Service Management Contract Job Trends

Service Management
UK

The table below provides summary statistics and contractor rates for jobs requiring Service Management skills. It covers contract job vacancies from the 6 months leading up to 11 September 2026, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
11 Sep 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 88 86 96
Rank change year-on-year -2 +10 -10
Contract jobs citing Service Management 1,598 973 899
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 2.93% 2.95% 2.33%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 3.46% 3.26% 2.72%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,046 585 589
10th Percentile £262 £202 £213
25th Percentile £413 £350 £375
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £496 £501
Median % change year-on-year +5.85% -0.90% -4.67%
75th Percentile £625 £575 £602
90th Percentile £725 £675 £681
UK excluding London median daily rate £525 £493 £500
% change year-on-year +6.49% -1.40% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 82 75 16
10th Percentile £14.50 £12.62 £16.84
25th Percentile £16.53 £12.82 £24.31
Median hourly rate £55.00 £18.73 £36.25
Median % change year-on-year +193.65% -48.33% -34.09%
75th Percentile £85.00 £31.40 £49.06
90th Percentile £92.53 £51.40 £54.38
UK excluding London median hourly rate £45.27 £18.73 £36.25
% change year-on-year +141.67% -48.33% +61.11%

All Process & Methodology Skills
UK

Service Management 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 46,202 29,871 32,996
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 84.62% 90.47% 85.56%
Number of daily rates quoted 28,118 18,549 20,447
10th Percentile £325 £300 £311
25th Percentile £425 £403 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £500 £525
Median % change year-on-year +5.00% -4.76% -2.78%
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 3,059 1,786 1,512
10th Percentile £13.85 £14.23 £14.71
25th Percentile £17.36 £17.30 £20.09
Median hourly rate £40.00 £25.15 £43.00
Median % change year-on-year +59.05% -41.51% +3.61%
75th Percentile £67.50 £45.00 £65.00
90th Percentile £80.00 £67.00 £75.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £40.00 £22.63 £43.00
% change year-on-year +76.76% -47.37% +8.72%

Service Management
Job Vacancy Trend

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

Service Management job vacancy trend in the UK

Service Management
Daily Rate Trend

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

Contractor daily rate distribution trend for jobs in the UK citing Service Management

Service Management
Daily Rate Histogram

Daily rate distribution for jobs citing Service Management over the 6 months to 11 September 2026.

Daily rate histogram for Service Management in the UK

Service Management
Hourly Rate Trend

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

Contractor hourly rate distribution trend for jobs in the UK citing Service Management

Service Management
Hourly Rate Histogram

Hourly rate distribution of jobs citing Service Management over the 6 months to 11 September 2026.

Hourly rate histogram for Service Management in the UK

Service Management
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 Service Management within the UK over the 6 months to 11 September 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 -8 1,379 £525 +5.00% 935
UK excluding London -13 931 £525 +6.49% 701
London +32 497 £525 +5.00% 341
Work from Home +10 424 £515 +3.00% 472
South East +17 304 £575 +21.05% 227
North of England -17 259 £474 +4.64% 169
North West -17 157 £481 +3.33% 92
Midlands -41 114 £500 - 108
West Midlands -23 107 £500 -2.91% 63
South West -34 107 £575 +6.48% 82
Yorkshire -12 94 £443 +21.37% 66
Scotland +17 93 £520 +11.53% 29
East of England -16 51 £510 -7.27% 70
Wales -9 13 £800 +247.83% 18
Northern Ireland +6 8 - - 17
North East -48 8 £535 +174.36% 13
East Midlands -29 7 £206 -31.25% 45

