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 30 September 2025, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
30 Sep 2025
Same period 2024 Same period 2023
Rank 82 98 85
Rank change year-on-year +16 -13 +15
Contract jobs citing Service Management 974 869 1,326
As % of all contract jobs advertised in the UK 2.97% 2.31% 2.70%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 3.27% 2.69% 3.03%
Number of daily rates quoted 589 554 963
10th Percentile £200 £211 £263
25th Percentile £331 £371 £400
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £485 £500 £525
Median % change year-on-year -3.05% -4.71% -
75th Percentile £575 £602 £625
90th Percentile £650 £681 £742
UK excluding London median daily rate £475 £500 £500
% change year-on-year -5.00% - +0.05%
Number of hourly rates quoted 85 14 19
10th Percentile £12.62 £16.17 £20.40
25th Percentile £13.37 £25.88 £21.28
Median hourly rate £21.28 £46.25 £55.00
Median % change year-on-year -53.99% -15.91% +161.90%
75th Percentile £33.75 £49.69 £76.50
90th Percentile £60.00 £54.63 £176.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £21.06 £47.50 £22.50
% change year-on-year -55.67% +111.11% +7.14%

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 29,773 32,274 43,725
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 90.67% 85.82% 88.96%
Number of daily rates quoted 18,501 19,485 29,710
10th Percentile £296 £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 1,849 1,345 1,573
10th Percentile £14.29 £15.00 £14.25
25th Percentile £17.30 £20.12 £18.50
Median hourly rate £25.15 £42.50 £42.50
Median % change year-on-year -40.82% - +44.07%
75th Percentile £43.75 £65.00 £65.00
90th Percentile £65.00 £74.48 £77.50
UK excluding London median hourly rate £22.32 £43.00 £42.50
% change year-on-year -48.10% +1.18% +73.47%

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 30 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 30 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 30 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 +19 844 £500 - 408
UK excluding London +18 634 £475 -5.00% 370
Work from Home +3 272 £475 -12.84% 171
London -23 242 £500 - 105
North of England +11 192 £450 -8.72% 107
South East +17 128 £442 -19.59% 97
South West +22 117 £550 +4.76% 59
North West +20 112 £459 +2.06% 39
Midlands +28 105 £505 +1.00% 53
West Midlands +27 83 £515 -0.72% 31
Yorkshire -3 71 £355 -32.38% 51
Scotland 0 47 £463 -9.80% 28
East of England +8 35 £550 +4.76% 37
East Midlands +8 22 £317 -36.70% 21
North East -4 9 £195 -61.00% 19
Wales -1 8 £230 +15.00% 11
Northern Ireland -4 4 £150 -72.73%
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 53 (5.44%) Microsoft Exchange
2 47 (4.83%) SharePoint
3 45 (4.62%) Confluence
4 21 (2.16%) Apache
5 15 (1.54%) WebLogic
6 9 (0.92%) IIS
7 8 (0.82%) WebSphere
8 5 (0.51%) Skype for Business
9 3 (0.31%) CMS
9 3 (0.31%) OpenStack
9 3 (0.31%) SharePoint Server
10 2 (0.21%) Apache Solr
