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 July 2026.

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

6 months to
29 Jul 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 137 187 181
Rank change year-on-year +50 -6 -34
Contract jobs requiring a Designer 1,057 505 563
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 2.01% 1.54% 1.41%
As % of the Job Titles category 2.17% 1.68% 1.52%
Number of daily rates quoted 727 373 335
10th Percentile £358 £304 £318
25th Percentile £406 £375 £400
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £475 £470 £488
Median % change year-on-year +1.06% -3.59% -5.11%
75th Percentile £538 £550 £574
90th Percentile £588 £610 £642
UK excluding London median daily rate £475 £439 £500
% change year-on-year +8.26% -12.25% +5.26%
Number of hourly rates quoted 29 17 45
10th Percentile £22.46 £21.85 £37.35
25th Percentile £28.09 £34.48 £49.00
Median hourly rate £33.99 £36.50 £57.35
Median % change year-on-year -6.88% -36.36% -1.10%
75th Percentile £47.50 £52.50 £61.30
90th Percentile £63.80 £58.05 -
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 48,690 30,025 37,043
% of contract IT jobs with a recognized job title 92.66% 91.50% 92.98%
Number of daily rates quoted 29,369 19,114 23,981
10th Percentile £331 £282 £300
25th Percentile £425 £400 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £500 £525
Median % change year-on-year +5.00% -4.76% -1.87%
75th Percentile £625 £623 £638
90th Percentile £725 £725 £750
UK excluding London median daily rate £500 £475 £500
% change year-on-year +5.26% -5.00% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 3,338 1,460 2,193
10th Percentile £15.50 £13.69 £14.05
25th Percentile £21.25 £17.30 £19.09
Median hourly rate £43.61 £25.15 £42.50
Median % change year-on-year +73.38% -40.82% -1.88%
75th Percentile £68.00 £55.00 £65.00
90th Percentile £80.10 £73.75 £75.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £45.00 £25.15 £43.00
% change year-on-year +78.93% -41.51% +7.50%

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 July 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 29 July 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 29 July 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 +49 905 £471 +0.27% 186
UK excluding London +64 463 £475 +8.26% 102
London +19 460 £475 -4.14% 107
Work from Home +25 285 £475 +5.56% 93
North of England +2 150 £459 +3.79% 38
Midlands +5 92 £425 +0.12% 10
West Midlands +6 89 £425 -0.93% 6
South East -23 68 £510 +15.91% 28
South West +1 60 £425 -15.00% 20
Yorkshire -7 53 £475 +20.25% 11
North West -32 51 £459 +3.79% 22
Scotland +3 47 £550 +17.33% 1
North East -17 46 £420 -9.19% 5
East of England +20 44 £500 +5.26% 2
Wales -18 7 £475 +55.23% 2
East Midlands -13 3 £581 +80.43% 4

Designer Skill Set
Top 30 Co-Occurring Skills & Capabilities

For the 6 months to 29 July 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.

1 343 (32.45%) User Experience
2 331 (31.32%) Service Design
3 272 (25.73%) Agile
4 262 (24.79%) UX Design
5 225 (21.29%) Accessibility
6 224 (21.19%) Security Cleared
7 214 (20.25%) Figma
8 209 (19.77%) User Research
9 191 (18.07%) Interaction Design
10 185 (17.50%) SC Cleared
11 179 (16.93%) User-Centered Design (UCD)
12 148 (14.00%) Prototyping
13 123 (11.64%) Workshop Facilitation
14 120 (11.35%) Journey Map
15 116 (10.97%) Stakeholder Management
16 106 (10.03%) AI
17 103 (9.74%) Wireframes
18 92 (8.70%) Adobe
19 81 (7.66%) WCAG
20 74 (7.00%) Problem-Solving
20 74 (7.00%) Stakeholder Engagement
21 63 (5.96%) Inclusive Design
22 61 (5.77%) Degree
23 60 (5.68%) BPSS Clearance
24 58 (5.49%) Continuous Improvement
24 58 (5.49%) Design Thinking
24 58 (5.49%) Roadmaps
25 56 (5.30%) Analytics
25 56 (5.30%) Customer Experience
26 55 (5.20%) Usability Testing

