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 29 March 2026, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
29 Mar 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 104 81 77
Rank change year-on-year -23 -4 +8
Contract jobs citing Service Management 1,056 867 1,175
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 2.37% 2.96% 2.66%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 2.77% 3.27% 3.07%
Number of daily rates quoted 722 552 785
10th Percentile £213 £221 £272
25th Percentile £383 £406 £425
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £513 £525 £525
Median % change year-on-year -2.38% - +5.00%
75th Percentile £610 £606 £608
90th Percentile £725 £700 £725
UK excluding London median daily rate £510 £525 £526
% change year-on-year -2.95% -0.24% +10.79%
Number of hourly rates quoted 68 37 20
10th Percentile £15.00 £12.62 £12.53
25th Percentile £16.17 £20.64 £16.27
Median hourly rate £27.00 £24.18 £18.36
Median % change year-on-year +11.66% +31.70% -47.54%
75th Percentile £74.26 £32.50 £26.63
90th Percentile £95.00 £68.00 £56.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £26.50 £22.14 £17.72
% change year-on-year +19.69% +24.94% -49.45%

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 38,187 26,485 38,260
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 85.72% 90.45% 86.47%
Number of daily rates quoted 24,174 17,211 24,849
10th Percentile £313 £308 £300
25th Percentile £413 £413 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £525 £525
Median % change year-on-year -4.76% - -4.55%
75th Percentile £613 £638 £638
90th Percentile £725 £738 £750
UK excluding London median daily rate £485 £488 £500
% change year-on-year -0.51% -2.50% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 2,246 968 2,341
10th Percentile £14.96 £15.04 £12.82
25th Percentile £18.86 £20.30 £16.00
Median hourly rate £35.00 £32.00 £32.50
Median % change year-on-year +9.38% -1.54% -10.34%
75th Percentile £65.00 £63.75 £57.50
90th Percentile £77.50 £76.53 £71.25
UK excluding London median hourly rate £32.00 £31.52 £31.80
% change year-on-year +1.52% -0.88% -11.97%

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 29 March 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 29 March 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 29 March 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 -20 974 £520 -0.95% 367
UK excluding London -13 719 £510 -2.95% 317
London -50 263 £520 -0.95% 89
Work from Home -27 244 £500 -2.06% 157
South East +28 210 £520 +11.83% 109
North of England -4 174 £500 +6.61% 73
South West -16 166 £575 +3.28% 34
North West -1 100 £550 +9.89% 39
Midlands -28 99 £413 -25.14% 50
West Midlands -31 74 £408 -28.07% 35
Yorkshire -24 62 £468 +42.57% 28
East of England -17 48 £465 -15.55% 45
East Midlands -9 25 £419 +9.48% 15
Scotland -42 22 £475 -5.00% 13
North East -5 15 £420 +115.38% 7
Wales -12 3 £340 -25.48% 6
Northern Ireland - 1 £500 -

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 96 (9.09%) Confluence
2 46 (4.36%) Microsoft Exchange
3 38 (3.60%) SharePoint
4 9 (0.85%) Skype for Business
