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
"Research is democratized: if you’re not democratizing, you probably don’t even realize everyone in your company is talking to users in different ways."
Kate Towsey Basel Fakhoury Oren Friedman Graham GardnerParticipant Recruitment and Management Tools
March 12, 2026
"The edit rate, our metric of human-added characters over total characters, tracks AI output quality without burdening users."
Jennifer KongJourneying toward AI-assisted documentation in healthcare
June 5, 2024
"We are a B2D company – business to dog – making technology so dogs can speak English to people and each other."
Kevin M. HoffmanTheme 2: Enterprise Team Journey
June 3, 2019
"Find your senior executive ally who understands design and go talk to them first — it works."
Amy MarquezINVEST: Discussion
June 15, 2018
"I see designers fall back on being the defender of the user like a union boss, but that’s not your only responsibility."
Gretchen AndersonScaling the Human Center
June 8, 2017
"We can't just focus on the next deadline; we have to think about how the products and services we build impact the world."
April ReaganLook, Think, Act: The Futures-Smart Design Organization
October 1, 2021
"We matched designers with new peer buddies outside their usual domains to encourage learning and networking."
Dante GuintuHow to Crush the Talent Crunch
September 8, 2022
"Leave some space for creativity in your design system so designers can innovate without breaking consistency."
Jaime CreixemsBest Practices when Creating and Maintaining a Design System
June 7, 2023
"The more detailed, the more you start siloing and confusing the whole project."
Billy CarlsonPrinciples of Team Wireframing
October 2, 2023
