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 11 March 2026, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

 6 months to
11 Mar 2026		 Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 216 190 140
Rank change year-on-year -26 -50 +30
Contract jobs citing SLA 543 420 775
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 1.28% 1.42% 1.73%
As % of the Quality Assurance & Compliance category 7.38% 9.44% 11.93%
Number of daily rates quoted 274 243 368
10th Percentile £200 £148 £150
25th Percentile £266 £185 £213
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £445 £250 £350
Median % change year-on-year +77.90% -28.57% +17.15%
75th Percentile £533 £491 £525
90th Percentile £600 £598 £600
UK excluding London median daily rate £375 £241 £295
% change year-on-year +55.60% -18.31% +31.11%
Number of hourly rates quoted 133 45 85
10th Percentile £16.13 £14.70 £11.07
25th Percentile £17.69 £17.80 £13.18
Median hourly rate £18.50 £22.14 £16.00
Median % change year-on-year -16.44% +38.38% -13.51%
75th Percentile £20.35 £24.66 £26.15
90th Percentile £26.11 £29.00 £33.75
UK excluding London median hourly rate £18.50 £22.14 £14.16
% change year-on-year -16.44% +56.36% -22.89%

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 7,360 4,447 6,498
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 17.30% 15.09% 14.52%
Number of daily rates quoted 4,739 2,806 4,147
10th Percentile £331 £259 £300
25th Percentile £413 £375 £406
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £500 £517
Median % change year-on-year - -3.29% -1.52%
75th Percentile £600 £625 £625
90th Percentile £700 £725 £738
UK excluding London median daily rate £500 £475 £484
% change year-on-year +5.26% -1.86% +1.89%
Number of hourly rates quoted 396 168 396
10th Percentile £15.31 £16.24 £11.03
25th Percentile £18.48 £22.00 £14.10
Median hourly rate £28.28 £31.76 £25.00
Median % change year-on-year -10.97% +27.04% -33.33%
75th Percentile £65.00 £65.00 £47.25
90th Percentile £79.43 £79.89 £69.69
UK excluding London median hourly rate £30.58 £31.76 £24.43
% change year-on-year -3.72% +30.00% -24.83%

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 11 March 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 11 March 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 11 March 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 -27 487 £445 +77.90% 276
UK excluding London -43 358 £375 +55.60% 221
London +12 154 £494 +64.67% 58
East of England +37 109 £475 +111.11% 28
Work from Home -28 107 £500 +100.00% 88
South East -64 76 £431 +72.50% 81
North of England -68 60 £348 +39.00% 49
Midlands -83 45 £299 +27.34% 39
South West -12 38 £275 -50.00% 17
West Midlands -67 33 £296 +25.96% 18
North West -48 32 £435 +74.00% 36
Scotland +23 28 £440 +129.17% 10
Yorkshire -63 21 £365 +58.70% 12
East Midlands -39 11 £534 +78.00% 21
North East - 7 £265 - 1
Northern Ireland -1 5 £500 +237.84% 1
Wales -7 1 - - 5

