SLA Contract Job Trends in England

Service Level Agreement (SLA)
UK > England

The table below provides summary statistics and contractor rates for jobs advertised in England requiring SLA skills. It covers contract job vacancies from the 6 months leading up to 21 May 2026, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

 6 months to
21 May 2026		 Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 229 173 129
Rank change year-on-year -56 -44 +35
Contract jobs citing SLA 455 385 655
As % of all contract jobs in England 1.10% 1.59% 1.80%
As % of the Quality Assurance & Compliance category 6.64% 9.92% 12.76%
Number of daily rates quoted 238 234 310
10th Percentile £204 £168 £150
25th Percentile £338 £207 £206
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £463 £298 £330
Median % change year-on-year +55.46% -9.85% +10.92%
75th Percentile £522 £510 £488
90th Percentile £608 £613 £582
UK median daily rate £463 £296 £330
% change year-on-year +56.12% -10.23% +10.92%
Number of hourly rates quoted 91 36 85
10th Percentile £16.25 £14.70 £11.07
25th Percentile £17.69 £18.02 £12.82
Median hourly rate £18.50 £22.14 £14.50
Median % change year-on-year -16.44% +52.69% -21.62%
75th Percentile £20.35 £24.66 £23.80
90th Percentile £26.11 £33.75 £32.50
UK median hourly rate £18.67 £22.14 £14.70
% change year-on-year -15.70% +50.61% -20.54%

All Quality Assurance and Compliance Skills
England

SLA falls under the Quality Assurance and Compliance category. For comparison with the information above, the following table provides summary statistics for all contract job vacancies requiring quality assurance or compliance skills in England.

Contract vacancies with a requirement for quality assurance or compliance skills 6,855 3,883 5,134
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in England 16.63% 16.03% 14.10%
Number of daily rates quoted 4,454 2,505 3,293
10th Percentile £346 £263 £300
25th Percentile £413 £400 £406
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £513 £525
Median % change year-on-year -2.44% -2.38% -
75th Percentile £608 £630 £638
90th Percentile £700 £738 £750
UK median daily rate £500 £500 £510
% change year-on-year - -1.96% -2.86%
Number of hourly rates quoted 432 160 349
10th Percentile £14.00 £17.58 £10.95
25th Percentile £18.50 £22.24 £13.18
Median hourly rate £33.55 £34.75 £22.50
Median % change year-on-year -3.45% +54.44% -40.00%
75th Percentile £65.00 £66.09 £45.00
90th Percentile £77.88 £78.83 £68.75
UK median hourly rate £36.04 £34.50 £21.06
% change year-on-year +4.45% +63.84% -39.84%

SLA
Job Vacancy Trend in England

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

SLA job vacancy trend in England

SLA
Daily Rate Trend in England

Contractor daily rate distribution trend for jobs in England citing SLA.

Contractor daily rate distribution trend for jobs in England citing SLA

SLA
Daily Rate Histogram in England

Daily rate distribution for jobs citing SLA in England over the 6 months to 21 May 2026.

Daily rate histogram for SLA in England

SLA
Hourly Rate Trend in England

Contractor hourly rate distribution trend for jobs in England citing SLA.

Contractor hourly rate distribution trend for jobs in England citing SLA

SLA
Hourly Rate Histogram in England

Hourly rate distribution of jobs citing SLA in England over the 6 months to 21 May 2026.

Hourly rate histogram for SLA in England

SLA
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 SLA within the England region over the 6 months to 21 May 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 -5 171 £475 +18.75% 62
East of England +36 84 £492 +118.67% 22
North of England -54 73 £438 +75.00% 48
South East -75 67 £463 +85.00% 77
North West -32 42 £450 +80.00% 25
Midlands -77 37 £296 +25.96% 30
Yorkshire -46 27 £438 +2.94% 20
West Midlands -79 27 £296 +25.96% 18
South West -59 19 £431 +39.11% 23
East Midlands -26 9 £329 +9.50% 12
North East -20 4 £270 - 3
SLA
UK

