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 8 October 2026, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
8 Oct 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 87 89 97
Rank change year-on-year +2 +8 -15
Contract jobs citing Service Management 1,672 963 903
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 3.07% 2.91% 2.39%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 3.62% 3.22% 2.77%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,090 587 572
10th Percentile £263 £200 £213
25th Percentile £433 £333 £380
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £527 £488 £518
Median % change year-on-year +8.00% -5.80% -1.43%
75th Percentile £625 £573 £605
90th Percentile £725 £644 £681
UK excluding London median daily rate £531 £478 £502
% change year-on-year +11.26% -4.79% -1.91%
Number of hourly rates quoted 79 87 17
10th Percentile £14.50 £12.62 £20.03
25th Percentile £16.76 £15.70 £25.75
Median hourly rate £55.00 £21.28 £36.00
Median % change year-on-year +158.46% -40.89% -19.33%
75th Percentile £85.00 £33.75 £48.75
90th Percentile £92.00 £60.00 £54.25
UK excluding London median hourly rate £35.53 £20.83 £40.50
% change year-on-year +70.57% -48.57% +84.89%

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 46,126 29,916 32,545
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 84.57% 90.50% 85.97%
Number of daily rates quoted 27,740 18,573 19,640
10th Percentile £325 £295 £308
25th Percentile £425 £404 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £500 £525
Median % change year-on-year +5.00% -4.76% -2.78%
75th Percentile £638 £623 £638
90th Percentile £736 £725 £750
UK excluding London median daily rate £500 £475 £500
% change year-on-year +5.26% -5.00% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 3,322 1,863 1,307
10th Percentile £13.63 £14.38 £15.00
25th Percentile £17.00 £17.30 £20.12
Median hourly rate £37.50 £25.15 £40.33
Median % change year-on-year +49.11% -37.63% -7.56%
75th Percentile £65.00 £43.21 £65.00
90th Percentile £77.95 £65.23 £74.44
UK excluding London median hourly rate £37.50 £22.32 £42.50
% change year-on-year +68.05% -47.49% -

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 8 October 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 8 October 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 8 October 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 +4 1,437 £525 +5.00% 1,386
UK excluding London -7 969 £531 +11.26% 943
London +40 512 £525 +5.00% 536
Work from Home +1 447 £525 +10.53% 636
South East +11 310 £575 +28.21% 280
North of England -12 276 £480 +6.67% 218
North West -13 162 £483 +5.92% 115
Midlands -31 125 £525 +3.96% 133
West Midlands -11 118 £525 +1.94% 85
Yorkshire -7 108 £456 +25.00% 85
Scotland +26 101 £566 +22.38% 74
South West -39 100 £558 +1.36% 106
East of England -3 65 £550 +1.76% 105
Wales -2 13 £800 +247.83% 12
Northern Ireland +13 8 - - 27
East Midlands -26 7 £206 -34.83% 46
North East -42 6 £600 +207.69% 19

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
1 128 (7.66%) SharePoint
2 65 (3.89%) Microsoft Exchange
3 63 (3.77%) Confluence
4 15 (0.90%) Skype for Business
