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

6 months to
16 Sep 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 91 83 98
Rank change year-on-year -8 +15 -11
Contract jobs citing Service Management 1,590 978 895
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 2.93% 2.97% 2.34%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 3.47% 3.28% 2.73%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,038 592 579
10th Percentile £263 £200 £213
25th Percentile £415 £350 £384
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £496 £510
Median % change year-on-year +5.95% -2.84% -2.86%
75th Percentile £625 £575 £601
90th Percentile £725 £675 £679
UK excluding London median daily rate £525 £498 £500
% change year-on-year +5.42% -0.45% +0.05%
Number of hourly rates quoted 81 80 13
10th Percentile £14.50 £12.62 £15.84
25th Percentile £18.40 £12.82 £26.25
Median hourly rate £55.00 £20.66 £47.50
Median % change year-on-year +166.21% -56.51% -13.64%
75th Percentile £85.00 £33.19 £50.00
90th Percentile £92.53 £60.00 £54.75
UK excluding London median hourly rate £55.00 £18.73 £47.50
% change year-on-year +193.65% -60.57% +116.85%

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 45,839 29,816 32,769
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 84.46% 90.52% 85.69%
Number of daily rates quoted 27,855 18,531 20,147
10th Percentile £325 £300 £310
25th Percentile £425 £404 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £500 £525
Median % change year-on-year +5.00% -4.76% -2.78%
75th Percentile £625 £625 £638
90th Percentile £730 £725 £750
UK excluding London median daily rate £500 £475 £500
% change year-on-year +5.26% -5.00% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 3,070 1,799 1,460
10th Percentile £13.84 £14.25 £14.84
25th Percentile £17.36 £17.30 £20.00
Median hourly rate £40.00 £25.15 £43.00
Median % change year-on-year +59.05% -41.51% +1.18%
75th Percentile £67.50 £44.68 £65.00
90th Percentile £79.00 £67.00 £75.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £41.56 £22.63 £43.00
% change year-on-year +83.63% -47.37% +5.81%

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 16 September 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 16 September 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 16 September 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 -9 1,372 £525 +5.00% 1,627
UK excluding London -13 926 £525 +5.42% 1,118
London +24 493 £525 +5.00% 669
Work from Home +12 427 £520 +4.00% 775
South East +13 299 £575 +24.32% 310
North of England -14 259 £473 +2.89% 282
North West -15 155 £480 +2.07% 159
Midlands -35 114 £500 -0.50% 165
West Midlands -27 108 £500 -2.91% 99
South West -33 106 £600 +11.11% 108
Yorkshire -16 96 £443 +21.37% 103
Scotland +11 92 £520 +11.53% 86
East of England -5 54 £518 -5.91% 113
Wales -6 13 £800 +247.83% 24
Northern Ireland +8 8 - - 49
North East -40 8 £535 +174.36% 23
East Midlands -27 6 £206 -31.25% 66

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
1 122 (7.67%) SharePoint
2 62 (3.90%) Microsoft Exchange
