Service Management Contract Job Trends in England

Service Management
UK > England

The table below provides summary statistics and contractor rates for jobs advertised in England requiring Service Management skills. It covers contract job vacancies from the 6 months leading up to 9 September 2026, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
9 Sep 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 88 81 96
Rank change year-on-year -7 +15 -4
Contract jobs citing Service Management 1,374 839 777
As % of all contract jobs in England 2.97% 3.04% 2.38%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 3.49% 3.35% 2.77%
Number of daily rates quoted 914 492 509
10th Percentile £230 £205 £213
25th Percentile £413 £350 £375
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £500 £500
Median % change year-on-year +5.00% - -4.76%
75th Percentile £620 £575 £600
90th Percentile £725 £675 £675
UK median daily rate £525 £496 £501
% change year-on-year +5.95% -1.00% -4.67%
Number of hourly rates quoted 61 64 9
10th Percentile £15.00 - £14.96
25th Percentile £20.31 £12.62 £18.50
Median hourly rate £62.50 £20.79 £26.00
Median % change year-on-year +200.63% -20.04% -52.73%
75th Percentile £85.00 £31.80 £28.75
90th Percentile £101.75 £52.05 £34.50
UK median hourly rate £55.00 £18.73 £36.25
% change year-on-year +193.65% -48.33% -34.09%

All Process & Methodology Skills
England

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 England.

Contract vacancies with a requirement for process or methodology skills 39,321 25,058 28,015
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in England 84.90% 90.80% 85.94%
Number of daily rates quoted 24,195 15,905 17,612
10th Percentile £325 £300 £313
25th Percentile £425 £404 £425
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £508 £525
Median % change year-on-year +3.45% -3.33% -4.55%
75th Percentile £636 £625 £650
90th Percentile £738 £738 £752
UK median daily rate £525 £500 £525
% change year-on-year +5.00% -4.76% -2.78%
Number of hourly rates quoted 2,661 1,475 1,343
10th Percentile £14.22 £14.27 £14.84
25th Percentile £18.00 £17.83 £20.24
Median hourly rate £43.50 £25.15 £43.00
Median % change year-on-year +72.96% -41.51% +0.58%
75th Percentile £68.00 £50.00 £66.61
90th Percentile £80.00 £68.75 £75.00
UK median hourly rate £40.03 £25.15 £43.00
% change year-on-year +59.17% -41.51% +1.96%

Service Management
Job Vacancy Trend in England

Historical trend showing the proportion of contract IT job postings citing Service Management relative to all contract IT jobs advertised in England.

Service Management job vacancy trend in England

Service Management
Daily Rate Trend in England

Contractor daily rate distribution trend for jobs in England citing Service Management.

Contractor daily rate distribution trend for jobs in England citing Service Management

Service Management
Daily Rate Histogram in England

Daily rate distribution for jobs citing Service Management in England over the 6 months to 9 September 2026.

Daily rate histogram for Service Management in England

Service Management
Hourly Rate Trend in England

Contractor hourly rate distribution trend for jobs in England citing Service Management.

Contractor hourly rate distribution trend for jobs in England citing Service Management

Service Management
Hourly Rate Histogram in England

Hourly rate distribution of jobs citing Service Management in England over the 6 months to 9 September 2026.

Hourly rate histogram for Service Management in England

Service Management
Contract Job Locations in England

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 England region over the 6 months to 9 September 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
London +24 500 £525 +5.00% 435
South East +12 303 £572 +20.42% 271
North of England -15 258 £475 +4.06% 201
North West -13 156 £481 +3.39% 113
Midlands -41 111 £500 - 111
South West -32 109 £575 +6.48% 98
West Midlands -22 104 £525 +1.94% 63
Yorkshire -7 94 £443 +21.37% 75
East of England -11 47 £518 -5.91% 75
North East -47 8 £535 +174.36% 15
East Midlands -30 7 £206 -31.25% 48
Service Management
UK

