SLA Contracts

The following table provides summary statistics for contract job vacancies with a requirement for SLA skills. Included is a benchmarking guide to the contractor rates offered in vacancies that have cited SLA over the 3 months to 25 June 2017 with a comparison to the same period in the previous 2 years.

Note that daily and hourly rates are treated separately in these statistics. When calculating contractor rate percentiles, daily rates are never derived from quoted hourly rates or vice versa.

Service Level Agreement (SLA) UK
Location	3 months to 25 Jun 2017	Same period 2016	Same period 2015
Rank	164	156	136
Rank change year-on-year	-8	-20
Contract jobs citing SLA	689	876	960
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK	1.49%	1.65%	1.71%
As % of the Quality Assurance & Compliance category	12.77%	14.31%	14.89%
Number of daily rates quoted	366	461	504
Median daily rate	£300	£315	£324
Median daily rate % change year-on-year	-4.76%	-2.79%
90% offered a daily rate of more than	£97	£121	£133
10% offered a daily rate of more than	£500	£500	£500
UK excluding London median daily rate	£238	£298	£303
% change year-on-year	-20.16%	-1.65%
Number of hourly rates quoted	78	81	104
Median hourly rate	£14.63	£16.00	£16.00
Median hourly rate % change year-on-year	-8.59%	-
90% offered a hourly rate of more than	£11.16	£11.75	£11.00
10% offered a hourly rate of more than	£25.00	£28.50	£27.78
UK excluding London median hourly rate	£14.38	£16.00	£15.50
% change year-on-year	-10.15%	+3.22%

SLA is in the quality assurance and compliance skills category. The next table is for comparison with the above and provides summary statistics for all contract job vacancies with a requirement for quality assurance and compliance skills.

Contract Quality Assurance & Compliance Skills UK
Contract job vacancies with a requirement for quality assurance and compliance skills	5397	6122	6448
As % of all contract IT job vacancies advertised in the UK	11.66%	11.54%	11.51%
Number of daily rates quoted	3472	3956	4153
Median daily rate	£450	£413	£400
Median daily rate % change year-on-year	+9.09%	+3.12%
90% offered a daily rate of more than	£260	£250	£250
10% offered a daily rate of more than	£600	£598	£600
UK excluding London median daily rate	£400	£380	£375
% change year-on-year	+5.26%	+1.33%
Number of hourly rates quoted	182	212	205
Median hourly rate	£25.00	£28.00	£24.00
Median hourly rate % change year-on-year	-10.71%	+16.66%
90% offered a hourly rate of more than	£12.00	£12.50	£12.50
10% offered a hourly rate of more than	£47.00	£47.50	£51.17
UK excluding London median hourly rate	£25.00	£28.00	£24.75
% change year-on-year	-10.71%	+13.13%

SLA
Job Vacancy Trend

The job posting trend of jobs advertised citing SLA as a proportion of all contract or permanent IT jobs with a match in the Quality Assurance & Compliance category.

SLA
Contractor Daily Rate Trend

This chart provides the 3-month moving average for daily rates quoted in contract jobs citing SLA.

Contractor daily rate trend for SLA in the UK

SLA
Contractor Daily Rate Histogram

The daily rate distribution of IT jobs citing SLA over the 3 months to 25 June 2017.

Contractor daily rate histogram for SLA in the UK

SLA
Contractor Hourly Rate Trend

This chart provides the 3-month moving average for contractor hourly rates quoted in IT jobs citing SLA.

Contractor hourly rate trend for SLA in the UK

SLA
Contractor Hourly Rate Histogram

The hourly rate distribution of IT jobs citing SLA over the 3 months to 25 June 2017.

Contractor hourly rate histogram for SLA in the UK

SLA
Top 30 Contract 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 3 months to 25 June 2017. The 'Rank Change' column provides an indication of the change in demand within each location based on the same 3 month period last year.

