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

 6 months to
23 Jun 2026		 Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 234 194 145
Rank change year-on-year -40 -49 +46
Contract jobs citing SLA 545 428 710
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 1.07% 1.43% 1.63%
As % of the Quality Assurance & Compliance category 6.37% 8.77% 11.89%
Number of daily rates quoted 305 247 330
10th Percentile £202 £180 £150
25th Percentile £300 £213 £202
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £450 £345 £340
Median % change year-on-year +30.43% +1.47% +14.29%
75th Percentile £515 £528 £488
90th Percentile £597 £613 £582
UK excluding London median daily rate £441 £263 £285
% change year-on-year +68.10% -7.89% +3.64%
Number of hourly rates quoted 87 46 88
10th Percentile £13.60 £15.75 £11.07
25th Percentile £17.60 £18.75 £12.75
Median hourly rate £18.67 £22.14 £14.75
Median % change year-on-year -15.70% +50.10% -19.67%
75th Percentile £21.51 £25.15 £23.80
90th Percentile £26.61 £33.75 £26.15
UK excluding London median hourly rate £18.50 £22.14 £13.85
% change year-on-year -16.44% +59.86% -24.01%

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 8,555 4,881 5,972
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 16.85% 16.29% 13.69%
Number of daily rates quoted 5,496 3,114 3,711
10th Percentile £340 £271 £280
25th Percentile £413 £400 £401
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £500 £510
Median % change year-on-year - -1.96% -2.86%
75th Percentile £600 £613 £625
90th Percentile £700 £725 £750
UK excluding London median daily rate £500 £475 £475
% change year-on-year +5.26% - -2.56%
Number of hourly rates quoted 515 202 438
10th Percentile £14.00 £15.12 £11.00
25th Percentile £19.33 £19.60 £13.18
Median hourly rate £36.07 £31.70 £23.05
Median % change year-on-year +13.79% +37.56% -38.55%
75th Percentile £67.50 £67.50 £48.75
90th Percentile £82.25 £83.39 £70.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £40.00 £31.70 £19.00
% change year-on-year +26.18% +66.84% -49.33%

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 23 June 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 23 June 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 23 June 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 -50 471 £450 +29.50% 201
UK excluding London -66 333 £441 +68.10% 199
London -16 186 £475 +22.58% 47
Work from Home +10 135 £475 +82.69% 75
North of England -51 76 £436 +34.23% 38
South East -81 72 £463 +76.19% 66
East of England +18 62 £492 +118.67% 19
Midlands -64 50 £288 +0.52% 28
Scotland +16 46 £440 +42.51% 16
North West -27 42 £438 +34.62% 25
West Midlands -73 41 £269 -18.68% 11
Yorkshire -44 32 £401 +3.55% 7
South West -49 24 £400 +60.00% 16
East Midlands -16 8 £475 +90.00% 17
Wales -15 7 £800 +204.76% 13
Northern Ireland +1 2 £175 - 9
North East -34 2 £280 - 6

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 (3.85%) SharePoint
2 12 (2.20%) Microsoft Exchange
