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

6 months to
17 Jan 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 58 69 64
Rank change year-on-year +11 -5 +2
Contract jobs citing Service Management 688 436 640
As % of all contract jobs in the UK excluding London 3.72% 3.13% 3.23%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 4.37% 3.56% 3.71%
Number of daily rates quoted 476 270 484
10th Percentile £185 £206 £251
25th Percentile £313 £375 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £508 £525
Median % change year-on-year -1.48% -3.33% +10.53%
75th Percentile £588 £600 £603
90th Percentile £725 £675 £700
UK median daily rate £500 £525 £530
% change year-on-year -4.76% -0.94% +6.00%
Number of hourly rates quoted 67 20 12
10th Percentile £13.25 £20.16 £12.53
25th Percentile £17.01 £24.18 £14.73
Median hourly rate £20.79 £30.43 £17.33
Median % change year-on-year -31.67% +75.59% -50.57%
75th Percentile £60.00 £39.94 £21.50
90th Percentile £74.26 £68.88 £46.03
UK median hourly rate £23.56 £30.40 £18.86
% change year-on-year -22.52% +61.19% -25.76%

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 15,741 12,261 17,235
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK excluding London 85.11% 88.15% 87.08%
Number of daily rates quoted 9,668 7,183 10,917
10th Percentile £225 £238 £250
25th Percentile £375 £380 £400
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £475 £500 £500
Median % change year-on-year -5.00% - -
75th Percentile £575 £595 £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 1,691 696 1,391
10th Percentile £14.38 £15.50 £14.00
25th Percentile £17.25 £20.09 £16.50
Median hourly rate £24.00 £30.78 £41.00
Median % change year-on-year -22.03% -24.93% +41.38%
75th Percentile £56.13 £63.75 £65.00
90th Percentile £68.00 £73.75 £76.10
UK median hourly rate £25.15 £32.50 £40.00
% change year-on-year -22.62% -18.75% +16.65%

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 17 January 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 17 January 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 17 January 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 +34 182 £500 +5.26% 62
North of England -5 167 £476 +19.06% 47
South West -3 150 £571 +3.68% 27
Midlands +12 117 £475 -13.79% 38
North West 0 94 £550 +37.50% 23
West Midlands -3 89 £503 -8.80% 21
Yorkshire -16 59 £465 +100.97% 17
East of England -12 40 £452 -16.87% 23
Scotland -4 31 £484 +0.05% 9
East Midlands -4 28 £419 -16.25% 17
North East -4 17 £280 -53.04% 8
Northern Ireland - 4 £325 - 5
Wales -2 3 £170 -46.44% 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 60 (8.72%) Confluence
2 53 (7.70%) Microsoft Exchange
3 42 (6.10%) SharePoint
4 14 (2.03%) Apache
4 14 (2.03%) WebLogic
5 13 (1.89%) Skype for Business
