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 21 May 2026, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
21 May 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 112 82 82
Rank change year-on-year -30 0 +1
Contract jobs citing Service Management 1,047 845 1,105
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 2.17% 2.90% 2.60%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 2.57% 3.19% 3.02%
Number of daily rates quoted 690 505 747
10th Percentile £220 £222 £266
25th Percentile £400 £400 £425
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £519 £508 £525
Median % change year-on-year +2.22% -3.33% +4.95%
75th Percentile £608 £600 £604
90th Percentile £700 £698 £713
UK excluding London median daily rate £500 £516 £525
% change year-on-year -3.15% -1.67% +10.53%
Number of hourly rates quoted 61 36 18
10th Percentile £16.09 - £12.53
25th Percentile £16.17 £12.62 £15.24
Median hourly rate £55.00 £22.14 £17.72
Median % change year-on-year +148.42% +24.94% -57.56%
75th Percentile £83.75 £30.93 £19.75
90th Percentile £108.00 £33.75 £26.65
UK excluding London median hourly rate £60.00 £21.71 £17.50
% change year-on-year +176.37% +24.04% -32.19%

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 40,694 26,498 36,630
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 84.34% 91.04% 86.11%
Number of daily rates quoted 25,533 17,004 23,615
10th Percentile £325 £303 £300
25th Percentile £413 £409 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £510 £513 £525
Median % change year-on-year -0.49% -2.38% -4.55%
75th Percentile £613 £625 £638
90th Percentile £725 £738 £750
UK excluding London median daily rate £495 £475 £500
% change year-on-year +4.21% -5.00% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 2,389 1,106 2,441
10th Percentile £14.82 £14.35 £12.75
25th Percentile £19.91 £18.13 £16.00
Median hourly rate £42.50 £28.00 £36.50
Median % change year-on-year +51.79% -23.29% +1.39%
75th Percentile £67.50 £59.98 £60.00
90th Percentile £80.00 £75.00 £72.50
UK excluding London median hourly rate £45.00 £25.15 £38.00
% change year-on-year +78.93% -33.82% +8.57%

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 21 May 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 21 May 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 21 May 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 -23 927 £520 - 360
UK excluding London -19 673 £500 -3.15% 292
London -34 279 £525 +4.17% 102
Work from Home -18 260 £500 +1.57% 157
South East +26 190 £520 +15.56% 104
North of England -22 180 £500 +5.26% 73
South West -23 135 £525 -4.55% 25
North West +3 98 £550 +7.57% 32
Midlands -29 81 £410 -25.45% 49
Yorkshire -29 75 £475 +11.76% 34
West Midlands -42 61 £411 -25.36% 38
East of England -11 44 £475 -12.64% 36
Scotland -29 36 £500 -2.44% 8
East Midlands -12 20 £410 -5.96% 11
Wales -6 7 £340 -4.56% 2
North East -22 7 £440 +125.64% 8
Northern Ireland - 4 - - 8

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 67 (6.40%) Confluence
2 34 (3.25%) SharePoint
3 32 (3.06%) Microsoft Exchange
