Job Vacancy Trend Daily Rate Trend Daily Rate Histogram Hourly Rate Trend Hourly Rate Histogram Job Locations Skill Sets
Period
to 25 October 2021

The following table provides summary statistics for contract job vacancies with a requirement for SLA skills. Included is a benchmarking guide to the contractor rates offered in vacancies that have cited SLA over the 6 months to 25 October 2021 with a comparison to the same period in the previous 2 years.

Note that daily and hourly rates are treated separately in these statistics. When calculating contractor rate percentiles, daily rates are never derived from quoted hourly rates or vice versa.

Service Level Agreement (SLA)
UK
6 months to
25 Oct 2021		 Same period 2020 Same period 2019
Rank 196 232 164
Rank change year-on-year +36 -68 +44
Contract jobs citing SLA 1,172 369 1,357
As % of all contract jobs advertised in the UK 1.38% 1.16% 1.61%
As % of the Quality Assurance & Compliance category 10.94% 9.72% 14.17%
Number of daily rates quoted 704 187 772
10th Percentile £128 £120 £114
25th Percentile £160 £238 £159
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £300 £350 £325
Median % change year-on-year -14.29% +7.69% +8.33%
75th Percentile £488 £497 £450
90th Percentile £575 £600 £537
UK excluding London median daily rate £215 £348 £313
% change year-on-year -38.36% +11.36% +15.74%
Number of hourly rates quoted 141 49 156
10th Percentile £10.58 £10.00 £10.75
25th Percentile £11.99 £10.50 £12.50
Median hourly rate £13.00 £12.68 £16.25
Median % change year-on-year +2.52% -21.97% +10.17%
75th Percentile £17.83 £17.25 £19.50
90th Percentile £27.00 £26.30 £25.88
UK excluding London median hourly rate £12.50 £12.50 £16.00
% change year-on-year - -21.88% +6.67%

SLA is in the Quality Assurance and Compliance category. The following table is for comparison with the above and provides summary statistics for all contract job vacancies with a requirement for quality assurance or compliance skills.

All Quality Assurance and Compliance Skills
UK
Contract vacancies with a requirement for quality assurance or compliance skills 10,710 3,798 9,578
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 12.63% 11.93% 11.35%
Number of daily rates quoted 7,212 2,431 6,125
10th Percentile £263 £274 £250
25th Percentile £390 £363 £350
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £473 £450
Median % change year-on-year +5.82% +5.00% -
75th Percentile £600 £575 £550
90th Percentile £688 £650 £631
UK excluding London median daily rate £440 £438 £425
% change year-on-year +0.57% +2.94% +3.66%
Number of hourly rates quoted 321 153 395
10th Percentile £11.17 £10.75 £11.14
25th Percentile £12.63 £13.28 £15.00
Median hourly rate £20.00 £21.05 £20.50
Median % change year-on-year -4.99% +2.68% +0.38%
75th Percentile £40.00 £45.00 £46.84
90th Percentile £62.25 £55.00 £55.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £17.50 £21.05 £21.42
% change year-on-year -16.86% -1.70% +3.96%

SLA
Job Vacancy Trend

Job postings citing SLA as a proportion of all IT jobs advertised.

Job vacancy trend for SLA in the UK

SLA
Contractor Daily Rate Trend

3-month moving average daily rate quoted in jobs citing SLA.

Daily rate trend for SLA in the UK

SLA
Daily Rate Histogram

Daily rate distribution for jobs citing SLA over the 6 months to 25 October 2021.

Daily rate histogram for SLA in the UK

SLA
Contractor Hourly Rate Trend

3-month moving average hourly rates quoted in jobs citing SLA.

Hourly rate trend for SLA in the UK

SLA
Hourly Rate Histogram

Hourly rate distribution of jobs citing SLA over the 6 months to 25 October 2021.

