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

 6 months to
11 Sep 2026		 Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 252 212 196
Rank change year-on-year -40 -16 -23
Contract jobs citing SLA 560 445 489
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 1.03% 1.35% 1.27%
As % of the Quality Assurance & Compliance category 5.85% 7.89% 9.46%
Number of daily rates quoted 338 253 230
10th Percentile £181 £187 £150
25th Percentile £250 £225 £200
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £425 £375 £300
Median % change year-on-year +13.33% +25.00% -25.00%
75th Percentile £525 £538 £488
90th Percentile £600 £613 £600
UK excluding London median daily rate £425 £325 £286
% change year-on-year +30.77% +13.54% -11.92%
Number of hourly rates quoted 68 65 64
10th Percentile £13.45 £15.70 £12.75
25th Percentile £15.61 £17.48 £14.42
Median hourly rate £18.79 £22.14 £18.27
Median % change year-on-year -15.13% +21.18% +4.40%
75th Percentile £23.69 £25.15 £24.18
90th Percentile £55.00 £36.86 £45.17
UK excluding London median hourly rate £18.79 £18.73 £16.19
% change year-on-year +0.32% +15.69% -7.49%

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 9,572 5,643 5,170
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 17.53% 17.09% 13.41%
Number of daily rates quoted 6,048 3,616 3,113
10th Percentile £325 £300 £285
25th Percentile £413 £400 £400
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £500 £508
Median % change year-on-year - -1.48% -3.33%
75th Percentile £600 £606 £625
90th Percentile £700 £706 £738
UK excluding London median daily rate £488 £475 £480
% change year-on-year +2.63% -1.04% -4.00%
Number of hourly rates quoted 609 265 265
10th Percentile £13.91 £13.60 £12.37
25th Percentile £16.75 £16.92 £15.00
Median hourly rate £33.00 £30.00 £26.68
Median % change year-on-year +10.00% +12.44% -22.67%
75th Percentile £67.84 £60.00 £57.50
90th Percentile £77.50 £82.88 £70.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £33.49 £27.53 £25.48
% change year-on-year +21.65% +8.05% -22.79%

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 11 September 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 11 September 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 11 September 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 -59 459 £425 +7.59% 329
UK excluding London -47 343 £425 +30.77% 218
London -41 181 £415 -4.60% 142
Work from Home -38 128 £463 +39.31% 121
North of England -35 93 £438 +74.65% 42
South East -62 73 £475 +18.75% 74
North West -3 66 £400 +23.08% 24
Scotland +37 64 £353 +0.71% 10
Midlands -62 50 £250 -28.57% 37
West Midlands -59 44 £250 -34.64% 26
East of England -17 37 £505 +44.29% 29
South West -53 30 £356 +9.54% 24
Yorkshire -44 24 £456 +82.14% 13
Wales -11 11 £525 +169.23% 6
East Midlands -17 6 £363 +170.52% 11
North East -44 3 £228 - 5
Northern Ireland -1 1 £175 -

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 42 (7.50%) SharePoint
2 31 (5.54%) Microsoft Exchange
