ITSM Contract Job Trends

IT Service Management (ITSM)
UK

The table below provides summary statistics and contractor rates for jobs requiring ITSM skills. It covers contract job vacancies from the 6 months leading up to 10 July 2026, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
10 Jul 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 92 107 140
Rank change year-on-year +15 +33 -19
Contract jobs citing ITSM 1,408 799 727
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 2.68% 2.47% 1.68%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 3.14% 2.73% 1.97%
Number of daily rates quoted 918 505 467
10th Percentile £213 £200 £225
25th Percentile £400 £278 £400
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £510 £470 £495
Median % change year-on-year +8.46% -5.05% +4.21%
75th Percentile £600 £575 £550
90th Percentile £675 £688 £661
UK excluding London median daily rate £500 £450 £486
% change year-on-year +11.11% -7.46% +8.06%
Number of hourly rates quoted 103 48 12
10th Percentile £15.00 £15.50 £15.18
25th Percentile £18.75 £16.95 £15.43
Median hourly rate £27.88 £18.82 £18.13
Median % change year-on-year +48.14% +3.81% +25.03%
75th Percentile £55.00 £33.19 £40.25
90th Percentile £85.20 £56.82 £55.78
UK excluding London median hourly rate £32.50 £18.82 £16.10
% change year-on-year +72.69% +16.93% +11.00%

All Process & Methodology Skills
UK

ITSM 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.

Contract vacancies with a requirement for process or methodology skills 44,833 29,276 36,875
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 85.19% 90.47% 85.42%
Number of daily rates quoted 27,910 18,456 23,540
10th Percentile £325 £300 £300
25th Percentile £415 £405 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £518 £505 £525
Median % change year-on-year +2.48% -3.81% -4.55%
75th Percentile £623 £625 £638
90th Percentile £725 £738 £750
UK excluding London median daily rate £500 £475 £500
% change year-on-year +5.26% -5.00% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 2,660 1,489 2,488
10th Percentile £14.95 £14.20 £12.75
25th Percentile £20.09 £17.44 £16.25
Median hourly rate £43.96 £25.15 £37.50
Median % change year-on-year +74.79% -32.93% -6.25%
75th Percentile £68.00 £53.50 £61.30
90th Percentile £82.25 £70.00 £72.50
UK excluding London median hourly rate £44.50 £24.66 £38.12
% change year-on-year +80.45% -35.31% -3.62%

ITSM
Job Vacancy Trend

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

ITSM job vacancy trend in the UK

ITSM
Daily Rate Trend

Contractor daily rate distribution trend for jobs in the UK citing ITSM.

Contractor daily rate distribution trend for jobs in the UK citing ITSM

ITSM
Daily Rate Histogram

Daily rate distribution for jobs citing ITSM over the 6 months to 10 July 2026.

Daily rate histogram for ITSM in the UK

ITSM
Hourly Rate Trend

Contractor hourly rate distribution trend for jobs in the UK citing ITSM.

Contractor hourly rate distribution trend for jobs in the UK citing ITSM

ITSM
Hourly Rate Histogram

Hourly rate distribution of jobs citing ITSM over the 6 months to 10 July 2026.

Hourly rate histogram for ITSM in the UK

ITSM
Top 17 Contract Job Locations

The table below looks at the demand and provides a guide to the median contractor rates quoted in IT jobs citing ITSM within the UK over the 6 months to 10 July 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
England +17 1,224 £515 +13.31% 325
UK excluding London +1 857 £500 +11.11% 277
London +36 436 £538 +7.50% 105
Work from Home +66 408 £500 - 135
South East +49 334 £525 +16.67% 101
North of England -35 197 £513 +8.05% 69
North West -27 110 £524 +8.38% 39
Midlands -34 96 £405 -4.71% 32
Yorkshire -26 80 £514 +14.22% 22
South West -14 78 £525 +88.85% 29
Scotland -3 68 £414 -17.30% 11
West Midlands -48 65 £414 -17.25% 24
East of England -37 57 £538 +34.38% 22
East Midlands -7 31 £220 -37.14% 8
Wales +8 27 £400 +44.14% 8
Northern Ireland +6 7 - - 11
North East -31 7 £440 +300.00% 10

