Hybrid/Remote Service Design Contract Job Trends

Service Design
UK > Work from Home

The table below provides summary statistics and contractor rates for remote or hybrid contract work requiring Service Design skills. It covers contract job vacancies from the 6 months leading up to 13 September 2026, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
13 Sep 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 148 152 212
Rank change year-on-year +4 +60 -77
Contract jobs citing Service Design 264 162 127
As % of all contract jobs with remote/hybrid work options 1.95% 1.64% 0.99%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 2.16% 1.78% 1.13%
Number of daily rates quoted 214 129 96
10th Percentile £400 £340 £413
25th Percentile £448 £429 £486
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £525 £575
Median % change year-on-year -4.76% -8.70% +4.55%
75th Percentile £575 £556 £650
90th Percentile £638 £638 £694
UK median daily rate £513 £525 £550
% change year-on-year -2.38% -4.55% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 7 1 0
10th Percentile - - -
25th Percentile - - -
Median hourly rate £62.00 £71.45 -
Median % change year-on-year -13.23% - -
75th Percentile - - -
90th Percentile £77.90 - -
UK median hourly rate £62.00 £42.08 £33.75
% change year-on-year +47.34% +24.68% -41.30%

All Process & Methodology Skills
Work from Home

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 with remote or hybrid options requiring process or methodology skills.

Contract vacancies with a requirement for process or methodology skills 12,211 9,096 11,215
As % of all contract jobs with a WFH option 90.30% 92.26% 87.77%
Number of daily rates quoted 7,630 6,050 7,222
10th Percentile £356 £325 £325
25th Percentile £425 £413 £421
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £504 £525
Median % change year-on-year +4.17% -4.00% -1.87%
75th Percentile £625 £625 £638
90th Percentile £715 £738 £750
UK median daily rate £525 £500 £525
% change year-on-year +5.00% -4.76% -2.78%
Number of hourly rates quoted 739 282 309
10th Percentile £15.81 £12.62 £18.11
25th Percentile £28.75 £19.34 £30.00
Median hourly rate £47.50 £35.70 £43.00
Median % change year-on-year +33.07% -16.99% -14.00%
75th Percentile £70.00 £65.00 £66.61
90th Percentile £83.89 £68.45 £75.00
UK median hourly rate £40.00 £25.15 £43.00
% change year-on-year +59.05% -41.51% +1.18%

Service Design
Job Vacancy Trend for Remote/Hybrid Jobs

Historical trend showing the proportion of contract IT job postings citing Service Design and offering remote or hybrid work options relative to all contract IT jobs advertised.

Service Design job vacancy trend for remote/hybrid jobs

Service Design
Daily Rate Trend for Remote/Hybrid Jobs

Contractor daily rate distribution trend for jobs with remote/hybrid work options citing Service Design.

Contractor daily rate distribution trend for jobs with remote/hybrid work options citing Service Design

Service Design
Daily Rate Histogram for Remote/Hybrid Jobs

Daily rate distribution for jobs with remote/hybrid work options citing Service Design over the 6 months to 13 September 2026.

Service Design daily rate histogram for jobs with remote/hybrid work options

Service Design
Hourly Rate Trend for Remote/Hybrid Jobs

Contractor hourly rate distribution trend for jobs with remote/hybrid work options citing Service Design.

Contractor hourly rate distribution trend for jobs with remote/hybrid work options citing Service Design

Service Design
Hourly Rate Histogram for Remote/Hybrid Jobs

Hourly rate distribution for jobs with remote working options citing Service Design over the 6 months to 13 September 2026.