3 8 (1.43%) Confluence
4 7 (1.25%) OpenStack
5 4 (0.71%) IIS
6 3 (0.54%) SAS
7 2 (0.36%) Anypoint
7 2 (0.36%) Apache
7 2 (0.36%) Exchange Server 2010
7 2 (0.36%) Mule
8 1 (0.18%) Apache Spark
8 1 (0.18%) CICS
8 1 (0.18%) Exchange Server 2013
8 1 (0.18%) JBoss
8 1 (0.18%) Skype for Business
Applications
1 52 (9.29%) Microsoft Office
2 23 (4.11%) Microsoft Excel
3 5 (0.89%) Spreadsheet
4 3 (0.54%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 3 (0.54%) MS Visio
5 2 (0.36%) Microsoft Project
6 1 (0.18%) Adobe Creative Suite
6 1 (0.18%) Chatbot
Business Applications
1 16 (2.86%) Remedy ITSM
2 8 (1.43%) ContrOCC
3 5 (0.89%) Oracle Applications
4 4 (0.71%) Dynamics CRM
4 4 (0.71%) Oracle Procure-to-Pay
5 3 (0.54%) Oracle Assets
5 3 (0.54%) Oracle General Ledger
5 3 (0.54%) Oracle Payables
5 3 (0.54%) Oracle Receivables
6 2 (0.36%) Dynamics GP
6 2 (0.36%) Oracle Cash Management
6 2 (0.36%) Oracle EBS
6 2 (0.36%) Oracle Subledger Accounting
6 2 (0.36%) SAP S/4HANA
7 1 (0.18%) Actimize
7 1 (0.18%) Oracle EBS R12
7 1 (0.18%) Oracle Financials
7 1 (0.18%) SAP HCM
7 1 (0.18%) Unit4 Business World
Cloud Services
1 117 (20.89%) Microsoft 365
2 108 (19.29%) Azure
3 59 (10.54%) Entra ID
4 46 (8.21%) AWS
5 25 (4.46%) OneDrive
6 21 (3.75%) SaaS
7 18 (3.21%) Power Platform
8 13 (2.32%) Azure DevOps
9 10 (1.79%) Datadog
10 9 (1.61%) IaaS
10 9 (1.61%) OCI
10 9 (1.61%) PaaS
11 8 (1.43%) Azure Sentinel
12 7 (1.25%) Serverless
13 6 (1.07%) Amazon S3
14 5 (0.89%) Amazon CloudWatch
14 5 (0.89%) AWS CloudFormation
14 5 (0.89%) Azure AKS
14 5 (0.89%) Dynamics 365
14 5 (0.89%) GCP
Communications & Networking
1 42 (7.50%) DNS
2 35 (6.25%) VPN
3 32 (5.71%) DHCP
4 24 (4.29%) TCP/IP
5 22 (3.93%) WAN
6 21 (3.75%) LAN
7 20 (3.57%) Firewall
8 17 (3.04%) Wi-Fi
9 15 (2.68%) SAN
10 14 (2.50%) SDH
11 11 (1.96%) MPLS
11 11 (1.96%) Network Security
11 11 (1.96%) VLAN
12 10 (1.79%) Skype
13 8 (1.43%) Radio Access Network
13 8 (1.43%) Wireless
14 7 (1.25%) 5G
14 7 (1.25%) Cisco IOS
14 7 (1.25%) LTE
15 6 (1.07%) VoWiFi
Database & Business Intelligence
1 24 (4.29%) SQL Server
2 13 (2.32%) Power BI
3 8 (1.43%) Tableau
4 7 (1.25%) Oracle Reports
5 5 (0.89%) Delta Lake
5 5 (0.89%) PostgreSQL
6 4 (0.71%) Db2
7 3 (0.54%) Amazon Athena
7 3 (0.54%) Amazon RDS
7 3 (0.54%) Big Data
7 3 (0.54%) Data Lake
7 3 (0.54%) Oracle Database
7 3 (0.54%) Pentaho
7 3 (0.54%) Relational Database
8 2 (0.36%) Elasticsearch
8 2 (0.36%) Flink
8 2 (0.36%) MySQL
8 2 (0.36%) Oracle Database 10g
8 2 (0.36%) Oracle Database 11g
8 2 (0.36%) SQL Server Reporting Services
Development Applications
1 42 (7.50%) JIRA
2 7 (1.25%) GitLab
3 6 (1.07%) Git
4 5 (0.89%) Chocolatey
4 5 (0.89%) Jenkins
4 5 (0.89%) RStudio
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%) WiX
General
1 231 (41.25%) Social Skills
2 103 (18.39%) Analytical Skills
3 91 (16.25%) Finance
4 34 (6.07%) Public Sector
5 26 (4.64%) Organisational Skills
6 25 (4.46%) Banking
6 25 (4.46%) Telecoms
7 22 (3.93%) Inclusion and Diversity
