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

6 months to
3 May 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 106 88 77
Rank change year-on-year -18 -11 +8
Contract jobs citing Service Management 1,079 834 1,157
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 2.28% 2.85% 2.66%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 2.69% 3.13% 3.09%
Number of daily rates quoted 729 506 774
10th Percentile £220 £235 £282
25th Percentile £385 £400 £425
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £510 £525 £525
Median % change year-on-year -2.86% - +5.00%
75th Percentile £613 £601 £608
90th Percentile £725 £698 £731
UK excluding London median daily rate £500 £527 £525
% change year-on-year -5.08% +0.33% +10.53%
Number of hourly rates quoted 62 31 21
10th Percentile £16.09 - £12.53
25th Percentile £16.17 £12.62 £15.46
Median hourly rate £57.50 £22.14 £17.72
Median % change year-on-year +159.71% +24.94% -65.76%
75th Percentile £83.94 £30.20 £20.74
90th Percentile £107.20 £33.37 £48.75
UK excluding London median hourly rate £60.00 £22.14 £17.50
% change year-on-year +171.00% +26.50% -63.91%

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 40,071 26,623 37,492
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 84.55% 90.89% 86.36%
Number of daily rates quoted 25,236 17,168 24,151
10th Percentile £319 £306 £300
25th Percentile £413 £413 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £520 £525
Median % change year-on-year -3.85% -0.95% -4.55%
75th Percentile £613 £630 £638
90th Percentile £725 £745 £750
UK excluding London median daily rate £488 £481 £500
% change year-on-year +1.40% -3.85% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 2,397 1,072 2,456
10th Percentile £14.82 £14.67 £12.75
25th Percentile £19.85 £18.50 £16.00
Median hourly rate £41.56 £29.00 £35.50
Median % change year-on-year +43.29% -18.31% -1.39%
75th Percentile £66.00 £60.84 £60.00
90th Percentile £78.75 £75.00 £72.50
UK excluding London median hourly rate £43.31 £27.64 £37.18
% change year-on-year +56.68% -25.66% +6.23%

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 3 May 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 3 May 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 3 May 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 -12 965 £510 -2.86% 391
UK excluding London -8 714 £500 -5.08% 325
London -42 275 £520 -0.95% 105
Work from Home -11 273 £500 - 146
South East +33 213 £510 +10.27% 98
North of England -16 167 £500 +5.26% 84
South West -21 156 £600 +8.89% 34
Midlands -30 96 £403 -26.88% 46
North West +1 91 £550 +6.40% 35
West Midlands -34 75 £403 -26.95% 33
Yorkshire -33 65 £475 +11.76% 46
East of England -20 45 £475 -13.64% 50
Scotland -37 30 £500 -2.44% 13
East Midlands -16 21 £405 +5.88% 13
North East -15 11 £280 +43.59% 4
Wales -8 7 £340 -12.26% 13
Northern Ireland - 4 £500 - 3

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 84 (7.78%) Confluence
