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

 6 months to
16 Jan 2026		 Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 217 207 157
Rank change year-on-year -10 -50 +23
Contract jobs citing SLA 479 417 663
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 1.29% 1.31% 1.56%
As % of the Quality Assurance & Compliance category 7.44% 9.12% 10.81%
Number of daily rates quoted 256 217 330
10th Percentile £171 £148 £148
25th Percentile £255 £192 £192
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £411 £260 £400
Median % change year-on-year +58.17% -35.00% +33.33%
75th Percentile £538 £500 £513
90th Percentile £625 £588 £635
UK excluding London median daily rate £350 £261 £300
% change year-on-year +34.10% -13.00% +31.87%
Number of hourly rates quoted 116 43 68
10th Percentile £16.25 £14.70 £12.83
25th Percentile £17.69 £19.05 £13.32
Median hourly rate £18.50 £24.18 £17.83
Median % change year-on-year -23.49% +35.60% +1.90%
75th Percentile £20.35 £26.13 £33.75
90th Percentile £30.16 £36.19 £62.58
UK excluding London median hourly rate £18.50 £24.18 £16.00
% change year-on-year -23.49% +51.13% -5.52%

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 6,437 4,570 6,134
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 17.31% 14.34% 14.40%
Number of daily rates quoted 4,173 2,692 4,073
10th Percentile £313 £260 £313
25th Percentile £406 £375 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £500 £525
Median % change year-on-year - -4.76% -
75th Percentile £600 £624 £644
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 308 175 247
10th Percentile £15.29 £15.00 £13.11
25th Percentile £17.69 £21.02 £17.13
Median hourly rate £25.15 £29.00 £32.50
Median % change year-on-year -13.28% -10.77% +35.42%
75th Percentile £61.25 £64.73 £60.00
90th Percentile £70.86 £75.00 £79.41
UK excluding London median hourly rate £20.36 £29.00 £30.00
% change year-on-year -29.81% -3.33% +36.36%

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 January 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 January 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 January 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 -17 432 £405 +55.77% 208
UK excluding London -23 335 £350 +34.10% 205
London +7 114 £475 +90.00% 36
Work from Home -23 98 £425 +76.17% 49
East of England +36 93 £435 +84.32% 31
South East -46 63 £418 +67.00% 70
North of England -53 62 £293 -1.68% 34
Midlands -56 49 £198 -16.84% 41
South West -2 45 £283 -48.64% 16
West Midlands -37 38 £225 +5.88% 22
North West -39 32 £300 -30.23% 15
Yorkshire -40 23 £365 +52.08% 15
Scotland +6 17 £360 +71.43% 13
East Midlands -37 11 £134 -61.71% 18
Northern Ireland -4 7 £500 +237.84% 1
North East -9 7 £265 +0.95% 4
Wales 0 3 £183 -16.82% 6

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 21 (4.38%) SharePoint
