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 29 October 2025.

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

6 months to
29 Oct 2025
Same period 2024 Same period 2023
Rank 179 172 184
Rank change year-on-year -7 +12 -52
Contract jobs requiring a Designer 540 537 662
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 1.58% 1.46% 1.41%
As % of the Job Titles category 1.74% 1.57% 1.50%
Number of daily rates quoted 382 335 467
10th Percentile £325 £306 £306
25th Percentile £405 £383 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £475 £475 £510
Median % change year-on-year - -6.86% -2.86%
75th Percentile £575 £575 £594
90th Percentile £625 £638 £653
UK excluding London median daily rate £447 £497 £500
% change year-on-year -10.06% -0.60% +0.50%
Number of hourly rates quoted 24 5 18
10th Percentile £23.31 £30.86 £23.78
25th Percentile £35.06 £31.50 £41.81
Median hourly rate £48.25 £33.50 £50.00
Median % change year-on-year +44.03% -33.00% -3.29%
75th Percentile £64.10 £35.25 £62.00
90th Percentile £69.65 £43.35 £66.48
UK excluding London median hourly rate £53.84 £33.50 £50.00
% change year-on-year +60.70% -33.00% +19.76%

All Contract IT Job Vacancies
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 31,067 34,177 44,069
% of contract IT jobs with a recognized job title 90.88% 92.89% 93.83%
Number of daily rates quoted 19,662 20,632 30,031
10th Percentile £280 £300 £300
25th Percentile £402 £413 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £525 £525
Median % change year-on-year -4.76% - -4.55%
75th Percentile £620 £638 £650
90th Percentile £725 £738 £745
UK excluding London median daily rate £475 £490 £500
% change year-on-year -3.06% -2.00% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 1,719 1,308 1,535
10th Percentile £13.85 £15.05 £14.69
25th Percentile £17.30 £20.30 £19.06
Median hourly rate £25.15 £39.25 £45.00
Median % change year-on-year -35.92% -12.78% +62.28%
75th Percentile £50.00 £65.00 £65.00
90th Percentile £69.49 £73.75 £77.50
UK excluding London median hourly rate £25.00 £40.00 £44.50
% change year-on-year -37.50% -10.11% +89.36%

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 29 October 2025.

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 29 October 2025.

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 29 October 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 -7 458 £475 -2.56% 495
London +19 272 £500 +5.26% 281
UK excluding London -45 200 £447 -10.06% 374
Work from Home -43 159 £465 +8.64% 253
North of England -3 79 £435 -13.00% 79
North West +16 50 £435 -27.50% 55
South East -41 34 £455 -13.33% 217
Midlands -37 28 £438 +9.50% 13
South West +14 25 £600 - 44
West Midlands -23 25 £425 -19.14% 9
Yorkshire -24 23 £474 -5.25% 11
Scotland -11 22 £456 +7.35% 9
East of England -9 8 £425 -12.82% 9
North East -13 7 £425 -5.56% 13
Wales - 4 £588 - 6
East Midlands -24 3 £476 +19.06% 4
Northern Ireland -8 2 £625 +12.61%

Designer Skill Set
Top 30 Co-Occurring Skills & Capabilities

For the 6 months to 29 October 2025, 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.

1 207 (38.33%) User Experience
2 174 (32.22%) Figma
3 167 (30.93%) UX Design
4 157 (29.07%) Service Design
5 142 (26.30%) Agile
6 134 (24.81%) Accessibility
7 128 (23.70%) User Research
8 98 (18.15%) User-Centered Design (UCD)
9 94 (17.41%) Security Cleared
10 92 (17.04%) Prototyping
11 84 (15.56%) SC Cleared
12 80 (14.81%) Interaction Design
13 71 (13.15%) Wireframes
14 63 (11.67%) Adobe
15 62 (11.48%) Workshop Facilitation
16 61 (11.30%) Journey Map
17 47 (8.70%) Inclusive Design
17 47 (8.70%) Sketch
18 45 (8.33%) Usability Testing
19 40 (7.41%) Design Thinking
19 40 (7.41%) Stakeholder Engagement
19 40 (7.41%) Stakeholder Management
20 39 (7.22%) Problem-Solving
21 37 (6.85%) Collaborative Working
21 37 (6.85%) Continuous Improvement
21 37 (6.85%) Microsoft
22 35 (6.48%) Analytics
22 35 (6.48%) High-Fidelity Prototypes
22 35 (6.48%) HTML
23 33 (6.11%) AI

