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

 6 months to
11 Jan 2026		 Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 228 193 165
Rank change year-on-year -35 -28 +17
Contract jobs citing SLA 457 417 665
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 1.26% 1.31% 1.55%
As % of the Quality Assurance & Compliance category 7.31% 9.17% 10.71%
Number of daily rates quoted 243 216 329
10th Percentile £171 £148 £148
25th Percentile £250 £192 £190
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £400 £262 £400
Median % change year-on-year +52.82% -34.56% +33.33%
75th Percentile £538 £500 £514
90th Percentile £645 £588 £636
UK excluding London median daily rate £350 £262 £300
% change year-on-year +33.72% -12.75% +33.33%
Number of hourly rates quoted 110 43 69
10th Percentile £16.13 £14.70 £12.84
25th Percentile £17.69 £19.05 £13.33
Median hourly rate £18.50 £24.18 £17.72
Median % change year-on-year -23.49% +36.46% +1.69%
75th Percentile £20.35 £26.13 £33.75
90th Percentile £34.27 £36.19 £62.30
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 6,252 4,546 6,210
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 17.18% 14.30% 14.45%
Number of daily rates quoted 4,040 2,665 4,130
10th Percentile £313 £258 £313
25th Percentile £407 £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 302 175 245
10th Percentile £15.25 £15.00 £13.07
25th Percentile £17.69 £21.02 £17.14
Median hourly rate £26.11 £29.00 £32.50
Median % change year-on-year -9.97% -10.77% +36.74%
75th Percentile £63.18 £64.73 £60.00
90th Percentile £73.75 £75.00 £79.53
UK excluding London median hourly rate £20.75 £29.00 £30.00
% change year-on-year -28.45% -3.33% +41.18%

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 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 11 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 11 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 -23 412 £400 +53.26% 275
UK excluding London -26 327 £350 +33.72% 271
London 0 103 £496 +94.31% 46
Work from Home -27 90 £444 +90.86% 52
East of England +32 86 £400 +54.74% 41
North of England -47 62 £278 -14.62% 43
South East -37 61 £418 +67.00% 86
Midlands -50 49 £198 -21.00% 51
South West -2 46 £290 -47.27% 28
West Midlands -28 38 £225 +2.86% 19
North West -48 31 £293 -33.52% 16
Yorkshire -34 24 £365 +52.08% 22
Scotland +5 17 £350 +66.67% 18
East Midlands -33 11 £134 -61.71% 31
North East -4 7 £265 +0.95% 5
Northern Ireland -7 7 £500 +237.84% 4
Wales 0 3 £183 -16.82% 9

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 (4.60%) SharePoint
2 20 (4.38%) Microsoft Exchange
3 3 (0.66%) IIS
3 3 (0.66%) Oracle Workflow
3 3 (0.66%) Tomcat
4 2 (0.44%) Confluence
5 1 (0.22%) ArcGIS
5 1 (0.22%) GeoServer
5 1 (0.22%) MQSeries
