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 24 February 2026.

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

6 months to
24 Feb 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 158 155 166
Rank change year-on-year -3 +11 -19
Contract jobs requiring a Designer 709 522 646
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 1.73% 1.73% 1.45%
As % of the Job Titles category 1.89% 1.86% 1.56%
Number of daily rates quoted 533 354 423
10th Percentile £338 £300 £325
25th Percentile £400 £363 £400
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £478 £475 £493
Median % change year-on-year +0.63% -3.55% -6.19%
75th Percentile £556 £575 £574
90th Percentile £638 £646 £613
UK excluding London median daily rate £454 £455 £465
% change year-on-year -0.22% -2.15% -6.53%
Number of hourly rates quoted 10 9 13
10th Percentile £22.73 £30.32 £15.50
25th Percentile £27.74 £31.50 £45.00
Median hourly rate £50.72 £33.54 £50.00
Median % change year-on-year +51.22% -32.92% +21.95%
75th Percentile £61.81 £48.75 £53.00
90th Percentile £69.65 £75.00 £66.77
UK excluding London median hourly rate £53.00 £33.52 £45.21
% change year-on-year +58.11% -25.86% +8.29%

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 37,601 28,063 41,310
% of contract IT jobs with a recognized job title 91.77% 92.89% 93.00%
Number of daily rates quoted 23,630 17,563 27,190
10th Percentile £306 £293 £275
25th Percentile £408 £406 £409
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £525 £525
Median % change year-on-year -4.76% - -4.55%
75th Percentile £613 £638 £638
90th Percentile £720 £738 £738
UK excluding London median daily rate £481 £475 £488
% change year-on-year +1.32% -2.56% -2.50%
Number of hourly rates quoted 2,287 822 2,342
10th Percentile £14.61 £16.25 £13.15
25th Percentile £18.87 £21.46 £16.30
Median hourly rate £32.00 £35.00 £35.00
Median % change year-on-year -8.57% - -10.88%
75th Percentile £63.75 £64.50 £60.00
90th Percentile £74.26 £75.00 £71.99
UK excluding London median hourly rate £30.00 £32.50 £35.00
% change year-on-year -7.69% -7.14% -5.74%

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 24 February 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 24 February 2026.

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 24 February 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 -12 562 £475 - 194
London +16 329 £475 - 102
UK excluding London -26 256 £454 -0.22% 122
Work from Home 0 226 £475 +5.56% 139
North of England -24 97 £425 +6.12% 24
North West -5 49 £401 +0.25% 20
South East -33 45 £500 -9.09% 42
Scotland +9 37 £450 -1.10% 4
Yorkshire -43 33 £535 +22.22%
Midlands -57 31 £400 -1.23% 20
South West -15 29 £460 -4.17% 22
West Midlands -56 25 £388 -17.33% 17
North East -8 15 £406 -9.72% 4
East of England -20 9 £425 -10.53% 11
Wales +4 8 £506 +114.51%
East Midlands -28 6 £402 +0.38% 3
Northern Ireland - 2 £625 -

Designer Skill Set
Top 30 Co-Occurring Skills & Capabilities

For the 6 months to 24 February 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.

1 251 (35.40%) Service Design
1 251 (35.40%) User Experience
2 221 (31.17%) Agile
3 202 (28.49%) UX Design
4 201 (28.35%) Accessibility
4 201 (28.35%) Figma
4 201 (28.35%) User Research
5 165 (23.27%) Security Cleared
6 156 (22.00%) Prototyping
6 156 (22.00%) User-Centered Design (UCD)
7 137 (19.32%) SC Cleared
8 129 (18.19%) Interaction Design
9 120 (16.93%) Workshop Facilitation
10 114 (16.08%) Journey Map
11 99 (13.96%) Wireframes
12 95 (13.40%) Usability Testing
13 79 (11.14%) Adobe
14 74 (10.44%) Inclusive Design
15 73 (10.30%) Problem-Solving
16 66 (9.31%) Analytics
17 65 (9.17%) WCAG
18 60 (8.46%) Design Thinking
19 58 (8.18%) Stakeholder Engagement
20 57 (8.04%) Roadmaps
21 56 (7.90%) Stakeholder Management
22 55 (7.76%) AI
23 53 (7.48%) Continuous Improvement
24 52 (7.33%) Sketch
24 52 (7.33%) Storytelling
25 45 (6.35%) HTML