10 2 (0.21%) JBoss
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 (9.24%) Microsoft Office
2 36 (3.70%) Microsoft Excel
3 18 (1.85%) Microsoft PowerPoint
3 18 (1.85%) MS Visio
4 4 (0.41%) Autodesk Inventor
5 3 (0.31%) Microsoft Project
6 2 (0.21%) Adobe Illustrator
6 2 (0.21%) 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 24 (2.46%) Remedy ITSM
2 12 (1.23%) SAP S/4HANA
3 9 (0.92%) Oracle ERP
4 7 (0.72%) assyst
4 7 (0.72%) Maximo
5 6 (0.62%) Dynamics CRM
6 4 (0.41%) Salesforce CRM
6 4 (0.41%) Workday HCM
7 3 (0.31%) SAP ERP
8 2 (0.21%) Cloudability
8 2 (0.21%) ResourceLink
8 2 (0.21%) SAP LE
8 2 (0.21%) SAP WM
9 1 (0.10%) Integrated Workplace Management System
9 1 (0.10%) Oracle EBS R12
9 1 (0.10%) Oracle iProcurement
9 1 (0.10%) SAP HR
9 1 (0.10%) SAP PM
9 1 (0.10%) SAP SM
Cloud Services
1 133 (13.66%) Azure
2 112 (11.50%) Microsoft 365
3 84 (8.62%) AWS
4 43 (4.41%) Entra ID
5 33 (3.39%) Power Platform
6 28 (2.87%) Azure DevOps
7 18 (1.85%) Azure Monitor
8 17 (1.75%) OneDrive
9 14 (1.44%) PowerApps
9 14 (1.44%) SaaS
10 12 (1.23%) GCP
10 12 (1.23%) GitHub
11 9 (0.92%) Power Automate
12 7 (0.72%) Dynamics 365
12 7 (0.72%) Google Workspace
12 7 (0.72%) Nutanix
13 6 (0.62%) Serverless
14 5 (0.51%) Amazon CloudWatch
14 5 (0.51%) Amazon S3
14 5 (0.51%) Lucidchart
Communications & Networking
1 73 (7.49%) Firewall
2 55 (5.65%) DNS
3 32 (3.29%) WAN
4 31 (3.18%) DHCP
5 28 (2.87%) LAN
6 27 (2.77%) VPN
7 24 (2.46%) TCP/IP
8 16 (1.64%) Network Security
8 16 (1.64%) SSH
9 13 (1.33%) Unified Communications
9 13 (1.33%) VLAN
10 12 (1.23%) BGP
10 12 (1.23%) Cisco IOS
10 12 (1.23%) Skype
10 12 (1.23%) Wireless
11 11 (1.13%) Cisco Firepower
11 11 (1.13%) Cisco ISE
11 11 (1.13%) Junos
12 10 (1.03%) MPLS
12 10 (1.03%) Wi-Fi
Database & Business Intelligence
1 24 (2.46%) Power BI
2 20 (2.05%) SQL Server
3 15 (1.54%) Relational Database
4 12 (1.23%) Amazon RDS
5 9 (0.92%) DB2
6 8 (0.82%) MySQL
7 7 (0.72%) Elasticsearch
7 7 (0.72%) Oracle Reports
8 6 (0.62%) PostgreSQL
9 5 (0.51%) Amazon Aurora
9 5 (0.51%) Tableau
10 4 (0.41%) Data Mining
10 4 (0.41%) NoSQL
10 4 (0.41%) Pentaho
11 3 (0.31%) MariaDB
11 3 (0.31%) Oracle Database
11 3 (0.31%) RDBMS
11 3 (0.31%) SAP HANA
11 3 (0.31%) SQL Server Integration Services
12 2 (0.21%) Amazon Redshift
Development Applications
1 113 (11.60%) JIRA
2 21 (2.16%) Jenkins
3 13 (1.33%) Git
4 10 (1.03%) Bitbucket
5 7 (0.72%) GitLab
5 7 (0.72%) webpack
6 6 (0.62%) ScriptRunner
7 3 (0.31%) Artifactory
7 3 (0.31%) JMeter
7 3 (0.31%) LoadRunner
7 3 (0.31%) NeoLoad
8 2 (0.21%) SonarQube
8 2 (0.21%) Storybook
9 1 (0.10%) Cucumber
9 1 (0.10%) Selenium
9 1 (0.10%) SoapUI
9 1 (0.10%) WebDriver
9 1 (0.10%) Zephyr
General
1 386 (39.63%) Social Skills
2 172 (17.66%) Analytical Skills
3 142 (14.58%) Finance
4 130 (13.35%) Public Sector
5 55 (5.65%) Telecoms
6 42 (4.31%) Inclusion and Diversity
7 32 (3.29%) Retail
8 30 (3.08%) Manufacturing
9 28 (2.87%) Organisational Skills
10 27 (2.77%) Banking