6 5 (0.73%) SharePoint Server
7 2 (0.29%) JBoss
8 1 (0.15%) CMS
8 1 (0.15%) HCL Notes
Applications
1 85 (12.35%) Microsoft Office
2 35 (5.09%) Microsoft Project
3 22 (3.20%) Microsoft Excel
4 10 (1.45%) Microsoft PowerPoint
5 7 (1.02%) MS Visio
6 1 (0.15%) PTC Creo
Business Applications
1 16 (2.33%) Remedy ITSM
2 13 (1.89%) Oracle EBS
3 3 (0.44%) assyst
3 3 (0.44%) SAP S/4HANA
4 2 (0.29%) Dynamics CRM
4 2 (0.29%) Salesforce CRM
5 1 (0.15%) SAP ERP
5 1 (0.15%) SAP HR
5 1 (0.15%) SAP PM
5 1 (0.15%) SystmOne
5 1 (0.15%) Teamcenter
Cloud Services
1 109 (15.84%) Azure
2 81 (11.77%) AWS
3 65 (9.45%) Microsoft 365
4 38 (5.52%) GCP
5 23 (3.34%) Entra ID
6 21 (3.05%) Power Platform
7 15 (2.18%) OneDrive
8 14 (2.03%) Azure Monitor
8 14 (2.03%) SaaS
9 9 (1.31%) Azure DevOps
10 8 (1.16%) PowerApps
11 7 (1.02%) Salesforce Service Cloud
12 5 (0.73%) IaaS
12 5 (0.73%) OpenShift
13 4 (0.58%) Amazon EC2
13 4 (0.58%) AWS Lambda
13 4 (0.58%) Dynamics 365
13 4 (0.58%) GitHub
13 4 (0.58%) Power Automate
13 4 (0.58%) Serverless
Communications & Networking
1 42 (6.10%) DNS
2 27 (3.92%) DHCP
3 24 (3.49%) VLAN
4 23 (3.34%) Firewall
4 23 (3.34%) Skype
5 20 (2.91%) VPN
6 17 (2.47%) Cisco Firepower
6 17 (2.47%) Cisco IOS
6 17 (2.47%) Cisco ISE
6 17 (2.47%) Junos
6 17 (2.47%) LAN
6 17 (2.47%) TCP/IP
6 17 (2.47%) WAN
7 16 (2.33%) Network Security
8 11 (1.60%) Wi-Fi
9 8 (1.16%) WebEx
10 5 (0.73%) BGP
10 5 (0.73%) SAN
10 5 (0.73%) Software-Defined Networking
10 5 (0.73%) Structured Cabling
Database & Business Intelligence
1 16 (2.33%) Relational Database
2 15 (2.18%) Power BI
3 7 (1.02%) SQL Server
4 5 (0.73%) Amazon RDS
5 4 (0.58%) Data Mining
5 4 (0.58%) InfluxDB
5 4 (0.58%) Metadata
6 3 (0.44%) PostgreSQL
7 2 (0.29%) Azure SQL Database
7 2 (0.29%) Big Data
7 2 (0.29%) GIS
7 2 (0.29%) MongoDB
8 1 (0.15%) Amazon Aurora
8 1 (0.15%) Electronic Patient Records
8 1 (0.15%) MariaDB
8 1 (0.15%) MySQL
8 1 (0.15%) Oracle Database
8 1 (0.15%) Oracle Discoverer
8 1 (0.15%) RDBMS
8 1 (0.15%) SQL Server Integration Services
Development Applications
1 90 (13.08%) JIRA
2 14 (2.03%) Jenkins
3 6 (0.87%) Bitbucket
4 5 (0.73%) Git
5 4 (0.58%) GitLab
6 2 (0.29%) ScriptRunner
6 2 (0.29%) webpack
7 1 (0.15%) Atlassian Bamboo
7 1 (0.15%) MLflow
7 1 (0.15%) Visual Studio Code
General
1 286 (41.57%) Social Skills
2 136 (19.77%) Analytical Skills
3 93 (13.52%) Public Sector
4 81 (11.77%) Finance
5 43 (6.25%) Military
6 35 (5.09%) Legal
7 31 (4.51%) Organisational Skills
8 27 (3.92%) Manufacturing
9 22 (3.20%) Telecoms
10 19 (2.76%) Documentation Skills
11 17 (2.47%) Banking
12 15 (2.18%) Retail
13 14 (2.03%) Influencing Skills
14 12 (1.74%) Electronics
14 12 (1.74%) Marketing
15 11 (1.60%) Presentation Skills
16 7 (1.02%) Inclusion and Diversity
17 6 (0.87%) Investment Banking
