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 15 July 2026, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
15 Jul 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 100 83 84
Rank change year-on-year -17 +1 0
Contract jobs citing Service Management 1,282 941 1,059
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 2.44% 2.90% 2.48%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 2.86% 3.21% 2.90%
Number of daily rates quoted 826 576 728
10th Percentile £232 £213 £256
25th Percentile £401 £355 £414
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £521 £500 £525
Median % change year-on-year +4.15% -4.76% -
75th Percentile £600 £588 £608
90th Percentile £689 £688 £688
UK excluding London median daily rate £510 £499 £525
% change year-on-year +2.31% -5.05% +7.69%
Number of hourly rates quoted 83 61 21
10th Percentile £15.00 - £14.13
25th Percentile £19.82 £12.62 £17.72
Median hourly rate £60.00 £20.75 £26.00
Median % change year-on-year +189.16% -20.19% -37.91%
75th Percentile £85.00 £22.14 £48.75
90th Percentile £94.51 £33.75 £53.75
UK excluding London median hourly rate £60.00 £20.75 £26.00
% change year-on-year +189.16% -20.19% +22.01%

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 44,765 29,340 36,482
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 85.08% 90.42% 85.34%
Number of daily rates quoted 27,853 18,476 23,295
10th Percentile £325 £300 £304
25th Percentile £418 £405 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £520 £500 £525
Median % change year-on-year +4.00% -4.76% -4.55%
75th Percentile £624 £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 2,647 1,521 2,449
10th Percentile £14.94 £14.20 £12.79
25th Percentile £20.09 £17.61 £16.25
Median hourly rate £43.96 £25.15 £38.12
Median % change year-on-year +74.79% -34.02% -4.70%
75th Percentile £68.50 £52.50 £61.30
90th Percentile £82.70 £70.00 £72.50
UK excluding London median hourly rate £45.25 £24.64 £38.12
% change year-on-year +83.64% -35.36% -0.99%

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 15 July 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 15 July 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 15 July 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 -17 1,119 £520 +4.00% 491
UK excluding London -21 781 £510 +2.31% 428
London +6 383 £540 +8.00% 141
Work from Home +1 375 £520 +4.00% 234
South East +33 252 £538 +34.38% 136
North of England -32 203 £474 +4.64% 108
South West -26 124 £500 -9.09% 53
North West -34 111 £506 +8.87% 65
Midlands -40 90 £477 -3.15% 61
Yorkshire -25 86 £448 +19.53% 34
West Midlands -49 79 £498 -3.40% 38
Scotland -20 58 £500 - 24
East of England -21 41 £525 -4.55% 31
Wales -4 13 £800 +188.29% 14
East Midlands -13 11 £250 -42.66% 23
Northern Ireland +8 7 - - 14
North East -39 6 £440 +125.64% 13

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 80 (6.24%) SharePoint
2 56 (4.37%) Confluence
3 37 (2.89%) Microsoft Exchange
4 9 (0.70%) Skype for Business
5 6 (0.47%) Mattermost
6 5 (0.39%) OpenStack
7 3 (0.23%) CMS
7 3 (0.23%) IIS