5 5 (0.47%) Mattermost
6 3 (0.28%) IIS
6 3 (0.28%) nginx
7 2 (0.19%) Apache
7 2 (0.19%) JBoss
7 2 (0.19%) SharePoint Server
8 1 (0.095%) HCL Notes
8 1 (0.095%) LiveCycle
8 1 (0.095%) OpenStack
8 1 (0.095%) Oracle SOA Suite
8 1 (0.095%) WebLogic
8 1 (0.095%) WebSphere
Applications
1 86 (8.14%) Microsoft Office
2 41 (3.88%) Microsoft Project
3 28 (2.65%) Microsoft Excel
4 11 (1.04%) Microsoft PowerPoint
5 6 (0.57%) MS Visio
6 4 (0.38%) PTC Creo
7 3 (0.28%) Spreadsheet
8 2 (0.19%) Chatbot
9 1 (0.095%) Autodesk Inventor
9 1 (0.095%) Camtasia
Business Applications
1 39 (3.69%) Remedy ITSM
2 13 (1.23%) Oracle EBS
3 12 (1.14%) SAP S/4HANA
4 7 (0.66%) Teamcenter
5 2 (0.19%) Oracle Applications
5 2 (0.19%) Salesforce CRM
6 1 (0.095%) assyst
6 1 (0.095%) Dynamics CRM
6 1 (0.095%) Dynamics NAV
6 1 (0.095%) NetSuite
6 1 (0.095%) Oracle Payables
6 1 (0.095%) Oracle Procure-to-Pay
6 1 (0.095%) Oracle Receivables
6 1 (0.095%) Oracle Subledger Accounting
6 1 (0.095%) SAP ERP
6 1 (0.095%) SAP HR
6 1 (0.095%) SAP Payroll
6 1 (0.095%) SAP PM
6 1 (0.095%) SystmOne
6 1 (0.095%) Workday HCM
Cloud Services
1 155 (14.68%) Azure
2 99 (9.38%) Microsoft 365
3 79 (7.48%) AWS
4 46 (4.36%) Power Platform
5 42 (3.98%) Entra ID
5 42 (3.98%) GCP
6 40 (3.79%) SaaS
7 30 (2.84%) Azure DevOps
8 18 (1.70%) GitHub
9 17 (1.61%) OneDrive
9 17 (1.61%) PaaS
10 15 (1.42%) IaaS
11 12 (1.14%) Serverless
12 11 (1.04%) AWS Lambda
13 10 (0.95%) OCI
14 9 (0.85%) Amazon CloudWatch
15 8 (0.76%) Dynamics 365
15 8 (0.76%) OpenShift
16 7 (0.66%) Google Workspace
16 7 (0.66%) Salesforce Service Cloud
Communications & Networking
1 70 (6.63%) Firewall
2 57 (5.40%) DNS
3 37 (3.50%) VPN
3 37 (3.50%) WAN
4 36 (3.41%) LAN
5 31 (2.94%) DHCP
5 31 (2.94%) Network Security
6 21 (1.99%) TCP/IP
7 19 (1.80%) BGP
8 18 (1.70%) VLAN
9 17 (1.61%) Cisco ISE
10 15 (1.42%) Wi-Fi
11 14 (1.33%) Junos
12 13 (1.23%) OSPF
12 13 (1.23%) Skype
13 12 (1.14%) BIG-IP
13 12 (1.14%) SD-WAN
14 11 (1.04%) WebEx
15 9 (0.85%) Cisco Firepower
15 9 (0.85%) Wireless
Database & Business Intelligence
1 36 (3.41%) Power BI
2 14 (1.33%) SQL Server
3 9 (0.85%) Relational Database
4 6 (0.57%) PostgreSQL
5 5 (0.47%) Metadata
6 4 (0.38%) Amazon RDS
6 4 (0.38%) Elasticsearch
6 4 (0.38%) InfluxDB
7 3 (0.28%) Oracle Reports
7 3 (0.28%) Tableau
8 2 (0.19%) Azure SQL Database
8 2 (0.19%) Big Data
8 2 (0.19%) GIS
8 2 (0.19%) MongoDB
8 2 (0.19%) Oracle Database
8 2 (0.19%) Oracle Database 11g
8 2 (0.19%) SQL Server Integration Services
8 2 (0.19%) SQL Server Reporting Services
9 1 (0.095%) Amazon Redshift
9 1 (0.095%) SQL Server Analysis Services
Development Applications
1 153 (14.49%) JIRA
2 19 (1.80%) Jenkins
3 16 (1.52%) Bitbucket
3 16 (1.52%) GitLab
4 14 (1.33%) Git
5 7 (0.66%) ScriptRunner
6 6 (0.57%) Atlassian Bamboo
7 4 (0.38%) MLflow
8 3 (0.28%) Selenium
8 3 (0.28%) TestRail
9 2 (0.19%) Cypress.io
9 2 (0.19%) IntelliJ
10 1 (0.095%) Artifactory
10 1 (0.095%) Cucumber
10 1 (0.095%) Hudson
10 1 (0.095%) Postman
10 1 (0.095%) Protractor
10 1 (0.095%) Rational DOORS
10 1 (0.095%) Sonatype Nexus
10 1 (0.095%) Visual Studio Code
General
