Service Manager Contract Job Trends in England

Services Manager
UK > England

The median Services Manager daily rate in England is £525, according to job vacancies posted in the 6 months leading up to 6 October 2026.

The table below compares current contractor rates and summary statistics with the previous two years.

6 months to
6 Oct 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 374 354 307
Rank change year-on-year -20 -47 -6
Contract jobs requiring a Service Manager 283 162 227
As % of all contract jobs in England 0.61% 0.58% 0.71%
As % of the Job Titles category 0.66% 0.64% 0.76%
Number of daily rates quoted 201 110 139
10th Percentile £375 £324 £335
25th Percentile £450 £405 £451
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £500 £525
Median % change year-on-year +5.00% -4.76% -
75th Percentile £613 £588 £590
90th Percentile £638 £638 £638
UK median daily rate £525 £500 £525
% change year-on-year +5.00% -4.76% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 18 8 3
10th Percentile £27.74 £37.50 -
25th Percentile £29.00 £43.14 -
Median hourly rate £35.53 £60.00 £37.00
Median % change year-on-year -40.78% +62.16% +185.71%
75th Percentile £48.84 £67.41 -
90th Percentile - £89.63 -
UK median hourly rate £35.53 £60.00 £29.78
% change year-on-year -40.78% +101.48% +129.96%

All Contract IT Job Roles
England

For comparison with the information above, the following table provides summary statistics for all contract IT job vacancies in England. Most job vacancies include a discernible job title that can be normalized. As such, the figures in the second row provide an indication of the number of contract jobs in our overall sample.

Contract vacancies in England with a recognized job title 42,656 25,279 29,913
% of contract IT jobs with a recognized job title 92.08% 91.06% 93.07%
Number of daily rates quoted 25,141 16,283 18,289
10th Percentile £325 £278 £300
25th Percentile £425 £402 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £510 £525
Median % change year-on-year +2.94% -2.86% -4.24%
75th Percentile £638 £625 £638
90th Percentile £738 £725 £750
UK median daily rate £525 £500 £525
% change year-on-year +5.00% -4.76% -0.94%
Number of hourly rates quoted 3,680 1,407 1,330
10th Percentile £14.59 £13.80 £15.00
25th Percentile £20.48 £17.33 £21.25
Median hourly rate £42.50 £25.15 £43.00
Median % change year-on-year +68.99% -41.51% -6.40%
75th Percentile £68.00 £52.08 £67.50
90th Percentile £79.00 £70.00 £75.00
UK median hourly rate £41.74 £25.15 £42.50
% change year-on-year +65.94% -40.82% -4.49%

Service Manager
Job Vacancy Trend in England

Historical trend showing the proportion of contract IT job postings featuring 'Service Manager' in the job title relative to all contract IT jobs advertised in England.

Service Manager job vacancy trend in England

Service Manager
Daily Rate Trend in England

Contractor daily rate distribution trend for Service Manager job vacancies in England.

Contractor daily rate distribution trend for Service Manager job vacancies in England

Service Manager
Daily Rate Histogram in England

Daily rate distribution for jobs citing Service Manager in England over the 6 months to 6 October 2026.

Daily rate histogram for Service Manager in England

Service Manager
Hourly Rate Trend in England

Contractor hourly rate distribution trend for Service Manager job vacancies in England.

Contractor hourly rate distribution trend for Service Manager job vacancies in England

Service Manager
Hourly Rate Histogram in England

Hourly rate distribution of jobs citing Service Manager in England over the 6 months to 6 October 2026.

Hourly rate histogram for Service Manager in England

Service Manager
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 Manager within the England region over the 6 months to 6 October 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 -41 101 £550 +5.26% 157
South East -22 51 £550 +32.53% 80
South West -18 46 £513 +5.13% 41
North of England -70 36 £565 +22.16% 56
East of England -8 25 £525 +5.00% 29
North West -51 22 £600 +26.32% 22
Midlands -36 20 £478 -16.87% 45
West Midlands -43 16 £478 -16.87% 19
Yorkshire -33 11 £550 +61.76% 26
East Midlands -6 4 £488 - 26
North East - 3 - - 8
Service Manager
UK

Service Manager Skill Set
Top 30 Co-Occurring Skills & Capabilities in England

For the 6 months to 6 October 2026, Service Manager contract job roles required the following skills and capabilities in order of popularity. The figures indicate the absolute number of co-occurrences and as a proportion of all contract job ads across the England region featuring Service Manager in the job title.

