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

6 months to
29 Jan 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 70 70 62
Rank change year-on-year 0 -8 +4
Contract jobs citing Service Management 667 434 655
As % of all contract jobs in the UK excluding London 3.48% 3.16% 3.22%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 4.12% 3.57% 3.72%
Number of daily rates quoted 456 271 496
10th Percentile £185 £213 £256
25th Percentile £306 £378 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £520 £525
Median % change year-on-year -3.85% -0.95% +12.30%
75th Percentile £595 £618 £600
90th Percentile £738 £688 £700
UK median daily rate £500 £525 £528
% change year-on-year -4.76% -0.47% +5.50%
Number of hourly rates quoted 65 19 11
10th Percentile £13.25 £19.27 £12.53
25th Percentile £16.40 £24.18 £14.00
Median hourly rate £26.30 £30.40 £16.94
Median % change year-on-year -13.49% +79.51% -44.35%
75th Percentile £60.00 £37.00 £19.61
90th Percentile £74.26 £69.00 £48.75
UK median hourly rate £26.21 £30.20 £17.72
% change year-on-year -13.23% +70.43% -29.12%

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 16,195 12,146 17,626
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK excluding London 84.59% 88.57% 86.64%
Number of daily rates quoted 9,939 7,106 11,083
10th Percentile £230 £231 £250
25th Percentile £381 £380 £400
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £480 £499 £500
Median % change year-on-year -3.86% -0.15% -
75th Percentile £575 £594 £600
90th Percentile £675 £675 £688
UK median daily rate £500 £525 £525
% change year-on-year -4.76% - -4.55%
Number of hourly rates quoted 1,730 673 1,589
10th Percentile £14.25 £15.50 £13.25
25th Percentile £17.14 £20.12 £16.00
Median hourly rate £24.71 £30.45 £37.18
Median % change year-on-year -18.85% -18.10% +39.38%
75th Percentile £58.00 £63.75 £62.50
90th Percentile £69.27 £74.35 £75.00
UK median hourly rate £25.15 £32.50 £35.96
% change year-on-year -22.62% -9.62% +10.65%

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 29 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 29 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 29 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 +24 168 £450 - 93
North of England -7 166 £500 +17.65% 67
South West -1 152 £575 +0.88% 27
Midlands -11 107 £425 -26.72% 40
North West +6 94 £550 +29.41% 33
West Midlands -10 79 £475 -18.10% 24
Yorkshire -20 58 £476 +105.72% 26
East of England 0 45 £330 -40.00% 26
Scotland -11 29 £493 -0.50% 9
East Midlands -4 28 £411 -14.77% 16
North East -8 17 £280 -53.04% 8
Northern Ireland - 4 £325 - 3
Wales -7 2 £165 -48.02% 8
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 61 (9.15%) Confluence
2 56 (8.40%) Microsoft Exchange
3 44 (6.60%) SharePoint
4 14 (2.10%) Skype for Business