Hourly rate histogram for SLA in the UK

SLA
Top 17 Contract 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 25 October 2021. 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
Job
Vacancies
England +29 1,019 £290 -17.14% 622
UK excluding London +35 743 £215 -38.36% 582
London -42 306 £425 - 91
Work from Home -84 213 £325 -4.41% 62
North of England +36 184 £220 -37.14% 178
South East -31 176 £185 -52.26% 114
Midlands +37 138 £190 +15.15% 112
North West +15 95 £200 -42.86% 86
South West +16 92 £295 -26.25% 61
East of England -11 88 £206 -36.62% 64
East Midlands +20 70 £140 -60.00% 51
Yorkshire +4 68 £235 -30.37% 54
West Midlands -12 65 £300 +140.00% 61
Scotland -42 50 £400 -5.88% 34
North East +8 21 £180 -57.65% 38
Wales -16 16 £113 - 14
Northern Ireland -4 2 £100 -65.22% 4

For the 6 months to 25 October 2021, IT contractor jobs citing SLA also mentioned the following skills in order of popularity. The figures indicate the absolute number co-occurrences and as a proportion of all contract job ads with a requirement for SLA.

1 428 (36.52%) Windows
2 415 (35.41%) ITIL
3 386 (32.94%) Microsoft
4 357 (30.46%) Social Skills
5 293 (25.00%) Active Directory
6 264 (22.53%) Microsoft 365
7 215 (18.34%) Windows 10
8 182 (15.53%) Microsoft Office
9 167 (14.25%) Problem-Solving
10 152 (12.97%) Service Delivery
11 150 (12.80%) Finance
12 146 (12.46%) Azure
13 140 (11.95%) Service Management
14 139 (11.86%) Security Cleared
15 119 (10.15%) Cisco
16 106 (9.04%) ITSM
17 104 (8.87%) Agile Software Development
18 97 (8.28%) SC Cleared
18 97 (8.28%) Windows Server
19 96 (8.19%) Analytical Skills
20 94 (8.02%) VMware
21 93 (7.94%) Windows 7
22 92 (7.85%) ServiceNow
23 88 (7.51%) Change Management
23 88 (7.51%) VPN
24 82 (7.00%) Incident Management
25 80 (6.83%) Firewall
26 75 (6.40%) SQL
26 75 (6.40%) Microsoft Excel
27 73 (6.23%) Migration

SLA
Co-occurring IT Skills by Category

The follow tables expand on the table above by listing co-occurrences grouped by category. The same job type, locality and period is covered with up to 20 co-occurrences shown in each of the following categories:

Application Platforms
1 64 (5.46%) SharePoint
2 26 (2.22%) MS Exchange
3 22 (1.88%) Confluence
4 11 (0.94%) Skype for Business
5 9 (0.77%) IIS
6 6 (0.51%) SharePoint 2010
6 6 (0.51%) SharePoint 2013
7 5 (0.43%) Apache
7 5 (0.43%) CMS
7 5 (0.43%) Exchange Server 2010
8 4 (0.34%) Exchange Server 2013
8 4 (0.34%) Tomcat
9 3 (0.26%) Appian
10 2 (0.17%) Adobe Experience Manager
10 2 (0.17%) Apache Qpid
10 2 (0.17%) Camunda
10 2 (0.17%) JBoss
10 2 (0.17%) nginx
10 2 (0.17%) OpenStack
10 2 (0.17%) WebSphere
Applications
1 182 (15.53%) Microsoft Office
2 75 (6.40%) Microsoft Excel
3 14 (1.19%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 12 (1.02%) MS Visio
5 6 (0.51%) Microsoft Project
6 4 (0.34%) Spreadsheet
7 2 (0.17%) NUKE
8 1 (0.085%) CINEMA 4D
8 1 (0.085%) InfoPath
8 1 (0.085%) ProjectWise
Business Applications
1 15 (1.28%) assyst
2 7 (0.60%) SAP S/4HANA
3 4 (0.34%) Oracle Payables
3 4 (0.34%) Oracle Receivables
4 3 (0.26%) Dynamics AX
4 3 (0.26%) Oracle Assets
4 3 (0.26%) Oracle ERP
4 3 (0.26%) Oracle FAH
4 3 (0.26%) Oracle Financials
4 3 (0.26%) Oracle General Ledger
5 2 (0.17%) Oracle EBS R12
5 2 (0.17%) Oracle E-Business Tax
5 2 (0.17%) Remedy ITSM
5 2 (0.17%) Salesforce.com CRM
5 2 (0.17%) SAP ERP
5 2 (0.17%) SAP FI
5 2 (0.17%) SAP POS DM
5 2 (0.17%) SAP Retail
5 2 (0.17%) Sentinel
5 2 (0.17%) SimCorp Dimension
Cloud Services
1 264 (22.53%) Microsoft 365
2 146 (12.46%) Azure
3 70 (5.97%) AWS
4 32 (2.73%) IaaS
5 28 (2.39%) PaaS
6 24 (2.05%) Azure Active Directory
7 21 (1.79%) OneDrive
8 19 (1.62%) Power Platform
9 17 (1.45%) Amazon EC2
10 10 (0.85%) AWS CloudFormation
10 10 (0.85%) GitHub
11 9 (0.77%) Azure Key Vault
11 9 (0.77%) OpenShift
12 8 (0.68%) AWS Lambda
12 8 (0.68%) Google Workspace
12 8 (0.68%) Mimecast
13 7 (0.60%) Adobe Creative Cloud
13 7 (0.60%) Amazon CloudWatch
14 6 (0.51%) Datadog
14 6 (0.51%) Virtual Private Cloud
Communications & Networking
1 88 (7.51%) VPN
2 80 (6.83%) Firewall
3 54 (4.61%) DNS
4 45 (3.84%) LAN
5 44 (3.75%) TCP/IP
6 41 (3.50%) DHCP
6 41 (3.50%) Wireless
7 39 (3.33%) Network Security
8 35 (2.99%) Internet
8 35 (2.99%) WAN
9 31 (2.65%) Wi-Fi
10 22 (1.88%) Remote Desktop
10 22 (1.88%) SAN
11 18 (1.54%) BGP
11 18 (1.54%) OSPF
12 17 (1.45%) Skype
13 16 (1.37%) MPLS
14 15 (1.28%) VoIP
15 13 (1.11%) Cisco ASA
16 11 (0.94%) Radio Access Network
Database & Business Intelligence
1 16 (1.37%) Power BI
2 12 (1.02%) PostgreSQL
3 11 (0.94%) Tableau
4 10 (0.85%) Data Warehouse
4 10 (0.85%) SQL Server
5 8 (0.68%) Big Data
6 7 (0.60%) Apache Cassandra
6 7 (0.60%) Hadoop
6 7 (0.60%) MySQL
7 6 (0.51%) Oracle Database
8 5 (0.43%) Azure SQL Database
8 5 (0.43%) Redis
9 4 (0.34%) SAP BW
9 4 (0.34%) SAP HANA
10 3 (0.26%) Amazon RDS
10 3 (0.26%) Data Lake
10 3 (0.26%) NoSQL
10 3 (0.26%) Oracle Reports
10 3 (0.26%) SQL Server 2008
11 2 (0.17%) Data Vault
Development Applications
1 40 (3.41%) JIRA
2 21 (1.79%) Jenkins
3 13 (1.11%) Git (software)
4 8 (0.68%) JMeter
5 7 (0.60%) GitLab
6 4 (0.34%) Bitbucket
6 4 (0.34%) Checkstyle
6 4 (0.34%) IntelliJ
6 4 (0.34%) JProfiler
6 4 (0.34%) MSI
6 4 (0.34%) SonarQube
7 3 (0.26%) Artifactory
7 3 (0.26%) SoapUI
7 3 (0.26%) VSS/SourceSafe
8 2 (0.17%) AdminStudio
