Designer Contract Job Trends in the South East

Designer
England > South East

The median Designer daily rate in the South East is £525, according to job vacancies posted in the 6 months leading up to 4 March 2026.

The table below compares current contractor rates and summary statistics with the previous two years.

6 months to
4 Mar 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 139 118 134
Rank change year-on-year -21 +16 +33
Contract jobs requiring a Designer 50 41 74
As % of all contract jobs in the South East 1.00% 1.34% 1.34%
As % of the Job Titles category 1.10% 1.45% 1.44%
Number of daily rates quoted 40 27 31
10th Percentile £452 £300 £256
25th Percentile £500 £332 £394
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £550 £513
Median % change year-on-year -4.55% +7.32% -2.38%
75th Percentile £593 £591 £619
90th Percentile £814 £638 £625
England median daily rate £475 £475 £475
% change year-on-year - - -9.52%
Number of hourly rates quoted 1 0 3
10th Percentile - - £45.04
25th Percentile - - £45.11
Median hourly rate £50.00 - £45.21
75th Percentile - - -
90th Percentile - - -
England median hourly rate £50.00 £40.50 £45.11
% change year-on-year +23.46% -10.21% +8.69%

All Contract IT Job Roles
South East

For comparison with the information above, the following table provides summary statistics for all contract IT job vacancies in the South East. Most job vacancies include a discernible job title that can be normalized. As such, the figures in the second row provide an indication of the number of contract jobs in our overall sample.

Contract vacancies in the South East with a recognized job title 4,566 2,828 5,133
% of contract IT jobs with a recognized job title 90.90% 92.51% 92.89%
Number of daily rates quoted 2,919 1,802 3,152
10th Percentile £275 £240 £205
25th Percentile £406 £400 £380
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £500 £500
75th Percentile £600 £604 £607
90th Percentile £694 £671 £688
England median daily rate £505 £525 £525
% change year-on-year -3.81% - -4.55%
Number of hourly rates quoted 392 119 411
10th Percentile £14.05 £18.50 £12.82
25th Percentile £18.65 £24.18 £18.00
Median hourly rate £36.00 £46.30 £42.50
Median % change year-on-year -22.25% +8.94% -5.56%
75th Percentile £75.20 £62.59 £62.50
90th Percentile £88.00 £75.00 £75.16
England median hourly rate £35.00 £35.00 £33.31
% change year-on-year - +5.08% -19.28%

Designer
Job Vacancy Trend in the South East

Historical trend showing the proportion of contract IT job postings featuring 'Designer' in the job title relative to all contract IT jobs advertised in the South East.

Designer job vacancy trend in the South East

Designer
Daily Rate Trend in the South East

Contractor daily rate distribution trend for Designer job vacancies in the South East.

Contractor daily rate distribution trend for Designer job vacancies in the South East

Designer
Daily Rate Histogram in the South East

Daily rate distribution for jobs citing Designer in the South East over the 6 months to 4 March 2026.

Daily rate histogram for Designer in the South East

Designer
Hourly Rate Trend in the South East

Contractor hourly rate distribution trend for Designer job vacancies in the South East.

Contractor hourly rate distribution trend for Designer job vacancies in the South East

Designer
Contract Job Locations in the South East

The table below looks at the demand and provides a guide to the median contractor rates quoted in IT jobs citing Designer within the South East region over the 6 months to 4 March 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
Thames Valley -45 23 £550 - 12
Hampshire -25 15 £500 -13.04% 3
Buckinghamshire -6 12 £551 +0.10% 5
Berkshire -31 11 £550 +27.17% 7
Surrey -2 8 £1,000 - 8
West Sussex - 1 £600 -
Home Counties - 1 £700 -
Designer
England

Designer Skill Set
Top 30 Co-Occurring Skills & Capabilities in the South East

For the 6 months to 4 March 2026, Designer contract job roles required the following skills and capabilities in order of popularity. The figures indicate the absolute number of co-occurrences and as a proportion of all contract job ads across the South East region featuring Designer in the job title.

