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

6 months to
24 Apr 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 105 89 77
Rank change year-on-year -16 -12 +9
Contract jobs citing Service Management 1,071 833 1,190
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 2.30% 2.82% 2.73%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 2.72% 3.11% 3.16%
Number of daily rates quoted 723 517 799
10th Percentile £220 £223 £274
25th Percentile £398 £400 £425
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £513 £525 £525
Median % change year-on-year -2.38% - +5.00%
75th Percentile £613 £608 £608
90th Percentile £725 £696 £725
UK excluding London median daily rate £505 £525 £525
% change year-on-year -3.81% - +10.53%
Number of hourly rates quoted 62 32 23
10th Percentile £16.09 - £12.85
25th Percentile £16.17 £12.62 £15.46
Median hourly rate £60.00 £22.14 £17.72
Median % change year-on-year +171.00% +24.94% -65.76%
75th Percentile £83.94 £30.68 £26.75
90th Percentile £107.20 £68.63 £57.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £60.00 £22.14 £17.72
% change year-on-year +171.00% +24.94% -63.46%

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 39,397 26,809 37,691
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 84.78% 90.76% 86.34%
Number of daily rates quoted 24,864 17,328 24,353
10th Percentile £319 £308 £300
25th Percentile £413 £413 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £523 £525
Median % change year-on-year -4.31% -0.48% -4.55%
75th Percentile £613 £630 £638
90th Percentile £725 £739 £750
UK excluding London median daily rate £485 £485 £500
% change year-on-year - -3.00% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 2,354 1,060 2,429
10th Percentile £14.96 £14.83 £12.75
25th Percentile £19.91 £18.51 £16.00
Median hourly rate £40.00 £29.07 £35.00
Median % change year-on-year +37.60% -16.94% -6.67%
75th Percentile £65.60 £62.24 £58.75
90th Percentile £78.75 £75.00 £71.98
UK excluding London median hourly rate £41.56 £28.00 £35.00
% change year-on-year +48.41% -20.00% -6.17%

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 24 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 24 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 24 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 -15 964 £513 -2.38% 313
UK excluding London -11 717 £505 -3.81% 307
Work from Home -9 267 £500 - 141
London -47 267 £520 -0.95% 71
South East +34 212 £510 +9.68% 90
South West -15 165 £600 +8.89% 31
North of England -18 164 £500 +5.26% 71
Midlands -17 95 £406 -24.42% 42
North West +2 93 £554 +5.98% 33
West Midlands -31 73 £406 -26.20% 30
Yorkshire -34 60 £468 +10.12% 34
East of England -19 47 £475 -13.64% 45
Scotland -21 32 £500 -2.44% 13
East Midlands -17 22 £405 +5.88% 12
North East -12 11 £280 +43.59% 4
Wales -12 3 £340 -12.26% 13
Northern Ireland - 3 £500 - 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 89 (8.31%) Confluence
2 40 (3.73%) Microsoft Exchange
