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 1 November 2025, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
1 Nov 2025
Same period 2024 Same period 2023
Rank 90 98 84
Rank change year-on-year +8 -14 +17
Contract jobs citing Service Management 1,000 875 1,263
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 2.91% 2.39% 2.68%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 3.23% 2.78% 3.02%
Number of daily rates quoted 626 545 919
10th Percentile £189 £213 £255
25th Percentile £343 £370 £400
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £515 £525
Median % change year-on-year -2.91% -1.90% +1.45%
75th Percentile £575 £608 £615
90th Percentile £643 £687 £725
UK excluding London median daily rate £500 £500 £510
% change year-on-year - -1.96% +2.05%
Number of hourly rates quoted 100 21 15
10th Percentile £12.62 £21.05 £20.20
25th Percentile £15.65 £25.75 £20.88
Median hourly rate £20.79 £36.00 £35.25
Median % change year-on-year -42.25% +2.13% +65.88%
75th Percentile £33.75 £50.00 £70.00
90th Percentile £60.25 £67.50 £76.55
UK excluding London median hourly rate £20.79 £45.00 £21.31
% change year-on-year -53.80% +111.17% +0.28%

All Process and 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 30,971 31,497 41,801
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 90.22% 86.11% 88.62%
Number of daily rates quoted 19,341 18,959 28,266
10th Percentile £299 £310 £310
25th Percentile £404 £413 £425
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £525 £538
Median % change year-on-year -4.76% -2.33% -2.27%
75th Percentile £619 £638 £650
90th Percentile £725 £738 £745
UK excluding London median daily rate £475 £500 £500
% change year-on-year -5.00% - -
Number of hourly rates quoted 2,001 1,124 1,597
10th Percentile £14.38 £15.00 £14.25
25th Percentile £17.33 £20.09 £18.93
Median hourly rate £25.15 £36.08 £43.90
Median % change year-on-year -30.30% -17.81% +25.43%
75th Percentile £43.00 £65.00 £65.00
90th Percentile £67.00 £73.75 £77.50
UK excluding London median hourly rate £22.50 £35.00 £43.33
% change year-on-year -35.71% -19.22% +49.93%

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 1 November 2025.

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 1 November 2025.

Hourly rate histogram for Service Management in the UK

Service Management
Top 18 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 1 November 2025. 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 +12 877 £500 -2.91% 397
UK excluding London +19 690 £500 - 345
Work from Home -3 275 £500 -9.09% 170
London -49 225 £500 -1.96% 114
North of England +11 199 £456 +1.39% 51
South East +13 151 £475 -8.21% 133
North West +26 127 £463 +15.63% 28
South West +19 127 £550 +0.92% 56
Midlands +34 116 £515 -5.64% 63
West Midlands +15 90 £525 -8.02% 42
Yorkshire -11 62 £375 -26.47% 14
Scotland +5 48 £463 +2.78% 9
East of England -3 39 £516 -1.81% 31
East Midlands +2 26 £431 -16.00% 21
North East -5 13 £550 -4.35% 9
Wales -10 8 £230 +2.83% 9
Northern Ireland -5 4 £150 -72.73% 2
Channel Islands - 3 £725 -

