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

6 months to
17 Jun 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 108 81 82
Rank change year-on-year -27 +1 +2
Contract jobs citing Service Management 1,141 903 1,093
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 2.27% 3.04% 2.51%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 2.67% 3.34% 2.95%
Number of daily rates quoted 745 547 752
10th Percentile £227 £220 £263
25th Percentile £405 £355 £425
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £520 £500 £525
Median % change year-on-year +4.00% -4.76% +2.44%
75th Percentile £600 £598 £608
90th Percentile £685 £688 £700
UK excluding London median daily rate £500 £501 £525
% change year-on-year -0.20% -4.57% +10.53%
Number of hourly rates quoted 71 50 15
10th Percentile £16.09 - £12.53
25th Percentile £23.50 £12.62 £14.65
Median hourly rate £60.00 £21.71 £19.00
Median % change year-on-year +176.37% +14.26% -46.10%
75th Percentile £84.50 £31.38 £26.75
90th Percentile £97.50 £35.13 £28.75
UK excluding London median hourly rate £60.00 £21.28 £18.36
% change year-on-year +181.95% +15.90% -18.04%

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 42,679 27,009 37,072
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 84.81% 91.00% 85.05%
Number of daily rates quoted 26,607 17,137 23,609
10th Percentile £325 £300 £300
25th Percentile £413 £406 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £513 £508 £525
Median % change year-on-year +0.99% -3.33% -4.55%
75th Percentile £619 £625 £638
90th Percentile £725 £738 £750
UK excluding London median daily rate £500 £475 £500
% change year-on-year +5.26% -5.00% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 2,567 1,242 2,598
10th Percentile £14.82 £14.20 £12.75
25th Percentile £20.09 £17.87 £16.03
Median hourly rate £43.96 £26.27 £37.34
Median % change year-on-year +67.37% -29.66% +6.69%
75th Percentile £68.00 £55.25 £61.30
90th Percentile £81.25 £73.75 £72.50
UK excluding London median hourly rate £44.50 £25.15 £38.12
% change year-on-year +76.94% -34.02% +17.29%

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 17 June 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 17 June 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 17 June 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 -24 996 £520 +4.00% 396
UK excluding London -27 692 £500 -0.20% 350
London -11 337 £533 +6.50% 100
Work from Home +2 332 £505 +3.91% 148
North of England -18 202 £494 +5.78% 91
South East +26 200 £538 +32.72% 109
North West -13 113 £517 +7.60% 44
South West -33 111 £500 -11.11% 40
Yorkshire -24 82 £456 -3.95% 40
Midlands -45 78 £474 -7.96% 47
West Midlands -41 66 £475 -11.63% 33
Scotland -25 50 £500 -2.44% 12
East of England -22 42 £475 -13.64% 37
East Midlands -18 12 £200 -54.13% 14
Wales -7 11 £800 +188.29% 8
North East -29 7 £440 +125.64% 9
Northern Ireland +6 4 - - 19

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 57 (5.00%) SharePoint
2 53 (4.65%) Confluence
3 33 (2.89%) Microsoft Exchange
4 11 (0.96%) Skype for Business
5 6 (0.53%) Mattermost
6 3 (0.26%) IIS