8 19 (3.39%) Documentation Skills
9 17 (3.04%) Legal
10 13 (2.32%) Billing
10 13 (2.32%) Local Government
11 12 (2.14%) Manufacturing
12 11 (1.96%) Retail
13 9 (1.61%) Influencing Skills
14 7 (1.25%) Aerospace
15 4 (0.71%) Back Office
15 4 (0.71%) Financial Institution
15 4 (0.71%) French Language
16 2 (0.36%) Electronics
Job Titles
1 76 (13.57%) Analyst
2 58 (10.36%) Support Engineer
3 47 (8.39%) IT Support
4 35 (6.25%) Lead
4 35 (6.25%) Senior
5 32 (5.71%) IT Engineer
6 29 (5.18%) Consultant
6 29 (5.18%) Service Analyst
6 29 (5.18%) Service Manager
7 27 (4.82%) Field Engineer
8 25 (4.46%) Architect
9 24 (4.29%) Desktop Support
10 23 (4.11%) IT Support Engineer
10 23 (4.11%) Network Engineer
11 22 (3.93%) Service Desk Analyst
12 19 (3.39%) Delivery Manager
13 18 (3.21%) Applications Support
14 17 (3.04%) Administrator
15 16 (2.86%) Infrastructure Engineer
15 16 (2.86%) Service Delivery Manager
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 17 (3.04%) REST
2 13 (2.32%) Terraform
3 11 (1.96%) .NET
4 8 (1.43%) LDAP
5 6 (1.07%) Middleware
5 6 (1.07%) PySpark
5 6 (1.07%) XML
6 5 (0.89%) Kafka
6 5 (0.89%) OAuth
6 5 (0.89%) Oracle Fusion
7 4 (0.71%) Software Packaging
8 3 (0.54%) .NET Framework
8 3 (0.54%) ARM Templates
8 3 (0.54%) Elastic Stack
8 3 (0.54%) Java RMI
8 3 (0.54%) JSON
8 3 (0.54%) RESTful
8 3 (0.54%) SOAP
9 2 (0.36%) OpenAPI
9 2 (0.36%) OpenTelemetry
Miscellaneous
1 65 (11.61%) Onboarding
2 28 (5.00%) Data Centre
3 23 (4.11%) CMDB
4 21 (3.75%) Enterprise Software
5 15 (2.68%) Smartphone
6 14 (2.50%) PKI
6 14 (2.50%) Video Conferencing
7 13 (2.32%) Virtual Team
8 9 (1.61%) Security Posture
9 8 (1.43%) Cyber Threat
9 8 (1.43%) Driving Licence
10 7 (1.25%) Fat Client
10 7 (1.25%) iPhone
10 7 (1.25%) Self-Motivation
10 7 (1.25%) Thin Client
11 6 (1.07%) Data Protection Act
11 6 (1.07%) Fibre Optics
11 6 (1.07%) Product Ownership
11 6 (1.07%) Replication
12 5 (0.89%) Analytical Mindset
Operating Systems
1 168 (30.00%) Windows
2 63 (11.25%) Windows 10
3 45 (8.04%) Windows Server
4 39 (6.96%) Android
5 32 (5.71%) Linux
6 14 (2.50%) Apple iOS
7 13 (2.32%) Mac OS
8 12 (2.14%) Windows 7
9 11 (1.96%) Unix
10 9 (1.61%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
11 4 (0.71%) CentOS
11 4 (0.71%) Windows Server 2012
12 3 (0.54%) Windows Server 2019
12 3 (0.54%) Windows XP
13 1 (0.18%) OpenVMS
13 1 (0.18%) Solaris
13 1 (0.18%) VMS
13 1 (0.18%) Windows Server 2003
13 1 (0.18%) Windows Server 2016
13 1 (0.18%) zOS
Processes & Methodologies
1 233 (41.61%) ITIL
2 144 (25.71%) ITSM
3 131 (23.39%) Customer Service
3 131 (23.39%) Problem-Solving
4 130 (23.21%) Service Management
5 124 (22.14%) Continuous Improvement
6 105 (18.75%) Stakeholder Management
7 92 (16.43%) Service Delivery
8 82 (14.64%) Change Management
9 71 (12.68%) Incident Management
10 64 (11.43%) Root Cause Analysis
11 57 (10.18%) Problem Management
12 52 (9.29%) Agile
13 41 (7.32%) Validation
14 39 (6.96%) DevOps
14 39 (6.96%) Migration
15 38 (6.79%) Runbook
16 35 (6.25%) Asset Management
