Service Desk Analyst Contract Job Trends

Service Desk Analyst
UK

The median Service Desk Analyst daily rate in the UK is £190, according to job vacancies posted in the 6 months leading up to 15 July 2026.

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

6 months to
15 Jul 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 464 385 273
Rank change year-on-year -79 -112 +30
Contract jobs requiring a Service Desk Analyst 187 176 369
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 0.36% 0.54% 0.86%
As % of the Job Titles category 0.38% 0.59% 0.93%
Number of daily rates quoted 99 69 161
10th Percentile £131 £130 £127
25th Percentile £150 £143 £156
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £190 £190 £190
Median % change year-on-year - - +5.56%
75th Percentile £235 £231 £250
90th Percentile £294 £288 £345
UK excluding London median daily rate £188 £170 £180
% change year-on-year +10.29% -5.56% +9.09%
Number of hourly rates quoted 24 49 158
10th Percentile £14.36 £14.48 £12.53
25th Percentile £15.63 £14.99 £14.16
Median hourly rate £16.90 £16.30 £16.15
Median % change year-on-year +3.68% +0.93% +7.67%
75th Percentile £21.35 £19.50 £21.37
90th Percentile £26.66 £24.50 £22.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £16.50 £16.30 £16.00
% change year-on-year +1.23% +1.88% +7.27%

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 48,692 29,793 39,772
% of contract IT jobs with a recognized job title 92.54% 91.81% 93.04%
Number of daily rates quoted 29,483 18,982 25,593
10th Percentile £325 £288 £288
25th Percentile £419 £400 £410
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £500 £525
Median % change year-on-year +5.00% -4.76% -2.33%
75th Percentile £625 £625 £638
90th Percentile £725 £738 £750
UK excluding London median daily rate £500 £475 £495
% change year-on-year +5.26% -4.04% -1.00%
Number of hourly rates quoted 3,276 1,398 2,720
10th Percentile £15.93 £13.75 £13.00
25th Percentile £21.35 £17.44 £17.00
Median hourly rate £45.00 £26.45 £40.00
Median % change year-on-year +70.13% -33.88% -5.88%
75th Percentile £67.84 £56.19 £63.41
90th Percentile £80.07 £73.75 £73.78
UK excluding London median hourly rate £45.56 £25.15 £40.00
% change year-on-year +81.13% -37.13% +6.67%

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 15 July 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 15 July 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 15 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
UK excluding London -98 160 £188 +10.29% 66
England -111 160 £195 +2.63% 59
Work from Home -48 42 £148 -1.67% 22
North of England -74 41 £156 +4.17% 22
North West -38 32 £150 - 14
South East -55 29 £200 - 13
East of England -34 24 £205 -8.89% 12
South West -22 23 £225 +26.76% 10
Midlands -51 23 £131 -30.97% 4
London -68 23 £220 - 4
Scotland -4 19 £275 +111.54% 3
East Midlands -3 15 £131 -0.88% 4
West Midlands -69 8 £190 -24.00%
Yorkshire -63 5 £225 +60.71% 6
North East -37 4 £200 - 4
Wales - 4 £150 -

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

For the 6 months to 15 July 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 80 (42.78%) Windows
2 77 (41.18%) Customer Service
3 75 (40.11%) Microsoft
4 68 (36.36%) Active Directory
5 67 (35.83%) Microsoft 365
6 58 (31.02%) ITIL
7 43 (22.99%) Problem-Solving
8 34 (18.18%) ITSM
8 34 (18.18%) Security Cleared
9 33 (17.65%) ServiceNow
9 33 (17.65%) Windows 10
10 25 (13.37%) SC Cleared
11 24 (12.83%) Microsoft Office
12 20 (10.70%) Service Management
13 19 (10.16%) Azure
13 19 (10.16%) Customer Experience
13 19 (10.16%) Microsoft Exchange
14 16 (8.56%) Service Delivery
15 15 (8.02%) SLA
16 14 (7.49%) Android
16 14 (7.49%) Continuous Improvement
16 14 (7.49%) Incident Management
17 12 (6.42%) DNS
18 11 (5.88%) Collaborative Working
18 11 (5.88%) DHCP
18 11 (5.88%) SharePoint
19 10 (5.35%) Entra ID
19 10 (5.35%) Mac OS
19 10 (5.35%) VPN
20 9 (4.81%) Apple iOS