4 9 (0.86%) Skype for Business
5 6 (0.57%) Mattermost
6 3 (0.29%) IIS
6 3 (0.29%) nginx
7 1 (0.096%) Apache
7 1 (0.096%) CICS
7 1 (0.096%) CMS
7 1 (0.096%) JBoss
7 1 (0.096%) LiveCycle
7 1 (0.096%) OpenStack
7 1 (0.096%) Oracle SOA Suite
7 1 (0.096%) WebSphere
Applications
1 71 (6.78%) Microsoft Office
2 27 (2.58%) Microsoft Project
3 26 (2.48%) Microsoft Excel
4 12 (1.15%) Microsoft PowerPoint
5 7 (0.67%) Chatbot
5 7 (0.67%) MS Visio
6 4 (0.38%) PTC Creo
7 2 (0.19%) Spreadsheet
8 1 (0.096%) Camtasia
Business Applications
1 44 (4.20%) Remedy ITSM
2 14 (1.34%) SAP S/4HANA
3 9 (0.86%) Teamcenter
4 4 (0.38%) Oracle EBS
5 2 (0.19%) Oracle Applications
5 2 (0.19%) Oracle ERP
5 2 (0.19%) SAP PS
6 1 (0.096%) Dynamics NAV
6 1 (0.096%) NetSuite
6 1 (0.096%) Oracle Payables
6 1 (0.096%) Oracle Procure-to-Pay
6 1 (0.096%) Oracle Receivables
6 1 (0.096%) Oracle Subledger Accounting
6 1 (0.096%) SAP HR
6 1 (0.096%) SAP Payroll
6 1 (0.096%) SAP PM
6 1 (0.096%) SAP SM
Cloud Services
1 148 (14.14%) Azure
2 84 (8.02%) Microsoft 365
3 63 (6.02%) AWS
4 49 (4.68%) Power Platform
5 39 (3.72%) SaaS
6 35 (3.34%) Entra ID
7 29 (2.77%) Azure DevOps
8 27 (2.58%) GCP
9 20 (1.91%) PaaS
10 19 (1.81%) GitHub
11 18 (1.72%) OneDrive
12 15 (1.43%) IaaS
13 13 (1.24%) OCI
14 10 (0.96%) Amazon CloudWatch
14 10 (0.96%) Microsoft Copilot
15 9 (0.86%) AWS Lambda
15 9 (0.86%) Serverless
16 7 (0.67%) Dynamics 365
17 6 (0.57%) Google Workspace
17 6 (0.57%) PowerApps
Communications & Networking
1 56 (5.35%) Firewall
2 43 (4.11%) DNS
3 35 (3.34%) WAN
4 33 (3.15%) LAN
5 31 (2.96%) VPN
6 28 (2.67%) Network Security
7 21 (2.01%) DHCP
8 17 (1.62%) TCP/IP
9 14 (1.34%) BGP
10 13 (1.24%) OSPF
10 13 (1.24%) SD-WAN
11 12 (1.15%) BIG-IP
12 11 (1.05%) Cisco ISE
12 11 (1.05%) VLAN
12 11 (1.05%) Wi-Fi
13 10 (0.96%) Wireless
14 9 (0.86%) Skype
15 8 (0.76%) Ethernet VPN
15 8 (0.76%) Junos
15 8 (0.76%) VXLAN
Database & Business Intelligence
1 38 (3.63%) Power BI
2 14 (1.34%) SQL Server
3 7 (0.67%) PostgreSQL
4 6 (0.57%) Oracle Database
4 6 (0.57%) Oracle Reports
5 5 (0.48%) Oracle Database 11g
5 5 (0.48%) Relational Database
6 4 (0.38%) Elasticsearch
6 4 (0.38%) SQL Server Integration Services
6 4 (0.38%) SQL Server Reporting Services
7 3 (0.29%) Azure SQL Database
7 3 (0.29%) MySQL
7 3 (0.29%) SQL Server Analysis Services
8 2 (0.19%) Amazon Redshift
8 2 (0.19%) GIS
8 2 (0.19%) MariaDB
8 2 (0.19%) Microsoft Analysis Services
8 2 (0.19%) Tableau
9 1 (0.096%) InfluxDB
9 1 (0.096%) OpenStack Swift
Development Applications
1 125 (11.94%) JIRA
2 18 (1.72%) Git
3 17 (1.62%) GitLab
4 14 (1.34%) Jenkins
5 13 (1.24%) Bitbucket
6 7 (0.67%) ScriptRunner
7 6 (0.57%) Atlassian Bamboo
8 5 (0.48%) Browser DevTools
9 4 (0.38%) MLflow
10 3 (0.29%) Fiddler
10 3 (0.29%) Hudson
10 3 (0.29%) IntelliJ
10 3 (0.29%) Selenium
10 3 (0.29%) TestRail
11 2 (0.19%) Cypress.io
11 2 (0.19%) Firebug
11 2 (0.19%) Visual Studio Code
12 1 (0.096%) IBM UrbanCode
12 1 (0.096%) Protractor
12 1 (0.096%) Sonatype Nexus
General
1 353 (33.72%) Social Skills
2 176 (16.81%) Finance
3 142 (13.56%) Analytical Skills
