Designer Contract Job Trends

Designer
UK

The median Designer daily rate in the UK is £490, according to job vacancies posted in the 6 months leading up to 1 April 2026.

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

6 months to
1 Apr 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 140 174 170
Rank change year-on-year +34 -4 -34
Contract jobs requiring a Designer 834 475 626
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 1.87% 1.64% 1.41%
As % of the Job Titles category 2.03% 1.76% 1.52%
Number of daily rates quoted 627 351 385
10th Percentile £350 £300 £325
25th Percentile £400 £360 £400
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £490 £463 £475
Median % change year-on-year +5.95% -2.63% -9.09%
75th Percentile £553 £569 £560
90th Percentile £638 £638 £618
UK excluding London median daily rate £475 £435 £450
% change year-on-year +9.26% -3.39% -8.16%
Number of hourly rates quoted 11 8 41
10th Percentile £23.00 £30.28 £16.25
25th Percentile £26.51 £31.41 £45.00
Median hourly rate £35.00 £47.50 £57.35
Median % change year-on-year -26.32% -17.18% +19.48%
75th Percentile £54.08 £55.31 £61.30
90th Percentile £75.00 £75.00 -
UK excluding London median hourly rate £35.00 £33.50 £57.35
% change year-on-year +4.48% -41.59% +0.17%

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 41,143 26,962 41,094
% of contract IT jobs with a recognized job title 92.09% 92.84% 92.84%
Number of daily rates quoted 25,657 17,725 26,925
10th Percentile £313 £300 £275
25th Percentile £413 £406 £408
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £520 £525
Median % change year-on-year -3.85% -0.95% -3.54%
75th Percentile £613 £630 £638
90th Percentile £725 £738 £738
UK excluding London median daily rate £485 £475 £488
% change year-on-year +2.11% -2.56% -2.50%
Number of hourly rates quoted 2,568 945 2,533
10th Percentile £15.00 £15.03 £12.86
25th Percentile £19.74 £20.94 £16.25
Median hourly rate £38.63 £32.50 £32.90
Median % change year-on-year +18.86% -1.20% -25.00%
75th Percentile £65.00 £64.50 £60.00
90th Percentile £77.50 £76.81 £71.75
UK excluding London median hourly rate £40.00 £31.76 £32.90
% change year-on-year +25.94% -3.45% -21.68%

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 1 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 1 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 1 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 +19 681 £480 +5.03% 293
London +4 363 £475 +2.70% 114
UK excluding London +14 334 £475 +9.26% 199
Work from Home +12 261 £475 +5.56% 133
North of England -8 117 £450 +12.50% 67
South East -9 71 £525 -4.55% 41
North West -10 52 £402 +0.50% 38
Midlands -54 47 £400 -0.62% 24
West Midlands -42 40 £400 -14.67% 14
Yorkshire -35 36 £513 +28.13% 15
South West -6 35 £460 -3.16% 26
Scotland +4 34 £455 - 10
North East +6 29 £431 +7.81% 14
East of England -11 26 £494 +2.86% 28
Wales -3 8 £513 +117.16% 3
East Midlands -31 7 £401 +6.08% 10

Designer Skill Set
Top 30 Co-Occurring Skills & Capabilities

For the 6 months to 1 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.

1 283 (33.93%) Service Design
2 269 (32.25%) User Experience
3 225 (26.98%) Agile
4 215 (25.78%) UX Design
5 208 (24.94%) User Research
6 196 (23.50%) Accessibility
7 194 (23.26%) Security Cleared
8 193 (23.14%) Figma
9 156 (18.71%) SC Cleared
10 150 (17.99%) User-Centered Design (UCD)
11 147 (17.63%) Interaction Design
12 144 (17.27%) Prototyping
13 117 (14.03%) Workshop Facilitation
14 115 (13.79%) Journey Map
15 93 (11.15%) Wireframes
16 77 (9.23%) Usability Testing
17 75 (8.99%) Adobe
18 71 (8.51%) AI
19 70 (8.39%) Analytics
19 70 (8.39%) Problem-Solving
20 69 (8.27%) Stakeholder Management
21 68 (8.15%) WCAG
22 60 (7.19%) Design Thinking
23 58 (6.95%) Inclusive Design
24 57 (6.83%) Roadmaps
25 56 (6.71%) Storytelling
26 54 (6.47%) Stakeholder Engagement
27 48 (5.76%) Continuous Improvement
28 47 (5.64%) Degree
29 46 (5.52%) Sketch

