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 8 December 2025, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

 6 months to
8 Dec 2025		 Same period 2024 Same period 2023
Rank 215 211 172
Rank change year-on-year -4 -39 +17
Contract jobs citing SLA 467 426 686
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 1.29% 1.19% 1.51%
As % of the Quality Assurance & Compliance category 7.39% 8.60% 10.43%
Number of daily rates quoted 246 211 342
10th Percentile £171 £148 £148
25th Percentile £209 £185 £199
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £350 £270 £400
Median % change year-on-year +29.63% -32.50% +29.03%
75th Percentile £525 £500 £533
90th Percentile £618 £588 £617
UK excluding London median daily rate £285 £260 £315
% change year-on-year +9.62% -17.46% +36.96%
Number of hourly rates quoted 107 52 58
10th Percentile £16.13 £14.45 £13.00
25th Percentile £17.69 £15.22 £14.16
Median hourly rate £18.87 £24.18 £17.50
Median % change year-on-year -21.96% +38.17% -
75th Percentile £25.13 £29.00 £32.38
90th Percentile £35.83 £48.25 £62.58
UK excluding London median hourly rate £18.50 £23.34 £17.14
% change year-on-year -20.74% +36.17% +1.21%

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 6,319 4,956 6,577
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 17.42% 13.88% 14.46%
Number of daily rates quoted 4,072 2,915 4,399
10th Percentile £313 £263 £313
25th Percentile £405 £381 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £500 £525
Median % change year-on-year - -4.76% -
75th Percentile £601 £623 £640
90th Percentile £700 £725 £750
UK excluding London median daily rate £492 £475 £500
% change year-on-year +3.58% -5.00% +5.26%
Number of hourly rates quoted 309 205 241
10th Percentile £13.60 £13.88 £14.54
25th Percentile £17.69 £17.63 £20.00
Median hourly rate £25.15 £26.50 £35.50
Median % change year-on-year -5.09% -25.35% +56.49%
75th Percentile £56.75 £55.00 £65.00
90th Percentile £75.00 £70.00 £83.11
UK excluding London median hourly rate £21.49 £25.48 £35.50
% change year-on-year -15.68% -28.23% +69.05%

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 8 December 2025.

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 8 December 2025.

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 8 December 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 -5 419 £350 +29.63% 438
UK excluding London -22 324 £285 +9.62% 432
London +14 109 £475 +58.33% 72
Work from Home -15 89 £400 +14.29% 196
South East -29 73 £350 +53.34% 114
East of England +23 67 £313 +5.04% 66
Midlands -34 59 £350 +5.26% 76
North of England -57 59 £260 -22.39% 92
West Midlands -15 47 £365 +62.22% 46
South West +9 46 £275 -42.11% 48
North West -42 27 £285 -36.67% 46
Yorkshire -32 25 £240 +4.14% 36
Scotland +2 13 £335 +59.52% 28
East Midlands -29 12 £134 -72.51% 28
Northern Ireland -12 8 £500 +199.40% 10
North East -1 7 £265 +63.08% 10