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 18 (3.33%) CMS
2 12 (2.22%) Confluence
3 11 (2.04%) OpenStack
4 5 (0.93%) Headless CMS
5 2 (0.37%) Appian
5 2 (0.37%) Camunda
5 2 (0.37%) CICS
5 2 (0.37%) SharePoint
6 1 (0.19%) Drupal
6 1 (0.19%) Joomla!
6 1 (0.19%) LiveCycle
6 1 (0.19%) Tomcat
6 1 (0.19%) Umbraco
6 1 (0.19%) WordPress
Applications
1 47 (8.70%) Sketch
2 26 (4.81%) Adobe Creative Suite
3 20 (3.70%) Adobe Illustrator
4 19 (3.52%) Adobe XD
5 17 (3.15%) Photoshop
6 13 (2.41%) InVision
7 12 (2.22%) InDesign
8 10 (1.85%) Microsoft PowerPoint
9 9 (1.67%) Chatbot
9 9 (1.67%) Microsoft Office
10 7 (1.30%) Microsoft Excel
10 7 (1.30%) Zeplin
11 6 (1.11%) Adobe After Effects
11 6 (1.11%) Adobe Captivate
12 4 (0.74%) Acrobat
12 4 (0.74%) Adobe Premiere
12 4 (0.74%) MS Visio
12 4 (0.74%) OmniGraffle
12 4 (0.74%) UXPin
13 2 (0.37%) UserZoom
Business Applications
1 2 (0.37%) Salesforce CRM
2 1 (0.19%) Oracle BRM
2 1 (0.19%) Remedy ITSM
2 1 (0.19%) Workfront
Cloud Services
1 174 (32.22%) Figma
2 30 (5.56%) AWS
3 26 (4.81%) Miro
4 20 (3.70%) SaaS
5 9 (1.67%) Adobe Creative Cloud
6 8 (1.48%) Azure
6 8 (1.48%) Power Platform
7 7 (1.30%) Lucidchart
8 6 (1.11%) OpenShift
9 5 (0.93%) Amazon Cognito
9 5 (0.93%) Amazon ECS
9 5 (0.93%) Amazon EKS
9 5 (0.93%) Amazon S3
9 5 (0.93%) AWS Lambda
9 5 (0.93%) Serverless
10 4 (0.74%) ChatGPT
10 4 (0.74%) GCP
10 4 (0.74%) GitHub
10 4 (0.74%) Google Analytics
10 4 (0.74%) Vyond
Communications & Networking
1 15 (2.78%) BGP
1 15 (2.78%) Firewall
1 15 (2.78%) OSPF
2 13 (2.41%) MPLS
3 12 (2.22%) LAN
4 9 (1.67%) Wireless
5 8 (1.48%) DHCP
5 8 (1.48%) DNS
5 8 (1.48%) IPsec
5 8 (1.48%) SNMP
6 7 (1.30%) 4G
6 7 (1.30%) 5G
6 7 (1.30%) Radio Access Network
6 7 (1.30%) VLAN
6 7 (1.30%) Wireshark
7 6 (1.11%) TACACS
7 6 (1.11%) WAN
7 6 (1.11%) Wi-Fi
8 5 (0.93%) 3GPP
8 5 (0.93%) Cisco Nexus
Database & Business Intelligence
1 5 (0.93%) DynamoDB
2 3 (0.56%) Metadata
2 3 (0.56%) Power BI
3 2 (0.37%) Easytrieve
3 2 (0.37%) Mixpanel
4 1 (0.19%) BigQuery
4 1 (0.19%) Tableau
Development Applications
1 21 (3.89%) Axure RP
2 18 (3.33%) JIRA
3 7 (1.30%) Balsamiq
4 2 (0.37%) Git
4 2 (0.37%) Postman
5 1 (0.19%) Cypress.io
5 1 (0.19%) Dreamweaver
5 1 (0.19%) GitLab
5 1 (0.19%) Visual Studio
5 1 (0.19%) Visual Studio Code
General
1 120 (22.22%) Social Skills
2 95 (17.59%) Finance
3 78 (14.44%) Public Sector
4 64 (11.85%) Banking
5 30 (5.56%) Marketing
6 20 (3.70%) Legal
7 16 (2.96%) Analytical Skills
7 16 (2.96%) Publishing
8 13 (2.41%) Inclusion and Diversity
9 11 (2.04%) Retail
10 7 (1.30%) Influencing Skills
10 7 (1.30%) Manufacturing
10 7 (1.30%) Presentation Skills
10 7 (1.30%) Retail Banking
10 7 (1.30%) Telecoms
11 6 (1.11%) Corporate Banking
11 6 (1.11%) Documentation Skills
11 6 (1.11%) Investment Banking
11 6 (1.11%) Organisational Skills
12 5 (0.93%) Financial Institution
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 35 (6.48%) HTML
2 32 (5.93%) CSS
3 9 (1.67%) Framer.js
4 7 (1.30%) Swagger
5 5 (0.93%) OAuth
5 5 (0.93%) OAuth2
5 5 (0.93%) OpenID
5 5 (0.93%) SAML
6 4 (0.74%) Lightning Web Components
6 4 (0.74%) REST
6 4 (0.74%) Web Services
