Rosenverse

This video is only accessible to Gold members. Log in or register for a free Gold Trial Account to watch.

Log in Register

Most conference talks are accessible to Gold members, while community videos are generally available to all logged-in members.

First Insights from the 2025 Service Design Salary(+) Report
Gold
Wednesday, December 4, 2024 • Advancing Service Design 2024
Share the love for this talk
First Insights from the 2025 Service Design Salary(+) Report
Speakers: Marc Fonteijn
Link:

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 Service Design Salary Report is based on over 1,000 respondents from 61 countries, but this represents only a fraction of the broader 50,000-strong service design community on LinkedIn.

  • Median salaries vary significantly by country; for example, the US median salary is $161k USD, the UK is $83k, and the Netherlands is $73k.

  • Despite rising median salaries in countries like the US and the Netherlands, overall satisfaction with compensation is trending downward.

  • A persistent gender pay gap exists in service design salaries, with men consistently reporting higher incomes than women year over year.

  • In-house service designers generally report higher salaries and greater satisfaction compared to those working in agencies or as freelancers.

  • Seniority and years of experience correlate with higher salaries and satisfaction, with VP-level professionals earning nearly double compared to entry-level roles.

  • Having 'service design' explicitly in a job title does not necessarily correspond to higher salaries globally.

  • Most service designers report into design departments, but reporting lines can vary by country, including product and innovation departments.

  • Remote work is prevalent, especially among independent freelancers, although overall remote percentages have slightly decreased since 2022.

  • Salary negotiations are more common and expected at senior and VP levels, and national differences exist, with Finland leading in reported negotiation rates.

Notable Quotes

"We have over a thousand participants from 61 countries, but this is just a sliver and not a full representation of the community."

"The average salary in the Netherlands might be quite high compared to Europe or the US, but you have to dig deeper to see if seniority is skewing the data."

"The satisfaction score is going down even though average salary is going up — that’s something interesting we should dig into."

"Men in this report consistently report higher income than women, but don’t draw early conclusions — seniority levels and positions matter."

"People working in-house tend to be more satisfied with their income than those working on the agency side."

"Having service design in your job title is not necessarily an advantage, at least not globally."

"The more experienced you are, the more satisfied you tend to be with your salary, which might also correlate with actually earning more."

"We do not take cost of living, inflation, or taxes into account, so it’s your homework to contextualize the salary data."

"You have to apply multiple perspectives to the data so you don’t oversimplify or misinterpret the patterns."

"This report is really about finding clues to make smarter career decisions, not necessarily about giving you definitive answers."

Ask the Rosenbot
Scaling Design through Relationship Maps
2017 • DesignOps Summit 2017
Gold
Kathleen Asjes
Research Democratization: the Good, the Bad and the Ugly
2022 • Advancing Research 2022
Gold
Indi Young
Paying Better Attention to the Problem with Indi Young (Videoconference)
2019 • Advancing Research Community
Jorge Arango
The Best of Both Worlds: How to Integrate Paper and Digital Notes (1st of 3 seminars) (Videoconference)
2024 • Rosenfeld Community
Maria Taylor
Knowledge is Power: Managing the Lifeblood of the Design Org
2023 • DesignOps Summit 2023
Gold
Elizabeth Churchill
Exploring Cadence: You, Your Team, and Your Enterprise
2017 • Enterprise Experience 2017
Gold
Roy Opata Olende
How Zapier Uses ‘All Hands Research’ to Increase Exposure to Users (Videoconference)
2020 • Advancing Research Community
Deanna Washington
Scaling Success: Paving the Path from DesignOps to VP
2023 • DesignOps Summit 2023
Gold
Jamie Beck Alexander
How can you find your role in climate? (Videoconference)
2024 • Climate UX Interest Group (Rosenfeld Community)
Mila Kuznetsova
How Lessons Learned from Our Youngest Users Can Help Us Evolve our Practices
2022 • Advancing Research 2022
Gold
Stephen Pollard
Closing Keynote: Getting giants to dance - what can we learn from designing large and complex public infrastructure?
2017 • DesignOps Summit 2017
Gold
Alana Washington
Theme 1: Introduction and Provocation
2024 • DesignOps Summit 2020
Gold
Laureen Kattan
Centering Patients and Clinicians in a Complex Government Ecosystem
2023 • Design in Product 2023
Gold
Leah Buley
Ask Me Anything with Leah Buley and Joe Natoli, co-authors of The User Experience Team of One (2nd edition)
2024 • Rosenfeld Community
Prabhas Pokharel
Order and Chaos: New Ways of Collaborating on Synthesis and Storytelling
2022 • Advancing Research 2022
Gold
Sheryl Cababa
Day 2 Panel
2024 • Designing with AI 2024
Gold

More Videos

"We want teams to have autonomy and power to make pivot, shelve, and proceed decisions, not leadership dictating."

Standardizing Product Merits for Leaders, Designers, and Everyone

June 15, 2018

Simon Wardley

"I realized I was just making it up despite the company’s growth."

Simon Wardley

Maps and Topographical Intelligence (Videoconference)

January 31, 2019

Sandra Camacho

"We can’t solve systemic problems with surface-level solutions or checklists."

Sandra Camacho

Creating More Bias-Proof Designs

January 22, 2025

Darian Davis

"I held Jeff accountable by expecting criticism to come with rationale and intentional improvement."

Darian Davis

Lessons from a Toxic Work Relationship

January 8, 2024

Fisayo Osilaja

"I challenge everyone to create a strategic AI integration plan that goes beyond everyday tasks to achieve career and company goals."

Fisayo Osilaja

[Demo] The AI edge: From researcher to strategist

June 4, 2024

Uday Gajendar

"Craft cultivates customer satisfaction, loyalty, and even forgiveness when functional issues arise."

Uday Gajendar

The Wicked Craft of Enterprise UX

May 13, 2015

Davis Neable

"Consistency over business unit efficiency was a design principle to ensure unified interface and language."

Davis Neable Guy Segal

How to Drive a Design Project When you Don’t Have a Design Team

June 10, 2021

Eniola Oluwole

"We did a great cleanup of patterns from every decade and deleted anything off brand or untested."

Eniola Oluwole

Lessons From the DesignOps Journey of the World's Largest Travel Site

October 24, 2019

Aurobinda Pradhan

"We believe tracking design metrics aligned to business goals is important to demonstrate design’s impact."

Aurobinda Pradhan Shashank Deshpande

Introduction to Collaborative DesignOps using Cubyts

September 9, 2022