Wales -2 3 £183 -48.27% 9

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 18 (3.85%) Microsoft Exchange
2 17 (3.64%) SharePoint
3 4 (0.86%) IIS
4 3 (0.64%) Anypoint
4 3 (0.64%) Confluence
4 3 (0.64%) Tomcat
5 2 (0.43%) Mule
5 2 (0.43%) Oracle Self-Service HR
5 2 (0.43%) Oracle Workflow
6 1 (0.21%) ArcGIS
6 1 (0.21%) GeoServer
6 1 (0.21%) MQSeries
6 1 (0.21%) Oracle Spatial
6 1 (0.21%) WebSphere
6 1 (0.21%) WebSphere Application Server
Applications
1 32 (6.85%) Microsoft Office
2 31 (6.64%) Microsoft Excel
3 28 (6.00%) Spreadsheet
4 5 (1.07%) MS Visio
5 4 (0.86%) Microsoft Project
5 4 (0.86%) Oracle Smart View
6 2 (0.43%) Microsoft PowerPoint
Business Applications
1 14 (3.00%) Oracle EBS
2 7 (1.50%) Oracle General Ledger
2 7 (1.50%) Oracle Subledger Accounting
3 4 (0.86%) Oracle FAH
3 4 (0.86%) Remedy ITSM
3 4 (0.86%) Workday HCM
4 3 (0.64%) iTrent
4 3 (0.64%) Oracle Assets
4 3 (0.64%) Oracle EBS R12
4 3 (0.64%) Oracle Payables
4 3 (0.64%) Oracle Receivables
5 2 (0.43%) Dynamics CRM
5 2 (0.43%) Dynamics GP
5 2 (0.43%) Oracle Cash Management
5 2 (0.43%) Oracle Financials
5 2 (0.43%) Oracle HRMS
5 2 (0.43%) Temenos T24
6 1 (0.21%) SAP Payroll
6 1 (0.21%) SAP S/4HANA
6 1 (0.21%) SAP SD
Cloud Services
1 75 (16.06%) Microsoft 365
2 33 (7.07%) Azure
3 25 (5.35%) AWS
4 10 (2.14%) Entra ID
5 9 (1.93%) SaaS
6 8 (1.71%) Power Platform
7 6 (1.28%) PaaS
8 5 (1.07%) Cloud Computing
8 5 (1.07%) GCP
8 5 (1.07%) IaaS
9 4 (0.86%) GitHub
9 4 (0.86%) GitHub Actions
9 4 (0.86%) OCI
10 3 (0.64%) OneDrive
10 3 (0.64%) Virtual Private Cloud
11 2 (0.43%) Amazon CloudWatch
11 2 (0.43%) Amazon EC2
11 2 (0.43%) Datadog
11 2 (0.43%) Salesforce Service Cloud
11 2 (0.43%) SuccessFactors
Communications & Networking
1 21 (4.50%) WAN
2 19 (4.07%) LAN
3 18 (3.85%) Firewall
3 18 (3.85%) Wireless
4 14 (3.00%) DNS
5 13 (2.78%) PABX
6 12 (2.57%) SD-WAN
7 11 (2.36%) DHCP
7 11 (2.36%) MPLS
7 11 (2.36%) VPN
8 7 (1.50%) BGP
8 7 (1.50%) OSPF
9 6 (1.28%) Network Security
9 6 (1.28%) SDH
9 6 (1.28%) VoIP
10 5 (1.07%) Broadband
10 5 (1.07%) Cisco IOS
10 5 (1.07%) Structured Cabling
10 5 (1.07%) TCP/IP
11 3 (0.64%) Internet
Database & Business Intelligence
1 11 (2.36%) SQL Server
2 6 (1.28%) Oracle Database
2 6 (1.28%) Power BI
3 5 (1.07%) MySQL
3 5 (1.07%) Oracle Reports
4 3 (0.64%) Amazon RDS
4 3 (0.64%) GIS
4 3 (0.64%) OLTP
4 3 (0.64%) PostgreSQL
4 3 (0.64%) SAP HANA
5 2 (0.43%) Data Warehouse
5 2 (0.43%) MongoDB
6 1 (0.21%) Amazon Aurora
6 1 (0.21%) Azure SQL Database
6 1 (0.21%) Geospatial Data
6 1 (0.21%) Metadata
6 1 (0.21%) Oracle Database 12c
6 1 (0.21%) SQL Server Integration Services
6 1 (0.21%) SQL Server Reporting Services
Development Applications
1 10 (2.14%) JIRA
2 6 (1.28%) Postman
3 4 (0.86%) Jenkins
3 4 (0.86%) Visual Studio
4 3 (0.64%) Git
4 3 (0.64%) GitLab
4 3 (0.64%) Selenium
5 2 (0.43%) Cucumber
5 2 (0.43%) Jaeger
5 2 (0.43%) Oracle APEX
5 2 (0.43%) PVCS