Service Design hourly rate histogram for jobs with remote/hybrid working options

Service Design
Co-Occurring Skills & Capabilities in Remote/Hybrid Jobs 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 15 (5.68%) Confluence
2 5 (1.89%) LiveCycle
3 3 (1.14%) SharePoint
4 1 (0.38%) Apache
4 1 (0.38%) Apache Superset
4 1 (0.38%) Umbraco
Applications
1 5 (1.89%) Adobe XD
1 5 (1.89%) Microsoft Excel
1 5 (1.89%) Microsoft PowerPoint
2 4 (1.52%) Sketch
3 3 (1.14%) MS Visio
4 2 (0.76%) Microsoft Project
4 2 (0.76%) Trello
5 1 (0.38%) InVision
5 1 (0.38%) Microsoft Office
5 1 (0.38%) UserZoom
Business Applications
1 2 (0.76%) Salesforce CRM
1 2 (0.76%) SAP CX
2 1 (0.38%) Remedy ITSM
Cloud Services
1 20 (7.58%) Miro
2 19 (7.20%) AWS
3 16 (6.06%) Azure
4 14 (5.30%) Figma
5 7 (2.65%) GCP
6 6 (2.27%) Lucidchart
6 6 (2.27%) Microsoft 365
6 6 (2.27%) Power Platform
7 5 (1.89%) SaaS
8 4 (1.52%) Amazon S3
8 4 (1.52%) AWS Lambda
8 4 (1.52%) Dynamics 365
8 4 (1.52%) Serverless
9 3 (1.14%) Amazon CloudWatch
9 3 (1.14%) Amazon EKS
9 3 (1.14%) Datadog
9 3 (1.14%) GitHub
9 3 (1.14%) OCI
9 3 (1.14%) Virtual Private Cloud
10 2 (0.76%) Azure AI
Communications & Networking
1 6 (2.27%) Firewall
2 5 (1.89%) Network Security
3 3 (1.14%) 2G
3 3 (1.14%) 3G
3 3 (1.14%) 4G
3 3 (1.14%) Diameter Protocol
3 3 (1.14%) SIGTRAN
3 3 (1.14%) SS7
3 3 (1.14%) VPN
4 2 (0.76%) Broadband
4 2 (0.76%) Cisco Nexus
4 2 (0.76%) HTTP
4 2 (0.76%) TCP/IP
4 2 (0.76%) WAN
4 2 (0.76%) Wireless
5 1 (0.38%) DHCP
5 1 (0.38%) Ethernet
5 1 (0.38%) LAN
5 1 (0.38%) SSL
5 1 (0.38%) Wi-Fi
Database & Business Intelligence
1 3 (1.14%) Amazon RDS
1 3 (1.14%) Data Lake
2 2 (0.76%) Azure SQL Database
2 2 (0.76%) Geospatial Data
2 2 (0.76%) Oracle Reports
2 2 (0.76%) Power BI
3 1 (0.38%) Amazon Athena
3 1 (0.38%) Apache Iceberg
3 1 (0.38%) DynamoDB
3 1 (0.38%) PostgreSQL
3 1 (0.38%) Redis
Development Applications
1 15 (5.68%) JIRA
2 5 (1.89%) Git
2 5 (1.89%) Jenkins
3 3 (1.14%) GitLab
3 3 (1.14%) Sonatype Nexus
4 2 (0.76%) Maven
4 2 (0.76%) SonarQube
5 1 (0.38%) Axure RP
5 1 (0.38%) Terragrunt
General
1 108 (40.91%) Public Sector
2 93 (35.23%) Social Skills
3 26 (9.85%) Finance
4 21 (7.95%) Analytical Skills
4 21 (7.95%) Inclusion and Diversity
5 18 (6.82%) Local Government
6 17 (6.44%) Influencing Skills
7 12 (4.55%) Telecoms
8 11 (4.17%) Documentation Skills
8 11 (4.17%) Military
9 9 (3.41%) Legal
10 5 (1.89%) Organisational Skills
10 5 (1.89%) Presentation Skills
10 5 (1.89%) Publishing
11 4 (1.52%) Back Office
12 2 (0.76%) Law
12 2 (0.76%) Marketing
13 1 (0.38%) Aerospace
13 1 (0.38%) Banking
13 1 (0.38%) Financial Institution
Job Titles
1 108 (40.91%) Designer
2 83 (31.44%) Service Designer
3 44 (16.67%) Senior
4 43 (16.29%) User Researcher
5 29 (10.98%) Architect
6 21 (7.95%) Analyst
7 18 (6.82%) Lead
7 18 (6.82%) Senior Designer
8 15 (5.68%) Senior Service Designer
9 13 (4.92%) Business Analyst
9 13 (4.92%) Consultant
10 12 (4.55%) Interaction Designer
11 10 (3.79%) Senior User Researcher
12 9 (3.41%) Delivery Manager
13 8 (3.03%) Service Design Consultant
13 8 (3.03%) Service Manager
13 8 (3.03%) Service Transition Manager
13 8 (3.03%) Solutions Architect
13 8 (3.03%) Transition Manager
14 7 (2.65%) Service Transition Leader
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 9 (3.41%) Terraform
2 8 (3.03%) HTML
3 7 (2.65%) RESTful
4 5 (1.89%) CSS
5 4 (1.52%) REST
6 2 (0.76%) .NET
6 2 (0.76%) GeoJSON
6 2 (0.76%) OpenAPI
6 2 (0.76%) Oracle Fusion