7 3 (0.56%) React
8 2 (0.37%) AngularJS
8 2 (0.37%) EDI
8 2 (0.37%) HTML5
8 2 (0.37%) Middleware
8 2 (0.37%) OpenAPI
8 2 (0.37%) Sass
9 1 (0.19%) jQuery
9 1 (0.19%) RESTful
Miscellaneous
1 46 (8.52%) Mobile App
2 35 (6.48%) Product Ownership
3 26 (4.81%) Onboarding
4 10 (1.85%) Graphic Design
5 9 (1.67%) Data Centre
5 9 (1.67%) Data Protection Act
6 8 (1.48%) Hybrid Cloud
6 8 (1.48%) Social Media
7 7 (1.30%) e-Learning
7 7 (1.30%) Operational Technology
8 6 (1.11%) Blog
8 6 (1.11%) Enterprise Software
8 6 (1.11%) Greenfield Project
8 6 (1.11%) Learning Management System
8 6 (1.11%) Self-Motivation
9 5 (0.93%) Digital Media
9 5 (0.93%) FPGA
9 5 (0.93%) IoT
9 5 (0.93%) Management Information System
10 4 (0.74%) NHS
Operating Systems
1 22 (4.07%) Apple iOS
2 21 (3.89%) Android
3 2 (0.37%) zOS
4 1 (0.19%) Mac OS
4 1 (0.19%) Unix
4 1 (0.19%) VMS
4 1 (0.19%) Windows
Processes & Methodologies
1 207 (38.33%) User Experience
2 167 (30.93%) UX Design
3 157 (29.07%) Service Design
4 142 (26.30%) Agile
5 128 (23.70%) User Research
6 98 (18.15%) User-Centered Design (UCD)
7 92 (17.04%) Prototyping
8 80 (14.81%) Interaction Design
9 71 (13.15%) Wireframes
10 62 (11.48%) Workshop Facilitation
11 61 (11.30%) Journey Map
12 47 (8.70%) Inclusive Design
13 45 (8.33%) Usability Testing
14 40 (7.41%) Design Thinking
14 40 (7.41%) Stakeholder Engagement
14 40 (7.41%) Stakeholder Management
15 39 (7.22%) Problem-Solving
16 37 (6.85%) Collaborative Working
16 37 (6.85%) Continuous Improvement
17 35 (6.48%) Analytics
Programming Languages
1 10 (1.85%) JavaScript
1 10 (1.85%) Python
2 4 (0.74%) SQL
3 2 (0.37%) COBOL
3 2 (0.37%) JCL
3 2 (0.37%) TypeScript
4 1 (0.19%) Java
4 1 (0.19%) PL/SQL
Qualifications
1 94 (17.41%) Security Cleared
2 84 (15.56%) SC Cleared
3 31 (5.74%) Degree
4 24 (4.44%) BPSS Clearance
5 13 (2.41%) Cisco Certification
6 12 (2.22%) AWS Certification
7 8 (1.48%) CCIE
7 8 (1.48%) JNCIE
8 5 (0.93%) DV Cleared
8 5 (0.93%) HND
8 5 (0.93%) Master's Degree
9 4 (0.74%) CCNP
9 4 (0.74%) Computer Science Degree
10 3 (0.56%) CCNA
11 2 (0.37%) AWS Certified Solutions Architect
12 1 (0.19%) Azure Certification
12 1 (0.19%) BICSI Certification
12 1 (0.19%) BICSI RCDD
12 1 (0.19%) DBS Check
12 1 (0.19%) Microsoft Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 134 (24.81%) Accessibility
2 24 (4.44%) WCAG
3 6 (1.11%) QA
4 5 (0.93%) ISO 9001
5 4 (0.74%) Data Quality
6 3 (0.56%) GDPR
7 1 (0.19%) Actionable Recommendations
7 1 (0.19%) Disclosure Scotland
7 1 (0.19%) SLA
System Software
1 6 (1.11%) VMware Infrastructure
1 6 (1.11%) VMware NSX
2 5 (0.93%) Docker
3 2 (0.37%) VMFS
Systems Management
1 6 (1.11%) Ansible
1 6 (1.11%) Terraform
2 2 (0.37%) FortiGate
3 1 (0.19%) Single Sign-On
Vendors
1 63 (11.67%) Adobe
2 37 (6.85%) Microsoft
3 20 (3.70%) Cisco
4 13 (2.41%) F5
4 13 (2.41%) Fortinet
5 11 (2.04%) Juniper
5 11 (2.04%) Salesforce
6 9 (1.67%) Google
7 6 (1.11%) Genesys
7 6 (1.11%) Virgin Media
7 6 (1.11%) VMware
8 5 (0.93%) Cadence
8 5 (0.93%) Dell
8 5 (0.93%) Hopewiser
8 5 (0.93%) ServiceNow
9 4 (0.74%) Mercator
9 4 (0.74%) Pega
10 3 (0.56%) IBM
10 3 (0.56%) Meraki
10 3 (0.56%) Nokia