Location	Rank Change on Same Period Last Year	Matching Contract IT Job Ads	Median Daily Rate Last 3 Months	Median Daily Rate % Change on Same Period Last Year	Live Job Vacancies
England	-22	591	£318	-2.30%	221
London	-6	192	£344	-7.09%	63
South East	-9	182	£370	+5.71%	57
East of England	-6	64	£288	+64.28%	13
Berkshire	-12	55	£270	+3.65%	9
Yorkshire	+47	52	£100	-73.68%	23
Buckinghamshire	-3	42	£260	-36.96%	8
Scotland	+34	38	£110	-61.73%	6
City of London	+16	38	£406	+1.56%	13
Milton Keynes	-2	36	£243	-41.21%	5
Reading	+2	35	£200	-19.19%	1
Wales	+21	31	£180	-52.00%	4
Hampshire	0	31	£450	+31.38%	22
South Wales	+20	28	£180	-54.43%	4
West Yorkshire	+28	27	£178	-45.60%	18
North West	+26	25	£350	+12.90%	27
West Midlands	+12	25	£159	-44.56%	16
South Yorkshire	+24	22	£84	-69.54%	1
East Midlands	-13	22	£235	+5.61%	10
Leeds	+28	21	£100	-39.39%	11
Sheffield	+27	21	£84	-69.54%
Hertfordshire	-9	21	£349	-0.35%	5
Cardiff	+19	20	£180	-52.00%	4
South West	-20	20	£233	-33.57%	9
Surrey	-1	17	£396	+13.14%	9
Edinburgh	+16	14	£100	-77.77%	1
Cambridgeshire	0	14	£190	+18.75%	5
Cheshire	+33	13	£350	+12.90%	6
Glasgow	+6	12	£100	-40.74%	2
Oxfordshire	-1	12	£306	-27.94%	3

SLA
Top 30 Co-occurring IT Skills

For the 6 months to 25 June 2017, IT contractor jobs citing SLA also mentioned the following skills in order of popularity. The figures indicate the number co-occurrences and its proportion to all contract ads with a requirement for SLA.

1	544 (39.31%)	ITIL
2	377 (27.24%)	Windows
3	321 (23.19%)	Microsoft
4	276 (19.94%)	Active Directory
5	242 (17.49%)	Microsoft Office
6	228 (16.47%)	Service Management
7	217 (15.68%)	Finance
8	193 (13.95%)	Service Delivery
9	173 (12.50%)	Cisco
10	158 (11.42%)	Security Cleared
10	158 (11.42%)	Windows 7
11	153 (11.05%)	Incident Management
12	131 (9.47%)	HP
13	126 (9.10%)	Change Management
14	122 (8.82%)	SC Cleared

15	121 (8.74%)	VMware
16	120 (8.67%)	Break/Fix
17	118 (8.53%)	Linux
18	114 (8.24%)	Analytical Skills
19	109 (7.88%)	Firewall
20	108 (7.80%)	ITSM
21	107 (7.73%)	Windows Server
22	106 (7.66%)	Telecoms
23	105 (7.59%)	Project Management
24	99 (7.15%)	ITIL V3
25	93 (6.72%)	SQL
26	89 (6.43%)	Degree
27	87 (6.29%)	Microsoft Excel
28	85 (6.14%)	Data Centre
29	84 (6.07%)	Problem Management

SLA
Co-occurring IT Skills by Category

The follow tables expand on the table above by listing co-occurrences grouped by category. The same job type, locality and period is covered with up to 20 co-occurrences shown in each of the following categories:

Application Platforms
Applications
Business Applications
Cloud Services
Communications & Networking
Database & Business Intelligence
Development Applications
General
Job Titles
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
Miscellaneous
Operating Systems
Processes & Methodologies
Programming Languages
Qualifications
Quality Assurance & Compliance
System Software
Systems Management
Vendors

