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

6 months to
27 Aug 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 96 83 91
Rank change year-on-year -13 +8 -8
Contract jobs citing Service Management 1,515 969 946
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 2.82% 2.96% 2.44%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 3.34% 3.27% 2.85%
Number of daily rates quoted 992 583 645
10th Percentile £262 £209 £225
25th Percentile £413 £350 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £488 £525
Median % change year-on-year +7.69% -7.14% +0.96%
75th Percentile £619 £575 £608
90th Percentile £725 £675 £688
UK excluding London median daily rate £520 £492 £525
% change year-on-year +5.69% -6.29% +5.00%
Number of hourly rates quoted 81 74 18
10th Percentile £14.50 - £17.50
25th Percentile £17.21 £12.62 £19.44
Median hourly rate £55.00 £18.73 £27.50
Median % change year-on-year +193.65% -31.89% -46.34%
75th Percentile £85.00 £31.21 £48.75
90th Percentile £92.53 £43.38 £54.13
UK excluding London median hourly rate £55.00 £18.37 £27.50
% change year-on-year +199.48% -33.22% +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 45,399 29,629 33,143
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 84.55% 90.46% 85.37%
Number of daily rates quoted 27,782 18,436 20,950
10th Percentile £325 £300 £310
25th Percentile £425 £402 £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 2,881 1,773 1,687
10th Percentile £14.22 £14.20 £13.86
25th Percentile £17.87 £17.30 £18.13
Median hourly rate £41.00 £25.15 £40.50
Median % change year-on-year +63.02% -37.90% -4.71%
75th Percentile £67.84 £47.50 £65.00
90th Percentile £80.00 £67.50 £75.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £43.96 £23.00 £42.50
% change year-on-year +91.13% -45.88% +6.25%

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 27 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 27 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 27 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 -12 1,307 £525 +5.00% 735
UK excluding London -14 887 £520 +5.69% 566
London +27 473 £525 +5.00% 258
Work from Home 0 417 £515 +3.00% 373
South East +17 287 £565 +13.00% 151
North of England -15 250 £474 +5.33% 132
North West -18 150 £481 +3.39% 79
South West -31 114 £575 +9.52% 78
Midlands -43 101 £500 -0.99% 86
West Midlands -29 95 £500 -3.85% 50
Yorkshire -17 93 £443 +24.79% 46
Scotland +16 85 £520 +16.20% 44
East of England -13 46 £525 -4.55% 49
Wales -9 13 £800 +247.83% 13
Northern Ireland +5 8 - - 21
North East -42 7 £500 +156.41% 7
East Midlands -29 6 £250 -16.67% 37

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
1 109 (7.19%) SharePoint
2 59 (3.89%) Confluence
3 58 (3.83%) Microsoft Exchange
4 15 (0.99%) Skype for Business
5 6 (0.40%) OpenStack
6 3 (0.20%) CMS
6 3 (0.20%) IIS
7 2 (0.13%) Apache
8 1 (0.066%) CICS
8 1 (0.066%) Exchange Server 2010
8 1 (0.066%) HCL Notes
8 1 (0.066%) JBoss
8 1 (0.066%) Mattermost
8 1 (0.066%) Oracle Collaboration Suite
