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

6 months to
8 Aug 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 97 82 91
Rank change year-on-year -15 +9 -7
Contract jobs citing Service Management 1,399 974 952
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 2.61% 2.96% 2.44%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 3.07% 3.27% 2.86%
Number of daily rates quoted 908 589 663
10th Percentile £263 £213 £251
25th Percentile £413 £350 £424
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £492 £525
Median % change year-on-year +6.71% -6.29% +2.44%
75th Percentile £613 £575 £608
90th Percentile £725 £675 £688
UK excluding London median daily rate £519 £492 £525
% change year-on-year +5.44% -6.29% +10.53%
Number of hourly rates quoted 86 73 18
10th Percentile £14.50 - £17.50
25th Percentile £19.57 £12.62 £19.44
Median hourly rate £57.50 £18.73 £27.50
Median % change year-on-year +206.99% -31.89% -43.30%
75th Percentile £85.00 £22.14 £48.75
90th Percentile £92.52 £52.70 £54.13
UK excluding London median hourly rate £55.00 £18.73 £27.50
% change year-on-year +193.65% -31.89% +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 45,557 29,755 33,330
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 84.99% 90.46% 85.57%
Number of daily rates quoted 28,078 18,625 21,348
10th Percentile £325 £300 £310
25th Percentile £420 £404 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £500 £525
Median % change year-on-year +5.00% -4.76% -4.11%
75th Percentile £625 £625 £638
90th Percentile £725 £726 £750
UK excluding London median daily rate £500 £475 £500
% change year-on-year +5.26% -5.00% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 2,814 1,660 1,859
10th Percentile £14.25 £14.20 £14.00
25th Percentile £19.22 £17.32 £18.22
Median hourly rate £42.50 £25.15 £40.50
Median % change year-on-year +68.99% -37.90% -4.71%
75th Percentile £68.00 £50.00 £64.25
90th Percentile £82.25 £68.00 £74.45
UK excluding London median hourly rate £43.96 £23.10 £41.25
% change year-on-year +90.30% -44.00% +7.56%

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 8 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 8 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 8 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 -20 1,213 £525 +5.32% 617
UK excluding London -20 824 £519 +5.44% 434
London +13 440 £525 +5.00% 229
Work from Home +3 403 £513 +2.50% 242
South East +25 280 £560 +10.62% 152
North of England -35 202 £447 -0.11% 99
South West -26 121 £536 -0.69% 46
North West -34 114 £480 +3.17% 55
Midlands -42 98 £495 +2.06% 62
West Midlands -34 91 £495 -2.94% 38
Yorkshire -22 83 £443 +26.57% 33
Scotland -4 67 £500 +1.42% 21
East of England -15 43 £563 +2.27% 41
Wales -8 12 £800 +247.83% 12
Northern Ireland +12 8 - - 11
East Midlands -20 7 £450 +50.00% 25
North East -44 5 £440 +125.64% 12

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 95 (6.79%) SharePoint
2 59 (4.22%) Confluence
3 45 (3.22%) Microsoft Exchange
