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

6 months to
26 May 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 178 278 224
Rank change year-on-year +100 -54 -51
Contract jobs citing Service Design 613 210 377
As % of all contract jobs in England 1.48% 0.88% 1.03%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 1.74% 0.97% 1.20%
Number of daily rates quoted 459 151 247
10th Percentile £381 £400 £400
25th Percentile £431 £463 £461
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £515 £550 £550
Median % change year-on-year -6.36% - -2.22%
75th Percentile £600 £638 £625
90th Percentile £729 £725 £725
UK median daily rate £515 £535 £530
% change year-on-year -3.74% +0.94% -3.64%
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 35,194 21,730 31,440
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in England 84.78% 91.29% 86.04%
Number of daily rates quoted 22,373 14,199 20,591
10th Percentile £325 £305 £300
25th Percentile £413 £410 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £513 £525 £525
Median % change year-on-year -2.38% - -4.55%
75th Percentile £620 £638 £650
90th Percentile £725 £750 £750
UK median daily rate £510 £513 £525
% change year-on-year -0.49% -2.38% -4.55%
Number of hourly rates quoted 2,179 923 2,284
10th Percentile £15.25 £14.22 £12.86
25th Percentile £20.50 £18.13 £15.99
Median hourly rate £45.59 £28.00 £36.50
Median % change year-on-year +62.80% -23.29% -2.67%
75th Percentile £68.00 £60.00 £61.11
90th Percentile £81.01 £75.00 £72.50
UK median hourly rate £42.28 £27.45 £36.00
% change year-on-year +54.01% -23.75% -3.49%

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 26 May 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 26 May 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 26 May 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 +51 260 £523 -4.91% 76
North of England +13 114 £494 -3.71% 28
South East +3 88 £525 -12.50% 20
Midlands +3 73 £481 -8.38% 12
West Midlands -2 70 £478 -8.95% 8
South West -7 51 £600 +4.35% 11
Yorkshire -13 48 £550 -13.73% 14
North West -7 46 £463 -2.63% 13
North East -3 21 £420 -18.05% 1
East of England -36 6 £525 -22.22% 8
East Midlands - 3 £525 - 4
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 34 (5.55%) Confluence
2 13 (2.12%) SharePoint
3 6 (0.98%) LiveCycle
4 4 (0.65%) CMS
5 2 (0.33%) Appian
5 2 (0.33%) Drupal
5 2 (0.33%) Microsoft Exchange
6 1 (0.16%) Anypoint
6 1 (0.16%) Apache Solr
6 1 (0.16%) Mule
6 1 (0.16%) Oracle Application Server
6 1 (0.16%) Tomcat
Applications
1 18 (2.94%) Microsoft Excel
1 18 (2.94%) Microsoft Office
2 13 (2.12%) Microsoft Project
3 11 (1.79%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 8 (1.31%) MS Visio
5 7 (1.14%) Sketch
6 5 (0.82%) Adobe XD
7 4 (0.65%) Chatbot
7 4 (0.65%) InVision
8 3 (0.49%) Adobe Creative Suite
8 3 (0.49%) Trello
9 2 (0.33%) Zeplin
10 1 (0.16%) Adobe After Effects
Business Applications
1 4 (0.65%) Dynamics CRM
1 4 (0.65%) SAP S/4HANA
2 3 (0.49%) Sparx Enterprise Architect
3 1 (0.16%) Adobe Campaign
3 1 (0.16%) NetSuite
3 1 (0.16%) Oracle EBS
Cloud Services
1 31 (5.06%) Azure
2 30 (4.89%) Figma
3 27 (4.40%) AWS
4 17 (2.77%) Power Platform
5 15 (2.45%) SaaS
6 10 (1.63%) Microsoft 365
7 7 (1.14%) Miro