6 3 (0.26%) OpenStack
7 1 (0.088%) Apache
7 1 (0.088%) CICS
7 1 (0.088%) CMS
7 1 (0.088%) JBoss
7 1 (0.088%) LiveCycle
7 1 (0.088%) Oracle Collaboration Suite
7 1 (0.088%) Oracle SOA Suite
7 1 (0.088%) Palantir Foundry
7 1 (0.088%) WebSphere
Applications
1 56 (4.91%) Microsoft Office
2 29 (2.54%) Microsoft Excel
3 12 (1.05%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 11 (0.96%) MS Visio
5 10 (0.88%) Microsoft Project
6 7 (0.61%) Chatbot
7 4 (0.35%) PTC Creo
8 2 (0.18%) Spreadsheet
9 1 (0.088%) Camtasia
Business Applications
1 52 (4.56%) Remedy ITSM
2 14 (1.23%) SAP S/4HANA
3 9 (0.79%) Teamcenter
4 7 (0.61%) Primavera
5 3 (0.26%) Oracle ERP
6 2 (0.18%) ContrOCC
6 2 (0.18%) Oracle Applications
6 2 (0.18%) SAP PS
7 1 (0.088%) Dynamics NAV
7 1 (0.088%) NetSuite
7 1 (0.088%) Oracle Payables
7 1 (0.088%) Oracle Procure-to-Pay
7 1 (0.088%) Oracle Receivables
7 1 (0.088%) Oracle Subledger Accounting
7 1 (0.088%) SAP CO
7 1 (0.088%) SAP FI/CO
7 1 (0.088%) SAP HR
7 1 (0.088%) SAP Payroll
7 1 (0.088%) SAP PM
7 1 (0.088%) SAP SM
Cloud Services
1 169 (14.81%) Azure
2 114 (9.99%) Microsoft 365
3 61 (5.35%) AWS
4 53 (4.65%) Power Platform
5 51 (4.47%) Entra ID
6 40 (3.51%) SaaS
7 30 (2.63%) Azure DevOps
8 27 (2.37%) OneDrive
9 21 (1.84%) GCP
10 19 (1.67%) PaaS
11 18 (1.58%) GitHub
12 14 (1.23%) OCI
13 11 (0.96%) Amazon CloudWatch
13 11 (0.96%) IaaS
14 10 (0.88%) AWS Lambda
14 10 (0.88%) Microsoft Copilot
14 10 (0.88%) Serverless
15 9 (0.79%) Google Workspace
16 6 (0.53%) Amazon S3
16 6 (0.53%) Datadog
Communications & Networking
1 62 (5.43%) Firewall
2 44 (3.86%) DNS
3 38 (3.33%) WAN
4 34 (2.98%) VPN
5 33 (2.89%) LAN
6 26 (2.28%) Network Security
7 22 (1.93%) DHCP
7 22 (1.93%) TCP/IP
8 16 (1.40%) BGP
9 14 (1.23%) Wi-Fi
10 13 (1.14%) OSPF
10 13 (1.14%) SD-WAN
10 13 (1.14%) VLAN
10 13 (1.14%) Wireless
11 12 (1.05%) BIG-IP
12 11 (0.96%) Cisco ISE
12 11 (0.96%) Skype
13 10 (0.88%) VXLAN
14 9 (0.79%) Junos
15 8 (0.70%) Ethernet VPN
Database & Business Intelligence
1 44 (3.86%) Power BI
2 15 (1.31%) SQL Server
3 8 (0.70%) Oracle Database
4 7 (0.61%) Oracle Reports
4 7 (0.61%) PostgreSQL
5 6 (0.53%) Oracle Database 11g
6 5 (0.44%) Relational Database
7 4 (0.35%) SQL Server Integration Services
7 4 (0.35%) SQL Server Reporting Services
8 3 (0.26%) Azure SQL Database
8 3 (0.26%) MySQL
8 3 (0.26%) SQL Server Analysis Services
9 2 (0.18%) Amazon Redshift
9 2 (0.18%) GIS
9 2 (0.18%) MariaDB
9 2 (0.18%) Microsoft Analysis Services
10 1 (0.088%) Amazon RDS
10 1 (0.088%) Elasticsearch
10 1 (0.088%) InfluxDB
10 1 (0.088%) Oracle Database 12c
Development Applications
1 130 (11.39%) JIRA
2 18 (1.58%) Git
3 17 (1.49%) Jenkins
4 13 (1.14%) Bitbucket
5 12 (1.05%) GitLab
6 7 (0.61%) ScriptRunner
7 5 (0.44%) Atlassian Bamboo
7 5 (0.44%) Browser DevTools
8 4 (0.35%) MLflow
9 3 (0.26%) Fiddler
9 3 (0.26%) Hudson
9 3 (0.26%) IntelliJ
10 2 (0.18%) Firebug
10 2 (0.18%) Selenium
10 2 (0.18%) TestRail
11 1 (0.088%) Artifactory
11 1 (0.088%) Gemini Tracker
11 1 (0.088%) IBM UrbanCode
11 1 (0.088%) Postman
11 1 (0.088%) webpack
General
1 367 (32.16%) Social Skills
2 188 (16.48%) Finance
