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

6 months to
7 Jul 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 100 83 86
Rank change year-on-year -17 +3 -2
Contract jobs citing Service Management 1,248 934 1,064
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 2.40% 2.93% 2.46%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 2.82% 3.24% 2.88%
Number of daily rates quoted 811 567 732
10th Percentile £250 £213 £263
25th Percentile £413 £350 £425
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £497 £525
Median % change year-on-year +5.63% -5.33% -
75th Percentile £600 £588 £608
90th Percentile £688 £688 £688
UK excluding London median daily rate £510 £496 £525
% change year-on-year +2.77% -5.52% +9.38%
Number of hourly rates quoted 77 59 20
10th Percentile £15.00 - £13.97
25th Percentile £19.33 £12.62 £17.49
Median hourly rate £60.00 £20.83 £23.37
Median % change year-on-year +188.05% -10.87% -44.19%
75th Percentile £84.00 £22.35 £47.81
90th Percentile £96.00 £36.50 £50.38
UK excluding London median hourly rate £55.00 £20.83 £23.37
% change year-on-year +164.04% -10.87% +9.67%

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 44,261 28,859 36,923
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 85.01% 90.68% 85.35%
Number of daily rates quoted 27,507 18,191 23,560
10th Percentile £325 £300 £300
25th Percentile £415 £405 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £517 £505 £525
Median % change year-on-year +2.28% -3.81% -4.55%
75th Percentile £623 £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 2,650 1,433 2,509
10th Percentile £14.82 £14.20 £12.75
25th Percentile £19.85 £17.50 £16.12
Median hourly rate £43.96 £25.15 £37.50
Median % change year-on-year +74.79% -32.93% -3.85%
75th Percentile £68.00 £53.75 £61.30
90th Percentile £81.32 £70.00 £72.50
UK excluding London median hourly rate £43.96 £24.83 £38.12
% change year-on-year +77.04% -34.86% +8.82%

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 7 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 7 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 7 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 -20 1,081 £521 +4.15% 475
UK excluding London -19 755 £510 +2.77% 383
London -14 369 £550 +10.00% 145
Work from Home +4 365 £513 +7.89% 181
South East +31 228 £538 +43.33% 128
North of England -23 209 £475 +2.59% 89
South West -29 121 £525 -5.62% 52
North West -23 116 £513 +4.17% 49
Yorkshire -18 86 £450 +5.88% 31
Midlands -44 86 £475 -2.06% 61
West Midlands -46 76 £476 -6.21% 37
Scotland -21 57 £500 - 17
East of England -28 42 £513 -6.82% 27
Wales -11 13 £800 +188.29% 9
East Midlands -17 10 £315 -27.75% 24
North East -36 7 £440 +125.64% 12
Northern Ireland +10 6 - - 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 72 (5.77%) SharePoint
2 55 (4.41%) Confluence
3 35 (2.80%) Microsoft Exchange
4 11 (0.88%) Skype for Business
5 6 (0.48%) Mattermost
6 5 (0.40%) OpenStack
7 3 (0.24%) IIS
8 1 (0.080%) Apache
8 1 (0.080%) CICS
8 1 (0.080%) CMS
8 1 (0.080%) JBoss
