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 9 January 2026, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

 6 months to
9 Jan 2026		 Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 209 204 162
Rank change year-on-year -5 -42 +17
Contract jobs citing SLA 464 413 652
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 1.26% 1.29% 1.54%
As % of the Quality Assurance & Compliance category 7.33% 9.06% 10.59%
Number of daily rates quoted 250 212 325
10th Percentile £171 £148 £148
25th Percentile £250 £192 £190
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £405 £261 £400
Median % change year-on-year +55.47% -34.88% +30.61%
75th Percentile £538 £500 £533
90th Percentile £635 £586 £637
UK excluding London median daily rate £350 £261 £300
% change year-on-year +34.36% -13.17% +30.43%
Number of hourly rates quoted 111 43 66
10th Percentile £16.13 £14.70 £12.83
25th Percentile £17.69 £19.05 £13.50
Median hourly rate £18.50 £24.18 £17.61
Median % change year-on-year -23.49% +37.31% +1.06%
75th Percentile £20.35 £26.13 £33.44
90th Percentile £33.75 £36.19 £61.75
UK excluding London median hourly rate £18.50 £24.18 £16.36
% change year-on-year -23.49% +47.84% -3.42%

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 6,327 4,557 6,155
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 17.24% 14.27% 14.50%
Number of daily rates quoted 4,091 2,661 4,093
10th Percentile £313 £260 £313
25th Percentile £408 £375 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £500 £525
Median % change year-on-year - -4.76% -
75th Percentile £600 £623 £644
90th Percentile £700 £725 £750
UK excluding London median daily rate £492 £475 £500
% change year-on-year +3.58% -5.00% +5.26%
Number of hourly rates quoted 310 176 235
10th Percentile £14.23 £15.00 £13.29
25th Percentile £17.69 £21.00 £17.48
Median hourly rate £25.15 £29.00 £32.50
Median % change year-on-year -13.28% -10.77% +38.09%
75th Percentile £62.19 £64.73 £60.00
90th Percentile £73.75 £75.00 £79.78
UK excluding London median hourly rate £20.43 £29.00 £30.00
% change year-on-year -29.55% -3.33% +42.86%

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 9 January 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 9 January 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 9 January 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 -19 419 £410 +57.69% 286
UK excluding London -33 328 £350 +34.36% 278
London +5 108 £510 +100.00% 50
Work from Home -26 93 £450 +96.72% 55
East of England +29 87 £400 +48.15% 40
North of England -51 63 £278 +2.78% 51
South East -44 61 £418 +67.00% 84
Midlands -49 49 £198 -21.00% 53
South West +1 46 £290 -47.27% 26
West Midlands -33 38 £225 +2.86% 21
North West -50 31 £293 -29.52% 21
Yorkshire -32 25 £365 +52.08% 21
Scotland 0 16 £350 +66.67% 18
East Midlands -33 11 £134 -61.71% 31
North East -7 7 £265 +0.95% 9
