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

6 months to
1 Sep 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 95 83 93
Rank change year-on-year -12 +10 -8
Contract jobs citing Service Management 1,535 963 944
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 2.86% 2.94% 2.45%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 3.38% 3.25% 2.86%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,004 580 633
10th Percentile £262 £208 £221
25th Percentile £413 £350 £400
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £493 £515
Median % change year-on-year +6.60% -4.37% -1.90%
75th Percentile £622 £575 £600
90th Percentile £725 £675 £681
UK excluding London median daily rate £523 £493 £502
% change year-on-year +6.09% -1.69% +0.30%
Number of hourly rates quoted 82 73 17
10th Percentile £14.50 - £17.17
25th Percentile £16.53 £12.62 £20.74
Median hourly rate £55.00 £18.73 £27.50
Median % change year-on-year +193.65% -31.89% -49.07%
75th Percentile £85.00 £31.40 £48.75
90th Percentile £92.53 £44.75 £54.25
UK excluding London median hourly rate £35.53 £18.73 £27.50
% change year-on-year +89.70% -31.89% +25.54%

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 45,369 29,617 32,996
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 84.56% 90.44% 85.46%
Number of daily rates quoted 27,730 18,446 20,728
10th Percentile £325 £300 £310
25th Percentile £425 £402 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £500 £525
Median % change year-on-year +5.00% -4.76% -3.67%
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 2,902 1,758 1,607
10th Percentile £14.10 £14.20 £14.16
25th Percentile £17.78 £17.30 £18.82
Median hourly rate £41.09 £25.15 £42.50
Median % change year-on-year +63.39% -40.82% +2.41%
75th Percentile £67.88 £47.09 £65.00
90th Percentile £80.00 £67.25 £75.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £43.56 £22.63 £43.00
% change year-on-year +92.49% -47.37% +14.67%

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 1 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 1 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 1 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 -13 1,322 £525 +5.00% 1,086
UK excluding London -12 888 £523 +6.09% 820
London +29 484 £525 +5.00% 427
Work from Home +15 419 £515 +3.00% 540
South East +15 285 £565 +13.00% 268
North of England -19 250 £473 +4.30% 182
North West -22 150 £480 +3.11% 107
South West -35 110 £563 +4.17% 90
Midlands -44 104 £520 +1.96% 106
West Midlands -31 98 £523 -0.48% 68
Yorkshire -9 93 £443 +24.79% 59
Scotland +12 88 £520 +15.56% 59
East of England -12 47 £518 -5.91% 71
Wales -9 13 £800 +247.83% 20
Northern Ireland +8 8 - - 32
North East -46 7 £500 +156.41% 16
East Midlands -30 6 £250 -16.67% 39

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
1 111 (7.23%) SharePoint
2 58 (3.78%) Microsoft Exchange
3 55 (3.58%) Confluence
4 15 (0.98%) Skype for Business
5 6 (0.39%) OpenStack
6 3 (0.20%) CMS
6 3 (0.20%) IIS
7 2 (0.13%) Apache
8 1 (0.065%) CICS
