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

6 months to
28 May 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 82 60 55
Rank change year-on-year -22 -5 +11
Contract jobs citing Service Management 656 494 669
As % of all contract jobs in the UK excluding London 2.63% 3.87% 3.25%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 3.24% 4.27% 3.89%
Number of daily rates quoted 426 287 484
10th Percentile £204 £215 £256
25th Percentile £375 £360 £425
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £513 £525
Median % change year-on-year -2.44% -2.38% +10.53%
75th Percentile £596 £600 £600
90th Percentile £688 £688 £700
UK median daily rate £517 £501 £525
% change year-on-year +3.25% -4.67% +4.79%
Number of hourly rates quoted 58 38 17
10th Percentile £16.09 - £12.53
25th Percentile £16.17 £12.62 £15.17
Median hourly rate £60.00 £21.71 £17.72
Median % change year-on-year +176.37% +22.52% -63.46%
75th Percentile £83.94 £26.64 £19.00
90th Percentile £129.23 £33.75 £26.70
UK median hourly rate £57.50 £22.14 £17.72
% change year-on-year +159.71% +24.94% -65.76%

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 20,244 11,560 17,189
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK excluding London 81.30% 90.64% 83.62%
Number of daily rates quoted 12,099 7,235 10,257
10th Percentile £300 £234 £250
25th Percentile £401 £375 £378
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £475 £500
Median % change year-on-year +5.26% -5.00% -
75th Percentile £588 £575 £600
90th Percentile £675 £650 £688
UK median daily rate £512 £513 £525
% change year-on-year -0.19% -2.38% -4.55%
Number of hourly rates quoted 2,151 830 2,102
10th Percentile £14.25 £14.19 £12.38
25th Percentile £18.89 £16.95 £15.38
Median hourly rate £45.00 £25.15 £37.50
Median % change year-on-year +78.93% -32.93% +7.14%
75th Percentile £67.84 £62.25 £61.30
90th Percentile £80.09 £75.00 £72.50
UK median hourly rate £42.28 £27.52 £36.00
% change year-on-year +53.64% -23.57% -1.09%

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 May 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 May 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 May 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 +22 184 £520 +15.88% 112
North of England -19 184 £500 +5.26% 76
South West -26 121 £525 -4.63% 32
North West +2 101 £550 +5.26% 35
Yorkshire -32 77 £468 +10.12% 35
Midlands -42 74 £415 -24.55% 50
West Midlands -49 56 £420 -23.77% 41
East of England -18 44 £475 -13.64% 35
Scotland -30 38 £500 -2.44% 10
East Midlands -17 18 £410 -5.96% 9
Wales -12 7 £340 -4.56% 4
North East -25 6 £440 +125.64% 7
Northern Ireland - 4 - - 6
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 29 (4.42%) Confluence
2 28 (4.27%) Microsoft Exchange
3 24 (3.66%) SharePoint
4 11 (1.68%) Skype for Business
5 6 (0.91%) Mattermost
6 2 (0.30%) IIS
7 1 (0.15%) Apache
7 1 (0.15%) CMS
