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 10 November 2025, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
10 Nov 2025
Same period 2024 Same period 2023
Rank 55 74 62
Rank change year-on-year +19 -12 -1
Contract jobs citing Service Management 695 464 710
As % of all contract jobs in the UK excluding London 4.11% 2.80% 3.39%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 4.65% 3.33% 3.84%
Number of daily rates quoted 423 305 533
10th Percentile £185 £200 £233
25th Percentile £293 £350 £375
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £500 £525
Median % change year-on-year - -4.76% +7.14%
75th Percentile £575 £600 £600
90th Percentile £638 £675 £672
UK median daily rate £500 £518 £528
% change year-on-year -3.38% -1.99% +3.02%
Number of hourly rates quoted 98 24 10
10th Percentile £12.62 £24.18 £20.00
25th Percentile £15.83 £28.31 £20.69
Median hourly rate £20.79 £34.25 £21.91
Median % change year-on-year -39.30% +56.36% +3.08%
75th Percentile £33.75 £49.06 £53.44
90th Percentile £64.80 £63.75 £70.00
UK median hourly rate £20.81 £31.48 £41.38
% change year-on-year -33.88% -23.93% +94.71%

All Process and 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 14,943 13,918 18,487
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK excluding London 88.31% 84.03% 88.35%
Number of daily rates quoted 9,058 7,973 12,083
10th Percentile £220 £250 £250
25th Percentile £368 £383 £400
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £475 £500 £500
Median % change year-on-year -5.00% - -
75th Percentile £575 £600 £600
90th Percentile £675 £688 £688
UK median daily rate £500 £525 £533
% change year-on-year -4.76% -1.50% -3.09%
Number of hourly rates quoted 1,689 876 1,305
10th Percentile £14.12 £15.00 £14.25
25th Percentile £17.14 £18.47 £17.72
Median hourly rate £22.50 £33.27 £43.90
Median % change year-on-year -32.37% -24.21% +48.26%
75th Percentile £42.50 £65.00 £65.00
90th Percentile £67.00 £72.50 £77.30
UK median hourly rate £25.15 £35.00 £43.63
% change year-on-year -28.14% -19.77% +24.64%

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 10 November 2025.

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 10 November 2025.

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 10 November 2025. 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
North of England +10 196 £456 +1.39% 123
South East +17 153 £475 -9.52% 344
South West +28 132 £550 -4.35% 74
North West +28 129 £464 +12.48% 62
Midlands +25 118 £510 -2.86% 103
West Midlands +13 93 £515 -9.09% 57
Yorkshire -18 57 £365 -28.43% 45
Scotland +3 45 £466 +4.78% 28
East of England -6 41 £516 -1.81% 51
East Midlands +5 25 £425 -17.07% 42
North East -5 13 £550 +42.86% 16
Wales -15 8 £230 +2.83% 24
Northern Ireland -3 4 £150 -72.73% 16
Channel Islands - 3 £725 -