2 20 (4.18%) Microsoft Exchange
3 5 (1.04%) Confluence
4 4 (0.84%) Oracle Workflow
5 3 (0.63%) Tomcat
6 2 (0.42%) IIS
7 1 (0.21%) ArcGIS
7 1 (0.21%) GeoServer
7 1 (0.21%) MQSeries
7 1 (0.21%) Oracle Spatial
7 1 (0.21%) WebSphere
7 1 (0.21%) WebSphere Application Server
Applications
1 45 (9.39%) Microsoft Excel
2 38 (7.93%) Spreadsheet
3 31 (6.47%) Microsoft Office
4 7 (1.46%) MS Visio
5 4 (0.84%) Microsoft PowerPoint
5 4 (0.84%) Microsoft Project
5 4 (0.84%) Oracle Smart View
Business Applications
1 14 (2.92%) Oracle EBS
1 14 (2.92%) Oracle Subledger Accounting
2 9 (1.88%) Oracle Payables
3 7 (1.46%) Oracle Assets
3 7 (1.46%) Oracle General Ledger
4 5 (1.04%) Oracle Receivables
5 4 (0.84%) Oracle ERP
5 4 (0.84%) Oracle FAH
5 4 (0.84%) Remedy ITSM
5 4 (0.84%) Workday HCM
6 3 (0.63%) Oracle EBS R12
7 2 (0.42%) Dynamics CRM
7 2 (0.42%) Dynamics GP
7 2 (0.42%) Oracle Cash Management
7 2 (0.42%) Oracle E-Business Tax
7 2 (0.42%) Oracle Financials
7 2 (0.42%) Temenos T24
8 1 (0.21%) iTrent
8 1 (0.21%) SAP Payroll
8 1 (0.21%) Veritas eDiscovery
Cloud Services
1 66 (13.78%) Microsoft 365
2 44 (9.19%) Azure
3 31 (6.47%) AWS
4 13 (2.71%) GCP
5 12 (2.51%) Entra ID
6 9 (1.88%) Power Platform
7 8 (1.67%) SaaS
8 7 (1.46%) GitHub
8 7 (1.46%) IaaS
9 6 (1.25%) OCI
9 6 (1.25%) PaaS
10 5 (1.04%) Cloud Computing
10 5 (1.04%) GitHub Actions
10 5 (1.04%) OpenShift
11 3 (0.63%) AWS CloudFormation
11 3 (0.63%) AWS KMS
11 3 (0.63%) OneDrive
11 3 (0.63%) Virtual Private Cloud
12 2 (0.42%) Amazon CloudWatch
12 2 (0.42%) Azure DevOps
Communications & Networking
1 27 (5.64%) Firewall
2 25 (5.22%) WAN
3 19 (3.97%) DNS
4 17 (3.55%) SD-WAN
5 14 (2.92%) VPN
5 14 (2.92%) Wireless
6 13 (2.71%) MPLS
6 13 (2.71%) PABX
7 12 (2.51%) DHCP
7 12 (2.51%) LAN
8 8 (1.67%) BGP
8 8 (1.67%) OSPF
8 8 (1.67%) TCP/IP
9 7 (1.46%) Cisco ASA
10 6 (1.25%) Broadband
10 6 (1.25%) Network Security
10 6 (1.25%) SDH
10 6 (1.25%) VLAN
11 5 (1.04%) IPsec
11 5 (1.04%) SAN
Database & Business Intelligence
1 9 (1.88%) SQL Server
2 8 (1.67%) PostgreSQL
3 7 (1.46%) Oracle Database
3 7 (1.46%) Power BI
4 6 (1.25%) MongoDB
5 5 (1.04%) MySQL
6 3 (0.63%) Amazon RDS
6 3 (0.63%) Relational Database
6 3 (0.63%) SAP HANA
7 2 (0.42%) GIS
7 2 (0.42%) Oracle Reports
8 1 (0.21%) Amazon Aurora
8 1 (0.21%) Azure SQL Database
8 1 (0.21%) Data Warehouse
8 1 (0.21%) Metadata
8 1 (0.21%) Oracle Database 12c
8 1 (0.21%) SQL Server Integration Services
8 1 (0.21%) SQL Server Reporting Services
Development Applications
1 15 (3.13%) Jenkins
2 14 (2.92%) GitLab
2 14 (2.92%) JIRA
3 12 (2.51%) Git
4 5 (1.04%) Postman
4 5 (1.04%) Visual Studio
5 3 (0.63%) CircleCI
6 2 (0.42%) Jaeger
6 2 (0.42%) PVCS
7 1 (0.21%) Metasploit
7 1 (0.21%) Selenium
7 1 (0.21%) TestDirector
General
1 218 (45.51%) Social Skills
