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

6 months to
26 Jul 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 96 82 89
Rank change year-on-year -14 +7 -8
Contract jobs citing Service Management 1,356 977 1,002
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 2.56% 2.97% 2.48%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 3.00% 3.28% 2.90%
Number of daily rates quoted 882 592 694
10th Percentile £250 £209 £251
25th Percentile £404 £350 £425
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £520 £492 £525
Median % change year-on-year +5.69% -6.29% +0.96%
75th Percentile £604 £577 £608
90th Percentile £700 £688 £688
UK excluding London median daily rate £510 £492 £525
% change year-on-year +3.56% -6.29% +5.00%
Number of hourly rates quoted 87 72 20
10th Percentile £14.50 - £16.63
25th Percentile £17.75 £12.62 £18.88
Median hourly rate £60.00 £18.73 £27.25
Median % change year-on-year +220.34% -31.27% -34.93%
75th Percentile £85.13 £22.25 £48.75
90th Percentile £96.00 £53.35 £53.88
UK excluding London median hourly rate £60.00 £18.73 £27.25
% change year-on-year +220.34% -31.27% +27.87%

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 45,137 29,773 34,561
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 85.05% 90.43% 85.54%
Number of daily rates quoted 27,973 18,705 22,228
10th Percentile £325 £300 £308
25th Percentile £419 £404 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £520 £500 £525
Median % change year-on-year +4.00% -4.76% -4.14%
75th Percentile £625 £625 £638
90th Percentile £725 £738 £750
UK excluding London median daily rate £500 £475 £500
% change year-on-year +5.26% -5.00% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 2,675 1,607 2,050
10th Percentile £14.81 £14.20 £13.50
25th Percentile £20.00 £17.33 £17.50
Median hourly rate £43.96 £25.15 £40.00
Median % change year-on-year +74.79% -37.13% -5.88%
75th Percentile £68.00 £50.00 £63.75
90th Percentile £82.80 £68.75 £73.75
UK excluding London median hourly rate £43.96 £23.57 £40.00
% change year-on-year +86.55% -41.09% -

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 26 July 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 26 July 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 26 July 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 1,182 £519 +3.75% 404
UK excluding London -22 812 £510 +3.56% 312
London +5 416 £525 +5.00% 139
Work from Home +9 397 £500 - 179
South East +30 276 £550 +18.92% 108
North of England -34 202 £456 +2.07% 86
South West -27 123 £500 -9.09% 27
North West -36 111 £490 +2.35% 42
Midlands -40 96 £476 -3.35% 42
West Midlands -36 86 £486 -5.63% 27
Yorkshire -23 85 £443 +26.57% 32
Scotland -21 61 £500 +3.52% 15
East of England -25 40 £563 +2.27% 30
Wales -9 13 £800 +247.83% 7
East Midlands -18 10 £350 -4.89% 15
Northern Ireland +9 8 - - 5
North East -43 6 £440 +125.64% 13

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 91 (6.71%) SharePoint
2 63 (4.65%) Confluence
3 39 (2.88%) Microsoft Exchange
4 8 (0.59%) Skype for Business
5 6 (0.44%) Mattermost
6 5 (0.37%) OpenStack
