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 vacancies from the 6 months leading up to 18 September 2025, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
18 Sep 2025
Same period 2024 Same period 2023
Rank 83 98 85
Rank change year-on-year +15 -13 +16
Contract jobs citing Service Management 978 899 1,322
As % of all contract jobs advertised in the UK 2.97% 2.33% 2.69%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 3.28% 2.72% 3.01%
Number of daily rates quoted 591 583 953
10th Percentile £200 £213 £254
25th Percentile £350 £376 £400
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £495 £503 £525
Median % change year-on-year -1.49% -4.29% -
75th Percentile £575 £600 £625
90th Percentile £675 £678 £740
UK excluding London median daily rate £495 £500 £500
% change year-on-year -1.10% - +1.21%
Number of hourly rates quoted 80 13 22
10th Percentile £12.62 £15.84 £20.05
25th Percentile £12.82 £26.25 £21.27
Median hourly rate £20.66 £47.50 £55.00
Median % change year-on-year -56.51% -13.64% +160.51%
75th Percentile £33.19 £50.00 £74.69
90th Percentile £60.00 £54.75 £165.25
UK excluding London median hourly rate £18.73 £47.50 £21.91
% change year-on-year -60.57% +116.85% +4.31%

All Process and 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 29,826 33,000 43,850
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 90.52% 85.68% 89.07%
Number of daily rates quoted 18,546 20,284 29,794
10th Percentile £300 £308 £313
25th Percentile £404 £413 £425
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £525 £540
Median % change year-on-year -4.76% -2.78% -1.82%
75th Percentile £625 £638 £650
90th Percentile £725 £750 £750
UK excluding London median daily rate £475 £500 £500
% change year-on-year -5.00% - -
Number of hourly rates quoted 1,802 1,460 1,537
10th Percentile £14.25 £14.84 £14.25
25th Percentile £17.30 £20.00 £18.70
Median hourly rate £25.15 £43.00 £43.00
Median % change year-on-year -41.51% - +48.28%
75th Percentile £44.78 £65.00 £65.00
90th Percentile £67.00 £75.00 £77.50
UK excluding London median hourly rate £22.56 £43.00 £41.90
% change year-on-year -47.53% +2.63% +80.76%

Service Management
Job Vacancy Trend

Job postings citing Service Management as a proportion of all IT jobs advertised.

Job vacancy trend for Service Management 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 18 September 2025.

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 18 September 2025.

Hourly rate histogram for Service Management in the UK

Service Management
Top 18 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 18 September 2025. 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 +16 848 £500 - 635
UK excluding London +19 633 £495 -1.10% 600
Work from Home -4 271 £500 -7.06% 308
London -18 247 £500 - 156
North of England +16 194 £459 -6.85% 131
South East +16 120 £450 -18.18% 165
North West +24 117 £470 +4.50% 58
South West +19 116 £540 +2.86% 76
Midlands +32 106 £503 +4.42% 98
West Midlands +30 83 £515 +11.35% 57
Yorkshire -8 67 £365 -30.48% 54
Scotland +6 51 £470 -21.67% 58
East of England +10 36 £550 +4.76% 68
East Midlands +8 23 £300 -40.00% 38
North East -1 10 £195 -61.00% 19
Wales -5 8 £230 +12.24% 16
Northern Ireland -3 4 £150 -72.73% 4
Channel Islands - 3 £725 -

Service Management
Co-occurring Skills and Capabilities by Category

The follow tables expand on the table above by listing co-occurrences grouped by category. The same employment type, locality and period is covered with up to 20 co-occurrences shown in each of the following categories:

Application Platforms
1 54 (5.52%) Microsoft Exchange
2 45 (4.60%) Confluence
3 44 (4.50%) SharePoint
4 21 (2.15%) Apache
5 15 (1.53%) WebLogic
6 10 (1.02%) WebSphere
7 9 (0.92%) IIS
8 5 (0.51%) Skype for Business
9 3 (0.31%) CMS
9 3 (0.31%) OpenStack
10 2 (0.20%) Apache Solr
10 2 (0.20%) JBoss
10 2 (0.20%) SharePoint Server
11 1 (0.10%) Exchange Server 2010
11 1 (0.10%) Exchange Server 2013
11 1 (0.10%) Oracle Self-Service HR
11 1 (0.10%) Oracle Workflow
11 1 (0.10%) SAS
11 1 (0.10%) Umbraco
11 1 (0.10%) WebSphere Application Server
Applications
1 90 (9.20%) Microsoft Office
2 33 (3.37%) Microsoft Excel
3 19 (1.94%) MS Visio
4 17 (1.74%) Microsoft PowerPoint
5 3 (0.31%) Microsoft Project
6 2 (0.20%) Adobe Illustrator
6 2 (0.20%) Autodesk Inventor
6 2 (0.20%) Photoshop
7 1 (0.10%) Camtasia
7 1 (0.10%) Chatbot
7 1 (0.10%) Final Cut Pro
7 1 (0.10%) Trello
Business Applications
1 25 (2.56%) Remedy ITSM
2 11 (1.12%) SAP S/4HANA
3 9 (0.92%) Oracle ERP
4 7 (0.72%) assyst
4 7 (0.72%) Maximo
5 6 (0.61%) Dynamics CRM
6 4 (0.41%) Salesforce CRM
6 4 (0.41%) Workday HCM
7 3 (0.31%) SAP ERP
7 3 (0.31%) SAP LE
7 3 (0.31%) SAP WM
8 2 (0.20%) Cloudability
8 2 (0.20%) ResourceLink
9 1 (0.10%) IBM Planning Analytics
9 1 (0.10%) Integrated Workplace Management System
9 1 (0.10%) Oracle EBS
9 1 (0.10%) Remedy AR System
9 1 (0.10%) SAP HR
9 1 (0.10%) SAP PM
9 1 (0.10%) SAP SM
Cloud Services
1 122 (12.47%) Azure
2 114 (11.66%) Microsoft 365
3 77 (7.87%) AWS
4 40 (4.09%) Entra ID
5 30 (3.07%) Power Platform
6 26 (2.66%) Azure DevOps
7 17 (1.74%) Azure Monitor
8 16 (1.64%) OneDrive
9 15 (1.53%) SaaS
10 13 (1.33%) PowerApps
11 12 (1.23%) GitHub
12 10 (1.02%) GCP
13 9 (0.92%) Power Automate
14 7 (0.72%) Dynamics 365
14 7 (0.72%) Google Workspace
15 5 (0.51%) Amazon CloudWatch
15 5 (0.51%) Amazon S3
15 5 (0.51%) Lucidchart
15 5 (0.51%) PaaS
15 5 (0.51%) Serverless
Communications & Networking
1 75 (7.67%) Firewall
2 52 (5.32%) DNS
3 31 (3.17%) DHCP
3 31 (3.17%) VPN
4 30 (3.07%) WAN
5 28 (2.86%) LAN
6 24 (2.45%) TCP/IP
7 16 (1.64%) Network Security
8 13 (1.33%) Unified Communications
9 12 (1.23%) BGP
9 12 (1.23%) SSH
9 12 (1.23%) Wireless
10 11 (1.12%) VLAN
10 11 (1.12%) Wi-Fi
11 10 (1.02%) Cisco IOS
11 10 (1.02%) MPLS
11 10 (1.02%) Skype
12 9 (0.92%) Cisco ISE
12 9 (0.92%) HTTP
12 9 (0.92%) Junos
Database & Business Intelligence
1 21 (2.15%) Power BI
1 21 (2.15%) SQL Server
2 15 (1.53%) Relational Database
3 12 (1.23%) Amazon RDS
4 11 (1.12%) DB2
5 9 (0.92%) Oracle Reports
6 8 (0.82%) MySQL
7 7 (0.72%) Elasticsearch
8 6 (0.61%) PostgreSQL
9 5 (0.51%) Amazon Aurora
9 5 (0.51%) Tableau
10 4 (0.41%) NoSQL
10 4 (0.41%) Pentaho
10 4 (0.41%) RDBMS
11 3 (0.31%) Data Mining
11 3 (0.31%) MariaDB
11 3 (0.31%) Oracle Database
11 3 (0.31%) SAP HANA
11 3 (0.31%) SQL Server Integration Services
12 2 (0.20%) Amazon Redshift
Development Applications
1 112 (11.45%) JIRA
2 21 (2.15%) Jenkins
3 10 (1.02%) Bitbucket
3 10 (1.02%) Git
4 9 (0.92%) GitLab
5 7 (0.72%) webpack
6 6 (0.61%) ScriptRunner
7 3 (0.31%) Artifactory
7 3 (0.31%) JMeter
7 3 (0.31%) LoadRunner
7 3 (0.31%) NeoLoad
8 2 (0.20%) SonarQube
8 2 (0.20%) Storybook
9 1 (0.10%) Cucumber
