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

 6 months to
4 Aug 2026		 Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 247 189 170
Rank change year-on-year -58 -19 +14
Contract jobs citing SLA 567 477 572
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 1.07% 1.45% 1.46%
As % of the Quality Assurance & Compliance category 6.27% 8.56% 10.74%
Number of daily rates quoted 326 272 275
10th Percentile £195 £200 £156
25th Percentile £261 £224 £200
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £435 £375 £340
Median % change year-on-year +16.00% +10.29% -2.86%
75th Percentile £518 £544 £493
90th Percentile £600 £613 £588
UK excluding London median daily rate £425 £325 £275
% change year-on-year +30.77% +18.18% -7.56%
Number of hourly rates quoted 73 65 80
10th Percentile £13.45 £16.02 £11.79
25th Percentile £17.50 £17.48 £13.14
Median hourly rate £18.79 £22.14 £16.56
Median % change year-on-year -15.13% +33.74% -11.54%
75th Percentile £20.92 £25.15 £24.05
90th Percentile £27.44 £33.75 £30.11
UK excluding London median hourly rate £18.50 £22.14 £14.70
% change year-on-year -16.44% +50.61% -19.34%

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 9,043 5,573 5,325
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 17.11% 16.94% 13.59%
Number of daily rates quoted 5,802 3,591 3,291
10th Percentile £331 £282 £291
25th Percentile £413 £400 £400
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £500 £505
Median % change year-on-year - -0.99% -3.81%
75th Percentile £600 £606 £625
90th Percentile £700 £713 £738
UK excluding London median daily rate £495 £475 £475
% change year-on-year +4.21% - -5.00%
Number of hourly rates quoted 557 250 326
10th Percentile £14.00 £13.59 £11.26
25th Percentile £19.33 £17.38 £14.49
Median hourly rate £40.00 £26.93 £25.77
Median % change year-on-year +48.56% +4.50% -34.64%
75th Percentile £70.00 £60.00 £55.00
90th Percentile £82.04 £83.59 £70.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £40.00 £24.66 £25.30
% change year-on-year +62.21% -2.53% -29.23%

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 4 August 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 4 August 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 4 August 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 -78 471 £436 +10.44% 323
UK excluding London -70 340 £425 +30.77% 238
London -15 196 £450 +7.14% 126
Work from Home -16 129 £475 +18.75% 104
South East -84 80 £463 +85.00% 85
North of England -42 79 £418 +28.46% 47
Scotland +32 60 £342 +0.44% 11
Midlands -67 52 £250 -33.33% 32
North West -31 46 £435 +14.10% 28
West Midlands -71 44 £250 -35.90% 18
East of England -2 36 £505 +124.44% 34
Yorkshire -48 30 £438 +74.65% 12
South West -54 27 £400 +35.59% 25
Wales -10 11 £525 +100.00% 9
East Midlands -11 7 £363 +174.62% 14
North East -38 3 £228 - 7
Northern Ireland +5 1 £175 - 7

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 35 (6.17%) SharePoint
2 22 (3.88%) Microsoft Exchange
3 8 (1.41%) Confluence
4 7 (1.23%) OpenStack
5 5 (0.88%) IIS
5 5 (0.88%) SAS
