Designer Contract Job Trends

Designer
UK

The median Designer daily rate in the UK is £475, according to job vacancies posted in the 6 months leading up to 24 June 2026.

The table below compares current contractor rates and summary statistics with the previous two years.

6 months to
24 Jun 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 128 171 170
Rank change year-on-year +43 -1 -39
Contract jobs requiring a Designer 1,014 484 590
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 1.99% 1.61% 1.36%
As % of the Job Titles category 2.16% 1.75% 1.46%
Number of daily rates quoted 724 365 336
10th Percentile £350 £300 £313
25th Percentile £405 £360 £400
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £475 £455 £500
Median % change year-on-year +4.40% -9.00% -4.76%
75th Percentile £538 £549 £570
90th Percentile £594 £600 £638
UK excluding London median daily rate £475 £438 £465
% change year-on-year +8.57% -5.91% -2.36%
Number of hourly rates quoted 29 16 48
10th Percentile £22.46 £22.75 £27.63
25th Percentile £28.09 £33.36 £45.00
Median hourly rate £33.99 £36.50 £57.35
Median % change year-on-year -6.88% -36.36% +32.60%
75th Percentile £47.50 £49.69 £61.30
90th Percentile £63.80 £57.00 -
UK excluding London median hourly rate £33.99 £49.00 £57.35
% change year-on-year -30.63% -14.56% -7.87%

All Contract IT Job Roles
UK

For comparison with the information above, the following table provides summary statistics for all contract IT job vacancies. 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 with a recognized job title 47,021 27,678 40,406
% of contract IT jobs with a recognized job title 92.36% 92.16% 92.96%
Number of daily rates quoted 28,598 17,771 25,926
10th Percentile £325 £288 £281
25th Percentile £414 £402 £410
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £518 £500 £525
Median % change year-on-year +3.50% -4.76% -2.33%
75th Percentile £625 £625 £638
90th Percentile £725 £738 £750
UK excluding London median daily rate £500 £475 £493
% change year-on-year +5.26% -3.65% -1.40%
Number of hourly rates quoted 3,150 1,209 2,937
10th Percentile £15.38 £13.84 £12.84
25th Percentile £21.00 £17.44 £16.37
Median hourly rate £43.00 £27.38 £37.50
Median % change year-on-year +57.08% -27.00% -12.79%
75th Percentile £67.50 £57.50 £62.50
90th Percentile £80.00 £74.00 £74.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £44.50 £25.15 £40.00
% change year-on-year +76.94% -37.13% -

Designer
Job Vacancy Trend

Historical trend showing the proportion of contract IT job postings featuring 'Designer' in the job title relative to all contract IT jobs advertised.

Designer job vacancy trend in the UK

Designer
Daily Rate Trend

Contractor daily rate distribution trend for Designer job vacancies in the UK.

Contractor daily rate distribution trend for Designer job vacancies in the UK

Designer
Daily Rate Histogram

Daily rate distribution for jobs citing Designer over the 6 months to 24 June 2026.

Daily rate histogram for Designer in the UK

Designer
Hourly Rate Trend

Contractor hourly rate distribution trend for Designer job vacancies in the UK.

Contractor hourly rate distribution trend for Designer job vacancies in the UK

Designer
Hourly Rate Histogram

Hourly rate distribution of jobs citing Designer over the 6 months to 24 June 2026.

Hourly rate histogram for Designer in the UK

Designer
Top 16 Contract Job Locations

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 over the 6 months to 24 June 2026. 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 +49 856 £470 +4.44% 133
UK excluding London +51 444 £475 +8.57% 72
London +20 429 £460 -1.08% 90
Work from Home +27 280 £467 +3.78% 58
North of England -9 148 £469 +7.20% 24
Midlands +23 95 £425 +4.29% 7
West Midlands +13 89 £425 +3.66% 6
South East -21 63 £525 +19.32% 20
North West -26 57 £414 -6.50% 7
Yorkshire -19 53 £475 +18.75% 8
South West +1 49 £425 -5.56% 4
East of England +10 44 £500 +5.26% 3
Scotland -8 44 £550 +15.79% 11
North East -11 38 £433 -8.95% 9
East Midlands -14 6 £402 +24.69% 1
Wales -17 5 £600 +96.25% 1

Designer Skill Set
Top 30 Co-Occurring Skills & Capabilities

For the 6 months to 24 June 2026, Designer contract job roles required the following skills and capabilities in order of popularity. The figures indicate the absolute number of co-occurrences and as a proportion of all contract job ads featuring Designer in the job title.

