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 25 December 2025, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

 6 months to
25 Dec 2025		 Same period 2024 Same period 2023
Rank 205 196 158
Rank change year-on-year -9 -38 +11
Contract jobs citing SLA 432 389 603
As % of all contract jobs in England 1.36% 1.35% 1.64%
As % of the Quality Assurance & Compliance category 7.86% 9.57% 11.44%
Number of daily rates quoted 221 192 309
10th Percentile £164 £152 £148
25th Percentile £250 £195 £188
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £365 £263 £400
Median % change year-on-year +39.05% -34.38% +26.98%
75th Percentile £538 £490 £538
90th Percentile £625 £572 £636
UK median daily rate £365 £266 £400
% change year-on-year +37.09% -33.44% +23.08%
Number of hourly rates quoted 115 42 58
10th Percentile £16.25 £14.70 £13.00
25th Percentile £17.69 £15.86 £14.16
Median hourly rate £18.73 £23.04 £18.90
Median % change year-on-year -18.69% +21.89% +4.99%
75th Percentile £20.92 £29.00 £33.44
90th Percentile £38.94 £43.06 £62.58
UK median hourly rate £18.73 £24.18 £17.83
% change year-on-year -22.54% +35.60% +2.34%

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 5,493 4,065 5,269
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in England 17.32% 14.14% 14.36%
Number of daily rates quoted 3,572 2,367 3,527
10th Percentile £313 £270 £325
25th Percentile £406 £385 £425
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £500 £545
Median % change year-on-year - -8.26% +3.81%
75th Percentile £613 £638 £650
90th Percentile £702 £738 £750
UK median daily rate £500 £500 £525
% change year-on-year - -4.76% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 284 163 214
10th Percentile £15.60 £14.76 £14.16
25th Percentile £17.96 £20.40 £19.31
Median hourly rate £25.15 £31.62 £35.00
Median % change year-on-year -20.46% -9.66% +53.85%
75th Percentile £57.50 £64.73 £64.88
90th Percentile £73.75 £74.89 £83.36
UK median hourly rate £25.15 £29.00 £33.00
% change year-on-year -13.28% -12.12% +46.67%

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 25 December 2025.

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 25 December 2025.

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 25 December 2025. 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 +9 113 £496 +98.20% 82
East of England +27 81 £313 +15.74% 75
South East -47 69 £413 +65.00% 136
North of England -60 65 £270 - 121
Midlands -45 53 £213 -26.47% 79
South West +3 45 £283 -48.64% 57
West Midlands -28 41 £290 +28.89% 39
North West -55 30 £293 -31.98% 62
Yorkshire -24 28 £365 +52.08% 48
East Midlands -32 12 £134 -68.47% 35
North East -4 7 £265 +24.71% 11
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 17 (3.94%) Microsoft Exchange
