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

6 months to
28 Sep 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 87 84 100
Rank change year-on-year -3 +16 -16
Contract jobs citing Service Management 1,624 972 888
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 2.99% 2.96% 2.33%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 3.54% 3.27% 2.71%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,064 586 570
10th Percentile £263 £200 £213
25th Percentile £434 £327 £375
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £483 £502
Median % change year-on-year +8.81% -3.79% -4.48%
75th Percentile £625 £575 £603
90th Percentile £725 £649 £688
UK excluding London median daily rate £525 £475 £500
% change year-on-year +10.53% -5.00% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 78 85 14
10th Percentile £14.50 £12.62 £16.17
25th Percentile £17.51 £13.25 £25.88
Median hourly rate £55.00 £21.28 £46.25
Median % change year-on-year +158.46% -53.99% -15.14%
75th Percentile £85.00 £33.75 £49.69
90th Percentile £92.15 £60.00 £54.63
UK excluding London median hourly rate £45.27 £21.06 £47.50
% change year-on-year +114.98% -55.67% +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 45,850 29,737 32,777
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 84.30% 90.62% 85.83%
Number of daily rates quoted 27,722 18,491 19,844
10th Percentile £325 £294 £308
25th Percentile £425 £403 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £500 £525
Median % change year-on-year +5.00% -4.76% -2.78%
75th Percentile £630 £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 3,198 1,854 1,372
10th Percentile £13.69 £14.25 £15.00
25th Percentile £17.23 £17.30 £20.12
Median hourly rate £39.00 £25.15 £42.50
Median % change year-on-year +55.07% -40.82% -1.16%
75th Percentile £65.60 £43.75 £65.00
90th Percentile £78.72 £65.00 £74.49
UK excluding London median hourly rate £40.00 £22.32 £43.00
% change year-on-year +79.25% -48.10% +1.18%

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 28 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 28 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 28 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 -5 1,397 £525 +5.00% 1,144
UK excluding London -6 946 £525 +10.53% 797
London +36 497 £525 +5.00% 423
Work from Home +3 433 £525 +10.53% 534
South East +12 305 £575 +31.43% 206
North of England -19 263 £479 +6.44% 202
North West -17 152 £481 +4.63% 115
Midlands -32 123 £525 +3.96% 117
West Midlands -18 117 £525 +1.94% 73
Yorkshire -10 106 £463 +30.28% 73
South West -38 99 £600 +9.09% 92
Scotland +15 95 £550 +18.92% 64
East of England +2 62 £550 - 92
Wales -10 12 £800 +247.83% 15
Northern Ireland +7 8 - - 28
East Midlands -31 6 £163 -48.66% 43
North East -42 5 £600 +207.69% 18

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
1 125 (7.70%) SharePoint
2 64 (3.94%) Microsoft Exchange
3 58 (3.57%) Confluence
4 15 (0.92%) Skype for Business
5 5 (0.31%) OpenStack
6 4 (0.25%) CMS
6 4 (0.25%) IBM Transformation Extender
7 2 (0.12%) CICS
8 1 (0.062%) Apache
