User Experience Contract Job Trends in the South East

UX
England > South East

The table below provides summary statistics and contractor rates for jobs advertised in the South East requiring User Experience skills. It covers contract job vacancies from the 6 months leading up to 21 January 2026, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
21 Jan 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 85 79 113
Rank change year-on-year -6 +34 -7
Contract jobs citing User Experience 108 86 96
As % of all contract jobs in the South East 2.43% 2.62% 1.85%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 2.89% 2.94% 2.10%
Number of daily rates quoted 86 53 68
10th Percentile £204 £250 £359
25th Percentile £223 £386 £421
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £436 £500 £500
Median % change year-on-year -12.80% -0.05% -2.86%
75th Percentile £547 £613 £575
90th Percentile £638 £651 £688
England median daily rate £475 £500 £500
% change year-on-year -5.00% - -9.09%
Number of hourly rates quoted 4 2 5
10th Percentile - £54.98 -
25th Percentile £25.15 £60.56 £19.25
Median hourly rate £47.66 £72.25 £32.50
Median % change year-on-year -34.04% +122.31% -50.94%
75th Percentile £73.12 £85.06 £48.75
90th Percentile £78.45 £91.33 £81.22
England median hourly rate £35.60 £42.21 £55.25
% change year-on-year -15.65% -23.61% -11.60%

All Process & Methodology Skills
South East

User Experience 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 the South East.

Contract vacancies with a requirement for process or methodology skills 3,733 2,930 4,575
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the South East 84.06% 89.36% 88.37%
Number of daily rates quoted 2,457 1,807 2,866
10th Percentile £250 £250 £213
25th Percentile £400 £400 £400
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £501 £513
Median % change year-on-year -0.10% -2.34% +0.99%
75th Percentile £600 £618 £613
90th Percentile £688 £675 £688
England median daily rate £500 £525 £535
% change year-on-year -4.76% -1.87% -2.73%
Number of hourly rates quoted 329 108 302
10th Percentile £14.50 £19.77 £15.48
25th Percentile £17.00 £25.56 £23.63
Median hourly rate £23.58 £43.94 £50.50
Median % change year-on-year -46.35% -12.99% +14.12%
75th Percentile £50.00 £62.76 £65.00
90th Percentile £75.00 £74.91 £76.53
England median hourly rate £25.15 £35.00 £38.16
% change year-on-year -28.14% -8.27% +9.67%

User Experience
Job Vacancy Trend in the South East

Historical trend showing the proportion of contract IT job postings citing User Experience relative to all contract IT jobs advertised in the South East.

User Experience job vacancy trend in the South East

User Experience
Daily Rate Trend in the South East

Contractor daily rate distribution trend for jobs in the South East citing User Experience.

Contractor daily rate distribution trend for jobs in the South East citing User Experience

User Experience
Daily Rate Histogram in the South East

Daily rate distribution for jobs citing User Experience in the South East over the 6 months to 21 January 2026.

Daily rate histogram for User Experience in the South East

User Experience
Hourly Rate Trend in the South East

Contractor hourly rate distribution trend for jobs in the South East citing User Experience.

Contractor hourly rate distribution trend for jobs in the South East citing User Experience

User Experience
Hourly Rate Histogram in the South East

Hourly rate distribution of jobs citing User Experience in the South East over the 6 months to 21 January 2026.

Hourly rate histogram for User Experience in the South East

User Experience
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 User Experience within the South East region over the 6 months to 21 January 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
Surrey +22 46 £380 -24.00% 22
Thames Valley -43 33 £521 +4.15% 97
Berkshire -29 20 £513 +17.61% 66
Hampshire -9 17 £364 -27.56% 24
Buckinghamshire -8 11 £538 -20.37% 18
Kent - 6 £300 - 17
West Sussex -10 4 £650 - 15
Oxfordshire -14 2 £517 +8.74% 13
East Sussex +4 1 £600 +33.33% 13
User Experience
England

