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

6 months to
10 Sep 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 91 82 97
Rank change year-on-year -9 +15 -10
Contract jobs citing Service Management 1,592 972 897
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 2.92% 2.95% 2.34%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 3.45% 3.26% 2.74%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,044 583 586
10th Percentile £263 £205 £213
25th Percentile £413 £350 £375
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £495 £501
Median % change year-on-year +6.06% -1.10% -4.67%
75th Percentile £625 £575 £603
90th Percentile £725 £675 £683
UK excluding London median daily rate £525 £493 £500
% change year-on-year +6.49% -1.40% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 81 74 16
10th Percentile £14.50 £12.62 £16.84
25th Percentile £16.30 £12.82 £24.31
Median hourly rate £55.00 £18.73 £36.25
Median % change year-on-year +193.65% -48.33% -34.09%
75th Percentile £85.00 £31.40 £49.06
90th Percentile £92.53 £52.05 £54.38
UK excluding London median hourly rate £35.53 £18.73 £36.25
% change year-on-year +89.70% -48.33% +61.11%

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 46,112 29,840 32,750
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 84.63% 90.46% 85.54%
Number of daily rates quoted 28,098 18,520 20,299
10th Percentile £325 £300 £312
25th Percentile £425 £403 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £500 £525
Median % change year-on-year +5.00% -4.76% -2.78%
75th Percentile £625 £625 £638
90th Percentile £725 £725 £750
UK excluding London median daily rate £500 £475 £500
% change year-on-year +5.26% -5.00% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 3,038 1,780 1,507
10th Percentile £13.87 £14.23 £14.70
25th Percentile £17.38 £17.30 £20.12
Median hourly rate £40.00 £25.15 £43.00
Median % change year-on-year +59.05% -41.51% +2.87%
75th Percentile £67.50 £45.00 £65.00
90th Percentile £80.00 £67.00 £75.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £40.03 £22.63 £43.00
% change year-on-year +76.89% -47.37% +8.65%

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 10 September 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 10 September 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 10 September 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 -11 1,373 £525 +5.00% 712
UK excluding London -15 925 £525 +6.49% 551
London +35 497 £525 +5.00% 257
Work from Home +10 426 £518 +3.60% 329
South East +11 303 £574 +20.74% 199
North of England -17 259 £475 +4.06% 133
North West -17 157 £481 +3.39% 70
Midlands -50 110 £513 +2.50% 77
South West -30 108 £575 +6.48% 68
West Midlands -24 103 £525 +1.94% 47
Yorkshire -15 94 £443 +21.37% 52
Scotland -2 93 £520 +11.53% 17
East of England -14 49 £510 -7.27% 52
Wales -6 13 £800 +247.83% 11
Northern Ireland +8 8 - - 10
North East -47 8 £535 +174.36% 11
East Midlands -33 7 £206 -31.25% 30

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
1 115 (7.22%) SharePoint
2 59 (3.71%) Confluence
