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 20 March 2026, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
20 Mar 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 105 82 80
Rank change year-on-year -23 -2 +9
Contract jobs citing Service Management 1,033 863 1,177
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 2.37% 2.95% 2.66%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 2.76% 3.26% 3.07%
Number of daily rates quoted 705 546 793
10th Percentile £210 £220 £280
25th Percentile £363 £405 £425
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £510 £525 £535
Median % change year-on-year -2.95% -1.87% +7.00%
75th Percentile £608 £613 £608
90th Percentile £725 £700 £729
UK excluding London median daily rate £500 £525 £535
% change year-on-year -4.76% -1.87% +12.63%
Number of hourly rates quoted 72 36 20
10th Percentile £15.78 £12.62 £12.53
25th Percentile £16.17 £21.05 £16.27
Median hourly rate £27.50 £25.34 £18.36
Median % change year-on-year +8.52% +38.02% -43.51%
75th Percentile £74.26 £32.72 £26.63
90th Percentile £85.13 £68.13 £56.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £27.50 £24.18 £17.72
% change year-on-year +13.73% +36.46% -57.58%

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 37,403 26,465 38,354
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 85.99% 90.45% 86.55%
Number of daily rates quoted 23,742 17,048 24,949
10th Percentile £313 £308 £300
25th Percentile £413 £413 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £525 £525
Median % change year-on-year -4.76% - -4.55%
75th Percentile £611 £638 £638
90th Percentile £725 £743 £745
UK excluding London median daily rate £480 £488 £500
% change year-on-year -1.54% -2.50% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 2,201 924 2,323
10th Percentile £15.00 £15.25 £12.99
25th Percentile £18.50 £21.00 £16.00
Median hourly rate £30.00 £32.50 £32.50
Median % change year-on-year -7.69% - -7.14%
75th Percentile £65.00 £64.50 £57.50
90th Percentile £75.00 £77.41 £70.66
UK excluding London median hourly rate £28.00 £31.64 £31.13
% change year-on-year -11.50% +1.65% -11.14%

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 20 March 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 20 March 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 20 March 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 -16 948 £510 -3.77% 363
UK excluding London -9 705 £500 -4.76% 318
London -56 252 £520 -0.95% 83
Work from Home -30 241 £492 -6.29% 143
South East +25 207 £510 +9.57% 115
North of England -12 168 £500 +11.11% 73
South West -10 164 £575 +2.22% 31
Midlands -21 100 £420 -25.86% 50
North West +1 97 £550 +10.00% 43
West Midlands -37 75 £420 -26.41% 34
Yorkshire -25 62 £468 +102.82% 25
East of England -8 45 £450 -18.18% 43
East Midlands -15 25 £419 -9.95% 16
Scotland -39 22 £500 - 12
North East -11 12 £280 +43.59% 6
Wales -12 2 £245 -46.30% 5
Northern Ireland - 1 £500 - 2

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 93 (9.00%) Confluence
2 48 (4.65%) Microsoft Exchange
3 43 (4.16%) SharePoint