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 66 (6.60%) Microsoft Exchange
2 61 (6.10%) SharePoint
3 58 (5.80%) Confluence
4 22 (2.20%) Apache
5 15 (1.50%) WebLogic
6 7 (0.70%) IIS
6 7 (0.70%) Skype for Business
6 7 (0.70%) WebSphere
7 5 (0.50%) SharePoint Server
8 2 (0.20%) Apache Solr
8 2 (0.20%) JBoss
9 1 (0.10%) CMS
9 1 (0.10%) Exchange Server 2010
9 1 (0.10%) Exchange Server 2013
9 1 (0.10%) Oracle Self-Service HR
9 1 (0.10%) Oracle Workflow
9 1 (0.10%) SAS
9 1 (0.10%) Umbraco
Applications
1 80 (8.00%) Microsoft Office
2 35 (3.50%) Microsoft Excel
3 15 (1.50%) Microsoft PowerPoint
3 15 (1.50%) MS Visio
4 6 (0.60%) Microsoft Project
5 4 (0.40%) Autodesk Inventor
6 1 (0.10%) Chatbot
6 1 (0.10%) Spreadsheet
6 1 (0.10%) Trello
Business Applications
1 27 (2.70%) Remedy ITSM
2 11 (1.10%) SAP S/4HANA
3 8 (0.80%) Oracle ERP
4 7 (0.70%) assyst
4 7 (0.70%) Dynamics CRM
4 7 (0.70%) Maximo
5 6 (0.60%) Salesforce CRM
6 5 (0.50%) Oracle EBS
7 4 (0.40%) Workday HCM
8 2 (0.20%) ResourceLink
8 2 (0.20%) SAP ERP
9 1 (0.10%) Cloudability
9 1 (0.10%) Integrated Workplace Management System
9 1 (0.10%) SAP HR
9 1 (0.10%) SAP LE
9 1 (0.10%) SAP PM
9 1 (0.10%) SAP SM
9 1 (0.10%) SAP WM
9 1 (0.10%) SystmOne
Cloud Services
1 150 (15.00%) Azure
2 110 (11.00%) Microsoft 365
3 88 (8.80%) AWS
4 41 (4.10%) Entra ID
5 34 (3.40%) Power Platform
6 30 (3.00%) Azure DevOps
7 25 (2.50%) OneDrive
8 20 (2.00%) Azure Monitor
9 17 (1.70%) SaaS
10 14 (1.40%) GCP
11 12 (1.20%) PowerApps
12 8 (0.80%) Nutanix
13 7 (0.70%) Dynamics 365
13 7 (0.70%) GitHub
13 7 (0.70%) Power Automate
14 6 (0.60%) Serverless
15 5 (0.50%) Google Workspace
15 5 (0.50%) Lucidchart
15 5 (0.50%) PaaS
15 5 (0.50%) Salesforce Service Cloud
Communications & Networking
1 74 (7.40%) Firewall
2 59 (5.90%) DNS
3 35 (3.50%) DHCP
4 32 (3.20%) WAN
5 29 (2.90%) LAN
6 28 (2.80%) VPN
7 24 (2.40%) TCP/IP
8 19 (1.90%) VLAN
9 18 (1.80%) Cisco IOS
10 17 (1.70%) Cisco Firepower
10 17 (1.70%) Cisco ISE
10 17 (1.70%) Junos
11 16 (1.60%) Network Security
11 16 (1.60%) Skype
12 15 (1.50%) BGP
13 14 (1.40%) SSH
14 12 (1.20%) Unified Communications
14 12 (1.20%) Wi-Fi
14 12 (1.20%) Wireless
15 11 (1.10%) HTTP
Database & Business Intelligence
1 27 (2.70%) Power BI
2 21 (2.10%) SQL Server
3 16 (1.60%) Relational Database
4 12 (1.20%) Amazon RDS
5 9 (0.90%) DB2
6 8 (0.80%) PostgreSQL
7 7 (0.70%) MySQL
7 7 (0.70%) Oracle Reports
8 5 (0.50%) Amazon Aurora
9 4 (0.40%) Data Mining
9 4 (0.40%) Metadata
9 4 (0.40%) Tableau
10 3 (0.30%) Big Data
10 3 (0.30%) MariaDB
10 3 (0.30%) Pentaho
10 3 (0.30%) SQL Server Integration Services
11 2 (0.20%) Azure SQL Database
11 2 (0.20%) Elasticsearch
11 2 (0.20%) Oracle Database
11 2 (0.20%) SQL Server Reporting Services
Development Applications
1 119 (11.90%) JIRA
2 17 (1.70%) Jenkins
3 11 (1.10%) Git
4 7 (0.70%) webpack
5 5 (0.50%) Bitbucket
6 3 (0.30%) GitLab
6 3 (0.30%) ScriptRunner
7 2 (0.20%) SonarQube
7 2 (0.20%) Storybook
8 1 (0.10%) Cucumber
8 1 (0.10%) MLflow
8 1 (0.10%) Selenium
8 1 (0.10%) SoapUI
8 1 (0.10%) WebDriver
8 1 (0.10%) Zephyr
General
1 382 (38.20%) Social Skills
2 175 (17.50%) Analytical Skills