5 7 (1.05%) Apache
5 7 (1.05%) WebLogic
6 5 (0.75%) SharePoint Server
7 2 (0.30%) JBoss
8 1 (0.15%) CMS
8 1 (0.15%) HCL Notes
Applications
1 86 (12.89%) Microsoft Office
2 35 (5.25%) Microsoft Project
3 15 (2.25%) Microsoft Excel
4 6 (0.90%) Microsoft PowerPoint
5 5 (0.75%) MS Visio
6 3 (0.45%) PTC Creo
Business Applications
1 14 (2.10%) Remedy ITSM
2 13 (1.95%) Oracle EBS
3 6 (0.90%) SAP S/4HANA
4 4 (0.60%) Teamcenter
5 3 (0.45%) assyst
6 2 (0.30%) Dynamics CRM
6 2 (0.30%) Salesforce CRM
7 1 (0.15%) NetSuite
7 1 (0.15%) SAP ERP
7 1 (0.15%) SystmOne
Cloud Services
1 106 (15.89%) Azure
2 73 (10.94%) AWS
3 70 (10.49%) Microsoft 365
4 38 (5.70%) GCP
5 27 (4.05%) Entra ID
6 18 (2.70%) Power Platform
7 15 (2.25%) OneDrive
7 15 (2.25%) SaaS
8 9 (1.35%) Azure DevOps
9 8 (1.20%) PowerApps
10 7 (1.05%) Azure Monitor
10 7 (1.05%) Salesforce Service Cloud
11 6 (0.90%) IaaS
12 5 (0.75%) Dynamics 365
12 5 (0.75%) OpenShift
12 5 (0.75%) Power Automate
13 4 (0.60%) Amazon EC2
13 4 (0.60%) AWS Lambda
13 4 (0.60%) GitHub
13 4 (0.60%) PaaS
Communications & Networking
1 42 (6.30%) DNS
2 29 (4.35%) DHCP
3 25 (3.75%) VLAN
4 24 (3.60%) Skype
5 23 (3.45%) Firewall
6 19 (2.85%) VPN
7 17 (2.55%) Cisco Firepower
7 17 (2.55%) Cisco IOS
7 17 (2.55%) Cisco ISE
7 17 (2.55%) Junos
7 17 (2.55%) LAN
8 16 (2.40%) TCP/IP
9 15 (2.25%) Network Security
9 15 (2.25%) WAN
10 13 (1.95%) Wi-Fi
11 8 (1.20%) WebEx
12 5 (0.75%) BGP
12 5 (0.75%) Software-Defined Networking
12 5 (0.75%) Structured Cabling
12 5 (0.75%) Unified Communications
Database & Business Intelligence
1 14 (2.10%) Relational Database
2 9 (1.35%) Power BI
3 7 (1.05%) SQL Server
4 5 (0.75%) Amazon RDS
5 4 (0.60%) InfluxDB
5 4 (0.60%) Metadata
6 3 (0.45%) PostgreSQL
7 2 (0.30%) Azure SQL Database
7 2 (0.30%) Big Data
7 2 (0.30%) Data Mining
7 2 (0.30%) GIS
7 2 (0.30%) MongoDB
8 1 (0.15%) Amazon Aurora
8 1 (0.15%) BusinessObjects
8 1 (0.15%) Electronic Patient Records
8 1 (0.15%) MariaDB
8 1 (0.15%) Oracle Database
8 1 (0.15%) Oracle Discoverer
8 1 (0.15%) Oracle Reports
8 1 (0.15%) RDBMS
Development Applications
1 89 (13.34%) JIRA
2 13 (1.95%) Jenkins
3 6 (0.90%) Bitbucket
3 6 (0.90%) Git
4 4 (0.60%) GitLab
5 2 (0.30%) ScriptRunner
6 1 (0.15%) Atlassian Bamboo
6 1 (0.15%) MLflow
6 1 (0.15%) Visual Studio Code
6 1 (0.15%) webpack
General
1 282 (42.28%) Social Skills
2 135 (20.24%) Analytical Skills
3 91 (13.64%) Public Sector
4 73 (10.94%) Finance
5 42 (6.30%) Military
6 40 (6.00%) Legal
7 30 (4.50%) Organisational Skills
8 25 (3.75%) Manufacturing
9 21 (3.15%) Telecoms
10 19 (2.85%) Documentation Skills
11 18 (2.70%) Retail
12 14 (2.10%) Banking
13 13 (1.95%) Influencing Skills
14 10 (1.50%) Electronics
14 10 (1.50%) Marketing
15 7 (1.05%) Presentation Skills
16 6 (0.90%) Investment Banking