8 4 (0.65%) Datadog
8 4 (0.65%) Entra ID
8 4 (0.65%) GCP
8 4 (0.65%) GitHub
8 4 (0.65%) Google Analytics
8 4 (0.65%) IaaS
8 4 (0.65%) Microsoft Copilot
8 4 (0.65%) PaaS
8 4 (0.65%) Power Automate
9 3 (0.49%) Dynamics 365
9 3 (0.49%) Google Tag Manager
9 3 (0.49%) OneDrive
9 3 (0.49%) OpenShift
Communications & Networking
1 5 (0.82%) Cisco Nexus
1 5 (0.82%) Firewall
2 3 (0.49%) 3GPP
2 3 (0.49%) BGP
2 3 (0.49%) NX-OS
2 3 (0.49%) OSPF
2 3 (0.49%) VLAN
2 3 (0.49%) VPN
2 3 (0.49%) VXLAN
3 2 (0.33%) 2G
3 2 (0.33%) 3G
3 2 (0.33%) 4G
3 2 (0.33%) 5G
3 2 (0.33%) Broadband
3 2 (0.33%) Diameter Protocol
3 2 (0.33%) Radio Access Network
3 2 (0.33%) SIGTRAN
3 2 (0.33%) SS7
3 2 (0.33%) TETRA
3 2 (0.33%) Wireless
Database & Business Intelligence
1 15 (2.45%) Power BI
2 4 (0.65%) Electronic Patient Records
2 4 (0.65%) SQL Server
3 3 (0.49%) BigQuery
3 3 (0.49%) Looker
3 3 (0.49%) Tableau
4 2 (0.33%) Metadata
4 2 (0.33%) Oracle Reports
4 2 (0.33%) SQL Server Integration Services
5 1 (0.16%) EDRMS
5 1 (0.16%) Oracle Exadata
5 1 (0.16%) Power Query
Development Applications
1 43 (7.01%) JIRA
2 7 (1.14%) Jenkins
3 4 (0.65%) GitLab
4 3 (0.49%) Axure RP
4 3 (0.49%) Git
5 2 (0.33%) Appium
5 2 (0.33%) Cucumber
5 2 (0.33%) Postman
5 2 (0.33%) Sonatype Nexus
5 2 (0.33%) Team Foundation Server
6 1 (0.16%) Artifactory
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
1 186 (30.34%) Social Skills
2 180 (29.36%) Public Sector
3 77 (12.56%) Finance
4 49 (7.99%) Analytical Skills
5 27 (4.40%) Influencing Skills
6 22 (3.59%) Military
7 21 (3.43%) Presentation Skills
8 19 (3.10%) Banking
9 18 (2.94%) Legal
10 17 (2.77%) Telecoms
11 14 (2.28%) Local Government
11 14 (2.28%) Retail
12 10 (1.63%) Documentation Skills
13 9 (1.47%) Organisational Skills
14 7 (1.14%) Law
15 6 (0.98%) Financial Institution
16 5 (0.82%) Inclusion and Diversity
16 5 (0.82%) Marketing
17 3 (0.49%) Back Office
17 3 (0.49%) Police
Job Titles
1 244 (39.80%) Designer
2 193 (31.48%) Service Designer
3 84 (13.70%) Architect
4 79 (12.89%) Senior
5 64 (10.44%) Lead
6 61 (9.95%) User Researcher
7 60 (9.79%) Analyst
8 41 (6.69%) Senior Designer
9 40 (6.53%) Business Analyst
10 39 (6.36%) Service Architect
11 33 (5.38%) Lead Designer
11 33 (5.38%) Senior Service Designer
12 32 (5.22%) Lead Service Designer
13 22 (3.59%) Service Manager
14 18 (2.94%) Interaction Designer
15 15 (2.45%) Senior User Researcher
16 13 (2.12%) Consultant
16 13 (2.12%) Service Analyst
16 13 (2.12%) Service Design Manager
17 12 (1.96%) Solutions Architect
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 15 (2.45%) REST
2 11 (1.79%) HTML
2 11 (1.79%) SOAP
3 6 (0.98%) CSS
3 6 (0.98%) RESTful
4 5 (0.82%) .NET
4 5 (0.82%) Spring
4 5 (0.82%) Spring Boot
4 5 (0.82%) Web Services
5 4 (0.65%) Microsoft Graph
6 3 (0.49%) AngularJS
6 3 (0.49%) Middleware
6 3 (0.49%) SAML
6 3 (0.49%) STL
7 2 (0.33%) Node.js
7 2 (0.33%) OAuth
7 2 (0.33%) Oracle Fusion
7 2 (0.33%) React Native
7 2 (0.33%) TanStack
7 2 (0.33%) VML
Miscellaneous
1 48 (7.83%) Product Ownership
2 39 (6.36%) Onboarding
3 25 (4.08%) NHS
4 16 (2.61%) CMDB
5 15 (2.45%) Legacy Systems
6 11 (1.79%) Data Centre
7 9 (1.47%) AI Agents
8 8 (1.31%) Cloud Native
9 7 (1.14%) Data Protection Act
9 7 (1.14%) Hybrid Cloud
9 7 (1.14%) Management Information System
