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

6 months to
29 Apr 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 103 89 78
Rank change year-on-year -14 -11 +9
Contract jobs citing Service Management 1,076 823 1,167
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 2.29% 2.82% 2.69%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 2.70% 3.11% 3.12%
Number of daily rates quoted 721 506 780
10th Percentile £220 £235 £282
25th Percentile £394 £400 £425
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £510 £525 £525
Median % change year-on-year -2.86% - +5.00%
75th Percentile £618 £607 £608
90th Percentile £725 £700 £731
UK excluding London median daily rate £500 £538 £528
% change year-on-year -6.98% +1.90% +11.05%
Number of hourly rates quoted 65 33 23
10th Percentile £16.09 - £12.85
25th Percentile £16.17 £12.62 £15.46
Median hourly rate £55.00 £22.14 £17.72
Median % change year-on-year +148.42% +24.94% -67.78%
75th Percentile £83.75 £30.68 £26.75
90th Percentile £104.80 £68.50 £57.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £60.00 £22.14 £17.72
% change year-on-year +171.00% +24.94% -70.47%

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 39,818 26,498 37,391
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 84.58% 90.82% 86.33%
Number of daily rates quoted 25,090 17,105 24,099
10th Percentile £319 £306 £300
25th Percentile £413 £413 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £523 £525
Median % change year-on-year -4.31% -0.48% -4.55%
75th Percentile £613 £630 £638
90th Percentile £725 £744 £750
UK excluding London median daily rate £488 £485 £500
% change year-on-year +0.52% -3.00% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 2,400 1,069 2,428
10th Percentile £14.96 £14.82 £12.75
25th Percentile £19.91 £18.51 £16.00
Median hourly rate £40.66 £29.07 £35.00
Median % change year-on-year +39.87% -16.94% -6.17%
75th Percentile £65.88 £62.24 £59.44
90th Percentile £78.75 £75.00 £72.50
UK excluding London median hourly rate £42.25 £28.00 £36.02
% change year-on-year +50.89% -22.27% +0.06%

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 29 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 29 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 29 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 -9 964 £513 -4.21% 276
UK excluding London -13 718 £500 -6.98% 262
Work from Home -5 271 £500 - 126
London -51 270 £520 -0.95% 66
South East +27 208 £514 +11.08% 80
North of England -18 165 £500 +5.26% 66
South West -16 164 £600 +8.89% 21
Midlands -21 98 £403 -26.95% 35
North West +6 92 £554 +5.98% 29
West Midlands -31 76 £403 -26.95% 28
Yorkshire -42 62 £475 +11.76% 38
East of England -23 46 £475 -13.64% 36
Scotland -31 30 £500 -3.94% 10
East Midlands -20 22 £405 +5.88% 7
North East -12 11 £280 +43.59%
Wales -8 7 £340 -12.26% 13
Northern Ireland - 4 £500 - 11

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 87 (8.09%) Confluence
2 39 (3.62%) Microsoft Exchange
3 27 (2.51%) SharePoint
