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 31 December 2025, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

 6 months to
31 Dec 2025		 Same period 2024 Same period 2023
Rank 222 198 167
Rank change year-on-year -24 -31 +21
Contract jobs citing SLA 469 438 667
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 1.27% 1.31% 1.55%
As % of the Quality Assurance & Compliance category 7.33% 9.22% 10.68%
Number of daily rates quoted 250 221 338
10th Percentile £171 £148 £148
25th Percentile £250 £193 £200
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £388 £261 £400
Median % change year-on-year +48.47% -34.75% +26.98%
75th Percentile £538 £500 £533
90th Percentile £625 £575 £634
UK excluding London median daily rate £329 £260 £300
% change year-on-year +26.54% -13.33% +30.43%
Number of hourly rates quoted 113 48 64
10th Percentile £16.13 £14.70 £12.89
25th Percentile £17.69 £18.08 £14.12
Median hourly rate £18.73 £24.18 £17.83
Median % change year-on-year -22.54% +35.60% +2.78%
75th Percentile £20.69 £29.00 £32.81
90th Percentile £37.90 £45.25 £61.75
UK excluding London median hourly rate £18.50 £24.18 £16.82
% change year-on-year -23.49% +43.74% -0.41%

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 6,401 4,753 6,244
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 17.28% 14.24% 14.54%
Number of daily rates quoted 4,141 2,784 4,158
10th Percentile £313 £257 £313
25th Percentile £406 £375 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £500 £525
Median % change year-on-year - -4.76% -
75th Percentile £600 £619 £645
90th Percentile £700 £720 £750
UK excluding London median daily rate £490 £475 £500
% change year-on-year +3.16% -5.00% +5.26%
Number of hourly rates quoted 308 188 233
10th Percentile £14.31 £15.00 £14.06
25th Percentile £17.69 £21.00 £18.00
Median hourly rate £25.15 £29.00 £33.00
Median % change year-on-year -13.28% -12.12% +45.47%
75th Percentile £61.25 £63.75 £61.25
90th Percentile £73.75 £75.00 £79.96
UK excluding London median hourly rate £20.69 £29.00 £33.00
% change year-on-year -28.66% -12.12% +57.14%

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 31 December 2025.

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 31 December 2025.

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 31 December 2025. 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 -17 427 £388 +48.47% 756
UK excluding London -26 332 £329 +26.54% 740
London +2 110 £498 +81.00% 120
Work from Home -21 91 £438 +94.44% 215
East of England +31 84 £350 +29.63% 122
South East -39 68 £411 +64.50% 204
North of England -58 63 £285 +7.04% 143
Midlands -46 51 £198 -31.30% 122
South West +9 46 £290 -47.27% 69
West Midlands -29 39 £225 +2.86% 62
North West -44 31 £293 -26.88% 71
Yorkshire -33 25 £365 +52.08% 63
Scotland +8 14 £350 +75.00% 60
East Midlands -27 12 £134 -68.47% 52