Application Platforms
1	69 (4.99%)	MS Exchange
2	45 (3.25%)	SharePoint
3	31 (2.24%)	Skype for Business
4	29 (2.10%)	Exchange Server 2010
5	26 (1.88%)	Exchange Server 2007
6	23 (1.66%)	Blackberry Enterprise Server
7	21 (1.52%)	IIS
8	20 (1.45%)	WebSphere
9	15 (1.08%)	Exchange Server 2013
10	13 (0.94%)	JBoss
11	11 (0.79%)	Apache
12	9 (0.65%)	WebLogic
13	8 (0.58%)	CMS
13	8 (0.58%)	Tuxedo
14	7 (0.51%)	IBM Domino
15	6 (0.43%)	SAS
16	5 (0.36%)	Apache Pig
17	4 (0.29%)	Gentran
17	4 (0.29%)	Oracle SOA Suite
17	4 (0.29%)	SharePoint 2013

Applications
1	242 (17.49%)	Microsoft Office
2	87 (6.29%)	Microsoft Excel
3	49 (3.54%)	Microsoft PowerPoint
4	40 (2.89%)	MS Visio
5	21 (1.52%)	Spreadsheet
6	9 (0.65%)	Microsoft Project
7	5 (0.36%)	Adobe After Effects
8	3 (0.22%)	InfoPath
9	1 (0.072%)	S-PLUS

Business Applications
1	22 (1.59%)	Remedy ITSM
2	8 (0.58%)	Maximo
3	5 (0.36%)	Dynamics CRM
4	4 (0.29%)	Oracle Subledger Accounting
4	4 (0.29%)	SAP ERP
4	4 (0.29%)	Temenos T24
5	3 (0.22%)	Oracle EBS R12
5	3 (0.22%)	SAP CO
5	3 (0.22%)	SAP FI
5	3 (0.22%)	SAP FI/CO
6	2 (0.14%)	Bloomberg TOMS
6	2 (0.14%)	ION MarketView
6	2 (0.14%)	Oracle Assets
6	2 (0.14%)	Oracle EBS
6	2 (0.14%)	Oracle Financials
6	2 (0.14%)	Oracle General Ledger
6	2 (0.14%)	Oracle Receivables
6	2 (0.14%)	SAP EHS
6	2 (0.14%)	SAP Oil and Gas
6	2 (0.14%)	SAP PLM

Cloud Services
1	81 (5.85%)	Office 365
2	34 (2.46%)	Amazon AWS
3	25 (1.81%)	Microsoft Azure
4	22 (1.59%)	AWS CloudFormation
5	13 (0.94%)	SaaS
6	6 (0.43%)	Cloud Computing
6	6 (0.43%)	IaaS
7	5 (0.36%)	Adobe Creative Cloud
7	5 (0.36%)	IBM SmartCloud
7	5 (0.36%)	PaaS
8	4 (0.29%)	Mimecast
8	4 (0.29%)	OneDrive
9	3 (0.22%)	SuccessFactors
10	2 (0.14%)	G Suite
10	2 (0.14%)	IBM Cloud
10	2 (0.14%)	iTunes
10	2 (0.14%)	SoftLayer
10	2 (0.14%)	Virtual Private Cloud
11	1 (0.072%)	Dynamics 365
11	1 (0.072%)	Zapier

Communications & Networking
1	109 (7.88%)	Firewall
2	75 (5.42%)	WAN
3	68 (4.91%)	DNS
4	63 (4.55%)	LAN
5	59 (4.26%)	VPN
6	55 (3.97%)	Wireless
7	50 (3.61%)	DHCP
8	40 (2.89%)	SAN
9	39 (2.82%)	Internet
10	34 (2.46%)	TCP/IP
10	34 (2.46%)	VoIP
11	31 (2.24%)	Network Security
12	29 (2.10%)	Cisco ASA
13	24 (1.73%)	MPLS
14	19 (1.37%)	Wi-Fi
15	18 (1.30%)	VLAN
16	16 (1.16%)	Cisco Nexus
17	14 (1.01%)	3G
18	13 (0.94%)	Intranet
19	11 (0.79%)	Remote Desktop

