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

 6 months to
18 May 2026		 Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 225 196 135
Rank change year-on-year -29 -61 +52
Contract jobs citing SLA 511 419 738
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 1.07% 1.43% 1.73%
As % of the Quality Assurance & Compliance category 6.45% 9.04% 12.21%
Number of daily rates quoted 268 252 352
10th Percentile £211 £152 £150
25th Percentile £348 £200 £211
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £463 £291 £330
Median % change year-on-year +59.21% -11.97% +10.00%
75th Percentile £526 £506 £488
90th Percentile £625 £603 £585
UK excluding London median daily rate £450 £250 £285
% change year-on-year +80.00% -12.28% +14.00%
Number of hourly rates quoted 103 34 91
10th Percentile £16.08 £14.70 £11.07
25th Percentile £17.69 £18.20 £12.83
Median hourly rate £18.50 £22.21 £14.70
Median % change year-on-year -16.69% +51.05% -20.54%
75th Percentile £20.35 £24.66 £23.45
90th Percentile £37.80 £31.17 £32.50
UK excluding London median hourly rate £18.50 £22.14 £14.00
% change year-on-year -16.44% +58.14% -24.32%

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 7,926 4,637 6,044
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 16.53% 15.78% 14.19%
Number of daily rates quoted 5,101 2,986 3,839
10th Percentile £344 £266 £281
25th Percentile £413 £400 £405
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £500 £510
Median % change year-on-year - -1.96% -2.86%
75th Percentile £600 £620 £625
90th Percentile £700 £725 £750
UK excluding London median daily rate £500 £475 £480
% change year-on-year +5.26% -1.04% +0.10%
Number of hourly rates quoted 462 174 381
10th Percentile £14.05 £17.67 £10.95
25th Percentile £18.50 £22.14 £13.18
Median hourly rate £36.00 £34.50 £21.12
Median % change year-on-year +4.35% +63.39% -39.67%
75th Percentile £67.25 £67.03 £45.00
90th Percentile £82.23 £82.90 £68.75
UK excluding London median hourly rate £40.00 £46.30 £18.27
% change year-on-year -13.61% +153.42% -44.54%

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 18 May 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 18 May 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 18 May 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 -43 455 £463 +56.78% 264
UK excluding London -65 322 £450 +80.00% 226
London -4 168 £480 +20.00% 77
Work from Home -17 112 £480 +104.04% 112
East of England +37 89 £492 +118.67% 27
North of England -60 72 £438 +75.00% 41
South East -79 66 £463 +85.00% 80
North West -32 42 £455 +81.80% 26
Midlands -81 37 £303 +28.72% 35
Scotland +17 33 £448 +45.10% 19
West Midlands -76 27 £303 +28.72% 24
Yorkshire -53 26 £431 +1.32% 12
South West -46 19 £463 +5.71% 20
East Midlands -28 9 £329 +9.50% 11
Wales -14 5 - - 6
North East -17 4 £270 - 3
Northern Ireland +1 2 £175 +18.24% 7

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 15 (2.94%) Microsoft Exchange
1 15 (2.94%) SharePoint
2 9 (1.76%) Confluence
3 7 (1.37%) OpenStack
