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

6 months to
26 Sep 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 88 82 98
Rank change year-on-year -6 +16 -14
Contract jobs citing Service Management 1,639 974 895
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 2.99% 2.94% 2.34%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 3.54% 3.25% 2.72%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,078 585 575
10th Percentile £262 £200 £209
25th Percentile £431 £335 £368
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £485 £501
Median % change year-on-year +8.25% -3.10% -4.67%
75th Percentile £625 £575 £608
90th Percentile £725 £649 £688
UK excluding London median daily rate £525 £475 £500
% change year-on-year +10.53% -5.00% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 79 84 14
10th Percentile £14.50 £12.62 £16.17
25th Percentile £17.80 £13.14 £25.88
Median hourly rate £55.00 £21.06 £46.25
Median % change year-on-year +161.22% -54.48% -15.14%
75th Percentile £85.00 £33.75 £49.69
90th Percentile £92.51 £60.00 £54.63
UK excluding London median hourly rate £55.00 £20.83 £47.50
% change year-on-year +164.04% -56.15% +116.85%

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 46,293 29,942 32,892
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 84.37% 90.52% 85.84%
Number of daily rates quoted 28,017 18,609 19,950
10th Percentile £325 £300 £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 £630 £625 £638
90th Percentile £730 £725 £750
UK excluding London median daily rate £500 £475 £500
% change year-on-year +5.26% -5.00% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 3,198 1,849 1,396
10th Percentile £13.69 £14.32 £15.00
25th Percentile £17.23 £17.33 £20.00
Median hourly rate £40.00 £25.15 £42.50
Median % change year-on-year +59.05% -40.82% -
75th Percentile £66.00 £43.75 £65.00
90th Percentile £78.75 £65.25 £74.22
UK excluding London median hourly rate £40.00 £22.50 £43.00
% change year-on-year +77.78% -47.67% +1.18%

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 26 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 26 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 26 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 -7 1,413 £525 +5.00% 1,365
UK excluding London -7 957 £525 +10.53% 973
London +35 500 £525 +5.00% 525
Work from Home +3 436 £525 +10.53% 649
South East +9 311 £575 +31.43% 271
North of England -19 265 £475 +5.56% 246
North West -17 154 £480 +4.52% 136
Midlands -36 123 £525 +4.48% 129
West Midlands -14 117 £525 +1.94% 79
Yorkshire -9 105 £456 +28.52% 91
South West -36 103 £600 +9.09% 105
Scotland +14 95 £550 +18.92% 77
East of England -8 61 £538 -2.27% 107
Wales -6 12 £800 +247.83% 21
Northern Ireland +4 8 - - 34
East Midlands -32 6 £163 -45.83% 49
North East -42 6 £585 +200.00% 22

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
1 125 (7.63%) SharePoint
2 64 (3.90%) Microsoft Exchange
3 60 (3.66%) Confluence
4 15 (0.92%) Skype for Business
5 5 (0.31%) OpenStack
6 4 (0.24%) CMS