10 27 (2.77%) Presentation Skills
11 25 (2.57%) Legal
12 23 (2.36%) Military
13 22 (2.26%) Influencing Skills
14 21 (2.16%) Marketing
15 19 (1.95%) Documentation Skills
16 14 (1.44%) Electronics
17 13 (1.33%) Police
18 11 (1.13%) Billing
19 8 (0.82%) Local Government
Job Titles
1 164 (16.84%) Analyst
2 87 (8.93%) Architect
3 81 (8.32%) Service Manager
4 77 (7.91%) Lead
5 67 (6.88%) Support Engineer
6 56 (5.75%) Support Analyst
7 54 (5.54%) IT Support
8 49 (5.03%) Desktop Support
9 47 (4.83%) Senior
10 42 (4.31%) Consultant
10 42 (4.31%) IT Manager
11 40 (4.11%) Developer
12 38 (3.90%) Network Engineer
13 37 (3.80%) Service Analyst
14 34 (3.49%) Business Analyst
15 32 (3.29%) Service Architect
16 31 (3.18%) 2nd Line Support
17 30 (3.08%) Delivery Manager
17 30 (3.08%) IT Analyst
18 29 (2.98%) Project Manager
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 27 (2.77%) Web Services
2 26 (2.67%) SOAP
3 25 (2.57%) RFC 2544
4 19 (1.95%) REST
5 18 (1.85%) .NET
6 17 (1.75%) HTML
7 14 (1.44%) CSS
8 12 (1.23%) RESTful
9 11 (1.13%) React
10 10 (1.03%) XML
11 9 (0.92%) LDAP
11 9 (0.92%) Middleware
11 9 (0.92%) Node.js
12 8 (0.82%) NETCONF
13 7 (0.72%) AngularJS
13 7 (0.72%) CSS3
13 7 (0.72%) HTML5
13 7 (0.72%) Lightning Web Components
13 7 (0.72%) Redux
13 7 (0.72%) RESTCONF
Miscellaneous
1 56 (5.75%) Data Centre
2 46 (4.72%) CMDB
3 40 (4.11%) Management Information System
4 30 (3.08%) Onboarding
5 26 (2.67%) iPhone
6 24 (2.46%) PKI
7 22 (2.26%) Smartphone
8 19 (1.95%) Self-Motivation
9 17 (1.75%) Product Ownership
10 16 (1.64%) Fibre Optics
11 15 (1.54%) Analytical Mindset
12 12 (1.23%) Mainframe
12 12 (1.23%) Virtual Team
13 11 (1.13%) Public Cloud
14 10 (1.03%) Driving Licence
14 10 (1.03%) Video Conferencing
15 9 (0.92%) Cloud Native
15 9 (0.92%) Enterprise Software
16 8 (0.82%) Data Protection Act
16 8 (0.82%) Tandem
Operating Systems
1 184 (18.89%) Windows
2 55 (5.65%) Linux
3 42 (4.31%) Windows Server
4 39 (4.00%) Windows 10
5 35 (3.59%) Mac OS
6 32 (3.29%) Unix
7 18 (1.85%) Apple iOS
8 12 (1.23%) Android
9 7 (0.72%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
10 5 (0.51%) Solaris
10 5 (0.51%) Windows Server 2019
11 4 (0.41%) Windows Server 2016
12 3 (0.31%) Windows Server 2008
13 2 (0.21%) HPUX
13 2 (0.21%) VMS
14 1 (0.10%) AIX
14 1 (0.10%) Mac OS X
14 1 (0.10%) SUSE
14 1 (0.10%) Ubuntu
14 1 (0.10%) Windows Server 2003
Processes & Methodologies
1 523 (53.70%) ITIL
2 405 (41.58%) ITSM
3 193 (19.82%) Problem-Solving
4 179 (18.38%) Customer Service
5 159 (16.32%) Agile
6 155 (15.91%) Stakeholder Management
7 142 (14.58%) Service Delivery
8 141 (14.48%) Change Management
9 120 (12.32%) Continuous Improvement
10 103 (10.57%) Stakeholder Engagement
11 97 (9.96%) Incident Management
12 95 (9.75%) Service Design
13 88 (9.03%) DevOps
14 82 (8.42%) Project Management
15 79 (8.11%) Project Delivery
16 64 (6.57%) Problem Management
17 60 (6.16%) Business Intelligence
18 59 (6.06%) Migration