4 5 (0.98%) Oracle Workflow
5 4 (0.78%) Adobe Experience Manager
5 4 (0.78%) IIS
6 3 (0.59%) Apache Airflow
6 3 (0.59%) SAS
7 2 (0.39%) ArcGIS
8 1 (0.20%) Apache
8 1 (0.20%) Apache Spark
8 1 (0.20%) LiveCycle
8 1 (0.20%) Smallworld
8 1 (0.20%) WebSphere
8 1 (0.20%) WebSphere Application Server
Applications
1 45 (8.81%) Microsoft Excel
2 35 (6.85%) Microsoft Office
3 30 (5.87%) Spreadsheet
4 6 (1.17%) MS Visio
5 5 (0.98%) Microsoft PowerPoint
6 2 (0.39%) Microsoft Project
7 1 (0.20%) Autodesk Inventor
7 1 (0.20%) MicroStation
7 1 (0.20%) Oracle Smart View
Business Applications
1 13 (2.54%) Remedy ITSM
2 11 (2.15%) Oracle Subledger Accounting
3 10 (1.96%) Oracle Payables
4 8 (1.57%) Oracle Assets
5 6 (1.17%) Oracle ERP
6 5 (0.98%) Oracle Receivables
7 4 (0.78%) Oracle Procure-to-Pay
8 3 (0.59%) Oracle EBS
8 3 (0.59%) Oracle General Ledger
9 2 (0.39%) Dynamics CRM
9 2 (0.39%) IntelliMatch
9 2 (0.39%) Oracle Applications
9 2 (0.39%) Oracle E-Business Tax
9 2 (0.39%) Oracle Financials
9 2 (0.39%) Payment Gateway
9 2 (0.39%) Temenos T24
10 1 (0.20%) OpenText VIM for SAP
10 1 (0.20%) Oracle FAH
10 1 (0.20%) SAP S/4HANA
10 1 (0.20%) Veritas eDiscovery
Cloud Services
1 75 (14.68%) Azure
2 58 (11.35%) AWS
3 48 (9.39%) Microsoft 365
4 22 (4.31%) Power Platform
5 18 (3.52%) GCP
6 17 (3.33%) IaaS
7 16 (3.13%) PaaS
8 15 (2.94%) Entra ID
8 15 (2.94%) SaaS
9 14 (2.74%) Amazon S3
10 12 (2.35%) OCI
11 11 (2.15%) Datadog
11 11 (2.15%) Virtual Private Cloud
12 10 (1.96%) Amazon EC2
12 10 (1.96%) AWS CloudFormation
12 10 (1.96%) Azure DevOps
13 9 (1.76%) Snowflake
14 7 (1.37%) Amazon CloudWatch
14 7 (1.37%) Azure Sentinel
15 6 (1.17%) OneDrive
Communications & Networking
1 32 (6.26%) DNS
2 31 (6.07%) Firewall
3 24 (4.70%) DHCP
4 21 (4.11%) VPN
5 19 (3.72%) WAN
6 15 (2.94%) SAN
7 14 (2.74%) Wi-Fi
8 13 (2.54%) SD-WAN
9 11 (2.15%) Cisco ASA
9 11 (2.15%) LAN
9 11 (2.15%) Network Security
9 11 (2.15%) TCP/IP
9 11 (2.15%) VLAN
10 8 (1.57%) Radio Access Network
11 7 (1.37%) 5G
11 7 (1.37%) BGP
11 7 (1.37%) LTE
11 7 (1.37%) OSPF
11 7 (1.37%) Wireless
12 6 (1.17%) Wireshark
Database & Business Intelligence
1 18 (3.52%) Power BI
2 15 (2.94%) SQL Server
3 10 (1.96%) PostgreSQL
4 8 (1.57%) Oracle Reports
5 5 (0.98%) Oracle Database
5 5 (0.98%) Relational Database
5 5 (0.98%) Tableau
6 4 (0.78%) MongoDB
6 4 (0.78%) MySQL
7 3 (0.59%) Amazon Athena
7 3 (0.59%) Amazon RDS
7 3 (0.59%) GIS
7 3 (0.59%) Pentaho
8 2 (0.39%) SAP HANA
8 2 (0.39%) SQL Server Integration Services
8 2 (0.39%) SQL Server Reporting Services
9 1 (0.20%) Azure SQL Database
9 1 (0.20%) Data Warehouse
9 1 (0.20%) DB2
9 1 (0.20%) Hadoop
Development Applications
1 40 (7.83%) JIRA
2 21 (4.11%) GitLab
3 19 (3.72%) Jenkins
4 18 (3.52%) Git
5 7 (1.37%) Chocolatey
6 5 (0.98%) Visual Studio
7 4 (0.78%) Maven
8 3 (0.59%) CircleCI
9 2 (0.39%) JMeter
9 2 (0.39%) Toad
10 1 (0.20%) Artifactory
10 1 (0.20%) Bitbucket
10 1 (0.20%) Cucumber
10 1 (0.20%) SQL Server Management Studio (SSMS)
10 1 (0.20%) WiX
General
1 224 (43.84%) Social Skills