2 37 (3.43%) Microsoft Exchange
3 27 (2.50%) SharePoint
4 10 (0.93%) Skype for Business
5 6 (0.56%) Mattermost
6 3 (0.28%) IIS
6 3 (0.28%) nginx
7 1 (0.093%) Apache
7 1 (0.093%) CICS
7 1 (0.093%) CMS
7 1 (0.093%) HCL Notes
7 1 (0.093%) JBoss
7 1 (0.093%) LiveCycle
7 1 (0.093%) OpenStack
7 1 (0.093%) Oracle SOA Suite
7 1 (0.093%) WebSphere
Applications
1 86 (7.97%) Microsoft Office
2 41 (3.80%) Microsoft Project
3 27 (2.50%) 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 (0.19%) Spreadsheet
8 1 (0.093%) Camtasia
Business Applications
1 42 (3.89%) Remedy ITSM
2 12 (1.11%) SAP S/4HANA
3 8 (0.74%) Oracle EBS
4 7 (0.65%) Teamcenter
5 2 (0.19%) Oracle Applications
5 2 (0.19%) Oracle ERP
6 1 (0.093%) Dynamics NAV
6 1 (0.093%) NetSuite
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
1 154 (14.27%) Azure
2 93 (8.62%) Microsoft 365
3 78 (7.23%) AWS
4 49 (4.54%) Power Platform
5 47 (4.36%) SaaS
6 39 (3.61%) GCP
7 33 (3.06%) Entra ID
8 28 (2.59%) Azure DevOps
9 19 (1.76%) GitHub
9 19 (1.76%) PaaS
10 17 (1.58%) IaaS
11 15 (1.39%) OneDrive
12 13 (1.20%) OCI
13 12 (1.11%) AWS Lambda
13 12 (1.11%) Serverless
14 10 (0.93%) Amazon CloudWatch
15 9 (0.83%) Microsoft Copilot
15 9 (0.83%) OpenShift
16 8 (0.74%) Dynamics 365
16 8 (0.74%) Google Workspace
Communications & Networking
1 62 (5.75%) Firewall
2 52 (4.82%) DNS
3 39 (3.61%) WAN
4 37 (3.43%) LAN
4 37 (3.43%) VPN
5 30 (2.78%) Network Security
6 27 (2.50%) DHCP
7 22 (2.04%) TCP/IP
8 14 (1.30%) BGP
8 14 (1.30%) Wi-Fi
9 13 (1.20%) OSPF
9 13 (1.20%) SD-WAN
9 13 (1.20%) VLAN
10 12 (1.11%) BIG-IP
11 11 (1.02%) Cisco ISE
11 11 (1.02%) Skype
12 10 (0.93%) Wireless
13 8 (0.74%) Ethernet VPN
13 8 (0.74%) Junos
13 8 (0.74%) VXLAN
Database & Business Intelligence
1 37 (3.43%) Power BI
2 14 (1.30%) SQL Server
3 8 (0.74%) Relational Database
4 7 (0.65%) PostgreSQL
5 6 (0.56%) Oracle Reports
6 5 (0.46%) Oracle Database
7 4 (0.37%) Amazon RDS
7 4 (0.37%) Elasticsearch
7 4 (0.37%) InfluxDB
7 4 (0.37%) Oracle Database 11g
7 4 (0.37%) SQL Server Integration Services
7 4 (0.37%) SQL Server Reporting Services
8 3 (0.28%) Azure SQL Database
8 3 (0.28%) MySQL
8 3 (0.28%) SQL Server Analysis Services
9 2 (0.19%) Amazon Redshift
9 2 (0.19%) GIS
9 2 (0.19%) MariaDB
9 2 (0.19%) Microsoft Analysis Services
9 2 (0.19%) Tableau
Development Applications
1 146 (13.53%) JIRA
2 18 (1.67%) Jenkins
3 16 (1.48%) GitLab
4 15 (1.39%) Bitbucket
4 15 (1.39%) Git
5 7 (0.65%) ScriptRunner
6 6 (0.56%) Atlassian Bamboo
7 4 (0.37%) Browser DevTools
7 4 (0.37%) MLflow
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
9 2 (0.19%) Firebug
10 1 (0.093%) Cucumber
10 1 (0.093%) Protractor
10 1 (0.093%) Rational DOORS
10 1 (0.093%) Visual Studio Code
General
1 380 (35.22%) Social Skills
2 169 (15.66%) Finance
3 161 (14.92%) Analytical Skills
4 111 (10.29%) Public Sector
5 62 (5.75%) Legal
6 44 (4.08%) Military
7 37 (3.43%) Banking
