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 26 August 2026, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
26 Aug 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 92 82 91
Rank change year-on-year -10 +9 -5
Contract jobs citing Service Management 1,510 958 946
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 2.82% 2.93% 2.44%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 3.33% 3.24% 2.85%
Number of daily rates quoted 989 575 645
10th Percentile £261 £209 £225
25th Percentile £413 £350 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £485 £525
Median % change year-on-year +8.25% -7.62% +0.96%
75th Percentile £619 £575 £604
90th Percentile £725 £675 £686
UK excluding London median daily rate £520 £492 £525
% change year-on-year +5.69% -6.29% +5.00%
Number of hourly rates quoted 81 76 18
10th Percentile £14.50 - £17.50
25th Percentile £17.21 £12.62 £19.44
Median hourly rate £55.00 £18.73 £27.50
Median % change year-on-year +193.65% -31.89% -46.34%
75th Percentile £85.00 £30.84 £48.75
90th Percentile £92.53 £40.63 £54.13
UK excluding London median hourly rate £55.00 £18.73 £27.50
% change year-on-year +193.65% -31.89% +29.05%

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 45,367 29,590 33,147
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 84.58% 90.44% 85.35%
Number of daily rates quoted 27,794 18,422 20,982
10th Percentile £325 £300 £310
25th Percentile £425 £402 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £500 £525
Median % change year-on-year +5.00% -4.76% -3.67%
75th Percentile £625 £625 £638
90th Percentile £725 £725 £750
UK excluding London median daily rate £500 £475 £500
% change year-on-year +5.26% -5.00% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 2,879 1,766 1,695
10th Percentile £14.22 £14.20 £13.86
25th Percentile £17.97 £17.30 £18.13
Median hourly rate £41.06 £25.15 £40.50
Median % change year-on-year +63.26% -37.90% -4.71%
75th Percentile £67.89 £47.50 £65.00
90th Percentile £80.00 £67.50 £75.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £43.96 £22.63 £42.50
% change year-on-year +94.26% -46.75% +6.25%

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 26 August 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 26 August 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 26 August 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 -12 1,305 £525 +5.00% 397
UK excluding London -14 892 £520 +5.69% 324
London +23 467 £525 +5.00% 106
Work from Home +15 419 £515 +2.90% 165
South East +18 287 £565 +13.00% 98
North of England -20 255 £474 +5.33% 72
North West -20 151 £482 +3.60% 47
South West -34 115 £575 +9.52% 46
Midlands -42 99 £500 -0.99% 62
Yorkshire -9 97 £443 +24.79% 22
West Midlands -41 93 £500 -3.85% 40
Scotland +14 85 £520 +16.20% 7
East of England -15 46 £525 -4.55% 31
Wales -7 14 £800 +247.83% 10
Northern Ireland +5 8 - - 7
North East -41 7 £500 +156.41% 3
East Midlands -28 6 £250 -16.67% 23

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
1 107 (7.09%) SharePoint
2 60 (3.97%) Confluence
3 58 (3.84%) Microsoft Exchange
4 15 (0.99%) Skype for Business