User Experience
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 4 (3.70%) SharePoint
2 3 (2.78%) CMS
3 2 (1.85%) Adobe Experience Manager
3 2 (1.85%) Confluence
4 1 (0.93%) Apache
4 1 (0.93%) Umbraco
Applications
1 2 (1.85%) InVision
1 2 (1.85%) Sketch
1 2 (1.85%) UXPin
2 1 (0.93%) Adobe Illustrator
2 1 (0.93%) Adobe XD
2 1 (0.93%) Chatbot
2 1 (0.93%) OmniGraffle
2 1 (0.93%) Photoshop
Business Applications
1 1 (0.93%) Salesforce CRM
1 1 (0.93%) SAP CO
1 1 (0.93%) SAP FI
1 1 (0.93%) SAP FI/CO
Cloud Services
1 22 (20.37%) SaaS
2 18 (16.67%) Sauce Labs
3 15 (13.89%) Azure
4 8 (7.41%) GitHub
5 7 (6.48%) GitHub Actions
5 7 (6.48%) Microsoft 365
5 7 (6.48%) Tricentis Tosca
6 6 (5.56%) AWS
7 5 (4.63%) Entra ID
7 5 (4.63%) Figma
7 5 (4.63%) GCP
8 4 (3.70%) Power Platform
9 3 (2.78%) Azure API Management
9 3 (2.78%) Azure DevOps
9 3 (2.78%) Azure Functions
9 3 (2.78%) Azure Monitor
9 3 (2.78%) Serverless
10 2 (1.85%) OCI
10 2 (1.85%) Slack
10 2 (1.85%) Viva Engage
Communications & Networking
1 16 (14.81%) Wireless
2 4 (3.70%) NFC
2 4 (3.70%) PPP
3 3 (2.78%) Wi-Fi
4 2 (1.85%) DNS
4 2 (1.85%) SSL
5 1 (0.93%) HTTP
5 1 (0.93%) Intranet
5 1 (0.93%) Network Security
5 1 (0.93%) Software-Defined Radio
5 1 (0.93%) TCP/IP
5 1 (0.93%) Unified Communications
5 1 (0.93%) VoIP
Database & Business Intelligence
1 22 (20.37%) MySQL
2 20 (18.52%) Relational Database
3 4 (3.70%) SQL Server
4 3 (2.78%) PostgreSQL
5 1 (0.93%) BigQuery
5 1 (0.93%) DynamoDB
5 1 (0.93%) MongoDB
5 1 (0.93%) NoSQL
5 1 (0.93%) Power BI
5 1 (0.93%) QlikView
5 1 (0.93%) SQL Server Integration Services
5 1 (0.93%) Tableau
Development Applications
1 22 (20.37%) Eclipse
2 19 (17.59%) Browser DevTools
2 19 (17.59%) JIRA
3 18 (16.67%) Android Studio
3 18 (16.67%) Xcode
4 9 (8.33%) GitLab
4 9 (8.33%) Jenkins
5 5 (4.63%) Git
6 4 (3.70%) JUnit
6 4 (3.70%) Valgrind
7 3 (2.78%) Postman
7 3 (2.78%) Storybook
8 2 (1.85%) Axure RP
8 2 (1.85%) SQL Server Management Studio (SSMS)
9 1 (0.93%) Artifactory
9 1 (0.93%) Cucumber
9 1 (0.93%) Selenium
9 1 (0.93%) SoapUI
General
1 58 (53.70%) Social Skills
2 14 (12.96%) Finance
3 10 (9.26%) Analytical Skills
4 7 (6.48%) Marketing
5 5 (4.63%) Manufacturing
5 5 (4.63%) Public Sector
6 4 (3.70%) Retail
6 4 (3.70%) Telecoms
7 3 (2.78%) Electronics
7 3 (2.78%) Inclusion and Diversity
7 3 (2.78%) Legal
8 2 (1.85%) Billing
8 2 (1.85%) French Language
8 2 (1.85%) Influencing Skills
9 1 (0.93%) Automotive
9 1 (0.93%) Games
9 1 (0.93%) Law
9 1 (0.93%) Organisational Skills
Job Titles
1 22 (20.37%) Support Engineer
2 20 (18.52%) UX Engineer
3 19 (17.59%) Technical Engineer
3 19 (17.59%) Technical Support
3 19 (17.59%) Technical Support Engineer
4 16 (14.81%) Front-End Engineer (Client-Side Engineer)
5 13 (12.04%) Developer
5 13 (12.04%) Senior
6 12 (11.11%) Analyst
7 8 (7.41%) Lead
8 7 (6.48%) Business Analyst
8 7 (6.48%) QA Engineer
9 6 (5.56%) Designer
9 6 (5.56%) IT Engineer
10 5 (4.63%) C++ Software Engineer
10 5 (4.63%) Senior C++ Software Engineer
10 5 (4.63%) Senior Software Engineer
10 5 (4.63%) Software Engineer
11 4 (3.70%) Consultant
11 4 (3.70%) Tester
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 29 (26.85%) React
2 28 (25.93%) CSS
3 22 (20.37%) AngularJS
3 22 (20.37%) GraphQL
4 19 (17.59%) Ajax
5 10 (9.26%) REST
6 9 (8.33%) HTML
7 7 (6.48%) Oracle Fusion