ITSM
Co-Occurring Skills & Capabilities 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 55 (3.91%) SharePoint
2 34 (2.41%) Microsoft Exchange
3 32 (2.27%) Confluence
4 12 (0.85%) Skype for Business
5 6 (0.43%) Mattermost
6 4 (0.28%) IIS
7 2 (0.14%) Apache Spark
7 2 (0.14%) OpenStack
8 1 (0.071%) Oracle SOA Suite
Applications
1 59 (4.19%) Microsoft Office
2 30 (2.13%) Microsoft Excel
3 12 (0.85%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 10 (0.71%) AutoCAD
5 8 (0.57%) Chatbot
5 8 (0.57%) Revit
6 4 (0.28%) Microsoft Project
6 4 (0.28%) MS Visio
7 2 (0.14%) SOLIDWORKS
8 1 (0.071%) Camtasia
Business Applications
1 120 (8.52%) Remedy ITSM
2 7 (0.50%) Primavera
3 6 (0.43%) Remedy AR System
4 3 (0.21%) assyst
4 3 (0.21%) SAP S/4HANA
5 2 (0.14%) Oracle Applications
5 2 (0.14%) Sparx Enterprise Architect
6 1 (0.071%) Eloqua
6 1 (0.071%) Oracle EBS
6 1 (0.071%) SAP MDG
Cloud Services
1 258 (18.32%) Azure
2 185 (13.14%) Microsoft 365
3 128 (9.09%) AWS
4 103 (7.32%) Entra ID
5 72 (5.11%) Power Platform
6 70 (4.97%) SaaS
7 45 (3.20%) OneDrive
8 32 (2.27%) GCP
9 29 (2.06%) OpenShift
10 28 (1.99%) PaaS
11 25 (1.78%) GitHub
12 21 (1.49%) Azure DevOps
12 21 (1.49%) IaaS
13 20 (1.42%) Datadog
14 19 (1.35%) Azure Monitor
15 14 (0.99%) Microsoft Copilot
16 13 (0.92%) Amazon CloudWatch
16 13 (0.92%) Azure Sentinel
17 11 (0.78%) Slack
18 10 (0.71%) Power Automate
Communications & Networking
1 109 (7.74%) DNS
2 86 (6.11%) DHCP
3 73 (5.18%) Firewall
3 73 (5.18%) VPN
4 49 (3.48%) VLAN
5 43 (3.05%) TCP/IP
6 41 (2.91%) Wi-Fi
7 38 (2.70%) LAN
8 35 (2.49%) WAN
9 34 (2.41%) Network Security
10 33 (2.34%) SAN
10 33 (2.34%) Wireless
11 23 (1.63%) Cisco IOS
12 22 (1.56%) Cisco ISE
13 21 (1.49%) NAS
14 17 (1.21%) BGP
14 17 (1.21%) NX-OS
14 17 (1.21%) Skype
14 17 (1.21%) Structured Cabling
15 14 (0.99%) OSPF
Database & Business Intelligence
1 64 (4.55%) Power BI
2 58 (4.12%) SQL Server
3 15 (1.07%) PostgreSQL
4 11 (0.78%) Relational Database
5 8 (0.57%) MySQL
6 6 (0.43%) Tableau
7 5 (0.36%) Metadata
8 4 (0.28%) Oracle Reports
8 4 (0.28%) SQL Server Analysis Services
8 4 (0.28%) SQL Server Reporting Services
9 3 (0.21%) Oracle Database
9 3 (0.21%) SQL Server Integration Services
10 2 (0.14%) Amazon RDS
10 2 (0.14%) Apache Cassandra
10 2 (0.14%) Elasticsearch
10 2 (0.14%) Enterprise Data Warehouse
10 2 (0.14%) InfluxDB
10 2 (0.14%) MongoDB
10 2 (0.14%) NoSQL
10 2 (0.14%) TimescaleDB
Development Applications
1 161 (11.43%) JIRA
2 33 (2.34%) Git
3 21 (1.49%) Jenkins
4 9 (0.64%) GitLab
5 8 (0.57%) Chocolatey
6 6 (0.43%) Bitbucket
7 5 (0.36%) ScriptRunner
7 5 (0.36%) Sonatype Nexus
8 4 (0.28%) Atlassian Bamboo
9 3 (0.21%) JUnit
9 3 (0.21%) MSI
10 2 (0.14%) AdminStudio
10 2 (0.14%) Claude Code
10 2 (0.14%) InstallShield
10 2 (0.14%) Postman
10 2 (0.14%) Robot Framework
10 2 (0.14%) Selenium
11 1 (0.071%) Artifactory
11 1 (0.071%) Protractor
11 1 (0.071%) Visual Studio Code
General
1 541 (38.42%) Social Skills
2 226 (16.05%) Analytical Skills
3 196 (13.92%) Finance
4 116 (8.24%) Public Sector
5 80 (5.68%) Documentation Skills