4 9 (0.84%) Skype for Business
5 6 (0.56%) Mattermost
6 3 (0.28%) IIS
6 3 (0.28%) nginx
7 1 (0.093%) Apache
7 1 (0.093%) CICS
7 1 (0.093%) HCL Notes
7 1 (0.093%) JBoss
7 1 (0.093%) LiveCycle
7 1 (0.093%) OpenStack
7 1 (0.093%) Oracle SOA Suite
7 1 (0.093%) WebSphere
Applications
1 88 (8.18%) Microsoft Office
2 39 (3.62%) Microsoft Project
3 27 (2.51%) Microsoft Excel
4 13 (1.21%) Microsoft PowerPoint
5 7 (0.65%) Chatbot
5 7 (0.65%) MS Visio
6 4 (0.37%) PTC Creo
7 2 (0.19%) Spreadsheet
8 1 (0.093%) Camtasia
Business Applications
1 42 (3.90%) Remedy ITSM
2 12 (1.12%) SAP S/4HANA
3 11 (1.02%) Oracle EBS
4 7 (0.65%) Teamcenter
5 2 (0.19%) Oracle Applications
5 2 (0.19%) Oracle ERP
6 1 (0.093%) Dynamics NAV
6 1 (0.093%) NetSuite
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 HR
6 1 (0.093%) SAP Payroll
6 1 (0.093%) SAP PM
6 1 (0.093%) SAP SM
6 1 (0.093%) Workday HCM
Cloud Services
1 152 (14.13%) Azure
2 90 (8.36%) Microsoft 365
3 80 (7.43%) AWS
4 50 (4.65%) Power Platform
5 47 (4.37%) SaaS
6 40 (3.72%) GCP
7 33 (3.07%) Entra ID
8 27 (2.51%) Azure DevOps
9 20 (1.86%) GitHub
10 18 (1.67%) PaaS
11 17 (1.58%) IaaS
12 14 (1.30%) OneDrive
13 13 (1.21%) OCI
14 12 (1.12%) AWS Lambda
14 12 (1.12%) Serverless
15 11 (1.02%) Amazon CloudWatch
16 9 (0.84%) OpenShift
17 8 (0.74%) Dynamics 365
17 8 (0.74%) Google Workspace
18 7 (0.65%) Amazon S3
Communications & Networking
1 62 (5.76%) Firewall
2 54 (5.02%) DNS
3 40 (3.72%) WAN
4 39 (3.62%) VPN
5 38 (3.53%) LAN
6 30 (2.79%) Network Security
7 29 (2.70%) DHCP
8 22 (2.04%) TCP/IP
9 16 (1.49%) Wi-Fi
10 15 (1.39%) VLAN
11 14 (1.30%) BGP
12 13 (1.21%) OSPF
12 13 (1.21%) SD-WAN
13 12 (1.12%) BIG-IP
14 11 (1.02%) Cisco ISE
14 11 (1.02%) Skype
15 10 (0.93%) Wireless
16 8 (0.74%) Ethernet VPN
16 8 (0.74%) Junos
16 8 (0.74%) VXLAN
Database & Business Intelligence
1 38 (3.53%) Power BI
2 13 (1.21%) SQL Server
3 7 (0.65%) Relational Database
4 6 (0.56%) Oracle Reports
4 6 (0.56%) PostgreSQL
5 5 (0.46%) Oracle Database
6 4 (0.37%) Amazon RDS
6 4 (0.37%) Elasticsearch
6 4 (0.37%) InfluxDB
6 4 (0.37%) Oracle Database 11g
6 4 (0.37%) SQL Server Integration Services
6 4 (0.37%) SQL Server Reporting Services
7 3 (0.28%) Azure SQL Database
7 3 (0.28%) SQL Server Analysis Services
7 3 (0.28%) Tableau
8 2 (0.19%) Amazon Redshift
8 2 (0.19%) GIS
8 2 (0.19%) Metadata
8 2 (0.19%) Microsoft Analysis Services
8 2 (0.19%) MySQL
Development Applications
1 148 (13.75%) JIRA
2 18 (1.67%) Jenkins
3 17 (1.58%) GitLab
4 15 (1.39%) Bitbucket
4 15 (1.39%) Git
5 7 (0.65%) ScriptRunner
6 6 (0.56%) Atlassian Bamboo
7 5 (0.46%) MLflow
8 3 (0.28%) Browser DevTools
8 3 (0.28%) Hudson
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%) Fiddler
10 1 (0.093%) Cucumber
10 1 (0.093%) Protractor
10 1 (0.093%) Rational DOORS
10 1 (0.093%) Sonatype Nexus
10 1 (0.093%) Visual Studio Code
General
1 385 (35.78%) Social Skills
2 161 (14.96%) Finance
3 158 (14.68%) Analytical Skills
4 113 (10.50%) Public Sector
5 59 (5.48%) Legal
6 45 (4.18%) Military
7 36 (3.35%) Banking
