User Research Contract Job Trends in London

User Research
England > London

The table below provides summary statistics and contractor rates for jobs advertised in London requiring User Research skills. It covers contract job vacancies from the 6 months leading up to 9 September 2026, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
9 Sep 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 205 231 250
Rank change year-on-year +26 +19 -66
Contract jobs citing User Research 289 141 140
As % of all contract jobs in London 1.42% 1.05% 0.87%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 1.60% 1.14% 0.98%
Number of daily rates quoted 249 89 92
10th Percentile £400 £347 £355
25th Percentile £450 £413 £455
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £520 £485 £525
Median % change year-on-year +7.22% -7.62% -4.55%
75th Percentile £575 £555 £600
90th Percentile £668 £687 £675
England median daily rate £489 £473 £525
% change year-on-year +3.44% -10.00% -4.55%
Number of hourly rates quoted 2 1 1
10th Percentile £51.06 - -
25th Percentile £53.02 £52.25 £32.25
Median hourly rate £58.45 £54.50 £32.50
Median % change year-on-year +7.25% +67.69% -
75th Percentile £64.30 £56.75 £32.75
90th Percentile £66.51 - -
England median hourly rate £56.08 £54.50 £29.50
% change year-on-year +2.90% +84.75% -

All Process & Methodology Skills
London

User Research falls under the Processes and Methodologies category. For comparison with the information above, the following table provides summary statistics for all contract job vacancies requiring process or methodology skills in London.

Contract vacancies with a requirement for process or methodology skills 18,098 12,396 14,317
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in London 89.01% 92.48% 89.09%
Number of daily rates quoted 11,824 8,192 9,654
10th Percentile £359 £325 £350
25th Percentile £450 £425 £450
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £550 £538 £550
Median % change year-on-year +2.33% -2.27% -4.35%
75th Percentile £660 £675 £680
90th Percentile £775 £775 £800
England median daily rate £525 £508 £525
% change year-on-year +3.45% -3.33% -4.55%
Number of hourly rates quoted 292 255 178
10th Percentile £17.00 £17.03 £17.25
25th Percentile £19.76 £25.01 £22.28
Median hourly rate £35.50 £32.00 £35.00
Median % change year-on-year +10.94% -8.57% -12.50%
75th Percentile £57.50 £49.63 £55.00
90th Percentile £86.93 £63.75 £72.81
England median hourly rate £43.50 £25.15 £43.00
% change year-on-year +72.96% -41.51% +0.58%

User Research
Job Vacancy Trend in London

Historical trend showing the proportion of contract IT job postings citing User Research relative to all contract IT jobs advertised in London.

User Research job vacancy trend in London

User Research
Daily Rate Trend in London

Contractor daily rate distribution trend for jobs in London citing User Research.

Contractor daily rate distribution trend for jobs in London citing User Research

User Research
Daily Rate Histogram in London

Daily rate distribution for jobs citing User Research in London over the 6 months to 9 September 2026.

Daily rate histogram for User Research in London

User Research
Hourly Rate Trend in London

Contractor hourly rate distribution trend for jobs in London citing User Research.

Contractor hourly rate distribution trend for jobs in London citing User Research

User Research
Hourly Rate Histogram in London

Hourly rate distribution of jobs citing User Research in London over the 6 months to 9 September 2026.

Hourly rate histogram for User Research in London

User Research
Contract Job Locations in London

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 London region over the 6 months to 9 September 2026. 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
Central London -20 19 £483 +1.47% 16
South London -6 3 £550 -0.90%
West London - 2 £600 - 14
East London +1 1 £625 +26.26% 8
User Research
England

User Research
Co-Occurring Skills & Capabilities in London by Category

The following tables expand on the one above by listing co-occurrences grouped by category. They cover the same employment type, locality and period, with up to 20 co-occurrences shown in each category:

Application Platforms
1 18 (6.23%) Confluence
2 7 (2.42%) CMS
3 2 (0.69%) Drupal
4 1 (0.35%) Apache Superset
4 1 (0.35%) SharePoint
Applications
1 6 (2.08%) Adobe XD
1 6 (2.08%) Sketch
1 6 (2.08%) UserZoom
2 1 (0.35%) Microsoft Excel
2 1 (0.35%) Microsoft PowerPoint
2 1 (0.35%) Trello
Business Applications
1 4 (1.38%) Sparx Enterprise Architect
2 1 (0.35%) Oracle EBS
2 1 (0.35%) Oracle ERP
Cloud Services
1 33 (11.42%) Figma
2 10 (3.46%) Miro
3 7 (2.42%) AWS
3 7 (2.42%) Azure
4 6 (2.08%) Pendo
5 5 (1.73%) Slack
6 4 (1.38%) GitHub
6 4 (1.38%) SaaS
7 3 (1.04%) GCP
8 2 (0.69%) GitHub Actions
8 2 (0.69%) Microsoft 365
8 2 (0.69%) PaaS
9 1 (0.35%) Amazon ECS
9 1 (0.35%) AWS CodePipeline
9 1 (0.35%) Azure DevOps
9 1 (0.35%) Cloud Run
9 1 (0.35%) Google Sheets
9 1 (0.35%) Power Platform
9 1 (0.35%) Sentry
9 1 (0.35%) Serverless
Communications & Networking
1 1 (0.35%) Intranet
Database & Business Intelligence
1 3 (1.04%) Metadata
2 2 (0.69%) PostgreSQL
2 2 (0.69%) Relational Database
3 1 (0.35%) Amazon RDS
3 1 (0.35%) DynamoDB
3 1 (0.35%) Oracle Database
3 1 (0.35%) Power BI
Development Applications
1 20 (6.92%) JIRA
2 3 (1.04%) Cypress.io
3 2 (0.69%) Git
4 1 (0.35%) CircleCI
4 1 (0.35%) NUnit
4 1 (0.35%) Postman
4 1 (0.35%) Selenium
General
1 107 (37.02%) Public Sector
2 66 (22.84%) Social Skills
3 26 (9.00%) Finance
4 17 (5.88%) Analytical Skills
5 13 (4.50%) Influencing Skills
6 12 (4.15%) Military
7 11 (3.81%) Publishing
8 9 (3.11%) Banking
8 9 (3.11%) Local Government
9 8 (2.77%) Marketing
10 7 (2.42%) Legal
11 5 (1.73%) Documentation Skills
12 4 (1.38%) Organisational Skills
12 4 (1.38%) Social Science
13 3 (1.04%) Inclusion and Diversity
13 3 (1.04%) Retail
14 2 (0.69%) Advertising
14 2 (0.69%) Health Technology
14 2 (0.69%) Law
15 1 (0.35%) Digital Health
Job Titles
1 143 (49.48%) User Researcher
2 76 (26.30%) Designer
3 52 (17.99%) Senior
4 32 (11.07%) Senior User Researcher
5 25 (8.65%) Service Designer
6 19 (6.57%) Content Designer
6 19 (6.57%) Lead
7 18 (6.23%) Product Manager
8 14 (4.84%) UX Designer
9 12 (4.15%) Interaction Designer
10 10 (3.46%) User Experience Researcher
11 9 (3.11%) Product Designer
11 9 (3.11%) Senior Designer
12 8 (2.77%) Digital Product Manager
13 6 (2.08%) Analyst
13 6 (2.08%) Senior Manager
13 6 (2.08%) Senior Product Manager
14 5 (1.73%) Architect
14 5 (1.73%) Junior
15 4 (1.38%) Business Analyst
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 7 (2.42%) React
2 3 (1.04%) Terraform
3 2 (0.69%) .NET
3 2 (0.69%) CSS
3 2 (0.69%) Django
3 2 (0.69%) Playwright
3 2 (0.69%) Spring
3 2 (0.69%) Spring Boot
4 1 (0.35%) FastAPI
4 1 (0.35%) HTML
4 1 (0.35%) Next.js
4 1 (0.35%) Prisma
4 1 (0.35%) RESTful
Miscellaneous
1 21 (7.27%) Product Ownership
2 13 (4.50%) Onboarding
3 12 (4.15%) NHS
4 9 (3.11%) Mobile App
5 6 (2.08%) Analytical Mindset
5 6 (2.08%) Cloud Native
6 4 (1.38%) Graphic Design
7 3 (1.04%) Legacy Systems
7 3 (1.04%) Management Information System
8 2 (0.69%) AI Agents
8 2 (0.69%) Data Protection Act
8 2 (0.69%) Taxonomies
8 2 (0.69%) Virtual Team
9 1 (0.35%) Blog
9 1 (0.35%) BYOD
9 1 (0.35%) Clustering
9 1 (0.35%) Cyber Threat
9 1 (0.35%) FMCG
9 1 (0.35%) Life Science
9 1 (0.35%) Online Banking
Operating Systems
1 2 (0.69%) Android
1 2 (0.69%) Apple iOS
1 2 (0.69%) Windows
2 1 (0.35%) Mac OS
Processes & Methodologies
1 140 (48.44%) Agile
2 89 (30.80%) Service Design
3 87 (30.10%) User-Centered Design (UCD)
4 83 (28.72%) User Experience
5 57 (19.72%) Usability Testing
6 54 (18.69%) Interaction Design
6 54 (18.69%) Stakeholder Management
7 49 (16.96%) Decision-Making
7 49 (16.96%) Qualitative Research
8 46 (15.92%) Actionable Insight
9 42 (14.53%) UX Design
10 40 (13.84%) Stakeholder Engagement
11 38 (13.15%) Journey Map
11 38 (13.15%) Workshop Facilitation
12 37 (12.80%) Analytics
13 36 (12.46%) Quantitative Research
13 36 (12.46%) Wireframes
14 32 (11.07%) AI
15 30 (10.38%) Prototyping
15 30 (10.38%) Roadmaps
Programming Languages
1 9 (3.11%) TypeScript
2 8 (2.77%) Python
3 5 (1.73%) SQL
4 4 (1.38%) JavaScript
5 3 (1.04%) Java
6 2 (0.69%) C#
6 2 (0.69%) Ruby
7 1 (0.35%) Kotlin
7 1 (0.35%) PL/SQL
7 1 (0.35%) Swift
Qualifications
1 130 (44.98%) Security Cleared
2 100 (34.60%) SC Cleared
3 27 (9.34%) DV Cleared
4 22 (7.61%) BPSS Clearance
5 10 (3.46%) Degree
6 9 (3.11%) Master's Degree
7 1 (0.35%) CTC Cleared
7 1 (0.35%) PhD
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 83 (28.72%) Accessibility
2 32 (11.07%) WCAG
3 9 (3.11%) GDPR
4 6 (2.08%) Actionable Recommendations
4 6 (2.08%) QA
5 1 (0.35%) Data Quality
5 1 (0.35%) HMG Security Policy Framework
System Software
1 3 (1.04%) Docker
Systems Management
1 2 (0.69%) Grafana
1 2 (0.69%) Kibana
1 2 (0.69%) Kubernetes
2 1 (0.35%) Prometheus
Vendors
1 8 (2.77%) Microsoft
2 7 (2.42%) Adobe
3 4 (1.38%) Google
3 4 (1.38%) Salesforce
3 4 (1.38%) Sparx
4 2 (0.69%) Oracle
5 1 (0.35%) Atlassian