8 2 (0.17%) Visual Studio
9 1 (0.085%) Ant
9 1 (0.085%) Maven
9 1 (0.085%) Rational Rose
9 1 (0.085%) Vagrant
General
1 357 (30.46%) Social Skills
2 150 (12.80%) Finance
3 96 (8.19%) Analytical Skills
4 59 (5.03%) Public Sector
5 52 (4.44%) Telecoms
6 42 (3.58%) Retail
7 39 (3.33%) Legal
8 37 (3.16%) Organisational Skills
9 32 (2.73%) Banking
10 22 (1.88%) Digital Economy
11 19 (1.62%) Documentation Skills
12 18 (1.54%) Financial Institution
12 18 (1.54%) Influencing Skills
13 17 (1.45%) Billing
13 17 (1.45%) Marketing
14 12 (1.02%) Presentation Skills
15 10 (0.85%) Manufacturing
16 8 (0.68%) Military
17 6 (0.51%) Advertising
17 6 (0.51%) Law
Job Titles
1 306 (26.11%) Analyst
2 157 (13.40%) Service Analyst
3 148 (12.63%) Service Desk Analyst
4 114 (9.73%) Support Engineer
5 84 (7.17%) 1st Line Support
6 71 (6.06%) Service Manager
7 70 (5.97%) Support Analyst
8 67 (5.72%) IT Support
9 62 (5.29%) Desktop Support
10 61 (5.20%) 2nd Line Support
11 52 (4.44%) Service Desk Support
12 50 (4.27%) IT Analyst
13 47 (4.01%) IT Engineer
13 47 (4.01%) Network Engineer
14 45 (3.84%) Desktop Engineer
15 42 (3.58%) Consultant
16 39 (3.33%) 1st Line Support Analyst
16 39 (3.33%) Service Desk Support Analyst
17 38 (3.24%) 2nd Line Engineer
18 36 (3.07%) Delivery Manager
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 20 (1.71%) XMPP
2 16 (1.37%) Web Services
3 13 (1.11%) .NET
4 9 (0.77%) 802.1X
4 9 (0.77%) COM
4 9 (0.77%) Elastic Stack
4 9 (0.77%) SOAP
5 8 (0.68%) Kafka
5 8 (0.68%) REST
5 8 (0.68%) XML
6 7 (0.60%) CSS
7 6 (0.51%) HTML
8 5 (0.43%) ARM Templates
9 4 (0.34%) ActiveMQ
9 4 (0.34%) JMS
9 4 (0.34%) Middleware
9 4 (0.34%) RESTful
9 4 (0.34%) Spring
9 4 (0.34%) Spring Boot
9 4 (0.34%) XSD
Miscellaneous
1 69 (5.89%) Data Centre
2 54 (4.61%) Self-Motivation
3 44 (3.75%) Management Information System
4 37 (3.16%) Virtual Team
5 25 (2.13%) Replication
6 21 (1.79%) BYOD
7 20 (1.71%) NHS
8 19 (1.62%) Video Conferencing
9 15 (1.28%) iPhone
10 14 (1.19%) Hedge funds
11 13 (1.11%) Digital Signage
12 12 (1.02%) CMDB
13 11 (0.94%) iPad
14 10 (0.85%) Blackberry
14 10 (0.85%) Enterprise Software
14 10 (0.85%) Public Cloud
15 9 (0.77%) User Experience
16 8 (0.68%) PKI
17 7 (0.60%) Cyberthreat
18 6 (0.51%) Cyber Defence
Operating Systems
1 428 (36.52%) Windows
2 215 (18.34%) Windows 10
3 97 (8.28%) Windows Server
4 93 (7.94%) Windows 7
5 67 (5.72%) Linux
6 42 (3.58%) Apple iOS
7 29 (2.47%) Windows Server 2012
8 22 (1.88%) Unix
8 22 (1.88%) Windows Server 2016
9 18 (1.54%) Android
9 18 (1.54%) Mac OS X
10 17 (1.45%) Windows Server 2008
11 16 (1.37%) Mac OS
12 15 (1.28%) Windows XP
13 8 (0.68%) Windows 8
13 8 (0.68%) Windows Server 2019
14 5 (0.43%) AIX
14 5 (0.43%) Ubuntu
14 5 (0.43%) Windows Vista
15 4 (0.34%) Windows Server 2003
Processes & Methodologies
1 415 (35.41%) ITIL
2 167 (14.25%) Problem-Solving
3 152 (12.97%) Service Delivery
4 140 (11.95%) Service Management
5 106 (9.04%) ITSM
6 104 (8.87%) Agile Software Development
7 88 (7.51%) Change Management
8 82 (7.00%) Incident Management
9 73 (6.23%) Migration
10 68 (5.80%) Time Management
11 66 (5.63%) DevOps
11 66 (5.63%) Problem Management
12 58 (4.95%) Continuous Improvement