5 6 (0.40%) OpenStack
6 3 (0.20%) CMS
6 3 (0.20%) IIS
7 2 (0.13%) Apache
8 1 (0.066%) CICS
8 1 (0.066%) Exchange Server 2010
8 1 (0.066%) HCL Notes
8 1 (0.066%) JBoss
8 1 (0.066%) Mattermost
8 1 (0.066%) Oracle Collaboration Suite
8 1 (0.066%) Palantir Foundry
Applications
1 83 (5.50%) Microsoft Office
2 35 (2.32%) Microsoft Excel
3 14 (0.93%) Microsoft PowerPoint
3 14 (0.93%) MS Visio
4 11 (0.73%) Microsoft Project
5 10 (0.66%) Chatbot
6 2 (0.13%) Spreadsheet
7 1 (0.066%) Maple
Business Applications
1 57 (3.77%) Remedy ITSM
2 11 (0.73%) SAP S/4HANA
3 7 (0.46%) Primavera
4 5 (0.33%) ContrOCC
4 5 (0.33%) NEC Housing
5 4 (0.26%) Workday HCM
6 3 (0.20%) Oracle ERP
6 3 (0.20%) SAP CO
6 3 (0.20%) SAP FI
6 3 (0.20%) SAP FI/CO
6 3 (0.20%) SAP SM
7 2 (0.13%) Exchequer
7 2 (0.13%) Oracle Applications
7 2 (0.13%) Oracle EBS
7 2 (0.13%) Remedy AR System
7 2 (0.13%) SAP PS
7 2 (0.13%) Teamcenter
8 1 (0.066%) Dynamics CRM
8 1 (0.066%) Misys Equation
8 1 (0.066%) Misys Midas
Cloud Services
1 270 (17.88%) Azure
2 196 (12.98%) Microsoft 365
3 120 (7.95%) AWS
4 113 (7.48%) Entra ID
5 68 (4.50%) Power Platform
6 60 (3.97%) SaaS
7 52 (3.44%) OneDrive
8 33 (2.19%) Azure DevOps
8 33 (2.19%) GCP
9 21 (1.39%) GitHub
9 21 (1.39%) Microsoft Copilot
10 15 (0.99%) Azure Monitor
11 14 (0.93%) OCI
12 11 (0.73%) PaaS
13 10 (0.66%) Google Workspace
13 10 (0.66%) IaaS
14 9 (0.60%) Azure Sentinel
15 8 (0.53%) Amazon S3
15 8 (0.53%) Azure AKS
16 7 (0.46%) Amazon EC2
Communications & Networking
1 86 (5.70%) Firewall
2 67 (4.44%) DNS
3 52 (3.44%) VPN
4 46 (3.05%) DHCP
4 46 (3.05%) TCP/IP
5 44 (2.91%) Network Security
6 43 (2.85%) WAN
7 35 (2.32%) LAN
8 20 (1.32%) Wi-Fi
9 19 (1.26%) Wireless
10 17 (1.13%) SD-WAN
11 15 (0.99%) Skype
11 15 (0.99%) VLAN
12 14 (0.93%) BGP
13 11 (0.73%) Intrusion Detection
13 11 (0.73%) SSH
14 10 (0.66%) OSPF
15 9 (0.60%) SSL
16 8 (0.53%) HTTP
16 8 (0.53%) Internet
Database & Business Intelligence
1 49 (3.25%) Power BI
2 26 (1.72%) SQL Server
3 9 (0.60%) Oracle Database
4 8 (0.53%) SQL Server Integration Services
5 7 (0.46%) Metadata
5 7 (0.46%) MySQL
5 7 (0.46%) Oracle Database 11g
5 7 (0.46%) PostgreSQL
6 6 (0.40%) Oracle Reports
6 6 (0.40%) SQL Server Reporting Services
7 5 (0.33%) Amazon RDS
7 5 (0.33%) MariaDB
7 5 (0.33%) Relational Database
7 5 (0.33%) SQL Server Analysis Services
8 3 (0.20%) Amazon Aurora
9 2 (0.13%) Amazon Redshift
9 2 (0.13%) Azure SQL Database
9 2 (0.13%) Data Warehouse
9 2 (0.13%) Looker
9 2 (0.13%) Microsoft Analysis Services
Development Applications
1 144 (9.54%) JIRA
2 24 (1.59%) Jenkins
3 23 (1.52%) Bitbucket
3 23 (1.52%) Git
4 16 (1.06%) Atlassian Bamboo
5 10 (0.66%) GitLab
6 5 (0.33%) Browser DevTools
7 4 (0.26%) Maven
7 4 (0.26%) MLflow
7 4 (0.26%) ScriptRunner
7 4 (0.26%) webpack
8 3 (0.20%) Fiddler
8 3 (0.20%) Gradle
8 3 (0.20%) Hudson
8 3 (0.20%) IntelliJ
8 3 (0.20%) Rational DOORS
8 3 (0.20%) Sonatype Nexus
9 2 (0.13%) Artifactory
9 2 (0.13%) Firebug
10 1 (0.066%) Cucumber
General
1 588 (38.94%) Social Skills
2 249 (16.49%) Finance
3 239 (15.83%) Analytical Skills
4 179 (11.85%) Public Sector
5 73 (4.83%) Telecoms
