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

6 months to
4 Jun 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 184 272 238
Rank change year-on-year +88 -34 -66
Contract jobs citing Service Design 615 219 367
As % of all contract jobs in England 1.47% 0.91% 1.00%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 1.73% 1.00% 1.17%
Number of daily rates quoted 455 161 238
10th Percentile £385 £400 £400
25th Percentile £439 £463 £463
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £550 £550
Median % change year-on-year -9.09% - -3.08%
75th Percentile £593 £638 £625
90th Percentile £700 £713 £729
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 35,523 21,911 31,466
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in England 85.02% 91.34% 85.66%
Number of daily rates quoted 22,505 14,200 20,503
10th Percentile £325 £303 £300
25th Percentile £413 £409 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £515 £523 £525
Median % change year-on-year -1.55% -0.36% -4.55%
75th Percentile £623 £638 £650
90th Percentile £725 £750 £750
UK median daily rate £513 £513 £525
% change year-on-year - -2.38% -4.55%
Number of hourly rates quoted 2,228 974 2,317
10th Percentile £15.25 £14.20 £12.83
25th Percentile £20.69 £18.10 £16.00
Median hourly rate £47.00 £28.53 £37.50
Median % change year-on-year +64.77% -23.93% +0.54%
75th Percentile £68.00 £59.75 £61.30
90th Percentile £82.00 £75.00 £72.50
UK median hourly rate £42.71 £27.64 £36.50
% change year-on-year +54.50% -24.27% +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 4 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 4 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 4 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 +56 267 £520 -5.45% 101
North of England +11 124 £478 +0.53% 31
South East +1 88 £525 -12.50% 24
Midlands +5 74 £478 -8.95% 9
West Midlands +3 71 £475 -9.52% 7
Yorkshire -11 56 £525 -17.65% 16
North West -5 49 £475 - 12
South West -22 37 £563 -4.26% 14
North East -11 20 £420 -18.05% 3
East of England -32 6 £525 -22.22% 9
East Midlands - 3 £525 - 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 24 (3.90%) Confluence
2 11 (1.79%) SharePoint
3 6 (0.98%) LiveCycle
4 5 (0.81%) CMS
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%) Appian
6 1 (0.16%) Mule
6 1 (0.16%) Oracle Application Server
6 1 (0.16%) Tomcat
Applications
1 18 (2.93%) Microsoft Excel
2 11 (1.79%) Microsoft PowerPoint
3 8 (1.30%) MS Visio
4 6 (0.98%) Microsoft Office
4 6 (0.98%) Sketch
5 4 (0.65%) Adobe XD
5 4 (0.65%) Chatbot
6 3 (0.49%) Adobe Creative Suite
6 3 (0.49%) InVision
6 3 (0.49%) Microsoft Project
7 2 (0.33%) Trello
7 2 (0.33%) Zeplin
Business Applications
1 4 (0.65%) Dynamics CRM
1 4 (0.65%) SAP S/4HANA
1 4 (0.65%) Sparx Enterprise Architect
2 1 (0.16%) Adobe Campaign
2 1 (0.16%) NetSuite
2 1 (0.16%) Oracle EBS
Cloud Services
1 33 (5.37%) Figma
2 32 (5.20%) Azure
3 29 (4.72%) AWS
4 15 (2.44%) Microsoft 365
4 15 (2.44%) Power Platform
5 14 (2.28%) SaaS
6 12 (1.95%) Miro
