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

6 months to
13 Aug 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 97 82 91
Rank change year-on-year -15 +9 -8
Contract jobs citing Service Management 1,416 974 947
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 2.65% 2.96% 2.43%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 3.13% 3.27% 2.84%
Number of daily rates quoted 925 594 661
10th Percentile £263 £210 £250
25th Percentile £413 £350 £418
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £490 £525
Median % change year-on-year +7.20% -6.71% +1.45%
75th Percentile £613 £575 £608
90th Percentile £725 £675 £688
UK excluding London median daily rate £520 £493 £525
% change year-on-year +5.48% -6.10% +10.53%
Number of hourly rates quoted 83 73 18
10th Percentile £14.50 - £17.50
25th Percentile £19.82 £12.62 £19.44
Median hourly rate £55.00 £18.73 £27.50
Median % change year-on-year +193.65% -31.89% -34.33%
75th Percentile £85.13 £22.14 £48.75
90th Percentile £92.52 £44.75 £54.13
UK excluding London median hourly rate £55.00 £18.00 £27.50
% change year-on-year +205.56% -34.55% +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 45,250 29,801 33,299
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 84.81% 90.48% 85.50%
Number of daily rates quoted 27,843 18,616 21,279
10th Percentile £325 £300 £310
25th Percentile £423 £404 £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 2,819 1,703 1,838
10th Percentile £14.22 £14.20 £14.05
25th Percentile £18.75 £17.31 £18.50
Median hourly rate £42.50 £25.15 £41.50
Median % change year-on-year +68.99% -39.40% -1.55%
75th Percentile £68.00 £47.81 £65.00
90th Percentile £81.38 £68.00 £75.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £43.96 £22.74 £42.50
% change year-on-year +93.36% -46.51% +13.33%

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 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 13 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 13 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 -14 1,236 £525 +5.00% 966
UK excluding London -21 838 £520 +5.48% 693
London +16 446 £525 +5.00% 372
Work from Home +8 404 £520 +4.00% 423
South East +24 286 £565 +13.00% 227
North of England -31 214 £450 +0.33% 162
North West -28 126 £480 +3.11% 92
South West -26 122 £544 +2.11% 72
Midlands -44 100 £500 +3.09% 98
West Midlands -31 93 £500 -1.96% 58
Yorkshire -26 83 £443 +24.79% 52
Scotland -6 65 £500 +1.42% 42
East of England -24 39 £525 -4.55% 64
Wales -7 12 £800 +247.83% 14
Northern Ireland +14 8 - - 22
East Midlands -26 7 £450 +50.00% 40
North East -43 5 £440 +125.64% 22

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 96 (6.78%) SharePoint
2 60 (4.24%) Confluence
3 52 (3.67%) Microsoft Exchange
4 15 (1.06%) Skype for Business
5 6 (0.42%) Mattermost
5 6 (0.42%) OpenStack
6 3 (0.21%) CMS
6 3 (0.21%) IIS
7 2 (0.14%) Apache
8 1 (0.071%) CICS
8 1 (0.071%) Exchange Server 2010
8 1 (0.071%) HCL Notes
8 1 (0.071%) JBoss
8 1 (0.071%) Oracle Collaboration Suite
