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 10 April 2026, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
10 Apr 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 107 86 74
Rank change year-on-year -21 -12 +11
Contract jobs citing Service Management 1,072 841 1,169
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 2.34% 2.88% 2.66%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 2.74% 3.18% 3.08%
Number of daily rates quoted 728 530 784
10th Percentile £220 £245 £272
25th Percentile £392 £403 £425
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £520 £525 £525
Median % change year-on-year -0.95% - +5.00%
75th Percentile £611 £606 £608
90th Percentile £725 £700 £729
UK excluding London median daily rate £510 £525 £526
% change year-on-year -2.86% -0.24% +10.79%
Number of hourly rates quoted 65 34 22
10th Percentile £16.09 £12.62 £12.79
25th Percentile £16.17 £13.42 £15.73
Median hourly rate £45.46 £22.14 £18.36
Median % change year-on-year +105.33% +20.59% -62.14%
75th Percentile £74.26 £30.68 £26.88
90th Percentile £96.50 £68.38 £57.25
UK excluding London median hourly rate £60.00 £22.14 £17.72
% change year-on-year +171.00% +24.94% -63.46%

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 39,137 26,475 37,986
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 85.32% 90.62% 86.33%
Number of daily rates quoted 24,793 17,183 24,611
10th Percentile £315 £308 £300
25th Percentile £413 £413 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £525 £525
Median % change year-on-year -4.76% - -4.55%
75th Percentile £613 £638 £638
90th Percentile £725 £744 £750
UK excluding London median daily rate £487 £488 £500
% change year-on-year -0.05% -2.50% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 2,316 1,000 2,387
10th Percentile £15.00 £15.00 £12.81
25th Percentile £19.34 £19.25 £16.00
Median hourly rate £36.71 £31.04 £33.07
Median % change year-on-year +18.27% -6.12% -8.15%
75th Percentile £65.00 £63.75 £57.50
90th Percentile £77.50 £75.28 £70.43
UK excluding London median hourly rate £36.71 £29.23 £33.07
% change year-on-year +25.59% -11.60% -7.64%

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 10 April 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 10 April 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 10 April 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 -14 977 £520 -0.95% 367
UK excluding London -10 732 £510 -2.86% 317
London -56 258 £520 -0.48% 89
Work from Home -29 253 £500 -0.10% 157
South East +25 212 £514 +10.48% 109
South West -11 176 £578 +4.81% 34
North of England -13 169 £500 +5.26% 73
North West +14 101 £550 +7.71% 39
Midlands -21 98 £410 -21.90% 50
West Midlands -35 74 £408 -25.91% 35
Yorkshire -30 56 £475 +11.76% 28
East of England -22 50 £475 -13.64% 45
Scotland -33 27 £500 - 13
East Midlands -14 24 £418 +9.15% 15
North East -10 15 £420 +115.38% 7
Wales -14 3 £340 -25.48% 6
Northern Ireland - 1 £500 -

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 97 (9.05%) Confluence
2 48 (4.48%) Microsoft Exchange
3 35 (3.26%) SharePoint
4 9 (0.84%) Skype for Business
