Design Thinking Contracts

Design Thinking
UK

The table below provides summary statistics for contract job vacancies 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 5 May 2025, comparing them to the same period in the previous two years.

6 months to
5 May 2025
Same period 2024 Same period 2023
Rank 464 521 566
Rank change year-on-year +57 +45 -56
Contract jobs citing Design Thinking 66 79 150
As % of all contract jobs advertised in the UK 0.23% 0.18% 0.25%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 0.25% 0.21% 0.28%
Number of daily rates quoted 46 59 83
10th Percentile £213 £306 £465
25th Percentile £416 £406 £525
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £531 £500 £550
Median % change year-on-year +6.25% -9.09% -4.35%
75th Percentile £650 £575 £625
90th Percentile £769 £598 £688
UK excluding London median daily rate £500 £525 £550
% change year-on-year -4.76% -4.55% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 0 0 2
10th Percentile - - £27.53
25th Percentile - - £31.31
Median hourly rate - - £38.25
75th Percentile - - £45.81
90th Percentile - - £49.98
UK excluding London median hourly rate - - -

All Process and Methodology Skills
UK

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.

Contract vacancies with a requirement for process or methodology skills 26,424 37,268 53,074
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 90.88% 86.35% 89.85%
Number of daily rates quoted 17,035 24,016 36,805
10th Percentile £306 £300 £325
25th Percentile £413 £413 £438
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £520 £525 £550
Median % change year-on-year -0.95% -4.55% +3.77%
75th Percentile £630 £638 £650
90th Percentile £748 £750 £750
UK excluding London median daily rate £480 £500 £500
% change year-on-year -4.00% - +5.26%
Number of hourly rates quoted 1,079 2,439 1,749
10th Percentile £14.38 £12.75 £11.00
25th Percentile £18.21 £16.00 £16.25
Median hourly rate £29.00 £35.95 £35.80
Median % change year-on-year -19.33% +0.42% +43.20%
75th Percentile £61.87 £60.00 £65.00
90th Percentile £75.00 £72.50 £75.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £27.50 £37.50 £35.00
% change year-on-year -26.67% +7.14% +75.00%

Design Thinking
Job Vacancy Trend

Job postings citing Design Thinking as a proportion of all IT jobs advertised.

Job vacancy trend for Design Thinking in the UK

Design Thinking
Contractor Daily Rate Trend

3-month moving average daily rate quoted in jobs citing Design Thinking.

Daily rate trend for Design Thinking in the UK

Design Thinking
Daily Rate Histogram

Daily rate distribution for jobs citing Design Thinking over the 6 months to 5 May 2025.

Daily rate histogram for Design Thinking in the UK

Design Thinking
Contractor Hourly Rate Trend

3-month moving average hourly rates quoted in jobs citing Design Thinking.

Hourly rate trend for Design Thinking in the UK

Design Thinking
Top 14 Contract Locations

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 over the 6 months to 5 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
England +48 57 £538 +7.50% 123
London +26 32 £600 +20.00% 83
UK excluding London +67 30 £500 -4.76% 89
Work from Home +52 22 £610 +10.91% 101
North of England +29 12 £325 -38.10% 14
North East +2 8 £200 -55.56% 4
South East +46 6 £650 +75.68% 25
Scotland +15 6 £569 +3.41% 37
West Midlands - 5 £474 - 1
Midlands - 5 £474 - 4
Yorkshire +16 2 £474 -9.71%
North West +15 2 £325 - 10
Northern Ireland -5 1 £450 -12.20% 2
South West - 1 £500 - 5