8 33 (3.07%) Organisational Skills
9 28 (2.60%) Documentation Skills
10 27 (2.51%) Telecoms
11 23 (2.14%) Influencing Skills
12 21 (1.95%) Retail
13 13 (1.21%) Inclusion and Diversity
14 12 (1.12%) Aerospace
15 8 (0.74%) Front Office
15 8 (0.74%) Investment Banking
15 8 (0.74%) Local Government
15 8 (0.74%) Manufacturing
15 8 (0.74%) Police
15 8 (0.74%) Presentation Skills
Job Titles
1 131 (12.17%) Analyst
2 129 (11.99%) Architect
3 110 (10.22%) Lead
4 107 (9.94%) Service Manager
5 79 (7.34%) Senior
6 64 (5.95%) Consultant
7 58 (5.39%) Service Architect
8 57 (5.30%) IT Manager
9 53 (4.93%) Service Analyst
10 41 (3.81%) Project Manager
11 36 (3.35%) Hardware Engineer
12 35 (3.25%) IT Analyst
13 34 (3.16%) Delivery Manager
14 29 (2.70%) Administrator
14 29 (2.70%) IT Services Manager
15 27 (2.51%) Developer
15 27 (2.51%) Support Engineer
16 26 (2.42%) Designer
16 26 (2.42%) Service Delivery Manager
17 25 (2.32%) IT Support
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 41 (3.81%) REST
2 20 (1.86%) SOAP
3 9 (0.84%) 802.1X
3 9 (0.84%) Middleware
4 7 (0.65%) Oracle Fusion
5 6 (0.56%) CSS
5 6 (0.56%) Elastic Stack
5 6 (0.56%) HTML
5 6 (0.56%) JSON
5 6 (0.56%) OAuth
6 5 (0.46%) .NET
6 5 (0.46%) Lightning Web Components
6 5 (0.46%) XMPP
7 4 (0.37%) AngularJS
7 4 (0.37%) LDAP
7 4 (0.37%) Microsoft Graph
7 4 (0.37%) RabbitMQ
7 4 (0.37%) Web Services
7 4 (0.37%) XML
8 3 (0.28%) OAuth2
Miscellaneous
1 87 (8.09%) Product Ownership
2 70 (6.51%) Onboarding
3 65 (6.04%) CMDB
4 46 (4.28%) Data Centre
5 30 (2.79%) Management Information System
6 25 (2.32%) Virtual Team
7 23 (2.14%) PKI
8 20 (1.86%) Driving Licence
9 19 (1.77%) Clustering
10 15 (1.39%) Enterprise Software
10 15 (1.39%) PMI
11 13 (1.21%) Data Protection Act
12 10 (0.93%) Analytical Mindset
12 10 (0.93%) Cloud Native
13 9 (0.84%) Operational Technology
13 9 (0.84%) Replication
13 9 (0.84%) Self-Motivation
14 8 (0.74%) Algorithms
15 7 (0.65%) Hybrid Cloud
15 7 (0.65%) Legacy Systems
Operating Systems
1 177 (16.45%) Windows
2 58 (5.39%) Linux
3 43 (4.00%) Windows 10
3 43 (4.00%) Windows Server
4 12 (1.12%) Mac OS
4 12 (1.12%) Unix
5 11 (1.02%) Windows 7
6 8 (0.74%) Android
6 8 (0.74%) Apple iOS
6 8 (0.74%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
7 7 (0.65%) Ubuntu
8 5 (0.46%) Windows Server 2012
9 4 (0.37%) VMS
10 3 (0.28%) Windows Server 2019
11 2 (0.19%) CentOS
11 2 (0.19%) Solaris
11 2 (0.19%) Windows Server 2016
11 2 (0.19%) zOS
12 1 (0.093%) Windows Server 2003
12 1 (0.093%) Windows XP
Processes & Methodologies
1 593 (55.11%) ITIL
2 454 (42.19%) ITSM
3 236 (21.93%) Agile
4 222 (20.63%) Continuous Improvement
5 219 (20.35%) Stakeholder Management
6 205 (19.05%) Problem-Solving
7 178 (16.54%) Service Delivery
8 147 (13.66%) Stakeholder Engagement
9 146 (13.57%) Change Management
10 125 (11.62%) DevOps
11 112 (10.41%) Customer Service
12 104 (9.67%) Service Design
13 86 (7.99%) Problem Management
14 78 (7.25%) Incident Management
14 78 (7.25%) Roadmaps
15 76 (7.06%) Configuration Management
