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

6 months to
16 Apr 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 173 283 211
Rank change year-on-year +110 -72 -19
Contract jobs citing Service Design 596 215 420
As % of all contract jobs in England 1.52% 0.88% 1.13%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 1.78% 0.97% 1.30%
Number of daily rates quoted 454 153 291
10th Percentile £361 £400 £400
25th Percentile £416 £463 £453
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £522 £550 £550
Median % change year-on-year -5.18% - -4.35%
75th Percentile £625 £638 £625
90th Percentile £738 £723 £688
UK median daily rate £515 £523 £530
% change year-on-year -1.44% -1.42% -3.64%
Number of hourly rates quoted 7 1 11
10th Percentile £75.13 - -
25th Percentile £86.38 - £17.80
Median hourly rate £95.50 £31.52 £33.07
Median % change year-on-year +202.98% -4.67% -42.50%
75th Percentile £104.63 - £34.53
90th Percentile £106.90 - £72.90
UK median hourly rate £95.25 £31.52 £33.07
% change year-on-year +202.19% -4.67% -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 33,547 22,212 32,344
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in England 85.44% 91.02% 86.64%
Number of daily rates quoted 21,492 14,606 21,309
10th Percentile £314 £311 £300
25th Percentile £413 £413 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £505 £525 £525
Median % change year-on-year -3.81% - -4.55%
75th Percentile £613 £638 £650
90th Percentile £725 £750 £750
UK median daily rate £500 £525 £525
% change year-on-year -4.76% - -4.55%
Number of hourly rates quoted 2,069 881 2,207
10th Percentile £15.38 £14.84 £12.85
25th Percentile £20.09 £18.51 £15.76
Median hourly rate £41.56 £31.76 £34.21
Median % change year-on-year +30.84% -7.16% -8.77%
75th Percentile £66.25 £64.50 £58.69
90th Percentile £78.75 £75.25 £71.75
UK median hourly rate £37.16 £30.45 £33.55
% change year-on-year +22.04% -9.24% -7.45%

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 April 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 April 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 April 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 +56 239 £520 -5.28% 48
North of England +15 117 £497 +4.58% 27
South East -3 84 £525 +5.00% 17
South West +8 71 £725 +26.09% 6
Midlands -14 61 £496 -13.74% 9
West Midlands -9 57 £492 -14.43% 9
North West -5 49 £464 -2.37% 15
Yorkshire -14 45 £538 -10.42% 5
North East +4 23 £425 -17.07% 7
East of England -33 6 £525 -34.38% 4
East Midlands - 4 £525 -
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 50 (8.39%) Confluence
2 11 (1.85%) SharePoint
3 6 (1.01%) LiveCycle
4 4 (0.67%) Microsoft Exchange
5 2 (0.34%) Appian
5 2 (0.34%) CMS
6 1 (0.17%) Anypoint
6 1 (0.17%) Apache Solr
6 1 (0.17%) Drupal
6 1 (0.17%) Mule
6 1 (0.17%) Oracle Application Server
6 1 (0.17%) Tomcat
Applications
1 40 (6.71%) Microsoft Office
2 31 (5.20%) Microsoft Project
3 12 (2.01%) Microsoft Excel
4 11 (1.85%) Sketch
5 9 (1.51%) Adobe XD
6 7 (1.17%) Microsoft PowerPoint
7 6 (1.01%) InVision
8 4 (0.67%) Chatbot
8 4 (0.67%) MS Visio
8 4 (0.67%) Trello
9 3 (0.50%) Adobe Creative Suite
9 3 (0.50%) Spreadsheet
9 3 (0.50%) Zeplin
10 2 (0.34%) Adobe After Effects
Business Applications
1 5 (0.84%) Dynamics CRM
2 4 (0.67%) SAP S/4HANA
3 3 (0.50%) Remedy ITSM
4 2 (0.34%) Oracle EBS
5 1 (0.17%) Adobe Campaign
5 1 (0.17%) NetSuite
5 1 (0.17%) Oracle Payroll
5 1 (0.17%) SAP ERP