7 3 (0.22%) CMS
7 3 (0.22%) IIS
8 2 (0.15%) Apache
9 1 (0.074%) CICS
9 1 (0.074%) JBoss
9 1 (0.074%) LiveCycle
9 1 (0.074%) Oracle Collaboration Suite
9 1 (0.074%) Palantir Foundry
Applications
1 63 (4.65%) Microsoft Office
2 29 (2.14%) Microsoft Excel
3 15 (1.11%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 14 (1.03%) MS Visio
5 10 (0.74%) Microsoft Project
6 7 (0.52%) Chatbot
7 2 (0.15%) PTC Creo
7 2 (0.15%) Spreadsheet
8 1 (0.074%) Camtasia
8 1 (0.074%) Maple
Business Applications
1 56 (4.13%) Remedy ITSM
2 16 (1.18%) SAP S/4HANA
3 7 (0.52%) Primavera
4 6 (0.44%) Teamcenter
5 5 (0.37%) ContrOCC
6 4 (0.29%) SAP SM
7 3 (0.22%) NEC Housing
7 3 (0.22%) Oracle ERP
7 3 (0.22%) SAP CO
7 3 (0.22%) SAP FI
7 3 (0.22%) SAP FI/CO
8 2 (0.15%) Oracle Applications
8 2 (0.15%) SAP PS
9 1 (0.074%) Dynamics CRM
9 1 (0.074%) Misys Equation
9 1 (0.074%) Misys Midas
9 1 (0.074%) NetSuite
9 1 (0.074%) SAP HR
9 1 (0.074%) SAP Payroll
9 1 (0.074%) SAP PM
Cloud Services
1 219 (16.15%) Azure
2 151 (11.14%) Microsoft 365
3 90 (6.64%) AWS
4 84 (6.19%) Entra ID
5 64 (4.72%) Power Platform
6 54 (3.98%) SaaS
7 45 (3.32%) OneDrive
8 36 (2.65%) Azure DevOps
9 28 (2.06%) GCP
10 18 (1.33%) GitHub
11 16 (1.18%) PaaS
12 15 (1.11%) OCI
13 14 (1.03%) Azure Monitor
13 14 (1.03%) Microsoft Copilot
14 11 (0.81%) Amazon CloudWatch
14 11 (0.81%) AWS Lambda
14 11 (0.81%) Serverless
15 10 (0.74%) IaaS
16 9 (0.66%) Amazon S3
17 8 (0.59%) Amazon EC2
Communications & Networking
1 77 (5.68%) Firewall
2 64 (4.72%) DNS
3 42 (3.10%) TCP/IP
3 42 (3.10%) VPN
4 39 (2.88%) WAN
5 38 (2.80%) LAN
6 37 (2.73%) Network Security
7 36 (2.65%) DHCP
8 21 (1.55%) BGP
9 19 (1.40%) Wireless
10 16 (1.18%) OSPF
11 14 (1.03%) Wi-Fi
12 12 (0.88%) BIG-IP
12 12 (0.88%) Cisco ISE
12 12 (0.88%) SD-WAN
12 12 (0.88%) VXLAN
13 11 (0.81%) VLAN
14 10 (0.74%) Junos
15 9 (0.66%) Ethernet VPN
15 9 (0.66%) SSH
Database & Business Intelligence
1 51 (3.76%) Power BI
2 24 (1.77%) SQL Server
3 8 (0.59%) Oracle Database
3 8 (0.59%) PostgreSQL
4 6 (0.44%) Oracle Database 11g
4 6 (0.44%) Oracle Reports
4 6 (0.44%) Relational Database
4 6 (0.44%) SQL Server Integration Services
4 6 (0.44%) SQL Server Reporting Services
5 5 (0.37%) MySQL
5 5 (0.37%) SQL Server Analysis Services
6 3 (0.22%) Amazon RDS
6 3 (0.22%) Azure SQL Database
6 3 (0.22%) MariaDB
7 2 (0.15%) Amazon Redshift
7 2 (0.15%) Elasticsearch
7 2 (0.15%) Microsoft Analysis Services
7 2 (0.15%) SQLite
8 1 (0.074%) Db2
8 1 (0.074%) InfluxDB
Development Applications
1 154 (11.36%) JIRA
2 24 (1.77%) Git
2 24 (1.77%) Jenkins
3 22 (1.62%) Bitbucket
4 14 (1.03%) Atlassian Bamboo
5 12 (0.88%) GitLab
6 5 (0.37%) Browser DevTools
7 4 (0.29%) MLflow
7 4 (0.29%) Rational DOORS
7 4 (0.29%) ScriptRunner
8 3 (0.22%) Fiddler
8 3 (0.22%) Hudson
8 3 (0.22%) IntelliJ
9 2 (0.15%) Firebug
9 2 (0.15%) Maven
9 2 (0.15%) Selenium
9 2 (0.15%) Sonatype Nexus
9 2 (0.15%) webpack
10 1 (0.074%) IBM UrbanCode
10 1 (0.074%) TestRail
General
1 491 (36.21%) Social Skills
2 210 (15.49%) Finance
3 207 (15.27%) Analytical Skills
4 152 (11.21%) Public Sector
5 61 (4.50%) Telecoms
