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 16 July 2026.

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

6 months to
16 Jul 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 132 172 164
Rank change year-on-year +40 -8 -21
Contract jobs requiring a Designer 1,065 515 620
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 2.02% 1.59% 1.45%
As % of the Job Titles category 2.19% 1.73% 1.56%
Number of daily rates quoted 743 387 366
10th Percentile £358 £304 £325
25th Percentile £406 £369 £400
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £475 £455 £491
Median % change year-on-year +4.40% -7.38% -6.43%
75th Percentile £538 £550 £574
90th Percentile £588 £600 £638
UK excluding London median daily rate £475 £438 £473
% change year-on-year +8.57% -7.41% -0.53%
Number of hourly rates quoted 30 17 46
10th Percentile £22.73 £21.85 £37.50
25th Percentile £29.19 £34.48 £49.00
Median hourly rate £33.99 £36.50 £57.35
Median % change year-on-year -6.88% -36.36% +27.44%
75th Percentile £49.38 £52.50 £61.30
90th Percentile £62.40 £58.05 -
UK excluding London median hourly rate £33.99 £49.00 £57.35
% change year-on-year -30.63% -14.56% -7.50%

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 48,701 29,792 39,645
% of contract IT jobs with a recognized job title 92.54% 91.70% 93.00%
Number of daily rates quoted 29,482 18,952 25,549
10th Percentile £325 £287 £288
25th Percentile £419 £400 £410
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £500 £525
Median % change year-on-year +5.00% -4.76% -2.33%
75th Percentile £625 £625 £638
90th Percentile £725 £738 £750
UK excluding London median daily rate £500 £475 £495
% change year-on-year +5.26% -4.04% -1.00%
Number of hourly rates quoted 3,274 1,409 2,702
10th Percentile £15.93 £13.75 £13.00
25th Percentile £21.27 £17.30 £17.00
Median hourly rate £45.00 £26.21 £40.00
Median % change year-on-year +71.69% -34.48% -5.88%
75th Percentile £67.84 £55.49 £63.75
90th Percentile £80.04 £74.00 £73.98
UK excluding London median hourly rate £45.56 £25.15 £40.00
% change year-on-year +81.13% -37.13% +6.67%

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 16 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 16 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 16 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 +48 908 £473 +3.85% 179
London +22 466 £464 -2.42% 99
UK excluding London +54 464 £475 +8.57% 102
Work from Home +23 285 £475 +5.56% 71
North of England -6 153 £469 +7.20% 32
Midlands +6 96 £425 +0.12% 13
West Midlands +8 90 £425 -0.93% 8
South East -22 62 £525 +21.39% 33
South West +10 57 £425 -15.00% 14
Yorkshire -9 56 £475 +20.25% 6
North West -34 55 £459 +4.91% 16
Scotland +5 50 £550 +15.79% 6
East of England +15 43 £500 +5.26% 4
North East -13 42 £420 -9.19% 10
Wales -10 8 £600 +96.25%
East Midlands -9 6 £402 +24.69% 5

Designer Skill Set
Top 30 Co-Occurring Skills & Capabilities

For the 6 months to 16 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.

1 341 (32.02%) User Experience
2 337 (31.64%) Service Design
3 275 (25.82%) Agile
4 265 (24.88%) UX Design
5 233 (21.88%) Accessibility
6 221 (20.75%) Security Cleared
7 219 (20.56%) Figma
7 219 (20.56%) User Research
8 185 (17.37%) Interaction Design
9 181 (17.00%) SC Cleared
10 175 (16.43%) User-Centered Design (UCD)
11 149 (13.99%) Prototyping
12 125 (11.74%) Journey Map
13 122 (11.46%) Workshop Facilitation
14 105 (9.86%) AI
15 103 (9.67%) Wireframes
16 102 (9.58%) Stakeholder Management
17 93 (8.73%) Adobe
18 80 (7.51%) WCAG
19 76 (7.14%) Stakeholder Engagement
20 69 (6.48%) Problem-Solving
21 67 (6.29%) Degree
22 64 (6.01%) Continuous Improvement
23 63 (5.92%) Analytics
24 61 (5.73%) Inclusive Design
25 60 (5.63%) BPSS Clearance
26 58 (5.45%) Design Thinking
27 56 (5.26%) Usability Testing
28 55 (5.16%) Roadmaps
29 54 (5.07%) Collaborative Working