7 7 (1.14%) Microsoft Copilot
8 5 (0.81%) Azure AI
9 4 (0.65%) Datadog
9 4 (0.65%) Entra ID
9 4 (0.65%) GitHub
10 3 (0.49%) Dynamics 365
10 3 (0.49%) GCP
10 3 (0.49%) OCI
10 3 (0.49%) OneDrive
10 3 (0.49%) OpenShift
10 3 (0.49%) PaaS
10 3 (0.49%) PowerApps
10 3 (0.49%) Serverless
Communications & Networking
1 6 (0.98%) Firewall
2 5 (0.81%) Cisco Nexus
3 3 (0.49%) 3GPP
3 3 (0.49%) BGP
3 3 (0.49%) NX-OS
3 3 (0.49%) OSPF
3 3 (0.49%) VLAN
3 3 (0.49%) VPN
3 3 (0.49%) VXLAN
3 3 (0.49%) Wireless
4 2 (0.33%) 2G
4 2 (0.33%) 3G
4 2 (0.33%) 5G
4 2 (0.33%) Broadband
4 2 (0.33%) Diameter Protocol
4 2 (0.33%) Radio Access Network
4 2 (0.33%) SS7
4 2 (0.33%) TETRA
4 2 (0.33%) WAN
4 2 (0.33%) Wi-Fi
Database & Business Intelligence
1 11 (1.79%) Power BI
2 4 (0.65%) Electronic Patient Records
2 4 (0.65%) SQL Server
3 3 (0.49%) Metadata
4 2 (0.33%) BigQuery
4 2 (0.33%) Looker
4 2 (0.33%) Oracle Reports
4 2 (0.33%) SQL Server Integration Services
5 1 (0.16%) Amazon RDS
5 1 (0.16%) EDRMS
5 1 (0.16%) Oracle Exadata
5 1 (0.16%) Power Query
5 1 (0.16%) Tableau
Development Applications
1 32 (5.20%) JIRA
2 8 (1.30%) Jenkins
3 5 (0.81%) GitLab
4 4 (0.65%) Git
5 2 (0.33%) Appium
5 2 (0.33%) Axure RP
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 (30.24%) Public Sector
2 182 (29.59%) Social Skills
3 78 (12.68%) Finance
4 39 (6.34%) Analytical Skills
5 27 (4.39%) Influencing Skills
6 22 (3.58%) Presentation Skills
7 18 (2.93%) Legal
8 17 (2.76%) Banking
8 17 (2.76%) Telecoms
9 16 (2.60%) Retail
10 13 (2.11%) Documentation Skills
10 13 (2.11%) Local Government
11 12 (1.95%) Military
12 10 (1.63%) Organisational Skills
13 9 (1.46%) Law
14 6 (0.98%) Financial Institution
15 5 (0.81%) Marketing
16 4 (0.65%) Police
17 3 (0.49%) Inclusion and Diversity
17 3 (0.49%) Social Science
Job Titles
1 247 (40.16%) Designer
2 192 (31.22%) Service Designer
3 77 (12.52%) Senior
4 72 (11.71%) Architect
5 70 (11.38%) Lead
6 60 (9.76%) Analyst
7 59 (9.59%) User Researcher
8 41 (6.67%) Business Analyst
9 40 (6.50%) Senior Designer
10 32 (5.20%) Lead Designer
11 31 (5.04%) Lead Service Designer
12 30 (4.88%) Senior Service Designer
13 28 (4.55%) Service Architect
14 22 (3.58%) Service Manager
15 17 (2.76%) Interaction Designer
16 15 (2.44%) Consultant
16 15 (2.44%) Senior User Researcher
16 15 (2.44%) Service Design Manager
17 14 (2.28%) Service Analyst
18 13 (2.11%) Transition Manager
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 15 (2.44%) REST
2 11 (1.79%) SOAP
3 9 (1.46%) HTML
4 6 (0.98%) RESTful
5 5 (0.81%) .NET
5 5 (0.81%) CSS
5 5 (0.81%) Web Services
6 4 (0.65%) Microsoft Graph
6 4 (0.65%) Spring
6 4 (0.65%) Spring Boot
7 3 (0.49%) AngularJS
7 3 (0.49%) SAML
7 3 (0.49%) STL
7 3 (0.49%) VML
8 2 (0.33%) Middleware
8 2 (0.33%) Node.js
8 2 (0.33%) OAuth
8 2 (0.33%) Oracle Fusion
8 2 (0.33%) React Native
8 2 (0.33%) TanStack
Miscellaneous
1 41 (6.67%) Onboarding
2 38 (6.18%) Product Ownership
3 27 (4.39%) NHS
4 19 (3.09%) CMDB
5 15 (2.44%) Legacy Systems
6 11 (1.79%) Data Centre
