Where do Service Designers work?

Where do Service Designers work?

Insight from the Service Design Salary Report

The "2022 Service Design Salary Report" from the Service Design Jobs website has a few elements that can help us answer this question. Within that survey that was focused on the salary of Service Designers, there were a few additional context questions.
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So for example, we can see that from the people who answered that survey

  1. The biggest group of service designers is in very large companies

  2. Consulting is the industry that hires the most service designers

  3. There is only a minority of freelancer service designers, and almost half and half work either in a agency or in house
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Insights from an analysis of U.S. Linkedin profiles

Another take on this question is a little piece of informal research done by Chris Risdon a Service Designer in the United States. He looked at the first 200 people with the "service designer" he could find on Linkedin. Here's what I learned from this research that is focused on the United States:
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  1. About half of the service designers seem to work within a digital department or company that focuses on digital

  2. About a third of service designers are in agencies

  3. A large majority of in-house service designers not sitting in a digital organization are in healthcare

  4. On the in-house side of things, Capital One and Truist Bank seem to be the biggest employers of service designers.

  5. On the agency side, Fjord and Harmonic design seem to be the biggest employers of service designers.

Insights from a study made by Frog

The consultancy Frog did a survey of Service Designers working in the United States and here is what they found out about which industries apply Service Design. Thanks to Jessica Leitch for sharing an excerpt of this study in a public linkedin comment.

Insights from Livework

Ben Reason, the CEO of the first Service Design agency in history called Livework, shared the results of a survey he did with service designers that's pretty interesting:

Q&A: Career in Service Design

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Starting a career in Service Design

  • How can we get more junior Service Design positions?
  • Is it possible for a junior service designer to do freelance work?
  • What’s the best way to gain real-world experience when starting in service design?
  • I’m x years old is it too late to learn service design?
  • What does a junior service designer do?
  • What skills do you need to become a service designer?

Finding a Service Design job

  • Why am I not getting any interviews for service designer jobs?
  • ▶️ Are there enough Service Design jobs out there?
  • How to do networking as a Service Designer?
  • Should I try to find a passion or an ideal job?

Job interview tips for Service Design practitioners

  • ▶️ What are your tips on verbal communication Service Design job interviews?
  • ▶️ What are job interview tips for new Service Designers?

Transitioning to Service Design

  • What is a good background for a service design/strategy consultant?
  • ▶️ How can I use my past career when transitioning to Service Design?
  • ▶️ How can you work in a service design job if you don’t have a service design degree?
  • ▶️ How can I realise that I bring lots of experience when I transition to Service Design?

The different types of service designers

  • What are the archetypes of service designers?
  • Can an introvert thrive as a Service Designer?

Daily Service Design work

  • How to practice and not give up on Service Design?
  • ▶️ How to apply Service Design insights in your daily work
  • ▶️ How to tackle the impostor syndrome?
  • ▶️ How can you show that different backgrounds contribute to the service design work in valid ways?
  • ▶️ How do you best communicate what's the role and what isn't the role of the Service Designer

State of the Service Design job market

  • Where do Service Designers work?
  • ▶️ Service Design in big organizations?
  • Can service designers work from home or remotely?
  • Do people recommend a service design career?
  • Can I work part-time as a service designer?

Career development

  • ▶️ Six Sigma or Service Design certification?
  • ▶️ What are Service Design communities I can join?
  • ▶️ How to grow as a mid-level service designer?
  • What are the most important things to consider when becoming a senior service designer? How can people achieve this goal?
  • ▶️ Can a service designer survive a recession?
  • What are the mental health challenges a service designer will be faced with?