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 22 July 2026, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
22 Jul 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 241 196 158
Rank change year-on-year -45 -38 +34
Contract jobs citing SLA 551 468 640
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 1.04% 1.43% 1.55%
As % of the Quality Assurance & Compliance category 6.14% 8.56% 11.19%
Number of daily rates quoted 310 273 304
10th Percentile £200 £200 £156
25th Percentile £282 £224 £200
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £450 £375 £340
Median % change year-on-year +20.00% +10.29% +4.62%
75th Percentile £520 £544 £500
90th Percentile £600 £613 £587
UK excluding London median daily rate £440 £313 £275
% change year-on-year +40.80% +13.64% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 75 61 83
10th Percentile £13.55 £16.00 £11.20
25th Percentile £17.54 £17.55 £12.88
Median hourly rate £18.79 £22.14 £16.25
Median % change year-on-year -15.13% +36.25% -11.50%
75th Percentile £22.26 £25.15 £23.80
90th Percentile £27.86 £33.75 £26.15
UK excluding London median hourly rate £18.65 £22.14 £14.60
% change year-on-year -15.79% +51.64% -19.89%

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 8,975 5,468 5,720
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 17.02% 16.76% 13.85%
Number of daily rates quoted 5,742 3,523 3,541
10th Percentile £336 £280 £281
25th Percentile £413 £400 £400
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £500 £500
Median % change year-on-year - - -4.76%
75th Percentile £600 £605 £622
90th Percentile £700 £713 £738
UK excluding London median daily rate £500 £475 £475
% change year-on-year +5.26% - -4.81%
Number of hourly rates quoted 540 241 374
10th Percentile £14.00 £13.60 £11.51
25th Percentile £19.49 £17.55 £14.00
Median hourly rate £38.86 £28.18 £25.00
Median % change year-on-year +37.90% +12.72% -36.58%
75th Percentile £70.00 £62.24 £53.56
90th Percentile £82.25 £83.41 £70.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £39.50 £25.83 £25.00
% change year-on-year +52.95% +3.30% -29.08%

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 22 July 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 22 July 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 22 July 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 -66 460 £450 +20.00% 222
UK excluding London -77 334 £440 +40.80% 185
London -27 189 £475 +17.28% 68
Work from Home -14 132 £475 +18.75% 62
South East -77 82 £468 +70.00% 80
North of England -59 72 £436 +34.23% 33
Scotland +24 56 £398 +59.00% 11
Midlands -65 54 £269 -28.33% 18
West Midlands -68 45 £269 -28.33% 14
North West -31 40 £435 +33.85% 19
East of England -2 37 £510 +126.67% 31
Yorkshire -50 30 £444 +77.15% 9
South West -48 25 £400 +35.59% 16
Wales -12 12 £525 +100.00% 7
East Midlands -10 8 £363 - 4
Northern Ireland +5 2 £175 -
North East -35 2 £280 - 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 32 (5.81%) SharePoint
2 16 (2.90%) Microsoft Exchange
3 7 (1.27%) OpenStack