6 59 (3.91%) Organisational Skills
7 58 (3.84%) Documentation Skills
8 54 (3.58%) Banking
9 50 (3.31%) Influencing Skills
10 47 (3.11%) Legal
11 30 (1.99%) Inclusion and Diversity
12 29 (1.92%) Military
13 23 (1.52%) Local Government
14 22 (1.46%) Presentation Skills
15 19 (1.26%) Aerospace
16 17 (1.13%) Retail
17 13 (0.86%) Police
18 10 (0.66%) Financial Institution
18 10 (0.66%) Manufacturing
19 8 (0.53%) Law
Job Titles
1 167 (11.06%) Analyst
2 149 (9.87%) Architect
3 144 (9.54%) Lead
4 111 (7.35%) Senior
5 107 (7.09%) Consultant
6 104 (6.89%) Service Manager
7 73 (4.83%) IT Manager
8 68 (4.50%) Project Manager
9 67 (4.44%) Support Engineer
10 60 (3.97%) Developer
11 57 (3.77%) Service Analyst
12 47 (3.11%) IT Support
12 47 (3.11%) Solutions Architect
13 46 (3.05%) Delivery Manager
14 43 (2.85%) ServiceNow Developer
15 37 (2.45%) Service Architect
16 36 (2.38%) Business Analyst
16 36 (2.38%) Transition Manager
17 35 (2.32%) IT Analyst
18 34 (2.25%) Designer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 77 (5.10%) REST
2 47 (3.11%) Terraform
3 33 (2.19%) SOAP
4 18 (1.19%) HTML
5 17 (1.13%) CSS
6 14 (0.93%) Middleware
6 14 (0.93%) Web Services
7 12 (0.79%) XML
8 10 (0.66%) SAML
9 9 (0.60%) AngularJS
9 9 (0.60%) JSON
10 8 (0.53%) Elastic Stack
11 7 (0.46%) OAuth
12 6 (0.40%) .NET
12 6 (0.40%) ARM Templates
12 6 (0.40%) Node.js
13 5 (0.33%) OpenID
13 5 (0.33%) RESTful
14 4 (0.26%) Bootstrap
14 4 (0.26%) Oracle Fusion
Miscellaneous
1 161 (10.66%) Onboarding
2 117 (7.75%) CMDB
3 67 (4.44%) Management Information System
4 62 (4.11%) Product Ownership
5 48 (3.18%) Enterprise Software
6 46 (3.05%) Data Centre
7 30 (1.99%) PKI
8 28 (1.85%) Operational Technology
9 27 (1.79%) Data Protection Act
10 23 (1.52%) Hybrid Cloud
10 23 (1.52%) Security Operations Centre
11 22 (1.46%) Virtual Team
12 20 (1.32%) Cloud Native
13 18 (1.19%) Clustering
13 18 (1.19%) Self-Motivation
14 16 (1.06%) AI Agents
14 16 (1.06%) Analytical Mindset
15 14 (0.93%) NHS
16 13 (0.86%) Cyber Threat
16 13 (0.86%) Video Conferencing
Operating Systems
1 296 (19.60%) Windows
2 82 (5.43%) Linux
2 82 (5.43%) Windows Server
3 66 (4.37%) Windows 10
4 29 (1.92%) Apple iOS
5 26 (1.72%) Mac OS
6 21 (1.39%) Unix
7 20 (1.32%) Windows 7
8 16 (1.06%) Android
9 12 (0.79%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
10 6 (0.40%) Windows Server 2019
11 3 (0.20%) Windows Server 2012
11 3 (0.20%) Windows Server 2016
12 2 (0.13%) Solaris
12 2 (0.13%) Ubuntu
12 2 (0.13%) VMS
12 2 (0.13%) Windows XP
12 2 (0.13%) zOS
13 1 (0.066%) Rocky
13 1 (0.066%) Windows Server 2008
Processes & Methodologies
1 800 (52.98%) ITIL
2 677 (44.83%) ITSM
3 443 (29.34%) Stakeholder Management
4 392 (25.96%) Continuous Improvement
5 330 (21.85%) Service Delivery
6 308 (20.40%) Agile
7 302 (20.00%) Problem-Solving
8 229 (15.17%) Stakeholder Engagement
9 227 (15.03%) Change Management
10 178 (11.79%) Customer Service
11 168 (11.13%) Roadmaps
12 161 (10.66%) Incident Management
13 156 (10.33%) DevOps
14 153 (10.13%) Cybersecurity
15 134 (8.87%) Project Delivery
16 129 (8.54%) Migration
17 128 (8.48%) Decision-Making
