Design Thinking Contracts in the UK excluding London

Design Thinking
UK > UK excluding London

The table below provides summary statistics for contract job vacancies advertised in the UK excluding London requiring Design Thinking skills. It includes a benchmarking guide to the contractor rates offered in vacancies that cited Design Thinking over the 6 months leading up to 1 May 2025, comparing them to the same period in the previous two years.

6 months to
1 May 2025
Same period 2024 Same period 2023
Rank 306 387 412
Rank change year-on-year +81 +25 +5
Contract jobs citing Design Thinking 30 12 50
As % of all contract jobs advertised in the UK excluding London 0.23% 0.058% 0.21%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 0.26% 0.068% 0.23%
Number of daily rates quoted 21 12 31
10th Percentile £200 £355 £475
25th Percentile £425 £408 £512
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £519 £550
Median % change year-on-year -3.61% -5.68% -
75th Percentile £613 £575 £622
90th Percentile £675 £598 £711
UK median daily rate £525 £500 £550
% change year-on-year +5.00% -9.09% -4.35%

All Process and Methodology Skills
UK excluding London

Design Thinking 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 UK excluding London.

Contract vacancies with a requirement for process or methodology skills 11,543 17,602 21,544
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK excluding London 90.42% 84.74% 89.52%
Number of daily rates quoted 7,249 10,520 14,947
10th Percentile £235 £250 £255
25th Percentile £375 £380 £400
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £483 £500 £500
Median % change year-on-year -3.50% - +5.26%
75th Percentile £588 £600 £600
90th Percentile £662 £688 £688
UK median daily rate £520 £525 £550
% change year-on-year -0.95% -4.55% +4.76%
Number of hourly rates quoted 825 2,048 1,307
10th Percentile £14.20 £12.33 £11.00
25th Percentile £17.30 £15.28 £16.00
Median hourly rate £27.50 £37.34 £36.00
Median % change year-on-year -26.35% +3.72% +80.00%
75th Percentile £64.50 £60.00 £65.00
90th Percentile £75.00 £72.50 £72.98
UK median hourly rate £29.00 £35.65 £37.30
% change year-on-year -18.65% -4.42% +49.20%

Design Thinking
Job Vacancy Trend in the UK excluding London

Job postings citing Design Thinking as a proportion of all IT jobs advertised in the UK excluding London.

Job vacancy trend for Design Thinking in the UK excluding London

Design Thinking
Contractor Daily Rate Trend in the UK excluding London

3-month moving average daily rate quoted in jobs citing Design Thinking in the UK excluding London.

Daily rate trend for Design Thinking in the UK excluding London

Design Thinking
Daily Rate Histogram in the UK excluding London

Daily rate distribution for jobs citing Design Thinking in the UK excluding London over the 6 months to 1 May 2025.

Daily rate histogram for Design Thinking in the UK excluding London

Design Thinking
Contractor Hourly Rate Trend in the UK excluding London

3-month moving average hourly rates quoted in jobs citing Design Thinking in the UK excluding London.

Hourly rate trend for Design Thinking in the UK excluding London

Design Thinking
Contract Job Locations in the UK excluding London

The table below looks at the demand and provides a guide to the median contractor rates quoted in IT jobs citing Design Thinking within the UK excluding London region over the 6 months to 1 May 2025. 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
North of England +27 12 £325 -31.58% 13
North East - 8 £200 - 3
South East +49 6 £650 +75.68% 21
Scotland +16 6 £569 +3.41% 4
Midlands - 5 £474 - 3
West Midlands - 5 £474 -
Yorkshire +6 2 £474 -0.21%
North West - 2 £325 - 10
Northern Ireland -8 1 £450 -12.20%
South West - 1 £500 - 4
Design Thinking
UK