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 (2.28%) CMS
2 13 (1.56%) Confluence
3 8 (0.96%) Appian
3 8 (0.96%) CICS
4 6 (0.72%) Camunda
5 4 (0.48%) Moodle
6 3 (0.36%) Tomcat
7 2 (0.24%) SharePoint
7 2 (0.24%) Umbraco
8 1 (0.12%) OpenStack
8 1 (0.12%) Oracle Collaboration Suite
Applications
1 46 (5.52%) Sketch
2 32 (3.84%) Adobe XD
3 25 (3.00%) Adobe Creative Suite
4 22 (2.64%) Photoshop
5 20 (2.40%) InVision
6 19 (2.28%) Adobe Illustrator
7 14 (1.68%) Adobe After Effects
8 12 (1.44%) Chatbot
9 11 (1.32%) InDesign
10 8 (0.96%) Microsoft PowerPoint
11 7 (0.84%) CINEMA 4D
12 6 (0.72%) Microsoft Excel
12 6 (0.72%) Zeplin
13 5 (0.60%) Adobe Premiere
14 4 (0.48%) MS Visio
15 3 (0.36%) Spreadsheet
15 3 (0.36%) Trello
16 2 (0.24%) Blender
16 2 (0.24%) Microsoft Office
16 2 (0.24%) UserZoom
Business Applications
1 7 (0.84%) SAP ERP
2 5 (0.60%) Dynamics GP
2 5 (0.60%) SAP S/4HANA
3 4 (0.48%) Oracle ERP
4 3 (0.36%) Oracle BRM
5 1 (0.12%) Oracle CRM
5 1 (0.12%) Remedy ITSM
5 1 (0.12%) Shopify
5 1 (0.12%) SmartPlant
5 1 (0.12%) Workfront
Cloud Services
1 193 (23.14%) Figma
2 24 (2.88%) AWS
3 20 (2.40%) SaaS
4 13 (1.56%) Azure
4 13 (1.56%) Miro
4 13 (1.56%) Power Platform
5 9 (1.08%) Adobe Creative Cloud
6 5 (0.60%) PowerApps
7 4 (0.48%) ChatGPT
7 4 (0.48%) Copilot Studio
7 4 (0.48%) GCP
7 4 (0.48%) Microsoft Copilot
8 3 (0.36%) dbt
8 3 (0.36%) Google Analytics
8 3 (0.36%) Google Workspace
8 3 (0.36%) Microsoft 365
9 2 (0.24%) AWS KMS
9 2 (0.24%) Azure Key Vault
9 2 (0.24%) Contentful
9 2 (0.24%) Power Automate
Communications & Networking
1 20 (2.40%) Firewall
2 12 (1.44%) Network Security
3 10 (1.20%) Wi-Fi
4 9 (1.08%) Broadband
4 9 (1.08%) IPsec
5 6 (0.72%) SMS
6 5 (0.60%) 5G
7 4 (0.48%) 4G
7 4 (0.48%) VLAN
7 4 (0.48%) VPN
8 3 (0.36%) 2G
8 3 (0.36%) 3G
8 3 (0.36%) Diameter Protocol
8 3 (0.36%) GPRS
8 3 (0.36%) GSM
8 3 (0.36%) IPv4
8 3 (0.36%) IPv6
8 3 (0.36%) TCP/IP
9 2 (0.24%) DHCP
9 2 (0.24%) DNS
Database & Business Intelligence
1 8 (0.96%) DataStage
2 7 (0.84%) Metadata
3 5 (0.60%) Power BI
4 4 (0.48%) Oracle ODI
5 3 (0.36%) Electronic Patient Records
6 2 (0.24%) Amazon Aurora
6 2 (0.24%) Amazon RDS
6 2 (0.24%) Amazon Redshift
6 2 (0.24%) Data Vault
6 2 (0.24%) MySQL
6 2 (0.24%) NoSQL
6 2 (0.24%) PostgreSQL