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 19 (10.16%) Microsoft Exchange
2 11 (5.88%) SharePoint
3 5 (2.67%) Mattermost
4 1 (0.53%) Exchange Server 2013
Applications
1 24 (12.83%) Microsoft Office
2 6 (3.21%) Microsoft Excel
3 5 (2.67%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 2 (1.07%) Acrobat
5 1 (0.53%) Chatbot
Business Applications
1 7 (3.74%) Remedy ITSM
Cloud Services
1 67 (35.83%) Microsoft 365
2 19 (10.16%) Azure
3 10 (5.35%) Entra ID
4 9 (4.81%) OneDrive
5 8 (4.28%) Google Workspace
6 6 (3.21%) GCP
7 4 (2.14%) Mimecast
8 3 (1.60%) IaaS
9 2 (1.07%) AWS
9 2 (1.07%) Azure Sentinel
9 2 (1.07%) Cloud Computing
10 1 (0.53%) OCI
10 1 (0.53%) Power Platform
10 1 (0.53%) Rubrik
Communications & Networking
1 12 (6.42%) DNS
2 11 (5.88%) DHCP
3 10 (5.35%) VPN
4 7 (3.74%) VoIP
5 5 (2.67%) TCP/IP
6 2 (1.07%) NAS
6 2 (1.07%) SAN
6 2 (1.07%) Unified Communications
6 2 (1.07%) Wi-Fi
6 2 (1.07%) Wireless
7 1 (0.53%) Broadband
7 1 (0.53%) Cisco ASA
7 1 (0.53%) LAN
7 1 (0.53%) WAN
Database & Business Intelligence
1 1 (0.53%) Power BI
Development Applications
1 7 (3.74%) JIRA
General
1 69 (36.90%) Social Skills
2 13 (6.95%) Public Sector
3 11 (5.88%) Analytical Skills
4 10 (5.35%) Organisational Skills
5 9 (4.81%) Legal
6 8 (4.28%) Law
7 7 (3.74%) Manufacturing
7 7 (3.74%) Retail
8 6 (3.21%) Banking
8 6 (3.21%) Finance
9 5 (2.67%) Military
10 4 (2.14%) Inclusion and Diversity
11 3 (1.60%) Advertising
11 3 (1.60%) Telecoms
12 2 (1.07%) Dutch Language
12 2 (1.07%) Hungarian Language
12 2 (1.07%) Romanian Language
13 1 (0.53%) German Language
13 1 (0.53%) Italian Language
13 1 (0.53%) Spanish Language
Miscellaneous
1 13 (6.95%) Onboarding
2 8 (4.28%) Enterprise Software
2 8 (4.28%) Smartphone
3 7 (3.74%) Management Information System
4 3 (1.60%) Video Conferencing
5 2 (1.07%) Blackberry
5 2 (1.07%) Data Protection Act
5 2 (1.07%) Self-Motivation
6 1 (0.53%) Analytical Mindset
6 1 (0.53%) CMDB
6 1 (0.53%) Data Centre
6 1 (0.53%) Driving Licence
6 1 (0.53%) Smartcard
Operating Systems
1 80 (42.78%) Windows
2 33 (17.65%) Windows 10
3 14 (7.49%) Android
4 10 (5.35%) Mac OS
5 9 (4.81%) Apple iOS
6 3 (1.60%) Windows Server
7 1 (0.53%) Unix
7 1 (0.53%) Windows 7
7 1 (0.53%) Windows Server 2012
7 1 (0.53%) Windows Server 2016
7 1 (0.53%) Windows Server 2019
Processes & Methodologies
1 77 (41.18%) Customer Service
2 58 (31.02%) ITIL
3 43 (22.99%) Problem-Solving
4 34 (18.18%) ITSM
5 20 (10.70%) Service Management
6 19 (10.16%) Customer Experience
7 16 (8.56%) Service Delivery
8 14 (7.49%) Continuous Improvement
8 14 (7.49%) Incident Management
9 11 (5.88%) Collaborative Working
10 8 (4.28%) Active Listening
10 8 (4.28%) Digital Strategy
11 7 (3.74%) Agile
11 7 (3.74%) DevOps
12 6 (3.21%) CRM
13 5 (2.67%) Process Improvement
13 5 (2.67%) User Experience
13 5 (2.67%) Workflow
14 4 (2.14%) Data Protection
14 4 (2.14%) Migration
Programming Languages
1 2 (1.07%) PowerShell
Qualifications
1 34 (18.18%) Security Cleared
2 25 (13.37%) SC Cleared
3 9 (4.81%) Degree
4 7 (3.74%) ITIL Certification
5 6 (3.21%) DV Cleared
6 5 (2.67%) Microsoft Certification
7 4 (2.14%) A+ Certification
7 4 (2.14%) ITIL Foundation Certificate
8 3 (1.60%) Microsoft Certified Professional
9 2 (1.07%) DBS Check
9 2 (1.07%) MCSE
10 1 (0.53%) BPSS Clearance
10 1 (0.53%) MCSA
10 1 (0.53%) MOS
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 15 (8.02%) SLA
2 2 (1.07%) GDPR
3 1 (0.53%) ISO/IEC 27001
System Software
1 68 (36.36%) Active Directory
2 3 (1.60%) VMware Infrastructure
3 2 (1.07%) Hyper-V
4 1 (0.53%) BitLocker
4 1 (0.53%) VMware ESXi
4 1 (0.53%) VMware NSX
Systems Management
1 7 (3.74%) Microsoft Intune
2 6 (3.21%) SCCM
3 2 (1.07%) vCenter Server
4 1 (0.53%) Dell DRAC
4 1 (0.53%) NetBackup
Vendors
1 75 (40.11%) Microsoft
2 33 (17.65%) ServiceNow
3 9 (4.81%) Remedy
4 8 (4.28%) Google
5 7 (3.74%) Citrix
6 4 (2.14%) Freshdesk
6 4 (2.14%) Sophos
6 4 (2.14%) VMware
7 3 (1.60%) Cisco
8 2 (1.07%) Adobe
8 2 (1.07%) Apple
8 2 (1.07%) Dell
8 2 (1.07%) iManage
8 2 (1.07%) Intapp
8 2 (1.07%) Litera
9 1 (0.53%) Commvault
9 1 (0.53%) Fortinet
9 1 (0.53%) HP
9 1 (0.53%) Mitel
9 1 (0.53%) Zerto