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 (1.97%) CMS
2 10 (0.94%) CICS
3 8 (0.75%) Confluence
4 6 (0.56%) Moodle
5 5 (0.47%) LiveCycle
5 5 (0.47%) SharePoint
6 4 (0.38%) Drupal
6 4 (0.38%) WordPress
7 3 (0.28%) OpenStack
8 2 (0.19%) Headless CMS
8 2 (0.19%) Oracle Collaboration Suite
8 2 (0.19%) Umbraco
9 1 (0.094%) Kentico
Applications
1 47 (4.41%) Adobe Creative Suite
2 41 (3.85%) Sketch
3 36 (3.38%) Photoshop
4 34 (3.19%) Adobe Illustrator
5 29 (2.72%) Adobe After Effects
6 15 (1.41%) Adobe XD
7 11 (1.03%) Chatbot
7 11 (1.03%) Microsoft PowerPoint
8 10 (0.94%) InDesign
9 8 (0.75%) Microsoft Excel
10 6 (0.56%) Final Cut Pro
11 5 (0.47%) Adobe Premiere
11 5 (0.47%) AutoCAD
11 5 (0.47%) CINEMA 4D
11 5 (0.47%) SOLIDWORKS
12 4 (0.38%) InVision
12 4 (0.38%) Revit
13 3 (0.28%) Microsoft Office
14 2 (0.19%) MS Visio
14 2 (0.19%) UserZoom
Business Applications
1 4 (0.38%) Oracle ERP
2 2 (0.19%) Shopify
3 1 (0.094%) Eloqua
3 1 (0.094%) SmartPlant
Cloud Services
1 219 (20.56%) Figma
2 31 (2.91%) SaaS
3 27 (2.54%) Azure
4 24 (2.25%) AWS
5 19 (1.78%) Microsoft 365
6 17 (1.60%) Microsoft Copilot
7 13 (1.22%) Miro
8 11 (1.03%) Power Platform
9 6 (0.56%) Adobe Creative Cloud
10 4 (0.38%) Azure AI
10 4 (0.38%) Canva
10 4 (0.38%) Copilot Studio
10 4 (0.38%) GCP
10 4 (0.38%) PowerApps
11 3 (0.28%) Azure ExpressRoute
11 3 (0.28%) ChatGPT
11 3 (0.28%) Dynamics 365
11 3 (0.28%) GitHub
11 3 (0.28%) Google Analytics
12 2 (0.19%) Power Automate
Communications & Networking
1 23 (2.16%) Firewall
2 22 (2.07%) Wi-Fi
3 12 (1.13%) IPsec
4 11 (1.03%) Broadband
5 10 (0.94%) 5G
5 10 (0.94%) Network Security
6 9 (0.85%) Diameter Protocol
7 8 (0.75%) 4G
8 7 (0.66%) 3G
9 6 (0.56%) BGP
10 5 (0.47%) 2G
10 5 (0.47%) OSPF
10 5 (0.47%) SIGTRAN
10 5 (0.47%) SS7
11 4 (0.38%) Ethernet
11 4 (0.38%) HTTP
12 3 (0.28%) DNS
12 3 (0.28%) Internet
12 3 (0.28%) VPN
12 3 (0.28%) Wireless
Database & Business Intelligence
1 12 (1.13%) Metadata
2 10 (0.94%) DataStage
3 6 (0.56%) Power BI
4 4 (0.38%) Oracle ODI
5 3 (0.28%) Electronic Patient Records
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%) MySQL
6 2 (0.19%) NoSQL
6 2 (0.19%) PostgreSQL
6 2 (0.19%) Qlik Sense
6 2 (0.19%) Tableau
7 1 (0.094%) Data Lake
7 1 (0.094%) Data Warehouse
7 1 (0.094%) Delta Lake
7 1 (0.094%) Pinecone
7 1 (0.094%) QlikView