3 148 (12.97%) Analytical Skills
4 115 (10.08%) Public Sector
5 50 (4.38%) Legal
6 44 (3.86%) Telecoms
7 42 (3.68%) Banking
8 32 (2.80%) Documentation Skills
9 31 (2.72%) Influencing Skills
10 28 (2.45%) Organisational Skills
11 21 (1.84%) Inclusion and Diversity
12 19 (1.67%) Military
13 16 (1.40%) Retail
14 14 (1.23%) Local Government
15 13 (1.14%) Aerospace
16 12 (1.05%) Financial Institution
17 10 (0.88%) Police
17 10 (0.88%) Presentation Skills
18 8 (0.70%) Investment Banking
18 8 (0.70%) Manufacturing
Job Titles
1 139 (12.18%) Analyst
2 112 (9.82%) Service Manager
3 105 (9.20%) Lead
4 104 (9.11%) Architect
5 95 (8.33%) Senior
6 78 (6.84%) Consultant
7 73 (6.40%) IT Manager
8 56 (4.91%) Project Manager
9 54 (4.73%) Service Analyst
10 45 (3.94%) Developer
11 42 (3.68%) Delivery Manager
12 34 (2.98%) IT Analyst
13 33 (2.89%) Support Engineer
14 30 (2.63%) ServiceNow Architect
15 29 (2.54%) IT Services Manager
16 28 (2.45%) Network Engineer
16 28 (2.45%) Transition Manager
17 27 (2.37%) Administrator
18 26 (2.28%) IT Support
18 26 (2.28%) Service Delivery Manager
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 50 (4.38%) REST
2 28 (2.45%) SOAP
3 14 (1.23%) HTML
4 13 (1.14%) CSS
5 10 (0.88%) Middleware
6 9 (0.79%) 802.1X
6 9 (0.79%) OAuth
7 7 (0.61%) JSON
7 7 (0.61%) Oracle Fusion
8 6 (0.53%) XML
9 5 (0.44%) AngularJS
9 5 (0.44%) Elastic Stack
9 5 (0.44%) Lightning Web Components
9 5 (0.44%) OpenID
9 5 (0.44%) SAML
9 5 (0.44%) Web Services
10 4 (0.35%) Bootstrap
10 4 (0.35%) Microsoft Graph
10 4 (0.35%) OAuth2
10 4 (0.35%) XMPP
Miscellaneous
1 97 (8.50%) CMDB
2 87 (7.62%) Onboarding
3 62 (5.43%) Product Ownership
4 48 (4.21%) Data Centre
5 30 (2.63%) Management Information System
5 30 (2.63%) Virtual Team
6 27 (2.37%) PKI
7 26 (2.28%) Enterprise Software
8 21 (1.84%) Clustering
9 19 (1.67%) Data Protection Act
10 16 (1.40%) Operational Technology
11 13 (1.14%) Driving Licence
12 11 (0.96%) Analytical Mindset
12 11 (0.96%) Self-Motivation
13 10 (0.88%) Algorithms
13 10 (0.88%) Cloud Native
14 9 (0.79%) PMI
15 8 (0.70%) Legacy Systems
15 8 (0.70%) Replication
15 8 (0.70%) Security Posture
Operating Systems
1 200 (17.53%) Windows
2 54 (4.73%) Linux
3 42 (3.68%) Windows 10
4 40 (3.51%) Windows Server
5 18 (1.58%) Unix
6 15 (1.31%) Windows 7
7 14 (1.23%) Mac OS
8 13 (1.14%) Android
8 13 (1.14%) Apple iOS
9 9 (0.79%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
10 4 (0.35%) VMS
10 4 (0.35%) Windows Server 2019
11 3 (0.26%) Ubuntu
11 3 (0.26%) Windows XP
12 2 (0.18%) Solaris
12 2 (0.18%) Windows Server 2012
12 2 (0.18%) Windows Server 2016
12 2 (0.18%) zOS
13 1 (0.088%) Rocky
13 1 (0.088%) Windows Server 2008
Processes & Methodologies
1 585 (51.27%) ITIL
2 494 (43.30%) ITSM
3 279 (24.45%) Stakeholder Management
4 258 (22.61%) Continuous Improvement
5 233 (20.42%) Agile
6 219 (19.19%) Problem-Solving
7 200 (17.53%) Service Delivery
8 161 (14.11%) Stakeholder Engagement
9 151 (13.23%) Change Management
10 123 (10.78%) DevOps
11 113 (9.90%) Customer Service
12 103 (9.03%) Roadmaps
13 96 (8.41%) Incident Management
14 88 (7.71%) Problem Management
15 80 (7.01%) Migration