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 17 (3.13%) SharePoint
2 15 (2.76%) Microsoft Exchange
3 6 (1.10%) Confluence
4 5 (0.92%) Oracle Workflow
5 4 (0.74%) Adobe Experience Manager
6 3 (0.55%) Apache Airflow
6 3 (0.55%) ArcGIS
7 2 (0.37%) SAS
8 1 (0.18%) GeoServer
8 1 (0.18%) IIS
8 1 (0.18%) LiveCycle
8 1 (0.18%) Oracle Spatial
8 1 (0.18%) Smallworld
8 1 (0.18%) WebSphere
8 1 (0.18%) WebSphere Application Server
Applications
1 55 (10.13%) Microsoft Excel
2 46 (8.47%) Spreadsheet
3 32 (5.89%) Microsoft Office
4 5 (0.92%) MS Visio
5 4 (0.74%) Microsoft PowerPoint
6 2 (0.37%) Oracle Smart View
7 1 (0.18%) Autodesk Inventor
7 1 (0.18%) MicroStation
Business Applications
1 14 (2.58%) Oracle Subledger Accounting
2 12 (2.21%) Oracle Payables
3 11 (2.03%) Oracle EBS
3 11 (2.03%) Remedy ITSM
4 10 (1.84%) Oracle Assets
5 7 (1.29%) Oracle Receivables
6 6 (1.10%) Oracle ERP
6 6 (1.10%) Oracle General Ledger
7 3 (0.55%) Oracle Cash Management
8 2 (0.37%) Dynamics CRM
8 2 (0.37%) IntelliMatch
8 2 (0.37%) Oracle EBS R12
8 2 (0.37%) Oracle E-Business Tax
8 2 (0.37%) Oracle FAH
8 2 (0.37%) Oracle Financials
8 2 (0.37%) Payment Gateway
8 2 (0.37%) Temenos T24
9 1 (0.18%) OpenText VIM for SAP
9 1 (0.18%) SAP Payroll
9 1 (0.18%) Veritas eDiscovery
Cloud Services
1 63 (11.60%) Microsoft 365
2 60 (11.05%) Azure
3 46 (8.47%) AWS
4 20 (3.68%) Power Platform
5 18 (3.31%) GCP
6 14 (2.58%) IaaS
6 14 (2.58%) Virtual Private Cloud
7 13 (2.39%) Entra ID
7 13 (2.39%) PaaS
8 12 (2.21%) Amazon EC2
8 12 (2.21%) Amazon S3
9 11 (2.03%) Datadog
9 11 (2.03%) SaaS
10 9 (1.66%) Amazon CloudWatch
10 9 (1.66%) AWS CloudFormation
10 9 (1.66%) Snowflake
11 8 (1.47%) Azure DevOps
12 7 (1.29%) GitHub
12 7 (1.29%) OCI
13 6 (1.10%) OneDrive
Communications & Networking
1 32 (5.89%) Firewall
2 30 (5.52%) WAN
3 23 (4.24%) VPN
4 21 (3.87%) DNS
5 18 (3.31%) SD-WAN
6 17 (3.13%) LAN
7 16 (2.95%) DHCP
8 14 (2.58%) Network Security
8 14 (2.58%) Wi-Fi
9 13 (2.39%) PABX
10 12 (2.21%) MPLS
11 11 (2.03%) Cisco ASA
11 11 (2.03%) SAN
12 10 (1.84%) BGP
12 10 (1.84%) OSPF
12 10 (1.84%) TCP/IP
13 9 (1.66%) VLAN
14 8 (1.47%) Cisco IOS
14 8 (1.47%) Wireless
15 7 (1.29%) SDH
Database & Business Intelligence
1 17 (3.13%) Power BI
2 15 (2.76%) SQL Server
3 10 (1.84%) Oracle Database
4 9 (1.66%) MySQL
5 6 (1.10%) MongoDB
5 6 (1.10%) PostgreSQL
6 5 (0.92%) Relational Database
7 4 (0.74%) GIS
8 3 (0.55%) Amazon RDS
8 3 (0.55%) Oracle Reports
8 3 (0.55%) SAP HANA
8 3 (0.55%) Tableau
9 2 (0.37%) Azure SQL Database
9 2 (0.37%) Pentaho
9 2 (0.37%) SQL Server Integration Services
10 1 (0.18%) Geospatial Data
10 1 (0.18%) Metadata
10 1 (0.18%) Oracle BI Publisher
10 1 (0.18%) Spatial Data
10 1 (0.18%) SQL Server Reporting Services
Development Applications
1 28 (5.16%) JIRA
2 18 (3.31%) Jenkins
3 17 (3.13%) GitLab
4 15 (2.76%) Git
5 6 (1.10%) Chocolatey
6 5 (0.92%) Visual Studio
7 4 (0.74%) Maven
8 3 (0.55%) CircleCI
9 2 (0.37%) JMeter
10 1 (0.18%) Cucumber