7 1 (0.15%) JBoss
7 1 (0.15%) LiveCycle
7 1 (0.15%) OpenStack
Applications
1 59 (8.99%) Microsoft Office
2 15 (2.29%) Microsoft Excel
3 10 (1.52%) Microsoft Project
4 8 (1.22%) Microsoft PowerPoint
5 4 (0.61%) Chatbot
5 4 (0.61%) PTC Creo
6 2 (0.30%) MS Visio
7 1 (0.15%) Camtasia
Business Applications
1 41 (6.25%) Remedy ITSM
2 10 (1.52%) SAP S/4HANA
3 8 (1.22%) Teamcenter
4 4 (0.61%) Oracle EBS
5 2 (0.30%) Oracle Applications
5 2 (0.30%) Primavera
6 1 (0.15%) NetSuite
6 1 (0.15%) SAP HR
6 1 (0.15%) SAP Payroll
Cloud Services
1 90 (13.72%) Azure
2 52 (7.93%) Microsoft 365
3 39 (5.95%) Power Platform
4 29 (4.42%) AWS
5 23 (3.51%) Entra ID
6 20 (3.05%) SaaS
7 17 (2.59%) GCP
8 15 (2.29%) Azure DevOps
9 14 (2.13%) OneDrive
10 9 (1.37%) PaaS
11 8 (1.22%) GitHub
12 7 (1.07%) OCI
13 6 (0.91%) Microsoft Copilot
14 5 (0.76%) Azure Machine Learning
14 5 (0.76%) Azure Synapse Analytics
14 5 (0.76%) Google App Engine
14 5 (0.76%) IaaS
15 4 (0.61%) Azure AKS
15 4 (0.61%) OpenShift
15 4 (0.61%) PowerApps
Communications & Networking
1 33 (5.03%) Firewall
2 28 (4.27%) DNS
3 24 (3.66%) LAN
4 21 (3.20%) WAN
5 18 (2.74%) DHCP
5 18 (2.74%) Network Security
6 15 (2.29%) VPN
7 14 (2.13%) BGP
8 13 (1.98%) OSPF
9 12 (1.83%) BIG-IP
10 11 (1.68%) Cisco ISE
10 11 (1.68%) Skype
10 11 (1.68%) VLAN
11 10 (1.52%) Wi-Fi
12 9 (1.37%) Wireless
13 8 (1.22%) Ethernet VPN
13 8 (1.22%) Junos
13 8 (1.22%) TCP/IP
13 8 (1.22%) VXLAN
14 4 (0.61%) SSL
Database & Business Intelligence
1 32 (4.88%) Power BI
2 13 (1.98%) SQL Server
3 6 (0.91%) PostgreSQL
3 6 (0.91%) Relational Database
4 5 (0.76%) Oracle Reports
5 3 (0.46%) Azure SQL Database
5 3 (0.46%) SQL Server Analysis Services
5 3 (0.46%) SQL Server Integration Services
5 3 (0.46%) SQL Server Reporting Services
6 2 (0.30%) Amazon RDS
6 2 (0.30%) InfluxDB
6 2 (0.30%) MariaDB
6 2 (0.30%) Microsoft Analysis Services
6 2 (0.30%) MySQL
6 2 (0.30%) Oracle Database
7 1 (0.15%) DTS
7 1 (0.15%) GIS
7 1 (0.15%) MongoDB
7 1 (0.15%) OpenStack Swift
7 1 (0.15%) Oracle Database 11g
Development Applications
1 71 (10.82%) JIRA
2 14 (2.13%) Git
3 9 (1.37%) Bitbucket
3 9 (1.37%) GitLab
3 9 (1.37%) Jenkins
4 6 (0.91%) Atlassian Bamboo
5 5 (0.76%) Browser DevTools
6 4 (0.61%) MLflow
7 3 (0.46%) Fiddler
8 2 (0.30%) Firebug
8 2 (0.30%) IntelliJ
8 2 (0.30%) ScriptRunner
8 2 (0.30%) Visual Studio Code
9 1 (0.15%) Claude Code
9 1 (0.15%) Gemini Tracker
9 1 (0.15%) Hudson
9 1 (0.15%) IBM UrbanCode
9 1 (0.15%) MSI
9 1 (0.15%) Rational DOORS
9 1 (0.15%) webpack
General
1 232 (35.37%) Social Skills
2 87 (13.26%) Finance
3 85 (12.96%) Analytical Skills
4 61 (9.30%) Public Sector
5 41 (6.25%) Legal
6 24 (3.66%) Military
7 19 (2.90%) Organisational Skills
8 16 (2.44%) Influencing Skills
8 16 (2.44%) Telecoms
9 15 (2.29%) Documentation Skills
10 11 (1.68%) Aerospace
10 11 (1.68%) Banking
10 11 (1.68%) Retail
11 9 (1.37%) Inclusion and Diversity
12 8 (1.22%) Presentation Skills