SLA
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 14 (3.08%) SharePoint
2 13 (2.86%) Microsoft Exchange
3 8 (1.76%) Confluence
4 7 (1.54%) OpenStack
5 5 (1.10%) Oracle Workflow
6 4 (0.88%) Adobe Experience Manager
6 4 (0.88%) IIS
7 3 (0.66%) Apache Airflow
7 3 (0.66%) SAS
8 2 (0.44%) ArcGIS
9 1 (0.22%) Apache
9 1 (0.22%) Apache Spark
9 1 (0.22%) LiveCycle
9 1 (0.22%) Smallworld
9 1 (0.22%) WebSphere
9 1 (0.22%) WebSphere Application Server
Applications
1 43 (9.45%) Microsoft Excel
2 35 (7.69%) Microsoft Office
3 27 (5.93%) Spreadsheet
4 6 (1.32%) MS Visio
5 5 (1.10%) Microsoft PowerPoint
6 2 (0.44%) Microsoft Project
7 1 (0.22%) Autodesk Inventor
7 1 (0.22%) MicroStation
7 1 (0.22%) Oracle Smart View
Business Applications
1 11 (2.42%) Remedy ITSM
2 9 (1.98%) Oracle Assets
2 9 (1.98%) Oracle Payables
2 9 (1.98%) Oracle Subledger Accounting
3 6 (1.32%) Oracle ERP
4 5 (1.10%) Oracle Procure-to-Pay
5 4 (0.88%) Oracle General Ledger
5 4 (0.88%) Oracle Receivables
6 3 (0.66%) Oracle EBS
7 2 (0.44%) Dynamics CRM
7 2 (0.44%) Dynamics GP
7 2 (0.44%) Oracle Applications
7 2 (0.44%) Oracle Cash Management
7 2 (0.44%) Oracle Financials
7 2 (0.44%) Temenos T24
8 1 (0.22%) Adobe Campaign
8 1 (0.22%) OpenText VIM for SAP
8 1 (0.22%) Oracle FAH
8 1 (0.22%) Veritas eDiscovery
8 1 (0.22%) Workday HCM
Cloud Services
1 68 (14.95%) Azure
2 52 (11.43%) AWS
3 43 (9.45%) Microsoft 365
4 20 (4.40%) Power Platform
5 18 (3.96%) GCP
6 17 (3.74%) IaaS
7 15 (3.30%) PaaS
7 15 (3.30%) SaaS
8 13 (2.86%) Entra ID
9 11 (2.42%) Azure DevOps
9 11 (2.42%) Datadog
10 8 (1.76%) Amazon S3
11 7 (1.54%) OCI
11 7 (1.54%) OneDrive
12 6 (1.32%) Azure Sentinel
12 6 (1.32%) dbt
12 6 (1.32%) GitHub
13 5 (1.10%) OpenShift
13 5 (1.10%) Virtual Private Cloud
14 4 (0.88%) AWS CloudFormation
Communications & Networking
1 30 (6.59%) DNS
2 29 (6.37%) Firewall
3 23 (5.05%) DHCP
4 22 (4.84%) VPN
5 18 (3.96%) WAN
6 15 (3.30%) SAN
7 14 (3.08%) Wi-Fi
8 12 (2.64%) SD-WAN
9 11 (2.42%) Cisco ASA
9 11 (2.42%) LAN
9 11 (2.42%) VLAN
10 10 (2.20%) Network Security
10 10 (2.20%) TCP/IP
11 8 (1.76%) Radio Access Network
12 7 (1.54%) 5G
12 7 (1.54%) BGP
12 7 (1.54%) LTE
12 7 (1.54%) OSPF
13 6 (1.32%) Wireless
13 6 (1.32%) Wireshark
Database & Business Intelligence
1 16 (3.52%) Power BI
2 14 (3.08%) SQL Server
3 8 (1.76%) PostgreSQL
4 5 (1.10%) Relational Database
5 4 (0.88%) MongoDB
5 4 (0.88%) MySQL
5 4 (0.88%) Oracle Database
5 4 (0.88%) Oracle Reports
5 4 (0.88%) Tableau
6 3 (0.66%) Amazon Athena
6 3 (0.66%) Amazon RDS
6 3 (0.66%) Pentaho
6 3 (0.66%) SQL Server Reporting Services
7 2 (0.44%) GIS
7 2 (0.44%) SAP HANA
7 2 (0.44%) SQL Server Integration Services
8 1 (0.22%) Data Warehouse
8 1 (0.22%) Hadoop
8 1 (0.22%) Oracle BI Publisher
8 1 (0.22%) Parquet
Development Applications
1 33 (7.25%) JIRA
2 21 (4.62%) GitLab
3 19 (4.18%) Jenkins
4 18 (3.96%) Git
5 7 (1.54%) Chocolatey
6 6 (1.32%) Visual Studio
7 4 (0.88%) Maven
8 3 (0.66%) CircleCI
9 2 (0.44%) JMeter
