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 2 July 2026.

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

6 months to
2 Jul 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 131 171 176
Rank change year-on-year +40 +5 -37
Contract jobs requiring a Designer 1,025 494 598
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 1.99% 1.60% 1.38%
As % of the Job Titles category 2.16% 1.73% 1.48%
Number of daily rates quoted 728 375 342
10th Percentile £354 £300 £325
25th Percentile £406 £360 £400
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £475 £463 £500
Median % change year-on-year +2.70% -7.50% -4.76%
75th Percentile £538 £550 £574
90th Percentile £588 £600 £638
UK excluding London median daily rate £475 £438 £475
% change year-on-year +8.57% -7.89% -0.52%
Number of hourly rates quoted 30 17 47
10th Percentile £22.73 £21.85 £35.05
25th Percentile £29.19 £34.48 £47.00
Median hourly rate £33.99 £36.50 £57.35
Median % change year-on-year -6.88% -36.36% +27.44%
75th Percentile £49.38 £52.50 £61.30
90th Percentile £62.40 £58.05 -
UK excluding London median hourly rate £33.99 £49.00 £57.35
% change year-on-year -30.63% -14.56% -7.87%

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 47,563 28,496 40,366
% of contract IT jobs with a recognized job title 92.42% 92.02% 93.01%
Number of daily rates quoted 28,794 18,232 25,937
10th Percentile £325 £288 £285
25th Percentile £415 £402 £410
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £520 £500 £525
Median % change year-on-year +4.00% -4.76% -2.33%
75th Percentile £625 £625 £638
90th Percentile £725 £738 £750
UK excluding London median daily rate £500 £475 £493
% change year-on-year +5.26% -3.65% -1.40%
Number of hourly rates quoted 3,217 1,276 2,865
10th Percentile £15.72 £13.82 £12.86
25th Percentile £21.25 £17.41 £16.58
Median hourly rate £43.00 £26.75 £37.50
Median % change year-on-year +60.75% -28.67% -12.79%
75th Percentile £67.50 £56.30 £62.50
90th Percentile £80.00 £73.75 £74.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £45.00 £25.15 £40.00
% change year-on-year +78.93% -37.13% -

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 2 July 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 2 July 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 2 July 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 +46 871 £470 +2.85% 280
UK excluding London +38 454 £475 +8.57% 115
London +12 433 £464 -2.42% 187
Work from Home +29 277 £475 +5.56% 116
North of England +1 154 £459 +4.91% 44
Midlands +26 97 £425 +3.66% 7
West Midlands +17 91 £425 -2.58% 4
South East -18 64 £525 +19.32% 28
Yorkshire -3 60 £475 +18.68% 15
North West -30 56 £425 -2.86% 14
South West 0 50 £425 -5.56% 12
East of England +18 44 £500 +5.26% 6
Scotland -2 43 £550 +15.79% 14
North East -7 38 £433 -8.95% 15
East Midlands -16 6 £402 +24.69% 3
Wales -17 6 £600 +96.25% 3

Designer Skill Set
Top 30 Co-Occurring Skills & Capabilities

For the 6 months to 2 July 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.

1 326 (31.80%) User Experience
2 325 (31.71%) Service Design
3 256 (24.98%) UX Design
4 250 (24.39%) Agile
5 219 (21.37%) Accessibility
6 216 (21.07%) Security Cleared
7 212 (20.68%) User Research
8 207 (20.20%) Figma
9 178 (17.37%) SC Cleared
10 176 (17.17%) Interaction Design
11 162 (15.80%) User-Centered Design (UCD)
12 138 (13.46%) Prototyping
13 118 (11.51%) Journey Map
14 115 (11.22%) Workshop Facilitation
15 98 (9.56%) Wireframes
16 95 (9.27%) AI
17 89 (8.68%) Stakeholder Management
18 82 (8.00%) Adobe
19 75 (7.32%) WCAG
20 73 (7.12%) Stakeholder Engagement
21 67 (6.54%) Degree
22 63 (6.15%) Analytics
23 60 (5.85%) Inclusive Design
24 58 (5.66%) Continuous Improvement
24 58 (5.66%) Problem-Solving
25 56 (5.46%) Customer Experience
25 56 (5.46%) Roadmaps
26 54 (5.27%) BPSS Clearance
26 54 (5.27%) Collaborative Working
26 54 (5.27%) Usability Testing