8 1 (0.065%) Exchange Server 2010
8 1 (0.065%) HCL Notes
8 1 (0.065%) JBoss
8 1 (0.065%) Mattermost
8 1 (0.065%) Oracle Collaboration Suite
8 1 (0.065%) Palantir Foundry
Applications
1 86 (5.60%) Microsoft Office
2 37 (2.41%) Microsoft Excel
3 16 (1.04%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 12 (0.78%) Microsoft Project
4 12 (0.78%) MS Visio
5 10 (0.65%) Chatbot
6 2 (0.13%) Spreadsheet
7 1 (0.065%) Maple
Business Applications
1 57 (3.71%) Remedy ITSM
2 11 (0.72%) SAP S/4HANA
3 7 (0.46%) Primavera
4 5 (0.33%) ContrOCC
4 5 (0.33%) NEC Housing
5 4 (0.26%) Workday HCM
6 3 (0.20%) Dynamics CRM
6 3 (0.20%) Oracle ERP
6 3 (0.20%) SAP CO
6 3 (0.20%) SAP FI
6 3 (0.20%) SAP FI/CO
6 3 (0.20%) SAP SM
7 2 (0.13%) Exchequer
7 2 (0.13%) Oracle Applications
7 2 (0.13%) Oracle EBS
7 2 (0.13%) Remedy AR System
7 2 (0.13%) SAP PS
7 2 (0.13%) Teamcenter
8 1 (0.065%) iTrent
8 1 (0.065%) Salesforce CRM
Cloud Services
1 281 (18.31%) Azure
2 199 (12.96%) Microsoft 365
3 128 (8.34%) AWS
4 118 (7.69%) Entra ID
5 70 (4.56%) Power Platform
6 65 (4.23%) SaaS
7 54 (3.52%) OneDrive
8 35 (2.28%) Azure DevOps
9 33 (2.15%) GCP
10 21 (1.37%) GitHub
11 20 (1.30%) Microsoft Copilot
12 17 (1.11%) Azure Monitor
13 14 (0.91%) OCI
14 11 (0.72%) Google Workspace
15 10 (0.65%) PaaS
16 9 (0.59%) Azure Sentinel
16 9 (0.59%) IaaS
17 8 (0.52%) Amazon S3
17 8 (0.52%) Azure AKS
17 8 (0.52%) Datadog
Communications & Networking
1 81 (5.28%) Firewall
2 67 (4.36%) DNS
3 54 (3.52%) VPN
4 48 (3.13%) DHCP
5 47 (3.06%) TCP/IP
6 42 (2.74%) WAN
7 41 (2.67%) Network Security
8 34 (2.21%) LAN
9 22 (1.43%) Wi-Fi
10 19 (1.24%) Wireless
11 17 (1.11%) SD-WAN
12 15 (0.98%) Skype
12 15 (0.98%) VLAN
13 13 (0.85%) BGP
14 11 (0.72%) Intrusion Detection
14 11 (0.72%) SSH
15 9 (0.59%) 5G
15 9 (0.59%) OSPF
15 9 (0.59%) SSL
16 8 (0.52%) Internet
Database & Business Intelligence
1 49 (3.19%) Power BI
2 28 (1.82%) SQL Server
3 15 (0.98%) Metadata
4 9 (0.59%) Oracle Database
5 8 (0.52%) SQL Server Integration Services
6 7 (0.46%) MySQL
6 7 (0.46%) Oracle Database 11g
6 7 (0.46%) PostgreSQL
7 6 (0.39%) Oracle Reports
7 6 (0.39%) SQL Server Reporting Services
8 5 (0.33%) Amazon RDS
8 5 (0.33%) MariaDB
8 5 (0.33%) Relational Database
8 5 (0.33%) SQL Server Analysis Services
9 3 (0.20%) 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
1 143 (9.32%) JIRA
2 24 (1.56%) Git
2 24 (1.56%) Jenkins
3 19 (1.24%) Bitbucket
4 12 (0.78%) Atlassian Bamboo
5 9 (0.59%) GitLab
6 5 (0.33%) Browser DevTools
7 4 (0.26%) Maven
7 4 (0.26%) MLflow
7 4 (0.26%) ScriptRunner
7 4 (0.26%) webpack
8 3 (0.20%) Fiddler
8 3 (0.20%) Gradle
8 3 (0.20%) Hudson
8 3 (0.20%) IntelliJ
8 3 (0.20%) Rational DOORS
8 3 (0.20%) Sonatype Nexus
9 2 (0.13%) Artifactory
9 2 (0.13%) Firebug
10 1 (0.065%) Selenium
General
1 606 (39.48%) Social Skills
2 252 (16.42%) Finance
3 245 (15.96%) Analytical Skills
4 193 (12.57%) Public Sector
5 76 (4.95%) Telecoms
6 61 (3.97%) Organisational Skills
7 59 (3.84%) Documentation Skills
8 54 (3.52%) Banking
9 51 (3.32%) Influencing Skills
