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

6 months to
21 Jul 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 244 197 159
Rank change year-on-year -47 -38 +30
Contract jobs citing SLA 555 467 641
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 1.05% 1.43% 1.55%
As % of the Quality Assurance & Compliance category 6.20% 8.58% 11.20%
Number of daily rates quoted 310 271 304
10th Percentile £200 £200 £156
25th Percentile £275 £220 £200
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £450 £350 £340
Median % change year-on-year +28.57% +2.94% +4.62%
75th Percentile £520 £544 £500
90th Percentile £600 £613 £587
UK excluding London median daily rate £439 £298 £275
% change year-on-year +47.48% +8.18% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 80 61 83
10th Percentile £13.67 £16.00 £11.20
25th Percentile £17.55 £17.55 £12.88
Median hourly rate £18.79 £22.14 £16.25
Median % change year-on-year -15.13% +36.25% -11.50%
75th Percentile £21.22 £25.15 £23.80
90th Percentile £27.86 £33.75 £26.15
UK excluding London median hourly rate £18.50 £22.14 £14.60
% change year-on-year -16.44% +51.64% -19.89%

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 8,956 5,440 5,722
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 16.99% 16.69% 13.85%
Number of daily rates quoted 5,722 3,502 3,542
10th Percentile £336 £279 £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 £623
90th Percentile £700 £715 £738
UK excluding London median daily rate £500 £471 £475
% change year-on-year +6.27% -0.94% -4.71%
Number of hourly rates quoted 544 241 375
10th Percentile £14.00 £13.60 £11.53
25th Percentile £19.43 £17.55 £14.00
Median hourly rate £38.72 £28.18 £25.00
Median % change year-on-year +37.40% +12.72% -35.42%
75th Percentile £69.81 £62.24 £53.38
90th Percentile £82.25 £83.41 £70.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £38.72 £25.83 £25.00
% change year-on-year +49.93% +3.30% -28.57%

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 21 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 21 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 21 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 -59 463 £450 +20.00% 222
UK excluding London -75 339 £439 +47.48% 185
London -25 188 £475 +18.75% 66
Work from Home -18 133 £475 +18.75% 57
South East -84 81 £468 +87.00% 80
North of England -58 72 £436 +51.61% 29
Scotland +25 57 £358 +43.20% 11
Midlands -58 54 £269 -28.33% 19
West Midlands -65 45 £269 -28.33% 14
East of England +1 42 £510 +126.67% 34
North West -31 40 £435 +33.85% 19
Yorkshire -54 30 £444 +77.15% 7
South West -50 25 £400 +35.59% 16
Wales -11 12 £525 +100.00% 6
East Midlands -11 8 £363 - 5
Northern Ireland +3 2 £175 -
North East -41 2 £280 - 3

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 30 (5.41%) SharePoint
2 15 (2.70%) 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%) Apache
8 2 (0.36%) ArcGIS
8 2 (0.36%) Exchange Server 2010
8 2 (0.36%) Mule
9 1 (0.18%) Apache Spark
9 1 (0.18%) JBoss
9 1 (0.18%) LiveCycle
9 1 (0.18%) Oracle Workflow
9 1 (0.18%) Smallworld
Applications
1 48 (8.65%) Microsoft Office
2 37 (6.67%) Microsoft Excel
3 9 (1.62%) 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 16 (2.88%) Remedy ITSM
2 8 (1.44%) ContrOCC
3 5 (0.90%) Dynamics CRM
3 5 (0.90%) Oracle Applications
3 5 (0.90%) Oracle Assets
3 5 (0.90%) Oracle Payables
3 5 (0.90%) Oracle Procure-to-Pay
4 4 (0.72%) Oracle General Ledger
4 4 (0.72%) Oracle Receivables
4 4 (0.72%) Oracle Subledger Accounting
5 3 (0.54%) Oracle Cash Management
6 2 (0.36%) Dynamics GP
6 2 (0.36%) IntelliMatch
6 2 (0.36%) Oracle EBS
6 2 (0.36%) Oracle ERP