13 4 (0.61%) Financial Institution
14 3 (0.46%) Local Government
15 2 (0.30%) Law
15 2 (0.30%) Pharmaceutical
15 2 (0.30%) Publishing
Job Titles
1 86 (13.11%) Service Manager
2 76 (11.59%) Analyst
3 61 (9.30%) Lead
4 54 (8.23%) Architect
5 50 (7.62%) Senior
6 42 (6.40%) IT Manager
7 30 (4.57%) Service Analyst
8 29 (4.42%) Hardware Engineer
9 24 (3.66%) Delivery Manager
10 23 (3.51%) Consultant
10 23 (3.51%) Network Engineer
10 23 (3.51%) Service Architect
11 22 (3.35%) Project Manager
12 21 (3.20%) IT Services Manager
13 20 (3.05%) Support Engineer
14 19 (2.90%) IT Analyst
15 17 (2.59%) Infrastructure Engineer
15 17 (2.59%) Service Delivery Manager
16 16 (2.44%) Field Engineer
16 16 (2.44%) Service Desk Analyst
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 24 (3.66%) REST
2 12 (1.83%) SOAP
3 9 (1.37%) OAuth
4 8 (1.22%) 802.1X
5 5 (0.76%) OpenID
5 5 (0.76%) Oracle Fusion
5 5 (0.76%) SAML
6 4 (0.61%) OAuth2
6 4 (0.61%) Web Services
6 4 (0.61%) XML
6 4 (0.61%) XMPP
7 3 (0.46%) .NET
7 3 (0.46%) CSS
7 3 (0.46%) FIDO
7 3 (0.46%) Flash
7 3 (0.46%) HTML
7 3 (0.46%) Microsoft Graph
7 3 (0.46%) Middleware
8 2 (0.30%) ADO
8 2 (0.30%) JSON
Miscellaneous
1 41 (6.25%) Product Ownership
2 38 (5.79%) Onboarding
3 33 (5.03%) CMDB
4 28 (4.27%) Data Centre
5 22 (3.35%) PKI
6 21 (3.20%) Clustering
6 21 (3.20%) Virtual Team
7 18 (2.74%) Management Information System
8 17 (2.59%) Enterprise Software
9 16 (2.44%) Driving Licence
10 11 (1.68%) Data Protection Act
10 11 (1.68%) Operational Technology
11 9 (1.37%) PMI
12 7 (1.07%) Replication
13 6 (0.91%) Analytical Mindset
13 6 (0.91%) Cloud Native
13 6 (0.91%) Self-Motivation
14 5 (0.76%) Security Posture
15 4 (0.61%) Distributed Systems
15 4 (0.61%) Legacy Systems
Operating Systems
1 140 (21.34%) Windows
2 37 (5.64%) Linux
3 34 (5.18%) Windows 10
4 33 (5.03%) Windows Server
5 13 (1.98%) Windows 7
6 10 (1.52%) Unix
7 5 (0.76%) Mac OS
7 5 (0.76%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
8 3 (0.46%) Ubuntu
9 2 (0.30%) Solaris
10 1 (0.15%) Android
10 1 (0.15%) Apple iOS
10 1 (0.15%) Rocky
10 1 (0.15%) Windows Server 2008
10 1 (0.15%) Windows Server 2012
10 1 (0.15%) Windows Server 2016
10 1 (0.15%) Windows Server 2019
10 1 (0.15%) Windows XP
10 1 (0.15%) zOS
Processes & Methodologies
1 366 (55.79%) ITIL
2 281 (42.84%) ITSM
3 155 (23.63%) Continuous Improvement
4 135 (20.58%) Stakeholder Management
5 131 (19.97%) Agile
6 120 (18.29%) Problem-Solving
7 112 (17.07%) Service Delivery
8 92 (14.02%) Stakeholder Engagement
9 85 (12.96%) Change Management
10 74 (11.28%) Customer Service
11 71 (10.82%) DevOps
12 59 (8.99%) Configuration Management
13 54 (8.23%) Problem Management
14 53 (8.08%) Service Design
15 44 (6.71%) Project Delivery
16 43 (6.55%) Incident Management
16 43 (6.55%) Roadmaps
17 38 (5.79%) CI/CD
17 38 (5.79%) Cybersecurity
18 36 (5.49%) Asset Management
Programming Languages
