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

 6 months to
27 May 2026		 Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 230 185 138
Rank change year-on-year -45 -47 +45
Contract jobs citing SLA 533 429 737
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 1.09% 1.50% 1.73%
As % of the Quality Assurance & Compliance category 6.59% 9.45% 12.26%
Number of daily rates quoted 286 254 358
10th Percentile £209 £168 £150
25th Percentile £325 £208 £213
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £455 £298 £330
Median % change year-on-year +52.77% -9.85% +10.00%
75th Percentile £522 £520 £488
90th Percentile £600 £610 £583
UK excluding London median daily rate £450 £250 £288
% change year-on-year +80.00% -13.12% +4.64%
Number of hourly rates quoted 100 38 90
10th Percentile £15.59 £16.64 £11.07
25th Percentile £17.69 £19.20 £12.83
Median hourly rate £18.67 £22.21 £14.70
Median % change year-on-year -15.94% +51.05% -20.54%
75th Percentile £20.79 £24.66 £22.32
90th Percentile £29.54 £36.45 £30.25
UK excluding London median hourly rate £18.50 £22.14 £13.93
% change year-on-year -16.44% +58.99% -24.17%

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 8,088 4,540 6,011
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 16.60% 15.89% 14.09%
Number of daily rates quoted 5,200 2,928 3,815
10th Percentile £344 £263 £280
25th Percentile £413 £400 £400
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £500 £508
Median % change year-on-year - -1.57% -3.24%
75th Percentile £600 £615 £625
90th Percentile £700 £725 £750
UK excluding London median daily rate £500 £475 £475
% change year-on-year +5.26% - -2.26%
Number of hourly rates quoted 476 171 394
10th Percentile £14.00 £15.29 £10.95
25th Percentile £18.50 £22.14 £13.18
Median hourly rate £35.50 £32.50 £21.06
Median % change year-on-year +9.23% +54.34% -39.84%
75th Percentile £67.31 £67.50 £47.81
90th Percentile £81.95 £80.00 £68.75
UK excluding London median hourly rate £40.00 £32.50 £18.27
% change year-on-year +23.08% +77.89% -45.27%

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 27 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 27 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 27 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 -68 470 £463 +55.46% 247
UK excluding London -74 333 £450 +80.00% 204
London -14 176 £475 +18.75% 77
Work from Home -17 121 £475 +101.06% 109
East of England +29 82 £492 +118.67% 23
South East -74 74 £463 +85.00% 70
North of England -56 73 £438 +52.17% 46
North West -34 42 £444 +77.50% 25
Midlands -85 41 £296 +25.96% 27
Scotland +20 37 £448 +45.10% 13
West Midlands -80 31 £296 +25.96% 15
Yorkshire -45 29 £431 +1.32% 17
South West -55 22 £378 +21.94% 20
East Midlands -28 9 £329 -12.40% 12
Wales -19 5 - - 2
North East -23 2 £280 - 4
Northern Ireland - 2 £175 - 8

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 16 (3.00%) SharePoint
2 15 (2.81%) Microsoft Exchange
3 10 (1.88%) Confluence
4 7 (1.31%) OpenStack