8 1 (0.066%) Palantir Foundry
Applications
1 83 (5.48%) Microsoft Office
2 35 (2.31%) Microsoft Excel
3 14 (0.92%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 12 (0.79%) MS Visio
5 11 (0.73%) Microsoft Project
6 10 (0.66%) Chatbot
7 2 (0.13%) Spreadsheet
8 1 (0.066%) Maple
Business Applications
1 57 (3.76%) Remedy ITSM
2 11 (0.73%) SAP S/4HANA
3 7 (0.46%) Primavera
4 5 (0.33%) ContrOCC
4 5 (0.33%) NEC Housing
5 4 (0.26%) Workday HCM
6 3 (0.20%) Dynamics CRM
6 3 (0.20%) Oracle ERP
6 3 (0.20%) SAP CO
6 3 (0.20%) SAP FI
6 3 (0.20%) SAP FI/CO
6 3 (0.20%) 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%) SAP PS
7 2 (0.13%) Teamcenter
8 1 (0.066%) iTrent
8 1 (0.066%) Salesforce CRM
Cloud Services
1 273 (18.02%) Azure
2 196 (12.94%) Microsoft 365
3 123 (8.12%) AWS
4 113 (7.46%) Entra ID
5 70 (4.62%) Power Platform
6 60 (3.96%) SaaS
7 53 (3.50%) OneDrive
8 35 (2.31%) Azure DevOps
9 33 (2.18%) GCP
10 21 (1.39%) GitHub
10 21 (1.39%) Microsoft Copilot
11 16 (1.06%) Azure Monitor
12 14 (0.92%) OCI
13 11 (0.73%) PaaS
14 10 (0.66%) Google Workspace
14 10 (0.66%) IaaS
15 9 (0.59%) Azure Sentinel
16 8 (0.53%) Azure AKS
16 8 (0.53%) Power Automate
16 8 (0.53%) Serverless
Communications & Networking
1 85 (5.61%) Firewall
2 66 (4.36%) DNS
3 52 (3.43%) VPN
4 46 (3.04%) TCP/IP
5 45 (2.97%) DHCP
6 43 (2.84%) Network Security
6 43 (2.84%) WAN
7 35 (2.31%) LAN
8 21 (1.39%) Wi-Fi
9 19 (1.25%) Wireless
10 18 (1.19%) SD-WAN
11 15 (0.99%) Skype
11 15 (0.99%) VLAN
12 13 (0.86%) BGP
13 11 (0.73%) Intrusion Detection
13 11 (0.73%) SSH
14 9 (0.59%) 5G
14 9 (0.59%) OSPF
14 9 (0.59%) SSL
15 8 (0.53%) Internet
Database & Business Intelligence
1 49 (3.23%) Power BI
2 28 (1.85%) SQL Server
3 9 (0.59%) Oracle Database
4 8 (0.53%) Metadata
4 8 (0.53%) SQL Server Integration Services
5 7 (0.46%) MySQL
5 7 (0.46%) Oracle Database 11g
5 7 (0.46%) PostgreSQL
6 6 (0.40%) Oracle Reports
6 6 (0.40%) SQL Server Reporting Services
7 5 (0.33%) Amazon RDS
7 5 (0.33%) MariaDB
7 5 (0.33%) Relational Database
7 5 (0.33%) SQL Server Analysis Services
8 3 (0.20%) Amazon Aurora
9 2 (0.13%) Amazon Redshift
9 2 (0.13%) Azure SQL Database
9 2 (0.13%) Data Warehouse
9 2 (0.13%) Looker
9 2 (0.13%) SQLite
Development Applications
1 143 (9.44%) JIRA
2 25 (1.65%) Git
3 24 (1.58%) Jenkins
4 22 (1.45%) Bitbucket
5 15 (0.99%) Atlassian Bamboo
6 10 (0.66%) GitLab
7 5 (0.33%) Browser DevTools
8 4 (0.26%) Maven
8 4 (0.26%) MLflow
8 4 (0.26%) ScriptRunner
8 4 (0.26%) webpack
9 3 (0.20%) Fiddler
9 3 (0.20%) Gradle
9 3 (0.20%) Hudson
9 3 (0.20%) IntelliJ
9 3 (0.20%) Rational DOORS
9 3 (0.20%) Sonatype Nexus
10 2 (0.13%) Artifactory
10 2 (0.13%) Firebug
11 1 (0.066%) Selenium
General
1 588 (38.81%) Social Skills
2 249 (16.44%) Finance
3 237 (15.64%) Analytical Skills
4 184 (12.15%) Public Sector
5 76 (5.02%) Telecoms
6 59 (3.89%) Organisational Skills
7 58 (3.83%) Documentation Skills
8 53 (3.50%) Banking
9 50 (3.30%) Influencing Skills
10 47 (3.10%) Legal
11 32 (2.11%) Inclusion and Diversity