8 1 (0.062%) Exchange Server 2010
8 1 (0.062%) HCL Notes
8 1 (0.062%) IIS
8 1 (0.062%) Mattermost
8 1 (0.062%) Oracle Collaboration Suite
8 1 (0.062%) Palantir Foundry
Applications
1 84 (5.17%) Microsoft Office
2 37 (2.28%) Microsoft Excel
3 14 (0.86%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 11 (0.68%) MS Visio
5 8 (0.49%) Chatbot
5 8 (0.49%) Microsoft Project
6 2 (0.12%) Spreadsheet
7 1 (0.062%) Maple
Business Applications
1 50 (3.08%) Remedy ITSM
2 12 (0.74%) SAP S/4HANA
3 9 (0.55%) Dynamics CRM
4 7 (0.43%) Primavera
5 5 (0.31%) ContrOCC
5 5 (0.31%) NEC Housing
5 5 (0.31%) Workday HCM
6 3 (0.18%) Oracle ERP
6 3 (0.18%) SAP CO
6 3 (0.18%) SAP FI
6 3 (0.18%) SAP FI/CO
6 3 (0.18%) SAP SM
7 2 (0.12%) Exchequer
7 2 (0.12%) Oracle EBS
7 2 (0.12%) Remedy AR System
7 2 (0.12%) Salesforce CRM
7 2 (0.12%) SAP CX
7 2 (0.12%) SAP PS
7 2 (0.12%) SystmOne
7 2 (0.12%) Teamcenter
Cloud Services
1 283 (17.43%) Azure
2 211 (12.99%) Microsoft 365
3 139 (8.56%) AWS
4 132 (8.13%) Entra ID
5 71 (4.37%) Power Platform
5 71 (4.37%) SaaS
6 59 (3.63%) OneDrive
7 42 (2.59%) GCP
8 35 (2.16%) Azure DevOps
9 21 (1.29%) Azure Monitor
10 19 (1.17%) Microsoft Copilot
11 16 (0.99%) GitHub
12 15 (0.92%) Google Workspace
13 14 (0.86%) Dynamics 365
13 14 (0.86%) Power Automate
14 13 (0.80%) Serverless
15 10 (0.62%) IaaS
16 9 (0.55%) Azure Sentinel
17 8 (0.49%) Azure Functions
17 8 (0.49%) Datadog
Communications & Networking
1 72 (4.43%) DNS
1 72 (4.43%) Firewall
2 57 (3.51%) VPN
3 54 (3.33%) DHCP
4 45 (2.77%) TCP/IP
5 43 (2.65%) Network Security
6 38 (2.34%) WAN
7 33 (2.03%) LAN
8 25 (1.54%) Wi-Fi
9 16 (0.99%) Skype
10 15 (0.92%) VLAN
10 15 (0.92%) Wireless
11 13 (0.80%) SD-WAN
12 11 (0.68%) BGP
12 11 (0.68%) Intrusion Detection
13 10 (0.62%) SAN
13 10 (0.62%) SSH
14 8 (0.49%) 5G
14 8 (0.49%) HTTP
15 7 (0.43%) OSPF
Database & Business Intelligence
1 41 (2.52%) Power BI
2 33 (2.03%) SQL Server
3 24 (1.48%) Metadata
4 7 (0.43%) Oracle Database
4 7 (0.43%) SQL Server Integration Services
5 6 (0.37%) Looker
5 6 (0.37%) MySQL
6 5 (0.31%) Amazon RDS
6 5 (0.31%) MariaDB
6 5 (0.31%) Oracle Database 11g
6 5 (0.31%) PostgreSQL
6 5 (0.31%) Relational Database
6 5 (0.31%) SQL Server Reporting Services
7 4 (0.25%) BigQuery
7 4 (0.25%) Oracle Reports
7 4 (0.25%) SQL Server Analysis Services
8 3 (0.18%) Amazon Aurora
9 2 (0.12%) Data Warehouse
9 2 (0.12%) Microsoft Analysis Services
9 2 (0.12%) SQLite
Development Applications
1 146 (8.99%) JIRA
2 31 (1.91%) Git
3 20 (1.23%) Jenkins
4 16 (0.99%) Bitbucket
5 12 (0.74%) Atlassian Bamboo
6 5 (0.31%) Browser DevTools
6 5 (0.31%) GitLab
7 4 (0.25%) Maven
7 4 (0.25%) webpack
8 3 (0.18%) Fiddler
8 3 (0.18%) Gradle
8 3 (0.18%) Rational DOORS
9 2 (0.12%) Firebug
9 2 (0.12%) Hudson
9 2 (0.12%) Sonatype Nexus
10 1 (0.062%) Gemini Tracker
10 1 (0.062%) IBM UrbanCode
10 1 (0.062%) MLflow
10 1 (0.062%) Snyk
10 1 (0.062%) Visual Studio Code
General
1 654 (40.27%) Social Skills
2 268 (16.50%) Finance
3 265 (16.32%) Analytical Skills
4 198 (12.19%) Public Sector
5 69 (4.25%) Telecoms
6 67 (4.13%) Documentation Skills