3 10 (1.83%) Confluence
4 7 (1.28%) OpenStack
5 5 (0.92%) IIS
5 5 (0.92%) Oracle Workflow
5 5 (0.92%) SAS
6 4 (0.73%) Adobe Experience Manager
7 3 (0.55%) Apache Airflow
8 2 (0.37%) ArcGIS
9 1 (0.18%) Apache
9 1 (0.18%) Apache Spark
9 1 (0.18%) LiveCycle
9 1 (0.18%) Smallworld
Applications
1 53 (9.72%) Microsoft Office
2 51 (9.36%) Microsoft Excel
3 15 (2.75%) Spreadsheet
4 6 (1.10%) MS Visio
5 5 (0.92%) Microsoft PowerPoint
6 2 (0.37%) Microsoft Project
7 1 (0.18%) Autodesk Inventor
7 1 (0.18%) MicroStation
7 1 (0.18%) Oracle Smart View
Business Applications
1 14 (2.57%) Remedy ITSM
2 12 (2.20%) Oracle Payables
2 12 (2.20%) Oracle Subledger Accounting
3 10 (1.83%) Oracle Assets
4 7 (1.28%) Oracle Receivables
5 6 (1.10%) Oracle ERP
6 5 (0.92%) ContrOCC
6 5 (0.92%) Dynamics CRM
6 5 (0.92%) Oracle Applications
6 5 (0.92%) Oracle General Ledger
6 5 (0.92%) Oracle Procure-to-Pay
7 3 (0.55%) Oracle Cash Management
7 3 (0.55%) Oracle EBS
8 2 (0.37%) Dynamics GP
8 2 (0.37%) IntelliMatch
8 2 (0.37%) Oracle EBS R12
8 2 (0.37%) Oracle E-Business Tax
8 2 (0.37%) Oracle Financials
8 2 (0.37%) Payment Gateway
9 1 (0.18%) Veritas eDiscovery
Cloud Services
1 97 (17.80%) Azure
2 68 (12.48%) Microsoft 365
3 55 (10.09%) AWS
4 28 (5.14%) Entra ID
5 23 (4.22%) Power Platform
6 19 (3.49%) Azure DevOps
7 16 (2.94%) SaaS
8 15 (2.75%) OCI
8 15 (2.75%) OneDrive
9 14 (2.57%) Amazon S3
10 13 (2.39%) Datadog
10 13 (2.39%) GCP
10 13 (2.39%) IaaS
10 13 (2.39%) PaaS
11 11 (2.02%) Virtual Private Cloud
12 10 (1.83%) Amazon EC2
13 9 (1.65%) Azure Sentinel
13 9 (1.65%) Snowflake
14 8 (1.47%) AWS CloudFormation
15 7 (1.28%) Amazon CloudWatch
Communications & Networking
1 27 (4.95%) DNS
2 26 (4.77%) VPN
3 25 (4.59%) Firewall
4 23 (4.22%) DHCP
5 21 (3.85%) WAN
6 17 (3.12%) Wi-Fi
7 14 (2.57%) LAN
8 13 (2.39%) Network Security
9 12 (2.20%) SAN
10 11 (2.02%) Cisco ASA
10 11 (2.02%) SD-WAN
11 10 (1.83%) Cisco IOS
11 10 (1.83%) VLAN
12 9 (1.65%) TCP/IP
12 9 (1.65%) Wireless
13 8 (1.47%) MPLS
14 7 (1.28%) 5G
14 7 (1.28%) LTE
14 7 (1.28%) Radio Access Network
15 6 (1.10%) VoLTE
Database & Business Intelligence
1 19 (3.49%) Power BI
2 17 (3.12%) SQL Server
3 8 (1.47%) Oracle Reports
3 8 (1.47%) Tableau
4 6 (1.10%) Relational Database
5 5 (0.92%) Oracle Database
5 5 (0.92%) Pentaho
5 5 (0.92%) PostgreSQL
6 4 (0.73%) Amazon RDS
6 4 (0.73%) MySQL
7 3 (0.55%) Amazon Athena
7 3 (0.55%) SQL Server Reporting Services
8 2 (0.37%) GIS
8 2 (0.37%) SQL Server Integration Services
9 1 (0.18%) Azure SQL Database
9 1 (0.18%) Data Warehouse
9 1 (0.18%) Db2
9 1 (0.18%) Hadoop
9 1 (0.18%) MongoDB
9 1 (0.18%) SAP HANA
Development Applications
1 48 (8.81%) JIRA
2 18 (3.30%) GitLab
3 16 (2.94%) Jenkins
4 15 (2.75%) Git
5 7 (1.28%) Chocolatey
6 4 (0.73%) Maven
7 3 (0.55%) Visual Studio
8 2 (0.37%) Artifactory
8 2 (0.37%) JMeter
8 2 (0.37%) Toad
9 1 (0.18%) Bitbucket
9 1 (0.18%) Cucumber
9 1 (0.18%) SQL Server Management Studio (SSMS)
9 1 (0.18%) WiX
General
1 239 (43.85%) Social Skills
2 113 (20.73%) Finance