1 120 (42.40%) ITIL
2 113 (39.93%) Service Delivery
3 102 (36.04%) Stakeholder Management
4 100 (35.34%) Service Management
5 87 (30.74%) Security Cleared
6 65 (22.97%) Continuous Improvement
6 65 (22.97%) ITSM
7 57 (20.14%) SC Cleared
8 44 (15.55%) ServiceNow
9 36 (12.72%) Change Management
10 35 (12.37%) Risk Management
11 33 (11.66%) Project Delivery
12 31 (10.95%) Service Design
13 30 (10.60%) Problem-Solving
14 27 (9.54%) Decision-Making
15 25 (8.83%) DevOps
15 25 (8.83%) DV Cleared
15 25 (8.83%) Stakeholder Engagement
16 24 (8.48%) Incident Management
17 23 (8.13%) Agile
17 23 (8.13%) SLA
18 21 (7.42%) Customer Service
18 21 (7.42%) ITIL Certification
18 21 (7.42%) Release Management
19 20 (7.07%) Acceptance Criteria
20 18 (6.36%) AWS
20 18 (6.36%) Azure
20 18 (6.36%) Microsoft
20 18 (6.36%) Windows
21 17 (6.01%) Knowledge Management

Service Manager Skill Set
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 4 (1.41%) SharePoint
2 1 (0.35%) CICS
2 1 (0.35%) CMS
2 1 (0.35%) Confluence
Applications
1 8 (2.83%) Microsoft Excel
2 7 (2.47%) Microsoft PowerPoint
3 3 (1.06%) Microsoft Office
Business Applications
1 6 (2.12%) Remedy ITSM
2 2 (0.71%) Oracle Applications
3 1 (0.35%) SAP Oil and Gas
3 1 (0.35%) SAP S/4HANA
Cloud Services
1 18 (6.36%) AWS
1 18 (6.36%) Azure
2 9 (3.18%) Microsoft 365
3 6 (2.12%) Entra ID
4 5 (1.77%) Azure DevOps
5 4 (1.41%) Power Platform
5 4 (1.41%) SaaS
6 3 (1.06%) OCI
7 1 (0.35%) Azure Monitor
7 1 (0.35%) Datadog
7 1 (0.35%) Microsoft Copilot
Communications & Networking
1 1 (0.35%) ATM
1 1 (0.35%) Network Security
1 1 (0.35%) VoIP
1 1 (0.35%) WAN
Database & Business Intelligence
1 3 (1.06%) Power BI
2 1 (0.35%) Big Data
2 1 (0.35%) Db2
Development Applications
1 12 (4.24%) JIRA
2 1 (0.35%) Snyk
General
1 83 (29.33%) Social Skills
2 39 (13.78%) Finance
3 34 (12.01%) Analytical Skills
4 27 (9.54%) Public Sector
5 17 (6.01%) Organisational Skills
6 16 (5.65%) Retail
7 10 (3.53%) Local Government
7 10 (3.53%) Military
8 7 (2.47%) Influencing Skills
8 7 (2.47%) Telecoms
9 5 (1.77%) Legal
9 5 (1.77%) Police
10 4 (1.41%) Documentation Skills
10 4 (1.41%) Law
11 3 (1.06%) Banking
12 2 (0.71%) Manufacturing
13 1 (0.35%) Aerospace
13 1 (0.35%) Automotive
13 1 (0.35%) Financial Institution
13 1 (0.35%) Publishing
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 6 (2.12%) REST
2 3 (1.06%) SAP Fiori
3 2 (0.71%) Oracle Fusion
4 1 (0.35%) Middleware
Miscellaneous
1 25 (8.83%) Onboarding
2 6 (2.12%) Cloud Native
2 6 (2.12%) CMDB