6 2 (0.76%) Semantic HTML
6 2 (0.76%) Swagger
6 2 (0.76%) Web Services
7 1 (0.38%) JSON
7 1 (0.38%) Kafka
7 1 (0.38%) Lightning Web Components
7 1 (0.38%) ODBC
7 1 (0.38%) SAML
7 1 (0.38%) SOAP
7 1 (0.38%) Streamlit
7 1 (0.38%) YAML
Miscellaneous
1 21 (7.95%) Product Ownership
2 16 (6.06%) Onboarding
3 10 (3.79%) NHS
4 8 (3.03%) Cloud Native
5 5 (1.89%) Data Centre
5 5 (1.89%) Management Information System
5 5 (1.89%) Virtual Team
6 4 (1.52%) CMDB
6 4 (1.52%) Data Protection Act
6 4 (1.52%) Legacy Systems
7 3 (1.14%) Hybrid Cloud
7 3 (1.14%) Mobile App
8 2 (0.76%) AI Agents
8 2 (0.76%) Distributed Systems
8 2 (0.76%) Greenfield Project
8 2 (0.76%) Low-Code
8 2 (0.76%) Operational Technology
8 2 (0.76%) Public Cloud
8 2 (0.76%) Reference Data
9 1 (0.38%) Symmetrix DMX
Operating Systems
1 5 (1.89%) Linux
1 5 (1.89%) Unix
1 5 (1.89%) Windows
2 2 (0.76%) VMS
3 1 (0.38%) Mac OS
3 1 (0.38%) Windows Server
Processes & Methodologies
1 111 (42.05%) Agile
2 99 (37.50%) User Research
3 86 (32.58%) Stakeholder Management
4 83 (31.44%) User-Centered Design (UCD)
5 62 (23.48%) Workshop Facilitation
6 49 (18.56%) Digital Transformation Programme
7 48 (18.18%) Journey Map
7 48 (18.18%) Stakeholder Engagement
8 47 (17.80%) ITIL
9 38 (14.39%) Continuous Improvement
9 38 (14.39%) Decision-Making
10 36 (13.64%) Service Management
11 35 (13.26%) User Experience
12 34 (12.88%) Qualitative Research
13 33 (12.50%) Roadmaps
14 31 (11.74%) Service Delivery
15 28 (10.61%) Interaction Design
16 23 (8.71%) Collaborative Working
17 21 (7.95%) Prototyping
18 20 (7.58%) Actionable Insight
Programming Languages
1 6 (2.27%) SQL
2 5 (1.89%) Bash
2 5 (1.89%) Python
3 3 (1.14%) JavaScript
4 2 (0.76%) Bicep
4 2 (0.76%) Groovy
4 2 (0.76%) Java
4 2 (0.76%) Shell Script
5 1 (0.38%) PowerShell
Qualifications
1 103 (39.02%) Security Cleared
2 72 (27.27%) SC Cleared
3 24 (9.09%) BPSS Clearance
4 18 (6.82%) DV Cleared
5 9 (3.41%) Degree
6 2 (0.76%) CBAP
6 2 (0.76%) CCA
6 2 (0.76%) IIBA
6 2 (0.76%) ITIL Certification
7 1 (0.38%) CCIE
7 1 (0.38%) CCNP
7 1 (0.38%) Cisco Certification
7 1 (0.38%) PMI Certification
7 1 (0.38%) SAFe Agilist
7 1 (0.38%) TOGAF Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 43 (16.29%) Accessibility
2 15 (5.68%) WCAG
3 9 (3.41%) NCSC
4 8 (3.03%) GDPR
5 7 (2.65%) Data Quality
6 6 (2.27%) Actionable Recommendations
7 5 (1.89%) SLA
8 4 (1.52%) ISO/IEC 20000
9 3 (1.14%) QA
10 2 (0.76%) Government Security Classifications
11 1 (0.38%) COBIT
11 1 (0.38%) ISO 9001
11 1 (0.38%) ISO/IEC 42001
11 1 (0.38%) PERC
11 1 (0.38%) PMO
System Software
1 6 (2.27%) Docker
2 3 (1.14%) VMware Infrastructure
3 2 (0.76%) Virtual Machines
4 1 (0.38%) Active Directory
4 1 (0.38%) EMC RecoverPoint
4 1 (0.38%) VMware NSX
Systems Management
1 6 (2.27%) Ansible
1 6 (2.27%) Kubernetes
2 5 (1.89%) Grafana
3 2 (0.76%) BMC PATROL
3 2 (0.76%) BMC Performance Manager
3 2 (0.76%) Perfmon
3 2 (0.76%) Prometheus
4 1 (0.38%) Avamar
4 1 (0.38%) EMC VPLEX
4 1 (0.38%) Kibana
4 1 (0.38%) Progress Chef
4 1 (0.38%) Puppet
4 1 (0.38%) Single Sign-On
Vendors
1 19 (7.20%) Microsoft
2 16 (6.06%) ServiceNow
3 7 (2.65%) Salesforce
4 6 (2.27%) Adobe
5 5 (1.89%) Oracle
6 4 (1.52%) AppDynamics
6 4 (1.52%) Google
7 3 (1.14%) BMC
7 3 (1.14%) Cisco
7 3 (1.14%) SAP
7 3 (1.14%) VMware
8 2 (0.76%) Atlassian
8 2 (0.76%) Checkmarx
8 2 (0.76%) Databricks
8 2 (0.76%) Ericsson
8 2 (0.76%) Northgate
8 2 (0.76%) OneLogin
8 2 (0.76%) Palo Alto
8 2 (0.76%) Splunk
9 1 (0.38%) Ping Identity