Service Desk Analyst Contract Job Trends

Service Desk Analyst
UK

The median Service Desk Analyst daily rate in the UK is £200, according to job vacancies posted in the 6 months leading up to 12 August 2026.

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

6 months to
12 Aug 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 487 374 295
Rank change year-on-year -113 -79 -8
Contract jobs requiring a Service Desk Analyst 184 173 293
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 0.34% 0.52% 0.75%
As % of the Job Titles category 0.37% 0.57% 0.81%
Number of daily rates quoted 103 70 143
10th Percentile £131 £131 £130
25th Percentile £150 £150 £160
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £200 £188 £190
Median % change year-on-year +6.67% -1.32% +5.56%
75th Percentile £238 £236 £238
90th Percentile £293 £288 £288
UK excluding London median daily rate £195 £168 £190
% change year-on-year +16.42% -11.84% +9.83%
Number of hourly rates quoted 25 52 102
10th Percentile £14.36 £14.50 £11.15
25th Percentile £15.25 £14.99 £14.16
Median hourly rate £15.81 £16.65 £16.30
Median % change year-on-year -5.05% +2.15% +4.77%
75th Percentile £21.35 £19.78 £21.37
90th Percentile £26.66 £24.50 £22.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £15.81 £16.30 £16.30
% change year-on-year -3.01% - +4.77%

All Contract IT Job Roles
UK

For comparison with the information above, the following table provides summary statistics for all contract IT job vacancies. 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 the UK with a recognized job title 49,398 30,125 36,175
% of contract IT jobs with a recognized job title 92.56% 91.38% 92.91%
Number of daily rates quoted 29,694 19,103 23,309
10th Percentile £328 £282 £300
25th Percentile £425 £400 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £500 £525
Median % change year-on-year +5.00% -4.76% -1.87%
75th Percentile £625 £625 £638
90th Percentile £725 £725 £750
UK excluding London median daily rate £500 £475 £500
% change year-on-year +5.26% -5.00% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 3,473 1,514 2,025
10th Percentile £15.00 £13.60 £14.16
25th Percentile £20.75 £17.12 £20.50
Median hourly rate £42.25 £25.15 £43.00
Median % change year-on-year +67.99% -41.51% +2.87%
75th Percentile £67.84 £53.75 £65.00
90th Percentile £80.00 £72.50 £75.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £42.68 £25.08 £45.00
% change year-on-year +70.20% -44.28% +27.66%

Service Desk Analyst
Job Vacancy Trend

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

Service Desk Analyst job vacancy trend in the UK

Service Desk Analyst
Daily Rate Trend

Contractor daily rate distribution trend for Service Desk Analyst job vacancies in the UK.

Contractor daily rate distribution trend for Service Desk Analyst job vacancies in the UK

Service Desk Analyst
Daily Rate Histogram

Daily rate distribution for jobs citing Service Desk Analyst over the 6 months to 12 August 2026.

Daily rate histogram for Service Desk Analyst in the UK

Service Desk Analyst
Hourly Rate Trend

Contractor hourly rate distribution trend for Service Desk Analyst job vacancies in the UK.

Contractor hourly rate distribution trend for Service Desk Analyst job vacancies in the UK

Service Desk Analyst
Hourly Rate Histogram

Hourly rate distribution of jobs citing Service Desk Analyst over the 6 months to 12 August 2026.

Hourly rate histogram for Service Desk Analyst in the UK

Service Desk Analyst
Top 16 Contract Job Locations

The table below looks at the demand and provides a guide to the median contractor rates quoted in IT jobs citing Service Desk Analyst within the UK over the 6 months to 12 August 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 -97 164 £200 +5.26% 32
UK excluding London -88 159 £195 +16.42% 36
North of England -54 58 £163 +8.33% 11
North West -23 50 £163 +8.33% 9
Work from Home -40 42 £156 -14.38% 17
South West -24 27 £213 +6.25% 4
South East -63 26 £230 +26.03% 6
East of England -29 23 £205 -8.89% 6
London -77 19 £210 -11.58% 6
Midlands -54 17 £131 -30.97% 2
Scotland -9 12 - - 3
East Midlands -6 9 £131 -0.44%
West Midlands -50 8 £190 -24.00% 2
Yorkshire -48 5 £225 +60.71% 1
North East -42 3 £200 +11.11% 1
Wales -10 2 - - 4

Service Desk Analyst Skill Set
Top 30 Co-Occurring Skills & Capabilities

For the 6 months to 12 August 2026, Service Desk Analyst 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 featuring Service Desk Analyst in the job title.

