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

6 months to
28 Apr 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 103 90 78
Rank change year-on-year -13 -12 +7
Contract jobs citing Service Management 1,083 827 1,167
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 2.31% 2.82% 2.70%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 2.73% 3.10% 3.12%
Number of daily rates quoted 726 512 780
10th Percentile £220 £232 £282
25th Percentile £394 £400 £425
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £511 £525 £525
Median % change year-on-year -2.62% - +5.00%
75th Percentile £614 £609 £608
90th Percentile £725 £700 £731
UK excluding London median daily rate £500 £538 £528
% change year-on-year -6.98% +1.90% +11.05%
Number of hourly rates quoted 65 33 23
10th Percentile £16.09 - £12.85
25th Percentile £16.17 £12.62 £15.46
Median hourly rate £55.00 £22.14 £17.72
Median % change year-on-year +148.42% +24.94% -67.78%
75th Percentile £83.75 £30.68 £26.75
90th Percentile £104.80 £68.50 £57.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £60.00 £22.14 £17.72
% change year-on-year +171.00% +24.94% -65.76%

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 39,735 26,655 37,382
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 84.58% 90.81% 86.33%
Number of daily rates quoted 25,044 17,231 24,097
10th Percentile £319 £306 £300
25th Percentile £413 £413 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £523 £525
Median % change year-on-year -4.40% -0.38% -4.55%
75th Percentile £613 £631 £638
90th Percentile £725 £744 £750
UK excluding London median daily rate £485 £485 £500
% change year-on-year - -3.00% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 2,400 1,068 2,424
10th Percentile £14.96 £14.84 £12.75
25th Percentile £19.98 £18.51 £16.00
Median hourly rate £40.25 £29.15 £35.00
Median % change year-on-year +38.08% -16.71% -6.27%
75th Percentile £65.60 £62.24 £59.44
90th Percentile £78.75 £75.00 £72.50
UK excluding London median hourly rate £42.00 £28.00 £35.98
% change year-on-year +50.00% -22.17% -0.07%

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 April 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 April 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 April 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 -10 969 £513 -4.21% 324
UK excluding London -10 725 £500 -6.98% 312
Work from Home -4 274 £500 - 152
London -36 270 £520 -0.95% 78
South East +28 209 £510 +5.97% 103
North of England -18 167 £500 +5.26% 76
South West -15 165 £600 +8.89% 30
Midlands -24 99 £403 -26.88% 38
North West +9 94 £550 +5.26% 39
West Midlands -34 77 £403 -26.95% 31
Yorkshire -41 62 £475 +11.76% 35
East of England -18 46 £475 -13.64% 39
Scotland -33 32 £500 -3.94% 11
East Midlands -18 22 £405 +5.88% 7
North East -16 11 £280 +43.59% 3
Wales -7 7 £340 -12.26% 16
Northern Ireland - 4 £500 - 11

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 89 (8.22%) Confluence
2 39 (3.60%) Microsoft Exchange
3 27 (2.49%) SharePoint
4 9 (0.83%) Skype for Business