4 10 (0.97%) Skype for Business
5 5 (0.48%) Mattermost
6 3 (0.29%) IIS
6 3 (0.29%) nginx
6 3 (0.29%) SharePoint Server
7 2 (0.19%) Apache
7 2 (0.19%) JBoss
8 1 (0.097%) HCL Notes
8 1 (0.097%) LiveCycle
8 1 (0.097%) OpenStack
8 1 (0.097%) Oracle SOA Suite
8 1 (0.097%) WebLogic
8 1 (0.097%) WebSphere
Applications
1 85 (8.23%) Microsoft Office
2 38 (3.68%) Microsoft Project
3 28 (2.71%) Microsoft Excel
4 10 (0.97%) Microsoft PowerPoint
5 6 (0.58%) MS Visio
6 4 (0.39%) PTC Creo
7 3 (0.29%) Spreadsheet
8 2 (0.19%) Autodesk Inventor
8 2 (0.19%) Chatbot
9 1 (0.097%) Camtasia
Business Applications
1 33 (3.19%) Remedy ITSM
2 13 (1.26%) Oracle EBS
2 13 (1.26%) SAP S/4HANA
3 7 (0.68%) Teamcenter
4 2 (0.19%) Salesforce CRM
5 1 (0.097%) assyst
5 1 (0.097%) Dynamics CRM
5 1 (0.097%) Dynamics NAV
5 1 (0.097%) NetSuite
5 1 (0.097%) Oracle Payables
5 1 (0.097%) Oracle Procure-to-Pay
5 1 (0.097%) Oracle Receivables
5 1 (0.097%) Oracle Subledger Accounting
5 1 (0.097%) SAP ERP
5 1 (0.097%) SAP HR
5 1 (0.097%) SAP Payroll
5 1 (0.097%) SAP PM
5 1 (0.097%) SAP SM
5 1 (0.097%) SystmOne
5 1 (0.097%) Workday HCM
Cloud Services
1 165 (15.97%) Azure
2 94 (9.10%) Microsoft 365
3 90 (8.71%) AWS
4 50 (4.84%) GCP
5 43 (4.16%) Entra ID
6 42 (4.07%) Power Platform
7 37 (3.58%) SaaS
8 30 (2.90%) Azure DevOps
9 18 (1.74%) OneDrive
10 17 (1.65%) GitHub
11 15 (1.45%) IaaS
11 15 (1.45%) PaaS
12 12 (1.16%) Serverless
13 11 (1.06%) AWS Lambda
14 9 (0.87%) Amazon CloudWatch
15 8 (0.77%) Dynamics 365
15 8 (0.77%) OpenShift
16 7 (0.68%) PowerApps
16 7 (0.68%) Salesforce Service Cloud
17 6 (0.58%) Power Automate
Communications & Networking
1 64 (6.20%) Firewall
2 62 (6.00%) DNS
3 38 (3.68%) WAN
4 37 (3.58%) LAN
5 34 (3.29%) VPN
6 33 (3.19%) DHCP
7 28 (2.71%) Network Security
8 20 (1.94%) VLAN
9 19 (1.84%) BGP
9 19 (1.84%) TCP/IP
10 18 (1.74%) Cisco ISE
11 16 (1.55%) Junos
11 16 (1.55%) Skype
12 15 (1.45%) Wi-Fi
13 13 (1.26%) OSPF
14 12 (1.16%) BIG-IP
14 12 (1.16%) SD-WAN
15 11 (1.06%) Cisco Firepower
15 11 (1.06%) WebEx
16 9 (0.87%) Cisco IOS
Database & Business Intelligence
1 32 (3.10%) Power BI
2 13 (1.26%) SQL Server
3 9 (0.87%) Relational Database
4 6 (0.58%) PostgreSQL
5 5 (0.48%) Metadata
6 4 (0.39%) Amazon RDS
6 4 (0.39%) Elasticsearch
6 4 (0.39%) InfluxDB
7 3 (0.29%) Tableau
8 2 (0.19%) Azure SQL Database
8 2 (0.19%) Big Data
8 2 (0.19%) GIS
8 2 (0.19%) MongoDB
9 1 (0.097%) Amazon Redshift
9 1 (0.097%) Electronic Patient Records
9 1 (0.097%) KNIME
9 1 (0.097%) OpenStack Swift
9 1 (0.097%) Oracle Reports
9 1 (0.097%) SQL Server Integration Services
9 1 (0.097%) SQL Server Reporting Services
Development Applications
1 145 (14.04%) JIRA
2 19 (1.84%) Jenkins
3 16 (1.55%) Bitbucket
3 16 (1.55%) Git
3 16 (1.55%) GitLab
4 6 (0.58%) Atlassian Bamboo
5 4 (0.39%) MLflow
5 4 (0.39%) ScriptRunner
6 3 (0.29%) Selenium
6 3 (0.29%) TestRail
7 2 (0.19%) Cypress.io
7 2 (0.19%) IntelliJ
8 1 (0.097%) Artifactory
8 1 (0.097%) Cucumber
8 1 (0.097%) Hudson
8 1 (0.097%) JMeter
8 1 (0.097%) JUnit
8 1 (0.097%) Postman
8 1 (0.097%) Protractor
8 1 (0.097%) Rational DOORS
General
1 374 (36.21%) Social Skills