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 20 (1.95%) CMS
2 10 (0.98%) CICS
3 9 (0.88%) Confluence
4 5 (0.49%) LiveCycle
4 5 (0.49%) Moodle
4 5 (0.49%) SharePoint
5 4 (0.39%) Drupal
5 4 (0.39%) WordPress
6 3 (0.29%) OpenStack
7 2 (0.20%) Headless CMS
7 2 (0.20%) Oracle Collaboration Suite
7 2 (0.20%) Umbraco
8 1 (0.098%) Kentico
Applications
1 40 (3.90%) Adobe Creative Suite
2 36 (3.51%) Sketch
3 35 (3.41%) Photoshop
4 33 (3.22%) Adobe Illustrator
5 28 (2.73%) Adobe After Effects
6 12 (1.17%) Chatbot
7 10 (0.98%) Adobe XD
8 9 (0.88%) InDesign
8 9 (0.88%) Microsoft PowerPoint
9 7 (0.68%) Microsoft Excel
10 6 (0.59%) Final Cut Pro
11 5 (0.49%) AutoCAD
11 5 (0.49%) CINEMA 4D
11 5 (0.49%) SOLIDWORKS
12 4 (0.39%) Adobe Premiere
12 4 (0.39%) InVision
12 4 (0.39%) Revit
13 3 (0.29%) MS Visio
14 2 (0.20%) UserZoom
15 1 (0.098%) Zeplin
Business Applications
1 4 (0.39%) Oracle ERP
2 2 (0.20%) Shopify
3 1 (0.098%) Eloqua
3 1 (0.098%) SmartPlant
Cloud Services
1 207 (20.20%) Figma
2 26 (2.54%) SaaS
3 22 (2.15%) AWS
3 22 (2.15%) Azure
4 19 (1.85%) Microsoft 365
5 17 (1.66%) Microsoft Copilot
6 12 (1.17%) Miro
7 8 (0.78%) Power Platform
8 7 (0.68%) Adobe Creative Cloud
9 4 (0.39%) Azure AI
9 4 (0.39%) Canva
9 4 (0.39%) Copilot Studio
9 4 (0.39%) GCP
9 4 (0.39%) PowerApps
10 3 (0.29%) ChatGPT
10 3 (0.29%) Dynamics 365
11 2 (0.20%) Azure ExpressRoute
11 2 (0.20%) Google Workspace
11 2 (0.20%) Power Automate
11 2 (0.20%) Serverless
Communications & Networking
1 23 (2.24%) Firewall
2 20 (1.95%) Wi-Fi
3 12 (1.17%) Network Security
4 11 (1.07%) IPsec
5 10 (0.98%) Broadband
6 8 (0.78%) 5G
7 7 (0.68%) Diameter Protocol
8 6 (0.59%) 4G
9 5 (0.49%) 3G
10 3 (0.29%) 2G
10 3 (0.29%) 3GPP
10 3 (0.29%) BGP
10 3 (0.29%) DNS
10 3 (0.29%) Ethernet
10 3 (0.29%) HTTP
10 3 (0.29%) Internet
10 3 (0.29%) LTE
10 3 (0.29%) SS7
10 3 (0.29%) VLAN
10 3 (0.29%) VPN
Database & Business Intelligence
1 11 (1.07%) Metadata
2 10 (0.98%) DataStage
3 4 (0.39%) Oracle ODI
4 3 (0.29%) Electronic Patient Records
4 3 (0.29%) Power BI
5 2 (0.20%) Amazon Aurora
5 2 (0.20%) Amazon RDS
5 2 (0.20%) Amazon Redshift
5 2 (0.20%) Data Vault
5 2 (0.20%) MySQL
5 2 (0.20%) NoSQL
5 2 (0.20%) PostgreSQL
6 1 (0.098%) Data Lake
6 1 (0.098%) Data Warehouse
6 1 (0.098%) Pinecone
6 1 (0.098%) Tableau
Development Applications