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 54 (7.77%) Microsoft Exchange
2 41 (5.90%) SharePoint
3 40 (5.76%) Confluence
4 21 (3.02%) Apache
5 14 (2.01%) WebLogic
6 10 (1.44%) Skype for Business
7 7 (1.01%) IIS
7 7 (1.01%) WebSphere
8 5 (0.72%) SharePoint Server
9 2 (0.29%) JBoss
10 1 (0.14%) CMS
10 1 (0.14%) Oracle Self-Service HR
10 1 (0.14%) Oracle Workflow
Applications
1 72 (10.36%) Microsoft Office
2 27 (3.88%) Microsoft Excel
3 11 (1.58%) Microsoft PowerPoint
3 11 (1.58%) MS Visio
4 6 (0.86%) Microsoft Project
5 1 (0.14%) Trello
Business Applications
1 18 (2.59%) Remedy ITSM
2 7 (1.01%) Maximo
3 6 (0.86%) assyst
4 5 (0.72%) Oracle EBS
4 5 (0.72%) SAP S/4HANA
5 3 (0.43%) Dynamics CRM
6 2 (0.29%) Oracle ERP
6 2 (0.29%) Salesforce CRM
7 1 (0.14%) SAP ERP
7 1 (0.14%) SAP HR
7 1 (0.14%) SAP LE
7 1 (0.14%) SAP PM
7 1 (0.14%) SAP WM
7 1 (0.14%) SystmOne
Cloud Services
1 85 (12.23%) Azure
2 70 (10.07%) Microsoft 365
3 53 (7.63%) AWS
4 23 (3.31%) Entra ID
5 17 (2.45%) Power Platform
6 15 (2.16%) OneDrive
7 14 (2.01%) Azure Monitor
8 12 (1.73%) SaaS
9 11 (1.58%) Azure DevOps
9 11 (1.58%) GCP
10 6 (0.86%) PowerApps
10 6 (0.86%) Salesforce Service Cloud
11 5 (0.72%) Google Workspace
12 3 (0.43%) Lucidchart
13 2 (0.29%) Asana
13 2 (0.29%) Azure AKS
13 2 (0.29%) Azure Cosmos DB
13 2 (0.29%) Oracle CX
13 2 (0.29%) Power Automate
13 2 (0.29%) Serverless
Communications & Networking
1 52 (7.48%) DNS
2 45 (6.47%) Firewall
3 33 (4.75%) DHCP
4 28 (4.03%) WAN
5 27 (3.88%) LAN
6 23 (3.31%) VPN
7 22 (3.17%) VLAN
8 20 (2.88%) Skype
9 19 (2.73%) TCP/IP
10 17 (2.45%) Cisco Firepower
10 17 (2.45%) Cisco IOS
10 17 (2.45%) Cisco ISE
10 17 (2.45%) Junos
11 13 (1.87%) BGP
12 12 (1.73%) Unified Communications
13 11 (1.58%) Network Security
13 11 (1.58%) Wi-Fi
14 10 (1.44%) Wireless
15 8 (1.15%) MPLS
15 8 (1.15%) WebEx
Database & Business Intelligence
1 16 (2.30%) SQL Server
2 15 (2.16%) Power BI
2 15 (2.16%) Relational Database
3 9 (1.29%) Amazon RDS
3 9 (1.29%) DB2
4 4 (0.58%) Data Mining
4 4 (0.58%) Metadata
4 4 (0.58%) Oracle Reports
5 3 (0.43%) Amazon Aurora
5 3 (0.43%) Big Data
5 3 (0.43%) MariaDB
5 3 (0.43%) MySQL
6 2 (0.29%) Azure SQL Database
6 2 (0.29%) Data Warehouse
6 2 (0.29%) PostgreSQL
7 1 (0.14%) Electronic Patient Records
7 1 (0.14%) MongoDB
7 1 (0.14%) Oracle Database
7 1 (0.14%) Sqoop
7 1 (0.14%) Tableau
Development Applications
1 73 (10.50%) JIRA
2 13 (1.87%) Jenkins
3 7 (1.01%) webpack
4 4 (0.58%) Bitbucket
4 4 (0.58%) Git
5 1 (0.14%) Cucumber
5 1 (0.14%) MLflow
5 1 (0.14%) Selenium
5 1 (0.14%) SoapUI
5 1 (0.14%) WebDriver
General
1 249 (35.83%) Social Skills
2 141 (20.29%) Analytical Skills
3 86 (12.37%) Public Sector
4 84 (12.09%) Finance
5 30 (4.32%) Telecoms
6 29 (4.17%) Manufacturing
7 26 (3.74%) Legal
8 23 (3.31%) Military
9 20 (2.88%) Inclusion and Diversity
10 19 (2.73%) Banking