8 1 (0.071%) Palantir Foundry
Applications
1 77 (5.44%) Microsoft Office
2 29 (2.05%) Microsoft Excel
3 16 (1.13%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 15 (1.06%) MS Visio
5 9 (0.64%) Microsoft Project
6 8 (0.56%) Chatbot
7 1 (0.071%) Camtasia
7 1 (0.071%) Maple
Business Applications
1 61 (4.31%) Remedy ITSM
2 12 (0.85%) SAP S/4HANA
3 7 (0.49%) Primavera
4 5 (0.35%) ContrOCC
4 5 (0.35%) NEC Housing
5 3 (0.21%) Oracle ERP
5 3 (0.21%) SAP CO
5 3 (0.21%) SAP FI
5 3 (0.21%) SAP FI/CO
5 3 (0.21%) SAP SM
5 3 (0.21%) Teamcenter
6 2 (0.14%) Oracle Applications
6 2 (0.14%) Oracle EBS
6 2 (0.14%) Remedy AR System
6 2 (0.14%) SAP PS
7 1 (0.071%) Dynamics CRM
7 1 (0.071%) Misys Equation
7 1 (0.071%) Misys Midas
7 1 (0.071%) SAP HR
7 1 (0.071%) SAP Payroll
Cloud Services
1 242 (17.09%) Azure
2 178 (12.57%) Microsoft 365
3 103 (7.27%) AWS
4 98 (6.92%) Entra ID
5 65 (4.59%) Power Platform
6 59 (4.17%) SaaS
7 49 (3.46%) OneDrive
8 32 (2.26%) Azure DevOps
8 32 (2.26%) GCP
9 20 (1.41%) GitHub
10 19 (1.34%) Microsoft Copilot
11 17 (1.20%) OCI
12 14 (0.99%) Azure Monitor
13 13 (0.92%) PaaS
14 10 (0.71%) Google Workspace
14 10 (0.71%) IaaS
15 9 (0.64%) Amazon S3
16 8 (0.56%) Amazon EC2
16 8 (0.56%) Azure AKS
17 7 (0.49%) Rubrik
Communications & Networking
1 83 (5.86%) Firewall
2 71 (5.01%) DNS
3 48 (3.39%) DHCP
4 47 (3.32%) VPN
5 45 (3.18%) WAN
6 44 (3.11%) TCP/IP
7 39 (2.75%) LAN
7 39 (2.75%) Network Security
8 19 (1.34%) BGP
8 19 (1.34%) Wireless
9 16 (1.13%) Wi-Fi
10 15 (1.06%) OSPF
10 15 (1.06%) Skype
11 14 (0.99%) SD-WAN
11 14 (0.99%) VLAN
12 13 (0.92%) VXLAN
13 12 (0.85%) Cisco ISE
14 11 (0.78%) BIG-IP
15 10 (0.71%) Junos
15 10 (0.71%) SSH
Database & Business Intelligence
1 48 (3.39%) Power BI
2 26 (1.84%) SQL Server
3 8 (0.56%) Oracle Database
3 8 (0.56%) PostgreSQL
4 7 (0.49%) MySQL
4 7 (0.49%) SQL Server Integration Services
5 6 (0.42%) Oracle Database 11g
5 6 (0.42%) Oracle Reports
5 6 (0.42%) SQL Server Reporting Services
6 5 (0.35%) Amazon RDS
6 5 (0.35%) MariaDB
6 5 (0.35%) Relational Database
6 5 (0.35%) SQL Server Analysis Services
7 3 (0.21%) Amazon Aurora
7 3 (0.21%) Azure SQL Database
7 3 (0.21%) Metadata
8 2 (0.14%) Amazon Redshift
8 2 (0.14%) Looker
8 2 (0.14%) Microsoft Analysis Services
8 2 (0.14%) SQLite
Development Applications
1 146 (10.31%) JIRA
2 25 (1.77%) Git
2 25 (1.77%) Jenkins
3 23 (1.62%) Bitbucket
4 15 (1.06%) Atlassian Bamboo
5 12 (0.85%) GitLab
6 5 (0.35%) Browser DevTools
7 4 (0.28%) Maven
7 4 (0.28%) MLflow
7 4 (0.28%) Rational DOORS
7 4 (0.28%) ScriptRunner
7 4 (0.28%) webpack
8 3 (0.21%) Fiddler
8 3 (0.21%) Gradle
8 3 (0.21%) Hudson
8 3 (0.21%) IntelliJ
8 3 (0.21%) Sonatype Nexus
9 2 (0.14%) Firebug
10 1 (0.071%) Cucumber
10 1 (0.071%) MSI
General
1 538 (37.99%) Social Skills
2 230 (16.24%) Finance
3 214 (15.11%) Analytical Skills
4 160 (11.30%) Public Sector
5 66 (4.66%) Telecoms
6 50 (3.53%) Banking
7 49 (3.46%) Influencing Skills
8 47 (3.32%) Documentation Skills
8 47 (3.32%) Legal
9 43 (3.04%) Organisational Skills
10 30 (2.12%) Inclusion and Diversity