Service Management
Co-Occurring Skills & Capabilities in England 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
1 106 (7.71%) SharePoint
2 58 (4.22%) Microsoft Exchange
3 50 (3.64%) Confluence
4 15 (1.09%) Skype for Business
5 5 (0.36%) OpenStack
6 1 (0.073%) Apache
6 1 (0.073%) CICS
6 1 (0.073%) CMS
6 1 (0.073%) Exchange Server 2010
6 1 (0.073%) HCL Notes
6 1 (0.073%) Mattermost
6 1 (0.073%) Oracle Collaboration Suite
6 1 (0.073%) Palantir Foundry
Applications
1 72 (5.24%) Microsoft Office
2 31 (2.26%) Microsoft Excel
3 13 (0.95%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 12 (0.87%) MS Visio
5 11 (0.80%) Microsoft Project
6 9 (0.66%) Chatbot
7 2 (0.15%) Spreadsheet
8 1 (0.073%) Maple
Business Applications
1 57 (4.15%) Remedy ITSM
2 5 (0.36%) ContrOCC
2 5 (0.36%) Dynamics CRM
2 5 (0.36%) NEC Housing
2 5 (0.36%) SAP S/4HANA
3 3 (0.22%) Oracle ERP
3 3 (0.22%) Primavera
4 2 (0.15%) Exchequer
4 2 (0.15%) Oracle Applications
4 2 (0.15%) Oracle EBS
4 2 (0.15%) Remedy AR System
4 2 (0.15%) Salesforce CRM
4 2 (0.15%) SAP CX
4 2 (0.15%) SAP PS
4 2 (0.15%) Workday HCM
5 1 (0.073%) Cloudability
5 1 (0.073%) iTrent
5 1 (0.073%) SAP FI/CO
5 1 (0.073%) SAP Payroll
5 1 (0.073%) Teamcenter
Cloud Services
1 237 (17.25%) Azure
2 187 (13.61%) Microsoft 365
3 108 (7.86%) AWS
4 106 (7.71%) Entra ID
5 70 (5.09%) Power Platform
6 62 (4.51%) SaaS
7 54 (3.93%) OneDrive
8 30 (2.18%) Azure DevOps
9 28 (2.04%) GCP
10 19 (1.38%) Microsoft Copilot
11 16 (1.16%) Azure Monitor
11 16 (1.16%) GitHub
12 14 (1.02%) OCI
13 11 (0.80%) Google Workspace
14 10 (0.73%) Power Automate
14 10 (0.73%) Serverless
15 8 (0.58%) Azure Sentinel
15 8 (0.58%) Datadog
16 7 (0.51%) Dynamics 365
16 7 (0.51%) PowerApps
Communications & Networking
1 76 (5.53%) Firewall
2 62 (4.51%) DNS
3 55 (4.00%) VPN
4 48 (3.49%) TCP/IP
5 45 (3.28%) DHCP
6 42 (3.06%) WAN
7 37 (2.69%) Network Security
8 34 (2.47%) LAN
9 22 (1.60%) Wi-Fi
10 19 (1.38%) Wireless
11 16 (1.16%) Skype
12 14 (1.02%) SD-WAN
13 13 (0.95%) BGP
13 13 (0.95%) VLAN
14 9 (0.66%) Intrusion Detection
14 9 (0.66%) OSPF
14 9 (0.66%) SSH
15 8 (0.58%) HTTP
15 8 (0.58%) Internet
15 8 (0.58%) SSL
Database & Business Intelligence
1 48 (3.49%) Power BI
2 26 (1.89%) SQL Server
3 20 (1.46%) Metadata
4 7 (0.51%) SQL Server Integration Services
5 6 (0.44%) PostgreSQL
6 5 (0.36%) Oracle Database
6 5 (0.36%) Oracle Database 11g
6 5 (0.36%) SQL Server Analysis Services
6 5 (0.36%) SQL Server Reporting Services
7 4 (0.29%) Oracle Reports
8 3 (0.22%) MySQL
8 3 (0.22%) Relational Database
9 2 (0.15%) Amazon Redshift
9 2 (0.15%) Azure SQL Database
9 2 (0.15%) Data Warehouse
9 2 (0.15%) EDRMS
9 2 (0.15%) Looker
9 2 (0.15%) MariaDB
9 2 (0.15%) Microsoft Analysis Services
9 2 (0.15%) SQLite
Development Applications
1 129 (9.39%) JIRA
2 20 (1.46%) Git
3 17 (1.24%) Bitbucket
4 15 (1.09%) Jenkins
5 11 (0.80%) Atlassian Bamboo
6 7 (0.51%) GitLab
7 5 (0.36%) Browser DevTools
8 4 (0.29%) ScriptRunner
9 3 (0.22%) Fiddler
9 3 (0.22%) MLflow
9 3 (0.22%) Rational DOORS
10 2 (0.15%) Firebug
10 2 (0.15%) IntelliJ
10 2 (0.15%) Sonatype Nexus
11 1 (0.073%) Artifactory
11 1 (0.073%) eggPlant
