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 13 March 2026, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
13 Mar 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 103 85 77
Rank change year-on-year -18 -8 +12
Contract jobs citing Service Management 1,029 851 1,186
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 2.40% 2.89% 2.66%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 2.79% 3.20% 3.07%
Number of daily rates quoted 693 538 804
10th Percentile £207 £220 £282
25th Percentile £358 £400 £425
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £510 £525 £536
Median % change year-on-year -2.95% -2.10% +7.25%
75th Percentile £604 £613 £608
90th Percentile £725 £700 £725
UK excluding London median daily rate £500 £521 £535
% change year-on-year -4.08% -2.57% +12.63%
Number of hourly rates quoted 77 34 17
10th Percentile £15.94 £12.62 £12.53
25th Percentile £16.17 £21.32 £15.46
Median hourly rate £29.04 £25.34 £17.72
Median % change year-on-year +14.60% +43.00% -39.22%
75th Percentile £74.26 £33.15 £20.00
90th Percentile £84.50 £68.38 £59.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £45.46 £24.18 £17.50
% change year-on-year +88.01% +38.15% -50.07%

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 36,854 26,627 38,581
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 86.05% 90.37% 86.59%
Number of daily rates quoted 23,339 16,995 25,088
10th Percentile £313 £306 £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 £738
UK excluding London median daily rate £480 £490 £500
% change year-on-year -2.04% -2.00% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 2,197 898 2,338
10th Percentile £14.82 £15.48 £13.00
25th Percentile £18.50 £21.00 £16.06
Median hourly rate £30.00 £32.50 £32.50
Median % change year-on-year -7.69% - -7.14%
75th Percentile £65.00 £65.00 £57.50
90th Percentile £75.00 £77.50 £70.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £27.36 £32.50 £31.50
% change year-on-year -15.82% +3.17% -10.00%

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 13 March 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 13 March 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 13 March 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 -16 938 £510 -2.86% 343
UK excluding London -11 699 £500 -4.08% 306
Work from Home -17 250 £475 -9.52% 139
London -56 248 £520 -0.95% 72
South East +31 204 £500 +8.11% 107
North of England -14 167 £513 +20.59% 74
South West -10 164 £575 +2.22% 37
Midlands -26 97 £425 -24.98% 50
North West -5 93 £554 +18.07% 41
West Midlands -41 74 £425 -25.54% 31
Yorkshire -22 64 £468 +102.82% 27
East of England -13 47 £452 -17.82% 35
East Midlands -14 23 £419 -9.95% 19
Scotland -31 23 £500 - 10
North East -10 13 £280 +43.59% 7
Wales -11 2 £245 -36.77% 6
Northern Ireland - 1 £500 - 1

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 94 (9.14%) Confluence
2 50 (4.86%) Microsoft Exchange
3 47 (4.57%) SharePoint
4 11 (1.07%) Skype for Business
5 5 (0.49%) Mattermost
6 3 (0.29%) IIS
6 3 (0.29%) nginx
