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 6 October 2026, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
6 Oct 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 89 88 96
Rank change year-on-year -1 +8 -12
Contract jobs citing Service Management 1,647 960 896
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 3.01% 2.93% 2.38%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 3.57% 3.23% 2.77%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,073 587 567
10th Percentile £263 £200 £213
25th Percentile £425 £333 £376
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £488 £515
Median % change year-on-year +7.69% -5.34% -1.90%
75th Percentile £625 £575 £606
90th Percentile £725 £649 £682
UK excluding London median daily rate £527 £485 £501
% change year-on-year +8.56% -3.10% -1.86%
Number of hourly rates quoted 79 86 17
10th Percentile £14.50 £12.62 £20.03
25th Percentile £17.80 £15.52 £25.75
Median hourly rate £55.00 £21.71 £36.00
Median % change year-on-year +153.34% -39.69% -19.33%
75th Percentile £85.00 £33.75 £48.75
90th Percentile £92.10 £60.00 £54.25
UK excluding London median hourly rate £35.53 £21.06 £40.50
% change year-on-year +68.75% -48.01% +84.89%

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 46,176 29,707 32,376
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 84.50% 90.53% 85.94%
Number of daily rates quoted 27,774 18,450 19,527
10th Percentile £325 £297 £308
25th Percentile £425 £404 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £500 £525
Median % change year-on-year +5.00% -4.76% -2.78%
75th Percentile £638 £623 £638
90th Percentile £738 £725 £750
UK excluding London median daily rate £500 £475 £500
% change year-on-year +5.26% -5.00% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 3,315 1,863 1,324
10th Percentile £13.69 £14.38 £15.00
25th Percentile £17.14 £17.30 £20.12
Median hourly rate £38.50 £25.15 £41.08
Median % change year-on-year +53.08% -38.77% -3.91%
75th Percentile £65.41 £43.21 £65.00
90th Percentile £78.40 £65.00 £74.31
UK excluding London median hourly rate £38.72 £22.32 £42.50
% change year-on-year +73.52% -47.49% -

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 6 October 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 6 October 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 6 October 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 -2 1,416 £525 +5.00% 1,456
UK excluding London -11 952 £527 +8.56% 985
London +38 505 £525 +5.00% 571
Work from Home -2 444 £525 +10.53% 697
South East +11 304 £575 +28.64% 291
North of England -16 273 £480 +6.67% 231
North West -12 161 £483 +5.92% 127
Midlands -31 126 £525 +3.96% 138
West Midlands -14 119 £525 +1.94% 86
Yorkshire -9 106 £450 +20.00% 85
Scotland +21 98 £581 +25.62% 80
South West -41 94 £550 - 107
East of England +4 65 £550 +1.76% 115
Wales -9 13 £800 +247.83% 17
Northern Ireland +10 8 - - 19
East Midlands -22 7 £206 -34.83% 50
North East -40 6 £600 +207.69% 20

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
1 126 (7.65%) SharePoint
2 64 (3.89%) Microsoft Exchange
3 62 (3.76%) Confluence
4 15 (0.91%) Skype for Business