13 52 (4.44%) Stakeholder Management
14 46 (3.92%) Project Delivery
14 46 (3.92%) Project Management
15 44 (3.75%) Service Design
16 35 (2.99%) Disaster Recovery
16 35 (2.99%) Line Management
17 33 (2.82%) Analytics
Programming Languages
1 75 (6.40%) SQL
2 73 (6.23%) PowerShell
3 36 (3.07%) Python
4 29 (2.47%) Java
5 17 (1.45%) Bash Shell
6 16 (1.37%) C
7 12 (1.02%) Shell Script
8 9 (0.77%) Go
8 9 (0.77%) JavaScript
9 7 (0.60%) C#
9 7 (0.60%) C++
10 6 (0.51%) VBA
11 4 (0.34%) Java 11
11 4 (0.34%) Java 8
11 4 (0.34%) Ruby
11 4 (0.34%) VB
12 3 (0.26%) PL/SQL
12 3 (0.26%) Rust
12 3 (0.26%) VBScript
13 2 (0.17%) ABAP
Qualifications
1 139 (11.86%) Security Cleared
2 97 (8.28%) SC Cleared
3 62 (5.29%) Degree
4 50 (4.27%) Cisco Certification
5 48 (4.10%) Microsoft Certification
6 43 (3.67%) ITIL Certification
7 36 (3.07%) CCNA
8 25 (2.13%) CCNP
9 23 (1.96%) DV Cleared
9 23 (1.96%) MCSE
10 22 (1.88%) MCP
11 17 (1.45%) ITIL Foundation Certificate
12 13 (1.11%) BPSS Clearance
13 11 (0.94%) MCITP
14 9 (0.77%) Computer Science Degree
15 7 (0.60%) CISSP
15 7 (0.60%) MCSA
16 6 (0.51%) CCIE
17 5 (0.43%) DBS Check
18 4 (0.34%) CCDP
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 36 (3.07%) GDPR
2 18 (1.54%) QA
3 14 (1.19%) ISO/IEC 27001
4 11 (0.94%) PMO
5 10 (0.85%) Data Quality
6 7 (0.60%) GRC
7 6 (0.51%) ISO 22301
8 5 (0.43%) Disclosure Scotland
9 2 (0.17%) COBIT
9 2 (0.17%) ISO/IEC 20000
9 2 (0.17%) NCSC
9 2 (0.17%) NIST
9 2 (0.17%) PCI DSS
10 1 (0.085%) Cyber Essentials
10 1 (0.085%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
10 1 (0.085%) DICOM
10 1 (0.085%) HL7
10 1 (0.085%) PMBOK
10 1 (0.085%) Sarbanes-Oxley
10 1 (0.085%) SOC 2
System Software
1 293 (25.00%) Active Directory
2 55 (4.69%) VMware Infrastructure
3 32 (2.73%) Docker
4 22 (1.88%) Hyper-V
5 15 (1.28%) Virtual Desktop
6 14 (1.19%) Virtual Machines
7 13 (1.11%) vSphere
7 13 (1.11%) XenApp
8 10 (0.85%) VMware ESXi
9 9 (0.77%) XenDesktop
10 6 (0.51%) Microsoft App-V
10 6 (0.51%) Microsoft Virtual Server
10 6 (0.51%) Virtual Servers
11 5 (0.43%) Firmware
12 3 (0.26%) VMware NSX
13 2 (0.17%) BitLocker
13 2 (0.17%) NFS
13 2 (0.17%) Oracle RAC
13 2 (0.17%) Samba
13 2 (0.17%) Sendmail
Systems Management
1 59 (5.03%) SCCM
2 35 (2.99%) Terraform
3 32 (2.73%) Ansible
4 27 (2.30%) Microsoft Intune
5 26 (2.22%) Kubernetes
6 16 (1.37%) Grafana
6 16 (1.37%) Prometheus
7 14 (1.19%) Nagios
8 7 (0.60%) McAfee ePO
9 6 (0.51%) Cisco CUCM
9 6 (0.51%) Opscode Chef
9 6 (0.51%) SCOM
10 5 (0.43%) Active Directory Federation Services
10 5 (0.43%) HP Quality Center
11 4 (0.34%) Cisco Prime
11 4 (0.34%) Microsoft Clustering
11 4 (0.34%) ZABBIX
12 3 (0.26%) Nessus
12 3 (0.26%) Netcool
12 3 (0.26%) Tivoli
Vendors
1 386 (32.94%) Microsoft
2 119 (10.15%) Cisco
3 94 (8.02%) VMware
4 92 (7.85%) ServiceNow
5 59 (5.03%) Citrix
6 37 (3.16%) Apple
7 33 (2.82%) Oracle
8 31 (2.65%) HP
9 27 (2.30%) SAP
10 25 (2.13%) Dell
11 20 (1.71%) CheckPoint
12 18 (1.54%) Google
12 18 (1.54%) Remedy
13 17 (1.45%) IBM
13 17 (1.45%) Salesforce.com
14 16 (1.37%) McAfee
15 14 (1.19%) Adobe
16 13 (1.11%) SolarWinds
17 12 (1.02%) Juniper
18 11 (0.94%) Veeam
696 SLA job vacancies Nationwide