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 15 May 2026, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
15 May 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 108 85 79
Rank change year-on-year -23 -6 +8
Contract jobs citing Service Management 1,077 836 1,117
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 2.26% 2.88% 2.62%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 2.68% 3.16% 3.04%
Number of daily rates quoted 718 506 750
10th Percentile £220 £235 £275
25th Percentile £400 £400 £425
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £514 £516 £525
Median % change year-on-year -0.39% -1.67% +5.00%
75th Percentile £613 £600 £608
90th Percentile £723 £698 £725
UK excluding London median daily rate £500 £525 £525
% change year-on-year -4.76% - +10.53%
Number of hourly rates quoted 63 29 18
10th Percentile £16.11 - £12.53
25th Percentile £18.71 £12.62 £15.24
Median hourly rate £60.00 £21.28 £17.72
Median % change year-on-year +181.95% +20.09% -65.76%
75th Percentile £83.88 £28.00 £19.75
90th Percentile £106.40 £37.80 £26.65
UK excluding London median hourly rate £60.00 £15.80 £17.50
% change year-on-year +279.75% -9.73% -63.91%

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 40,228 26,443 36,791
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 84.35% 90.98% 86.22%
Number of daily rates quoted 25,265 17,000 23,677
10th Percentile £325 £305 £300
25th Percentile £413 £410 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £505 £515 £525
Median % change year-on-year -1.94% -1.90% -4.55%
75th Percentile £613 £626 £638
90th Percentile £725 £738 £750
UK excluding London median daily rate £492 £475 £500
% change year-on-year +3.58% -5.00% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 2,380 1,081 2,436
10th Percentile £14.89 £14.42 £12.75
25th Percentile £19.91 £18.38 £16.00
Median hourly rate £42.50 £28.75 £36.50
Median % change year-on-year +47.83% -21.23% +0.29%
75th Percentile £67.31 £60.00 £60.00
90th Percentile £80.00 £75.00 £72.50
UK excluding London median hourly rate £45.00 £26.50 £38.00
% change year-on-year +69.81% -30.26% +8.57%

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 15 May 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 15 May 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 15 May 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 -19 957 £515 -1.90% 380
UK excluding London -17 707 £500 -4.76% 295
London -45 277 £520 +3.17% 120
Work from Home -4 267 £500 +1.57% 170
South East +29 211 £520 +15.56% 102
North of England -16 180 £494 +4.00% 80
South West -20 144 £551 +0.23% 27
North West +8 98 £550 +6.40% 38
Midlands -29 87 £410 -25.45% 45
Yorkshire -32 73 £475 +11.76% 38
West Midlands -39 66 £415 -24.68% 34
East of England -19 43 £475 -13.64% 32
Scotland -26 35 £500 -3.94% 11
East Midlands -12 21 £405 -7.11% 11
North East -16 9 £400 +105.13% 5
Wales -4 7 £340 -4.56% 4
Northern Ireland - 4 - - 3