16 35 (6.25%) Customer Experience
17 33 (5.89%) Incident Response
Programming Languages
1 46 (8.21%) SQL
2 43 (7.68%) PowerShell
3 35 (6.25%) Python
4 10 (1.79%) Bash
5 9 (1.61%) JavaScript
6 7 (1.25%) Java
6 7 (1.25%) Shell Script
7 6 (1.07%) PL/SQL
8 5 (0.89%) C#
8 5 (0.89%) R
9 4 (0.71%) Bicep
9 4 (0.71%) MATLAB
10 2 (0.36%) DataWeave
10 2 (0.36%) X++
11 1 (0.18%) ActionScript
11 1 (0.18%) COBOL
11 1 (0.18%) Korn
11 1 (0.18%) Perl
11 1 (0.18%) RPG
11 1 (0.18%) VBScript
Qualifications
1 174 (31.07%) Security Cleared
2 136 (24.29%) SC Cleared
3 45 (8.04%) Degree
4 31 (5.54%) DV Cleared
5 21 (3.75%) ITIL Certification
6 20 (3.57%) ITIL Foundation Certificate
7 18 (3.21%) Microsoft Certification
8 16 (2.86%) BPSS Clearance
9 15 (2.68%) Cisco Certification
10 10 (1.79%) Azure Certification
11 9 (1.61%) A+ Certification
11 9 (1.61%) PMI Certification
12 8 (1.43%) CCNA
12 8 (1.43%) CCNP
12 8 (1.43%) Computer Science Degree
13 7 (1.25%) DBS Check
13 7 (1.25%) MCSE
14 5 (0.89%) PMP
15 4 (0.71%) CCSE
15 4 (0.71%) CISSP
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 24 (4.29%) Data Quality
2 13 (2.32%) ISO/IEC 20000
3 12 (2.14%) ISO/IEC 27001
4 11 (1.96%) NIST
5 8 (1.43%) QA
6 6 (1.07%) GDPR
6 6 (1.07%) NCSC
7 5 (0.89%) COBIT
7 5 (0.89%) Cyber Essentials
7 5 (0.89%) ISO 9001
7 5 (0.89%) PMO
8 4 (0.71%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
8 4 (0.71%) GRC
9 3 (0.54%) JSP 440
10 2 (0.36%) HIPAA
10 2 (0.36%) Sarbanes-Oxley
11 1 (0.18%) DICOM
11 1 (0.18%) GxP
11 1 (0.18%) HL7
11 1 (0.18%) PCI DSS
System Software
1 131 (23.39%) Active Directory
2 27 (4.82%) VMware Infrastructure
3 18 (3.21%) Virtual Desktop
4 12 (2.14%) Hyper-V
4 12 (2.14%) VMware ESXi
5 8 (1.43%) Docker
6 6 (1.07%) Firmware
7 5 (0.89%) vSphere
8 4 (0.71%) RACF
8 4 (0.71%) Virtual Machines
9 3 (0.54%) ACF2
10 2 (0.36%) Apache ZooKeeper
10 2 (0.36%) Oracle RAC
10 2 (0.36%) Virtual Servers
11 1 (0.18%) BitLocker
11 1 (0.18%) Ceph
11 1 (0.18%) Job Entry Subsystem
11 1 (0.18%) Microsoft Virtual Server
11 1 (0.18%) VMware Workstation
Systems Management
1 52 (9.29%) Microsoft Intune
2 29 (5.18%) SCCM
3 22 (3.93%) Kubernetes
4 13 (2.32%) Single Sign-On
5 10 (1.79%) Ansible
6 9 (1.61%) Grafana
7 8 (1.43%) vCenter Server
8 7 (1.25%) Jamf Pro
9 6 (1.07%) SCOM
10 4 (0.71%) Check_MK
10 4 (0.71%) Podman
10 4 (0.71%) Prometheus
10 4 (0.71%) Red Hat Satellite
10 4 (0.71%) SCOrch
11 3 (0.54%) Oracle Identity Management
11 3 (0.54%) Oracle Identity Manager
11 3 (0.54%) vMotion
12 2 (0.36%) CloudHub
12 2 (0.36%) PowerCLI
12 2 (0.36%) systemd
Vendors
1 202 (36.07%) Microsoft
2 112 (20.00%) ServiceNow
3 44 (7.86%) VMware
4 39 (6.96%) Cisco
5 28 (5.00%) Oracle
6 20 (3.57%) Apple
6 20 (3.57%) Remedy
7 15 (2.68%) HP
8 11 (1.96%) Nokia
9 9 (1.61%) Citrix
9 9 (1.61%) Databricks
9 9 (1.61%) Okta
9 9 (1.61%) Salesforce
9 9 (1.61%) SAP
9 9 (1.61%) Zscaler
10 8 (1.43%) BT
10 8 (1.43%) Ericsson
10 8 (1.43%) Huawei
10 8 (1.43%) Liquidlogic
11 7 (1.25%) Tenable
366 SLA jobs Nationwide