5 6 (0.55%) Mattermost
6 3 (0.28%) IIS
6 3 (0.28%) nginx
7 2 (0.18%) Apache
8 1 (0.092%) CICS
8 1 (0.092%) HCL Notes
8 1 (0.092%) JBoss
8 1 (0.092%) LiveCycle
8 1 (0.092%) OpenStack
8 1 (0.092%) Oracle SOA Suite
8 1 (0.092%) WebLogic
8 1 (0.092%) WebSphere
Applications
1 88 (8.13%) Microsoft Office
2 39 (3.60%) Microsoft Project
3 27 (2.49%) Microsoft Excel
4 13 (1.20%) Microsoft PowerPoint
5 7 (0.65%) Chatbot
5 7 (0.65%) MS Visio
6 4 (0.37%) PTC Creo
7 2 (0.18%) Spreadsheet
8 1 (0.092%) Camtasia
Business Applications
1 43 (3.97%) Remedy ITSM
2 12 (1.11%) SAP S/4HANA
3 11 (1.02%) Oracle EBS
4 7 (0.65%) Teamcenter
5 2 (0.18%) Oracle Applications
5 2 (0.18%) Oracle ERP
6 1 (0.092%) Dynamics NAV
6 1 (0.092%) NetSuite
6 1 (0.092%) Oracle Payables
6 1 (0.092%) Oracle Procure-to-Pay
6 1 (0.092%) Oracle Receivables
6 1 (0.092%) Oracle Subledger Accounting
6 1 (0.092%) SAP HR
6 1 (0.092%) SAP Payroll
6 1 (0.092%) SAP PM
6 1 (0.092%) SAP SM
6 1 (0.092%) Workday HCM
Cloud Services
1 155 (14.31%) Azure
2 91 (8.40%) Microsoft 365
3 83 (7.66%) AWS
4 50 (4.62%) Power Platform
5 47 (4.34%) SaaS
6 40 (3.69%) GCP
7 33 (3.05%) Entra ID
8 27 (2.49%) Azure DevOps
9 20 (1.85%) GitHub
10 18 (1.66%) PaaS
11 17 (1.57%) IaaS
12 14 (1.29%) OneDrive
13 13 (1.20%) OCI
14 12 (1.11%) AWS Lambda
14 12 (1.11%) Serverless
15 11 (1.02%) Amazon CloudWatch
16 9 (0.83%) OpenShift
17 8 (0.74%) Dynamics 365
17 8 (0.74%) Google Workspace
18 7 (0.65%) PowerApps
Communications & Networking
1 62 (5.72%) Firewall
2 55 (5.08%) DNS
3 40 (3.69%) WAN
4 39 (3.60%) VPN
5 38 (3.51%) LAN
6 30 (2.77%) Network Security
7 29 (2.68%) DHCP
8 22 (2.03%) TCP/IP
9 16 (1.48%) Wi-Fi
10 15 (1.39%) VLAN
11 14 (1.29%) BGP
12 13 (1.20%) OSPF
12 13 (1.20%) SD-WAN
13 12 (1.11%) BIG-IP
14 11 (1.02%) Cisco ISE
14 11 (1.02%) Skype
15 10 (0.92%) Wireless
16 8 (0.74%) Ethernet VPN
16 8 (0.74%) Junos
16 8 (0.74%) VXLAN
Database & Business Intelligence
1 38 (3.51%) Power BI
2 13 (1.20%) SQL Server
3 7 (0.65%) Relational Database
4 6 (0.55%) Oracle Reports
4 6 (0.55%) PostgreSQL
5 5 (0.46%) Oracle Database
6 4 (0.37%) Amazon RDS
6 4 (0.37%) Elasticsearch
6 4 (0.37%) InfluxDB
6 4 (0.37%) Oracle Database 11g
6 4 (0.37%) SQL Server Integration Services
6 4 (0.37%) SQL Server Reporting Services
7 3 (0.28%) Azure SQL Database
7 3 (0.28%) SQL Server Analysis Services
7 3 (0.28%) Tableau
8 2 (0.18%) Amazon Redshift
8 2 (0.18%) GIS
8 2 (0.18%) Metadata
8 2 (0.18%) Microsoft Analysis Services
8 2 (0.18%) MySQL
Development Applications
1 151 (13.94%) JIRA
2 18 (1.66%) Jenkins
3 17 (1.57%) GitLab
4 15 (1.39%) Bitbucket
4 15 (1.39%) Git
5 7 (0.65%) ScriptRunner
6 6 (0.55%) Atlassian Bamboo
7 5 (0.46%) MLflow
8 3 (0.28%) Browser DevTools
8 3 (0.28%) Hudson
8 3 (0.28%) IntelliJ
8 3 (0.28%) Selenium
8 3 (0.28%) TestRail
9 2 (0.18%) Cypress.io
9 2 (0.18%) Fiddler
10 1 (0.092%) Artifactory
10 1 (0.092%) Cucumber
10 1 (0.092%) JMeter
10 1 (0.092%) MSI
10 1 (0.092%) Rational DOORS
General
1 388 (35.83%) Social Skills
2 164 (15.14%) Finance
3 158 (14.59%) Analytical Skills
