First Insights from the 2025 Service Design Salary(+) Report
Summary
Are you getting paid fairly? And what's the salary growth potential? These were some of the questions that inspired us to launch the global Service Design Salary(+) Report. Now heading into its fifth edition already, the report has helped over 20,000 people make smarter career decisions. In this session, we're rolling up our sleeves and diving into the data of the upcoming 2025 edition of the report. You'll get a first and exclusive preview, hot off the press – the survey closed just 3 days ago!
Key Insights
-
•
The 2024 survey had over 1,000 participants from 61 countries, but is not fully representative of the global service design community.
-
•
Median salaries vary significantly by country, with the US median at $161K and the Netherlands at $73K, but these figures are influenced by seniority distribution.
-
•
Salary satisfaction is decreasing in some countries like the US and Netherlands despite rising median salaries.
-
•
Having 'service design' in an official job title does not necessarily lead to higher salary.
-
•
Men report higher median salaries than women year over year, indicating a persistent gender pay gap.
-
•
In-house positions generally pay more and yield greater salary satisfaction compared to agency or freelance roles.
-
•
Work experience strongly correlates with higher salary and satisfaction; service design-specific experience is tracked separately from general experience.
-
•
Senior executives, such as VPs, tend to negotiate salaries more frequently and work longer hours.
-
•
Remote work prevalence has declined from 79% in 2022 to 66% in 2024 among service designers working remotely, with freelancers working mostly remotely.
-
•
Design maturity of the organization correlates with higher median salaries, suggesting organizational context influences compensation.
Notable Quotes
"We have over a thousand participants from 61 countries, but remember this is only a sliver of the broader service design community."
"Salary is the most objective data point we have, but many questions here are subjective, like satisfaction and design maturity."
"Correlation does not equal causation; we're spotting patterns, not proving them."
"The average salary in the Netherlands might be high because there are more senior participants skewing the data."
"Men consistently report higher incomes than women across years, but don't jump to conclusions without digging deeper."
"People who work in-house tend to be more satisfied with their salary compared to those on the agency side."
"Having 'service design' in your official job title does not give you an advantage in salary globally."
"The more experienced you are, the more satisfied you tend to be with your salary; it can almost be double compared to beginners."
"Senior roles like VP require negotiating your salary almost by default."
"Remote work is less frequent now than it was two years ago among service designers, except for freelancers who mostly work remotely."
Or choose a question:
More Videos
"Assistive technology has to communicate with the destination, that’s your website or product."
Sheri Byrne-HaberAccessibility at Scale
June 9, 2021
"The best products come from marrying analytics with human stories."
Prayag Narula Hannah HudsonEmpowering Designers to do Good Research
March 11, 2022
"Centralized teams can become 'no machines' when overwhelmed with requests, needing to prioritize carefully."
Janelle EstesUX Research Trends
January 28, 2021
"A single line of UI text might be a small ask but can have massive impact on customer understanding and experience."
Craig Brookes Andreas Huebner Morgan Quinn"Just Make it Look Good" and Other Ways We're Misunderstood
June 11, 2021
"We encourage one-to-one video calls to build rapport and feel comfortable reaching out for advice."
Marc Fonteijn Ru ButlerIncrease your confidence, influence, and impact (through a Professional Community)
December 3, 2024
"Engagement and impact roles bring creativity and help maintain team morale in otherwise dry operations work."
Kate TowseyThe State of ResearchOps: More Than Just Theory
June 20, 2019
"Creating safety requires specific, behavioral agreements you can observe and practice."
Alla WeinbergDesign Teams Need Psychological Safety: Here’s How to Create It
September 9, 2022
"A government designer aims to reduce UX variation while a contractor may optimize only their single product, creating potential conflicts."
Shawna Hein Kevin HoffmanCreate a Cohesive Civic Design Practice Across Agency, Vendors, and Contracts
November 17, 2022
"Positive mutual regard helps uncover root causes behind people’s behaviors to build collaboration rather than combat."
Tricia WangSCALE: Discussion
June 15, 2018
Latest Books All books
Dig deeper with the Rosenbot
How do enterprises balance qualitative and quantitative tools while integrating AI into UX research workflows?
How do I handle tagging and linking to existing related work without overwhelming myself?
How have changes in communication technologies historically affected collective knowledge building, and what might AI's role be?