Service Manager Job Trends

Services Manager
UK

The median Services Manager salary in the UK is £53,000 per year, according to job vacancies posted during the 6 months leading to 6 January 2026.

The table below compares current salary benchmarking and summary statistics with the previous two years.

6 months to
6 Jan 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 265 286 292
Rank change year-on-year +21 +6 +114
Permanent jobs requiring a Service Manager 487 528 540
As % of all permanent jobs in the UK 0.82% 0.97% 1.02%
As % of the Job Titles category 0.91% 1.05% 1.07%
Number of salaries quoted 267 278 356
10th Percentile £30,000 £39,916 £38,856
25th Percentile £40,875 £46,250 £45,784
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £53,000 £55,000 £57,500
Median % change year-on-year -3.64% -4.35% +4.55%
75th Percentile £65,000 £67,500 £73,000
90th Percentile £79,700 £80,375 £83,125
UK excluding London median annual salary £50,000 £51,000 £50,000
% change year-on-year -1.96% +2.00% -3.40%

All Permanent IT Job Roles
UK

For comparison with the information above, the following table provides summary statistics for all permanent IT job vacancies. Most job vacancies include a discernible job title that can be normalized. As such, the figures in the second row provide an indication of the number of permanent jobs in our overall sample.

Permanent vacancies in the UK with a recognized job title 53,793 50,378 50,490
% of permanent jobs with a recognized job title 90.57% 92.94% 95.24%
Number of salaries quoted 33,153 26,319 38,828
10th Percentile £28,500 £33,200 £31,125
25th Percentile £36,250 £44,956 £42,430
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £55,000 £60,000 £58,500
Median % change year-on-year -8.33% +2.56% -2.50%
75th Percentile £75,000 £78,750 £77,500
90th Percentile £93,750 £97,500 £96,539
UK excluding London median annual salary £50,000 £52,500 £50,000
% change year-on-year -4.76% +5.00% -4.76%

Service Manager
Job Vacancy Trend

Historical trend showing the proportion of permanent IT job postings featuring 'Service Manager' in the job title relative to all permanent IT jobs advertised.

Service Manager job vacancy trend in the UK

Service Manager
Salary Trend

Salary distribution trend for Service Manager job vacancies in the UK.

Salary distribution trend for Service Manager job vacancies in the UK

Service Manager
Salary Histogram

Salary distribution for jobs citing Service Manager over the 6 months to 6 January 2026.

Salary histogram for Service Manager in the UK

Service Manager
Top 17 Job Locations

The table below looks at the demand and provides a guide to the median salaries quoted in IT jobs citing Service Manager within the UK over the 6 months to 6 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
Permanent
IT Job Ads
Median Salary
Past 6 Months
Median Salary
% Change
on Same Period
Last Year
Live
Jobs
England +26 440 £52,750 -4.09% 91
UK excluding London +11 323 £50,000 -1.96% 81
Work from Home +34 140 £55,000 -3.51% 35
London +57 135 £65,000 - 22
South East +40 85 £55,500 +16.84% 21
North of England -42 84 £45,000 - 20
Midlands +18 57 £49,000 -2.00% 19
South West +33 55 £50,000 -5.66% 9
West Midlands +21 41 £57,435 +14.87% 8
North West -3 41 £45,000 -13.04% 8
Yorkshire -28 24 £30,000 -33.33% 5
East of England +27 19 £55,000 - 4
North East -22 19 £45,000 +52.54% 7
East Midlands +5 16 £35,000 -30.00% 11
Scotland -28 10 - - 2
Wales +1 8 £60,000 +66.67% 6
Northern Ireland -2 5 £64,000 -

Service Manager Skill Set
Top 30 Co-Occurring Skills & Capabilities

For the 6 months to 6 January 2026, Service Manager job roles required the following skills and capabilities in order of popularity. The figures indicate the absolute number of co-occurrences and as a proportion of all permanent job ads featuring Service Manager in the job title.

