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 18 June 2026, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
18 Jun 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 110 81 83
Rank change year-on-year -29 +2 +2
Contract jobs citing Service Management 1,146 910 1,096
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 2.27% 3.06% 2.50%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 2.68% 3.36% 2.94%
Number of daily rates quoted 750 551 755
10th Percentile £225 £220 £259
25th Percentile £401 £355 £425
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £520 £500 £525
Median % change year-on-year +4.00% -4.76% +2.44%
75th Percentile £600 £594 £608
90th Percentile £681 £688 £700
UK excluding London median daily rate £500 £500 £525
% change year-on-year - -4.76% +10.53%
Number of hourly rates quoted 69 52 15
10th Percentile £16.09 - £12.53
25th Percentile £21.25 £12.62 £14.65
Median hourly rate £60.00 £21.71 £19.00
Median % change year-on-year +176.37% +14.26% -46.10%
75th Percentile £85.00 £29.13 £26.75
90th Percentile £99.60 £33.75 £28.75
UK excluding London median hourly rate £60.00 £21.28 £18.36
% change year-on-year +181.95% +15.90% -18.04%

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 42,754 27,087 37,306
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 84.83% 91.00% 85.05%
Number of daily rates quoted 26,630 17,192 23,755
10th Percentile £325 £300 £300
25th Percentile £413 £406 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £513 £505 £525
Median % change year-on-year +1.46% -3.79% -4.55%
75th Percentile £620 £625 £638
90th Percentile £725 £738 £750
UK excluding London median daily rate £500 £475 £500
% change year-on-year +5.26% -5.00% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 2,570 1,249 2,608
10th Percentile £14.80 £14.20 £12.75
25th Percentile £20.02 £17.87 £16.02
Median hourly rate £43.96 £26.21 £37.18
Median % change year-on-year +67.72% -29.51% +6.14%
75th Percentile £68.00 £55.25 £61.30
90th Percentile £81.32 £73.75 £72.50
UK excluding London median hourly rate £45.00 £25.15 £38.12
% change year-on-year +78.93% -34.02% +17.29%

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 18 June 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 18 June 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 18 June 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 -20 998 £520 +4.00% 343
UK excluding London -30 697 £500 - 309
Work from Home +4 336 £500 +2.88% 114
London -4 335 £533 +6.50% 81
South East +25 202 £534 +33.99% 98
North of England -23 201 £481 +4.05% 85
North West -10 113 £513 +7.11% 45
South West -33 113 £500 -11.11% 33
Yorkshire -29 81 £450 - 32
Midlands -44 78 £474 -6.60% 41
West Midlands -40 66 £475 -9.52% 31
Scotland -22 52 £500 -2.44% 6
East of England -22 42 £475 -13.64% 28
East Midlands -21 12 £200 -54.13% 10
Wales -9 11 £800 +188.29% 6
North East -33 7 £440 +125.64% 10
Northern Ireland +4 4 - - 24

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 56 (4.89%) SharePoint
2 53 (4.62%) Confluence
3 33 (2.88%) Microsoft Exchange
4 11 (0.96%) Skype for Business
5 6 (0.52%) Mattermost