6 2 (0.24%) Tableau
7 1 (0.12%) BigQuery
7 1 (0.12%) Data Lake
7 1 (0.12%) Data Warehouse
7 1 (0.12%) Pinecone
Development Applications
1 28 (3.36%) JIRA
2 27 (3.24%) Axure RP
3 3 (0.36%) Git
4 2 (0.24%) Balsamiq
5 1 (0.12%) Dreamweaver
5 1 (0.12%) GitLab
5 1 (0.12%) Postman
5 1 (0.12%) SoapUI
General
1 202 (24.22%) Public Sector
2 179 (21.46%) Social Skills
3 128 (15.35%) Finance
4 63 (7.55%) Banking
5 31 (3.72%) Marketing
6 24 (2.88%) Analytical Skills
7 23 (2.76%) Influencing Skills
8 16 (1.92%) Publishing
8 16 (1.92%) Telecoms
9 15 (1.80%) Retail
10 13 (1.56%) Legal
11 12 (1.44%) Pharmaceutical
11 12 (1.44%) Presentation Skills
12 10 (1.20%) Billing
12 10 (1.20%) Inclusion and Diversity
13 8 (0.96%) Organisational Skills
14 7 (0.84%) Advertising
15 6 (0.72%) Local Government
15 6 (0.72%) Retail Banking
16 5 (0.60%) Wearables
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 44 (5.28%) HTML
2 37 (4.44%) CSS
3 11 (1.32%) Middleware
4 8 (0.96%) REST
5 6 (0.72%) Framer.js
5 6 (0.72%) SOAP
6 5 (0.60%) .NET
6 5 (0.60%) Web Services
7 4 (0.48%) AngularJS
7 4 (0.48%) Lightning Web Components
8 3 (0.36%) HTML5
8 3 (0.36%) JSON
8 3 (0.36%) OAuth
8 3 (0.36%) React
8 3 (0.36%) Semantic HTML
8 3 (0.36%) Visualforce
9 2 (0.24%) CSS3
9 2 (0.24%) OpenID
9 2 (0.24%) RESTful
9 2 (0.24%) SAML
Miscellaneous
1 50 (6.00%) Product Ownership
2 34 (4.08%) Mobile App
3 24 (2.88%) Onboarding
4 18 (2.16%) NHS
5 13 (1.56%) AI Agents
5 13 (1.56%) Mainframe
6 12 (1.44%) Data Centre
6 12 (1.44%) IoT
7 11 (1.32%) Graphic Design
8 10 (1.20%) Data Protection Act
9 9 (1.08%) Animation
9 9 (1.08%) Management Information System
9 9 (1.08%) Taxonomies
10 8 (0.96%) BYOD
10 8 (0.96%) e-Learning
10 8 (0.96%) VSAM
11 7 (0.84%) CMDB
11 7 (0.84%) Motion Graphics
12 6 (0.72%) Cloud Native
12 6 (0.72%) Social Media
Operating Systems
1 11 (1.32%) Unix
2 8 (0.96%) AIX
2 8 (0.96%) Linux
2 8 (0.96%) Solaris
3 4 (0.48%) Android
4 3 (0.36%) Apple iOS
5 1 (0.12%) MVS
Processes & Methodologies
1 283 (33.93%) Service Design
2 269 (32.25%) User Experience
3 225 (26.98%) Agile
4 215 (25.78%) UX Design
5 208 (24.94%) User Research
6 150 (17.99%) User-Centered Design (UCD)
7 147 (17.63%) Interaction Design
8 144 (17.27%) Prototyping
9 117 (14.03%) Workshop Facilitation
