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

 6 months to
27 Dec 2025		 Same period 2024 Same period 2023
Rank 220 204 166
Rank change year-on-year -16 -38 +24
Contract jobs citing SLA 471 433 676
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 1.27% 1.29% 1.55%
As % of the Quality Assurance & Compliance category 7.33% 9.05% 10.67%
Number of daily rates quoted 248 222 342
10th Percentile £171 £148 £148
25th Percentile £245 £193 £200
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £370 £262 £400
Median % change year-on-year +41.36% -34.56% +23.08%
75th Percentile £538 £500 £538
90th Percentile £625 £586 £635
UK excluding London median daily rate £325 £261 £300
% change year-on-year +24.52% -13.00% +26.05%
Number of hourly rates quoted 116 47 64
10th Percentile £16.13 £14.70 £12.89
25th Percentile £17.69 £18.06 £14.12
Median hourly rate £18.73 £24.18 £17.83
Median % change year-on-year -22.54% +35.60% +2.34%
75th Percentile £20.73 £29.00 £32.81
90th Percentile £36.35 £45.75 £61.75
UK excluding London median hourly rate £18.50 £24.18 £16.82
% change year-on-year -23.49% +43.74% -0.66%

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 6,422 4,785 6,335
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 17.27% 14.22% 14.48%
Number of daily rates quoted 4,155 2,808 4,215
10th Percentile £313 £260 £313
25th Percentile £406 £375 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £500 £525
Median % change year-on-year - -4.76% -
75th Percentile £600 £620 £645
90th Percentile £700 £722 £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 318 189 235
10th Percentile £14.18 £15.00 £14.08
25th Percentile £17.69 £21.00 £18.08
Median hourly rate £25.15 £29.00 £33.00
Median % change year-on-year -13.28% -12.12% +46.67%
75th Percentile £61.09 £63.75 £61.63
90th Percentile £73.75 £75.00 £81.87
UK excluding London median hourly rate £20.60 £29.00 £33.00
% change year-on-year -28.98% -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 27 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 27 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 27 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 -16 427 £375 +43.68% 620
UK excluding London -34 330 £325 +24.52% 559
London +4 112 £498 +91.44% 130
Work from Home -13 92 £431 +91.67% 145
East of England +27 83 £350 +29.63% 88
South East -37 69 £413 +65.00% 163
North of England -59 61 £293 +9.86% 122
Midlands -48 52 £200 -30.80% 87
South West +10 45 £283 -48.64% 50
West Midlands -24 40 £258 +14.44% 46
North West -46 30 £293 -26.88% 61
Yorkshire -29 24 £394 +64.32% 50
Scotland +3 14 £350 +66.67% 36
East Midlands -33 12 £134 -68.47% 36
North East -2 7 £265 +0.95% 11
Northern Ireland -9 7 £500 +237.84% 11
Wales -3 3 £183 -16.82% 16

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 18 (3.82%) Microsoft Exchange
1 18 (3.82%) SharePoint
2 4 (0.85%) IIS
3 3 (0.64%) Tomcat
4 2 (0.42%) Confluence
5 1 (0.21%) ArcGIS
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 34 (7.22%) Spreadsheet
2 33 (7.01%) Microsoft Excel
3 29 (6.16%) Microsoft Office
4 5 (1.06%) MS Visio
5 4 (0.85%) Microsoft Project
5 4 (0.85%) Oracle Smart View
6 2 (0.42%) Microsoft PowerPoint
Business Applications
1 14 (2.97%) Oracle EBS
2 9 (1.91%) 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 (0.42%) Dynamics CRM
6 2 (0.42%) Dynamics GP
6 2 (0.42%) Oracle Cash Management
6 2 (0.42%) Oracle Financials
6 2 (0.42%) 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 71 (15.07%) Microsoft 365
2 44 (9.34%) Azure
3 32 (6.79%) AWS
4 12 (2.55%) GCP
5 11 (2.34%) Entra ID
6 9 (1.91%) SaaS