10 5 (0.82%) Security Posture
11 4 (0.65%) Mobile App
11 4 (0.65%) Self-Motivation
11 4 (0.65%) Virtual Team
12 3 (0.49%) Analytical Mindset
12 3 (0.49%) Hackathon
12 3 (0.49%) IVR
12 3 (0.49%) PMI
12 3 (0.49%) Taxonomies
Operating Systems
1 4 (0.65%) Windows
2 2 (0.33%) Android
2 2 (0.33%) Apple iOS
3 1 (0.16%) Linux
3 1 (0.16%) MVS
3 1 (0.16%) Unix
Processes & Methodologies
1 238 (38.83%) Agile
2 179 (29.20%) User Research
3 129 (21.04%) ITIL
4 119 (19.41%) User-Centered Design (UCD)
5 99 (16.15%) Stakeholder Management
6 96 (15.66%) Stakeholder Engagement
7 94 (15.33%) User Experience
8 93 (15.17%) Workshop Facilitation
9 90 (14.68%) Journey Map
10 89 (14.52%) Continuous Improvement
10 89 (14.52%) Roadmaps
11 83 (13.54%) Decision-Making
12 76 (12.40%) Service Management
13 60 (9.79%) UX Design
14 57 (9.30%) Interaction Design
15 55 (8.97%) Collaborative Working
15 55 (8.97%) Prototyping
16 53 (8.65%) Service Delivery
17 51 (8.32%) ITSM
18 48 (7.83%) Problem-Solving
Programming Languages
1 13 (2.12%) SQL
2 8 (1.31%) Java
2 8 (1.31%) PowerShell
3 7 (1.14%) JavaScript
4 6 (0.98%) Python
5 4 (0.65%) Bash
5 4 (0.65%) C#
5 4 (0.65%) T-SQL
6 3 (0.49%) Kusto Query Language
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%) R
7 1 (0.16%) Scala
Qualifications
1 199 (32.46%) Security Cleared
2 147 (23.98%) SC Cleared
3 52 (8.48%) DV Cleared
4 38 (6.20%) Degree
5 36 (5.87%) BPSS Clearance
6 14 (2.28%) ITIL Certification
6 14 (2.28%) TOGAF Certification
7 4 (0.65%) AWS Certification
7 4 (0.65%) CISM
7 4 (0.65%) CISSP
7 4 (0.65%) PMI Certification
8 3 (0.49%) AWS Certified Solutions Architect
8 3 (0.49%) CRISC
9 2 (0.33%) APMG
9 2 (0.33%) AWS Certified Cloud Practitioner
9 2 (0.33%) Computer Science Degree
9 2 (0.33%) IIBA
10 1 (0.16%) CBAP
10 1 (0.16%) CTC Cleared
10 1 (0.16%) Six Sigma Green Belt
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 112 (18.27%) Accessibility
2 21 (3.43%) WCAG
3 13 (2.12%) ISO/IEC 20000
4 12 (1.96%) QA
4 12 (1.96%) SLA
5 10 (1.63%) Actionable Recommendations
5 10 (1.63%) Data Quality
6 9 (1.47%) GDPR
6 9 (1.47%) NCSC
7 7 (1.14%) Government Security Classifications
8 5 (0.82%) PMO
9 4 (0.65%) ISO/IEC 27001
10 3 (0.49%) COBIT
10 3 (0.49%) NIST
11 2 (0.33%) Cyber Essentials
11 2 (0.33%) GRC
12 1 (0.16%) California Consumer Privacy Act
12 1 (0.16%) FINRA
12 1 (0.16%) ISO 31000
12 1 (0.16%) ISO/IEC 42001
System Software
1 3 (0.49%) Docker
1 3 (0.49%) IAG
2 2 (0.33%) EMC RecoverPoint
2 2 (0.33%) Virtual Desktop
2 2 (0.33%) Virtual Machines
2 2 (0.33%) VMware NSX
3 1 (0.16%) Active Directory
Systems Management
1 10 (1.63%) OPNET
2 8 (1.31%) Ansible
3 7 (1.14%) Kubernetes
4 4 (0.65%) Single Sign-On
5 3 (0.49%) Terraform
5 3 (0.49%) vRealize
6 2 (0.33%) Avamar
6 2 (0.33%) EMC VPLEX
7 1 (0.16%) Prometheus
7 1 (0.16%) SysTrack
7 1 (0.16%) VxRail
Vendors
1 47 (7.67%) ServiceNow
2 33 (5.38%) Microsoft
3 12 (1.96%) Adobe
4 10 (1.63%) Atlassian
4 10 (1.63%) Remedy
5 8 (1.31%) SAP
6 7 (1.14%) Cisco
6 7 (1.14%) Oracle
6 7 (1.14%) Salesforce
7 6 (0.98%) Google
7 6 (0.98%) VMware
8 4 (0.65%) Foundry
8 4 (0.65%) Virgin Media
8 4 (0.65%) Workday
9 3 (0.49%) F5
9 3 (0.49%) Palo Alto
9 3 (0.49%) Sparx
10 2 (0.33%) 3PAR
10 2 (0.33%) Aruba
10 2 (0.33%) Isilon