6 54 (3.98%) Legal
7 44 (3.24%) Banking
8 43 (3.17%) Influencing Skills
9 38 (2.80%) Organisational Skills
10 37 (2.73%) Documentation Skills
11 29 (2.14%) Military
12 28 (2.06%) Inclusion and Diversity
13 22 (1.62%) Local Government
14 19 (1.40%) Presentation Skills
15 17 (1.25%) Aerospace
16 13 (0.96%) Financial Institution
16 13 (0.96%) Retail
17 12 (0.88%) Police
18 8 (0.59%) Manufacturing
19 7 (0.52%) Investment Banking
Job Titles
1 155 (11.43%) Analyst
2 122 (9.00%) Lead
2 122 (9.00%) Senior
3 119 (8.78%) Architect
4 115 (8.48%) Service Manager
5 93 (6.86%) Consultant
6 81 (5.97%) IT Manager
7 66 (4.87%) Project Manager
8 59 (4.35%) Service Analyst
9 55 (4.06%) Developer
10 47 (3.47%) Delivery Manager
11 43 (3.17%) Support Engineer
12 35 (2.58%) IT Analyst
12 35 (2.58%) Network Engineer
12 35 (2.58%) ServiceNow Developer
12 35 (2.58%) Solutions Architect
13 32 (2.36%) Administrator
13 32 (2.36%) Business Analyst
13 32 (2.36%) Service Architect
14 31 (2.29%) Transition Manager
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 70 (5.16%) REST
2 32 (2.36%) SOAP
3 17 (1.25%) HTML
4 16 (1.18%) CSS
5 11 (0.81%) Middleware
5 11 (0.81%) Web Services
6 10 (0.74%) JSON
6 10 (0.74%) XML
7 9 (0.66%) 802.1X
7 9 (0.66%) OAuth
8 7 (0.52%) SAML
9 6 (0.44%) AngularJS
9 6 (0.44%) Elastic Stack
10 5 (0.37%) ARM Templates
10 5 (0.37%) Lightning Web Components
10 5 (0.37%) Microsoft Graph
10 5 (0.37%) OpenID
10 5 (0.37%) Oracle Fusion
11 4 (0.29%) Bootstrap
11 4 (0.29%) XMPP
Miscellaneous
1 133 (9.81%) Onboarding
2 108 (7.96%) CMDB
3 66 (4.87%) Product Ownership
4 51 (3.76%) Management Information System
5 45 (3.32%) Data Centre
6 34 (2.51%) Enterprise Software
6 34 (2.51%) PKI
7 32 (2.36%) Virtual Team
8 25 (1.84%) Clustering
9 24 (1.77%) Operational Technology
10 20 (1.47%) Data Protection Act
11 17 (1.25%) Self-Motivation
12 15 (1.11%) Analytical Mindset
13 14 (1.03%) Cloud Native
14 13 (0.96%) AI Agents
14 13 (0.96%) Hybrid Cloud
15 12 (0.88%) Driving Licence
16 11 (0.81%) Greenfield Project
16 11 (0.81%) Video Conferencing
17 10 (0.74%) Algorithms
Operating Systems
1 244 (17.99%) Windows
2 63 (4.65%) Linux
3 54 (3.98%) Windows Server
4 40 (2.95%) Windows 10
5 24 (1.77%) Mac OS
6 18 (1.33%) Apple iOS
6 18 (1.33%) Unix
7 12 (0.88%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
8 11 (0.81%) Android
8 11 (0.81%) Windows 7
9 5 (0.37%) Windows Server 2019
10 4 (0.29%) VMS
11 3 (0.22%) Ubuntu
11 3 (0.22%) Windows Server 2012
12 2 (0.15%) Solaris
12 2 (0.15%) Windows Server 2016
12 2 (0.15%) Windows XP
12 2 (0.15%) zOS
13 1 (0.074%) Rocky
13 1 (0.074%) Windows Server 2008
Processes & Methodologies
1 727 (53.61%) ITIL
2 613 (45.21%) ITSM
3 358 (26.40%) Stakeholder Management
4 345 (25.44%) Continuous Improvement
5 294 (21.68%) Service Delivery
6 289 (21.31%) Agile
7 274 (20.21%) Problem-Solving
8 210 (15.49%) Change Management
9 197 (14.53%) Stakeholder Engagement
10 162 (11.95%) DevOps
11 150 (11.06%) Customer Service
12 135 (9.96%) Incident Management
13 130 (9.59%) Roadmaps
14 114 (8.41%) Project Delivery
15 107 (7.89%) Migration