5 1 (0.22%) Oracle Spatial
5 1 (0.22%) WebSphere
5 1 (0.22%) WebSphere Application Server
Applications
1 36 (7.88%) Microsoft Excel
1 36 (7.88%) Spreadsheet
2 28 (6.13%) Microsoft Office
3 5 (1.09%) MS Visio
4 4 (0.88%) Microsoft Project
4 4 (0.88%) Oracle Smart View
5 2 (0.44%) Microsoft PowerPoint
Business Applications
1 14 (3.06%) Oracle EBS
2 13 (2.84%) Oracle Subledger Accounting
3 8 (1.75%) Oracle Payables
4 7 (1.53%) Oracle General Ledger
5 6 (1.31%) Oracle Assets
6 5 (1.09%) Oracle Receivables
7 4 (0.88%) Oracle FAH
7 4 (0.88%) Remedy ITSM
7 4 (0.88%) Workday HCM
8 3 (0.66%) iTrent
8 3 (0.66%) Oracle EBS R12
8 3 (0.66%) Oracle ERP
9 2 (0.44%) Dynamics CRM
9 2 (0.44%) Dynamics GP
9 2 (0.44%) Oracle Cash Management
9 2 (0.44%) Oracle E-Business Tax
9 2 (0.44%) Oracle Financials
9 2 (0.44%) Temenos T24
10 1 (0.22%) SAP Payroll
10 1 (0.22%) Veritas eDiscovery
Cloud Services
1 67 (14.66%) Microsoft 365
2 42 (9.19%) Azure
3 29 (6.35%) AWS
4 12 (2.63%) Entra ID
4 12 (2.63%) GCP
5 9 (1.97%) Power Platform
6 8 (1.75%) SaaS
7 7 (1.53%) GitHub
7 7 (1.53%) IaaS
8 6 (1.31%) OCI
8 6 (1.31%) PaaS
9 5 (1.09%) Cloud Computing
9 5 (1.09%) GitHub Actions
9 5 (1.09%) OpenShift
10 3 (0.66%) AWS CloudFormation
10 3 (0.66%) AWS KMS
10 3 (0.66%) OneDrive
10 3 (0.66%) Virtual Private Cloud
11 2 (0.44%) Azure Key Vault
11 2 (0.44%) Azure Monitor
Communications & Networking
1 26 (5.69%) Firewall
2 23 (5.03%) WAN
3 18 (3.94%) DNS
4 15 (3.28%) SD-WAN
5 14 (3.06%) Wireless
6 13 (2.84%) PABX
7 12 (2.63%) LAN
7 12 (2.63%) MPLS
7 12 (2.63%) VPN
8 11 (2.41%) DHCP
9 8 (1.75%) TCP/IP
10 7 (1.53%) BGP
10 7 (1.53%) OSPF
11 6 (1.31%) Broadband
11 6 (1.31%) Cisco ASA
11 6 (1.31%) Network Security
11 6 (1.31%) SDH
12 5 (1.09%) Cisco IOS
12 5 (1.09%) Structured Cabling
12 5 (1.09%) VLAN
Database & Business Intelligence
1 10 (2.19%) SQL Server
2 8 (1.75%) PostgreSQL
3 7 (1.53%) Power BI
4 6 (1.31%) MongoDB
4 6 (1.31%) Oracle Database
5 5 (1.09%) MySQL
6 3 (0.66%) Amazon RDS
6 3 (0.66%) SAP HANA
7 2 (0.44%) GIS
7 2 (0.44%) Oracle Reports
7 2 (0.44%) Relational Database
8 1 (0.22%) Amazon Aurora
8 1 (0.22%) Azure SQL Database
8 1 (0.22%) Data Warehouse
8 1 (0.22%) Metadata
8 1 (0.22%) Oracle Database 12c
8 1 (0.22%) SQL Server Integration Services
8 1 (0.22%) SQL Server Reporting Services
Development Applications
1 14 (3.06%) Jenkins
2 13 (2.84%) GitLab
2 13 (2.84%) JIRA
3 11 (2.41%) Git
4 6 (1.31%) Postman
5 5 (1.09%) Visual Studio
6 3 (0.66%) CircleCI
7 2 (0.44%) Jaeger
7 2 (0.44%) PVCS
8 1 (0.22%) Metasploit
8 1 (0.22%) Selenium
8 1 (0.22%) TestDirector
General
1 205 (44.86%) Social Skills
2 96 (21.01%) Finance
3 55 (12.04%) Public Sector
4 53 (11.60%) Analytical Skills
5 31 (6.78%) Telecoms
6 28 (6.13%) Banking