5 5 (0.47%) Mattermost
6 3 (0.28%) IIS
6 3 (0.28%) nginx
7 2 (0.19%) Apache
8 1 (0.093%) HCL Notes
8 1 (0.093%) JBoss
8 1 (0.093%) LiveCycle
8 1 (0.093%) OpenStack
8 1 (0.093%) Oracle SOA Suite
8 1 (0.093%) SharePoint Server
8 1 (0.093%) WebLogic
8 1 (0.093%) WebSphere
Applications
1 85 (7.93%) Microsoft Office
2 40 (3.73%) Microsoft Project
3 27 (2.52%) Microsoft Excel
4 11 (1.03%) Microsoft PowerPoint
5 6 (0.56%) MS Visio
6 4 (0.37%) PTC Creo
7 2 (0.19%) Chatbot
7 2 (0.19%) Spreadsheet
8 1 (0.093%) Camtasia
Business Applications
1 39 (3.64%) Remedy ITSM
2 13 (1.21%) Oracle EBS
3 11 (1.03%) SAP S/4HANA
4 7 (0.65%) Teamcenter
5 2 (0.19%) Oracle Applications
5 2 (0.19%) Salesforce CRM
6 1 (0.093%) assyst
6 1 (0.093%) Dynamics NAV
6 1 (0.093%) NetSuite
6 1 (0.093%) Oracle ERP
6 1 (0.093%) Oracle Payables
6 1 (0.093%) Oracle Procure-to-Pay
6 1 (0.093%) Oracle Receivables
6 1 (0.093%) Oracle Subledger Accounting
6 1 (0.093%) SAP ERP
6 1 (0.093%) SAP HR
6 1 (0.093%) SAP Payroll
6 1 (0.093%) SAP PM
6 1 (0.093%) SystmOne
6 1 (0.093%) Workday HCM
Cloud Services
1 153 (14.27%) Azure
2 100 (9.33%) Microsoft 365
3 81 (7.56%) AWS
4 48 (4.48%) SaaS
5 47 (4.38%) Power Platform
6 41 (3.82%) GCP
7 39 (3.64%) Entra ID
8 27 (2.52%) Azure DevOps
9 19 (1.77%) GitHub
10 18 (1.68%) PaaS
11 16 (1.49%) OneDrive
12 15 (1.40%) IaaS
13 12 (1.12%) AWS Lambda
13 12 (1.12%) Serverless
14 11 (1.03%) OCI
15 10 (0.93%) Amazon CloudWatch
16 8 (0.75%) Dynamics 365
16 8 (0.75%) OpenShift
17 7 (0.65%) Amazon S3
17 7 (0.65%) PowerApps
Communications & Networking
1 70 (6.53%) Firewall
2 57 (5.32%) DNS
3 40 (3.73%) VPN
4 38 (3.54%) WAN
5 37 (3.45%) LAN
6 32 (2.99%) DHCP
7 31 (2.89%) Network Security
8 23 (2.15%) TCP/IP
9 19 (1.77%) BGP
9 19 (1.77%) VLAN
10 16 (1.49%) Wi-Fi
11 15 (1.40%) Cisco ISE
12 13 (1.21%) OSPF
13 12 (1.12%) BIG-IP
13 12 (1.12%) Junos
13 12 (1.12%) SD-WAN
13 12 (1.12%) Skype
14 11 (1.03%) WebEx
14 11 (1.03%) Wireless
15 8 (0.75%) VXLAN
Database & Business Intelligence
1 37 (3.45%) Power BI
2 15 (1.40%) SQL Server
3 8 (0.75%) Relational Database
4 7 (0.65%) PostgreSQL
5 5 (0.47%) Metadata
5 5 (0.47%) Oracle Reports
6 4 (0.37%) Amazon RDS
6 4 (0.37%) Elasticsearch
6 4 (0.37%) InfluxDB
7 3 (0.28%) Azure SQL Database
7 3 (0.28%) Oracle Database
7 3 (0.28%) Oracle Database 11g
7 3 (0.28%) SQL Server Integration Services
7 3 (0.28%) SQL Server Reporting Services
7 3 (0.28%) Tableau
8 2 (0.19%) Amazon Redshift
8 2 (0.19%) Big Data
8 2 (0.19%) GIS
8 2 (0.19%) SQL Server Analysis Services
9 1 (0.093%) Electronic Patient Records
Development Applications
1 155 (14.46%) JIRA
2 16 (1.49%) GitLab
2 16 (1.49%) Jenkins
3 15 (1.40%) Bitbucket
4 13 (1.21%) Git
5 7 (0.65%) ScriptRunner
6 6 (0.56%) Atlassian Bamboo
7 4 (0.37%) MLflow
8 3 (0.28%) IntelliJ
8 3 (0.28%) Selenium
8 3 (0.28%) TestRail
9 2 (0.19%) Cypress.io
9 2 (0.19%) Hudson
10 1 (0.093%) Artifactory
10 1 (0.093%) Browser DevTools
10 1 (0.093%) Cucumber
10 1 (0.093%) Postman
10 1 (0.093%) Protractor
10 1 (0.093%) Rational DOORS
10 1 (0.093%) Visual Studio Code
General
1 383 (35.73%) Social Skills