Service Management
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
1 119 (7.45%) SharePoint
2 61 (3.82%) Microsoft Exchange
3 60 (3.75%) Confluence
4 15 (0.94%) Skype for Business
5 5 (0.31%) OpenStack
6 3 (0.19%) CMS
7 2 (0.13%) CICS
8 1 (0.063%) Apache
8 1 (0.063%) Exchange Server 2010
8 1 (0.063%) HCL Notes
8 1 (0.063%) Mattermost
8 1 (0.063%) Oracle Collaboration Suite
8 1 (0.063%) Palantir Foundry
Applications
1 90 (5.63%) Microsoft Office
2 39 (2.44%) Microsoft Excel
3 17 (1.06%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 13 (0.81%) Microsoft Project
5 12 (0.75%) MS Visio
6 9 (0.56%) Chatbot
7 2 (0.13%) Spreadsheet
8 1 (0.063%) Maple
Business Applications
1 57 (3.57%) Remedy ITSM
2 11 (0.69%) SAP S/4HANA
3 7 (0.44%) Dynamics CRM
3 7 (0.44%) Primavera
4 5 (0.31%) ContrOCC
4 5 (0.31%) NEC Housing
4 5 (0.31%) Workday HCM
5 3 (0.19%) Oracle ERP
5 3 (0.19%) SAP CO
5 3 (0.19%) SAP FI
5 3 (0.19%) SAP FI/CO
5 3 (0.19%) SAP SM
6 2 (0.13%) Exchequer
6 2 (0.13%) Oracle Applications
6 2 (0.13%) Oracle EBS
6 2 (0.13%) Remedy AR System
6 2 (0.13%) Salesforce CRM
6 2 (0.13%) SAP CX
6 2 (0.13%) SAP PS
6 2 (0.13%) Teamcenter
Cloud Services
1 276 (17.27%) Azure
2 203 (12.70%) Microsoft 365
3 132 (8.26%) AWS
4 118 (7.38%) Entra ID
5 74 (4.63%) Power Platform
6 70 (4.38%) SaaS
7 56 (3.50%) OneDrive
8 37 (2.32%) Azure DevOps
9 33 (2.07%) GCP
10 20 (1.25%) Microsoft Copilot
11 18 (1.13%) GitHub
12 16 (1.00%) Azure Monitor
13 14 (0.88%) OCI
14 12 (0.75%) Power Automate
14 12 (0.75%) Serverless
15 11 (0.69%) Google Workspace
16 10 (0.63%) Dynamics 365
17 9 (0.56%) Azure Sentinel
17 9 (0.56%) IaaS
17 9 (0.56%) PaaS
Communications & Networking
1 79 (4.94%) Firewall
2 70 (4.38%) DNS
3 55 (3.44%) VPN
4 52 (3.25%) DHCP
5 47 (2.94%) TCP/IP
6 43 (2.69%) WAN
7 41 (2.57%) Network Security
8 35 (2.19%) LAN
9 24 (1.50%) Wi-Fi
10 21 (1.31%) Wireless
11 16 (1.00%) SD-WAN
11 16 (1.00%) Skype
12 14 (0.88%) VLAN
13 13 (0.81%) BGP
14 11 (0.69%) Intrusion Detection
15 10 (0.63%) 5G
15 10 (0.63%) SSH
16 9 (0.56%) Internet
16 9 (0.56%) OSPF
16 9 (0.56%) SSL
Database & Business Intelligence
1 49 (3.07%) Power BI
2 34 (2.13%) SQL Server
3 21 (1.31%) Metadata
4 9 (0.56%) Oracle Database
5 8 (0.50%) SQL Server Integration Services
6 7 (0.44%) MySQL
6 7 (0.44%) Oracle Database 11g
6 7 (0.44%) PostgreSQL
7 6 (0.38%) Oracle Reports
7 6 (0.38%) SQL Server Reporting Services
8 5 (0.31%) Amazon RDS
8 5 (0.31%) MariaDB
8 5 (0.31%) Relational Database
8 5 (0.31%) SQL Server Analysis Services
9 3 (0.19%) Amazon Aurora
10 2 (0.13%) Amazon Redshift
10 2 (0.13%) Azure SQL Database
10 2 (0.13%) Looker
10 2 (0.13%) Microsoft Analysis Services
10 2 (0.13%) SQLite
Development Applications
1 154 (9.64%) JIRA
2 26 (1.63%) Git
3 21 (1.31%) Jenkins
4 18 (1.13%) Bitbucket
5 12 (0.75%) Atlassian Bamboo
6 7 (0.44%) GitLab
7 5 (0.31%) Browser DevTools
8 4 (0.25%) Maven
8 4 (0.25%) webpack
9 3 (0.19%) Fiddler
9 3 (0.19%) Gradle
9 3 (0.19%) Hudson
9 3 (0.19%) Rational DOORS
9 3 (0.19%) ScriptRunner
10 2 (0.13%) Firebug
10 2 (0.13%) IntelliJ
10 2 (0.13%) MLflow
10 2 (0.13%) Sonatype Nexus
11 1 (0.063%) Artifactory
