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

6 months to
30 Mar 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 185 266 208
Rank change year-on-year +81 -58 -3
Contract jobs citing Service Design 567 220 437
As % of all contract jobs in England 1.49% 0.90% 1.16%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 1.74% 0.99% 1.34%
Number of daily rates quoted 446 151 305
10th Percentile £359 £400 £394
25th Percentile £413 £493 £450
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £520 £550 £550
Median % change year-on-year -5.45% - -4.35%
75th Percentile £625 £649 £625
90th Percentile £738 £738 £688
UK median daily rate £513 £525 £530
% change year-on-year -2.38% -0.94% -3.64%
Number of hourly rates quoted 7 1 11
10th Percentile £85.00 - -
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 32,652 22,196 32,688
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in England 86.09% 90.77% 86.76%
Number of daily rates quoted 20,899 14,634 21,608
10th Percentile £313 £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 £614 £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 2,012 866 2,163
10th Percentile £15.34 £15.00 £13.00
25th Percentile £19.04 £20.03 £15.97
Median hourly rate £36.71 £32.50 £32.50
Median % change year-on-year +12.95% - -13.33%
75th Percentile £65.00 £64.67 £57.91
90th Percentile £77.50 £76.25 £71.13
UK median hourly rate £35.50 £31.88 £32.50
% change year-on-year +11.36% -1.91% -9.72%

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 30 March 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 30 March 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 30 March 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 +47 230 £510 -7.19% 55
North of England +14 116 £500 +5.26% 37
South East -9 78 £525 -1.87% 27
South West +10 65 £725 +23.40% 8
Midlands -21 55 £531 -7.65% 6
North West -11 49 £465 -2.11% 16
West Midlands -15 49 £500 -13.04% 6
Yorkshire -21 45 £524 -12.71% 15
North East +7 22 £425 -5.56% 6
East of England -27 6 £550 -31.25% 2
East Midlands - 6 £581 -
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 43 (7.58%) Confluence
2 14 (2.47%) SharePoint
3 6 (1.06%) Microsoft Exchange
4 2 (0.35%) Appian
4 2 (0.35%) CMS
5 1 (0.18%) Anypoint
5 1 (0.18%) Apache Solr
5 1 (0.18%) Drupal
5 1 (0.18%) LiveCycle
5 1 (0.18%) Mule
5 1 (0.18%) Oracle Application Server
5 1 (0.18%) Tomcat
Applications
1 41 (7.23%) Microsoft Office
2 31 (5.47%) Microsoft Project
3 12 (2.12%) Microsoft Excel
4 10 (1.76%) Sketch
5 9 (1.59%) Adobe XD
6 7 (1.23%) Microsoft PowerPoint
7 5 (0.88%) InVision
8 4 (0.71%) Chatbot
8 4 (0.71%) MS Visio
8 4 (0.71%) Trello
9 3 (0.53%) Adobe Creative Suite
9 3 (0.53%) Spreadsheet
9 3 (0.53%) Zeplin
10 2 (0.35%) Adobe After Effects
Business Applications
1 6 (1.06%) Remedy ITSM
2 5 (0.88%) Dynamics CRM
2 5 (0.88%) SAP S/4HANA
3 2 (0.35%) Oracle EBS
4 1 (0.18%) Adobe Campaign
4 1 (0.18%) NetSuite
4 1 (0.18%) Oracle Payroll
4 1 (0.18%) SAP ERP
Cloud Services
1 40 (7.05%) Figma
2 36 (6.35%) Azure
3 28 (4.94%) AWS
4 21 (3.70%) Power Platform
5 11 (1.94%) Microsoft 365
5 11 (1.94%) SaaS
6 7 (1.23%) GCP
6 7 (1.23%) Miro
6 7 (1.23%) OneDrive
7 6 (1.06%) Google Analytics
7 6 (1.06%) Google Tag Manager
8 5 (0.88%) Azure DevOps
8 5 (0.88%) Power Automate