7 8 (1.70%) Power Platform
8 7 (1.49%) GitHub
8 7 (1.49%) IaaS
8 7 (1.49%) PaaS
9 5 (1.06%) Cloud Computing
9 5 (1.06%) GitHub Actions
9 5 (1.06%) OCI
9 5 (1.06%) OpenShift
10 3 (0.64%) AWS CloudFormation
10 3 (0.64%) AWS KMS
10 3 (0.64%) OneDrive
10 3 (0.64%) Virtual Private Cloud
11 2 (0.42%) Amazon CloudWatch
11 2 (0.42%) SuccessFactors
Communications & Networking
1 26 (5.52%) Firewall
2 23 (4.88%) WAN
3 19 (4.03%) DNS
4 17 (3.61%) Wireless
5 16 (3.40%) LAN
6 15 (3.18%) SD-WAN
7 13 (2.76%) MPLS
7 13 (2.76%) PABX
8 12 (2.55%) DHCP
8 12 (2.55%) VPN
9 9 (1.91%) BGP
9 9 (1.91%) OSPF
10 8 (1.70%) TCP/IP
11 7 (1.49%) Broadband
11 7 (1.49%) Network Security
12 6 (1.27%) SDH
13 5 (1.06%) Cisco ASA
13 5 (1.06%) Structured Cabling
13 5 (1.06%) VoIP
13 5 (1.06%) VXLAN
Database & Business Intelligence
1 11 (2.34%) SQL Server
2 8 (1.70%) PostgreSQL
3 6 (1.27%) MongoDB
3 6 (1.27%) Oracle Database
3 6 (1.27%) Power BI
4 5 (1.06%) MySQL
5 3 (0.64%) Amazon RDS
5 3 (0.64%) SAP HANA
6 2 (0.42%) GIS
6 2 (0.42%) Oracle Reports
6 2 (0.42%) Relational Database
7 1 (0.21%) Amazon Aurora
7 1 (0.21%) Azure SQL Database
7 1 (0.21%) Data Warehouse
7 1 (0.21%) Metadata
7 1 (0.21%) Oracle Database 12c
7 1 (0.21%) SQL Server Integration Services
7 1 (0.21%) SQL Server Reporting Services
Development Applications
1 12 (2.55%) JIRA
2 11 (2.34%) Jenkins
3 10 (2.12%) GitLab
4 8 (1.70%) Git
5 6 (1.27%) Postman
6 5 (1.06%) Visual Studio
7 3 (0.64%) CircleCI
7 3 (0.64%) Selenium
8 2 (0.42%) Cucumber
8 2 (0.42%) Jaeger
8 2 (0.42%) PVCS
8 2 (0.42%) Zephyr
9 1 (0.21%) Metasploit
9 1 (0.21%) TestDirector
General
1 212 (45.01%) Social Skills
2 99 (21.02%) Finance
3 57 (12.10%) Analytical Skills
4 52 (11.04%) Public Sector
5 31 (6.58%) Banking
5 31 (6.58%) Telecoms
6 26 (5.52%) Organisational Skills
7 18 (3.82%) Legal
8 17 (3.61%) Documentation Skills
9 15 (3.18%) Retail
10 9 (1.91%) Financial Institution
10 9 (1.91%) Manufacturing
11 8 (1.70%) Inclusion and Diversity
11 8 (1.70%) Law
11 8 (1.70%) Local Government
11 8 (1.70%) Marketing
12 5 (1.06%) Aerospace
12 5 (1.06%) Influencing Skills
13 4 (0.85%) Investment Banking
13 4 (0.85%) Pharmaceutical
Job Titles
1 72 (15.29%) IT Support
2 70 (14.86%) Analyst
3 46 (9.77%) Lead
4 34 (7.22%) Desktop Support
5 33 (7.01%) Support Engineer
6 29 (6.16%) Support Analyst
7 28 (5.94%) Senior
8 23 (4.88%) Administrator
9 21 (4.46%) Service Manager
9 21 (4.46%) Team Leader
10 20 (4.25%) Service Analyst
10 20 (4.25%) Technical Support
11 17 (3.61%) Consultant
12 15 (3.18%) Applications Support
12 15 (3.18%) Desktop Engineer
12 15 (3.18%) IT Engineer
12 15 (3.18%) Service Desk Analyst
13 14 (2.97%) Developer
13 14 (2.97%) IT Administrator
13 14 (2.97%) IT Manager
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 6 (1.27%) Kafka
2 5 (1.06%) Middleware
3 4 (0.85%) Oracle Fusion
3 4 (0.85%) RESTful
4 3 (0.64%) XML
5 2 (0.42%) .NET
5 2 (0.42%) 802.1X
5 2 (0.42%) CSS
5 2 (0.42%) Elastic Stack
5 2 (0.42%) Gherkin
5 2 (0.42%) LDAP
5 2 (0.42%) Node.js
5 2 (0.42%) OAuth
5 2 (0.42%) OAuth2
5 2 (0.42%) OpenID
5 2 (0.42%) REST
5 2 (0.42%) SAML
5 2 (0.42%) SOAP
5 2 (0.42%) Universal Windows Platform
6 1 (0.21%) SAP PI
Miscellaneous
1 27 (5.73%) Management Information System
2 26 (5.52%) Onboarding
3 21 (4.46%) Driving Licence
3 21 (4.46%) Self-Motivation
4 19 (4.03%) Data Centre
5 13 (2.76%) Product Ownership
5 13 (2.76%) Smartphone
6 7 (1.49%) Derivative
7 6 (1.27%) Analytical Mindset
7 6 (1.27%) Enterprise Cloud
7 6 (1.27%) Public Cloud
8 5 (1.06%) CMDB
8 5 (1.06%) Data Protection Act
8 5 (1.06%) Distributed Systems
8 5 (1.06%) NHS
9 4 (0.85%) Clustering