4 111 (10.60%) Public Sector
5 55 (5.25%) Legal
6 39 (3.72%) Banking
7 34 (3.25%) Military
8 33 (3.15%) Organisational Skills
8 33 (3.15%) Telecoms
9 25 (2.39%) Documentation Skills
10 24 (2.29%) Influencing Skills
11 16 (1.53%) Retail
12 12 (1.15%) Aerospace
13 10 (0.96%) Local Government
14 8 (0.76%) Inclusion and Diversity
14 8 (0.76%) Presentation Skills
15 7 (0.67%) Police
16 6 (0.57%) Financial Institution
16 6 (0.57%) Investment Banking
16 6 (0.57%) Manufacturing
Job Titles
1 118 (11.27%) Analyst
2 114 (10.89%) Architect
3 113 (10.79%) Service Manager
4 98 (9.36%) Lead
5 83 (7.93%) Senior
6 64 (6.11%) IT Manager
7 61 (5.83%) Consultant
8 47 (4.49%) Service Analyst
9 43 (4.11%) Service Architect
10 42 (4.01%) Project Manager
11 36 (3.44%) Hardware Engineer
12 35 (3.34%) Delivery Manager
13 32 (3.06%) Developer
14 30 (2.87%) IT Analyst
14 30 (2.87%) Support Engineer
15 29 (2.77%) IT Services Manager
16 25 (2.39%) Network Engineer
16 25 (2.39%) Service Delivery Manager
16 25 (2.39%) Transition Manager
17 23 (2.20%) Designer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 42 (4.01%) REST
2 27 (2.58%) SOAP
3 9 (0.86%) 802.1X
3 9 (0.86%) Middleware
4 8 (0.76%) HTML
4 8 (0.76%) OAuth
5 7 (0.67%) CSS
5 7 (0.67%) Oracle Fusion
6 6 (0.57%) Elastic Stack
6 6 (0.57%) XML
7 5 (0.48%) JSON
7 5 (0.48%) LDAP
7 5 (0.48%) Lightning Web Components
7 5 (0.48%) Web Services
8 4 (0.38%) Microsoft Graph
8 4 (0.38%) OAuth2
8 4 (0.38%) OpenID
8 4 (0.38%) SAML
8 4 (0.38%) XMPP
9 3 (0.29%) Flash
Miscellaneous
1 72 (6.88%) Product Ownership
2 69 (6.59%) Onboarding
3 68 (6.49%) CMDB
4 46 (4.39%) Data Centre
5 28 (2.67%) Management Information System
6 27 (2.58%) Virtual Team
7 24 (2.29%) PKI
8 20 (1.91%) Clustering
9 17 (1.62%) Driving Licence
9 17 (1.62%) Enterprise Software
10 16 (1.53%) Data Protection Act
11 12 (1.15%) Operational Technology
12 10 (0.96%) Algorithms
12 10 (0.96%) Analytical Mindset
12 10 (0.96%) PMI
13 9 (0.86%) Cloud Native
14 8 (0.76%) Replication
15 7 (0.67%) Legacy Systems
16 6 (0.57%) Self-Motivation
17 5 (0.48%) Security Posture
Operating Systems
1 171 (16.33%) Windows
2 52 (4.97%) Linux
3 40 (3.82%) Windows 10
4 39 (3.72%) Windows Server
5 15 (1.43%) Unix
6 12 (1.15%) Mac OS
7 11 (1.05%) Windows 7
8 8 (0.76%) Android
8 8 (0.76%) Apple iOS
9 7 (0.67%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
10 5 (0.48%) Ubuntu
11 4 (0.38%) VMS
12 3 (0.29%) Windows Server 2019
13 2 (0.19%) Solaris
13 2 (0.19%) Windows Server 2012
13 2 (0.19%) Windows Server 2016
13 2 (0.19%) zOS
14 1 (0.096%) Data ONTAP
14 1 (0.096%) Windows Server 2008
14 1 (0.096%) Windows XP
Processes & Methodologies
1 554 (52.91%) ITIL
2 436 (41.64%) ITSM
3 227 (21.68%) Stakeholder Management
4 221 (21.11%) Agile
5 216 (20.63%) Continuous Improvement
6 200 (19.10%) Problem-Solving
7 179 (17.10%) Service Delivery
8 143 (13.66%) Stakeholder Engagement
9 131 (12.51%) Change Management
10 120 (11.46%) DevOps
11 115 (10.98%) Customer Service
12 89 (8.50%) Service Design
13 83 (7.93%) Problem Management
14 82 (7.83%) Roadmaps