9 2 (0.44%) Toad
10 1 (0.22%) Artifactory
10 1 (0.22%) Bitbucket
10 1 (0.22%) Cucumber
10 1 (0.22%) WiX
General
1 203 (44.62%) Social Skills
2 97 (21.32%) Finance
3 68 (14.95%) Analytical Skills
4 38 (8.35%) Banking
5 28 (6.15%) Public Sector
6 26 (5.71%) Organisational Skills
7 24 (5.27%) Documentation Skills
8 20 (4.40%) Telecoms
9 16 (3.52%) Legal
10 14 (3.08%) Retail
11 10 (2.20%) Aerospace
12 9 (1.98%) Billing
13 8 (1.76%) Financial Institution
13 8 (1.76%) Investment Banking
14 7 (1.54%) Influencing Skills
14 7 (1.54%) Manufacturing
15 6 (1.32%) Local Government
16 5 (1.10%) Inclusion and Diversity
16 5 (1.10%) Marketing
16 5 (1.10%) Presentation Skills
Job Titles
1 58 (12.75%) Analyst
2 52 (11.43%) IT Support
3 36 (7.91%) Administrator
4 33 (7.25%) Lead
5 29 (6.37%) Senior
6 27 (5.93%) Service Analyst
6 27 (5.93%) Service Manager
7 23 (5.05%) Support Engineer
8 22 (4.84%) Technical Support
9 19 (4.18%) IT Engineer
10 15 (3.30%) Consultant
11 14 (3.08%) Desktop Support
11 14 (3.08%) Service Desk Analyst
12 13 (2.86%) Delivery Manager
12 13 (2.86%) Service Delivery Manager
13 12 (2.64%) Azure Engineer
14 11 (2.42%) Linux Administrator
14 11 (2.42%) Network Engineer
15 10 (2.20%) Infrastructure Engineer
16 9 (1.98%) IT Support Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 15 (3.30%) Oracle Fusion
2 14 (3.08%) Middleware
3 11 (2.42%) LDAP
3 11 (2.42%) REST
4 8 (1.76%) Web Services
5 7 (1.54%) .NET
6 5 (1.10%) Spring
7 4 (0.88%) 802.1X
7 4 (0.88%) AngularJS
7 4 (0.88%) ARM Templates
7 4 (0.88%) Bootstrap
7 4 (0.88%) CSS
7 4 (0.88%) J2EE
7 4 (0.88%) jQuery
7 4 (0.88%) Kafka
7 4 (0.88%) Sass
7 4 (0.88%) Spring MVC
8 3 (0.66%) ADO
9 2 (0.44%) SOAP
9 2 (0.44%) XML
Miscellaneous
1 32 (7.03%) Data Centre
2 31 (6.81%) Onboarding
3 19 (4.18%) Product Ownership
4 18 (3.96%) Management Information System
5 9 (1.98%) CMDB
5 9 (1.98%) Cyber Threat
6 8 (1.76%) Data Protection Act
7 7 (1.54%) BYOD
8 6 (1.32%) Analytical Mindset
8 6 (1.32%) Distributed Systems
8 6 (1.32%) Enterprise Software
8 6 (1.32%) Equities
8 6 (1.32%) Self-Motivation
9 5 (1.10%) Driving Licence
9 5 (1.10%) IoT
9 5 (1.10%) Public Cloud
9 5 (1.10%) Security Posture
9 5 (1.10%) Virtual Team
10 4 (0.88%) Cloud Native
10 4 (0.88%) Enterprise Cloud
Operating Systems
1 83 (18.24%) Windows
2 45 (9.89%) Linux
3 29 (6.37%) Windows 10
4 20 (4.40%) Unix
5 12 (2.64%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
5 12 (2.64%) Windows Server
6 11 (2.42%) CentOS
7 3 (0.66%) Android
7 3 (0.66%) Mac OS
7 3 (0.66%) Windows Server 2012
8 2 (0.44%) Apple iOS
8 2 (0.44%) Windows Server 2019
9 1 (0.22%) Windows Server 2003
9 1 (0.22%) Windows Server 2016
Processes & Methodologies
1 138 (30.33%) ITIL
2 79 (17.36%) ITSM
3 73 (16.04%) Problem-Solving
4 70 (15.38%) Stakeholder Management
5 66 (14.51%) Service Delivery
6 64 (14.07%) Continuous Improvement
7 63 (13.85%) Customer Service
8 62 (13.63%) Root Cause Analysis
9 59 (12.97%) Change Management