16 74 (6.88%) Knowledge Transfer
17 73 (6.78%) Project Management
18 69 (6.41%) Acceptance Criteria
19 67 (6.23%) CI/CD
Programming Languages
1 74 (6.88%) PowerShell
2 52 (4.83%) SQL
3 43 (4.00%) Python
4 32 (2.97%) JavaScript
5 16 (1.49%) Java
6 11 (1.02%) Bash
7 9 (0.84%) PL/SQL
7 9 (0.84%) VB
7 9 (0.84%) VBScript
8 6 (0.56%) Apex Code
8 6 (0.56%) Kotlin
9 5 (0.46%) C#
9 5 (0.46%) Shell Script
10 4 (0.37%) Go
10 4 (0.37%) Groovy
10 4 (0.37%) T-SQL
11 3 (0.28%) Bicep
11 3 (0.28%) C
12 2 (0.19%) ActionScript
12 2 (0.19%) PHP
Qualifications
1 446 (41.45%) Security Cleared
2 342 (31.78%) SC Cleared
3 129 (11.99%) Degree
4 122 (11.34%) DV Cleared
5 50 (4.65%) ITIL Certification
6 32 (2.97%) PMI Certification
7 30 (2.79%) PMP
7 30 (2.79%) TOGAF Certification
8 27 (2.51%) Cisco Certification
9 23 (2.14%) BPSS Clearance
10 22 (2.04%) Microsoft Certification
11 20 (1.86%) Computer Science Degree
12 14 (1.30%) A+ Certification
12 14 (1.30%) CCNA
13 12 (1.12%) Master's Degree
14 11 (1.02%) CCNP
15 9 (0.84%) JNCIA
15 9 (0.84%) MAPM
15 9 (0.84%) Network+ Certification
15 9 (0.84%) VMware Certified Professional (VCP)
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 62 (5.76%) SLA
2 33 (3.07%) Data Quality
2 33 (3.07%) ISO/IEC 27001
3 23 (2.14%) QA
4 22 (2.04%) PMO
5 21 (1.95%) GDPR
6 16 (1.49%) ISO/IEC 20000
7 15 (1.39%) COBIT
7 15 (1.39%) GRC
8 14 (1.30%) NCSC
9 10 (0.93%) NIST
10 9 (0.84%) Accessibility
11 7 (0.65%) Cyber Essentials
11 7 (0.65%) Government Security Classifications
12 6 (0.56%) Disclosure Scotland
12 6 (0.56%) ISO 31000
12 6 (0.56%) ISO 9001
12 6 (0.56%) ISO/IEC 27005
12 6 (0.56%) PCI DSS
12 6 (0.56%) Sarbanes-Oxley
System Software
1 102 (9.48%) Active Directory
2 33 (3.07%) VMware Infrastructure
3 16 (1.49%) Docker
4 9 (0.84%) BitLocker
5 7 (0.65%) VMware ESXi
6 5 (0.46%) Hyper-V
7 4 (0.37%) Virtual Desktop
7 4 (0.37%) Virtual Machines
7 4 (0.37%) vSphere
8 2 (0.19%) IAG
8 2 (0.19%) NFS
8 2 (0.19%) Oracle RAC
8 2 (0.19%) Slurm Workload Manager
8 2 (0.19%) VMware NSX
9 1 (0.093%) iptables
9 1 (0.093%) Microsoft Virtual Server
9 1 (0.093%) Samba
9 1 (0.093%) Virtual Servers
Systems Management
1 33 (3.07%) Ansible
2 32 (2.97%) SCCM
3 30 (2.79%) OPNET
4 29 (2.70%) Terraform
5 23 (2.14%) Kubernetes
6 21 (1.95%) Microsoft Intune
7 11 (1.02%) Grafana
7 11 (1.02%) WSUS
8 10 (0.93%) FortiGate
9 8 (0.74%) Jamf Pro
9 8 (0.74%) Prometheus
10 7 (0.65%) Progress Chef
11 6 (0.56%) PowerCLI
12 5 (0.46%) Puppet
12 5 (0.46%) Single Sign-On
12 5 (0.46%) vMotion
13 4 (0.37%) Data Guard
13 4 (0.37%) Oracle RMAN
13 4 (0.37%) Packer
13 4 (0.37%) SCOM
Vendors
1 278 (25.84%) ServiceNow
2 163 (15.15%) Microsoft
3 78 (7.25%) Remedy
4 64 (5.95%) Atlassian
5 51 (4.74%) VMware
6 45 (4.18%) Oracle
7 41 (3.81%) Cisco
8 39 (3.62%) HP
9 28 (2.60%) Google
10 25 (2.32%) SAP
11 21 (1.95%) IFS
11 21 (1.95%) Splunk
12 19 (1.77%) BMC
12 19 (1.77%) Dell
13 17 (1.58%) Citrix
14 16 (1.49%) Salesforce
15 15 (1.39%) Canon
15 15 (1.39%) SolarWinds
16 13 (1.21%) F5
17 11 (1.02%) Workday