Database & Business Intelligence
1	62 (4.48%)	SQL Server
2	26 (1.88%)	Oracle Database
3	15 (1.08%)	SQL Server 2008
4	14 (1.01%)	SQL Server 2012
5	12 (0.87%)	SQL Server Reporting Services
6	10 (0.72%)	Oracle Database 10g
7	9 (0.65%)	BusinessObjects Business Intelligence
7	9 (0.65%)	DataStage
7	9 (0.65%)	SQL Server Integration Services
8	8 (0.58%)	Big Data
8	8 (0.58%)	SQL Server 2005
8	8 (0.58%)	SQL Server 2014
9	7 (0.51%)	Relational Database
10	6 (0.43%)	Data Warehouse
10	6 (0.43%)	Oracle Reports
11	5 (0.36%)	Apache Hive
11	5 (0.36%)	Hadoop
11	5 (0.36%)	HBase
11	5 (0.36%)	SQL Server Analysis Services
11	5 (0.36%)	Sqoop

Development Applications
1	11 (0.79%)	JIRA
2	9 (0.65%)	Jenkins
3	7 (0.51%)	Subversion
4	6 (0.43%)	VSS/SourceSafe
5	4 (0.29%)	Git (software)
5	4 (0.29%)	MSI
6	3 (0.22%)	gulp
6	3 (0.22%)	Introscope
6	3 (0.22%)	Protractor
6	3 (0.22%)	SQL Server Management Studio (SSMS)
6	3 (0.22%)	Team Foundation Server
6	3 (0.22%)	webpack
7	2 (0.14%)	Vagrant
8	1 (0.072%)	AdminStudio
8	1 (0.072%)	Atlassian Bamboo
8	1 (0.072%)	SilkPerformer
8	1 (0.072%)	TeamCity
8	1 (0.072%)	Visual Studio

General
1	217 (15.68%)	Finance
2	106 (7.66%)	Telecoms
3	81 (5.85%)	Banking
4	44 (3.18%)	Retail
5	30 (2.17%)	Legal
6	27 (1.95%)	Back Office
7	18 (1.30%)	Billing
7	18 (1.30%)	Law
7	18 (1.30%)	Manufacturing
8	14 (1.01%)	Front Office
9	13 (0.94%)	Investment Banking
10	12 (0.87%)	Marketing
11	11 (0.79%)	Electronics
12	10 (0.72%)	Publishing
13	8 (0.58%)	French Language
14	7 (0.51%)	Advertising
15	6 (0.43%)	Financial Institution
15	6 (0.43%)	Local Government
15	6 (0.43%)	Military
15	6 (0.43%)	Pharmaceutical

Job Titles
1	342 (24.71%)	Analyst
2	133 (9.61%)	Service Analyst
3	116 (8.38%)	Service Desk Analyst
4	100 (7.23%)	Support Analyst
5	99 (7.15%)	Service Manager
6	96 (6.94%)	Support Engineer
7	92 (6.65%)	Field Engineer
8	81 (5.85%)	2nd Line Support
9	77 (5.56%)	Field Service Engineer
10	50 (3.61%)	Architect
10	50 (3.61%)	Developer
10	50 (3.61%)	Service Desk Support
11	49 (3.54%)	1st Line Support
12	45 (3.25%)	Desktop Support
13	44 (3.18%)	Administrator
13	44 (3.18%)	IT Support
14	43 (3.11%)	1st/2nd Line Support
15	42 (3.03%)	IT Engineer
15	42 (3.03%)	Network Engineer
16	41 (2.96%)	Consultant

Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1	40 (2.89%)	HTML
2	34 (2.46%)	Web Services
3	17 (1.23%)	XML
4	14 (1.01%)	.NET
5	13 (0.94%)	CSS
6	12 (0.87%)	AngularJS
7	11 (0.79%)	Hibernate
7	11 (0.79%)	Java EE
7	11 (0.79%)	Spring
8	10 (0.72%)	HTML5
9	9 (0.65%)	JSF
9	9 (0.65%)	Middleware
10	8 (0.58%)	Flash
10	8 (0.58%)	J2EE
10	8 (0.58%)	XSLT
11	7 (0.51%)	JSP
11	7 (0.51%)	SOAP
12	6 (0.43%)	ASP.NET
12	6 (0.43%)	Struts
12	6 (0.43%)	XSL