1 213 (43.74%) Service Delivery
2 180 (36.96%) ITIL
3 153 (31.42%) Service Management
4 138 (28.34%) Continuous Improvement
5 90 (18.48%) ITSM
6 78 (16.02%) Problem-Solving
7 65 (13.35%) Change Management
8 61 (12.53%) Microsoft
9 55 (11.29%) Customer Service
10 53 (10.88%) Stakeholder Management
11 51 (10.47%) Agile
12 48 (9.86%) ServiceNow
13 46 (9.45%) Incident Management
14 41 (8.42%) Project Management
15 40 (8.21%) QA
16 39 (8.01%) DevOps
17 37 (7.60%) Microsoft 365
18 36 (7.39%) Mentoring
18 36 (7.39%) Service Design
19 34 (6.98%) SLA
20 33 (6.78%) AI
20 33 (6.78%) Security Cleared
21 32 (6.57%) Azure
21 32 (6.57%) Collaborative Culture
22 31 (6.37%) SaaS
23 30 (6.16%) Coaching
23 30 (6.16%) Customer Engagement
23 30 (6.16%) Incident Response
23 30 (6.16%) Microsoft Excel
24 27 (5.54%) Roadmaps

Service Manager Skill Set
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 21 (4.31%) SharePoint
2 5 (1.03%) SAS
3 3 (0.62%) HCL Domino
3 3 (0.62%) HCL Notes
3 3 (0.62%) Microsoft Exchange
4 2 (0.41%) Confluence
Applications
1 30 (6.16%) Microsoft Excel
2 15 (3.08%) Microsoft PowerPoint
3 14 (2.87%) Microsoft Office
4 9 (1.85%) Adobe Premiere
4 9 (1.85%) Photoshop
5 8 (1.64%) Microsoft Project
6 2 (0.41%) AutoCAD
6 2 (0.41%) Chatbot
6 2 (0.41%) MS Visio
6 2 (0.41%) Revit
6 2 (0.41%) Trello
Business Applications
1 5 (1.03%) Elite 3E
2 4 (0.82%) Remedy ITSM
3 3 (0.62%) SAP S/4HANA
Cloud Services
1 37 (7.60%) Microsoft 365
2 32 (6.57%) Azure
3 31 (6.37%) SaaS
4 14 (2.87%) AWS
5 11 (2.26%) Power Platform
6 10 (2.05%) Azure DevOps
7 9 (1.85%) OneDrive
8 7 (1.44%) Dynamics 365
9 6 (1.23%) Azure Data Factory
10 3 (0.62%) PaaS
11 2 (0.41%) Entra ID
11 2 (0.41%) IaaS
12 1 (0.21%) Asana
12 1 (0.21%) Azure Stack
12 1 (0.21%) GCP
12 1 (0.21%) Microsoft Copilot
12 1 (0.21%) Salesforce Sales Cloud
12 1 (0.21%) Salesforce Service Cloud
12 1 (0.21%) Serverless
Communications & Networking
1 12 (2.46%) Wi-Fi
2 7 (1.44%) LAN
2 7 (1.44%) WAN
3 6 (1.23%) SD-WAN
4 5 (1.03%) Network Security
5 2 (0.41%) Intranet
5 2 (0.41%) SAN
5 2 (0.41%) VSAT
6 1 (0.21%) VLAN
6 1 (0.21%) Wireless
Database & Business Intelligence
1 11 (2.26%) Power BI
2 6 (1.23%) Data Lake
3 5 (1.03%) SAS EBI
3 5 (1.03%) SQL Server Integration Services
3 5 (1.03%) SQL Server Reporting Services
4 4 (0.82%) Tableau
Development Applications
1 12 (2.46%) JIRA
2 3 (0.62%) Eclipse
3 1 (0.21%) webpack
General
1 114 (23.41%) Social Skills
2 91 (18.69%) Finance
3 39 (8.01%) Law
4 30 (6.16%) Inclusion and Diversity
5 29 (5.95%) Analytical Skills
6 26 (5.34%) Retail
7 24 (4.93%) Legal
7 24 (4.93%) Police
8 22 (4.52%) Aviation
8 22 (4.52%) Fire and Rescue
9 20 (4.11%) Public Sector
10 19 (3.90%) Organisational Skills
11 16 (3.29%) Banking
12 14 (2.87%) Influencing Skills
12 14 (2.87%) Telecoms
13 12 (2.46%) Dutch Language
14 11 (2.26%) Marketing
15 10 (2.05%) Local Government
16 9 (1.85%) French Language
16 9 (1.85%) German Language
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 4 (0.82%) EDI
2 2 (0.41%) Kafka
3 1 (0.21%) Bootstrap