8 1 (0.080%) LiveCycle
8 1 (0.080%) Oracle Collaboration Suite
8 1 (0.080%) Palantir Foundry
Applications
1 57 (4.57%) Microsoft Office
2 24 (1.92%) Microsoft Excel
3 14 (1.12%) MS Visio
4 10 (0.80%) Microsoft Project
5 9 (0.72%) Microsoft PowerPoint
6 7 (0.56%) Chatbot
7 4 (0.32%) PTC Creo
8 2 (0.16%) Spreadsheet
9 1 (0.080%) Camtasia
Business Applications
1 54 (4.33%) Remedy ITSM
2 17 (1.36%) SAP S/4HANA
3 9 (0.72%) Teamcenter
4 7 (0.56%) Primavera
5 5 (0.40%) ContrOCC
6 4 (0.32%) SAP SM
7 3 (0.24%) Oracle ERP
7 3 (0.24%) SAP CO
7 3 (0.24%) SAP FI
7 3 (0.24%) SAP FI/CO
8 2 (0.16%) Oracle Applications
8 2 (0.16%) SAP PS
9 1 (0.080%) Dynamics NAV
9 1 (0.080%) Misys Equation
9 1 (0.080%) Misys Midas
9 1 (0.080%) NetSuite
9 1 (0.080%) SAP HR
9 1 (0.080%) SAP Payroll
9 1 (0.080%) SAP PM
Cloud Services
1 194 (15.54%) Azure
2 139 (11.14%) Microsoft 365
3 79 (6.33%) AWS
4 61 (4.89%) Entra ID
5 60 (4.81%) Power Platform
6 46 (3.69%) SaaS
7 33 (2.64%) Azure DevOps
7 33 (2.64%) OneDrive
8 28 (2.24%) GCP
9 18 (1.44%) PaaS
10 14 (1.12%) GitHub
11 13 (1.04%) OCI
12 12 (0.96%) Amazon CloudWatch
12 12 (0.96%) Microsoft Copilot
13 11 (0.88%) AWS Lambda
13 11 (0.88%) Serverless
14 10 (0.80%) IaaS
15 9 (0.72%) Amazon S3
15 9 (0.72%) Google Workspace
16 8 (0.64%) Amazon EC2
Communications & Networking
1 65 (5.21%) Firewall
2 50 (4.01%) DNS
3 41 (3.29%) WAN
4 38 (3.04%) LAN
5 34 (2.72%) VPN
6 26 (2.08%) DHCP
6 26 (2.08%) Network Security
7 24 (1.92%) TCP/IP
8 17 (1.36%) Wireless
9 16 (1.28%) BGP
10 14 (1.12%) Wi-Fi
11 13 (1.04%) OSPF
11 13 (1.04%) VLAN
12 12 (0.96%) BIG-IP
12 12 (0.96%) Cisco ISE
12 12 (0.96%) SD-WAN
13 11 (0.88%) Skype
13 11 (0.88%) VXLAN
14 10 (0.80%) Junos
15 8 (0.64%) SSL
Database & Business Intelligence
1 49 (3.93%) Power BI
2 18 (1.44%) SQL Server
3 8 (0.64%) Oracle Database
4 6 (0.48%) Oracle Database 11g
4 6 (0.48%) Oracle Reports
4 6 (0.48%) PostgreSQL
4 6 (0.48%) Relational Database
5 5 (0.40%) MySQL
5 5 (0.40%) SQL Server Reporting Services
6 4 (0.32%) SQL Server Analysis Services
6 4 (0.32%) SQL Server Integration Services
7 3 (0.24%) Amazon RDS
7 3 (0.24%) Azure SQL Database
7 3 (0.24%) MariaDB
8 2 (0.16%) Amazon Redshift
8 2 (0.16%) GIS
8 2 (0.16%) Microsoft Analysis Services
9 1 (0.080%) Db2
9 1 (0.080%) DTS
9 1 (0.080%) InfluxDB
Development Applications
1 142 (11.38%) JIRA
2 22 (1.76%) Jenkins
3 20 (1.60%) Git
4 13 (1.04%) Bitbucket
5 12 (0.96%) GitLab
6 5 (0.40%) Atlassian Bamboo
6 5 (0.40%) Browser DevTools
7 4 (0.32%) MLflow
7 4 (0.32%) ScriptRunner
8 3 (0.24%) Fiddler
8 3 (0.24%) Hudson
8 3 (0.24%) IntelliJ
9 2 (0.16%) Firebug
9 2 (0.16%) Maven
9 2 (0.16%) Rational DOORS
9 2 (0.16%) Selenium
9 2 (0.16%) webpack
10 1 (0.080%) Artifactory
10 1 (0.080%) Gemini Tracker
10 1 (0.080%) Gradle
General
1 429 (34.38%) Social Skills
2 206 (16.51%) Finance
3 177 (14.18%) Analytical Skills
4 134 (10.74%) Public Sector
5 52 (4.17%) Telecoms
6 51 (4.09%) Legal
7 44 (3.53%) Banking
8 36 (2.88%) Influencing Skills
9 33 (2.64%) Documentation Skills