4 8 (0.57%) Skype for Business
5 6 (0.43%) Mattermost
5 6 (0.43%) 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 69 (4.93%) Microsoft Office
2 29 (2.07%) Microsoft Excel
3 16 (1.14%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 14 (1.00%) MS Visio
5 9 (0.64%) Microsoft Project
6 7 (0.50%) Chatbot
7 1 (0.071%) Camtasia
7 1 (0.071%) Maple
Business Applications
1 60 (4.29%) Remedy ITSM
2 11 (0.79%) SAP S/4HANA
3 7 (0.50%) Primavera
4 5 (0.36%) ContrOCC
4 5 (0.36%) NEC Housing
5 4 (0.29%) Teamcenter
6 3 (0.21%) Oracle ERP
6 3 (0.21%) SAP CO
6 3 (0.21%) SAP FI
6 3 (0.21%) SAP FI/CO
6 3 (0.21%) SAP SM
7 2 (0.14%) Oracle Applications
7 2 (0.14%) Remedy AR System
7 2 (0.14%) SAP PS
8 1 (0.071%) Dynamics CRM
8 1 (0.071%) iTrent
8 1 (0.071%) Misys Equation
8 1 (0.071%) Misys Midas
8 1 (0.071%) SAP HR
8 1 (0.071%) SAP Payroll
Cloud Services
1 233 (16.65%) Azure
2 171 (12.22%) Microsoft 365
3 95 (6.79%) AWS
3 95 (6.79%) Entra ID
4 63 (4.50%) Power Platform
5 57 (4.07%) SaaS
6 47 (3.36%) OneDrive
7 34 (2.43%) Azure DevOps
8 29 (2.07%) GCP
9 21 (1.50%) GitHub
10 18 (1.29%) Microsoft Copilot
11 17 (1.22%) OCI
12 14 (1.00%) Azure Monitor
12 14 (1.00%) PaaS
13 11 (0.79%) IaaS
14 10 (0.71%) Google Workspace
15 9 (0.64%) Amazon S3
16 8 (0.57%) Amazon CloudWatch
16 8 (0.57%) Amazon EC2
16 8 (0.57%) AWS Lambda
Communications & Networking
1 84 (6.00%) Firewall
2 67 (4.79%) DNS
3 43 (3.07%) TCP/IP
3 43 (3.07%) VPN
4 41 (2.93%) DHCP
4 41 (2.93%) WAN
5 38 (2.72%) Network Security
6 35 (2.50%) LAN
7 19 (1.36%) BGP
7 19 (1.36%) Wireless
8 15 (1.07%) OSPF
9 14 (1.00%) SD-WAN
10 12 (0.86%) Cisco ISE
10 12 (0.86%) VXLAN
11 11 (0.79%) BIG-IP
11 11 (0.79%) Wi-Fi
12 10 (0.71%) Junos
13 9 (0.64%) Ethernet VPN
13 9 (0.64%) SSH
13 9 (0.64%) VLAN
Database & Business Intelligence
1 47 (3.36%) Power BI
2 27 (1.93%) SQL Server
3 8 (0.57%) Oracle Database
3 8 (0.57%) PostgreSQL
4 7 (0.50%) MySQL
4 7 (0.50%) SQL Server Integration Services
5 6 (0.43%) Oracle Database 11g
5 6 (0.43%) Oracle Reports
5 6 (0.43%) Relational Database
5 6 (0.43%) SQL Server Reporting Services
6 5 (0.36%) Amazon RDS
6 5 (0.36%) MariaDB
6 5 (0.36%) 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%) Elasticsearch
8 2 (0.14%) Microsoft Analysis Services
8 2 (0.14%) SQLite
Development Applications
1 149 (10.65%) JIRA
2 26 (1.86%) Git
2 26 (1.86%) Jenkins
3 23 (1.64%) Bitbucket
4 15 (1.07%) Atlassian Bamboo
5 12 (0.86%) GitLab
6 5 (0.36%) Browser DevTools
7 4 (0.29%) Maven
7 4 (0.29%) MLflow
7 4 (0.29%) Rational DOORS
7 4 (0.29%) ScriptRunner
7 4 (0.29%) 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%) MSI
10 1 (0.071%) Selenium
General
1 531 (37.96%) Social Skills
2 222 (15.87%) Finance
3 215 (15.37%) Analytical Skills
4 162 (11.58%) Public Sector
5 65 (4.65%) Telecoms
6 49 (3.50%) Banking
6 49 (3.50%) Legal
7 47 (3.36%) Influencing Skills
8 43 (3.07%) Documentation Skills
8 43 (3.07%) Organisational Skills
9 31 (2.22%) Military
10 30 (2.14%) Inclusion and Diversity