8 2 (0.16%) Apache
9 1 (0.078%) CICS
9 1 (0.078%) JBoss
9 1 (0.078%) LiveCycle
9 1 (0.078%) Oracle Collaboration Suite
9 1 (0.078%) Palantir Foundry
Applications
1 60 (4.68%) Microsoft Office
2 27 (2.11%) Microsoft Excel
3 14 (1.09%) MS Visio
4 13 (1.01%) Microsoft PowerPoint
5 10 (0.78%) Microsoft Project
6 7 (0.55%) Chatbot
7 3 (0.23%) PTC Creo
8 2 (0.16%) Spreadsheet
9 1 (0.078%) Camtasia
9 1 (0.078%) Maple
Business Applications
1 54 (4.21%) Remedy ITSM
2 15 (1.17%) SAP S/4HANA
3 8 (0.62%) Teamcenter
4 7 (0.55%) Primavera
5 5 (0.39%) ContrOCC
6 4 (0.31%) SAP SM
7 3 (0.23%) Oracle ERP
7 3 (0.23%) SAP CO
7 3 (0.23%) SAP FI
7 3 (0.23%) SAP FI/CO
8 2 (0.16%) Oracle Applications
8 2 (0.16%) SAP PS
9 1 (0.078%) Dynamics NAV
9 1 (0.078%) Misys Equation
9 1 (0.078%) Misys Midas
9 1 (0.078%) NetSuite
9 1 (0.078%) SAP HR
9 1 (0.078%) SAP Payroll
9 1 (0.078%) SAP PM
Cloud Services
1 200 (15.60%) Azure
2 144 (11.23%) Microsoft 365
3 83 (6.47%) AWS
4 71 (5.54%) Entra ID
5 61 (4.76%) Power Platform
6 49 (3.82%) SaaS
7 38 (2.96%) OneDrive
8 35 (2.73%) Azure DevOps
9 28 (2.18%) GCP
10 17 (1.33%) GitHub
10 17 (1.33%) PaaS
11 14 (1.09%) OCI
12 12 (0.94%) Amazon CloudWatch
12 12 (0.94%) Microsoft Copilot
13 11 (0.86%) AWS Lambda
13 11 (0.86%) IaaS
13 11 (0.86%) Serverless
14 10 (0.78%) Azure Monitor
15 9 (0.70%) Amazon S3
15 9 (0.70%) Google Workspace
Communications & Networking
1 68 (5.30%) Firewall
2 53 (4.13%) DNS
3 38 (2.96%) WAN
4 37 (2.89%) LAN
4 37 (2.89%) VPN
5 31 (2.42%) TCP/IP
6 30 (2.34%) Network Security
7 27 (2.11%) DHCP
8 19 (1.48%) BGP
9 18 (1.40%) Wireless
10 15 (1.17%) OSPF
11 13 (1.01%) VLAN
11 13 (1.01%) Wi-Fi
12 12 (0.94%) BIG-IP
12 12 (0.94%) Cisco ISE
13 11 (0.86%) SD-WAN
13 11 (0.86%) VXLAN
14 10 (0.78%) Junos
15 9 (0.70%) Skype
16 8 (0.62%) Ethernet VPN
Database & Business Intelligence
1 50 (3.90%) Power BI
2 19 (1.48%) SQL Server
3 8 (0.62%) Oracle Database
4 7 (0.55%) PostgreSQL
5 6 (0.47%) Oracle Database 11g
5 6 (0.47%) Oracle Reports
5 6 (0.47%) Relational Database
6 5 (0.39%) MySQL
6 5 (0.39%) SQL Server Reporting Services
7 4 (0.31%) SQL Server Analysis Services
7 4 (0.31%) SQL Server Integration Services
8 3 (0.23%) Amazon RDS
8 3 (0.23%) Azure SQL Database
8 3 (0.23%) MariaDB
9 2 (0.16%) Amazon Redshift
9 2 (0.16%) Elasticsearch
9 2 (0.16%) Microsoft Analysis Services
10 1 (0.078%) Db2
10 1 (0.078%) DTS
10 1 (0.078%) GIS
Development Applications
1 144 (11.23%) JIRA
2 23 (1.79%) Git
2 23 (1.79%) Jenkins
3 13 (1.01%) Bitbucket
4 12 (0.94%) GitLab
5 5 (0.39%) Atlassian Bamboo
5 5 (0.39%) Browser DevTools
6 4 (0.31%) MLflow
6 4 (0.31%) ScriptRunner
7 3 (0.23%) Fiddler
7 3 (0.23%) Hudson
7 3 (0.23%) IntelliJ
7 3 (0.23%) Rational DOORS
8 2 (0.16%) Firebug
8 2 (0.16%) Maven
8 2 (0.16%) Selenium
8 2 (0.16%) webpack
9 1 (0.078%) Protractor
9 1 (0.078%) Sonatype Nexus
9 1 (0.078%) Visual Studio Code
General
1 454 (35.41%) Social Skills
2 201 (15.68%) Finance
3 185 (14.43%) Analytical Skills
4 135 (10.53%) Public Sector
5 54 (4.21%) Legal
5 54 (4.21%) Telecoms
6 39 (3.04%) Banking
7 38 (2.96%) Influencing Skills
