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

 6 months to
4 Jan 2026		 Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 214 201 165
Rank change year-on-year -13 -36 +11
Contract jobs citing SLA 466 418 668
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 1.27% 1.29% 1.55%
As % of the Quality Assurance & Compliance category 7.32% 9.05% 10.69%
Number of daily rates quoted 252 214 333
10th Percentile £171 £148 £148
25th Percentile £250 £192 £190
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £411 £260 £400
Median % change year-on-year +58.17% -35.00% +28.00%
75th Percentile £538 £500 £538
90th Percentile £632 £584 £635
UK excluding London median daily rate £350 £256 £300
% change year-on-year +36.59% -14.58% +30.43%
Number of hourly rates quoted 109 45 65
10th Percentile £16.12 £14.70 £12.83
25th Percentile £17.69 £18.10 £13.33
Median hourly rate £18.50 £24.18 £17.50
Median % change year-on-year -23.49% +38.17% -
75th Percentile £20.35 £27.25 £32.50
90th Percentile £34.79 £35.58 £61.75
UK excluding London median hourly rate £18.50 £24.18 £16.36
% change year-on-year -23.49% +47.84% -3.42%

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 6,366 4,617 6,251
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 17.30% 14.25% 14.54%
Number of daily rates quoted 4,132 2,698 4,158
10th Percentile £313 £254 £313
25th Percentile £406 £375 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £500 £525
Median % change year-on-year - -4.76% -
75th Percentile £600 £623 £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 306 181 235
10th Percentile £14.80 £15.00 £13.49
25th Percentile £17.69 £21.00 £17.61
Median hourly rate £26.11 £29.00 £33.00
Median % change year-on-year -9.97% -12.12% +40.22%
75th Percentile £63.40 £63.75 £60.63
90th Percentile £73.75 £75.00 £79.91
UK excluding London median hourly rate £22.13 £29.00 £32.50
% change year-on-year -23.71% -10.77% +54.76%

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 4 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 4 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 4 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 -19 422 £411 +58.17% 185
UK excluding London -20 330 £350 +36.59% 165
London +2 108 £510 +100.00% 61
Work from Home -16 93 £473 +110.00% 64
East of England +34 84 £400 +48.15% 17
South East -40 68 £418 +67.17% 66
North of England -55 62 £285 +7.04% 31
Midlands -53 49 £198 -21.00% 24
South West +5 46 £290 -47.27% 10
West Midlands -41 38 £225 +2.86% 14
North West -43 31 £293 -26.88% 11
Yorkshire -33 24 £365 +52.08% 11
Scotland +3 15 £355 +69.05% 16
East Midlands -34 11 £134 -61.71% 10
North East -7 7 £265 +0.95% 9
Northern Ireland -11 7 £500 +237.84% 3
Wales -4 3 £183 -16.82% 4