5 5 (0.94%) Oracle Workflow
6 4 (0.75%) Adobe Experience Manager
6 4 (0.75%) IIS
6 4 (0.75%) SAS
7 3 (0.56%) Apache Airflow
8 2 (0.38%) ArcGIS
9 1 (0.19%) Apache
9 1 (0.19%) Apache Spark
9 1 (0.19%) LiveCycle
9 1 (0.19%) Smallworld
9 1 (0.19%) WebSphere
9 1 (0.19%) WebSphere Application Server
Applications
1 49 (9.19%) Microsoft Excel
2 45 (8.44%) Microsoft Office
3 26 (4.88%) Spreadsheet
4 6 (1.13%) MS Visio
5 5 (0.94%) Microsoft PowerPoint
6 2 (0.38%) Microsoft Project
7 1 (0.19%) Autodesk Inventor
7 1 (0.19%) MicroStation
7 1 (0.19%) Oracle Smart View
Business Applications
1 14 (2.63%) Remedy ITSM
2 11 (2.06%) Oracle Payables
2 11 (2.06%) Oracle Subledger Accounting
3 9 (1.69%) Oracle Assets
4 6 (1.13%) Oracle ERP
4 6 (1.13%) Oracle Receivables
5 5 (0.94%) Oracle Procure-to-Pay
6 4 (0.75%) Oracle General Ledger
7 3 (0.56%) Oracle EBS
8 2 (0.38%) Dynamics CRM
8 2 (0.38%) Dynamics GP
8 2 (0.38%) IntelliMatch
8 2 (0.38%) Oracle Applications
8 2 (0.38%) Oracle Cash Management
8 2 (0.38%) Oracle E-Business Tax
8 2 (0.38%) Oracle Financials
8 2 (0.38%) Payment Gateway
8 2 (0.38%) Temenos T24
9 1 (0.19%) Oracle FAH
9 1 (0.19%) Veritas eDiscovery
Cloud Services
1 89 (16.70%) Azure
2 63 (11.82%) AWS
3 53 (9.94%) Microsoft 365
4 23 (4.32%) Power Platform
5 20 (3.75%) Entra ID
6 18 (3.38%) GCP
7 16 (3.00%) IaaS
8 15 (2.81%) Azure DevOps
8 15 (2.81%) PaaS
8 15 (2.81%) SaaS
9 14 (2.63%) Amazon S3
10 12 (2.25%) OCI
11 11 (2.06%) AWS CloudFormation
11 11 (2.06%) Datadog
11 11 (2.06%) Virtual Private Cloud
12 10 (1.88%) Amazon EC2
13 9 (1.69%) Azure Sentinel
13 9 (1.69%) OneDrive
13 9 (1.69%) Snowflake
14 8 (1.50%) GitHub
Communications & Networking
1 33 (6.19%) DNS
2 32 (6.00%) Firewall
3 25 (4.69%) DHCP
4 24 (4.50%) VPN
5 21 (3.94%) WAN
6 15 (2.81%) SAN
6 15 (2.81%) Wi-Fi
7 13 (2.44%) LAN
7 13 (2.44%) Network Security
7 13 (2.44%) SD-WAN
7 13 (2.44%) TCP/IP
8 12 (2.25%) Cisco ASA
9 11 (2.06%) VLAN
10 8 (1.50%) Radio Access Network
11 7 (1.31%) 5G
11 7 (1.31%) BGP
11 7 (1.31%) LTE
11 7 (1.31%) MPLS
11 7 (1.31%) OSPF
11 7 (1.31%) Wireless
Database & Business Intelligence
1 19 (3.56%) Power BI
2 16 (3.00%) SQL Server
3 9 (1.69%) PostgreSQL
4 8 (1.50%) Oracle Reports
5 6 (1.13%) Tableau
6 5 (0.94%) Oracle Database
6 5 (0.94%) Relational Database
7 4 (0.75%) Amazon RDS
7 4 (0.75%) MongoDB
7 4 (0.75%) MySQL
7 4 (0.75%) Pentaho
8 3 (0.56%) Amazon Athena
8 3 (0.56%) SQL Server Reporting Services
9 2 (0.38%) GIS
9 2 (0.38%) SAP HANA
9 2 (0.38%) SQL Server Integration Services
10 1 (0.19%) Azure SQL Database
10 1 (0.19%) InfluxDB
10 1 (0.19%) Parquet
10 1 (0.19%) Spark SQL
Development Applications
1 47 (8.82%) JIRA
2 22 (4.13%) GitLab
3 20 (3.75%) Jenkins
4 18 (3.38%) Git
5 7 (1.31%) Chocolatey
6 5 (0.94%) Visual Studio
7 4 (0.75%) Maven
8 3 (0.56%) CircleCI
9 2 (0.38%) Artifactory
9 2 (0.38%) JMeter
9 2 (0.38%) Toad
10 1 (0.19%) Bitbucket
10 1 (0.19%) Cucumber
10 1 (0.19%) SQL Server Management Studio (SSMS)
10 1 (0.19%) WiX
General
1 234 (43.90%) Social Skills