10 19 (2.73%) Influencing Skills
11 18 (2.59%) Documentation Skills
12 15 (2.16%) Organisational Skills
12 15 (2.16%) Presentation Skills
13 14 (2.01%) Marketing
14 12 (1.73%) Electronics
15 11 (1.58%) Police
15 11 (1.58%) Retail
16 8 (1.15%) Investment Banking
17 5 (0.72%) Billing
Job Titles
1 122 (17.55%) Analyst
2 61 (8.78%) Architect
3 60 (8.63%) Support Engineer
4 52 (7.48%) Service Manager
5 51 (7.34%) Support Analyst
6 47 (6.76%) IT Support
7 42 (6.04%) Desktop Support
8 40 (5.76%) Lead
9 38 (5.47%) Network Engineer
10 35 (5.04%) 2nd Line Support
11 34 (4.89%) Service Architect
12 29 (4.17%) IT Analyst
13 26 (3.74%) Service Analyst
14 25 (3.60%) Senior
15 23 (3.31%) Consultant
15 23 (3.31%) Platform Engineer
16 22 (3.17%) IT Support Analyst
17 21 (3.02%) IT Manager
18 20 (2.88%) Data Analyst
18 20 (2.88%) Project Manager
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 19 (2.73%) REST
2 16 (2.30%) RFC 2544
3 14 (2.01%) Web Services
4 13 (1.87%) CSS
4 13 (1.87%) HTML
5 12 (1.73%) SOAP
6 8 (1.15%) RESTful
6 8 (1.15%) XML
6 8 (1.15%) XMPP
7 7 (1.01%) CSS3
7 7 (1.01%) HTML5
7 7 (1.01%) NETCONF
7 7 (1.01%) Node.js
7 7 (1.01%) React
7 7 (1.01%) Redux
7 7 (1.01%) RESTCONF
8 6 (0.86%) Elastic Stack
9 5 (0.72%) AngularJS
10 3 (0.43%) LDAP
10 3 (0.43%) Middleware
Miscellaneous
1 42 (6.04%) Data Centre
2 38 (5.47%) Management Information System
3 27 (3.88%) Product Ownership
4 25 (3.60%) PKI
5 24 (3.45%) CMDB
6 20 (2.88%) Self-Motivation
7 18 (2.59%) Virtual Team
8 15 (2.16%) Analytical Mindset
9 13 (1.87%) Fibre Optics
9 13 (1.87%) Onboarding
10 11 (1.58%) Driving Licence
10 11 (1.58%) NHS
11 10 (1.44%) Mainframe
12 8 (1.15%) iPhone
13 7 (1.01%) Public Cloud
14 6 (0.86%) Enterprise Software
14 6 (0.86%) Tandem
14 6 (0.86%) Video Conferencing
15 5 (0.72%) Distributed Systems
16 4 (0.58%) iPad
Operating Systems
1 179 (25.76%) Windows
2 57 (8.20%) Linux
3 56 (8.06%) Windows Server
4 42 (6.04%) Windows 10
5 24 (3.45%) Unix
6 14 (2.01%) Mac OS
7 13 (1.87%) Apple iOS
8 12 (1.73%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
9 7 (1.01%) Android
9 7 (1.01%) Windows Server 2012
10 5 (0.72%) Windows 7
11 4 (0.58%) Windows Server 2003
11 4 (0.58%) Windows Server 2016
12 3 (0.43%) CentOS
12 3 (0.43%) Windows Server 2008
12 3 (0.43%) Windows Server 2019
13 1 (0.14%) AIX
13 1 (0.14%) Solaris
Processes & Methodologies
1 386 (55.54%) ITIL
2 309 (44.46%) ITSM
3 153 (22.01%) Problem-Solving
4 112 (16.12%) Change Management
5 110 (15.83%) Customer Service
6 98 (14.10%) Stakeholder Management
7 94 (13.53%) Service Delivery
8 92 (13.24%) Agile
9 83 (11.94%) Continuous Improvement
9 83 (11.94%) Service Design
10 66 (9.50%) Incident Management
11 63 (9.06%) Project Management
11 63 (9.06%) Stakeholder Engagement
12 61 (8.78%) Project Delivery
13 58 (8.35%) DevOps
14 49 (7.05%) Problem Management
