Designer Contracts in the UK excluding London

Designer
UK > UK excluding London

The median Designer daily rate in the UK excluding London is £409, according to job vacancies posted in the 6 months leading up to 1 May 2025.

The table below provides contractor rate benchmarking and summary statistics, comparing them to the same period in the previous two years.

6 months to
1 May 2025
Same period 2024 Same period 2023
Rank 184 156 186
Rank change year-on-year -28 +30 -64
Contract jobs requiring a Designer 159 280 336
As % of all contract jobs advertised in the UK excluding London 1.25% 1.35% 1.40%
As % of the Job Titles category 1.35% 1.46% 1.48%
Number of daily rates quoted 119 131 238
10th Percentile £303 £288 £335
25th Percentile £350 £389 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £409 £463 £486
Median % change year-on-year -11.57% -4.79% -2.85%
75th Percentile £534 £575 £575
90th Percentile £600 £625 £680
UK median daily rate £459 £475 £525
% change year-on-year -3.38% -9.52% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 3 43 7
10th Percentile £30.08 £45.00 £38.50
25th Percentile £30.20 £53.40 £50.50
Median hourly rate £30.40 £57.35 £65.00
Median % change year-on-year -46.99% -11.77% +80.56%
75th Percentile £52.70 £61.30 £70.50
90th Percentile £66.08 - £86.59
UK median hourly rate £30.40 £57.35 £46.25
% change year-on-year -46.99% +24.00% +6.32%

All Contract IT Job Vacancies
UK excluding London

For comparison with the information above, the following table provides summary statistics for all contract IT job vacancies in the UK excluding London. 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 UK excluding London with a recognized job title 11,767 19,240 22,667
% of contract IT jobs with a recognized job title 92.17% 92.63% 94.18%
Number of daily rates quoted 7,552 11,748 15,893
10th Percentile £213 £213 £225
25th Percentile £363 £363 £395
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £475 £492 £500
Median % change year-on-year -3.46% -1.60% +5.26%
75th Percentile £575 £598 £595
90th Percentile £650 £688 £688
UK median daily rate £515 £525 £540
% change year-on-year -1.90% -2.78% +2.86%
Number of hourly rates quoted 829 2,243 1,165
10th Percentile £14.00 £12.50 £13.45
25th Percentile £17.61 £15.75 £18.09
Median hourly rate £28.00 £39.55 £42.50
Median % change year-on-year -29.20% -6.94% +117.95%
75th Percentile £64.50 £61.30 £65.00
90th Percentile £75.00 £73.75 £75.00
UK median hourly rate £29.00 £36.42 £45.00
% change year-on-year -20.37% -19.07% +91.49%

Designer
Job Vacancy Trend in the UK excluding London

Job postings that featured Designer in the job title as a proportion of all IT jobs advertised in the UK excluding London.

Job vacancy trend for Designer in the UK excluding London

Designer
Contractor Daily Rate Trend in the UK excluding London

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

Daily rate trend for Designer in the UK excluding London

Designer
Daily Rate Histogram in the UK excluding London

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

Daily rate histogram for Designer in the UK excluding London

Designer
Contractor Hourly Rate Trend in the UK excluding London

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

Hourly rate trend for Designer in the UK excluding London

Designer
Hourly Rate Histogram in the UK excluding London

Hourly rate distribution of jobs citing Designer in the UK excluding London over the 6 months to 1 May 2025.

Hourly rate histogram for Designer in the UK excluding London

Designer
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 Designer 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 +2 54 £401 -5.76% 78
Scotland -9 38 £469 +0.81% 13
North West +20 25 £404 +2.48% 51
South East -43 20 £495 -8.97% 105
South West +54 19 £475 +11.76% 36
Midlands +23 18 £405 +1.25% 33
Yorkshire -15 16 £400 -5.88% 16
West Midlands +17 15 £434 +8.44% 17
North East +2 13 £438 -30.00% 11
Wales - 9 £305 - 14
East of England +31 5 £475 -26.92% 22
East Midlands +8 3 £322 -22.97% 13
Designer
UK

Designer Skill Set
Top 30 Co-occurring Skills and Capabilities in the UK excluding London

For the 6 months to 1 May 2025, Designer contract job roles required the following skills and capabilities in order of popularity. The figures indicate the absolute number co-occurrences and as a proportion of all contract job ads across the UK excluding London region featuring Designer in the job title.