2 106 (19.89%) Finance
3 82 (15.38%) Analytical Skills
4 40 (7.50%) Banking
5 36 (6.75%) Public Sector
6 30 (5.63%) Organisational Skills
7 26 (4.88%) Documentation Skills
8 24 (4.50%) Telecoms
9 20 (3.75%) Legal
10 16 (3.00%) Retail
11 11 (2.06%) Aerospace
11 11 (2.06%) Billing
12 8 (1.50%) Financial Institution
12 8 (1.50%) Inclusion and Diversity
12 8 (1.50%) Investment Banking
12 8 (1.50%) Manufacturing
13 7 (1.31%) Influencing Skills
14 6 (1.13%) Local Government
14 6 (1.13%) Presentation Skills
15 5 (0.94%) Marketing
Job Titles
1 64 (12.01%) Analyst
2 59 (11.07%) IT Support
3 37 (6.94%) Administrator
4 36 (6.75%) Lead
5 34 (6.38%) Service Manager
6 33 (6.19%) Support Engineer
7 31 (5.82%) Senior
8 28 (5.25%) Service Analyst
9 24 (4.50%) IT Engineer
10 23 (4.32%) Technical Support
11 20 (3.75%) Consultant
12 19 (3.56%) Delivery Manager
13 18 (3.38%) Service Delivery Manager
14 17 (3.19%) Desktop Support
15 15 (2.81%) Azure Engineer
15 15 (2.81%) Network Engineer
16 14 (2.63%) Service Desk Analyst
17 13 (2.44%) Architect
17 13 (2.44%) AWS Engineer
18 12 (2.25%) Desktop Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 15 (2.81%) Oracle Fusion
2 14 (2.63%) Middleware
3 11 (2.06%) LDAP
3 11 (2.06%) REST
4 8 (1.50%) .NET
4 8 (1.50%) Web Services
5 5 (0.94%) ARM Templates
5 5 (0.94%) AWS CDK
5 5 (0.94%) Spring
6 4 (0.75%) 802.1X
6 4 (0.75%) AngularJS
6 4 (0.75%) Bootstrap
6 4 (0.75%) CSS
6 4 (0.75%) J2EE
6 4 (0.75%) jQuery
6 4 (0.75%) Kafka
6 4 (0.75%) Sass
6 4 (0.75%) Spring MVC
7 3 (0.56%) ADO
7 3 (0.56%) Software Packaging
Miscellaneous
1 41 (7.69%) Onboarding
2 34 (6.38%) Data Centre
3 20 (3.75%) Product Ownership
4 17 (3.19%) Management Information System
5 14 (2.63%) CMDB
6 11 (2.06%) Cloud Native
7 9 (1.69%) Cyber Threat
8 8 (1.50%) Data Protection Act
8 8 (1.50%) Self-Motivation
9 7 (1.31%) BYOD
9 7 (1.31%) Driving Licence
9 7 (1.31%) Enterprise Software
10 6 (1.13%) Analytical Mindset
10 6 (1.13%) PKI
10 6 (1.13%) Public Cloud
10 6 (1.13%) Security Posture
10 6 (1.13%) Virtual Team
11 5 (0.94%) Equities
11 5 (0.94%) IoT
11 5 (0.94%) Smartphone
Operating Systems
1 106 (19.89%) Windows
2 50 (9.38%) Linux
3 34 (6.38%) Windows 10
4 22 (4.13%) Unix
5 18 (3.38%) Windows Server
6 14 (2.63%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
7 11 (2.06%) Android
7 11 (2.06%) CentOS
8 5 (0.94%) Mac OS
9 3 (0.56%) Apple iOS
9 3 (0.56%) Windows Server 2012
10 2 (0.38%) Windows 7
10 2 (0.38%) Windows Server 2019
11 1 (0.19%) Solaris
11 1 (0.19%) Windows Server 2003
11 1 (0.19%) Windows Server 2016
11 1 (0.19%) Windows XP
Processes & Methodologies
1 160 (30.02%) ITIL
2 97 (18.20%) ITSM
3 91 (17.07%) Problem-Solving
4 89 (16.70%) Continuous Improvement
5 85 (15.95%) Service Delivery
6 84 (15.76%) Stakeholder Management
7 77 (14.45%) Customer Service
8 76 (14.26%) Root Cause Analysis
9 68 (12.76%) Agile
9 68 (12.76%) Change Management
10 67 (12.57%) Service Management
11 58 (10.88%) Incident Management
12 56 (10.51%) Time Management
