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 12 November 2025.

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

6 months to
12 Nov 2025
Same period 2024 Same period 2023
Rank 192 164 186
Rank change year-on-year -28 +22 -46
Contract jobs requiring a Designer 550 544 637
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 1.56% 1.50% 1.37%
As % of the Job Titles category 1.72% 1.62% 1.46%
Number of daily rates quoted 387 334 454
10th Percentile £328 £306 £305
25th Percentile £406 £377 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £475 £475 £500
Median % change year-on-year - -5.00% -4.76%
75th Percentile £575 £575 £588
90th Percentile £638 £638 £639
UK excluding London median daily rate £450 £500 £500
% change year-on-year -10.00% - -
Number of hourly rates quoted 22 7 18
10th Percentile £21.44 £31.08 £23.78
25th Percentile £34.67 £31.63 £45.05
Median hourly rate £46.25 £33.54 £50.95
Median % change year-on-year +37.90% -34.17% -2.95%
75th Percentile £64.79 £61.88 £63.31
90th Percentile £69.65 £75.00 £67.92
UK excluding London median hourly rate £53.84 £33.54 £50.95
% change year-on-year +60.51% -34.17% +22.04%

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 31,989 33,651 43,674
% of contract IT jobs with a recognized job title 90.92% 92.86% 93.74%
Number of daily rates quoted 20,308 20,292 29,666
10th Percentile £279 £300 £294
25th Percentile £402 £412 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £525 £525
Median % change year-on-year -4.76% - -4.55%
75th Percentile £624 £638 £650
90th Percentile £725 £738 £743
UK excluding London median daily rate £475 £490 £500
% change year-on-year -3.06% -2.00% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 1,833 1,257 1,539
10th Percentile £14.06 £15.10 £14.99
25th Percentile £17.69 £20.30 £19.06
Median hourly rate £25.15 £35.00 £44.50
Median % change year-on-year -28.14% -21.35% +60.48%
75th Percentile £51.80 £65.00 £65.00
90th Percentile £69.92 £73.75 £77.50
UK excluding London median hourly rate £25.15 £35.00 £44.50
% change year-on-year -28.14% -21.35% +87.37%

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 12 November 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 12 November 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 12 November 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 -20 462 £475 -2.06% 348
London +22 274 £500 +5.26% 203
UK excluding London -51 198 £450 -10.00% 182
Work from Home -52 164 £463 +5.23% 180
North of England -16 76 £438 -12.50% 61
North West +7 44 £438 +6.97% 43
South East -38 35 £475 -7.99% 62
South West +10 28 £600 - 28
Midlands -39 28 £425 -8.24% 21
West Midlands -32 25 £425 -19.14% 17
Yorkshire -28 23 £474 -5.25% 9
Scotland -6 20 £469 +6.66% 7
North East -11 10 £450 - 9
East of England -12 9 £425 -12.82% 3
Wales - 4 £588 - 1
East Midlands -18 3 £386 -3.44% 4
Northern Ireland -5 2 £625 +12.61%

Designer Skill Set
Top 30 Co-Occurring Skills & Capabilities

For the 6 months to 12 November 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.