6 48 (3.41%) Telecoms
7 43 (3.05%) Banking
8 40 (2.84%) Organisational Skills
9 37 (2.63%) Influencing Skills
9 37 (2.63%) Legal
10 27 (1.92%) Inclusion and Diversity
11 18 (1.28%) Presentation Skills
12 17 (1.21%) Military
13 12 (0.85%) Financial Institution
14 11 (0.78%) Retail
15 10 (0.71%) Aerospace
16 8 (0.57%) Billing
16 8 (0.57%) Law
17 7 (0.50%) Manufacturing
18 6 (0.43%) Police
Job Titles
1 215 (15.27%) Analyst
2 174 (12.36%) Architect
3 116 (8.24%) Senior
4 106 (7.53%) Lead
5 96 (6.82%) Consultant
6 91 (6.46%) ServiceNow Architect
7 90 (6.39%) Developer
8 83 (5.89%) Support Engineer
9 78 (5.54%) Service Analyst
10 77 (5.47%) IT Support
11 74 (5.26%) Service Manager
12 72 (5.11%) IT Manager
13 69 (4.90%) ServiceNow Developer
14 54 (3.84%) IT Engineer
15 43 (3.05%) ServiceNow Consultant
16 41 (2.91%) IT Support Engineer
17 40 (2.84%) Business Analyst
17 40 (2.84%) Network Engineer
18 38 (2.70%) Technical Architect
19 37 (2.63%) Project Manager
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 161 (11.43%) REST
2 98 (6.96%) SOAP
3 36 (2.56%) Web Services
4 24 (1.70%) OAuth
5 23 (1.63%) LDAP
6 22 (1.56%) SAML
7 21 (1.49%) HTML
8 20 (1.42%) OpenID
8 20 (1.42%) OpenTelemetry
8 20 (1.42%) SailPoint
9 17 (1.21%) Middleware
10 12 (0.85%) CSS
11 11 (0.78%) .NET
11 11 (0.78%) OAuth2
12 9 (0.64%) 802.1X
12 9 (0.64%) JSON
12 9 (0.64%) Kafka
12 9 (0.64%) Node.js
12 9 (0.64%) XML
13 8 (0.57%) AngularJS
Miscellaneous
1 255 (18.11%) CMDB
2 162 (11.51%) Onboarding
3 68 (4.83%) Data Centre
4 67 (4.76%) Product Ownership
5 46 (3.27%) Cloud Native
6 40 (2.84%) Enterprise Software
7 38 (2.70%) Management Information System
8 31 (2.20%) PKI
8 31 (2.20%) Virtual Team
9 25 (1.78%) Self-Motivation
10 19 (1.35%) Security Posture
11 18 (1.28%) AI Agents
11 18 (1.28%) Analytical Mindset
11 18 (1.28%) Operational Technology
12 17 (1.21%) Clustering
13 15 (1.07%) Cyber Threat
14 13 (0.92%) Data Protection Act
14 13 (0.92%) Greenfield Project
15 12 (0.85%) Legacy Systems
16 11 (0.78%) Data Structures
Operating Systems
1 325 (23.08%) Windows
2 71 (5.04%) Linux
3 63 (4.47%) Windows 10
4 62 (4.40%) Windows Server
5 44 (3.13%) Mac OS
6 35 (2.49%) Unix
7 34 (2.41%) Apple iOS
8 30 (2.13%) Android
9 13 (0.92%) Windows 7
10 8 (0.57%) Windows Server 2019
11 5 (0.36%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
11 5 (0.36%) Windows Server 2016
12 3 (0.21%) Ubuntu
13 2 (0.14%) CentOS
13 2 (0.14%) Solaris
13 2 (0.14%) VMS
13 2 (0.14%) Windows Server 2012
14 1 (0.071%) Windows Server 2008
Processes & Methodologies
1 618 (43.89%) ITIL
2 565 (40.13%) Service Management
3 302 (21.45%) Problem-Solving
4 284 (20.17%) Stakeholder Management
5 267 (18.96%) Continuous Improvement
6 243 (17.26%) Agile
6 243 (17.26%) Service Delivery
7 183 (13.00%) Change Management
8 179 (12.71%) Customer Service
9 172 (12.22%) Stakeholder Engagement
10 145 (10.30%) DevOps
11 136 (9.66%) Roadmaps
12 134 (9.52%) AI
13 132 (9.38%) Incident Management
14 119 (8.45%) Migration
15 113 (8.03%) Data Modelling
16 107 (7.60%) Problem Management
17 104 (7.39%) Runbook
