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

6 months to
19 Aug 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 184 213 269
Rank change year-on-year +29 +56 -86
Contract jobs citing Service Design 690 336 276
As % of all contract jobs in England 1.51% 1.22% 0.83%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 1.78% 1.34% 0.97%
Number of daily rates quoted 492 250 176
10th Percentile £406 £400 £419
25th Percentile £456 £451 £500
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £515 £538 £550
Median % change year-on-year -4.19% -2.27% -3.08%
75th Percentile £588 £629 £650
90th Percentile £725 £684 £750
UK median daily rate £513 £525 £550
% change year-on-year -2.38% -4.55% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 11 2 6
10th Percentile £15.89 £53.35 -
25th Percentile £21.99 £56.36 -
Median hourly rate £65.40 £62.06 £17.80
Median % change year-on-year +5.38% +248.65% -69.04%
75th Percentile £102.13 £67.09 £26.14
90th Percentile £103.25 £69.71 £31.34
UK median hourly rate £65.40 £62.06 £17.80
% change year-on-year +5.38% +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 38,841 25,050 28,543
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in England 84.95% 90.82% 85.85%
Number of daily rates quoted 24,105 15,945 18,525
10th Percentile £325 £300 £313
25th Percentile £425 £404 £425
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £511 £525
Median % change year-on-year +2.68% -2.61% -4.55%
75th Percentile £630 £626 £650
90th Percentile £738 £738 £756
UK median daily rate £525 £500 £525
% change year-on-year +5.00% -4.76% -3.58%
Number of hourly rates quoted 2,548 1,450 1,590
10th Percentile £14.25 £14.20 £14.12
25th Percentile £19.25 £17.87 £18.14
Median hourly rate £43.96 £25.15 £43.00
Median % change year-on-year +74.79% -41.51% +5.81%
75th Percentile £68.00 £50.75 £65.00
90th Percentile £81.45 £70.00 £75.00
UK median hourly rate £41.56 £25.15 £40.94
% change year-on-year +65.23% -38.57% +0.61%

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 19 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 19 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 19 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 +28 304 £525 -4.55% 143
South East -12 131 £531 -1.19% 28
North of England -4 127 £475 - 83
Yorkshire +7 62 £480 -6.34% 28
Midlands +4 57 £478 +6.22% 34
West Midlands -15 53 £487 +8.11% 31
North West -41 42 £475 - 44
South West -38 39 £575 +4.55% 35
North East -20 23 £420 -18.05% 11
East of England -32 7 £525 -4.55% 14
East Midlands - 4 £425 - 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 29 (4.20%) Confluence
2 12 (1.74%) SharePoint
3 8 (1.16%) CMS
4 5 (0.72%) LiveCycle
5 1 (0.14%) Apache Solr
5 1 (0.14%) Drupal
5 1 (0.14%) nginx
5 1 (0.14%) Oracle Coherence
5 1 (0.14%) Tomcat
5 1 (0.14%) Umbraco
Applications
1 11 (1.59%) MS Visio
2 8 (1.16%) Microsoft Excel
3 6 (0.87%) Microsoft PowerPoint
3 6 (0.87%) Sketch
4 4 (0.58%) Adobe XD
5 3 (0.43%) Microsoft Project
6 2 (0.29%) Chatbot
6 2 (0.29%) Microsoft Office
6 2 (0.29%) Trello
7 1 (0.14%) Gliffy
7 1 (0.14%) InVision
Business Applications
1 5 (0.72%) Sparx Enterprise Architect
2 2 (0.29%) Dynamics CRM
3 1 (0.14%) Adobe Campaign
3 1 (0.14%) Exchequer
3 1 (0.14%) Remedy ITSM
3 1 (0.14%) Salesforce CRM
3 1 (0.14%) SAP CX
Cloud Services
1 54 (7.83%) Azure
2 50 (7.25%) AWS
3 31 (4.49%) SaaS
4 29 (4.20%) Figma
5 14 (2.03%) GitHub