5 5 (0.30%) OpenStack
6 4 (0.24%) Apache
6 4 (0.24%) CMS
6 4 (0.24%) IBM Transformation Extender
6 4 (0.24%) IIS
7 3 (0.18%) Tomcat
8 2 (0.12%) CICS
9 1 (0.061%) Documentum
9 1 (0.061%) Exchange Server 2010
9 1 (0.061%) HCL Notes
9 1 (0.061%) Mattermost
9 1 (0.061%) Oracle Collaboration Suite
9 1 (0.061%) Oracle Workflow
9 1 (0.061%) Palantir Foundry
Applications
1 85 (5.16%) Microsoft Office
2 41 (2.49%) Microsoft Excel
3 16 (0.97%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 14 (0.85%) MS Visio
5 8 (0.49%) Chatbot
5 8 (0.49%) Microsoft Project
6 2 (0.12%) Spreadsheet
7 1 (0.061%) Maple
Business Applications
1 52 (3.16%) Remedy ITSM
2 12 (0.73%) SAP S/4HANA
3 9 (0.55%) Dynamics CRM
4 7 (0.43%) Primavera
5 5 (0.30%) ContrOCC
5 5 (0.30%) NEC Housing
5 5 (0.30%) Workday HCM
6 3 (0.18%) Oracle ERP
6 3 (0.18%) SAP CO
6 3 (0.18%) SAP FI
6 3 (0.18%) SAP FI/CO
6 3 (0.18%) SAP SM
7 2 (0.12%) Exchequer
7 2 (0.12%) Oracle EBS
7 2 (0.12%) Remedy AR System
7 2 (0.12%) Salesforce CRM
7 2 (0.12%) SAP CX
7 2 (0.12%) SAP PS
7 2 (0.12%) SystmOne
7 2 (0.12%) Teamcenter
Cloud Services
1 286 (17.36%) Azure
2 216 (13.11%) Microsoft 365
3 141 (8.56%) AWS
4 138 (8.38%) Entra ID
5 75 (4.55%) Power Platform
6 72 (4.37%) SaaS
7 57 (3.46%) OneDrive
8 44 (2.67%) GCP
9 40 (2.43%) Azure DevOps
10 24 (1.46%) Azure Monitor
11 20 (1.21%) GitHub
12 18 (1.09%) Microsoft Copilot
13 17 (1.03%) Google Workspace
14 14 (0.85%) Dynamics 365
14 14 (0.85%) Power Automate
14 14 (0.85%) Serverless
15 11 (0.67%) IaaS
16 10 (0.61%) Azure Functions
17 9 (0.55%) Amazon EC2
17 9 (0.55%) Azure Sentinel
Communications & Networking
1 72 (4.37%) Firewall
2 71 (4.31%) DNS
3 56 (3.40%) VPN
4 53 (3.22%) DHCP
5 45 (2.73%) TCP/IP
6 44 (2.67%) Network Security
7 38 (2.31%) WAN
8 34 (2.06%) LAN
9 27 (1.64%) Wi-Fi
10 16 (0.97%) Skype
11 14 (0.85%) SD-WAN
11 14 (0.85%) VLAN
11 14 (0.85%) Wireless
12 11 (0.67%) BGP
12 11 (0.67%) Intrusion Detection
13 10 (0.61%) SAN
13 10 (0.61%) SSH
14 9 (0.55%) Internet
15 8 (0.49%) 5G
16 7 (0.43%) Software-Defined Networking
Database & Business Intelligence
1 44 (2.67%) Power BI
2 32 (1.94%) SQL Server
3 24 (1.46%) Metadata
4 8 (0.49%) MySQL
5 7 (0.43%) Amazon RDS
5 7 (0.43%) Looker
5 7 (0.43%) Oracle Database
5 7 (0.43%) PostgreSQL
5 7 (0.43%) SQL Server Integration Services
6 6 (0.36%) Relational Database
7 5 (0.30%) BigQuery
7 5 (0.30%) MariaDB
7 5 (0.30%) SQL Server Reporting Services
8 4 (0.24%) Oracle Database 11g
8 4 (0.24%) Oracle Reports
9 3 (0.18%) Amazon Aurora
9 3 (0.18%) SQL Server Analysis Services
10 2 (0.12%) GIS
10 2 (0.12%) MongoDB
10 2 (0.12%) SQLite
Development Applications
1 151 (9.17%) JIRA
2 33 (2.00%) Git
3 20 (1.21%) Jenkins
4 17 (1.03%) Bitbucket
5 13 (0.79%) Atlassian Bamboo
6 7 (0.43%) GitLab
7 4 (0.24%) Browser DevTools
7 4 (0.24%) Maven
7 4 (0.24%) webpack
8 3 (0.18%) Gradle
8 3 (0.18%) Rational DOORS
9 2 (0.12%) Fiddler
9 2 (0.12%) Firebug
9 2 (0.12%) Sonatype Nexus
10 1 (0.061%) eggPlant
10 1 (0.061%) Gemini Tracker
10 1 (0.061%) IBM UrbanCode
10 1 (0.061%) MLflow
10 1 (0.061%) Snyk
10 1 (0.061%) Visual Studio Code
General
1 670 (40.68%) Social Skills