11 29 (2.05%) Military
12 24 (1.69%) Local Government
13 21 (1.48%) Presentation Skills
14 19 (1.34%) Aerospace
15 14 (0.99%) Retail
16 12 (0.85%) Financial Institution
16 12 (0.85%) Police
17 10 (0.71%) Manufacturing
18 8 (0.56%) Law
Job Titles
1 152 (10.73%) Analyst
2 135 (9.53%) Lead
3 134 (9.46%) Architect
4 117 (8.26%) Senior
5 107 (7.56%) Service Manager
6 99 (6.99%) Consultant
7 75 (5.30%) IT Manager
8 65 (4.59%) Project Manager
9 59 (4.17%) Support Engineer
10 55 (3.88%) Developer
11 54 (3.81%) Service Analyst
12 47 (3.32%) Delivery Manager
13 43 (3.04%) IT Support
14 41 (2.90%) ServiceNow Developer
14 41 (2.90%) Solutions Architect
15 37 (2.61%) Infrastructure Engineer
15 37 (2.61%) Service Architect
16 36 (2.54%) Transition Manager
17 35 (2.47%) Network Engineer
18 34 (2.40%) Business Analyst
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 78 (5.51%) REST
2 35 (2.47%) SOAP
3 18 (1.27%) HTML
4 17 (1.20%) CSS
5 15 (1.06%) Web Services
6 14 (0.99%) Middleware
7 11 (0.78%) XML
8 9 (0.64%) 802.1X
8 9 (0.64%) AngularJS
8 9 (0.64%) JSON
8 9 (0.64%) OAuth
8 9 (0.64%) SAML
9 8 (0.56%) Elastic Stack
10 6 (0.42%) ARM Templates
10 6 (0.42%) Node.js
11 5 (0.35%) .NET
11 5 (0.35%) OpenID
11 5 (0.35%) Oracle Fusion
11 5 (0.35%) RESTful
12 4 (0.28%) Bootstrap
Miscellaneous
1 145 (10.24%) Onboarding
2 110 (7.77%) CMDB
3 63 (4.45%) Product Ownership
4 57 (4.03%) Management Information System
5 45 (3.18%) Data Centre
6 41 (2.90%) Enterprise Software
7 36 (2.54%) PKI
8 26 (1.84%) Clustering
8 26 (1.84%) Operational Technology
8 26 (1.84%) Virtual Team
9 23 (1.62%) Hybrid Cloud
10 22 (1.55%) Data Protection Act
11 19 (1.34%) Cloud Native
12 16 (1.13%) AI Agents
13 15 (1.06%) Analytical Mindset
13 15 (1.06%) Self-Motivation
14 13 (0.92%) Video Conferencing
15 11 (0.78%) Greenfield Project
15 11 (0.78%) Security Operations Centre
16 10 (0.71%) Linux Command Line
Operating Systems
1 278 (19.63%) Windows
2 75 (5.30%) Linux
2 75 (5.30%) Windows Server
3 54 (3.81%) Windows 10
4 26 (1.84%) Mac OS
5 25 (1.77%) Apple iOS
6 20 (1.41%) Unix
6 20 (1.41%) Windows 7
7 14 (0.99%) Android
8 13 (0.92%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
9 6 (0.42%) Windows Server 2019
10 3 (0.21%) Ubuntu
10 3 (0.21%) VMS
10 3 (0.21%) Windows Server 2012
10 3 (0.21%) Windows Server 2016
11 2 (0.14%) Solaris
11 2 (0.14%) Windows XP
11 2 (0.14%) zOS
12 1 (0.071%) Rocky
12 1 (0.071%) Windows Server 2008
Processes & Methodologies
1 759 (53.60%) ITIL
2 656 (46.33%) ITSM
3 397 (28.04%) Stakeholder Management
4 365 (25.78%) Continuous Improvement
5 318 (22.46%) Service Delivery
6 300 (21.19%) Agile
7 288 (20.34%) Problem-Solving
8 222 (15.68%) Change Management
9 208 (14.69%) Stakeholder Engagement
10 162 (11.44%) DevOps
11 159 (11.23%) Customer Service
12 146 (10.31%) Roadmaps
13 136 (9.60%) Incident Management
14 126 (8.90%) Project Delivery
15 120 (8.47%) Cybersecurity
16 115 (8.12%) Migration
17 111 (7.84%) AI
18 109 (7.70%) Service Design
19 106 (7.49%) Decision-Making