6 2 (0.36%) Payment Gateway
7 1 (0.18%) OpenText VIM for SAP
7 1 (0.18%) Oracle Financials
7 1 (0.18%) SAP S/4HANA
7 1 (0.18%) Unit4 Business World
Cloud Services
1 99 (17.84%) Azure
2 88 (15.86%) Microsoft 365
3 49 (8.83%) AWS
4 43 (7.75%) Entra ID
5 27 (4.86%) Power Platform
6 20 (3.60%) OneDrive
7 17 (3.06%) SaaS
8 16 (2.88%) Azure DevOps
8 16 (2.88%) Datadog
9 14 (2.52%) Amazon S3
9 14 (2.52%) IaaS
10 13 (2.34%) PaaS
11 12 (2.16%) 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
14 8 (1.44%) Amazon CloudWatch
14 8 (1.44%) AWS CloudFormation
15 6 (1.08%) dbt
Communications & Networking
1 35 (6.31%) DNS
2 30 (5.41%) DHCP
3 29 (5.23%) VPN
4 23 (4.14%) WAN
5 22 (3.96%) LAN
6 21 (3.78%) Firewall
6 21 (3.78%) Wi-Fi
7 17 (3.06%) Network Security
8 16 (2.88%) TCP/IP
9 15 (2.70%) SAN
10 11 (1.98%) SDH
11 10 (1.80%) Cisco IOS
11 10 (1.80%) MPLS
12 8 (1.44%) Cisco ASA
12 8 (1.44%) Radio Access Network
12 8 (1.44%) VLAN
13 7 (1.26%) 5G
13 7 (1.26%) LTE
14 6 (1.08%) Diameter Protocol
14 6 (1.08%) VoWiFi
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%) MySQL
6 5 (0.90%) Pentaho
7 4 (0.72%) Amazon RDS
7 4 (0.72%) PostgreSQL
7 4 (0.72%) Relational Database
8 3 (0.54%) Amazon Athena
8 3 (0.54%) Big Data
8 3 (0.54%) Data Lake
8 3 (0.54%) Db2
8 3 (0.54%) SQL Server Reporting Services
9 2 (0.36%) GIS
9 2 (0.36%) Oracle Database 10g
9 2 (0.36%) Oracle Database 11g
10 1 (0.18%) Data Warehouse
10 1 (0.18%) Sybase ASE
Development Applications
1 47 (8.47%) JIRA
2 10 (1.80%) GitLab
3 8 (1.44%) Chocolatey
3 8 (1.44%) Git
3 8 (1.44%) Jenkins
4 4 (0.72%) Maven
5 3 (0.54%) Visual Studio
6 2 (0.36%) Artifactory
6 2 (0.36%) Toad
7 1 (0.18%) Bitbucket
7 1 (0.18%) JMeter
7 1 (0.18%) SQL Server Management Studio (SSMS)
7 1 (0.18%) WiX
General
1 242 (43.60%) Social Skills
2 106 (19.10%) Finance
3 95 (17.12%) Analytical Skills
4 41 (7.39%) Public Sector
5 31 (5.59%) Banking
6 27 (4.86%) Organisational Skills
7 25 (4.50%) Telecoms
8 23 (4.14%) Documentation Skills
9 21 (3.78%) Legal
10 16 (2.88%) Inclusion and Diversity
11 14 (2.52%) Local Government
11 14 (2.52%) Retail
12 11 (1.98%) Billing
13 9 (1.62%) Manufacturing
14 8 (1.44%) Financial Institution
14 8 (1.44%) Influencing Skills
15 6 (1.08%) Aerospace
15 6 (1.08%) Marketing
16 4 (0.72%) Aviation
17 3 (0.54%) Presentation Skills
Job Titles
1 77 (13.87%) Analyst
2 47 (8.47%) IT Support
3 45 (8.11%) Support Engineer
4 38 (6.85%) Senior
5 33 (5.95%) Lead
5 33 (5.95%) Service Manager
6 28 (5.05%) IT Engineer
7 27 (4.86%) Service Analyst
8 21 (3.78%) Administrator
8 21 (3.78%) Consultant
8 21 (3.78%) Delivery Manager
9 19 (3.42%) Network Engineer
10 18 (3.24%) Azure Engineer
10 18 (3.24%) Desktop Support
10 18 (3.24%) IT Support Engineer
10 18 (3.24%) Service Delivery Manager
11 17 (3.06%) Applications Support
11 17 (3.06%) Service Desk Analyst
12 16 (2.88%) Field Engineer
12 16 (2.88%) Technical Support
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 12 (2.16%) .NET
2 11 (1.98%) REST
3 9 (1.62%) Oracle Fusion
4 8 (1.44%) LDAP
5 7 (1.26%) Web Services
5 7 (1.26%) XML
6 5 (0.90%) ARM Templates
6 5 (0.90%) AWS CDK
6 5 (0.90%) Jakarta EE
6 5 (0.90%) Middleware
6 5 (0.90%) SOAP
6 5 (0.90%) Software Packaging
7 4 (0.72%) .NET Framework
7 4 (0.72%) Bootstrap
7 4 (0.72%) jQuery
7 4 (0.72%) JSON
7 4 (0.72%) RESTful
7 4 (0.72%) Sass
7 4 (0.72%) Spring
7 4 (0.72%) Spring MVC
Miscellaneous
1 55 (9.91%) Onboarding
2 30 (5.41%) Data Centre
3 21 (3.78%) CMDB
4 14 (2.52%) Enterprise Software
5 11 (1.98%) PKI
5 11 (1.98%) Product Ownership
6 10 (1.80%) Cyber Threat
6 10 (1.80%) Driving Licence
6 10 (1.80%) Smartphone
7 9 (1.62%) Cloud Native