15 78 (7.45%) Incident Management
16 72 (6.88%) Configuration Management
17 70 (6.69%) Project Management
18 64 (6.11%) Decision-Making
19 62 (5.92%) CI/CD
19 62 (5.92%) Project Delivery
Programming Languages
1 60 (5.73%) PowerShell
2 51 (4.87%) SQL
3 39 (3.72%) JavaScript
4 35 (3.34%) Python
5 14 (1.34%) Java
6 13 (1.24%) Bash
7 10 (0.96%) PL/SQL
8 9 (0.86%) VB
8 9 (0.86%) VBScript
9 7 (0.67%) Apex Code
10 6 (0.57%) Kotlin
11 5 (0.48%) C#
12 4 (0.38%) Groovy
13 3 (0.29%) C
13 3 (0.29%) SOQL
13 3 (0.29%) T-SQL
14 2 (0.19%) ActionScript
14 2 (0.19%) PHP
14 2 (0.19%) Search Processing Language
14 2 (0.19%) Shell Script
Qualifications
1 399 (38.11%) Security Cleared
2 282 (26.93%) SC Cleared
3 123 (11.75%) DV Cleared
4 106 (10.12%) Degree
5 51 (4.87%) ITIL Certification
6 29 (2.77%) PMI Certification
7 28 (2.67%) Cisco Certification
8 26 (2.48%) PMP
9 21 (2.01%) Computer Science Degree
10 20 (1.91%) BPSS Clearance
11 17 (1.62%) TOGAF Certification
12 16 (1.53%) Microsoft Certification
13 14 (1.34%) CCNA
14 12 (1.15%) A+ Certification
14 12 (1.15%) Master's Degree
15 11 (1.05%) CCNP
16 9 (0.86%) CISM
16 9 (0.86%) CISSP
16 9 (0.86%) JNCIA
16 9 (0.86%) Network+ Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 62 (5.92%) SLA
2 32 (3.06%) Data Quality
3 31 (2.96%) ISO/IEC 27001
4 25 (2.39%) GDPR
4 25 (2.39%) QA
5 21 (2.01%) PMO
6 16 (1.53%) ISO/IEC 20000
7 15 (1.43%) COBIT
7 15 (1.43%) GRC
7 15 (1.43%) NCSC
8 10 (0.96%) Accessibility
9 9 (0.86%) Cyber Essentials
9 9 (0.86%) NIST
10 7 (0.67%) Government Security Classifications
10 7 (0.67%) PCI DSS
11 6 (0.57%) ISO 31000
11 6 (0.57%) ISO/IEC 27005
11 6 (0.57%) Sarbanes-Oxley
12 5 (0.48%) ISO 9001
13 4 (0.38%) GMP
System Software
1 95 (9.07%) Active Directory
2 35 (3.34%) VMware Infrastructure
3 14 (1.34%) Docker
4 13 (1.24%) VMware ESXi
5 9 (0.86%) BitLocker
6 6 (0.57%) VMware NSX
6 6 (0.57%) vSphere
7 5 (0.48%) NFS
8 4 (0.38%) Hyper-V
8 4 (0.38%) vCloud
8 4 (0.38%) Virtual Machines
9 3 (0.29%) Virtual Desktop
10 2 (0.19%) GPFS
10 2 (0.19%) IAG
10 2 (0.19%) Oracle RAC
11 1 (0.096%) Firmware
11 1 (0.096%) iptables
11 1 (0.096%) KVM
11 1 (0.096%) Microsoft Virtual Server
11 1 (0.096%) Samba
Systems Management
1 27 (2.58%) SCCM
2 25 (2.39%) Ansible
3 21 (2.01%) Microsoft Intune
4 20 (1.91%) Terraform
5 17 (1.62%) OPNET
6 16 (1.53%) Kubernetes
7 10 (0.96%) FortiGate
8 8 (0.76%) Grafana
8 8 (0.76%) Jamf Pro
8 8 (0.76%) Single Sign-On
9 7 (0.67%) vCenter Server
9 7 (0.67%) WSUS
10 5 (0.48%) Data Guard
10 5 (0.48%) Oracle RMAN
10 5 (0.48%) Prometheus
10 5 (0.48%) SCOM
10 5 (0.48%) vMotion
11 4 (0.38%) PowerCLI
11 4 (0.38%) Progress Chef
11 4 (0.38%) Puppet
Vendors
1 274 (26.17%) ServiceNow
2 153 (14.61%) Microsoft
3 67 (6.40%) Remedy
4 53 (5.06%) VMware
5 46 (4.39%) Atlassian
6 43 (4.11%) Cisco
7 39 (3.72%) HP
8 38 (3.63%) Oracle
9 30 (2.87%) SAP
10 23 (2.20%) IFS
11 22 (2.10%) BMC
12 20 (1.91%) Splunk
13 19 (1.81%) Dell
14 15 (1.43%) Canon
14 15 (1.43%) Salesforce
15 13 (1.24%) F5
15 13 (1.24%) Google
16 12 (1.15%) SolarWinds
17 11 (1.05%) Juniper
17 11 (1.05%) Palo Alto