6 4 (0.24%) IBM Transformation Extender
7 2 (0.12%) CICS
8 1 (0.061%) Apache
8 1 (0.061%) Exchange Server 2010
8 1 (0.061%) HCL Notes
8 1 (0.061%) IIS
8 1 (0.061%) Mattermost
8 1 (0.061%) Oracle Collaboration Suite
8 1 (0.061%) Palantir Foundry
Applications
1 85 (5.19%) Microsoft Office
2 37 (2.26%) Microsoft Excel
3 14 (0.85%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 11 (0.67%) MS Visio
5 9 (0.55%) Microsoft Project
6 8 (0.49%) Chatbot
7 2 (0.12%) Spreadsheet
8 1 (0.061%) Maple
Business Applications
1 52 (3.17%) Remedy ITSM
2 12 (0.73%) SAP S/4HANA
3 9 (0.55%) Dynamics CRM
4 7 (0.43%) Primavera
5 5 (0.31%) ContrOCC
5 5 (0.31%) NEC Housing
5 5 (0.31%) Workday HCM
6 3 (0.18%) Oracle ERP
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
7 2 (0.12%) Exchequer
7 2 (0.12%) Oracle EBS
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
8 1 (0.061%) Temenos T24
Cloud Services
1 284 (17.33%) Azure
2 212 (12.93%) Microsoft 365
3 139 (8.48%) AWS
4 132 (8.05%) Entra ID
5 74 (4.51%) Power Platform
6 71 (4.33%) SaaS
7 59 (3.60%) OneDrive
8 42 (2.56%) GCP
9 35 (2.14%) Azure DevOps
10 21 (1.28%) Azure Monitor
11 19 (1.16%) Microsoft Copilot
12 16 (0.98%) GitHub
13 15 (0.92%) Google Workspace
14 14 (0.85%) Dynamics 365
14 14 (0.85%) Power Automate
15 13 (0.79%) Serverless
16 10 (0.61%) IaaS
17 9 (0.55%) Azure Sentinel
18 8 (0.49%) Datadog
18 8 (0.49%) OCI
Communications & Networking
1 73 (4.45%) DNS
2 72 (4.39%) Firewall
3 57 (3.48%) VPN
4 55 (3.36%) DHCP
5 46 (2.81%) TCP/IP
6 43 (2.62%) Network Security
7 38 (2.32%) WAN
8 33 (2.01%) LAN
9 25 (1.53%) Wi-Fi
10 16 (0.98%) Skype
11 15 (0.92%) VLAN
11 15 (0.92%) Wireless
12 13 (0.79%) SD-WAN
13 11 (0.67%) BGP
13 11 (0.67%) Intrusion Detection
14 10 (0.61%) SAN
14 10 (0.61%) SSH
15 8 (0.49%) 5G
15 8 (0.49%) HTTP
16 7 (0.43%) Wireshark
Database & Business Intelligence
1 44 (2.68%) Power BI
2 33 (2.01%) SQL Server
3 24 (1.46%) Metadata
4 9 (0.55%) Oracle Database
5 7 (0.43%) Oracle Database 11g
5 7 (0.43%) SQL Server Integration Services
6 6 (0.37%) Looker
6 6 (0.37%) MySQL
7 5 (0.31%) Amazon RDS
7 5 (0.31%) MariaDB
7 5 (0.31%) PostgreSQL
7 5 (0.31%) Relational Database
7 5 (0.31%) SQL Server Reporting Services
8 4 (0.24%) BigQuery
8 4 (0.24%) Oracle Reports
8 4 (0.24%) SQL Server Analysis Services
9 3 (0.18%) Amazon Aurora
10 2 (0.12%) Data Warehouse
10 2 (0.12%) Microsoft Analysis Services
10 2 (0.12%) SQLite
Development Applications
1 150 (9.15%) JIRA
2 31 (1.89%) Git
3 20 (1.22%) Jenkins
4 16 (0.98%) Bitbucket
5 12 (0.73%) Atlassian Bamboo
6 5 (0.31%) Browser DevTools
6 5 (0.31%) GitLab
7 4 (0.24%) Maven
7 4 (0.24%) webpack
8 3 (0.18%) Fiddler
8 3 (0.18%) Gradle
8 3 (0.18%) Rational DOORS
9 2 (0.12%) Firebug
9 2 (0.12%) Hudson
9 2 (0.12%) Sonatype Nexus
10 1 (0.061%) Gemini Tracker
10 1 (0.061%) IBM UrbanCode
10 1 (0.061%) MLflow
10 1 (0.061%) ScriptRunner
10 1 (0.061%) Snyk
General
1 659 (40.21%) Social Skills
2 268 (16.35%) Finance
3 267 (16.29%) Analytical Skills
4 199 (12.14%) Public Sector
5 70 (4.27%) Telecoms
6 67 (4.09%) Documentation Skills