5 14 (2.03%) Microsoft 365
5 14 (2.03%) Miro
6 13 (1.88%) Amazon CloudWatch
6 13 (1.88%) Datadog
6 13 (1.88%) Power Platform
7 12 (1.74%) Azure Monitor
8 8 (1.16%) Microsoft Copilot
8 8 (1.16%) Serverless
9 6 (0.87%) AWS Lambda
9 6 (0.87%) Azure AI
10 5 (0.72%) Amazon S3
10 5 (0.72%) Azure DevOps
10 5 (0.72%) PowerApps
11 4 (0.58%) Entra ID
11 4 (0.58%) GCP
Communications & Networking
1 8 (1.16%) Firewall
2 7 (1.01%) Cisco Nexus
3 5 (0.72%) 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
4 4 (0.58%) WAN
5 3 (0.43%) 3GPP
5 3 (0.43%) NX-OS
5 3 (0.43%) VLAN
6 2 (0.29%) Broadband
6 2 (0.29%) LAN
6 2 (0.29%) TCP/IP
Database & Business Intelligence
1 7 (1.01%) Power BI
2 6 (0.87%) Metadata
3 4 (0.58%) Electronic Patient Records
3 4 (0.58%) SQL Server
4 3 (0.43%) Amazon RDS
5 2 (0.29%) Azure SQL Database
5 2 (0.29%) DynamoDB
5 2 (0.29%) Geospatial Data
5 2 (0.29%) Oracle Reports
5 2 (0.29%) SQL Server Integration Services
6 1 (0.14%) Data Lake
6 1 (0.14%) Data Warehouse
6 1 (0.14%) Looker
6 1 (0.14%) MongoDB
6 1 (0.14%) Oracle Database
6 1 (0.14%) PostgreSQL
6 1 (0.14%) Power Query
6 1 (0.14%) Redis
6 1 (0.14%) Relational Database
6 1 (0.14%) Tableau
Development Applications
1 31 (4.49%) JIRA
2 7 (1.01%) Git
2 7 (1.01%) Jenkins
3 3 (0.43%) GitLab
3 3 (0.43%) Sonatype Nexus
3 3 (0.43%) Team Foundation Server
4 2 (0.29%) Appium
4 2 (0.29%) Postman
5 1 (0.14%) Artifactory
5 1 (0.14%) Atlassian Bamboo
5 1 (0.14%) Bitbucket
5 1 (0.14%) Maven
5 1 (0.14%) NUnit
5 1 (0.14%) REST Assured
5 1 (0.14%) Selenium
5 1 (0.14%) Subversion
5 1 (0.14%) Terragrunt
5 1 (0.14%) VersionOne
5 1 (0.14%) Vite
General
1 223 (32.32%) Social Skills
2 199 (28.84%) Public Sector
3 95 (13.77%) Finance
4 66 (9.57%) Analytical Skills
5 54 (7.83%) Influencing Skills
6 25 (3.62%) Documentation Skills
7 21 (3.04%) Banking
8 19 (2.75%) Military
9 18 (2.61%) Presentation Skills
10 17 (2.46%) Retail
10 17 (2.46%) Telecoms
11 15 (2.17%) Local Government
11 15 (2.17%) Organisational Skills
12 12 (1.74%) Legal
13 8 (1.16%) Financial Institution
13 8 (1.16%) Inclusion and Diversity
14 6 (0.87%) Back Office
15 5 (0.72%) Law
15 5 (0.72%) Publishing
16 4 (0.58%) Automotive
Job Titles
1 262 (37.97%) Designer
2 201 (29.13%) Service Designer
3 90 (13.04%) Architect
4 73 (10.58%) Lead
5 63 (9.13%) User Researcher
6 62 (8.99%) Senior
7 49 (7.10%) Analyst
8 40 (5.80%) Service Architect
9 32 (4.64%) Senior Designer
10 31 (4.49%) Business Analyst
11 27 (3.91%) Service Manager
12 24 (3.48%) Senior Service Designer
13 21 (3.04%) Consultant
13 21 (3.04%) Service Transition Manager
13 21 (3.04%) Transition Manager
14 20 (2.90%) Solutions Architect
15 19 (2.75%) Product Manager
16 18 (2.61%) Content Designer
16 18 (2.61%) Lead Designer
17 17 (2.46%) Service Owner
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 15 (2.17%) REST
2 11 (1.59%) SOAP
3 10 (1.45%) RESTful
4 7 (1.01%) .NET
5 6 (0.87%) HTML
5 6 (0.87%) Web Services
6 5 (0.72%) STL
7 4 (0.58%) CSS
7 4 (0.58%) VML
8 3 (0.43%) Node.js
8 3 (0.43%) Playwright
8 3 (0.43%) Swagger
9 2 (0.29%) .NET Core
9 2 (0.29%) GeoJSON
9 2 (0.29%) NestJS
9 2 (0.29%) OpenAPI
9 2 (0.29%) React
9 2 (0.29%) React Native
9 2 (0.29%) Spring Boot
9 2 (0.29%) TanStack
Miscellaneous
1 55 (7.97%) Onboarding
2 50 (7.25%) Product Ownership
3 31 (4.49%) CMDB
4 24 (3.48%) NHS
5 22 (3.19%) Cloud Native
6 15 (2.17%) Legacy Systems
7 13 (1.88%) AI Agents