3 139 (13.90%) Finance
4 134 (13.40%) Public Sector
5 45 (4.50%) Telecoms
6 34 (3.40%) Influencing Skills
7 32 (3.20%) Manufacturing
8 27 (2.70%) Inclusion and Diversity
8 27 (2.70%) Legal
9 26 (2.60%) Banking
10 25 (2.50%) Documentation Skills
10 25 (2.50%) Military
10 25 (2.50%) Presentation Skills
11 23 (2.30%) Organisational Skills
12 19 (1.90%) Marketing
12 19 (1.90%) Retail
13 14 (1.40%) Electronics
14 12 (1.20%) Police
15 9 (0.90%) Investment Banking
16 8 (0.80%) Local Government
Job Titles
1 164 (16.40%) Analyst
2 92 (9.20%) Architect
3 81 (8.10%) Lead
4 78 (7.80%) Service Manager
5 73 (7.30%) Support Engineer
6 59 (5.90%) Support Analyst
7 56 (5.60%) IT Support
8 50 (5.00%) Consultant
9 48 (4.80%) Desktop Support
10 45 (4.50%) Senior
11 43 (4.30%) Network Engineer
12 39 (3.90%) Service Analyst
13 36 (3.60%) 2nd Line Support
13 36 (3.60%) Service Architect
14 35 (3.50%) Developer
14 35 (3.50%) IT Analyst
15 34 (3.40%) IT Manager
16 31 (3.10%) Delivery Manager
17 29 (2.90%) Business Analyst
17 29 (2.90%) Service Delivery Manager
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 32 (3.20%) REST
2 25 (2.50%) Web Services
3 24 (2.40%) SOAP
4 23 (2.30%) RFC 2544
5 15 (1.50%) CSS
5 15 (1.50%) HTML
6 14 (1.40%) .NET
7 12 (1.20%) React
7 12 (1.20%) RESTful
8 9 (0.90%) LDAP
8 9 (0.90%) Node.js
8 9 (0.90%) XML
9 8 (0.80%) AngularJS
9 8 (0.80%) NETCONF
10 7 (0.70%) CSS3
10 7 (0.70%) HTML5
10 7 (0.70%) Lightning Web Components
10 7 (0.70%) Redux
10 7 (0.70%) RESTCONF
11 6 (0.60%) XMPP
Miscellaneous
1 55 (5.50%) Data Centre
2 47 (4.70%) Management Information System
3 43 (4.30%) CMDB
4 33 (3.30%) Product Ownership
5 28 (2.80%) Onboarding
5 28 (2.80%) PKI
6 23 (2.30%) Self-Motivation
7 20 (2.00%) Analytical Mindset
7 20 (2.00%) Virtual Team
8 16 (1.60%) Fibre Optics
9 13 (1.30%) NHS
10 12 (1.20%) iPhone
11 11 (1.10%) Driving Licence
12 10 (1.00%) Mainframe
12 10 (1.00%) Public Cloud
12 10 (1.00%) Video Conferencing
13 9 (0.90%) Data Protection Act
13 9 (0.90%) Enterprise Software
13 9 (0.90%) Smartphone
14 8 (0.80%) Tandem
Operating Systems
1 217 (21.70%) Windows
2 64 (6.40%) Linux
3 63 (6.30%) Windows Server
4 52 (5.20%) Windows 10
5 30 (3.00%) Unix
6 22 (2.20%) Mac OS
7 18 (1.80%) Apple iOS
8 12 (1.20%) Android
8 12 (1.20%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
9 6 (0.60%) Windows Server 2012
10 5 (0.50%) Windows Server 2003
10 5 (0.50%) Windows Server 2019
11 4 (0.40%) Windows Server 2008
11 4 (0.40%) Windows Server 2016
12 3 (0.30%) Solaris
12 3 (0.30%) VMS
12 3 (0.30%) Windows 7
13 2 (0.20%) CentOS
14 1 (0.10%) SUSE Linux Enterprise Server
14 1 (0.10%) Windows XP
Processes & Methodologies
1 542 (54.20%) ITIL
2 436 (43.60%) ITSM
3 209 (20.90%) Problem-Solving
4 170 (17.00%) Agile
5 157 (15.70%) Customer Service
6 155 (15.50%) Stakeholder Management
7 153 (15.30%) Change Management
8 148 (14.80%) Service Delivery
9 136 (13.60%) Continuous Improvement
10 116 (11.60%) Stakeholder Engagement
11 104 (10.40%) Service Design
12 94 (9.40%) Incident Management
13 93 (9.30%) DevOps
14 89 (8.90%) Project Delivery
15 87 (8.70%) Project Management
