SLA Contract Job Trends

Service Level Agreement (SLA)
UK

The table below provides summary statistics and contractor rates for jobs requiring SLA skills. It covers contract job vacancies from the 6 months leading up to 16 July 2026, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
16 Jul 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 237 192 152
Rank change year-on-year -45 -40 +44
Contract jobs citing SLA 556 460 674
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 1.06% 1.42% 1.58%
As % of the Quality Assurance & Compliance category 6.22% 8.58% 11.45%
Number of daily rates quoted 312 264 317
10th Percentile £200 £186 £156
25th Percentile £280 £216 £200
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £450 £350 £340
Median % change year-on-year +28.57% +2.94% +8.80%
75th Percentile £520 £544 £493
90th Percentile £600 £620 £583
UK excluding London median daily rate £440 £276 £286
% change year-on-year +59.71% -3.76% +4.09%
Number of hourly rates quoted 83 60 87
10th Percentile £13.45 £15.95 £11.07
25th Percentile £17.22 £17.59 £12.75
Median hourly rate £18.67 £22.14 £16.19
Median % change year-on-year -15.70% +36.75% -11.17%
75th Percentile £20.92 £25.15 £23.80
90th Percentile £27.44 £34.65 £26.15
UK excluding London median hourly rate £18.50 £22.14 £14.41
% change year-on-year -16.44% +53.64% -18.68%

All Quality Assurance and Compliance Skills
UK

SLA falls under the Quality Assurance and Compliance category. For comparison with the information above, the following table provides summary statistics for all contract job vacancies requiring quality assurance or compliance skills.

Contract vacancies with a requirement for quality assurance or compliance skills 8,937 5,362 5,886
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 16.98% 16.50% 13.81%
Number of daily rates quoted 5,721 3,436 3,626
10th Percentile £338 £277 £281
25th Percentile £413 £400 £400
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £500 £500
Median % change year-on-year - - -4.76%
75th Percentile £600 £606 £619
90th Percentile £700 £717 £738
UK excluding London median daily rate £500 £470 £475
% change year-on-year +6.38% -1.05% -5.00%
Number of hourly rates quoted 548 240 420
10th Percentile £14.00 £14.60 £11.66
25th Percentile £19.33 £18.18 £13.52
Median hourly rate £38.72 £30.00 £24.18
Median % change year-on-year +29.07% +24.07% -38.66%
75th Percentile £68.75 £63.75 £51.24
90th Percentile £82.25 £85.30 £70.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £40.00 £27.59 £24.18
% change year-on-year +45.01% +14.08% -30.91%

SLA
Job Vacancy Trend

Historical trend showing the proportion of contract IT job postings citing SLA relative to all contract IT jobs advertised.

SLA job vacancy trend in the UK

SLA
Daily Rate Trend

Contractor daily rate distribution trend for jobs in the UK citing SLA.

Contractor daily rate distribution trend for jobs in the UK citing SLA

SLA
Daily Rate Histogram

Daily rate distribution for jobs citing SLA over the 6 months to 16 July 2026.

Daily rate histogram for SLA in the UK

SLA
Hourly Rate Trend

Contractor hourly rate distribution trend for jobs in the UK citing SLA.

Contractor hourly rate distribution trend for jobs in the UK citing SLA

SLA
Hourly Rate Histogram

Hourly rate distribution of jobs citing SLA over the 6 months to 16 July 2026.

Hourly rate histogram for SLA in the UK

SLA
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 SLA within the UK over the 6 months to 16 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 -63 467 £450 +20.00% 221
UK excluding London -70 344 £440 +59.71% 206
London -22 186 £475 +22.58% 55
Work from Home -22 132 £475 +26.67% 82
South East -73 84 £474 +89.50% 90
North of England -66 71 £436 +34.23% 29
Scotland +28 56 £358 +43.20% 11
Midlands -68 56 £288 -23.33% 20
West Midlands -66 46 £288 -23.33% 13
East of England +2 44 £505 +124.44% 29
North West -36 39 £435 +33.85% 19
Yorkshire -52 30 £444 +77.15% 9
South West -42 25 £400 +29.03% 21
Wales -4 12 £525 +100.00% 11
East Midlands -9 9 £363 - 7
Northern Ireland +2 2 £175 - 4
North East -37 2 £280 - 1