4 113 (10.43%) Public Sector
5 60 (5.54%) Legal
6 45 (4.16%) Military
7 36 (3.32%) Banking
8 32 (2.95%) Organisational Skills
9 29 (2.68%) Documentation Skills
10 27 (2.49%) Telecoms
11 24 (2.22%) Influencing Skills
12 21 (1.94%) Retail
13 13 (1.20%) Inclusion and Diversity
14 12 (1.11%) Aerospace
15 8 (0.74%) Front Office
15 8 (0.74%) Investment Banking
15 8 (0.74%) Local Government
15 8 (0.74%) Manufacturing
15 8 (0.74%) Police
15 8 (0.74%) Presentation Skills
Job Titles
1 130 (12.00%) Analyst
2 129 (11.91%) Architect
3 110 (10.16%) Lead
4 109 (10.06%) Service Manager
5 79 (7.29%) Senior
6 64 (5.91%) Consultant
7 58 (5.36%) IT Manager
7 58 (5.36%) Service Architect
8 52 (4.80%) Service Analyst
9 41 (3.79%) Project Manager
10 36 (3.32%) Hardware Engineer
11 35 (3.23%) IT Analyst
12 34 (3.14%) Delivery Manager
13 30 (2.77%) Administrator
14 29 (2.68%) IT Services Manager
15 27 (2.49%) Developer
15 27 (2.49%) Support Engineer
16 26 (2.40%) Designer
16 26 (2.40%) Service Delivery Manager
17 25 (2.31%) IT Support
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 43 (3.97%) REST
2 20 (1.85%) SOAP
3 9 (0.83%) 802.1X
3 9 (0.83%) Middleware
4 7 (0.65%) Oracle Fusion
5 6 (0.55%) CSS
5 6 (0.55%) Elastic Stack
5 6 (0.55%) HTML
5 6 (0.55%) JSON
5 6 (0.55%) OAuth
6 5 (0.46%) .NET
6 5 (0.46%) Lightning Web Components
6 5 (0.46%) XMPP
7 4 (0.37%) AngularJS
7 4 (0.37%) LDAP
7 4 (0.37%) Microsoft Graph
7 4 (0.37%) RabbitMQ
7 4 (0.37%) Web Services
7 4 (0.37%) XML
8 3 (0.28%) EDI
Miscellaneous
1 88 (8.13%) Product Ownership
2 72 (6.65%) Onboarding
3 67 (6.19%) CMDB
4 46 (4.25%) Data Centre
5 30 (2.77%) Management Information System
6 25 (2.31%) Virtual Team
7 23 (2.12%) PKI
8 20 (1.85%) Driving Licence
9 19 (1.75%) Clustering
10 16 (1.48%) Enterprise Software
11 15 (1.39%) PMI
12 13 (1.20%) Data Protection Act
13 10 (0.92%) Analytical Mindset
13 10 (0.92%) Cloud Native
14 9 (0.83%) Operational Technology
14 9 (0.83%) Replication
14 9 (0.83%) Self-Motivation
15 8 (0.74%) Algorithms
16 7 (0.65%) Hybrid Cloud
16 7 (0.65%) Legacy Systems
Operating Systems
1 180 (16.62%) Windows
2 59 (5.45%) Linux
3 44 (4.06%) Windows 10
3 44 (4.06%) Windows Server
4 13 (1.20%) Unix
5 12 (1.11%) Mac OS
6 11 (1.02%) Windows 7
7 8 (0.74%) Android
7 8 (0.74%) Apple iOS
7 8 (0.74%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
8 7 (0.65%) Ubuntu
9 5 (0.46%) Windows Server 2012
10 4 (0.37%) VMS
11 3 (0.28%) Windows Server 2019
12 2 (0.18%) CentOS
12 2 (0.18%) Solaris
12 2 (0.18%) Windows Server 2016
12 2 (0.18%) zOS
13 1 (0.092%) Windows Server 2008
13 1 (0.092%) Windows XP
Processes & Methodologies
1 597 (55.12%) ITIL
2 457 (42.20%) ITSM
3 239 (22.07%) Agile
4 223 (20.59%) Continuous Improvement
5 221 (20.41%) Stakeholder Management
6 204 (18.84%) Problem-Solving
7 178 (16.44%) Service Delivery
8 151 (13.94%) Change Management
9 147 (13.57%) Stakeholder Engagement
10 129 (11.91%) DevOps
11 112 (10.34%) Customer Service
12 103 (9.51%) Service Design
13 88 (8.13%) Problem Management
14 81 (7.48%) Incident Management
15 78 (7.20%) Roadmaps
