Designer Contract Job Trends

Designer
UK

The median Designer daily rate in the UK is £478, according to job vacancies posted in the 6 months leading up to 28 April 2026.

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

6 months to
28 Apr 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 128 167 167
Rank change year-on-year +39 0 -28
Contract jobs requiring a Designer 952 486 634
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 2.03% 1.66% 1.46%
As % of the Job Titles category 2.19% 1.79% 1.58%
Number of daily rates quoted 710 358 382
10th Percentile £350 £300 £325
25th Percentile £400 £360 £400
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £478 £459 £475
Median % change year-on-year +4.05% -3.38% -9.52%
75th Percentile £549 £550 £561
90th Percentile £623 £613 £625
UK excluding London median daily rate £475 £420 £463
% change year-on-year +13.23% -9.30% -5.03%
Number of hourly rates quoted 15 8 50
10th Percentile £24.20 £22.75 £30.88
25th Percentile £27.51 £28.19 £46.00
Median hourly rate £35.00 £38.95 £57.35
Median % change year-on-year -10.14% -32.08% +24.00%
75th Percentile £54.08 £55.31 £61.30
90th Percentile £69.40 £75.00 -
UK excluding London median hourly rate £35.00 £52.70 £57.35
% change year-on-year -33.59% -8.11% -11.77%

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 43,373 27,176 40,178
% of contract IT jobs with a recognized job title 92.32% 92.58% 92.79%
Number of daily rates quoted 26,766 17,790 26,166
10th Percentile £313 £300 £275
25th Percentile £413 £407 £409
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £515 £525
Median % change year-on-year -3.00% -1.82% -2.78%
75th Percentile £613 £625 £638
90th Percentile £725 £738 £750
UK excluding London median daily rate £488 £475 £491
% change year-on-year +2.63% -3.19% -1.87%
Number of hourly rates quoted 2,810 1,031 2,642
10th Percentile £15.00 £14.20 £12.86
25th Percentile £20.50 £18.51 £16.30
Median hourly rate £43.39 £29.25 £35.83
Median % change year-on-year +48.35% -18.36% -20.38%
75th Percentile £65.60 £62.75 £60.00
90th Percentile £78.75 £75.00 £72.50
UK excluding London median hourly rate £45.00 £28.75 £37.50
% change year-on-year +56.52% -23.33% -11.76%

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 28 April 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 28 April 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 28 April 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 +43 793 £475 +3.94% 185
UK excluding London +49 406 £475 +13.23% 153
London +16 403 £475 +3.94% 80
Work from Home +44 279 £465 +3.33% 82
North of England -8 126 £454 +13.50% 49
South East -10 75 £525 +7.69% 42
Midlands -15 73 £408 +0.62% 21
West Midlands -17 66 £425 -8.11% 20
South West -3 52 £425 -10.53% 12
North West -6 50 £405 +1.25% 36
East of England +3 40 £500 +5.26% 18
North East +3 38 £450 +2.86% 9
Scotland -2 38 £550 +17.33% 5
Yorkshire -40 38 £500 +25.00% 5
Wales -12 8 £513 +67.77% 8
East Midlands -31 7 £401 +26.30% 1

Designer Skill Set
Top 30 Co-Occurring Skills & Capabilities

For the 6 months to 28 April 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.

1 309 (32.46%) Service Design
2 294 (30.88%) User Experience
3 258 (27.10%) Agile
4 234 (24.58%) User Research
5 232 (24.37%) UX Design
6 215 (22.58%) Accessibility
7 205 (21.53%) Security Cleared
8 204 (21.43%) Figma
9 171 (17.96%) User-Centered Design (UCD)
10 170 (17.86%) Interaction Design
11 163 (17.12%) SC Cleared
12 146 (15.34%) Prototyping
13 131 (13.76%) Workshop Facilitation
14 125 (13.13%) Journey Map
15 100 (10.50%) Wireframes
16 88 (9.24%) AI
17 80 (8.40%) Adobe
17 80 (8.40%) Usability Testing
18 78 (8.19%) Stakeholder Management
18 78 (8.19%) WCAG
19 75 (7.88%) Problem-Solving
20 69 (7.25%) Analytics
21 65 (6.83%) Stakeholder Engagement
22 61 (6.41%) Design Thinking
23 60 (6.30%) Storytelling
24 59 (6.20%) Roadmaps
25 58 (6.09%) Continuous Improvement
26 57 (5.99%) Collaborative Working
27 55 (5.78%) Inclusive Design
28 54 (5.67%) Degree