2 104 (20.35%) Finance
3 76 (14.87%) Analytical Skills
4 38 (7.44%) Banking
5 33 (6.46%) Public Sector
6 27 (5.28%) Organisational Skills
7 26 (5.09%) Documentation Skills
8 22 (4.31%) Telecoms
9 21 (4.11%) Legal
10 16 (3.13%) Retail
11 11 (2.15%) Aerospace
12 10 (1.96%) Billing
13 8 (1.57%) Investment Banking
14 7 (1.37%) Financial Institution
14 7 (1.37%) Influencing Skills
14 7 (1.37%) Manufacturing
15 6 (1.17%) Presentation Skills
16 5 (0.98%) Inclusion and Diversity
16 5 (0.98%) Local Government
16 5 (0.98%) Marketing
Job Titles
1 60 (11.74%) Analyst
2 59 (11.55%) IT Support
3 41 (8.02%) Administrator
4 38 (7.44%) Lead
5 34 (6.65%) Service Manager
6 31 (6.07%) Senior
7 29 (5.68%) Support Engineer
8 26 (5.09%) Service Analyst
9 23 (4.50%) IT Engineer
9 23 (4.50%) Technical Support
10 19 (3.72%) Consultant
11 18 (3.52%) Delivery Manager
12 17 (3.33%) Service Delivery Manager
13 16 (3.13%) Desktop Support
14 13 (2.54%) Network Engineer
15 12 (2.35%) Architect
15 12 (2.35%) Azure Engineer
15 12 (2.35%) Service Desk Analyst
16 11 (2.15%) AWS Engineer
16 11 (2.15%) Site Reliability Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 14 (2.74%) Middleware
1 14 (2.74%) Oracle Fusion
2 11 (2.15%) LDAP
2 11 (2.15%) REST
3 8 (1.57%) Web Services
4 6 (1.17%) .NET
5 5 (0.98%) AWS CDK
5 5 (0.98%) Spring
6 4 (0.78%) 802.1X
6 4 (0.78%) AngularJS
6 4 (0.78%) ARM Templates
6 4 (0.78%) Bootstrap
6 4 (0.78%) CSS
6 4 (0.78%) J2EE
6 4 (0.78%) jQuery
6 4 (0.78%) Kafka
6 4 (0.78%) Sass
6 4 (0.78%) Spring MVC
7 3 (0.59%) ADO
7 3 (0.59%) Software Packaging
Miscellaneous
1 33 (6.46%) Onboarding
2 31 (6.07%) Data Centre
3 21 (4.11%) Product Ownership
4 18 (3.52%) Management Information System
5 10 (1.96%) Cloud Native
6 9 (1.76%) CMDB
6 9 (1.76%) Cyber Threat
7 8 (1.57%) Data Protection Act
7 8 (1.57%) Self-Motivation
8 6 (1.17%) Analytical Mindset
8 6 (1.17%) BYOD
8 6 (1.17%) Distributed Systems
8 6 (1.17%) Enterprise Software
8 6 (1.17%) Equities
8 6 (1.17%) PKI
8 6 (1.17%) Public Cloud
8 6 (1.17%) Security Posture
9 5 (0.98%) Driving Licence
9 5 (0.98%) IoT
9 5 (0.98%) Virtual Team
Operating Systems
1 95 (18.59%) Windows
2 47 (9.20%) Linux
3 31 (6.07%) Windows 10
4 21 (4.11%) Unix
5 17 (3.33%) Windows Server
6 13 (2.54%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
7 11 (2.15%) CentOS
8 5 (0.98%) Android
9 4 (0.78%) Apple iOS
9 4 (0.78%) Mac OS
10 3 (0.59%) Windows Server 2012
11 2 (0.39%) Windows 7
11 2 (0.39%) Windows Server 2019
12 1 (0.20%) Mac OS X
12 1 (0.20%) Solaris
12 1 (0.20%) Windows Server 2003
12 1 (0.20%) Windows Server 2016
12 1 (0.20%) Windows XP
Processes & Methodologies
1 146 (28.57%) ITIL
2 88 (17.22%) ITSM
3 85 (16.63%) Service Delivery
4 81 (15.85%) Continuous Improvement
5 79 (15.46%) Stakeholder Management
6 78 (15.26%) Problem-Solving
7 73 (14.29%) Customer Service
7 73 (14.29%) Root Cause Analysis
8 66 (12.92%) Change Management
9 60 (11.74%) Agile
9 60 (11.74%) Service Management
10 58 (11.35%) Incident Management