6 4 (0.71%) Adobe Experience Manager
7 3 (0.53%) Apache Airflow
8 2 (0.35%) Anypoint
8 2 (0.35%) Apache
8 2 (0.35%) Exchange Server 2010
8 2 (0.35%) Mule
9 1 (0.18%) Apache Spark
9 1 (0.18%) ArcGIS
9 1 (0.18%) Exchange Server 2013
9 1 (0.18%) JBoss
9 1 (0.18%) Oracle Workflow
9 1 (0.18%) Skype for Business
9 1 (0.18%) Smallworld
Applications
1 53 (9.35%) Microsoft Office
2 31 (5.47%) Microsoft Excel
3 7 (1.23%) Spreadsheet
4 6 (1.06%) MS Visio
5 4 (0.71%) Microsoft PowerPoint
6 2 (0.35%) Microsoft Project
7 1 (0.18%) Autodesk Inventor
7 1 (0.18%) Chatbot
7 1 (0.18%) MicroStation
7 1 (0.18%) Oracle Smart View
Business Applications
1 15 (2.65%) Remedy ITSM
2 8 (1.41%) ContrOCC
3 5 (0.88%) Dynamics CRM
3 5 (0.88%) Oracle Applications
3 5 (0.88%) Oracle Assets
3 5 (0.88%) Oracle Payables
3 5 (0.88%) Oracle Procure-to-Pay
4 4 (0.71%) Oracle General Ledger
4 4 (0.71%) Oracle Receivables
4 4 (0.71%) Oracle Subledger Accounting
5 3 (0.53%) Oracle Cash Management
6 2 (0.35%) Dynamics GP
6 2 (0.35%) IntelliMatch
6 2 (0.35%) Oracle EBS
6 2 (0.35%) Oracle ERP
6 2 (0.35%) Payment Gateway
7 1 (0.18%) Actimize
7 1 (0.18%) Adobe Campaign
7 1 (0.18%) Oracle EBS R12
7 1 (0.18%) Oracle Financials
Cloud Services
1 105 (18.52%) Microsoft 365
2 103 (18.17%) Azure
3 51 (8.99%) Entra ID
4 47 (8.29%) AWS
5 23 (4.06%) Power Platform
6 21 (3.70%) OneDrive
7 17 (3.00%) Datadog
8 16 (2.82%) SaaS
9 14 (2.47%) Azure DevOps
10 12 (2.12%) Amazon S3
10 12 (2.12%) IaaS
10 12 (2.12%) OCI
10 12 (2.12%) PaaS
11 11 (1.94%) Snowflake
12 9 (1.59%) Amazon EC2
12 9 (1.59%) Azure Sentinel
13 8 (1.41%) Amazon CloudWatch
13 8 (1.41%) Virtual Private Cloud
14 6 (1.06%) AWS CloudFormation
14 6 (1.06%) Dynamics 365
Communications & Networking
1 37 (6.53%) DNS
2 34 (6.00%) VPN
3 31 (5.47%) DHCP
4 27 (4.76%) LAN
5 26 (4.59%) WAN
6 24 (4.23%) Wi-Fi
7 23 (4.06%) Firewall
8 19 (3.35%) Network Security
8 19 (3.35%) TCP/IP
9 16 (2.82%) SAN
10 12 (2.12%) SDH
10 12 (2.12%) VLAN
11 10 (1.76%) Cisco IOS
11 10 (1.76%) MPLS
12 8 (1.41%) Cisco ASA
12 8 (1.41%) Radio Access Network
12 8 (1.41%) Wireless
13 7 (1.23%) 5G
13 7 (1.23%) LTE
13 7 (1.23%) Skype
Database & Business Intelligence
1 24 (4.23%) SQL Server
2 18 (3.17%) Power BI
3 10 (1.76%) Tableau
4 8 (1.41%) Oracle Reports
5 6 (1.06%) MySQL
5 6 (1.06%) Oracle Database
6 5 (0.88%) Pentaho
6 5 (0.88%) PostgreSQL
7 4 (0.71%) Amazon RDS
8 3 (0.53%) Amazon Athena
8 3 (0.53%) Big Data
8 3 (0.53%) Data Lake
8 3 (0.53%) Relational Database
9 2 (0.35%) Db2
9 2 (0.35%) Oracle Database 10g
9 2 (0.35%) Oracle Database 11g
9 2 (0.35%) SQL Server Reporting Services
10 1 (0.18%) Data Warehouse
10 1 (0.18%) SQL Server Integration Services
10 1 (0.18%) Sybase ASE
Development Applications
1 45 (7.94%) JIRA
2 10 (1.76%) GitLab
3 9 (1.59%) Chocolatey
4 8 (1.41%) Jenkins
5 6 (1.06%) Git
6 4 (0.71%) Maven
7 3 (0.53%) Visual Studio
8 2 (0.35%) Artifactory
8 2 (0.35%) Toad
9 1 (0.18%) Bitbucket
9 1 (0.18%) WiX
General
1 245 (43.21%) Social Skills
2 112 (19.75%) Finance
3 102 (17.99%) Analytical Skills
4 40 (7.05%) Public Sector