1 50 (7.62%) PowerShell
2 38 (5.79%) SQL
3 27 (4.12%) Python
4 22 (3.35%) JavaScript
5 11 (1.68%) VB
5 11 (1.68%) VBScript
6 9 (1.37%) Bash
7 5 (0.76%) C#
8 4 (0.61%) Java
8 4 (0.61%) PL/SQL
9 3 (0.46%) Apex Code
9 3 (0.46%) Shell Script
9 3 (0.46%) T-SQL
10 2 (0.30%) Go
10 2 (0.30%) PHP
10 2 (0.30%) Search Processing Language
11 1 (0.15%) Bicep
11 1 (0.15%) Perl
11 1 (0.15%) TypeScript
11 1 (0.15%) VBA
Qualifications
1 318 (48.48%) Security Cleared
2 214 (32.62%) SC Cleared
3 106 (16.16%) DV Cleared
4 69 (10.52%) Degree
5 34 (5.18%) ITIL Certification
6 25 (3.81%) Cisco Certification
7 18 (2.74%) PMI Certification
8 17 (2.59%) Computer Science Degree
9 15 (2.29%) PMP
10 14 (2.13%) CCNA
11 13 (1.98%) BPSS Clearance
12 12 (1.83%) Microsoft Certification
13 10 (1.52%) A+ Certification
13 10 (1.52%) CCNP
14 9 (1.37%) JNCIA
14 9 (1.37%) JNCIP
14 9 (1.37%) JNCIS
14 9 (1.37%) Network+ Certification
15 8 (1.22%) DBS Check
15 8 (1.22%) TOGAF Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 37 (5.64%) SLA
2 24 (3.66%) Data Quality
3 17 (2.59%) PMO
4 15 (2.29%) ISO/IEC 27001
5 13 (1.98%) ISO/IEC 20000
6 12 (1.83%) GDPR
6 12 (1.83%) QA
7 10 (1.52%) Cyber Essentials
7 10 (1.52%) NCSC
8 9 (1.37%) GRC
9 7 (1.07%) COBIT
9 7 (1.07%) Government Security Classifications
10 6 (0.91%) Accessibility
10 6 (0.91%) ISO 31000
10 6 (0.91%) ISO/IEC 27005
11 4 (0.61%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
11 4 (0.61%) Disclosure Scotland
11 4 (0.61%) GMP
11 4 (0.61%) ISO 9001
12 3 (0.46%) JSP 440
System Software
1 70 (10.67%) Active Directory
2 33 (5.03%) VMware Infrastructure
3 14 (2.13%) VMware ESXi
4 12 (1.83%) BitLocker
5 10 (1.52%) Docker
6 6 (0.91%) VMware NSX
6 6 (0.91%) vSphere
7 5 (0.76%) vCloud
8 4 (0.61%) NFS
8 4 (0.61%) Virtual Machines
9 3 (0.46%) Firmware
10 2 (0.30%) GPFS
10 2 (0.30%) Hyper-V
10 2 (0.30%) KVM
11 1 (0.15%) iptables
11 1 (0.15%) Oracle RAC
11 1 (0.15%) Samba
11 1 (0.15%) Slurm Workload Manager
11 1 (0.15%) Virtual Desktop
Systems Management
1 23 (3.51%) SCCM
2 22 (3.35%) Ansible
3 17 (2.59%) Microsoft Intune
4 13 (1.98%) Kubernetes
4 13 (1.98%) Terraform
5 8 (1.22%) FortiGate
5 8 (1.22%) OPNET
5 8 (1.22%) Single Sign-On
6 7 (1.07%) vCenter Server
7 5 (0.76%) Grafana
7 5 (0.76%) Progress Chef
7 5 (0.76%) SCOM
8 4 (0.61%) Jamf Pro
8 4 (0.61%) PowerCLI
8 4 (0.61%) Puppet
8 4 (0.61%) vMotion
9 3 (0.46%) Cisco Prime
9 3 (0.46%) Dell DRAC
9 3 (0.46%) Systems Management Server (SMS)
9 3 (0.46%) vRealize
Vendors
1 140 (21.34%) ServiceNow
2 114 (17.38%) Microsoft
3 53 (8.08%) Remedy
4 47 (7.16%) VMware
5 38 (5.79%) Cisco
6 29 (4.42%) HP
7 23 (3.51%) Oracle
8 22 (3.35%) Atlassian
9 19 (2.90%) BMC
10 18 (2.74%) Dell
11 17 (2.59%) Splunk
12 16 (2.44%) SAP
13 15 (2.29%) Canon
14 12 (1.83%) F5
15 11 (1.68%) SolarWinds
16 10 (1.52%) Juniper
17 9 (1.37%) IFS
17 9 (1.37%) Palo Alto
18 8 (1.22%) Extreme Networks
18 8 (1.22%) Siemens