3 59 (3.71%) Confluence
4 15 (0.94%) Skype for Business
5 5 (0.31%) OpenStack
6 3 (0.19%) CMS
6 3 (0.19%) IBM Transformation Extender
7 2 (0.13%) CICS
8 1 (0.063%) Apache
8 1 (0.063%) Exchange Server 2010
8 1 (0.063%) HCL Notes
8 1 (0.063%) Mattermost
8 1 (0.063%) Oracle Collaboration Suite
8 1 (0.063%) Palantir Foundry
Applications
1 89 (5.60%) Microsoft Office
2 36 (2.26%) Microsoft Excel
3 14 (0.88%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 12 (0.75%) MS Visio
5 11 (0.69%) Microsoft Project
6 8 (0.50%) Chatbot
7 2 (0.13%) Spreadsheet
8 1 (0.063%) Maple
Business Applications
1 53 (3.33%) Remedy ITSM
2 11 (0.69%) SAP S/4HANA
3 9 (0.57%) Dynamics CRM
4 7 (0.44%) Primavera
5 5 (0.31%) ContrOCC
5 5 (0.31%) NEC Housing
5 5 (0.31%) Workday HCM
6 3 (0.19%) Oracle ERP
6 3 (0.19%) SAP CO
6 3 (0.19%) SAP FI
6 3 (0.19%) SAP FI/CO
6 3 (0.19%) 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%) Salesforce CRM
7 2 (0.13%) SAP CX
7 2 (0.13%) SAP PS
7 2 (0.13%) Teamcenter
Cloud Services
1 279 (17.55%) Azure
2 203 (12.77%) Microsoft 365
3 132 (8.30%) AWS
4 124 (7.80%) Entra ID
5 73 (4.59%) SaaS
6 69 (4.34%) Power Platform
7 57 (3.58%) OneDrive
8 37 (2.33%) Azure DevOps
9 34 (2.14%) GCP
10 20 (1.26%) Microsoft Copilot
11 18 (1.13%) Azure Monitor
12 15 (0.94%) GitHub
13 14 (0.88%) Power Automate
14 13 (0.82%) Dynamics 365
14 13 (0.82%) Serverless
15 12 (0.75%) OCI
16 11 (0.69%) Google Workspace
17 9 (0.57%) Azure Sentinel
17 9 (0.57%) IaaS
17 9 (0.57%) PaaS
Communications & Networking
1 77 (4.84%) Firewall
2 69 (4.34%) DNS
3 56 (3.52%) VPN
4 51 (3.21%) DHCP
5 45 (2.83%) TCP/IP
6 39 (2.45%) Network Security
7 38 (2.39%) WAN
8 32 (2.01%) LAN
9 24 (1.51%) Wi-Fi
10 18 (1.13%) Wireless
11 16 (1.01%) Skype
12 14 (0.88%) VLAN
13 13 (0.82%) SD-WAN
14 11 (0.69%) Intrusion Detection
15 10 (0.63%) 5G
15 10 (0.63%) BGP
15 10 (0.63%) SSH
16 9 (0.57%) Internet
16 9 (0.57%) SSL
17 8 (0.50%) HTTP
Database & Business Intelligence
1 41 (2.58%) Power BI
2 34 (2.14%) SQL Server
3 22 (1.38%) Metadata
4 9 (0.57%) Oracle Database
5 8 (0.50%) SQL Server Integration Services
6 7 (0.44%) Oracle Database 11g
7 6 (0.38%) MySQL
7 6 (0.38%) Oracle Reports
7 6 (0.38%) SQL Server Reporting Services
8 5 (0.31%) Amazon RDS
8 5 (0.31%) MariaDB
8 5 (0.31%) PostgreSQL
8 5 (0.31%) Relational Database
8 5 (0.31%) SQL Server Analysis Services
9 3 (0.19%) Amazon Aurora
10 2 (0.13%) Data Warehouse
10 2 (0.13%) EDRMS
10 2 (0.13%) Looker
10 2 (0.13%) Microsoft Analysis Services
10 2 (0.13%) SQLite
Development Applications
1 153 (9.62%) JIRA
2 29 (1.82%) Git
3 21 (1.32%) Jenkins
4 17 (1.07%) Bitbucket
5 12 (0.75%) Atlassian Bamboo
6 6 (0.38%) GitLab
7 5 (0.31%) Browser DevTools
8 4 (0.25%) Maven
8 4 (0.25%) webpack
9 3 (0.19%) Fiddler
9 3 (0.19%) Gradle
9 3 (0.19%) Rational DOORS
9 3 (0.19%) ScriptRunner
10 2 (0.13%) Firebug
10 2 (0.13%) Hudson
10 2 (0.13%) Sonatype Nexus
11 1 (0.063%) IBM UrbanCode
11 1 (0.063%) IntelliJ
11 1 (0.063%) MSI
11 1 (0.063%) Visual Studio Code
General
1 633 (39.81%) Social Skills
2 259 (16.29%) Finance
3 255 (16.04%) Analytical Skills