3 5 (1.77%) Data Protection Act
4 4 (1.41%) Management Information System
4 4 (1.41%) Product Ownership
5 3 (1.06%) Data Centre
5 3 (1.06%) Virtual Team
6 2 (0.71%) Analytical Mindset
6 2 (0.71%) Enterprise Software
6 2 (0.71%) NHS
7 1 (0.35%) Cyberattack
7 1 (0.35%) IoT
7 1 (0.35%) Legacy Systems
7 1 (0.35%) Mainframe
7 1 (0.35%) Operational Technology
7 1 (0.35%) Smart Meter
Operating Systems
1 18 (6.36%) Windows
2 3 (1.06%) Windows 10
3 2 (0.71%) Windows Server
4 1 (0.35%) zOS
Processes & Methodologies
1 120 (42.40%) ITIL
2 113 (39.93%) Service Delivery
3 102 (36.04%) Stakeholder Management
4 100 (35.34%) Service Management
5 65 (22.97%) Continuous Improvement
5 65 (22.97%) ITSM
6 36 (12.72%) Change Management
7 35 (12.37%) Risk Management
8 33 (11.66%) Project Delivery
9 31 (10.95%) Service Design
10 30 (10.60%) Problem-Solving
11 27 (9.54%) Decision-Making
12 25 (8.83%) DevOps
12 25 (8.83%) Stakeholder Engagement
13 24 (8.48%) Incident Management
14 23 (8.13%) Agile
15 21 (7.42%) Customer Service
15 21 (7.42%) Release Management
16 20 (7.07%) Acceptance Criteria
17 17 (6.01%) Knowledge Management
Programming Languages
1 3 (1.06%) ABAP
2 1 (0.35%) JCL
Qualifications
1 87 (30.74%) Security Cleared
2 57 (20.14%) SC Cleared
3 25 (8.83%) DV Cleared
4 21 (7.42%) ITIL Certification
5 9 (3.18%) BPSS Clearance
5 9 (3.18%) Degree
6 4 (1.41%) AWS Certification
6 4 (1.41%) AWS Certified Solutions Architect
6 4 (1.41%) AWS Certified SysOps Administrator
7 3 (1.06%) ITIL Foundation Certificate
8 2 (0.71%) Master's Degree
8 2 (0.71%) NVQ Level 3
8 2 (0.71%) PhD
8 2 (0.71%) PMI Certification
8 2 (0.71%) PMP
9 1 (0.35%) HNC
9 1 (0.35%) PRINCE2 Practitioner
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 23 (8.13%) SLA
2 13 (4.59%) QA
3 5 (1.77%) ISO/IEC 27001
4 4 (1.41%) Cyber Essentials
5 3 (1.06%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
6 2 (0.71%) Accessibility
6 2 (0.71%) Data Quality
6 2 (0.71%) GDPR
6 2 (0.71%) GRC
7 1 (0.35%) NIST
7 1 (0.35%) PMO
System Software
1 6 (2.12%) Active Directory
2 1 (0.35%) Virtual Desktop
2 1 (0.35%) VMware Infrastructure
Systems Management
1 7 (2.47%) Microsoft Intune
2 1 (0.35%) Grafana
2 1 (0.35%) Nessus
Vendors
1 44 (15.55%) ServiceNow
2 18 (6.36%) Microsoft
3 7 (2.47%) Remedy
4 5 (1.77%) SAP
5 4 (1.41%) Oracle
6 2 (0.71%) Salesforce
6 2 (0.71%) Workday
7 1 (0.35%) AppDynamics
7 1 (0.35%) Ariba
7 1 (0.35%) Concur
7 1 (0.35%) Dynatrace
7 1 (0.35%) Moogsoft
7 1 (0.35%) SolarWinds
7 1 (0.35%) Splunk
7 1 (0.35%) VMware