SLA Contract Job Trends in the West Midlands

Service Level Agreement (SLA)
England > West Midlands

The table below provides summary statistics and contractor rates for jobs advertised in the West Midlands requiring SLA skills. It covers contract job vacancies from the 6 months leading up to 30 August 2026, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
30 Aug 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 122 71 83
Rank change year-on-year -51 +12 +14
Contract jobs citing SLA 45 53 30
As % of all contract jobs in the West Midlands 1.30% 3.00% 1.58%
As % of the Quality Assurance & Compliance category 7.25% 16.93% 10.68%
Number of daily rates quoted 22 42 17
10th Percentile - £209 £141
25th Percentile £213 £235 £213
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £250 £383 £250
Median % change year-on-year -34.64% +53.00% -40.12%
75th Percentile £333 £450 £438
90th Percentile £525 £506 £469
England median daily rate £429 £375 £338
% change year-on-year +14.40% +11.11% -10.00%
Number of hourly rates quoted 14 4 7
10th Percentile £12.90 £15.09 £13.22
25th Percentile £13.03 £15.68 £13.63
Median hourly rate £18.79 £16.07 £14.50
Median % change year-on-year +16.96% +10.79% -21.62%
75th Percentile £20.92 £16.13 £14.70
90th Percentile - - £15.68
England median hourly rate £19.01 £22.14 £16.19
% change year-on-year -14.16% +36.75% -7.49%

All Quality Assurance and Compliance Skills
West Midlands

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 in the West Midlands.

Contract vacancies with a requirement for quality assurance or compliance skills 621 313 281
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the West Midlands 17.93% 17.73% 14.84%
Number of daily rates quoted 411 217 185
10th Percentile £306 £249 £235
25th Percentile £369 £375 £375
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £450 £475 £500
Median % change year-on-year -5.26% -5.00% -4.76%
75th Percentile £538 £575 £594
90th Percentile £650 £700 £725
England median daily rate £510 £500 £525
% change year-on-year +2.00% -4.76% -2.78%
Number of hourly rates quoted 39 14 20
10th Percentile £12.90 £16.04 £13.06
25th Percentile £16.66 £18.35 £14.38
Median hourly rate £22.42 £29.09 £16.05
Median % change year-on-year -22.93% +81.30% -41.65%
75th Percentile £38.32 £34.71 £49.06
90th Percentile £68.27 £40.46 £55.38
England median hourly rate £36.07 £31.64 £27.50
% change year-on-year +14.00% +15.05% -21.43%

SLA
Job Vacancy Trend in the West Midlands

Historical trend showing the proportion of contract IT job postings citing SLA relative to all contract IT jobs advertised in the West Midlands.

SLA job vacancy trend in the West Midlands

SLA
Daily Rate Trend in the West Midlands

Contractor daily rate distribution trend for jobs in the West Midlands citing SLA.

Contractor daily rate distribution trend for jobs in the West Midlands citing SLA

SLA
Daily Rate Histogram in the West Midlands

Daily rate distribution for jobs citing SLA in the West Midlands over the 6 months to 30 August 2026.

Daily rate histogram for SLA in the West Midlands

SLA
Hourly Rate Trend in the West Midlands

Contractor hourly rate distribution trend for jobs in the West Midlands citing SLA.

Contractor hourly rate distribution trend for jobs in the West Midlands citing SLA

SLA
Contract Job Locations in the West Midlands

The table below looks at the demand and provides a guide to the median contractor rates quoted in IT jobs citing SLA within the West Midlands region over the 6 months to 30 August 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
Birmingham -9 12 £319 -8.93% 9
Worcestershire - 8 - - 5
Warwickshire -32 7 £220 -29.60% 2
Coventry -22 6 £225 -29.25% 3
Shropshire -43 4 £369 +68.69% 1
Staffordshire - 1 - - 1
Wolverhampton - 1 £250 -
SLA
England