1 59 (37.11%) User Experience
2 50 (31.45%) Agile
3 42 (26.42%) UX Design
4 36 (22.64%) Figma
5 33 (20.75%) Social Skills
5 33 (20.75%) User Research
6 32 (20.13%) Finance
6 32 (20.13%) Service Design
7 27 (16.98%) Prototyping
7 27 (16.98%) Public Sector
8 24 (15.09%) Wireframes
9 23 (14.47%) User-Centered Design (UCD)
10 22 (13.84%) Problem-Solving
11 19 (11.95%) Interaction Design
12 18 (11.32%) Telecoms
12 18 (11.32%) Adobe
12 18 (11.32%) Degree
13 17 (10.69%) Azure
14 16 (10.06%) Accessibility
15 14 (8.81%) Decision-Making
16 13 (8.18%) SC Cleared
16 13 (8.18%) Security Cleared
16 13 (8.18%) Usability Testing
17 12 (7.55%) Microservices
17 12 (7.55%) Business Strategy
18 11 (6.92%) Design Thinking
18 11 (6.92%) Stakeholder Management
18 11 (6.92%) Microsoft
18 11 (6.92%) User Stories
19 10 (6.29%) ServiceNow

Designer Skill Set
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 (1.89%) CMS
2 2 (1.26%) CICS
2 2 (1.26%) Confluence
2 2 (1.26%) Microsoft Exchange
2 2 (1.26%) SharePoint
3 1 (0.63%) Umbraco
Applications
1 8 (5.03%) Sketch
2 7 (4.40%) Adobe XD
3 6 (3.77%) Adobe Creative Suite
4 4 (2.52%) Chatbot
4 4 (2.52%) Photoshop
5 3 (1.89%) Adobe Illustrator
5 3 (1.89%) AutoCAD
5 3 (1.89%) SketchUp
6 2 (1.26%) MS Visio
7 1 (0.63%) Adobe After Effects
7 1 (0.63%) Adobe Premiere
7 1 (0.63%) CINEMA 4D
7 1 (0.63%) Final Cut Pro
7 1 (0.63%) InDesign
7 1 (0.63%) Microsoft PowerPoint
7 1 (0.63%) OmniGraffle
7 1 (0.63%) Siemens NX
7 1 (0.63%) UXPin
7 1 (0.63%) Zeplin
Business Applications
1 1 (0.63%) Teamcenter
Cloud Services
1 36 (22.64%) Figma
2 17 (10.69%) Azure
3 9 (5.66%) SaaS
4 7 (4.40%) AWS
5 5 (3.14%) GCP
6 2 (1.26%) Cloud Computing
6 2 (1.26%) Dynamics 365
6 2 (1.26%) GitHub
6 2 (1.26%) Google Analytics
6 2 (1.26%) Power Platform
7 1 (0.63%) Microsoft 365
7 1 (0.63%) Microsoft Copilot
7 1 (0.63%) Microsoft Purview
7 1 (0.63%) Nutanix
7 1 (0.63%) PaaS
Communications & Networking
1 7 (4.40%) 5G
1 7 (4.40%) Radio Access Network
2 5 (3.14%) 2G
2 5 (3.14%) 4G
2 5 (3.14%) DHCP
2 5 (3.14%) DNS
2 5 (3.14%) MPLS
2 5 (3.14%) Network Security
2 5 (3.14%) VLAN
3 3 (1.89%) 3G
3 3 (1.89%) Ethernet
3 3 (1.89%) iSCSI
3 3 (1.89%) SAN
3 3 (1.89%) TCP/IP
4 2 (1.26%) BGP
4 2 (1.26%) Broadband
4 2 (1.26%) Firewall
4 2 (1.26%) LTE
4 2 (1.26%) OSPF
4 2 (1.26%) VPN
Database & Business Intelligence
1 3 (1.89%) SQL Server
2 2 (1.26%) Easytrieve
2 2 (1.26%) MongoDB
2 2 (1.26%) Power BI
3 1 (0.63%) Data Lake
3 1 (0.63%) Data Warehouse
3 1 (0.63%) Metadata
3 1 (0.63%) NoSQL
Development Applications
1 6 (3.77%) JIRA
2 2 (1.26%) Axure RP
2 2 (1.26%) Postman
3 1 (0.63%) Balsamiq
3 1 (0.63%) Git
General
1 33 (20.75%) Social Skills
2 32 (20.13%) Finance
3 27 (16.98%) Public Sector
4 18 (11.32%) Telecoms
5 7 (4.40%) Banking
5 7 (4.40%) Billing
5 7 (4.40%) Games
5 7 (4.40%) Inclusion and Diversity
6 6 (3.77%) Marketing
7 5 (3.14%) Analytical Skills
7 5 (3.14%) Pharmaceutical
7 5 (3.14%) Publishing
8 4 (2.52%) Legal
8 4 (2.52%) Polish Language
8 4 (2.52%) Presentation Skills
9 3 (1.89%) Organisational Skills
9 3 (1.89%) Retail
9 3 (1.89%) Welsh Language
10 2 (1.26%) Local Government
10 2 (1.26%) Manufacturing
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 9 (5.66%) Web Services