8 33 (3.06%) Organisational Skills
9 28 (2.59%) Documentation Skills
10 27 (2.50%) Telecoms
11 22 (2.04%) Influencing Skills
11 22 (2.04%) Retail
12 13 (1.20%) Inclusion and Diversity
13 12 (1.11%) Aerospace
14 9 (0.83%) Presentation Skills
15 8 (0.74%) Front Office
15 8 (0.74%) Investment Banking
15 8 (0.74%) Local Government
15 8 (0.74%) Police
16 7 (0.65%) Manufacturing
Job Titles
1 129 (11.96%) Architect
2 128 (11.86%) Analyst
3 110 (10.19%) Lead
3 110 (10.19%) Service Manager
4 80 (7.41%) Senior
5 63 (5.84%) Consultant
6 58 (5.38%) IT Manager
7 57 (5.28%) Service Architect
8 52 (4.82%) Service Analyst
9 44 (4.08%) Project Manager
10 36 (3.34%) Hardware Engineer
11 35 (3.24%) Delivery Manager
12 33 (3.06%) IT Analyst
13 30 (2.78%) IT Services Manager
14 29 (2.69%) Support Engineer
15 27 (2.50%) Developer
15 27 (2.50%) Service Delivery Manager
16 26 (2.41%) Designer
17 25 (2.32%) Administrator
17 25 (2.32%) Network Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 38 (3.52%) REST
2 20 (1.85%) SOAP
3 9 (0.83%) 802.1X
3 9 (0.83%) Middleware
4 7 (0.65%) CSS
4 7 (0.65%) HTML
4 7 (0.65%) Oracle Fusion
5 6 (0.56%) Elastic Stack
5 6 (0.56%) JSON
5 6 (0.56%) OAuth
6 5 (0.46%) .NET
6 5 (0.46%) Lightning Web Components
6 5 (0.46%) XML
6 5 (0.46%) XMPP
7 4 (0.37%) LDAP
7 4 (0.37%) Microsoft Graph
7 4 (0.37%) RabbitMQ
7 4 (0.37%) Web Services
8 3 (0.28%) AngularJS
8 3 (0.28%) OpenID
Miscellaneous
1 87 (8.06%) Product Ownership
2 69 (6.39%) Onboarding
3 65 (6.02%) CMDB
4 46 (4.26%) Data Centre
5 28 (2.59%) Management Information System
6 25 (2.32%) Virtual Team
7 23 (2.13%) PKI
8 20 (1.85%) Driving Licence
9 19 (1.76%) Clustering
10 15 (1.39%) Enterprise Software
10 15 (1.39%) PMI
11 13 (1.20%) Data Protection Act
12 10 (0.93%) Analytical Mindset
12 10 (0.93%) Cloud Native
13 9 (0.83%) Algorithms
13 9 (0.83%) Operational Technology
13 9 (0.83%) Replication
13 9 (0.83%) Self-Motivation
14 7 (0.65%) Legacy Systems
15 6 (0.56%) Hybrid Cloud
Operating Systems
1 179 (16.59%) Windows
2 56 (5.19%) Linux
3 44 (4.08%) Windows Server
4 43 (3.99%) Windows 10
5 12 (1.11%) Unix
5 12 (1.11%) Windows 7
6 11 (1.02%) Mac OS
7 8 (0.74%) Android
7 8 (0.74%) Apple iOS
8 7 (0.65%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
8 7 (0.65%) Ubuntu
9 4 (0.37%) VMS
10 3 (0.28%) Windows Server 2012
10 3 (0.28%) Windows Server 2019
11 2 (0.19%) Solaris
11 2 (0.19%) Windows Server 2016
11 2 (0.19%) zOS
12 1 (0.093%) CentOS
12 1 (0.093%) Windows Server 2008
12 1 (0.093%) Windows XP
Processes & Methodologies
1 590 (54.68%) ITIL
2 454 (42.08%) ITSM
3 237 (21.96%) Agile
4 224 (20.76%) Continuous Improvement
4 224 (20.76%) Stakeholder Management
5 206 (19.09%) Problem-Solving
6 174 (16.13%) Service Delivery
7 145 (13.44%) Stakeholder Engagement
8 143 (13.25%) Change Management
9 125 (11.58%) DevOps
10 114 (10.57%) Customer Service
11 103 (9.55%) Service Design
12 85 (7.88%) Problem Management
13 80 (7.41%) Roadmaps