11 24 (1.72%) Local Government
12 21 (1.50%) Presentation Skills
13 19 (1.36%) Aerospace
14 14 (1.00%) Retail
15 12 (0.86%) Financial Institution
15 12 (0.86%) Police
16 9 (0.64%) Manufacturing
17 7 (0.50%) Law
Job Titles
1 151 (10.79%) Analyst
2 135 (9.65%) Lead
3 126 (9.01%) Architect
4 121 (8.65%) Senior
5 111 (7.93%) Service Manager
6 96 (6.86%) Consultant
7 78 (5.58%) IT Manager
8 64 (4.57%) Project Manager
9 57 (4.07%) Developer
10 56 (4.00%) Service Analyst
11 54 (3.86%) Support Engineer
12 48 (3.43%) Delivery Manager
13 41 (2.93%) ServiceNow Developer
14 39 (2.79%) IT Support
14 39 (2.79%) Solutions Architect
15 35 (2.50%) Infrastructure Engineer
15 35 (2.50%) Network Engineer
15 35 (2.50%) Transition Manager
16 33 (2.36%) Business Analyst
16 33 (2.36%) Service Architect
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 78 (5.58%) REST
2 36 (2.57%) SOAP
3 18 (1.29%) HTML
4 17 (1.22%) CSS
5 15 (1.07%) Web Services
6 14 (1.00%) Middleware
7 11 (0.79%) XML
8 9 (0.64%) 802.1X
8 9 (0.64%) AngularJS
8 9 (0.64%) JSON
8 9 (0.64%) OAuth
9 8 (0.57%) Elastic Stack
9 8 (0.57%) SAML
10 6 (0.43%) ARM Templates
10 6 (0.43%) Node.js
11 5 (0.36%) .NET
11 5 (0.36%) Lightning Web Components
11 5 (0.36%) OpenID
11 5 (0.36%) Oracle Fusion
11 5 (0.36%) RESTful
Miscellaneous
1 144 (10.29%) Onboarding
2 106 (7.58%) CMDB
3 64 (4.57%) Product Ownership
4 58 (4.15%) Management Information System
5 42 (3.00%) Data Centre
6 41 (2.93%) Enterprise Software
7 34 (2.43%) PKI
8 28 (2.00%) Virtual Team
9 25 (1.79%) Clustering
9 25 (1.79%) Operational Technology
10 21 (1.50%) Data Protection Act
10 21 (1.50%) Hybrid Cloud
11 18 (1.29%) Cloud Native
12 17 (1.22%) Self-Motivation
13 15 (1.07%) AI Agents
13 15 (1.07%) Analytical Mindset
14 12 (0.86%) Video Conferencing
15 11 (0.79%) Greenfield Project
15 11 (0.79%) Security Operations Centre
16 10 (0.71%) Linux Command Line
Operating Systems
1 264 (18.87%) Windows
2 75 (5.36%) Linux
3 72 (5.15%) Windows Server
4 46 (3.29%) Windows 10
5 25 (1.79%) Mac OS
6 23 (1.64%) Apple iOS
7 19 (1.36%) Unix
8 13 (0.93%) Android
8 13 (0.93%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
8 13 (0.93%) Windows 7
9 6 (0.43%) Windows Server 2019
10 4 (0.29%) VMS
11 3 (0.21%) Ubuntu
11 3 (0.21%) Windows Server 2012
11 3 (0.21%) Windows Server 2016
12 2 (0.14%) Solaris
12 2 (0.14%) Windows XP
12 2 (0.14%) zOS
13 1 (0.071%) Rocky
13 1 (0.071%) Windows Server 2008
Processes & Methodologies
1 749 (53.54%) ITIL
2 644 (46.03%) ITSM
3 381 (27.23%) Stakeholder Management
4 367 (26.23%) Continuous Improvement
5 318 (22.73%) Service Delivery
6 297 (21.23%) Agile
7 287 (20.51%) Problem-Solving
8 222 (15.87%) Change Management
9 202 (14.44%) Stakeholder Engagement
10 163 (11.65%) DevOps
11 160 (11.44%) Customer Service
12 139 (9.94%) Incident Management
12 139 (9.94%) Roadmaps
13 121 (8.65%) Project Delivery
14 117 (8.36%) Cybersecurity
15 116 (8.29%) Migration
16 107 (7.65%) AI
16 107 (7.65%) Project Management
17 106 (7.58%) Decision-Making
