User Research Contracts

User Research
UK

The following table provides summary statistics for contract job vacancies with a requirement for User Research skills. Included is a benchmarking guide to the contractor rates offered in vacancies that have cited User Research over the 6 months to 27 April 2024 with a comparison to the same period in the previous 2 years.

6 months to
27 Apr 2024
Same period 2023 Same period 2022
Rank 267 175 138
Rank change year-on-year -92 -37 -17
Contract jobs citing User Research 396 885 1,782
As % of all contract jobs advertised in the UK 0.91% 1.48% 2.01%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 1.06% 1.65% 2.21%
Number of daily rates quoted 288 701 1,338
10th Percentile £363 £405 £400
25th Percentile £425 £440 £450
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £538 £525 £525
Median % change year-on-year +2.48% - +10.53%
75th Percentile £601 £600 £585
90th Percentile £675 £663 £650
UK excluding London median daily rate £500 £475 £500
% change year-on-year +5.26% -5.00% +11.11%
Number of hourly rates quoted 4 1 9
10th Percentile - - £19.41
25th Percentile £25.25 - £20.50
Median hourly rate £25.50 £45.00 £25.00
Median % change year-on-year -43.33% +80.00% +43.00%
75th Percentile £37.75 - £50.61
90th Percentile £59.35 - £59.05
UK excluding London median hourly rate - - £23.00
% change year-on-year - - +53.33%

All Process and Methodology Skills
UK

User Research is in the Processes and Methodologies category. The following table is for comparison with the above and provides summary statistics for all contract job vacancies with a requirement for process or methodology skills.

Contract vacancies with a requirement for process or methodology skills 37,374 53,774 80,482
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 86.31% 89.91% 90.60%
Number of daily rates quoted 24,095 37,304 56,474
10th Percentile £300 £325 £340
25th Percentile £413 £438 £425
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £550 £525
Median % change year-on-year -4.55% +4.76% +8.25%
75th Percentile £638 £650 £638
90th Percentile £750 £750 £738
UK excluding London median daily rate £500 £500 £475
% change year-on-year - +5.26% +9.20%
Number of hourly rates quoted 2,422 1,763 1,928
10th Percentile £12.75 £11.00 £12.50
25th Percentile £16.00 £16.25 £15.25
Median hourly rate £35.00 £37.34 £25.00
Median % change year-on-year -6.27% +49.36% -
75th Percentile £59.44 £65.00 £49.25
90th Percentile £72.50 £75.00 £63.75
UK excluding London median hourly rate £36.00 £36.00 £20.00
% change year-on-year - +80.00% -8.17%

User Research
Job Vacancy Trend

Job postings citing User Research as a proportion of all IT jobs advertised.

Job vacancy trend for User Research in the UK

User Research
Contractor Daily Rate Trend

3-month moving average daily rate quoted in jobs citing User Research.

Daily rate trend for User Research in the UK

User Research
Daily Rate Histogram

Daily rate distribution for jobs citing User Research over the 6 months to 27 April 2024.

Daily rate histogram for User Research in the UK

User Research
Contractor Hourly Rate Trend

3-month moving average hourly rates quoted in jobs citing User Research.

Hourly rate trend for User Research in the UK

User Research
Hourly Rate Histogram

Hourly rate distribution of jobs citing User Research over the 6 months to 27 April 2024.

Hourly rate histogram for User Research in the UK

User Research
Top 14 Contract Locations

The table below looks at the demand and provides a guide to the median contractor rates quoted in IT jobs citing User Research within the UK over the 6 months to 27 April 2024. The 'Rank Change' column provides an indication of the change in demand within each location based on the same 6 month period last year.

Location Rank Change
on Same Period
Last Year
Matching
Contract
IT Job Ads
Median
Daily Rate
Past 6 Months
Median Daily Rate
% Change
on Same Period
Last Year
Live
Jobs
England -78 270 £550 - 125
Work from Home -39 170 £550 +4.76% 72
London -54 161 £531 -3.41% 59
UK excluding London -94 134 £500 +5.26% 70
Scotland -19 61 £529 +21.27% 3
North of England -29 52 £413 -25.00% 31
North West -12 27 £363 -34.09% 18
Yorkshire -25 18 £475 -13.64% 10
South East -9 8 £488 +8.33% 9
North East +19 7 £606 +16.31% 3
South West -6 6 £625 +11.86% 6
West Midlands -14 4 £450 -21.74% 9
Midlands -23 4 £450 -21.74% 14
Northern Ireland - 3 £513 -