17 5 (0.75%) Inclusion and Diversity
18 2 (0.30%) Aerospace
18 2 (0.30%) Billing
Job Titles
1 81 (12.14%) Analyst
2 76 (11.39%) Architect
3 72 (10.79%) Lead
4 57 (8.55%) Service Manager
5 53 (7.95%) Support Engineer
6 43 (6.45%) Service Architect
7 41 (6.15%) IT Support
8 29 (4.35%) Hardware Engineer
8 29 (4.35%) Support Analyst
9 26 (3.90%) 2nd Line Support
10 24 (3.60%) Consultant
11 22 (3.30%) Desktop Support
11 22 (3.30%) IT Analyst
11 22 (3.30%) Network Engineer
12 20 (3.00%) 3rd Line Support
13 19 (2.85%) 3rd Line Engineer
13 19 (2.85%) Break Fix Engineer
14 18 (2.70%) Cloud Engineer
14 18 (2.70%) Infrastructure Engineer
14 18 (2.70%) Platform Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 21 (3.15%) REST
2 8 (1.20%) XMPP
3 6 (0.90%) RFC 2544
3 6 (0.90%) SOAP
4 4 (0.60%) .NET
4 4 (0.60%) Elastic Stack
4 4 (0.60%) RabbitMQ
5 3 (0.45%) CSS
5 3 (0.45%) Web Services
6 2 (0.30%) HTML
6 2 (0.30%) Middleware
6 2 (0.30%) ModSecurity
6 2 (0.30%) Spring Boot
7 1 (0.15%) AngularJS
7 1 (0.15%) ARM Templates
7 1 (0.15%) CSS3
7 1 (0.15%) Lightning Web Components
7 1 (0.15%) Node.js
7 1 (0.15%) Redux
7 1 (0.15%) Vue
Miscellaneous
1 52 (7.80%) Product Ownership
2 29 (4.35%) CMDB
3 27 (4.05%) Onboarding
4 25 (3.75%) Data Centre
4 25 (3.75%) Management Information System
5 20 (3.00%) Virtual Team
6 19 (2.85%) Driving Licence
7 18 (2.70%) PKI
7 18 (2.70%) Self-Motivation
8 15 (2.25%) Analytical Mindset
9 10 (1.50%) PMI
10 8 (1.20%) Mainframe
10 8 (1.20%) NHS
11 7 (1.05%) Enterprise Software
12 6 (0.90%) Fibre Optics
13 5 (0.75%) Smartphone
14 4 (0.60%) Data Protection Act
14 4 (0.60%) Data Structures
14 4 (0.60%) Hybrid Cloud
14 4 (0.60%) Tandem
Operating Systems
1 180 (26.99%) Windows
2 62 (9.30%) Linux
3 52 (7.80%) Windows Server
4 50 (7.50%) Windows 10
5 13 (1.95%) Unix
6 12 (1.80%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
7 10 (1.50%) Windows 7
8 9 (1.35%) Mac OS
9 8 (1.20%) Apple iOS
10 7 (1.05%) Android
10 7 (1.05%) Windows Server 2012
11 4 (0.60%) Ubuntu
11 4 (0.60%) Windows Server 2003
11 4 (0.60%) Windows Server 2016
11 4 (0.60%) Windows Server 2019
12 3 (0.45%) CentOS
12 3 (0.45%) Windows Server 2008
13 1 (0.15%) AIX
13 1 (0.15%) Data ONTAP
13 1 (0.15%) Windows XP
Processes & Methodologies
1 401 (60.12%) ITIL
2 296 (44.38%) ITSM
3 144 (21.59%) Problem-Solving
4 118 (17.69%) Continuous Improvement
5 117 (17.54%) Change Management
6 108 (16.19%) Agile
7 95 (14.24%) Stakeholder Management
8 92 (13.79%) Stakeholder Engagement
9 91 (13.64%) Customer Service
10 83 (12.44%) Service Delivery
11 71 (10.64%) Service Design
12 62 (9.30%) Project Management
13 59 (8.85%) Incident Management
14 58 (8.70%) Problem Management
15 57 (8.55%) Knowledge Transfer
16 51 (7.65%) Acceptance Criteria
17 48 (7.20%) DevOps
18 47 (7.05%) Performance Metrics
