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

6 months to
21 Apr 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 105 84 76
Rank change year-on-year -21 -8 +8
Contract jobs citing Service Management 1,084 848 1,175
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 2.34% 2.88% 2.71%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 2.76% 3.17% 3.13%
Number of daily rates quoted 729 533 785
10th Percentile £220 £233 £264
25th Percentile £394 £403 £425
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £513 £525 £525
Median % change year-on-year -2.38% - +5.00%
75th Percentile £613 £606 £608
90th Percentile £725 £699 £725
UK excluding London median daily rate £510 £525 £525
% change year-on-year -2.95% - +10.53%
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 £60.00 £22.14 £17.72
Median % change year-on-year +171.00% +24.94% -67.78%
75th Percentile £80.00 £30.68 £26.75
90th Percentile £97.50 £68.50 £57.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £60.00 £22.14 £17.72
% change year-on-year +171.00% +24.94% -65.76%

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 39,258 26,720 37,503
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 84.83% 90.74% 86.35%
Number of daily rates quoted 24,768 17,301 24,236
10th Percentile £318 £306 £300
25th Percentile £413 £413 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £521 £525
Median % change year-on-year -4.03% -0.76% -4.55%
75th Percentile £613 £630 £638
90th Percentile £725 £738 £750
UK excluding London median daily rate £485 £484 £500
% change year-on-year +0.31% -3.30% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 2,351 1,041 2,413
10th Percentile £14.96 £14.84 £12.75
25th Percentile £19.80 £18.51 £16.00
Median hourly rate £37.50 £30.00 £35.00
Median % change year-on-year +25.00% -14.29% -6.67%
75th Percentile £65.60 £62.50 £58.69
90th Percentile £77.50 £75.00 £71.89
UK excluding London median hourly rate £40.00 £29.00 £35.00
% change year-on-year +37.93% -17.14% -6.67%

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 21 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 21 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 21 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 -14 980 £520 -0.95% 381
UK excluding London -12 734 £510 -2.95% 347
London -52 265 £520 - 97
Work from Home -15 261 £500 - 151
South East +26 211 £510 +9.68% 92
North of England -4 177 £500 +5.26% 80
South West -14 169 £600 +9.09% 33
North West +5 103 £550 +5.26% 33
Midlands -27 96 £406 -24.42% 55
West Midlands -36 74 £406 -26.20% 37
Yorkshire -40 62 £472 +10.94% 39
East of England -16 48 £475 -13.64% 54
Scotland -36 31 £500 -1.04% 19
East Midlands -17 22 £405 +5.88% 18
North East -7 15 £420 +115.38% 8
Wales -9 3 £340 -25.48% 13
Northern Ireland - 3 £500 - 12

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 90 (8.30%) Confluence
2 48 (4.43%) Microsoft Exchange
3 34 (3.14%) SharePoint
4 9 (0.83%) Skype for Business
5 5 (0.46%) Mattermost
6 3 (0.28%) IIS
6 3 (0.28%) nginx
7 2 (0.18%) Apache
8 1 (0.092%) HCL Notes