18 95 (6.75%) CI/CD
18 95 (6.75%) Workflow
Programming Languages
1 129 (9.16%) PowerShell
2 112 (7.95%) Python
3 86 (6.11%) JavaScript
4 57 (4.05%) SQL
5 28 (1.99%) Bash
6 15 (1.07%) Java
7 12 (0.85%) VBScript
8 11 (0.78%) VB
9 7 (0.50%) Perl
10 6 (0.43%) Kusto Query Language
10 6 (0.43%) PL/SQL
11 5 (0.36%) Search Processing Language
12 4 (0.28%) C#
12 4 (0.28%) Groovy
13 3 (0.21%) T-SQL
14 2 (0.14%) ActionScript
14 2 (0.14%) ActionScript 2.0
14 2 (0.14%) Apex Code
14 2 (0.14%) Bicep
14 2 (0.14%) C++
Qualifications
1 520 (36.93%) Security Cleared
2 361 (25.64%) SC Cleared
3 122 (8.66%) Degree
4 121 (8.59%) DV Cleared
5 72 (5.11%) ITIL Certification
6 51 (3.62%) Cisco Certification
7 34 (2.41%) PMP
8 32 (2.27%) BPSS Clearance
8 32 (2.27%) CCNA
9 30 (2.13%) PMI Certification
10 28 (1.99%) CCNP
11 26 (1.85%) Microsoft Certification
12 24 (1.70%) Network+ Certification
13 17 (1.21%) Server+ Certification
14 16 (1.14%) ITIL Foundation Certificate
15 14 (0.99%) A+ Certification
15 14 (0.99%) CISSP
16 13 (0.92%) Azure Certification
16 13 (0.92%) Computer Science Degree
17 12 (0.85%) Master's Degree
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 124 (8.81%) SLA
2 94 (6.68%) ISO/IEC 27001
3 81 (5.75%) Data Quality
4 65 (4.62%) NIST
5 37 (2.63%) QA
6 27 (1.92%) NCSC
7 26 (1.85%) GRC
8 19 (1.35%) Cyber Essentials
9 17 (1.21%) ISO/IEC 20000
10 11 (0.78%) COBIT
10 11 (0.78%) GDPR
10 11 (0.78%) PMO
11 10 (0.71%) Accessibility
12 9 (0.64%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
13 8 (0.57%) PCI DSS
14 7 (0.50%) Disclosure Scotland
14 7 (0.50%) Government Security Classifications
14 7 (0.50%) ISO 9001
15 5 (0.36%) ISO 31000
15 5 (0.36%) Sarbanes-Oxley
System Software
1 211 (14.99%) Active Directory
2 60 (4.26%) VMware Infrastructure
3 17 (1.21%) Virtual Desktop
4 15 (1.07%) VMware ESXi
5 14 (0.99%) BitLocker
6 11 (0.78%) Hyper-V
7 10 (0.71%) IAG
8 9 (0.64%) Docker
8 9 (0.64%) Virtual Machines
8 9 (0.64%) VMware NSX
9 8 (0.57%) Firmware
9 8 (0.57%) vCloud
10 6 (0.43%) etcd
11 5 (0.36%) vSphere
12 2 (0.14%) Microsoft App-V
13 1 (0.071%) Microsoft Virtual Server
13 1 (0.071%) Virtual Servers
Systems Management
1 74 (5.26%) Microsoft Intune
2 66 (4.69%) SCCM
3 44 (3.13%) Kubernetes
4 37 (2.63%) Ansible
5 34 (2.41%) Terraform
6 28 (1.99%) SCOM
7 24 (1.70%) vCenter Server
8 22 (1.56%) Single Sign-On
9 20 (1.42%) Grafana
10 19 (1.35%) Prometheus
11 16 (1.14%) FortiGate
12 15 (1.07%) Jamf Pro
13 10 (0.71%) Avamar
14 6 (0.43%) Fluentd
15 4 (0.28%) Control-M
16 3 (0.21%) Cisco Prime
16 3 (0.21%) NetBackup
16 3 (0.21%) WSUS
17 2 (0.14%) Kibana
17 2 (0.14%) vMotion
Vendors
1 721 (51.21%) ServiceNow
2 319 (22.66%) Microsoft
3 120 (8.52%) Remedy
4 84 (5.97%) Cisco
5 73 (5.18%) VMware
6 66 (4.69%) Splunk
7 61 (4.33%) BMC
8 46 (3.27%) CyberArk
9 38 (2.70%) Dynatrace
10 34 (2.41%) Oracle
11 32 (2.27%) SolarWinds
12 29 (2.06%) SAP
13 26 (1.85%) BeyondTrust
14 25 (1.78%) Citrix
15 24 (1.70%) Salesforce
16 22 (1.56%) Palo Alto
17 21 (1.49%) Dell
18 14 (0.99%) MuleSoft
19 13 (0.92%) Atlassian
20 12 (0.85%) AppDynamics