North East -4 7 £265 +0.95% 9
Northern Ireland -9 7 £500 +237.84% 16
Wales -5 3 £183 -16.82% 17

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 19 (4.05%) SharePoint
2 18 (3.84%) Microsoft Exchange
3 4 (0.85%) IIS
4 3 (0.64%) Tomcat
5 1 (0.21%) ArcGIS
5 1 (0.21%) Confluence
5 1 (0.21%) GeoServer
5 1 (0.21%) MQSeries
5 1 (0.21%) Oracle Spatial
5 1 (0.21%) WebSphere
5 1 (0.21%) WebSphere Application Server
Applications
1 35 (7.46%) Microsoft Excel
2 34 (7.25%) Spreadsheet
3 29 (6.18%) Microsoft Office
4 5 (1.07%) MS Visio
5 4 (0.85%) Microsoft Project
5 4 (0.85%) Oracle Smart View
6 2 (0.43%) Microsoft PowerPoint
Business Applications
1 14 (2.99%) Oracle EBS
2 9 (1.92%) Oracle Subledger Accounting
3 7 (1.49%) Oracle General Ledger
4 4 (0.85%) Oracle FAH
4 4 (0.85%) Oracle Payables
4 4 (0.85%) Oracle Receivables
4 4 (0.85%) Remedy ITSM
4 4 (0.85%) Workday HCM
5 3 (0.64%) iTrent
5 3 (0.64%) Oracle Assets
5 3 (0.64%) Oracle EBS R12
6 2 (0.43%) Dynamics CRM
6 2 (0.43%) Dynamics GP
6 2 (0.43%) Oracle Cash Management
6 2 (0.43%) Oracle Financials
6 2 (0.43%) Temenos T24
7 1 (0.21%) Oracle E-Business Tax
7 1 (0.21%) SAP Payroll
7 1 (0.21%) Veritas eDiscovery
Cloud Services
1 68 (14.50%) Microsoft 365
2 43 (9.17%) Azure
3 30 (6.40%) AWS
4 12 (2.56%) Entra ID
4 12 (2.56%) GCP
5 9 (1.92%) Power Platform
5 9 (1.92%) SaaS
6 7 (1.49%) GitHub
6 7 (1.49%) IaaS
6 7 (1.49%) PaaS
7 5 (1.07%) Cloud Computing
7 5 (1.07%) GitHub Actions
7 5 (1.07%) OCI
7 5 (1.07%) OpenShift
8 3 (0.64%) AWS CloudFormation
8 3 (0.64%) AWS KMS
8 3 (0.64%) OneDrive
8 3 (0.64%) Virtual Private Cloud
9 2 (0.43%) Amazon CloudWatch
9 2 (0.43%) Azure Key Vault
Communications & Networking
1 25 (5.33%) Firewall
2 22 (4.69%) WAN
3 18 (3.84%) DNS
4 15 (3.20%) LAN
4 15 (3.20%) Wireless
5 14 (2.99%) SD-WAN
6 13 (2.77%) MPLS
6 13 (2.77%) PABX
7 12 (2.56%) VPN
8 11 (2.35%) DHCP
9 8 (1.71%) BGP
9 8 (1.71%) OSPF
9 8 (1.71%) TCP/IP
10 7 (1.49%) Broadband
11 6 (1.28%) Cisco ASA
11 6 (1.28%) Network Security
11 6 (1.28%) SDH
12 5 (1.07%) IPsec
12 5 (1.07%) VLAN
12 5 (1.07%) VXLAN
Database & Business Intelligence
1 11 (2.35%) SQL Server
2 8 (1.71%) PostgreSQL
3 7 (1.49%) Power BI
4 6 (1.28%) MongoDB
4 6 (1.28%) Oracle Database
5 5 (1.07%) MySQL
6 3 (0.64%) Amazon RDS
6 3 (0.64%) SAP HANA
7 2 (0.43%) GIS
7 2 (0.43%) Oracle Reports
7 2 (0.43%) Relational Database
8 1 (0.21%) Amazon Aurora
8 1 (0.21%) Azure SQL Database
8 1 (0.21%) Data Warehouse
8 1 (0.21%) Metadata
8 1 (0.21%) Oracle Database 12c
8 1 (0.21%) SQL Server Integration Services
8 1 (0.21%) SQL Server Reporting Services
Development Applications
1 12 (2.56%) Jenkins
2 11 (2.35%) GitLab
2 11 (2.35%) JIRA
3 9 (1.92%) Git
4 6 (1.28%) Postman
5 5 (1.07%) Visual Studio
6 3 (0.64%) CircleCI
6 3 (0.64%) Selenium
7 2 (0.43%) Cucumber
7 2 (0.43%) Jaeger
7 2 (0.43%) PVCS
7 2 (0.43%) Zephyr
8 1 (0.21%) Metasploit