10 32 (2.56%) Organisational Skills
11 23 (1.84%) Inclusion and Diversity
12 22 (1.76%) Military
13 19 (1.52%) Local Government
14 16 (1.28%) Aerospace
14 16 (1.28%) Retail
15 13 (1.04%) Financial Institution
15 13 (1.04%) Presentation Skills
16 11 (0.88%) Police
17 9 (0.72%) Manufacturing
18 8 (0.64%) Investment Banking
Job Titles
1 145 (11.62%) Analyst
2 121 (9.70%) Lead
3 119 (9.54%) Service Manager
4 112 (8.97%) Architect
5 102 (8.17%) Senior
6 90 (7.21%) Consultant
7 77 (6.17%) IT Manager
8 58 (4.65%) Project Manager
9 56 (4.49%) Service Analyst
10 46 (3.69%) Developer
11 44 (3.53%) Delivery Manager
12 38 (3.04%) Support Engineer
13 34 (2.72%) IT Analyst
14 31 (2.48%) IT Services Manager
14 31 (2.48%) Network Engineer
14 31 (2.48%) ServiceNow Architect
15 30 (2.40%) Administrator
16 29 (2.32%) Solutions Architect
17 28 (2.24%) Service Delivery Manager
18 27 (2.16%) Business Analyst
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 55 (4.41%) REST
2 29 (2.32%) SOAP
3 14 (1.12%) HTML
4 13 (1.04%) CSS
5 12 (0.96%) Middleware
6 9 (0.72%) 802.1X
6 9 (0.72%) JSON
6 9 (0.72%) OAuth
7 7 (0.56%) Elastic Stack
7 7 (0.56%) Web Services
7 7 (0.56%) XML
8 6 (0.48%) AngularJS
8 6 (0.48%) Oracle Fusion
9 5 (0.40%) Lightning Web Components
9 5 (0.40%) Microsoft Graph
9 5 (0.40%) OpenID
9 5 (0.40%) SAML
10 4 (0.32%) Node.js
10 4 (0.32%) Software Packaging
10 4 (0.32%) XMPP
Miscellaneous
1 109 (8.73%) Onboarding
2 107 (8.57%) CMDB
3 63 (5.05%) Product Ownership
4 47 (3.77%) Data Centre
5 43 (3.45%) Management Information System
6 32 (2.56%) Virtual Team
7 31 (2.48%) Enterprise Software
8 29 (2.32%) PKI
9 23 (1.84%) Clustering
10 20 (1.60%) Data Protection Act
11 19 (1.52%) Operational Technology
12 15 (1.20%) Analytical Mindset
13 14 (1.12%) Driving Licence
14 12 (0.96%) Self-Motivation
15 10 (0.80%) Algorithms
15 10 (0.80%) Cloud Native
15 10 (0.80%) PMI
15 10 (0.80%) Security Posture
16 9 (0.72%) Cyber Threat
16 9 (0.72%) Replication
Operating Systems
1 227 (18.19%) Windows
2 58 (4.65%) Linux
3 43 (3.45%) Windows 10
4 39 (3.13%) Windows Server
5 18 (1.44%) Unix
6 17 (1.36%) Mac OS
7 15 (1.20%) Windows 7
8 13 (1.04%) Apple iOS
9 11 (0.88%) Android
10 10 (0.80%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
11 5 (0.40%) Windows Server 2019
12 4 (0.32%) VMS
13 3 (0.24%) Ubuntu
13 3 (0.24%) Windows XP
14 2 (0.16%) Solaris
14 2 (0.16%) Windows Server 2012
14 2 (0.16%) Windows Server 2016
14 2 (0.16%) zOS
15 1 (0.080%) Rocky
15 1 (0.080%) Windows Server 2008
Processes & Methodologies
1 657 (52.64%) ITIL
2 552 (44.23%) ITSM
3 318 (25.48%) Stakeholder Management
4 310 (24.84%) Continuous Improvement
5 262 (20.99%) Agile
6 248 (19.87%) Problem-Solving
7 247 (19.79%) Service Delivery
8 189 (15.14%) Stakeholder Engagement
9 175 (14.02%) Change Management
10 136 (10.90%) DevOps
11 134 (10.74%) Customer Service
12 120 (9.62%) Roadmaps
13 110 (8.81%) Incident Management
14 100 (8.01%) Problem Management
15 93 (7.45%) Project Delivery
16 91 (7.29%) Decision-Making
17 90 (7.21%) Migration