18 104 (7.43%) Service Design
Programming Languages
1 116 (8.29%) PowerShell
2 81 (5.79%) Python
3 70 (5.00%) SQL
4 56 (4.00%) JavaScript
5 46 (3.29%) Bash
6 17 (1.22%) Java
7 11 (0.79%) PL/SQL
8 9 (0.64%) Groovy
9 8 (0.57%) Bicep
9 8 (0.57%) VB
9 8 (0.57%) VBScript
10 6 (0.43%) Apex Code
10 6 (0.43%) C
10 6 (0.43%) Shell Script
11 5 (0.36%) C#
11 5 (0.36%) Perl
11 5 (0.36%) T-SQL
12 4 (0.29%) TypeScript
13 3 (0.21%) Lua
13 3 (0.21%) SOQL
Qualifications
1 513 (36.67%) Security Cleared
2 338 (24.16%) SC Cleared
3 152 (10.86%) DV Cleared
4 134 (9.58%) Degree
5 62 (4.43%) ITIL Certification
6 50 (3.57%) PMP
7 46 (3.29%) PMI Certification
8 39 (2.79%) BPSS Clearance
9 30 (2.14%) Cisco Certification
10 27 (1.93%) Computer Science Degree
11 26 (1.86%) Microsoft Certification
12 23 (1.64%) A+ Certification
12 23 (1.64%) ITIL Foundation Certificate
13 22 (1.57%) CISM
13 22 (1.57%) CISSP
14 14 (1.00%) CCNA
14 14 (1.00%) DBS Check
15 13 (0.93%) Master's Degree
16 11 (0.79%) Azure Certification
17 9 (0.64%) Network+ Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 107 (7.65%) SLA
2 45 (3.22%) QA
3 44 (3.15%) ISO/IEC 27001
4 34 (2.43%) Data Quality
5 31 (2.22%) ISO/IEC 20000
6 30 (2.14%) PMO
7 28 (2.00%) GRC
8 27 (1.93%) NCSC
9 24 (1.72%) GDPR
10 18 (1.29%) COBIT
11 16 (1.14%) ISO 9001
11 16 (1.14%) NIST
12 12 (0.86%) Cyber Essentials
13 9 (0.64%) Disclosure Scotland
14 8 (0.57%) Accessibility
14 8 (0.57%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
15 7 (0.50%) Government Security Classifications
15 7 (0.50%) PCI DSS
16 6 (0.43%) ISO 31000
16 6 (0.43%) ISO/IEC 27005
System Software
1 160 (11.44%) Active Directory
2 62 (4.43%) VMware Infrastructure
3 23 (1.64%) Hyper-V
4 22 (1.57%) VMware ESXi
5 19 (1.36%) Docker
6 16 (1.14%) VMware NSX
7 14 (1.00%) Virtual Desktop
8 13 (0.93%) vSphere
9 10 (0.71%) vCloud
10 9 (0.64%) BitLocker
11 6 (0.43%) IAG
12 5 (0.36%) Virtual Machines
12 5 (0.36%) Virtual Servers
13 4 (0.29%) NFS
13 4 (0.29%) Oracle RAC
14 3 (0.21%) Firmware
15 2 (0.14%) GPFS
15 2 (0.14%) KVM
15 2 (0.14%) Microsoft Virtual Server
16 1 (0.071%) iptables
Systems Management
1 76 (5.43%) Microsoft Intune
2 57 (4.07%) SCCM
3 46 (3.29%) Terraform
4 43 (3.07%) Ansible
5 21 (1.50%) Kubernetes
6 17 (1.22%) SCOM
6 17 (1.22%) Single Sign-On
7 14 (1.00%) vCenter Server
8 13 (0.93%) Jamf Pro
9 8 (0.57%) FortiGate
9 8 (0.57%) WSUS
10 7 (0.50%) Data Guard
10 7 (0.50%) Grafana
10 7 (0.50%) Oracle RMAN
10 7 (0.50%) Puppet
11 5 (0.36%) NetBackup
11 5 (0.36%) Progress Chef
11 5 (0.36%) Prometheus
12 4 (0.29%) PowerCLI
12 4 (0.29%) vMotion
Vendors
1 407 (29.09%) ServiceNow
2 295 (21.09%) Microsoft
3 89 (6.36%) VMware
4 64 (4.57%) Remedy
5 56 (4.00%) Cisco
6 43 (3.07%) BMC
7 39 (2.79%) Oracle
8 35 (2.50%) Atlassian
9 31 (2.22%) Splunk
10 30 (2.14%) SAP
11 24 (1.72%) Dynatrace
12 22 (1.57%) IFS
13 21 (1.50%) SolarWinds
14 20 (1.43%) Salesforce
15 19 (1.36%) Zscaler
16 18 (1.29%) Apple
16 18 (1.29%) Citrix
17 17 (1.22%) Juniper
18 15 (1.07%) IBM
19 13 (0.93%) CyberArk