SLA
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 28 (5.04%) SharePoint
2 13 (2.34%) Microsoft Exchange
3 7 (1.26%) OpenStack
4 6 (1.08%) Confluence
5 5 (0.90%) IIS
5 5 (0.90%) SAS
6 4 (0.72%) Adobe Experience Manager
7 3 (0.54%) Apache Airflow
8 2 (0.36%) Anypoint
8 2 (0.36%) ArcGIS
8 2 (0.36%) Exchange Server 2010
8 2 (0.36%) Mule
9 1 (0.18%) Apache
9 1 (0.18%) Apache Spark
9 1 (0.18%) LiveCycle
9 1 (0.18%) Oracle Workflow
9 1 (0.18%) Smallworld
Applications
1 50 (8.99%) Microsoft Office
2 40 (7.19%) Microsoft Excel
3 11 (1.98%) Spreadsheet
4 6 (1.08%) MS Visio
5 3 (0.54%) Microsoft PowerPoint
6 2 (0.36%) Microsoft Project
7 1 (0.18%) Autodesk Inventor
7 1 (0.18%) Chatbot
7 1 (0.18%) MicroStation
7 1 (0.18%) Oracle Smart View
Business Applications
1 19 (3.42%) Remedy ITSM
2 8 (1.44%) ContrOCC
3 6 (1.08%) Oracle Assets
3 6 (1.08%) Oracle Payables
4 5 (0.90%) Dynamics CRM
4 5 (0.90%) Oracle Applications
4 5 (0.90%) Oracle General Ledger
4 5 (0.90%) Oracle Procure-to-Pay
4 5 (0.90%) Oracle Receivables
4 5 (0.90%) Oracle Subledger Accounting
5 3 (0.54%) Oracle Cash Management
5 3 (0.54%) Oracle EBS
6 2 (0.36%) Dynamics GP
6 2 (0.36%) IntelliMatch
6 2 (0.36%) Oracle EBS R12
6 2 (0.36%) Oracle ERP
6 2 (0.36%) Oracle Financials
6 2 (0.36%) Payment Gateway
7 1 (0.18%) Actimize
7 1 (0.18%) Unit4 Business World
Cloud Services
1 101 (18.17%) Azure
2 82 (14.75%) Microsoft 365
3 52 (9.35%) AWS
4 40 (7.19%) Entra ID
5 27 (4.86%) Power Platform
6 18 (3.24%) OneDrive
6 18 (3.24%) SaaS
7 17 (3.06%) Azure DevOps
8 16 (2.88%) Datadog
9 14 (2.52%) Amazon S3
9 14 (2.52%) IaaS
9 14 (2.52%) PaaS
10 13 (2.34%) OCI
11 12 (2.16%) Snowflake
12 11 (1.98%) Amazon EC2
12 11 (1.98%) Virtual Private Cloud
13 9 (1.62%) Azure Sentinel
13 9 (1.62%) GCP
14 8 (1.44%) Amazon CloudWatch
14 8 (1.44%) AWS CloudFormation
Communications & Networking
1 32 (5.76%) DNS
2 28 (5.04%) VPN
3 27 (4.86%) DHCP
4 19 (3.42%) Firewall
4 19 (3.42%) WAN
5 18 (3.24%) LAN
5 18 (3.24%) Wi-Fi
6 15 (2.70%) Network Security
6 15 (2.70%) SAN
7 12 (2.16%) TCP/IP
8 10 (1.80%) Cisco IOS
9 9 (1.62%) MPLS
9 9 (1.62%) SDH
10 8 (1.44%) Cisco ASA
10 8 (1.44%) Radio Access Network
10 8 (1.44%) VLAN
11 7 (1.26%) 5G
11 7 (1.26%) LTE
12 6 (1.08%) Wireless
12 6 (1.08%) Wireshark
Database & Business Intelligence
1 23 (4.14%) Power BI
2 22 (3.96%) SQL Server
3 9 (1.62%) Tableau
4 8 (1.44%) Oracle Reports
5 6 (1.08%) Oracle Database
6 5 (0.90%) Pentaho
6 5 (0.90%) Relational Database
7 4 (0.72%) Amazon RDS
7 4 (0.72%) MySQL
7 4 (0.72%) PostgreSQL
8 3 (0.54%) Amazon Athena
8 3 (0.54%) Big Data
8 3 (0.54%) Data Lake
8 3 (0.54%) SQL Server Reporting Services
9 2 (0.36%) Db2
9 2 (0.36%) GIS
9 2 (0.36%) Oracle Database 10g
9 2 (0.36%) Oracle Database 11g
9 2 (0.36%) SQL Server Integration Services
10 1 (0.18%) Data Warehouse
Development Applications
1 46 (8.27%) JIRA
2 11 (1.98%) GitLab
3 9 (1.62%) Git
3 9 (1.62%) Jenkins
4 8 (1.44%) Chocolatey
5 4 (0.72%) Maven
6 3 (0.54%) Visual Studio
7 2 (0.36%) Artifactory
7 2 (0.36%) JMeter
7 2 (0.36%) Toad
8 1 (0.18%) Bitbucket
8 1 (0.18%) Cucumber
