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

 6 months to
7 Feb 2026		 Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 215 198 151
Rank change year-on-year -17 -47 +30
Contract jobs citing SLA 482 412 730
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 1.23% 1.32% 1.62%
As % of the Quality Assurance & Compliance category 7.16% 9.10% 11.22%
Number of daily rates quoted 250 220 348
10th Percentile £182 £147 £148
25th Percentile £263 £192 £200
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £425 £256 £371
Median % change year-on-year +65.85% -30.88% +23.58%
75th Percentile £520 £502 £525
90th Percentile £589 £604 £628
UK excluding London median daily rate £365 £253 £300
% change year-on-year +44.55% -15.83% +33.33%
Number of hourly rates quoted 125 38 72
10th Percentile £16.02 £14.70 £12.06
25th Percentile £17.69 £17.73 £13.29
Median hourly rate £18.50 £23.34 £16.89
Median % change year-on-year -20.74% +38.17% -4.67%
75th Percentile £20.35 £24.18 £30.00
90th Percentile £26.39 £30.43 £49.95
UK excluding London median hourly rate £18.50 £24.18 £14.16
% change year-on-year -23.49% +70.76% -19.59%

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 6,735 4,527 6,505
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 17.26% 14.56% 14.40%
Number of daily rates quoted 4,329 2,666 4,295
10th Percentile £325 £260 £300
25th Percentile £412 £375 £409
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £500 £525
Median % change year-on-year - -4.76% -
75th Percentile £600 £625 £634
90th Percentile £700 £725 £749
UK excluding London median daily rate £492 £475 £489
% change year-on-year +3.58% -2.81% +2.89%
Number of hourly rates quoted 347 169 337
10th Percentile £15.25 £15.00 £12.25
25th Percentile £18.04 £21.00 £14.50
Median hourly rate £25.77 £29.00 £25.00
Median % change year-on-year -11.14% +16.00% -9.09%
75th Percentile £63.75 £65.00 £51.58
90th Percentile £69.79 £75.67 £72.60
UK excluding London median hourly rate £24.00 £29.00 £25.00
% change year-on-year -17.24% +16.00% -7.85%

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 7 February 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 7 February 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 7 February 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 -29 427 £425 +65.85% 242
UK excluding London -32 337 £365 +44.55% 202
London -5 113 £475 +90.00% 71
East of England +39 103 £473 +110.00% 29
Work from Home -21 98 £454 +95.16% 65
South East -44 67 £424 +62.36% 72
North of England -72 51 £300 +15.38% 43
Midlands -61 45 £210 -6.67% 32
South West -7 42 £275 -50.00% 18
West Midlands -47 35 £225 +5.88% 23
North West -53 27 £300 -20.00% 21
Scotland +13 21 £400 +104.08% 15
Yorkshire -46 17 £365 +52.08% 17
East Midlands -39 10 £134 -61.71% 9
Northern Ireland -1 8 £500 +237.84% 1
North East -9 7 £265 - 5
