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 8 February 2026.

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

6 months to
8 Feb 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 166 157 169
Rank change year-on-year -9 +12 -23
Contract jobs requiring a Designer 668 526 640
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 1.71% 1.69% 1.42%
As % of the Job Titles category 1.87% 1.82% 1.52%
Number of daily rates quoted 494 348 427
10th Percentile £327 £300 £325
25th Percentile £400 £363 £400
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £475 £475 £488
Median % change year-on-year - -2.56% -7.14%
75th Percentile £560 £577 £573
90th Percentile £625 £650 £603
UK excluding London median daily rate £450 £453 £464
% change year-on-year -0.55% -2.43% -7.25%
Number of hourly rates quoted 15 9 12
10th Percentile £24.61 £30.32 £18.45
25th Percentile £37.06 £31.50 £45.16
Median hourly rate £55.00 £33.54 £50.00
Median % change year-on-year +63.98% -32.92% +19.76%
75th Percentile £67.39 £48.75 £56.95
90th Percentile £69.65 £75.00 £69.63
UK excluding London median hourly rate £56.00 £33.52 £50.00
% change year-on-year +67.06% -32.96% +19.76%

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 35,791 28,902 42,066
% of contract IT jobs with a recognized job title 91.50% 92.95% 93.13%
Number of daily rates quoted 22,561 17,719 27,795
10th Percentile £300 £291 £275
25th Percentile £405 £406 £410
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £525 £525
Median % change year-on-year -4.76% - -4.55%
75th Percentile £613 £638 £638
90th Percentile £719 £738 £738
UK excluding London median daily rate £475 £476 £490
% change year-on-year -0.21% -2.86% -2.00%
Number of hourly rates quoted 2,176 840 2,312
10th Percentile £14.50 £15.89 £13.15
25th Percentile £18.57 £21.25 £16.67
Median hourly rate £30.00 £33.77 £35.00
Median % change year-on-year -11.16% -3.51% -
75th Percentile £61.31 £63.38 £61.51
90th Percentile £71.99 £75.00 £72.88
UK excluding London median hourly rate £28.50 £32.13 £35.95
% change year-on-year -11.30% -10.63% +8.94%

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 8 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 8 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 8 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 -19 532 £468 -1.58% 170
London +11 300 £475 - 91
UK excluding London -25 253 £450 -0.55% 115
Work from Home -8 202 £463 +4.17% 97
North of England -28 94 £425 +3.91% 27
North West +1 52 £401 +0.25% 21
South East -34 48 £500 -9.09% 38
Scotland +3 33 £449 +1.01% 2
South West -8 32 £460 -20.00% 27
Yorkshire -49 30 £506 +6.58% 1
Midlands -50 27 £400 -0.62% 17
West Midlands -47 22 £388 -32.61% 15
North East -10 12 £454 +0.89% 5
East of England -16 11 £425 -12.82% 8
Wales +8 8 £506 +114.51% 1
East Midlands -24 5 £401 +0.25% 2
Northern Ireland 0 2 £625 +12.61%

Designer Skill Set
Top 30 Co-Occurring Skills & Capabilities

For the 6 months to 8 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.