3 27 (2.52%) SharePoint
4 9 (0.84%) Skype for Business
5 5 (0.47%) Mattermost
6 3 (0.28%) IIS
6 3 (0.28%) nginx
7 2 (0.19%) Apache
8 1 (0.093%) HCL Notes
8 1 (0.093%) JBoss
8 1 (0.093%) LiveCycle
8 1 (0.093%) OpenStack
8 1 (0.093%) Oracle SOA Suite
8 1 (0.093%) WebLogic
8 1 (0.093%) WebSphere
Applications
1 88 (8.22%) Microsoft Office
2 39 (3.64%) Microsoft Project
3 27 (2.52%) Microsoft Excel
4 13 (1.21%) Microsoft PowerPoint
5 7 (0.65%) MS Visio
6 4 (0.37%) PTC Creo
7 3 (0.28%) Chatbot
8 2 (0.19%) Spreadsheet
9 1 (0.093%) Camtasia
Business Applications
1 41 (3.83%) Remedy ITSM
2 12 (1.12%) SAP S/4HANA
3 11 (1.03%) Oracle EBS
4 7 (0.65%) Teamcenter
5 2 (0.19%) Oracle Applications
6 1 (0.093%) Dynamics NAV
6 1 (0.093%) NetSuite
6 1 (0.093%) Oracle ERP
6 1 (0.093%) Oracle Payables
6 1 (0.093%) Oracle Procure-to-Pay
6 1 (0.093%) Oracle Receivables
6 1 (0.093%) Oracle Subledger Accounting
6 1 (0.093%) SAP HR
6 1 (0.093%) SAP Payroll
6 1 (0.093%) SAP PM
6 1 (0.093%) SAP SM
6 1 (0.093%) Workday HCM
Cloud Services
1 151 (14.10%) Azure
2 93 (8.68%) Microsoft 365
3 84 (7.84%) AWS
4 47 (4.39%) Power Platform
5 46 (4.30%) SaaS
6 41 (3.83%) GCP
7 33 (3.08%) Entra ID
8 27 (2.52%) Azure DevOps
9 20 (1.87%) GitHub
10 18 (1.68%) PaaS
11 17 (1.59%) IaaS
12 14 (1.31%) OneDrive
13 12 (1.12%) AWS Lambda
13 12 (1.12%) OCI
13 12 (1.12%) Serverless
14 11 (1.03%) Amazon CloudWatch
15 9 (0.84%) OpenShift
16 8 (0.75%) Dynamics 365
16 8 (0.75%) Google Workspace
17 7 (0.65%) PowerApps
Communications & Networking
1 62 (5.79%) Firewall
2 55 (5.14%) DNS
3 40 (3.73%) WAN
4 39 (3.64%) VPN
5 38 (3.55%) LAN
6 30 (2.80%) Network Security
7 29 (2.71%) DHCP
8 22 (2.05%) TCP/IP
9 16 (1.49%) Wi-Fi
10 15 (1.40%) VLAN
11 14 (1.31%) BGP
12 13 (1.21%) OSPF
12 13 (1.21%) SD-WAN
13 12 (1.12%) BIG-IP
13 12 (1.12%) Cisco ISE
14 11 (1.03%) Skype
15 10 (0.93%) Wireless
16 9 (0.84%) Junos
17 8 (0.75%) Ethernet VPN
17 8 (0.75%) VXLAN
Database & Business Intelligence
1 37 (3.45%) Power BI
2 12 (1.12%) SQL Server
3 7 (0.65%) Relational Database
4 6 (0.56%) Oracle Reports
4 6 (0.56%) PostgreSQL
5 5 (0.47%) 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
7 3 (0.28%) Azure SQL Database
7 3 (0.28%) SQL Server Integration Services
7 3 (0.28%) SQL Server Reporting Services
7 3 (0.28%) Tableau
8 2 (0.19%) Amazon Redshift
8 2 (0.19%) GIS
8 2 (0.19%) Metadata
8 2 (0.19%) MySQL
8 2 (0.19%) SQL Server Analysis Services
9 1 (0.093%) OpenStack Swift
Development Applications
1 150 (14.01%) JIRA
2 18 (1.68%) Jenkins
3 17 (1.59%) GitLab
4 15 (1.40%) Bitbucket
4 15 (1.40%) Git
5 7 (0.65%) ScriptRunner
6 6 (0.56%) Atlassian Bamboo
7 4 (0.37%) 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 (0.19%) Cypress.io
9 2 (0.19%) Fiddler
10 1 (0.093%) Artifactory
10 1 (0.093%) Cucumber
10 1 (0.093%) IBM UrbanCode
10 1 (0.093%) Postman
10 1 (0.093%) Rational DOORS
General
1 382 (35.67%) Social Skills
2 163 (15.22%) Finance
3 155 (14.47%) Analytical Skills
4 113 (10.55%) Public Sector
