SLA Contracts

Service Level Agreement (SLA)
UK

The following table provides summary statistics for contract job vacancies with a requirement for SLA skills. Included is a benchmarking guide to the contractor rates offered in vacancies that have cited SLA over the 6 months to 30 April 2024 with a comparison to the same period in the previous 2 years.

6 months to
30 Apr 2024		 Same period 2023 Same period 2022
Rank 130 183 179
Rank change year-on-year +53 -4 +28
Contract jobs citing SLA 760 863 1,426
As % of all contract jobs advertised in the UK 1.74% 1.45% 1.61%
As % of the Quality Assurance & Compliance category 12.17% 10.81% 12.11%
Number of daily rates quoted 354 497 906
10th Percentile £150 £140 £136
25th Percentile £202 £185 £185
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £330 £298 £375
Median % change year-on-year +10.92% -20.56% -6.38%
75th Percentile £484 £488 £525
90th Percentile £582 £588 £625
UK excluding London median daily rate £285 £246 £258
% change year-on-year +15.85% -4.56% -20.69%
Number of hourly rates quoted 96 70 106
10th Percentile £11.07 £12.50 £11.36
25th Percentile £12.84 £15.47 £12.31
Median hourly rate £14.75 £18.50 £16.85
Median % change year-on-year -20.27% +9.79% +20.36%
75th Percentile £23.80 £29.30 £24.88
90th Percentile £32.63 £47.00 £50.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £14.00 £18.50 £16.50
% change year-on-year -24.32% +12.12% +18.32%

All Quality Assurance and Compliance Skills
UK

SLA is in the Quality Assurance and Compliance category. The following table is for comparison with the above and provides summary statistics for all contract job vacancies with a requirement for quality assurance or compliance skills.

Contract vacancies with a requirement for quality assurance or compliance skills 6,247 7,982 11,772
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 14.34% 13.37% 13.27%
Number of daily rates quoted 3,954 5,483 8,057
10th Percentile £296 £275 £290
25th Percentile £403 £409 £403
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £510 £525 £513
Median % change year-on-year -2.86% +2.44% +7.89%
75th Percentile £625 £638 £619
90th Percentile £750 £738 £706
UK excluding London median daily rate £488 £475 £450
% change year-on-year +2.63% +5.56% +5.88%
Number of hourly rates quoted 382 225 301
10th Percentile £10.95 £13.21 £11.75
25th Percentile £13.18 £18.70 £16.50
Median hourly rate £20.80 £37.50 £28.00
Median % change year-on-year -44.53% +33.93% +33.02%
75th Percentile £45.00 £62.00 £49.25
90th Percentile £67.14 £77.50 £67.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £18.00 £36.25 £21.05
% change year-on-year -50.34% +72.21% -

SLA
Job Vacancy Trend

Job postings citing SLA as a proportion of all IT jobs advertised.

Job vacancy trend for SLA in the UK

SLA
Contractor Daily Rate Trend

3-month moving average daily rate quoted in jobs citing SLA.

Daily rate trend for SLA in the UK

SLA
Daily Rate Histogram

Daily rate distribution for jobs citing SLA over the 6 months to 30 April 2024.

Daily rate histogram for SLA in the UK

SLA
Contractor Hourly Rate Trend

3-month moving average hourly rates quoted in jobs citing SLA.

Hourly rate trend for SLA in the UK

SLA
Hourly Rate Histogram

Hourly rate distribution of jobs citing SLA over the 6 months to 30 April 2024.

Hourly rate histogram for SLA in the UK

SLA
Top 16 Contract Locations

The table below looks at the demand and provides a guide to the median contractor rates quoted in IT jobs citing SLA within the UK over the 6 months to 30 April 2024. 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
England +35 673 £330 +10.92% 436
UK excluding London +23 507 £285 +15.85% 349
London +86 219 £400 +6.67% 109
Work from Home +114 202 £375 -14.77% 133
South East -5 154 £285 +21.28% 88
North of England +25 140 £493 +23.25% 98
North West +44 101 £538 +12.27% 57
South West +21 68 £275 +57.14% 31
Midlands +19 59 £245 -16.95% 62
West Midlands +16 47 £240 -26.15% 41
Yorkshire -11 38 £425 +44.68% 30
Scotland +54 37 £282 +65.88% 19
Wales +31 28 £135 -50.91% 15
East of England -41 22 £265 +10.42% 33
East Midlands +15 12 £270 +42.11% 21
North East +18 1 - - 12

SLA
Co-occurring Skills and Capabilities by Category

The follow tables expand on the table above by listing co-occurrences grouped by category. The same employment type, locality and period is covered with up to 20 co-occurrences shown in each of the following categories:

Application Platforms
1 43 (5.66%) Microsoft Exchange
2 22 (2.89%) SharePoint
3 3 (0.39%) Adobe Experience Manager
3 3 (0.39%) Exchange Server 2007
3 3 (0.39%) IIS
3 3 (0.39%) OpenStack
3 3 (0.39%) Skype for Business
4 2 (0.26%) Alfresco
4 2 (0.26%) Confluence
4 2 (0.26%) Exchange Server 2013
4 2 (0.26%) JBoss
5 1 (0.13%) Exchange Server 2010
5 1 (0.13%) Red Hat Fuse
5 1 (0.13%) Tomcat
Applications
1 111 (14.61%) Microsoft Office
2 67 (8.82%) Microsoft Excel
3 24 (3.16%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 13 (1.71%) MS Visio
5 6 (0.79%) Spreadsheet
6 3 (0.39%) Adobe Creative Suite
Business Applications
1 7 (0.92%) Remedy ITSM
1 7 (0.92%) SAP S/4HANA
2 5 (0.66%) Oracle General Ledger
3 3 (0.39%) assyst
3 3 (0.39%) NEC Housing
3 3 (0.39%) Oracle AGIS
3 3 (0.39%) Oracle Applications
3 3 (0.39%) Oracle Assets
3 3 (0.39%) Oracle Cash Management
3 3 (0.39%) Oracle Financials
3 3 (0.39%) Oracle Payables
3 3 (0.39%) Oracle Receivables
3 3 (0.39%) Shopify
4 2 (0.26%) Oracle Procure-to-Pay
4 2 (0.26%) Oracle Subledger Accounting
5 1 (0.13%) Dynamics GP
5 1 (0.13%) SAP APO
5 1 (0.13%) SAP MM
5 1 (0.13%) Temenos T24
5 1 (0.13%) Workday HCM
Cloud Services
1 128 (16.84%) Microsoft 365
2 59 (7.76%) Azure
3 36 (4.74%) AWS
3 36 (4.74%) Power Platform
4 19 (2.50%) OneDrive
5 18 (2.37%) Entra ID
6 13 (1.71%) SuccessFactors
7 9 (1.18%) Power Automate
8 7 (0.92%) GCP
8 7 (0.92%) WhatsApp
9 6 (0.79%) IaaS
10 5 (0.66%) Cloud Computing
10 5 (0.66%) Dynamics 365
10 5 (0.66%) Lucidchart
10 5 (0.66%) PaaS
10 5 (0.66%) SaaS
10 5 (0.66%) Serverless
11 4 (0.53%) IBM Blueworks
12 3 (0.39%) Mimecast
12 3 (0.39%) OCI
Communications & Networking
1 63 (8.29%) LAN
2 54 (7.11%) VPN
3 44 (5.79%) WAN
3 44 (5.79%) Wireless
4 43 (5.66%) Firewall
5 17 (2.24%) Remote Desktop
5 17 (2.24%) TCP/IP
6 16 (2.11%) VoIP
7 15 (1.97%) Internet
8 14 (1.84%) SAN
9 13 (1.71%) DNS
9 13 (1.71%) MPLS
10 11 (1.45%) PSTN
10 11 (1.45%) Wi-Fi
11 10 (1.32%) DHCP
11 10 (1.32%) SD-WAN
12 9 (1.18%) BGP
12 9 (1.18%) DWDM
12 9 (1.18%) IPsec
13 8 (1.05%) Ethernet
Database & Business Intelligence
1 23 (3.03%) Power BI
2 13 (1.71%) SQL Server
3 10 (1.32%) Data Warehouse
4 8 (1.05%) SQL Server Integration Services
5 7 (0.92%) SQL Server Reporting Services
6 5 (0.66%) Oracle Reports
6 5 (0.66%) PostgreSQL
6 5 (0.66%) Tableau
7 3 (0.39%) MySQL
8 2 (0.26%) Amazon RDS
8 2 (0.26%) Big Data
8 2 (0.26%) Data Lake
8 2 (0.26%) Data Mining
8 2 (0.26%) GIS
9 1 (0.13%) Elasticsearch
9 1 (0.13%) HDInsight
9 1 (0.13%) InterSystems Cache
9 1 (0.13%) MongoDB
9 1 (0.13%) Relational Database
9 1 (0.13%) SQL Server Analysis Services
Development Applications
1 16 (2.11%) JIRA
2 5 (0.66%) Git
3 4 (0.53%) Mocha
4 3 (0.39%) Maven
5 1 (0.13%) Bitbucket
5 1 (0.13%) Cypress.io
5 1 (0.13%) GoCD
5 1 (0.13%) Hudson
5 1 (0.13%) Jenkins
5 1 (0.13%) JUnit
5 1 (0.13%) Octopus Deploy
5 1 (0.13%) TeamCity
5 1 (0.13%) Visual Studio
5 1 (0.13%) Yeoman
General