18 5 (0.73%) Billing
19 3 (0.44%) Front Office
Job Titles
1 93 (13.52%) Architect
2 83 (12.06%) Analyst
3 73 (10.61%) Lead
4 59 (8.58%) Service Architect
5 54 (7.85%) Support Engineer
6 50 (7.27%) Service Manager
7 42 (6.10%) IT Support
8 30 (4.36%) Support Analyst
9 28 (4.07%) 2nd Line Support
10 25 (3.63%) Hardware Engineer
11 23 (3.34%) Desktop Support
11 23 (3.34%) Network Engineer
11 23 (3.34%) Platform Engineer
12 22 (3.20%) Consultant
12 22 (3.20%) IT Analyst
13 20 (2.91%) 3rd Line Support
14 19 (2.76%) 3rd Line Engineer
14 19 (2.76%) Break Fix Engineer
14 19 (2.76%) Data Analyst
14 19 (2.76%) Infrastructure Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 21 (3.05%) REST
2 8 (1.16%) XMPP
3 6 (0.87%) RFC 2544
3 6 (0.87%) SOAP
4 5 (0.73%) .NET
4 5 (0.73%) CSS
5 4 (0.58%) Elastic Stack
5 4 (0.58%) HTML
5 4 (0.58%) RabbitMQ
6 3 (0.44%) Web Services
7 2 (0.29%) CSS3
7 2 (0.29%) GraphQL
7 2 (0.29%) HTML5
7 2 (0.29%) Middleware
7 2 (0.29%) ModSecurity
7 2 (0.29%) Node.js
7 2 (0.29%) React
7 2 (0.29%) Redux
7 2 (0.29%) RESTful
7 2 (0.29%) Spring Boot
Miscellaneous
1 54 (7.85%) Product Ownership
2 34 (4.94%) Data Centre
3 26 (3.78%) CMDB
3 26 (3.78%) Management Information System
4 24 (3.49%) Onboarding
5 18 (2.62%) Driving Licence
5 18 (2.62%) PKI
5 18 (2.62%) Self-Motivation
5 18 (2.62%) Virtual Team
6 14 (2.03%) Analytical Mindset
7 13 (1.89%) Mainframe
8 10 (1.45%) PMI
9 8 (1.16%) NHS
10 6 (0.87%) Distributed Systems
10 6 (0.87%) Enterprise Software
10 6 (0.87%) Fibre Optics
10 6 (0.87%) Public Cloud
11 4 (0.58%) Data Structures
11 4 (0.58%) Hybrid Cloud
11 4 (0.58%) Mobile App
Operating Systems
1 177 (25.73%) Windows
2 68 (9.88%) Linux
3 52 (7.56%) Windows Server
4 46 (6.69%) Windows 10
5 23 (3.34%) Unix
6 12 (1.74%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
7 9 (1.31%) Windows 7
8 8 (1.16%) Apple iOS
9 7 (1.02%) Android
9 7 (1.02%) Mac OS
9 7 (1.02%) Windows Server 2012
10 4 (0.58%) Ubuntu
10 4 (0.58%) Windows Server 2003
10 4 (0.58%) Windows Server 2016
10 4 (0.58%) Windows Server 2019
11 3 (0.44%) CentOS
11 3 (0.44%) Windows Server 2008
12 1 (0.15%) AIX
12 1 (0.15%) Solaris
12 1 (0.15%) Windows XP
Processes & Methodologies
1 412 (59.88%) ITIL
2 301 (43.75%) ITSM
3 141 (20.49%) Problem-Solving
4 117 (17.01%) Change Management
4 117 (17.01%) Continuous Improvement
5 109 (15.84%) Agile
6 96 (13.95%) Stakeholder Management
7 95 (13.81%) Customer Service
8 90 (13.08%) Stakeholder Engagement
9 89 (12.94%) Service Design
10 84 (12.21%) Service Delivery
11 67 (9.74%) Incident Management
12 62 (9.01%) Project Management
13 57 (8.28%) Knowledge Transfer
14 55 (7.99%) Project Delivery
15 51 (7.41%) Problem Management
16 50 (7.27%) Acceptance Criteria
16 50 (7.27%) DevOps
17 46 (6.69%) Performance Metrics