19 106 (7.49%) Project Management
Programming Languages
1 127 (8.97%) PowerShell
2 84 (5.93%) Python
3 69 (4.87%) SQL
4 55 (3.88%) JavaScript
5 45 (3.18%) Bash
6 15 (1.06%) Java
6 15 (1.06%) VB
6 15 (1.06%) VBScript
7 11 (0.78%) PL/SQL
8 9 (0.64%) Groovy
9 8 (0.56%) Bicep
10 6 (0.42%) C
10 6 (0.42%) Shell Script
11 5 (0.35%) Apex Code
11 5 (0.35%) Perl
11 5 (0.35%) T-SQL
12 4 (0.28%) C#
12 4 (0.28%) TypeScript
13 3 (0.21%) Lua
14 2 (0.14%) ActionScript 2.0
Qualifications
1 513 (36.23%) Security Cleared
2 338 (23.87%) SC Cleared
3 152 (10.73%) DV Cleared
4 139 (9.82%) Degree
5 62 (4.38%) ITIL Certification
6 51 (3.60%) PMP
7 46 (3.25%) PMI Certification
8 39 (2.75%) BPSS Clearance
9 30 (2.12%) Cisco Certification
10 29 (2.05%) Computer Science Degree
11 28 (1.98%) Microsoft Certification
12 26 (1.84%) ITIL Foundation Certificate
13 25 (1.77%) A+ Certification
14 22 (1.55%) CISM
14 22 (1.55%) CISSP
15 14 (0.99%) Azure Certification
15 14 (0.99%) DBS Check
16 13 (0.92%) CCNA
16 13 (0.92%) Master's Degree
17 10 (0.71%) Network+ Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 108 (7.63%) SLA
2 46 (3.25%) ISO/IEC 27001
3 45 (3.18%) QA
4 38 (2.68%) Data Quality
5 32 (2.26%) ISO/IEC 20000
6 29 (2.05%) PMO
7 28 (1.98%) GRC
8 27 (1.91%) NCSC
9 23 (1.62%) GDPR
10 18 (1.27%) COBIT
11 16 (1.13%) ISO 9001
11 16 (1.13%) NIST
12 12 (0.85%) Cyber Essentials
13 9 (0.64%) Disclosure Scotland
14 8 (0.56%) Accessibility
14 8 (0.56%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
15 7 (0.49%) Government Security Classifications
15 7 (0.49%) PCI DSS
16 6 (0.42%) ISO 31000
16 6 (0.42%) ISO/IEC 27005
System Software
1 163 (11.51%) Active Directory
2 68 (4.80%) VMware Infrastructure
3 25 (1.77%) Hyper-V
4 22 (1.55%) VMware ESXi
5 18 (1.27%) Docker
6 16 (1.13%) BitLocker
6 16 (1.13%) VMware NSX
7 15 (1.06%) Virtual Desktop
8 14 (0.99%) vSphere
9 10 (0.71%) vCloud
10 6 (0.42%) IAG
10 6 (0.42%) Virtual Servers
11 5 (0.35%) Virtual Machines
12 4 (0.28%) NFS
12 4 (0.28%) Oracle RAC
13 3 (0.21%) Firmware
13 3 (0.21%) Microsoft Virtual Server
14 2 (0.14%) GPFS
14 2 (0.14%) KVM
15 1 (0.071%) iptables
Systems Management
1 80 (5.65%) Microsoft Intune
2 65 (4.59%) SCCM
3 47 (3.32%) Terraform
4 44 (3.11%) Ansible
5 20 (1.41%) Kubernetes
6 18 (1.27%) Single Sign-On
7 17 (1.20%) SCOM
8 14 (0.99%) vCenter Server
9 13 (0.92%) Jamf Pro
10 8 (0.56%) FortiGate
10 8 (0.56%) WSUS
11 7 (0.49%) Data Guard
11 7 (0.49%) Grafana
11 7 (0.49%) Oracle RMAN
11 7 (0.49%) Puppet
12 5 (0.35%) NetBackup
12 5 (0.35%) Progress Chef
13 4 (0.28%) PowerCLI
13 4 (0.28%) Prometheus
13 4 (0.28%) vMotion
Vendors
1 414 (29.24%) ServiceNow
2 317 (22.39%) Microsoft
3 97 (6.85%) VMware
4 65 (4.59%) Remedy
5 57 (4.03%) Cisco
6 46 (3.25%) BMC
7 43 (3.04%) Oracle
8 35 (2.47%) Atlassian
9 34 (2.40%) SAP
10 31 (2.19%) Splunk
11 24 (1.69%) Dynatrace
12 22 (1.55%) SolarWinds
13 20 (1.41%) IFS
13 20 (1.41%) Salesforce
13 20 (1.41%) Zscaler
14 19 (1.34%) CyberArk
15 18 (1.27%) Apple
15 18 (1.27%) IBM
16 17 (1.20%) Citrix
16 17 (1.20%) Juniper