6 3 (0.29%) SharePoint Server
7 2 (0.19%) Apache
7 2 (0.19%) JBoss
8 1 (0.097%) HCL Notes
8 1 (0.097%) LiveCycle
8 1 (0.097%) OpenStack
8 1 (0.097%) Oracle SOA Suite
8 1 (0.097%) WebLogic
8 1 (0.097%) WebSphere
Applications
1 85 (8.26%) Microsoft Office
2 36 (3.50%) Microsoft Project
3 31 (3.01%) Microsoft Excel
4 11 (1.07%) Microsoft PowerPoint
5 5 (0.49%) MS Visio
6 4 (0.39%) PTC Creo
7 3 (0.29%) Autodesk Inventor
7 3 (0.29%) Spreadsheet
8 1 (0.097%) Camtasia
8 1 (0.097%) Chatbot
Business Applications
1 32 (3.11%) Remedy ITSM
2 14 (1.36%) SAP S/4HANA
3 13 (1.26%) Oracle EBS
4 7 (0.68%) Teamcenter
5 2 (0.19%) Salesforce CRM
6 1 (0.097%) assyst
6 1 (0.097%) Dynamics CRM
6 1 (0.097%) Dynamics NAV
6 1 (0.097%) NetSuite
6 1 (0.097%) Oracle Payables
6 1 (0.097%) Oracle Procure-to-Pay
6 1 (0.097%) Oracle Receivables
6 1 (0.097%) Oracle Subledger Accounting
6 1 (0.097%) SAP ERP
6 1 (0.097%) SAP PM
6 1 (0.097%) SAP SM
6 1 (0.097%) SystmOne
6 1 (0.097%) Workday HCM
Cloud Services
1 165 (16.03%) Azure
2 94 (9.14%) AWS
3 93 (9.04%) Microsoft 365
4 50 (4.86%) GCP
5 47 (4.57%) Entra ID
6 41 (3.98%) Power Platform
7 36 (3.50%) SaaS
8 28 (2.72%) Azure DevOps
9 21 (2.04%) OneDrive
10 15 (1.46%) IaaS
10 15 (1.46%) PaaS
11 14 (1.36%) GitHub
12 11 (1.07%) Serverless
13 10 (0.97%) AWS Lambda
14 8 (0.78%) Amazon CloudWatch
14 8 (0.78%) Dynamics 365
14 8 (0.78%) OpenShift
14 8 (0.78%) PowerApps
15 7 (0.68%) Salesforce Service Cloud
16 6 (0.58%) Slack
Communications & Networking
1 67 (6.51%) Firewall
2 65 (6.32%) DNS
3 37 (3.60%) LAN
4 36 (3.50%) WAN
5 35 (3.40%) DHCP
6 34 (3.30%) VPN
7 28 (2.72%) Network Security
8 22 (2.14%) TCP/IP
9 21 (2.04%) VLAN
10 19 (1.85%) BGP
11 18 (1.75%) Cisco ISE
12 17 (1.65%) Skype
13 16 (1.55%) Junos
14 15 (1.46%) Wi-Fi
15 13 (1.26%) OSPF
16 12 (1.17%) BIG-IP
17 11 (1.07%) Cisco Firepower
17 11 (1.07%) WebEx
18 10 (0.97%) SD-WAN
19 9 (0.87%) Cisco IOS
Database & Business Intelligence
1 31 (3.01%) Power BI
2 14 (1.36%) SQL Server
3 10 (0.97%) Relational Database
4 7 (0.68%) PostgreSQL
5 5 (0.49%) Metadata
6 4 (0.39%) Amazon RDS
6 4 (0.39%) Elasticsearch
6 4 (0.39%) InfluxDB
7 3 (0.29%) Tableau
8 2 (0.19%) Big Data
8 2 (0.19%) GIS
8 2 (0.19%) MongoDB
9 1 (0.097%) Azure SQL Database
9 1 (0.097%) Data Mining
9 1 (0.097%) Electronic Patient Records
9 1 (0.097%) KNIME
9 1 (0.097%) OpenStack Swift
9 1 (0.097%) Oracle Reports
9 1 (0.097%) SQL Server Integration Services
9 1 (0.097%) SQL Server Reporting Services
Development Applications
1 145 (14.09%) JIRA
2 18 (1.75%) Jenkins
3 17 (1.65%) Git
4 15 (1.46%) Bitbucket
4 15 (1.46%) GitLab
5 6 (0.58%) Atlassian Bamboo
6 4 (0.39%) ScriptRunner
7 3 (0.29%) MLflow
7 3 (0.29%) Selenium
7 3 (0.29%) TestRail
8 2 (0.19%) Cypress.io
8 2 (0.19%) IntelliJ
9 1 (0.097%) Artifactory
9 1 (0.097%) Cucumber
9 1 (0.097%) JMeter
9 1 (0.097%) JUnit
9 1 (0.097%) Postman
9 1 (0.097%) Protractor
9 1 (0.097%) Rational DOORS
9 1 (0.097%) Visual Studio Code
General
1 381 (37.03%) Social Skills
2 164 (15.94%) Analytical Skills
3 136 (13.22%) Finance
4 125 (12.15%) Public Sector
5 56 (5.44%) Legal