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 (1.99%) CMS
2 10 (0.95%) CICS
3 6 (0.57%) Moodle
4 5 (0.47%) Confluence
4 5 (0.47%) Drupal
4 5 (0.47%) LiveCycle
4 5 (0.47%) SharePoint
5 4 (0.38%) WordPress
6 3 (0.28%) OpenStack
7 2 (0.19%) Headless CMS
7 2 (0.19%) Oracle Collaboration Suite
7 2 (0.19%) Umbraco
8 1 (0.095%) Kentico
Applications
1 49 (4.64%) Adobe Creative Suite
2 42 (3.97%) Sketch
3 36 (3.41%) Photoshop
4 34 (3.22%) Adobe Illustrator
5 29 (2.74%) Adobe After Effects
6 14 (1.32%) Adobe XD
7 10 (0.95%) Chatbot
7 10 (0.95%) InDesign
7 10 (0.95%) Microsoft PowerPoint
8 7 (0.66%) Microsoft Excel
9 6 (0.57%) Final Cut Pro
10 5 (0.47%) Adobe Premiere
10 5 (0.47%) AutoCAD
10 5 (0.47%) CINEMA 4D
10 5 (0.47%) SOLIDWORKS
11 4 (0.38%) Revit
12 3 (0.28%) InVision
12 3 (0.28%) Microsoft Office
13 2 (0.19%) MS Visio
14 1 (0.095%) Maya
Business Applications
1 4 (0.38%) Oracle ERP
2 2 (0.19%) Shopify
3 1 (0.095%) Dynamics NAV
3 1 (0.095%) Eloqua
3 1 (0.095%) SmartPlant
Cloud Services
1 214 (20.25%) Figma
2 30 (2.84%) Azure
3 29 (2.74%) SaaS
4 26 (2.46%) AWS
5 19 (1.80%) Microsoft 365
6 17 (1.61%) Microsoft Copilot
7 13 (1.23%) Miro
8 12 (1.14%) Power Platform
9 5 (0.47%) GCP
10 4 (0.38%) Adobe Creative Cloud
10 4 (0.38%) Azure AI
10 4 (0.38%) Canva
10 4 (0.38%) Copilot Studio
10 4 (0.38%) Dynamics 365
10 4 (0.38%) Google Analytics
10 4 (0.38%) PowerApps
11 3 (0.28%) Azure ExpressRoute
11 3 (0.28%) ChatGPT
11 3 (0.28%) Entra ID
11 3 (0.28%) GitHub
Communications & Networking
1 25 (2.37%) Firewall
2 22 (2.08%) Wi-Fi
3 14 (1.32%) 5G
4 13 (1.23%) 4G
4 13 (1.23%) Broadband
4 13 (1.23%) Diameter Protocol
5 12 (1.14%) IPsec
6 11 (1.04%) 3G
7 9 (0.85%) 2G
7 9 (0.85%) SIGTRAN
7 9 (0.85%) SS7
8 8 (0.76%) Network Security
9 7 (0.66%) HTTP
10 6 (0.57%) BGP
11 5 (0.47%) OSPF
12 4 (0.38%) Ethernet
13 3 (0.28%) F5 BIG-IP LTM
13 3 (0.28%) LTE
13 3 (0.28%) VLAN
13 3 (0.28%) Wireless
Database & Business Intelligence
1 13 (1.23%) Metadata
2 10 (0.95%) DataStage
3 7 (0.66%) Power BI
4 4 (0.38%) Oracle ODI
5 3 (0.28%) Electronic Patient Records
5 3 (0.28%) Qlik Sense
5 3 (0.28%) Tableau
6 2 (0.19%) Amazon Aurora
6 2 (0.19%) Amazon RDS
6 2 (0.19%) Amazon Redshift
6 2 (0.19%) Data Vault
6 2 (0.19%) Delta Lake
6 2 (0.19%) MySQL
6 2 (0.19%) NoSQL
6 2 (0.19%) PostgreSQL
6 2 (0.19%) QlikView