Design Thinking
Co-occurring Skills and Capabilities in the UK excluding London 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 3 (10.00%) Confluence
2 1 (3.33%) SharePoint
Applications
1 1 (3.33%) Adobe XD
1 1 (3.33%) Sketch
1 1 (3.33%) UserZoom
Cloud Services
1 9 (30.00%) Figma
2 3 (10.00%) AWS
3 2 (6.67%) Cloud Computing
3 2 (6.67%) GitHub
3 2 (6.67%) SaaS
4 1 (3.33%) Azure
4 1 (3.33%) GCP
Communications & Networking
1 1 (3.33%) Internet
Database & Business Intelligence
1 1 (3.33%) NoSQL
Development Applications
1 3 (10.00%) JIRA
2 2 (6.67%) Postman
3 1 (3.33%) Git
General
1 11 (36.67%) Social Skills
2 10 (33.33%) Finance
3 5 (16.67%) Analytical Skills
4 3 (10.00%) Banking
4 3 (10.00%) Public Sector
Job Titles
1 11 (36.67%) Designer
2 5 (16.67%) Analyst
2 5 (16.67%) Service Designer
2 5 (16.67%) Sustainability Analyst
2 5 (16.67%) User Experience Researcher
3 4 (13.33%) Product Designer
3 4 (13.33%) Senior
4 3 (10.00%) Senior Designer
4 3 (10.00%) Senior Service Designer
5 2 (6.67%) Architect
5 2 (6.67%) Developer
5 2 (6.67%) Lead
5 2 (6.67%) Senior UX Designer
5 2 (6.67%) Solutions Architect
5 2 (6.67%) Solutions Designer
5 2 (6.67%) Technical Leader
5 2 (6.67%) UX Designer
5 2 (6.67%) UX Service Designer
6 1 (3.33%) Digital Developer
6 1 (3.33%) Technology Analyst
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 3 (10.00%) Node.js
2 2 (6.67%) Middleware
2 2 (6.67%) OpenAPI
2 2 (6.67%) Web Services
3 1 (3.33%) CSS
3 1 (3.33%) HTML
3 1 (3.33%) React
3 1 (3.33%) REST
3 1 (3.33%) RESTful
3 1 (3.33%) Swagger
3 1 (3.33%) Vue
Miscellaneous
1 3 (10.00%) Product Ownership
2 2 (6.67%) Enterprise Software
3 1 (3.33%) Data Protection Act
3 1 (3.33%) Mobile App
Operating Systems
1 1 (3.33%) Android
1 1 (3.33%) Apple iOS
Processes & Methodologies
1 18 (60.00%) Problem-Solving
2 12 (40.00%) User Experience
3 10 (33.33%) User Research
4 9 (30.00%) Agile
4 9 (30.00%) Wireframes
5 7 (23.33%) A/B Testing
5 7 (23.33%) Analytics
5 7 (23.33%) UX Design
5 7 (23.33%) UX Research
6 6 (20.00%) Fintech
6 6 (20.00%) Service Design
7 5 (16.67%) Data Analysis
7 5 (16.67%) Microservices
7 5 (16.67%) Performance Analysis
7 5 (16.67%) Stakeholder Engagement
7 5 (16.67%) Usability Testing
8 4 (13.33%) Actionable Insight
8 4 (13.33%) Artificial Intelligence
8 4 (13.33%) Stakeholder Management
8 4 (13.33%) User-Centered Design (UCD)
Programming Languages
1 3 (10.00%) Python
2 1 (3.33%) JavaScript
2 1 (3.33%) SQL
Qualifications
1 4 (13.33%) Degree
1 4 (13.33%) SC Cleared
1 4 (13.33%) Security Cleared
2 2 (6.67%) Computer Science Degree
3 1 (3.33%) Master's Degree
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 3 (10.00%) Accessibility
2 2 (6.67%) WCAG
3 1 (3.33%) Disclosure Scotland
Vendors
1 1 (3.33%) Adobe
1 1 (3.33%) Microsoft
1 1 (3.33%) Optimizely
1 1 (3.33%) Qualtrics