4 6 (1.09%) Confluence
5 5 (0.91%) IIS
5 5 (0.91%) SAS
6 4 (0.73%) Adobe Experience Manager
7 3 (0.54%) Apache Airflow
8 2 (0.36%) Anypoint
8 2 (0.36%) Apache
8 2 (0.36%) ArcGIS
8 2 (0.36%) Exchange Server 2010
8 2 (0.36%) Mule
9 1 (0.18%) Apache Spark
9 1 (0.18%) JBoss
9 1 (0.18%) LiveCycle
9 1 (0.18%) Oracle Workflow
9 1 (0.18%) Smallworld
Applications
1 50 (9.07%) Microsoft Office
2 37 (6.72%) Microsoft Excel
3 7 (1.27%) Spreadsheet
4 6 (1.09%) MS Visio
5 3 (0.54%) Microsoft PowerPoint
6 2 (0.36%) Microsoft Project
7 1 (0.18%) Autodesk Inventor
7 1 (0.18%) Chatbot
7 1 (0.18%) MicroStation
7 1 (0.18%) Oracle Smart View
Business Applications
1 16 (2.90%) Remedy ITSM
2 8 (1.45%) ContrOCC
3 5 (0.91%) Dynamics CRM
3 5 (0.91%) Oracle Applications
3 5 (0.91%) Oracle Assets
3 5 (0.91%) Oracle Payables
3 5 (0.91%) Oracle Procure-to-Pay
4 4 (0.73%) Oracle General Ledger
4 4 (0.73%) Oracle Receivables
4 4 (0.73%) Oracle Subledger Accounting
5 3 (0.54%) Oracle Cash Management
6 2 (0.36%) Dynamics GP
6 2 (0.36%) IntelliMatch
6 2 (0.36%) Oracle EBS
6 2 (0.36%) Oracle ERP
6 2 (0.36%) Payment Gateway
7 1 (0.18%) Actimize
7 1 (0.18%) OpenText VIM for SAP
7 1 (0.18%) Oracle Financials
7 1 (0.18%) SAP S/4HANA
Cloud Services
1 101 (18.33%) Azure
2 91 (16.52%) Microsoft 365
3 49 (8.89%) AWS
4 45 (8.17%) Entra ID
5 27 (4.90%) Power Platform
6 21 (3.81%) OneDrive
7 18 (3.27%) SaaS
8 17 (3.09%) Datadog
9 16 (2.90%) Azure DevOps
10 15 (2.72%) IaaS
11 14 (2.54%) Amazon S3
11 14 (2.54%) PaaS
12 12 (2.18%) OCI
12 12 (2.18%) Snowflake
13 11 (2.00%) Amazon EC2
13 11 (2.00%) Virtual Private Cloud
14 9 (1.63%) Azure Sentinel
15 8 (1.45%) Amazon CloudWatch
15 8 (1.45%) AWS CloudFormation
16 6 (1.09%) GCP
Communications & Networking
1 37 (6.72%) DNS
2 32 (5.81%) DHCP
3 30 (5.44%) VPN
4 24 (4.36%) WAN
5 23 (4.17%) Firewall
5 23 (4.17%) LAN
5 23 (4.17%) Wi-Fi
6 18 (3.27%) Network Security
7 17 (3.09%) TCP/IP
8 16 (2.90%) SAN
9 11 (2.00%) SDH
10 10 (1.81%) Cisco IOS
10 10 (1.81%) MPLS
11 9 (1.63%) VLAN
12 8 (1.45%) Cisco ASA
12 8 (1.45%) Radio Access Network
13 7 (1.27%) 5G
13 7 (1.27%) LTE
14 6 (1.09%) Diameter Protocol
14 6 (1.09%) VoWiFi
Database & Business Intelligence
1 24 (4.36%) SQL Server
2 23 (4.17%) Power BI
3 9 (1.63%) Tableau
4 8 (1.45%) Oracle Reports
5 6 (1.09%) Oracle Database
6 5 (0.91%) MySQL
6 5 (0.91%) Pentaho
7 4 (0.73%) Amazon RDS
7 4 (0.73%) PostgreSQL
7 4 (0.73%) Relational Database
8 3 (0.54%) Amazon Athena
8 3 (0.54%) Big Data
8 3 (0.54%) Data Lake
8 3 (0.54%) Db2
8 3 (0.54%) SQL Server Reporting Services
9 2 (0.36%) GIS
9 2 (0.36%) Oracle Database 10g
9 2 (0.36%) Oracle Database 11g
10 1 (0.18%) Data Warehouse
10 1 (0.18%) Sybase ASE
Development Applications
1 45 (8.17%) JIRA
2 10 (1.81%) GitLab
3 9 (1.63%) Chocolatey
4 8 (1.45%) Git
4 8 (1.45%) Jenkins
5 4 (0.73%) Maven
6 3 (0.54%) Visual Studio
7 2 (0.36%) Artifactory
7 2 (0.36%) Toad
8 1 (0.18%) Bitbucket
8 1 (0.18%) JMeter
8 1 (0.18%) SQL Server Management Studio (SSMS)
8 1 (0.18%) WiX
General
1 238 (43.19%) Social Skills
2 105 (19.06%) Finance