5 57 (5.32%) Legal
6 46 (4.30%) Military
7 36 (3.36%) Banking
8 32 (2.99%) Organisational Skills
9 29 (2.71%) Documentation Skills
10 27 (2.52%) Telecoms
11 24 (2.24%) Influencing Skills
12 21 (1.96%) Retail
13 13 (1.21%) Inclusion and Diversity
14 12 (1.12%) Aerospace
15 8 (0.75%) Front Office
15 8 (0.75%) Investment Banking
15 8 (0.75%) Local Government
15 8 (0.75%) Manufacturing
15 8 (0.75%) Presentation Skills
16 7 (0.65%) Police
Job Titles
1 130 (12.14%) Analyst
2 124 (11.58%) Architect
3 111 (10.36%) Lead
4 109 (10.18%) Service Manager
5 78 (7.28%) Senior
6 64 (5.98%) Consultant
7 59 (5.51%) IT Manager
8 58 (5.42%) Service Architect
9 52 (4.86%) Service Analyst
10 41 (3.83%) Project Manager
11 36 (3.36%) Hardware Engineer
11 36 (3.36%) IT Analyst
12 34 (3.17%) Delivery Manager
13 30 (2.80%) Administrator
14 29 (2.71%) IT Services Manager
14 29 (2.71%) Support Engineer
15 27 (2.52%) Developer
15 27 (2.52%) IT Support
16 26 (2.43%) Service Delivery Manager
17 25 (2.33%) Designer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 45 (4.20%) REST
2 21 (1.96%) SOAP
3 9 (0.84%) 802.1X
3 9 (0.84%) Middleware
4 7 (0.65%) Oracle Fusion
5 6 (0.56%) CSS
5 6 (0.56%) Elastic Stack
5 6 (0.56%) HTML
5 6 (0.56%) JSON
5 6 (0.56%) OAuth
6 5 (0.47%) .NET
6 5 (0.47%) Lightning Web Components
6 5 (0.47%) 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%) OAuth2
Miscellaneous
1 86 (8.03%) Product Ownership
2 71 (6.63%) Onboarding
3 68 (6.35%) CMDB
4 42 (3.92%) Data Centre
5 30 (2.80%) Management Information System
6 25 (2.33%) Virtual Team
7 23 (2.15%) PKI
8 20 (1.87%) Driving Licence
9 18 (1.68%) Clustering
10 15 (1.40%) Enterprise Software
10 15 (1.40%) PMI
11 13 (1.21%) Data Protection Act
12 10 (0.93%) Analytical Mindset
12 10 (0.93%) Cloud Native
13 9 (0.84%) Operational Technology
13 9 (0.84%) Self-Motivation
14 8 (0.75%) Replication
15 7 (0.65%) Algorithms
15 7 (0.65%) Hybrid Cloud
15 7 (0.65%) Legacy Systems
Operating Systems
1 176 (16.43%) Windows
2 59 (5.51%) Linux
3 45 (4.20%) Windows Server
4 44 (4.11%) Windows 10
5 13 (1.21%) Unix
6 12 (1.12%) Mac OS
7 11 (1.03%) Windows 7
8 8 (0.75%) Android
8 8 (0.75%) Apple iOS
8 8 (0.75%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
9 7 (0.65%) Ubuntu
10 6 (0.56%) Windows Server 2012
11 4 (0.37%) VMS
12 3 (0.28%) Windows Server 2019
13 2 (0.19%) CentOS
13 2 (0.19%) Solaris
13 2 (0.19%) Windows Server 2003
13 2 (0.19%) Windows Server 2016
14 1 (0.093%) Data ONTAP
14 1 (0.093%) Windows Server 2008
Processes & Methodologies
1 594 (55.46%) ITIL
2 453 (42.30%) ITSM
3 234 (21.85%) Agile
4 224 (20.92%) Continuous Improvement
5 219 (20.45%) Stakeholder Management
6 201 (18.77%) Problem-Solving
7 176 (16.43%) Service Delivery
8 150 (14.01%) Change Management
9 147 (13.73%) Stakeholder Engagement
10 128 (11.95%) DevOps
11 108 (10.08%) Customer Service
12 102 (9.52%) Service Design
13 87 (8.12%) Problem Management
14 82 (7.66%) Incident Management
15 76 (7.10%) Roadmaps
16 75 (7.00%) Configuration Management