2 163 (15.21%) Analytical Skills
3 155 (14.46%) Finance
4 118 (11.01%) Public Sector
5 62 (5.78%) Legal
6 50 (4.66%) Military
7 36 (3.36%) Banking
8 33 (3.08%) Documentation Skills
9 32 (2.99%) Organisational Skills
10 26 (2.43%) Influencing Skills
11 22 (2.05%) Telecoms
12 18 (1.68%) Retail
13 13 (1.21%) Inclusion and Diversity
14 11 (1.03%) Aerospace
15 10 (0.93%) Manufacturing
16 9 (0.84%) Investment Banking
17 8 (0.75%) Local Government
18 7 (0.65%) Front Office
18 7 (0.65%) Law
18 7 (0.65%) Police
Job Titles
1 130 (12.13%) Analyst
2 123 (11.47%) Architect
3 109 (10.17%) Lead
3 109 (10.17%) Service Manager
4 76 (7.09%) Senior
5 69 (6.44%) Consultant
6 60 (5.60%) Service Architect
7 54 (5.04%) IT Manager
8 51 (4.76%) Service Analyst
9 36 (3.36%) Hardware Engineer
10 34 (3.17%) IT Analyst
11 33 (3.08%) Delivery Manager
11 33 (3.08%) Project Manager
11 33 (3.08%) Support Engineer
12 32 (2.99%) Administrator
13 30 (2.80%) IT Support
14 27 (2.52%) IT Services Manager
14 27 (2.52%) Service Delivery Manager
15 26 (2.43%) Developer
15 26 (2.43%) Network Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 50 (4.66%) REST
2 19 (1.77%) SOAP
3 11 (1.03%) XMPP
4 9 (0.84%) 802.1X
5 8 (0.75%) Middleware
6 6 (0.56%) JSON
6 6 (0.56%) Oracle Fusion
7 5 (0.47%) .NET
7 5 (0.47%) CSS
7 5 (0.47%) Elastic Stack
7 5 (0.47%) HTML
8 4 (0.37%) AngularJS
8 4 (0.37%) ARM Templates
8 4 (0.37%) LDAP
8 4 (0.37%) Lightning Web Components
8 4 (0.37%) Microsoft Graph
8 4 (0.37%) OAuth
8 4 (0.37%) RabbitMQ
8 4 (0.37%) Web Services
9 2 (0.19%) XML
Miscellaneous
1 94 (8.77%) Product Ownership
2 68 (6.34%) CMDB
3 63 (5.88%) Onboarding
4 43 (4.01%) Data Centre
5 33 (3.08%) Management Information System
6 29 (2.71%) Virtual Team
7 24 (2.24%) PKI
8 20 (1.87%) Driving Licence
9 16 (1.49%) Clustering
10 15 (1.40%) Analytical Mindset
11 14 (1.31%) PMI
12 13 (1.21%) Data Protection Act
12 13 (1.21%) Enterprise Software
12 13 (1.21%) Self-Motivation
13 9 (0.84%) Replication
14 8 (0.75%) Hybrid Cloud
14 8 (0.75%) NHS
15 7 (0.65%) Algorithms
15 7 (0.65%) Cloud Native
16 6 (0.56%) Legacy Systems
Operating Systems
1 193 (18.00%) Windows
2 66 (6.16%) Linux
3 59 (5.50%) Windows Server
4 46 (4.29%) Windows 10
5 16 (1.49%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
6 12 (1.12%) Mac OS
7 11 (1.03%) Windows 7
8 10 (0.93%) Unix
9 9 (0.84%) Android
9 9 (0.84%) Windows Server 2012
10 8 (0.75%) Apple iOS
11 7 (0.65%) Ubuntu
12 5 (0.47%) VMS
13 4 (0.37%) Windows Server 2003
14 3 (0.28%) CentOS
15 2 (0.19%) Solaris
15 2 (0.19%) Windows Server 2016
15 2 (0.19%) Windows Server 2019
16 1 (0.093%) Windows Server 2008
16 1 (0.093%) Windows XP
Processes & Methodologies
1 601 (56.06%) ITIL
2 471 (43.94%) ITSM
3 244 (22.76%) Agile
4 220 (20.52%) Continuous Improvement
5 209 (19.50%) Problem-Solving
6 207 (19.31%) Stakeholder Management
7 177 (16.51%) Service Delivery
8 161 (15.02%) Change Management
9 146 (13.62%) Stakeholder Engagement
10 124 (11.57%) DevOps
11 108 (10.07%) Customer Service
12 103 (9.61%) Service Design
13 93 (8.68%) Problem Management
14 86 (8.02%) Incident Management