7 27 (5.91%) Organisational Skills
8 21 (4.60%) Documentation Skills
9 19 (4.16%) Legal
10 13 (2.84%) Retail
11 9 (1.97%) Financial Institution
11 9 (1.97%) Manufacturing
12 8 (1.75%) Aerospace
12 8 (1.75%) Law
13 7 (1.53%) Local Government
13 7 (1.53%) Marketing
14 6 (1.31%) Inclusion and Diversity
15 5 (1.09%) Influencing Skills
16 4 (0.88%) Investment Banking
16 4 (0.88%) Presentation Skills
Job Titles
1 73 (15.97%) IT Support
2 66 (14.44%) Analyst
3 45 (9.85%) Lead
4 35 (7.66%) Desktop Support
5 31 (6.78%) Support Engineer
6 27 (5.91%) Administrator
7 26 (5.69%) Support Analyst
8 22 (4.81%) Service Manager
9 21 (4.60%) Team Leader
9 21 (4.60%) Technical Support
10 20 (4.38%) Senior
11 19 (4.16%) Service Analyst
12 18 (3.94%) Consultant
13 16 (3.50%) Desktop Engineer
14 15 (3.28%) IT Administrator
14 15 (3.28%) Service Desk Analyst
15 14 (3.06%) IT Manager
16 13 (2.84%) Applications Support
16 13 (2.84%) Desktop Support Engineer
16 13 (2.84%) Developer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 8 (1.75%) Middleware
2 7 (1.53%) Oracle Fusion
3 6 (1.31%) Kafka
4 5 (1.09%) LDAP
5 3 (0.66%) 802.1X
5 3 (0.66%) REST
6 2 (0.44%) .NET
6 2 (0.44%) CSS
6 2 (0.44%) Elastic Stack
6 2 (0.44%) Node.js
6 2 (0.44%) OAuth
6 2 (0.44%) OAuth2
6 2 (0.44%) OpenID
6 2 (0.44%) RESTful
6 2 (0.44%) SAML
6 2 (0.44%) Universal Windows Platform
6 2 (0.44%) XML
7 1 (0.22%) ASP.NET
7 1 (0.22%) HTML
7 1 (0.22%) RSS
Miscellaneous
1 29 (6.35%) Management Information System
2 23 (5.03%) Onboarding
3 21 (4.60%) Self-Motivation
4 18 (3.94%) Data Centre
4 18 (3.94%) Driving Licence
5 14 (3.06%) Smartphone
6 13 (2.84%) Product Ownership
7 6 (1.31%) Analytical Mindset
7 6 (1.31%) CMDB
7 6 (1.31%) Derivative
7 6 (1.31%) Enterprise Cloud
7 6 (1.31%) Public Cloud
8 5 (1.09%) Cloud Native
8 5 (1.09%) Data Protection Act
8 5 (1.09%) NHS
9 4 (0.88%) Clustering
9 4 (0.88%) Equities
9 4 (0.88%) Equity Derivative
9 4 (0.88%) Security Operations Centre
9 4 (0.88%) Security Posture
Operating Systems
1 91 (19.91%) Windows
2 29 (6.35%) Windows 10
3 24 (5.25%) Linux
4 17 (3.72%) Android
5 16 (3.50%) Unix
5 16 (3.50%) Windows Server
6 12 (2.63%) Apple iOS
7 11 (2.41%) Mac OS
8 5 (1.09%) CentOS
8 5 (1.09%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
9 3 (0.66%) Windows 7
10 2 (0.44%) Windows 8
10 2 (0.44%) Windows Server 2012
11 1 (0.22%) Mac OS X
11 1 (0.22%) Windows XP
Processes & Methodologies
1 137 (29.98%) ITIL
2 108 (23.63%) Customer Service
3 90 (19.69%) Service Delivery
4 65 (14.22%) Time Management
5 64 (14.00%) Continuous Improvement
6 52 (11.38%) ITSM
7 49 (10.72%) Problem-Solving
7 49 (10.72%) Service Management
8 44 (9.63%) Stakeholder Management
9 40 (8.75%) Change Management
10 38 (8.32%) Root Cause Analysis
11 36 (7.88%) Incident Management