16 103 (7.60%) Cybersecurity
17 102 (7.52%) Problem Management
18 101 (7.45%) Project Management
19 97 (7.15%) Service Design
20 94 (6.93%) Decision-Making
Programming Languages
1 105 (7.74%) PowerShell
2 78 (5.75%) Python
3 67 (4.94%) SQL
4 56 (4.13%) JavaScript
5 36 (2.65%) Bash
6 19 (1.40%) Java
7 11 (0.81%) PL/SQL
8 8 (0.59%) VB
8 8 (0.59%) VBScript
9 7 (0.52%) Bicep
9 7 (0.52%) Groovy
10 6 (0.44%) Apex Code
10 6 (0.44%) C
10 6 (0.44%) Perl
11 5 (0.37%) C#
11 5 (0.37%) Kotlin
11 5 (0.37%) Shell Script
11 5 (0.37%) T-SQL
12 3 (0.22%) Lua
12 3 (0.22%) SOQL
Qualifications
1 492 (36.28%) Security Cleared
2 318 (23.45%) SC Cleared
3 159 (11.73%) DV Cleared
4 123 (9.07%) Degree
5 64 (4.72%) ITIL Certification
6 48 (3.54%) PMP
7 44 (3.24%) PMI Certification
8 38 (2.80%) BPSS Clearance
9 30 (2.21%) Cisco Certification
10 24 (1.77%) Computer Science Degree
11 21 (1.55%) Microsoft Certification
12 19 (1.40%) A+ Certification
13 18 (1.33%) ITIL Foundation Certificate
14 17 (1.25%) CISM
14 17 (1.25%) CISSP
15 15 (1.11%) CCNA
16 14 (1.03%) Master's Degree
17 13 (0.96%) DBS Check
18 11 (0.81%) CCNP
19 9 (0.66%) Network+ Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 104 (7.67%) SLA
2 45 (3.32%) ISO/IEC 27001
3 41 (3.02%) QA
4 36 (2.65%) Data Quality
5 30 (2.21%) ISO/IEC 20000
5 30 (2.21%) PMO
6 26 (1.92%) GRC
7 25 (1.84%) GDPR
8 24 (1.77%) NCSC
9 20 (1.47%) COBIT
10 16 (1.18%) ISO 9001
11 15 (1.11%) NIST
12 10 (0.74%) Cyber Essentials
13 8 (0.59%) Accessibility
13 8 (0.59%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
13 8 (0.59%) Disclosure Scotland
14 7 (0.52%) Government Security Classifications
14 7 (0.52%) PCI DSS
15 6 (0.44%) ISO 31000
15 6 (0.44%) ISO/IEC 27005
System Software
1 147 (10.84%) Active Directory
2 54 (3.98%) VMware Infrastructure
3 21 (1.55%) VMware ESXi
4 16 (1.18%) Docker
5 14 (1.03%) VMware NSX
6 12 (0.88%) Virtual Desktop
7 10 (0.74%) Hyper-V
7 10 (0.74%) vSphere
8 9 (0.66%) BitLocker
8 9 (0.66%) vCloud
9 6 (0.44%) IAG
10 5 (0.37%) NFS
10 5 (0.37%) Virtual Machines
11 4 (0.29%) Oracle RAC
12 3 (0.22%) Firmware
13 2 (0.15%) GPFS
13 2 (0.15%) KVM
14 1 (0.074%) iptables
14 1 (0.074%) Samba
14 1 (0.074%) Slurm Workload Manager
Systems Management
1 67 (4.94%) Microsoft Intune
2 56 (4.13%) SCCM
3 39 (2.88%) Terraform
4 38 (2.80%) Ansible
5 18 (1.33%) Kubernetes
6 15 (1.11%) Jamf Pro
7 14 (1.03%) SCOM
7 14 (1.03%) Single Sign-On
8 13 (0.96%) vCenter Server
9 8 (0.59%) FortiGate
10 7 (0.52%) Data Guard
10 7 (0.52%) Oracle RMAN
10 7 (0.52%) Puppet
11 6 (0.44%) Grafana
11 6 (0.44%) WSUS
12 5 (0.37%) Progress Chef
12 5 (0.37%) vMotion
13 4 (0.29%) PowerCLI
13 4 (0.29%) Prometheus
14 3 (0.22%) Dell DRAC
Vendors
1 396 (29.20%) ServiceNow
2 258 (19.03%) Microsoft
3 78 (5.75%) VMware
4 60 (4.42%) Remedy
5 51 (3.76%) Cisco
6 36 (2.65%) Atlassian
6 36 (2.65%) Oracle
7 34 (2.51%) BMC
8 33 (2.43%) SAP
9 25 (1.84%) Splunk
10 22 (1.62%) IFS
11 21 (1.55%) Salesforce
12 19 (1.40%) SolarWinds
13 18 (1.33%) Zscaler
14 17 (1.25%) Citrix
14 17 (1.25%) Juniper
15 15 (1.11%) Dynatrace
15 15 (1.11%) IBM
16 14 (1.03%) HP
17 13 (0.96%) Apple