1 378 (35.80%) Social Skills
2 162 (15.34%) Analytical Skills
3 148 (14.02%) Finance
4 120 (11.36%) Public Sector
5 61 (5.78%) Legal
6 48 (4.55%) Military
7 36 (3.41%) Banking
8 32 (3.03%) Documentation Skills
8 32 (3.03%) Organisational Skills
9 30 (2.84%) Influencing Skills
10 22 (2.08%) Telecoms
11 21 (1.99%) Retail
12 11 (1.04%) Aerospace
12 11 (1.04%) Inclusion and Diversity
12 11 (1.04%) Manufacturing
13 9 (0.85%) Investment Banking
14 8 (0.76%) Law
14 8 (0.76%) Local Government
15 7 (0.66%) Front Office
16 6 (0.57%) Police
Job Titles
1 129 (12.22%) Analyst
2 120 (11.36%) Architect
3 116 (10.98%) Lead
4 104 (9.85%) Service Manager
5 69 (6.53%) Senior
6 65 (6.16%) Consultant
7 58 (5.49%) Service Architect
8 52 (4.92%) Service Analyst
9 46 (4.36%) IT Manager
10 36 (3.41%) Hardware Engineer
10 36 (3.41%) IT Support
11 34 (3.22%) IT Analyst
11 34 (3.22%) Support Engineer
12 33 (3.13%) Delivery Manager
12 33 (3.13%) Project Manager
13 31 (2.94%) Administrator
14 28 (2.65%) Network Engineer
15 27 (2.56%) Service Delivery Manager
16 24 (2.27%) Developer
16 24 (2.27%) Field Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 48 (4.55%) REST
2 17 (1.61%) SOAP
3 11 (1.04%) XMPP
4 9 (0.85%) 802.1X
5 8 (0.76%) Elastic Stack
6 7 (0.66%) Middleware
7 6 (0.57%) Web Services
8 5 (0.47%) .NET
8 5 (0.47%) Oracle Fusion
9 4 (0.38%) ARM Templates
9 4 (0.38%) JSON
9 4 (0.38%) LDAP
9 4 (0.38%) RabbitMQ
10 3 (0.28%) CSS
10 3 (0.28%) Lightning Web Components
10 3 (0.28%) Microsoft Graph
10 3 (0.28%) OAuth
11 2 (0.19%) RFC 2544
11 2 (0.19%) Spring Boot
11 2 (0.19%) XML
Miscellaneous
1 97 (9.19%) Product Ownership
2 70 (6.63%) CMDB
3 59 (5.59%) Onboarding
4 42 (3.98%) Data Centre
5 35 (3.31%) Management Information System
6 32 (3.03%) Virtual Team
7 24 (2.27%) PKI
8 20 (1.89%) Driving Licence
9 15 (1.42%) Self-Motivation
10 14 (1.33%) Analytical Mindset
10 14 (1.33%) Clustering
10 14 (1.33%) PMI
11 13 (1.23%) Data Protection Act
12 11 (1.04%) Enterprise Software
13 8 (0.76%) Hybrid Cloud
13 8 (0.76%) NHS
13 8 (0.76%) Replication
14 7 (0.66%) Algorithms
14 7 (0.66%) Cloud Native
15 6 (0.57%) Legacy Systems
Operating Systems
1 196 (18.56%) Windows
2 67 (6.34%) Linux
3 60 (5.68%) Windows Server
4 47 (4.45%) Windows 10
5 17 (1.61%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
6 11 (1.04%) Mac OS
6 11 (1.04%) Windows 7
7 10 (0.95%) Android
8 8 (0.76%) Apple iOS
8 8 (0.76%) Unix
8 8 (0.76%) Windows Server 2012
9 7 (0.66%) Ubuntu
10 5 (0.47%) VMS
11 4 (0.38%) Windows Server 2003
12 3 (0.28%) CentOS
12 3 (0.28%) Windows Server 2019
13 2 (0.19%) Windows Server 2016
14 1 (0.095%) Data ONTAP
14 1 (0.095%) Rocky
14 1 (0.095%) Windows Server 2008
Processes & Methodologies
1 593 (56.16%) ITIL
2 461 (43.66%) ITSM
3 240 (22.73%) Agile
4 210 (19.89%) Problem-Solving
5 207 (19.60%) Continuous Improvement
6 201 (19.03%) Stakeholder Management
7 169 (16.00%) Service Delivery
8 159 (15.06%) Change Management
9 147 (13.92%) Stakeholder Engagement
10 125 (11.84%) DevOps
11 103 (9.75%) Customer Service
12 100 (9.47%) Service Design
13 96 (9.09%) Problem Management