1 239 (35.78%) User Experience
2 224 (33.53%) Service Design
3 201 (30.09%) Agile
4 193 (28.89%) Figma
5 191 (28.59%) UX Design
6 185 (27.69%) Accessibility
7 167 (25.00%) User Research
8 142 (21.26%) Prototyping
9 132 (19.76%) Security Cleared
9 132 (19.76%) User-Centered Design (UCD)
10 105 (15.72%) Workshop Facilitation
11 104 (15.57%) SC Cleared
12 101 (15.12%) Interaction Design
13 96 (14.37%) Journey Map
14 93 (13.92%) Wireframes
15 91 (13.62%) Usability Testing
16 75 (11.23%) Adobe
17 72 (10.78%) Problem-Solving
18 59 (8.83%) Analytics
19 57 (8.53%) Inclusive Design
19 57 (8.53%) Stakeholder Management
20 55 (8.23%) Design Thinking
20 55 (8.23%) WCAG
21 54 (8.08%) Stakeholder Engagement
22 52 (7.78%) Continuous Improvement
22 52 (7.78%) Sketch
23 50 (7.49%) AI
24 47 (7.04%) Storytelling
25 45 (6.74%) High-Fidelity Prototypes
26 44 (6.59%) 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 21 (3.14%) CMS
2 18 (2.69%) Confluence
3 8 (1.20%) Appian
4 6 (0.90%) Camunda
5 4 (0.60%) CICS
5 4 (0.60%) OpenStack
6 3 (0.45%) Tomcat
7 2 (0.30%) SharePoint
7 2 (0.30%) Umbraco
8 1 (0.15%) LiveCycle
Applications
1 52 (7.78%) Sketch
2 34 (5.09%) Adobe XD
3 23 (3.44%) Adobe Creative Suite
4 20 (2.99%) InVision
4 20 (2.99%) Photoshop
5 18 (2.69%) Adobe Illustrator
6 12 (1.80%) Adobe After Effects
6 12 (1.80%) InDesign
7 11 (1.65%) Microsoft PowerPoint
8 8 (1.20%) Zeplin
9 7 (1.05%) Chatbot
9 7 (1.05%) Microsoft Excel
10 6 (0.90%) Microsoft Office
11 5 (0.75%) MS Visio
12 4 (0.60%) Adobe Captivate
13 3 (0.45%) Adobe Premiere
13 3 (0.45%) Spreadsheet
13 3 (0.45%) Trello
14 2 (0.30%) Acrobat
14 2 (0.30%) Blender
Business Applications
1 7 (1.05%) SAP ERP
2 5 (0.75%) Dynamics GP
2 5 (0.75%) SAP S/4HANA
3 3 (0.45%) Oracle BRM
4 1 (0.15%) Oracle CRM
4 1 (0.15%) Remedy ITSM
4 1 (0.15%) Shopify
4 1 (0.15%) SmartPlant
4 1 (0.15%) Workfront
Cloud Services
1 193 (28.89%) Figma
2 21 (3.14%) AWS
3 18 (2.69%) Miro
4 15 (2.25%) SaaS
5 12 (1.80%) Adobe Creative Cloud
6 11 (1.65%) Power Platform
7 9 (1.35%) Azure
8 5 (0.75%) PowerApps
9 4 (0.60%) ChatGPT
9 4 (0.60%) Copilot Studio
9 4 (0.60%) Microsoft Copilot
9 4 (0.60%) OpenShift
10 3 (0.45%) Google Analytics
10 3 (0.45%) Google Workspace
11 2 (0.30%) Asana
11 2 (0.30%) Dynamics 365
11 2 (0.30%) GitHub
11 2 (0.30%) Lucidchart
11 2 (0.30%) Microsoft 365
11 2 (0.30%) Power Automate
Communications & Networking
1 7 (1.05%) Firewall
1 7 (1.05%) Network Security
2 6 (0.90%) SMS
3 5 (0.75%) LAN
4 4 (0.60%) BGP
4 4 (0.60%) MPLS
4 4 (0.60%) OSPF
4 4 (0.60%) SNMP
4 4 (0.60%) TACACS
4 4 (0.60%) WAN
4 4 (0.60%) Wireless
5 3 (0.45%) Broadband
5 3 (0.45%) GPRS
5 3 (0.45%) GSM
5 3 (0.45%) IPv4
5 3 (0.45%) IPv6
5 3 (0.45%) TCP/IP
5 3 (0.45%) VLAN
5 3 (0.45%) VPN
6 2 (0.30%) SSH
Database & Business Intelligence
1 4 (0.60%) DataStage
1 4 (0.60%) Power BI
2 3 (0.45%) Metadata
3 1 (0.15%) BigQuery
3 1 (0.15%) Electronic Patient Records
3 1 (0.15%) Tableau
Development Applications
1 31 (4.64%) JIRA
2 29 (4.34%) Axure RP
3 3 (0.45%) Git
4 2 (0.30%) Balsamiq
4 2 (0.30%) GitLab
5 1 (0.15%) Cypress.io
5 1 (0.15%) Dreamweaver
5 1 (0.15%) Postman
5 1 (0.15%) SoapUI
General
1 171 (25.60%) Social Skills
2 148 (22.16%) Public Sector
3 107 (16.02%) Finance
4 61 (9.13%) Banking
5 30 (4.49%) Marketing
6 22 (3.29%) Analytical Skills
7 14 (2.10%) Influencing Skills
7 14 (2.10%) Publishing
8 13 (1.95%) Presentation Skills
9 12 (1.80%) Retail
10 11 (1.65%) Inclusion and Diversity
10 11 (1.65%) Telecoms
11 10 (1.50%) Billing
12 9 (1.35%) Legal
12 9 (1.35%) Manufacturing
12 9 (1.35%) Pharmaceutical
13 8 (1.20%) Advertising