8 1 (0.21%) TestDirector
General
1 208 (44.35%) Social Skills
2 100 (21.32%) Finance
3 56 (11.94%) Analytical Skills
4 53 (11.30%) Public Sector
5 31 (6.61%) Telecoms
6 30 (6.40%) Banking
7 26 (5.54%) Organisational Skills
8 18 (3.84%) Documentation Skills
8 18 (3.84%) Legal
9 15 (3.20%) Retail
10 9 (1.92%) Financial Institution
10 9 (1.92%) Manufacturing
11 8 (1.71%) Inclusion and Diversity
11 8 (1.71%) Law
11 8 (1.71%) Local Government
11 8 (1.71%) Marketing
12 6 (1.28%) Aerospace
13 5 (1.07%) Influencing Skills
14 4 (0.85%) General Ledger
14 4 (0.85%) Investment Banking
Job Titles
1 72 (15.35%) IT Support
2 71 (15.14%) Analyst
3 44 (9.38%) Lead
4 34 (7.25%) Desktop Support
5 33 (7.04%) Support Engineer
6 29 (6.18%) Support Analyst
7 26 (5.54%) Senior
8 24 (5.12%) Administrator
9 22 (4.69%) Service Manager
10 21 (4.48%) Service Analyst
10 21 (4.48%) Team Leader
11 20 (4.26%) Technical Support
12 17 (3.62%) Consultant
13 15 (3.20%) Desktop Engineer
13 15 (3.20%) Service Desk Analyst
14 14 (2.99%) Developer
14 14 (2.99%) IT Administrator
14 14 (2.99%) IT Engineer
15 13 (2.77%) Delivery Manager
15 13 (2.77%) IT Manager
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 6 (1.28%) Kafka
1 6 (1.28%) Middleware
2 4 (0.85%) Oracle Fusion
2 4 (0.85%) RESTful
3 3 (0.64%) 802.1X
3 3 (0.64%) LDAP
3 3 (0.64%) REST
3 3 (0.64%) XML
4 2 (0.43%) .NET
4 2 (0.43%) CSS
4 2 (0.43%) Elastic Stack
4 2 (0.43%) Gherkin
4 2 (0.43%) Node.js
4 2 (0.43%) OAuth
4 2 (0.43%) OAuth2
4 2 (0.43%) OpenID
4 2 (0.43%) SAML
4 2 (0.43%) SOAP
4 2 (0.43%) Universal Windows Platform
5 1 (0.21%) ASP.NET
Miscellaneous
1 28 (5.97%) Management Information System
2 27 (5.76%) Onboarding
3 21 (4.48%) Self-Motivation
4 20 (4.26%) Driving Licence
5 18 (3.84%) Data Centre
6 15 (3.20%) Product Ownership
7 13 (2.77%) Smartphone
8 7 (1.49%) Derivative
9 6 (1.28%) Analytical Mindset
9 6 (1.28%) CMDB
9 6 (1.28%) Enterprise Cloud
9 6 (1.28%) Public Cloud
10 5 (1.07%) Data Protection Act
10 5 (1.07%) NHS
11 4 (0.85%) Clustering
11 4 (0.85%) Equities
11 4 (0.85%) Equity Derivative
11 4 (0.85%) Mobile App
11 4 (0.85%) PKI
11 4 (0.85%) Security Operations Centre
Operating Systems
1 89 (18.98%) Windows
2 31 (6.61%) Windows 10
3 22 (4.69%) Linux
4 17 (3.62%) Android
5 16 (3.41%) Unix
6 14 (2.99%) Mac OS
6 14 (2.99%) Windows Server
7 13 (2.77%) Apple iOS
8 3 (0.64%) CentOS
8 3 (0.64%) Mac OS X
8 3 (0.64%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
9 2 (0.43%) Windows 7
9 2 (0.43%) Windows 8
9 2 (0.43%) Windows Server 2012
Processes & Methodologies
1 141 (30.06%) ITIL
2 108 (23.03%) Customer Service
3 90 (19.19%) Service Delivery
4 71 (15.14%) Continuous Improvement
5 64 (13.65%) Time Management
6 60 (12.79%) Problem-Solving
7 54 (11.51%) Service Management
8 51 (10.87%) ITSM
9 46 (9.81%) Stakeholder Management
10 40 (8.53%) Change Management
11 38 (8.10%) Root Cause Analysis