5 5 (0.30%) OpenStack
6 4 (0.24%) Apache
6 4 (0.24%) CMS
6 4 (0.24%) IBM Transformation Extender
6 4 (0.24%) IIS
7 3 (0.18%) Tomcat
8 2 (0.12%) CICS
8 2 (0.12%) nginx
9 1 (0.060%) Documentum
9 1 (0.060%) Exchange Server 2010
9 1 (0.060%) HCL Notes
9 1 (0.060%) Mattermost
9 1 (0.060%) Oracle Collaboration Suite
9 1 (0.060%) Oracle Workflow
9 1 (0.060%) Palantir Foundry
9 1 (0.060%) SAS
Applications
1 84 (5.02%) Microsoft Office
2 42 (2.51%) Microsoft Excel
3 17 (1.02%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 15 (0.90%) MS Visio
5 8 (0.48%) Chatbot
5 8 (0.48%) Microsoft Project
6 2 (0.12%) Spreadsheet
7 1 (0.060%) Maple
Business Applications
1 52 (3.11%) Remedy ITSM
2 12 (0.72%) SAP S/4HANA
3 10 (0.60%) Dynamics CRM
4 7 (0.42%) Primavera
5 5 (0.30%) ContrOCC
5 5 (0.30%) NEC Housing
5 5 (0.30%) Workday HCM
6 3 (0.18%) SAP CO
6 3 (0.18%) SAP FI
6 3 (0.18%) SAP FI/CO
6 3 (0.18%) SAP SM
6 3 (0.18%) SystmOne
7 2 (0.12%) Exchequer
7 2 (0.12%) Oracle EBS
7 2 (0.12%) Oracle ERP
7 2 (0.12%) Remedy AR System
7 2 (0.12%) Salesforce CRM
7 2 (0.12%) SAP CX
7 2 (0.12%) SAP PS
7 2 (0.12%) Teamcenter
Cloud Services
1 292 (17.46%) Azure
2 218 (13.04%) Microsoft 365
3 144 (8.61%) Entra ID
4 142 (8.49%) AWS
5 78 (4.67%) Power Platform
6 70 (4.19%) SaaS
7 58 (3.47%) OneDrive
8 45 (2.69%) GCP
9 41 (2.45%) Azure DevOps
10 27 (1.61%) Azure Monitor
11 20 (1.20%) GitHub
12 19 (1.14%) Microsoft Copilot
13 18 (1.08%) Google Workspace
14 15 (0.90%) Dynamics 365
14 15 (0.90%) Power Automate
15 14 (0.84%) Serverless
16 12 (0.72%) Azure Sentinel
17 11 (0.66%) Amazon EC2
17 11 (0.66%) IaaS
18 10 (0.60%) Azure Functions
Communications & Networking
1 76 (4.55%) Firewall
2 75 (4.49%) DNS
3 62 (3.71%) VPN
4 57 (3.41%) DHCP
5 49 (2.93%) TCP/IP
6 46 (2.75%) Network Security
7 39 (2.33%) WAN
8 35 (2.09%) LAN
9 27 (1.61%) Wi-Fi
10 16 (0.96%) Skype
11 15 (0.90%) VLAN
11 15 (0.90%) Wireless
12 14 (0.84%) SD-WAN
13 12 (0.72%) SSH
14 11 (0.66%) BGP
14 11 (0.66%) Intrusion Detection
15 10 (0.60%) SAN
16 9 (0.54%) Internet
17 8 (0.48%) 5G
17 8 (0.48%) NetScaler
Database & Business Intelligence
1 46 (2.75%) Power BI
2 34 (2.03%) SQL Server
3 24 (1.44%) Metadata
4 9 (0.54%) Amazon RDS
4 9 (0.54%) PostgreSQL
5 8 (0.48%) Looker
5 8 (0.48%) MySQL
5 8 (0.48%) SQL Server Integration Services
6 7 (0.42%) Oracle Database
7 6 (0.36%) BigQuery
7 6 (0.36%) Relational Database
8 5 (0.30%) MariaDB
8 5 (0.30%) SQL Server Reporting Services
9 4 (0.24%) Oracle Database 11g
10 3 (0.18%) Amazon Aurora
10 3 (0.18%) Oracle Reports
10 3 (0.18%) SQL Server Analysis Services
11 2 (0.12%) Data Warehouse
11 2 (0.12%) Db2
11 2 (0.12%) MongoDB
Development Applications
1 152 (9.09%) JIRA
2 33 (1.97%) Git
3 22 (1.32%) Jenkins
4 17 (1.02%) Bitbucket
5 13 (0.78%) Atlassian Bamboo
6 9 (0.54%) GitLab
7 4 (0.24%) Browser DevTools
7 4 (0.24%) Maven
7 4 (0.24%) webpack
8 3 (0.18%) Gradle
8 3 (0.18%) Rational DOORS
9 2 (0.12%) Fiddler
9 2 (0.12%) Firebug
9 2 (0.12%) Sonatype Nexus
10 1 (0.060%) Claude Code
10 1 (0.060%) Gemini Tracker
10 1 (0.060%) IBM UrbanCode
10 1 (0.060%) IntelliJ
10 1 (0.060%) MLflow
10 1 (0.060%) Snyk
General
1 679 (40.61%) Social Skills