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 22 (2.31%) CMS
2 11 (1.16%) Confluence
3 10 (1.05%) CICS
4 6 (0.63%) Appian
5 5 (0.53%) LiveCycle
5 5 (0.53%) SharePoint
6 4 (0.42%) Camunda
6 4 (0.42%) Moodle
7 3 (0.32%) Drupal
7 3 (0.32%) OpenStack
8 2 (0.21%) Tomcat
8 2 (0.21%) Umbraco
8 2 (0.21%) WordPress
9 1 (0.11%) Oracle Collaboration Suite
Applications
1 46 (4.83%) Sketch
2 33 (3.47%) Adobe Creative Suite
3 28 (2.94%) Adobe XD
4 23 (2.42%) Photoshop
5 20 (2.10%) Adobe Illustrator
6 18 (1.89%) InVision
7 16 (1.68%) Adobe After Effects
8 12 (1.26%) Chatbot
8 12 (1.26%) Microsoft PowerPoint
9 10 (1.05%) Microsoft Excel
10 8 (0.84%) InDesign
11 7 (0.74%) CINEMA 4D
12 6 (0.63%) Zeplin
13 5 (0.53%) Adobe Premiere
14 4 (0.42%) AutoCAD
14 4 (0.42%) MS Visio
14 4 (0.42%) SOLIDWORKS
14 4 (0.42%) Trello
15 3 (0.32%) Blender
15 3 (0.32%) Spreadsheet
Business Applications
1 7 (0.74%) SAP ERP
2 5 (0.53%) Dynamics GP
2 5 (0.53%) SAP S/4HANA
3 4 (0.42%) Oracle ERP
4 2 (0.21%) Oracle BRM
4 2 (0.21%) Shopify
5 1 (0.11%) Oracle CRM
5 1 (0.11%) SmartPlant
Cloud Services
1 204 (21.43%) Figma
2 27 (2.84%) AWS
3 23 (2.42%) SaaS
4 18 (1.89%) Azure
5 10 (1.05%) Miro
6 9 (0.95%) Power Platform
7 8 (0.84%) Adobe Creative Cloud
8 4 (0.42%) Copilot Studio
8 4 (0.42%) GCP
8 4 (0.42%) Microsoft Copilot
8 4 (0.42%) PowerApps
9 3 (0.32%) ChatGPT
9 3 (0.32%) Google Workspace
10 2 (0.21%) Asana
10 2 (0.21%) AWS CloudFormation
10 2 (0.21%) Azure ExpressRoute
10 2 (0.21%) Dynamics 365
10 2 (0.21%) GitHub
10 2 (0.21%) Microsoft 365
10 2 (0.21%) Virtual Private Cloud
Communications & Networking
1 24 (2.52%) Firewall
2 19 (2.00%) Wi-Fi
3 13 (1.37%) Network Security
4 11 (1.16%) IPsec
5 10 (1.05%) Broadband
6 6 (0.63%) 5G
6 6 (0.63%) Diameter Protocol
7 5 (0.53%) VLAN
7 5 (0.53%) VPN
8 3 (0.32%) 3G
8 3 (0.32%) 4G
8 3 (0.32%) BGP
8 3 (0.32%) DNS
8 3 (0.32%) HTTP
8 3 (0.32%) Internet
8 3 (0.32%) Intranet
8 3 (0.32%) IPv4
8 3 (0.32%) IPv6
8 3 (0.32%) LTE
8 3 (0.32%) TCP/IP
Database & Business Intelligence
1 10 (1.05%) DataStage
2 8 (0.84%) Metadata
3 4 (0.42%) Oracle ODI
3 4 (0.42%) Power BI
4 3 (0.32%) Electronic Patient Records
5 2 (0.21%) Amazon Aurora
5 2 (0.21%) Amazon RDS
5 2 (0.21%) Amazon Redshift
5 2 (0.21%) Data Vault
5 2 (0.21%) MySQL
5 2 (0.21%) NoSQL