8 1 (0.18%) SQL Server Management Studio (SSMS)
8 1 (0.18%) WiX
General
1 243 (43.71%) Social Skills
2 106 (19.06%) Finance
3 94 (16.91%) Analytical Skills
4 39 (7.01%) Public Sector
5 30 (5.40%) Banking
6 27 (4.86%) Organisational Skills
6 27 (4.86%) Telecoms
7 24 (4.32%) Documentation Skills
8 20 (3.60%) Legal
9 14 (2.52%) Billing
9 14 (2.52%) Inclusion and Diversity
9 14 (2.52%) Retail
10 13 (2.34%) Local Government
11 9 (1.62%) Manufacturing
12 8 (1.44%) Financial Institution
12 8 (1.44%) Influencing Skills
13 6 (1.08%) Aerospace
13 6 (1.08%) Marketing
14 4 (0.72%) Aviation
15 3 (0.54%) Presentation Skills
Job Titles
1 74 (13.31%) Analyst
2 45 (8.09%) IT Support
3 43 (7.73%) Support Engineer
4 37 (6.65%) Lead
5 36 (6.47%) Senior
6 32 (5.76%) Service Manager
7 26 (4.68%) IT Engineer
8 25 (4.50%) Service Analyst
9 24 (4.32%) Administrator
10 21 (3.78%) Consultant
10 21 (3.78%) Delivery Manager
11 18 (3.24%) Azure Engineer
11 18 (3.24%) Desktop Support
11 18 (3.24%) Service Delivery Manager
12 17 (3.06%) Applications Support
12 17 (3.06%) Technical Support
13 16 (2.88%) Desktop Engineer
13 16 (2.88%) IT Support Engineer
13 16 (2.88%) Network Engineer
14 15 (2.70%) Service Desk Analyst
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 12 (2.16%) .NET
2 11 (1.98%) REST
3 10 (1.80%) Oracle Fusion
4 9 (1.62%) LDAP
5 8 (1.44%) Middleware
5 8 (1.44%) Web Services
6 7 (1.26%) XML
7 5 (0.90%) ARM Templates
7 5 (0.90%) AWS CDK
7 5 (0.90%) Software Packaging
7 5 (0.90%) Spring
8 4 (0.72%) .NET Framework
8 4 (0.72%) AngularJS
8 4 (0.72%) CSS
8 4 (0.72%) jQuery
8 4 (0.72%) JSON
8 4 (0.72%) RESTful
8 4 (0.72%) Sass
8 4 (0.72%) SOAP
8 4 (0.72%) Spring MVC
Miscellaneous
1 55 (9.89%) Onboarding
2 30 (5.40%) Data Centre
3 20 (3.60%) CMDB
4 13 (2.34%) Enterprise Software
5 11 (1.98%) PKI
5 11 (1.98%) Product Ownership
6 10 (1.80%) Cyber Threat
6 10 (1.80%) Smartphone
7 9 (1.62%) Cloud Native
7 9 (1.62%) Driving Licence
8 8 (1.44%) BYOD
8 8 (1.44%) Data Protection Act
8 8 (1.44%) Self-Motivation
8 8 (1.44%) Virtual Team
9 6 (1.08%) Fibre Optics
9 6 (1.08%) iPhone
9 6 (1.08%) Management Information System
10 5 (0.90%) Enterprise Cloud
10 5 (0.90%) IoT
11 4 (0.72%) Hybrid Cloud
Operating Systems
1 130 (23.38%) Windows
2 48 (8.63%) Windows 10
3 35 (6.29%) Linux
4 23 (4.14%) Windows Server
5 21 (3.78%) Android
6 15 (2.70%) Unix
7 9 (1.62%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
8 6 (1.08%) Mac OS
9 5 (0.90%) CentOS
10 4 (0.72%) Apple iOS
10 4 (0.72%) Windows 7
10 4 (0.72%) Windows Server 2012
11 3 (0.54%) Windows XP
12 2 (0.36%) Windows Server 2019
13 1 (0.18%) Solaris
13 1 (0.18%) Ubuntu
13 1 (0.18%) Windows Server 2003
13 1 (0.18%) Windows Server 2016
Processes & Methodologies
1 194 (34.89%) ITIL
2 126 (22.66%) ITSM
3 118 (21.22%) Problem-Solving
4 116 (20.86%) Continuous Improvement
5 105 (18.88%) Customer Service
5 105 (18.88%) Stakeholder Management
6 96 (17.27%) Service Management
7 91 (16.37%) Change Management
7 91 (16.37%) Service Delivery
8 75 (13.49%) Agile
9 65 (11.69%) Root Cause Analysis
10 56 (10.07%) Incident Management