9 4 (0.71%) GitHub
9 4 (0.71%) IaaS
9 4 (0.71%) Microsoft Copilot
9 4 (0.71%) OpenShift
9 4 (0.71%) PaaS
9 4 (0.71%) Serverless
10 3 (0.53%) Amazon S3
Communications & Networking
1 4 (0.71%) Firewall
1 4 (0.71%) WAN
2 3 (0.53%) 3GPP
2 3 (0.53%) VPN
3 2 (0.35%) 2G
3 2 (0.35%) 3G
3 2 (0.35%) 4G
3 2 (0.35%) 5G
3 2 (0.35%) Cisco Nexus
3 2 (0.35%) Diameter Protocol
3 2 (0.35%) LAN
3 2 (0.35%) SIGTRAN
3 2 (0.35%) SS7
3 2 (0.35%) TETRA
4 1 (0.18%) Cisco ISE
4 1 (0.18%) Internet
4 1 (0.18%) SD-WAN
4 1 (0.18%) Unified Communications
4 1 (0.18%) WebEx
4 1 (0.18%) Wi-Fi
Database & Business Intelligence
1 16 (2.82%) Power BI
2 6 (1.06%) BigQuery
2 6 (1.06%) Looker
3 4 (0.71%) Electronic Patient Records
3 4 (0.71%) SQL Server
4 3 (0.53%) Tableau
5 2 (0.35%) SQL Server Integration Services
6 1 (0.18%) EDRMS
6 1 (0.18%) Metadata
6 1 (0.18%) Oracle Exadata
6 1 (0.18%) PostgreSQL
6 1 (0.18%) Relational Database
Development Applications
1 55 (9.70%) JIRA
2 9 (1.59%) Jenkins
3 7 (1.23%) Axure RP
4 6 (1.06%) GitLab
5 2 (0.35%) Appium
5 2 (0.35%) Cucumber
5 2 (0.35%) Git
5 2 (0.35%) Postman
5 2 (0.35%) REST Assured
5 2 (0.35%) Selenium
5 2 (0.35%) Sonatype Nexus
6 1 (0.18%) Artifactory
6 1 (0.18%) Cypress.io
6 1 (0.18%) JMeter
6 1 (0.18%) JUnit
6 1 (0.18%) Maven
6 1 (0.18%) Mocha
6 1 (0.18%) Mockito
6 1 (0.18%) Team Foundation Server
6 1 (0.18%) Zephyr
General
1 185 (32.63%) Social Skills
2 177 (31.22%) Public Sector
3 70 (12.35%) Analytical Skills
4 59 (10.41%) Finance
5 34 (6.00%) Military
6 28 (4.94%) Influencing Skills
7 19 (3.35%) Presentation Skills
8 14 (2.47%) Banking
8 14 (2.47%) Legal
9 12 (2.12%) Local Government
10 8 (1.41%) Retail
10 8 (1.41%) Telecoms
11 7 (1.23%) Inclusion and Diversity
11 7 (1.23%) Law
12 6 (1.06%) Marketing
13 5 (0.88%) Financial Institution
14 4 (0.71%) Documentation Skills
15 3 (0.53%) Digital Healthcare
15 3 (0.53%) Police
16 2 (0.35%) Organisational Skills
Job Titles
1 208 (36.68%) Designer
2 164 (28.92%) Service Designer
3 106 (18.69%) Architect
4 71 (12.52%) Senior
5 64 (11.29%) Lead
6 63 (11.11%) Analyst
6 63 (11.11%) Service Architect
7 51 (8.99%) User Researcher
8 43 (7.58%) Business Analyst
9 35 (6.17%) Senior Designer
10 29 (5.11%) Senior Service Designer
11 28 (4.94%) Lead Designer
11 28 (4.94%) Lead Service Designer
12 19 (3.35%) Service Manager
13 16 (2.82%) Consultant
13 16 (2.82%) Senior Analyst
14 15 (2.65%) UX Designer
15 14 (2.47%) Interaction Designer
16 13 (2.29%) Senior Business Analyst
17 12 (2.12%) Technical Architect
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 15 (2.65%) REST
2 10 (1.76%) SOAP
3 8 (1.41%) HTML
4 7 (1.23%) RESTful
5 6 (1.06%) CSS
6 5 (0.88%) Web Services
7 4 (0.71%) .NET
7 4 (0.71%) Microsoft Graph
7 4 (0.71%) Spring
7 4 (0.71%) Spring Boot
8 3 (0.53%) AngularJS
8 3 (0.53%) Django
8 3 (0.53%) FastAPI
8 3 (0.53%) Flask
8 3 (0.53%) Middleware
8 3 (0.53%) NestJS
8 3 (0.53%) OAuth
8 3 (0.53%) Vue
9 2 (0.35%) Node.js
9 2 (0.35%) RabbitMQ
Miscellaneous
1 63 (11.11%) Product Ownership
2 22 (3.88%) NHS
3 18 (3.17%) Onboarding
4 14 (2.47%) Cloud Native
5 9 (1.59%) CMDB
5 9 (1.59%) Legacy Systems
6 8 (1.41%) Data Centre
6 8 (1.41%) Hybrid Cloud
6 8 (1.41%) Management Information System
7 7 (1.23%) AI Agents
8 6 (1.06%) Data Protection Act