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 78 (7.24%) Confluence
2 37 (3.44%) Microsoft Exchange
3 34 (3.16%) 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%) CMS
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 82 (7.61%) Microsoft Office
2 37 (3.44%) Microsoft Project
3 28 (2.60%) Microsoft Excel
4 13 (1.21%) Microsoft PowerPoint
5 7 (0.65%) Chatbot
6 6 (0.56%) MS Visio
7 4 (0.37%) PTC Creo
8 2 (0.19%) Spreadsheet
9 1 (0.093%) Camtasia
Business Applications
1 45 (4.18%) Remedy ITSM
2 14 (1.30%) SAP S/4HANA
3 9 (0.84%) Teamcenter
4 8 (0.74%) Oracle EBS
5 2 (0.19%) Oracle Applications
5 2 (0.19%) Oracle ERP
5 2 (0.19%) SAP PS
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
1 158 (14.67%) Azure
2 93 (8.64%) Microsoft 365
3 76 (7.06%) AWS
4 52 (4.83%) Power Platform
5 44 (4.09%) SaaS
6 35 (3.25%) Entra ID
6 35 (3.25%) GCP
7 27 (2.51%) Azure DevOps
8 20 (1.86%) GitHub
8 20 (1.86%) PaaS
9 17 (1.58%) OneDrive
10 16 (1.49%) IaaS
11 13 (1.21%) OCI
12 11 (1.02%) AWS Lambda
12 11 (1.02%) Serverless
13 10 (0.93%) Amazon CloudWatch
13 10 (0.93%) Microsoft Copilot
14 8 (0.74%) Dynamics 365
14 8 (0.74%) OpenShift
15 7 (0.65%) PowerApps
Communications & Networking
1 57 (5.29%) Firewall
2 44 (4.09%) DNS
3 36 (3.34%) WAN
4 34 (3.16%) LAN
5 31 (2.88%) VPN
6 29 (2.69%) Network Security
7 22 (2.04%) DHCP
8 17 (1.58%) TCP/IP
9 14 (1.30%) BGP
10 13 (1.21%) OSPF
10 13 (1.21%) SD-WAN
11 12 (1.11%) BIG-IP
12 11 (1.02%) Cisco ISE
12 11 (1.02%) VLAN
12 11 (1.02%) Wi-Fi
13 10 (0.93%) Wireless
14 9 (0.84%) Skype
15 8 (0.74%) Ethernet VPN
15 8 (0.74%) Junos
15 8 (0.74%) VXLAN
Database & Business Intelligence
1 38 (3.53%) Power BI
2 15 (1.39%) SQL Server
3 7 (0.65%) PostgreSQL
3 7 (0.65%) Relational Database
4 6 (0.56%) Oracle Database
4 6 (0.56%) Oracle Reports
5 5 (0.46%) Oracle Database 11g
6 4 (0.37%) Elasticsearch
6 4 (0.37%) SQL Server Integration Services
6 4 (0.37%) SQL Server Reporting Services
7 3 (0.28%) Amazon RDS
7 3 (0.28%) Azure SQL Database
7 3 (0.28%) InfluxDB
7 3 (0.28%) MySQL
7 3 (0.28%) SQL Server Analysis Services
8 2 (0.19%) Amazon Redshift
8 2 (0.19%) GIS
8 2 (0.19%) MariaDB
8 2 (0.19%) Microsoft Analysis Services
8 2 (0.19%) Tableau
Development Applications
1 137 (12.72%) JIRA
2 17 (1.58%) GitLab
3 16 (1.49%) Git
3 16 (1.49%) Jenkins
4 13 (1.21%) Bitbucket
5 7 (0.65%) ScriptRunner
6 6 (0.56%) Atlassian Bamboo
7 5 (0.46%) Browser DevTools
8 4 (0.37%) MLflow
9 3 (0.28%) Fiddler
9 3 (0.28%) Hudson
9 3 (0.28%) IntelliJ
9 3 (0.28%) Selenium
9 3 (0.28%) TestRail
10 2 (0.19%) Cypress.io
10 2 (0.19%) Firebug
10 2 (0.19%) Visual Studio Code
11 1 (0.093%) Artifactory
11 1 (0.093%) Cucumber
11 1 (0.093%) Rational DOORS
General
1 375 (34.82%) Social Skills
2 177 (16.43%) Finance
3 153 (14.21%) Analytical Skills
4 110 (10.21%) Public Sector
5 60 (5.57%) Legal
6 42 (3.90%) Military
7 35 (3.25%) Banking
7 35 (3.25%) Organisational Skills
8 31 (2.88%) Telecoms
9 26 (2.41%) Documentation Skills