11 1 (0.073%) Hudson
11 1 (0.073%) MSI
11 1 (0.073%) Snyk
General
1 539 (39.23%) Social Skills
2 235 (17.10%) Analytical Skills
3 224 (16.30%) Finance
4 163 (11.86%) Public Sector
5 73 (5.31%) Telecoms
6 53 (3.86%) Banking
6 53 (3.86%) Organisational Skills
7 49 (3.57%) Documentation Skills
7 49 (3.57%) Influencing Skills
8 42 (3.06%) Legal
9 33 (2.40%) Inclusion and Diversity
10 31 (2.26%) Military
11 29 (2.11%) Aerospace
12 22 (1.60%) Local Government
13 17 (1.24%) Presentation Skills
13 17 (1.24%) Retail
14 15 (1.09%) Manufacturing
15 10 (0.73%) Financial Institution
15 10 (0.73%) Police
16 9 (0.66%) Law
Job Titles
1 147 (10.70%) Architect
2 143 (10.41%) Lead
3 135 (9.83%) Analyst
4 101 (7.35%) Senior
4 101 (7.35%) Service Manager
5 91 (6.62%) Consultant
6 65 (4.73%) Support Engineer
7 64 (4.66%) IT Manager
8 60 (4.37%) Project Manager
9 54 (3.93%) Delivery Manager
10 48 (3.49%) IT Support
11 47 (3.42%) Developer
12 42 (3.06%) Solutions Architect
13 41 (2.98%) Service Architect
14 39 (2.84%) Service Analyst
15 32 (2.33%) IT Analyst
15 32 (2.33%) ServiceNow Developer
16 31 (2.26%) ServiceNow Architect
16 31 (2.26%) Transition Manager
17 30 (2.18%) Administrator
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 71 (5.17%) REST
2 46 (3.35%) Terraform
3 30 (2.18%) SOAP
4 14 (1.02%) HTML
4 14 (1.02%) Web Services
5 13 (0.95%) CSS
5 13 (0.95%) XML
6 10 (0.73%) JSON
6 10 (0.73%) SAML
7 9 (0.66%) Middleware
8 8 (0.58%) Elastic Stack
9 7 (0.51%) ARM Templates
10 6 (0.44%) AngularJS
10 6 (0.44%) OAuth
11 5 (0.36%) OpenID
12 4 (0.29%) .NET
12 4 (0.29%) Bootstrap
12 4 (0.29%) OAuth2
12 4 (0.29%) Oracle Fusion
12 4 (0.29%) XSLT
Miscellaneous
1 157 (11.43%) Onboarding
2 119 (8.66%) CMDB
3 65 (4.73%) Management Information System
4 50 (3.64%) Product Ownership
5 44 (3.20%) Enterprise Software
6 43 (3.13%) Data Centre
7 31 (2.26%) PKI
8 26 (1.89%) Data Protection Act
8 26 (1.89%) Virtual Team
9 22 (1.60%) Hybrid Cloud
10 21 (1.53%) Operational Technology
11 18 (1.31%) Security Operations Centre
12 17 (1.24%) Cloud Native
12 17 (1.24%) Clustering
13 16 (1.16%) AI Agents
14 15 (1.09%) Analytical Mindset
14 15 (1.09%) Self-Motivation
15 14 (1.02%) NHS
15 14 (1.02%) Video Conferencing
16 11 (0.80%) Greenfield Project
Operating Systems
1 276 (20.09%) Windows
2 83 (6.04%) Windows Server
3 68 (4.95%) Windows 10
4 63 (4.59%) Linux
5 29 (2.11%) Apple iOS
6 28 (2.04%) Mac OS
7 18 (1.31%) Windows 7
8 15 (1.09%) Android
8 15 (1.09%) Unix
9 10 (0.73%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
10 6 (0.44%) Windows Server 2019
11 3 (0.22%) Windows Server 2012
11 3 (0.22%) Windows Server 2016
12 1 (0.073%) Ubuntu
12 1 (0.073%) Windows Server 2008
12 1 (0.073%) zOS
Processes & Methodologies
1 751 (54.66%) ITIL
2 626 (45.56%) ITSM
3 445 (32.39%) Stakeholder Management
4 357 (25.98%) Continuous Improvement
5 296 (21.54%) Service Delivery
6 285 (20.74%) Agile
7 282 (20.52%) Problem-Solving
8 218 (15.87%) Change Management
9 198 (14.41%) Stakeholder Engagement
10 178 (12.95%) Roadmaps
11 159 (11.57%) Customer Service
12 148 (10.77%) Incident Management
13 140 (10.19%) DevOps
14 135 (9.83%) Cybersecurity
