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

6 months to
10 Jun 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 176 264 229
Rank change year-on-year +88 -35 -57
Contract jobs citing Service Design 622 229 368
As % of all contract jobs in England 1.47% 0.94% 0.98%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 1.73% 1.02% 1.15%
Number of daily rates quoted 460 168 240
10th Percentile £400 £393 £400
25th Percentile £445 £463 £463
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £550 £550
Median % change year-on-year -9.01% -0.09% -2.65%
75th Percentile £595 £638 £625
90th Percentile £700 £700 £725
UK median daily rate £500 £525 £530
% change year-on-year -4.76% -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 35,948 22,351 32,031
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in England 85.10% 91.35% 85.47%
Number of daily rates quoted 22,764 14,463 20,809
10th Percentile £325 £303 £300
25th Percentile £413 £407 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £515 £520 £525
Median % change year-on-year -0.96% -0.95% -4.55%
75th Percentile £625 £638 £650
90th Percentile £725 £750 £750
UK median daily rate £513 £508 £525
% change year-on-year +0.99% -3.33% -4.55%
Number of hourly rates quoted 2,246 1,016 2,371
10th Percentile £15.25 £14.20 £12.81
25th Percentile £20.75 £18.12 £16.00
Median hourly rate £47.00 £28.00 £37.50
Median % change year-on-year +67.86% -25.33% +4.17%
75th Percentile £68.00 £58.75 £61.30
90th Percentile £82.25 £75.00 £72.50
UK median hourly rate £43.96 £27.28 £36.50
% change year-on-year +61.14% -25.26% +1.39%

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 10 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 10 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 10 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 +50 272 £520 -5.45% 72
North of England +10 125 £475 - 18
South East -8 88 £525 -12.50% 23
Midlands +3 73 £475 -3.80% 6
West Midlands +9 71 £475 -3.80% 5
Yorkshire -5 56 £500 -16.67% 12
North West -14 50 £475 - 4
South West -16 39 £575 +4.55% 7
North East -6 20 £420 -18.05% 2
East of England -24 5 £588 +6.82% 5
East Midlands - 2 £516 - 1
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 (3.86%) Confluence
2 12 (1.93%) SharePoint
3 6 (0.96%) CMS
3 6 (0.96%) 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 (2.73%) Microsoft Excel
2 11 (1.77%) Microsoft PowerPoint
3 9 (1.45%) MS Visio
4 6 (0.96%) Microsoft Office
4 6 (0.96%) Sketch
5 4 (0.64%) Adobe XD
5 4 (0.64%) Chatbot
6 3 (0.48%) Adobe Creative Suite
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 (0.64%) Dynamics CRM
1 4 (0.64%) SAP S/4HANA
1 4 (0.64%) Sparx Enterprise Architect
2 1 (0.16%) Adobe Campaign
2 1 (0.16%) NetSuite
2 1 (0.16%) Oracle EBS
Cloud Services
1 34 (5.47%) Azure
2 32 (5.14%) Figma
3 30 (4.82%) AWS
4 15 (2.41%) Microsoft 365
4 15 (2.41%) Power Platform
5 14 (2.25%) SaaS
6 13 (2.09%) Miro
7 7 (1.13%) Microsoft Copilot
8 5 (0.80%) Azure AI
8 5 (0.80%) GitHub
9 4 (0.64%) Datadog
9 4 (0.64%) Entra ID
9 4 (0.64%) OCI
10 3 (0.48%) GCP
10 3 (0.48%) OneDrive
10 3 (0.48%) OpenShift
10 3 (0.48%) PaaS
