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 18 January 2026.

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

6 months to
18 Jan 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 182 163 182
Rank change year-on-year -19 +19 -32
Contract jobs requiring a Designer 589 515 603
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 1.59% 1.62% 1.39%
As % of the Job Titles category 1.74% 1.75% 1.50%
Number of daily rates quoted 433 328 405
10th Percentile £313 £304 £325
25th Percentile £400 £375 £400
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £475 £484 £489
Median % change year-on-year -1.81% -1.07% -6.86%
75th Percentile £571 £588 £569
90th Percentile £638 £650 £600
UK excluding London median daily rate £450 £478 £475
% change year-on-year -5.76% +0.53% -5.00%
Number of hourly rates quoted 13 9 15
10th Percentile £27.60 £30.32 £19.80
25th Percentile £30.00 £30.44 £45.11
Median hourly rate £56.00 £33.50 £50.00
Median % change year-on-year +67.16% -33.00% +6.95%
75th Percentile £69.65 £48.75 £66.63
90th Percentile - £75.00 £70.04
UK excluding London median hourly rate £56.00 £33.50 £50.95
% change year-on-year +67.16% -34.25% +24.27%

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 33,942 29,468 40,286
% of contract IT jobs with a recognized job title 91.41% 92.82% 93.11%
Number of daily rates quoted 21,457 18,028 26,771
10th Percentile £300 £296 £279
25th Percentile £405 £409 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £525 £525
Median % change year-on-year -4.76% - -4.55%
75th Percentile £616 £638 £638
90th Percentile £720 £738 £738
UK excluding London median daily rate £475 £480 £500
% change year-on-year -1.04% -4.00% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 2,003 894 1,815
10th Percentile £14.38 £15.91 £14.00
25th Percentile £18.50 £21.25 £18.00
Median hourly rate £27.50 £32.50 £40.69
Median % change year-on-year -15.38% -20.13% +19.68%
75th Percentile £60.00 £62.50 £64.45
90th Percentile £70.00 £73.75 £75.16
UK excluding London median hourly rate £25.15 £32.50 £42.50
% change year-on-year -22.62% -23.53% +46.55%

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 18 January 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 18 January 2026.

Hourly rate histogram for Designer in the UK

Designer
Top 17 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 18 January 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 -26 472 £469 -5.25% 130
London +9 258 £475 - 61
UK excluding London -44 233 £450 -5.76% 105
Work from Home -23 182 £454 +3.30% 72
North of England -24 84 £410 -11.35% 25
South East -33 50 £500 -4.76% 33
North West -9 42 £400 -2.20% 13
Yorkshire -45 31 £500 - 6
South West -2 30 £600 - 15
Scotland +3 29 £456 +3.81% 4
Midlands -54 21 £400 -1.23% 11
West Midlands -42 19 £400 -31.39% 9
East of England -8 12 £425 -12.82% 11
North East -8 11 £452 +0.44% 6
Wales - 7 £400 - 8
Northern Ireland -4 2 £625 +12.61%
East Midlands -25 2 £386 -3.44% 2

Designer Skill Set
Top 30 Co-Occurring Skills & Capabilities

For the 6 months to 18 January 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.

1 227 (38.54%) User Experience
2 199 (33.79%) Service Design
3 184 (31.24%) UX Design
4 183 (31.07%) Figma
5 174 (29.54%) Agile
6 161 (27.33%) Accessibility
7 151 (25.64%) User Research
8 125 (21.22%) User-Centered Design (UCD)
9 118 (20.03%) Prototyping
10 115 (19.52%) Security Cleared
11 95 (16.13%) Workshop Facilitation
12 89 (15.11%) SC Cleared
12 89 (15.11%) Usability Testing
13 88 (14.94%) Wireframes
14 86 (14.60%) Interaction Design
15 83 (14.09%) Journey Map
16 77 (13.07%) Adobe
17 63 (10.70%) Problem-Solving
18 54 (9.17%) Design Thinking
19 51 (8.66%) Stakeholder Engagement
20 49 (8.32%) Stakeholder Management
21 48 (8.15%) Inclusive Design
21 48 (8.15%) Sketch
22 47 (7.98%) Analytics
23 45 (7.64%) Continuous Improvement
23 45 (7.64%) High-Fidelity Prototypes
23 45 (7.64%) Storytelling
24 44 (7.47%) AI
25 43 (7.30%) HTML
25 43 (7.30%) WCAG