2 160 (15.49%) Analytical Skills
3 136 (13.17%) Finance
4 121 (11.71%) Public Sector
5 58 (5.61%) Legal
6 46 (4.45%) Military
7 32 (3.10%) Banking
7 32 (3.10%) Documentation Skills
7 32 (3.10%) Organisational Skills
8 31 (3.00%) Influencing Skills
9 22 (2.13%) Retail
10 18 (1.74%) Telecoms
11 11 (1.06%) Aerospace
11 11 (1.06%) Manufacturing
12 10 (0.97%) Inclusion and Diversity
13 8 (0.77%) Law
13 8 (0.77%) Local Government
14 6 (0.58%) Investment Banking
14 6 (0.58%) Police
15 5 (0.48%) Presentation Skills
Job Titles
1 129 (12.49%) Analyst
2 122 (11.81%) Lead
3 118 (11.42%) Architect
4 98 (9.49%) Service Manager
5 66 (6.39%) Senior
6 64 (6.20%) Consultant
7 56 (5.42%) Service Architect
8 52 (5.03%) Service Analyst
9 41 (3.97%) IT Manager
10 37 (3.58%) Support Engineer
11 36 (3.48%) Hardware Engineer
12 35 (3.39%) IT Support
13 32 (3.10%) Delivery Manager
14 29 (2.81%) Project Manager
15 28 (2.71%) Network Engineer
16 27 (2.61%) IT Analyst
16 27 (2.61%) Service Delivery Manager
17 26 (2.52%) Administrator
18 25 (2.42%) Platform Engineer
19 24 (2.32%) Field Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 43 (4.16%) REST
2 16 (1.55%) SOAP
3 11 (1.06%) XMPP
4 9 (0.87%) 802.1X
5 8 (0.77%) Elastic Stack
6 7 (0.68%) Middleware
6 7 (0.68%) Web Services
7 6 (0.58%) LDAP
8 5 (0.48%) .NET
9 4 (0.39%) ARM Templates
9 4 (0.39%) JSON
9 4 (0.39%) RabbitMQ
10 3 (0.29%) CSS
10 3 (0.29%) Lightning Web Components
10 3 (0.29%) Microsoft Graph
10 3 (0.29%) OAuth
10 3 (0.29%) Oracle Fusion
11 2 (0.19%) EDI
11 2 (0.19%) HTML
11 2 (0.19%) XML
Miscellaneous
1 97 (9.39%) Product Ownership
2 66 (6.39%) CMDB
3 52 (5.03%) Onboarding
4 40 (3.87%) Data Centre
5 36 (3.48%) Management Information System
6 30 (2.90%) Virtual Team
7 25 (2.42%) PKI
8 20 (1.94%) Driving Licence
9 15 (1.45%) Analytical Mindset
9 15 (1.45%) Self-Motivation
10 14 (1.36%) PMI
11 13 (1.26%) Data Protection Act
12 11 (1.06%) Clustering
12 11 (1.06%) Enterprise Software
13 8 (0.77%) Hybrid Cloud
14 7 (0.68%) Algorithms
14 7 (0.68%) Cloud Native
14 7 (0.68%) NHS
14 7 (0.68%) Replication
15 6 (0.58%) Legacy Systems
Operating Systems
1 197 (19.07%) Windows
2 63 (6.10%) Linux
3 58 (5.61%) Windows Server
4 46 (4.45%) Windows 10
5 16 (1.55%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
6 11 (1.06%) Mac OS
6 11 (1.06%) Windows 7
7 10 (0.97%) Android
8 8 (0.77%) Apple iOS
8 8 (0.77%) Windows Server 2012
9 7 (0.68%) Ubuntu
9 7 (0.68%) Unix
10 5 (0.48%) VMS
11 4 (0.39%) Windows Server 2003
12 3 (0.29%) CentOS
12 3 (0.29%) Windows Server 2016
12 3 (0.29%) Windows Server 2019
13 1 (0.097%) Data ONTAP
13 1 (0.097%) Rocky
13 1 (0.097%) Windows Server 2008
Processes & Methodologies
1 580 (56.15%) ITIL
2 450 (43.56%) ITSM
3 231 (22.36%) Agile
4 209 (20.23%) Continuous Improvement
4 209 (20.23%) Problem-Solving
5 189 (18.30%) Stakeholder Management
6 159 (15.39%) Service Delivery
7 155 (15.00%) Change Management
8 145 (14.04%) Stakeholder Engagement
9 120 (11.62%) DevOps
10 105 (10.16%) Customer Service
11 103 (9.97%) Service Design
12 88 (8.52%) Problem Management
13 85 (8.23%) Incident Management