SLA
Co-Occurring Skills & Capabilities in the West Midlands 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 5 (11.11%) SharePoint
2 4 (8.89%) SAS
3 2 (4.44%) Confluence
4 1 (2.22%) Microsoft Exchange
Applications
1 10 (22.22%) Microsoft Excel
1 10 (22.22%) Microsoft Office
2 1 (2.22%) Microsoft PowerPoint
Business Applications
1 8 (17.78%) ContrOCC
Cloud Services
1 13 (28.89%) Microsoft 365
2 10 (22.22%) Azure
3 9 (20.00%) Entra ID
3 9 (20.00%) OneDrive
4 7 (15.56%) AWS
5 3 (6.67%) Power Platform
6 2 (4.44%) Azure Sentinel
6 2 (4.44%) SaaS
7 1 (2.22%) AWS Data Pipeline
7 1 (2.22%) IaaS
7 1 (2.22%) Matillion
7 1 (2.22%) PaaS
7 1 (2.22%) Snowflake
Communications & Networking
1 10 (22.22%) VPN
2 6 (13.33%) Cisco IOS
3 4 (8.89%) DHCP
3 4 (8.89%) DNS
4 3 (6.67%) Wi-Fi
5 2 (4.44%) TCP/IP
6 1 (2.22%) Cisco Wireless
6 1 (2.22%) NaaS
6 1 (2.22%) Network Security
6 1 (2.22%) Remote Desktop
6 1 (2.22%) Unified Communications
6 1 (2.22%) VLAN
6 1 (2.22%) VoIP
6 1 (2.22%) Wireless
Database & Business Intelligence
1 4 (8.89%) Pentaho
2 2 (4.44%) Power BI
2 2 (4.44%) Tableau
3 1 (2.22%) Amazon RDS
3 1 (2.22%) Data Warehouse
3 1 (2.22%) Semantic Layer
3 1 (2.22%) Spark SQL
3 1 (2.22%) SQL Server Integration Services
Development Applications
1 6 (13.33%) JIRA
2 2 (4.44%) Artifactory
2 2 (4.44%) GitLab
General
1 21 (46.67%) Social Skills
2 9 (20.00%) Public Sector
3 8 (17.78%) Local Government
4 6 (13.33%) Analytical Skills
5 4 (8.89%) Finance
6 3 (6.67%) Legal
7 1 (2.22%) Influencing Skills
7 1 (2.22%) Organisational Skills
Job Titles
1 8 (17.78%) Applications Support
1 8 (17.78%) Data Engineer
1 8 (17.78%) Support Officer
2 7 (15.56%) Support Technician
3 6 (13.33%) Help Desk Support
3 6 (13.33%) Help Desk Support Technician
3 6 (13.33%) Help Desk Technician
4 4 (8.89%) 1st Line Support
4 4 (8.89%) IT Support
4 4 (8.89%) Service Desk Agent
4 4 (8.89%) Service Desk Support
5 3 (6.67%) AWS Data Engineer
5 3 (6.67%) AWS Engineer
5 3 (6.67%) Consultant
5 3 (6.67%) Gen AI Engineer
5 3 (6.67%) Support Engineer
6 2 (4.44%) Analyst
6 2 (4.44%) Desktop Support
6 2 (4.44%) Management Consultant
6 2 (4.44%) Security Consultant
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 1 (2.22%) PySpark
1 1 (2.22%) Terraform
Miscellaneous
1 8 (17.78%) Onboarding
2 7 (15.56%) Smartphone
3 3 (6.67%) Enterprise Software
4 2 (4.44%) BYOD
5 1 (2.22%) Acoustics
5 1 (2.22%) CMDB
5 1 (2.22%) Data Centre
5 1 (2.22%) Data Protection Act
5 1 (2.22%) Digital Signage
5 1 (2.22%) Mobile App
5 1 (2.22%) Operational Technology
5 1 (2.22%) Product Ownership
5 1 (2.22%) Self-Motivation
5 1 (2.22%) Video Conferencing
5 1 (2.22%) Virtual Team
Operating Systems
1 14 (31.11%) Windows
2 7 (15.56%) Android
2 7 (15.56%) Windows 10
3 2 (4.44%) Unix
3 2 (4.44%) Windows Server
4 1 (2.22%) Linux
4 1 (2.22%) Mac OS
Processes & Methodologies
1 18 (40.00%) Customer Service
2 15 (33.33%) ITIL
3 14 (31.11%) Agile
4 13 (28.89%) Problem-Solving
5 12 (26.67%) ITSM
6 9 (20.00%) Service Management
7 8 (17.78%) Case Management
7 8 (17.78%) Change Management
7 8 (17.78%) Enterprise Architecture
7 8 (17.78%) Problem Management
7 8 (17.78%) TOGAF
8 7 (15.56%) Asset Management
8 7 (15.56%) Data Engineering
8 7 (15.56%) Data Modelling
8 7 (15.56%) Data Pipeline
8 7 (15.56%) ETL
9 6 (13.33%) Customer Experience
9 6 (13.33%) Data Integration
9 6 (13.33%) Service Delivery
10 5 (11.11%) Business Case
Programming Languages
1 8 (17.78%) SQL
2 4 (8.89%) Bash
2 4 (8.89%) Python
3 2 (4.44%) PL/SQL
Qualifications
1 14 (31.11%) Security Cleared
2 10 (22.22%) SC Cleared
3 5 (11.11%) BPSS Clearance
4 4 (8.89%) Degree
5 2 (4.44%) ITIL Certification
5 2 (4.44%) ITIL Foundation Certificate
5 2 (4.44%) Microsoft Certification
5 2 (4.44%) Microsoft Certified Professional
6 1 (2.22%) CCIE
6 1 (2.22%) CCIE Wireless
6 1 (2.22%) CCNA
6 1 (2.22%) CCNP
6 1 (2.22%) Cisco Certification
6 1 (2.22%) MCSE
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 3 (6.67%) Data Quality
2 2 (4.44%) NCSC
2 2 (4.44%) NIST
2 2 (4.44%) PMO
System Software
1 11 (24.44%) Active Directory
2 2 (4.44%) Firmware
3 1 (2.22%) Virtual Desktop
Systems Management
1 9 (20.00%) Microsoft Intune
2 7 (15.56%) SCCM
Vendors
1 13 (28.89%) Microsoft
2 8 (17.78%) Cisco
2 8 (17.78%) Liquidlogic
2 8 (17.78%) ServiceNow
3 6 (13.33%) Canon
3 6 (13.33%) Oracle
3 6 (13.33%) Talend
4 5 (11.11%) Informatica
5 4 (8.89%) Cloudera
6 2 (4.44%) Atlassian
6 2 (4.44%) Dell
6 2 (4.44%) Denodo
6 2 (4.44%) HP
7 1 (2.22%) Apple
7 1 (2.22%) Databricks
7 1 (2.22%) Logi
7 1 (2.22%) Logitech
7 1 (2.22%) Nexthink
7 1 (2.22%) Remedy
7 1 (2.22%) SAP