Northern Ireland -8 7 £500 +237.84% 4
Wales -1 3 £183 -16.82% 9

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 20 (4.31%) Microsoft Exchange
1 20 (4.31%) SharePoint
2 3 (0.65%) IIS
2 3 (0.65%) Oracle Workflow
2 3 (0.65%) Tomcat
3 2 (0.43%) Confluence
4 1 (0.22%) ArcGIS
4 1 (0.22%) GeoServer
4 1 (0.22%) MQSeries
4 1 (0.22%) Oracle Spatial
4 1 (0.22%) WebSphere
4 1 (0.22%) WebSphere Application Server
Applications
1 36 (7.76%) Microsoft Excel
1 36 (7.76%) Spreadsheet
2 28 (6.03%) Microsoft Office
3 5 (1.08%) MS Visio
4 4 (0.86%) Microsoft Project
4 4 (0.86%) Oracle Smart View
5 2 (0.43%) Microsoft PowerPoint
Business Applications
1 14 (3.02%) Oracle EBS
2 13 (2.80%) Oracle Subledger Accounting
3 8 (1.72%) Oracle Payables
4 7 (1.51%) Oracle General Ledger
5 6 (1.29%) Oracle Assets
6 5 (1.08%) Oracle Receivables
7 4 (0.86%) Oracle FAH
7 4 (0.86%) Remedy ITSM
7 4 (0.86%) Workday HCM
8 3 (0.65%) iTrent
8 3 (0.65%) Oracle EBS R12
8 3 (0.65%) Oracle ERP
9 2 (0.43%) Dynamics CRM
9 2 (0.43%) Dynamics GP
9 2 (0.43%) Oracle Cash Management
9 2 (0.43%) Oracle E-Business Tax
9 2 (0.43%) Oracle Financials
9 2 (0.43%) Temenos T24
10 1 (0.22%) SAP Payroll
10 1 (0.22%) Veritas eDiscovery
Cloud Services
1 67 (14.44%) Microsoft 365
2 43 (9.27%) Azure
3 30 (6.47%) AWS
4 12 (2.59%) Entra ID
4 12 (2.59%) GCP
5 9 (1.94%) Power Platform
6 8 (1.72%) SaaS
7 7 (1.51%) GitHub
7 7 (1.51%) IaaS
8 6 (1.29%) OCI
8 6 (1.29%) PaaS
9 5 (1.08%) Cloud Computing
9 5 (1.08%) GitHub Actions
9 5 (1.08%) OpenShift
10 3 (0.65%) AWS CloudFormation
10 3 (0.65%) AWS KMS
10 3 (0.65%) OneDrive
10 3 (0.65%) Virtual Private Cloud
11 2 (0.43%) Amazon CloudWatch
11 2 (0.43%) Azure Key Vault
Communications & Networking
1 27 (5.82%) Firewall
2 24 (5.17%) WAN
3 18 (3.88%) DNS
4 16 (3.45%) SD-WAN
5 14 (3.02%) Wireless
6 13 (2.80%) LAN
6 13 (2.80%) MPLS
6 13 (2.80%) PABX
7 12 (2.59%) VPN
8 11 (2.37%) DHCP
9 8 (1.72%) BGP
9 8 (1.72%) OSPF
9 8 (1.72%) TCP/IP
10 6 (1.29%) Broadband
10 6 (1.29%) Cisco ASA
10 6 (1.29%) Network Security
10 6 (1.29%) SDH
11 5 (1.08%) Cisco IOS
11 5 (1.08%) IPsec
11 5 (1.08%) Structured Cabling
Database & Business Intelligence
1 10 (2.16%) SQL Server
2 8 (1.72%) PostgreSQL
3 7 (1.51%) Power BI
4 6 (1.29%) MongoDB
4 6 (1.29%) Oracle Database
5 5 (1.08%) MySQL
6 3 (0.65%) Amazon RDS
6 3 (0.65%) SAP HANA
7 2 (0.43%) GIS
7 2 (0.43%) Oracle Reports
7 2 (0.43%) Relational Database
8 1 (0.22%) Amazon Aurora
8 1 (0.22%) Azure SQL Database
8 1 (0.22%) Data Warehouse
8 1 (0.22%) Metadata
8 1 (0.22%) Oracle Database 12c
8 1 (0.22%) SQL Server Integration Services
8 1 (0.22%) SQL Server Reporting Services
Development Applications
1 14 (3.02%) Jenkins
2 13 (2.80%) GitLab
2 13 (2.80%) JIRA
3 11 (2.37%) Git
4 6 (1.29%) Postman
5 5 (1.08%) Visual Studio
6 3 (0.65%) CircleCI
7 2 (0.43%) Jaeger
7 2 (0.43%) PVCS
8 1 (0.22%) Metasploit