1 325 (32.05%) Service Design
2 317 (31.26%) User Experience
3 249 (24.56%) Agile
4 248 (24.46%) UX Design
5 218 (21.50%) Security Cleared
6 216 (21.30%) Accessibility
7 208 (20.51%) Figma
7 208 (20.51%) User Research
8 179 (17.65%) SC Cleared
9 173 (17.06%) Interaction Design
10 158 (15.58%) User-Centered Design (UCD)
11 138 (13.61%) Prototyping
12 111 (10.95%) Journey Map
13 109 (10.75%) Workshop Facilitation
14 96 (9.47%) Wireframes
15 92 (9.07%) AI
16 83 (8.19%) Stakeholder Management
17 82 (8.09%) Adobe
18 77 (7.59%) Stakeholder Engagement
19 72 (7.10%) WCAG
20 67 (6.61%) Degree
21 61 (6.02%) Analytics
22 58 (5.72%) Inclusive Design
22 58 (5.72%) Problem-Solving
23 56 (5.52%) Collaborative Working
23 56 (5.52%) Roadmaps
24 55 (5.42%) Continuous Improvement
25 54 (5.33%) Customer Experience
25 54 (5.33%) Usability Testing
26 49 (4.83%) BPSS Clearance

Designer Skill Set
Co-Occurring Skills & Capabilities by Category

The following tables expand on the one above by listing co-occurrences grouped by category. They cover the same employment type, locality and period, with up to 20 co-occurrences shown in each category:

Application Platforms
1 20 (1.97%) CMS
2 10 (0.99%) CICS
3 9 (0.89%) Confluence
4 5 (0.49%) LiveCycle
4 5 (0.49%) Moodle
4 5 (0.49%) SharePoint
5 4 (0.39%) Drupal
5 4 (0.39%) WordPress
6 3 (0.30%) OpenStack
7 2 (0.20%) Headless CMS
7 2 (0.20%) Oracle Collaboration Suite
7 2 (0.20%) Umbraco
8 1 (0.099%) Kentico
Applications
1 40 (3.94%) Adobe Creative Suite
2 38 (3.75%) Sketch
3 34 (3.35%) Photoshop
4 32 (3.16%) Adobe Illustrator
5 28 (2.76%) Adobe After Effects
6 12 (1.18%) Chatbot
7 11 (1.08%) Adobe XD
8 10 (0.99%) Microsoft PowerPoint
9 8 (0.79%) InDesign
9 8 (0.79%) Microsoft Excel
10 6 (0.59%) Final Cut Pro
10 6 (0.59%) InVision
11 5 (0.49%) AutoCAD
11 5 (0.49%) CINEMA 4D
11 5 (0.49%) SOLIDWORKS
12 4 (0.39%) Adobe Premiere
12 4 (0.39%) Revit
13 3 (0.30%) MS Visio
14 2 (0.20%) UserZoom
15 1 (0.099%) Zeplin
Business Applications
1 4 (0.39%) Oracle ERP
2 2 (0.20%) Shopify
3 1 (0.099%) Eloqua
3 1 (0.099%) SmartPlant
Cloud Services
1 208 (20.51%) Figma
2 24 (2.37%) SaaS
3 23 (2.27%) AWS
4 19 (1.87%) Microsoft 365
5 18 (1.78%) Azure
6 15 (1.48%) Microsoft Copilot
7 14 (1.38%) Miro
8 7 (0.69%) Adobe Creative Cloud
9 6 (0.59%) Power Platform
10 4 (0.39%) Canva
10 4 (0.39%) GCP
11 3 (0.30%) ChatGPT
11 3 (0.30%) Dynamics 365
12 2 (0.20%) Azure AI
12 2 (0.20%) Azure ExpressRoute
12 2 (0.20%) Copilot Studio
12 2 (0.20%) dbt
12 2 (0.20%) Power Automate
12 2 (0.20%) PowerApps
12 2 (0.20%) Serverless
Communications & Networking
1 23 (2.27%) Firewall
2 20 (1.97%) Wi-Fi
3 12 (1.18%) Network Security
4 11 (1.08%) IPsec
5 9 (0.89%) Broadband
6 7 (0.69%) 5G
6 7 (0.69%) Diameter Protocol
7 5 (0.49%) 3G
7 5 (0.49%) 4G
8 3 (0.30%) 2G
8 3 (0.30%) 3GPP
8 3 (0.30%) BGP
8 3 (0.30%) DNS
8 3 (0.30%) Ethernet
8 3 (0.30%) HTTP
8 3 (0.30%) Internet
8 3 (0.30%) SIGTRAN
8 3 (0.30%) SS7
8 3 (0.30%) VLAN
8 3 (0.30%) VPN
Database & Business Intelligence
1 11 (1.08%) Metadata
2 10 (0.99%) DataStage
3 4 (0.39%) Oracle ODI
4 3 (0.30%) Electronic Patient Records
4 3 (0.30%) Power BI
5 2 (0.20%) Amazon Aurora
5 2 (0.20%) Amazon RDS
5 2 (0.20%) Amazon Redshift
5 2 (0.20%) Data Vault
5 2 (0.20%) MySQL
5 2 (0.20%) NoSQL
5 2 (0.20%) PostgreSQL
6 1 (0.099%) Data Lake
6 1 (0.099%) Data Warehouse
6 1 (0.099%) Pinecone
6 1 (0.099%) Tableau
Development Applications
1 14 (1.38%) JIRA
2 5 (0.49%) Axure RP
3 2 (0.20%) Git
4 1 (0.099%) Claude Code
4 1 (0.099%) Cypress.io
4 1 (0.099%) Dreamweaver
4 1 (0.099%) Subversion
General
1 221 (21.79%) Public Sector
2 200 (19.72%) Social Skills
3 113 (11.14%) Finance
4 50 (4.93%) Banking
5 42 (4.14%) Retail
6 39 (3.85%) Marketing
7 27 (2.66%) Influencing Skills
7 27 (2.66%) Telecoms
8 26 (2.56%) Automotive
9 22 (2.17%) Legal
10 20 (1.97%) Publishing
11 19 (1.87%) Manufacturing
12 16 (1.58%) Analytical Skills
13 11 (1.08%) Presentation Skills
14 10 (0.99%) Inclusion and Diversity
15 8 (0.79%) Organisational Skills
16 7 (0.69%) Local Government
17 6 (0.59%) Aerospace
17 6 (0.59%) Games
17 6 (0.59%) Retail Banking
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 31 (3.06%) HTML
2 22 (2.17%) CSS
3 13 (1.28%) Middleware
4 8 (0.79%) REST
5 5 (0.49%) React
5 5 (0.49%) SOAP
5 5 (0.49%) Web Services
6 3 (0.30%) Lightning Web Components
6 3 (0.30%) React Native
6 3 (0.30%) Semantic HTML
6 3 (0.30%) Visualforce
7 2 (0.20%) AWS CDK
7 2 (0.20%) CSS3
7 2 (0.20%) Framer.js
7 2 (0.20%) HTML5
7 2 (0.20%) JSON
7 2 (0.20%) Kafka
7 2 (0.20%) OAuth
7 2 (0.20%) OpenID
7 2 (0.20%) SAML