Miscellaneous
1	114 (8.24%)	Analytical Skills
2	85 (6.14%)	Data Centre
3	57 (4.12%)	Management Information System
4	50 (3.61%)	CMDB
5	32 (2.31%)	Blackberry
6	23 (1.66%)	User Experience
6	23 (1.66%)	Virtual Team
7	22 (1.59%)	Smartphone
8	20 (1.45%)	PDA
9	16 (1.16%)	Computer Science
10	15 (1.08%)	RSA SecurID
11	13 (0.94%)	Clustering
11	13 (0.94%)	Driving Licence
11	13 (0.94%)	Enterprise Software
11	13 (0.94%)	IVR
12	10 (0.72%)	Life Science
13	9 (0.65%)	iPhone
13	9 (0.65%)	Mainframe
13	9 (0.65%)	Wiki
14	8 (0.58%)	NHS

Operating Systems
1	377 (27.24%)	Windows
2	158 (11.42%)	Windows 7
3	118 (8.53%)	Linux
4	107 (7.73%)	Windows Server
5	65 (4.70%)	Windows Server 2012
6	63 (4.55%)	Unix
6	63 (4.55%)	Windows Server 2008
7	59 (4.26%)	Windows 10
8	41 (2.96%)	Windows Server 2003
9	36 (2.60%)	Android
10	32 (2.31%)	Windows 8
11	27 (1.95%)	Windows XP
12	21 (1.52%)	Mac OS X
13	19 (1.37%)	Red Hat Enterprise Linux
14	12 (0.87%)	Apple iOS
15	11 (0.79%)	Solaris
16	10 (0.72%)	AIX
16	10 (0.72%)	Windows Vista
17	6 (0.43%)	Windows 2000
18	4 (0.29%)	MVS

Processes & Methodologies
1	544 (39.31%)	ITIL
2	228 (16.47%)	Service Management
3	193 (13.95%)	Service Delivery
4	153 (11.05%)	Incident Management
5	126 (9.10%)	Change Management
6	120 (8.67%)	Break/Fix
7	108 (7.80%)	ITSM
8	105 (7.59%)	Project Management
9	99 (7.15%)	ITIL V3
10	84 (6.07%)	Problem Management
11	82 (5.92%)	Migration
12	71 (5.13%)	Stakeholder Management
13	69 (4.99%)	Root Cause Analysis
14	68 (4.91%)	Continuous Improvement
15	62 (4.48%)	Customer Requirements
16	56 (4.05%)	Asset Management
17	55 (3.97%)	Agile Software Development
18	48 (3.47%)	Line Management
18	48 (3.47%)	PRINCE2
18	48 (3.47%)	Service Design

Programming Languages
1	93 (6.72%)	SQL
2	54 (3.90%)	Java
3	35 (2.53%)	PowerShell
4	31 (2.24%)	JavaScript
5	21 (1.52%)	PL/SQL
6	20 (1.45%)	C
7	16 (1.16%)	Shell Script
8	15 (1.08%)	Python
9	14 (1.01%)	Perl
10	11 (0.79%)	Bash Shell
11	9 (0.65%)	C#
11	9 (0.65%)	T-SQL
11	9 (0.65%)	VB
12	8 (0.58%)	C++
13	7 (0.51%)	Ruby
14	5 (0.36%)	JCL
15	4 (0.29%)	VBScript
16	3 (0.22%)	TypeScript
16	3 (0.22%)	VBA
17	2 (0.14%)	ABAP