9 4 (0.85%) Equities
9 4 (0.85%) Equity Derivative
9 4 (0.85%) Mobile App
9 4 (0.85%) Video Conferencing
Operating Systems
1 91 (19.32%) Windows
2 33 (7.01%) Windows 10
3 21 (4.46%) Linux
4 18 (3.82%) Android
5 16 (3.40%) Unix
6 15 (3.18%) Mac OS
7 14 (2.97%) Windows Server
8 13 (2.76%) Apple iOS
9 3 (0.64%) Mac OS X
10 2 (0.42%) CentOS
10 2 (0.42%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
10 2 (0.42%) Windows 7
10 2 (0.42%) Windows 8
10 2 (0.42%) Windows Server 2012
Processes & Methodologies
1 143 (30.36%) ITIL
2 109 (23.14%) Customer Service
3 89 (18.90%) Service Delivery
4 73 (15.50%) Continuous Improvement
5 66 (14.01%) Time Management
6 62 (13.16%) Problem-Solving
7 52 (11.04%) ITSM
7 52 (11.04%) Service Management
8 46 (9.77%) Stakeholder Management
9 42 (8.92%) Change Management
10 39 (8.28%) Incident Management
11 38 (8.07%) Root Cause Analysis
12 37 (7.86%) Agile
13 28 (5.94%) Asset Management
14 27 (5.73%) Roadmaps
15 26 (5.52%) Customer Experience
15 26 (5.52%) Cybersecurity
16 25 (5.31%) Mentoring
16 25 (5.31%) Problem Management
17 24 (5.10%) DevOps
Programming Languages
1 27 (5.73%) SQL
2 26 (5.52%) Python
3 15 (3.18%) PowerShell
4 13 (2.76%) Shell Script
5 12 (2.55%) Java
6 6 (1.27%) 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
9 2 (0.42%) Kusto Query Language
9 2 (0.42%) MATLAB
9 2 (0.42%) Ruby
10 1 (0.21%) Bicep
10 1 (0.21%) T-SQL
Qualifications
1 134 (28.45%) Security Cleared
2 104 (22.08%) SC Cleared
3 36 (7.64%) Degree
4 21 (4.46%) DV Cleared
5 11 (2.34%) BPSS Clearance
5 11 (2.34%) ITIL Certification
5 11 (2.34%) MOS
6 10 (2.12%) ITIL Foundation Certificate
6 10 (2.12%) PMI Certification
7 9 (1.91%) Cisco Certification
8 7 (1.49%) Microsoft Certification
8 7 (1.49%) PMP
9 6 (1.27%) CCNP
10 5 (1.06%) Computer Science Degree
11 3 (0.64%) Azure Certification
11 3 (0.64%) CEH
11 3 (0.64%) CISSP
11 3 (0.64%) DBS Check
11 3 (0.64%) HNC
11 3 (0.64%) Numerate Degree
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 15 (3.18%) GDPR
2 14 (2.97%) ISO/IEC 27001
3 13 (2.76%) QA
4 7 (1.49%) Data Quality
4 7 (1.49%) NIST
5 5 (1.06%) PMO
5 5 (1.06%) Sarbanes-Oxley
6 4 (0.85%) Cyber Essentials
6 4 (0.85%) PCI DSS
7 3 (0.64%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
7 3 (0.64%) GRC
8 2 (0.42%) COBIT
8 2 (0.42%) ISO 9001
8 2 (0.42%) NIST 800
8 2 (0.42%) PSD2
9 1 (0.21%) Accessibility
9 1 (0.21%) ISO/IEC 20000
9 1 (0.21%) ISO/IEC 27002 (supersedes ISO/IEC 17799)
9 1 (0.21%) ISO/IEC 42001
System Software
1 42 (8.92%) Active Directory
2 8 (1.70%) Docker
2 8 (1.70%) VMware Infrastructure
3 6 (1.27%) 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 (0.42%) BitLocker
5 2 (0.42%) VMware ESXi
Systems Management
1 17 (3.61%) SCCM
2 16 (3.40%) Microsoft Intune
3 12 (2.55%) Ansible
4 11 (2.34%) Grafana
4 11 (2.34%) Kubernetes
5 8 (1.70%) Terraform
6 6 (1.27%) SCOM
7 5 (1.06%) Prometheus
7 5 (1.06%) Single Sign-On
8 3 (0.64%) FortiGate
8 3 (0.64%) RSA Archer
8 3 (0.64%) ServiceCenter
8 3 (0.64%) WSUS
9 2 (0.42%) Argo
9 2 (0.42%) Check_MK
9 2 (0.42%) Microsoft Clustering
9 2 (0.42%) NetApp OnCommand
9 2 (0.42%) Red Hat Satellite
9 2 (0.42%) TeamSite
9 2 (0.42%) vMotion
Vendors
1 125 (26.54%) Microsoft
2 52 (11.04%) ServiceNow
3 39 (8.28%) Cisco
4 36 (7.64%) Oracle
5 25 (5.31%) HP
6 23 (4.88%) Dell
7 21 (4.46%) SAP
8 20 (4.25%) Apple
9 15 (3.18%) VMware
10 11 (2.34%) Juniper
11 10 (2.12%) Splunk
12 9 (1.91%) Workday
13 8 (1.70%) Fortinet
14 7 (1.49%) Remedy
15 6 (1.27%) Google
16 5 (1.06%) IBM
16 5 (1.06%) Nokia
16 5 (1.06%) Trend Micro
17 4 (0.85%) BMC
17 4 (0.85%) F5
691 SLA jobs Nationwide