10 46 (3.00%) Legal
11 32 (2.08%) Inclusion and Diversity
12 31 (2.02%) Military
13 26 (1.69%) Aerospace
14 22 (1.43%) Local Government
15 21 (1.37%) Presentation Skills
16 18 (1.17%) Retail
17 14 (0.91%) Police
18 12 (0.78%) Manufacturing
19 10 (0.65%) Financial Institution
19 10 (0.65%) Law
Job Titles
1 159 (10.36%) Architect
2 158 (10.29%) Analyst
3 148 (9.64%) Lead
4 113 (7.36%) Senior
5 109 (7.10%) Consultant
6 103 (6.71%) Service Manager
7 74 (4.82%) IT Manager
8 72 (4.69%) Project Manager
9 70 (4.56%) Support Engineer
10 62 (4.04%) Developer
11 52 (3.39%) Delivery Manager
12 50 (3.26%) IT Support
13 49 (3.19%) Service Analyst
13 49 (3.19%) Solutions Architect
14 42 (2.74%) ServiceNow Developer
15 41 (2.67%) Service Architect
16 35 (2.28%) Transition Manager
17 34 (2.21%) IT Analyst
18 33 (2.15%) IT Engineer
19 32 (2.08%) Infrastructure Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 76 (4.95%) REST
2 49 (3.19%) Terraform
3 32 (2.08%) SOAP
4 19 (1.24%) HTML
5 18 (1.17%) CSS
6 15 (0.98%) Web Services
7 14 (0.91%) XML
8 13 (0.85%) Middleware
9 11 (0.72%) JSON
10 10 (0.65%) SAML
11 9 (0.59%) AngularJS
11 9 (0.59%) Elastic Stack
12 7 (0.46%) ARM Templates
13 6 (0.39%) .NET
13 6 (0.39%) Node.js
13 6 (0.39%) OAuth
14 5 (0.33%) OpenID
14 5 (0.33%) RESTful
15 4 (0.26%) Ajax
15 4 (0.26%) Oracle Fusion
Miscellaneous
1 162 (10.55%) Onboarding
2 121 (7.88%) CMDB
3 72 (4.69%) Management Information System
4 57 (3.71%) Product Ownership
5 52 (3.39%) Enterprise Software
6 47 (3.06%) Data Centre
7 31 (2.02%) PKI
8 28 (1.82%) Operational Technology
9 27 (1.76%) Data Protection Act
10 26 (1.69%) Virtual Team
11 24 (1.56%) Hybrid Cloud
12 23 (1.50%) Security Operations Centre
13 21 (1.37%) Cloud Native
14 18 (1.17%) Clustering
15 17 (1.11%) Self-Motivation
16 16 (1.04%) AI Agents
16 16 (1.04%) Analytical Mindset
17 14 (0.91%) NHS
17 14 (0.91%) Video Conferencing
18 13 (0.85%) Cyber Threat
Operating Systems
1 306 (19.93%) Windows
2 86 (5.60%) Windows Server
3 85 (5.54%) Linux
4 67 (4.36%) Windows 10
5 30 (1.95%) Apple iOS
6 29 (1.89%) Mac OS
7 22 (1.43%) Unix
8 20 (1.30%) Windows 7
9 17 (1.11%) Android
10 12 (0.78%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
11 6 (0.39%) Windows Server 2019
12 3 (0.20%) Windows Server 2012
12 3 (0.20%) Windows Server 2016
13 2 (0.13%) Solaris
13 2 (0.13%) Ubuntu
13 2 (0.13%) Windows XP
13 2 (0.13%) zOS
14 1 (0.065%) Rocky
14 1 (0.065%) VMS
14 1 (0.065%) Windows Server 2008
Processes & Methodologies
1 809 (52.70%) ITIL
2 686 (44.69%) ITSM
3 462 (30.10%) Stakeholder Management
4 410 (26.71%) Continuous Improvement
5 327 (21.30%) Service Delivery
6 309 (20.13%) Problem-Solving
7 306 (19.93%) Agile
8 240 (15.64%) Stakeholder Engagement
9 237 (15.44%) Change Management
10 188 (12.25%) Roadmaps
11 182 (11.86%) Customer Service
12 164 (10.68%) Incident Management
13 157 (10.23%) DevOps
14 152 (9.90%) Cybersecurity
15 136 (8.86%) Decision-Making
15 136 (8.86%) Project Delivery
16 128 (8.34%) AI
17 126 (8.21%) Migration