Wales +2 4 £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 20 (4.15%) SharePoint
2 19 (3.94%) Microsoft Exchange
3 5 (1.04%) Confluence
4 4 (0.83%) Oracle Workflow
5 2 (0.41%) ArcGIS
5 2 (0.41%) IIS
5 2 (0.41%) Tomcat
6 1 (0.21%) GeoServer
6 1 (0.21%) LiveCycle
6 1 (0.21%) Oracle Spatial
6 1 (0.21%) WebSphere
6 1 (0.21%) WebSphere Application Server
Applications
1 46 (9.54%) Microsoft Excel
2 44 (9.13%) Spreadsheet
3 33 (6.85%) Microsoft Office
4 4 (0.83%) Oracle Smart View
5 3 (0.62%) Microsoft PowerPoint
6 2 (0.41%) MS Visio
Business Applications
1 15 (3.11%) Oracle EBS
1 15 (3.11%) Oracle Subledger Accounting
2 12 (2.49%) Remedy ITSM
3 10 (2.07%) Oracle Payables
4 8 (1.66%) Oracle Assets
4 8 (1.66%) Oracle General Ledger
5 6 (1.24%) Oracle Receivables
6 5 (1.04%) Oracle FAH
7 4 (0.83%) Oracle EBS R12
7 4 (0.83%) Oracle ERP
8 3 (0.62%) Oracle Financials
9 2 (0.41%) Dynamics CRM
9 2 (0.41%) Dynamics GP
9 2 (0.41%) Oracle Cash Management
9 2 (0.41%) Oracle E-Business Tax
9 2 (0.41%) Temenos T24
10 1 (0.21%) SAP Payroll
10 1 (0.21%) Veritas eDiscovery
10 1 (0.21%) Workday HCM
Cloud Services
1 62 (12.86%) Microsoft 365
2 51 (10.58%) Azure
3 35 (7.26%) AWS
4 17 (3.53%) GCP
5 14 (2.90%) Entra ID
6 12 (2.49%) Power Platform
7 10 (2.07%) IaaS
8 9 (1.87%) PaaS
9 7 (1.45%) GitHub
9 7 (1.45%) OCI
9 7 (1.45%) SaaS
9 7 (1.45%) Virtual Private Cloud
10 6 (1.24%) AWS CloudFormation
10 6 (1.24%) Azure DevOps
11 5 (1.04%) Amazon EC2
11 5 (1.04%) Amazon S3
11 5 (1.04%) GitHub Actions
11 5 (1.04%) OneDrive
11 5 (1.04%) OpenShift
12 4 (0.83%) Datadog
Communications & Networking
1 26 (5.39%) Firewall
2 23 (4.77%) DNS
2 23 (4.77%) WAN
3 17 (3.53%) VPN
4 16 (3.32%) DHCP
5 15 (3.11%) SD-WAN
6 13 (2.70%) PABX
7 12 (2.49%) MPLS
8 10 (2.07%) LAN
9 9 (1.87%) Wireless
10 8 (1.66%) TCP/IP
10 8 (1.66%) VLAN
11 7 (1.45%) BGP
11 7 (1.45%) Cisco ASA
11 7 (1.45%) OSPF
11 7 (1.45%) SAN
12 6 (1.24%) Broadband
12 6 (1.24%) Network Security
12 6 (1.24%) SDH
12 6 (1.24%) Wi-Fi
Database & Business Intelligence
1 10 (2.07%) Power BI
1 10 (2.07%) SQL Server
2 7 (1.45%) Oracle Database
3 6 (1.24%) MongoDB
3 6 (1.24%) PostgreSQL
4 5 (1.04%) MySQL
4 5 (1.04%) Relational Database
5 3 (0.62%) GIS
5 3 (0.62%) SAP HANA
6 2 (0.41%) Amazon RDS
6 2 (0.41%) Azure SQL Database
6 2 (0.41%) Oracle Reports
7 1 (0.21%) DB2
7 1 (0.21%) Geospatial Data
7 1 (0.21%) Metadata
7 1 (0.21%) Oracle Database 12c
7 1 (0.21%) Spatial Data
7 1 (0.21%) SQL Server Integration Services
7 1 (0.21%) SQL Server Reporting Services
Development Applications
1 19 (3.94%) JIRA
2 15 (3.11%) Git
2 15 (3.11%) Jenkins
3 14 (2.90%) GitLab
4 5 (1.04%) Visual Studio
5 3 (0.62%) CircleCI
6 2 (0.41%) Chocolatey
6 2 (0.41%) Jaeger
6 2 (0.41%) JMeter
6 2 (0.41%) Postman
6 2 (0.41%) PVCS
7 1 (0.21%) Cucumber
7 1 (0.21%) Metasploit
7 1 (0.21%) Selenium
7 1 (0.21%) SQL Server Management Studio (SSMS)
7 1 (0.21%) TestDirector