10 115 (13.79%) Journey Map
11 93 (11.15%) Wireframes
12 77 (9.23%) Usability Testing
13 71 (8.51%) AI
14 70 (8.39%) Analytics
14 70 (8.39%) Problem-Solving
15 69 (8.27%) Stakeholder Management
16 60 (7.19%) Design Thinking
17 58 (6.95%) Inclusive Design
18 57 (6.83%) Roadmaps
19 56 (6.71%) Storytelling
Programming Languages
1 14 (1.68%) Python
2 11 (1.32%) JavaScript
3 10 (1.20%) SQL
4 8 (0.96%) COBOL
5 3 (0.36%) Apex Code
5 3 (0.36%) Java
5 3 (0.36%) Korn
5 3 (0.36%) PL/SQL
5 3 (0.36%) SOQL
6 2 (0.24%) Bash
6 2 (0.24%) PowerShell
6 2 (0.24%) Ruby
Qualifications
1 194 (23.26%) Security Cleared
2 156 (18.71%) SC Cleared
3 47 (5.64%) Degree
4 32 (3.84%) DV Cleared
5 26 (3.12%) BPSS Clearance
6 9 (1.08%) Cisco Certification
7 8 (0.96%) CCNP
8 5 (0.60%) CISSP
8 5 (0.60%) Master's Degree
8 5 (0.60%) SAP Certification
9 4 (0.48%) CISM
9 4 (0.48%) Computer Science Degree
9 4 (0.48%) TOGAF Certification
10 3 (0.36%) CCNA
10 3 (0.36%) JNCIS
11 2 (0.24%) ITIL Certification
12 1 (0.12%) AWS Certification
12 1 (0.12%) CEH
12 1 (0.12%) PMI Certification
12 1 (0.12%) PMP
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 196 (23.50%) Accessibility
2 68 (8.15%) WCAG
3 11 (1.32%) GDPR
4 8 (0.96%) ISO/IEC 20000
4 8 (0.96%) NCSC
5 7 (0.84%) Government Security Classifications
6 6 (0.72%) NIST
7 5 (0.60%) QA
8 4 (0.48%) Actionable Recommendations
8 4 (0.48%) Data Quality
8 4 (0.48%) ISO/IEC 27001
9 3 (0.36%) GMP
9 3 (0.36%) GxP
9 3 (0.36%) PCI DSS
10 2 (0.24%) SLA
11 1 (0.12%) California Consumer Privacy Act
11 1 (0.12%) HL7
System Software
1 2 (0.24%) VMware Infrastructure
2 1 (0.12%) Firmware
2 1 (0.12%) IAG
2 1 (0.12%) Virtual Machines
Systems Management
1 3 (0.36%) Nagios
1 3 (0.36%) Terraform
2 1 (0.12%) Ansible
2 1 (0.12%) FortiGate
2 1 (0.12%) Kubernetes
2 1 (0.12%) Network Intrusion Detection System
Vendors
1 75 (8.99%) Adobe
2 29 (3.48%) Microsoft
3 16 (1.92%) Oracle
3 16 (1.92%) ServiceNow
4 10 (1.20%) Salesforce
5 9 (1.08%) Cisco
5 9 (1.08%) SAP
6 8 (0.96%) Google
6 8 (0.96%) IBM
6 8 (0.96%) Juniper
6 8 (0.96%) VMware
7 7 (0.84%) Pega
8 6 (0.72%) Sage
9 5 (0.60%) BiZZdesign
10 4 (0.48%) F5
11 3 (0.36%) MuleSoft
11 3 (0.36%) Palo Alto
11 3 (0.36%) SolarWinds
12 2 (0.24%) Atlassian
12 2 (0.24%) Cadence