Service Design Contract Job Trends in England

Service Design
UK > England

The table below provides summary statistics and contractor rates for jobs advertised in England requiring Service Design skills. It covers contract job vacancies from the 6 months leading up to 16 August 2026, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
16 Aug 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 186 217 271
Rank change year-on-year +31 +54 -93
Contract jobs citing Service Design 687 337 276
As % of all contract jobs in England 1.50% 1.21% 0.83%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 1.76% 1.34% 0.97%
Number of daily rates quoted 489 250 177
10th Percentile £407 £400 £420
25th Percentile £456 £451 £500
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £515 £538 £550
Median % change year-on-year -4.19% -2.27% -3.51%
75th Percentile £588 £630 £650
90th Percentile £725 £688 £750
UK median daily rate £513 £525 £550
% change year-on-year -2.38% -4.55% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 10 2 6
10th Percentile £15.89 £53.35 -
25th Percentile £18.94 £56.36 -
Median hourly rate £63.03 £62.06 £17.80
Median % change year-on-year +1.57% +248.65% -69.04%
75th Percentile £102.31 £67.09 £26.14
90th Percentile £103.75 £69.71 £31.34
UK median hourly rate £63.03 £62.06 £17.80
% change year-on-year +1.57% +248.65% -69.04%

All Process & Methodology Skills
England

Service Design falls under the Processes and Methodologies category. For comparison with the information above, the following table provides summary statistics for all contract job vacancies requiring process or methodology skills in England.

Contract vacancies with a requirement for process or methodology skills 39,024 25,239 28,517
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in England 85.10% 90.81% 85.92%
Number of daily rates quoted 24,245 16,077 18,561
10th Percentile £325 £300 £313
25th Percentile £425 £404 £425
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £513 £525
Median % change year-on-year +2.44% -2.38% -4.55%
75th Percentile £625 £628 £650
90th Percentile £738 £738 £756
UK median daily rate £525 £500 £525
% change year-on-year +5.00% -4.76% -3.31%
Number of hourly rates quoted 2,548 1,443 1,638
10th Percentile £14.42 £14.20 £14.16
25th Percentile £19.33 £17.87 £18.25
Median hourly rate £43.96 £25.15 £42.75
Median % change year-on-year +74.79% -41.17% +3.59%
75th Percentile £68.55 £50.63 £65.00
90th Percentile £82.25 £70.00 £75.00
UK median hourly rate £42.13 £25.15 £40.94
% change year-on-year +67.50% -38.57% -1.35%

Service Design
Job Vacancy Trend in England

Historical trend showing the proportion of contract IT job postings citing Service Design relative to all contract IT jobs advertised in England.

Service Design job vacancy trend in England

Service Design
Daily Rate Trend in England

Contractor daily rate distribution trend for jobs in England citing Service Design.

Contractor daily rate distribution trend for jobs in England citing Service Design

Service Design
Daily Rate Histogram in England

Daily rate distribution for jobs citing Service Design in England over the 6 months to 16 August 2026.

Daily rate histogram for Service Design in England

Service Design
Hourly Rate Trend in England

Contractor hourly rate distribution trend for jobs in England citing Service Design.

Contractor hourly rate distribution trend for jobs in England citing Service Design

Service Design
Hourly Rate Histogram in England

Hourly rate distribution of jobs citing Service Design in England over the 6 months to 16 August 2026.

Hourly rate histogram for Service Design in England

Service Design
Contract Job Locations in England

The table below looks at the demand and provides a guide to the median contractor rates quoted in IT jobs citing Service Design within the England region over the 6 months to 16 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
London +29 304 £525 -4.55% 119
North of England +1 130 £475 - 30
South East -14 129 £531 -1.19% 27
Yorkshire +7 63 £480 -6.34% 14
Midlands -6 54 £487 +8.11% 8
West Midlands -11 53 £481 +6.89% 6
North West -30 42 £475 - 9
South West -45 38 £575 +4.55% 21
North East -20 25 £420 -18.05% 7
East of England -27 7 £525 -4.55% 9
East Midlands - 1 £581 - 2
Service Design
UK