1 210 (38.18%) User Experience
2 178 (32.36%) Figma
3 170 (30.91%) UX Design
4 168 (30.55%) Service Design
5 155 (28.18%) Agile
6 142 (25.82%) Accessibility
7 136 (24.73%) User Research
8 111 (20.18%) User-Centered Design (UCD)
9 93 (16.91%) Prototyping
9 93 (16.91%) Security Cleared
10 83 (15.09%) SC Cleared
11 80 (14.55%) Interaction Design
12 76 (13.82%) Wireframes
13 74 (13.45%) Workshop Facilitation
14 71 (12.91%) Journey Map
15 68 (12.36%) Adobe
16 55 (10.00%) Usability Testing
17 52 (9.45%) Sketch
18 51 (9.27%) Design Thinking
19 50 (9.09%) Problem-Solving
20 47 (8.55%) Inclusive Design
21 44 (8.00%) Stakeholder Engagement
22 41 (7.45%) Stakeholder Management
23 40 (7.27%) Microsoft
24 39 (7.09%) Continuous Improvement
25 38 (6.91%) HTML
26 37 (6.73%) Analytics
26 37 (6.73%) Storytelling
27 36 (6.55%) AI
27 36 (6.55%) 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 (3.82%) CMS
2 12 (2.18%) Confluence
3 11 (2.00%) OpenStack
4 5 (0.91%) Headless CMS
5 4 (0.73%) Appian
5 4 (0.73%) Camunda
6 3 (0.55%) Tomcat
7 2 (0.36%) SharePoint
8 1 (0.18%) Drupal
8 1 (0.18%) Joomla!
8 1 (0.18%) LiveCycle
8 1 (0.18%) Umbraco
8 1 (0.18%) WordPress
Applications
1 52 (9.45%) Sketch
2 26 (4.73%) Adobe Creative Suite
3 24 (4.36%) Adobe XD
4 20 (3.64%) Adobe Illustrator
5 17 (3.09%) InVision
5 17 (3.09%) Photoshop
6 12 (2.18%) InDesign
7 10 (1.82%) Zeplin
8 9 (1.64%) Microsoft Office
8 9 (1.64%) Microsoft PowerPoint
9 8 (1.45%) Adobe After Effects
10 7 (1.27%) Chatbot
11 6 (1.09%) Adobe Captivate
11 6 (1.09%) Microsoft Excel
12 4 (0.73%) Acrobat
12 4 (0.73%) Adobe Premiere
12 4 (0.73%) MS Visio
12 4 (0.73%) OmniGraffle
12 4 (0.73%) UXPin
13 3 (0.55%) Spreadsheet
Business Applications
1 4 (0.73%) SAP ERP
2 3 (0.55%) Dynamics GP
2 3 (0.55%) Oracle BRM
2 3 (0.55%) SAP S/4HANA
3 2 (0.36%) Salesforce CRM
4 1 (0.18%) Oracle CRM
4 1 (0.18%) Remedy ITSM
4 1 (0.18%) Workfront
Cloud Services
1 178 (32.36%) Figma
2 32 (5.82%) AWS
3 26 (4.73%) Miro
4 19 (3.45%) SaaS
5 10 (1.82%) Azure
6 9 (1.64%) Adobe Creative Cloud
6 9 (1.64%) Power Platform
7 7 (1.27%) Lucidchart
8 6 (1.09%) OpenShift
9 5 (0.91%) Amazon Cognito
9 5 (0.91%) Amazon ECS
9 5 (0.91%) Amazon EKS
9 5 (0.91%) Amazon S3
9 5 (0.91%) AWS Lambda
9 5 (0.91%) Google Analytics
9 5 (0.91%) Serverless
10 4 (0.73%) ChatGPT
10 4 (0.73%) Copilot Studio
10 4 (0.73%) GitHub
10 4 (0.73%) Microsoft Copilot
Communications & Networking
1 15 (2.73%) BGP
1 15 (2.73%) Firewall
1 15 (2.73%) OSPF
2 13 (2.36%) MPLS
3 12 (2.18%) LAN
4 9 (1.64%) Wireless
5 8 (1.45%) DHCP
5 8 (1.45%) DNS
5 8 (1.45%) IPsec
5 8 (1.45%) SNMP
6 7 (1.27%) VLAN
6 7 (1.27%) Wireshark
7 6 (1.09%) 4G
7 6 (1.09%) 5G
7 6 (1.09%) Radio Access Network
7 6 (1.09%) SMS
7 6 (1.09%) TACACS
7 6 (1.09%) WAN
7 6 (1.09%) Wi-Fi
8 5 (0.91%) 3GPP
Database & Business Intelligence
1 5 (0.91%) DynamoDB
2 4 (0.73%) Power BI
3 3 (0.55%) Metadata
4 1 (0.18%) BigQuery
4 1 (0.18%) Tableau
Development Applications
1 25 (4.55%) Axure RP
2 19 (3.45%) JIRA
3 7 (1.27%) Balsamiq
4 2 (0.36%) Git
4 2 (0.36%) Postman
5 1 (0.18%) Cypress.io
5 1 (0.18%) Dreamweaver
5 1 (0.18%) GitLab
5 1 (0.18%) Visual Studio
5 1 (0.18%) Visual Studio Code
General
1 130 (23.64%) Social Skills
2 95 (17.27%) Finance
3 83 (15.09%) Public Sector
4 62 (11.27%) Banking
5 29 (5.27%) Marketing
6 18 (3.27%) Analytical Skills
7 16 (2.91%) Legal
8 15 (2.73%) Publishing
9 14 (2.55%) Inclusion and Diversity
10 11 (2.00%) Retail
11 8 (1.45%) Influencing Skills
12 7 (1.27%) Billing
12 7 (1.27%) Presentation Skills
13 6 (1.09%) Documentation Skills
