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

6 months to
16 Jun 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 182 264 236
Rank change year-on-year +82 -28 -68
Contract jobs citing Service Design 630 235 368
As % of all contract jobs in England 1.47% 0.95% 0.98%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 1.73% 1.04% 1.15%
Number of daily rates quoted 469 171 241
10th Percentile £400 £400 £400
25th Percentile £445 £463 £463
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £540 £550
Median % change year-on-year -7.41% -1.82% -2.22%
75th Percentile £593 £638 £630
90th Percentile £700 £700 £725
UK median daily rate £500 £525 £538
% change year-on-year -4.76% -2.37% -2.23%
Number of hourly rates quoted 5 1 11
10th Percentile £40.99 - -
25th Percentile £60.33 £51.34 £17.80
Median hourly rate £95.50 £52.67 £33.07
Median % change year-on-year +81.32% +59.29% -42.50%
75th Percentile £103.25 £54.01 £34.53
90th Percentile £106.25 - £72.90
UK median hourly rate £95.50 £52.67 £33.07
% change year-on-year +81.32% +59.29% -42.50%

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 36,481 22,561 31,958
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in England 85.14% 91.35% 85.35%
Number of daily rates quoted 23,067 14,578 20,676
10th Percentile £325 £302 £300
25th Percentile £415 £406 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £518 £520 £525
Median % change year-on-year -0.46% -0.98% -4.55%
75th Percentile £625 £638 £650
90th Percentile £725 £750 £750
UK median daily rate £513 £506 £525
% change year-on-year +1.28% -3.62% -4.55%
Number of hourly rates quoted 2,283 1,053 2,381
10th Percentile £15.25 £14.20 £12.79
25th Percentile £20.81 £18.13 £16.06
Median hourly rate £47.00 £27.50 £37.50
Median % change year-on-year +70.91% -26.67% +7.05%
75th Percentile £68.00 £56.25 £61.30
90th Percentile £82.25 £75.00 £72.50
UK median hourly rate £43.96 £26.32 £37.18
% change year-on-year +67.02% -29.21% +6.23%

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 June 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 June 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 June 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 +51 276 £520 -5.45% 87
North of England +9 123 £475 - 29
South East +5 92 £525 -12.50% 30
Midlands +9 73 £475 -3.80% 6
West Midlands +7 71 £475 -3.80% 3
Yorkshire -9 54 £500 -11.11% 15
North West -16 50 £475 - 12
South West -22 37 £563 +3.45% 12
North East -17 20 £420 -20.00% 2
East of England -29 6 £525 -4.55% 7
East Midlands - 2 £516 - 3
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 24 (3.81%) Confluence
2 13 (2.06%) SharePoint
3 6 (0.95%) CMS
3 6 (0.95%) LiveCycle
4 2 (0.32%) Drupal
4 2 (0.32%) Microsoft Exchange
5 1 (0.16%) Anypoint
5 1 (0.16%) Apache Solr
5 1 (0.16%) Appian
5 1 (0.16%) Mule
5 1 (0.16%) Oracle Application Server
5 1 (0.16%) Oracle Coherence
5 1 (0.16%) Tomcat
Applications
1 17 (2.70%) Microsoft Excel
2 11 (1.75%) Microsoft PowerPoint
3 10 (1.59%) MS Visio
4 6 (0.95%) Microsoft Office
4 6 (0.95%) Sketch
5 4 (0.63%) Chatbot
6 3 (0.48%) Adobe Creative Suite
6 3 (0.48%) Adobe XD
6 3 (0.48%) InVision
6 3 (0.48%) Microsoft Project
7 2 (0.32%) Trello
7 2 (0.32%) Zeplin
Business Applications
1 4 (0.63%) SAP S/4HANA
1 4 (0.63%) Sparx Enterprise Architect
2 3 (0.48%) Dynamics CRM
3 1 (0.16%) Adobe Campaign
3 1 (0.16%) NetSuite
3 1 (0.16%) Oracle EBS
Cloud Services
1 35 (5.56%) Azure
2 32 (5.08%) AWS
3 30 (4.76%) Figma
4 16 (2.54%) SaaS