10 3 (0.48%) PowerApps
10 3 (0.48%) Serverless
11 2 (0.32%) Amazon S3
Communications & Networking
1 5 (0.80%) Cisco Nexus
1 5 (0.80%) Firewall
2 3 (0.48%) 3GPP
2 3 (0.48%) BGP
2 3 (0.48%) NX-OS
2 3 (0.48%) OSPF
2 3 (0.48%) VLAN
2 3 (0.48%) VPN
2 3 (0.48%) VXLAN
3 2 (0.32%) 2G
3 2 (0.32%) 3G
3 2 (0.32%) 5G
3 2 (0.32%) Broadband
3 2 (0.32%) Diameter Protocol
3 2 (0.32%) Network Security
3 2 (0.32%) Radio Access Network
3 2 (0.32%) SIGTRAN
3 2 (0.32%) SS7
3 2 (0.32%) TETRA
3 2 (0.32%) Wireless
Database & Business Intelligence
1 11 (1.77%) Power BI
2 4 (0.64%) Electronic Patient Records
2 4 (0.64%) Metadata
2 4 (0.64%) SQL Server
3 2 (0.32%) BigQuery
3 2 (0.32%) Looker
3 2 (0.32%) Oracle Reports
3 2 (0.32%) SQL Server Integration Services
4 1 (0.16%) Amazon RDS
4 1 (0.16%) Azure SQL Database
4 1 (0.16%) Data Lake
4 1 (0.16%) EDRMS
4 1 (0.16%) Geospatial Data
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 (4.66%) JIRA
2 8 (1.29%) Jenkins
3 4 (0.64%) Git
3 4 (0.64%) GitLab
4 2 (0.32%) Appium
4 2 (0.32%) Axure RP
4 2 (0.32%) Cucumber
4 2 (0.32%) Postman
4 2 (0.32%) Sonatype Nexus
4 2 (0.32%) Team Foundation Server
5 1 (0.16%) Artifactory
5 1 (0.16%) JUnit
5 1 (0.16%) Maven
5 1 (0.16%) Mockito
5 1 (0.16%) NUnit
5 1 (0.16%) REST Assured
5 1 (0.16%) Selenium
5 1 (0.16%) Subversion
5 1 (0.16%) VersionOne
General
1 189 (30.39%) Public Sector
2 179 (28.78%) Social Skills
3 77 (12.38%) Finance
4 38 (6.11%) Analytical Skills
5 27 (4.34%) Influencing Skills
6 24 (3.86%) Presentation Skills
7 17 (2.73%) Legal
7 17 (2.73%) Telecoms
8 16 (2.57%) Banking
8 16 (2.57%) Retail
9 14 (2.25%) Military
10 13 (2.09%) Documentation Skills
11 12 (1.93%) Local Government
12 10 (1.61%) Organisational Skills
13 9 (1.45%) Law
14 7 (1.13%) Financial Institution
15 4 (0.64%) Inclusion and Diversity
15 4 (0.64%) Police
16 3 (0.48%) Automotive
16 3 (0.48%) Social Science
Job Titles
1 245 (39.39%) Designer
2 192 (30.87%) Service Designer
3 75 (12.06%) Lead
3 75 (12.06%) Senior
4 74 (11.90%) Architect
5 61 (9.81%) User Researcher
6 60 (9.65%) Analyst
7 41 (6.59%) Business Analyst
8 37 (5.95%) Senior Designer
9 32 (5.14%) Lead Designer
10 31 (4.98%) Lead Service Designer
11 28 (4.50%) Service Architect
12 27 (4.34%) Senior Service Designer
13 21 (3.38%) Service Manager
14 19 (3.05%) Consultant
15 17 (2.73%) Interaction Designer
16 15 (2.41%) Senior User Researcher
16 15 (2.41%) Service Design Manager
17 14 (2.25%) Service Analyst
17 14 (2.25%) Solutions Architect
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 15 (2.41%) REST
2 12 (1.93%) SOAP
3 8 (1.29%) HTML
4 7 (1.13%) RESTful
5 6 (0.96%) Web Services
6 5 (0.80%) .NET
6 5 (0.80%) CSS
6 5 (0.80%) Spring Boot
7 4 (0.64%) Microsoft Graph
7 4 (0.64%) Spring
7 4 (0.64%) VML
8 3 (0.48%) AngularJS
8 3 (0.48%) Node.js
8 3 (0.48%) SAML
8 3 (0.48%) STL
9 2 (0.32%) Middleware
9 2 (0.32%) OAuth
9 2 (0.32%) Oracle Fusion
9 2 (0.32%) React Native
9 2 (0.32%) Swagger
Miscellaneous
1 42 (6.75%) Onboarding
2 39 (6.27%) Product Ownership
3 23 (3.70%) NHS
4 20 (3.22%) CMDB
5 15 (2.41%) Legacy Systems
6 12 (1.93%) Data Centre
7 9 (1.45%) Cloud Native