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 19 (2.68%) CMS
1 19 (2.68%) Confluence
2 8 (1.13%) Appian
3 6 (0.85%) Camunda
3 6 (0.85%) CICS
4 3 (0.42%) Tomcat
5 2 (0.28%) OpenStack
5 2 (0.28%) SharePoint
5 2 (0.28%) Umbraco
6 1 (0.14%) LiveCycle
Applications
1 52 (7.33%) Sketch
2 37 (5.22%) Adobe XD
3 23 (3.24%) Adobe Creative Suite
4 21 (2.96%) Photoshop
5 20 (2.82%) InVision
6 19 (2.68%) Adobe Illustrator
7 13 (1.83%) Adobe After Effects
8 11 (1.55%) InDesign
9 8 (1.13%) Microsoft PowerPoint
10 7 (0.99%) Chatbot
11 6 (0.85%) Microsoft Excel
11 6 (0.85%) Zeplin
12 5 (0.71%) CINEMA 4D
13 4 (0.56%) Adobe Captivate
13 4 (0.56%) Adobe Premiere
13 4 (0.56%) Microsoft Office
13 4 (0.56%) MS Visio
14 3 (0.42%) Spreadsheet
14 3 (0.42%) Trello
15 2 (0.28%) Blender
Business Applications
1 7 (0.99%) SAP ERP
2 5 (0.71%) Dynamics GP
2 5 (0.71%) SAP S/4HANA
3 3 (0.42%) Oracle BRM
4 1 (0.14%) Oracle CRM
4 1 (0.14%) Remedy ITSM
4 1 (0.14%) Shopify
4 1 (0.14%) SmartPlant
4 1 (0.14%) Workfront
Cloud Services
1 201 (28.35%) Figma
2 18 (2.54%) Miro
2 18 (2.54%) SaaS
3 17 (2.40%) AWS
4 11 (1.55%) Power Platform
5 10 (1.41%) Adobe Creative Cloud
6 9 (1.27%) Azure
7 5 (0.71%) PowerApps
8 4 (0.56%) ChatGPT
8 4 (0.56%) Copilot Studio
8 4 (0.56%) Microsoft Copilot
9 3 (0.42%) Google Analytics
9 3 (0.42%) Google Workspace
10 2 (0.28%) Asana
10 2 (0.28%) Canva
10 2 (0.28%) Dynamics 365
10 2 (0.28%) Google Gemini
10 2 (0.28%) Microsoft 365
10 2 (0.28%) OpenShift
10 2 (0.28%) Power Automate
Communications & Networking
1 9 (1.27%) Firewall
2 7 (0.99%) Network Security
3 6 (0.85%) SMS
4 3 (0.42%) Broadband
4 3 (0.42%) GPRS
4 3 (0.42%) GSM
4 3 (0.42%) IPv4
4 3 (0.42%) IPv6
4 3 (0.42%) LAN
4 3 (0.42%) TCP/IP
4 3 (0.42%) VLAN
4 3 (0.42%) VPN
5 2 (0.28%) BGP
5 2 (0.28%) Internet
5 2 (0.28%) MPLS
5 2 (0.28%) OSPF
5 2 (0.28%) SNMP
5 2 (0.28%) TACACS
5 2 (0.28%) WAN
5 2 (0.28%) Wireless
Database & Business Intelligence
1 6 (0.85%) DataStage
2 4 (0.56%) Power BI
3 3 (0.42%) Metadata
4 1 (0.14%) BigQuery
4 1 (0.14%) Electronic Patient Records
4 1 (0.14%) Tableau
Development Applications
1 34 (4.80%) JIRA
2 28 (3.95%) Axure RP
3 3 (0.42%) Git
4 2 (0.28%) Balsamiq
4 2 (0.28%) GitLab
5 1 (0.14%) Cypress.io
5 1 (0.14%) Dreamweaver
5 1 (0.14%) Postman
5 1 (0.14%) SoapUI
General
1 186 (26.23%) Social Skills
2 184 (25.95%) Public Sector
3 112 (15.80%) Finance
4 57 (8.04%) Banking
5 27 (3.81%) Marketing
6 22 (3.10%) Analytical Skills
7 16 (2.26%) Influencing Skills
8 14 (1.97%) Publishing
8 14 (1.97%) Retail
9 13 (1.83%) Presentation Skills
10 12 (1.69%) Inclusion and Diversity
11 11 (1.55%) Pharmaceutical
11 11 (1.55%) Telecoms
12 10 (1.41%) Billing
12 10 (1.41%) Legal
13 7 (0.99%) Advertising
13 7 (0.99%) Local Government
13 7 (0.99%) Manufacturing
14 5 (0.71%) Documentation Skills
14 5 (0.71%) Wearables
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 45 (6.35%) HTML
2 39 (5.50%) CSS
3 9 (1.27%) Middleware
4 6 (0.85%) Framer.js
5 5 (0.71%) .NET
5 5 (0.71%) AngularJS
5 5 (0.71%) React
6 4 (0.56%) Lightning Web Components
7 3 (0.42%) HTML5
7 3 (0.42%) RESTful
7 3 (0.42%) Visualforce
8 2 (0.28%) CSS3
8 2 (0.28%) Sass