5 2 (0.43%) Visual Studio Code
5 2 (0.43%) Zephyr
6 1 (0.21%) LSMW
6 1 (0.21%) Metasploit
6 1 (0.21%) TestDirector
General
1 206 (44.11%) Social Skills
2 92 (19.70%) Finance
3 61 (13.06%) Analytical Skills
4 52 (11.13%) Public Sector
5 32 (6.85%) Telecoms
6 29 (6.21%) Banking
7 23 (4.93%) Legal
8 18 (3.85%) Organisational Skills
9 15 (3.21%) Retail
10 14 (3.00%) Documentation Skills
11 9 (1.93%) Financial Institution
11 9 (1.93%) Inclusion and Diversity
11 9 (1.93%) Manufacturing
11 9 (1.93%) Marketing
12 6 (1.28%) Law
12 6 (1.28%) Local Government
12 6 (1.28%) Military
12 6 (1.28%) Police
13 4 (0.86%) General Ledger
13 4 (0.86%) Influencing Skills
Job Titles
1 71 (15.20%) Analyst
2 63 (13.49%) IT Support
3 48 (10.28%) Lead
4 34 (7.28%) Support Engineer
5 32 (6.85%) Desktop Support
5 32 (6.85%) Support Analyst
6 26 (5.57%) Senior
7 24 (5.14%) Team Leader
8 22 (4.71%) Service Manager
9 18 (3.85%) Administrator
9 18 (3.85%) Consultant
9 18 (3.85%) Delivery Manager
9 18 (3.85%) Service Analyst
10 17 (3.64%) IT Engineer
10 17 (3.64%) IT Manager
10 17 (3.64%) Technical Support
11 16 (3.43%) Desktop Engineer
11 16 (3.43%) Developer
12 15 (3.21%) Applications Support
13 14 (3.00%) Service Delivery Manager
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 4 (0.86%) CSS
1 4 (0.86%) Elastic Stack
1 4 (0.86%) RESTful
2 3 (0.64%) HTML
2 3 (0.64%) Kafka
2 3 (0.64%) Lightning Web Components
2 3 (0.64%) Middleware
2 3 (0.64%) Node.js
2 3 (0.64%) Oracle Fusion
2 3 (0.64%) RAML
2 3 (0.64%) XML
3 2 (0.43%) .NET
3 2 (0.43%) Gherkin
3 2 (0.43%) OAuth
3 2 (0.43%) OAuth2
3 2 (0.43%) OpenID
3 2 (0.43%) SAML
3 2 (0.43%) SOAP
3 2 (0.43%) Universal Windows Platform
4 1 (0.21%) IDoc
Miscellaneous
1 26 (5.57%) Management Information System
2 23 (4.93%) Driving Licence
3 22 (4.71%) Self-Motivation
4 20 (4.28%) Data Centre
5 19 (4.07%) Onboarding
6 13 (2.78%) Smartphone
7 10 (2.14%) Product Ownership
8 6 (1.28%) Analytical Mindset
8 6 (1.28%) Derivative
8 6 (1.28%) Enterprise Cloud
9 5 (1.07%) CMDB
9 5 (1.07%) NHS
9 5 (1.07%) Security Posture
9 5 (1.07%) Video Conferencing
10 4 (0.86%) Cloud Native
10 4 (0.86%) Clustering
10 4 (0.86%) Distributed Systems
10 4 (0.86%) Mobile App
10 4 (0.86%) Public Cloud
10 4 (0.86%) Security Operations Centre
Operating Systems
1 87 (18.63%) Windows
2 35 (7.49%) Windows 10
3 21 (4.50%) Android
4 18 (3.85%) Mac OS
5 14 (3.00%) Apple iOS
5 14 (3.00%) Windows Server
6 12 (2.57%) Linux
7 10 (2.14%) Unix
8 3 (0.64%) Mac OS X
8 3 (0.64%) Windows 7
9 2 (0.43%) Windows 8
9 2 (0.43%) Windows Server 2012
Processes & Methodologies
1 136 (29.12%) ITIL
2 115 (24.63%) Customer Service
3 87 (18.63%) Service Delivery
4 71 (15.20%) Problem-Solving
5 70 (14.99%) Continuous Improvement
6 57 (12.21%) Service Management
7 53 (11.35%) Time Management
8 49 (10.49%) ITSM
9 42 (8.99%) Change Management
9 42 (8.99%) Stakeholder Management
10 41 (8.78%) Agile