6 67 (4.09%) Organisational Skills
7 62 (3.78%) Banking
8 58 (3.54%) Influencing Skills
9 46 (2.81%) Legal
10 41 (2.50%) Aerospace
11 40 (2.44%) Inclusion and Diversity
12 30 (1.83%) Military
13 29 (1.77%) Presentation Skills
14 22 (1.34%) Local Government
15 21 (1.28%) Manufacturing
16 17 (1.04%) Retail
17 16 (0.98%) Police
18 11 (0.67%) Law
19 10 (0.61%) Financial Institution
Job Titles
1 181 (11.04%) Architect
2 153 (9.33%) Lead
3 148 (9.03%) Analyst
4 119 (7.26%) Senior
4 119 (7.26%) Service Manager
5 115 (7.02%) Consultant
6 75 (4.58%) IT Manager
6 75 (4.58%) Support Engineer
7 73 (4.45%) Delivery Manager
8 72 (4.39%) Developer
9 69 (4.21%) Project Manager
10 57 (3.48%) Solutions Architect
11 52 (3.17%) IT Support
12 48 (2.93%) Service Analyst
13 43 (2.62%) Service Architect
14 42 (2.56%) ServiceNow Architect
15 41 (2.50%) ServiceNow Developer
16 38 (2.32%) Transition Manager
17 37 (2.26%) IT Engineer
18 34 (2.07%) Desktop Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 81 (4.94%) REST
2 55 (3.36%) Terraform
3 32 (1.95%) SOAP
4 26 (1.59%) XML
5 21 (1.28%) HTML
6 20 (1.22%) CSS
6 20 (1.22%) JSON
6 20 (1.22%) Middleware
6 20 (1.22%) Web Services
7 10 (0.61%) SAML
8 9 (0.55%) AngularJS
8 9 (0.55%) Elastic Stack
9 8 (0.49%) XSLT
10 7 (0.43%) .NET
10 7 (0.43%) ARM Templates
10 7 (0.43%) OAuth
11 6 (0.37%) Ajax
11 6 (0.37%) LDAP
12 5 (0.31%) Node.js
12 5 (0.31%) OpenID
Miscellaneous
1 178 (10.86%) Onboarding
2 134 (8.18%) CMDB
3 92 (5.61%) Management Information System
4 58 (3.54%) Enterprise Software
5 55 (3.36%) Data Centre
6 54 (3.29%) Product Ownership
7 38 (2.32%) PKI
8 29 (1.77%) Data Protection Act
8 29 (1.77%) Hybrid Cloud
9 28 (1.71%) Operational Technology
10 27 (1.65%) Virtual Team
11 23 (1.40%) Security Operations Centre
12 20 (1.22%) Cloud Native
13 18 (1.10%) Cyber Threat
14 17 (1.04%) Self-Motivation
15 16 (0.98%) Analytical Mindset
15 16 (0.98%) Security Posture
16 15 (0.92%) AI Agents
16 15 (0.92%) Clustering
16 15 (0.92%) Video Conferencing
Operating Systems
1 328 (20.01%) Windows
2 91 (5.55%) Windows Server
3 90 (5.49%) Linux
4 74 (4.51%) Windows 10
5 37 (2.26%) Apple iOS
6 36 (2.20%) Mac OS
7 23 (1.40%) Unix
8 21 (1.28%) Android
9 20 (1.22%) Windows 7
10 15 (0.92%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
11 6 (0.37%) 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%) Windows Server 2012
13 3 (0.18%) Windows Server 2016
13 3 (0.18%) zOS
14 2 (0.12%) Windows XP
15 1 (0.061%) SUSE
15 1 (0.061%) Windows Server 2008
Processes & Methodologies
1 873 (53.26%) ITIL
2 718 (43.81%) ITSM
3 534 (32.58%) Stakeholder Management
4 463 (28.25%) Continuous Improvement
5 355 (21.66%) Service Delivery
6 332 (20.26%) Problem-Solving
7 329 (20.07%) Agile
8 247 (15.07%) Stakeholder Engagement
9 241 (14.70%) Change Management
10 235 (14.34%) Roadmaps
11 191 (11.65%) Customer Service
12 181 (11.04%) Incident Management
13 180 (10.98%) Cybersecurity
14 160 (9.76%) DevOps
15 151 (9.21%) Project Delivery
16 146 (8.91%) Decision-Making
17 137 (8.36%) AI
18 135 (8.24%) Risk Management