8 1 (0.22%) Selenium
8 1 (0.22%) TestDirector
General
1 209 (45.04%) Social Skills
2 100 (21.55%) Finance
3 56 (12.07%) Analytical Skills
4 55 (11.85%) Public Sector
5 31 (6.68%) Telecoms
6 29 (6.25%) Banking
7 27 (5.82%) Organisational Skills
8 21 (4.53%) Documentation Skills
9 20 (4.31%) Legal
10 13 (2.80%) Retail
11 9 (1.94%) Financial Institution
11 9 (1.94%) Manufacturing
12 8 (1.72%) Aerospace
12 8 (1.72%) Law
12 8 (1.72%) Marketing
13 7 (1.51%) Inclusion and Diversity
13 7 (1.51%) Local Government
14 5 (1.08%) Influencing Skills
15 4 (0.86%) General Ledger
15 4 (0.86%) Investment Banking
Job Titles
1 74 (15.95%) IT Support
2 67 (14.44%) Analyst
3 45 (9.70%) Lead
4 34 (7.33%) Desktop Support
5 31 (6.68%) Support Engineer
6 27 (5.82%) Administrator
6 27 (5.82%) Support Analyst
7 22 (4.74%) Service Manager
8 21 (4.53%) Team Leader
8 21 (4.53%) Technical Support
9 20 (4.31%) Senior
10 19 (4.09%) Service Analyst
11 18 (3.88%) Consultant
12 15 (3.23%) Desktop Engineer
12 15 (3.23%) IT Administrator
12 15 (3.23%) Service Desk Analyst
13 14 (3.02%) IT Manager
14 13 (2.80%) Applications Support
14 13 (2.80%) Developer
14 13 (2.80%) IT Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 8 (1.72%) Middleware
2 7 (1.51%) Oracle Fusion
3 6 (1.29%) Kafka
4 5 (1.08%) LDAP
5 3 (0.65%) 802.1X
5 3 (0.65%) REST
6 2 (0.43%) .NET
6 2 (0.43%) CSS
6 2 (0.43%) Elastic Stack
6 2 (0.43%) Node.js
6 2 (0.43%) OAuth
6 2 (0.43%) OAuth2
6 2 (0.43%) OpenID
6 2 (0.43%) RESTful
6 2 (0.43%) SAML
6 2 (0.43%) Universal Windows Platform
6 2 (0.43%) XML
7 1 (0.22%) ASP.NET
7 1 (0.22%) HTML
7 1 (0.22%) RSS
Miscellaneous
1 29 (6.25%) Management Information System
2 24 (5.17%) Onboarding
3 21 (4.53%) Self-Motivation
4 19 (4.09%) Data Centre
5 18 (3.88%) Driving Licence
6 13 (2.80%) Product Ownership
6 13 (2.80%) Smartphone
7 6 (1.29%) Analytical Mindset
7 6 (1.29%) CMDB
7 6 (1.29%) Derivative
7 6 (1.29%) Enterprise Cloud
7 6 (1.29%) Public Cloud
8 5 (1.08%) Cloud Native
8 5 (1.08%) Data Protection Act
8 5 (1.08%) NHS
9 4 (0.86%) Clustering
9 4 (0.86%) Equities
9 4 (0.86%) Equity Derivative
9 4 (0.86%) Security Operations Centre
9 4 (0.86%) Security Posture
Operating Systems
1 91 (19.61%) Windows
2 30 (6.47%) Windows 10
3 24 (5.17%) Linux
4 16 (3.45%) Android
4 16 (3.45%) Unix
4 16 (3.45%) Windows Server
5 12 (2.59%) Apple iOS
5 12 (2.59%) Mac OS
6 5 (1.08%) CentOS
6 5 (1.08%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
7 2 (0.43%) Mac OS X
7 2 (0.43%) Windows 7
7 2 (0.43%) Windows 8
7 2 (0.43%) Windows Server 2012
Processes & Methodologies
1 137 (29.53%) ITIL
2 108 (23.28%) Customer Service
3 90 (19.40%) Service Delivery
4 67 (14.44%) Continuous Improvement
5 65 (14.01%) Time Management
6 54 (11.64%) Problem-Solving
7 52 (11.21%) ITSM
8 49 (10.56%) Service Management
9 48 (10.34%) Stakeholder Management
10 40 (8.62%) Change Management