Cloud Services
1 39 (6.54%) Figma
2 33 (5.54%) Azure
3 30 (5.03%) AWS
4 18 (3.02%) Power Platform
5 15 (2.52%) SaaS
6 9 (1.51%) Miro
7 7 (1.17%) Microsoft 365
8 6 (1.01%) GCP
9 5 (0.84%) Google Analytics
9 5 (0.84%) Google Tag Manager
9 5 (0.84%) OneDrive
9 5 (0.84%) Power Automate
10 4 (0.67%) GitHub
10 4 (0.67%) IaaS
10 4 (0.67%) Microsoft Copilot
10 4 (0.67%) OpenShift
10 4 (0.67%) PaaS
10 4 (0.67%) Serverless
11 3 (0.50%) AWS Lambda
11 3 (0.50%) Azure DevOps
Communications & Networking
1 4 (0.67%) Cisco Nexus
1 4 (0.67%) Firewall
1 4 (0.67%) VPN
1 4 (0.67%) WAN
2 3 (0.50%) 3GPP
3 2 (0.34%) 2G
3 2 (0.34%) 3G
3 2 (0.34%) 4G
3 2 (0.34%) 5G
3 2 (0.34%) BGP
3 2 (0.34%) Diameter Protocol
3 2 (0.34%) LAN
3 2 (0.34%) NX-OS
3 2 (0.34%) OSPF
3 2 (0.34%) SIGTRAN
3 2 (0.34%) SS7
3 2 (0.34%) TETRA
3 2 (0.34%) VLAN
3 2 (0.34%) VXLAN
4 1 (0.17%) WebEx
Database & Business Intelligence
1 16 (2.68%) Power BI
2 5 (0.84%) BigQuery
2 5 (0.84%) Looker
3 4 (0.67%) Electronic Patient Records
3 4 (0.67%) SQL Server
4 3 (0.50%) Tableau
5 2 (0.34%) Oracle Reports
5 2 (0.34%) SQL Server Integration Services
6 1 (0.17%) EDRMS
6 1 (0.17%) Metadata
6 1 (0.17%) Oracle Exadata
6 1 (0.17%) PostgreSQL
6 1 (0.17%) Relational Database
Development Applications
1 60 (10.07%) JIRA
2 9 (1.51%) Jenkins
3 7 (1.17%) Axure RP
4 6 (1.01%) GitLab
5 3 (0.50%) Git
5 3 (0.50%) Postman
6 2 (0.34%) Appium
6 2 (0.34%) Cucumber
6 2 (0.34%) REST Assured
6 2 (0.34%) Selenium
6 2 (0.34%) Sonatype Nexus
7 1 (0.17%) Artifactory
7 1 (0.17%) Cypress.io
7 1 (0.17%) JUnit
7 1 (0.17%) Maven
7 1 (0.17%) Mocha
7 1 (0.17%) Mockito
7 1 (0.17%) Team Foundation Server
7 1 (0.17%) VersionOne
7 1 (0.17%) Zephyr
General
1 191 (32.05%) Social Skills
2 180 (30.20%) Public Sector
3 72 (12.08%) Analytical Skills
4 66 (11.07%) Finance
5 36 (6.04%) Military
6 24 (4.03%) Influencing Skills
7 20 (3.36%) Legal
8 19 (3.19%) Presentation Skills
9 15 (2.52%) Banking
10 14 (2.35%) Local Government
11 11 (1.85%) Retail
12 8 (1.34%) Telecoms
13 7 (1.17%) Inclusion and Diversity
14 6 (1.01%) Law
14 6 (1.01%) Marketing
15 5 (0.84%) Documentation Skills
15 5 (0.84%) Financial Institution
16 4 (0.67%) Organisational Skills
17 3 (0.50%) Back Office
17 3 (0.50%) Police
Job Titles
1 226 (37.92%) Designer
2 179 (30.03%) Service Designer
3 99 (16.61%) Architect
4 73 (12.25%) Senior
5 65 (10.91%) Analyst
6 63 (10.57%) Lead
7 61 (10.23%) Service Architect
8 56 (9.40%) User Researcher
9 45 (7.55%) Business Analyst
10 35 (5.87%) Senior Designer
11 31 (5.20%) Lead Designer
11 31 (5.20%) Lead Service Designer
12 29 (4.87%) Senior Service Designer
13 18 (3.02%) Service Manager
14 17 (2.85%) Interaction Designer
14 17 (2.85%) Senior Analyst
15 16 (2.68%) Consultant
16 14 (2.35%) Senior Business Analyst
16 14 (2.35%) UX Designer
17 12 (2.01%) Service Analyst
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 15 (2.52%) REST
2 13 (2.18%) HTML
3 10 (1.68%) SOAP
4 8 (1.34%) CSS
4 8 (1.34%) RESTful
5 5 (0.84%) Spring
5 5 (0.84%) Spring Boot
5 5 (0.84%) Web Services
6 4 (0.67%) .NET
6 4 (0.67%) Microsoft Graph
7 3 (0.50%) AngularJS
7 3 (0.50%) Django
7 3 (0.50%) Flask
7 3 (0.50%) Middleware
7 3 (0.50%) NestJS
7 3 (0.50%) Node.js
7 3 (0.50%) OAuth
7 3 (0.50%) Oracle Fusion
7 3 (0.50%) Playwright
7 3 (0.50%) Vue
Miscellaneous
1 65 (10.91%) Product Ownership
2 26 (4.36%) Onboarding
3 19 (3.19%) NHS
4 16 (2.68%) Legacy Systems
5 14 (2.35%) Cloud Native