1 17 (3.94%) SharePoint
2 4 (0.93%) IIS
3 3 (0.69%) Tomcat
4 1 (0.23%) Confluence
4 1 (0.23%) MQSeries
4 1 (0.23%) Oracle Self-Service HR
4 1 (0.23%) Oracle Workflow
4 1 (0.23%) WebSphere
4 1 (0.23%) WebSphere Application Server
Applications
1 34 (7.87%) Spreadsheet
2 32 (7.41%) Microsoft Excel
3 24 (5.56%) Microsoft Office
4 5 (1.16%) MS Visio
5 4 (0.93%) Microsoft Project
5 4 (0.93%) Oracle Smart View
6 2 (0.46%) Microsoft PowerPoint
Business Applications
1 13 (3.01%) Oracle EBS
2 8 (1.85%) Oracle Subledger Accounting
3 7 (1.62%) Oracle General Ledger
4 4 (0.93%) Oracle FAH
4 4 (0.93%) Remedy ITSM
4 4 (0.93%) Workday HCM
5 3 (0.69%) iTrent
5 3 (0.69%) Oracle Assets
5 3 (0.69%) Oracle Payables
5 3 (0.69%) Oracle Receivables
6 2 (0.46%) Dynamics CRM
6 2 (0.46%) Oracle Cash Management
6 2 (0.46%) Oracle EBS R12
6 2 (0.46%) Oracle Financials
6 2 (0.46%) Temenos T24
7 1 (0.23%) Oracle HRMS
7 1 (0.23%) SAP Payroll
Cloud Services
1 69 (15.97%) Microsoft 365
2 36 (8.33%) Azure
3 27 (6.25%) AWS
4 10 (2.31%) GCP
5 9 (2.08%) Entra ID
5 9 (2.08%) SaaS
6 8 (1.85%) Power Platform
7 7 (1.62%) GitHub
7 7 (1.62%) IaaS
8 6 (1.39%) PaaS
9 5 (1.16%) Cloud Computing
9 5 (1.16%) GitHub Actions
9 5 (1.16%) OpenShift
10 4 (0.93%) OCI
11 3 (0.69%) AWS CloudFormation
11 3 (0.69%) AWS KMS
11 3 (0.69%) OneDrive
12 2 (0.46%) Amazon CloudWatch
12 2 (0.46%) Datadog
12 2 (0.46%) Virtual Private Cloud
Communications & Networking
1 23 (5.32%) Firewall
2 19 (4.40%) DNS
3 14 (3.24%) Wireless
4 13 (3.01%) PABX
4 13 (3.01%) WAN
5 12 (2.78%) DHCP
5 12 (2.78%) SD-WAN
6 11 (2.55%) VPN
7 8 (1.85%) LAN
7 8 (1.85%) TCP/IP
8 7 (1.62%) Broadband
8 7 (1.62%) Network Security
9 6 (1.39%) BGP
9 6 (1.39%) MPLS
9 6 (1.39%) OSPF
10 5 (1.16%) Cisco ASA
10 5 (1.16%) Cisco IOS
10 5 (1.16%) Structured Cabling
10 5 (1.16%) VLAN
11 4 (0.93%) SAN
Database & Business Intelligence
1 10 (2.31%) SQL Server
2 7 (1.62%) PostgreSQL
3 6 (1.39%) MongoDB
3 6 (1.39%) Power BI
4 5 (1.16%) MySQL
4 5 (1.16%) Oracle Database
5 3 (0.69%) Amazon RDS
5 3 (0.69%) SAP HANA
6 2 (0.46%) Data Warehouse
6 2 (0.46%) Oracle Reports
6 2 (0.46%) Relational Database
7 1 (0.23%) Amazon Aurora
7 1 (0.23%) Azure SQL Database
7 1 (0.23%) Metadata
7 1 (0.23%) SQL Server Integration Services
7 1 (0.23%) SQL Server Reporting Services
Development Applications
1 10 (2.31%) JIRA
2 9 (2.08%) Jenkins
3 8 (1.85%) GitLab
4 6 (1.39%) Git
4 6 (1.39%) Postman
5 4 (0.93%) Visual Studio
6 3 (0.69%) CircleCI
6 3 (0.69%) Selenium
7 2 (0.46%) Cucumber
7 2 (0.46%) Jaeger
7 2 (0.46%) PVCS
7 2 (0.46%) Zephyr
8 1 (0.23%) Metasploit
8 1 (0.23%) TestDirector
General
1 197 (45.60%) Social Skills
2 95 (21.99%) Finance
3 55 (12.73%) Analytical Skills
4 43 (9.95%) Public Sector
5 31 (7.18%) Banking