2 59 (3.71%) Microsoft Exchange
3 15 (0.94%) Skype for Business
4 5 (0.31%) OpenStack
5 3 (0.19%) CMS
6 2 (0.13%) CICS
7 1 (0.063%) Apache
7 1 (0.063%) Exchange Server 2010
7 1 (0.063%) HCL Notes
7 1 (0.063%) Mattermost
7 1 (0.063%) Oracle Collaboration Suite
7 1 (0.063%) Palantir Foundry
Applications
1 89 (5.59%) Microsoft Office
2 41 (2.58%) Microsoft Excel
3 17 (1.07%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 13 (0.82%) Microsoft Project
5 12 (0.75%) MS Visio
6 9 (0.57%) Chatbot
7 2 (0.13%) Spreadsheet
8 1 (0.063%) Maple
Business Applications
1 58 (3.64%) Remedy ITSM
2 11 (0.69%) SAP S/4HANA
3 7 (0.44%) Primavera
4 5 (0.31%) ContrOCC
4 5 (0.31%) Dynamics CRM
4 5 (0.31%) NEC Housing
4 5 (0.31%) Workday HCM
5 3 (0.19%) Oracle ERP
5 3 (0.19%) SAP CO
5 3 (0.19%) SAP FI
5 3 (0.19%) SAP FI/CO
5 3 (0.19%) SAP SM
6 2 (0.13%) Exchequer
6 2 (0.13%) Oracle Applications
6 2 (0.13%) Oracle EBS
6 2 (0.13%) Remedy AR System
6 2 (0.13%) Salesforce CRM
6 2 (0.13%) SAP CX
6 2 (0.13%) SAP PS
6 2 (0.13%) Teamcenter
Cloud Services
1 276 (17.34%) Azure
2 200 (12.56%) Microsoft 365
3 133 (8.35%) AWS
4 117 (7.35%) Entra ID
5 72 (4.52%) Power Platform
6 70 (4.40%) SaaS
7 55 (3.45%) OneDrive
8 35 (2.20%) Azure DevOps
9 33 (2.07%) GCP
10 20 (1.26%) Microsoft Copilot
11 19 (1.19%) GitHub
12 16 (1.01%) Azure Monitor
13 14 (0.88%) OCI
14 11 (0.69%) Google Workspace
15 10 (0.63%) Power Automate
15 10 (0.63%) Serverless
16 9 (0.57%) Azure Sentinel
16 9 (0.57%) IaaS
16 9 (0.57%) PaaS
17 8 (0.50%) Amazon S3
Communications & Networking
1 80 (5.03%) Firewall
2 69 (4.33%) DNS
3 54 (3.39%) VPN
4 51 (3.20%) DHCP
5 47 (2.95%) TCP/IP
6 43 (2.70%) WAN
7 41 (2.58%) Network Security
8 35 (2.20%) LAN
9 23 (1.44%) Wi-Fi
10 20 (1.26%) Wireless
11 16 (1.01%) SD-WAN
11 16 (1.01%) Skype
12 14 (0.88%) VLAN
13 13 (0.82%) BGP
14 11 (0.69%) Intrusion Detection
15 10 (0.63%) 5G
15 10 (0.63%) SSH
16 9 (0.57%) Internet
16 9 (0.57%) OSPF
16 9 (0.57%) SSL
Database & Business Intelligence
1 49 (3.08%) Power BI
2 32 (2.01%) SQL Server
3 20 (1.26%) Metadata
4 9 (0.57%) Oracle Database
5 8 (0.50%) SQL Server Integration Services
6 7 (0.44%) MySQL
6 7 (0.44%) Oracle Database 11g
6 7 (0.44%) PostgreSQL
7 6 (0.38%) Oracle Reports
7 6 (0.38%) SQL Server Reporting Services
8 5 (0.31%) Amazon RDS
8 5 (0.31%) MariaDB
8 5 (0.31%) Relational Database
8 5 (0.31%) SQL Server Analysis Services
9 3 (0.19%) Amazon Aurora
10 2 (0.13%) Amazon Redshift
10 2 (0.13%) Azure SQL Database
10 2 (0.13%) Looker
10 2 (0.13%) Microsoft Analysis Services
10 2 (0.13%) SQLite
Development Applications
1 152 (9.55%) JIRA
2 24 (1.51%) Git
3 22 (1.38%) Jenkins
4 19 (1.19%) Bitbucket
5 12 (0.75%) Atlassian Bamboo
6 8 (0.50%) GitLab
7 5 (0.31%) Browser DevTools
8 4 (0.25%) Maven
8 4 (0.25%) webpack
9 3 (0.19%) Fiddler
9 3 (0.19%) Gradle
9 3 (0.19%) Hudson
9 3 (0.19%) Rational DOORS
9 3 (0.19%) ScriptRunner
10 2 (0.13%) Firebug
10 2 (0.13%) IntelliJ
10 2 (0.13%) MLflow
10 2 (0.13%) Sonatype Nexus
11 1 (0.063%) Artifactory
11 1 (0.063%) MSI
General
1 628 (39.45%) Social Skills
2 260 (16.33%) Finance
3 259 (16.27%) Analytical Skills