11 37 (7.92%) Incident Management
12 27 (5.78%) Root Cause Analysis
13 24 (5.14%) Cybersecurity
13 24 (5.14%) Roadmaps
14 23 (4.93%) Customer Experience
14 23 (4.93%) Process Improvement
15 22 (4.71%) Line Management
15 22 (4.71%) Mentoring
16 21 (4.50%) User Experience
Programming Languages
1 23 (4.93%) Python
1 23 (4.93%) SQL
2 12 (2.57%) PowerShell
3 10 (2.14%) Java
4 7 (1.50%) Shell Script
5 5 (1.07%) JavaScript
6 4 (0.86%) Bash
6 4 (0.86%) PL/SQL
7 3 (0.64%) Apex Code
7 3 (0.64%) C#
7 3 (0.64%) C++
8 2 (0.43%) Kusto Query Language
8 2 (0.43%) Ruby
9 1 (0.21%) ABAP
9 1 (0.21%) Bicep
9 1 (0.21%) Go
9 1 (0.21%) SOQL
9 1 (0.21%) T-SQL
Qualifications
1 139 (29.76%) Security Cleared
2 107 (22.91%) SC Cleared
3 37 (7.92%) Degree
4 27 (5.78%) DV Cleared
5 13 (2.78%) BPSS Clearance
6 12 (2.57%) MOS
7 11 (2.36%) ITIL Certification
7 11 (2.36%) ITIL Foundation Certificate
8 10 (2.14%) Cisco Certification
8 10 (2.14%) PMI Certification
9 8 (1.71%) Microsoft Certification
10 7 (1.50%) PMP
11 6 (1.28%) CCNP
11 6 (1.28%) Computer Science Degree
12 4 (0.86%) CEH
12 4 (0.86%) CISSP
13 3 (0.64%) Azure Certification
13 3 (0.64%) CISM
13 3 (0.64%) DBS Check
13 3 (0.64%) HNC
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 15 (3.21%) GDPR
2 13 (2.78%) ISO/IEC 27001
3 12 (2.57%) QA
4 8 (1.71%) NIST
5 6 (1.28%) Data Quality
6 5 (1.07%) PMO
6 5 (1.07%) Sarbanes-Oxley
7 4 (0.86%) PCI DSS
8 3 (0.64%) Cyber Essentials
8 3 (0.64%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
8 3 (0.64%) GRC
9 2 (0.43%) COBIT
9 2 (0.43%) ISO 9001
9 2 (0.43%) ISO/IEC 20000
9 2 (0.43%) NIST 800
9 2 (0.43%) PSD2
10 1 (0.21%) Accessibility
10 1 (0.21%) ISO/IEC 27002 (supersedes ISO/IEC 17799)
System Software
1 41 (8.78%) Active Directory
2 6 (1.28%) VMware Infrastructure
3 4 (0.86%) Virtual Machines
3 4 (0.86%) vSphere
4 3 (0.64%) Docker
4 3 (0.64%) Firmware
4 3 (0.64%) Hyper-V
5 2 (0.43%) BitLocker
5 2 (0.43%) VMware ESXi
6 1 (0.21%) DFS Replication
6 1 (0.21%) Virtual Desktop
Systems Management
1 19 (4.07%) SCCM
2 14 (3.00%) Microsoft Intune
3 6 (1.28%) Grafana
3 6 (1.28%) Kubernetes
3 6 (1.28%) SCOM
4 5 (1.07%) Ansible
4 5 (1.07%) Prometheus
4 5 (1.07%) Terraform
5 4 (0.86%) Single Sign-On
6 3 (0.64%) FortiGate
6 3 (0.64%) RSA Archer
6 3 (0.64%) WSUS
7 2 (0.43%) Argo
7 2 (0.43%) Microsoft Clustering
7 2 (0.43%) NetApp OnCommand
7 2 (0.43%) vCenter Server
7 2 (0.43%) vMotion
8 1 (0.21%) CA Spectrum
8 1 (0.21%) Computer Emergency Response Teams
8 1 (0.21%) SysTrack
Vendors
1 112 (23.98%) Microsoft
2 42 (8.99%) Cisco
3 41 (8.78%) ServiceNow
4 37 (7.92%) Oracle
5 24 (5.14%) HP
6 23 (4.93%) Dell
6 23 (4.93%) SAP
7 20 (4.28%) Apple
8 13 (2.78%) Juniper
9 11 (2.36%) VMware
10 10 (2.14%) Google
11 7 (1.50%) Fortinet
11 7 (1.50%) Splunk
11 7 (1.50%) Workday
12 6 (1.28%) Remedy
13 5 (1.07%) Citrix
13 5 (1.07%) IBM
14 4 (0.86%) BMC
14 4 (0.86%) Nokia
14 4 (0.86%) Salesforce
490 SLA jobs Nationwide