14 7 (1.05%) Documentation Skills
14 7 (1.05%) Local Government
15 4 (0.60%) Military
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 44 (6.59%) HTML
2 38 (5.69%) CSS
3 7 (1.05%) Middleware
4 6 (0.90%) Framer.js
5 5 (0.75%) .NET
5 5 (0.75%) AngularJS
5 5 (0.75%) React
6 4 (0.60%) Lightning Web Components
7 3 (0.45%) HTML5
7 3 (0.45%) RESTful
7 3 (0.45%) Visualforce
8 2 (0.30%) CSS3
8 2 (0.30%) Sass
9 1 (0.15%) HTML5 Canvas
9 1 (0.15%) Model Context Protocol
9 1 (0.15%) SAP Fiori
9 1 (0.15%) Semantic HTML
9 1 (0.15%) Unity (Game Engine)
9 1 (0.15%) Unity DI Container
9 1 (0.15%) Unreal Engine
Miscellaneous
1 41 (6.14%) Mobile App
2 37 (5.54%) Product Ownership
3 18 (2.69%) Onboarding
4 15 (2.25%) NHS
5 11 (1.65%) AI Agents
5 11 (1.65%) Data Centre
5 11 (1.65%) Graphic Design
6 9 (1.35%) e-Learning
6 9 (1.35%) Mainframe
6 9 (1.35%) Taxonomies
7 8 (1.20%) Data Protection Act
7 8 (1.20%) Social Media
8 7 (1.05%) Digital Media
8 7 (1.05%) Management Information System
9 6 (0.90%) Data Structures
9 6 (0.90%) Motion Graphics
10 5 (0.75%) Animation
10 5 (0.75%) Team-Oriented Environment
11 4 (0.60%) FPGA
11 4 (0.60%) VSAM
Operating Systems
1 7 (1.05%) Unix
2 6 (0.90%) Android
3 5 (0.75%) Apple iOS
4 4 (0.60%) AIX
4 4 (0.60%) Linux
4 4 (0.60%) Solaris
5 1 (0.15%) Mac OS
5 1 (0.15%) VMS
5 1 (0.15%) Windows
Processes & Methodologies
1 239 (35.78%) User Experience
2 224 (33.53%) Service Design
3 201 (30.09%) Agile
4 191 (28.59%) UX Design
5 167 (25.00%) User Research
6 142 (21.26%) Prototyping
7 132 (19.76%) User-Centered Design (UCD)
8 105 (15.72%) Workshop Facilitation
9 101 (15.12%) Interaction Design
10 96 (14.37%) Journey Map
11 93 (13.92%) Wireframes
12 91 (13.62%) Usability Testing
13 72 (10.78%) Problem-Solving
14 59 (8.83%) Analytics
15 57 (8.53%) Inclusive Design
15 57 (8.53%) Stakeholder Management
16 55 (8.23%) Design Thinking
17 54 (8.08%) Stakeholder Engagement
18 52 (7.78%) Continuous Improvement
19 50 (7.49%) AI
Programming Languages
1 12 (1.80%) Python
2 8 (1.20%) JavaScript
3 7 (1.05%) SQL
4 4 (0.60%) COBOL
5 3 (0.45%) Apex Code
5 3 (0.45%) Java
5 3 (0.45%) Korn
5 3 (0.45%) PL/SQL
5 3 (0.45%) SOQL
6 1 (0.15%) TypeScript
Qualifications
1 132 (19.76%) Security Cleared
2 104 (15.57%) SC Cleared
3 44 (6.59%) Degree
4 23 (3.44%) BPSS Clearance
5 14 (2.10%) Cisco Certification
6 13 (1.95%) DV Cleared
7 10 (1.50%) CCNP
8 5 (0.75%) Master's Degree
8 5 (0.75%) SAP Certification
9 4 (0.60%) AWS Certification
9 4 (0.60%) CCIE
9 4 (0.60%) CISM
9 4 (0.60%) CISSP
9 4 (0.60%) HND
9 4 (0.60%) JNCIE
9 4 (0.60%) TOGAF Certification
10 3 (0.45%) CCNA
10 3 (0.45%) Computer Science Degree
10 3 (0.45%) JNCIS
11 1 (0.15%) DBS Check
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 185 (27.69%) Accessibility
2 55 (8.23%) WCAG
3 8 (1.20%) GDPR
4 6 (0.90%) QA
5 4 (0.60%) Actionable Recommendations
5 4 (0.60%) ISO 9001
5 4 (0.60%) NIST
6 3 (0.45%) GMP
6 3 (0.45%) GxP
7 1 (0.15%) Data Quality
7 1 (0.15%) HL7
7 1 (0.15%) SLA
System Software
1 5 (0.75%) VMware Infrastructure
2 4 (0.60%) VMware NSX
3 1 (0.15%) Virtual Machines
Systems Management
1 4 (0.60%) Ansible
1 4 (0.60%) Terraform
2 3 (0.45%) Nagios
3 1 (0.15%) Network Intrusion Detection System
Vendors
1 75 (11.23%) Adobe
2 37 (5.54%) Microsoft
3 10 (1.50%) Cisco
3 10 (1.50%) Juniper
4 9 (1.35%) Oracle
4 9 (1.35%) SAP
4 9 (1.35%) ServiceNow
5 8 (1.20%) Google
5 8 (1.20%) VMware
6 7 (1.05%) F5
6 7 (1.05%) Pega
7 6 (0.90%) Sage
7 6 (0.90%) Salesforce
8 5 (0.75%) BiZZdesign
8 5 (0.75%) Cadence
8 5 (0.75%) Hopewiser
9 4 (0.60%) Fortinet
9 4 (0.60%) IBM
10 3 (0.45%) Amdocs
10 3 (0.45%) SolarWinds