10 23 (2.14%) Influencing Skills
11 18 (1.67%) Retail
12 12 (1.11%) Aerospace
13 9 (0.84%) Inclusion and Diversity
13 9 (0.84%) Presentation Skills
14 8 (0.74%) Local Government
15 7 (0.65%) Police
16 6 (0.56%) Front Office
16 6 (0.56%) Investment Banking
16 6 (0.56%) Manufacturing
Job Titles
1 122 (11.33%) Architect
2 119 (11.05%) Analyst
3 112 (10.40%) Service Manager
4 110 (10.21%) Lead
5 80 (7.43%) Senior
6 62 (5.76%) IT Manager
7 61 (5.66%) Consultant
8 52 (4.83%) Service Architect
9 48 (4.46%) Service Analyst
10 43 (3.99%) Project Manager
11 37 (3.44%) Delivery Manager
12 36 (3.34%) Hardware Engineer
13 30 (2.79%) Developer
13 30 (2.79%) IT Analyst
13 30 (2.79%) IT Services Manager
14 29 (2.69%) Support Engineer
15 27 (2.51%) Service Delivery Manager
16 25 (2.32%) Designer
16 25 (2.32%) Infrastructure Engineer
16 25 (2.32%) Network Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 38 (3.53%) REST
2 23 (2.14%) SOAP
3 9 (0.84%) 802.1X
3 9 (0.84%) Middleware
4 8 (0.74%) HTML
5 7 (0.65%) CSS
5 7 (0.65%) OAuth
5 7 (0.65%) Oracle Fusion
6 6 (0.56%) Elastic Stack
6 6 (0.56%) XML
7 5 (0.46%) .NET
7 5 (0.46%) JSON
7 5 (0.46%) LDAP
7 5 (0.46%) Web Services
8 4 (0.37%) Lightning Web Components
8 4 (0.37%) Microsoft Graph
8 4 (0.37%) OAuth2
8 4 (0.37%) OpenID
8 4 (0.37%) SAML
8 4 (0.37%) XMPP
Miscellaneous
1 82 (7.61%) Product Ownership
2 69 (6.41%) Onboarding
3 67 (6.22%) CMDB
4 45 (4.18%) Data Centre
5 29 (2.69%) Management Information System
6 27 (2.51%) PKI
7 26 (2.41%) Virtual Team
8 20 (1.86%) Clustering
9 18 (1.67%) Driving Licence
10 17 (1.58%) Enterprise Software
11 15 (1.39%) Data Protection Act
11 15 (1.39%) PMI
12 12 (1.11%) Operational Technology
13 10 (0.93%) Analytical Mindset
13 10 (0.93%) Cloud Native
14 9 (0.84%) Algorithms
14 9 (0.84%) Replication
15 8 (0.74%) Legacy Systems
16 7 (0.65%) Self-Motivation
17 6 (0.56%) Hybrid Cloud
Operating Systems
1 176 (16.34%) Windows
2 56 (5.20%) Linux
3 41 (3.81%) Windows 10
4 40 (3.71%) Windows Server
5 15 (1.39%) Unix
6 12 (1.11%) Mac OS
7 11 (1.02%) Windows 7
8 8 (0.74%) Android
8 8 (0.74%) Apple iOS
8 8 (0.74%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
9 6 (0.56%) Ubuntu
10 4 (0.37%) VMS
11 3 (0.28%) Windows Server 2019
12 2 (0.19%) Solaris
12 2 (0.19%) Windows Server 2012
12 2 (0.19%) Windows Server 2016
12 2 (0.19%) zOS
13 1 (0.093%) Data ONTAP
13 1 (0.093%) Windows Server 2008
13 1 (0.093%) Windows XP
Processes & Methodologies
1 578 (53.67%) ITIL
2 454 (42.15%) ITSM
3 227 (21.08%) Agile
4 225 (20.89%) Stakeholder Management
5 222 (20.61%) Continuous Improvement
6 203 (18.85%) Problem-Solving
7 178 (16.53%) Service Delivery
8 151 (14.02%) Stakeholder Engagement
9 138 (12.81%) Change Management
10 119 (11.05%) DevOps
11 116 (10.77%) Customer Service
12 98 (9.10%) Service Design
13 84 (7.80%) Incident Management
13 84 (7.80%) Problem Management
14 83 (7.71%) Roadmaps
15 75 (6.96%) Configuration Management
16 72 (6.69%) Knowledge Transfer