6 24 (5.56%) Organisational Skills
7 23 (5.32%) Telecoms
8 17 (3.94%) Legal
9 14 (3.24%) Documentation Skills
9 14 (3.24%) Retail
10 9 (2.08%) Financial Institution
10 9 (2.08%) Manufacturing
10 9 (2.08%) Marketing
11 8 (1.85%) Inclusion and Diversity
11 8 (1.85%) Law
11 8 (1.85%) Local Government
12 5 (1.16%) Influencing Skills
13 4 (0.93%) General Ledger
13 4 (0.93%) Investment Banking
13 4 (0.93%) Police
Job Titles
1 67 (15.51%) IT Support
2 66 (15.28%) Analyst
3 44 (10.19%) Lead
4 34 (7.87%) Desktop Support
5 32 (7.41%) Support Engineer
6 27 (6.25%) Support Analyst
7 25 (5.79%) Senior
8 21 (4.86%) Administrator
8 21 (4.86%) Team Leader
9 19 (4.40%) Service Analyst
9 19 (4.40%) Technical Support
10 18 (4.17%) Service Manager
11 15 (3.47%) Desktop Engineer
11 15 (3.47%) IT Engineer
12 14 (3.24%) IT Administrator
12 14 (3.24%) Service Desk Analyst
13 13 (3.01%) Applications Support
13 13 (3.01%) Consultant
13 13 (3.01%) Developer
13 13 (3.01%) IT Manager
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 6 (1.39%) Kafka
2 4 (0.93%) Oracle Fusion
2 4 (0.93%) RESTful
3 3 (0.69%) XML
4 2 (0.46%) 802.1X
4 2 (0.46%) Elastic Stack
4 2 (0.46%) Gherkin
4 2 (0.46%) Middleware
4 2 (0.46%) Node.js
4 2 (0.46%) OAuth
4 2 (0.46%) OAuth2
4 2 (0.46%) OpenID
4 2 (0.46%) REST
4 2 (0.46%) SAML
4 2 (0.46%) SOAP
4 2 (0.46%) Universal Windows Platform
5 1 (0.23%) .NET
5 1 (0.23%) FIX Protocol
5 1 (0.23%) Web Services
5 1 (0.23%) WebSphere MQ
Miscellaneous
1 23 (5.32%) Management Information System
2 22 (5.09%) Onboarding
3 21 (4.86%) Self-Motivation
4 17 (3.94%) Data Centre
5 15 (3.47%) Driving Licence
6 13 (3.01%) Product Ownership
6 13 (3.01%) Smartphone
7 7 (1.62%) Derivative
8 6 (1.39%) Analytical Mindset
8 6 (1.39%) Enterprise Cloud
9 5 (1.16%) CMDB
10 4 (0.93%) Clustering
10 4 (0.93%) Distributed Systems
10 4 (0.93%) Equities
10 4 (0.93%) Equity Derivative
10 4 (0.93%) Public Cloud
10 4 (0.93%) Security Operations Centre
10 4 (0.93%) Video Conferencing
11 3 (0.69%) Security Posture
11 3 (0.69%) Web Conferencing
Operating Systems
1 88 (20.37%) Windows
2 33 (7.64%) Windows 10
3 19 (4.40%) Linux
4 18 (4.17%) Android
5 16 (3.70%) Unix
6 15 (3.47%) Mac OS
7 13 (3.01%) Apple iOS
8 12 (2.78%) Windows Server
9 3 (0.69%) Mac OS X
10 2 (0.46%) Windows 7
10 2 (0.46%) Windows 8
10 2 (0.46%) Windows Server 2012
Processes & Methodologies
1 129 (29.86%) ITIL
2 103 (23.84%) Customer Service
3 78 (18.06%) Service Delivery
4 65 (15.05%) Continuous Improvement
5 64 (14.81%) Time Management
6 53 (12.27%) Problem-Solving
7 48 (11.11%) ITSM
7 48 (11.11%) Service Management
8 43 (9.95%) Stakeholder Management
9 39 (9.03%) Change Management
10 36 (8.33%) Incident Management
11 34 (7.87%) Root Cause Analysis
12 33 (7.64%) Agile