16 75 (7.00%) Project Management
17 70 (6.54%) Acceptance Criteria
17 70 (6.54%) Knowledge Transfer
18 67 (6.26%) CI/CD
Programming Languages
1 77 (7.19%) PowerShell
2 50 (4.67%) SQL
3 44 (4.11%) Python
4 32 (2.99%) JavaScript
5 16 (1.49%) Java
6 11 (1.03%) Bash
7 9 (0.84%) PL/SQL
7 9 (0.84%) VB
7 9 (0.84%) VBScript
8 6 (0.56%) Apex Code
8 6 (0.56%) Kotlin
9 5 (0.47%) C#
9 5 (0.47%) Shell Script
10 4 (0.37%) Go
10 4 (0.37%) Groovy
11 3 (0.28%) Bicep
11 3 (0.28%) C
11 3 (0.28%) T-SQL
12 2 (0.19%) PHP
12 2 (0.19%) SOQL
Qualifications
1 442 (41.27%) Security Cleared
2 339 (31.65%) SC Cleared
3 129 (12.04%) Degree
4 121 (11.30%) DV Cleared
5 51 (4.76%) ITIL Certification
6 34 (3.17%) PMI Certification
7 32 (2.99%) PMP
8 30 (2.80%) TOGAF Certification
9 23 (2.15%) Microsoft Certification
10 22 (2.05%) BPSS Clearance
10 22 (2.05%) Cisco Certification
11 20 (1.87%) Computer Science Degree
12 14 (1.31%) A+ Certification
13 11 (1.03%) CCNP
13 11 (1.03%) Master's Degree
14 10 (0.93%) CCNA
15 9 (0.84%) ITIL Foundation Certificate
15 9 (0.84%) JNCIA
15 9 (0.84%) JNCIS
15 9 (0.84%) MAPM
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 58 (5.42%) SLA
2 32 (2.99%) ISO/IEC 27001
3 31 (2.89%) Data Quality
4 22 (2.05%) PMO
5 21 (1.96%) QA
6 20 (1.87%) GDPR
7 16 (1.49%) ISO/IEC 20000
8 15 (1.40%) COBIT
9 14 (1.31%) GRC
10 13 (1.21%) NCSC
11 9 (0.84%) Accessibility
11 9 (0.84%) NIST
12 7 (0.65%) Cyber Essentials
12 7 (0.65%) Government Security Classifications
13 6 (0.56%) Disclosure Scotland
13 6 (0.56%) ISO 31000
13 6 (0.56%) ISO 9001
13 6 (0.56%) ISO/IEC 27005
13 6 (0.56%) PCI DSS
13 6 (0.56%) Sarbanes-Oxley
System Software
1 104 (9.71%) Active Directory
2 33 (3.08%) VMware Infrastructure
3 14 (1.31%) Docker
4 9 (0.84%) BitLocker
5 5 (0.47%) Hyper-V
6 4 (0.37%) Virtual Desktop
6 4 (0.37%) Virtual Machines
7 3 (0.28%) VMware ESXi
7 3 (0.28%) VMware NSX
8 2 (0.19%) IAG
8 2 (0.19%) NFS
8 2 (0.19%) Oracle RAC
8 2 (0.19%) Slurm Workload Manager
9 1 (0.093%) iptables
9 1 (0.093%) Microsoft Virtual Server
9 1 (0.093%) Samba
9 1 (0.093%) Virtual Servers
Systems Management
1 33 (3.08%) SCCM
2 30 (2.80%) OPNET
3 29 (2.71%) Ansible
3 29 (2.71%) Terraform
4 22 (2.05%) Microsoft Intune
5 21 (1.96%) Kubernetes
6 11 (1.03%) Grafana
6 11 (1.03%) WSUS
7 10 (0.93%) FortiGate
8 8 (0.75%) Jamf Pro
8 8 (0.75%) Prometheus
9 7 (0.65%) Progress Chef
10 5 (0.47%) Puppet
10 5 (0.47%) Single Sign-On
11 4 (0.37%) Data Guard
11 4 (0.37%) Nessus
11 4 (0.37%) Oracle RMAN
11 4 (0.37%) Packer
11 4 (0.37%) SCOM
11 4 (0.37%) vCenter Server
Vendors
1 278 (25.96%) ServiceNow
2 163 (15.22%) Microsoft
3 77 (7.19%) Remedy
4 67 (6.26%) Atlassian
5 47 (4.39%) VMware
6 45 (4.20%) Oracle
7 43 (4.01%) Cisco
8 39 (3.64%) HP
9 29 (2.71%) Google
10 25 (2.33%) SAP
10 25 (2.33%) Splunk
11 20 (1.87%) IFS
12 19 (1.77%) Dell
13 17 (1.59%) BMC
13 17 (1.59%) Citrix
14 16 (1.49%) Salesforce
14 16 (1.49%) SolarWinds
15 15 (1.40%) Canon
16 13 (1.21%) F5
17 12 (1.12%) Juniper