12 35 (7.66%) Agile
13 29 (6.35%) Roadmaps
14 28 (6.13%) Asset Management
15 27 (5.91%) Problem Management
16 25 (5.47%) Customer Experience
16 25 (5.47%) Cybersecurity
17 23 (5.03%) Disaster Recovery
18 22 (4.81%) Process Improvement
Programming Languages
1 24 (5.25%) SQL
2 23 (5.03%) Python
3 16 (3.50%) Shell Script
4 15 (3.28%) PowerShell
5 11 (2.41%) Java
6 6 (1.31%) Bash
7 5 (1.09%) MATLAB
8 4 (0.88%) C++
8 4 (0.88%) PL/SQL
9 3 (0.66%) Go
9 3 (0.66%) JavaScript
10 2 (0.44%) C#
10 2 (0.44%) Kusto Query Language
11 1 (0.22%) Bicep
11 1 (0.22%) T-SQL
Qualifications
1 133 (29.10%) Security Cleared
2 107 (23.41%) SC Cleared
3 33 (7.22%) Degree
4 19 (4.16%) DV Cleared
5 12 (2.63%) ITIL Certification
6 11 (2.41%) BPSS Clearance
6 11 (2.41%) MOS
7 10 (2.19%) ITIL Foundation Certificate
8 7 (1.53%) Microsoft Certification
8 7 (1.53%) PMI Certification
9 5 (1.09%) Cisco Certification
10 4 (0.88%) Computer Science Degree
10 4 (0.88%) PMP
11 3 (0.66%) Azure Certification
11 3 (0.66%) CCNP
11 3 (0.66%) CEH
11 3 (0.66%) CISSP
11 3 (0.66%) DBS Check
11 3 (0.66%) HNC
11 3 (0.66%) Numerate Degree
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 16 (3.50%) GDPR
2 14 (3.06%) ISO/IEC 27001
3 8 (1.75%) Data Quality
4 6 (1.31%) NIST
4 6 (1.31%) QA
4 6 (1.31%) Sarbanes-Oxley
5 4 (0.88%) PCI DSS
6 3 (0.66%) COBIT
6 3 (0.66%) GRC
7 2 (0.44%) NIST 800
7 2 (0.44%) PMO
7 2 (0.44%) PSD2
8 1 (0.22%) Cyber Essentials
8 1 (0.22%) ISO 9001
8 1 (0.22%) ISO/IEC 20000
8 1 (0.22%) ISO/IEC 27002 (supersedes ISO/IEC 17799)
8 1 (0.22%) ISO/IEC 42001
System Software
1 46 (10.07%) Active Directory
2 8 (1.75%) Docker
2 8 (1.75%) VMware Infrastructure
3 6 (1.31%) vSphere
4 3 (0.66%) DFS Replication
4 3 (0.66%) Firmware
4 3 (0.66%) Hyper-V
4 3 (0.66%) Virtual Machines
5 2 (0.44%) BitLocker
5 2 (0.44%) VMware ESXi
Systems Management
1 15 (3.28%) Microsoft Intune
2 13 (2.84%) Ansible
2 13 (2.84%) SCCM
3 11 (2.41%) Kubernetes
4 10 (2.19%) Grafana
5 8 (1.75%) Terraform
6 6 (1.31%) SCOM
6 6 (1.31%) Single Sign-On
7 5 (1.09%) Check_MK
7 5 (1.09%) Podman
7 5 (1.09%) Red Hat Satellite
8 4 (0.88%) Prometheus
8 4 (0.88%) ServiceCenter
9 3 (0.66%) FortiGate
9 3 (0.66%) RSA Archer
9 3 (0.66%) WSUS
10 2 (0.44%) Jamf Pro
10 2 (0.44%) Microsoft Clustering
10 2 (0.44%) NetApp OnCommand
10 2 (0.44%) vMotion
Vendors
1 124 (27.13%) Microsoft
2 53 (11.60%) ServiceNow
3 40 (8.75%) Oracle
4 34 (7.44%) Cisco
5 24 (5.25%) HP
6 22 (4.81%) Dell
7 21 (4.60%) SAP
8 18 (3.94%) Apple
8 18 (3.94%) VMware
9 10 (2.19%) Splunk
10 9 (1.97%) Workday
11 8 (1.75%) Fortinet
12 7 (1.53%) Remedy
13 6 (1.31%) Juniper
14 5 (1.09%) IBM
14 5 (1.09%) Nokia
14 5 (1.09%) Red Hat
14 5 (1.09%) Trend Micro
15 4 (0.88%) BMC
16 3 (0.66%) Citrix
309 SLA jobs Nationwide