4 198 (12.44%) Public Sector
5 75 (4.71%) Telecoms
6 63 (3.96%) Organisational Skills
7 62 (3.89%) Documentation Skills
8 56 (3.52%) Banking
9 53 (3.33%) Influencing Skills
10 47 (2.95%) Legal
11 35 (2.20%) Inclusion and Diversity
12 33 (2.07%) Aerospace
12 33 (2.07%) Military
13 22 (1.38%) Local Government
14 21 (1.32%) Presentation Skills
15 18 (1.13%) Retail
16 16 (1.01%) Manufacturing
17 14 (0.88%) Police
18 10 (0.63%) Financial Institution
18 10 (0.63%) Law
Job Titles
1 173 (10.87%) Architect
2 157 (9.86%) Analyst
3 155 (9.74%) Lead
4 117 (7.35%) Senior
5 116 (7.29%) Service Manager
6 107 (6.72%) Consultant
7 74 (4.65%) Project Manager
8 73 (4.59%) IT Manager
8 73 (4.59%) Support Engineer
9 62 (3.89%) Developer
10 61 (3.83%) Delivery Manager
11 54 (3.39%) Solutions Architect
12 52 (3.27%) IT Support
13 49 (3.08%) Service Analyst
14 43 (2.70%) Service Architect
15 40 (2.51%) ServiceNow Architect
15 40 (2.51%) ServiceNow Developer
16 39 (2.45%) Transition Manager
17 35 (2.20%) IT Engineer
18 34 (2.14%) IT Analyst
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 77 (4.84%) REST
2 50 (3.14%) Terraform
3 32 (2.01%) SOAP
4 19 (1.19%) HTML
5 18 (1.13%) CSS
5 18 (1.13%) XML
6 17 (1.07%) Web Services
7 14 (0.88%) Middleware
8 12 (0.75%) JSON
9 10 (0.63%) SAML
10 9 (0.57%) AngularJS
10 9 (0.57%) Elastic Stack
11 8 (0.50%) .NET
12 7 (0.44%) ARM Templates
13 6 (0.38%) OAuth
14 5 (0.31%) LDAP
14 5 (0.31%) Node.js
14 5 (0.31%) OpenID
15 4 (0.25%) Ajax
15 4 (0.25%) XSLT
Miscellaneous
1 167 (10.49%) Onboarding
2 127 (7.98%) CMDB
3 81 (5.09%) Management Information System
4 56 (3.52%) Enterprise Software
4 56 (3.52%) Product Ownership
5 52 (3.27%) Data Centre
6 35 (2.20%) PKI
7 30 (1.88%) Virtual Team
8 28 (1.76%) Data Protection Act
8 28 (1.76%) Operational Technology
9 24 (1.51%) Hybrid Cloud
10 23 (1.44%) Security Operations Centre
11 19 (1.19%) Cloud Native
12 18 (1.13%) Clustering
13 17 (1.07%) Self-Motivation
14 16 (1.01%) AI Agents
14 16 (1.01%) Analytical Mindset
15 14 (0.88%) NHS
15 14 (0.88%) Video Conferencing
16 13 (0.82%) Cyber Threat
Operating Systems
1 314 (19.72%) Windows
2 91 (5.72%) Windows Server
3 84 (5.28%) Linux
4 69 (4.33%) Windows 10
5 31 (1.95%) Apple iOS
6 29 (1.82%) Mac OS
7 22 (1.38%) Unix
8 20 (1.26%) Windows 7
9 17 (1.07%) Android
10 10 (0.63%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
11 6 (0.38%) Windows Server 2019
12 3 (0.19%) Windows Server 2012
12 3 (0.19%) Windows Server 2016
12 3 (0.19%) zOS
13 2 (0.13%) Solaris
13 2 (0.13%) Windows XP
14 1 (0.063%) Windows Server 2008
Processes & Methodologies
1 842 (52.89%) ITIL
2 704 (44.22%) ITSM
3 493 (30.97%) Stakeholder Management
4 428 (26.88%) Continuous Improvement
5 336 (21.11%) Service Delivery
6 325 (20.41%) Agile
7 322 (20.23%) Problem-Solving
8 246 (15.45%) Stakeholder Engagement
9 244 (15.33%) Change Management
10 207 (13.00%) Roadmaps
11 184 (11.56%) Customer Service
12 166 (10.43%) Incident Management
13 163 (10.24%) DevOps
14 158 (9.92%) Cybersecurity
15 144 (9.05%) Project Delivery
16 141 (8.86%) Decision-Making