18 86 (6.89%) Configuration Management
19 85 (6.81%) Cybersecurity
20 82 (6.57%) AI
Programming Languages
1 95 (7.61%) PowerShell
2 69 (5.53%) Python
3 61 (4.89%) SQL
4 51 (4.09%) JavaScript
5 25 (2.00%) Bash
6 18 (1.44%) Java
7 11 (0.88%) PL/SQL
7 11 (0.88%) VB
7 11 (0.88%) VBScript
8 7 (0.56%) Groovy
9 6 (0.48%) Apex Code
10 5 (0.40%) C
10 5 (0.40%) C#
10 5 (0.40%) Kotlin
10 5 (0.40%) Shell Script
10 5 (0.40%) T-SQL
11 4 (0.32%) Perl
12 3 (0.24%) SOQL
13 2 (0.16%) Search Processing Language
13 2 (0.16%) TypeScript
Qualifications
1 444 (35.58%) Security Cleared
2 296 (23.72%) SC Cleared
3 144 (11.54%) DV Cleared
4 107 (8.57%) Degree
5 64 (5.13%) ITIL Certification
6 36 (2.88%) PMI Certification
7 34 (2.72%) PMP
8 28 (2.24%) BPSS Clearance
8 28 (2.24%) Cisco Certification
9 24 (1.92%) Computer Science Degree
10 21 (1.68%) Microsoft Certification
11 16 (1.28%) A+ Certification
12 15 (1.20%) CCNA
12 15 (1.20%) CISM
13 14 (1.12%) CISSP
13 14 (1.12%) ITIL Foundation Certificate
13 14 (1.12%) Master's Degree
14 11 (0.88%) DBS Check
15 10 (0.80%) CCNP
15 10 (0.80%) Network+ Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 88 (7.05%) SLA
2 47 (3.77%) ISO/IEC 27001
3 38 (3.04%) QA
4 37 (2.96%) Data Quality
5 29 (2.32%) PMO
6 27 (2.16%) GDPR
7 23 (1.84%) ISO/IEC 20000
7 23 (1.84%) NCSC
8 21 (1.68%) COBIT
9 20 (1.60%) GRC
10 14 (1.12%) NIST
11 13 (1.04%) ISO 9001
12 9 (0.72%) Cyber Essentials
12 9 (0.72%) PCI DSS
13 8 (0.64%) Accessibility
14 7 (0.56%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
14 7 (0.56%) Disclosure Scotland
14 7 (0.56%) Government Security Classifications
15 6 (0.48%) ISO 31000
15 6 (0.48%) ISO/IEC 27005
System Software
1 126 (10.10%) Active Directory
2 45 (3.61%) VMware Infrastructure
3 17 (1.36%) VMware ESXi
4 14 (1.12%) Docker
5 12 (0.96%) BitLocker
6 9 (0.72%) Hyper-V
6 9 (0.72%) VMware NSX
7 7 (0.56%) vCloud
7 7 (0.56%) Virtual Desktop
7 7 (0.56%) vSphere
8 5 (0.40%) NFS
8 5 (0.40%) Virtual Machines
9 4 (0.32%) IAG
9 4 (0.32%) Oracle RAC
10 3 (0.24%) Firmware
11 2 (0.16%) GPFS
11 2 (0.16%) KVM
12 1 (0.080%) iptables
12 1 (0.080%) Slurm Workload Manager
12 1 (0.080%) Virtual Servers
Systems Management
1 54 (4.33%) SCCM
2 49 (3.93%) Microsoft Intune
3 30 (2.40%) Ansible
4 24 (1.92%) Terraform
5 15 (1.20%) Jamf Pro
5 15 (1.20%) Kubernetes
6 13 (1.04%) Single Sign-On
7 11 (0.88%) SCOM
8 9 (0.72%) FortiGate
8 9 (0.72%) vCenter Server
9 7 (0.56%) Data Guard
9 7 (0.56%) Grafana
9 7 (0.56%) Oracle RMAN
9 7 (0.56%) WSUS
10 6 (0.48%) Puppet
11 5 (0.40%) Prometheus
11 5 (0.40%) vMotion
12 4 (0.32%) PowerCLI
12 4 (0.32%) Progress Chef
13 3 (0.24%) NetBackup
Vendors
1 359 (28.77%) ServiceNow
2 226 (18.11%) Microsoft
3 62 (4.97%) VMware
4 58 (4.65%) Remedy
5 44 (3.53%) Cisco
6 37 (2.96%) Oracle
7 33 (2.64%) BMC
7 33 (2.64%) SAP
8 25 (2.00%) Atlassian
9 24 (1.92%) Splunk
10 22 (1.76%) IFS
11 21 (1.68%) SolarWinds
12 18 (1.44%) Salesforce
13 16 (1.28%) Citrix
14 15 (1.20%) Dynatrace
14 15 (1.20%) HP
14 15 (1.20%) Juniper
15 14 (1.12%) Dell
16 13 (1.04%) F5
16 13 (1.04%) IBM