19 131 (7.99%) Migration
20 121 (7.38%) Service Design
Programming Languages
1 147 (8.97%) PowerShell
2 93 (5.67%) Python
3 65 (3.97%) SQL
4 61 (3.72%) JavaScript
5 51 (3.11%) Bash
6 19 (1.16%) VBScript
7 16 (0.98%) Java
8 15 (0.92%) VB
9 12 (0.73%) C#
10 10 (0.61%) Bicep
11 9 (0.55%) Shell Script
12 7 (0.43%) PL/SQL
13 6 (0.37%) C
13 6 (0.37%) Groovy
14 5 (0.31%) Perl
14 5 (0.31%) T-SQL
15 4 (0.24%) TypeScript
16 3 (0.18%) COBOL
16 3 (0.18%) Google Apps Script
16 3 (0.18%) RPG
Qualifications
1 624 (38.07%) Security Cleared
2 427 (26.05%) SC Cleared
3 159 (9.70%) Degree
4 151 (9.21%) DV Cleared
5 64 (3.90%) PMP
6 62 (3.78%) ITIL Certification
7 60 (3.66%) PMI Certification
8 57 (3.48%) BPSS Clearance
9 40 (2.44%) Microsoft Certification
10 36 (2.20%) CISSP
11 35 (2.14%) ITIL Foundation Certificate
12 31 (1.89%) CISM
13 28 (1.71%) Cisco Certification
13 28 (1.71%) Computer Science Degree
14 26 (1.59%) A+ Certification
15 21 (1.28%) Azure Certification
16 16 (0.98%) DBS Check
17 15 (0.92%) AWS Certification
18 11 (0.67%) CCNA
19 9 (0.55%) Network+ Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 135 (8.24%) SLA
2 62 (3.78%) QA
3 56 (3.42%) Data Quality
4 51 (3.11%) ISO/IEC 27001
5 42 (2.56%) GRC
6 35 (2.14%) NCSC
7 33 (2.01%) GDPR
7 33 (2.01%) ISO/IEC 20000
8 32 (1.95%) NIST
9 25 (1.53%) PMO
10 17 (1.04%) ISO 9001
11 16 (0.98%) COBIT
12 15 (0.92%) Accessibility
13 13 (0.79%) Cyber Essentials
14 10 (0.61%) PCI DSS
15 8 (0.49%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
15 8 (0.49%) Disclosure Scotland
15 8 (0.49%) WCAG
16 7 (0.43%) ISO 31000
16 7 (0.43%) ISO/IEC 27005
System Software
1 185 (11.29%) Active Directory
2 87 (5.31%) VMware Infrastructure
3 38 (2.32%) Hyper-V
4 28 (1.71%) VMware ESXi
5 22 (1.34%) Virtual Desktop
5 22 (1.34%) vSphere
6 18 (1.10%) Docker
7 17 (1.04%) VMware NSX
8 16 (0.98%) BitLocker
9 13 (0.79%) vCloud
10 8 (0.49%) Firmware
11 7 (0.43%) Citrix Hypervisor
11 7 (0.43%) XenApp
11 7 (0.43%) XenDesktop
12 6 (0.37%) Virtual Servers
13 5 (0.31%) IAG
13 5 (0.31%) Oracle RAC
14 3 (0.18%) Microsoft Virtual Server
14 3 (0.18%) NFS
14 3 (0.18%) Virtual Machines
Systems Management
1 101 (6.16%) Microsoft Intune
2 83 (5.06%) SCCM
3 50 (3.05%) Ansible
4 25 (1.53%) Single Sign-On
5 24 (1.46%) Kubernetes
5 24 (1.46%) SCOM
6 18 (1.10%) vCenter Server
7 15 (0.92%) Jamf Pro
8 11 (0.67%) WSUS
9 8 (0.49%) Data Guard
9 8 (0.49%) NetBackup
9 8 (0.49%) Oracle RMAN
10 7 (0.43%) Progress Chef
11 6 (0.37%) Grafana
12 5 (0.31%) Puppet
12 5 (0.31%) Tivoli
12 5 (0.31%) Tivoli Monitoring
13 4 (0.24%) PowerCLI
13 4 (0.24%) vMotion
14 3 (0.18%) Prometheus
Vendors
1 467 (28.49%) ServiceNow
2 407 (24.83%) Microsoft
3 115 (7.02%) VMware
4 56 (3.42%) Remedy
5 50 (3.05%) BMC
6 49 (2.99%) Cisco
7 37 (2.26%) Atlassian
7 37 (2.26%) Oracle
8 35 (2.14%) SAP
9 32 (1.95%) Dynatrace
10 28 (1.71%) Google
11 27 (1.65%) Apple
11 27 (1.65%) IBM
12 24 (1.46%) Splunk
13 20 (1.22%) Citrix
13 20 (1.22%) CyberArk
13 20 (1.22%) Salesforce
13 20 (1.22%) SolarWinds
14 16 (0.98%) Zscaler
15 14 (0.85%) IFS