14 79 (7.65%) Configuration Management
15 78 (7.55%) Project Management
16 75 (7.26%) Acceptance Criteria
17 70 (6.78%) Knowledge Transfer
18 64 (6.20%) Roadmaps
19 63 (6.10%) CI/CD
Programming Languages
1 89 (8.62%) PowerShell
2 58 (5.61%) Python
3 46 (4.45%) SQL
4 23 (2.23%) JavaScript
5 19 (1.84%) Bash
6 18 (1.74%) Java
7 10 (0.97%) Perl
8 9 (0.87%) VB
8 9 (0.87%) VBScript
9 8 (0.77%) Shell Script
10 6 (0.58%) Kotlin
11 5 (0.48%) C#
11 5 (0.48%) PL/SQL
12 4 (0.39%) Go
13 2 (0.19%) Apex Code
13 2 (0.19%) Bicep
13 2 (0.19%) PHP
14 1 (0.097%) ActionScript 2.0
14 1 (0.097%) Search Processing Language
14 1 (0.097%) T-SQL
Qualifications
1 439 (42.50%) Security Cleared
2 330 (31.95%) SC Cleared
3 129 (12.49%) Degree
4 127 (12.29%) DV Cleared
5 50 (4.84%) ITIL Certification
6 30 (2.90%) TOGAF Certification
7 28 (2.71%) PMI Certification
8 25 (2.42%) PMP
9 24 (2.32%) BPSS Clearance
10 23 (2.23%) Cisco Certification
10 23 (2.23%) Microsoft Certification
11 15 (1.45%) Computer Science Degree
12 14 (1.36%) CCNP
13 13 (1.26%) A+ Certification
14 12 (1.16%) CCNA
14 12 (1.16%) MCSE
15 9 (0.87%) JNCIA
15 9 (0.87%) JNCIP
15 9 (0.87%) JNCIS
15 9 (0.87%) Master's Degree
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 48 (4.65%) SLA
2 31 (3.00%) ISO/IEC 27001
3 29 (2.81%) Data Quality
4 22 (2.13%) GDPR
4 22 (2.13%) QA
5 18 (1.74%) ISO/IEC 20000
6 17 (1.65%) PMO
7 11 (1.06%) Accessibility
7 11 (1.06%) NCSC
8 10 (0.97%) COBIT
9 9 (0.87%) NIST
10 8 (0.77%) Sarbanes-Oxley
11 7 (0.68%) Government Security Classifications
11 7 (0.68%) GRC
12 6 (0.58%) Cyber Essentials
12 6 (0.58%) PCI DSS
13 4 (0.39%) ISO 9001
14 3 (0.29%) Disclosure Scotland
14 3 (0.29%) HMG Security Policy Framework
15 2 (0.19%) HIPAA
System Software
1 118 (11.42%) Active Directory
2 37 (3.58%) VMware Infrastructure
3 18 (1.74%) Docker
4 12 (1.16%) VMware NSX
5 9 (0.87%) BitLocker
6 7 (0.68%) Hyper-V
7 5 (0.48%) Virtual Machines
8 3 (0.29%) Virtual Desktop
8 3 (0.29%) VMware ESXi
9 2 (0.19%) Microsoft Virtual Server
9 2 (0.19%) NDS
9 2 (0.19%) NetIQ eDirectory
9 2 (0.19%) NFS
9 2 (0.19%) Virtual Servers
10 1 (0.097%) iptables
10 1 (0.097%) Samba
10 1 (0.097%) Slurm Workload Manager
Systems Management
1 36 (3.48%) SCCM
2 30 (2.90%) OPNET
3 29 (2.81%) Microsoft Intune
4 28 (2.71%) Ansible
5 27 (2.61%) Terraform
6 25 (2.42%) Kubernetes
7 12 (1.16%) FortiGate
7 12 (1.16%) vCenter Server
7 12 (1.16%) WSUS
8 10 (0.97%) Grafana
9 8 (0.77%) Active Directory Federation Services
9 8 (0.77%) Jamf Pro
10 7 (0.68%) Progress Chef
10 7 (0.68%) Prometheus
11 5 (0.48%) Puppet
11 5 (0.48%) SCOM
11 5 (0.48%) Single Sign-On
12 4 (0.39%) Nessus
12 4 (0.39%) Packer
13 3 (0.29%) HP ALM
Vendors
1 261 (25.27%) ServiceNow
2 159 (15.39%) Microsoft
3 72 (6.97%) Atlassian
4 69 (6.68%) Remedy
5 57 (5.52%) Cisco
6 56 (5.42%) VMware
7 39 (3.78%) HP
8 37 (3.58%) Google
8 37 (3.58%) Oracle
9 28 (2.71%) SAP
10 25 (2.42%) SolarWinds
10 25 (2.42%) Splunk
11 18 (1.74%) Citrix
11 18 (1.74%) Dell
11 18 (1.74%) Juniper
11 18 (1.74%) Salesforce
12 17 (1.65%) Red Hat
13 15 (1.45%) Canon
14 14 (1.36%) IFS
15 13 (1.26%) F5