3 1 (0.21%) CSS
3 1 (0.21%) HTML
3 1 (0.21%) HTML5
3 1 (0.21%) jQuery
3 1 (0.21%) React
3 1 (0.21%) Software Packaging
Miscellaneous
1 22 (4.52%) Robotics
1 22 (4.52%) Self-Motivation
2 13 (2.67%) CMDB
3 8 (1.64%) Onboarding
3 8 (1.64%) Product Ownership
4 5 (1.03%) Culture of Ownership
5 4 (0.82%) Management Information System
5 4 (0.82%) Reinsurance
6 3 (0.62%) Data Centre
6 3 (0.62%) Digital Signage
6 3 (0.62%) FMCG
6 3 (0.62%) Renewable Energy
6 3 (0.62%) Virtual Team
7 2 (0.41%) e-Learning
7 2 (0.41%) Enterprise Software
7 2 (0.41%) Foreign Exchange (FX)
7 2 (0.41%) NHS
7 2 (0.41%) Social Media
8 1 (0.21%) Mainframe
8 1 (0.21%) Mobile Computing
Operating Systems
1 12 (2.46%) Windows
2 5 (1.03%) Linux
2 5 (1.03%) Windows 10
3 3 (0.62%) Windows Server
4 1 (0.21%) Unix
Processes & Methodologies
1 213 (43.74%) Service Delivery
2 180 (36.96%) ITIL
3 153 (31.42%) Service Management
4 138 (28.34%) Continuous Improvement
5 90 (18.48%) ITSM
6 78 (16.02%) Problem-Solving
7 65 (13.35%) Change Management
8 55 (11.29%) Customer Service
9 53 (10.88%) Stakeholder Management
10 51 (10.47%) Agile
11 46 (9.45%) Incident Management
12 41 (8.42%) Project Management
13 39 (8.01%) DevOps
14 36 (7.39%) Mentoring
14 36 (7.39%) Service Design
15 33 (6.78%) AI
16 32 (6.57%) Collaborative Culture
17 30 (6.16%) Coaching
17 30 (6.16%) Customer Engagement
17 30 (6.16%) Incident Response
Programming Languages
1 10 (2.05%) SQL
2 2 (0.41%) PowerShell
2 2 (0.41%) Python
3 1 (0.21%) R
Qualifications
1 33 (6.78%) Security Cleared
2 23 (4.72%) Degree
3 21 (4.31%) ITIL Certification
4 20 (4.11%) DV Cleared
5 14 (2.87%) SC Cleared
6 10 (2.05%) PMI Certification
6 10 (2.05%) PMP
7 9 (1.85%) ITIL Foundation Certificate
7 9 (1.85%) Master's Degree
8 6 (1.23%) DBS Check
9 3 (0.62%) BPSS Clearance
9 3 (0.62%) Microsoft Certification
10 2 (0.41%) AAT
10 2 (0.41%) ACCA
10 2 (0.41%) CCNA
10 2 (0.41%) Chartered Engineer
10 2 (0.41%) CIMA
10 2 (0.41%) Cisco Certification
11 1 (0.21%) AWS Certification
11 1 (0.21%) Computer Science Degree
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 40 (8.21%) QA
2 34 (6.98%) SLA
3 12 (2.46%) ISO/IEC 27001
4 10 (2.05%) ISO/IEC 19770
5 7 (1.44%) Cyber Essentials
5 7 (1.44%) GDPR
6 6 (1.23%) ISO 14001
7 5 (1.03%) Data Quality
7 5 (1.03%) NEBOSH
8 4 (0.82%) NIST
9 3 (0.62%) COBIT
9 3 (0.62%) ISO 9001
10 2 (0.41%) Accessibility
10 2 (0.41%) ISO/IEC 20000
11 1 (0.21%) ITGC
11 1 (0.21%) Sarbanes-Oxley
System Software
1 15 (3.08%) Active Directory
2 10 (2.05%) Virtual Machines
3 2 (0.41%) Virtual Desktop
Systems Management
1 6 (1.23%) Autotask
2 4 (0.82%) Microsoft Intune
3 1 (0.21%) SCCM
Vendors
1 61 (12.53%) Microsoft
2 48 (9.86%) ServiceNow
3 11 (2.26%) Adobe
4 6 (1.23%) iManage
5 5 (1.03%) Databricks
6 4 (0.82%) BMC
6 4 (0.82%) Remedy
6 4 (0.82%) SAP
6 4 (0.82%) VMware
7 3 (0.62%) Guidewire
7 3 (0.62%) IBM
7 3 (0.62%) Lotus
7 3 (0.62%) Oracle
7 3 (0.62%) SolarWinds
8 2 (0.41%) Cisco
8 2 (0.41%) PayPal
8 2 (0.41%) StreamSets
9 1 (0.21%) Citrix
9 1 (0.21%) ConnectWise
9 1 (0.21%) Salesforce