2 276 (16.76%) Analytical Skills
3 266 (16.15%) Finance
4 204 (12.39%) Public Sector
5 78 (4.74%) Organisational Skills
6 71 (4.31%) Telecoms
7 69 (4.19%) Documentation Skills
8 61 (3.70%) Banking
9 59 (3.58%) Influencing Skills
10 43 (2.61%) Aerospace
10 43 (2.61%) Legal
11 41 (2.49%) Inclusion and Diversity
12 29 (1.76%) Military
13 28 (1.70%) Presentation Skills
14 23 (1.40%) Local Government
14 23 (1.40%) Manufacturing
15 17 (1.03%) Police
16 16 (0.97%) Retail
17 12 (0.73%) Law
18 10 (0.61%) Financial Institution
Job Titles
1 183 (11.11%) Architect
2 160 (9.71%) Analyst
3 153 (9.29%) Lead
4 120 (7.29%) Consultant
5 116 (7.04%) Senior
6 113 (6.86%) Service Manager
7 77 (4.68%) Developer
8 76 (4.61%) Support Engineer
9 75 (4.55%) Delivery Manager
10 66 (4.01%) Project Manager
11 64 (3.89%) IT Manager
12 60 (3.64%) Solutions Architect
13 51 (3.10%) IT Support
14 49 (2.98%) Service Analyst
15 42 (2.55%) Service Architect
15 42 (2.55%) ServiceNow Architect
16 41 (2.49%) ServiceNow Developer
17 39 (2.37%) IT Engineer
18 37 (2.25%) Transition Manager
19 35 (2.13%) Business Analyst
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 77 (4.68%) REST
2 58 (3.52%) Terraform
3 29 (1.76%) SOAP
4 26 (1.58%) XML
5 25 (1.52%) Middleware
6 23 (1.40%) Web Services
7 19 (1.15%) JSON
8 18 (1.09%) HTML
9 17 (1.03%) CSS
10 11 (0.67%) LDAP
11 10 (0.61%) SAML
12 9 (0.55%) Elastic Stack
13 8 (0.49%) .NET
13 8 (0.49%) OAuth
13 8 (0.49%) XSLT
14 7 (0.43%) AngularJS
14 7 (0.43%) ARM Templates
14 7 (0.43%) Node.js
15 6 (0.36%) Ajax
15 6 (0.36%) OpenID
Miscellaneous
1 178 (10.81%) Onboarding
2 136 (8.26%) CMDB
3 100 (6.07%) Management Information System
4 66 (4.01%) Enterprise Software
5 54 (3.28%) Data Centre
5 54 (3.28%) Product Ownership
6 39 (2.37%) PKI
7 31 (1.88%) Data Protection Act
8 30 (1.82%) Hybrid Cloud
9 27 (1.64%) Security Operations Centre
10 26 (1.58%) Virtual Team
11 25 (1.52%) Operational Technology
12 24 (1.46%) Cloud Native
13 18 (1.09%) Cyber Threat
14 17 (1.03%) Self-Motivation
15 16 (0.97%) Security Posture
16 15 (0.91%) AI Agents
16 15 (0.91%) Analytical Mindset
16 15 (0.91%) Video Conferencing
17 14 (0.85%) NHS
Operating Systems
1 331 (20.10%) Windows
2 92 (5.59%) Linux
3 88 (5.34%) Windows Server
4 75 (4.55%) Windows 10
5 37 (2.25%) Apple iOS
6 35 (2.13%) Mac OS
7 22 (1.34%) Android
8 21 (1.28%) Unix
9 20 (1.21%) Windows 7
10 18 (1.09%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
11 6 (0.36%) Windows Server 2019
12 4 (0.24%) AIX
12 4 (0.24%) Solaris
12 4 (0.24%) SUSE Linux Enterprise Server
13 3 (0.18%) zOS
14 2 (0.12%) Ubuntu
14 2 (0.12%) Windows Server 2012
14 2 (0.12%) Windows Server 2016
14 2 (0.12%) Windows XP
15 1 (0.061%) Rocky
Processes & Methodologies
1 875 (53.13%) ITIL
2 714 (43.35%) ITSM
3 541 (32.85%) Stakeholder Management
4 468 (28.42%) Continuous Improvement
5 352 (21.37%) Service Delivery
6 330 (20.04%) Problem-Solving
7 326 (19.79%) Agile
8 250 (15.18%) Stakeholder Engagement
9 244 (14.81%) Roadmaps
10 240 (14.57%) Change Management
11 196 (11.90%) Cybersecurity
12 193 (11.72%) Customer Service
13 191 (11.60%) Incident Management
14 167 (10.14%) DevOps