3 92 (16.88%) Analytical Skills
4 45 (8.26%) Public Sector
5 35 (6.42%) Banking
6 30 (5.50%) Organisational Skills
7 29 (5.32%) Documentation Skills
8 24 (4.40%) Telecoms
9 22 (4.04%) Legal
10 13 (2.39%) Billing
11 12 (2.20%) Inclusion and Diversity
11 12 (2.20%) Retail
12 11 (2.02%) Aerospace
13 10 (1.83%) Local Government
14 9 (1.65%) Manufacturing
15 8 (1.47%) Financial Institution
16 7 (1.28%) Investment Banking
17 6 (1.10%) Influencing Skills
17 6 (1.10%) Marketing
17 6 (1.10%) Presentation Skills
Job Titles
1 74 (13.58%) Analyst
2 51 (9.36%) IT Support
3 39 (7.16%) Support Engineer
4 36 (6.61%) Lead
5 33 (6.06%) Administrator
5 33 (6.06%) Service Manager
6 31 (5.69%) Senior
7 28 (5.14%) Service Analyst
8 23 (4.22%) Delivery Manager
8 23 (4.22%) IT Engineer
9 21 (3.85%) Consultant
10 20 (3.67%) Service Delivery Manager
10 20 (3.67%) Technical Support
11 17 (3.12%) Azure Engineer
11 17 (3.12%) Desktop Engineer
12 16 (2.94%) Desktop Support
13 15 (2.75%) Coordinator
13 15 (2.75%) Network Engineer
14 14 (2.57%) Service Desk Analyst
15 13 (2.39%) IT Support Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 15 (2.75%) Oracle Fusion
2 13 (2.39%) Middleware
3 11 (2.02%) LDAP
4 10 (1.83%) REST
5 8 (1.47%) .NET
5 8 (1.47%) Web Services
6 6 (1.10%) Software Packaging
7 5 (0.92%) ARM Templates
7 5 (0.92%) AWS CDK
7 5 (0.92%) Spring
8 4 (0.73%) AngularJS
8 4 (0.73%) Bootstrap
8 4 (0.73%) CSS
8 4 (0.73%) J2EE
8 4 (0.73%) jQuery
8 4 (0.73%) Sass
8 4 (0.73%) Spring MVC
9 3 (0.55%) 802.1X
9 3 (0.55%) ADO
10 2 (0.37%) RESTful
Miscellaneous
1 46 (8.44%) Onboarding
2 33 (6.06%) Data Centre
3 19 (3.49%) CMDB
4 15 (2.75%) Product Ownership
5 13 (2.39%) Management Information System
6 12 (2.20%) Smartphone
7 11 (2.02%) Cloud Native
7 11 (2.02%) Enterprise Software
8 9 (1.65%) BYOD
8 9 (1.65%) Cyber Threat
8 9 (1.65%) Data Protection Act
9 8 (1.47%) PKI
10 7 (1.28%) Driving Licence
10 7 (1.28%) Self-Motivation
10 7 (1.28%) Virtual Team
11 6 (1.10%) Analytical Mindset
12 5 (0.92%) IoT
13 4 (0.73%) Augmented Reality
13 4 (0.73%) Hybrid Cloud
13 4 (0.73%) iPhone
Operating Systems
1 114 (20.92%) Windows
2 44 (8.07%) Linux
3 37 (6.79%) Windows 10
4 21 (3.85%) Windows Server
5 19 (3.49%) Android
6 17 (3.12%) Unix
7 14 (2.57%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
8 11 (2.02%) CentOS
9 5 (0.92%) Apple iOS
9 5 (0.92%) Mac OS
9 5 (0.92%) Windows 7
10 4 (0.73%) Windows XP
11 3 (0.55%) Windows Server 2012
12 2 (0.37%) Windows Server 2019
13 1 (0.18%) Solaris
13 1 (0.18%) Windows Server 2003
13 1 (0.18%) Windows Server 2016
Processes & Methodologies
1 174 (31.93%) ITIL
2 107 (19.63%) ITSM
3 106 (19.45%) Problem-Solving
4 100 (18.35%) Continuous Improvement
5 96 (17.61%) Customer Service
6 95 (17.43%) Stakeholder Management
7 85 (15.60%) Service Delivery
8 81 (14.86%) Service Management
9 80 (14.68%) Agile
10 79 (14.50%) Change Management
11 72 (13.21%) Root Cause Analysis
12 53 (9.72%) Incident Management
12 53 (9.72%) Problem Management