Service Design
Co-Occurring Skills & Capabilities in England 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 29 (4.22%) Confluence
2 12 (1.75%) SharePoint
3 8 (1.16%) CMS
4 5 (0.73%) LiveCycle
5 1 (0.15%) Apache Solr
5 1 (0.15%) Drupal
5 1 (0.15%) nginx
5 1 (0.15%) Oracle Coherence
5 1 (0.15%) Tomcat
5 1 (0.15%) Umbraco
Applications
1 11 (1.60%) MS Visio
2 10 (1.46%) Microsoft Excel
3 8 (1.16%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 7 (1.02%) Sketch
5 4 (0.58%) Adobe XD
6 3 (0.44%) Microsoft Project
7 2 (0.29%) Chatbot
7 2 (0.29%) Microsoft Office
7 2 (0.29%) Trello
8 1 (0.15%) Gliffy
8 1 (0.15%) InVision
Business Applications
1 5 (0.73%) Sparx Enterprise Architect
2 2 (0.29%) Dynamics CRM
3 1 (0.15%) Adobe Campaign
3 1 (0.15%) Exchequer
3 1 (0.15%) Remedy ITSM
3 1 (0.15%) Salesforce CRM
3 1 (0.15%) SAP CX
Cloud Services
1 56 (8.15%) Azure
2 45 (6.55%) AWS
3 30 (4.37%) Figma
3 30 (4.37%) SaaS
4 15 (2.18%) Miro
5 14 (2.04%) Microsoft 365
5 14 (2.04%) Power Platform
6 13 (1.89%) GitHub
7 12 (1.75%) Amazon CloudWatch
7 12 (1.75%) Datadog
8 11 (1.60%) Azure Monitor
9 9 (1.31%) Microsoft Copilot
10 7 (1.02%) Azure AI
11 5 (0.73%) Azure DevOps
11 5 (0.73%) Entra ID
11 5 (0.73%) OCI
11 5 (0.73%) PowerApps
12 4 (0.58%) Copilot Studio
12 4 (0.58%) GCP
12 4 (0.58%) Serverless
Communications & Networking
1 8 (1.16%) Firewall
2 7 (1.02%) Cisco Nexus
3 5 (0.73%) Network Security
4 4 (0.58%) 2G
4 4 (0.58%) 3G
4 4 (0.58%) 4G
4 4 (0.58%) BGP
4 4 (0.58%) Diameter Protocol
4 4 (0.58%) OSPF
4 4 (0.58%) SIGTRAN
4 4 (0.58%) SS7
4 4 (0.58%) VPN
4 4 (0.58%) VXLAN
5 3 (0.44%) 3GPP
5 3 (0.44%) NX-OS
5 3 (0.44%) VLAN
5 3 (0.44%) WAN
6 2 (0.29%) Radio Access Network
6 2 (0.29%) TETRA
6 2 (0.29%) Wireless
Database & Business Intelligence
1 7 (1.02%) Power BI
2 6 (0.87%) Metadata
3 4 (0.58%) Electronic Patient Records
3 4 (0.58%) SQL Server
4 3 (0.44%) Amazon RDS
5 2 (0.29%) Azure SQL Database
5 2 (0.29%) Geospatial Data
5 2 (0.29%) Oracle Reports
5 2 (0.29%) SQL Server Integration Services
6 1 (0.15%) BigQuery
6 1 (0.15%) Data Warehouse
6 1 (0.15%) Looker
6 1 (0.15%) MongoDB
6 1 (0.15%) Oracle Database
6 1 (0.15%) Oracle Exadata
6 1 (0.15%) PostgreSQL
6 1 (0.15%) Power Query
6 1 (0.15%) Redis
6 1 (0.15%) Relational Database
6 1 (0.15%) Tableau
Development Applications
1 31 (4.51%) JIRA
2 7 (1.02%) Git
2 7 (1.02%) Jenkins
3 3 (0.44%) GitLab
3 3 (0.44%) Sonatype Nexus
3 3 (0.44%) Team Foundation Server
4 2 (0.29%) Appium
4 2 (0.29%) Postman
5 1 (0.15%) Artifactory
5 1 (0.15%) Atlassian Bamboo
5 1 (0.15%) Bitbucket
5 1 (0.15%) Maven
5 1 (0.15%) NUnit
5 1 (0.15%) REST Assured
5 1 (0.15%) Selenium
5 1 (0.15%) Subversion
5 1 (0.15%) Terragrunt
