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 8 October 2026, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
8 Oct 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 262 212 202
Rank change year-on-year -50 -10 -30
Contract jobs citing SLA 563 438 465
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 1.03% 1.33% 1.23%
As % of the Quality Assurance & Compliance category 5.81% 7.60% 9.17%
Number of daily rates quoted 326 248 218
10th Percentile £181 £182 £158
25th Percentile £250 £231 £200
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £425 £350 £328
Median % change year-on-year +21.43% +6.87% -18.13%
75th Percentile £538 £535 £500
90th Percentile £637 £601 £600
UK excluding London median daily rate £425 £325 £340
% change year-on-year +30.77% -4.41% +4.61%
Number of hourly rates quoted 79 74 54
10th Percentile £13.45 £16.02 £13.43
25th Percentile £16.01 £17.48 £15.80
Median hourly rate £19.33 £22.09 £23.80
Median % change year-on-year -12.47% -7.21% +37.41%
75th Percentile £25.13 £25.15 £24.18
90th Percentile £72.25 £38.94 £48.75
UK excluding London median hourly rate £19.33 £18.73 £20.64
% change year-on-year +3.20% -9.23% +24.53%

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 9,682 5,763 5,073
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 17.75% 17.43% 13.40%
Number of daily rates quoted 6,056 3,679 2,945
10th Percentile £325 £300 £275
25th Percentile £413 £400 £400
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £507 £500 £500
Median % change year-on-year +1.40% - -4.76%
75th Percentile £610 £605 £625
90th Percentile £713 £706 £738
UK excluding London median daily rate £482 £475 £475
% change year-on-year +1.42% - -5.00%
Number of hourly rates quoted 682 278 243
10th Percentile £13.70 £13.60 £13.26
25th Percentile £16.46 £16.61 £15.86
Median hourly rate £30.27 £30.00 £27.50
Median % change year-on-year +0.90% +9.09% -22.68%
75th Percentile £64.77 £60.94 £62.63
90th Percentile £74.25 £80.00 £70.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £31.73 £25.83 £27.50
% change year-on-year +22.87% -6.09% -25.17%

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 8 October 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 8 October 2026.

Hourly rate histogram for SLA in the UK

SLA
Top 16 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 8 October 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 -59 461 £425 +16.44% 634
UK excluding London -54 346 £425 +30.77% 355
London -37 174 £404 -3.81% 289
Work from Home -43 114 £463 +15.63% 199
North of England -31 88 £429 +50.53% 75
South East -61 74 £513 +53.90% 71
Scotland +38 69 £380 -6.75% 18
North West -5 67 £430 +32.15% 44
Midlands -60 55 £250 -33.33% 79
West Midlands -49 50 £250 -36.71% 51
East of England -20 44 £700 +100.00% 53
South West -55 28 £301 +3.62% 33
Yorkshire -46 18 £450 +79.64% 27
Wales -2 11 £525 +129.51% 15
East Midlands -19 5 £363 +170.52% 28
North East -37 3 £228 - 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 44 (7.82%) SharePoint