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 7 (1.26%) iPhone
10 6 (1.08%) Fibre Optics
10 6 (1.08%) Management Information System
11 5 (0.90%) Analytical Mindset
11 5 (0.90%) Enterprise Cloud
11 5 (0.90%) IoT
Operating Systems
1 136 (24.50%) Windows
2 49 (8.83%) Windows 10
3 33 (5.95%) Linux
4 26 (4.68%) Windows Server
5 22 (3.96%) Android
6 15 (2.70%) Unix
7 9 (1.62%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
8 7 (1.26%) Mac OS
9 4 (0.72%) Apple iOS
9 4 (0.72%) CentOS
9 4 (0.72%) Windows 7
9 4 (0.72%) Windows Server 2012
10 3 (0.54%) Windows XP
11 2 (0.36%) Windows Server 2019
12 1 (0.18%) Solaris
12 1 (0.18%) Ubuntu
12 1 (0.18%) Windows Server 2003
12 1 (0.18%) Windows Server 2016
Processes & Methodologies
1 198 (35.68%) ITIL
2 125 (22.52%) ITSM
3 118 (21.26%) Problem-Solving
4 116 (20.90%) Continuous Improvement
5 109 (19.64%) Customer Service
6 104 (18.74%) Stakeholder Management
7 99 (17.84%) Service Management
8 93 (16.76%) Change Management
9 90 (16.22%) Service Delivery
10 74 (13.33%) Agile
11 67 (12.07%) Root Cause Analysis
12 52 (9.37%) Incident Management
12 52 (9.37%) Problem Management
13 47 (8.47%) Migration
13 47 (8.47%) Stakeholder Engagement
14 39 (7.03%) Asset Management
14 39 (7.03%) Roadmaps
14 39 (7.03%) Validation
15 37 (6.67%) Project Management
15 37 (6.67%) Time Management
Programming Languages
1 45 (8.11%) SQL
2 37 (6.67%) PowerShell
3 34 (6.13%) Python
4 17 (3.06%) Bash
5 8 (1.44%) JavaScript
6 7 (1.26%) PL/SQL
7 6 (1.08%) Java
8 5 (0.90%) C#
8 5 (0.90%) Shell Script
9 4 (0.72%) Bicep
9 4 (0.72%) MATLAB
10 2 (0.36%) DataWeave
10 2 (0.36%) Korn
10 2 (0.36%) Scala
10 2 (0.36%) X++
11 1 (0.18%) ActionScript
11 1 (0.18%) Apex Code
11 1 (0.18%) Groovy
11 1 (0.18%) VB
11 1 (0.18%) VBScript
Qualifications
1 125 (22.52%) Security Cleared
2 98 (17.66%) SC Cleared
3 48 (8.65%) Degree
4 21 (3.78%) DV Cleared
5 19 (3.42%) Microsoft Certification
6 18 (3.24%) ITIL Certification
7 17 (3.06%) BPSS Clearance
8 16 (2.88%) Cisco Certification
9 13 (2.34%) ITIL Foundation Certificate
10 10 (1.80%) CCNP
11 9 (1.62%) PMI Certification
12 8 (1.44%) MCSE
13 7 (1.26%) Azure Certification
13 7 (1.26%) CCNA
14 6 (1.08%) A+ Certification
14 6 (1.08%) CCSE
15 5 (0.90%) CISSP
15 5 (0.90%) Computer Science Degree
15 5 (0.90%) Master's Degree
15 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%) Disclosure Scotland
12 1 (0.18%) NCSC
System Software
1 90 (16.22%) 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%) ACF2
8 2 (0.36%) Oracle RAC
8 2 (0.36%) RACF
9 1 (0.18%) BitLocker
9 1 (0.18%) Ceph
9 1 (0.18%) Firmware
9 1 (0.18%) Virtual Servers
9 1 (0.18%) VMware Workstation
9 1 (0.18%) XenDesktop
Systems Management
1 44 (7.93%) Microsoft Intune
2 32 (5.77%) SCCM
3 19 (3.42%) Terraform
4 15 (2.70%) Kubernetes
5 14 (2.52%) Single Sign-On
6 13 (2.34%) Ansible
7 10 (1.80%) vCenter Server
8 9 (1.62%) Grafana
9 7 (1.26%) ServiceCenter
10 5 (0.90%) Jamf Pro
10 5 (0.90%) Prometheus
11 4 (0.72%) Check_MK
11 4 (0.72%) Podman
11 4 (0.72%) Red Hat Satellite
12 3 (0.54%) Active Directory Federation Services
12 3 (0.54%) FortiGate
12 3 (0.54%) Oracle Identity Management
12 3 (0.54%) Oracle Identity Manager
12 3 (0.54%) vMotion
13 2 (0.36%) AirWatch
Vendors
1 178 (32.07%) Microsoft
2 103 (18.56%) ServiceNow
3 43 (7.75%) Cisco
4 42 (7.57%) Oracle
5 41 (7.39%) VMware
6 24 (4.32%) Apple
6 24 (4.32%) HP
7 21 (3.78%) Remedy
8 14 (2.52%) Dell
9 13 (2.34%) SAP
10 12 (2.16%) Tenable
11 11 (1.98%) Nokia
11 11 (1.98%) Zscaler
12 9 (1.62%) Databricks
12 9 (1.62%) Fortinet
12 9 (1.62%) Salesforce
12 9 (1.62%) Splunk
13 8 (1.44%) AppDynamics
13 8 (1.44%) Liquidlogic
13 8 (1.44%) Okta