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 19 (4.08%) SharePoint
2 18 (3.86%) Microsoft Exchange
3 3 (0.64%) IIS
3 3 (0.64%) Oracle Workflow
3 3 (0.64%) Tomcat
4 1 (0.21%) ArcGIS
4 1 (0.21%) Confluence
4 1 (0.21%) GeoServer
4 1 (0.21%) MQSeries
4 1 (0.21%) Oracle Spatial
4 1 (0.21%) WebSphere
4 1 (0.21%) WebSphere Application Server
Applications
1 35 (7.51%) Microsoft Excel
2 34 (7.30%) Spreadsheet
3 28 (6.01%) Microsoft Office
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 13 (2.79%) Oracle Subledger Accounting
3 8 (1.72%) Oracle Payables
4 7 (1.50%) Oracle General Ledger
5 6 (1.29%) Oracle Assets
6 5 (1.07%) Oracle Receivables
7 4 (0.86%) Oracle FAH
7 4 (0.86%) Remedy ITSM
7 4 (0.86%) Workday HCM
8 3 (0.64%) iTrent
8 3 (0.64%) Oracle EBS R12
8 3 (0.64%) Oracle ERP
9 2 (0.43%) Dynamics CRM
9 2 (0.43%) Dynamics GP
9 2 (0.43%) Oracle Cash Management
9 2 (0.43%) Oracle E-Business Tax
9 2 (0.43%) Oracle Financials
9 2 (0.43%) Temenos T24
10 1 (0.21%) SAP Payroll
10 1 (0.21%) Veritas eDiscovery
Cloud Services
1 68 (14.59%) Microsoft 365
2 43 (9.23%) Azure
3 30 (6.44%) AWS
4 12 (2.58%) Entra ID
4 12 (2.58%) GCP
5 9 (1.93%) Power Platform
6 8 (1.72%) SaaS
7 7 (1.50%) GitHub
7 7 (1.50%) IaaS
8 6 (1.29%) OCI
8 6 (1.29%) PaaS
9 5 (1.07%) Cloud Computing
9 5 (1.07%) GitHub Actions
9 5 (1.07%) OpenShift
10 3 (0.64%) AWS CloudFormation
10 3 (0.64%) AWS KMS
10 3 (0.64%) OneDrive
10 3 (0.64%) Virtual Private Cloud
11 2 (0.43%) Azure DevOps
11 2 (0.43%) Azure Key Vault
Communications & Networking
1 25 (5.36%) Firewall
2 22 (4.72%) WAN
3 18 (3.86%) DNS
4 15 (3.22%) Wireless
5 14 (3.00%) LAN
5 14 (3.00%) SD-WAN
6 13 (2.79%) MPLS
6 13 (2.79%) PABX
7 12 (2.58%) VPN
8 11 (2.36%) DHCP
9 8 (1.72%) BGP
9 8 (1.72%) OSPF
9 8 (1.72%) TCP/IP
10 6 (1.29%) Broadband
10 6 (1.29%) Cisco ASA
10 6 (1.29%) Network Security
10 6 (1.29%) SDH
11 5 (1.07%) IPsec
11 5 (1.07%) SAN
11 5 (1.07%) VLAN
Database & Business Intelligence
1 10 (2.15%) SQL Server
2 8 (1.72%) PostgreSQL
3 7 (1.50%) Power BI
4 6 (1.29%) MongoDB
4 6 (1.29%) Oracle Database
5 5 (1.07%) MySQL
6 3 (0.64%) Amazon RDS
6 3 (0.64%) SAP HANA
7 2 (0.43%) GIS
7 2 (0.43%) Oracle Reports
7 2 (0.43%) Relational Database
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 14 (3.00%) Jenkins
2 13 (2.79%) GitLab
3 11 (2.36%) Git
4 10 (2.15%) JIRA
5 6 (1.29%) Postman
6 5 (1.07%) Visual Studio
7 3 (0.64%) CircleCI
8 2 (0.43%) Jaeger
8 2 (0.43%) PVCS
9 1 (0.21%) Metasploit
9 1 (0.21%) Selenium
9 1 (0.21%) TestDirector
General
1 209 (44.85%) Social Skills
2 99 (21.24%) Finance
3 58 (12.45%) Analytical Skills
4 55 (11.80%) Public Sector
5 31 (6.65%) Telecoms
6 29 (6.22%) Banking
7 26 (5.58%) Organisational Skills
8 21 (4.51%) Documentation Skills