8 36 (2.81%) Documentation Skills
9 34 (2.65%) Organisational Skills
10 25 (1.95%) Inclusion and Diversity
11 24 (1.87%) Military
12 19 (1.48%) Local Government
13 16 (1.25%) Aerospace
14 14 (1.09%) Presentation Skills
14 14 (1.09%) Retail
15 13 (1.01%) Financial Institution
16 11 (0.86%) Police
17 9 (0.70%) Manufacturing
18 8 (0.62%) Investment Banking
Job Titles
1 154 (12.01%) Analyst
2 118 (9.20%) Lead
3 117 (9.13%) Service Manager
4 111 (8.66%) Architect
4 111 (8.66%) Senior
5 92 (7.18%) Consultant
6 77 (6.01%) IT Manager
7 61 (4.76%) Service Analyst
8 58 (4.52%) Project Manager
9 46 (3.59%) Delivery Manager
9 46 (3.59%) Developer
10 41 (3.20%) Support Engineer
11 35 (2.73%) IT Analyst
12 33 (2.57%) Network Engineer
13 30 (2.34%) Business Analyst
13 30 (2.34%) IT Services Manager
13 30 (2.34%) Solutions Architect
14 29 (2.26%) Administrator
15 28 (2.18%) Service Delivery Manager
15 28 (2.18%) Transition Manager
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 60 (4.68%) REST
2 30 (2.34%) SOAP
3 15 (1.17%) HTML
4 14 (1.09%) CSS
5 10 (0.78%) Middleware
6 9 (0.70%) 802.1X
6 9 (0.70%) JSON
6 9 (0.70%) OAuth
6 9 (0.70%) Web Services
7 8 (0.62%) XML
8 7 (0.55%) Elastic Stack
9 6 (0.47%) AngularJS
9 6 (0.47%) Oracle Fusion
10 5 (0.39%) Lightning Web Components
10 5 (0.39%) Microsoft Graph
10 5 (0.39%) OpenID
10 5 (0.39%) SAML
11 4 (0.31%) .NET
11 4 (0.31%) Bootstrap
11 4 (0.31%) Node.js
Miscellaneous
1 116 (9.05%) Onboarding
2 106 (8.27%) CMDB
3 63 (4.91%) Product Ownership
4 44 (3.43%) Data Centre
4 44 (3.43%) Management Information System
5 33 (2.57%) Enterprise Software
6 32 (2.50%) PKI
7 30 (2.34%) Virtual Team
8 24 (1.87%) Clustering
9 21 (1.64%) Operational Technology
10 20 (1.56%) Data Protection Act
11 13 (1.01%) Analytical Mindset
11 13 (1.01%) Self-Motivation
12 12 (0.94%) Cloud Native
12 12 (0.94%) Driving Licence
13 10 (0.78%) AI Agents
13 10 (0.78%) Algorithms
13 10 (0.78%) Linux Command Line
13 10 (0.78%) Security Posture
13 10 (0.78%) Video Conferencing
Operating Systems
1 225 (17.55%) Windows
2 58 (4.52%) Linux
3 40 (3.12%) Windows 10
4 38 (2.96%) Windows Server
5 22 (1.72%) Mac OS
6 17 (1.33%) Unix
7 14 (1.09%) Apple iOS
8 12 (0.94%) Windows 7
9 11 (0.86%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
10 9 (0.70%) Android
11 5 (0.39%) Windows Server 2019
12 4 (0.31%) VMS
13 3 (0.23%) Ubuntu
13 3 (0.23%) Windows Server 2012
14 2 (0.16%) Solaris
14 2 (0.16%) Windows Server 2016
14 2 (0.16%) Windows XP
14 2 (0.16%) zOS
15 1 (0.078%) Rocky
15 1 (0.078%) Windows Server 2008
Processes & Methodologies
1 686 (53.51%) ITIL
2 574 (44.77%) ITSM
3 324 (25.27%) Stakeholder Management
4 323 (25.20%) Continuous Improvement
5 266 (20.75%) Service Delivery
6 265 (20.67%) Agile
7 251 (19.58%) Problem-Solving
8 192 (14.98%) Stakeholder Engagement
9 187 (14.59%) Change Management
10 142 (11.08%) DevOps
11 138 (10.76%) Customer Service
12 123 (9.59%) Incident Management
13 121 (9.44%) Roadmaps
14 101 (7.88%) Problem Management
15 98 (7.64%) Project Delivery
16 92 (7.18%) Migration
17 89 (6.94%) Cybersecurity