14 86 (8.14%) Incident Management
15 81 (7.67%) Configuration Management
16 79 (7.48%) Project Management
17 76 (7.20%) Acceptance Criteria
18 70 (6.63%) Knowledge Transfer
19 64 (6.06%) CI/CD
19 64 (6.06%) Roadmaps
Programming Languages
1 93 (8.81%) PowerShell
2 59 (5.59%) Python
3 50 (4.73%) SQL
4 27 (2.56%) JavaScript
5 19 (1.80%) Bash
6 18 (1.70%) Java
7 9 (0.85%) Perl
7 9 (0.85%) VB
7 9 (0.85%) VBScript
8 8 (0.76%) PL/SQL
9 7 (0.66%) Shell Script
10 6 (0.57%) Kotlin
11 5 (0.47%) C#
12 4 (0.38%) Apex Code
12 4 (0.38%) Go
12 4 (0.38%) Groovy
13 2 (0.19%) Bicep
13 2 (0.19%) PHP
13 2 (0.19%) T-SQL
14 1 (0.095%) C
Qualifications
1 451 (42.71%) Security Cleared
2 340 (32.20%) SC Cleared
3 136 (12.88%) Degree
4 131 (12.41%) DV Cleared
5 50 (4.73%) ITIL Certification
6 31 (2.94%) PMI Certification
7 30 (2.84%) TOGAF Certification
8 29 (2.75%) PMP
9 25 (2.37%) Cisco Certification
10 24 (2.27%) BPSS Clearance
10 24 (2.27%) Microsoft Certification
11 17 (1.61%) Computer Science Degree
12 16 (1.52%) CCNP
13 15 (1.42%) A+ Certification
14 14 (1.33%) CCNA
15 11 (1.04%) MCSE
16 9 (0.85%) JNCIA
16 9 (0.85%) JNCIP
16 9 (0.85%) JNCIS
17 8 (0.76%) MAPM
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 50 (4.73%) SLA
2 34 (3.22%) ISO/IEC 27001
3 32 (3.03%) Data Quality
4 23 (2.18%) GDPR
5 21 (1.99%) QA
6 20 (1.89%) PMO
7 19 (1.80%) ISO/IEC 20000
8 11 (1.04%) Accessibility
8 11 (1.04%) NCSC
9 10 (0.95%) COBIT
9 10 (0.95%) GRC
10 9 (0.85%) NIST
11 8 (0.76%) Sarbanes-Oxley
12 7 (0.66%) Government Security Classifications
13 6 (0.57%) Cyber Essentials
13 6 (0.57%) PCI DSS
14 4 (0.38%) Disclosure Scotland
14 4 (0.38%) ISO 9001
15 3 (0.28%) HMG Security Policy Framework
16 2 (0.19%) HIPAA
System Software
1 116 (10.98%) Active Directory
2 33 (3.13%) VMware Infrastructure
3 18 (1.70%) Docker
4 9 (0.85%) BitLocker
4 9 (0.85%) VMware NSX
5 5 (0.47%) Hyper-V
5 5 (0.47%) Virtual Machines
6 3 (0.28%) Virtual Desktop
6 3 (0.28%) VMware ESXi
7 2 (0.19%) NDS
7 2 (0.19%) NetIQ eDirectory
7 2 (0.19%) NFS
7 2 (0.19%) Slurm Workload Manager
8 1 (0.095%) IAG
8 1 (0.095%) iptables
8 1 (0.095%) Microsoft Virtual Server
8 1 (0.095%) Oracle RAC
8 1 (0.095%) Samba
8 1 (0.095%) Virtual Servers
Systems Management
1 38 (3.60%) SCCM
2 30 (2.84%) OPNET
3 29 (2.75%) Ansible
4 28 (2.65%) Microsoft Intune
5 27 (2.56%) Terraform
6 25 (2.37%) Kubernetes
7 12 (1.14%) FortiGate
7 12 (1.14%) WSUS
8 10 (0.95%) Grafana
9 9 (0.85%) vCenter Server
10 8 (0.76%) Jamf Pro
11 7 (0.66%) Active Directory Federation Services
11 7 (0.66%) Progress Chef
11 7 (0.66%) Prometheus
12 5 (0.47%) Puppet
12 5 (0.47%) SCOM
13 4 (0.38%) Nessus
13 4 (0.38%) Packer
14 3 (0.28%) HP ALM
14 3 (0.28%) Single Sign-On
Vendors
1 268 (25.38%) ServiceNow
2 166 (15.72%) Microsoft
3 76 (7.20%) Atlassian
4 75 (7.10%) Remedy
5 56 (5.30%) Cisco
6 53 (5.02%) VMware
7 45 (4.26%) Oracle
8 39 (3.69%) HP
9 30 (2.84%) Google
10 27 (2.56%) SAP
11 26 (2.46%) Splunk
12 21 (1.99%) Citrix
12 21 (1.99%) SolarWinds
13 20 (1.89%) Salesforce
14 19 (1.80%) Red Hat
15 18 (1.70%) Dell
16 16 (1.52%) Juniper
17 15 (1.42%) BMC
17 15 (1.42%) Canon
17 15 (1.42%) IFS