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 25 June 2025, comparing them to the same period in the previous two years.

6 months to
25 Jun 2025
Same period 2024 Same period 2023
Rank 313 382 397
Rank change year-on-year +69 +15 +30
Contract jobs citing Design Thinking 40 19 44
As % of all contract jobs advertised in the UK excluding London 0.29% 0.089% 0.19%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 0.33% 0.11% 0.22%
Number of daily rates quoted 29 11 27
10th Percentile £200 £355 £461
25th Percentile £413 £403 £503
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £525 £550
Median % change year-on-year -4.76% -4.55% +0.92%
75th Percentile £600 £575 £573
90th Percentile £675 £600 £610
UK median daily rate £515 £500 £550
% change year-on-year +3.00% -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 12,292 17,554 20,339
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK excluding London 90.51% 82.63% 89.02%
Number of daily rates quoted 7,533 10,298 13,898
10th Percentile £235 £250 £263
25th Percentile £367 £380 £400
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £475 £500 £500
Median % change year-on-year -5.00% - +1.01%
75th Percentile £575 £600 £600
90th Percentile £650 £688 £694
UK median daily rate £505 £525 £550
% change year-on-year -3.81% -4.55% +1.85%
Number of hourly rates quoted 998 2,191 1,271
10th Percentile £13.81 £12.50 £11.80
25th Percentile £16.84 £15.50 £15.25
Median hourly rate £24.83 £38.12 £32.50
Median % change year-on-year -34.86% +17.29% +54.76%
75th Percentile £55.00 £61.60 £63.75
90th Percentile £73.75 £73.75 £75.00
UK median hourly rate £25.15 £37.50 £35.00
% change year-on-year -32.93% +7.14% +34.62%

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 25 June 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 25 June 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 +30 17 £425 -19.05% 29
South East +52 11 £650 +75.68% 19
North East +6 9 £338 -25.00%
Scotland +7 6 £569 +3.41% 12
Midlands - 6 £474 - 10
Yorkshire +10 5 £443 -15.57% 6
West Midlands - 5 £474 - 6
North West +6 4 £425 - 23
South West +47 1 £500 - 14
East Midlands - 1 - - 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 4 (10.00%) Confluence
2 2 (5.00%) SharePoint
Applications
1 2 (5.00%) Sketch
2 1 (2.50%) Adobe Creative Suite
2 1 (2.50%) Adobe XD
Cloud Services
1 13 (32.50%) Figma
2 4 (10.00%) AWS
2 4 (10.00%) Azure
2 4 (10.00%) GCP
3 2 (5.00%) Cloud Computing
3 2 (5.00%) GitHub
3 2 (5.00%) SaaS
4 1 (2.50%) Lucidchart
4 1 (2.50%) Miro
4 1 (2.50%) OpenShift
Database & Business Intelligence
1 1 (2.50%) NoSQL
1 1 (2.50%) PostgreSQL
Development Applications
1 4 (10.00%) JIRA
2 2 (5.00%) Cypress.io
2 2 (5.00%) Postman
3 1 (2.50%) Git
General
1 15 (37.50%) Social Skills
2 9 (22.50%) Finance
3 4 (10.00%) Analytical Skills
3 4 (10.00%) Banking
4 3 (7.50%) Public Sector
Job Titles
1 14 (35.00%) Designer
2 6 (15.00%) Developer
2 6 (15.00%) Service Designer
3 5 (12.50%) Analyst
3 5 (12.50%) Lead
3 5 (12.50%) Sustainability Analyst
4 4 (10.00%) Architect
4 4 (10.00%) Product Designer
4 4 (10.00%) User Experience Researcher
5 3 (7.50%) Senior
5 3 (7.50%) Senior Designer
5 3 (7.50%) Senior Service Designer
5 3 (7.50%) Technical Leader
5 3 (7.50%) UX Designer
6 2 (5.00%) Data Architect
6 2 (5.00%) React Developer
6 2 (5.00%) Senior UX Designer
6 2 (5.00%) SharePoint Specialist
6 2 (5.00%) Solutions Architect
6 2 (5.00%) Solutions Designer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 4 (10.00%) Node.js
2 3 (7.50%) React
2 3 (7.50%) RESTful
3 2 (5.00%) Apollo GraphQL
3 2 (5.00%) GraphQL
3 2 (5.00%) Kafka
3 2 (5.00%) Middleware
3 2 (5.00%) OpenAPI
3 2 (5.00%) Playwright
3 2 (5.00%) Web Services
4 1 (2.50%) CSS
4 1 (2.50%) HTML
4 1 (2.50%) Next.js
4 1 (2.50%) REST
4 1 (2.50%) Spring
4 1 (2.50%) Spring Boot
4 1 (2.50%) Swagger
4 1 (2.50%) Vue
Miscellaneous
1 3 (7.50%) Data Protection Act
1 3 (7.50%) Product Ownership
2 2 (5.00%) Cloud Native
2 2 (5.00%) Enterprise Software
2 2 (5.00%) Low-Code
3 1 (2.50%) Digital Media
3 1 (2.50%) Mobile App
3 1 (2.50%) Photography
Operating Systems
1 1 (2.50%) Android
1 1 (2.50%) Apple iOS
Processes & Methodologies
1 20 (50.00%) Problem-Solving
2 17 (42.50%) User Experience
3 13 (32.50%) Agile
4 12 (30.00%) Wireframes
5 11 (27.50%) User Research
5 11 (27.50%) UX Design
6 9 (22.50%) Analytics
7 7 (17.50%) A/B Testing
7 7 (17.50%) Service Design
7 7 (17.50%) UX Research
8 6 (15.00%) Artificial Intelligence
8 6 (15.00%) CI/CD
8 6 (15.00%) Fintech
8 6 (15.00%) Microservices
8 6 (15.00%) Usability Testing
9 5 (12.50%) Data Analysis
9 5 (12.50%) Performance Analysis
9 5 (12.50%) Stakeholder Engagement
9 5 (12.50%) User-Centered Design (UCD)
10 4 (10.00%) Roadmaps
Programming Languages
1 3 (7.50%) Python
2 1 (2.50%) JavaScript
2 1 (2.50%) SQL
2 1 (2.50%) TypeScript
Qualifications
1 4 (10.00%) SC Cleared
1 4 (10.00%) Security Cleared
2 3 (7.50%) Degree
3 2 (5.00%) Computer Science Degree
4 1 (2.50%) BPSS Clearance
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 5 (12.50%) Accessibility
2 4 (10.00%) WCAG
3 1 (2.50%) Disclosure Scotland
Vendors
1 2 (5.00%) Adobe
1 2 (5.00%) Google
1 2 (5.00%) Microsoft
2 1 (2.50%) Optimizely
2 1 (2.50%) Red Hat