Development Applications
1 13 (1.22%) JIRA
2 4 (0.38%) Axure RP
2 4 (0.38%) Claude Code
3 3 (0.28%) Git
4 1 (0.094%) Cypress.io
4 1 (0.094%) Dreamweaver
4 1 (0.094%) ER Studio
4 1 (0.094%) ERwin
4 1 (0.094%) Subversion
General
1 225 (21.13%) Public Sector
2 216 (20.28%) Social Skills
3 133 (12.49%) Finance
4 49 (4.60%) Banking
4 49 (4.60%) Retail
5 44 (4.13%) Marketing
6 30 (2.82%) Telecoms
7 29 (2.72%) Influencing Skills
8 28 (2.63%) Analytical Skills
9 26 (2.44%) Automotive
10 24 (2.25%) Legal
10 24 (2.25%) Publishing
11 19 (1.78%) Manufacturing
12 11 (1.03%) Inclusion and Diversity
12 11 (1.03%) Presentation Skills
13 9 (0.85%) Organisational Skills
14 8 (0.75%) Military
15 7 (0.66%) Games
15 7 (0.66%) Local Government
16 6 (0.56%) Retail Banking
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 33 (3.10%) HTML
2 24 (2.25%) CSS
3 13 (1.22%) Middleware
4 10 (0.94%) REST
5 6 (0.56%) React
5 6 (0.56%) SOAP
5 6 (0.56%) Web Services
6 4 (0.38%) AngularJS
7 3 (0.28%) CSS3
7 3 (0.28%) HTML5
7 3 (0.28%) Lightning Web Components
7 3 (0.28%) React Native
7 3 (0.28%) Semantic HTML
7 3 (0.28%) Visualforce
8 2 (0.19%) AWS CDK
8 2 (0.19%) JSON
8 2 (0.19%) Kafka
8 2 (0.19%) OAuth
8 2 (0.19%) OpenID
8 2 (0.19%) SAML
Miscellaneous
1 45 (4.23%) Mobile App
1 45 (4.23%) Product Ownership
2 32 (3.00%) Onboarding
3 29 (2.72%) Animation
4 27 (2.54%) Graphic Design
5 25 (2.35%) NHS
6 22 (2.07%) Self-Motivation
7 16 (1.50%) Cloud Native
8 15 (1.41%) AI Agents
8 15 (1.41%) Data Centre
8 15 (1.41%) IoT
9 12 (1.13%) BYOD
10 11 (1.03%) CMDB
10 11 (1.03%) Greenfield Project
11 10 (0.94%) Data Protection Act
11 10 (0.94%) Mainframe
11 10 (0.94%) VSAM
12 9 (0.85%) Taxonomies
13 8 (0.75%) Management Information System
13 8 (0.75%) Social Media
Operating Systems
1 15 (1.41%) Android
2 14 (1.31%) Apple iOS
3 10 (0.94%) AIX
3 10 (0.94%) Linux
3 10 (0.94%) Solaris
3 10 (0.94%) Unix
4 1 (0.094%) MVS
4 1 (0.094%) Windows
Processes & Methodologies
1 341 (32.02%) User Experience
2 337 (31.64%) Service Design
3 275 (25.82%) Agile
4 265 (24.88%) UX Design
5 219 (20.56%) User Research
6 185 (17.37%) Interaction Design
7 175 (16.43%) User-Centered Design (UCD)
8 149 (13.99%) Prototyping
9 125 (11.74%) Journey Map
10 122 (11.46%) Workshop Facilitation
11 105 (9.86%) AI
12 103 (9.67%) Wireframes