15 43 (6.19%) Analytics
15 43 (6.19%) Business Intelligence
16 40 (5.76%) Visualisation
17 38 (5.47%) Incident Response
Programming Languages
1 62 (8.92%) SQL
2 59 (8.49%) Python
3 58 (8.35%) PowerShell
4 23 (3.31%) JavaScript
5 15 (2.16%) Perl
6 14 (2.01%) Bash
7 12 (1.73%) Shell Script
8 10 (1.44%) Java
9 7 (1.01%) TypeScript
10 5 (0.72%) VB
10 5 (0.72%) VBScript
11 2 (0.29%) Apex Code
12 1 (0.14%) C#
12 1 (0.14%) HiveQL
12 1 (0.14%) PL/SQL
12 1 (0.14%) VBA
Qualifications
1 286 (41.15%) Security Cleared
2 225 (32.37%) SC Cleared
3 83 (11.94%) Degree
4 58 (8.35%) DV Cleared
5 45 (6.47%) ITIL Certification
6 42 (6.04%) Microsoft Certification
7 29 (4.17%) Cisco Certification
8 26 (3.74%) CCNP
9 19 (2.73%) A+ Certification
10 16 (2.30%) Computer Science Degree
11 15 (2.16%) Azure Certification
11 15 (2.16%) MCSE
12 14 (2.01%) Server+ Certification
13 13 (1.87%) CCNA
14 11 (1.58%) BPSS Clearance
14 11 (1.58%) Network+ Certification
15 10 (1.44%) ITIL Foundation Certificate
16 6 (0.86%) HNC
16 6 (0.86%) Master's Degree
17 5 (0.72%) HND
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 55 (7.91%) SLA
2 31 (4.46%) ISO/IEC 20000
3 15 (2.16%) GDPR
4 12 (1.73%) QA
5 8 (1.15%) Data Quality
5 8 (1.15%) ISO/IEC 27001
5 8 (1.15%) NCSC
6 5 (0.72%) Disclosure Scotland
6 5 (0.72%) GxP
6 5 (0.72%) ISO 9001
6 5 (0.72%) PMO
6 5 (0.72%) Sarbanes-Oxley
7 3 (0.43%) Accessibility
7 3 (0.43%) COBIT
7 3 (0.43%) GRC
8 2 (0.29%) Cyber Essentials
8 2 (0.29%) HIPAA
8 2 (0.29%) WCAG
9 1 (0.14%) Actionable Recommendations
9 1 (0.14%) NIST
System Software
1 89 (12.81%) Active Directory
2 34 (4.89%) VMware Infrastructure
3 21 (3.02%) VMware NSX
4 13 (1.87%) Hyper-V
5 11 (1.58%) VMware ESXi
6 6 (0.86%) Docker
6 6 (0.86%) Virtual Desktop
6 6 (0.86%) Virtual Servers
7 5 (0.72%) BitLocker
7 5 (0.72%) Microsoft Virtual Server
8 3 (0.43%) Virtual Machines
9 1 (0.14%) Slurm Workload Manager
Systems Management
1 25 (3.60%) vCenter Server
2 18 (2.59%) SCCM
3 14 (2.01%) Ansible
4 13 (1.87%) Microsoft Intune
5 11 (1.58%) Active Directory Federation Services
5 11 (1.58%) WSUS
6 8 (1.15%) Terraform
7 7 (1.01%) Kubernetes
8 4 (0.58%) Jamf Pro
8 4 (0.58%) NSN NetAct
8 4 (0.58%) OpenView
9 3 (0.43%) Check_MK
9 3 (0.43%) Single Sign-On
10 2 (0.29%) FortiGate
10 2 (0.29%) Grafana
10 2 (0.29%) OPNET
10 2 (0.29%) PowerCLI
10 2 (0.29%) Prometheus
10 2 (0.29%) SCOM
11 1 (0.14%) NetBackup
Vendors
1 167 (24.03%) Microsoft
2 154 (22.16%) ServiceNow
3 100 (14.39%) Cisco
4 43 (6.19%) VMware
5 38 (5.47%) Oracle
6 35 (5.04%) Splunk
7 31 (4.46%) SolarWinds
8 29 (4.17%) Atlassian
8 29 (4.17%) SAP
9 24 (3.45%) Juniper
9 24 (3.45%) Remedy
10 19 (2.73%) Dynatrace
11 18 (2.59%) AppDynamics
12 17 (2.45%) IBM
13 16 (2.30%) Google
14 14 (2.01%) Red Hat
15 13 (1.87%) Veeam
16 12 (1.73%) Salesforce
17 8 (1.15%) Apple
17 8 (1.15%) Citrix