15 122 (8.88%) Decision-Making
16 121 (8.81%) AI
17 118 (8.59%) Project Delivery
18 107 (7.79%) Migration
19 105 (7.64%) Project Management
20 104 (7.57%) Service Design
Programming Languages
1 131 (9.53%) PowerShell
2 73 (5.31%) Python
3 62 (4.51%) SQL
4 47 (3.42%) JavaScript
5 33 (2.40%) Bash
6 15 (1.09%) VB
6 15 (1.09%) VBScript
7 8 (0.58%) Bicep
7 8 (0.58%) Java
7 8 (0.58%) PL/SQL
8 5 (0.36%) C
8 5 (0.36%) C#
8 5 (0.36%) Groovy
8 5 (0.36%) Perl
9 4 (0.29%) Apex Code
9 4 (0.29%) T-SQL
10 3 (0.22%) Lua
10 3 (0.22%) Shell Script
11 2 (0.15%) ActionScript 2.0
11 2 (0.15%) SOQL
Qualifications
1 520 (37.85%) Security Cleared
2 347 (25.25%) SC Cleared
3 145 (10.55%) Degree
4 143 (10.41%) DV Cleared
5 60 (4.37%) ITIL Certification
6 57 (4.15%) PMP
7 51 (3.71%) PMI Certification
8 36 (2.62%) BPSS Clearance
8 36 (2.62%) Microsoft Certification
9 33 (2.40%) ITIL Foundation Certificate
10 29 (2.11%) Computer Science Degree
11 26 (1.89%) A+ Certification
11 26 (1.89%) CISSP
12 20 (1.46%) Cisco Certification
13 19 (1.38%) CISM
14 16 (1.16%) Azure Certification
15 11 (0.80%) AWS Certification
16 10 (0.73%) Master's Degree
16 10 (0.73%) Network+ Certification
17 9 (0.66%) CCNP
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 113 (8.22%) SLA
2 53 (3.86%) QA
3 50 (3.64%) Data Quality
4 43 (3.13%) ISO/IEC 27001
5 31 (2.26%) PMO
6 30 (2.18%) ISO/IEC 20000
7 24 (1.75%) GRC
8 23 (1.67%) GDPR
9 19 (1.38%) NCSC
10 18 (1.31%) NIST
11 16 (1.16%) ISO 9001
12 12 (0.87%) Cyber Essentials
13 11 (0.80%) Accessibility
14 10 (0.73%) COBIT
15 9 (0.66%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
16 7 (0.51%) PCI DSS
17 4 (0.29%) GMP
17 4 (0.29%) SOC 2
17 4 (0.29%) WCAG
18 3 (0.22%) ISO/IEC 19770
System Software
1 160 (11.64%) Active Directory
2 74 (5.39%) VMware Infrastructure
3 26 (1.89%) VMware ESXi
4 25 (1.82%) Hyper-V
5 18 (1.31%) VMware NSX
6 17 (1.24%) vSphere
7 16 (1.16%) BitLocker
8 15 (1.09%) Virtual Desktop
9 13 (0.95%) vCloud
10 11 (0.80%) Docker
11 6 (0.44%) IAG
11 6 (0.44%) Virtual Servers
12 5 (0.36%) Citrix Hypervisor
12 5 (0.36%) Virtual Machines
12 5 (0.36%) XenApp
12 5 (0.36%) XenDesktop
13 4 (0.29%) Oracle RAC
14 3 (0.22%) Microsoft Virtual Server
14 3 (0.22%) NFS
15 2 (0.15%) Firmware
Systems Management
1 83 (6.04%) Microsoft Intune
2 70 (5.09%) SCCM
3 43 (3.13%) Ansible
4 19 (1.38%) SCOM
5 17 (1.24%) Kubernetes
5 17 (1.24%) Single Sign-On
6 16 (1.16%) vCenter Server
7 12 (0.87%) WSUS
8 10 (0.73%) Jamf Pro
9 5 (0.36%) Data Guard
9 5 (0.36%) Oracle RMAN
10 4 (0.29%) Grafana
10 4 (0.29%) PowerCLI
10 4 (0.29%) Progress Chef
10 4 (0.29%) Puppet
10 4 (0.29%) vMotion
11 3 (0.22%) Cisco Prime
11 3 (0.22%) OPNET
11 3 (0.22%) Packer
11 3 (0.22%) vRealize
Vendors
1 405 (29.48%) ServiceNow
2 346 (25.18%) Microsoft
3 104 (7.57%) VMware
4 62 (4.51%) Remedy
5 51 (3.71%) BMC
6 48 (3.49%) Cisco
7 37 (2.69%) Oracle
8 32 (2.33%) Atlassian
9 28 (2.04%) SAP
10 24 (1.75%) Dynatrace
11 19 (1.38%) Apple
11 19 (1.38%) Salesforce
11 19 (1.38%) Splunk
12 18 (1.31%) Google
13 17 (1.24%) Citrix
14 16 (1.16%) IFS
15 15 (1.09%) IBM
16 14 (1.02%) CyberArk
16 14 (1.02%) SolarWinds
16 14 (1.02%) Zscaler