6 12 (2.01%) CMDB
7 11 (1.85%) Data Centre
8 9 (1.51%) Hybrid Cloud
9 7 (1.17%) AI Agents
9 7 (1.17%) Data Protection Act
9 7 (1.17%) Management Information System
10 5 (0.84%) Mobile App
10 5 (0.84%) Security Posture
11 4 (0.67%) Analytical Mindset
11 4 (0.67%) IVR
11 4 (0.67%) Self-Motivation
12 3 (0.50%) Hackathon
12 3 (0.50%) PMI
12 3 (0.50%) Virtual Team
13 2 (0.34%) Virtual Reality
Operating Systems
1 5 (0.84%) Windows
2 2 (0.34%) Windows 10
3 1 (0.17%) MVS
Processes & Methodologies
1 260 (43.62%) Agile
2 181 (30.37%) User Research
3 138 (23.15%) ITIL
4 122 (20.47%) User-Centered Design (UCD)
5 97 (16.28%) User Experience
6 96 (16.11%) Service Management
7 93 (15.60%) Stakeholder Engagement
8 88 (14.77%) Workshop Facilitation
9 85 (14.26%) Continuous Improvement
9 85 (14.26%) Roadmaps
10 84 (14.09%) Journey Map
11 80 (13.42%) Stakeholder Management
12 76 (12.75%) Decision-Making
13 67 (11.24%) UX Design
14 64 (10.74%) Acceptance Criteria
15 57 (9.56%) Service Delivery
15 57 (9.56%) Usability Testing
16 56 (9.40%) Interaction Design
17 55 (9.23%) Problem-Solving
18 54 (9.06%) Prototyping
Programming Languages
1 11 (1.85%) SQL
2 10 (1.68%) JavaScript
3 9 (1.51%) Java
4 8 (1.34%) PowerShell
4 8 (1.34%) Python
5 4 (0.67%) Bash
5 4 (0.67%) C#
5 4 (0.67%) T-SQL
6 3 (0.50%) Kusto Query Language
7 1 (0.17%) DataWeave
7 1 (0.17%) Groovy
7 1 (0.17%) PL/SQL
7 1 (0.17%) R
7 1 (0.17%) Scala
7 1 (0.17%) TypeScript
Qualifications
1 212 (35.57%) Security Cleared
2 172 (28.86%) SC Cleared
3 60 (10.07%) Degree
4 45 (7.55%) DV Cleared
5 39 (6.54%) TOGAF Certification
6 24 (4.03%) BPSS Clearance
7 15 (2.52%) ITIL Certification
8 9 (1.51%) AWS Certification
9 7 (1.17%) Azure Certification
10 4 (0.67%) PMI Certification
11 3 (0.50%) CISM
11 3 (0.50%) CISSP
12 2 (0.34%) AWS Certified Cloud Practitioner
12 2 (0.34%) AWS Certified Solutions Architect
12 2 (0.34%) Computer Science Degree
12 2 (0.34%) CRISC
13 1 (0.17%) APMG
13 1 (0.17%) Master's Degree
13 1 (0.17%) Six Sigma Green Belt
13 1 (0.17%) Six Sigma Yellow Belt
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 114 (19.13%) Accessibility
2 25 (4.19%) WCAG
3 14 (2.35%) Actionable Recommendations
3 14 (2.35%) ISO/IEC 20000
3 14 (2.35%) QA
4 11 (1.85%) SLA
5 10 (1.68%) Data Quality
6 9 (1.51%) NCSC
7 8 (1.34%) GDPR
8 7 (1.17%) Government Security Classifications
9 4 (0.67%) ISO/IEC 27001
9 4 (0.67%) PMO
10 3 (0.50%) COBIT
10 3 (0.50%) GRC
11 2 (0.34%) California Consumer Privacy Act
11 2 (0.34%) NIST
12 1 (0.17%) Cyber Essentials
12 1 (0.17%) FINRA
12 1 (0.17%) ISO/IEC 42001
12 1 (0.17%) Software Quality Assurance
System Software
1 7 (1.17%) Docker
2 4 (0.67%) VMware NSX
3 3 (0.50%) IAG
4 2 (0.34%) EMC RecoverPoint
4 2 (0.34%) Virtual Machines
Systems Management
1 30 (5.03%) OPNET
2 11 (1.85%) Kubernetes
3 8 (1.34%) Ansible
4 7 (1.17%) Terraform
5 6 (1.01%) Single Sign-On
6 3 (0.50%) vRealize
7 2 (0.34%) Avamar
7 2 (0.34%) EMC VPLEX
8 1 (0.17%) Grafana
8 1 (0.17%) Prometheus
8 1 (0.17%) SysTrack
8 1 (0.17%) VxRail
Vendors
1 64 (10.74%) ServiceNow
2 36 (6.04%) Microsoft
3 33 (5.54%) Remedy
4 30 (5.03%) Atlassian
5 14 (2.35%) Adobe
6 13 (2.18%) VMware
7 10 (1.68%) Cisco
8 9 (1.51%) SAP
9 8 (1.34%) Oracle
10 6 (1.01%) Google
11 5 (0.84%) Salesforce
12 4 (0.67%) Foundry
12 4 (0.67%) Palo Alto
12 4 (0.67%) Workday
12 4 (0.67%) Zscaler
13 3 (0.50%) Genesys
13 3 (0.50%) UiPath
14 2 (0.34%) IBM
14 2 (0.34%) NetApp
14 2 (0.34%) Red Hat