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 15 April 2026, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
15 Apr 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 126 52 63
Rank change year-on-year -74 +11 +18
Contract jobs citing SLA 28 42 46
As % of all contract jobs in the West Midlands 0.92% 3.06% 2.40%
As % of the Quality Assurance & Compliance category 5.97% 17.72% 15.49%
Number of daily rates quoted 19 33 19
10th Percentile £189 £176 £181
25th Percentile £195 £208 £203
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £290 £235 £250
Median % change year-on-year +23.40% -6.00% -28.57%
75th Percentile £365 £475 £488
90th Percentile £475 £503 £670
England median daily rate £455 £261 £330
% change year-on-year +74.66% -21.06% +10.00%
Number of hourly rates quoted 2 7 13
10th Percentile - - £12.20
25th Percentile - - £13.00
Median hourly rate £16.00 £14.70 £13.18
Median % change year-on-year +8.84% +11.53% -16.32%
75th Percentile - £21.85 £14.00
90th Percentile - £30.90 £14.40
England median hourly rate £18.50 £22.27 £14.41
% change year-on-year -16.93% +54.55% -22.11%

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 469 237 297
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the West Midlands 15.48% 17.27% 15.53%
Number of daily rates quoted 307 173 204
10th Percentile £305 £211 £260
25th Percentile £380 £325 £384
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £492 £475 £500
Median % change year-on-year +3.58% -5.00% -
75th Percentile £569 £544 £611
90th Percentile £658 £624 £768
England median daily rate £508 £512 £525
% change year-on-year -0.93% -2.43% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 18 12 29
10th Percentile £12.63 - £11.81
25th Percentile £13.20 £14.70 £13.18
Median hourly rate £16.00 £28.18 £14.00
Median % change year-on-year -43.22% +101.29% -24.32%
75th Percentile £30.61 £32.26 £55.00
90th Percentile £68.49 £50.63 £58.75
England median hourly rate £30.54 £33.81 £20.50
% change year-on-year -9.67% +64.90% -50.60%

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 15 April 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 15 April 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 -20 9 £365 +82.50% 11
Warwickshire -29 8 £195 -17.02% 2
Shropshire -46 6 £293 +69.86% 1
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 4 (14.29%) SharePoint
2 3 (10.71%) SAS
3 1 (3.57%) LiveCycle
3 1 (3.57%) Microsoft Exchange
Applications
1 8 (28.57%) Microsoft Excel
2 6 (21.43%) Microsoft Office
3 1 (3.57%) Microsoft PowerPoint
Cloud Services
1 5 (17.86%) Microsoft 365
2 3 (10.71%) AWS
2 3 (10.71%) Power Platform
3 2 (7.14%) Azure
3 2 (7.14%) Azure DevOps
4 1 (3.57%) Matillion
4 1 (3.57%) OneDrive
4 1 (3.57%) Power Automate
4 1 (3.57%) PowerApps
4 1 (3.57%) Snowflake
Communications & Networking
1 2 (7.14%) DHCP
1 2 (7.14%) DNS
1 2 (7.14%) TCP/IP
1 2 (7.14%) VPN
2 1 (3.57%) LAN
2 1 (3.57%) Radio Access Network
2 1 (3.57%) SD-WAN
2 1 (3.57%) WAN
2 1 (3.57%) Wi-Fi
Database & Business Intelligence