7 7 (6.48%) RESTful
8 6 (5.56%) JSON
8 6 (5.56%) XML
9 5 (4.63%) Spring
9 5 (4.63%) Spring Boot
10 4 (3.70%) .NET
10 4 (3.70%) .NET Core
10 4 (3.70%) Web Services
11 3 (2.78%) .NET Framework
11 3 (2.78%) ASP.NET
11 3 (2.78%) OpenID
11 3 (2.78%) SAML
Miscellaneous
1 26 (24.07%) Mobile App
2 7 (6.48%) Product Ownership
2 7 (6.48%) Synthetic Data
3 4 (3.70%) Smartcard
4 3 (2.78%) Linux Command Line
4 3 (2.78%) Video Conferencing
5 2 (1.85%) Data Centre
5 2 (1.85%) Virtual Team
6 1 (0.93%) AS400
6 1 (0.93%) Distributed Architecture
6 1 (0.93%) Distributed Systems
6 1 (0.93%) Graphic Design
6 1 (0.93%) Legacy Systems
6 1 (0.93%) Management Information System
6 1 (0.93%) Manufacturing Execution System
6 1 (0.93%) Onboarding
6 1 (0.93%) Smartphone
6 1 (0.93%) Wiki
Operating Systems
1 27 (25.00%) Windows
2 23 (21.30%) Android
2 23 (21.30%) Linux
3 22 (20.37%) Unix
4 5 (4.63%) Apple iOS
5 4 (3.70%) Ubuntu
5 4 (3.70%) Windows 10
6 2 (1.85%) Mac OS
7 1 (0.93%) Windows Server
Processes & Methodologies
1 39 (36.11%) Agile
2 25 (23.15%) Problem-Solving
3 23 (21.30%) CI/CD
4 22 (20.37%) Mobile Application Development
5 18 (16.67%) DevOps
5 18 (16.67%) OO
5 18 (16.67%) UX Design
6 16 (14.81%) Acceptance Criteria
7 14 (12.96%) Front End Development
8 13 (12.04%) Test Automation
9 12 (11.11%) Validation
10 11 (10.19%) User-Centered Design (UCD)
11 10 (9.26%) AI
12 9 (8.33%) CRM
12 9 (8.33%) Stakeholder Engagement
12 9 (8.33%) User Stories
13 8 (7.41%) Data Privacy
13 8 (7.41%) Digital Transformation Programme
13 8 (7.41%) Project Management
13 8 (7.41%) User Acceptance Testing
Programming Languages
1 36 (33.33%) JavaScript
2 33 (30.56%) Java
3 28 (25.93%) Python
4 19 (17.59%) Perl
5 15 (13.89%) SQL
6 9 (8.33%) C#
7 7 (6.48%) PL/SQL
8 6 (5.56%) PowerShell
9 5 (4.63%) C++
9 5 (4.63%) Kotlin
9 5 (4.63%) TypeScript
10 4 (3.70%) Bash
10 4 (3.70%) Swift
11 3 (2.78%) Objective-C
11 3 (2.78%) PHP
12 1 (0.93%) Data Analysis Expressions
Qualifications
1 9 (8.33%) Degree
2 8 (7.41%) Security Cleared
3 7 (6.48%) OCA
3 7 (6.48%) Oracle Certification
3 7 (6.48%) SC Cleared
4 4 (3.70%) Computer Science Degree
5 2 (1.85%) Microsoft Certification
6 1 (0.93%) BPSS Clearance
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 17 (15.74%) QA
2 10 (9.26%) GDPR
3 4 (3.70%) Data Quality
4 2 (1.85%) Accessibility
4 2 (1.85%) Actionable Recommendations
4 2 (1.85%) ISO/IEC 27001
4 2 (1.85%) PMO
5 1 (0.93%) California Consumer Privacy Act
5 1 (0.93%) Cyber Essentials
5 1 (0.93%) EU AI Act
5 1 (0.93%) HIPAA
5 1 (0.93%) SLA
5 1 (0.93%) SOC 2
5 1 (0.93%) WCAG
System Software
1 7 (6.48%) Active Directory
2 3 (2.78%) VMware Infrastructure
3 2 (1.85%) Docker
4 1 (0.93%) Hyper-V
4 1 (0.93%) Virtual Desktop
Systems Management
1 5 (4.63%) Microsoft Intune
2 4 (3.70%) SCCM
2 4 (3.70%) Terraform
3 3 (2.78%) Kubernetes
4 1 (0.93%) Ansible
4 1 (0.93%) Jamf Pro
4 1 (0.93%) Kibana
4 1 (0.93%) Single Sign-On
Vendors
1 29 (26.85%) Microsoft
2 26 (24.07%) Oracle
3 23 (21.30%) ServiceNow
4 20 (18.52%) Splunk
5 5 (4.63%) Apple
6 4 (3.70%) Adobe
6 4 (3.70%) SAP
7 3 (2.78%) Citrix
7 3 (2.78%) VMware
8 2 (1.85%) Dell
8 2 (1.85%) Google
8 2 (1.85%) Okta
8 2 (1.85%) Salesforce
9 1 (0.93%) CrowdStrike
9 1 (0.93%) NetApp
9 1 (0.93%) Openreach
9 1 (0.93%) Rapid7
9 1 (0.93%) Veeam
9 1 (0.93%) Virgin Media
9 1 (0.93%) Zscaler