16 76 (7.02%) Configuration Management
17 75 (6.93%) Project Management
18 74 (6.83%) Knowledge Transfer
19 70 (6.46%) Acceptance Criteria
20 69 (6.37%) CI/CD
Programming Languages
1 77 (7.11%) PowerShell
2 53 (4.89%) SQL
3 45 (4.16%) Python
4 32 (2.95%) JavaScript
5 16 (1.48%) Java
6 11 (1.02%) Bash
7 9 (0.83%) PL/SQL
7 9 (0.83%) VB
7 9 (0.83%) VBScript
8 6 (0.55%) Apex Code
8 6 (0.55%) Kotlin
9 5 (0.46%) C#
9 5 (0.46%) Shell Script
10 4 (0.37%) Go
10 4 (0.37%) Groovy
10 4 (0.37%) T-SQL
11 3 (0.28%) Bicep
11 3 (0.28%) C
12 2 (0.18%) ActionScript
12 2 (0.18%) PHP
Qualifications
1 449 (41.46%) Security Cleared
2 345 (31.86%) SC Cleared
3 129 (11.91%) Degree
4 122 (11.27%) DV Cleared
5 50 (4.62%) ITIL Certification
6 34 (3.14%) PMI Certification
7 32 (2.95%) PMP
8 30 (2.77%) TOGAF Certification
9 27 (2.49%) Cisco Certification
10 23 (2.12%) BPSS Clearance
11 22 (2.03%) Microsoft Certification
12 20 (1.85%) Computer Science Degree
13 14 (1.29%) A+ Certification
13 14 (1.29%) CCNA
14 12 (1.11%) Master's Degree
15 11 (1.02%) CCNP
16 9 (0.83%) JNCIA
16 9 (0.83%) MAPM
16 9 (0.83%) Network+ Certification
16 9 (0.83%) VMware Certified Professional (VCP)
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 62 (5.72%) SLA
2 33 (3.05%) Data Quality
2 33 (3.05%) ISO/IEC 27001
3 23 (2.12%) QA
4 22 (2.03%) PMO
5 21 (1.94%) GDPR
6 16 (1.48%) ISO/IEC 20000
7 15 (1.39%) COBIT
7 15 (1.39%) GRC
8 14 (1.29%) NCSC
9 10 (0.92%) NIST
10 9 (0.83%) Accessibility
11 7 (0.65%) Cyber Essentials
11 7 (0.65%) Government Security Classifications
12 6 (0.55%) Disclosure Scotland
12 6 (0.55%) ISO 31000
12 6 (0.55%) ISO 9001
12 6 (0.55%) ISO/IEC 27005
12 6 (0.55%) PCI DSS
12 6 (0.55%) Sarbanes-Oxley
System Software
1 103 (9.51%) Active Directory
2 33 (3.05%) VMware Infrastructure
3 16 (1.48%) Docker
4 9 (0.83%) BitLocker
5 7 (0.65%) VMware ESXi
6 5 (0.46%) Hyper-V
7 4 (0.37%) Virtual Desktop
7 4 (0.37%) Virtual Machines
7 4 (0.37%) vSphere
8 2 (0.18%) IAG
8 2 (0.18%) NFS
8 2 (0.18%) Oracle RAC
8 2 (0.18%) Slurm Workload Manager
8 2 (0.18%) VMware NSX
9 1 (0.092%) iptables
9 1 (0.092%) Microsoft Virtual Server
9 1 (0.092%) Samba
9 1 (0.092%) Virtual Servers
Systems Management
1 33 (3.05%) Ansible
2 32 (2.95%) SCCM
3 30 (2.77%) OPNET
4 29 (2.68%) Terraform
5 23 (2.12%) Kubernetes
6 21 (1.94%) Microsoft Intune
7 11 (1.02%) Grafana
7 11 (1.02%) WSUS
8 10 (0.92%) FortiGate
9 8 (0.74%) Jamf Pro
9 8 (0.74%) Prometheus
10 7 (0.65%) Progress Chef
11 6 (0.55%) PowerCLI
12 5 (0.46%) Puppet
12 5 (0.46%) Single Sign-On
12 5 (0.46%) vMotion
13 4 (0.37%) Data Guard
13 4 (0.37%) Oracle RMAN
13 4 (0.37%) Packer
13 4 (0.37%) SCOM
Vendors
1 281 (25.95%) ServiceNow
2 163 (15.05%) Microsoft
3 79 (7.29%) Remedy
4 66 (6.09%) Atlassian
5 51 (4.71%) VMware
6 46 (4.25%) Oracle
7 42 (3.88%) Cisco
8 39 (3.60%) HP
9 28 (2.59%) Google
10 25 (2.31%) SAP
11 22 (2.03%) Splunk
12 21 (1.94%) IFS
13 19 (1.75%) BMC
13 19 (1.75%) Dell
14 17 (1.57%) Citrix
15 16 (1.48%) Salesforce
16 15 (1.39%) Canon
16 15 (1.39%) SolarWinds
17 13 (1.20%) F5
18 11 (1.02%) Workday