1 78 (42.39%) Windows
2 73 (39.67%) Customer Service
3 68 (36.96%) Active Directory
3 68 (36.96%) Microsoft
3 68 (36.96%) Microsoft 365
4 53 (28.80%) ITIL
5 44 (23.91%) Problem-Solving
6 38 (20.65%) ServiceNow
7 34 (18.48%) ITSM
8 31 (16.85%) Security Cleared
8 31 (16.85%) Windows 10
9 23 (12.50%) Microsoft Office
10 20 (10.87%) SC Cleared
10 20 (10.87%) SLA
11 19 (10.33%) Azure
11 19 (10.33%) Continuous Improvement
11 19 (10.33%) Customer Experience
12 18 (9.78%) Service Management
13 17 (9.24%) Incident Management
14 15 (8.15%) Service Delivery
15 14 (7.61%) VPN
16 13 (7.07%) Remedy
17 12 (6.52%) Android
17 12 (6.52%) Microsoft Exchange
17 12 (6.52%) SharePoint
18 11 (5.98%) DNS
18 11 (5.98%) Remedy ITSM
19 10 (5.43%) DHCP
19 10 (5.43%) Mac OS
20 9 (4.89%) Collaborative Working

Service Desk Analyst Skill Set
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 12 (6.52%) Microsoft Exchange
1 12 (6.52%) SharePoint
2 5 (2.72%) Mattermost
Applications
1 23 (12.50%) Microsoft Office
2 7 (3.80%) Microsoft Excel
3 6 (3.26%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 3 (1.63%) Acrobat
5 1 (0.54%) Chatbot
Business Applications
1 11 (5.98%) Remedy ITSM
Cloud Services
1 68 (36.96%) Microsoft 365
2 19 (10.33%) Azure
3 9 (4.89%) OneDrive
4 8 (4.35%) Entra ID
5 7 (3.80%) Google Workspace
6 5 (2.72%) GCP
6 5 (2.72%) Mimecast
7 3 (1.63%) Cloud Computing
7 3 (1.63%) IaaS
8 2 (1.09%) AWS
8 2 (1.09%) Azure Sentinel
9 1 (0.54%) OCI
9 1 (0.54%) Power Platform
9 1 (0.54%) Rubrik
Communications & Networking
1 14 (7.61%) VPN
2 11 (5.98%) DNS
3 10 (5.43%) DHCP
4 5 (2.72%) TCP/IP
4 5 (2.72%) VoIP
5 3 (1.63%) Unified Communications
5 3 (1.63%) Wireless
6 2 (1.09%) NAS
6 2 (1.09%) SAN
6 2 (1.09%) Wi-Fi
7 1 (0.54%) Broadband
7 1 (0.54%) Cisco ASA
7 1 (0.54%) LAN
7 1 (0.54%) WAN
Database & Business Intelligence
1 1 (0.54%) Power BI
Development Applications
1 8 (4.35%) JIRA
General
1 63 (34.24%) Social Skills
2 16 (8.70%) Analytical Skills
3 14 (7.61%) Legal
4 9 (4.89%) Organisational Skills
5 8 (4.35%) Banking
5 8 (4.35%) Public Sector
6 6 (3.26%) Finance
6 6 (3.26%) Manufacturing
6 6 (3.26%) Retail
7 5 (2.72%) Inclusion and Diversity
7 5 (2.72%) Law
8 4 (2.17%) Military
9 3 (1.63%) Advertising
9 3 (1.63%) Italian Language
9 3 (1.63%) Spanish Language
10 2 (1.09%) Dutch Language
10 2 (1.09%) German Language
10 2 (1.09%) Hungarian Language
10 2 (1.09%) Telecoms