5 1 (0.15%) VersionOne
5 1 (0.15%) Vite
General
1 222 (32.31%) Social Skills
2 201 (29.26%) Public Sector
3 99 (14.41%) Finance
4 64 (9.32%) Analytical Skills
5 54 (7.86%) Influencing Skills
6 24 (3.49%) Documentation Skills
7 22 (3.20%) Banking
8 18 (2.62%) Presentation Skills
9 17 (2.47%) Military
10 16 (2.33%) Retail
10 16 (2.33%) Telecoms
11 15 (2.18%) Local Government
11 15 (2.18%) Organisational Skills
12 12 (1.75%) Legal
13 8 (1.16%) Financial Institution
13 8 (1.16%) Inclusion and Diversity
14 7 (1.02%) Back Office
15 5 (0.73%) Law
16 4 (0.58%) Automotive
16 4 (0.58%) Police
Job Titles
1 265 (38.57%) Designer
2 203 (29.55%) Service Designer
3 88 (12.81%) Architect
4 73 (10.63%) Lead
5 63 (9.17%) User Researcher
6 62 (9.02%) Senior
7 49 (7.13%) Analyst
8 37 (5.39%) Service Architect
9 32 (4.66%) Senior Designer
10 31 (4.51%) Business Analyst
11 29 (4.22%) Service Manager
12 24 (3.49%) Senior Service Designer
13 21 (3.06%) Consultant
13 21 (3.06%) Service Transition Manager
13 21 (3.06%) Transition Manager
14 20 (2.91%) Solutions Architect
15 19 (2.77%) Content Designer
15 19 (2.77%) Lead Designer
16 18 (2.62%) Lead Service Designer
16 18 (2.62%) Product Manager
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 15 (2.18%) REST
2 11 (1.60%) SOAP
3 7 (1.02%) .NET
3 7 (1.02%) RESTful
4 6 (0.87%) HTML
4 6 (0.87%) Web Services
5 5 (0.73%) STL
6 4 (0.58%) CSS
6 4 (0.58%) VML
7 3 (0.44%) Node.js
7 3 (0.44%) Playwright
7 3 (0.44%) Swagger
8 2 (0.29%) .NET Core
8 2 (0.29%) .NET Framework
8 2 (0.29%) Microsoft Graph
8 2 (0.29%) NestJS
8 2 (0.29%) OpenAPI
8 2 (0.29%) Oracle Fusion
8 2 (0.29%) TanStack
8 2 (0.29%) YAML
Miscellaneous
1 56 (8.15%) Onboarding
2 50 (7.28%) Product Ownership
3 30 (4.37%) CMDB
4 26 (3.78%) NHS
5 16 (2.33%) Cloud Native
6 15 (2.18%) Legacy Systems
7 13 (1.89%) AI Agents
8 12 (1.75%) Data Centre
9 9 (1.31%) Data Protection Act
9 9 (1.31%) Management Information System
10 7 (1.02%) Analytical Mindset
10 7 (1.02%) Greenfield Project
11 6 (0.87%) Taxonomies
11 6 (0.87%) Virtual Team
12 5 (0.73%) Security Posture
12 5 (0.73%) Self-Motivation
13 3 (0.44%) Distributed Systems
13 3 (0.44%) EMC VMAX
13 3 (0.44%) EMC VNX
13 3 (0.44%) Operational Technology
Operating Systems
1 6 (0.87%) Windows
2 2 (0.29%) Android
2 2 (0.29%) Apple iOS
2 2 (0.29%) Linux
2 2 (0.29%) Unix
3 1 (0.15%) MVS
3 1 (0.15%) Windows Server
Processes & Methodologies
1 250 (36.39%) Agile
2 179 (26.06%) User Research
3 156 (22.71%) Stakeholder Management
4 146 (21.25%) ITIL
5 136 (19.80%) User-Centered Design (UCD)
6 130 (18.92%) Continuous Improvement
7 127 (18.49%) Workshop Facilitation
8 117 (17.03%) Stakeholder Engagement