12 30 (1.98%) Military
13 23 (1.52%) Local Government
14 22 (1.45%) Presentation Skills
15 21 (1.39%) Aerospace
16 18 (1.19%) Retail
17 14 (0.92%) Police
18 10 (0.66%) Financial Institution
18 10 (0.66%) Manufacturing
19 8 (0.53%) Law
Job Titles
1 161 (10.63%) Analyst
2 155 (10.23%) Architect
3 145 (9.57%) Lead
4 112 (7.39%) Senior
5 107 (7.06%) Consultant
6 105 (6.93%) Service Manager
7 73 (4.82%) IT Manager
8 69 (4.55%) Project Manager
9 68 (4.49%) Support Engineer
10 62 (4.09%) Developer
11 51 (3.37%) Service Analyst
12 49 (3.23%) Solutions Architect
13 47 (3.10%) Delivery Manager
13 47 (3.10%) IT Support
14 42 (2.77%) ServiceNow Developer
15 41 (2.71%) Service Architect
16 37 (2.44%) Transition Manager
17 36 (2.38%) Business Analyst
18 34 (2.24%) Designer
18 34 (2.24%) IT Analyst
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 77 (5.08%) REST
2 47 (3.10%) Terraform
3 33 (2.18%) SOAP
4 18 (1.19%) HTML
5 17 (1.12%) CSS
6 14 (0.92%) Middleware
6 14 (0.92%) Web Services
6 14 (0.92%) XML
7 11 (0.73%) JSON
8 10 (0.66%) SAML
9 9 (0.59%) AngularJS
9 9 (0.59%) Elastic Stack
10 7 (0.46%) OAuth
11 6 (0.40%) .NET
11 6 (0.40%) ARM Templates
11 6 (0.40%) Node.js
12 5 (0.33%) OpenID
12 5 (0.33%) RESTful
13 4 (0.26%) Ajax
13 4 (0.26%) Oracle Fusion
Miscellaneous
1 161 (10.63%) Onboarding
2 119 (7.85%) CMDB
3 69 (4.55%) Management Information System
4 62 (4.09%) Product Ownership
5 48 (3.17%) Enterprise Software
6 44 (2.90%) Data Centre
7 29 (1.91%) PKI
8 28 (1.85%) Operational Technology
9 27 (1.78%) Data Protection Act
10 23 (1.52%) Hybrid Cloud
10 23 (1.52%) Security Operations Centre
10 23 (1.52%) Virtual Team
11 20 (1.32%) Cloud Native
12 18 (1.19%) Self-Motivation
13 17 (1.12%) Clustering
14 16 (1.06%) AI Agents
14 16 (1.06%) Analytical Mindset
15 14 (0.92%) NHS
15 14 (0.92%) Video Conferencing
16 13 (0.86%) Cyber Threat
Operating Systems
1 295 (19.47%) Windows
2 83 (5.48%) Linux
3 82 (5.41%) Windows Server
4 66 (4.36%) Windows 10
5 29 (1.91%) Apple iOS
6 27 (1.78%) Mac OS
7 21 (1.39%) Unix
8 20 (1.32%) Windows 7
9 16 (1.06%) Android
10 12 (0.79%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
11 6 (0.40%) Windows Server 2019
12 3 (0.20%) Windows Server 2012
12 3 (0.20%) Windows Server 2016
13 2 (0.13%) Solaris
13 2 (0.13%) Ubuntu
13 2 (0.13%) VMS
13 2 (0.13%) Windows XP
13 2 (0.13%) zOS
14 1 (0.066%) Rocky
14 1 (0.066%) Windows Server 2008
Processes & Methodologies
1 801 (52.87%) ITIL
2 679 (44.82%) ITSM
3 446 (29.44%) Stakeholder Management
4 394 (26.01%) Continuous Improvement
5 325 (21.45%) Service Delivery
6 309 (20.40%) Agile
7 299 (19.74%) Problem-Solving
8 230 (15.18%) Stakeholder Engagement
9 228 (15.05%) Change Management
10 178 (11.75%) Customer Service
11 172 (11.35%) Roadmaps
12 161 (10.63%) Incident Management
13 158 (10.43%) DevOps
14 154 (10.17%) Cybersecurity
15 134 (8.84%) Project Delivery
16 130 (8.58%) AI
17 129 (8.51%) Decision-Making
18 128 (8.45%) Migration
19 113 (7.46%) Service Design
20 110 (7.26%) Project Management