2 281 (16.81%) Analytical Skills
3 273 (16.33%) Finance
4 205 (12.26%) Public Sector
5 79 (4.72%) Organisational Skills
6 73 (4.37%) Telecoms
7 70 (4.19%) Documentation Skills
8 61 (3.65%) Banking
9 60 (3.59%) Influencing Skills
10 48 (2.87%) Legal
11 47 (2.81%) Aerospace
12 40 (2.39%) Inclusion and Diversity
13 30 (1.79%) Military
14 28 (1.67%) Presentation Skills
15 24 (1.44%) Local Government
15 24 (1.44%) Manufacturing
16 19 (1.14%) Police
17 16 (0.96%) Retail
18 14 (0.84%) Law
19 10 (0.60%) Financial Institution
Job Titles
1 181 (10.83%) Architect
2 160 (9.57%) Analyst
3 156 (9.33%) Lead
4 123 (7.36%) Consultant
5 119 (7.12%) Senior
6 112 (6.70%) Service Manager
7 77 (4.61%) Developer
7 77 (4.61%) Support Engineer
8 76 (4.55%) Delivery Manager
9 69 (4.13%) Project Manager
10 65 (3.89%) IT Manager
11 58 (3.47%) Solutions Architect
12 51 (3.05%) IT Support
13 49 (2.93%) Service Analyst
14 42 (2.51%) ServiceNow Architect
15 41 (2.45%) Service Architect
15 41 (2.45%) ServiceNow Developer
16 39 (2.33%) IT Engineer
17 36 (2.15%) Transition Manager
18 35 (2.09%) Desktop Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 80 (4.78%) REST
2 63 (3.77%) Terraform
3 29 (1.73%) SOAP
4 27 (1.61%) XML
5 26 (1.56%) Middleware
6 24 (1.44%) Web Services
7 19 (1.14%) JSON
8 18 (1.08%) HTML
9 17 (1.02%) CSS
10 13 (0.78%) LDAP
11 12 (0.72%) .NET
12 10 (0.60%) ARM Templates
12 10 (0.60%) SAML
13 9 (0.54%) Elastic Stack
14 8 (0.48%) OAuth
14 8 (0.48%) XSLT
15 7 (0.42%) AngularJS
15 7 (0.42%) Node.js
16 6 (0.36%) OpenID
16 6 (0.36%) SailPoint
Miscellaneous
1 182 (10.89%) Onboarding
2 136 (8.13%) CMDB
3 103 (6.16%) Management Information System
4 70 (4.19%) Enterprise Software
5 54 (3.23%) Data Centre
5 54 (3.23%) Product Ownership
6 39 (2.33%) PKI
7 33 (1.97%) Hybrid Cloud
8 32 (1.91%) Data Protection Act
9 27 (1.61%) Security Operations Centre
10 26 (1.56%) Virtual Team
11 25 (1.50%) Cloud Native
11 25 (1.50%) Operational Technology
12 18 (1.08%) Cyber Threat
13 17 (1.02%) Security Posture
13 17 (1.02%) Self-Motivation
14 16 (0.96%) Video Conferencing
15 15 (0.90%) AI Agents
15 15 (0.90%) Analytical Mindset
16 14 (0.84%) NHS
Operating Systems
1 340 (20.33%) Windows
2 100 (5.98%) Linux
3 93 (5.56%) Windows Server
4 75 (4.49%) Windows 10
5 38 (2.27%) Apple iOS
6 36 (2.15%) Mac OS
7 23 (1.38%) Android
8 22 (1.32%) Unix
9 20 (1.20%) Windows 7
10 19 (1.14%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
11 6 (0.36%) Windows Server 2019
12 4 (0.24%) AIX
12 4 (0.24%) Solaris
12 4 (0.24%) SUSE Linux Enterprise Server
13 3 (0.18%) zOS
14 2 (0.12%) Ubuntu
14 2 (0.12%) Windows Server 2012
14 2 (0.12%) Windows Server 2016
14 2 (0.12%) Windows XP
15 1 (0.060%) Rocky
Processes & Methodologies
1 889 (53.17%) ITIL
2 724 (43.30%) ITSM
3 550 (32.89%) Stakeholder Management
4 472 (28.23%) Continuous Improvement
5 353 (21.11%) Service Delivery
6 332 (19.86%) Problem-Solving
7 331 (19.80%) Agile
8 255 (15.25%) Roadmaps
9 251 (15.01%) Stakeholder Engagement
10 241 (14.41%) Change Management
11 202 (12.08%) Cybersecurity
12 196 (11.72%) Customer Service
13 193 (11.54%) Incident Management
14 172 (10.29%) DevOps