18 45 (6.54%) Critical Thinking
Programming Languages
1 63 (9.16%) PowerShell
2 54 (7.85%) SQL
3 48 (6.98%) Python
4 15 (2.18%) Perl
4 15 (2.18%) Shell Script
5 12 (1.74%) Bash
6 9 (1.31%) Java
7 8 (1.16%) JavaScript
7 8 (1.16%) VB
7 8 (1.16%) VBScript
8 4 (0.58%) Go
9 3 (0.44%) Apex Code
10 2 (0.29%) PHP
10 2 (0.29%) TypeScript
11 1 (0.15%) C#
11 1 (0.15%) PL/SQL
11 1 (0.15%) T-SQL
11 1 (0.15%) VBA
Qualifications
1 338 (49.13%) Security Cleared
2 268 (38.95%) SC Cleared
3 96 (13.95%) Degree
4 75 (10.90%) DV Cleared
5 39 (5.67%) ITIL Certification
6 33 (4.80%) Microsoft Certification
7 30 (4.36%) TOGAF Certification
8 16 (2.33%) MCSE
8 16 (2.33%) PMI Certification
9 15 (2.18%) A+ Certification
9 15 (2.18%) Computer Science Degree
9 15 (2.18%) PMP
10 14 (2.03%) Azure Certification
10 14 (2.03%) Server+ Certification
11 13 (1.89%) Cisco Certification
11 13 (1.89%) Network+ Certification
12 12 (1.74%) BPSS Clearance
12 12 (1.74%) CCNP
13 11 (1.60%) CCNA
14 10 (1.45%) APMP
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 31 (4.51%) SLA
2 23 (3.34%) ISO/IEC 20000
3 12 (1.74%) Data Quality
4 9 (1.31%) ISO/IEC 27001
4 9 (1.31%) PMO
5 7 (1.02%) GDPR
6 5 (0.73%) Cyber Essentials
6 5 (0.73%) QA
7 4 (0.58%) Disclosure Scotland
8 3 (0.44%) Accessibility
8 3 (0.44%) ISO 9001
8 3 (0.44%) NCSC
9 2 (0.29%) GRC
9 2 (0.29%) HMG Security Policy Framework
9 2 (0.29%) NIST
10 1 (0.15%) Actionable Recommendations
10 1 (0.15%) GxP
10 1 (0.15%) PCI DSS
10 1 (0.15%) WCAG
System Software
1 81 (11.77%) Active Directory
2 33 (4.80%) VMware Infrastructure
3 21 (3.05%) VMware NSX
4 13 (1.89%) Hyper-V
5 8 (1.16%) BitLocker
5 8 (1.16%) Docker
6 6 (0.87%) Virtual Desktop
6 6 (0.87%) Virtual Servers
7 5 (0.73%) Microsoft Virtual Server
8 3 (0.44%) Virtual Machines
9 2 (0.29%) VMware ESXi
10 1 (0.15%) Slurm Workload Manager
Systems Management
1 32 (4.65%) OPNET
2 25 (3.63%) SCCM
3 24 (3.49%) vCenter Server
4 19 (2.76%) Ansible
5 16 (2.33%) Microsoft Intune
5 16 (2.33%) Terraform
6 15 (2.18%) Kubernetes
7 11 (1.60%) Active Directory Federation Services
7 11 (1.60%) WSUS
8 5 (0.73%) Grafana
9 4 (0.58%) Nessus
9 4 (0.58%) Packer
9 4 (0.58%) Progress Chef
9 4 (0.58%) Prometheus
10 3 (0.44%) Jamf Pro
11 2 (0.29%) Docker Swarm
11 2 (0.29%) FortiGate
11 2 (0.29%) PowerCLI
11 2 (0.29%) Puppet
11 2 (0.29%) SCOM
Vendors
1 155 (22.53%) ServiceNow
2 132 (19.19%) Microsoft
3 69 (10.03%) Cisco
4 56 (8.14%) Atlassian
5 54 (7.85%) Remedy
6 45 (6.54%) VMware
7 43 (6.25%) Oracle
8 33 (4.80%) SolarWinds
9 32 (4.65%) Google
9 32 (4.65%) Splunk
10 27 (3.92%) HP
11 24 (3.49%) SAP
12 21 (3.05%) Dynatrace
13 20 (2.91%) AppDynamics
14 19 (2.76%) Juniper
15 14 (2.03%) Salesforce
16 13 (1.89%) Red Hat
16 13 (1.89%) Veeam
17 10 (1.45%) Citrix
17 10 (1.45%) Palo Alto