5 2 (0.21%) PostgreSQL
6 1 (0.11%) Data Lake
6 1 (0.11%) Data Warehouse
6 1 (0.11%) Pinecone
6 1 (0.11%) Tableau
Development Applications
1 24 (2.52%) JIRA
2 22 (2.31%) Axure RP
3 2 (0.21%) Git
4 1 (0.11%) Balsamiq
4 1 (0.11%) Cypress.io
4 1 (0.11%) GitLab
4 1 (0.11%) Postman
4 1 (0.11%) SoapUI
General
1 219 (23.00%) Public Sector
2 195 (20.48%) Social Skills
3 127 (13.34%) Finance
4 59 (6.20%) Banking
5 38 (3.99%) Marketing
6 30 (3.15%) Retail
7 26 (2.73%) Analytical Skills
8 25 (2.63%) Influencing Skills
9 23 (2.42%) Legal
10 22 (2.31%) Publishing
11 21 (2.21%) Telecoms
12 15 (1.58%) Presentation Skills
13 14 (1.47%) Manufacturing
13 14 (1.47%) Pharmaceutical
14 10 (1.05%) Inclusion and Diversity
15 9 (0.95%) Local Government
15 9 (0.95%) Organisational Skills
16 7 (0.74%) Automotive
16 7 (0.74%) Billing
16 7 (0.74%) Retail Banking
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 41 (4.31%) HTML
2 29 (3.05%) CSS
3 13 (1.37%) Middleware
4 8 (0.84%) REST
5 6 (0.63%) SOAP
6 5 (0.53%) .NET
6 5 (0.53%) React
6 5 (0.53%) Web Services
7 4 (0.42%) Lightning Web Components
8 3 (0.32%) AngularJS
8 3 (0.32%) Framer.js
8 3 (0.32%) JSON
8 3 (0.32%) OAuth
8 3 (0.32%) Semantic HTML
8 3 (0.32%) Visualforce
9 2 (0.21%) CSS3
9 2 (0.21%) HTML5
9 2 (0.21%) Kafka
9 2 (0.21%) OpenID
9 2 (0.21%) SAML
Miscellaneous
1 53 (5.57%) Product Ownership
2 40 (4.20%) Mobile App
3 27 (2.84%) Onboarding
4 21 (2.21%) NHS
5 16 (1.68%) Data Centre
6 15 (1.58%) IoT
6 15 (1.58%) Mainframe
7 13 (1.37%) AI Agents
7 13 (1.37%) Animation
7 13 (1.37%) Cloud Native
8 12 (1.26%) Graphic Design
9 11 (1.16%) BYOD
10 10 (1.05%) Management Information System
10 10 (1.05%) VSAM
11 9 (0.95%) Taxonomies
12 8 (0.84%) CMDB
12 8 (0.84%) Data Protection Act
12 8 (0.84%) Motion Graphics
13 7 (0.74%) e-Learning
14 6 (0.63%) Data Structures
Operating Systems
1 12 (1.26%) Unix
2 10 (1.05%) AIX
2 10 (1.05%) Linux
2 10 (1.05%) Solaris
3 7 (0.74%) Android
4 6 (0.63%) Apple iOS
5 1 (0.11%) MVS
Processes & Methodologies
1 309 (32.46%) Service Design
2 294 (30.88%) User Experience
3 258 (27.10%) Agile
4 234 (24.58%) User Research
5 232 (24.37%) UX Design
6 171 (17.96%) User-Centered Design (UCD)
7 170 (17.86%) Interaction Design
8 146 (15.34%) Prototyping
9 131 (13.76%) Workshop Facilitation