16 78 (6.84%) Decision-Making
17 77 (6.75%) Project Delivery
18 76 (6.66%) Project Management
19 75 (6.57%) Configuration Management
20 74 (6.49%) Cybersecurity
Programming Languages
1 81 (7.10%) PowerShell
2 53 (4.65%) Python
3 52 (4.56%) SQL
4 47 (4.12%) JavaScript
5 19 (1.67%) Bash
6 14 (1.23%) Java
7 11 (0.96%) PL/SQL
7 11 (0.96%) VB
7 11 (0.96%) VBScript
8 6 (0.53%) Apex Code
8 6 (0.53%) Groovy
9 5 (0.44%) Kotlin
10 4 (0.35%) C
10 4 (0.35%) C#
11 3 (0.26%) Perl
11 3 (0.26%) Shell Script
11 3 (0.26%) SOQL
11 3 (0.26%) T-SQL
12 2 (0.18%) Bicep
12 2 (0.18%) Search Processing Language
Qualifications
1 400 (35.06%) Security Cleared
2 275 (24.10%) SC Cleared
3 127 (11.13%) DV Cleared
4 88 (7.71%) Degree
5 56 (4.91%) ITIL Certification
6 30 (2.63%) PMI Certification
7 29 (2.54%) PMP
8 28 (2.45%) Cisco Certification
9 23 (2.02%) BPSS Clearance
10 18 (1.58%) Computer Science Degree
11 17 (1.49%) Microsoft Certification
12 16 (1.40%) CCNA
13 13 (1.14%) CISM
13 13 (1.14%) Master's Degree
14 11 (0.96%) A+ Certification
14 11 (0.96%) CISSP
15 10 (0.88%) ITIL Foundation Certificate
16 9 (0.79%) CCNP
16 9 (0.79%) JNCIA
16 9 (0.79%) Network+ Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 78 (6.84%) SLA
2 39 (3.42%) ISO/IEC 27001
3 38 (3.33%) Data Quality
4 29 (2.54%) QA
5 28 (2.45%) PMO
6 25 (2.19%) GDPR
7 22 (1.93%) NCSC
8 21 (1.84%) COBIT
9 19 (1.67%) GRC
10 14 (1.23%) ISO/IEC 20000
10 14 (1.23%) NIST
11 10 (0.88%) Cyber Essentials
12 9 (0.79%) PCI DSS
13 8 (0.70%) Accessibility
14 7 (0.61%) Government Security Classifications
15 6 (0.53%) ISO 31000
15 6 (0.53%) ISO/IEC 27005
16 5 (0.44%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
16 5 (0.44%) ISO 9001
16 5 (0.44%) Sarbanes-Oxley
System Software
1 113 (9.90%) Active Directory
2 38 (3.33%) VMware Infrastructure
3 15 (1.31%) VMware ESXi
4 12 (1.05%) BitLocker
4 12 (1.05%) Docker
5 8 (0.70%) VMware NSX
6 7 (0.61%) Virtual Desktop
7 6 (0.53%) Hyper-V
7 6 (0.53%) vCloud
7 6 (0.53%) vSphere
8 5 (0.44%) NFS
9 4 (0.35%) Oracle RAC
9 4 (0.35%) Virtual Machines
10 3 (0.26%) Firmware
11 2 (0.18%) GPFS
11 2 (0.18%) IAG
11 2 (0.18%) KVM
12 1 (0.088%) iptables
12 1 (0.088%) Slurm Workload Manager
12 1 (0.088%) Virtual Servers
Systems Management
1 43 (3.77%) SCCM
2 38 (3.33%) Microsoft Intune
3 26 (2.28%) Ansible
4 20 (1.75%) Terraform
5 16 (1.40%) Kubernetes
6 13 (1.14%) Jamf Pro
7 10 (0.88%) FortiGate
8 9 (0.79%) Single Sign-On
9 8 (0.70%) Grafana
9 8 (0.70%) vCenter Server
10 7 (0.61%) Data Guard
10 7 (0.61%) Oracle RMAN
10 7 (0.61%) WSUS
11 6 (0.53%) SCOM
12 5 (0.44%) Prometheus
12 5 (0.44%) Puppet
12 5 (0.44%) vMotion
13 4 (0.35%) PowerCLI
13 4 (0.35%) Progress Chef
14 3 (0.26%) vRealize
Vendors
1 318 (27.87%) ServiceNow
2 186 (16.30%) Microsoft
3 58 (5.08%) Remedy
4 54 (4.73%) VMware
5 45 (3.94%) Cisco
6 39 (3.42%) Oracle
7 29 (2.54%) SAP
8 28 (2.45%) Atlassian
9 26 (2.28%) BMC
10 24 (2.10%) IFS
11 22 (1.93%) HP
12 21 (1.84%) Splunk
13 16 (1.40%) SolarWinds
14 14 (1.23%) Dell
14 14 (1.23%) Salesforce
15 13 (1.14%) Citrix
15 13 (1.14%) F5
15 13 (1.14%) Zscaler
16 12 (1.05%) Dynatrace
17 11 (0.96%) Canon