8 12 (1.74%) Data Centre
9 10 (1.45%) Management Information System
10 9 (1.30%) Data Protection Act
11 7 (1.01%) Analytical Mindset
11 7 (1.01%) Greenfield Project
12 6 (0.87%) Taxonomies
12 6 (0.87%) Virtual Team
13 5 (0.72%) Security Posture
13 5 (0.72%) Self-Motivation
14 4 (0.58%) Distributed Systems
14 4 (0.58%) Reference Data
15 3 (0.43%) Celerra
15 3 (0.43%) Symmetrix DMX
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 (0.14%) Windows Server
Processes & Methodologies
1 252 (36.52%) Agile
2 178 (25.80%) User Research
3 160 (23.19%) Stakeholder Management
4 149 (21.59%) ITIL
5 137 (19.86%) User-Centered Design (UCD)
6 134 (19.42%) Continuous Improvement
7 128 (18.55%) Workshop Facilitation
8 114 (16.52%) Stakeholder Engagement
9 109 (15.80%) Journey Map
10 105 (15.22%) Decision-Making
10 105 (15.22%) Service Management
11 101 (14.64%) Roadmaps
12 98 (14.20%) User Experience
13 72 (10.43%) AI
14 65 (9.42%) ITSM
14 65 (9.42%) Problem-Solving
15 60 (8.70%) Service Delivery
16 58 (8.41%) Interaction Design
17 56 (8.12%) UX Design
18 54 (7.83%) Collaborative Working
Programming Languages
1 15 (2.17%) SQL
2 8 (1.16%) PowerShell
3 7 (1.01%) Bash
3 7 (1.01%) JavaScript
3 7 (1.01%) Python
4 5 (0.72%) C#
4 5 (0.72%) Java
5 3 (0.43%) T-SQL
6 2 (0.29%) Bicep
7 1 (0.14%) Data Analysis Expressions
7 1 (0.14%) Go
7 1 (0.14%) Kotlin
7 1 (0.14%) TypeScript
Qualifications
1 254 (36.81%) Security Cleared
2 171 (24.78%) SC Cleared
3 73 (10.58%) DV Cleared
4 43 (6.23%) BPSS Clearance
5 25 (3.62%) Degree
6 17 (2.46%) ITIL Certification
7 5 (0.72%) AWS Certification
7 5 (0.72%) TOGAF Certification
8 4 (0.58%) AWS Certified Solutions Architect
9 3 (0.43%) Master's Degree
10 2 (0.29%) AWS Certified Cloud Practitioner
10 2 (0.29%) Azure Certification
10 2 (0.29%) Cisco Certification
10 2 (0.29%) CISM
10 2 (0.29%) CISSP
10 2 (0.29%) CRISC
10 2 (0.29%) CTC Cleared
10 2 (0.29%) IIBA
10 2 (0.29%) PMI Certification
10 2 (0.29%) SANS
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 106 (15.36%) Accessibility
2 25 (3.62%) ISO/IEC 20000
3 23 (3.33%) WCAG
4 22 (3.19%) QA
5 18 (2.61%) SLA
6 14 (2.03%) Actionable Recommendations
7 12 (1.74%) Data Quality
7 12 (1.74%) NCSC
8 7 (1.01%) Government Security Classifications
9 6 (0.87%) GDPR
10 4 (0.58%) PMO
11 3 (0.43%) ISO/IEC 27001
11 3 (0.43%) ISO/IEC 42001
11 3 (0.43%) NIST
12 2 (0.29%) COBIT
12 2 (0.29%) GRC
13 1 (0.14%) Cyber Essentials
13 1 (0.14%) ISO 31000
13 1 (0.14%) ISO 9001
System Software
1 16 (2.32%) IAG
2 5 (0.72%) Docker
3 4 (0.58%) Active Directory
4 3 (0.43%) EMC RecoverPoint
4 3 (0.43%) Virtual Machines
5 2 (0.29%) Virtual Desktop
5 2 (0.29%) VMware NSX
6 1 (0.14%) VMware Infrastructure
Systems Management
1 20 (2.90%) Ansible
2 15 (2.17%) Kubernetes
3 9 (1.30%) Terraform
4 3 (0.43%) Avamar
4 3 (0.43%) 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 (0.14%) Argo
6 1 (0.14%) Microsoft Intune
6 1 (0.14%) Network Intrusion Detection System
6 1 (0.14%) Progress Chef
6 1 (0.14%) Puppet
6 1 (0.14%) SysTrack
Vendors
1 62 (8.99%) ServiceNow
2 29 (4.20%) Microsoft
3 11 (1.59%) Nexthink
4 9 (1.30%) Cisco
4 9 (1.30%) Dynatrace
4 9 (1.30%) SAP
5 7 (1.01%) Adobe
5 7 (1.01%) Salesforce
6 5 (0.72%) F5
6 5 (0.72%) Foundry
6 5 (0.72%) Google
6 5 (0.72%) Oracle
6 5 (0.72%) Sparx
7 4 (0.58%) BMC
7 4 (0.58%) IBM
7 4 (0.58%) Virgin Media
8 3 (0.43%) Brocade
8 3 (0.43%) EMC
8 3 (0.43%) NetApp
8 3 (0.43%) VMware