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

 6 months to
26 May 2026		 Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 234 191 134
Rank change year-on-year -43 -57 +51
Contract jobs citing SLA 532 426 741
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 1.10% 1.49% 1.74%
As % of the Quality Assurance & Compliance category 6.61% 9.38% 12.32%
Number of daily rates quoted 285 251 358
10th Percentile £210 £161 £150
25th Percentile £325 £206 £213
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £460 £298 £330
Median % change year-on-year +54.62% -9.85% +10.00%
75th Percentile £525 £510 £488
90th Percentile £608 £613 £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 99 38 90
10th Percentile £15.92 £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 £21.23 £24.66 £22.32
90th Percentile £30.03 £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 8,053 4,543 6,017
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 16.59% 15.88% 14.11%
Number of daily rates quoted 5,174 2,922 3,817
10th Percentile £343 £263 £281
25th Percentile £413 £400 £400
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £500 £509
Median % change year-on-year - -1.67% -3.14%
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% - -2.26%
Number of hourly rates quoted 475 171 394
10th Percentile £14.00 £16.00 £10.95
25th Percentile £18.50 £22.14 £13.18
Median hourly rate £36.00 £32.50 £21.38
Median % change year-on-year +10.77% +52.03% -38.92%
75th Percentile £67.25 £67.50 £47.81
90th Percentile £81.96 £80.00 £68.75
UK excluding London median hourly rate £40.00 £32.66 £18.27
% change year-on-year +22.49% +78.74% -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 26 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 26 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 26 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 -53 469 £463 +55.46% 243
UK excluding London -72 330 £450 +80.00% 202
London -17 176 £475 +18.75% 74
Work from Home -17 122 £480 +104.04% 108
East of England +24 83 £492 +118.67% 23
North of England -59 73 £438 +75.00% 47
South East -81 71 £463 +85.00% 71
North West -31 42 £444 +77.50% 25
Midlands -77 41 £296 +25.96% 27
Scotland +17 36 £448 +45.10% 13
West Midlands -78 31 £296 +25.96% 15
Yorkshire -48 29 £431 +1.32% 18
South West -54 22 £378 +21.94% 19
East Midlands -27 9 £329 +31.40% 12
Wales -14 5 - - 2
Northern Ireland +3 2 £175 +18.24% 7
North East -21 2 £280 - 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 16 (3.01%) SharePoint
2 15 (2.82%) Microsoft Exchange
3 10 (1.88%) Confluence
4 7 (1.32%) 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 (9.21%) Microsoft Excel
2 44 (8.27%) Microsoft Office
3 26 (4.89%) 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 (2.07%) Oracle Payables
2 11 (2.07%) 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%) Unit4 Business World
9 1 (0.19%) Veritas eDiscovery
Cloud Services
1 88 (16.54%) Azure
2 61 (11.47%) AWS
3 52 (9.77%) Microsoft 365
4 23 (4.32%) Power Platform
5 20 (3.76%) Entra ID
6 18 (3.38%) GCP
7 17 (3.20%) IaaS
8 16 (3.01%) PaaS
9 15 (2.82%) Azure DevOps
9 15 (2.82%) SaaS
10 14 (2.63%) Amazon S3
11 12 (2.26%) OCI
12 11 (2.07%) AWS CloudFormation