11 1 (0.063%) MSI
General
1 632 (39.55%) Social Skills
2 260 (16.27%) Finance
3 259 (16.21%) Analytical Skills
4 198 (12.39%) Public Sector
5 75 (4.69%) Telecoms
6 62 (3.88%) Documentation Skills
6 62 (3.88%) Organisational Skills
7 56 (3.50%) Banking
8 53 (3.32%) Influencing Skills
9 47 (2.94%) Legal
10 37 (2.32%) Inclusion and Diversity
11 34 (2.13%) Aerospace
12 33 (2.07%) Military
13 22 (1.38%) Local Government
13 22 (1.38%) Presentation Skills
14 18 (1.13%) Retail
15 16 (1.00%) Manufacturing
16 15 (0.94%) Police
17 10 (0.63%) Financial Institution
17 10 (0.63%) Law
Job Titles
1 171 (10.70%) Architect
2 156 (9.76%) Analyst
3 153 (9.57%) Lead
4 117 (7.32%) Senior
5 116 (7.26%) Service Manager
6 107 (6.70%) Consultant
7 76 (4.76%) Support Engineer
8 74 (4.63%) Project Manager
9 73 (4.57%) IT Manager
10 64 (4.01%) Developer
11 63 (3.94%) Delivery Manager
12 54 (3.38%) Solutions Architect
13 53 (3.32%) IT Support
14 49 (3.07%) Service Analyst
15 41 (2.57%) Service Architect
16 40 (2.50%) ServiceNow Architect
16 40 (2.50%) ServiceNow Developer
16 40 (2.50%) Transition Manager
17 36 (2.25%) IT Engineer
18 34 (2.13%) Administrator
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 77 (4.82%) REST
2 50 (3.13%) Terraform
3 32 (2.00%) SOAP
4 20 (1.25%) XML
5 19 (1.19%) HTML
6 18 (1.13%) CSS
7 17 (1.06%) Web Services
8 14 (0.88%) JSON
9 12 (0.75%) Middleware
10 10 (0.63%) SAML
11 9 (0.56%) AngularJS
11 9 (0.56%) Elastic Stack
12 8 (0.50%) .NET
13 7 (0.44%) ARM Templates
14 6 (0.38%) OAuth
14 6 (0.38%) XSLT
15 5 (0.31%) LDAP
15 5 (0.31%) Node.js
15 5 (0.31%) OpenID
16 4 (0.25%) Ajax
Miscellaneous
1 167 (10.45%) Onboarding
2 126 (7.88%) CMDB
3 85 (5.32%) Management Information System
4 56 (3.50%) Enterprise Software
5 55 (3.44%) Product Ownership
6 54 (3.38%) Data Centre
7 35 (2.19%) PKI
8 32 (2.00%) Virtual Team
9 29 (1.81%) Data Protection Act
10 28 (1.75%) Operational Technology
11 24 (1.50%) Hybrid Cloud
12 23 (1.44%) Security Operations Centre
13 19 (1.19%) Cloud Native
14 18 (1.13%) Clustering
15 17 (1.06%) Analytical Mindset
15 17 (1.06%) Self-Motivation
16 16 (1.00%) AI Agents
17 15 (0.94%) Video Conferencing
18 14 (0.88%) NHS
19 13 (0.81%) Cyber Threat
Operating Systems
1 318 (19.90%) Windows
2 92 (5.76%) Windows Server
3 84 (5.26%) Linux
4 70 (4.38%) Windows 10
5 32 (2.00%) Apple iOS
6 30 (1.88%) Mac OS
7 22 (1.38%) Unix
8 20 (1.25%) Windows 7
9 17 (1.06%) Android
10 10 (0.63%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
11 6 (0.38%) Windows Server 2019
12 3 (0.19%) Windows Server 2012
12 3 (0.19%) Windows Server 2016
12 3 (0.19%) zOS
13 2 (0.13%) Solaris
13 2 (0.13%) Windows XP
14 1 (0.063%) Windows Server 2008
Processes & Methodologies
1 846 (52.94%) ITIL
2 705 (44.12%) ITSM
3 497 (31.10%) Stakeholder Management
4 431 (26.97%) Continuous Improvement
5 335 (20.96%) Service Delivery
6 328 (20.53%) Agile
7 321 (20.09%) Problem-Solving
8 248 (15.52%) Stakeholder Engagement
9 244 (15.27%) Change Management
10 210 (13.14%) Roadmaps
11 187 (11.70%) Customer Service
12 166 (10.39%) Incident Management
13 165 (10.33%) DevOps
14 159 (9.95%) Cybersecurity