9 109 (15.87%) Journey Map
10 103 (14.99%) Service Management
11 101 (14.70%) Decision-Making
12 99 (14.41%) User Experience
13 98 (14.26%) Roadmaps
14 72 (10.48%) AI
15 64 (9.32%) ITSM
15 64 (9.32%) Problem-Solving
16 63 (9.17%) Service Delivery
17 59 (8.59%) Interaction Design
18 56 (8.15%) UX Design
19 54 (7.86%) Collaborative Working
Programming Languages
1 15 (2.18%) SQL
2 8 (1.16%) PowerShell
3 7 (1.02%) Bash
3 7 (1.02%) JavaScript
3 7 (1.02%) Python
4 5 (0.73%) C#
5 4 (0.58%) Java
6 3 (0.44%) T-SQL
7 2 (0.29%) Bicep
8 1 (0.15%) Data Analysis Expressions
8 1 (0.15%) Go
8 1 (0.15%) TypeScript
Qualifications
1 251 (36.54%) Security Cleared
2 173 (25.18%) SC Cleared
3 69 (10.04%) DV Cleared
4 45 (6.55%) BPSS Clearance
5 25 (3.64%) Degree
6 16 (2.33%) ITIL Certification
7 6 (0.87%) TOGAF Certification
8 5 (0.73%) AWS Certification
9 4 (0.58%) AWS Certified Solutions Architect
10 3 (0.44%) Azure Certification
10 3 (0.44%) Master's Degree
11 2 (0.29%) AWS Certified Cloud Practitioner
11 2 (0.29%) Cisco Certification
11 2 (0.29%) CISM
11 2 (0.29%) CISSP
11 2 (0.29%) CRISC
11 2 (0.29%) CTC Cleared
11 2 (0.29%) IIBA
11 2 (0.29%) PMI Certification
11 2 (0.29%) SANS
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 107 (15.57%) Accessibility
2 24 (3.49%) ISO/IEC 20000
3 23 (3.35%) WCAG
4 20 (2.91%) QA
5 16 (2.33%) SLA
6 14 (2.04%) Actionable Recommendations
7 12 (1.75%) Data Quality
7 12 (1.75%) NCSC
8 7 (1.02%) Government Security Classifications
9 6 (0.87%) GDPR
10 5 (0.73%) PMO
11 3 (0.44%) ISO/IEC 27001
11 3 (0.44%) ISO/IEC 42001
11 3 (0.44%) NIST
12 2 (0.29%) COBIT
12 2 (0.29%) Cyber Essentials
12 2 (0.29%) GRC
13 1 (0.15%) ISO 31000
13 1 (0.15%) ISO 9001
System Software
1 15 (2.18%) IAG
2 5 (0.73%) Docker
3 4 (0.58%) Active Directory
4 3 (0.44%) EMC RecoverPoint
4 3 (0.44%) Virtual Machines
5 2 (0.29%) Virtual Desktop
5 2 (0.29%) VMware NSX
6 1 (0.15%) VMware Infrastructure
Systems Management
1 19 (2.77%) Ansible
2 14 (2.04%) Kubernetes
3 9 (1.31%) Terraform
4 3 (0.44%) Avamar
4 3 (0.44%) EMC VPLEX
5 2 (0.29%) Grafana
5 2 (0.29%) Istio
5 2 (0.29%) Prometheus
5 2 (0.29%) Single Sign-On
6 1 (0.15%) Argo
6 1 (0.15%) Microsoft Intune
6 1 (0.15%) Network Intrusion Detection System
6 1 (0.15%) Progress Chef
6 1 (0.15%) Puppet
6 1 (0.15%) SysTrack
Vendors
1 60 (8.73%) ServiceNow
2 31 (4.51%) Microsoft
3 10 (1.46%) Nexthink
4 9 (1.31%) Cisco
4 9 (1.31%) SAP
5 8 (1.16%) Dynatrace
6 7 (1.02%) Adobe
7 6 (0.87%) Foundry
7 6 (0.87%) Oracle
7 6 (0.87%) Salesforce
8 5 (0.73%) F5
8 5 (0.73%) Google
8 5 (0.73%) Sparx
9 4 (0.58%) BMC
9 4 (0.58%) IBM
9 4 (0.58%) Virgin Media
10 3 (0.44%) Brocade
10 3 (0.44%) EMC
10 3 (0.44%) NetApp
10 3 (0.44%) VMware