16 71 (7.10%) Problem Management
17 66 (6.60%) Business Intelligence
18 64 (6.40%) Analytics
19 59 (5.90%) Migration
20 52 (5.20%) Configuration Management
Programming Languages
1 74 (7.40%) SQL
2 71 (7.10%) Python
3 63 (6.30%) PowerShell
4 36 (3.60%) JavaScript
5 18 (1.80%) Java
6 16 (1.60%) Bash
7 15 (1.50%) Perl
8 12 (1.20%) Shell Script
9 11 (1.10%) TypeScript
10 5 (0.50%) C#
11 3 (0.30%) Bicep
12 2 (0.20%) ActionScript
12 2 (0.20%) ActionScript 2.0
12 2 (0.20%) Apex Code
12 2 (0.20%) Groovy
12 2 (0.20%) VB
12 2 (0.20%) VBScript
13 1 (0.10%) HiveQL
13 1 (0.10%) PL/SQL
13 1 (0.10%) VBA
Qualifications
1 362 (36.20%) Security Cleared
2 288 (28.80%) SC Cleared
3 113 (11.30%) Degree
4 61 (6.10%) ITIL Certification
5 54 (5.40%) DV Cleared
6 42 (4.20%) Microsoft Certification
7 32 (3.20%) Cisco Certification
8 27 (2.70%) CCNP
9 23 (2.30%) BPSS Clearance
10 20 (2.00%) A+ Certification
10 20 (2.00%) Azure Certification
10 20 (2.00%) Computer Science Degree
11 15 (1.50%) CCNA
12 14 (1.40%) Server+ Certification
13 13 (1.30%) ITIL Foundation Certificate
13 13 (1.30%) MCSE
14 11 (1.10%) Network+ Certification
15 9 (0.90%) PMI Certification
15 9 (0.90%) PMP
16 6 (0.60%) HNC
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 66 (6.60%) SLA
2 32 (3.20%) ISO/IEC 20000
3 26 (2.60%) GDPR
4 25 (2.50%) QA
5 12 (1.20%) ISO/IEC 27001
6 11 (1.10%) Sarbanes-Oxley
7 10 (1.00%) Data Quality
8 9 (0.90%) Accessibility
8 9 (0.90%) COBIT
9 8 (0.80%) NCSC
10 7 (0.70%) Disclosure Scotland
10 7 (0.70%) GRC
10 7 (0.70%) GxP
10 7 (0.70%) PMO
11 6 (0.60%) HIPAA
11 6 (0.60%) ISO 9001
12 4 (0.40%) Actionable Recommendations
13 2 (0.20%) Cyber Essentials
13 2 (0.20%) NIST
13 2 (0.20%) WCAG
System Software
1 124 (12.40%) Active Directory
2 46 (4.60%) VMware Infrastructure
3 21 (2.10%) VMware NSX
4 16 (1.60%) Hyper-V
5 14 (1.40%) Virtual Desktop
6 13 (1.30%) Docker
6 13 (1.30%) VMware ESXi
7 6 (0.60%) Virtual Servers
8 5 (0.50%) Microsoft Virtual Server
9 4 (0.40%) NDS
9 4 (0.40%) NetIQ eDirectory
10 3 (0.30%) Virtual Machines
10 3 (0.30%) vSphere
11 2 (0.20%) BitLocker
12 1 (0.10%) Btrfs
12 1 (0.10%) Slurm Workload Manager
12 1 (0.10%) Terminal Services
Systems Management
1 25 (2.50%) vCenter Server
2 22 (2.20%) Microsoft Intune
3 21 (2.10%) Ansible
4 19 (1.90%) SCCM
5 16 (1.60%) Kubernetes
6 15 (1.50%) Terraform
7 11 (1.10%) Active Directory Federation Services
7 11 (1.10%) Single Sign-On
8 10 (1.00%) Jamf Pro
8 10 (1.00%) WSUS
9 5 (0.50%) NSN NetAct
10 4 (0.40%) Grafana
10 4 (0.40%) OpenView
11 3 (0.30%) Check_MK
11 3 (0.30%) FortiGate
11 3 (0.30%) Prometheus
11 3 (0.30%) SCOM
12 2 (0.20%) HP ALM
12 2 (0.20%) OPNET
13 1 (0.10%) NetBackup
Vendors
1 240 (24.00%) ServiceNow
2 216 (21.60%) Microsoft
3 111 (11.10%) Cisco
4 56 (5.60%) Oracle
5 55 (5.50%) VMware
6 42 (4.20%) SAP
7 38 (3.80%) Splunk
8 36 (3.60%) Atlassian
9 34 (3.40%) Remedy
10 30 (3.00%) SolarWinds
11 25 (2.50%) Juniper
12 20 (2.00%) Dynatrace
12 20 (2.00%) IBM
13 19 (1.90%) AppDynamics
13 19 (1.90%) Salesforce
14 18 (1.80%) Google
15 13 (1.30%) Apple
15 13 (1.30%) IFS
15 13 (1.30%) Red Hat
16 12 (1.20%) Veeam