15 80 (7.46%) Configuration Management
16 77 (7.18%) Project Management
17 76 (7.09%) Acceptance Criteria
18 73 (6.81%) Knowledge Transfer
19 66 (6.16%) Migration
20 64 (5.97%) CI/CD
Programming Languages
1 96 (8.96%) PowerShell
2 57 (5.32%) Python
3 53 (4.94%) SQL
4 29 (2.71%) JavaScript
5 19 (1.77%) Bash
6 17 (1.59%) Java
7 9 (0.84%) Perl
7 9 (0.84%) VB
7 9 (0.84%) VBScript
8 8 (0.75%) PL/SQL
9 6 (0.56%) Kotlin
10 5 (0.47%) Apex Code
10 5 (0.47%) C#
10 5 (0.47%) Shell Script
11 4 (0.37%) Go
11 4 (0.37%) Groovy
12 3 (0.28%) T-SQL
13 2 (0.19%) Bicep
13 2 (0.19%) C
13 2 (0.19%) PHP
Qualifications
1 462 (43.10%) Security Cleared
2 357 (33.30%) SC Cleared
3 135 (12.59%) Degree
4 128 (11.94%) DV Cleared
5 53 (4.94%) ITIL Certification
6 31 (2.89%) PMI Certification
7 30 (2.80%) TOGAF Certification
8 29 (2.71%) PMP
9 27 (2.52%) Cisco Certification
10 24 (2.24%) BPSS Clearance
11 23 (2.15%) Microsoft Certification
12 18 (1.68%) Computer Science Degree
13 16 (1.49%) CCNP
14 15 (1.40%) CCNA
15 14 (1.31%) A+ Certification
16 10 (0.93%) MCSE
17 9 (0.84%) ITIL Foundation Certificate
17 9 (0.84%) JNCIA
17 9 (0.84%) JNCIP
17 9 (0.84%) JNCIS
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 55 (5.13%) SLA
2 36 (3.36%) ISO/IEC 27001
3 31 (2.89%) Data Quality
4 24 (2.24%) GDPR
5 20 (1.87%) PMO
5 20 (1.87%) QA
6 17 (1.59%) ISO/IEC 20000
7 15 (1.40%) GRC
8 12 (1.12%) COBIT
8 12 (1.12%) NCSC
9 10 (0.93%) Accessibility
9 10 (0.93%) NIST
10 8 (0.75%) Sarbanes-Oxley
11 7 (0.65%) Cyber Essentials
11 7 (0.65%) Government Security Classifications
12 6 (0.56%) ISO 9001
12 6 (0.56%) PCI DSS
13 5 (0.47%) Disclosure Scotland
14 3 (0.28%) HMG Security Policy Framework
14 3 (0.28%) ISO/IEC 27005
System Software
1 113 (10.54%) Active Directory
2 32 (2.99%) VMware Infrastructure
3 18 (1.68%) Docker
4 9 (0.84%) BitLocker
5 6 (0.56%) VMware NSX
6 5 (0.47%) Hyper-V
7 4 (0.37%) Virtual Machines
8 3 (0.28%) Virtual Desktop
8 3 (0.28%) VMware ESXi
9 2 (0.19%) IAG
9 2 (0.19%) NDS
9 2 (0.19%) NetIQ eDirectory
9 2 (0.19%) NFS
9 2 (0.19%) Slurm Workload Manager
10 1 (0.093%) iptables
10 1 (0.093%) Microsoft Virtual Server
10 1 (0.093%) Oracle RAC
10 1 (0.093%) Samba
10 1 (0.093%) Virtual Servers
Systems Management
1 38 (3.54%) SCCM
2 30 (2.80%) OPNET
3 27 (2.52%) Terraform
4 26 (2.43%) Ansible
4 26 (2.43%) Kubernetes
4 26 (2.43%) Microsoft Intune
5 12 (1.12%) FortiGate
6 11 (1.03%) WSUS
7 10 (0.93%) Grafana
8 8 (0.75%) Jamf Pro
9 7 (0.65%) Progress Chef
9 7 (0.65%) Prometheus
10 6 (0.56%) Active Directory Federation Services
10 6 (0.56%) vCenter Server
11 5 (0.47%) Puppet
11 5 (0.47%) SCOM
12 4 (0.37%) Nessus
12 4 (0.37%) Packer
12 4 (0.37%) Single Sign-On
13 3 (0.28%) HP ALM
Vendors
1 281 (26.21%) ServiceNow
2 169 (15.76%) Microsoft
3 76 (7.09%) Atlassian
4 75 (7.00%) Remedy
5 54 (5.04%) Cisco
6 52 (4.85%) VMware
7 47 (4.38%) Oracle
8 39 (3.64%) HP
9 29 (2.71%) Google
10 26 (2.43%) Splunk
11 25 (2.33%) SAP
12 21 (1.96%) Citrix
13 19 (1.77%) Red Hat
13 19 (1.77%) Salesforce
14 18 (1.68%) Dell
14 18 (1.68%) IFS
15 17 (1.59%) SolarWinds
16 16 (1.49%) BMC
17 15 (1.40%) Canon
17 15 (1.40%) Juniper