1 3 (10.71%) Pentaho
2 2 (7.14%) MySQL
2 2 (7.14%) Oracle Database
2 2 (7.14%) Relational Database
3 1 (3.57%) Data Warehouse
3 1 (3.57%) Power BI
3 1 (3.57%) SQL Server Integration Services
3 1 (3.57%) Tableau
Development Applications
1 4 (14.29%) JIRA
2 2 (7.14%) JMeter
General
1 13 (46.43%) Social Skills
2 9 (32.14%) Finance
3 6 (21.43%) Analytical Skills
4 2 (7.14%) Inclusion and Diversity
4 2 (7.14%) Law
4 2 (7.14%) Telecoms
5 1 (3.57%) Billing
5 1 (3.57%) Legal
5 1 (3.57%) Organisational Skills
5 1 (3.57%) Public Sector
Job Titles
1 6 (21.43%) Lead
2 4 (14.29%) Data Engineer
2 4 (14.29%) Data Steward
3 3 (10.71%) Service Desk Engineer
4 2 (7.14%) AWS Data Engineer
4 2 (7.14%) AWS Engineer
4 2 (7.14%) DBA
4 2 (7.14%) Gen AI Engineer
4 2 (7.14%) Oracle DBA
4 2 (7.14%) Test Leader
5 1 (3.57%) Field Engineer
5 1 (3.57%) Field Telecoms Engineer
5 1 (3.57%) IT Engineer
5 1 (3.57%) Junior
5 1 (3.57%) Lead Consultant
5 1 (3.57%) Senior
5 1 (3.57%) Senior Data Engineer
5 1 (3.57%) Service Owner
5 1 (3.57%) Support Engineer
5 1 (3.57%) Technical Service Delivery Manager
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 2 (7.14%) ADO
Miscellaneous
1 2 (7.14%) Enterprise Cloud
2 1 (3.57%) Driving Licence
2 1 (3.57%) NHS
2 1 (3.57%) Onboarding
Operating Systems
1 4 (14.29%) Windows
1 4 (14.29%) Windows 10
2 2 (7.14%) Unix
2 2 (7.14%) Windows Server
3 1 (3.57%) Mac OS
Processes & Methodologies
1 8 (28.57%) Agile
2 6 (21.43%) Continuous Improvement
3 5 (17.86%) Change Management
3 5 (17.86%) ITIL
3 5 (17.86%) Mentoring
4 4 (14.29%) Data Engineering
4 4 (14.29%) Data Modelling
4 4 (14.29%) Data Pipeline
4 4 (14.29%) Demand Management
4 4 (14.29%) ETL
4 4 (14.29%) Incident Management
4 4 (14.29%) Problem-Solving
4 4 (14.29%) Stakeholder Management
5 3 (10.71%) Community of Practice
5 3 (10.71%) Customer Service
5 3 (10.71%) Data Integration
5 3 (10.71%) Deadline-Driven
5 3 (10.71%) ITSM
5 3 (10.71%) Process Improvement
5 3 (10.71%) Service Management
Programming Languages
1 6 (21.43%) SQL
2 5 (17.86%) Python
3 3 (10.71%) Bash
4 2 (7.14%) Java
4 2 (7.14%) PL/SQL
4 2 (7.14%) Shell Script
4 2 (7.14%) VB
5 1 (3.57%) Scala
Qualifications
1 4 (14.29%) Degree
2 2 (7.14%) BPSS Clearance
2 2 (7.14%) ISTQB
2 2 (7.14%) ISTQB Foundation Certification
2 2 (7.14%) ITIL Certification
2 2 (7.14%) Microsoft Certification
2 2 (7.14%) PRINCE2 Practitioner
3 1 (3.57%) MCSE
3 1 (3.57%) Security Cleared
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 4 (14.29%) PMO
2 3 (10.71%) Data Quality
3 1 (3.57%) GRC
3 1 (3.57%) QA
System Software
1 4 (14.29%) Active Directory
Systems Management
1 2 (7.14%) HP ALM
1 2 (7.14%) HP Quality Center
2 1 (3.57%) SCCM
Vendors
1 7 (25.00%) Oracle
2 6 (21.43%) Microsoft
3 4 (14.29%) Informatica
4 3 (10.71%) Atlassian
4 3 (10.71%) Cloudera
4 3 (10.71%) SAP
4 3 (10.71%) Talend
5 2 (7.14%) HP
5 2 (7.14%) ServiceNow
6 1 (3.57%) Adobe
6 1 (3.57%) Apple
6 1 (3.57%) Cisco
6 1 (3.57%) Ericsson
6 1 (3.57%) Huawei
6 1 (3.57%) Nokia