12 11 (2.07%) Datadog
12 11 (2.07%) Virtual Private Cloud
13 10 (1.88%) Amazon EC2
14 9 (1.69%) OneDrive
14 9 (1.69%) Snowflake
15 8 (1.50%) Azure Sentinel
15 8 (1.50%) GitHub
Communications & Networking
1 33 (6.20%) DNS
2 32 (6.02%) Firewall
3 25 (4.70%) DHCP
4 24 (4.51%) VPN
5 21 (3.95%) WAN
6 15 (2.82%) SAN
7 14 (2.63%) Wi-Fi
8 13 (2.44%) LAN
8 13 (2.44%) Network Security
8 13 (2.44%) SD-WAN
9 12 (2.26%) TCP/IP
10 11 (2.07%) Cisco ASA
10 11 (2.07%) VLAN
11 8 (1.50%) Radio Access Network
12 7 (1.32%) 5G
12 7 (1.32%) BGP
12 7 (1.32%) LTE
12 7 (1.32%) MPLS
12 7 (1.32%) OSPF
12 7 (1.32%) Wireless
Database & Business Intelligence
1 19 (3.57%) Power BI
2 16 (3.01%) SQL Server
3 10 (1.88%) 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%) GIS
8 3 (0.56%) SQL Server Reporting Services
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%) Data Warehouse
10 1 (0.19%) Hadoop
10 1 (0.19%) InfluxDB
Development Applications
1 46 (8.65%) JIRA
2 22 (4.14%) GitLab
3 20 (3.76%) Jenkins
4 18 (3.38%) Git
5 7 (1.32%) Chocolatey
6 6 (1.13%) 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
1 233 (43.80%) Social Skills
2 108 (20.30%) Finance
3 82 (15.41%) Analytical Skills
4 40 (7.52%) Banking
5 36 (6.77%) Public Sector
6 29 (5.45%) Organisational Skills
7 26 (4.89%) Documentation Skills
8 24 (4.51%) Telecoms
9 21 (3.95%) Legal
10 15 (2.82%) Retail
11 11 (2.07%) Aerospace
12 10 (1.88%) Billing
13 8 (1.50%) Financial Institution
13 8 (1.50%) Inclusion and Diversity
13 8 (1.50%) Investment Banking
14 7 (1.32%) Influencing Skills
14 7 (1.32%) Manufacturing
15 6 (1.13%) Local Government
15 6 (1.13%) Presentation Skills
16 5 (0.94%) Marketing
Job Titles
1 65 (12.22%) Analyst
2 57 (10.71%) IT Support
3 38 (7.14%) Administrator
4 36 (6.77%) Lead
5 35 (6.58%) Service Manager
6 32 (6.02%) Senior
6 32 (6.02%) Support Engineer
7 28 (5.26%) Service Analyst
8 23 (4.32%) IT Engineer
9 22 (4.14%) Technical Support
10 20 (3.76%) Consultant
11 19 (3.57%) Delivery Manager
12 18 (3.38%) Service Delivery Manager
13 17 (3.20%) Desktop Support
14 15 (2.82%) Azure Engineer
15 14 (2.63%) Network Engineer
15 14 (2.63%) Service Desk Analyst
16 13 (2.44%) Architect
16 13 (2.44%) AWS Engineer
17 12 (2.26%) Desktop Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 15 (2.82%) Oracle Fusion
2 14 (2.63%) Middleware
3 11 (2.07%) LDAP
3 11 (2.07%) 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 40 (7.52%) Onboarding
2 32 (6.02%) Data Centre
3 20 (3.76%) Product Ownership
4 17 (3.20%) Management Information System
5 12 (2.26%) CMDB
6 11 (2.07%) Cloud Native
7 9 (1.69%) Cyber Threat
8 8 (1.50%) Data Protection Act
8 8 (1.50%) Self-Motivation
9 7 (1.32%) BYOD
9 7 (1.32%) Driving Licence
9 7 (1.32%) Enterprise Software
10 6 (1.13%) Analytical Mindset
10 6 (1.13%) Distributed Systems
10 6 (1.13%) Equities
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%) Smartphone
Operating Systems
1 103 (19.36%) Windows
2 49 (9.21%) Linux
3 34 (6.39%) Windows 10
4 22 (4.14%) Unix
5 18 (3.38%) Windows Server
6 14 (2.63%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
7 11 (2.07%) CentOS
8 10 (1.88%) Android
9 4 (0.75%) Mac OS
10 3 (0.56%) Apple iOS