6 3 (0.26%) IIS
6 3 (0.26%) OpenStack
7 1 (0.087%) Apache
7 1 (0.087%) CICS
7 1 (0.087%) CMS
7 1 (0.087%) JBoss
7 1 (0.087%) LiveCycle
7 1 (0.087%) Oracle Collaboration Suite
7 1 (0.087%) Oracle SOA Suite
7 1 (0.087%) Palantir Foundry
7 1 (0.087%) WebSphere
Applications
1 57 (4.97%) Microsoft Office
2 29 (2.53%) Microsoft Excel
3 12 (1.05%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 11 (0.96%) MS Visio
5 10 (0.87%) Microsoft Project
6 7 (0.61%) Chatbot
7 4 (0.35%) PTC Creo
8 2 (0.17%) Spreadsheet
9 1 (0.087%) Camtasia
Business Applications
1 52 (4.54%) Remedy ITSM
2 14 (1.22%) SAP S/4HANA
3 9 (0.79%) Teamcenter
4 7 (0.61%) Primavera
5 3 (0.26%) Oracle ERP
6 2 (0.17%) ContrOCC
6 2 (0.17%) Oracle Applications
6 2 (0.17%) SAP PS
7 1 (0.087%) Dynamics NAV
7 1 (0.087%) NetSuite
7 1 (0.087%) Oracle Payables
7 1 (0.087%) Oracle Procure-to-Pay
7 1 (0.087%) Oracle Receivables
7 1 (0.087%) SAP CO
7 1 (0.087%) SAP FI
7 1 (0.087%) SAP FI/CO
7 1 (0.087%) SAP HR
7 1 (0.087%) SAP Payroll
7 1 (0.087%) SAP PM
7 1 (0.087%) SAP SM
Cloud Services
1 171 (14.92%) Azure
2 113 (9.86%) Microsoft 365
3 64 (5.58%) AWS
4 53 (4.62%) Power Platform
5 52 (4.54%) Entra ID
6 40 (3.49%) SaaS
7 31 (2.71%) Azure DevOps
8 27 (2.36%) OneDrive
9 23 (2.01%) GCP
10 19 (1.66%) PaaS
11 18 (1.57%) GitHub
12 14 (1.22%) OCI
13 11 (0.96%) Amazon CloudWatch
13 11 (0.96%) IaaS
14 10 (0.87%) AWS Lambda
14 10 (0.87%) Microsoft Copilot
14 10 (0.87%) Serverless
15 9 (0.79%) Google Workspace
16 6 (0.52%) Amazon S3
16 6 (0.52%) Datadog
Communications & Networking
1 62 (5.41%) Firewall
2 44 (3.84%) DNS
3 37 (3.23%) WAN
4 34 (2.97%) VPN
5 33 (2.88%) LAN
6 26 (2.27%) Network Security
7 22 (1.92%) DHCP
7 22 (1.92%) TCP/IP
8 16 (1.40%) BGP
9 14 (1.22%) Wi-Fi
10 13 (1.13%) OSPF
10 13 (1.13%) VLAN
10 13 (1.13%) Wireless
11 12 (1.05%) BIG-IP
11 12 (1.05%) Cisco ISE
11 12 (1.05%) SD-WAN
12 11 (0.96%) Skype
12 11 (0.96%) VXLAN
13 9 (0.79%) Junos
14 8 (0.70%) Ethernet VPN
Database & Business Intelligence
1 45 (3.93%) Power BI
2 15 (1.31%) SQL Server
3 8 (0.70%) Oracle Database
4 7 (0.61%) Oracle Reports
4 7 (0.61%) PostgreSQL
5 6 (0.52%) Oracle Database 11g
6 5 (0.44%) Relational Database
7 4 (0.35%) SQL Server Integration Services
7 4 (0.35%) SQL Server Reporting Services
8 3 (0.26%) Azure SQL Database
8 3 (0.26%) MySQL
8 3 (0.26%) SQL Server Analysis Services
9 2 (0.17%) Amazon Redshift
9 2 (0.17%) GIS
9 2 (0.17%) MariaDB
9 2 (0.17%) Microsoft Analysis Services
10 1 (0.087%) Amazon RDS
10 1 (0.087%) Elasticsearch
10 1 (0.087%) InfluxDB
10 1 (0.087%) Oracle Database 12c
Development Applications
1 131 (11.43%) JIRA
2 18 (1.57%) Git
3 17 (1.48%) Jenkins
4 13 (1.13%) Bitbucket
5 12 (1.05%) GitLab
6 7 (0.61%) ScriptRunner
7 5 (0.44%) Atlassian Bamboo
7 5 (0.44%) Browser DevTools
8 4 (0.35%) MLflow
9 3 (0.26%) Fiddler
9 3 (0.26%) Hudson
9 3 (0.26%) IntelliJ
10 2 (0.17%) Firebug
10 2 (0.17%) Selenium
10 2 (0.17%) TestRail
11 1 (0.087%) Gemini Tracker
11 1 (0.087%) IBM UrbanCode
11 1 (0.087%) Postman
11 1 (0.087%) Protractor
11 1 (0.087%) webpack
General
1 374 (32.64%) Social Skills
2 187 (16.32%) Finance