5 33 (5.82%) Banking
6 27 (4.76%) Organisational Skills
7 26 (4.59%) Telecoms
8 21 (3.70%) Documentation Skills
9 19 (3.35%) Inclusion and Diversity
9 19 (3.35%) Legal
10 14 (2.47%) Local Government
10 14 (2.47%) Retail
11 9 (1.59%) Billing
11 9 (1.59%) Influencing Skills
11 9 (1.59%) Manufacturing
12 8 (1.41%) Financial Institution
13 6 (1.06%) Marketing
14 5 (0.88%) Aerospace
15 4 (0.71%) French Language
16 3 (0.53%) Presentation Skills
Job Titles
1 76 (13.40%) Analyst
2 52 (9.17%) Support Engineer
3 45 (7.94%) Senior
4 42 (7.41%) IT Support
5 33 (5.82%) Lead
5 33 (5.82%) Service Manager
6 30 (5.29%) IT Engineer
7 26 (4.59%) Service Analyst
8 23 (4.06%) Desktop Support
9 22 (3.88%) Field Engineer
9 22 (3.88%) Network Engineer
10 21 (3.70%) Consultant
11 20 (3.53%) Delivery Manager
12 19 (3.35%) IT Support Engineer
12 19 (3.35%) Service Desk Analyst
13 18 (3.17%) Administrator
13 18 (3.17%) Desktop Engineer
14 17 (3.00%) Applications Support
14 17 (3.00%) Azure Engineer
14 17 (3.00%) Service Delivery Manager
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 12 (2.12%) .NET
2 11 (1.94%) REST
3 9 (1.59%) Oracle Fusion
4 8 (1.41%) LDAP
5 6 (1.06%) Web Services
5 6 (1.06%) XML
6 5 (0.88%) Jakarta EE
6 5 (0.88%) Middleware
6 5 (0.88%) Software Packaging
7 4 (0.71%) .NET Framework
7 4 (0.71%) AngularJS
7 4 (0.71%) AWS CDK
7 4 (0.71%) Bootstrap
7 4 (0.71%) CSS
7 4 (0.71%) jQuery
7 4 (0.71%) Sass
7 4 (0.71%) SOAP
7 4 (0.71%) Spring
7 4 (0.71%) Spring MVC
8 3 (0.53%) ARM Templates
Miscellaneous
1 59 (10.41%) Onboarding
2 32 (5.64%) Data Centre
3 20 (3.53%) CMDB
4 17 (3.00%) Enterprise Software
5 14 (2.47%) PKI
6 13 (2.29%) Smartphone
7 12 (2.12%) Cyber Threat
8 10 (1.76%) Product Ownership
8 10 (1.76%) Virtual Team
9 9 (1.59%) Driving Licence
10 8 (1.41%) BYOD
10 8 (1.41%) Data Protection Act
10 8 (1.41%) iPhone
10 8 (1.41%) Self-Motivation
11 7 (1.23%) Cloud Native
11 7 (1.23%) Video Conferencing
12 6 (1.06%) Fat Client
12 6 (1.06%) Fibre Optics
12 6 (1.06%) Management Information System
12 6 (1.06%) Thin Client
Operating Systems
1 152 (26.81%) Windows
2 56 (9.88%) Windows 10
3 35 (6.17%) Windows Server
4 30 (5.29%) Linux
5 27 (4.76%) Android
6 15 (2.65%) Unix
7 10 (1.76%) Windows 7
8 9 (1.59%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
9 8 (1.41%) Mac OS
10 5 (0.88%) Apple iOS
10 5 (0.88%) Windows Server 2012
11 4 (0.71%) CentOS
12 3 (0.53%) Windows Server 2019
12 3 (0.53%) Windows XP
13 1 (0.18%) OpenVMS
13 1 (0.18%) Solaris
13 1 (0.18%) Ubuntu
13 1 (0.18%) VMS
13 1 (0.18%) Windows Server 2003
13 1 (0.18%) Windows Server 2016
Processes & Methodologies
1 208 (36.68%) ITIL
2 130 (22.93%) ITSM
3 122 (21.52%) Continuous Improvement
4 121 (21.34%) Problem-Solving
5 118 (20.81%) Customer Service
6 106 (18.69%) Stakeholder Management
7 104 (18.34%) Service Management
8 96 (16.93%) Change Management
9 95 (16.75%) Service Delivery
10 67 (11.82%) Agile
11 66 (11.64%) Root Cause Analysis
12 55 (9.70%) Incident Management
13 54 (9.52%) Problem Management
14 47 (8.29%) Migration