Qualifications
1	158 (11.42%)	Security Cleared
2	122 (8.82%)	SC Cleared
3	89 (6.43%)	Degree
4	81 (5.85%)	Cisco Certification
5	74 (5.35%)	Microsoft Certification
6	73 (5.27%)	ITIL Certification
7	52 (3.76%)	CCNA
8	43 (3.11%)	CCNP
9	30 (2.17%)	MCSE
10	24 (1.73%)	DBS Check
11	22 (1.59%)	DV Cleared
12	19 (1.37%)	ITIL Foundation Certificate
13	17 (1.23%)	MCP
14	15 (1.08%)	PMP
15	14 (1.01%)	BPSS Clearance
15	14 (1.01%)	MCSA
15	14 (1.01%)	VMware Certified Professional (VCP)
16	12 (0.87%)	PMI Certification
17	10 (0.72%)	CCIE
17	10 (0.72%)	Computer Science Degree

Quality Assurance & Compliance
1	26 (1.88%)	QA
2	25 (1.81%)	ISO/IEC 27001
3	20 (1.45%)	PMO
4	14 (1.01%)	Disclosure Scotland
5	11 (0.79%)	ISO/IEC 20000
6	9 (0.65%)	Sarbanes-Oxley
7	8 (0.58%)	PCI DSS
8	6 (0.43%)	Data Quality
8	6 (0.43%)	ISO/IEC 27002 (supersedes ISO/IEC 17799)
9	4 (0.29%)	ISO 9001
10	3 (0.22%)	COSHH
11	2 (0.14%)	JSP 440
11	2 (0.14%)	MiFID
12	1 (0.072%)	GMP
12	1 (0.072%)	GxP
12	1 (0.072%)	ISO/IEC 19770

System Software
1	276 (19.94%)	Active Directory
2	74 (5.35%)	VMware Infrastructure
3	30 (2.17%)	Hyper-V
4	23 (1.66%)	vSphere
5	17 (1.23%)	Virtual Desktop
6	14 (1.01%)	Oracle RAC
7	10 (0.72%)	Docker
7	10 (0.72%)	Terminal Services
8	9 (0.65%)	SRDF
8	9 (0.65%)	Virtual Machines
8	9 (0.65%)	XenApp
9	8 (0.58%)	VMware ESXi
10	6 (0.43%)	ISA Server
10	6 (0.43%)	UAG
10	6 (0.43%)	XenDesktop
11	5 (0.36%)	Forefront TMG
11	5 (0.36%)	HDFS
11	5 (0.36%)	Microsoft App-V
12	4 (0.29%)	Firmware
12	4 (0.29%)	VMware Workstation

Systems Management
1	80 (5.78%)	SCCM
2	32 (2.31%)	Ansible
3	30 (2.17%)	SCOM
4	26 (1.88%)	Tivoli
5	20 (1.45%)	Terraform
6	16 (1.16%)	Tivoli Storage Manager
7	15 (1.08%)	HP Data Protector
8	14 (1.01%)	Puppet
9	13 (0.94%)	NetBackup
10	12 (0.87%)	Netcool
10	12 (0.87%)	Opscode Chef
11	11 (0.79%)	Cisco Prime
12	9 (0.65%)	DameWare
13	8 (0.58%)	Control-M
14	7 (0.51%)	Enterprise Manager Cloud Control
14	7 (0.51%)	Kubernetes
14	7 (0.51%)	WSUS
15	6 (0.43%)	AirWatch
15	6 (0.43%)	BladeLogic
15	6 (0.43%)	vCenter Server

Vendors
1	321 (23.19%)	Microsoft
2	173 (12.50%)	Cisco
3	131 (9.47%)	HP
4	121 (8.74%)	VMware
5	75 (5.42%)	Oracle
6	68 (4.91%)	Citrix
6	68 (4.91%)	Remedy
7	51 (3.68%)	ServiceNow
8	48 (3.47%)	Apple
9	45 (3.25%)	SAP
10	37 (2.67%)	CheckPoint
10	37 (2.67%)	Dell
11	35 (2.53%)	F5
11	35 (2.53%)	IBM
12	31 (2.24%)	Juniper
13	28 (2.02%)	Nokia
14	26 (1.88%)	LANDesk
15	25 (1.81%)	NetApp
16	21 (1.52%)	Red Hat
17	20 (1.45%)	Huawei