User Research
Co-occurring Skills and Capabilities by Category

The follow tables expand on the table above by listing co-occurrences grouped by category. The same employment type, locality and period is covered with up to 20 co-occurrences shown in each of the following categories:

Application Platforms
1 22 (5.56%) Confluence
2 8 (2.02%) govService
3 4 (1.01%) CMS
4 1 (0.25%) Adobe Experience Manager
4 1 (0.25%) Headless CMS
4 1 (0.25%) SAS
4 1 (0.25%) SharePoint
Applications
1 37 (9.34%) Sketch
2 22 (5.56%) Adobe XD
3 11 (2.78%) Adobe Creative Suite
3 11 (2.78%) InVision
4 7 (1.77%) UserZoom
5 5 (1.26%) Zeplin
6 3 (0.76%) Photoshop
7 2 (0.51%) Trello
8 1 (0.25%) Adobe Illustrator
8 1 (0.25%) Microsoft Office
8 1 (0.25%) SPSS
Business Applications
1 1 (0.25%) SAP S/4HANA
Cloud Services
1 69 (17.42%) Figma
2 48 (12.12%) AWS
3 13 (3.28%) Azure
4 11 (2.78%) Azure DevOps
5 10 (2.53%) Miro
6 5 (1.26%) SaaS
7 2 (0.51%) GitHub
8 1 (0.25%) Adobe Analytics
8 1 (0.25%) Adobe Creative Cloud
8 1 (0.25%) Amazon EKS
8 1 (0.25%) Apigee
8 1 (0.25%) AWS CloudFormation
8 1 (0.25%) Entra ID
8 1 (0.25%) Google Analytics
8 1 (0.25%) Google Tag Manager
8 1 (0.25%) Kong
8 1 (0.25%) Pendo
8 1 (0.25%) Power Platform
8 1 (0.25%) Salesforce Service Cloud
Communications & Networking
1 7 (1.77%) Intranet
2 1 (0.25%) Internet
2 1 (0.25%) RTP
Database & Business Intelligence
1 46 (11.62%) Apache Cassandra
2 1 (0.25%) Amazon Athena
2 1 (0.25%) Data Warehouse
2 1 (0.25%) Looker
2 1 (0.25%) Metadata
2 1 (0.25%) MongoDB
2 1 (0.25%) Power BI
2 1 (0.25%) Power Query
Development Applications
1 32 (8.08%) JIRA
2 13 (3.28%) Axure RP
3 2 (0.51%) Jenkins
4 1 (0.25%) Appium
4 1 (0.25%) Git
4 1 (0.25%) Maven
4 1 (0.25%) Postman
4 1 (0.25%) Selenium
4 1 (0.25%) SonarQube
4 1 (0.25%) webpack
General
1 133 (33.59%) Public Sector
2 101 (25.51%) Social Skills
3 34 (8.59%) Finance
4 30 (7.58%) Analytical Skills
5 18 (4.55%) Marketing
6 15 (3.79%) Presentation Skills
7 12 (3.03%) Influencing Skills
8 8 (2.02%) Publishing
8 8 (2.02%) Telecoms
9 7 (1.77%) Manufacturing
10 6 (1.52%) Banking
10 6 (1.52%) Electronics
10 6 (1.52%) Legal
11 5 (1.26%) Health Technology
11 5 (1.26%) Inclusion and Diversity
12 4 (1.01%) Games
12 4 (1.01%) Local Government
12 4 (1.01%) Retail
12 4 (1.01%) Tech for Good
13 3 (0.76%) Advertising
Job Titles
1 134 (33.84%) Designer
2 82 (20.71%) User Researcher
3 76 (19.19%) Senior
4 53 (13.38%) UX Designer
5 46 (11.62%) Software Engineer
6 36 (9.09%) Product Manager
7 33 (8.33%) Senior Software Engineer
7 33 (8.33%) Service Designer
8 28 (7.07%) Lead
9 20 (5.05%) Analyst
10 19 (4.80%) Content Designer
11 18 (4.55%) Interaction Designer
12 16 (4.04%) Senior Designer
13 15 (3.79%) Business Analyst
13 15 (3.79%) Senior User Researcher