2 97 (20.25%) Finance
3 60 (12.53%) Analytical Skills
4 55 (11.48%) Public Sector
5 32 (6.68%) Banking
6 30 (6.26%) Telecoms
7 29 (6.05%) Organisational Skills
8 22 (4.59%) Legal
9 21 (4.38%) Documentation Skills
10 13 (2.71%) Retail
11 9 (1.88%) Financial Institution
11 9 (1.88%) Manufacturing
12 8 (1.67%) Aerospace
12 8 (1.67%) Investment Banking
12 8 (1.67%) Law
13 7 (1.46%) Marketing
14 6 (1.25%) Inclusion and Diversity
14 6 (1.25%) Influencing Skills
15 5 (1.04%) Local Government
16 4 (0.84%) Presentation Skills
Job Titles
1 78 (16.28%) IT Support
2 67 (13.99%) Analyst
3 47 (9.81%) Lead
4 35 (7.31%) Desktop Support
5 31 (6.47%) Administrator
5 31 (6.47%) Support Engineer
6 26 (5.43%) Support Analyst
7 25 (5.22%) Service Manager
8 24 (5.01%) Technical Support
9 21 (4.38%) Service Analyst
9 21 (4.38%) Team Leader
10 20 (4.18%) Consultant
10 20 (4.18%) Senior
11 17 (3.55%) Desktop Engineer
12 16 (3.34%) IT Administrator
12 16 (3.34%) Service Desk Analyst
13 15 (3.13%) IT Manager
14 14 (2.92%) Developer
15 13 (2.71%) Applications Support
15 13 (2.71%) Desktop Support Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 9 (1.88%) Middleware
2 8 (1.67%) Oracle Fusion
3 6 (1.25%) Kafka
3 6 (1.25%) LDAP
4 4 (0.84%) 802.1X
4 4 (0.84%) REST
5 2 (0.42%) .NET
5 2 (0.42%) CSS
5 2 (0.42%) Elastic Stack
5 2 (0.42%) Node.js
5 2 (0.42%) OAuth
5 2 (0.42%) OAuth2
5 2 (0.42%) OpenID
5 2 (0.42%) RESTful
5 2 (0.42%) SAML
5 2 (0.42%) Universal Windows Platform
6 1 (0.21%) ASP.NET
6 1 (0.21%) ASP.NET MVC
6 1 (0.21%) HTML
6 1 (0.21%) SAP PI
Miscellaneous
1 31 (6.47%) Management Information System
2 27 (5.64%) Onboarding
3 20 (4.18%) Data Centre
3 20 (4.18%) Self-Motivation
4 16 (3.34%) Driving Licence
5 15 (3.13%) Smartphone
6 13 (2.71%) Product Ownership
7 9 (1.88%) Analytical Mindset
8 7 (1.46%) Public Cloud
9 6 (1.25%) CMDB
9 6 (1.25%) Enterprise Cloud
9 6 (1.25%) Equities
10 5 (1.04%) Cloud Native
10 5 (1.04%) Data Protection Act
10 5 (1.04%) Derivative
10 5 (1.04%) Enterprise Software
10 5 (1.04%) NHS
11 4 (0.84%) Operational Technology
11 4 (0.84%) Security Operations Centre
11 4 (0.84%) Security Posture
Operating Systems
1 95 (19.83%) Windows
2 30 (6.26%) Linux
2 30 (6.26%) Windows 10
3 19 (3.97%) Unix
4 17 (3.55%) Windows Server
5 16 (3.34%) Android
6 12 (2.51%) Apple iOS
7 10 (2.09%) Mac OS
8 6 (1.25%) CentOS
8 6 (1.25%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
9 3 (0.63%) Windows 7
10 2 (0.42%) Windows 8
10 2 (0.42%) Windows Server 2012
11 1 (0.21%) Mac OS X
11 1 (0.21%) Windows XP
Processes & Methodologies
1 142 (29.65%) ITIL
2 115 (24.01%) Customer Service
3 92 (19.21%) Service Delivery
4 71 (14.82%) Time Management
5 63 (13.15%) Continuous Improvement
6 54 (11.27%) ITSM
7 51 (10.65%) Problem-Solving
8 49 (10.23%) Service Management
9 44 (9.19%) Stakeholder Management
