Ireland +10 8 - - 15
East Midlands -20 8 £450 +50.00% 19
North East -40 5 £440 +125.64% 14
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 (5.60%) SharePoint
2 30 (3.65%) Confluence
3 27 (3.29%) Microsoft Exchange
4 8 (0.97%) Skype for Business
5 6 (0.73%) Mattermost
6 3 (0.37%) CMS
6 3 (0.37%) OpenStack
7 2 (0.24%) IIS
8 1 (0.12%) Apache
8 1 (0.12%) JBoss
8 1 (0.12%) LiveCycle
Applications
1 54 (6.58%) Microsoft Office
2 23 (2.80%) Microsoft Excel
3 15 (1.83%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 4 (0.49%) Chatbot
5 3 (0.37%) Microsoft Project
6 2 (0.24%) MS Visio
7 1 (0.12%) Camtasia
7 1 (0.12%) Maple
7 1 (0.12%) PTC Creo
Business Applications
1 52 (6.33%) Remedy ITSM
2 6 (0.73%) SAP S/4HANA
3 5 (0.61%) ContrOCC
4 4 (0.49%) Teamcenter
5 2 (0.24%) NEC Housing
5 2 (0.24%) Oracle Applications
5 2 (0.24%) Primavera
6 1 (0.12%) Remedy AR System
6 1 (0.12%) SAP HR
6 1 (0.12%) SAP Payroll
Cloud Services
1 121 (14.74%) Azure
2 85 (10.35%) Microsoft 365
3 50 (6.09%) Entra ID
4 49 (5.97%) Power Platform
5 38 (4.63%) AWS
6 24 (2.92%) SaaS
7 23 (2.80%) OneDrive
8 19 (2.31%) Azure DevOps
9 17 (2.07%) GCP
10 10 (1.22%) Azure Monitor
10 10 (1.22%) Microsoft Copilot
10 10 (1.22%) OCI
11 8 (0.97%) GitHub
12 7 (0.85%) PaaS
13 6 (0.73%) 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 45 (5.48%) Firewall
2 38 (4.63%) DNS
3 25 (3.05%) Network Security
4 24 (2.92%) DHCP
4 24 (2.92%) LAN
5 23 (2.80%) VPN
6 19 (2.31%) BGP
6 19 (2.31%) TCP/IP
7 18 (2.19%) WAN
8 16 (1.95%) OSPF
9 14 (1.71%) Wireless
10 12 (1.46%) BIG-IP
10 12 (1.46%) Cisco ISE
11 10 (1.22%) Junos
11 10 (1.22%) VXLAN
12 9 (1.10%) Ethernet VPN
12 9 (1.10%) SSH
12 9 (1.10%) VLAN
13 8 (0.97%) Skype
14 7 (0.85%) Wi-Fi
Database & Business Intelligence
1 42 (5.12%) Power BI
2 18 (2.19%) SQL Server
3 6 (0.73%) 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 (0.24%) Amazon RDS
7 2 (0.24%) Microsoft Analysis Services
7 2 (0.24%) 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 79 (9.62%) JIRA
2 16 (1.95%) Git
3 13 (1.58%) Bitbucket
4 12 (1.46%) Atlassian Bamboo
5 8 (0.97%) Jenkins
6 7 (0.85%) 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 (0.24%) Firebug
10 2 (0.24%) IntelliJ
10 2 (0.24%) webpack
11 1 (0.12%) Gemini Tracker
11 1 (0.12%) Gradle
11 1 (0.12%) Hudson
11 1 (0.12%) IBM UrbanCode
11 1 (0.12%) Sonatype Nexus
11 1 (0.12%) SQL Server Management Studio (SSMS)
11 1 (0.12%) Visual Studio Code
General
1 306 (37.27%) Social Skills
2 121 (14.74%) Analytical Skills
3 119 (14.49%) Finance
4 79 (9.62%) Public Sector
5 37 (4.51%) Influencing Skills
6 33 (4.02%) Documentation Skills
6 33 (4.02%) Legal
7 24 (2.92%) Military
8 21 (2.56%) Organisational Skills
8 21 (2.56%) Telecoms
9 16 (1.95%) Aerospace