7 66 (4.06%) Organisational Skills
8 61 (3.76%) Banking
9 58 (3.57%) Influencing Skills
10 44 (2.71%) Legal
11 41 (2.52%) Aerospace
12 40 (2.46%) Inclusion and Diversity
13 30 (1.85%) Military
14 29 (1.79%) Presentation Skills
15 23 (1.42%) Local Government
16 21 (1.29%) Manufacturing
17 16 (0.99%) Police
17 16 (0.99%) Retail
18 11 (0.68%) Law
19 10 (0.62%) Financial Institution
Job Titles
1 181 (11.15%) Architect
2 151 (9.30%) Lead
3 147 (9.05%) Analyst
4 119 (7.33%) Senior
5 116 (7.14%) Consultant
6 114 (7.02%) Service Manager
7 75 (4.62%) Support Engineer
8 73 (4.50%) Developer
9 72 (4.43%) Delivery Manager
10 70 (4.31%) IT Manager
11 67 (4.13%) Project Manager
12 57 (3.51%) Solutions Architect
13 51 (3.14%) IT Support
14 48 (2.96%) Service Analyst
15 43 (2.65%) Service Architect
16 42 (2.59%) ServiceNow Architect
17 41 (2.52%) ServiceNow Developer
18 38 (2.34%) Transition Manager
19 37 (2.28%) IT Engineer
20 34 (2.09%) Desktop Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 80 (4.93%) REST
2 55 (3.39%) Terraform
3 32 (1.97%) SOAP
4 26 (1.60%) XML
5 21 (1.29%) HTML
5 21 (1.29%) Middleware
6 20 (1.23%) CSS
6 20 (1.23%) JSON
6 20 (1.23%) Web Services
7 10 (0.62%) SAML
8 9 (0.55%) AngularJS
8 9 (0.55%) Elastic Stack
9 8 (0.49%) XSLT
10 7 (0.43%) .NET
10 7 (0.43%) ARM Templates
10 7 (0.43%) OAuth
11 6 (0.37%) Ajax
11 6 (0.37%) LDAP
12 5 (0.31%) Node.js
12 5 (0.31%) OpenID
Miscellaneous
1 177 (10.90%) Onboarding
2 133 (8.19%) CMDB
3 92 (5.67%) Management Information System
4 59 (3.63%) Enterprise Software
5 54 (3.33%) Data Centre
5 54 (3.33%) Product Ownership
6 38 (2.34%) PKI
7 29 (1.79%) Data Protection Act
7 29 (1.79%) Hybrid Cloud
8 28 (1.72%) Operational Technology
9 27 (1.66%) Virtual Team
10 23 (1.42%) Security Operations Centre
11 20 (1.23%) Cloud Native
12 18 (1.11%) Cyber Threat
13 17 (1.05%) Self-Motivation
14 16 (0.99%) Analytical Mindset
14 16 (0.99%) Security Posture
15 15 (0.92%) AI Agents
15 15 (0.92%) Clustering
15 15 (0.92%) Video Conferencing
Operating Systems
1 326 (20.07%) Windows
2 90 (5.54%) Windows Server
3 87 (5.36%) Linux
4 73 (4.50%) Windows 10
5 37 (2.28%) Apple iOS
6 36 (2.22%) Mac OS
7 21 (1.29%) Android
7 21 (1.29%) Unix
8 20 (1.23%) Windows 7
9 15 (0.92%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
10 6 (0.37%) Windows Server 2019
11 4 (0.25%) AIX
11 4 (0.25%) Solaris
11 4 (0.25%) SUSE Linux Enterprise Server
12 3 (0.18%) Windows Server 2012
12 3 (0.18%) Windows Server 2016
12 3 (0.18%) zOS
13 2 (0.12%) Windows XP
14 1 (0.062%) SUSE
14 1 (0.062%) Windows Server 2008
Processes & Methodologies
1 864 (53.20%) ITIL
2 708 (43.60%) ITSM
3 529 (32.57%) Stakeholder Management
4 461 (28.39%) Continuous Improvement
5 352 (21.67%) Service Delivery
6 330 (20.32%) Problem-Solving
7 326 (20.07%) Agile
8 245 (15.09%) Stakeholder Engagement
9 239 (14.72%) Change Management
10 235 (14.47%) Roadmaps
11 189 (11.64%) Customer Service
12 180 (11.08%) Cybersecurity
13 179 (11.02%) Incident Management
14 159 (9.79%) DevOps
15 149 (9.17%) Project Delivery
16 146 (8.99%) Decision-Making
17 137 (8.44%) AI