17 129 (8.10%) AI
18 127 (7.98%) Migration
19 120 (7.54%) Risk Management
20 118 (7.41%) Project Management
Programming Languages
1 139 (8.73%) PowerShell
2 85 (5.34%) Python
3 71 (4.46%) SQL
4 55 (3.45%) JavaScript
5 46 (2.89%) Bash
6 17 (1.07%) VBScript
7 15 (0.94%) Java
7 15 (0.94%) VB
8 11 (0.69%) PL/SQL
9 10 (0.63%) Bicep
10 9 (0.57%) C#
11 8 (0.50%) Groovy
12 7 (0.44%) Shell Script
13 6 (0.38%) C
14 5 (0.31%) Apex Code
14 5 (0.31%) Perl
14 5 (0.31%) T-SQL
15 4 (0.25%) TypeScript
16 3 (0.19%) Lua
17 2 (0.13%) ActionScript 2.0
Qualifications
1 601 (37.75%) Security Cleared
2 410 (25.75%) SC Cleared
3 154 (9.67%) Degree
4 152 (9.55%) DV Cleared
5 63 (3.96%) ITIL Certification
6 60 (3.77%) PMP
7 55 (3.45%) PMI Certification
8 52 (3.27%) BPSS Clearance
9 36 (2.26%) ITIL Foundation Certificate
9 36 (2.26%) Microsoft Certification
10 35 (2.20%) CISSP
11 32 (2.01%) CISM
12 29 (1.82%) Cisco Certification
12 29 (1.82%) Computer Science Degree
13 26 (1.63%) A+ Certification
14 17 (1.07%) Azure Certification
15 16 (1.01%) DBS Check
16 14 (0.88%) CCNA
17 12 (0.75%) AWS Certification
18 10 (0.63%) CCNP
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 129 (8.10%) SLA
2 57 (3.58%) QA
3 53 (3.33%) Data Quality
4 49 (3.08%) ISO/IEC 27001
5 32 (2.01%) GDPR
6 31 (1.95%) GRC
6 31 (1.95%) ISO/IEC 20000
6 31 (1.95%) NCSC
6 31 (1.95%) PMO
7 22 (1.38%) NIST
8 16 (1.01%) COBIT
8 16 (1.01%) ISO 9001
9 14 (0.88%) Cyber Essentials
10 12 (0.75%) Accessibility
11 9 (0.57%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
11 9 (0.57%) Disclosure Scotland
12 7 (0.44%) PCI DSS
13 6 (0.38%) ISO 31000
13 6 (0.38%) ISO/IEC 27005
14 5 (0.31%) ISO 22301
System Software
1 178 (11.18%) Active Directory
2 84 (5.28%) VMware Infrastructure
3 33 (2.07%) Hyper-V
4 27 (1.70%) VMware ESXi
5 20 (1.26%) Virtual Desktop
6 19 (1.19%) Docker
6 19 (1.19%) vSphere
7 18 (1.13%) VMware NSX
8 16 (1.01%) BitLocker
9 13 (0.82%) vCloud
10 6 (0.38%) IAG
10 6 (0.38%) Virtual Servers
11 5 (0.31%) Citrix Hypervisor
11 5 (0.31%) Firmware
11 5 (0.31%) Oracle RAC
11 5 (0.31%) Virtual Machines
11 5 (0.31%) XenApp
11 5 (0.31%) XenDesktop
12 3 (0.19%) Microsoft Virtual Server
12 3 (0.19%) NFS
Systems Management
1 89 (5.59%) Microsoft Intune
2 76 (4.77%) SCCM
3 50 (3.14%) Ansible
4 23 (1.44%) SCOM
5 22 (1.38%) Kubernetes
5 22 (1.38%) Single Sign-On
6 18 (1.13%) vCenter Server
7 12 (0.75%) Jamf Pro
7 12 (0.75%) WSUS
8 8 (0.50%) Data Guard
8 8 (0.50%) Oracle RMAN
9 5 (0.31%) Grafana
9 5 (0.31%) NetBackup
10 4 (0.25%) PowerCLI
10 4 (0.25%) Progress Chef
10 4 (0.25%) Puppet
10 4 (0.25%) vMotion
11 3 (0.19%) Cisco Prime
11 3 (0.19%) Nagios
11 3 (0.19%) OPNET
Vendors
1 455 (28.58%) ServiceNow
2 375 (23.56%) Microsoft
3 115 (7.22%) VMware
4 63 (3.96%) Remedy
5 52 (3.27%) BMC
5 52 (3.27%) Cisco
6 48 (3.02%) Oracle
7 36 (2.26%) Atlassian
8 33 (2.07%) SAP
9 29 (1.82%) Dynatrace
10 27 (1.70%) Splunk
11 22 (1.38%) CyberArk
11 22 (1.38%) Salesforce
12 21 (1.32%) Apple
12 21 (1.32%) Citrix
13 19 (1.19%) IBM
14 18 (1.13%) Google
14 18 (1.13%) IFS
14 18 (1.13%) SolarWinds
15 14 (0.88%) Zscaler