1 22 (44.00%) Security Cleared
2 16 (32.00%) Service Design
3 15 (30.00%) ITIL
4 13 (26.00%) DV Cleared
4 13 (26.00%) SC Cleared
5 12 (24.00%) Agile
6 11 (22.00%) Service Management
7 10 (20.00%) Continuous Improvement
7 10 (20.00%) Oracle
7 10 (20.00%) SIAM
8 9 (18.00%) ITSM
8 9 (18.00%) Network Design
9 7 (14.00%) AI
9 7 (14.00%) Migration
10 6 (12.00%) Coaching
10 6 (12.00%) User Experience
10 6 (12.00%) User-Centered Design (UCD)
10 6 (12.00%) Workshop Facilitation
11 5 (10.00%) .NET
11 5 (10.00%) Accessibility
11 5 (10.00%) Business Continuity
11 5 (10.00%) Cisco
11 5 (10.00%) Cloud Security
11 5 (10.00%) Degree
11 5 (10.00%) Disaster Recovery
11 5 (10.00%) Government Security Classifications
11 5 (10.00%) Human-Centred Design
11 5 (10.00%) ISO/IEC 20000
11 5 (10.00%) Juniper
11 5 (10.00%) Lean Six Sigma

Designer Skill Set
Co-Occurring Skills & Capabilities in the South East 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 3 (6.00%) Tomcat
2 1 (2.00%) OpenStack
Applications
1 3 (6.00%) MS Visio
2 2 (4.00%) Adobe Illustrator
2 2 (4.00%) InVision
2 2 (4.00%) Photoshop
2 2 (4.00%) Sketch
3 1 (2.00%) Adobe After Effects
3 1 (2.00%) Adobe Creative Suite
3 1 (2.00%) Adobe Premiere
3 1 (2.00%) Adobe XD
3 1 (2.00%) Blender
3 1 (2.00%) Chatbot
3 1 (2.00%) CINEMA 4D
3 1 (2.00%) MicroStation
3 1 (2.00%) OmniGraffle
Business Applications
1 3 (6.00%) Oracle BRM
2 2 (4.00%) Oracle ERP
2 2 (4.00%) SAP ERP
3 1 (2.00%) Dynamics GP
3 1 (2.00%) Oracle CRM
3 1 (2.00%) SAP S/4HANA
3 1 (2.00%) SmartPlant
Cloud Services
1 4 (8.00%) Figma
2 1 (2.00%) AWS
2 1 (2.00%) dbt
2 1 (2.00%) OpenShift
Communications & Networking
1 3 (6.00%) Broadband
1 3 (6.00%) Firewall
1 3 (6.00%) GPRS
1 3 (6.00%) GSM
1 3 (6.00%) IPv4
1 3 (6.00%) IPv6
1 3 (6.00%) Network Security
1 3 (6.00%) TCP/IP
1 3 (6.00%) VLAN
1 3 (6.00%) VPN
2 2 (4.00%) LAN
3 1 (2.00%) BGP
3 1 (2.00%) DWDM
3 1 (2.00%) Ethernet
3 1 (2.00%) MPLS
3 1 (2.00%) OSPF
3 1 (2.00%) SNMP
3 1 (2.00%) TACACS
3 1 (2.00%) WAN
3 1 (2.00%) Wireless
Database & Business Intelligence
1 2 (4.00%) Electronic Patient Records
1 2 (4.00%) Oracle ODI
2 1 (2.00%) BigQuery
2 1 (2.00%) Tableau
Development Applications
1 2 (4.00%) Axure RP
2 1 (2.00%) Git
2 1 (2.00%) JIRA
General
1 11 (22.00%) Social Skills
2 9 (18.00%) Finance
3 5 (10.00%) Public Sector
4 4 (8.00%) Influencing Skills
5 3 (6.00%) Billing
5 3 (6.00%) Telecoms