9 5 (0.88%) Security Posture
10 4 (0.71%) Analytical Mindset
10 4 (0.71%) IVR
10 4 (0.71%) Mobile App
10 4 (0.71%) Self-Motivation
11 3 (0.53%) Hackathon
11 3 (0.53%) PMI
11 3 (0.53%) Virtual Team
12 2 (0.35%) Team-Oriented Environment
Operating Systems
1 7 (1.23%) Windows
2 4 (0.71%) Windows 10
3 1 (0.18%) MVS
Processes & Methodologies
1 248 (43.74%) Agile
2 169 (29.81%) User Research
3 137 (24.16%) ITIL
4 114 (20.11%) User-Centered Design (UCD)
5 97 (17.11%) Service Management
6 96 (16.93%) User Experience
7 92 (16.23%) Stakeholder Engagement
8 85 (14.99%) Workshop Facilitation
9 79 (13.93%) Roadmaps
10 78 (13.76%) Stakeholder Management
11 74 (13.05%) Journey Map
12 73 (12.87%) Continuous Improvement
13 68 (11.99%) UX Design
14 65 (11.46%) Acceptance Criteria
15 64 (11.29%) Decision-Making
16 58 (10.23%) Service Delivery
17 56 (9.88%) Usability Testing
18 55 (9.70%) Prototyping
19 52 (9.17%) Problem-Solving
20 51 (8.99%) TOGAF
Programming Languages
1 9 (1.59%) Java
1 9 (1.59%) Python
1 9 (1.59%) SQL
2 8 (1.41%) JavaScript
2 8 (1.41%) PowerShell
3 4 (0.71%) Bash
3 4 (0.71%) C#
4 3 (0.53%) Kusto Query Language
4 3 (0.53%) T-SQL
5 1 (0.18%) DataWeave
5 1 (0.18%) Groovy
5 1 (0.18%) PL/SQL
5 1 (0.18%) R
5 1 (0.18%) Scala
5 1 (0.18%) TypeScript
Qualifications
1 206 (36.33%) Security Cleared
2 168 (29.63%) SC Cleared
3 62 (10.93%) Degree
4 40 (7.05%) DV Cleared
5 39 (6.88%) TOGAF Certification
6 17 (3.00%) BPSS Clearance
6 17 (3.00%) ITIL Certification
7 9 (1.59%) AWS Certification
8 7 (1.23%) Azure Certification
9 4 (0.71%) PMI Certification
10 3 (0.53%) CISM
10 3 (0.53%) CISSP
11 2 (0.35%) AWS Certified Cloud Practitioner
11 2 (0.35%) AWS Certified Solutions Architect
11 2 (0.35%) Computer Science Degree
11 2 (0.35%) CRISC
12 1 (0.18%) APMG
12 1 (0.18%) CSPO
12 1 (0.18%) Master's Degree
12 1 (0.18%) Six Sigma Yellow Belt
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 106 (18.69%) Accessibility
2 22 (3.88%) WCAG
3 17 (3.00%) ISO/IEC 20000
4 14 (2.47%) Actionable Recommendations
4 14 (2.47%) QA
5 11 (1.94%) Data Quality
5 11 (1.94%) SLA
6 9 (1.59%) NCSC
7 8 (1.41%) GDPR
8 7 (1.23%) Government Security Classifications
9 6 (1.06%) ISO/IEC 27001
10 4 (0.71%) COBIT
11 3 (0.53%) GRC
11 3 (0.53%) ISO 9001
11 3 (0.53%) PMO
12 2 (0.35%) California Consumer Privacy Act
12 2 (0.35%) NIST
13 1 (0.18%) Cyber Essentials
13 1 (0.18%) ISO/IEC 42001
13 1 (0.18%) Software Quality Assurance
System Software
1 6 (1.06%) Docker
2 3 (0.53%) VMware NSX
3 2 (0.35%) EMC RecoverPoint
3 2 (0.35%) IAG
3 2 (0.35%) Virtual Machines
Systems Management
1 30 (5.29%) OPNET
2 11 (1.94%) Kubernetes
3 8 (1.41%) Ansible
4 7 (1.23%) Terraform
5 5 (0.88%) Single Sign-On
6 3 (0.53%) vRealize
7 2 (0.35%) Avamar
7 2 (0.35%) EMC VPLEX
8 1 (0.18%) Grafana
8 1 (0.18%) Prometheus
8 1 (0.18%) SysTrack
8 1 (0.18%) VxRail
Vendors
1 60 (10.58%) ServiceNow
2 41 (7.23%) Microsoft
3 36 (6.35%) Remedy
4 30 (5.29%) Atlassian
5 14 (2.47%) Adobe
6 12 (2.12%) VMware
7 8 (1.41%) Cisco
7 8 (1.41%) SAP
8 7 (1.23%) Google
8 7 (1.23%) Oracle
9 5 (0.88%) Salesforce
10 4 (0.71%) Foundry
10 4 (0.71%) Workday
11 3 (0.53%) Genesys
11 3 (0.53%) Palo Alto
11 3 (0.53%) UiPath
11 3 (0.53%) Zscaler
12 2 (0.35%) BMC
12 2 (0.35%) NetApp
12 2 (0.35%) Red Hat