8 8 (1.29%) AI Agents
9 7 (1.13%) Data Protection Act
10 6 (0.96%) Hybrid Cloud
10 6 (0.96%) Management Information System
11 5 (0.80%) Security Posture
11 5 (0.80%) Taxonomies
11 5 (0.80%) Virtual Team
12 4 (0.64%) Analytical Mindset
12 4 (0.64%) Mobile App
12 4 (0.64%) Self-Motivation
13 3 (0.48%) Operational Technology
13 3 (0.48%) Public Cloud
13 3 (0.48%) Replication
Operating Systems
1 4 (0.64%) 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
1 231 (37.14%) Agile
2 177 (28.46%) User Research
3 121 (19.45%) ITIL
3 121 (19.45%) User-Centered Design (UCD)
4 102 (16.40%) Stakeholder Management
5 100 (16.08%) Stakeholder Engagement
6 96 (15.43%) Workshop Facilitation
7 92 (14.79%) User Experience
8 90 (14.47%) Continuous Improvement
9 89 (14.31%) Journey Map
10 88 (14.15%) Roadmaps
11 79 (12.70%) Decision-Making
12 70 (11.25%) Service Management
13 58 (9.32%) UX Design
14 57 (9.16%) Interaction Design
15 54 (8.68%) Collaborative Working
16 53 (8.52%) ITSM
17 51 (8.20%) Prototyping
18 46 (7.40%) Digital Transformation Programme
18 46 (7.40%) Usability Testing
Programming Languages
1 13 (2.09%) SQL
2 8 (1.29%) Java
2 8 (1.29%) PowerShell
3 7 (1.13%) JavaScript
4 6 (0.96%) Python
5 5 (0.80%) Bash
6 4 (0.64%) C#
6 4 (0.64%) T-SQL
7 3 (0.48%) Kusto Query Language
8 1 (0.16%) Bicep
8 1 (0.16%) Data Analysis Expressions
8 1 (0.16%) DataWeave
8 1 (0.16%) Groovy
8 1 (0.16%) PL/SQL
8 1 (0.16%) Scala
Qualifications
1 196 (31.51%) Security Cleared
2 142 (22.83%) SC Cleared
3 52 (8.36%) DV Cleared
4 37 (5.95%) BPSS Clearance
5 26 (4.18%) Degree
6 14 (2.25%) ITIL Certification
7 4 (0.64%) AWS Certification
7 4 (0.64%) 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
8 3 (0.48%) PMI Certification
9 2 (0.32%) APMG
9 2 (0.32%) AWS Certified Cloud Practitioner
9 2 (0.32%) IIBA
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
1 112 (18.01%) Accessibility
2 21 (3.38%) WCAG
3 13 (2.09%) SLA
4 12 (1.93%) ISO/IEC 20000
5 11 (1.77%) Data Quality
6 10 (1.61%) Actionable Recommendations
6 10 (1.61%) NCSC
6 10 (1.61%) QA
7 7 (1.13%) GDPR
7 7 (1.13%) Government Security Classifications
8 5 (0.80%) PMO
9 3 (0.48%) COBIT
9 3 (0.48%) ISO/IEC 27001
9 3 (0.48%) ISO/IEC 42001
9 3 (0.48%) NIST
10 2 (0.32%) Cyber Essentials
10 2 (0.32%) GRC
11 1 (0.16%) FINRA
11 1 (0.16%) ISO 31000
11 1 (0.16%) MiFID
System Software
1 5 (0.80%) Docker
2 3 (0.48%) IAG
3 2 (0.32%) Active Directory
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 9 (1.45%) Ansible
2 7 (1.13%) Kubernetes
3 5 (0.80%) Terraform
4 3 (0.48%) Single Sign-On
4 3 (0.48%) vRealize
5 2 (0.32%) Avamar
5 2 (0.32%) EMC VPLEX
6 1 (0.16%) Argo
6 1 (0.16%) Grafana
6 1 (0.16%) Prometheus
6 1 (0.16%) SysTrack
6 1 (0.16%) VxRail
Vendors
1 39 (6.27%) ServiceNow
2 32 (5.14%) Microsoft
3 11 (1.77%) Adobe
4 8 (1.29%) Oracle
4 8 (1.29%) SAP
5 6 (0.96%) Cisco
5 6 (0.96%) Salesforce
6 5 (0.80%) VMware
7 4 (0.64%) Foundry
7 4 (0.64%) Google
7 4 (0.64%) Sparx
7 4 (0.64%) Virgin Media
7 4 (0.64%) Workday
8 3 (0.48%) F5
8 3 (0.48%) IBM
8 3 (0.48%) Red Hat
9 2 (0.32%) 3PAR
9 2 (0.32%) Brocade
9 2 (0.32%) EMC
9 2 (0.32%) NetApp