18 115 (7.49%) Project Management
19 110 (7.17%) Service Design
Programming Languages
1 134 (8.73%) PowerShell
2 89 (5.80%) Python
3 73 (4.76%) SQL
4 54 (3.52%) JavaScript
5 47 (3.06%) Bash
6 17 (1.11%) VBScript
7 16 (1.04%) Java
8 15 (0.98%) VB
9 12 (0.78%) PL/SQL
10 10 (0.65%) Bicep
11 9 (0.59%) Groovy
12 7 (0.46%) Shell Script
13 6 (0.39%) C
14 5 (0.33%) Apex Code
14 5 (0.33%) C#
14 5 (0.33%) Perl
14 5 (0.33%) T-SQL
15 4 (0.26%) TypeScript
16 3 (0.20%) Lua
17 2 (0.13%) ActionScript 2.0
Qualifications
1 564 (36.74%) Security Cleared
2 384 (25.02%) SC Cleared
3 146 (9.51%) DV Cleared
4 143 (9.32%) Degree
5 63 (4.10%) ITIL Certification
6 57 (3.71%) PMP
7 51 (3.32%) PMI Certification
8 45 (2.93%) BPSS Clearance
9 35 (2.28%) CISSP
10 34 (2.21%) ITIL Foundation Certificate
11 33 (2.15%) Microsoft Certification
12 32 (2.08%) CISM
13 29 (1.89%) Computer Science Degree
14 28 (1.82%) Cisco Certification
15 25 (1.63%) A+ Certification
16 17 (1.11%) Azure Certification
17 16 (1.04%) DBS Check
18 14 (0.91%) CCNA
19 12 (0.78%) Master's Degree
20 10 (0.65%) AWS Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 127 (8.27%) SLA
2 52 (3.39%) QA
3 48 (3.13%) Data Quality
4 46 (3.00%) ISO/IEC 27001
5 31 (2.02%) PMO
6 30 (1.95%) GDPR
6 30 (1.95%) GRC
7 29 (1.89%) ISO/IEC 20000
7 29 (1.89%) NCSC
8 19 (1.24%) NIST
9 17 (1.11%) COBIT
10 16 (1.04%) ISO 9001
11 14 (0.91%) Cyber Essentials
12 9 (0.59%) Accessibility
12 9 (0.59%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
12 9 (0.59%) Disclosure Scotland
13 7 (0.46%) PCI DSS
14 6 (0.39%) ISO 31000
14 6 (0.39%) ISO/IEC 27005
15 5 (0.33%) JSP 440
System Software
1 174 (11.34%) Active Directory
2 79 (5.15%) VMware Infrastructure
3 32 (2.08%) Hyper-V
4 25 (1.63%) VMware ESXi
5 21 (1.37%) Docker
6 18 (1.17%) VMware NSX
7 17 (1.11%) Virtual Desktop
8 16 (1.04%) BitLocker
8 16 (1.04%) vSphere
9 13 (0.85%) vCloud
10 6 (0.39%) IAG
10 6 (0.39%) Virtual Servers
11 5 (0.33%) Oracle RAC
11 5 (0.33%) Virtual Machines
12 4 (0.26%) Citrix Hypervisor
12 4 (0.26%) Firmware
12 4 (0.26%) NFS
12 4 (0.26%) XenApp
12 4 (0.26%) XenDesktop
13 3 (0.20%) Microsoft Virtual Server
Systems Management
1 86 (5.60%) Microsoft Intune
2 73 (4.76%) SCCM
3 48 (3.13%) Ansible
4 24 (1.56%) Kubernetes
5 22 (1.43%) SCOM
6 20 (1.30%) Single Sign-On
7 16 (1.04%) vCenter Server
8 12 (0.78%) Jamf Pro
9 11 (0.72%) WSUS
10 8 (0.52%) Data Guard
10 8 (0.52%) Grafana
10 8 (0.52%) Oracle RMAN
11 5 (0.33%) NetBackup
12 4 (0.26%) PowerCLI
12 4 (0.26%) Progress Chef
12 4 (0.26%) Prometheus
12 4 (0.26%) Puppet
12 4 (0.26%) vMotion
13 3 (0.20%) Istio
13 3 (0.20%) Packer
Vendors
1 437 (28.47%) ServiceNow
2 363 (23.65%) Microsoft
3 110 (7.17%) VMware
4 62 (4.04%) Remedy
5 51 (3.32%) BMC
5 51 (3.32%) Cisco
6 47 (3.06%) Oracle
7 34 (2.21%) Atlassian
8 32 (2.08%) SAP
9 29 (1.89%) Dynatrace
10 27 (1.76%) Splunk
11 21 (1.37%) Apple
11 21 (1.37%) Salesforce
12 20 (1.30%) Citrix
12 20 (1.30%) CyberArk
13 19 (1.24%) IBM
14 18 (1.17%) Google
14 18 (1.17%) SolarWinds
15 17 (1.11%) IFS
16 14 (0.91%) Zscaler