14 77 (7.14%) Incident Management
15 75 (6.95%) Configuration Management
16 73 (6.77%) Project Management
17 72 (6.67%) Knowledge Transfer
18 67 (6.21%) Acceptance Criteria
19 65 (6.02%) CI/CD
Programming Languages
1 72 (6.67%) PowerShell
2 52 (4.82%) SQL
3 38 (3.52%) Python
4 33 (3.06%) JavaScript
5 16 (1.48%) Java
6 11 (1.02%) Bash
7 10 (0.93%) VB
7 10 (0.93%) VBScript
8 9 (0.83%) PL/SQL
9 6 (0.56%) Apex Code
9 6 (0.56%) Kotlin
10 5 (0.46%) C#
10 5 (0.46%) Shell Script
11 4 (0.37%) Go
11 4 (0.37%) Groovy
11 4 (0.37%) T-SQL
12 3 (0.28%) C
13 2 (0.19%) ActionScript
13 2 (0.19%) PHP
13 2 (0.19%) SOQL
Qualifications
1 444 (41.15%) Security Cleared
2 336 (31.14%) SC Cleared
3 126 (11.68%) Degree
4 122 (11.31%) DV Cleared
5 49 (4.54%) ITIL Certification
6 34 (3.15%) PMI Certification
7 32 (2.97%) PMP
8 30 (2.78%) TOGAF Certification
9 28 (2.59%) Cisco Certification
10 21 (1.95%) Microsoft Certification
11 20 (1.85%) BPSS Clearance
12 19 (1.76%) Computer Science Degree
13 14 (1.30%) CCNA
14 13 (1.20%) A+ Certification
15 11 (1.02%) CCNP
15 11 (1.02%) Master's Degree
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 61 (5.65%) SLA
2 33 (3.06%) ISO/IEC 27001
3 32 (2.97%) Data Quality
4 24 (2.22%) QA
5 22 (2.04%) PMO
6 21 (1.95%) GDPR
7 16 (1.48%) COBIT
7 16 (1.48%) ISO/IEC 20000
8 15 (1.39%) GRC
9 14 (1.30%) NCSC
10 10 (0.93%) NIST
11 9 (0.83%) Accessibility
12 8 (0.74%) Cyber Essentials
13 7 (0.65%) Government Security Classifications
14 6 (0.56%) ISO 31000
14 6 (0.56%) ISO/IEC 27005
14 6 (0.56%) PCI DSS
14 6 (0.56%) Sarbanes-Oxley
15 5 (0.46%) Disclosure Scotland
15 5 (0.46%) ISO 9001
System Software
1 101 (9.36%) Active Directory
2 35 (3.24%) VMware Infrastructure
3 14 (1.30%) Docker
4 10 (0.93%) BitLocker
5 8 (0.74%) 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 3 (0.28%) VMware NSX
9 2 (0.19%) IAG
9 2 (0.19%) NFS
9 2 (0.19%) Oracle RAC
10 1 (0.093%) iptables
10 1 (0.093%) Microsoft Virtual Server
10 1 (0.093%) Samba
10 1 (0.093%) Slurm Workload Manager
10 1 (0.093%) vCloud
10 1 (0.093%) Virtual Servers
Systems Management
1 33 (3.06%) Ansible
2 32 (2.97%) SCCM
3 30 (2.78%) OPNET
4 28 (2.59%) Terraform
5 21 (1.95%) Kubernetes
5 21 (1.95%) Microsoft Intune
6 11 (1.02%) Grafana
7 10 (0.93%) FortiGate
7 10 (0.93%) WSUS
8 8 (0.74%) Jamf Pro
8 8 (0.74%) Prometheus
9 7 (0.65%) Progress Chef
10 6 (0.56%) PowerCLI
11 5 (0.46%) Puppet
11 5 (0.46%) SCOM
11 5 (0.46%) Single Sign-On
11 5 (0.46%) vMotion
12 4 (0.37%) Data Guard
12 4 (0.37%) Nessus
12 4 (0.37%) Oracle RMAN
Vendors
1 284 (26.32%) ServiceNow
2 163 (15.11%) Microsoft
3 78 (7.23%) Remedy
4 61 (5.65%) Atlassian
5 53 (4.91%) VMware
6 43 (3.99%) Oracle
7 41 (3.80%) Cisco
8 39 (3.61%) HP
9 27 (2.50%) Google
10 26 (2.41%) SAP
11 22 (2.04%) IFS
12 20 (1.85%) BMC
12 20 (1.85%) Splunk
13 19 (1.76%) Dell
14 16 (1.48%) Citrix
14 16 (1.48%) Salesforce
15 15 (1.39%) Canon
15 15 (1.39%) SolarWinds
16 13 (1.20%) F5
17 11 (1.02%) Workday