10 125 (13.13%) Journey Map
11 100 (10.50%) Wireframes
12 88 (9.24%) AI
13 80 (8.40%) Usability Testing
14 78 (8.19%) Stakeholder Management
15 75 (7.88%) Problem-Solving
16 69 (7.25%) Analytics
17 65 (6.83%) Stakeholder Engagement
18 61 (6.41%) Design Thinking
19 60 (6.30%) Storytelling
20 59 (6.20%) Roadmaps
Programming Languages
1 13 (1.37%) Python
2 10 (1.05%) COBOL
2 10 (1.05%) JavaScript
3 7 (0.74%) SQL
4 4 (0.42%) Java
5 3 (0.32%) Apex Code
5 3 (0.32%) Korn
5 3 (0.32%) SOQL
6 2 (0.21%) Bash
6 2 (0.21%) PL/SQL
6 2 (0.21%) PowerShell
6 2 (0.21%) Ruby
7 1 (0.11%) TypeScript
Qualifications
1 205 (21.53%) Security Cleared
2 163 (17.12%) SC Cleared
3 54 (5.67%) Degree
4 39 (4.10%) DV Cleared
5 38 (3.99%) BPSS Clearance
6 10 (1.05%) Cisco Certification
7 8 (0.84%) CCNP
8 5 (0.53%) CISSP
8 5 (0.53%) Master's Degree
8 5 (0.53%) SAP Certification
9 4 (0.42%) CISM
9 4 (0.42%) Computer Science Degree
9 4 (0.42%) TOGAF Certification
10 3 (0.32%) CCNA
10 3 (0.32%) JNCIS
11 2 (0.21%) ITIL Certification
12 1 (0.11%) CCIE
12 1 (0.11%) JNCIP
12 1 (0.11%) PMI Certification
12 1 (0.11%) PMP
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 215 (22.58%) Accessibility
2 78 (8.19%) WCAG
3 8 (0.84%) GDPR
3 8 (0.84%) ISO/IEC 20000
3 8 (0.84%) NCSC
4 7 (0.74%) Government Security Classifications
5 6 (0.63%) NIST
6 5 (0.53%) Data Quality
6 5 (0.53%) GMP
6 5 (0.53%) GxP
6 5 (0.53%) QA
7 4 (0.42%) ISO/IEC 27001
8 3 (0.32%) Actionable Recommendations
8 3 (0.32%) PCI DSS
9 1 (0.11%) California Consumer Privacy Act
9 1 (0.11%) HL7
9 1 (0.11%) SLA
System Software
1 4 (0.42%) VMware Infrastructure
2 3 (0.32%) Virtual Machines
3 2 (0.21%) Firmware
3 2 (0.21%) IAG
4 1 (0.11%) Active Directory
Systems Management
1 4 (0.42%) Terraform
2 3 (0.32%) Kubernetes
2 3 (0.32%) Nagios
3 2 (0.21%) Ansible
3 2 (0.21%) FortiGate
4 1 (0.11%) Network Intrusion Detection System
Vendors
1 80 (8.40%) Adobe
2 27 (2.84%) Microsoft
3 16 (1.68%) ServiceNow
4 15 (1.58%) Oracle
5 11 (1.16%) Cisco
5 11 (1.16%) SAP
6 10 (1.05%) IBM
6 10 (1.05%) Salesforce
6 10 (1.05%) VMware
7 8 (0.84%) Juniper
8 6 (0.63%) Google
8 6 (0.63%) Sage
9 5 (0.53%) BiZZdesign
9 5 (0.53%) Ericsson
9 5 (0.53%) F5
9 5 (0.53%) Nokia
10 4 (0.42%) Pega
11 3 (0.32%) Huawei
11 3 (0.32%) MuleSoft
11 3 (0.32%) SolarWinds