9 18 (3.86%) Legal
10 13 (2.79%) Retail
11 9 (1.93%) Financial Institution
11 9 (1.93%) Manufacturing
12 8 (1.72%) Aerospace
12 8 (1.72%) Law
12 8 (1.72%) Marketing
13 7 (1.50%) Inclusion and Diversity
13 7 (1.50%) Local Government
14 5 (1.07%) Influencing Skills
15 4 (0.86%) General Ledger
15 4 (0.86%) Investment Banking
Job Titles
1 72 (15.45%) IT Support
2 70 (15.02%) Analyst
3 45 (9.66%) Lead
4 34 (7.30%) Desktop Support
5 33 (7.08%) Support Engineer
6 27 (5.79%) Support Analyst
7 26 (5.58%) Administrator
8 23 (4.94%) Senior
9 22 (4.72%) Service Analyst
9 22 (4.72%) Service Manager
10 21 (4.51%) Team Leader
11 20 (4.29%) Technical Support
12 18 (3.86%) Consultant
13 15 (3.22%) Desktop Engineer
13 15 (3.22%) Service Desk Analyst
14 14 (3.00%) IT Administrator
14 14 (3.00%) IT Engineer
15 13 (2.79%) Applications Support
15 13 (2.79%) Developer
15 13 (2.79%) IT Manager
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 8 (1.72%) Middleware
2 7 (1.50%) Oracle Fusion
3 6 (1.29%) Kafka
4 5 (1.07%) LDAP
5 3 (0.64%) 802.1X
5 3 (0.64%) REST
6 2 (0.43%) .NET
6 2 (0.43%) CSS
6 2 (0.43%) Elastic Stack
6 2 (0.43%) Node.js
6 2 (0.43%) OAuth
6 2 (0.43%) OAuth2
6 2 (0.43%) OpenID
6 2 (0.43%) RESTful
6 2 (0.43%) SAML
6 2 (0.43%) Universal Windows Platform
6 2 (0.43%) XML
7 1 (0.21%) ASP.NET
7 1 (0.21%) RSS
7 1 (0.21%) Web Services
Miscellaneous
1 29 (6.22%) Management Information System
2 26 (5.58%) Onboarding
3 21 (4.51%) Self-Motivation
4 20 (4.29%) Data Centre
5 19 (4.08%) Driving Licence
6 13 (2.79%) Product Ownership
6 13 (2.79%) Smartphone
7 6 (1.29%) Analytical Mindset
7 6 (1.29%) CMDB
7 6 (1.29%) Derivative
7 6 (1.29%) Enterprise Cloud
7 6 (1.29%) Public Cloud
8 5 (1.07%) Cloud Native
8 5 (1.07%) Data Protection Act
8 5 (1.07%) NHS
9 4 (0.86%) Clustering
9 4 (0.86%) Equities
9 4 (0.86%) Equity Derivative
9 4 (0.86%) Mobile App
9 4 (0.86%) PKI
Operating Systems
1 89 (19.10%) Windows
2 31 (6.65%) Windows 10
3 24 (5.15%) Linux
4 17 (3.65%) Android
5 16 (3.43%) Unix
6 14 (3.00%) Mac OS
6 14 (3.00%) Windows Server
7 13 (2.79%) Apple iOS
8 5 (1.07%) CentOS
8 5 (1.07%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
9 3 (0.64%) Mac OS X
10 2 (0.43%) Windows 7
10 2 (0.43%) Windows 8
10 2 (0.43%) Windows Server 2012
Processes & Methodologies
1 139 (29.83%) ITIL
2 108 (23.18%) Customer Service
3 89 (19.10%) Service Delivery
4 70 (15.02%) Continuous Improvement
5 62 (13.30%) Time Management
6 57 (12.23%) Problem-Solving
7 51 (10.94%) ITSM
7 51 (10.94%) Service Management
8 45 (9.66%) Stakeholder Management
9 39 (8.37%) Change Management
10 37 (7.94%) Root Cause Analysis
11 36 (7.73%) Agile
11 36 (7.73%) Incident Management
12 28 (6.01%) Asset Management
12 28 (6.01%) Roadmaps