15 155 (9.41%) Project Delivery
16 147 (8.93%) Decision-Making
17 139 (8.44%) AI
18 135 (8.20%) Migration
19 129 (7.83%) Risk Management
20 121 (7.35%) Service Design
Programming Languages
1 145 (8.80%) PowerShell
2 93 (5.65%) Python
3 60 (3.64%) SQL
4 58 (3.52%) JavaScript
5 56 (3.40%) Bash
6 19 (1.15%) VBScript
7 17 (1.03%) Java
8 15 (0.91%) VB
9 12 (0.73%) Bicep
9 12 (0.73%) C#
10 9 (0.55%) Shell Script
11 5 (0.30%) C
11 5 (0.30%) Groovy
11 5 (0.30%) Perl
11 5 (0.30%) TypeScript
12 4 (0.24%) PL/SQL
12 4 (0.24%) T-SQL
13 3 (0.18%) COBOL
13 3 (0.18%) Lua
13 3 (0.18%) RPG
Qualifications
1 631 (38.31%) Security Cleared
2 436 (26.47%) SC Cleared
3 156 (9.47%) Degree
4 150 (9.11%) DV Cleared
5 63 (3.83%) PMP
6 59 (3.58%) BPSS Clearance
6 59 (3.58%) PMI Certification
7 55 (3.34%) ITIL Certification
8 40 (2.43%) Microsoft Certification
9 36 (2.19%) CISSP
10 34 (2.06%) ITIL Foundation Certificate
11 31 (1.88%) CISM
12 28 (1.70%) Computer Science Degree
13 27 (1.64%) Cisco Certification
14 26 (1.58%) A+ Certification
15 24 (1.46%) DBS Check
16 22 (1.34%) Azure Certification
17 15 (0.91%) AWS Certification
18 10 (0.61%) CCNA
19 9 (0.55%) CCNP
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 143 (8.68%) SLA
2 64 (3.89%) QA
3 57 (3.46%) Data Quality
4 49 (2.98%) ISO/IEC 27001
5 38 (2.31%) GRC
5 38 (2.31%) NCSC
6 35 (2.13%) GDPR
6 35 (2.13%) ISO/IEC 20000
7 34 (2.06%) NIST
8 23 (1.40%) PMO
9 17 (1.03%) ISO 9001
10 16 (0.97%) Accessibility
11 13 (0.79%) COBIT
11 13 (0.79%) Cyber Essentials
12 10 (0.61%) PCI DSS
13 8 (0.49%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
13 8 (0.49%) Disclosure Scotland
13 8 (0.49%) WCAG
14 7 (0.43%) ISO 22301
15 5 (0.30%) JSP 440
System Software
1 190 (11.54%) Active Directory
2 85 (5.16%) VMware Infrastructure
3 37 (2.25%) Hyper-V
4 28 (1.70%) VMware ESXi
5 23 (1.40%) Virtual Desktop
6 22 (1.34%) Docker
6 22 (1.34%) vSphere
7 17 (1.03%) BitLocker
7 17 (1.03%) VMware NSX
8 13 (0.79%) vCloud
9 9 (0.55%) Firmware
10 7 (0.43%) Citrix Hypervisor
10 7 (0.43%) XenApp
10 7 (0.43%) XenDesktop
11 6 (0.36%) Virtual Servers
12 5 (0.30%) IAG
13 4 (0.24%) KVM
13 4 (0.24%) Oracle RAC
13 4 (0.24%) Virtual Machines
14 3 (0.18%) Microsoft Virtual Server
Systems Management
1 99 (6.01%) Microsoft Intune
2 84 (5.10%) SCCM
3 52 (3.16%) Ansible
4 27 (1.64%) Kubernetes
5 25 (1.52%) Single Sign-On
6 24 (1.46%) SCOM
7 18 (1.09%) vCenter Server
8 15 (0.91%) Jamf Pro
9 11 (0.67%) Grafana
9 11 (0.67%) WSUS
10 8 (0.49%) NetBackup
11 7 (0.43%) Progress Chef
11 7 (0.43%) Puppet
12 5 (0.30%) Data Guard
12 5 (0.30%) Oracle RMAN
12 5 (0.30%) Prometheus
12 5 (0.30%) Tivoli
12 5 (0.30%) Tivoli Monitoring
13 4 (0.24%) PowerCLI
13 4 (0.24%) vMotion
Vendors
1 462 (28.05%) ServiceNow
2 415 (25.20%) Microsoft
3 112 (6.80%) VMware
4 56 (3.40%) Remedy
5 50 (3.04%) Cisco
6 48 (2.91%) BMC
7 40 (2.43%) SAP
8 38 (2.31%) Atlassian
9 35 (2.13%) Dynatrace
9 35 (2.13%) Oracle
10 32 (1.94%) Google
11 28 (1.70%) IBM
12 27 (1.64%) Apple
13 24 (1.46%) Splunk
14 21 (1.28%) Citrix
15 20 (1.21%) CyberArk
15 20 (1.21%) SolarWinds
16 19 (1.15%) Salesforce
17 15 (0.91%) Zscaler
18 13 (0.79%) Qualys