13 45 (8.26%) Migration
14 43 (7.89%) DevOps
14 43 (7.89%) Roadmaps
14 43 (7.89%) Time Management
15 42 (7.71%) Asset Management
16 39 (7.16%) CI/CD
16 39 (7.16%) Project Management
Programming Languages
1 45 (8.26%) SQL
2 32 (5.87%) Python
3 22 (4.04%) PowerShell
4 16 (2.94%) Bash
5 14 (2.57%) Shell Script
6 11 (2.02%) MATLAB
7 10 (1.83%) Java
8 7 (1.28%) JavaScript
9 6 (1.10%) PL/SQL
10 4 (0.73%) Bicep
11 2 (0.37%) C#
11 2 (0.37%) Scala
11 2 (0.37%) VB
11 2 (0.37%) X++
12 1 (0.18%) Apex Code
12 1 (0.18%) COBOL
12 1 (0.18%) Groovy
12 1 (0.18%) Korn
12 1 (0.18%) RPG
12 1 (0.18%) VBScript
Qualifications
1 121 (22.20%) Security Cleared
2 95 (17.43%) SC Cleared
3 50 (9.17%) Degree
4 24 (4.40%) DV Cleared
5 19 (3.49%) ITIL Certification
6 17 (3.12%) BPSS Clearance
7 14 (2.57%) Cisco Certification
8 13 (2.39%) Microsoft Certification
9 10 (1.83%) CCNP
10 9 (1.65%) ITIL Foundation Certificate
11 8 (1.47%) PMI Certification
12 6 (1.10%) Azure Certification
12 6 (1.10%) CCSE
12 6 (1.10%) Master's Degree
12 6 (1.10%) MCSE
13 5 (0.92%) CCSM
14 4 (0.73%) CCA
14 4 (0.73%) CCNA
14 4 (0.73%) CISSP
14 4 (0.73%) MBA
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 20 (3.67%) Data Quality
2 15 (2.75%) PMO
3 14 (2.57%) ISO/IEC 27001
3 14 (2.57%) QA
4 11 (2.02%) NIST
5 9 (1.65%) COBIT
5 9 (1.65%) GDPR
5 9 (1.65%) GRC
6 6 (1.10%) PCI DSS
7 3 (0.55%) Cyber Essentials
7 3 (0.55%) ISO 20022
7 3 (0.55%) JSP 440
7 3 (0.55%) Sarbanes-Oxley
8 2 (0.37%) ISO 31000
8 2 (0.37%) ISO 8583
8 2 (0.37%) ISO/IEC 20000
8 2 (0.37%) SOC 2
9 1 (0.18%) DICOM
9 1 (0.18%) Disclosure Scotland
9 1 (0.18%) HL7
System Software
1 75 (13.76%) Active Directory
2 22 (4.04%) VMware Infrastructure
3 15 (2.75%) VMware ESXi
4 8 (1.47%) Docker
4 8 (1.47%) Hyper-V
4 8 (1.47%) Virtual Desktop
5 6 (1.10%) vSphere
6 3 (0.55%) Virtual Machines
7 2 (0.37%) Firmware
8 1 (0.18%) BitLocker
8 1 (0.18%) Ceph
8 1 (0.18%) Oracle RAC
8 1 (0.18%) Virtual Servers
8 1 (0.18%) VMware Workstation
8 1 (0.18%) XenDesktop
Systems Management
1 35 (6.42%) Microsoft Intune
2 31 (5.69%) SCCM
3 22 (4.04%) Ansible
4 20 (3.67%) Terraform
5 17 (3.12%) Kubernetes
6 11 (2.02%) Check_MK
6 11 (2.02%) Podman
6 11 (2.02%) Red Hat Satellite
6 11 (2.02%) Single Sign-On
7 10 (1.83%) ServiceCenter
7 10 (1.83%) vCenter Server
8 9 (1.65%) Grafana
9 6 (1.10%) Jamf Pro
10 5 (0.92%) Prometheus
11 4 (0.73%) Active Directory Federation Services
12 3 (0.55%) FortiGate
12 3 (0.55%) Oracle Identity Management
12 3 (0.55%) Oracle Identity Manager
12 3 (0.55%) TeamSite
12 3 (0.55%) vMotion
Vendors
1 163 (29.91%) Microsoft
2 84 (15.41%) ServiceNow
3 53 (9.72%) Oracle
4 44 (8.07%) VMware
5 42 (7.71%) Cisco
6 29 (5.32%) HP
7 27 (4.95%) Apple
8 20 (3.67%) Dell
9 19 (3.49%) Remedy
10 15 (2.75%) SAP
11 13 (2.39%) Red Hat
12 11 (2.02%) Tenable
13 10 (1.83%) Splunk
13 10 (1.83%) Zscaler
14 9 (1.65%) CheckPoint
14 9 (1.65%) Fortinet
14 9 (1.65%) IBM
14 9 (1.65%) Palo Alto
14 9 (1.65%) Salesforce
15 8 (1.47%) AppDynamics
246 SLA jobs Nationwide