10 58 (11.35%) Time Management
11 44 (8.61%) Problem Management
12 41 (8.02%) Roadmaps
13 40 (7.83%) Migration
14 39 (7.63%) CI/CD
15 35 (6.85%) Asset Management
15 35 (6.85%) Project Management
16 34 (6.65%) DevOps
Programming Languages
1 42 (8.22%) SQL
2 35 (6.85%) Python
3 18 (3.52%) PowerShell
3 18 (3.52%) Shell Script
4 16 (3.13%) Bash
5 13 (2.54%) Java
6 11 (2.15%) MATLAB
7 6 (1.17%) JavaScript
8 5 (0.98%) PL/SQL
9 3 (0.59%) Bicep
9 3 (0.59%) C++
9 3 (0.59%) Go
10 2 (0.39%) Scala
10 2 (0.39%) VB
11 1 (0.20%) Apex Code
11 1 (0.20%) C#
11 1 (0.20%) Groovy
11 1 (0.20%) Korn
11 1 (0.20%) X++
Qualifications
1 107 (20.94%) Security Cleared
2 83 (16.24%) SC Cleared
3 50 (9.78%) Degree
4 21 (4.11%) DV Cleared
5 13 (2.54%) BPSS Clearance
6 12 (2.35%) Cisco Certification
6 12 (2.35%) ITIL Certification
7 11 (2.15%) Microsoft Certification
8 8 (1.57%) CCNP
9 6 (1.17%) ITIL Foundation Certificate
9 6 (1.17%) Master's Degree
9 6 (1.17%) PMI Certification
10 5 (0.98%) CCSE
10 5 (0.98%) MCSE
11 4 (0.78%) CCNA
11 4 (0.78%) CCSM
11 4 (0.78%) CISA
11 4 (0.78%) MBA
11 4 (0.78%) RIBA
12 3 (0.59%) Azure Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 15 (2.94%) Data Quality
2 14 (2.74%) PMO
3 13 (2.54%) QA
4 12 (2.35%) ISO/IEC 27001
5 10 (1.96%) GRC
5 10 (1.96%) NIST
6 9 (1.76%) GDPR
7 6 (1.17%) PCI DSS
8 4 (0.78%) COBIT
8 4 (0.78%) Cyber Essentials
9 3 (0.59%) ISO 20022
9 3 (0.59%) ISO/IEC 20000
9 3 (0.59%) JSP 440
9 3 (0.59%) Sarbanes-Oxley
10 2 (0.39%) ISO 31000
10 2 (0.39%) ISO 8583
10 2 (0.39%) SOC 2
11 1 (0.20%) Disclosure Scotland
11 1 (0.20%) HL7
11 1 (0.20%) ISO/IEC 42001
System Software
1 66 (12.92%) Active Directory
2 22 (4.31%) VMware Infrastructure
3 13 (2.54%) VMware ESXi
4 11 (2.15%) Docker
5 8 (1.57%) vSphere
6 7 (1.37%) Hyper-V
7 6 (1.17%) Virtual Desktop
8 3 (0.59%) DFS Replication
9 2 (0.39%) Firmware
10 1 (0.20%) BitLocker
10 1 (0.20%) Ceph
10 1 (0.20%) Oracle RAC
10 1 (0.20%) Virtual Machines
10 1 (0.20%) Virtual Servers
10 1 (0.20%) VMware Workstation
10 1 (0.20%) XenDesktop
Systems Management
1 25 (4.89%) SCCM
2 23 (4.50%) Ansible
3 20 (3.91%) Microsoft Intune
3 20 (3.91%) Terraform
4 15 (2.94%) Kubernetes
5 12 (2.35%) Grafana
5 12 (2.35%) ServiceCenter
6 11 (2.15%) Check_MK
6 11 (2.15%) Podman
6 11 (2.15%) Red Hat Satellite
7 10 (1.96%) Single Sign-On
8 9 (1.76%) vCenter Server
9 4 (0.78%) Active Directory Federation Services
9 4 (0.78%) Prometheus
9 4 (0.78%) TeamSite
10 3 (0.59%) FortiGate
10 3 (0.59%) Oracle Identity Management
10 3 (0.59%) Oracle Identity Manager
11 2 (0.39%) Nessus
11 2 (0.39%) SCOM
Vendors
1 148 (28.96%) Microsoft
2 85 (16.63%) ServiceNow
3 48 (9.39%) Oracle
4 43 (8.41%) VMware
5 33 (6.46%) HP
6 29 (5.68%) Cisco
7 25 (4.89%) Dell
8 23 (4.50%) SAP
9 21 (4.11%) Apple
10 19 (3.72%) Remedy
11 15 (2.94%) Splunk
12 12 (2.35%) Red Hat
13 11 (2.15%) IBM
13 11 (2.15%) Tenable
14 10 (1.96%) AppDynamics
15 8 (1.57%) CheckPoint
15 8 (1.57%) Ericsson
15 8 (1.57%) Fortinet
15 8 (1.57%) Huawei
15 8 (1.57%) Palo Alto
310 SLA jobs Nationwide