10 1 (0.18%) Metasploit
10 1 (0.18%) Selenium
10 1 (0.18%) SQL Server Management Studio (SSMS)
General
1 258 (47.51%) Social Skills
2 114 (20.99%) Finance
3 71 (13.08%) Analytical Skills
4 50 (9.21%) Public Sector
5 36 (6.63%) Banking
6 35 (6.45%) Organisational Skills
7 32 (5.89%) Telecoms
8 24 (4.42%) Documentation Skills
9 21 (3.87%) Legal
10 18 (3.31%) Retail
11 12 (2.21%) Marketing
12 10 (1.84%) Financial Institution
12 10 (1.84%) Investment Banking
13 9 (1.66%) Billing
14 7 (1.29%) Aerospace
14 7 (1.29%) Presentation Skills
15 6 (1.10%) Law
16 5 (0.92%) Local Government
17 4 (0.74%) General Ledger
17 4 (0.74%) Influencing Skills
Job Titles
1 81 (14.92%) IT Support
2 67 (12.34%) Analyst
3 52 (9.58%) Lead
4 40 (7.37%) Administrator
5 35 (6.45%) Senior
5 35 (6.45%) Support Engineer
6 31 (5.71%) Desktop Support
6 31 (5.71%) Technical Support
7 29 (5.34%) Service Manager
8 24 (4.42%) IT Engineer
9 23 (4.24%) Service Analyst
10 21 (3.87%) Support Analyst
11 20 (3.68%) Consultant
12 19 (3.50%) Team Leader
13 16 (2.95%) IT Administrator
14 15 (2.76%) Desktop Engineer
14 15 (2.76%) Developer
15 14 (2.58%) Delivery Manager
15 14 (2.58%) IT Support Engineer
15 14 (2.58%) Service Desk Analyst
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 13 (2.39%) Oracle Fusion
2 11 (2.03%) Middleware
3 9 (1.66%) REST
4 8 (1.47%) Web Services
5 7 (1.29%) LDAP
6 6 (1.10%) CSS
7 5 (0.92%) AWS CDK
7 5 (0.92%) jQuery
7 5 (0.92%) Kafka
7 5 (0.92%) Spring
8 4 (0.74%) 802.1X
8 4 (0.74%) AngularJS
8 4 (0.74%) Bootstrap
8 4 (0.74%) J2EE
8 4 (0.74%) Sass
8 4 (0.74%) Spring MVC
9 3 (0.55%) .NET
9 3 (0.55%) OAuth
9 3 (0.55%) RESTful
9 3 (0.55%) SAML
Miscellaneous
1 37 (6.81%) Onboarding
2 27 (4.97%) Management Information System
3 22 (4.05%) Data Centre
4 20 (3.68%) Self-Motivation
5 18 (3.31%) Product Ownership
6 15 (2.76%) Smartphone
7 13 (2.39%) Driving Licence
8 12 (2.21%) Cloud Native
9 10 (1.84%) CMDB
10 9 (1.66%) Enterprise Cloud
11 8 (1.47%) Data Protection Act
12 7 (1.29%) Public Cloud
13 6 (1.10%) Cyber Threat
13 6 (1.10%) Equities
14 5 (0.92%) Enterprise Software
15 4 (0.74%) BYOD
15 4 (0.74%) Derivative
15 4 (0.74%) Equity Derivative
15 4 (0.74%) IoT
15 4 (0.74%) PKI
Operating Systems
1 102 (18.78%) Windows
2 32 (5.89%) Linux
3 29 (5.34%) Windows 10
4 18 (3.31%) Unix
5 12 (2.21%) Windows Server
6 7 (1.29%) CentOS
6 7 (1.29%) Mac OS
6 7 (1.29%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
7 5 (0.92%) Android
7 5 (0.92%) Apple iOS
8 1 (0.18%) Mac OS X
8 1 (0.18%) Windows 7
8 1 (0.18%) Windows Server 2012
8 1 (0.18%) Windows XP
Processes & Methodologies
1 140 (25.78%) ITIL
2 117 (21.55%) Customer Service
3 98 (18.05%) Service Delivery
4 85 (15.65%) Time Management
5 80 (14.73%) Continuous Improvement
6 72 (13.26%) ITSM
7 66 (12.15%) Problem-Solving
8 65 (11.97%) Stakeholder Management
9 59 (10.87%) Incident Management
10 56 (10.31%) Agile
10 56 (10.31%) Change Management
10 56 (10.31%) Root Cause Analysis