1 339 (44.61%) Social Skills
2 143 (18.82%) Finance
3 113 (14.87%) Analytical Skills
4 73 (9.61%) Public Sector
5 48 (6.32%) Telecoms
6 38 (5.00%) Banking
7 33 (4.34%) Organisational Skills
8 23 (3.03%) Marketing
9 20 (2.63%) Retail
10 19 (2.50%) Legal
11 17 (2.24%) Mandarin Language
12 16 (2.11%) Financial Institution
12 16 (2.11%) Presentation Skills
13 15 (1.97%) Billing
13 15 (1.97%) Manufacturing
13 15 (1.97%) Police
14 9 (1.18%) Investment Banking
15 8 (1.05%) French Language
15 8 (1.05%) Inclusion and Diversity
16 7 (0.92%) Electronics
Job Titles
1 143 (18.82%) Analyst
2 88 (11.58%) Service Analyst
3 74 (9.74%) Service Desk Analyst
4 68 (8.95%) Support Engineer
5 54 (7.11%) Service Desk Agent
6 37 (4.87%) 1st Line Support
7 36 (4.74%) Lead
8 33 (4.34%) IT Support
9 29 (3.82%) Architect
10 27 (3.55%) IT Engineer
11 26 (3.42%) Consultant
11 26 (3.42%) Desktop Support
12 25 (3.29%) Network Engineer
12 25 (3.29%) Technical Support
13 23 (3.03%) 2nd Line Support
13 23 (3.03%) Senior
14 22 (2.89%) Desktop Engineer
14 22 (2.89%) Service Manager
15 19 (2.50%) Desktop Support Engineer
15 19 (2.50%) Support Specialist
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 6 (0.79%) .NET
1 6 (0.79%) Web Services
2 5 (0.66%) Jest
2 5 (0.66%) Node.js
2 5 (0.66%) React
2 5 (0.66%) REST
2 5 (0.66%) XMPP
3 4 (0.53%) AngularJS
3 4 (0.53%) Redux
3 4 (0.53%) Spring
4 3 (0.39%) CSS
4 3 (0.39%) J2EE
4 3 (0.39%) jQuery
4 3 (0.39%) Ruby on Rails
4 3 (0.39%) Sass
4 3 (0.39%) Software Packaging
4 3 (0.39%) Spring Boot
4 3 (0.39%) Spring MVC
4 3 (0.39%) Twitter Bootstrap
4 3 (0.39%) VML
Miscellaneous
1 52 (6.84%) Data Centre
2 41 (5.39%) Management Information System
3 16 (2.11%) Public Cloud
4 15 (1.97%) Self-Motivation
5 12 (1.58%) CMDB
5 12 (1.58%) Hedge funds
6 11 (1.45%) Analytical Mindset
6 11 (1.45%) Distributed Systems
6 11 (1.45%) Video Conferencing
7 10 (1.32%) BYOD
8 9 (1.18%) FMCG
9 8 (1.05%) Driving Licence
9 8 (1.05%) Onboarding
10 7 (0.92%) Virtual Team
11 6 (0.79%) Digital Signage
11 6 (0.79%) Private Cloud
12 5 (0.66%) Data Protection Act
12 5 (0.66%) PKI
13 4 (0.53%) CCTV
13 4 (0.53%) Security Posture
Operating Systems
1 211 (27.76%) Windows
2 94 (12.37%) Windows 10
3 36 (4.74%) Windows 7
4 32 (4.21%) Linux
5 28 (3.68%) Windows Server
6 27 (3.55%) Unix
7 23 (3.03%) Apple iOS
8 16 (2.11%) Mac OS
9 13 (1.71%) Android
10 8 (1.05%) Mac OS X
11 6 (0.79%) Windows Server 2016
12 5 (0.66%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
13 4 (0.53%) Windows Server 2012
14 3 (0.39%) Ubuntu
14 3 (0.39%) Windows Server 2019
15 2 (0.26%) Solaris
16 1 (0.13%) AIX
16 1 (0.13%) Windows XP
Processes & Methodologies
1 230 (30.26%) Problem-Solving
2 222 (29.21%) Customer Service
3 162 (21.32%) ITIL
4 128 (16.84%) Service Delivery
5 82 (10.79%) Agile
6 70 (9.21%) Service Management
7 69 (9.08%) ITSM
8 54 (7.11%) Incident Management
9 52 (6.84%) Continuous Improvement
10 50 (6.58%) Time Management