11 38 (8.19%) Agile
11 38 (8.19%) Root Cause Analysis
12 36 (7.76%) Incident Management
13 29 (6.25%) Roadmaps
14 28 (6.03%) Asset Management
15 27 (5.82%) Problem Management
16 25 (5.39%) Customer Experience
16 25 (5.39%) Cybersecurity
17 24 (5.17%) Mentoring
18 23 (4.96%) Disaster Recovery
Programming Languages
1 24 (5.17%) Python
1 24 (5.17%) SQL
2 16 (3.45%) Shell Script
3 15 (3.23%) PowerShell
4 11 (2.37%) Java
5 6 (1.29%) Bash
6 5 (1.08%) MATLAB
7 4 (0.86%) C++
7 4 (0.86%) PL/SQL
8 3 (0.65%) Go
8 3 (0.65%) JavaScript
9 2 (0.43%) C#
9 2 (0.43%) Kusto Query Language
10 1 (0.22%) Bicep
10 1 (0.22%) T-SQL
Qualifications
1 133 (28.66%) Security Cleared
2 107 (23.06%) SC Cleared
3 33 (7.11%) Degree
4 19 (4.09%) DV Cleared
5 12 (2.59%) ITIL Certification
6 11 (2.37%) BPSS Clearance
6 11 (2.37%) MOS
7 10 (2.16%) ITIL Foundation Certificate
7 10 (2.16%) PMI Certification
8 7 (1.51%) Microsoft Certification
8 7 (1.51%) PMP
9 6 (1.29%) Cisco Certification
10 4 (0.86%) CCNP
10 4 (0.86%) Computer Science Degree
11 3 (0.65%) Azure Certification
11 3 (0.65%) CEH
11 3 (0.65%) CISSP
11 3 (0.65%) DBS Check
11 3 (0.65%) HNC
11 3 (0.65%) Numerate Degree
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 16 (3.45%) GDPR
2 14 (3.02%) ISO/IEC 27001
3 9 (1.94%) QA
4 8 (1.72%) Data Quality
5 7 (1.51%) NIST
6 6 (1.29%) Sarbanes-Oxley
7 5 (1.08%) PCI DSS
7 5 (1.08%) PMO
8 4 (0.86%) Cyber Essentials
9 3 (0.65%) COBIT
9 3 (0.65%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
9 3 (0.65%) GRC
10 2 (0.43%) NIST 800
10 2 (0.43%) PSD2
11 1 (0.22%) ISO 9001
11 1 (0.22%) ISO/IEC 20000
11 1 (0.22%) ISO/IEC 27002 (supersedes ISO/IEC 17799)
11 1 (0.22%) ISO/IEC 42001
System Software
1 46 (9.91%) Active Directory
2 8 (1.72%) Docker
2 8 (1.72%) VMware Infrastructure
3 6 (1.29%) vSphere
4 3 (0.65%) DFS Replication
4 3 (0.65%) Firmware
4 3 (0.65%) Hyper-V
4 3 (0.65%) Virtual Machines
5 2 (0.43%) BitLocker
5 2 (0.43%) VMware ESXi
Systems Management
1 15 (3.23%) Microsoft Intune
2 14 (3.02%) Ansible
2 14 (3.02%) SCCM
3 11 (2.37%) Kubernetes
4 10 (2.16%) Grafana
5 8 (1.72%) Terraform
6 6 (1.29%) SCOM
6 6 (1.29%) Single Sign-On
7 5 (1.08%) Check_MK
7 5 (1.08%) Podman
7 5 (1.08%) Red Hat Satellite
8 4 (0.86%) Prometheus
8 4 (0.86%) ServiceCenter
9 3 (0.65%) FortiGate
9 3 (0.65%) RSA Archer
9 3 (0.65%) WSUS
10 2 (0.43%) Argo
10 2 (0.43%) Microsoft Clustering
10 2 (0.43%) NetApp OnCommand
10 2 (0.43%) vMotion
Vendors
1 126 (27.16%) Microsoft
2 53 (11.42%) ServiceNow
3 40 (8.62%) Oracle
4 35 (7.54%) Cisco
5 24 (5.17%) HP
6 22 (4.74%) Dell
7 21 (4.53%) SAP
8 18 (3.88%) Apple
8 18 (3.88%) VMware
9 10 (2.16%) Splunk
10 9 (1.94%) Workday
11 8 (1.72%) Fortinet
12 7 (1.51%) Juniper
12 7 (1.51%) Remedy
13 5 (1.08%) IBM
13 5 (1.08%) Nokia
13 5 (1.08%) Red Hat
13 5 (1.08%) Trend Micro
14 4 (0.86%) BMC
15 3 (0.65%) Citrix
318 SLA jobs Nationwide