3 150 (13.09%) Analytical Skills
4 115 (10.03%) Public Sector
5 51 (4.45%) Legal
6 46 (4.01%) Telecoms
7 42 (3.66%) Banking
8 32 (2.79%) Documentation Skills
8 32 (2.79%) Influencing Skills
9 29 (2.53%) Organisational Skills
10 21 (1.83%) Inclusion and Diversity
11 19 (1.66%) Military
12 15 (1.31%) Retail
13 14 (1.22%) Aerospace
14 12 (1.05%) Financial Institution
14 12 (1.05%) Local Government
15 11 (0.96%) Presentation Skills
16 10 (0.87%) Police
17 8 (0.70%) Investment Banking
17 8 (0.70%) Manufacturing
Job Titles
1 140 (12.22%) Analyst
2 113 (9.86%) Service Manager
3 106 (9.25%) Lead
4 104 (9.08%) Architect
5 94 (8.20%) Senior
6 79 (6.89%) Consultant
7 73 (6.37%) IT Manager
8 55 (4.80%) Project Manager
9 54 (4.71%) Service Analyst
10 45 (3.93%) Developer
11 42 (3.66%) Delivery Manager
12 34 (2.97%) IT Analyst
13 33 (2.88%) Support Engineer
14 31 (2.71%) ServiceNow Architect
15 29 (2.53%) IT Services Manager
15 29 (2.53%) Network Engineer
16 27 (2.36%) Administrator
16 27 (2.36%) Transition Manager
17 26 (2.27%) Designer
17 26 (2.27%) IT Support
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 50 (4.36%) REST
2 28 (2.44%) SOAP
3 13 (1.13%) HTML
4 12 (1.05%) CSS
5 10 (0.87%) Middleware
6 9 (0.79%) 802.1X
6 9 (0.79%) OAuth
7 7 (0.61%) Elastic Stack
7 7 (0.61%) JSON
7 7 (0.61%) Oracle Fusion
8 6 (0.52%) XML
9 5 (0.44%) AngularJS
9 5 (0.44%) Lightning Web Components
9 5 (0.44%) OpenID
9 5 (0.44%) SAML
9 5 (0.44%) Web Services
10 4 (0.35%) Bootstrap
10 4 (0.35%) Microsoft Graph
10 4 (0.35%) OAuth2
10 4 (0.35%) Software Packaging
Miscellaneous
1 98 (8.55%) CMDB
2 87 (7.59%) Onboarding
3 63 (5.50%) Product Ownership
4 48 (4.19%) Data Centre
5 30 (2.62%) Virtual Team
6 29 (2.53%) Management Information System
7 27 (2.36%) PKI
8 26 (2.27%) Enterprise Software
9 21 (1.83%) Clustering
10 19 (1.66%) Data Protection Act
11 17 (1.48%) Operational Technology
12 13 (1.13%) Driving Licence
13 11 (0.96%) Analytical Mindset
13 11 (0.96%) Self-Motivation
14 10 (0.87%) Algorithms
14 10 (0.87%) Cloud Native
15 9 (0.79%) PMI
15 9 (0.79%) Security Posture
16 8 (0.70%) Cyber Threat
16 8 (0.70%) Legacy Systems
Operating Systems
1 201 (17.54%) Windows
2 55 (4.80%) Linux
3 42 (3.66%) Windows 10
4 39 (3.40%) Windows Server
5 18 (1.57%) Unix
6 15 (1.31%) Windows 7
7 14 (1.22%) Mac OS
8 13 (1.13%) Android
8 13 (1.13%) Apple iOS
9 9 (0.79%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
10 4 (0.35%) VMS
10 4 (0.35%) Windows Server 2019
11 3 (0.26%) Ubuntu
11 3 (0.26%) Windows XP
12 2 (0.17%) Solaris
12 2 (0.17%) Windows Server 2012
12 2 (0.17%) Windows Server 2016
12 2 (0.17%) zOS
13 1 (0.087%) Rocky
13 1 (0.087%) Windows Server 2008
Processes & Methodologies
1 585 (51.05%) ITIL
2 497 (43.37%) ITSM
3 281 (24.52%) Stakeholder Management
4 263 (22.95%) Continuous Improvement
5 234 (20.42%) Agile
6 220 (19.20%) Problem-Solving
7 205 (17.89%) Service Delivery
8 163 (14.22%) Stakeholder Engagement
9 150 (13.09%) Change Management
10 125 (10.91%) DevOps
11 116 (10.12%) Customer Service
12 104 (9.08%) Roadmaps
13 96 (8.38%) Incident Management
14 87 (7.59%) Problem Management
15 80 (6.98%) Migration