2 31 (5.51%) Microsoft Exchange
3 8 (1.42%) Confluence
4 6 (1.07%) OpenStack
5 4 (0.71%) IIS
6 2 (0.36%) Anypoint
6 2 (0.36%) Exchange Server 2010
6 2 (0.36%) Mule
6 2 (0.36%) SAS
7 1 (0.18%) Apache
7 1 (0.18%) Appian
7 1 (0.18%) CICS
7 1 (0.18%) Exchange Server 2013
7 1 (0.18%) JBoss
7 1 (0.18%) Skype for Business
Applications
1 55 (9.77%) Microsoft Office
2 24 (4.26%) Microsoft Excel
3 4 (0.71%) Spreadsheet
4 2 (0.36%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 2 (0.36%) MS Visio
5 1 (0.18%) Adobe Creative Suite
5 1 (0.18%) Chatbot
5 1 (0.18%) Microsoft Project
Business Applications
1 20 (3.55%) Remedy ITSM
2 8 (1.42%) ContrOCC
3 5 (0.89%) SAP S/4HANA
4 4 (0.71%) Dynamics CRM
4 4 (0.71%) Oracle Applications
4 4 (0.71%) Oracle Procure-to-Pay
5 3 (0.53%) Oracle Assets
5 3 (0.53%) Oracle General Ledger
5 3 (0.53%) Oracle Payables
5 3 (0.53%) Oracle Receivables
6 2 (0.36%) Dynamics GP
6 2 (0.36%) Oracle Cash Management
6 2 (0.36%) Oracle EBS
6 2 (0.36%) Oracle Subledger Accounting
7 1 (0.18%) Oracle EBS R12
7 1 (0.18%) Oracle Financials
7 1 (0.18%) SAP HCM
7 1 (0.18%) SAP Oil and Gas
7 1 (0.18%) Unit4 Business World
Cloud Services
1 122 (21.67%) Microsoft 365
2 109 (19.36%) Azure
3 61 (10.83%) Entra ID
4 41 (7.28%) AWS
5 28 (4.97%) OneDrive
6 22 (3.91%) Power Platform
7 20 (3.55%) SaaS
8 13 (2.31%) Azure DevOps
9 9 (1.60%) Datadog
9 9 (1.60%) GCP
10 8 (1.42%) IaaS
10 8 (1.42%) Serverless
11 7 (1.24%) Azure Sentinel
11 7 (1.24%) Google Workspace
11 7 (1.24%) PaaS
12 6 (1.07%) Amazon CloudWatch
12 6 (1.07%) AWS CloudFormation
12 6 (1.07%) OCI
13 5 (0.89%) Azure Databricks
13 5 (0.89%) Microsoft Copilot
Communications & Networking
1 39 (6.93%) VPN
2 37 (6.57%) DNS
3 30 (5.33%) DHCP
4 26 (4.62%) LAN
5 25 (4.44%) TCP/IP
5 25 (4.44%) WAN
6 23 (4.09%) Firewall
7 17 (3.02%) Wi-Fi
8 14 (2.49%) MPLS
8 14 (2.49%) SDH
9 11 (1.95%) SAN
9 11 (1.95%) Skype
9 11 (1.95%) VLAN
10 10 (1.78%) Network Security
11 8 (1.42%) Wireless
12 7 (1.24%) Radio Access Network
13 6 (1.07%) Diameter Protocol
13 6 (1.07%) Unified Communications
13 6 (1.07%) VoLTE
13 6 (1.07%) VoWiFi
Database & Business Intelligence
1 22 (3.91%) SQL Server
2 17 (3.02%) Power BI
3 8 (1.42%) Tableau
4 6 (1.07%) BigQuery
4 6 (1.07%) Looker
5 5 (0.89%) Delta Lake
6 4 (0.71%) Amazon RDS
6 4 (0.71%) Db2
6 4 (0.71%) Oracle Reports
6 4 (0.71%) PostgreSQL
7 3 (0.53%) Big Data
7 3 (0.53%) Data Lake
7 3 (0.53%) MySQL
7 3 (0.53%) Oracle Database
7 3 (0.53%) Relational Database
8 2 (0.36%) Elasticsearch
8 2 (0.36%) Flink
8 2 (0.36%) Metadata
8 2 (0.36%) Semantic Layer
8 2 (0.36%) SQL Server Reporting Services
Development Applications
1 41 (7.28%) JIRA
2 7 (1.24%) GitLab
3 5 (0.89%) Git
3 5 (0.89%) RStudio
4 4 (0.71%) Chocolatey
4 4 (0.71%) Jenkins
5 2 (0.36%) Artifactory
5 2 (0.36%) Toad
5 2 (0.36%) Visual Studio
6 1 (0.18%) Postman
General
1 234 (41.56%) Social Skills
2 106 (18.83%) Analytical Skills
3 90 (15.99%) Finance
4 36 (6.39%) Organisational Skills
5 33 (5.86%) Public Sector
6 29 (5.15%) Banking