11 51 (9.17%) Problem Management
12 47 (8.45%) Stakeholder Engagement
13 44 (7.91%) Migration
14 40 (7.19%) Validation
15 39 (7.01%) Roadmaps
16 38 (6.83%) Asset Management
17 37 (6.65%) DevOps
17 37 (6.65%) Time Management
Programming Languages
1 47 (8.45%) SQL
2 35 (6.29%) PowerShell
3 34 (6.12%) Python
4 17 (3.06%) Bash
5 9 (1.62%) Java
6 8 (1.44%) PL/SQL
7 7 (1.26%) JavaScript
8 5 (0.90%) C#
8 5 (0.90%) MATLAB
8 5 (0.90%) Shell Script
9 4 (0.72%) Bicep
10 2 (0.36%) DataWeave
10 2 (0.36%) Korn
10 2 (0.36%) Scala
10 2 (0.36%) VB
10 2 (0.36%) X++
11 1 (0.18%) Apex Code
11 1 (0.18%) COBOL
11 1 (0.18%) Go
11 1 (0.18%) Groovy
Qualifications
1 124 (22.30%) Security Cleared
2 97 (17.45%) SC Cleared
3 50 (8.99%) Degree
4 21 (3.78%) DV Cleared
5 18 (3.24%) BPSS Clearance
5 18 (3.24%) ITIL Certification
6 17 (3.06%) Microsoft Certification
7 16 (2.88%) Cisco Certification
8 11 (1.98%) ITIL Foundation Certificate
9 10 (1.80%) CCNP
10 9 (1.62%) PMI Certification
11 8 (1.44%) MCSE
12 7 (1.26%) Azure Certification
12 7 (1.26%) CCNA
13 6 (1.08%) CCSE
13 6 (1.08%) Master's Degree
14 5 (0.90%) A+ Certification
14 5 (0.90%) CCSM
14 5 (0.90%) CISSP
14 5 (0.90%) PMP
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 17 (3.06%) Data Quality
2 14 (2.52%) ISO/IEC 27001
3 13 (2.34%) QA
4 12 (2.16%) PMO
5 11 (1.98%) NIST
6 9 (1.62%) GRC
7 7 (1.26%) COBIT
7 7 (1.26%) GDPR
8 6 (1.08%) Cyber Essentials
9 5 (0.90%) ISO 9001
9 5 (0.90%) ISO/IEC 20000
9 5 (0.90%) PCI DSS
10 3 (0.54%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
10 3 (0.54%) ISO 20022
10 3 (0.54%) JSP 440
11 2 (0.36%) ISO 31000
11 2 (0.36%) ISO 8583
11 2 (0.36%) SOC 2
12 1 (0.18%) GxP
12 1 (0.18%) Sarbanes-Oxley
System Software
1 86 (15.47%) Active Directory
2 23 (4.14%) VMware Infrastructure
3 15 (2.70%) VMware ESXi
4 11 (1.98%) Virtual Desktop
5 7 (1.26%) Hyper-V
6 6 (1.08%) Docker
6 6 (1.08%) vSphere
7 4 (0.72%) Virtual Machines
8 2 (0.36%) Oracle RAC
9 1 (0.18%) ACF2
9 1 (0.18%) BitLocker
9 1 (0.18%) Ceph
9 1 (0.18%) Firmware
9 1 (0.18%) RACF
9 1 (0.18%) Virtual Servers
9 1 (0.18%) VMware Workstation
9 1 (0.18%) XenDesktop
Systems Management
1 41 (7.37%) Microsoft Intune
2 32 (5.76%) SCCM
3 19 (3.42%) Terraform
4 15 (2.70%) Kubernetes
5 14 (2.52%) Ansible
5 14 (2.52%) Single Sign-On
6 10 (1.80%) vCenter Server
7 9 (1.62%) Grafana
8 7 (1.26%) ServiceCenter
9 5 (0.90%) Check_MK
9 5 (0.90%) Jamf Pro
9 5 (0.90%) Podman
9 5 (0.90%) Prometheus
9 5 (0.90%) Red Hat Satellite
10 3 (0.54%) Active Directory Federation Services
10 3 (0.54%) FortiGate
10 3 (0.54%) Oracle Identity Management
10 3 (0.54%) Oracle Identity Manager
10 3 (0.54%) vMotion
11 2 (0.36%) SCOM
Vendors
1 175 (31.47%) Microsoft
2 98 (17.63%) ServiceNow
3 46 (8.27%) Oracle
4 40 (7.19%) Cisco
4 40 (7.19%) VMware
5 24 (4.32%) Apple
5 24 (4.32%) Remedy
6 23 (4.14%) HP
7 14 (2.52%) Dell
8 13 (2.34%) SAP
9 12 (2.16%) Tenable
10 10 (1.80%) Nokia
11 9 (1.62%) Databricks
11 9 (1.62%) Fortinet
11 9 (1.62%) Salesforce
11 9 (1.62%) Splunk
11 9 (1.62%) Zscaler
12 8 (1.44%) AppDynamics
12 8 (1.44%) Liquidlogic
12 8 (1.44%) Okta