7 9 (1.46%) AI Agents
8 7 (1.14%) Cloud Native
8 7 (1.14%) Data Protection Act
8 7 (1.14%) Management Information System
9 6 (0.98%) Hybrid Cloud
10 5 (0.81%) Security Posture
10 5 (0.81%) Virtual Team
11 4 (0.65%) Analytical Mindset
11 4 (0.65%) Mobile App
11 4 (0.65%) Self-Motivation
11 4 (0.65%) Taxonomies
12 3 (0.49%) PMI
12 3 (0.49%) Public Cloud
12 3 (0.49%) Replication
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
1 231 (37.56%) Agile
2 179 (29.11%) User Research
3 118 (19.19%) User-Centered Design (UCD)
4 115 (18.70%) ITIL
5 99 (16.10%) Stakeholder Engagement
5 99 (16.10%) Stakeholder Management
6 96 (15.61%) Workshop Facilitation
7 95 (15.45%) User Experience
8 93 (15.12%) Journey Map
9 92 (14.96%) Continuous Improvement
10 86 (13.98%) Roadmaps
11 80 (13.01%) Decision-Making
12 65 (10.57%) Service Management
13 62 (10.08%) UX Design
14 56 (9.11%) Interaction Design
15 54 (8.78%) Prototyping
16 53 (8.62%) Collaborative Working
17 50 (8.13%) ITSM
18 48 (7.80%) Usability Testing
19 45 (7.32%) Problem-Solving
Programming Languages
1 12 (1.95%) SQL
2 8 (1.30%) PowerShell
3 7 (1.14%) Java
3 7 (1.14%) JavaScript
4 6 (0.98%) Python
5 5 (0.81%) Bash
6 4 (0.65%) C#
6 4 (0.65%) T-SQL
7 3 (0.49%) Kusto Query Language
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
1 192 (31.22%) Security Cleared
2 138 (22.44%) SC Cleared
3 52 (8.46%) DV Cleared
4 37 (6.02%) BPSS Clearance
5 27 (4.39%) Degree
6 14 (2.28%) ITIL Certification
7 4 (0.65%) AWS Certification
7 4 (0.65%) CISM
7 4 (0.65%) CISSP
7 4 (0.65%) PMI Certification
7 4 (0.65%) TOGAF 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%) (ISC)2 CCSP
10 1 (0.16%) CESG Certified Professional
10 1 (0.16%) Master's Degree
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 111 (18.05%) Accessibility
2 21 (3.41%) WCAG
3 12 (1.95%) ISO/IEC 20000
4 11 (1.79%) Data Quality
4 11 (1.79%) SLA
5 10 (1.63%) Actionable Recommendations
5 10 (1.63%) QA
6 9 (1.46%) GDPR
6 9 (1.46%) NCSC
7 7 (1.14%) Government Security Classifications
8 5 (0.81%) PMO
9 4 (0.65%) ISO/IEC 27001
10 3 (0.49%) COBIT
10 3 (0.49%) ISO/IEC 42001
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
System Software
1 4 (0.65%) Docker
2 3 (0.49%) IAG
3 2 (0.33%) Active Directory
3 2 (0.33%) EMC RecoverPoint
3 2 (0.33%) Virtual Desktop
3 2 (0.33%) Virtual Machines
4 1 (0.16%) VMware NSX
Systems Management
1 9 (1.46%) Ansible
2 7 (1.14%) Kubernetes
3 4 (0.65%) Terraform
4 3 (0.49%) Single Sign-On
4 3 (0.49%) vRealize
5 2 (0.33%) Avamar
5 2 (0.33%) EMC VPLEX
6 1 (0.16%) Grafana
6 1 (0.16%) Prometheus
6 1 (0.16%) SysTrack
6 1 (0.16%) VxRail
Vendors
1 39 (6.34%) ServiceNow
2 34 (5.53%) Microsoft
3 11 (1.79%) Adobe
4 8 (1.30%) SAP
5 7 (1.14%) Cisco
5 7 (1.14%) Oracle
6 5 (0.81%) Salesforce
6 5 (0.81%) VMware
7 4 (0.65%) Foundry
7 4 (0.65%) Google
7 4 (0.65%) Sparx
7 4 (0.65%) Virgin Media
7 4 (0.65%) Workday
8 3 (0.49%) F5
9 2 (0.33%) 3PAR
9 2 (0.33%) Aruba
9 2 (0.33%) Brocade
9 2 (0.33%) Isilon
9 2 (0.33%) Red Hat
9 2 (0.33%) Veeam