10 43 (8.98%) Change Management
11 39 (8.14%) Incident Management
12 38 (7.93%) Agile
12 38 (7.93%) Root Cause Analysis
13 32 (6.68%) Asset Management
14 30 (6.26%) Roadmaps
15 25 (5.22%) Customer Experience
15 25 (5.22%) Cybersecurity
15 25 (5.22%) Problem Management
16 24 (5.01%) DevOps
16 24 (5.01%) Process Improvement
Programming Languages
1 27 (5.64%) SQL
2 24 (5.01%) Python
3 20 (4.18%) Shell Script
4 15 (3.13%) PowerShell
5 10 (2.09%) Java
6 6 (1.25%) Bash
6 6 (1.25%) MATLAB
7 4 (0.84%) C++
7 4 (0.84%) PL/SQL
8 3 (0.63%) Go
8 3 (0.63%) JavaScript
9 2 (0.42%) Kusto Query Language
10 1 (0.21%) Bicep
10 1 (0.21%) C#
10 1 (0.21%) T-SQL
Qualifications
1 135 (28.18%) Security Cleared
2 109 (22.76%) SC Cleared
3 32 (6.68%) Degree
4 20 (4.18%) DV Cleared
5 13 (2.71%) ITIL Certification
6 12 (2.51%) BPSS Clearance
7 11 (2.30%) ITIL Foundation Certificate
7 11 (2.30%) MOS
8 7 (1.46%) Microsoft Certification
8 7 (1.46%) PMI Certification
9 6 (1.25%) Cisco Certification
10 4 (0.84%) CCNP
10 4 (0.84%) DBS Check
10 4 (0.84%) PMP
11 3 (0.63%) Azure Certification
11 3 (0.63%) CCA
11 3 (0.63%) Computer Science Degree
11 3 (0.63%) Numerate Degree
12 2 (0.42%) CCIE
12 2 (0.42%) CISSP
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 18 (3.76%) GDPR
2 16 (3.34%) ISO/IEC 27001
3 9 (1.88%) Data Quality
4 7 (1.46%) QA
4 7 (1.46%) Sarbanes-Oxley
5 5 (1.04%) NIST
5 5 (1.04%) PMO
6 4 (0.84%) PCI DSS
7 3 (0.63%) COBIT
7 3 (0.63%) GRC
8 2 (0.42%) ISO/IEC 20000
8 2 (0.42%) NIST 800
8 2 (0.42%) PSD2
9 1 (0.21%) Cyber Essentials
9 1 (0.21%) ISO 9001
9 1 (0.21%) ISO/IEC 42001
System Software
1 48 (10.02%) Active Directory
2 9 (1.88%) Docker
2 9 (1.88%) VMware Infrastructure
3 6 (1.25%) vSphere
4 4 (0.84%) Firmware
4 4 (0.84%) Hyper-V
5 3 (0.63%) DFS Replication
5 3 (0.63%) Virtual Machines
6 2 (0.42%) BitLocker
6 2 (0.42%) VMware ESXi
7 1 (0.21%) Oracle RAC
Systems Management
1 15 (3.13%) Ansible
1 15 (3.13%) Microsoft Intune
1 15 (3.13%) SCCM
2 12 (2.51%) Kubernetes
3 10 (2.09%) Grafana
4 9 (1.88%) Terraform
5 6 (1.25%) Check_MK
5 6 (1.25%) Podman
5 6 (1.25%) Red Hat Satellite
5 6 (1.25%) SCOM
5 6 (1.25%) Single Sign-On
6 5 (1.04%) ServiceCenter
7 4 (0.84%) Prometheus
7 4 (0.84%) TeamSite
8 3 (0.63%) FortiGate
8 3 (0.63%) RSA Archer
8 3 (0.63%) WSUS
9 2 (0.42%) Microsoft Clustering
9 2 (0.42%) NetApp OnCommand
9 2 (0.42%) Puppet
Vendors
1 138 (28.81%) Microsoft
2 58 (12.11%) ServiceNow
3 42 (8.77%) Oracle
4 36 (7.52%) Cisco
5 26 (5.43%) HP
6 24 (5.01%) Dell
6 24 (5.01%) SAP
7 20 (4.18%) VMware
8 18 (3.76%) Apple
9 10 (2.09%) Splunk
10 9 (1.88%) Remedy
10 9 (1.88%) Workday
11 8 (1.67%) Fortinet
12 7 (1.46%) IBM
12 7 (1.46%) Juniper
13 6 (1.25%) Red Hat
14 5 (1.04%) Nokia
14 5 (1.04%) Trend Micro
15 4 (0.84%) BMC
15 4 (0.84%) Zscaler
232 SLA jobs Nationwide