11 49 (6.45%) Customer Requirements
12 46 (6.05%) Root Cause Analysis
13 42 (5.53%) Project Delivery
14 41 (5.39%) Stakeholder Management
15 40 (5.26%) Change Management
16 39 (5.13%) Decision-Making
16 39 (5.13%) Problem Management
17 38 (5.00%) Coaching
17 38 (5.00%) Customer Experience
18 29 (3.82%) Business Case
Programming Languages
1 38 (5.00%) SQL
2 34 (4.47%) PowerShell
3 16 (2.11%) Java
4 11 (1.45%) Python
5 7 (0.92%) JavaScript
5 7 (0.92%) T-SQL
6 6 (0.79%) C#
7 4 (0.53%) Kusto Query Language
7 4 (0.53%) Search Processing Language
8 3 (0.39%) C++
8 3 (0.39%) Ruby
8 3 (0.39%) VB.NET
9 2 (0.26%) VBScript
10 1 (0.13%) Bash
10 1 (0.13%) R
10 1 (0.13%) TypeScript
10 1 (0.13%) VB
Qualifications
1 183 (24.08%) Security Cleared
2 122 (16.05%) SC Cleared
3 75 (9.87%) Degree
4 47 (6.18%) DV Cleared
5 33 (4.34%) Cisco Certification
6 27 (3.55%) BPSS Clearance
7 23 (3.03%) CCNP
8 22 (2.89%) CCNA
8 22 (2.89%) ITIL Certification
9 15 (1.97%) Microsoft Certification
10 11 (1.45%) MCSE
11 9 (1.18%) Computer Science Degree
12 5 (0.66%) CCSA
12 5 (0.66%) JNCIA
12 5 (0.66%) Master's Degree
12 5 (0.66%) MCP
13 4 (0.53%) BC Cleared
13 4 (0.53%) MCSA
14 3 (0.39%) DBS Check
14 3 (0.39%) JNCIS
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 25 (3.29%) QA
2 11 (1.45%) Disclosure Scotland
3 10 (1.32%) Data Quality
4 6 (0.79%) ISO/IEC 20000
5 5 (0.66%) Accessibility
5 5 (0.66%) GDPR
6 4 (0.53%) NIST
7 3 (0.39%) ISO 9001
8 2 (0.26%) Actionable Recommendations
9 1 (0.13%) Cyber Essentials
9 1 (0.13%) ISO/IEC 27001
System Software
1 110 (14.47%) Active Directory
2 32 (4.21%) VMware Infrastructure
3 18 (2.37%) Hyper-V
4 8 (1.05%) Firmware
5 7 (0.92%) Virtual Machines
6 6 (0.79%) Virtual Desktop
7 5 (0.66%) vSphere
8 4 (0.53%) BitLocker
9 3 (0.39%) KVM
9 3 (0.39%) Microsoft Virtual Server
9 3 (0.39%) Virtual Servers
10 2 (0.26%) Microsoft App-V
11 1 (0.13%) Docker
11 1 (0.13%) Terminal Services
11 1 (0.13%) vCloud
11 1 (0.13%) VMware ESXi
11 1 (0.13%) VMware NSX
Systems Management
1 61 (8.03%) SCCM
2 32 (4.21%) Microsoft Intune
3 7 (0.92%) Active Directory Federation Services
3 7 (0.92%) AirWatch
4 6 (0.79%) Kubernetes
4 6 (0.79%) Systems Management Server (SMS)
5 5 (0.66%) SCOM
5 5 (0.66%) WSUS
6 4 (0.53%) Ansible
6 4 (0.53%) Single Sign-On
6 4 (0.53%) Terraform
6 4 (0.53%) WhatsUp Gold
7 3 (0.39%) OPNET
8 2 (0.26%) Jamf Pro
8 2 (0.26%) NetBackup
8 2 (0.26%) Progress Chef
8 2 (0.26%) Puppet
8 2 (0.26%) Salt
8 2 (0.26%) SCVMM
8 2 (0.26%) VxRail
Vendors
1 260 (34.21%) Microsoft
2 97 (12.76%) ServiceNow
3 53 (6.97%) Cisco
4 40 (5.26%) VMware
5 36 (4.74%) SAP
6 28 (3.68%) HP
7 23 (3.03%) Apple
8 21 (2.76%) Citrix
9 18 (2.37%) Dell
10 17 (2.24%) Juniper
11 12 (1.58%) Remedy
12 11 (1.45%) F5
13 10 (1.32%) Avaya
13 10 (1.32%) BT
13 10 (1.32%) Computacenter
13 10 (1.32%) Infoblox
13 10 (1.32%) Oracle
13 10 (1.32%) Palo Alto
14 9 (1.18%) Blue Coat
14 9 (1.18%) CheckPoint
492 SLA jobs Nationwide