15 144 (9.01%) Project Delivery
16 141 (8.82%) Decision-Making
17 133 (8.32%) AI
18 127 (7.95%) Migration
19 120 (7.51%) Risk Management
20 117 (7.32%) Project Management
Programming Languages
1 140 (8.76%) PowerShell
2 85 (5.32%) Python
3 71 (4.44%) SQL
4 57 (3.57%) JavaScript
5 46 (2.88%) Bash
6 17 (1.06%) VBScript
7 15 (0.94%) Java
7 15 (0.94%) VB
8 11 (0.69%) C#
8 11 (0.69%) PL/SQL
9 10 (0.63%) Bicep
10 8 (0.50%) Groovy
11 7 (0.44%) Shell Script
12 6 (0.38%) C
13 5 (0.31%) Apex Code
13 5 (0.31%) Perl
13 5 (0.31%) T-SQL
14 4 (0.25%) TypeScript
15 3 (0.19%) Lua
16 2 (0.13%) ActionScript 2.0
Qualifications
1 604 (37.80%) Security Cleared
2 412 (25.78%) SC Cleared
3 157 (9.82%) Degree
4 152 (9.51%) DV Cleared
5 63 (3.94%) ITIL Certification
6 60 (3.75%) PMP
7 55 (3.44%) PMI Certification
8 52 (3.25%) BPSS Clearance
9 39 (2.44%) Microsoft Certification
10 37 (2.32%) ITIL Foundation Certificate
11 35 (2.19%) CISSP
12 32 (2.00%) CISM
13 29 (1.81%) Cisco Certification
13 29 (1.81%) Computer Science Degree
14 26 (1.63%) A+ Certification
15 18 (1.13%) Azure Certification
16 16 (1.00%) DBS Check
17 14 (0.88%) CCNA
18 13 (0.81%) AWS Certification
19 10 (0.63%) CCNP
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 130 (8.14%) SLA
2 57 (3.57%) QA
3 53 (3.32%) Data Quality
4 49 (3.07%) ISO/IEC 27001
5 34 (2.13%) GDPR
6 32 (2.00%) GRC
7 31 (1.94%) ISO/IEC 20000
7 31 (1.94%) NCSC
7 31 (1.94%) PMO
8 22 (1.38%) NIST
9 16 (1.00%) COBIT
9 16 (1.00%) ISO 9001
10 14 (0.88%) Accessibility
10 14 (0.88%) Cyber Essentials
11 9 (0.56%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
11 9 (0.56%) Disclosure Scotland
12 7 (0.44%) PCI DSS
13 6 (0.38%) ISO 31000
13 6 (0.38%) ISO/IEC 27005
13 6 (0.38%) WCAG
System Software
1 180 (11.26%) Active Directory
2 85 (5.32%) VMware Infrastructure
3 34 (2.13%) Hyper-V
4 27 (1.69%) VMware ESXi
5 20 (1.25%) Virtual Desktop
6 19 (1.19%) Docker
6 19 (1.19%) vSphere
7 18 (1.13%) VMware NSX
8 16 (1.00%) BitLocker
9 13 (0.81%) vCloud
10 6 (0.38%) Citrix Hypervisor
10 6 (0.38%) Firmware
10 6 (0.38%) IAG
10 6 (0.38%) Virtual Servers
10 6 (0.38%) XenApp
10 6 (0.38%) XenDesktop
11 5 (0.31%) Oracle RAC
11 5 (0.31%) Virtual Machines
12 3 (0.19%) Microsoft Virtual Server
12 3 (0.19%) NFS
Systems Management
1 90 (5.63%) Microsoft Intune
2 77 (4.82%) SCCM
3 50 (3.13%) Ansible
4 23 (1.44%) SCOM
4 23 (1.44%) Single Sign-On
5 22 (1.38%) Kubernetes
6 18 (1.13%) vCenter Server
7 13 (0.81%) Jamf Pro
8 12 (0.75%) WSUS
9 8 (0.50%) Data Guard
9 8 (0.50%) Oracle RMAN
10 5 (0.31%) Grafana
10 5 (0.31%) NetBackup
11 4 (0.25%) PowerCLI
11 4 (0.25%) Progress Chef
11 4 (0.25%) Puppet
11 4 (0.25%) vMotion
12 3 (0.19%) Cisco Prime
12 3 (0.19%) Nagios
12 3 (0.19%) OPNET
Vendors
1 457 (28.60%) ServiceNow
2 381 (23.84%) Microsoft
3 116 (7.26%) VMware
4 62 (3.88%) Remedy
5 52 (3.25%) BMC
5 52 (3.25%) Cisco
6 48 (3.00%) Oracle
7 37 (2.32%) Atlassian
8 33 (2.07%) SAP
9 29 (1.81%) Dynatrace
10 27 (1.69%) Splunk
11 22 (1.38%) Citrix
11 22 (1.38%) CyberArk
11 22 (1.38%) Salesforce
12 21 (1.31%) Apple
13 19 (1.19%) IBM
14 18 (1.13%) Google
14 18 (1.13%) SolarWinds
15 17 (1.06%) IFS
16 15 (0.94%) Zscaler