11 43 (7.92%) Service Management
12 39 (7.18%) Roadmaps
13 37 (6.81%) Asset Management
13 37 (6.81%) Problem Management
14 34 (6.26%) CI/CD
15 32 (5.89%) Disaster Recovery
15 32 (5.89%) Migration
16 29 (5.34%) Incident Response
Programming Languages
1 34 (6.26%) SQL
2 33 (6.08%) Python
3 19 (3.50%) PowerShell
4 18 (3.31%) Shell Script
5 15 (2.76%) Java
6 12 (2.21%) Bash
7 7 (1.29%) JavaScript
7 7 (1.29%) MATLAB
8 6 (1.10%) PL/SQL
9 4 (0.74%) C++
10 3 (0.55%) Go
11 2 (0.37%) VB
12 1 (0.18%) Apex Code
12 1 (0.18%) Bicep
12 1 (0.18%) C#
12 1 (0.18%) Groovy
12 1 (0.18%) Korn
12 1 (0.18%) Scala
Qualifications
1 126 (23.20%) Security Cleared
2 100 (18.42%) SC Cleared
3 40 (7.37%) Degree
4 17 (3.13%) BPSS Clearance
5 13 (2.39%) DV Cleared
6 11 (2.03%) ITIL Certification
7 9 (1.66%) MOS
8 7 (1.29%) Microsoft Certification
9 6 (1.10%) ITIL Foundation Certificate
10 5 (0.92%) Master's Degree
11 4 (0.74%) Azure Certification
11 4 (0.74%) CISA
11 4 (0.74%) Cisco Certification
11 4 (0.74%) PMI Certification
11 4 (0.74%) RIBA
12 3 (0.55%) CCA
12 3 (0.55%) CCNP
12 3 (0.55%) MCSE
12 3 (0.55%) Numerate Degree
13 2 (0.37%) ISO 27001 Lead Auditor
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 20 (3.68%) GDPR
2 17 (3.13%) ISO/IEC 27001
3 15 (2.76%) PMO
4 14 (2.58%) QA
5 12 (2.21%) Data Quality
6 9 (1.66%) NIST
7 7 (1.29%) GRC
7 7 (1.29%) Sarbanes-Oxley
8 6 (1.10%) PCI DSS
9 4 (0.74%) COBIT
10 3 (0.55%) Cyber Essentials
11 2 (0.37%) ISO 20022
11 2 (0.37%) ISO 31000
11 2 (0.37%) ISO 8583
11 2 (0.37%) ISO/IEC 20000
11 2 (0.37%) NIST 800
11 2 (0.37%) PSD2
11 2 (0.37%) SOC 2
12 1 (0.18%) ISO 9001
12 1 (0.18%) ISO/IEC 42001
System Software
1 50 (9.21%) Active Directory
2 12 (2.21%) Docker
3 8 (1.47%) VMware Infrastructure
3 8 (1.47%) vSphere
4 3 (0.55%) DFS Replication
4 3 (0.55%) VMware ESXi
5 2 (0.37%) Firmware
5 2 (0.37%) Hyper-V
5 2 (0.37%) Virtual Desktop
6 1 (0.18%) BitLocker
6 1 (0.18%) Oracle RAC
6 1 (0.18%) Virtual Machines
6 1 (0.18%) XenDesktop
Systems Management
1 25 (4.60%) SCCM
2 20 (3.68%) Microsoft Intune
2 20 (3.68%) Terraform
3 17 (3.13%) Ansible
4 12 (2.21%) ServiceCenter
5 10 (1.84%) Grafana
6 9 (1.66%) Kubernetes
6 9 (1.66%) Single Sign-On
7 7 (1.29%) Check_MK
7 7 (1.29%) Podman
7 7 (1.29%) Red Hat Satellite
8 6 (1.10%) FortiGate
9 5 (0.92%) Prometheus
10 4 (0.74%) Active Directory Federation Services
10 4 (0.74%) TeamSite
11 2 (0.37%) Argo
11 2 (0.37%) HP ALM
11 2 (0.37%) HP Quality Center
11 2 (0.37%) SCOM
11 2 (0.37%) vCenter Server
Vendors
1 159 (29.28%) Microsoft
2 72 (13.26%) ServiceNow
3 51 (9.39%) Oracle
4 32 (5.89%) Cisco
5 31 (5.71%) HP
6 30 (5.52%) SAP
7 26 (4.79%) VMware
8 25 (4.60%) Dell
9 20 (3.68%) Apple
10 15 (2.76%) Remedy
11 14 (2.58%) Splunk
12 11 (2.03%) IBM
13 9 (1.66%) AppDynamics
13 9 (1.66%) Fortinet
13 9 (1.66%) Tenable
13 9 (1.66%) Zscaler
14 7 (1.29%) Red Hat
15 6 (1.10%) Dynatrace
16 5 (0.92%) F5
16 5 (0.92%) Palo Alto
301 SLA jobs Nationwide