6 45 (4.37%) Military
7 34 (3.30%) Influencing Skills
8 31 (3.01%) Banking
8 31 (3.01%) Documentation Skills
8 31 (3.01%) Organisational Skills
9 23 (2.24%) Retail
10 19 (1.85%) Telecoms
11 11 (1.07%) Aerospace
11 11 (1.07%) Manufacturing
12 9 (0.87%) Inclusion and Diversity
13 8 (0.78%) Law
13 8 (0.78%) Local Government
13 8 (0.78%) Presentation Skills
14 6 (0.58%) Investment Banking
14 6 (0.58%) Police
Job Titles
1 132 (12.83%) Analyst
2 125 (12.15%) Lead
3 118 (11.47%) Architect
4 93 (9.04%) Service Manager
5 62 (6.03%) Senior
6 61 (5.93%) Consultant
7 55 (5.34%) Service Architect
8 53 (5.15%) Service Analyst
9 41 (3.98%) IT Manager
10 38 (3.69%) IT Support
11 37 (3.60%) Support Engineer
12 36 (3.50%) Hardware Engineer
13 31 (3.01%) Delivery Manager
14 30 (2.92%) Network Engineer
15 27 (2.62%) IT Analyst
16 26 (2.53%) Administrator
16 26 (2.53%) Business Analyst
16 26 (2.53%) Service Delivery Manager
17 25 (2.43%) Platform Engineer
17 25 (2.43%) Project Manager
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 42 (4.08%) REST
2 16 (1.55%) SOAP
3 11 (1.07%) XMPP
4 9 (0.87%) 802.1X
5 8 (0.78%) Elastic Stack
5 8 (0.78%) Web Services
6 7 (0.68%) LDAP
7 6 (0.58%) Middleware
8 4 (0.39%) .NET
8 4 (0.39%) ARM Templates
8 4 (0.39%) JSON
8 4 (0.39%) RabbitMQ
8 4 (0.39%) RFC 2544
9 3 (0.29%) CSS
9 3 (0.29%) EDI
9 3 (0.29%) Lightning Web Components
9 3 (0.29%) Microsoft Graph
9 3 (0.29%) OAuth
9 3 (0.29%) Oracle Fusion
10 2 (0.19%) Spring Boot
Miscellaneous
1 94 (9.14%) Product Ownership
2 63 (6.12%) CMDB
3 50 (4.86%) Onboarding
4 45 (4.37%) Data Centre
5 36 (3.50%) Management Information System
6 31 (3.01%) Virtual Team
7 25 (2.43%) PKI
8 20 (1.94%) Driving Licence
9 17 (1.65%) Analytical Mindset
10 15 (1.46%) Self-Motivation
11 14 (1.36%) PMI
12 13 (1.26%) Data Protection Act
13 11 (1.07%) Clustering
13 11 (1.07%) Enterprise Software
14 8 (0.78%) Hybrid Cloud
15 7 (0.68%) Algorithms
15 7 (0.68%) Cloud Native
15 7 (0.68%) NHS
15 7 (0.68%) Replication
16 6 (0.58%) Renewable Energy
Operating Systems
1 201 (19.53%) Windows
2 63 (6.12%) Linux
3 56 (5.44%) Windows Server
4 47 (4.57%) Windows 10
5 16 (1.55%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
6 12 (1.17%) Mac OS
7 11 (1.07%) Android
7 11 (1.07%) Windows 7
8 9 (0.87%) Apple iOS
9 8 (0.78%) Windows Server 2012
10 7 (0.68%) Ubuntu
10 7 (0.68%) Unix
11 5 (0.49%) VMS
12 4 (0.39%) Windows Server 2003
13 3 (0.29%) CentOS
13 3 (0.29%) Windows Server 2016
13 3 (0.29%) Windows Server 2019
14 1 (0.097%) Data ONTAP
14 1 (0.097%) Rocky
14 1 (0.097%) Windows Server 2008
Processes & Methodologies
1 586 (56.95%) ITIL
2 454 (44.12%) ITSM
3 228 (22.16%) Agile
4 209 (20.31%) Continuous Improvement
4 209 (20.31%) Problem-Solving
5 190 (18.46%) Stakeholder Management
6 156 (15.16%) Service Delivery
7 151 (14.67%) Change Management
8 138 (13.41%) Stakeholder Engagement
9 114 (11.08%) DevOps
10 111 (10.79%) Customer Service
11 106 (10.30%) Service Design
12 86 (8.36%) Problem Management
13 83 (8.07%) Incident Management
14 79 (7.68%) Configuration Management