16 78 (6.81%) Decision-Making
16 78 (6.81%) Project Delivery
17 74 (6.46%) Configuration Management
17 74 (6.46%) Cybersecurity
17 74 (6.46%) Project Management
Programming Languages
1 82 (7.16%) PowerShell
2 55 (4.80%) Python
3 53 (4.62%) SQL
4 47 (4.10%) JavaScript
5 21 (1.83%) Bash
6 14 (1.22%) Java
7 11 (0.96%) PL/SQL
7 11 (0.96%) VB
7 11 (0.96%) VBScript
8 6 (0.52%) Apex Code
8 6 (0.52%) Groovy
9 5 (0.44%) Kotlin
10 4 (0.35%) C
10 4 (0.35%) C#
10 4 (0.35%) Perl
11 3 (0.26%) Shell Script
11 3 (0.26%) SOQL
11 3 (0.26%) T-SQL
12 2 (0.17%) ActionScript 2.0
12 2 (0.17%) Search Processing Language
Qualifications
1 405 (35.34%) Security Cleared
2 278 (24.26%) SC Cleared
3 129 (11.26%) DV Cleared
4 90 (7.85%) Degree
5 58 (5.06%) ITIL Certification
6 30 (2.62%) PMI Certification
7 29 (2.53%) Cisco Certification
7 29 (2.53%) PMP
8 23 (2.01%) BPSS Clearance
9 19 (1.66%) Computer Science Degree
10 17 (1.48%) Microsoft Certification
11 16 (1.40%) CCNA
12 13 (1.13%) CISM
12 13 (1.13%) Master's Degree
13 12 (1.05%) CISSP
14 11 (0.96%) A+ Certification
15 10 (0.87%) CCNP
15 10 (0.87%) ITIL Foundation Certificate
16 9 (0.79%) JNCIA
16 9 (0.79%) Network+ Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 77 (6.72%) SLA
2 39 (3.40%) Data Quality
2 39 (3.40%) ISO/IEC 27001
3 30 (2.62%) QA
4 28 (2.44%) PMO
5 26 (2.27%) GDPR
6 22 (1.92%) NCSC
7 21 (1.83%) COBIT
8 19 (1.66%) GRC
9 14 (1.22%) ISO/IEC 20000
9 14 (1.22%) NIST
10 10 (0.87%) Cyber Essentials
11 9 (0.79%) PCI DSS
12 8 (0.70%) Accessibility
13 7 (0.61%) Government Security Classifications
14 6 (0.52%) ISO 31000
14 6 (0.52%) ISO/IEC 27005
15 5 (0.44%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
15 5 (0.44%) ISO 9001
15 5 (0.44%) Sarbanes-Oxley
System Software
1 113 (9.86%) Active Directory
2 39 (3.40%) VMware Infrastructure
3 16 (1.40%) VMware ESXi
4 12 (1.05%) BitLocker
4 12 (1.05%) Docker
5 8 (0.70%) VMware NSX
6 7 (0.61%) Virtual Desktop
6 7 (0.61%) vSphere
7 6 (0.52%) Hyper-V
7 6 (0.52%) vCloud
8 5 (0.44%) NFS
9 4 (0.35%) Oracle RAC
9 4 (0.35%) Virtual Machines
10 3 (0.26%) Firmware
11 2 (0.17%) GPFS
11 2 (0.17%) IAG
11 2 (0.17%) KVM
12 1 (0.087%) iptables
12 1 (0.087%) Slurm Workload Manager
12 1 (0.087%) Virtual Servers
Systems Management
1 43 (3.75%) SCCM
2 39 (3.40%) Microsoft Intune
3 27 (2.36%) Ansible
4 20 (1.75%) Terraform
5 16 (1.40%) Kubernetes
6 13 (1.13%) Jamf Pro
7 9 (0.79%) FortiGate
7 9 (0.79%) Single Sign-On
8 8 (0.70%) Grafana
8 8 (0.70%) vCenter Server
9 7 (0.61%) Data Guard
9 7 (0.61%) Oracle RMAN
9 7 (0.61%) WSUS
10 6 (0.52%) SCOM
11 5 (0.44%) Prometheus
11 5 (0.44%) Puppet
11 5 (0.44%) vMotion
12 4 (0.35%) PowerCLI
12 4 (0.35%) Progress Chef
13 3 (0.26%) vRealize
Vendors
1 323 (28.18%) ServiceNow
2 186 (16.23%) Microsoft
3 58 (5.06%) Remedy
4 55 (4.80%) VMware
5 46 (4.01%) Cisco
6 39 (3.40%) Oracle
7 29 (2.53%) SAP
8 28 (2.44%) Atlassian
9 26 (2.27%) BMC
10 24 (2.09%) IFS
11 22 (1.92%) HP
11 22 (1.92%) Splunk
12 17 (1.48%) SolarWinds
13 14 (1.22%) Dell
13 14 (1.22%) Salesforce
14 13 (1.13%) Citrix
14 13 (1.13%) Dynatrace
14 13 (1.13%) F5
14 13 (1.13%) Zscaler
15 11 (0.96%) Canon