13 102 (9.58%) Stakeholder Management
14 76 (7.14%) Stakeholder Engagement
15 69 (6.48%) Problem-Solving
16 64 (6.01%) Continuous Improvement
17 63 (5.92%) Analytics
18 61 (5.73%) Inclusive Design
19 58 (5.45%) Design Thinking
20 56 (5.26%) Usability Testing
Programming Languages
1 10 (0.94%) COBOL
2 9 (0.85%) Python
3 8 (0.75%) JavaScript
4 6 (0.56%) SQL
5 4 (0.38%) Korn
6 3 (0.28%) Apex Code
6 3 (0.28%) Java
6 3 (0.28%) PowerShell
6 3 (0.28%) SOQL
7 2 (0.19%) Bash
7 2 (0.19%) Data Analysis Expressions
7 2 (0.19%) Ruby
7 2 (0.19%) TypeScript
Qualifications
1 221 (20.75%) Security Cleared
2 181 (17.00%) SC Cleared
3 67 (6.29%) Degree
4 60 (5.63%) BPSS Clearance
5 27 (2.54%) DV Cleared
6 5 (0.47%) CISSP
7 4 (0.38%) CISM
7 4 (0.38%) Computer Science Degree
7 4 (0.38%) ITIL Certification
7 4 (0.38%) TOGAF Certification
8 3 (0.28%) Cisco Certification
9 2 (0.19%) Azure Certification
9 2 (0.19%) Master's Degree
10 1 (0.094%) (ISC)2 CCSP
10 1 (0.094%) AWS Certified Solutions Architect
10 1 (0.094%) CCIE
10 1 (0.094%) CCNA
10 1 (0.094%) CCNP
10 1 (0.094%) PMI Certification
10 1 (0.094%) PMP
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 233 (21.88%) Accessibility
2 80 (7.51%) WCAG
3 11 (1.03%) Data Quality
4 8 (0.75%) ISO/IEC 20000
4 8 (0.75%) NCSC
5 7 (0.66%) Government Security Classifications
6 5 (0.47%) ISO/IEC 27001
6 5 (0.47%) NIST
6 5 (0.47%) QA
7 4 (0.38%) GDPR
8 3 (0.28%) PCI DSS
9 2 (0.19%) GMP
9 2 (0.19%) GxP
9 2 (0.19%) ISO/IEC 42001
10 1 (0.094%) Actionable Recommendations
10 1 (0.094%) California Consumer Privacy Act
10 1 (0.094%) HL7
10 1 (0.094%) SLA
10 1 (0.094%) WAI
10 1 (0.094%) WAI-ARIA
System Software
1 5 (0.47%) IAG
1 5 (0.47%) Virtual Machines
2 4 (0.38%) VMware Infrastructure
3 3 (0.28%) Firmware
4 2 (0.19%) Active Directory
5 1 (0.094%) 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 (0.094%) Kibana
4 1 (0.094%) Microsoft Intune
Vendors
1 93 (8.73%) Adobe
2 40 (3.76%) Microsoft
3 16 (1.50%) IBM
3 16 (1.50%) ServiceNow
4 13 (1.22%) Cisco
5 10 (0.94%) Google
5 10 (0.94%) VMware
6 8 (0.75%) Oracle
6 8 (0.75%) Salesforce
7 6 (0.56%) Juniper
7 6 (0.56%) SAP
8 5 (0.47%) Databricks
8 5 (0.47%) EMC
8 5 (0.47%) Ericsson
8 5 (0.47%) Nokia
9 4 (0.38%) BiZZdesign
9 4 (0.38%) Foundry
9 4 (0.38%) Virgin Media
10 3 (0.28%) BT
10 3 (0.28%) F5