7 21 (3.73%) Inclusion and Diversity
7 21 (3.73%) Telecoms
8 15 (2.66%) Billing
8 15 (2.66%) Documentation Skills
8 15 (2.66%) Legal
9 12 (2.13%) Local Government
10 11 (1.95%) Manufacturing
11 10 (1.78%) Retail
12 9 (1.60%) Aerospace
13 7 (1.24%) Influencing Skills
14 5 (0.89%) Back Office
15 4 (0.71%) French Language
16 3 (0.53%) Financial Institution
16 3 (0.53%) Law
Job Titles
1 73 (12.97%) Analyst
2 62 (11.01%) Support Engineer
3 50 (8.88%) IT Support
4 34 (6.04%) IT Engineer
4 34 (6.04%) Lead
5 33 (5.86%) Consultant
6 30 (5.33%) Senior
7 27 (4.80%) Service Analyst
8 26 (4.62%) Field Engineer
9 25 (4.44%) Desktop Support
9 25 (4.44%) IT Support Engineer
9 25 (4.44%) Network Engineer
9 25 (4.44%) Service Manager
10 24 (4.26%) Architect
11 23 (4.09%) Service Desk Analyst
12 17 (3.02%) Applications Support
12 17 (3.02%) Delivery Manager
12 17 (3.02%) Infrastructure Engineer
13 15 (2.66%) Desktop Engineer
13 15 (2.66%) Windows Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 22 (3.91%) REST
2 14 (2.49%) Terraform
3 10 (1.78%) .NET
4 7 (1.24%) OAuth
5 6 (1.07%) LDAP
5 6 (1.07%) PySpark
5 6 (1.07%) XML
6 4 (0.71%) Kafka
6 4 (0.71%) Middleware
6 4 (0.71%) Software Packaging
7 3 (0.53%) .NET Framework
7 3 (0.53%) ARM Templates
7 3 (0.53%) Elastic Stack
7 3 (0.53%) Java RMI
7 3 (0.53%) SAML
7 3 (0.53%) SOAP
8 2 (0.36%) OpenAPI
8 2 (0.36%) OpenTelemetry
8 2 (0.36%) RAML
8 2 (0.36%) Swagger
Miscellaneous
1 67 (11.90%) Onboarding
2 29 (5.15%) CMDB
3 27 (4.80%) Data Centre
4 21 (3.73%) Enterprise Software
5 17 (3.02%) Smartphone
6 16 (2.84%) Video Conferencing
7 15 (2.66%) PKI
7 15 (2.66%) Security Posture
8 12 (2.13%) Virtual Team
9 10 (1.78%) Driving Licence
10 9 (1.60%) Security Operations Centre
11 8 (1.42%) Cyber Threat
11 8 (1.42%) Management Information System
12 7 (1.24%) Fat Client
12 7 (1.24%) iPhone
12 7 (1.24%) Replication
12 7 (1.24%) Self-Motivation
12 7 (1.24%) Thin Client
13 6 (1.07%) Analytical Mindset
13 6 (1.07%) Fibre Optics
Operating Systems
1 170 (30.20%) Windows
2 60 (10.66%) Windows 10
3 49 (8.70%) Windows Server
4 43 (7.64%) Android
5 28 (4.97%) Linux
6 18 (3.20%) Apple iOS
7 14 (2.49%) Mac OS
8 12 (2.13%) Unix
9 11 (1.95%) Windows 7
10 6 (1.07%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
11 4 (0.71%) Windows Server 2012
12 3 (0.53%) Windows Server 2019
12 3 (0.53%) Windows XP
13 2 (0.36%) CentOS
14 1 (0.18%) OpenVMS
14 1 (0.18%) Ubuntu
14 1 (0.18%) VMS
14 1 (0.18%) Windows Server 2003
14 1 (0.18%) Windows Server 2008
14 1 (0.18%) zOS
Processes & Methodologies
1 239 (42.45%) ITIL
2 150 (26.64%) ITSM
3 144 (25.58%) Service Management
4 134 (23.80%) Customer Service
5 125 (22.20%) Problem-Solving
6 123 (21.85%) Continuous Improvement
7 109 (19.36%) Stakeholder Management
8 95 (16.87%) Service Delivery
9 87 (15.45%) Incident Management
10 78 (13.85%) Change Management
11 70 (12.43%) Root Cause Analysis
12 57 (10.12%) Problem Management
13 50 (8.88%) Validation
14 45 (7.99%) Incident Response
15 44 (7.82%) Agile
16 40 (7.10%) Asset Management
16 40 (7.10%) Cybersecurity