Design Thinking
Co-occurring Skills and Capabilities 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 8 (12.12%) Confluence
2 6 (9.09%) SharePoint
3 3 (4.55%) Oracle Coherence
4 1 (1.52%) Moodle
Applications
1 3 (4.55%) Microsoft Excel
2 2 (3.03%) Adobe XD
2 2 (3.03%) Sketch
3 1 (1.52%) Chatbot
3 1 (1.52%) UserZoom
Business Applications
1 2 (3.03%) SAP CO
1 2 (3.03%) SAP FI
1 2 (3.03%) SAP FI/CO
1 2 (3.03%) SAP S/4HANA
Cloud Services
1 21 (31.82%) Figma
2 5 (7.58%) GitHub
2 5 (7.58%) Miro
3 4 (6.06%) AWS
3 4 (6.06%) Azure
4 3 (4.55%) Cloud Computing
4 3 (4.55%) SaaS
4 3 (4.55%) Slack
5 2 (3.03%) Azure Functions
5 2 (3.03%) Azure Logic Apps
5 2 (3.03%) Microsoft 365
5 2 (3.03%) Power Automate
5 2 (3.03%) Power Platform
5 2 (3.03%) PowerApps
5 2 (3.03%) Serverless
6 1 (1.52%) Azure DevOps
6 1 (1.52%) Dynamics 365
6 1 (1.52%) GCP
6 1 (1.52%) Salesforce Sales Cloud
6 1 (1.52%) Salesforce Service Cloud
Communications & Networking
1 1 (1.52%) Internet
Database & Business Intelligence
1 3 (4.55%) Apache Cassandra
1 3 (4.55%) Big Data
1 3 (4.55%) NoSQL
2 2 (3.03%) PostgreSQL
2 2 (3.03%) Power BI
2 2 (3.03%) SQL Server
Development Applications
1 9 (13.64%) JIRA
2 3 (4.55%) Postman
2 3 (4.55%) Visual Studio
3 2 (3.03%) GitLab
4 1 (1.52%) Git
General
1 27 (40.91%) Social Skills
2 17 (25.76%) Finance
3 15 (22.73%) Analytical Skills
4 9 (13.64%) Banking
5 5 (7.58%) Retail
6 4 (6.06%) Public Sector
7 3 (4.55%) Documentation Skills
7 3 (4.55%) Presentation Skills
8 2 (3.03%) General Ledger
8 2 (3.03%) Pharmaceutical
9 1 (1.52%) Corporate Banking
9 1 (1.52%) Influencing Skills
9 1 (1.52%) Investment Banking
9 1 (1.52%) Legal
9 1 (1.52%) Marketing
9 1 (1.52%) Organisational Skills
9 1 (1.52%) Publishing
9 1 (1.52%) Retail Banking
Job Titles
1 27 (40.91%) Designer
2 10 (15.15%) Senior
3 9 (13.64%) Product Designer
3 9 (13.64%) User Experience Researcher
3 9 (13.64%) UX Designer
4 8 (12.12%) Analyst
4 8 (12.12%) Service Designer
5 7 (10.61%) Developer
5 7 (10.61%) Senior Designer
6 5 (7.58%) Sustainability Analyst
7 4 (6.06%) Architect
7 4 (6.06%) Senior Service Designer
8 3 (4.55%) Agile C# Developer
8 3 (4.55%) Agile Developer
8 3 (4.55%) Business Analyst
8 3 (4.55%) C# Developer
8 3 (4.55%) Consultant
8 3 (4.55%) Senior User Experience Researcher
8 3 (4.55%) Senior UX Designer
8 3 (4.55%) Solutions Designer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 5 (7.58%) REST
2 3 (4.55%) CSS
2 3 (4.55%) HTML
2 3 (4.55%) Kafka
2 3 (4.55%) Middleware
2 3 (4.55%) Node.js
2 3 (4.55%) OpenAPI
2 3 (4.55%) Web Services
3 2 (3.03%) Swagger
4 1 (1.52%) React
4 1 (1.52%) RESTful
4 1 (1.52%) Vue
Miscellaneous
1 11 (16.67%) Product Ownership
2 3 (4.55%) Distributed Systems
2 3 (4.55%) Enterprise Software
3 2 (3.03%) Algorithms
3 2 (3.03%) Analytical Mindset
3 2 (3.03%) Life Science
3 2 (3.03%) Onboarding
4 1 (1.52%) Data Protection Act
4 1 (1.52%) Educational Technology
4 1 (1.52%) Learning Management System
4 1 (1.52%) Mobile App
4 1 (1.52%) Self-Motivation
4 1 (1.52%) VLE
4 1 (1.52%) W3C
Operating Systems
1 2 (3.03%) Android
1 2 (3.03%) Apple iOS
Processes & Methodologies
1 30 (45.45%) Agile
2 27 (40.91%) Problem-Solving
3 25 (37.88%) User Experience
4 20 (30.30%) User Research
5 17 (25.76%) UX Design
6 16 (24.24%) User-Centered Design (UCD)
7 15 (22.73%) Analytics
8 14 (21.21%) UX Research
9 12 (18.18%) Wireframes
10 11 (16.67%) Artificial Intelligence
10 11 (16.67%) Fintech
11 10 (15.15%) Actionable Insight
11 10 (15.15%) Service Design
11 10 (15.15%) Stakeholder Management
12 9 (13.64%) A/B Testing
12 9 (13.64%) Decision-Making
12 9 (13.64%) Journey Map
13 8 (12.12%) Product Strategy
13 8 (12.12%) Stakeholder Engagement
13 8 (12.12%) Usability Testing
Programming Languages
1 5 (7.58%) Python
2 4 (6.06%) SQL
3 3 (4.55%) C#
3 3 (4.55%) Java
3 3 (4.55%) JavaScript
4 2 (3.03%) R
Qualifications
1 9 (13.64%) Degree
2 7 (10.61%) Security Cleared
3 6 (9.09%) SC Cleared
4 3 (4.55%) Computer Science Degree
5 1 (1.52%) Master's Degree
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 9 (13.64%) Accessibility
2 3 (4.55%) WCAG
3 2 (3.03%) Actionable Recommendations
4 1 (1.52%) Disclosure Scotland
Vendors
1 7 (10.61%) Oracle
2 5 (7.58%) Microsoft
3 4 (6.06%) SAP
4 2 (3.03%) Adobe
4 2 (3.03%) Foundry
4 2 (3.03%) Palantir
5 1 (1.52%) CA Agile Central
5 1 (1.52%) Optimizely
5 1 (1.52%) Qualtrics
5 1 (1.52%) Salesforce
5 1 (1.52%) ServiceNow