8 1 (0.092%) JBoss
8 1 (0.092%) LiveCycle
8 1 (0.092%) OpenStack
8 1 (0.092%) Oracle SOA Suite
8 1 (0.092%) SharePoint Server
8 1 (0.092%) WebLogic
8 1 (0.092%) WebSphere
Applications
1 87 (8.03%) Microsoft Office
2 40 (3.69%) Microsoft Project
3 27 (2.49%) Microsoft Excel
4 13 (1.20%) Microsoft PowerPoint
5 7 (0.65%) MS Visio
6 4 (0.37%) PTC Creo
7 2 (0.18%) Chatbot
7 2 (0.18%) Spreadsheet
8 1 (0.092%) Camtasia
Business Applications
1 40 (3.69%) Remedy ITSM
2 12 (1.11%) SAP S/4HANA
3 11 (1.01%) Oracle EBS
4 7 (0.65%) Teamcenter
5 2 (0.18%) Oracle Applications
6 1 (0.092%) Dynamics NAV
6 1 (0.092%) NetSuite
6 1 (0.092%) Oracle ERP
6 1 (0.092%) Oracle Payables
6 1 (0.092%) Oracle Procure-to-Pay
6 1 (0.092%) Oracle Receivables
6 1 (0.092%) Oracle Subledger Accounting
6 1 (0.092%) Salesforce CRM
6 1 (0.092%) SAP ERP
6 1 (0.092%) SAP HR
6 1 (0.092%) SAP Payroll
6 1 (0.092%) SAP PM
6 1 (0.092%) SAP SM
6 1 (0.092%) SystmOne
6 1 (0.092%) Workday HCM
Cloud Services
1 148 (13.65%) Azure
2 96 (8.86%) Microsoft 365
3 82 (7.56%) AWS
4 47 (4.34%) Power Platform
4 47 (4.34%) SaaS
5 42 (3.87%) GCP
6 39 (3.60%) Entra ID
7 25 (2.31%) Azure DevOps
8 19 (1.75%) GitHub
9 18 (1.66%) PaaS
10 16 (1.48%) IaaS
11 14 (1.29%) OneDrive
12 12 (1.11%) AWS Lambda
12 12 (1.11%) OCI
12 12 (1.11%) Serverless
13 10 (0.92%) Amazon CloudWatch
14 8 (0.74%) Dynamics 365
14 8 (0.74%) Google Workspace
14 8 (0.74%) OpenShift
15 7 (0.65%) Amazon S3
Communications & Networking
1 68 (6.27%) Firewall
2 56 (5.17%) DNS
3 40 (3.69%) VPN
3 40 (3.69%) WAN
4 38 (3.51%) LAN
5 33 (3.04%) Network Security
6 30 (2.77%) DHCP
7 24 (2.21%) TCP/IP
8 20 (1.85%) VLAN
9 19 (1.75%) BGP
10 16 (1.48%) Wi-Fi
11 13 (1.20%) Cisco ISE
11 13 (1.20%) OSPF
11 13 (1.20%) SD-WAN
12 12 (1.11%) BIG-IP
13 11 (1.01%) Skype
13 11 (1.01%) WebEx
13 11 (1.01%) Wireless
14 10 (0.92%) Junos
15 8 (0.74%) Ethernet VPN
Database & Business Intelligence
1 37 (3.41%) Power BI
2 13 (1.20%) SQL Server
3 8 (0.74%) Relational Database
4 6 (0.55%) Oracle Reports
4 6 (0.55%) PostgreSQL
5 4 (0.37%) Amazon RDS
5 4 (0.37%) Elasticsearch
5 4 (0.37%) InfluxDB
6 3 (0.28%) Azure SQL Database
6 3 (0.28%) Metadata
6 3 (0.28%) Oracle Database
6 3 (0.28%) Oracle Database 11g
6 3 (0.28%) SQL Server Integration Services
6 3 (0.28%) SQL Server Reporting Services
6 3 (0.28%) Tableau
7 2 (0.18%) Amazon Redshift
7 2 (0.18%) Big Data
7 2 (0.18%) GIS
7 2 (0.18%) SQL Server Analysis Services
8 1 (0.092%) Electronic Patient Records
Development Applications
1 150 (13.84%) JIRA
2 16 (1.48%) GitLab
2 16 (1.48%) Jenkins
3 15 (1.38%) Bitbucket
4 13 (1.20%) Git
5 7 (0.65%) ScriptRunner
6 6 (0.55%) Atlassian Bamboo
7 4 (0.37%) MLflow
8 3 (0.28%) Hudson
8 3 (0.28%) IntelliJ
8 3 (0.28%) Selenium
8 3 (0.28%) TestRail
9 2 (0.18%) Browser DevTools
9 2 (0.18%) Cypress.io
9 2 (0.18%) Fiddler
10 1 (0.092%) Artifactory
10 1 (0.092%) Postman
10 1 (0.092%) Protractor
10 1 (0.092%) Sonatype Nexus
10 1 (0.092%) Visual Studio Code
General
1 381 (35.15%) Social Skills
2 165 (15.22%) Finance
3 163 (15.04%) Analytical Skills
4 111 (10.24%) Public Sector