7 1 (0.095%) Data Lake
7 1 (0.095%) Data Warehouse
7 1 (0.095%) Pinecone
Development Applications
1 10 (0.95%) JIRA
2 6 (0.57%) Claude Code
3 3 (0.28%) Axure RP
3 3 (0.28%) Git
4 2 (0.19%) ER Studio
4 2 (0.19%) ERwin
5 1 (0.095%) Cypress.io
5 1 (0.095%) Dreamweaver
5 1 (0.095%) Subversion
General
1 220 (20.81%) Social Skills
2 213 (20.15%) Public Sector
3 132 (12.49%) Finance
4 52 (4.92%) Banking
5 50 (4.73%) Retail
6 42 (3.97%) Marketing
7 37 (3.50%) Analytical Skills
8 35 (3.31%) Telecoms
9 29 (2.74%) Influencing Skills
10 26 (2.46%) Automotive
11 23 (2.18%) Publishing
12 22 (2.08%) Legal
13 19 (1.80%) Manufacturing
14 13 (1.23%) Inclusion and Diversity
15 11 (1.04%) Presentation Skills
16 9 (0.85%) Organisational Skills
17 8 (0.76%) Games
18 7 (0.66%) Local Government
18 7 (0.66%) Military
18 7 (0.66%) Pharmaceutical
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 33 (3.12%) HTML
2 25 (2.37%) CSS
3 13 (1.23%) REST
4 10 (0.95%) Middleware
5 9 (0.85%) SOAP
5 9 (0.85%) Web Services
6 6 (0.57%) React
7 4 (0.38%) Ajax
7 4 (0.38%) AngularJS
7 4 (0.38%) React Native
7 4 (0.38%) XML
8 3 (0.28%) CSS3
8 3 (0.28%) HTML5
8 3 (0.28%) PySpark
9 2 (0.19%) AWS CDK
9 2 (0.19%) Framer.js
9 2 (0.19%) JSON
9 2 (0.19%) Kafka
9 2 (0.19%) Semantic HTML
9 2 (0.19%) Vue
Miscellaneous
1 49 (4.64%) Mobile App
2 46 (4.35%) Product Ownership
3 34 (3.22%) Onboarding
4 29 (2.74%) Animation
5 28 (2.65%) Graphic Design
6 24 (2.27%) NHS
7 23 (2.18%) Self-Motivation
8 15 (1.42%) Cloud Native
8 15 (1.42%) CMDB
8 15 (1.42%) Data Centre
8 15 (1.42%) IoT
9 14 (1.32%) AI Agents
10 13 (1.23%) Greenfield Project
11 12 (1.14%) BYOD
12 11 (1.04%) Social Media
13 10 (0.95%) Data Protection Act
13 10 (0.95%) Mainframe
13 10 (0.95%) VSAM
14 7 (0.66%) Management Information System
14 7 (0.66%) Taxonomies
Operating Systems
1 16 (1.51%) Android
2 15 (1.42%) Apple iOS
3 10 (0.95%) AIX
3 10 (0.95%) Linux
3 10 (0.95%) Solaris
3 10 (0.95%) Unix
4 1 (0.095%) MVS
4 1 (0.095%) Windows
Processes & Methodologies
1 343 (32.45%) User Experience
2 331 (31.32%) Service Design
3 272 (25.73%) Agile
4 262 (24.79%) UX Design
5 209 (19.77%) User Research
6 191 (18.07%) Interaction Design
7 179 (16.93%) User-Centered Design (UCD)
8 148 (14.00%) Prototyping
9 123 (11.64%) Workshop Facilitation
10 120 (11.35%) Journey Map