15 78 (7.58%) Project Management
16 73 (7.09%) Acceptance Criteria
17 70 (6.80%) Knowledge Transfer
18 65 (6.32%) Roadmaps
19 64 (6.22%) Performance Metrics
Programming Languages
1 89 (8.65%) PowerShell
2 60 (5.83%) Python
3 43 (4.18%) SQL
4 22 (2.14%) JavaScript
5 20 (1.94%) Java
6 19 (1.85%) Bash
7 12 (1.17%) Perl
8 10 (0.97%) Shell Script
9 9 (0.87%) VB
9 9 (0.87%) VBScript
10 6 (0.58%) Kotlin
11 4 (0.39%) C#
11 4 (0.39%) Go
12 2 (0.19%) ActionScript
12 2 (0.19%) ActionScript 2.0
12 2 (0.19%) Apex Code
12 2 (0.19%) Bicep
12 2 (0.19%) PHP
12 2 (0.19%) PL/SQL
13 1 (0.097%) C
Qualifications
1 428 (41.59%) Security Cleared
2 319 (31.00%) SC Cleared
3 128 (12.44%) Degree
4 121 (11.76%) DV Cleared
5 52 (5.05%) ITIL Certification
6 30 (2.92%) TOGAF Certification
7 28 (2.72%) BPSS Clearance
7 28 (2.72%) PMI Certification
8 25 (2.43%) Microsoft Certification
8 25 (2.43%) PMP
9 24 (2.33%) Cisco Certification
10 15 (1.46%) CCNP
10 15 (1.46%) Computer Science Degree
11 13 (1.26%) A+ Certification
11 13 (1.26%) CCNA
11 13 (1.26%) MCSE
12 9 (0.87%) Azure Certification
12 9 (0.87%) JNCIA
12 9 (0.87%) JNCIP
12 9 (0.87%) JNCIS
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 46 (4.47%) SLA
2 29 (2.82%) ISO/IEC 27001
3 28 (2.72%) Data Quality
4 23 (2.24%) GDPR
4 23 (2.24%) QA
5 14 (1.36%) ISO/IEC 20000
5 14 (1.36%) PMO
6 10 (0.97%) Sarbanes-Oxley
7 9 (0.87%) Accessibility
7 9 (0.87%) COBIT
7 9 (0.87%) NCSC
7 9 (0.87%) NIST
8 7 (0.68%) GRC
9 6 (0.58%) PCI DSS
10 5 (0.49%) Cyber Essentials
10 5 (0.49%) Government Security Classifications
11 4 (0.39%) HIPAA
12 3 (0.29%) Disclosure Scotland
12 3 (0.29%) HMG Security Policy Framework
12 3 (0.29%) ISO 9001
System Software
1 119 (11.56%) Active Directory
2 37 (3.60%) VMware Infrastructure
3 19 (1.85%) Docker
4 12 (1.17%) VMware NSX
5 9 (0.87%) BitLocker
6 8 (0.78%) Hyper-V
7 4 (0.39%) NDS
7 4 (0.39%) NetIQ eDirectory
7 4 (0.39%) Virtual Desktop
8 3 (0.29%) Microsoft Virtual Server
8 3 (0.29%) Virtual Machines
8 3 (0.29%) Virtual Servers
8 3 (0.29%) VMware ESXi
9 2 (0.19%) NFS
10 1 (0.097%) iptables
10 1 (0.097%) Samba
10 1 (0.097%) Slurm Workload Manager
Systems Management
1 37 (3.60%) SCCM
2 31 (3.01%) Microsoft Intune
3 30 (2.92%) OPNET
4 28 (2.72%) Ansible
5 26 (2.53%) Kubernetes
6 25 (2.43%) Terraform
7 13 (1.26%) WSUS
8 12 (1.17%) FortiGate
8 12 (1.17%) vCenter Server
9 10 (0.97%) Grafana
10 8 (0.78%) Active Directory Federation Services
10 8 (0.78%) Jamf Pro
11 7 (0.68%) Progress Chef
11 7 (0.68%) Prometheus
12 6 (0.58%) Single Sign-On
13 5 (0.49%) Puppet
13 5 (0.49%) SCOM
14 4 (0.39%) Nessus
14 4 (0.39%) Packer
15 3 (0.29%) HP ALM
Vendors
1 262 (25.46%) ServiceNow
2 157 (15.26%) Microsoft
3 72 (7.00%) Atlassian
4 66 (6.41%) Remedy
5 60 (5.83%) Cisco
6 55 (5.34%) VMware
7 39 (3.79%) HP
8 37 (3.60%) Google
9 35 (3.40%) Oracle
10 29 (2.82%) SAP
11 28 (2.72%) Splunk
12 26 (2.53%) SolarWinds
13 18 (1.75%) Citrix
13 18 (1.75%) Dell
13 18 (1.75%) Juniper
14 17 (1.65%) Salesforce
15 16 (1.55%) Red Hat
16 15 (1.46%) Canon
17 13 (1.26%) IFS
17 13 (1.26%) Palo Alto