5 65 (6.00%) Legal
6 47 (4.34%) Military
7 38 (3.51%) Banking
8 32 (2.95%) Organisational Skills
9 30 (2.77%) Documentation Skills
10 25 (2.31%) Telecoms
11 24 (2.21%) Influencing Skills
12 20 (1.85%) Retail
13 13 (1.20%) Inclusion and Diversity
14 12 (1.11%) Aerospace
15 10 (0.92%) Investment Banking
15 10 (0.92%) Manufacturing
16 8 (0.74%) Front Office
16 8 (0.74%) Local Government
17 7 (0.65%) Law
17 7 (0.65%) Police
Job Titles
1 132 (12.18%) Analyst
2 124 (11.44%) Architect
3 110 (10.15%) Service Manager
4 109 (10.06%) Lead
5 76 (7.01%) Senior
6 65 (6.00%) Consultant
7 59 (5.44%) Service Architect
8 58 (5.35%) IT Manager
9 52 (4.80%) Service Analyst
10 41 (3.78%) Project Manager
11 36 (3.32%) Hardware Engineer
11 36 (3.32%) IT Analyst
12 35 (3.23%) Delivery Manager
13 32 (2.95%) Support Engineer
14 30 (2.77%) Administrator
14 30 (2.77%) IT Services Manager
15 29 (2.68%) IT Support
16 27 (2.49%) Service Delivery Manager
17 26 (2.40%) Developer
17 26 (2.40%) Network Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 44 (4.06%) REST
2 19 (1.75%) SOAP
3 11 (1.01%) XMPP
4 9 (0.83%) 802.1X
5 8 (0.74%) Middleware
6 7 (0.65%) Oracle Fusion
7 6 (0.55%) JSON
7 6 (0.55%) OAuth
8 5 (0.46%) .NET
8 5 (0.46%) CSS
8 5 (0.46%) Elastic Stack
8 5 (0.46%) HTML
9 4 (0.37%) AngularJS
9 4 (0.37%) LDAP
9 4 (0.37%) Lightning Web Components
9 4 (0.37%) Microsoft Graph
9 4 (0.37%) RabbitMQ
9 4 (0.37%) Web Services
10 3 (0.28%) OpenID
10 3 (0.28%) SAML
Miscellaneous
1 97 (8.95%) Product Ownership
2 70 (6.46%) CMDB
3 68 (6.27%) Onboarding
4 44 (4.06%) Data Centre
5 31 (2.86%) Management Information System
6 28 (2.58%) Virtual Team
7 22 (2.03%) PKI
8 20 (1.85%) Driving Licence
9 16 (1.48%) Clustering
10 15 (1.38%) Enterprise Software
10 15 (1.38%) PMI
11 14 (1.29%) Analytical Mindset
12 13 (1.20%) Data Protection Act
13 12 (1.11%) Self-Motivation
14 9 (0.83%) Cloud Native
15 8 (0.74%) Operational Technology
15 8 (0.74%) Replication
16 7 (0.65%) Algorithms
16 7 (0.65%) Hybrid Cloud
16 7 (0.65%) Legacy Systems
Operating Systems
1 187 (17.25%) Windows
2 67 (6.18%) Linux
3 55 (5.07%) Windows Server
4 43 (3.97%) Windows 10
5 17 (1.57%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
6 12 (1.11%) Mac OS
7 11 (1.01%) Unix
7 11 (1.01%) Windows 7
8 8 (0.74%) Android
8 8 (0.74%) Apple iOS
9 7 (0.65%) Ubuntu
10 6 (0.55%) Windows Server 2012
11 4 (0.37%) VMS
12 3 (0.28%) Windows Server 2019
13 2 (0.18%) CentOS
13 2 (0.18%) Solaris
13 2 (0.18%) Windows Server 2003
13 2 (0.18%) Windows Server 2016
14 1 (0.092%) Data ONTAP
14 1 (0.092%) Windows XP
Processes & Methodologies
1 593 (54.70%) ITIL
2 472 (43.54%) ITSM
3 237 (21.86%) Agile
4 225 (20.76%) Continuous Improvement
5 220 (20.30%) Stakeholder Management
6 208 (19.19%) Problem-Solving
7 179 (16.51%) Service Delivery
8 153 (14.11%) Change Management
9 148 (13.65%) Stakeholder Engagement
10 125 (11.53%) DevOps
11 106 (9.78%) Customer Service
12 104 (9.59%) Service Design
13 88 (8.12%) Problem Management
14 83 (7.66%) Incident Management
15 78 (7.20%) Acceptance Criteria