5 15 (2.38%) Microsoft 365
6 14 (2.22%) Power Platform
7 13 (2.06%) Miro
8 7 (1.11%) Microsoft Copilot
9 5 (0.79%) Azure AI
9 5 (0.79%) Entra ID
9 5 (0.79%) GitHub
10 4 (0.63%) Datadog
10 4 (0.63%) OCI
10 4 (0.63%) Serverless
11 3 (0.48%) AWS Lambda
11 3 (0.48%) GCP
11 3 (0.48%) Microsoft Purview
11 3 (0.48%) OneDrive
11 3 (0.48%) PowerApps
11 3 (0.48%) Virtual Private Cloud
Communications & Networking
1 5 (0.79%) Cisco Nexus
1 5 (0.79%) Firewall
2 3 (0.48%) 2G
2 3 (0.48%) 3G
2 3 (0.48%) 3GPP
2 3 (0.48%) 4G
2 3 (0.48%) BGP
2 3 (0.48%) Diameter Protocol
2 3 (0.48%) Network Security
2 3 (0.48%) NX-OS
2 3 (0.48%) OSPF
2 3 (0.48%) SIGTRAN
2 3 (0.48%) SS7
2 3 (0.48%) VLAN
2 3 (0.48%) VPN
2 3 (0.48%) VXLAN
3 2 (0.32%) 5G
3 2 (0.32%) Broadband
3 2 (0.32%) Radio Access Network
3 2 (0.32%) TETRA
Database & Business Intelligence
1 10 (1.59%) Power BI
2 4 (0.63%) Electronic Patient Records
2 4 (0.63%) Metadata
2 4 (0.63%) SQL Server
3 2 (0.32%) Amazon RDS
3 2 (0.32%) Oracle Reports
3 2 (0.32%) SQL Server Integration Services
4 1 (0.16%) Azure SQL Database
4 1 (0.16%) BigQuery
4 1 (0.16%) Data Lake
4 1 (0.16%) EDRMS
4 1 (0.16%) Geospatial Data
4 1 (0.16%) Looker
4 1 (0.16%) Oracle Database
4 1 (0.16%) Oracle Exadata
4 1 (0.16%) Power Query
4 1 (0.16%) Tableau
Development Applications
1 29 (4.60%) JIRA
2 8 (1.27%) Jenkins
3 5 (0.79%) Git
4 4 (0.63%) GitLab
5 2 (0.32%) Appium
5 2 (0.32%) Axure RP
5 2 (0.32%) Postman
5 2 (0.32%) Sonatype Nexus
5 2 (0.32%) Team Foundation Server
6 1 (0.16%) Artifactory
6 1 (0.16%) Cucumber
6 1 (0.16%) JUnit
6 1 (0.16%) Maven
6 1 (0.16%) Mockito
6 1 (0.16%) NUnit
6 1 (0.16%) REST Assured
6 1 (0.16%) Selenium
6 1 (0.16%) Subversion
6 1 (0.16%) VersionOne
General
1 188 (29.84%) Public Sector
2 184 (29.21%) Social Skills
3 81 (12.86%) Finance
4 40 (6.35%) Analytical Skills
5 29 (4.60%) Influencing Skills
6 25 (3.97%) Presentation Skills
7 19 (3.02%) Telecoms
8 18 (2.86%) Legal
9 17 (2.70%) Banking
9 17 (2.70%) Retail
10 14 (2.22%) Documentation Skills
10 14 (2.22%) Military
11 12 (1.90%) Local Government
12 10 (1.59%) Organisational Skills
13 9 (1.43%) Law
14 8 (1.27%) Financial Institution
15 5 (0.79%) Inclusion and Diversity
16 4 (0.63%) Police
17 3 (0.48%) Back Office
17 3 (0.48%) Social Science
Job Titles
1 247 (39.21%) Designer
2 194 (30.79%) Service Designer
3 76 (12.06%) Architect
3 76 (12.06%) Lead
4 71 (11.27%) Senior
5 64 (10.16%) User Researcher
6 59 (9.37%) Analyst
7 40 (6.35%) Business Analyst
8 36 (5.71%) Senior Designer
9 32 (5.08%) Lead Designer
10 31 (4.92%) Lead Service Designer
11 29 (4.60%) Service Architect
12 26 (4.13%) Senior Service Designer
13 24 (3.81%) Service Manager
14 20 (3.17%) Consultant
15 16 (2.54%) Interaction Designer
15 16 (2.54%) Service Transition Manager
15 16 (2.54%) Transition Manager
16 15 (2.38%) Senior User Researcher
16 15 (2.38%) Service Design Manager
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 14 (2.22%) REST
2 12 (1.90%) SOAP
3 8 (1.27%) HTML
4 7 (1.11%) RESTful
5 6 (0.95%) Web Services
6 5 (0.79%) .NET
6 5 (0.79%) CSS
6 5 (0.79%) Microsoft Graph
7 4 (0.63%) Spring Boot
8 3 (0.48%) Node.js
8 3 (0.48%) Spring
8 3 (0.48%) STL
8 3 (0.48%) VML
9 2 (0.32%) AngularJS
9 2 (0.32%) Middleware
9 2 (0.32%) NestJS
9 2 (0.32%) Oracle Fusion
9 2 (0.32%) React Native
9 2 (0.32%) SAML
9 2 (0.32%) Swagger
Miscellaneous
1 44 (6.98%) Onboarding
2 38 (6.03%) Product Ownership
3 23 (3.65%) NHS
4 20 (3.17%) CMDB
5 14 (2.22%) Legacy Systems
6 12 (1.90%) Data Centre