Programming Languages
1 130 (8.58%) PowerShell
2 88 (5.81%) Python
3 71 (4.69%) SQL
4 54 (3.56%) JavaScript
5 46 (3.04%) Bash
6 17 (1.12%) VBScript
7 16 (1.06%) Java
8 15 (0.99%) VB
9 12 (0.79%) PL/SQL
10 9 (0.59%) Bicep
10 9 (0.59%) Groovy
11 7 (0.46%) Shell Script
12 6 (0.40%) C
13 5 (0.33%) Apex Code
13 5 (0.33%) C#
13 5 (0.33%) Perl
13 5 (0.33%) T-SQL
14 4 (0.26%) TypeScript
15 3 (0.20%) Lua
16 2 (0.13%) ActionScript 2.0
Qualifications
1 553 (36.50%) Security Cleared
2 376 (24.82%) SC Cleared
3 145 (9.57%) Degree
3 145 (9.57%) DV Cleared
4 64 (4.22%) ITIL Certification
5 55 (3.63%) PMP
6 49 (3.23%) PMI Certification
7 47 (3.10%) BPSS Clearance
8 35 (2.31%) CISSP
9 32 (2.11%) CISM
9 32 (2.11%) ITIL Foundation Certificate
10 31 (2.05%) Microsoft Certification
11 28 (1.85%) Cisco Certification
11 28 (1.85%) Computer Science Degree
12 25 (1.65%) A+ Certification
13 16 (1.06%) DBS Check
14 15 (0.99%) Azure Certification
15 14 (0.92%) CCNA
16 13 (0.86%) Master's Degree
17 10 (0.66%) Network+ Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 127 (8.38%) SLA
2 52 (3.43%) QA
3 49 (3.23%) Data Quality
3 49 (3.23%) ISO/IEC 27001
4 35 (2.31%) ISO/IEC 20000
5 34 (2.24%) NCSC
6 31 (2.05%) GRC
6 31 (2.05%) PMO
7 30 (1.98%) GDPR
8 21 (1.39%) NIST
9 17 (1.12%) COBIT
10 16 (1.06%) ISO 9001
11 14 (0.92%) Cyber Essentials
12 10 (0.66%) Accessibility
13 9 (0.59%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
13 9 (0.59%) Disclosure Scotland
14 8 (0.53%) PCI DSS
15 7 (0.46%) Government Security Classifications
16 6 (0.40%) ISO 31000
16 6 (0.40%) ISO/IEC 27005
System Software
1 172 (11.35%) Active Directory
2 76 (5.02%) VMware Infrastructure
3 31 (2.05%) Hyper-V
4 24 (1.58%) VMware ESXi
5 21 (1.39%) Docker
6 17 (1.12%) Virtual Desktop
6 17 (1.12%) VMware NSX
7 16 (1.06%) BitLocker
8 15 (0.99%) vSphere
9 12 (0.79%) vCloud
10 6 (0.40%) IAG
10 6 (0.40%) Virtual Servers
11 5 (0.33%) Oracle RAC
11 5 (0.33%) Virtual Machines
12 4 (0.26%) Citrix Hypervisor
12 4 (0.26%) NFS
12 4 (0.26%) XenApp
12 4 (0.26%) XenDesktop
13 3 (0.20%) Firmware
13 3 (0.20%) Microsoft Virtual Server
Systems Management
1 84 (5.54%) Microsoft Intune
2 72 (4.75%) SCCM
3 46 (3.04%) Ansible
4 23 (1.52%) Kubernetes
5 21 (1.39%) SCOM
6 20 (1.32%) Single Sign-On
7 15 (0.99%) vCenter Server
8 11 (0.73%) Jamf Pro
9 10 (0.66%) WSUS
10 8 (0.53%) Data Guard
10 8 (0.53%) Oracle RMAN
11 7 (0.46%) Grafana
12 5 (0.33%) NetBackup
13 4 (0.26%) PowerCLI
13 4 (0.26%) Progress Chef
13 4 (0.26%) Prometheus
13 4 (0.26%) Puppet
13 4 (0.26%) vMotion
14 3 (0.20%) Packer
14 3 (0.20%) systemd
Vendors
1 433 (28.58%) ServiceNow
2 353 (23.30%) Microsoft
3 106 (7.00%) VMware
4 62 (4.09%) Remedy
5 54 (3.56%) Cisco
6 50 (3.30%) BMC
7 46 (3.04%) Oracle
8 34 (2.24%) Atlassian
9 33 (2.18%) SAP
10 28 (1.85%) Splunk
11 27 (1.78%) Dynatrace
12 21 (1.39%) Citrix
12 21 (1.39%) Salesforce
13 20 (1.32%) CyberArk
14 19 (1.25%) Apple
14 19 (1.25%) IBM
15 18 (1.19%) IFS
15 18 (1.19%) Zscaler
16 17 (1.12%) Google
16 17 (1.12%) SolarWinds