18 127 (8.41%) AI
19 114 (7.55%) Service Design
20 110 (7.28%) Project Management
Programming Languages
1 130 (8.61%) PowerShell
2 88 (5.83%) Python
3 71 (4.70%) SQL
4 52 (3.44%) JavaScript
5 45 (2.98%) Bash
6 17 (1.13%) VBScript
7 16 (1.06%) Java
8 15 (0.99%) VB
9 12 (0.79%) PL/SQL
10 9 (0.60%) Bicep
10 9 (0.60%) Groovy
11 7 (0.46%) Shell Script
12 6 (0.40%) C
13 5 (0.33%) Apex Code
13 5 (0.33%) Perl
13 5 (0.33%) T-SQL
14 4 (0.26%) TypeScript
15 3 (0.20%) C#
15 3 (0.20%) Lua
16 2 (0.13%) Korn
Qualifications
1 553 (36.62%) Security Cleared
2 373 (24.70%) SC Cleared
3 146 (9.67%) DV Cleared
4 142 (9.40%) Degree
5 64 (4.24%) ITIL Certification
6 54 (3.58%) PMP
7 48 (3.18%) PMI Certification
8 47 (3.11%) BPSS Clearance
9 35 (2.32%) CISSP
10 32 (2.12%) CISM
10 32 (2.12%) ITIL Foundation Certificate
11 29 (1.92%) Microsoft Certification
12 28 (1.85%) Cisco Certification
12 28 (1.85%) Computer Science Degree
13 25 (1.66%) A+ Certification
14 16 (1.06%) DBS Check
15 14 (0.93%) Azure Certification
16 13 (0.86%) CCNA
16 13 (0.86%) Master's Degree
17 10 (0.66%) CCNP
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 123 (8.15%) SLA
2 52 (3.44%) QA
3 50 (3.31%) ISO/IEC 27001
4 48 (3.18%) Data Quality
5 34 (2.25%) NCSC
6 32 (2.12%) GRC
7 31 (2.05%) ISO/IEC 20000
7 31 (2.05%) PMO
8 28 (1.85%) GDPR
9 21 (1.39%) NIST
10 17 (1.13%) COBIT
11 16 (1.06%) ISO 9001
12 14 (0.93%) Cyber Essentials
13 9 (0.60%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
13 9 (0.60%) Disclosure Scotland
14 8 (0.53%) Accessibility
15 7 (0.46%) Government Security Classifications
15 7 (0.46%) PCI DSS
16 6 (0.40%) ISO 31000
16 6 (0.40%) ISO/IEC 27005
System Software
1 172 (11.39%) Active Directory
2 76 (5.03%) VMware Infrastructure
3 31 (2.05%) Hyper-V
4 24 (1.59%) VMware ESXi
5 21 (1.39%) Docker
6 17 (1.13%) Virtual Desktop
6 17 (1.13%) VMware NSX
7 16 (1.06%) BitLocker
8 15 (0.99%) vSphere
9 12 (0.79%) vCloud
10 6 (0.40%) IAG
10 6 (0.40%) Virtual Servers
11 5 (0.33%) Oracle RAC
11 5 (0.33%) Virtual Machines
12 4 (0.26%) Citrix Hypervisor
12 4 (0.26%) NFS
12 4 (0.26%) XenApp
12 4 (0.26%) XenDesktop
13 3 (0.20%) Firmware
13 3 (0.20%) Microsoft Virtual Server
Systems Management
1 85 (5.63%) Microsoft Intune
2 72 (4.77%) SCCM
3 45 (2.98%) Ansible
4 23 (1.52%) Kubernetes
5 20 (1.32%) SCOM
5 20 (1.32%) Single Sign-On
6 15 (0.99%) vCenter Server
7 11 (0.73%) Jamf Pro
8 10 (0.66%) WSUS
9 8 (0.53%) Data Guard
9 8 (0.53%) Oracle RMAN
10 6 (0.40%) Grafana
11 5 (0.33%) NetBackup
12 4 (0.26%) PowerCLI
12 4 (0.26%) Progress Chef
12 4 (0.26%) Prometheus
12 4 (0.26%) Puppet
12 4 (0.26%) vMotion
13 3 (0.20%) Cisco Prime
13 3 (0.20%) Systems Management Server (SMS)
Vendors
1 426 (28.21%) ServiceNow
2 351 (23.25%) Microsoft
3 106 (7.02%) VMware
4 62 (4.11%) Remedy
5 54 (3.58%) Cisco
6 50 (3.31%) BMC
7 46 (3.05%) Oracle
8 35 (2.32%) Atlassian
9 33 (2.19%) SAP
10 27 (1.79%) Splunk
11 24 (1.59%) Dynatrace
12 21 (1.39%) Citrix
12 21 (1.39%) Salesforce
13 20 (1.32%) CyberArk
14 19 (1.26%) Apple
14 19 (1.26%) IBM
14 19 (1.26%) Zscaler
15 18 (1.19%) IFS
16 17 (1.13%) Google
17 16 (1.06%) SolarWinds