Miscellaneous
1 48 (4.73%) Product Ownership
2 38 (3.75%) Mobile App
3 30 (2.96%) Onboarding
4 28 (2.76%) Animation
5 21 (2.07%) Graphic Design
5 21 (2.07%) NHS
6 16 (1.58%) Cloud Native
7 15 (1.48%) Data Centre
7 15 (1.48%) IoT
7 15 (1.48%) Self-Motivation
8 13 (1.28%) AI Agents
9 12 (1.18%) Taxonomies
10 11 (1.08%) BYOD
11 10 (0.99%) Mainframe
11 10 (0.99%) VSAM
12 8 (0.79%) CMDB
13 7 (0.69%) Data Protection Act
13 7 (0.69%) Greenfield Project
14 6 (0.59%) Management Information System
14 6 (0.59%) Motion Graphics
Operating Systems
1 14 (1.38%) Android
2 13 (1.28%) Apple iOS
3 10 (0.99%) AIX
3 10 (0.99%) Linux
3 10 (0.99%) Solaris
3 10 (0.99%) Unix
4 1 (0.099%) MVS
Processes & Methodologies
1 325 (32.05%) Service Design
2 317 (31.26%) User Experience
3 249 (24.56%) Agile
4 248 (24.46%) UX Design
5 208 (20.51%) User Research
6 173 (17.06%) Interaction Design
7 158 (15.58%) User-Centered Design (UCD)
8 138 (13.61%) Prototyping
9 111 (10.95%) Journey Map
10 109 (10.75%) Workshop Facilitation
11 96 (9.47%) Wireframes
12 92 (9.07%) AI
13 83 (8.19%) Stakeholder Management
14 77 (7.59%) Stakeholder Engagement
15 61 (6.02%) Analytics
16 58 (5.72%) Inclusive Design
16 58 (5.72%) Problem-Solving
17 56 (5.52%) Collaborative Working
17 56 (5.52%) Roadmaps
18 55 (5.42%) Continuous Improvement
Programming Languages
1 10 (0.99%) COBOL
2 8 (0.79%) Python
3 7 (0.69%) JavaScript
4 4 (0.39%) Korn
5 3 (0.30%) Apex Code
5 3 (0.30%) Java
5 3 (0.30%) PowerShell
5 3 (0.30%) SOQL
5 3 (0.30%) SQL
6 2 (0.20%) Bash
6 2 (0.20%) Ruby
6 2 (0.20%) TypeScript
7 1 (0.099%) Data Analysis Expressions
Qualifications
1 218 (21.50%) Security Cleared
2 179 (17.65%) SC Cleared
3 67 (6.61%) Degree
4 49 (4.83%) BPSS Clearance
5 34 (3.35%) DV Cleared
6 6 (0.59%) Cisco Certification
7 5 (0.49%) CISSP
8 4 (0.39%) CCNP
8 4 (0.39%) CISM
8 4 (0.39%) Computer Science Degree
8 4 (0.39%) TOGAF Certification
9 3 (0.30%) Master's Degree
10 2 (0.20%) CCNA
10 2 (0.20%) ITIL Certification
11 1 (0.099%) CEH
11 1 (0.099%) JNCIE
11 1 (0.099%) JNCIP
11 1 (0.099%) JNCIS
11 1 (0.099%) PMI Certification
11 1 (0.099%) PMP
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 216 (21.30%) Accessibility
2 72 (7.10%) WCAG
3 8 (0.79%) ISO/IEC 20000
3 8 (0.79%) NCSC
4 7 (0.69%) Data Quality
4 7 (0.69%) Government Security Classifications
5 6 (0.59%) NIST
6 5 (0.49%) ISO/IEC 27001
7 4 (0.39%) GDPR
7 4 (0.39%) QA
8 3 (0.30%) Actionable Recommendations
8 3 (0.30%) PCI DSS
9 2 (0.20%) GMP
9 2 (0.20%) GxP
9 2 (0.20%) ISO/IEC 42001
10 1 (0.099%) California Consumer Privacy Act
10 1 (0.099%) HL7
10 1 (0.099%) SLA
10 1 (0.099%) WAI
10 1 (0.099%) WAI-ARIA
System Software
1 4 (0.39%) Virtual Machines
1 4 (0.39%) VMware Infrastructure
2 3 (0.30%) Firmware
3 2 (0.20%) Active Directory
3 2 (0.20%) IAG
4 1 (0.099%) Virtual Desktop
Systems Management
1 4 (0.39%) Terraform
2 3 (0.30%) Kubernetes
3 2 (0.20%) Ansible
3 2 (0.20%) FortiGate
4 1 (0.099%) Microsoft Intune
4 1 (0.099%) Nagios
4 1 (0.099%) Network Intrusion Detection System
Vendors
1 82 (8.09%) Adobe
2 35 (3.45%) Microsoft
3 14 (1.38%) ServiceNow
4 12 (1.18%) IBM
5 11 (1.08%) Cisco
6 10 (0.99%) VMware
7 8 (0.79%) Google
7 8 (0.79%) Oracle
7 8 (0.79%) Salesforce
8 6 (0.59%) Juniper
9 5 (0.49%) BiZZdesign
9 5 (0.49%) Ericsson
9 5 (0.49%) Nokia
10 4 (0.39%) EMC
10 4 (0.39%) Virgin Media
11 3 (0.30%) Databricks
11 3 (0.30%) F5
11 3 (0.30%) Fortinet
11 3 (0.30%) Huawei
11 3 (0.30%) SAP