13 6 (1.09%) Retail Banking
13 6 (1.09%) Telecoms
14 5 (0.91%) Corporate Banking
14 5 (0.91%) Investment Banking
14 5 (0.91%) Manufacturing
14 5 (0.91%) Organisational Skills
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 38 (6.91%) HTML
2 35 (6.36%) CSS
3 10 (1.82%) Framer.js
4 6 (1.09%) Swagger
5 5 (0.91%) Lightning Web Components
5 5 (0.91%) OAuth
5 5 (0.91%) OAuth2
5 5 (0.91%) OpenID
5 5 (0.91%) SAML
6 4 (0.73%) React
7 3 (0.55%) AngularJS
8 2 (0.36%) EDI
8 2 (0.36%) HTML5
8 2 (0.36%) Middleware
8 2 (0.36%) OpenAPI
8 2 (0.36%) REST
8 2 (0.36%) Sass
8 2 (0.36%) Web Services
9 1 (0.18%) .NET
9 1 (0.18%) OpenGL
Miscellaneous
1 47 (8.55%) Mobile App
2 32 (5.82%) Product Ownership
3 26 (4.73%) Onboarding
4 10 (1.82%) Graphic Design
5 9 (1.64%) Data Centre
5 9 (1.64%) Social Media
6 8 (1.45%) Data Protection Act
6 8 (1.45%) Hybrid Cloud
7 7 (1.27%) Operational Technology
8 6 (1.09%) Blog
8 6 (1.09%) Enterprise Software
8 6 (1.09%) Greenfield Project
8 6 (1.09%) Self-Motivation
9 5 (0.91%) Digital Media
9 5 (0.91%) e-Learning
9 5 (0.91%) FPGA
9 5 (0.91%) Management Information System
10 4 (0.73%) IoT
10 4 (0.73%) Learning Management System
10 4 (0.73%) NHS
Operating Systems
1 18 (3.27%) Apple iOS
2 17 (3.09%) Android
3 3 (0.55%) Unix
4 1 (0.18%) Mac OS
4 1 (0.18%) VMS
4 1 (0.18%) Windows
Processes & Methodologies
1 210 (38.18%) User Experience
2 170 (30.91%) UX Design
3 168 (30.55%) Service Design
4 155 (28.18%) Agile
5 136 (24.73%) User Research
6 111 (20.18%) User-Centered Design (UCD)
7 93 (16.91%) Prototyping
8 80 (14.55%) Interaction Design
9 76 (13.82%) Wireframes
10 74 (13.45%) Workshop Facilitation
11 71 (12.91%) Journey Map
12 55 (10.00%) Usability Testing
13 51 (9.27%) Design Thinking
14 50 (9.09%) Problem-Solving
15 47 (8.55%) Inclusive Design
16 44 (8.00%) Stakeholder Engagement
17 41 (7.45%) Stakeholder Management
18 39 (7.09%) Continuous Improvement
19 37 (6.73%) Analytics
19 37 (6.73%) Storytelling
Programming Languages
1 12 (2.18%) JavaScript
1 12 (2.18%) Python
2 7 (1.27%) SQL
3 3 (0.55%) Java
3 3 (0.55%) PL/SQL
4 2 (0.36%) TypeScript
Qualifications
1 93 (16.91%) Security Cleared
2 83 (15.09%) SC Cleared
3 35 (6.36%) Degree
4 22 (4.00%) BPSS Clearance
5 13 (2.36%) Cisco Certification
6 12 (2.18%) AWS Certification
7 8 (1.45%) CCIE
7 8 (1.45%) JNCIE
8 5 (0.91%) HND
9 4 (0.73%) CCNP
9 4 (0.73%) Computer Science Degree
9 4 (0.73%) DV Cleared
9 4 (0.73%) Master's Degree
10 3 (0.55%) CCNA
10 3 (0.55%) SAP Certification
11 2 (0.36%) AWS Certified Solutions Architect
12 1 (0.18%) Azure Certification
12 1 (0.18%) BICSI Certification
12 1 (0.18%) BICSI RCDD
12 1 (0.18%) DBS Check
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 142 (25.82%) Accessibility
2 35 (6.36%) WCAG
3 5 (0.91%) GDPR
3 5 (0.91%) ISO 9001
4 4 (0.73%) Data Quality
4 4 (0.73%) QA
5 1 (0.18%) Actionable Recommendations
5 1 (0.18%) Disclosure Scotland
5 1 (0.18%) SLA
System Software
1 6 (1.09%) VMware Infrastructure
1 6 (1.09%) VMware NSX
2 5 (0.91%) Docker
3 1 (0.18%) VMFS
Systems Management
1 6 (1.09%) Ansible
1 6 (1.09%) Terraform
2 2 (0.36%) FortiGate
3 1 (0.18%) Single Sign-On
Vendors
1 68 (12.36%) Adobe
2 40 (7.27%) Microsoft
3 20 (3.64%) Cisco
4 13 (2.36%) F5
4 13 (2.36%) Fortinet
4 13 (2.36%) Salesforce
5 11 (2.00%) Juniper
6 10 (1.82%) Google
7 7 (1.27%) ServiceNow
8 6 (1.09%) Pega
8 6 (1.09%) SAP
8 6 (1.09%) VMware
9 5 (0.91%) Cadence
9 5 (0.91%) Dell
9 5 (0.91%) Genesys
9 5 (0.91%) Hopewiser
10 4 (0.73%) Hotjar
10 4 (0.73%) Mercator
10 4 (0.73%) Sage
10 4 (0.73%) Virgin Media