11 1 (0.54%) Aerospace
Miscellaneous
1 13 (7.07%) Onboarding
2 10 (5.43%) Enterprise Software
3 8 (4.35%) Smartphone
4 7 (3.80%) Management Information System
5 3 (1.63%) Analytical Mindset
5 3 (1.63%) Blackberry
6 2 (1.09%) Data Protection Act
7 1 (0.54%) CMDB
7 1 (0.54%) Data Centre
7 1 (0.54%) Driving Licence
7 1 (0.54%) Smartcard
7 1 (0.54%) Video Conferencing
Operating Systems
1 78 (42.39%) Windows
2 31 (16.85%) Windows 10
3 12 (6.52%) Android
4 10 (5.43%) Mac OS
5 7 (3.80%) Apple iOS
6 2 (1.09%) Windows Server
7 1 (0.54%) Unix
7 1 (0.54%) Windows Server 2016
7 1 (0.54%) Windows Server 2019
Processes & Methodologies
1 73 (39.67%) Customer Service
2 53 (28.80%) ITIL
3 44 (23.91%) Problem-Solving
4 34 (18.48%) ITSM
5 19 (10.33%) Continuous Improvement
5 19 (10.33%) Customer Experience
6 18 (9.78%) Service Management
7 17 (9.24%) Incident Management
8 15 (8.15%) Service Delivery
9 9 (4.89%) Collaborative Working
10 6 (3.26%) Active Listening
10 6 (3.26%) Digital Strategy
10 6 (3.26%) Workflow
11 5 (2.72%) Agile
11 5 (2.72%) Change Management
11 5 (2.72%) CRM
11 5 (2.72%) DevOps
11 5 (2.72%) Process Improvement
12 4 (2.17%) Proactive Monitoring
12 4 (2.17%) User Experience
Programming Languages
1 2 (1.09%) PowerShell
Qualifications
1 31 (16.85%) Security Cleared
2 20 (10.87%) SC Cleared
3 9 (4.89%) Degree
4 6 (3.26%) DV Cleared
4 6 (3.26%) ITIL Certification
4 6 (3.26%) ITIL Foundation Certificate
5 4 (2.17%) A+ Certification
5 4 (2.17%) Microsoft Certification
6 3 (1.63%) Microsoft Certified Professional
7 2 (1.09%) BPSS Clearance
7 2 (1.09%) MCSE
8 1 (0.54%) DBS Check
8 1 (0.54%) MCSA
8 1 (0.54%) MOS
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 20 (10.87%) SLA
System Software
1 68 (36.96%) Active Directory
2 3 (1.63%) VMware Infrastructure
3 2 (1.09%) Hyper-V
4 1 (0.54%) BitLocker
4 1 (0.54%) VMware ESXi
4 1 (0.54%) VMware NSX
Systems Management
1 6 (3.26%) Microsoft Intune
1 6 (3.26%) SCCM
2 2 (1.09%) vCenter Server
3 1 (0.54%) Dell DRAC
3 1 (0.54%) NetBackup
Vendors
1 68 (36.96%) Microsoft
2 38 (20.65%) ServiceNow
3 13 (7.07%) Remedy
4 7 (3.80%) Google
5 6 (3.26%) Citrix
5 6 (3.26%) iManage
6 5 (2.72%) Sophos
7 4 (2.17%) Cisco
7 4 (2.17%) Freshdesk
7 4 (2.17%) VMware
8 3 (1.63%) Adobe
8 3 (1.63%) Intapp
8 3 (1.63%) Litera
9 2 (1.09%) Dell
10 1 (0.54%) Apple
10 1 (0.54%) Commvault
10 1 (0.54%) HP
10 1 (0.54%) Mitel
10 1 (0.54%) Polycom
10 1 (0.54%) Veeam