15 78 (7.20%) Configuration Management
16 77 (7.10%) Project Management
17 72 (6.64%) Roadmaps
18 71 (6.55%) Knowledge Transfer
19 66 (6.09%) CI/CD
Programming Languages
1 89 (8.21%) PowerShell
2 52 (4.80%) Python
3 51 (4.70%) SQL
4 30 (2.77%) JavaScript
5 20 (1.85%) Bash
6 15 (1.38%) Java
7 9 (0.83%) Perl
7 9 (0.83%) VB
7 9 (0.83%) VBScript
8 8 (0.74%) PL/SQL
9 6 (0.55%) Kotlin
10 5 (0.46%) Apex Code
10 5 (0.46%) C#
10 5 (0.46%) Shell Script
11 4 (0.37%) Go
11 4 (0.37%) Groovy
12 3 (0.28%) C
12 3 (0.28%) T-SQL
13 2 (0.18%) Bicep
13 2 (0.18%) PHP
Qualifications
1 457 (42.16%) Security Cleared
2 355 (32.75%) SC Cleared
3 132 (12.18%) Degree
4 122 (11.25%) DV Cleared
5 52 (4.80%) ITIL Certification
6 34 (3.14%) PMI Certification
7 32 (2.95%) PMP
8 30 (2.77%) TOGAF Certification
9 27 (2.49%) Cisco Certification
10 23 (2.12%) BPSS Clearance
11 22 (2.03%) Microsoft Certification
12 20 (1.85%) Computer Science Degree
13 16 (1.48%) CCNP
14 15 (1.38%) CCNA
15 14 (1.29%) A+ Certification
16 11 (1.01%) Master's Degree
17 10 (0.92%) ITIL Foundation Certificate
18 9 (0.83%) JNCIA
18 9 (0.83%) JNCIS
18 9 (0.83%) MAPM
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 56 (5.17%) SLA
2 32 (2.95%) ISO/IEC 27001
3 31 (2.86%) Data Quality
4 23 (2.12%) PMO
5 22 (2.03%) GDPR
5 22 (2.03%) QA
6 16 (1.48%) ISO/IEC 20000
7 15 (1.38%) GRC
8 14 (1.29%) COBIT
9 12 (1.11%) NCSC
10 9 (0.83%) Accessibility
10 9 (0.83%) NIST
11 7 (0.65%) Cyber Essentials
11 7 (0.65%) Government Security Classifications
11 7 (0.65%) Sarbanes-Oxley
12 6 (0.55%) ISO 9001
12 6 (0.55%) PCI DSS
13 5 (0.46%) Disclosure Scotland
13 5 (0.46%) ISO 31000
13 5 (0.46%) ISO/IEC 27005
System Software
1 108 (9.96%) Active Directory
2 35 (3.23%) VMware Infrastructure
3 17 (1.57%) Docker
4 9 (0.83%) BitLocker
5 6 (0.55%) Hyper-V
6 4 (0.37%) Virtual Desktop
6 4 (0.37%) Virtual Machines
6 4 (0.37%) VMware NSX
7 3 (0.28%) VMware ESXi
8 2 (0.18%) IAG
8 2 (0.18%) NFS
8 2 (0.18%) Slurm Workload Manager
9 1 (0.092%) iptables
9 1 (0.092%) Microsoft Virtual Server
9 1 (0.092%) NDS
9 1 (0.092%) NetIQ eDirectory
9 1 (0.092%) Oracle RAC
9 1 (0.092%) Samba
9 1 (0.092%) Virtual Servers
Systems Management
1 36 (3.32%) SCCM
2 30 (2.77%) OPNET
3 28 (2.58%) Ansible
4 27 (2.49%) Terraform
5 24 (2.21%) Kubernetes
5 24 (2.21%) Microsoft Intune
6 12 (1.11%) FortiGate
7 11 (1.01%) WSUS
8 10 (0.92%) Grafana
9 8 (0.74%) Jamf Pro
10 7 (0.65%) Progress Chef
10 7 (0.65%) Prometheus
11 6 (0.55%) Active Directory Federation Services
12 5 (0.46%) Puppet
12 5 (0.46%) Single Sign-On
12 5 (0.46%) vCenter Server
13 4 (0.37%) Nessus
13 4 (0.37%) Packer
13 4 (0.37%) SCOM
14 3 (0.28%) Oracle RMAN
Vendors
1 282 (26.01%) ServiceNow
2 174 (16.05%) Microsoft
3 76 (7.01%) Remedy
4 70 (6.46%) Atlassian
5 54 (4.98%) VMware
6 53 (4.89%) Cisco
7 44 (4.06%) Oracle
8 39 (3.60%) HP
9 30 (2.77%) Google
10 26 (2.40%) SAP
11 25 (2.31%) Splunk
12 23 (2.12%) Citrix
13 20 (1.85%) IFS
14 19 (1.75%) Dell
14 19 (1.75%) Red Hat
15 17 (1.57%) Salesforce
15 17 (1.57%) SolarWinds
16 16 (1.48%) BMC
17 15 (1.38%) Canon
18 13 (1.20%) Palo Alto