3 96 (17.42%) Analytical Skills
4 41 (7.44%) Public Sector
5 32 (5.81%) Banking
6 26 (4.72%) Telecoms
7 25 (4.54%) Organisational Skills
8 23 (4.17%) Documentation Skills
9 19 (3.45%) Legal
10 16 (2.90%) Inclusion and Diversity
11 14 (2.54%) Local Government
11 14 (2.54%) Retail
12 11 (2.00%) Billing
13 9 (1.63%) Manufacturing
14 8 (1.45%) Financial Institution
14 8 (1.45%) Influencing Skills
15 6 (1.09%) Aerospace
15 6 (1.09%) Marketing
16 4 (0.73%) Aviation
17 3 (0.54%) Presentation Skills
Job Titles
1 75 (13.61%) Analyst
2 45 (8.17%) Support Engineer
3 43 (7.80%) IT Support
4 40 (7.26%) Senior
5 33 (5.99%) Lead
5 33 (5.99%) Service Manager
6 28 (5.08%) IT Engineer
7 25 (4.54%) Service Analyst
8 21 (3.81%) Consultant
8 21 (3.81%) Delivery Manager
9 20 (3.63%) Administrator
9 20 (3.63%) Network Engineer
10 19 (3.45%) Azure Engineer
11 18 (3.27%) Desktop Support
11 18 (3.27%) IT Support Engineer
11 18 (3.27%) Service Delivery Manager
12 17 (3.09%) Applications Support
12 17 (3.09%) Service Desk Analyst
13 16 (2.90%) Desktop Engineer
13 16 (2.90%) Field Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 12 (2.18%) .NET
2 11 (2.00%) REST
3 9 (1.63%) Oracle Fusion
4 8 (1.45%) LDAP
5 7 (1.27%) Web Services
5 7 (1.27%) XML
6 5 (0.91%) ARM Templates
6 5 (0.91%) AWS CDK
6 5 (0.91%) Jakarta EE
6 5 (0.91%) Middleware
6 5 (0.91%) SOAP
6 5 (0.91%) Software Packaging
7 4 (0.73%) .NET Framework
7 4 (0.73%) Bootstrap
7 4 (0.73%) jQuery
7 4 (0.73%) JSON
7 4 (0.73%) RESTful
7 4 (0.73%) Sass
7 4 (0.73%) Spring
7 4 (0.73%) Spring MVC
Miscellaneous
1 55 (9.98%) Onboarding
2 30 (5.44%) Data Centre
3 21 (3.81%) CMDB
4 14 (2.54%) Enterprise Software
5 11 (2.00%) Cyber Threat
5 11 (2.00%) PKI
5 11 (2.00%) Product Ownership
6 10 (1.81%) Driving Licence
6 10 (1.81%) Smartphone
7 9 (1.63%) Cloud Native
8 8 (1.45%) BYOD
8 8 (1.45%) Data Protection Act
8 8 (1.45%) Self-Motivation
8 8 (1.45%) Virtual Team
9 7 (1.27%) iPhone
10 6 (1.09%) Fibre Optics
10 6 (1.09%) Management Information System
11 5 (0.91%) Analytical Mindset
11 5 (0.91%) Enterprise Cloud
11 5 (0.91%) IoT
Operating Systems
1 139 (25.23%) Windows
2 50 (9.07%) Windows 10
3 33 (5.99%) Linux
4 27 (4.90%) Windows Server
5 22 (3.99%) Android
6 15 (2.72%) Unix
7 9 (1.63%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
8 7 (1.27%) Mac OS
9 4 (0.73%) Apple iOS
9 4 (0.73%) CentOS
9 4 (0.73%) Windows 7
9 4 (0.73%) Windows Server 2012
10 3 (0.54%) Windows XP
11 2 (0.36%) Windows Server 2019
12 1 (0.18%) Solaris
12 1 (0.18%) Ubuntu
12 1 (0.18%) Windows Server 2003
12 1 (0.18%) Windows Server 2016
Processes & Methodologies
1 199 (36.12%) ITIL
2 124 (22.50%) ITSM
3 120 (21.78%) Problem-Solving
4 117 (21.23%) Continuous Improvement
5 108 (19.60%) Customer Service
6 102 (18.51%) Stakeholder Management
7 100 (18.15%) Service Management
8 94 (17.06%) Change Management
9 91 (16.52%) Service Delivery
10 72 (13.07%) Agile
11 68 (12.34%) Root Cause Analysis
12 54 (9.80%) Incident Management
13 51 (9.26%) Problem Management
14 49 (8.89%) Migration