19 45 (6.75%) Critical Thinking
20 42 (6.30%) Configuration Management
Programming Languages
1 67 (10.04%) PowerShell
2 48 (7.20%) Python
3 44 (6.60%) SQL
4 15 (2.25%) Perl
4 15 (2.25%) Shell Script
5 12 (1.80%) Bash
6 9 (1.35%) Java
6 9 (1.35%) VB
6 9 (1.35%) VBScript
7 6 (0.90%) JavaScript
8 4 (0.60%) Go
9 2 (0.30%) PHP
10 1 (0.15%) Apex Code
10 1 (0.15%) C#
10 1 (0.15%) PL/SQL
10 1 (0.15%) T-SQL
10 1 (0.15%) TypeScript
10 1 (0.15%) VBA
Qualifications
1 323 (48.43%) Security Cleared
2 251 (37.63%) SC Cleared
3 98 (14.69%) Degree
4 87 (13.04%) DV Cleared
5 38 (5.70%) ITIL Certification
6 34 (5.10%) Microsoft Certification
7 30 (4.50%) TOGAF Certification
8 16 (2.40%) A+ Certification
8 16 (2.40%) Computer Science Degree
8 16 (2.40%) MCSE
8 16 (2.40%) PMI Certification
9 15 (2.25%) PMP
10 14 (2.10%) Azure Certification
10 14 (2.10%) Network+ Certification
11 13 (1.95%) BPSS Clearance
11 13 (1.95%) Cisco Certification
12 12 (1.80%) CCNP
13 11 (1.65%) CCNA
13 11 (1.65%) Server+ Certification
14 8 (1.20%) APMP
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 29 (4.35%) SLA
2 10 (1.50%) Data Quality
3 9 (1.35%) ISO/IEC 27001
3 9 (1.35%) PMO
4 8 (1.20%) GDPR
5 7 (1.05%) ISO/IEC 20000
6 6 (0.90%) QA
7 5 (0.75%) Cyber Essentials
8 4 (0.60%) Disclosure Scotland
9 3 (0.45%) Accessibility
9 3 (0.45%) ISO 9001
9 3 (0.45%) NCSC
10 2 (0.30%) GRC
10 2 (0.30%) GxP
10 2 (0.30%) HMG Security Policy Framework
10 2 (0.30%) NIST
11 1 (0.15%) Actionable Recommendations
11 1 (0.15%) PCI DSS
11 1 (0.15%) WCAG
System Software
1 89 (13.34%) Active Directory
2 34 (5.10%) VMware Infrastructure
3 21 (3.15%) VMware NSX
4 13 (1.95%) Hyper-V
5 9 (1.35%) BitLocker
6 8 (1.20%) Docker
7 6 (0.90%) Virtual Desktop
7 6 (0.90%) Virtual Servers
8 5 (0.75%) Microsoft Virtual Server
9 3 (0.45%) Virtual Machines
10 2 (0.30%) VMware ESXi
11 1 (0.15%) Slurm Workload Manager
Systems Management
1 32 (4.80%) OPNET
2 28 (4.20%) SCCM
3 24 (3.60%) vCenter Server
4 19 (2.85%) Ansible
5 16 (2.40%) Microsoft Intune
5 16 (2.40%) Terraform
6 15 (2.25%) Kubernetes
7 12 (1.80%) Active Directory Federation Services
8 11 (1.65%) WSUS
9 5 (0.75%) Grafana
9 5 (0.75%) Jamf Pro
10 4 (0.60%) Nessus
10 4 (0.60%) Packer
10 4 (0.60%) Progress Chef
10 4 (0.60%) Prometheus
11 2 (0.30%) Docker Swarm
11 2 (0.30%) FortiGate
11 2 (0.30%) PowerCLI
11 2 (0.30%) Puppet
11 2 (0.30%) SCOM
Vendors
1 150 (22.49%) ServiceNow
2 136 (20.39%) Microsoft
3 61 (9.15%) Cisco
4 56 (8.40%) Atlassian
5 51 (7.65%) Remedy
6 46 (6.90%) VMware
7 35 (5.25%) Oracle
8 33 (4.95%) SolarWinds
9 32 (4.80%) Google
10 29 (4.35%) HP
11 25 (3.75%) Splunk
12 24 (3.60%) SAP
13 19 (2.85%) Juniper
14 14 (2.10%) Dynatrace
15 13 (1.95%) AppDynamics
15 13 (1.95%) Red Hat
15 13 (1.95%) Salesforce
15 13 (1.95%) Veeam
16 10 (1.50%) Citrix
16 10 (1.50%) Dell