13 26 (6.02%) Customer Experience
14 25 (5.79%) Asset Management
15 24 (5.56%) Cybersecurity
15 24 (5.56%) Problem Management
16 22 (5.09%) Line Management
16 22 (5.09%) Roadmaps
16 22 (5.09%) User Experience
Programming Languages
1 25 (5.79%) SQL
2 22 (5.09%) Python
3 14 (3.24%) PowerShell
4 13 (3.01%) Java
5 11 (2.55%) Shell Script
6 5 (1.16%) Bash
7 4 (0.93%) C++
8 3 (0.69%) Go
8 3 (0.69%) PL/SQL
9 2 (0.46%) C#
9 2 (0.46%) JavaScript
9 2 (0.46%) Kusto Query Language
9 2 (0.46%) Ruby
10 1 (0.23%) T-SQL
Qualifications
1 122 (28.24%) Security Cleared
2 93 (21.53%) SC Cleared
3 34 (7.87%) Degree
4 21 (4.86%) DV Cleared
5 11 (2.55%) ITIL Certification
5 11 (2.55%) MOS
6 8 (1.85%) BPSS Clearance
6 8 (1.85%) PMI Certification
7 7 (1.62%) PMP
8 6 (1.39%) Cisco Certification
8 6 (1.39%) ITIL Foundation Certificate
9 5 (1.16%) Computer Science Degree
9 5 (1.16%) Microsoft Certification
10 4 (0.93%) CEH
10 4 (0.93%) CISSP
11 3 (0.69%) CCNP
11 3 (0.69%) CISM
11 3 (0.69%) DBS Check
11 3 (0.69%) Numerate Degree
12 2 (0.46%) Master's Degree
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 13 (3.01%) GDPR
1 13 (3.01%) ISO/IEC 27001
2 12 (2.78%) QA
3 8 (1.85%) Data Quality
4 6 (1.39%) NIST
5 5 (1.16%) PMO
5 5 (1.16%) Sarbanes-Oxley
6 4 (0.93%) Cyber Essentials
6 4 (0.93%) PCI DSS
7 3 (0.69%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
7 3 (0.69%) GRC
8 2 (0.46%) COBIT
8 2 (0.46%) ISO 9001
8 2 (0.46%) PSD2
9 1 (0.23%) Accessibility
9 1 (0.23%) ISO/IEC 20000
9 1 (0.23%) ISO/IEC 27002 (supersedes ISO/IEC 17799)
9 1 (0.23%) ISO/IEC 42001
System Software
1 37 (8.56%) Active Directory
2 8 (1.85%) Docker
2 8 (1.85%) VMware Infrastructure
3 3 (0.69%) DFS Replication
3 3 (0.69%) Hyper-V
3 3 (0.69%) Virtual Machines
3 3 (0.69%) vSphere
4 2 (0.46%) BitLocker
4 2 (0.46%) Firmware
4 2 (0.46%) VMware ESXi
Systems Management
1 16 (3.70%) SCCM
2 15 (3.47%) Microsoft Intune
3 11 (2.55%) Grafana
4 10 (2.31%) Kubernetes
5 7 (1.62%) Ansible
5 7 (1.62%) Terraform
6 6 (1.39%) SCOM
7 5 (1.16%) Prometheus
7 5 (1.16%) Single Sign-On
8 3 (0.69%) FortiGate
8 3 (0.69%) WSUS
9 2 (0.46%) Argo
9 2 (0.46%) Microsoft Clustering
9 2 (0.46%) NetApp OnCommand
9 2 (0.46%) ServiceCenter
9 2 (0.46%) TeamSite
9 2 (0.46%) vCenter Server
9 2 (0.46%) vMotion
10 1 (0.23%) Amdocs OSS
10 1 (0.23%) Computer Emergency Response Teams
Vendors
1 115 (26.62%) Microsoft
2 48 (11.11%) ServiceNow
3 34 (7.87%) Oracle
4 31 (7.18%) Cisco
5 24 (5.56%) HP
6 22 (5.09%) Dell
7 21 (4.86%) SAP
8 19 (4.40%) Apple
9 10 (2.31%) Splunk
9 10 (2.31%) VMware
10 9 (2.08%) Workday
11 8 (1.85%) Fortinet
11 8 (1.85%) Juniper
12 7 (1.62%) Remedy
13 5 (1.16%) Google
13 5 (1.16%) IBM
13 5 (1.16%) Trend Micro
14 4 (0.93%) BMC
14 4 (0.93%) F5
14 4 (0.93%) Tenable
527 SLA jobs in England