14 12 (3.03%) Head of Customer Experience
14 12 (3.03%) Head of Digital
15 10 (2.53%) UI Designer
15 10 (2.53%) UI/UX Designer
16 9 (2.27%) User Experience Researcher
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 47 (11.87%) Kafka
2 17 (4.29%) HTML
3 15 (3.79%) CSS
4 2 (0.51%) Play Framework
4 2 (0.51%) RESTful
4 2 (0.51%) Spring Boot
4 2 (0.51%) Unity (Game Engine)
5 1 (0.25%) AngularJS
5 1 (0.25%) D3.js
5 1 (0.25%) JSON
5 1 (0.25%) Node.js
5 1 (0.25%) React
5 1 (0.25%) React Native
5 1 (0.25%) Spring
5 1 (0.25%) Vue
5 1 (0.25%) Web Services
Miscellaneous
1 33 (8.33%) Product Ownership
2 12 (3.03%) Mobile App
3 6 (1.52%) Graphic Design
4 5 (1.26%) CMDB
4 5 (1.26%) Enterprise Software
4 5 (1.26%) Onboarding
4 5 (1.26%) Self-Motivation
5 4 (1.01%) Greenfield Project
6 3 (0.76%) Data Protection Act
6 3 (0.76%) Mobile Games
7 2 (0.51%) Blog
7 2 (0.51%) EPoS
7 2 (0.51%) NHS
7 2 (0.51%) Taxonomies
8 1 (0.25%) Augmented Reality
8 1 (0.25%) BYOD
8 1 (0.25%) Credit Risk
8 1 (0.25%) Hybrid Cloud
8 1 (0.25%) iPad
8 1 (0.25%) iPhone
Operating Systems
1 3 (0.76%) Apple iOS
2 2 (0.51%) Android
3 1 (0.25%) Windows
3 1 (0.25%) Windows 10
Processes & Methodologies
1 212 (53.54%) Agile
2 191 (48.23%) User Experience
3 153 (38.64%) UX Design
4 112 (28.28%) User-Centered Design (UCD)
5 97 (24.49%) Service Design
6 95 (23.99%) UX Research
7 72 (18.18%) Usability Testing
8 70 (17.68%) User Stories
9 61 (15.40%) Problem-Solving
10 56 (14.14%) Software Engineering
11 54 (13.64%) Prototyping
12 50 (12.63%) Wireframes
13 49 (12.37%) Fintech
14 40 (10.10%) Interaction Design
15 39 (9.85%) Workshop Facilitation
16 37 (9.34%) Analytics
17 36 (9.09%) Mentoring
18 35 (8.84%) Actionable Insight
18 35 (8.84%) Roadmaps
19 34 (8.59%) Journey Map
Programming Languages
1 46 (11.62%) Go
2 12 (3.03%) JavaScript
3 3 (0.76%) Java
4 2 (0.51%) Scala
5 1 (0.25%) Kotlin
5 1 (0.25%) Python
5 1 (0.25%) Swift
Qualifications
1 76 (19.19%) Security Cleared
2 65 (16.41%) SC Cleared
3 30 (7.58%) Degree
4 9 (2.27%) BPSS Clearance
5 6 (1.52%) Master's Degree
6 4 (1.01%) DV Cleared
7 3 (0.76%) DBS Check
8 2 (0.51%) Computer Science Degree
9 1 (0.25%) IIBA
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 74 (18.69%) Accessibility
2 16 (4.04%) Actionable Recommendations
3 14 (3.54%) WCAG
4 8 (2.02%) Disclosure Scotland
4 8 (2.02%) QA
5 4 (1.01%) Data Quality
6 1 (0.25%) SLA
System Software
1 47 (11.87%) Docker
2 1 (0.25%) Active Directory
Systems Management
1 47 (11.87%) Kubernetes
2 2 (0.51%) Ansible
3 1 (0.25%) Microsoft Intune
3 1 (0.25%) Terraform
Vendors
1 37 (9.34%) Adobe
2 8 (2.02%) SAP
3 7 (1.77%) ServiceNow
4 6 (1.52%) Cadence
4 6 (1.52%) Microsoft
5 2 (0.51%) Brio
6 1 (0.25%) Apple
6 1 (0.25%) Checkmarx
6 1 (0.25%) Google
6 1 (0.25%) Qualtrics
6 1 (0.25%) Salesforce