13 47 (8.82%) Problem Management
14 44 (8.26%) CI/CD
15 43 (8.07%) Migration
16 41 (7.69%) Asset Management
16 41 (7.69%) DevOps
17 40 (7.50%) Roadmaps
18 35 (6.57%) Project Management
Programming Languages
1 46 (8.63%) SQL
2 37 (6.94%) Python
3 20 (3.75%) PowerShell
4 18 (3.38%) Bash
4 18 (3.38%) Shell Script
5 14 (2.63%) Java
6 11 (2.06%) MATLAB
7 7 (1.31%) JavaScript
8 6 (1.13%) PL/SQL
9 4 (0.75%) Bicep
9 4 (0.75%) Go
10 2 (0.38%) C#
10 2 (0.38%) C++
10 2 (0.38%) Scala
10 2 (0.38%) VB
10 2 (0.38%) X++
11 1 (0.19%) Apex Code
11 1 (0.19%) Groovy
11 1 (0.19%) Korn
Qualifications
1 116 (21.76%) Security Cleared
2 91 (17.07%) SC Cleared
3 49 (9.19%) Degree
4 23 (4.32%) DV Cleared
5 14 (2.63%) BPSS Clearance
6 13 (2.44%) Cisco Certification
6 13 (2.44%) ITIL Certification
7 11 (2.06%) Microsoft Certification
8 9 (1.69%) CCNP
9 7 (1.31%) ITIL Foundation Certificate
9 7 (1.31%) PMI Certification
10 6 (1.13%) CCSE
10 6 (1.13%) Master's Degree
11 5 (0.94%) CCSM
11 5 (0.94%) MCSE
12 4 (0.75%) CCNA
12 4 (0.75%) CISA
12 4 (0.75%) MBA
12 4 (0.75%) RIBA
13 3 (0.56%) PMP
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 17 (3.19%) Data Quality
2 13 (2.44%) ISO/IEC 27001
2 13 (2.44%) PMO
2 13 (2.44%) QA
3 10 (1.88%) GRC
3 10 (1.88%) NIST
4 9 (1.69%) GDPR
5 6 (1.13%) COBIT
5 6 (1.13%) PCI DSS
6 4 (0.75%) Cyber Essentials
7 3 (0.56%) ISO 20022
7 3 (0.56%) ISO/IEC 20000
7 3 (0.56%) JSP 440
7 3 (0.56%) Sarbanes-Oxley
8 2 (0.38%) ISO 31000
8 2 (0.38%) ISO 8583
8 2 (0.38%) SOC 2
9 1 (0.19%) Disclosure Scotland
9 1 (0.19%) HL7
9 1 (0.19%) ISO/IEC 42001
System Software
1 70 (13.13%) Active Directory
2 23 (4.32%) VMware Infrastructure
3 14 (2.63%) VMware ESXi
4 13 (2.44%) Docker
5 8 (1.50%) Hyper-V
5 8 (1.50%) vSphere
6 7 (1.31%) Virtual Desktop
7 3 (0.56%) DFS Replication
8 2 (0.38%) Firmware
9 1 (0.19%) BitLocker
9 1 (0.19%) Ceph
9 1 (0.19%) Oracle RAC
9 1 (0.19%) Virtual Machines
9 1 (0.19%) Virtual Servers
9 1 (0.19%) VMware Workstation
9 1 (0.19%) XenDesktop
Systems Management
1 26 (4.88%) Ansible
1 26 (4.88%) SCCM
2 25 (4.69%) Microsoft Intune
3 24 (4.50%) Terraform
4 20 (3.75%) Kubernetes
5 13 (2.44%) Grafana
6 12 (2.25%) ServiceCenter
7 11 (2.06%) Check_MK
7 11 (2.06%) Podman
7 11 (2.06%) Red Hat Satellite
7 11 (2.06%) Single Sign-On
8 9 (1.69%) vCenter Server
9 5 (0.94%) Prometheus
10 4 (0.75%) Active Directory Federation Services
10 4 (0.75%) TeamSite
11 3 (0.56%) FortiGate
11 3 (0.56%) Oracle Identity Management
11 3 (0.56%) Oracle Identity Manager
12 2 (0.38%) HP Quality Center
12 2 (0.38%) SCOM
Vendors
1 165 (30.96%) Microsoft
2 89 (16.70%) ServiceNow
3 51 (9.57%) Oracle
4 45 (8.44%) VMware
5 35 (6.57%) Cisco
6 32 (6.00%) HP
7 24 (4.50%) Apple
8 23 (4.32%) Dell
9 20 (3.75%) Remedy
10 19 (3.56%) SAP
11 15 (2.81%) Splunk
12 13 (2.44%) Red Hat
13 11 (2.06%) IBM
13 11 (2.06%) Tenable
14 10 (1.88%) AppDynamics
15 9 (1.69%) CheckPoint
15 9 (1.69%) Fortinet
15 9 (1.69%) Palo Alto
16 8 (1.50%) Ericsson
16 8 (1.50%) Huawei
288 SLA jobs Nationwide