7 9 (1.43%) Cloud Native
8 8 (1.27%) AI Agents
9 7 (1.11%) Data Protection Act
10 6 (0.95%) Management Information System
11 5 (0.79%) Hybrid Cloud
11 5 (0.79%) Security Posture
11 5 (0.79%) Taxonomies
11 5 (0.79%) Virtual Team
12 4 (0.63%) Mobile App
12 4 (0.63%) Self-Motivation
13 3 (0.48%) Analytical Mindset
13 3 (0.48%) Hackathon
13 3 (0.48%) Operational Technology
13 3 (0.48%) Replication
Operating Systems
1 4 (0.63%) Windows
2 2 (0.32%) Android
2 2 (0.32%) Apple iOS
3 1 (0.16%) Linux
3 1 (0.16%) MVS
3 1 (0.16%) Unix
Processes & Methodologies
1 233 (36.98%) Agile
2 179 (28.41%) User Research
3 125 (19.84%) ITIL
4 119 (18.89%) User-Centered Design (UCD)
5 104 (16.51%) Stakeholder Management
6 101 (16.03%) Stakeholder Engagement
7 94 (14.92%) Workshop Facilitation
8 92 (14.60%) Continuous Improvement
9 90 (14.29%) Journey Map
9 90 (14.29%) User Experience
10 86 (13.65%) Roadmaps
11 82 (13.02%) Decision-Making
12 71 (11.27%) Service Management
13 58 (9.21%) UX Design
14 56 (8.89%) ITSM
15 55 (8.73%) Interaction Design
16 52 (8.25%) Collaborative Working
17 49 (7.78%) Prototyping
17 49 (7.78%) Usability Testing
18 46 (7.30%) Qualitative Research
Programming Languages
1 13 (2.06%) SQL
2 9 (1.43%) PowerShell
3 7 (1.11%) Java
3 7 (1.11%) JavaScript
3 7 (1.11%) Python
4 6 (0.95%) Bash
5 4 (0.63%) C#
5 4 (0.63%) T-SQL
6 3 (0.48%) Kusto Query Language
7 1 (0.16%) Bicep
7 1 (0.16%) Data Analysis Expressions
7 1 (0.16%) DataWeave
7 1 (0.16%) Groovy
7 1 (0.16%) PL/SQL
7 1 (0.16%) Scala
Qualifications
1 204 (32.38%) Security Cleared
2 150 (23.81%) SC Cleared
3 53 (8.41%) DV Cleared
4 37 (5.87%) BPSS Clearance
5 27 (4.29%) Degree
6 15 (2.38%) ITIL Certification
7 4 (0.63%) AWS Certification
7 4 (0.63%) TOGAF Certification
8 3 (0.48%) AWS Certified Solutions Architect
8 3 (0.48%) CISM
8 3 (0.48%) CISSP
8 3 (0.48%) CRISC
9 2 (0.32%) APMG
9 2 (0.32%) AWS Certified Cloud Practitioner
9 2 (0.32%) IIBA
9 2 (0.32%) PMI Certification
10 1 (0.16%) (ISC)2 CCSP
10 1 (0.16%) Azure Certification
10 1 (0.16%) Computer Science Degree
10 1 (0.16%) Master's Degree
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 111 (17.62%) Accessibility
2 22 (3.49%) WCAG
3 13 (2.06%) SLA
4 12 (1.90%) ISO/IEC 20000
5 11 (1.75%) Data Quality
5 11 (1.75%) NCSC
6 10 (1.59%) Actionable Recommendations
6 10 (1.59%) QA
7 7 (1.11%) GDPR
7 7 (1.11%) Government Security Classifications
8 5 (0.79%) PMO
9 4 (0.63%) ISO/IEC 27001
10 3 (0.48%) COBIT
10 3 (0.48%) ISO/IEC 42001
10 3 (0.48%) NIST
11 2 (0.32%) Cyber Essentials
11 2 (0.32%) GRC
12 1 (0.16%) FINRA
12 1 (0.16%) ISO 31000
12 1 (0.16%) MiFID
System Software
1 6 (0.95%) Docker
2 3 (0.48%) Active Directory
2 3 (0.48%) IAG
3 2 (0.32%) EMC RecoverPoint
3 2 (0.32%) Virtual Desktop
3 2 (0.32%) Virtual Machines
4 1 (0.16%) VMware NSX
Systems Management
1 10 (1.59%) Ansible
2 7 (1.11%) Kubernetes
2 7 (1.11%) Terraform
3 3 (0.48%) vRealize
4 2 (0.32%) Avamar
4 2 (0.32%) EMC VPLEX
4 2 (0.32%) Grafana
4 2 (0.32%) Prometheus
4 2 (0.32%) Single Sign-On
5 1 (0.16%) Argo
5 1 (0.16%) Microsoft Intune
5 1 (0.16%) SysTrack
5 1 (0.16%) VxRail
Vendors
1 43 (6.83%) ServiceNow
2 34 (5.40%) Microsoft
3 10 (1.59%) Adobe
4 8 (1.27%) Oracle
4 8 (1.27%) SAP
5 6 (0.95%) Cisco
5 6 (0.95%) Salesforce
6 5 (0.79%) VMware
7 4 (0.63%) Foundry
7 4 (0.63%) Sparx
7 4 (0.63%) Virgin Media
7 4 (0.63%) Workday
8 3 (0.48%) F5
8 3 (0.48%) Google
8 3 (0.48%) IBM
9 2 (0.32%) 3PAR
9 2 (0.32%) Brocade
9 2 (0.32%) EMC
9 2 (0.32%) NetApp
9 2 (0.32%) Red Hat