4 198 (12.45%) Public Sector
5 75 (4.72%) Telecoms
6 63 (3.96%) Documentation Skills
6 63 (3.96%) Organisational Skills
7 55 (3.46%) Banking
7 55 (3.46%) Influencing Skills
8 49 (3.08%) Legal
9 39 (2.45%) Inclusion and Diversity
10 35 (2.20%) Aerospace
11 31 (1.95%) Military
12 24 (1.51%) Presentation Skills
13 21 (1.32%) Local Government
14 17 (1.07%) Retail
15 16 (1.01%) Manufacturing
16 15 (0.94%) Police
17 10 (0.63%) Financial Institution
17 10 (0.63%) Law
Job Titles
1 170 (10.69%) Architect
2 153 (9.62%) Lead
3 152 (9.56%) Analyst
4 115 (7.23%) Senior
5 113 (7.11%) Service Manager
6 107 (6.73%) Consultant
7 76 (4.78%) Support Engineer
8 73 (4.59%) IT Manager
9 71 (4.47%) Project Manager
10 65 (4.09%) Delivery Manager
10 65 (4.09%) Developer
11 54 (3.40%) Solutions Architect
12 53 (3.33%) IT Support
13 48 (3.02%) Service Analyst
14 40 (2.52%) Service Architect
14 40 (2.52%) ServiceNow Architect
14 40 (2.52%) ServiceNow Developer
15 39 (2.45%) Transition Manager
16 36 (2.26%) IT Engineer
17 33 (2.08%) IT Analyst
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 77 (4.84%) REST
2 50 (3.14%) Terraform
3 32 (2.01%) SOAP
4 24 (1.51%) XML
5 20 (1.26%) HTML
6 19 (1.19%) CSS
6 19 (1.19%) Web Services
7 18 (1.13%) JSON
8 17 (1.07%) Middleware
9 10 (0.63%) SAML
10 9 (0.57%) AngularJS
10 9 (0.57%) Elastic Stack
11 8 (0.50%) .NET
11 8 (0.50%) XSLT
12 7 (0.44%) ARM Templates
12 7 (0.44%) OAuth
13 6 (0.38%) LDAP
14 5 (0.31%) Ajax
14 5 (0.31%) Node.js
14 5 (0.31%) OpenID
Miscellaneous
1 171 (10.75%) Onboarding
2 123 (7.74%) CMDB
3 88 (5.53%) Management Information System
4 57 (3.58%) Enterprise Software
5 52 (3.27%) Data Centre
5 52 (3.27%) Product Ownership
6 35 (2.20%) PKI
7 29 (1.82%) Virtual Team
8 28 (1.76%) Data Protection Act
9 27 (1.70%) Operational Technology
10 26 (1.64%) Hybrid Cloud
11 23 (1.45%) Security Operations Centre
12 18 (1.13%) Cloud Native
13 17 (1.07%) Clustering
13 17 (1.07%) Self-Motivation
14 16 (1.01%) AI Agents
14 16 (1.01%) Analytical Mindset
15 15 (0.94%) Cyber Threat
15 15 (0.94%) NHS
15 15 (0.94%) Video Conferencing
Operating Systems
1 321 (20.19%) Windows
2 92 (5.79%) Windows Server
3 86 (5.41%) Linux
4 73 (4.59%) Windows 10
5 34 (2.14%) Apple iOS
6 32 (2.01%) Mac OS
7 21 (1.32%) Unix
8 20 (1.26%) Windows 7
9 19 (1.19%) Android
10 10 (0.63%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
11 6 (0.38%) Windows Server 2019
12 3 (0.19%) Windows Server 2012
12 3 (0.19%) Windows Server 2016
12 3 (0.19%) zOS
13 2 (0.13%) Solaris
13 2 (0.13%) Windows XP
14 1 (0.063%) Windows Server 2008
Processes & Methodologies
1 840 (52.83%) ITIL
2 696 (43.77%) ITSM
3 501 (31.51%) Stakeholder Management
4 437 (27.48%) Continuous Improvement
5 335 (21.07%) Service Delivery
6 326 (20.50%) Agile
7 316 (19.87%) Problem-Solving
8 252 (15.85%) Stakeholder Engagement
9 237 (14.91%) Change Management
10 216 (13.58%) Roadmaps
11 184 (11.57%) Customer Service
12 173 (10.88%) Incident Management
13 165 (10.38%) Cybersecurity
14 161 (10.13%) DevOps
15 143 (8.99%) Project Delivery
16 142 (8.93%) Decision-Making
17 134 (8.43%) AI