9 1 (0.10%) Selenium
9 1 (0.10%) SoapUI
9 1 (0.10%) Subversion
9 1 (0.10%) Team Foundation Server
9 1 (0.10%) WebDriver
9 1 (0.10%) Zephyr
General
1 381 (38.96%) Social Skills
2 176 (18.00%) Analytical Skills
3 151 (15.44%) Finance
4 135 (13.80%) Public Sector
5 60 (6.13%) Telecoms
6 43 (4.40%) Inclusion and Diversity
7 32 (3.27%) Retail
8 31 (3.17%) Organisational Skills
9 30 (3.07%) Manufacturing
10 28 (2.86%) Legal
11 27 (2.76%) Banking
12 24 (2.45%) Military
12 24 (2.45%) Presentation Skills
13 22 (2.25%) Marketing
14 21 (2.15%) Influencing Skills
15 19 (1.94%) Documentation Skills
16 15 (1.53%) Electronics
17 13 (1.33%) Police
18 11 (1.12%) Billing
19 8 (0.82%) Local Government
Job Titles
1 159 (16.26%) Analyst
2 98 (10.02%) Architect
3 79 (8.08%) Service Manager
4 70 (7.16%) Lead
5 68 (6.95%) Support Engineer
6 55 (5.62%) IT Support
6 55 (5.62%) Support Analyst
7 49 (5.01%) Desktop Support
7 49 (5.01%) Senior
8 46 (4.70%) Developer
9 43 (4.40%) Consultant
10 40 (4.09%) IT Manager
11 37 (3.78%) Service Analyst
11 37 (3.78%) Service Architect
12 36 (3.68%) Network Engineer
13 34 (3.48%) Business Analyst
14 31 (3.17%) 2nd Line Support
14 31 (3.17%) IT Analyst
14 31 (3.17%) Project Manager
15 30 (3.07%) Delivery Manager
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 28 (2.86%) Web Services
2 27 (2.76%) SOAP
3 24 (2.45%) RFC 2544
4 20 (2.04%) HTML
5 19 (1.94%) .NET
5 19 (1.94%) REST
6 17 (1.74%) CSS
7 12 (1.23%) RESTful
7 12 (1.23%) XML
8 11 (1.12%) React
9 9 (0.92%) Middleware
9 9 (0.92%) Node.js
10 8 (0.82%) NETCONF
11 7 (0.72%) AngularJS
11 7 (0.72%) CSS3
11 7 (0.72%) HTML5
11 7 (0.72%) LDAP
11 7 (0.72%) Lightning Web Components
11 7 (0.72%) Redux
11 7 (0.72%) RESTCONF
Miscellaneous
1 56 (5.73%) Data Centre
2 52 (5.32%) CMDB
3 49 (5.01%) Management Information System
4 30 (3.07%) Onboarding
5 26 (2.66%) iPhone
6 23 (2.35%) PKI
6 23 (2.35%) Self-Motivation
7 21 (2.15%) Smartphone
8 15 (1.53%) Fibre Optics
8 15 (1.53%) Product Ownership
9 14 (1.43%) Analytical Mindset
9 14 (1.43%) Mainframe
10 11 (1.12%) Enterprise Software
10 11 (1.12%) Video Conferencing
10 11 (1.12%) Virtual Team
11 10 (1.02%) Driving Licence
11 10 (1.02%) Public Cloud
12 9 (0.92%) Cloud Native
13 8 (0.82%) Data Protection Act
14 7 (0.72%) NHS
Operating Systems
1 188 (19.22%) Windows
2 59 (6.03%) Linux
3 41 (4.19%) Windows 10
3 41 (4.19%) Windows Server
4 35 (3.58%) Mac OS
5 33 (3.37%) Unix
6 17 (1.74%) Apple iOS
7 11 (1.12%) Android
7 11 (1.12%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
8 9 (0.92%) Solaris
9 5 (0.51%) HPUX
9 5 (0.51%) Windows Server 2019
10 4 (0.41%) Windows Server 2016
11 3 (0.31%) Windows Server 2008
12 2 (0.20%) VMS
13 1 (0.10%) AIX
13 1 (0.10%) Mac OS X
13 1 (0.10%) SUSE
13 1 (0.10%) Windows Server 2003
13 1 (0.10%) Windows XP
Processes & Methodologies
1 524 (53.58%) ITIL
2 400 (40.90%) ITSM
3 193 (19.73%) Problem-Solving
4 177 (18.10%) Customer Service
5 161 (16.46%) Agile
6 154 (15.75%) Stakeholder Management
7 149 (15.24%) Service Delivery
8 135 (13.80%) Change Management
9 115 (11.76%) Continuous Improvement
10 99 (10.12%) Incident Management
11 97 (9.92%) Service Design
12 96 (9.82%) Stakeholder Engagement