17 38 (6.75%) Runbook
18 37 (6.57%) Configuration Management
19 36 (6.39%) Migration
Programming Languages
1 49 (8.70%) SQL
2 42 (7.46%) PowerShell
3 41 (7.28%) Python
4 16 (2.84%) JavaScript
5 7 (1.24%) Bash
5 7 (1.24%) Java
6 6 (1.07%) PL/SQL
7 5 (0.89%) C#
7 5 (0.89%) R
7 5 (0.89%) Shell Script
8 4 (0.71%) Bicep
8 4 (0.71%) Google Apps Script
9 2 (0.36%) COBOL
9 2 (0.36%) DataWeave
9 2 (0.36%) MATLAB
9 2 (0.36%) Perl
9 2 (0.36%) RPG
9 2 (0.36%) X++
10 1 (0.18%) ActionScript
10 1 (0.18%) VBScript
Qualifications
1 187 (33.21%) Security Cleared
2 143 (25.40%) SC Cleared
3 38 (6.75%) Degree
4 34 (6.04%) DV Cleared
5 20 (3.55%) ITIL Certification
6 19 (3.37%) ITIL Foundation Certificate
6 19 (3.37%) Microsoft Certification
7 16 (2.84%) BPSS Clearance
8 15 (2.66%) DBS Check
9 14 (2.49%) Cisco Certification
10 10 (1.78%) A+ Certification
10 10 (1.78%) PMI Certification
11 9 (1.60%) Azure Certification
12 8 (1.42%) CCNA
13 7 (1.24%) CCNP
13 7 (1.24%) Computer Science Degree
13 7 (1.24%) MCSE
14 6 (1.07%) PMP
15 3 (0.53%) AWS Certification
15 3 (0.53%) CISSP
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 23 (4.09%) Data Quality
2 12 (2.13%) ISO/IEC 20000
3 11 (1.95%) ISO/IEC 27001
4 10 (1.78%) NIST
5 8 (1.42%) QA
6 7 (1.24%) PMO
7 6 (1.07%) NCSC
8 5 (0.89%) COBIT
8 5 (0.89%) Cyber Essentials
8 5 (0.89%) GDPR
8 5 (0.89%) ISO 9001
9 4 (0.71%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
10 3 (0.53%) JSP 440
11 2 (0.36%) GRC
11 2 (0.36%) HIPAA
11 2 (0.36%) Sarbanes-Oxley
12 1 (0.18%) DICOM
12 1 (0.18%) Disclosure Scotland
12 1 (0.18%) HL7
12 1 (0.18%) PCI DSS
System Software
1 132 (23.45%) Active Directory
2 21 (3.73%) VMware Infrastructure
3 17 (3.02%) Virtual Desktop
4 12 (2.13%) Hyper-V
5 7 (1.24%) Docker
5 7 (1.24%) Firmware
6 6 (1.07%) VMware ESXi
7 4 (0.71%) RACF
7 4 (0.71%) Virtual Machines
8 3 (0.53%) ACF2
9 2 (0.36%) Apache ZooKeeper
9 2 (0.36%) Oracle RAC
9 2 (0.36%) vSphere
10 1 (0.18%) BitLocker
10 1 (0.18%) Job Entry Subsystem
10 1 (0.18%) Microsoft Virtual Server
10 1 (0.18%) Virtual Servers
10 1 (0.18%) VMware Workstation
Systems Management
1 51 (9.06%) Microsoft Intune
2 30 (5.33%) SCCM
3 23 (4.09%) Kubernetes
4 16 (2.84%) Single Sign-On
5 8 (1.42%) Ansible
5 8 (1.42%) Jamf Pro
6 7 (1.24%) Grafana
7 6 (1.07%) SCOM
8 5 (0.89%) Prometheus
9 4 (0.71%) SCOrch
10 3 (0.53%) FortiGate
10 3 (0.53%) vCenter Server
11 2 (0.36%) CloudHub
11 2 (0.36%) Data Guard
11 2 (0.36%) Istio
11 2 (0.36%) Oracle Identity Management
11 2 (0.36%) Oracle Identity Manager
11 2 (0.36%) Podman
11 2 (0.36%) PowerCLI
11 2 (0.36%) Red Hat Satellite
Vendors
1 219 (38.90%) Microsoft
2 116 (20.60%) ServiceNow
3 40 (7.10%) Cisco
4 35 (6.22%) VMware
5 24 (4.26%) Remedy
6 23 (4.09%) Oracle
7 19 (3.37%) Apple
8 15 (2.66%) HP
9 13 (2.31%) SAP
10 11 (1.95%) Google
11 10 (1.78%) Nokia
11 10 (1.78%) Zscaler
12 9 (1.60%) Citrix
12 9 (1.60%) Databricks
12 9 (1.60%) Fortinet
12 9 (1.60%) Okta
12 9 (1.60%) Salesforce
13 8 (1.42%) BT
13 8 (1.42%) Liquidlogic
13 8 (1.42%) Palo Alto