15 46 (8.11%) Stakeholder Engagement
16 40 (7.05%) Asset Management
17 39 (6.88%) Validation
18 37 (6.53%) Project Management
19 35 (6.17%) Project Delivery
19 35 (6.17%) Roadmaps
Programming Languages
1 46 (8.11%) SQL
2 36 (6.35%) PowerShell
3 33 (5.82%) Python
4 15 (2.65%) Bash
5 8 (1.41%) JavaScript
6 6 (1.06%) Java
6 6 (1.06%) PL/SQL
7 5 (0.88%) C#
7 5 (0.88%) Shell Script
8 4 (0.71%) Bicep
8 4 (0.71%) MATLAB
9 2 (0.35%) DataWeave
9 2 (0.35%) Korn
9 2 (0.35%) X++
10 1 (0.18%) ActionScript
10 1 (0.18%) ActionScript 2.0
10 1 (0.18%) COBOL
10 1 (0.18%) RPG
10 1 (0.18%) Scala
10 1 (0.18%) VBScript
Qualifications
1 138 (24.34%) Security Cleared
2 107 (18.87%) SC Cleared
3 52 (9.17%) Degree
4 24 (4.23%) DV Cleared
5 19 (3.35%) ITIL Certification
5 19 (3.35%) Microsoft Certification
6 16 (2.82%) Cisco Certification
6 16 (2.82%) ITIL Foundation Certificate
7 15 (2.65%) BPSS Clearance
8 10 (1.76%) CCNP
9 9 (1.59%) PMI Certification
10 8 (1.41%) A+ Certification
10 8 (1.41%) Azure Certification
10 8 (1.41%) MCSE
11 7 (1.23%) CCNA
11 7 (1.23%) Computer Science Degree
12 6 (1.06%) CCSE
12 6 (1.06%) CISSP
12 6 (1.06%) DBS Check
13 5 (0.88%) Master's Degree
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 15 (2.65%) ISO/IEC 27001
2 14 (2.47%) Data Quality
3 12 (2.12%) NIST
3 12 (2.12%) PMO
4 9 (1.59%) GRC
4 9 (1.59%) QA
5 7 (1.23%) COBIT
5 7 (1.23%) Cyber Essentials
5 7 (1.23%) GDPR
5 7 (1.23%) ISO/IEC 20000
6 5 (0.88%) ISO 9001
6 5 (0.88%) PCI DSS
7 4 (0.71%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
8 3 (0.53%) ISO 20022
8 3 (0.53%) JSP 440
9 2 (0.35%) ISO 31000
9 2 (0.35%) ISO 8583
9 2 (0.35%) SOC 2
10 1 (0.18%) DICOM
10 1 (0.18%) HL7
System Software
1 110 (19.40%) Active Directory
2 25 (4.41%) VMware Infrastructure
3 16 (2.82%) Virtual Desktop
4 15 (2.65%) VMware ESXi
5 7 (1.23%) Hyper-V
6 6 (1.06%) Docker
6 6 (1.06%) vSphere
7 4 (0.71%) Firmware
7 4 (0.71%) Virtual Machines
8 2 (0.35%) ACF2
8 2 (0.35%) Oracle RAC
8 2 (0.35%) RACF
9 1 (0.18%) BitLocker
9 1 (0.18%) Ceph
9 1 (0.18%) Virtual Servers
9 1 (0.18%) VMware Workstation
9 1 (0.18%) XenDesktop
Systems Management
1 52 (9.17%) Microsoft Intune
2 29 (5.11%) SCCM
3 15 (2.65%) Kubernetes
3 15 (2.65%) Terraform
4 12 (2.12%) Single Sign-On
5 10 (1.76%) Ansible
5 10 (1.76%) vCenter Server
6 9 (1.59%) Grafana
7 5 (0.88%) Jamf Pro
7 5 (0.88%) Prometheus
8 4 (0.71%) Check_MK
8 4 (0.71%) Podman
8 4 (0.71%) Red Hat Satellite
8 4 (0.71%) ServiceCenter
9 3 (0.53%) FortiGate
9 3 (0.53%) Oracle Identity Management
9 3 (0.53%) Oracle Identity Manager
9 3 (0.53%) vMotion
10 2 (0.35%) AirWatch
10 2 (0.35%) CloudHub
Vendors
1 191 (33.69%) Microsoft
2 108 (19.05%) ServiceNow
3 46 (8.11%) VMware
4 45 (7.94%) Cisco
5 41 (7.23%) Oracle
6 22 (3.88%) HP
7 21 (3.70%) Apple
8 19 (3.35%) Remedy
9 13 (2.29%) Zscaler
10 12 (2.12%) Tenable
11 11 (1.94%) Dell
11 11 (1.94%) Nokia
11 11 (1.94%) SAP
12 9 (1.59%) AppDynamics
12 9 (1.59%) Dynatrace
12 9 (1.59%) Fortinet
12 9 (1.59%) Okta
12 9 (1.59%) Splunk
13 8 (1.41%) Databricks
13 8 (1.41%) Liquidlogic
379 SLA jobs Nationwide