18 133 (8.19%) Risk Management
19 132 (8.13%) Migration
20 121 (7.45%) Service Design
Programming Languages
1 147 (9.05%) PowerShell
2 91 (5.60%) Python
3 63 (3.88%) SQL
4 60 (3.69%) JavaScript
5 51 (3.14%) Bash
6 19 (1.17%) VBScript
7 16 (0.99%) Java
8 15 (0.92%) VB
9 12 (0.74%) C#
10 10 (0.62%) Bicep
11 9 (0.55%) Shell Script
12 6 (0.37%) C
13 5 (0.31%) Groovy
13 5 (0.31%) Perl
13 5 (0.31%) PL/SQL
13 5 (0.31%) T-SQL
14 4 (0.25%) TypeScript
15 3 (0.18%) Apex Code
15 3 (0.18%) Google Apps Script
15 3 (0.18%) Lua
Qualifications
1 617 (37.99%) Security Cleared
2 423 (26.05%) SC Cleared
3 156 (9.61%) Degree
4 149 (9.17%) DV Cleared
5 62 (3.82%) PMP
6 61 (3.76%) ITIL Certification
7 58 (3.57%) PMI Certification
8 57 (3.51%) BPSS Clearance
9 39 (2.40%) Microsoft Certification
10 36 (2.22%) CISSP
11 35 (2.16%) ITIL Foundation Certificate
12 31 (1.91%) CISM
13 28 (1.72%) Cisco Certification
14 27 (1.66%) Computer Science Degree
15 25 (1.54%) A+ Certification
16 21 (1.29%) Azure Certification
17 16 (0.99%) DBS Check
18 15 (0.92%) AWS Certification
19 11 (0.68%) CCNA
20 9 (0.55%) CCNP
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 135 (8.31%) SLA
2 62 (3.82%) QA
3 54 (3.33%) Data Quality
4 48 (2.96%) ISO/IEC 27001
5 40 (2.46%) GRC
6 35 (2.16%) NCSC
7 34 (2.09%) GDPR
8 33 (2.03%) ISO/IEC 20000
9 32 (1.97%) NIST
10 23 (1.42%) PMO
11 17 (1.05%) ISO 9001
12 16 (0.99%) COBIT
13 15 (0.92%) Accessibility
14 13 (0.80%) Cyber Essentials
15 10 (0.62%) PCI DSS
16 8 (0.49%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
16 8 (0.49%) Disclosure Scotland
16 8 (0.49%) WCAG
17 7 (0.43%) ISO 31000
17 7 (0.43%) ISO/IEC 27005
System Software
1 184 (11.33%) Active Directory
2 85 (5.23%) VMware Infrastructure
3 37 (2.28%) Hyper-V
4 28 (1.72%) VMware ESXi
5 22 (1.35%) Virtual Desktop
5 22 (1.35%) vSphere
6 18 (1.11%) Docker
7 17 (1.05%) VMware NSX
8 16 (0.99%) BitLocker
9 13 (0.80%) vCloud
10 8 (0.49%) Firmware
11 7 (0.43%) Citrix Hypervisor
11 7 (0.43%) XenApp
11 7 (0.43%) XenDesktop
12 6 (0.37%) Virtual Servers
13 5 (0.31%) IAG
14 4 (0.25%) Oracle RAC
15 3 (0.18%) Microsoft Virtual Server
15 3 (0.18%) NFS
15 3 (0.18%) Virtual Machines
Systems Management
1 101 (6.22%) Microsoft Intune
2 83 (5.11%) SCCM
3 50 (3.08%) Ansible
4 25 (1.54%) Single Sign-On
5 24 (1.48%) Kubernetes
5 24 (1.48%) SCOM
6 18 (1.11%) vCenter Server
7 15 (0.92%) Jamf Pro
8 11 (0.68%) WSUS
9 8 (0.49%) NetBackup
10 7 (0.43%) Progress Chef
11 6 (0.37%) Data Guard
11 6 (0.37%) Grafana
11 6 (0.37%) Oracle RMAN
12 5 (0.31%) Puppet
12 5 (0.31%) Tivoli
12 5 (0.31%) Tivoli Monitoring
13 4 (0.25%) PowerCLI
13 4 (0.25%) vMotion
14 3 (0.18%) Packer
Vendors
1 463 (28.51%) ServiceNow
2 405 (24.94%) Microsoft
3 113 (6.96%) VMware
4 54 (3.33%) Remedy
5 50 (3.08%) BMC
6 49 (3.02%) Cisco
7 36 (2.22%) Atlassian
7 36 (2.22%) SAP
8 35 (2.16%) Oracle
9 32 (1.97%) Dynatrace
10 28 (1.72%) Google
11 27 (1.66%) Apple
11 27 (1.66%) IBM
12 24 (1.48%) Splunk
13 20 (1.23%) Citrix
13 20 (1.23%) CyberArk
13 20 (1.23%) Salesforce
13 20 (1.23%) SolarWinds
14 16 (0.99%) Zscaler
15 14 (0.86%) IFS