18 124 (7.80%) Migration
18 124 (7.80%) Risk Management
19 119 (7.48%) Project Management
Programming Languages
1 144 (9.06%) PowerShell
2 84 (5.28%) Python
3 65 (4.09%) SQL
4 59 (3.71%) JavaScript
5 47 (2.96%) Bash
6 17 (1.07%) VBScript
7 16 (1.01%) Java
8 15 (0.94%) VB
9 12 (0.75%) C#
10 10 (0.63%) Bicep
10 10 (0.63%) PL/SQL
11 8 (0.50%) Groovy
12 7 (0.44%) Shell Script
13 6 (0.38%) C
14 5 (0.31%) Apex Code
14 5 (0.31%) Perl
14 5 (0.31%) T-SQL
15 4 (0.25%) TypeScript
16 3 (0.19%) Lua
17 2 (0.13%) Korn
Qualifications
1 598 (37.61%) Security Cleared
2 412 (25.91%) SC Cleared
3 159 (10.00%) Degree
4 147 (9.25%) DV Cleared
5 62 (3.90%) PMP
6 61 (3.84%) ITIL Certification
7 57 (3.58%) PMI Certification
8 54 (3.40%) BPSS Clearance
9 41 (2.58%) Microsoft Certification
10 37 (2.33%) ITIL Foundation Certificate
11 33 (2.08%) CISSP
12 30 (1.89%) CISM
13 28 (1.76%) Cisco Certification
13 28 (1.76%) Computer Science Degree
14 26 (1.64%) A+ Certification
15 20 (1.26%) Azure Certification
16 16 (1.01%) DBS Check
17 14 (0.88%) AWS Certification
17 14 (0.88%) CCNA
18 10 (0.63%) CCNP
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 126 (7.92%) SLA
2 58 (3.65%) QA
3 50 (3.14%) Data Quality
4 48 (3.02%) ISO/IEC 27001
5 36 (2.26%) GRC
6 35 (2.20%) GDPR
7 34 (2.14%) NCSC
8 30 (1.89%) ISO/IEC 20000
8 30 (1.89%) PMO
9 25 (1.57%) NIST
10 16 (1.01%) Accessibility
10 16 (1.01%) ISO 9001
11 15 (0.94%) COBIT
12 14 (0.88%) Cyber Essentials
13 9 (0.57%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
13 9 (0.57%) Disclosure Scotland
14 8 (0.50%) WCAG
15 7 (0.44%) PCI DSS
16 6 (0.38%) ISO 31000
16 6 (0.38%) ISO/IEC 27005
System Software
1 180 (11.32%) Active Directory
2 85 (5.35%) VMware Infrastructure
3 35 (2.20%) Hyper-V
4 28 (1.76%) VMware ESXi
5 21 (1.32%) Virtual Desktop
5 21 (1.32%) vSphere
6 18 (1.13%) Docker
7 17 (1.07%) VMware NSX
8 16 (1.01%) BitLocker
9 13 (0.82%) vCloud
10 6 (0.38%) Citrix Hypervisor
10 6 (0.38%) Firmware
10 6 (0.38%) IAG
10 6 (0.38%) Virtual Servers
10 6 (0.38%) XenApp
10 6 (0.38%) XenDesktop
11 5 (0.31%) Oracle RAC
11 5 (0.31%) Virtual Machines
12 3 (0.19%) Microsoft Virtual Server
12 3 (0.19%) NFS
Systems Management
1 96 (6.04%) Microsoft Intune
2 81 (5.09%) SCCM
3 51 (3.21%) Ansible
4 23 (1.45%) SCOM
4 23 (1.45%) Single Sign-On
5 21 (1.32%) Kubernetes
6 18 (1.13%) vCenter Server
7 13 (0.82%) Jamf Pro
8 12 (0.75%) WSUS
9 8 (0.50%) Data Guard
9 8 (0.50%) Oracle RMAN
10 5 (0.31%) Grafana
10 5 (0.31%) NetBackup
10 5 (0.31%) Progress Chef
11 4 (0.25%) PowerCLI
11 4 (0.25%) Puppet
11 4 (0.25%) vMotion
12 3 (0.19%) Nagios
12 3 (0.19%) OPNET
12 3 (0.19%) Systems Management Server (SMS)
Vendors
1 455 (28.62%) ServiceNow
2 384 (24.15%) Microsoft
3 114 (7.17%) VMware
4 58 (3.65%) Remedy
5 52 (3.27%) BMC
6 49 (3.08%) Cisco
7 45 (2.83%) Oracle
8 36 (2.26%) Atlassian
9 33 (2.08%) SAP
10 29 (1.82%) Dynatrace
11 26 (1.64%) Splunk
12 23 (1.45%) CyberArk
12 23 (1.45%) IBM
13 22 (1.38%) Apple
13 22 (1.38%) Citrix
13 22 (1.38%) Salesforce
14 18 (1.13%) Google
15 17 (1.07%) SolarWinds
16 15 (0.94%) IFS
16 15 (0.94%) Zscaler