10 55 (12.09%) Incident Management
11 52 (11.43%) Time Management
12 51 (11.21%) Agile
12 51 (11.21%) Service Management
13 41 (9.01%) Problem Management
14 38 (8.35%) Migration
14 38 (8.35%) Roadmaps
15 34 (7.47%) DevOps
16 33 (7.25%) Project Management
17 32 (7.03%) CI/CD
17 32 (7.03%) Risk Management
Programming Languages
1 40 (8.79%) SQL
2 27 (5.93%) Python
3 18 (3.96%) Shell Script
4 17 (3.74%) PowerShell
5 13 (2.86%) Java
6 11 (2.42%) MATLAB
7 10 (2.20%) Bash
8 7 (1.54%) JavaScript
9 5 (1.10%) PL/SQL
10 3 (0.66%) Bicep
10 3 (0.66%) C++
10 3 (0.66%) Go
11 2 (0.44%) C#
11 2 (0.44%) Scala
11 2 (0.44%) VB
11 2 (0.44%) X++
12 1 (0.22%) Apex Code
12 1 (0.22%) Groovy
12 1 (0.22%) Korn
Qualifications
1 95 (20.88%) Security Cleared
2 72 (15.82%) SC Cleared
3 50 (10.99%) Degree
4 18 (3.96%) DV Cleared
5 12 (2.64%) ITIL Certification
6 11 (2.42%) BPSS Clearance
7 10 (2.20%) Microsoft Certification
8 8 (1.76%) CCNP
8 8 (1.76%) Cisco Certification
9 6 (1.32%) Master's Degree
9 6 (1.32%) PMI Certification
10 5 (1.10%) CCSE
10 5 (1.10%) ITIL Foundation Certificate
10 5 (1.10%) MCSE
11 4 (0.88%) CCSM
11 4 (0.88%) CISA
11 4 (0.88%) MBA
11 4 (0.88%) RIBA
12 3 (0.66%) CRISC
12 3 (0.66%) Numerate Degree
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 15 (3.30%) Data Quality
2 14 (3.08%) PMO
3 13 (2.86%) QA
4 12 (2.64%) ISO/IEC 27001
5 10 (2.20%) NIST
6 9 (1.98%) GDPR
7 8 (1.76%) GRC
8 5 (1.10%) PCI DSS
9 4 (0.88%) COBIT
9 4 (0.88%) Cyber Essentials
10 3 (0.66%) ISO/IEC 20000
10 3 (0.66%) Sarbanes-Oxley
11 2 (0.44%) ISO 31000
11 2 (0.44%) SOC 2
12 1 (0.22%) DICOM
12 1 (0.22%) HL7
12 1 (0.22%) ISO 20022
12 1 (0.22%) ISO/IEC 42001
System Software
1 60 (13.19%) Active Directory
2 22 (4.84%) VMware Infrastructure
3 13 (2.86%) VMware ESXi
4 11 (2.42%) Docker
5 8 (1.76%) vSphere
6 7 (1.54%) Hyper-V
7 6 (1.32%) Virtual Desktop
8 3 (0.66%) DFS Replication
9 1 (0.22%) BitLocker
9 1 (0.22%) Firmware
9 1 (0.22%) Virtual Machines
9 1 (0.22%) VMware Workstation
9 1 (0.22%) XenDesktop
Systems Management
1 23 (5.05%) SCCM
2 21 (4.62%) Ansible
2 21 (4.62%) Microsoft Intune
3 15 (3.30%) Kubernetes
4 13 (2.86%) Terraform
5 12 (2.64%) Grafana
5 12 (2.64%) ServiceCenter
6 11 (2.42%) Check_MK
6 11 (2.42%) Podman
6 11 (2.42%) Red Hat Satellite
7 9 (1.98%) vCenter Server
8 6 (1.32%) Single Sign-On
9 4 (0.88%) Active Directory Federation Services
9 4 (0.88%) Prometheus
9 4 (0.88%) TeamSite
10 3 (0.66%) FortiGate
11 2 (0.44%) AirWatch
11 2 (0.44%) HP ALM
11 2 (0.44%) Puppet
11 2 (0.44%) vMotion
Vendors
1 138 (30.33%) Microsoft
2 75 (16.48%) ServiceNow
3 43 (9.45%) VMware
4 39 (8.57%) Oracle
5 32 (7.03%) HP
6 24 (5.27%) Cisco
6 24 (5.27%) Dell
7 21 (4.62%) SAP
8 19 (4.18%) Apple
9 17 (3.74%) Remedy
10 14 (3.08%) Splunk
11 11 (2.42%) Red Hat
12 10 (2.20%) AppDynamics
12 10 (2.20%) IBM
12 10 (2.20%) Tenable
13 8 (1.76%) CheckPoint
13 8 (1.76%) Ericsson
13 8 (1.76%) Huawei
13 8 (1.76%) Nokia
13 8 (1.76%) Palo Alto
242 SLA jobs in England