10 3 (0.56%) Windows Server 2012
11 2 (0.38%) Windows 7
11 2 (0.38%) Windows Server 2019
12 1 (0.19%) Solaris
12 1 (0.19%) Windows Server 2003
12 1 (0.19%) Windows Server 2016
12 1 (0.19%) Windows XP
Processes & Methodologies
1 158 (29.70%) ITIL
2 96 (18.05%) ITSM
3 90 (16.92%) Problem-Solving
4 88 (16.54%) Continuous Improvement
5 85 (15.98%) Service Delivery
5 85 (15.98%) Stakeholder Management
6 76 (14.29%) Root Cause Analysis
7 75 (14.10%) Customer Service
8 67 (12.59%) Agile
8 67 (12.59%) Change Management
8 67 (12.59%) Service Management
9 58 (10.90%) Incident Management
10 54 (10.15%) Time Management
11 47 (8.83%) Problem Management
12 45 (8.46%) CI/CD
13 42 (7.89%) Migration
14 41 (7.71%) DevOps
15 40 (7.52%) Roadmaps
16 39 (7.33%) Asset Management
17 35 (6.58%) Project Management
Programming Languages
1 46 (8.65%) SQL
2 38 (7.14%) Python
3 20 (3.76%) PowerShell
4 18 (3.38%) Bash
4 18 (3.38%) Shell Script
5 14 (2.63%) Java
6 11 (2.07%) MATLAB
7 7 (1.32%) JavaScript
8 6 (1.13%) PL/SQL
9 4 (0.75%) Bicep
9 4 (0.75%) Go
10 3 (0.56%) C++
11 2 (0.38%) C#
11 2 (0.38%) Scala
11 2 (0.38%) VB
11 2 (0.38%) X++
12 1 (0.19%) Apex Code
12 1 (0.19%) Groovy
12 1 (0.19%) Korn
Qualifications
1 116 (21.80%) Security Cleared
2 91 (17.11%) SC Cleared
3 50 (9.40%) Degree
4 23 (4.32%) DV Cleared
5 14 (2.63%) BPSS Clearance
6 13 (2.44%) ITIL Certification
7 12 (2.26%) Cisco Certification
8 11 (2.07%) Microsoft Certification
9 8 (1.50%) CCNP
10 7 (1.32%) ITIL Foundation Certificate
11 6 (1.13%) Master's Degree
11 6 (1.13%) PMI Certification
12 5 (0.94%) CCSE
12 5 (0.94%) MCSE
13 4 (0.75%) CCNA
13 4 (0.75%) CCSM
13 4 (0.75%) CISA
13 4 (0.75%) MBA
13 4 (0.75%) RIBA
14 3 (0.56%) CCA
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 18 (3.38%) 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 69 (12.97%) Active Directory
2 22 (4.14%) VMware Infrastructure
3 13 (2.44%) Docker
3 13 (2.44%) VMware ESXi
4 8 (1.50%) Hyper-V
4 8 (1.50%) vSphere
5 7 (1.32%) Virtual Desktop
6 3 (0.56%) DFS Replication
7 2 (0.38%) Firmware
8 1 (0.19%) BitLocker
8 1 (0.19%) Ceph
8 1 (0.19%) Oracle RAC
8 1 (0.19%) Virtual Machines
8 1 (0.19%) Virtual Servers
8 1 (0.19%) VMware Workstation
8 1 (0.19%) XenDesktop
Systems Management
1 26 (4.89%) Ansible
1 26 (4.89%) SCCM
2 25 (4.70%) Microsoft Intune
3 24 (4.51%) Terraform
4 20 (3.76%) Kubernetes
5 13 (2.44%) Grafana
6 12 (2.26%) ServiceCenter
7 11 (2.07%) Check_MK
7 11 (2.07%) Podman
7 11 (2.07%) Red Hat Satellite
8 10 (1.88%) Single Sign-On
9 9 (1.69%) vCenter Server
10 5 (0.94%) Prometheus
11 4 (0.75%) Active Directory Federation Services
11 4 (0.75%) TeamSite
12 3 (0.56%) FortiGate
12 3 (0.56%) Oracle Identity Management
12 3 (0.56%) Oracle Identity Manager
13 2 (0.38%) AirWatch
13 2 (0.38%) Jamf Pro
Vendors
1 161 (30.26%) Microsoft
2 89 (16.73%) ServiceNow
3 51 (9.59%) Oracle
4 43 (8.08%) VMware
5 34 (6.39%) Cisco
6 33 (6.20%) HP
7 24 (4.51%) Apple
7 24 (4.51%) Dell
8 20 (3.76%) Remedy
8 20 (3.76%) SAP
9 15 (2.82%) Splunk
10 13 (2.44%) Red Hat
11 11 (2.07%) IBM
11 11 (2.07%) Tenable
12 10 (1.88%) AppDynamics
13 8 (1.50%) CheckPoint
13 8 (1.50%) Fortinet
13 8 (1.50%) Huawei
13 8 (1.50%) Nokia
13 8 (1.50%) Palo Alto
282 SLA jobs Nationwide