16 72 (6.69%) Project Management
17 67 (6.22%) Decision-Making
18 65 (6.04%) CI/CD
Programming Languages
1 61 (5.66%) PowerShell
2 55 (5.11%) SQL
3 36 (3.34%) JavaScript
3 36 (3.34%) Python
4 15 (1.39%) Java
5 12 (1.11%) Bash
6 10 (0.93%) 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#
10 4 (0.37%) Groovy
10 4 (0.37%) Shell Script
10 4 (0.37%) T-SQL
11 3 (0.28%) C
11 3 (0.28%) Go
12 2 (0.19%) ActionScript
12 2 (0.19%) PHP
12 2 (0.19%) SOQL
Qualifications
1 426 (39.55%) Security Cleared
2 309 (28.69%) SC Cleared
3 124 (11.51%) DV Cleared
4 121 (11.23%) Degree
5 49 (4.55%) ITIL Certification
6 34 (3.16%) PMI Certification
7 32 (2.97%) PMP
8 28 (2.60%) Cisco Certification
9 26 (2.41%) TOGAF Certification
10 21 (1.95%) Computer Science Degree
11 20 (1.86%) BPSS Clearance
12 18 (1.67%) Microsoft Certification
13 14 (1.30%) CCNA
14 12 (1.11%) A+ Certification
14 12 (1.11%) Master's Degree
15 11 (1.02%) CCNP
16 10 (0.93%) CISSP
17 9 (0.84%) CISM
17 9 (0.84%) MAPM
17 9 (0.84%) Network+ Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 60 (5.57%) SLA
2 32 (2.97%) Data Quality
2 32 (2.97%) ISO/IEC 27001
3 25 (2.32%) PMO
3 25 (2.32%) QA
4 24 (2.23%) GDPR
5 16 (1.49%) COBIT
5 16 (1.49%) ISO/IEC 20000
6 15 (1.39%) GRC
6 15 (1.39%) NCSC
7 11 (1.02%) Accessibility
8 10 (0.93%) NIST
9 9 (0.84%) Cyber Essentials
10 7 (0.65%) Government Security Classifications
11 6 (0.56%) ISO 31000
11 6 (0.56%) ISO/IEC 27005
11 6 (0.56%) PCI DSS
11 6 (0.56%) Sarbanes-Oxley
12 5 (0.46%) Disclosure Scotland
12 5 (0.46%) ISO 9001
System Software
1 98 (9.10%) Active Directory
2 35 (3.25%) VMware Infrastructure
3 14 (1.30%) Docker
4 12 (1.11%) VMware ESXi
5 9 (0.84%) BitLocker
6 6 (0.56%) vSphere
7 5 (0.46%) Hyper-V
7 5 (0.46%) NFS
7 5 (0.46%) VMware NSX
8 4 (0.37%) Virtual Machines
9 3 (0.28%) vCloud
9 3 (0.28%) Virtual Desktop
10 2 (0.19%) GPFS
10 2 (0.19%) IAG
10 2 (0.19%) Oracle RAC
11 1 (0.093%) iptables
11 1 (0.093%) Microsoft Virtual Server
11 1 (0.093%) Samba
11 1 (0.093%) Slurm Workload Manager
11 1 (0.093%) Virtual Servers
Systems Management
1 29 (2.69%) Ansible
2 28 (2.60%) SCCM
3 26 (2.41%) OPNET
4 23 (2.14%) Terraform
5 21 (1.95%) Microsoft Intune
6 19 (1.76%) Kubernetes
7 10 (0.93%) FortiGate
7 10 (0.93%) Grafana
8 8 (0.74%) Jamf Pro
8 8 (0.74%) Single Sign-On
9 7 (0.65%) Prometheus
9 7 (0.65%) WSUS
10 6 (0.56%) Progress Chef
10 6 (0.56%) vCenter Server
11 5 (0.46%) Data Guard
11 5 (0.46%) Oracle RMAN
11 5 (0.46%) Puppet
11 5 (0.46%) SCOM
11 5 (0.46%) vMotion
12 4 (0.37%) PowerCLI
Vendors
1 287 (26.65%) ServiceNow
2 163 (15.13%) Microsoft
3 77 (7.15%) Remedy
4 55 (5.11%) Atlassian
5 54 (5.01%) VMware
6 44 (4.09%) Oracle
7 43 (3.99%) Cisco
8 39 (3.62%) HP
9 30 (2.79%) SAP
10 22 (2.04%) BMC
10 22 (2.04%) IFS
11 21 (1.95%) Google
12 20 (1.86%) Splunk
13 19 (1.76%) Dell
14 15 (1.39%) Canon
15 14 (1.30%) Salesforce
16 13 (1.21%) F5
16 13 (1.21%) SolarWinds
17 12 (1.11%) Citrix
18 11 (1.02%) Juniper