19 57 (5.85%) Analytics
20 53 (5.44%) Configuration Management
Programming Languages
1 71 (7.29%) SQL
2 52 (5.34%) Python
3 40 (4.11%) PowerShell
4 37 (3.80%) JavaScript
5 14 (1.44%) Java
6 10 (1.03%) Shell Script
6 10 (1.03%) TypeScript
7 9 (0.92%) C#
8 7 (0.72%) Perl
9 6 (0.62%) Bash
10 5 (0.51%) Groovy
11 4 (0.41%) ActionScript
11 4 (0.41%) ActionScript 2.0
12 3 (0.31%) Bicep
13 2 (0.21%) Apex Code
13 2 (0.21%) C
14 1 (0.10%) PL/SQL
14 1 (0.10%) VB
14 1 (0.10%) VBA
14 1 (0.10%) VBScript
Qualifications
1 323 (33.16%) Security Cleared
2 253 (25.98%) SC Cleared
3 97 (9.96%) Degree
4 59 (6.06%) ITIL Certification
5 41 (4.21%) DV Cleared
6 35 (3.59%) Microsoft Certification
7 31 (3.18%) Cisco Certification
8 26 (2.67%) CCNP
9 21 (2.16%) Computer Science Degree
10 19 (1.95%) Azure Certification
11 15 (1.54%) A+ Certification
11 15 (1.54%) BPSS Clearance
12 14 (1.44%) Server+ Certification
13 13 (1.33%) ITIL Foundation Certificate
14 11 (1.13%) CCNA
14 11 (1.13%) Network+ Certification
15 8 (0.82%) PMP
16 7 (0.72%) MCSE
16 7 (0.72%) PMI Certification
17 5 (0.51%) APMP
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 63 (6.47%) SLA
2 30 (3.08%) ISO/IEC 20000
2 30 (3.08%) QA
3 23 (2.36%) GDPR
4 12 (1.23%) Sarbanes-Oxley
5 10 (1.03%) GxP
6 9 (0.92%) COBIT
7 8 (0.82%) Accessibility
7 8 (0.82%) NCSC
8 7 (0.72%) Data Quality
8 7 (0.72%) GRC
8 7 (0.72%) ISO/IEC 27001
8 7 (0.72%) PMO
9 6 (0.62%) Disclosure Scotland
10 4 (0.41%) Actionable Recommendations
10 4 (0.41%) HIPAA
11 3 (0.31%) ISO 9001
12 2 (0.21%) Cyber Essentials
12 2 (0.21%) WCAG
13 1 (0.10%) NIST
System Software
1 113 (11.60%) Active Directory
2 44 (4.52%) VMware Infrastructure
3 15 (1.54%) Hyper-V
3 15 (1.54%) Virtual Desktop
4 14 (1.44%) VMware ESXi
4 14 (1.44%) VMware NSX
5 10 (1.03%) Docker
6 6 (0.62%) Virtual Servers
7 5 (0.51%) Microsoft Virtual Server
8 3 (0.31%) Apache ZooKeeper
8 3 (0.31%) Virtual Machines
8 3 (0.31%) vSphere
9 2 (0.21%) NDS
9 2 (0.21%) NetIQ eDirectory
10 1 (0.10%) Btrfs
10 1 (0.10%) Terminal Services
Systems Management
1 25 (2.57%) Ansible
2 23 (2.36%) Jamf Pro
3 20 (2.05%) Terraform
4 19 (1.95%) Kubernetes
5 18 (1.85%) vCenter Server
6 13 (1.33%) Microsoft Intune
7 12 (1.23%) Single Sign-On
8 10 (1.03%) SCCM
9 8 (0.82%) NSN NetAct
9 8 (0.82%) WSUS
10 7 (0.72%) Grafana
11 6 (0.62%) Active Directory Federation Services
12 4 (0.41%) HP ALM
12 4 (0.41%) OpenView
12 4 (0.41%) Progress Chef
13 3 (0.31%) Argo
13 3 (0.31%) Check_MK
13 3 (0.31%) Consul
13 3 (0.31%) logstash
13 3 (0.31%) SCOM
Vendors
1 249 (25.56%) ServiceNow
2 218 (22.38%) Microsoft
3 99 (10.16%) Cisco
4 49 (5.03%) Oracle
4 49 (5.03%) VMware
5 46 (4.72%) SAP
6 36 (3.70%) Splunk
7 31 (3.18%) Remedy
8 28 (2.87%) Apple
9 26 (2.67%) Juniper
10 24 (2.46%) IBM
10 24 (2.46%) SolarWinds
11 23 (2.36%) Atlassian
12 21 (2.16%) Google
13 19 (1.95%) Dynatrace
14 15 (1.54%) Salesforce
15 14 (1.44%) AppDynamics
16 11 (1.13%) Veeam
17 10 (1.03%) IFS
18 9 (0.92%) Fortinet