10 15 (1.83%) Banking
10 15 (1.83%) Inclusion and Diversity
10 15 (1.83%) Presentation Skills
11 12 (1.46%) Local Government
12 4 (0.49%) Financial Institution
12 4 (0.49%) Law
13 3 (0.37%) Publishing
13 3 (0.37%) Retail
14 2 (0.24%) Manufacturing
Job Titles
1 101 (12.30%) Analyst
2 89 (10.84%) Lead
3 80 (9.74%) Service Manager
4 74 (9.01%) Senior
5 56 (6.82%) Architect
6 49 (5.97%) IT Manager
6 49 (5.97%) Service Analyst
7 31 (3.78%) Delivery Manager
7 31 (3.78%) Project Manager
8 30 (3.65%) Support Engineer
9 28 (3.41%) Network Engineer
10 27 (3.29%) Service Architect
11 25 (3.05%) Consultant
12 23 (2.80%) IT Analyst
13 22 (2.68%) Infrastructure Engineer
13 22 (2.68%) Service Delivery Manager
14 20 (2.44%) Administrator
14 20 (2.44%) Transition Manager
15 19 (2.31%) IT Services Manager
16 18 (2.19%) 2nd Line Support
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 30 (3.65%) REST
2 11 (1.34%) SOAP
3 9 (1.10%) OAuth
4 8 (0.97%) 802.1X
4 8 (0.97%) 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%) .NET
7 3 (0.37%) CSS
7 3 (0.37%) Elastic Stack
7 3 (0.37%) FIDO
7 3 (0.37%) HTML
7 3 (0.37%) Microsoft Graph
7 3 (0.37%) Web Services
Miscellaneous
1 72 (8.77%) Onboarding
2 40 (4.87%) CMDB
3 39 (4.75%) Product Ownership
4 37 (4.51%) Management Information System
5 31 (3.78%) PKI
6 27 (3.29%) Data Centre
7 25 (3.05%) Clustering
8 18 (2.19%) Enterprise Software
9 15 (1.83%) Data Protection Act
9 15 (1.83%) Operational Technology
10 14 (1.71%) Analytical Mindset
10 14 (1.71%) Self-Motivation
10 14 (1.71%) Virtual Team
11 13 (1.58%) Hybrid Cloud
12 8 (0.97%) Cloud Native
12 8 (0.97%) Replication
12 8 (0.97%) Security Posture
13 7 (0.85%) Cyber Threat
13 7 (0.85%) Driving Licence
13 7 (0.85%) Video Conferencing
Operating Systems
1 180 (21.92%) Windows
2 49 (5.97%) Windows Server
3 44 (5.36%) Linux
4 32 (3.90%) Windows 10
5 12 (1.46%) Unix
6 10 (1.22%) Windows 7
7 9 (1.10%) Mac OS
8 7 (0.85%) Android
8 7 (0.85%) Apple iOS
9 6 (0.73%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
10 3 (0.37%) Windows Server 2012
11 2 (0.24%) Solaris
11 2 (0.24%) Ubuntu
11 2 (0.24%) Windows XP
12 1 (0.12%) Rocky
12 1 (0.12%) Windows Server 2008
12 1 (0.12%) Windows Server 2016
12 1 (0.12%) Windows Server 2019
12 1 (0.12%) zOS
Processes & Methodologies
1 472 (57.49%) ITIL
2 375 (45.68%) ITSM
3 221 (26.92%) Continuous Improvement
4 209 (25.46%) Stakeholder Management
5 205 (24.97%) Service Delivery
6 168 (20.46%) Agile
7 162 (19.73%) Problem-Solving
8 129 (15.71%) Change Management
9 118 (14.37%) Stakeholder Engagement
10 93 (11.33%) Customer Service
11 88 (10.72%) DevOps
12 82 (9.99%) Incident Management
13 72 (8.77%) Project Delivery
14 71 (8.65%) Cybersecurity
15 65 (7.92%) Service Design
16 62 (7.55%) Roadmaps
