Lead Designer Contracts in the UK excluding London

Lead Designer
UK > UK excluding London

The median Lead Designer daily rate in the UK excluding London is £306, according to job vacancies posted in the 6 months leading up to 2 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
2 May 2025
Same period 2024 Same period 2023
Rank 327 382 436
Rank change year-on-year +55 +54 +49
Contract jobs requiring a Lead Designer 12 17 11
As % of all contract jobs advertised in the UK excluding London 0.094% 0.082% 0.046%
As % of the Job Titles category 0.10% 0.088% 0.049%
Number of daily rates quoted 11 8 6
10th Percentile £303 - £575
25th Percentile £305 £575 £628
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £306 £600 £650
Median % change year-on-year -49.00% -7.69% +8.33%
75th Percentile £501 £625 £684
90th Percentile £534 £629 £688
UK median daily rate £412 £581 £675
% change year-on-year -29.12% -13.89% +17.39%

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 11,790 19,217 22,597
% of contract IT jobs with a recognized job title 92.17% 92.60% 94.19%
Number of daily rates quoted 7,554 11,733 15,842
10th Percentile £213 £213 £225
25th Percentile £363 £363 £400
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £475 £493 £500
Median % change year-on-year -3.55% -1.50% +5.26%
75th Percentile £575 £599 £598
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 2,245 1,162
10th Percentile £14.00 £12.50 £13.41
25th Percentile £17.79 £15.75 £18.08
Median hourly rate £28.00 £39.50 £42.43
Median % change year-on-year -29.11% -6.91% +117.60%
75th Percentile £64.52 £61.30 £65.00
90th Percentile £75.00 £73.75 £75.00
UK median hourly rate £29.00 £36.02 £45.00
% change year-on-year -19.49% -19.95% +91.49%

Lead Designer
Job Vacancy Trend in the UK excluding London

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

Job vacancy trend for Lead Designer in the UK excluding London

Lead Designer
Contractor Daily Rate Trend in the UK excluding London

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

Daily rate trend for Lead Designer in the UK excluding London

Lead Designer
Daily Rate Histogram in the UK excluding London

Daily rate distribution for jobs citing Lead Designer in the UK excluding London over the 6 months to 2 May 2025.

Daily rate histogram for Lead Designer in the UK excluding London

Lead Designer
Contractor Hourly Rate Trend in the UK excluding London

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

Hourly rate trend for Lead Designer in the UK excluding London

Lead 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 Lead Designer within the UK excluding London region over the 6 months to 2 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
Wales - 7 £305 - 8
Scotland +14 2 £534 - 1
South East +31 1 £850 +41.67% 3
West Midlands - 1 £463 -
Midlands - 1 £463 -
North East - 1 £534 -
North of England - 1 £534 - 1
Lead Designer
UK

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

For the 6 months to 2 May 2025, Lead 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 Lead Designer in the job title.

1 10 (83.33%) Agile
2 7 (58.33%) User Experience
3 6 (50.00%) Mentoring
4 5 (41.67%) Coaching
4 5 (41.67%) Service Design
4 5 (41.67%) Degree
4 5 (41.67%) Master's Degree
4 5 (41.67%) Interaction Design
5 4 (33.33%) DevOps
5 4 (33.33%) Business Case
5 4 (33.33%) Pharmaceutical
6 3 (25.00%) NHS
6 3 (25.00%) Azure
6 3 (25.00%) User-Centered Design (UCD)
6 3 (25.00%) Decision-Making
6 3 (25.00%) Strategic Thinking
6 3 (25.00%) Prototyping
6 3 (25.00%) Public Sector
7 2 (16.67%) Zero Trust
7 2 (16.67%) Problem-Solving
7 2 (16.67%) NIST
7 2 (16.67%) Social Skills
7 2 (16.67%) Cybersecurity
7 2 (16.67%) Security Architecture
7 2 (16.67%) Stakeholder Engagement
7 2 (16.67%) Waterfall
7 2 (16.67%) Welsh Language
7 2 (16.67%) Finance
7 2 (16.67%) Service Delivery
8 1 (8.33%) Change Management

Lead 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:

Cloud Services
1 3 (25.00%) Azure
2 1 (8.33%) Power Platform
Database & Business Intelligence
1 1 (8.33%) Data Lake
1 1 (8.33%) Data Warehouse
1 1 (8.33%) Power BI
General
1 4 (33.33%) Pharmaceutical
2 3 (25.00%) Public Sector
3 2 (16.67%) Finance
3 2 (16.67%) Social Skills
3 2 (16.67%) Welsh Language
4 1 (8.33%) Inclusion and Diversity
4 1 (8.33%) Organisational Skills
4 1 (8.33%) Presentation Skills
4 1 (8.33%) Publishing
Miscellaneous
1 3 (25.00%) NHS
2 1 (8.33%) Data Structures
Processes & Methodologies
1 10 (83.33%) Agile
2 7 (58.33%) User Experience
3 6 (50.00%) Mentoring
4 5 (41.67%) Coaching
4 5 (41.67%) Interaction Design
4 5 (41.67%) Service Design
5 4 (33.33%) Business Case
5 4 (33.33%) DevOps
6 3 (25.00%) Decision-Making
6 3 (25.00%) Prototyping
6 3 (25.00%) Strategic Thinking
6 3 (25.00%) User-Centered Design (UCD)
7 2 (16.67%) Cybersecurity
7 2 (16.67%) Problem-Solving
7 2 (16.67%) Security Architecture
7 2 (16.67%) Service Delivery
7 2 (16.67%) Stakeholder Engagement
7 2 (16.67%) Waterfall
7 2 (16.67%) Zero Trust
8 1 (8.33%) Process Improvement
Programming Languages
1 1 (8.33%) Python
1 1 (8.33%) SQL
Qualifications
1 5 (41.67%) Degree
1 5 (41.67%) Master's Degree
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 2 (16.67%) NIST
2 1 (8.33%) Accessibility
2 1 (8.33%) Disclosure Scotland
Vendors
1 1 (8.33%) Databricks