15 157 (9.39%) Project Delivery
16 150 (8.97%) Decision-Making
17 144 (8.61%) AI
18 138 (8.25%) Migration
19 134 (8.01%) Risk Management
20 121 (7.24%) Service Design
Programming Languages
1 149 (8.91%) PowerShell
2 96 (5.74%) Python
3 62 (3.71%) SQL
4 60 (3.59%) JavaScript
5 59 (3.53%) Bash
6 19 (1.14%) Java
6 19 (1.14%) VBScript
7 15 (0.90%) Bicep
7 15 (0.90%) C#
7 15 (0.90%) VB
8 9 (0.54%) Shell Script
9 7 (0.42%) Groovy
10 5 (0.30%) C
10 5 (0.30%) Perl
10 5 (0.30%) TypeScript
11 4 (0.24%) PL/SQL
11 4 (0.24%) T-SQL
12 3 (0.18%) Google Apps Script
12 3 (0.18%) Lua
12 3 (0.18%) RPG
Qualifications
1 647 (38.70%) Security Cleared
2 448 (26.79%) SC Cleared
3 157 (9.39%) Degree
3 157 (9.39%) DV Cleared
4 63 (3.77%) PMP
5 59 (3.53%) BPSS Clearance
5 59 (3.53%) PMI Certification
6 55 (3.29%) ITIL Certification
7 40 (2.39%) Microsoft Certification
8 36 (2.15%) CISSP
9 34 (2.03%) ITIL Foundation Certificate
10 31 (1.85%) CISM
11 27 (1.61%) Cisco Certification
11 27 (1.61%) Computer Science Degree
12 25 (1.50%) A+ Certification
13 24 (1.44%) DBS Check
14 22 (1.32%) Azure Certification
15 15 (0.90%) AWS Certification
16 10 (0.60%) CCNA
17 9 (0.54%) CCNP
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 144 (8.61%) SLA
2 64 (3.83%) QA
3 57 (3.41%) Data Quality
4 49 (2.93%) ISO/IEC 27001
5 38 (2.27%) GRC
5 38 (2.27%) NCSC
6 36 (2.15%) ISO/IEC 20000
7 34 (2.03%) GDPR
7 34 (2.03%) NIST
8 23 (1.38%) PMO
9 17 (1.02%) ISO 9001
10 16 (0.96%) Accessibility
11 13 (0.78%) COBIT
11 13 (0.78%) Cyber Essentials
12 10 (0.60%) PCI DSS
13 8 (0.48%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
13 8 (0.48%) Disclosure Scotland
13 8 (0.48%) WCAG
14 7 (0.42%) ISO 22301
15 5 (0.30%) JSP 440
System Software
1 198 (11.84%) Active Directory
2 87 (5.20%) VMware Infrastructure
3 38 (2.27%) Hyper-V
4 28 (1.67%) VMware ESXi
5 25 (1.50%) Virtual Desktop
6 24 (1.44%) Docker
7 22 (1.32%) vSphere
8 17 (1.02%) BitLocker
8 17 (1.02%) VMware NSX
9 13 (0.78%) vCloud
10 9 (0.54%) Firmware
11 8 (0.48%) Citrix Hypervisor
11 8 (0.48%) XenApp
11 8 (0.48%) XenDesktop
12 6 (0.36%) Virtual Servers
13 5 (0.30%) IAG
13 5 (0.30%) KVM
13 5 (0.30%) Virtual Machines
14 4 (0.24%) Oracle RAC
15 3 (0.18%) Microsoft Virtual Server
Systems Management
1 102 (6.10%) Microsoft Intune
2 87 (5.20%) SCCM
3 55 (3.29%) Ansible
4 27 (1.61%) Kubernetes
5 26 (1.56%) Single Sign-On
6 24 (1.44%) SCOM
7 18 (1.08%) vCenter Server
8 15 (0.90%) Jamf Pro
9 11 (0.66%) Grafana
9 11 (0.66%) WSUS
10 8 (0.48%) NetBackup
11 7 (0.42%) Progress Chef
11 7 (0.42%) Puppet
12 5 (0.30%) Data Guard
12 5 (0.30%) Oracle RMAN
12 5 (0.30%) Prometheus
12 5 (0.30%) Tivoli
12 5 (0.30%) Tivoli Monitoring
13 4 (0.24%) PowerCLI
13 4 (0.24%) vMotion
Vendors
1 463 (27.69%) ServiceNow
2 425 (25.42%) Microsoft
3 114 (6.82%) VMware
4 56 (3.35%) Remedy
5 52 (3.11%) Cisco
6 49 (2.93%) BMC
7 40 (2.39%) SAP
8 38 (2.27%) Atlassian
9 36 (2.15%) Oracle
10 35 (2.09%) Dynatrace
11 33 (1.97%) Google
12 29 (1.73%) IBM
13 27 (1.61%) Apple
14 25 (1.50%) Splunk
15 22 (1.32%) Citrix
15 22 (1.32%) CyberArk
16 20 (1.20%) Salesforce
16 20 (1.20%) SolarWinds
17 15 (0.90%) Zscaler
18 13 (0.78%) CrowdStrike