18 85 (6.63%) Configuration Management
18 85 (6.63%) Decision-Making
18 85 (6.63%) Service Design
Programming Languages
1 99 (7.72%) PowerShell
2 75 (5.85%) Python
3 63 (4.91%) SQL
4 53 (4.13%) JavaScript
5 31 (2.42%) Bash
6 18 (1.40%) Java
7 11 (0.86%) PL/SQL
8 9 (0.70%) VB
8 9 (0.70%) VBScript
9 7 (0.55%) Groovy
10 6 (0.47%) Apex Code
10 6 (0.47%) C
11 5 (0.39%) C#
11 5 (0.39%) Kotlin
11 5 (0.39%) Perl
11 5 (0.39%) Shell Script
11 5 (0.39%) T-SQL
12 3 (0.23%) SOQL
13 2 (0.16%) Bicep
13 2 (0.16%) Search Processing Language
Qualifications
1 460 (35.88%) Security Cleared
2 307 (23.95%) SC Cleared
3 147 (11.47%) DV Cleared
4 111 (8.66%) Degree
5 65 (5.07%) ITIL Certification
6 42 (3.28%) PMP
7 40 (3.12%) PMI Certification
8 31 (2.42%) BPSS Clearance
9 28 (2.18%) Cisco Certification
10 22 (1.72%) Computer Science Degree
10 22 (1.72%) Microsoft Certification
11 18 (1.40%) A+ Certification
11 18 (1.40%) ITIL Foundation Certificate
12 15 (1.17%) CCNA
12 15 (1.17%) CISM
12 15 (1.17%) CISSP
13 14 (1.09%) Master's Degree
14 12 (0.94%) DBS Check
15 10 (0.78%) CCNP
16 9 (0.70%) JNCIA
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 92 (7.18%) SLA
2 43 (3.35%) ISO/IEC 27001
3 37 (2.89%) QA
4 34 (2.65%) Data Quality
5 30 (2.34%) PMO
6 25 (1.95%) ISO/IEC 20000
7 24 (1.87%) GDPR
7 24 (1.87%) NCSC
8 20 (1.56%) COBIT
8 20 (1.56%) GRC
9 15 (1.17%) ISO 9001
10 14 (1.09%) NIST
11 8 (0.62%) Accessibility
11 8 (0.62%) Cyber Essentials
11 8 (0.62%) Disclosure Scotland
12 7 (0.55%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
12 7 (0.55%) Government Security Classifications
12 7 (0.55%) PCI DSS
13 6 (0.47%) ISO 31000
13 6 (0.47%) ISO/IEC 27005
System Software
1 131 (10.22%) Active Directory
2 49 (3.82%) VMware Infrastructure
3 17 (1.33%) VMware ESXi
4 15 (1.17%) Docker
5 11 (0.86%) VMware NSX
6 10 (0.78%) BitLocker
6 10 (0.78%) Virtual Desktop
7 9 (0.70%) Hyper-V
7 9 (0.70%) vSphere
8 7 (0.55%) vCloud
9 5 (0.39%) IAG
9 5 (0.39%) NFS
9 5 (0.39%) Virtual Machines
10 4 (0.31%) Oracle RAC
11 3 (0.23%) Firmware
12 2 (0.16%) GPFS
12 2 (0.16%) KVM
13 1 (0.078%) iptables
13 1 (0.078%) Samba
13 1 (0.078%) Slurm Workload Manager
Systems Management
1 53 (4.13%) Microsoft Intune
2 51 (3.98%) SCCM
3 34 (2.65%) Terraform
4 33 (2.57%) Ansible
5 18 (1.40%) Kubernetes
6 15 (1.17%) Jamf Pro
7 13 (1.01%) Single Sign-On
8 12 (0.94%) SCOM
9 9 (0.70%) vCenter Server
10 8 (0.62%) FortiGate
11 7 (0.55%) Data Guard
11 7 (0.55%) Grafana
11 7 (0.55%) Oracle RMAN
11 7 (0.55%) WSUS
12 6 (0.47%) Puppet
13 5 (0.39%) Prometheus
13 5 (0.39%) vMotion
14 4 (0.31%) PowerCLI
14 4 (0.31%) Progress Chef
15 3 (0.23%) vRealize
Vendors
1 370 (28.86%) ServiceNow
2 239 (18.64%) Microsoft
3 67 (5.23%) VMware
4 58 (4.52%) Remedy
5 46 (3.59%) Cisco
6 36 (2.81%) Oracle
7 32 (2.50%) BMC
8 30 (2.34%) SAP
9 26 (2.03%) Atlassian
10 24 (1.87%) Splunk
11 22 (1.72%) IFS
12 19 (1.48%) SolarWinds
13 17 (1.33%) Citrix
14 16 (1.25%) Juniper
14 16 (1.25%) Salesforce
15 15 (1.17%) Dynatrace
16 14 (1.09%) IBM
16 14 (1.09%) Zscaler
17 13 (1.01%) Apple
17 13 (1.01%) F5