1 14 (1.37%) JIRA
2 4 (0.39%) Axure RP
3 2 (0.20%) Claude Code
3 2 (0.20%) Git
4 1 (0.098%) Cypress.io
4 1 (0.098%) Dreamweaver
4 1 (0.098%) Subversion
General
1 221 (21.56%) Public Sector
2 198 (19.32%) Social Skills
3 122 (11.90%) Finance
4 46 (4.49%) Banking
4 46 (4.49%) Retail
5 42 (4.10%) Marketing
6 29 (2.83%) Influencing Skills
7 27 (2.63%) Telecoms
8 26 (2.54%) Automotive
9 24 (2.34%) Legal
10 20 (1.95%) Publishing
11 19 (1.85%) Manufacturing
12 16 (1.56%) Analytical Skills
13 11 (1.07%) Presentation Skills
14 10 (0.98%) Inclusion and Diversity
15 8 (0.78%) Local Government
15 8 (0.78%) Organisational Skills
16 6 (0.59%) Aerospace
16 6 (0.59%) Games
16 6 (0.59%) Retail Banking
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 30 (2.93%) HTML
2 21 (2.05%) CSS
3 13 (1.27%) Middleware
4 8 (0.78%) REST
5 5 (0.49%) React
5 5 (0.49%) SOAP
5 5 (0.49%) Web Services
6 3 (0.29%) Lightning Web Components
6 3 (0.29%) React Native
6 3 (0.29%) Semantic HTML
6 3 (0.29%) Visualforce
7 2 (0.20%) AWS CDK
7 2 (0.20%) CSS3
7 2 (0.20%) Framer.js
7 2 (0.20%) HTML5
7 2 (0.20%) JSON
7 2 (0.20%) Kafka
7 2 (0.20%) OAuth
7 2 (0.20%) OpenID
7 2 (0.20%) SAML
Miscellaneous
1 47 (4.59%) Product Ownership
2 41 (4.00%) Mobile App
3 31 (3.02%) Onboarding
4 28 (2.73%) Animation
5 24 (2.34%) Graphic Design
5 24 (2.34%) NHS
6 17 (1.66%) Self-Motivation
7 16 (1.56%) AI Agents
7 16 (1.56%) Cloud Native
7 16 (1.56%) Data Centre
8 15 (1.46%) IoT
9 12 (1.17%) BYOD
10 10 (0.98%) Mainframe
10 10 (0.98%) Taxonomies
10 10 (0.98%) VSAM
11 9 (0.88%) CMDB
12 8 (0.78%) Data Protection Act
12 8 (0.78%) Greenfield Project
13 7 (0.68%) Management Information System
14 6 (0.59%) Motion Graphics
Operating Systems
1 14 (1.37%) Android
2 13 (1.27%) Apple iOS
3 10 (0.98%) AIX
3 10 (0.98%) Linux
3 10 (0.98%) Solaris
3 10 (0.98%) Unix
4 1 (0.098%) MVS
4 1 (0.098%) Windows
Processes & Methodologies
1 326 (31.80%) User Experience
2 325 (31.71%) Service Design
3 256 (24.98%) UX Design
4 250 (24.39%) Agile
5 212 (20.68%) User Research
6 176 (17.17%) Interaction Design
7 162 (15.80%) User-Centered Design (UCD)
8 138 (13.46%) Prototyping
9 118 (11.51%) Journey Map
10 115 (11.22%) Workshop Facilitation
11 98 (9.56%) Wireframes
12 95 (9.27%) AI
13 89 (8.68%) Stakeholder Management
14 73 (7.12%) Stakeholder Engagement