15 47 (8.53%) Stakeholder Engagement
16 39 (7.08%) Roadmaps
16 39 (7.08%) Validation
17 38 (6.90%) Asset Management
18 37 (6.72%) Project Management
19 36 (6.53%) DevOps
Programming Languages
1 45 (8.17%) SQL
2 37 (6.72%) PowerShell
3 34 (6.17%) Python
4 17 (3.09%) Bash
5 8 (1.45%) JavaScript
6 7 (1.27%) PL/SQL
7 6 (1.09%) Java
8 5 (0.91%) C#
8 5 (0.91%) Shell Script
9 4 (0.73%) Bicep
9 4 (0.73%) MATLAB
10 2 (0.36%) DataWeave
10 2 (0.36%) Korn
10 2 (0.36%) Scala
10 2 (0.36%) X++
11 1 (0.18%) ActionScript
11 1 (0.18%) Apex Code
11 1 (0.18%) Groovy
11 1 (0.18%) VB
11 1 (0.18%) VBScript
Qualifications
1 124 (22.50%) Security Cleared
2 97 (17.60%) SC Cleared
3 50 (9.07%) Degree
4 21 (3.81%) DV Cleared
5 19 (3.45%) Microsoft Certification
6 18 (3.27%) ITIL Certification
7 17 (3.09%) BPSS Clearance
8 16 (2.90%) Cisco Certification
9 13 (2.36%) ITIL Foundation Certificate
10 10 (1.81%) CCNP
11 9 (1.63%) PMI Certification
12 8 (1.45%) Azure Certification
12 8 (1.45%) MCSE
13 7 (1.27%) CCNA
14 6 (1.09%) A+ Certification
14 6 (1.09%) CCSE
14 6 (1.09%) Computer Science Degree
15 5 (0.91%) CCSM
15 5 (0.91%) Master's Degree
15 5 (0.91%) PMP
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 17 (3.09%) Data Quality
2 14 (2.54%) ISO/IEC 27001
3 12 (2.18%) PMO
3 12 (2.18%) QA
4 11 (2.00%) NIST
5 9 (1.63%) GRC
6 7 (1.27%) COBIT
6 7 (1.27%) GDPR
7 6 (1.09%) Cyber Essentials
8 5 (0.91%) ISO 9001
8 5 (0.91%) ISO/IEC 20000
8 5 (0.91%) PCI DSS
9 3 (0.54%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
9 3 (0.54%) ISO 20022
9 3 (0.54%) JSP 440
10 2 (0.36%) ISO 31000
10 2 (0.36%) ISO 8583
10 2 (0.36%) SOC 2
11 1 (0.18%) DICOM
11 1 (0.18%) HL7
System Software
1 93 (16.88%) Active Directory
2 23 (4.17%) VMware Infrastructure
3 15 (2.72%) VMware ESXi
4 11 (2.00%) Virtual Desktop
5 7 (1.27%) Hyper-V
6 6 (1.09%) Docker
6 6 (1.09%) vSphere
7 4 (0.73%) Virtual Machines
8 2 (0.36%) ACF2
8 2 (0.36%) Oracle RAC
8 2 (0.36%) RACF
9 1 (0.18%) BitLocker
9 1 (0.18%) Ceph
9 1 (0.18%) Firmware
9 1 (0.18%) Virtual Servers
9 1 (0.18%) VMware Workstation
9 1 (0.18%) XenDesktop
Systems Management
1 46 (8.35%) Microsoft Intune
2 33 (5.99%) SCCM
3 19 (3.45%) Terraform
4 15 (2.72%) Kubernetes
5 14 (2.54%) Single Sign-On
6 13 (2.36%) Ansible
7 10 (1.81%) vCenter Server
8 9 (1.63%) Grafana
9 6 (1.09%) ServiceCenter
10 5 (0.91%) Jamf Pro
10 5 (0.91%) Prometheus
11 4 (0.73%) Check_MK
11 4 (0.73%) Podman
11 4 (0.73%) Red Hat Satellite
12 3 (0.54%) Active Directory Federation Services
12 3 (0.54%) FortiGate
12 3 (0.54%) Oracle Identity Management
12 3 (0.54%) Oracle Identity Manager
12 3 (0.54%) vMotion
13 2 (0.36%) SCOM
Vendors
1 177 (32.12%) Microsoft
2 101 (18.33%) ServiceNow
3 44 (7.99%) Cisco
4 43 (7.80%) VMware
5 42 (7.62%) Oracle
6 24 (4.36%) HP
7 23 (4.17%) Apple
8 21 (3.81%) Remedy
9 13 (2.36%) Dell
9 13 (2.36%) SAP
9 13 (2.36%) Tenable
10 12 (2.18%) Zscaler
11 11 (2.00%) Nokia
12 9 (1.63%) AppDynamics
12 9 (1.63%) Databricks
12 9 (1.63%) Dynatrace
12 9 (1.63%) Fortinet
12 9 (1.63%) Salesforce
12 9 (1.63%) Splunk
13 8 (1.45%) Okta