General
1 219 (45.44%) Social Skills
2 91 (18.88%) Finance
3 63 (13.07%) Analytical Skills
4 55 (11.41%) Public Sector
5 33 (6.85%) Organisational Skills
5 33 (6.85%) Telecoms
6 28 (5.81%) Banking
7 21 (4.36%) Documentation Skills
8 18 (3.73%) Legal
9 13 (2.70%) Retail
10 7 (1.45%) Aerospace
10 7 (1.45%) Investment Banking
10 7 (1.45%) Law
10 7 (1.45%) Marketing
11 6 (1.24%) Billing
11 6 (1.24%) Financial Institution
12 5 (1.04%) General Ledger
13 4 (0.83%) Presentation Skills
14 3 (0.62%) Inclusion and Diversity
14 3 (0.62%) Local Government
Job Titles
1 77 (15.98%) IT Support
2 63 (13.07%) Analyst
3 51 (10.58%) Lead
4 37 (7.68%) Administrator
5 35 (7.26%) Desktop Support
6 30 (6.22%) Technical Support
7 29 (6.02%) Support Engineer
8 25 (5.19%) Service Analyst
9 24 (4.98%) Service Manager
9 24 (4.98%) Support Analyst
10 23 (4.77%) Senior
11 21 (4.36%) Team Leader
12 19 (3.94%) Consultant
13 17 (3.53%) IT Administrator
14 16 (3.32%) Desktop Engineer
14 16 (3.32%) Service Desk Analyst
15 15 (3.11%) Developer
16 14 (2.90%) IT Engineer
17 13 (2.70%) Desktop Support Engineer
18 12 (2.49%) IT Manager
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 11 (2.28%) Middleware
2 9 (1.87%) Oracle Fusion
3 7 (1.45%) LDAP
4 5 (1.04%) Kafka
4 5 (1.04%) REST
5 4 (0.83%) 802.1X
6 3 (0.62%) OAuth
6 3 (0.62%) RESTful
6 3 (0.62%) SAML
6 3 (0.62%) Web Services
7 2 (0.41%) .NET
7 2 (0.41%) ADO
7 2 (0.41%) ARM Templates
7 2 (0.41%) AWS CDK
7 2 (0.41%) CSS
7 2 (0.41%) Elastic Stack
7 2 (0.41%) Node.js
7 2 (0.41%) OAuth2
7 2 (0.41%) OpenID
7 2 (0.41%) Universal Windows Platform
Miscellaneous
1 30 (6.22%) Onboarding
2 27 (5.60%) Management Information System
3 20 (4.15%) Self-Motivation
4 19 (3.94%) Data Centre
5 15 (3.11%) Driving Licence
5 15 (3.11%) Smartphone
6 14 (2.90%) Product Ownership
7 8 (1.66%) Cloud Native
8 7 (1.45%) CMDB
9 6 (1.24%) Enterprise Cloud
9 6 (1.24%) Public Cloud
10 5 (1.04%) Data Protection Act
10 5 (1.04%) Enterprise Software
10 5 (1.04%) Equities
10 5 (1.04%) Mobile App
10 5 (1.04%) NHS
11 4 (0.83%) Derivative
11 4 (0.83%) Distributed Systems
11 4 (0.83%) Equity Derivative
11 4 (0.83%) PKI
Operating Systems
1 96 (19.92%) Windows
2 32 (6.64%) Windows 10
3 30 (6.22%) Linux
4 18 (3.73%) Unix
5 15 (3.11%) Windows Server
6 14 (2.90%) Android
7 12 (2.49%) Apple iOS
8 8 (1.66%) Mac OS
9 7 (1.45%) CentOS
9 7 (1.45%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
10 2 (0.41%) Windows Server 2012
11 1 (0.21%) Mac OS X
11 1 (0.21%) Windows 7
11 1 (0.21%) Windows XP
Processes & Methodologies
1 139 (28.84%) ITIL
2 118 (24.48%) Customer Service
3 93 (19.29%) Service Delivery
4 78 (16.18%) Time Management
5 67 (13.90%) Continuous Improvement
6 64 (13.28%) ITSM
7 57 (11.83%) Incident Management
7 57 (11.83%) Problem-Solving
8 50 (10.37%) Service Management
9 45 (9.34%) Stakeholder Management
10 44 (9.13%) Change Management