13 25 (5.36%) Customer Experience
13 25 (5.36%) Cybersecurity
13 25 (5.36%) Problem Management
14 24 (5.15%) Mentoring
15 23 (4.94%) Disaster Recovery
Programming Languages
1 24 (5.15%) Python
1 24 (5.15%) SQL
2 16 (3.43%) Shell Script
3 15 (3.22%) PowerShell
4 11 (2.36%) Java
5 6 (1.29%) Bash
6 5 (1.07%) MATLAB
7 4 (0.86%) C++
7 4 (0.86%) PL/SQL
8 3 (0.64%) Go
8 3 (0.64%) JavaScript
9 2 (0.43%) C#
9 2 (0.43%) Kusto Query Language
10 1 (0.21%) Bicep
10 1 (0.21%) T-SQL
Qualifications
1 138 (29.61%) Security Cleared
2 109 (23.39%) SC Cleared
3 32 (6.87%) Degree
4 21 (4.51%) DV Cleared
5 11 (2.36%) BPSS Clearance
5 11 (2.36%) ITIL Certification
5 11 (2.36%) MOS
6 10 (2.15%) ITIL Foundation Certificate
6 10 (2.15%) PMI Certification
7 7 (1.50%) Microsoft Certification
7 7 (1.50%) PMP
8 6 (1.29%) Cisco Certification
9 4 (0.86%) CCNP
9 4 (0.86%) Computer Science Degree
10 3 (0.64%) Azure Certification
10 3 (0.64%) CEH
10 3 (0.64%) CISSP
10 3 (0.64%) DBS Check
10 3 (0.64%) HNC
10 3 (0.64%) Numerate Degree
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 15 (3.22%) GDPR
2 13 (2.79%) ISO/IEC 27001
3 9 (1.93%) QA
4 8 (1.72%) Data Quality
5 7 (1.50%) NIST
6 5 (1.07%) PMO
6 5 (1.07%) Sarbanes-Oxley
7 4 (0.86%) Cyber Essentials
7 4 (0.86%) PCI DSS
8 3 (0.64%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
8 3 (0.64%) GRC
9 2 (0.43%) COBIT
9 2 (0.43%) NIST 800
9 2 (0.43%) PSD2
10 1 (0.21%) ISO 9001
10 1 (0.21%) ISO/IEC 20000
10 1 (0.21%) ISO/IEC 27002 (supersedes ISO/IEC 17799)
10 1 (0.21%) ISO/IEC 42001
System Software
1 45 (9.66%) Active Directory
2 8 (1.72%) Docker
2 8 (1.72%) VMware Infrastructure
3 6 (1.29%) vSphere
4 3 (0.64%) DFS Replication
4 3 (0.64%) Firmware
4 3 (0.64%) Hyper-V
4 3 (0.64%) Virtual Machines
5 2 (0.43%) BitLocker
5 2 (0.43%) VMware ESXi
Systems Management
1 17 (3.65%) Microsoft Intune
2 15 (3.22%) SCCM
3 14 (3.00%) Ansible
4 11 (2.36%) Kubernetes
5 10 (2.15%) Grafana
6 8 (1.72%) Terraform
7 6 (1.29%) SCOM
7 6 (1.29%) Single Sign-On
8 5 (1.07%) Check_MK
8 5 (1.07%) Podman
8 5 (1.07%) Red Hat Satellite
9 4 (0.86%) Prometheus
10 3 (0.64%) FortiGate
10 3 (0.64%) RSA Archer
10 3 (0.64%) ServiceCenter
10 3 (0.64%) WSUS
11 2 (0.43%) Argo
11 2 (0.43%) Microsoft Clustering
11 2 (0.43%) NetApp OnCommand
11 2 (0.43%) vMotion
Vendors
1 124 (26.61%) Microsoft
2 52 (11.16%) ServiceNow
3 40 (8.58%) Oracle
4 35 (7.51%) Cisco
5 24 (5.15%) HP
6 22 (4.72%) Dell
7 21 (4.51%) SAP
8 19 (4.08%) Apple
9 18 (3.86%) VMware
10 10 (2.15%) Splunk
11 9 (1.93%) Workday
12 8 (1.72%) Fortinet
12 8 (1.72%) Juniper
13 7 (1.50%) Remedy
14 5 (1.07%) Google
14 5 (1.07%) IBM
14 5 (1.07%) Nokia
14 5 (1.07%) Red Hat
14 5 (1.07%) Trend Micro
15 4 (0.86%) BMC
217 SLA jobs Nationwide