13 93 (9.51%) DevOps
14 88 (9.00%) Project Management
15 73 (7.46%) Project Delivery
16 70 (7.16%) Problem Management
17 59 (6.03%) Migration
18 57 (5.83%) Business Intelligence
19 56 (5.73%) Analytics
19 56 (5.73%) Configuration Management
Programming Languages
1 71 (7.26%) SQL
2 50 (5.11%) Python
3 43 (4.40%) PowerShell
4 38 (3.89%) JavaScript
5 14 (1.43%) Java
6 10 (1.02%) C#
6 10 (1.02%) Shell Script
6 10 (1.02%) TypeScript
7 8 (0.82%) Bash
8 6 (0.61%) Perl
9 5 (0.51%) Groovy
10 3 (0.31%) ActionScript
10 3 (0.31%) ActionScript 2.0
11 2 (0.20%) Apex Code
11 2 (0.20%) Bicep
11 2 (0.20%) C
11 2 (0.20%) VBA
12 1 (0.10%) HiveQL
12 1 (0.10%) PL/SQL
12 1 (0.10%) VBScript
Qualifications
1 320 (32.72%) Security Cleared
2 253 (25.87%) SC Cleared
3 104 (10.63%) Degree
4 59 (6.03%) ITIL Certification
5 42 (4.29%) DV Cleared
6 33 (3.37%) Microsoft Certification
7 31 (3.17%) Cisco Certification
8 25 (2.56%) CCNP
9 21 (2.15%) Computer Science Degree
10 18 (1.84%) Azure Certification
11 17 (1.74%) A+ Certification
12 14 (1.43%) BPSS Clearance
13 12 (1.23%) ITIL Foundation Certificate
13 12 (1.23%) Server+ Certification
14 11 (1.12%) CCNA
14 11 (1.12%) PMP
15 9 (0.92%) Network+ Certification
15 9 (0.92%) PMI Certification
16 6 (0.61%) AWS Certification
17 5 (0.51%) APMP
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 68 (6.95%) SLA
2 36 (3.68%) ISO/IEC 20000
3 29 (2.97%) QA
4 21 (2.15%) GDPR
5 12 (1.23%) Sarbanes-Oxley
6 10 (1.02%) Accessibility
6 10 (1.02%) COBIT
6 10 (1.02%) GxP
7 8 (0.82%) NCSC
8 7 (0.72%) Disclosure Scotland
8 7 (0.72%) GRC
8 7 (0.72%) ISO/IEC 27001
9 6 (0.61%) PMO
10 5 (0.51%) Data Quality
11 4 (0.41%) Actionable Recommendations
11 4 (0.41%) HIPAA
12 3 (0.31%) ISO 9001
13 2 (0.20%) Cyber Essentials
13 2 (0.20%) PCI DSS
13 2 (0.20%) WCAG
System Software
1 109 (11.15%) Active Directory
2 38 (3.89%) VMware Infrastructure
3 15 (1.53%) Virtual Desktop
4 14 (1.43%) Hyper-V
4 14 (1.43%) VMware ESXi
5 11 (1.12%) Docker
5 11 (1.12%) VMware NSX
6 6 (0.61%) Virtual Servers
7 5 (0.51%) Microsoft Virtual Server
8 3 (0.31%) Apache ZooKeeper
8 3 (0.31%) vSphere
9 2 (0.20%) NDS
9 2 (0.20%) NetIQ eDirectory
9 2 (0.20%) Virtual Machines
10 1 (0.10%) Btrfs
10 1 (0.10%) Terminal Services
Systems Management
1 25 (2.56%) Ansible
2 23 (2.35%) Jamf Pro
3 21 (2.15%) Kubernetes
3 21 (2.15%) Terraform
4 15 (1.53%) vCenter Server
5 14 (1.43%) Microsoft Intune
6 10 (1.02%) Single Sign-On
7 9 (0.92%) SCCM
8 8 (0.82%) NSN NetAct
9 7 (0.72%) Grafana
9 7 (0.72%) WSUS
10 5 (0.51%) Active Directory Federation Services
11 4 (0.41%) HP ALM
11 4 (0.41%) OpenView
11 4 (0.41%) Progress Chef
12 3 (0.31%) Argo
12 3 (0.31%) Check_MK
12 3 (0.31%) logstash
12 3 (0.31%) Prometheus
12 3 (0.31%) SCOM
Vendors
1 254 (25.97%) ServiceNow
2 217 (22.19%) Microsoft
3 95 (9.71%) Cisco
4 53 (5.42%) Oracle
5 49 (5.01%) SAP
6 42 (4.29%) VMware
7 34 (3.48%) Splunk
8 33 (3.37%) Remedy
9 28 (2.86%) Apple
9 28 (2.86%) IBM
10 25 (2.56%) Juniper
11 22 (2.25%) Atlassian
12 20 (2.04%) SolarWinds
13 19 (1.94%) Dynatrace
14 18 (1.84%) Google
15 16 (1.64%) Salesforce
16 14 (1.43%) AppDynamics
17 11 (1.12%) Fortinet
18 10 (1.02%) BMC
19 9 (0.92%) HP