17 60 (7.31%) Risk Management
18 58 (7.06%) Project Management
19 57 (6.94%) Configuration Management
20 55 (6.70%) Problem Management
Programming Languages
1 76 (9.26%) PowerShell
2 52 (6.33%) Python
3 42 (5.12%) SQL
4 27 (3.29%) Bash
5 23 (2.80%) JavaScript
6 8 (0.97%) Java
6 8 (0.97%) VB
6 8 (0.97%) 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 (0.24%) Apex Code
10 2 (0.24%) Search Processing Language
10 2 (0.24%) TypeScript
10 2 (0.24%) VBA
Qualifications
1 384 (46.77%) Security Cleared
2 231 (28.14%) SC Cleared
3 134 (16.32%) DV Cleared
4 84 (10.23%) Degree
5 40 (4.87%) ITIL Certification
6 26 (3.17%) BPSS Clearance
6 26 (3.17%) Cisco Certification
6 26 (3.17%) PMP
7 25 (3.05%) PMI Certification
8 15 (1.83%) Computer Science Degree
9 14 (1.71%) CCNA
9 14 (1.71%) Microsoft Certification
10 13 (1.58%) DBS Check
11 12 (1.46%) ITIL Foundation Certificate
12 11 (1.34%) CCNP
13 10 (1.22%) A+ Certification
14 9 (1.10%) JNCIA
14 9 (1.10%) JNCIP
14 9 (1.10%) JNCIS
15 8 (0.97%) BC Cleared
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 59 (7.19%) SLA
2 30 (3.65%) ISO/IEC 20000
3 28 (3.41%) Data Quality
4 22 (2.68%) PMO
5 21 (2.56%) ISO/IEC 27001
5 21 (2.56%) QA
6 18 (2.19%) GRC
7 17 (2.07%) NCSC
8 15 (1.83%) ISO 9001
9 13 (1.58%) GDPR
10 10 (1.22%) COBIT
11 8 (0.97%) Disclosure Scotland
12 7 (0.85%) Cyber Essentials
12 7 (0.85%) Government Security Classifications
13 6 (0.73%) ISO 31000
13 6 (0.73%) 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 96 (11.69%) Active Directory
2 45 (5.48%) VMware Infrastructure
3 20 (2.44%) VMware ESXi
4 14 (1.71%) VMware NSX
5 13 (1.58%) Docker
6 9 (1.10%) BitLocker
6 9 (1.10%) vCloud
6 9 (1.10%) vSphere
7 8 (0.97%) Hyper-V
8 5 (0.61%) Virtual Desktop
8 5 (0.61%) Virtual Machines
9 4 (0.49%) NFS
10 3 (0.37%) Firmware
11 2 (0.24%) GPFS
11 2 (0.24%) KVM
12 1 (0.12%) iptables
12 1 (0.12%) Oracle RAC
12 1 (0.12%) Samba
12 1 (0.12%) Slurm Workload Manager
Systems Management
1 44 (5.36%) SCCM
2 42 (5.12%) Microsoft Intune
3 26 (3.17%) Ansible
3 26 (3.17%) Terraform
4 14 (1.71%) SCOM
5 12 (1.46%) Kubernetes
5 12 (1.46%) vCenter Server
6 10 (1.22%) Single Sign-On
7 8 (0.97%) FortiGate
8 6 (0.73%) 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%) NetBackup
11 3 (0.37%) Systems Management Server (SMS)
11 3 (0.37%) vRealize
Vendors
1 212 (25.82%) ServiceNow
2 163 (19.85%) Microsoft
3 62 (7.55%) VMware
4 54 (6.58%) Remedy
5 42 (5.12%) Cisco
6 28 (3.41%) BMC
7 19 (2.31%) Oracle
7 19 (2.31%) Splunk
8 18 (2.19%) Atlassian
8 18 (2.19%) SolarWinds
9 15 (1.83%) Juniper
10 13 (1.58%) F5
10 13 (1.58%) SAP
11 11 (1.34%) Dynatrace
11 11 (1.34%) IBM
12 10 (1.22%) Citrix
12 10 (1.22%) CyberArk
12 10 (1.22%) Qualys
13 9 (1.10%) Dell
13 9 (1.10%) IFS