9 1 (0.14%) HTML5 Canvas
9 1 (0.14%) REST
9 1 (0.14%) Semantic HTML
9 1 (0.14%) Unity (Game Engine)
9 1 (0.14%) Unity DI Container
9 1 (0.14%) V-Ray
9 1 (0.14%) WebGL
Miscellaneous
1 39 (5.50%) Mobile App
1 39 (5.50%) Product Ownership
2 19 (2.68%) Onboarding
3 16 (2.26%) NHS
4 11 (1.55%) AI Agents
4 11 (1.55%) Data Centre
4 11 (1.55%) Mainframe
5 9 (1.27%) Data Protection Act
5 9 (1.27%) Taxonomies
6 8 (1.13%) Animation
6 8 (1.13%) e-Learning
6 8 (1.13%) Graphic Design
7 7 (0.99%) Digital Media
7 7 (0.99%) Management Information System
7 7 (0.99%) Social Media
8 6 (0.85%) BYOD
8 6 (0.85%) Data Structures
8 6 (0.85%) Motion Graphics
8 6 (0.85%) Team-Oriented Environment
8 6 (0.85%) VSAM
Operating Systems
1 9 (1.27%) Unix
2 6 (0.85%) AIX
2 6 (0.85%) Android
2 6 (0.85%) Linux
2 6 (0.85%) Solaris
3 5 (0.71%) Apple iOS
4 1 (0.14%) Mac OS
4 1 (0.14%) MVS
4 1 (0.14%) VMS
4 1 (0.14%) Windows
Processes & Methodologies
1 251 (35.40%) Service Design
1 251 (35.40%) User Experience
2 221 (31.17%) Agile
3 202 (28.49%) UX Design
4 201 (28.35%) User Research
5 156 (22.00%) Prototyping
5 156 (22.00%) User-Centered Design (UCD)
6 129 (18.19%) Interaction Design
7 120 (16.93%) Workshop Facilitation
8 114 (16.08%) Journey Map
9 99 (13.96%) Wireframes
10 95 (13.40%) Usability Testing
11 74 (10.44%) Inclusive Design
12 73 (10.30%) Problem-Solving
13 66 (9.31%) Analytics
14 60 (8.46%) Design Thinking
15 58 (8.18%) Stakeholder Engagement
16 57 (8.04%) Roadmaps
17 56 (7.90%) Stakeholder Management
18 55 (7.76%) AI
Programming Languages
1 10 (1.41%) Python
2 9 (1.27%) JavaScript
3 7 (0.99%) SQL
4 6 (0.85%) COBOL
5 3 (0.42%) Apex Code
5 3 (0.42%) Java
5 3 (0.42%) Korn
5 3 (0.42%) PL/SQL
5 3 (0.42%) SOQL
6 1 (0.14%) TypeScript
Qualifications
1 165 (23.27%) Security Cleared
2 137 (19.32%) SC Cleared
3 44 (6.21%) Degree
4 24 (3.39%) BPSS Clearance
5 16 (2.26%) DV Cleared
6 10 (1.41%) Cisco Certification
7 8 (1.13%) CCNP
8 5 (0.71%) Master's Degree
8 5 (0.71%) SAP Certification
9 4 (0.56%) CISM
9 4 (0.56%) CISSP
9 4 (0.56%) TOGAF Certification
10 3 (0.42%) CCNA
10 3 (0.42%) Computer Science Degree
10 3 (0.42%) JNCIS
11 2 (0.28%) AWS Certification
11 2 (0.28%) CCIE
11 2 (0.28%) HND
11 2 (0.28%) JNCIE
12 1 (0.14%) DBS Check
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 201 (28.35%) Accessibility
2 65 (9.17%) WCAG
3 8 (1.13%) GDPR
4 6 (0.85%) QA
5 4 (0.56%) Actionable Recommendations
5 4 (0.56%) NIST
6 3 (0.42%) GMP
6 3 (0.42%) GxP
7 2 (0.28%) ISO 9001
8 1 (0.14%) Data Quality
8 1 (0.14%) HL7
8 1 (0.14%) SLA
System Software
1 4 (0.56%) VMware Infrastructure
2 2 (0.28%) VMware NSX
3 1 (0.14%) Virtual Machines
Systems Management
1 3 (0.42%) Nagios
2 2 (0.28%) Ansible
2 2 (0.28%) Terraform
3 1 (0.14%) Network Intrusion Detection System
Vendors
1 79 (11.14%) Adobe
2 31 (4.37%) Microsoft
3 9 (1.27%) Google
3 9 (1.27%) Oracle
3 9 (1.27%) SAP
3 9 (1.27%) ServiceNow
4 8 (1.13%) Cisco
4 8 (1.13%) Juniper
4 8 (1.13%) Salesforce
4 8 (1.13%) VMware
5 7 (0.99%) Pega
6 6 (0.85%) IBM
6 6 (0.85%) Sage
7 5 (0.71%) BiZZdesign
7 5 (0.71%) F5
8 3 (0.42%) Amdocs
8 3 (0.42%) Cadence
8 3 (0.42%) Hopewiser
8 3 (0.42%) Hotjar
8 3 (0.42%) SolarWinds