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 21 (3.57%) CMS
2 15 (2.55%) Confluence
3 8 (1.36%) Appian
4 6 (1.02%) Camunda
4 6 (1.02%) OpenStack
5 3 (0.51%) SharePoint
5 3 (0.51%) Tomcat
6 2 (0.34%) Umbraco
7 1 (0.17%) LiveCycle
Applications
1 48 (8.15%) Sketch
2 33 (5.60%) Adobe XD
3 27 (4.58%) Adobe Creative Suite
4 20 (3.40%) InVision
4 20 (3.40%) Photoshop
5 19 (3.23%) Adobe Illustrator
6 14 (2.38%) InDesign
7 12 (2.04%) Adobe After Effects
8 10 (1.70%) Microsoft PowerPoint
9 8 (1.36%) Zeplin
10 7 (1.19%) Microsoft Office
11 6 (1.02%) Microsoft Excel
12 5 (0.85%) Adobe Captivate
13 4 (0.68%) MS Visio
14 3 (0.51%) Adobe Premiere
14 3 (0.51%) Chatbot
14 3 (0.51%) Spreadsheet
14 3 (0.51%) Trello
15 2 (0.34%) Blender
15 2 (0.34%) OmniGraffle
Business Applications
1 7 (1.19%) SAP ERP
2 5 (0.85%) Dynamics GP
2 5 (0.85%) SAP S/4HANA
3 3 (0.51%) Oracle BRM
4 2 (0.34%) Salesforce CRM
5 1 (0.17%) Oracle CRM
5 1 (0.17%) Remedy ITSM
5 1 (0.17%) Workfront
Cloud Services
1 183 (31.07%) Figma
2 23 (3.90%) AWS
3 20 (3.40%) Miro
4 13 (2.21%) SaaS
5 11 (1.87%) Adobe Creative Cloud
5 11 (1.87%) Power Platform
6 9 (1.53%) Azure
7 6 (1.02%) OpenShift
8 5 (0.85%) PowerApps
9 4 (0.68%) Canva
9 4 (0.68%) Copilot Studio
9 4 (0.68%) Microsoft Copilot
10 3 (0.51%) Google Analytics
10 3 (0.51%) Lucidchart
11 2 (0.34%) Asana
11 2 (0.34%) Dynamics 365
11 2 (0.34%) GitHub
11 2 (0.34%) Heroku
11 2 (0.34%) Microsoft 365
11 2 (0.34%) Power Automate
Communications & Networking
1 7 (1.19%) LAN
2 6 (1.02%) BGP
2 6 (1.02%) MPLS
2 6 (1.02%) OSPF
2 6 (1.02%) SMS
2 6 (1.02%) SNMP
2 6 (1.02%) TACACS
2 6 (1.02%) WAN
2 6 (1.02%) Wireless
3 4 (0.68%) Network Security
4 3 (0.51%) Broadband
4 3 (0.51%) Firewall
4 3 (0.51%) GPRS
4 3 (0.51%) GSM
4 3 (0.51%) IPv4
4 3 (0.51%) IPv6
4 3 (0.51%) TCP/IP
4 3 (0.51%) VLAN
4 3 (0.51%) VPN
5 1 (0.17%) Ethernet
Database & Business Intelligence
1 4 (0.68%) Power BI
2 3 (0.51%) Metadata
3 1 (0.17%) BigQuery
3 1 (0.17%) Tableau
Development Applications
1 29 (4.92%) JIRA
2 26 (4.41%) Axure RP
3 4 (0.68%) Git
4 2 (0.34%) Balsamiq
4 2 (0.34%) GitLab
5 1 (0.17%) Cypress.io
5 1 (0.17%) Dreamweaver
5 1 (0.17%) Postman
5 1 (0.17%) SoapUI
5 1 (0.17%) Visual Studio
5 1 (0.17%) Visual Studio Code
General
1 155 (26.32%) Social Skills
2 117 (19.86%) Public Sector
3 97 (16.47%) Finance
4 66 (11.21%) Banking
5 31 (5.26%) Marketing
6 20 (3.40%) Analytical Skills
7 13 (2.21%) Inclusion and Diversity
7 13 (2.21%) Publishing
8 10 (1.70%) Pharmaceutical
9 9 (1.53%) Billing
9 9 (1.53%) Influencing Skills
9 9 (1.53%) Legal
9 9 (1.53%) Manufacturing
9 9 (1.53%) Presentation Skills
10 8 (1.36%) Telecoms
11 7 (1.19%) Documentation Skills
11 7 (1.19%) Retail
12 6 (1.02%) Advertising
13 5 (0.85%) Local Government
13 5 (0.85%) Organisational Skills
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 43 (7.30%) HTML
2 38 (6.45%) CSS
3 6 (1.02%) .NET
3 6 (1.02%) Framer.js
3 6 (1.02%) React
4 5 (0.85%) AngularJS
5 4 (0.68%) HTML5
6 3 (0.51%) CSS3
6 3 (0.51%) Lightning Web Components