15 63 (6.15%) Analytics
16 60 (5.85%) Inclusive Design
17 58 (5.66%) Continuous Improvement
17 58 (5.66%) Problem-Solving
18 56 (5.46%) Customer Experience
18 56 (5.46%) Roadmaps
Programming Languages
1 10 (0.98%) COBOL
2 8 (0.78%) Python
3 7 (0.68%) JavaScript
4 4 (0.39%) Korn
5 3 (0.29%) Apex Code
5 3 (0.29%) Java
5 3 (0.29%) PowerShell
5 3 (0.29%) SOQL
5 3 (0.29%) SQL
6 2 (0.20%) Bash
6 2 (0.20%) Ruby
6 2 (0.20%) TypeScript
7 1 (0.098%) Data Analysis Expressions
Qualifications
1 216 (21.07%) Security Cleared
2 178 (17.37%) SC Cleared
3 67 (6.54%) Degree
4 54 (5.27%) BPSS Clearance
5 33 (3.22%) DV Cleared
6 5 (0.49%) CISSP
7 4 (0.39%) Cisco Certification
7 4 (0.39%) CISM
7 4 (0.39%) Computer Science Degree
7 4 (0.39%) TOGAF Certification
8 3 (0.29%) Master's Degree
9 2 (0.20%) Azure Certification
9 2 (0.20%) CCNA
9 2 (0.20%) CCNP
9 2 (0.20%) ITIL Certification
10 1 (0.098%) AWS Certification
10 1 (0.098%) CEH
10 1 (0.098%) JNCIS
10 1 (0.098%) PMI Certification
10 1 (0.098%) PMP
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 219 (21.37%) Accessibility
2 75 (7.32%) WCAG
3 9 (0.88%) Data Quality
4 8 (0.78%) ISO/IEC 20000
4 8 (0.78%) NCSC
5 7 (0.68%) Government Security Classifications
6 6 (0.59%) NIST
7 5 (0.49%) ISO/IEC 27001
7 5 (0.49%) QA
8 4 (0.39%) GDPR
9 3 (0.29%) Actionable Recommendations
9 3 (0.29%) PCI DSS
10 2 (0.20%) GMP
10 2 (0.20%) GxP
10 2 (0.20%) ISO/IEC 42001
11 1 (0.098%) California Consumer Privacy Act
11 1 (0.098%) HL7
11 1 (0.098%) SLA
11 1 (0.098%) WAI
11 1 (0.098%) WAI-ARIA
System Software
1 5 (0.49%) Virtual Machines
2 4 (0.39%) VMware Infrastructure
3 3 (0.29%) Firmware
3 3 (0.29%) IAG
4 2 (0.20%) Active Directory
5 1 (0.098%) Virtual Desktop
Systems Management
1 4 (0.39%) Terraform
2 3 (0.29%) Kubernetes
3 2 (0.20%) Ansible
3 2 (0.20%) FortiGate
4 1 (0.098%) Microsoft Intune
4 1 (0.098%) Nagios
4 1 (0.098%) Network Intrusion Detection System
Vendors
1 82 (8.00%) Adobe
2 37 (3.61%) Microsoft
3 13 (1.27%) IBM
3 13 (1.27%) ServiceNow
4 11 (1.07%) Cisco
5 10 (0.98%) VMware
6 8 (0.78%) Google
6 8 (0.78%) Oracle
6 8 (0.78%) Salesforce
7 6 (0.59%) Juniper
8 5 (0.49%) BiZZdesign
8 5 (0.49%) Ericsson
8 5 (0.49%) Nokia
9 4 (0.39%) EMC
9 4 (0.39%) Foundry
9 4 (0.39%) SAP
9 4 (0.39%) Virgin Media
10 3 (0.29%) F5
10 3 (0.29%) Fortinet
10 3 (0.29%) Huawei