12 37 (7.89%) Incident Management
13 35 (7.46%) Agile
14 28 (5.97%) Roadmaps
15 27 (5.76%) Asset Management
16 26 (5.54%) Customer Experience
16 26 (5.54%) Cybersecurity
16 26 (5.54%) Problem Management
17 25 (5.33%) Mentoring
18 23 (4.90%) Disaster Recovery
Programming Languages
1 27 (5.76%) SQL
2 25 (5.33%) Python
3 15 (3.20%) PowerShell
4 14 (2.99%) Shell Script
5 12 (2.56%) Java
6 6 (1.28%) Bash
7 4 (0.85%) C++
7 4 (0.85%) PL/SQL
8 3 (0.64%) C#
8 3 (0.64%) Go
8 3 (0.64%) JavaScript
8 3 (0.64%) MATLAB
9 2 (0.43%) Kusto Query Language
9 2 (0.43%) Ruby
10 1 (0.21%) Bicep
10 1 (0.21%) T-SQL
Qualifications
1 134 (28.57%) Security Cleared
2 103 (21.96%) SC Cleared
3 35 (7.46%) Degree
4 21 (4.48%) DV Cleared
5 11 (2.35%) BPSS Clearance
5 11 (2.35%) ITIL Certification
5 11 (2.35%) MOS
6 10 (2.13%) ITIL Foundation Certificate
6 10 (2.13%) PMI Certification
7 7 (1.49%) Cisco Certification
7 7 (1.49%) Microsoft Certification
7 7 (1.49%) PMP
8 5 (1.07%) Computer Science Degree
9 4 (0.85%) CCNP
10 3 (0.64%) Azure Certification
10 3 (0.64%) CEH
10 3 (0.64%) CISSP
10 3 (0.64%) DBS Check
10 3 (0.64%) HNC
10 3 (0.64%) Numerate Degree
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 15 (3.20%) GDPR
2 14 (2.99%) ISO/IEC 27001
3 11 (2.35%) QA
4 8 (1.71%) Data Quality
5 7 (1.49%) NIST
6 5 (1.07%) PMO
6 5 (1.07%) Sarbanes-Oxley
7 4 (0.85%) Cyber Essentials
7 4 (0.85%) PCI DSS
8 3 (0.64%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
8 3 (0.64%) GRC
9 2 (0.43%) COBIT
9 2 (0.43%) ISO 9001
9 2 (0.43%) NIST 800
9 2 (0.43%) PSD2
10 1 (0.21%) Accessibility
10 1 (0.21%) ISO/IEC 20000
10 1 (0.21%) ISO/IEC 27002 (supersedes ISO/IEC 17799)
10 1 (0.21%) ISO/IEC 42001
System Software
1 43 (9.17%) Active Directory
2 8 (1.71%) Docker
2 8 (1.71%) VMware Infrastructure
3 6 (1.28%) vSphere
4 3 (0.64%) DFS Replication
4 3 (0.64%) Firmware
4 3 (0.64%) Hyper-V
4 3 (0.64%) Virtual Machines
5 2 (0.43%) BitLocker
5 2 (0.43%) VMware ESXi
Systems Management
1 17 (3.62%) Microsoft Intune
2 15 (3.20%) SCCM
3 12 (2.56%) Ansible
4 11 (2.35%) Grafana
4 11 (2.35%) Kubernetes
5 8 (1.71%) Terraform
6 6 (1.28%) SCOM
6 6 (1.28%) Single Sign-On
7 5 (1.07%) Prometheus
8 3 (0.64%) Check_MK
8 3 (0.64%) FortiGate
8 3 (0.64%) Podman
8 3 (0.64%) Red Hat Satellite
8 3 (0.64%) RSA Archer
8 3 (0.64%) ServiceCenter
8 3 (0.64%) WSUS
9 2 (0.43%) Argo
9 2 (0.43%) Microsoft Clustering
9 2 (0.43%) NetApp OnCommand
9 2 (0.43%) TeamSite
Vendors
1 125 (26.65%) Microsoft
2 52 (11.09%) ServiceNow
3 37 (7.89%) Cisco
4 36 (7.68%) Oracle
5 24 (5.12%) HP
6 22 (4.69%) Dell
7 21 (4.48%) SAP
8 19 (4.05%) Apple
9 16 (3.41%) VMware
10 10 (2.13%) Splunk
10 10 (2.13%) Workday
11 9 (1.92%) Juniper
12 8 (1.71%) Fortinet
13 7 (1.49%) Remedy
14 5 (1.07%) Google
14 5 (1.07%) IBM
14 5 (1.07%) Nokia
14 5 (1.07%) Trend Micro
15 4 (0.85%) BMC
16 3 (0.64%) Red Hat
853 SLA jobs Nationwide