11 40 (8.30%) Agile
12 38 (7.88%) Root Cause Analysis
13 33 (6.85%) Asset Management
14 29 (6.02%) Roadmaps
15 27 (5.60%) DevOps
15 27 (5.60%) Problem Management
16 26 (5.39%) Customer Experience
16 26 (5.39%) Disaster Recovery
17 25 (5.19%) CI/CD
Programming Languages
1 28 (5.81%) SQL
2 24 (4.98%) Python
3 20 (4.15%) Shell Script
4 16 (3.32%) PowerShell
5 13 (2.70%) Java
6 8 (1.66%) Bash
7 7 (1.45%) MATLAB
8 6 (1.24%) PL/SQL
9 4 (0.83%) C++
10 3 (0.62%) Go
10 3 (0.62%) JavaScript
11 2 (0.41%) Kusto Query Language
11 2 (0.41%) VB
12 1 (0.21%) Apex Code
12 1 (0.21%) Bicep
12 1 (0.21%) C#
12 1 (0.21%) Groovy
12 1 (0.21%) Scala
Qualifications
1 129 (26.76%) Security Cleared
2 105 (21.78%) SC Cleared
3 32 (6.64%) Degree
4 15 (3.11%) BPSS Clearance
4 15 (3.11%) DV Cleared
5 11 (2.28%) ITIL Certification
5 11 (2.28%) ITIL Foundation Certificate
5 11 (2.28%) MOS
6 6 (1.24%) Microsoft Certification
7 4 (0.83%) DBS Check
8 3 (0.62%) Azure Certification
8 3 (0.62%) CCA
8 3 (0.62%) Numerate Degree
8 3 (0.62%) PMI Certification
9 2 (0.41%) CISA
9 2 (0.41%) Cisco Certification
9 2 (0.41%) Computer Science Degree
9 2 (0.41%) ISO 27001 Lead Implementer
9 2 (0.41%) ISTQB
9 2 (0.41%) PRINCE2 Practitioner
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 18 (3.73%) GDPR
2 15 (3.11%) ISO/IEC 27001
3 12 (2.49%) QA
4 10 (2.07%) Data Quality
5 7 (1.45%) Sarbanes-Oxley
6 5 (1.04%) NIST
6 5 (1.04%) PMO
7 4 (0.83%) PCI DSS
8 3 (0.62%) COBIT
8 3 (0.62%) GRC
9 2 (0.41%) ISO/IEC 20000
9 2 (0.41%) NIST 800
9 2 (0.41%) PSD2
10 1 (0.21%) Cyber Essentials
10 1 (0.21%) ISO 9001
10 1 (0.21%) ISO/IEC 42001
System Software
1 49 (10.17%) Active Directory
2 9 (1.87%) Docker
2 9 (1.87%) VMware Infrastructure
3 6 (1.24%) vSphere
4 4 (0.83%) Hyper-V
5 3 (0.62%) DFS Replication
5 3 (0.62%) Virtual Machines
6 2 (0.41%) Firmware
6 2 (0.41%) VMware ESXi
7 1 (0.21%) BitLocker
7 1 (0.21%) Oracle RAC
7 1 (0.21%) Virtual Desktop
Systems Management
1 18 (3.73%) SCCM
2 17 (3.53%) Ansible
3 16 (3.32%) Microsoft Intune
4 13 (2.70%) Terraform
5 12 (2.49%) Kubernetes
6 9 (1.87%) Grafana
6 9 (1.87%) Single Sign-On
7 8 (1.66%) ServiceCenter
8 7 (1.45%) Check_MK
8 7 (1.45%) Podman
8 7 (1.45%) Red Hat Satellite
9 5 (1.04%) SCOM
10 4 (0.83%) Prometheus
10 4 (0.83%) TeamSite
11 3 (0.62%) Active Directory Federation Services
11 3 (0.62%) FortiGate
11 3 (0.62%) RSA Archer
11 3 (0.62%) WSUS
12 2 (0.41%) Jamf Pro
12 2 (0.41%) vMotion
Vendors
1 145 (30.08%) Microsoft
2 58 (12.03%) ServiceNow
3 45 (9.34%) Oracle
4 28 (5.81%) HP
5 27 (5.60%) Cisco
6 26 (5.39%) SAP
7 23 (4.77%) Dell
7 23 (4.77%) VMware
8 19 (3.94%) Apple
9 17 (3.53%) Remedy
10 10 (2.07%) Splunk
11 9 (1.87%) IBM
12 7 (1.45%) Red Hat
13 6 (1.24%) Fortinet
13 6 (1.24%) Tenable
13 6 (1.24%) Workday
14 5 (1.04%) AppDynamics
14 5 (1.04%) Nokia
14 5 (1.04%) Trend Micro
15 4 (0.83%) BMC
271 SLA jobs Nationwide