6 3 (0.51%) RESTful
7 2 (0.34%) Sass
8 1 (0.17%) Blazor
8 1 (0.17%) HTML5 Canvas
8 1 (0.17%) JWT
8 1 (0.17%) Razor View Engine
8 1 (0.17%) REST
8 1 (0.17%) SAP Fiori
8 1 (0.17%) Svelte
8 1 (0.17%) Unity DI Container
8 1 (0.17%) WebGL
Miscellaneous
1 43 (7.30%) Mobile App
2 41 (6.96%) Product Ownership
3 20 (3.40%) Onboarding
4 14 (2.38%) NHS
5 11 (1.87%) Graphic Design
6 10 (1.70%) Social Media
7 9 (1.53%) Data Centre
7 9 (1.53%) e-Learning
8 7 (1.19%) Data Protection Act
8 7 (1.19%) Taxonomies
9 6 (1.02%) AI Agents
9 6 (1.02%) Data Structures
9 6 (1.02%) Hybrid Cloud
10 5 (0.85%) Animation
10 5 (0.85%) Blog
10 5 (0.85%) Digital Media
10 5 (0.85%) Mainframe
10 5 (0.85%) Management Information System
10 5 (0.85%) Team-Oriented Environment
11 4 (0.68%) FPGA
Operating Systems
1 7 (1.19%) Android
1 7 (1.19%) Apple iOS
2 3 (0.51%) Unix
3 1 (0.17%) Mac OS
3 1 (0.17%) VMS
3 1 (0.17%) Windows
Processes & Methodologies
1 227 (38.54%) User Experience
2 199 (33.79%) Service Design
3 184 (31.24%) UX Design
4 174 (29.54%) Agile
5 151 (25.64%) User Research
6 125 (21.22%) User-Centered Design (UCD)
7 118 (20.03%) Prototyping
8 95 (16.13%) Workshop Facilitation
9 89 (15.11%) Usability Testing
10 88 (14.94%) Wireframes
11 86 (14.60%) Interaction Design
12 83 (14.09%) Journey Map
13 63 (10.70%) Problem-Solving
14 54 (9.17%) Design Thinking
15 51 (8.66%) Stakeholder Engagement
16 49 (8.32%) Stakeholder Management
17 48 (8.15%) Inclusive Design
18 47 (7.98%) Analytics
19 45 (7.64%) Continuous Improvement
19 45 (7.64%) High-Fidelity Prototypes
Programming Languages
1 14 (2.38%) Python
2 11 (1.87%) JavaScript
3 7 (1.19%) SQL
4 3 (0.51%) Java
4 3 (0.51%) PL/SQL
5 2 (0.34%) TypeScript
Qualifications
1 115 (19.52%) Security Cleared
2 89 (15.11%) SC Cleared
3 39 (6.62%) Degree
4 20 (3.40%) BPSS Clearance
5 16 (2.72%) Cisco Certification
6 15 (2.55%) DV Cleared
7 10 (1.70%) CCNP
8 6 (1.02%) AWS Certification
8 6 (1.02%) CCIE
8 6 (1.02%) JNCIE
9 5 (0.85%) SAP Certification
10 4 (0.68%) HND
10 4 (0.68%) Master's Degree
11 3 (0.51%) CCNA
11 3 (0.51%) JNCIS
12 1 (0.17%) DBS Check
12 1 (0.17%) MCP
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 161 (27.33%) Accessibility
2 43 (7.30%) WCAG
3 8 (1.36%) GDPR
4 4 (0.68%) ISO 9001
4 4 (0.68%) QA
5 3 (0.51%) Actionable Recommendations
5 3 (0.51%) GMP
5 3 (0.51%) GxP
6 1 (0.17%) Data Quality
6 1 (0.17%) NIST
6 1 (0.17%) SLA
System Software
1 6 (1.02%) VMware Infrastructure
1 6 (1.02%) VMware NSX
Systems Management
1 6 (1.02%) Ansible
1 6 (1.02%) Terraform
2 3 (0.51%) Nagios
3 1 (0.17%) Network Intrusion Detection System
Vendors
1 77 (13.07%) Adobe
2 37 (6.28%) Microsoft
3 12 (2.04%) Cisco
3 12 (2.04%) Juniper
4 9 (1.53%) F5
4 9 (1.53%) Oracle
4 9 (1.53%) SAP
4 9 (1.53%) ServiceNow
5 8 (1.36%) Google
5 8 (1.36%) Salesforce
6 7 (1.19%) Pega
7 6 (1.02%) Fortinet
7 6 (1.02%) Sage
7 6 (1.02%) VMware
8 5 (0.85%) Cadence
8 5 (0.85%) Hopewiser
9 3 (0.51%) Amdocs
9 3 (0.51%) Hotjar
9 3 (0.51%) SolarWinds
10 2 (0.34%) Foundry