11 116 (10.97%) Stakeholder Management
12 106 (10.03%) AI
13 103 (9.74%) Wireframes
14 74 (7.00%) Problem-Solving
14 74 (7.00%) Stakeholder Engagement
15 63 (5.96%) Inclusive Design
16 58 (5.49%) Continuous Improvement
16 58 (5.49%) Design Thinking
16 58 (5.49%) Roadmaps
17 56 (5.30%) Analytics
Programming Languages
1 10 (0.95%) COBOL
2 9 (0.85%) JavaScript
2 9 (0.85%) Python
3 8 (0.76%) SQL
4 4 (0.38%) Korn
5 3 (0.28%) Java
5 3 (0.28%) PowerShell
6 2 (0.19%) Bash
6 2 (0.19%) Data Analysis Expressions
6 2 (0.19%) Ruby
6 2 (0.19%) TypeScript
Qualifications
1 224 (21.19%) Security Cleared
2 185 (17.50%) SC Cleared
3 61 (5.77%) Degree
4 60 (5.68%) BPSS Clearance
5 27 (2.55%) DV Cleared
6 4 (0.38%) ITIL Certification
7 3 (0.28%) Cisco Certification
8 2 (0.19%) Azure Certification
9 1 (0.095%) (ISC)2 CCSP
9 1 (0.095%) AWS Certification
9 1 (0.095%) AWS Certified Solutions Architect
9 1 (0.095%) CCIE
9 1 (0.095%) CCNA
9 1 (0.095%) CCNP
9 1 (0.095%) CEH
9 1 (0.095%) CISSP
9 1 (0.095%) Computer Science Degree
9 1 (0.095%) JNCIE
9 1 (0.095%) JNCIP
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 225 (21.29%) Accessibility
2 81 (7.66%) WCAG
3 13 (1.23%) Data Quality
4 8 (0.76%) ISO/IEC 20000
4 8 (0.76%) NCSC
5 7 (0.66%) Government Security Classifications
6 5 (0.47%) ISO/IEC 27001
7 4 (0.38%) GDPR
7 4 (0.38%) QA
8 3 (0.28%) PCI DSS
9 2 (0.19%) GMP
9 2 (0.19%) GRC
9 2 (0.19%) GxP
9 2 (0.19%) ISO/IEC 42001
9 2 (0.19%) NIST
10 1 (0.095%) California Consumer Privacy Act
10 1 (0.095%) HL7
10 1 (0.095%) SLA
10 1 (0.095%) WAI
10 1 (0.095%) WAI-ARIA
System Software
1 6 (0.57%) IAG
2 5 (0.47%) Virtual Machines
3 4 (0.38%) VMware Infrastructure
4 3 (0.28%) Active Directory
4 3 (0.28%) Firmware
5 1 (0.095%) Virtual Desktop
Systems Management
1 5 (0.47%) Terraform
2 3 (0.28%) Kubernetes
3 2 (0.19%) Ansible
3 2 (0.19%) FortiGate
4 1 (0.095%) Kibana
4 1 (0.095%) Microsoft Intune
4 1 (0.095%) SCCM
Vendors
1 92 (8.70%) Adobe
2 39 (3.69%) Microsoft
3 20 (1.89%) ServiceNow
4 18 (1.70%) IBM
5 13 (1.23%) Cisco
6 11 (1.04%) Google
7 10 (0.95%) VMware
8 8 (0.76%) Oracle
9 7 (0.66%) SAP
10 6 (0.57%) Databricks
10 6 (0.57%) Ericsson
10 6 (0.57%) Juniper
11 5 (0.47%) EMC
11 5 (0.47%) Nokia
11 5 (0.47%) Salesforce
12 4 (0.38%) Foundry
12 4 (0.38%) Virgin Media
13 3 (0.28%) F5
13 3 (0.28%) Openreach
13 3 (0.28%) Zscaler