2 8 (5.03%) CSS
2 8 (5.03%) HTML
2 8 (5.03%) REST
3 5 (3.14%) JSON
3 5 (3.14%) Unreal Engine
4 4 (2.52%) Unity (Game Engine)
5 3 (1.89%) Oracle Fusion
5 3 (1.89%) React
6 2 (1.26%) Middleware
6 2 (1.26%) Node.js
6 2 (1.26%) OpenAPI
7 1 (0.63%) .NET
7 1 (0.63%) Bootstrap
7 1 (0.63%) Flutter
7 1 (0.63%) LDAP
7 1 (0.63%) React Native
7 1 (0.63%) Swagger
7 1 (0.63%) Vue
7 1 (0.63%) XML
Miscellaneous
1 8 (5.03%) Product Ownership
2 7 (4.40%) Mobile App
2 7 (4.40%) Onboarding
3 6 (3.77%) Enterprise Software
3 6 (3.77%) Mobile Games
3 6 (3.77%) Virtual Reality
4 5 (3.14%) Frameworx
4 5 (3.14%) NHS
4 5 (3.14%) TM Forum
5 4 (2.52%) Animation
5 4 (2.52%) Greenfield Project
5 4 (2.52%) Motion Graphics
5 4 (2.52%) Social Media
6 3 (1.89%) Data Protection Act
7 2 (1.26%) Graphic Design
7 2 (1.26%) Hybrid Cloud
7 2 (1.26%) IVR
7 2 (1.26%) Mainframe
7 2 (1.26%) Photography
7 2 (1.26%) VSAM
Operating Systems
1 6 (3.77%) Linux
2 4 (2.52%) Windows
3 3 (1.89%) Android
3 3 (1.89%) Apple iOS
3 3 (1.89%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
3 3 (1.89%) Windows Server
4 2 (1.26%) zOS
Processes & Methodologies
1 59 (37.11%) User Experience
2 50 (31.45%) Agile
3 42 (26.42%) UX Design
4 33 (20.75%) User Research
5 32 (20.13%) Service Design
6 27 (16.98%) Prototyping
7 24 (15.09%) Wireframes
8 23 (14.47%) User-Centered Design (UCD)
9 22 (13.84%) Problem-Solving
10 19 (11.95%) Interaction Design
11 14 (8.81%) Decision-Making
12 13 (8.18%) Usability Testing
13 12 (7.55%) Business Strategy
13 12 (7.55%) Microservices
14 11 (6.92%) Design Thinking
14 11 (6.92%) Stakeholder Management
14 11 (6.92%) User Stories
15 10 (6.29%) Strategic Thinking
16 9 (5.66%) Customer Experience
16 9 (5.66%) Service Delivery
Programming Languages
1 8 (5.03%) JavaScript
1 8 (5.03%) Python
2 6 (3.77%) TypeScript
3 3 (1.89%) SQL
4 2 (1.26%) COBOL
4 2 (1.26%) JCL
5 1 (0.63%) Dart
5 1 (0.63%) PowerShell
Qualifications
1 18 (11.32%) Degree
2 13 (8.18%) SC Cleared
2 13 (8.18%) Security Cleared
3 8 (5.03%) Master's Degree
4 5 (3.14%) Computer Science Degree
5 2 (1.26%) BPSS Clearance
5 2 (1.26%) CCIE
5 2 (1.26%) CCNP
5 2 (1.26%) Cisco Certification
5 2 (1.26%) JNCIE
6 1 (0.63%) AWS Certification
6 1 (0.63%) Azure Certification
6 1 (0.63%) CISM
6 1 (0.63%) CISSP
6 1 (0.63%) Microsoft Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 16 (10.06%) Accessibility
2 5 (3.14%) NIST
3 3 (1.89%) Disclosure Scotland
3 3 (1.89%) QA
3 3 (1.89%) WCAG
4 1 (0.63%) Data Quality
4 1 (0.63%) GDPR
4 1 (0.63%) ISO/IEC 27001
4 1 (0.63%) PCI DSS
4 1 (0.63%) Sarbanes-Oxley
System Software
1 5 (3.14%) Active Directory
2 3 (1.89%) VMware Infrastructure
2 3 (1.89%) vSphere
3 2 (1.26%) VMware ESXi
4 1 (0.63%) Firmware
Systems Management
1 1 (0.63%) Single Sign-On
Vendors
1 18 (11.32%) Adobe
2 11 (6.92%) Microsoft
3 10 (6.29%) ServiceNow
4 7 (4.40%) Oracle
5 6 (3.77%) Salesforce
5 6 (3.77%) Virgin Media
6 5 (3.14%) VMware
7 3 (1.89%) Cisco
7 3 (1.89%) Google
7 3 (1.89%) Red Hat
8 2 (1.26%) BT
8 2 (1.26%) Databricks
8 2 (1.26%) Ericsson
8 2 (1.26%) F5
8 2 (1.26%) Fortinet
8 2 (1.26%) Nokia
8 2 (1.26%) Openreach
9 1 (0.63%) Hotjar
9 1 (0.63%) Thycotic
9 1 (0.63%) YouTube