6 1 (2.00%) Analytical Skills
6 1 (2.00%) Documentation Skills
6 1 (2.00%) Legal
6 1 (2.00%) Marketing
6 1 (2.00%) Presentation Skills
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 5 (10.00%) .NET
2 1 (2.00%) CSS
2 1 (2.00%) HTML
Miscellaneous
1 9 (18.00%) Product Ownership
2 5 (10.00%) Mainframe
3 4 (8.00%) Data Centre
4 3 (6.00%) IPTV
4 3 (6.00%) Legacy Systems
5 2 (4.00%) Data Protection Act
5 2 (4.00%) Virtual Team
6 1 (2.00%) Animation
6 1 (2.00%) Enterprise Software
6 1 (2.00%) Fibre Optics
6 1 (2.00%) Greenfield Project
6 1 (2.00%) Hybrid Cloud
6 1 (2.00%) LIMS
6 1 (2.00%) Motion Graphics
6 1 (2.00%) NHS
6 1 (2.00%) Onboarding
6 1 (2.00%) PACS
6 1 (2.00%) Self-Motivation
6 1 (2.00%) Taxonomies
Operating Systems
1 3 (6.00%) Unix
Processes & Methodologies
1 16 (32.00%) Service Design
2 15 (30.00%) ITIL
3 12 (24.00%) Agile
4 11 (22.00%) Service Management
5 10 (20.00%) Continuous Improvement
5 10 (20.00%) SIAM
6 9 (18.00%) ITSM
6 9 (18.00%) Network Design
7 7 (14.00%) AI
7 7 (14.00%) Migration
8 6 (12.00%) Coaching
8 6 (12.00%) User Experience
8 6 (12.00%) User-Centered Design (UCD)
8 6 (12.00%) Workshop Facilitation
9 5 (10.00%) Cloud Security
9 5 (10.00%) Human-Centred Design
9 5 (10.00%) Problem-Solving
9 5 (10.00%) Prototyping
9 5 (10.00%) TOGAF
9 5 (10.00%) User Research
Programming Languages
1 4 (8.00%) SQL
2 3 (6.00%) Java
2 3 (6.00%) PL/SQL
3 1 (2.00%) JavaScript
3 1 (2.00%) Python
Qualifications
1 22 (44.00%) Security Cleared
2 13 (26.00%) DV Cleared
2 13 (26.00%) SC Cleared
3 5 (10.00%) Degree
4 4 (8.00%) Cisco Certification
5 3 (6.00%) CCNA
5 3 (6.00%) CCNP
5 3 (6.00%) JNCIS
6 1 (2.00%) AWS Certification
6 1 (2.00%) CCIE
6 1 (2.00%) ITIL Certification
6 1 (2.00%) JNCIE
6 1 (2.00%) SAP Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 5 (10.00%) Accessibility
1 5 (10.00%) Government Security Classifications
1 5 (10.00%) ISO/IEC 20000
1 5 (10.00%) NCSC
2 3 (6.00%) WCAG
3 1 (2.00%) Actionable Recommendations
3 1 (2.00%) HL7
System Software
1 1 (2.00%) VMware Infrastructure
1 1 (2.00%) VMware NSX
Systems Management
1 3 (6.00%) Nagios
2 1 (2.00%) Ansible
2 1 (2.00%) Terraform
Vendors
1 10 (20.00%) Oracle
2 5 (10.00%) Cisco
2 5 (10.00%) Juniper
3 4 (8.00%) F5
4 3 (6.00%) SolarWinds
5 2 (4.00%) Adobe
5 2 (4.00%) SAP
6 1 (2.00%) Fortinet
6 1 (2.00%) Nokia
6 1 (2.00%) Sage
6 1 (2.00%) Salesforce
6 1 (2.00%) Virgin Media
6 1 (2.00%) VMware