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 14 January 2026.

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

6 months to
14 Jan 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 185 153 178
Rank change year-on-year -32 +25 -27
Contract jobs requiring a Designer 577 514 592
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 1.56% 1.63% 1.39%
As % of the Job Titles category 1.71% 1.75% 1.49%
Number of daily rates quoted 421 327 398
10th Percentile £313 £306 £316
25th Percentile £400 £381 £400
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £475 £475 £493
Median % change year-on-year - -3.55% -6.19%
75th Percentile £575 £588 £572
90th Percentile £638 £650 £600
UK excluding London median daily rate £452 £475 £475
% change year-on-year -4.84% - -5.00%
Number of hourly rates quoted 13 9 15
10th Percentile £27.60 £30.32 £19.80
25th Percentile £30.00 £30.44 £45.11
Median hourly rate £56.00 £33.50 £50.00
Median % change year-on-year +67.16% -33.00% +6.95%
75th Percentile £69.65 £48.75 £66.63
90th Percentile - £75.00 £70.04
UK excluding London median hourly rate £56.00 £33.50 £50.95
% change year-on-year +67.16% -34.25% +24.27%

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 33,773 29,297 39,613
% of contract IT jobs with a recognized job title 91.35% 92.69% 93.19%
Number of daily rates quoted 21,365 17,961 26,425
10th Percentile £300 £288 £280
25th Percentile £405 £408 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £525 £525
Median % change year-on-year -4.76% - -4.55%
75th Percentile £618 £638 £638
90th Percentile £720 £738 £738
UK excluding London median daily rate £475 £477 £500
% change year-on-year -0.42% -4.60% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 1,972 883 1,665
10th Percentile £14.38 £15.51 £14.16
25th Percentile £18.25 £21.05 £18.93
Median hourly rate £26.30 £32.50 £42.50
Median % change year-on-year -19.08% -23.53% +25.00%
75th Percentile £60.00 £62.37 £65.00
90th Percentile £70.00 £73.75 £76.25
UK excluding London median hourly rate £25.15 £31.08 £45.00
% change year-on-year -19.08% -30.93% +55.17%

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 14 January 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 14 January 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 14 January 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 -37 464 £475 -1.04% 151
London -7 257 £478 +0.53% 73
UK excluding London -42 224 £452 -4.84% 119
Work from Home -31 180 £459 +6.69% 96
North of England -30 79 £408 -9.44% 20
South East -34 50 £500 -3.15% 42
North West -10 40 £400 -2.20% 13
Yorkshire -42 28 £513 +5.13% 4
Scotland -2 27 £469 +6.66% 7
South West -20 27 £600 - 17
Midlands -50 22 £400 -1.23% 12
West Midlands -40 20 £400 -31.39% 10
East of England -11 12 £425 -12.82% 21
North East -6 11 £452 +0.44% 3
Wales - 7 £400 - 4
Northern Ireland -4 2 £625 +12.61%
East Midlands -27 2 £386 -3.44% 2

Designer Skill Set
Top 30 Co-Occurring Skills & Capabilities

For the 6 months to 14 January 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.

1 221 (38.30%) User Experience
2 201 (34.84%) Service Design
3 180 (31.20%) Figma
4 178 (30.85%) UX Design
5 169 (29.29%) Agile
6 157 (27.21%) Accessibility
7 147 (25.48%) User Research
8 123 (21.32%) User-Centered Design (UCD)
9 117 (20.28%) Security Cleared
10 114 (19.76%) Prototyping
11 94 (16.29%) Workshop Facilitation
12 90 (15.60%) SC Cleared
13 85 (14.73%) Usability Testing
14 83 (14.38%) Interaction Design
14 83 (14.38%) Wireframes
15 81 (14.04%) Journey Map
16 80 (13.86%) Adobe
17 60 (10.40%) Problem-Solving
18 56 (9.71%) Design Thinking
19 50 (8.67%) Stakeholder Engagement
20 49 (8.49%) Sketch
21 47 (8.15%) Inclusive Design
22 46 (7.97%) Stakeholder Management
23 45 (7.80%) Continuous Improvement
23 45 (7.80%) Storytelling
24 43 (7.45%) Analytics
24 43 (7.45%) HTML
25 42 (7.28%) AI
25 42 (7.28%) WCAG
26 41 (7.11%) High-Fidelity Prototypes

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 (3.64%) CMS
2 13 (2.25%) Confluence
3 8 (1.39%) Appian
4 6 (1.04%) Camunda
4 6 (1.04%) OpenStack
5 3 (0.52%) SharePoint
5 3 (0.52%) Tomcat
6 2 (0.35%) Umbraco
7 1 (0.17%) LiveCycle
Applications
1 49 (8.49%) Sketch
2 34 (5.89%) Adobe XD
3 28 (4.85%) Adobe Creative Suite
4 21 (3.64%) InVision
4 21 (3.64%) Photoshop
5 20 (3.47%) Adobe Illustrator
6 15 (2.60%) InDesign
7 12 (2.08%) Adobe After Effects
8 10 (1.73%) Microsoft PowerPoint
9 8 (1.39%) Zeplin
10 7 (1.21%) Microsoft Office
11 6 (1.04%) Microsoft Excel
12 5 (0.87%) Adobe Captivate
13 4 (0.69%) Adobe Premiere
13 4 (0.69%) MS Visio
14 3 (0.52%) Chatbot
14 3 (0.52%) Spreadsheet
14 3 (0.52%) Trello
15 2 (0.35%) Blender
15 2 (0.35%) OmniGraffle
Business Applications
1 7 (1.21%) SAP ERP
2 5 (0.87%) Dynamics GP
2 5 (0.87%) SAP S/4HANA
3 3 (0.52%) Oracle BRM
4 2 (0.35%) Salesforce CRM
5 1 (0.17%) Oracle CRM
5 1 (0.17%) Remedy ITSM
5 1 (0.17%) Workfront
Cloud Services
1 180 (31.20%) Figma
2 23 (3.99%) AWS
3 22 (3.81%) Miro
4 13 (2.25%) SaaS
5 11 (1.91%) Power Platform
6 10 (1.73%) Adobe Creative Cloud
7 9 (1.56%) Azure
8 6 (1.04%) OpenShift
9 5 (0.87%) PowerApps
10 4 (0.69%) Canva
10 4 (0.69%) Copilot Studio
10 4 (0.69%) Google Analytics
10 4 (0.69%) Microsoft Copilot
11 3 (0.52%) Lucidchart
12 2 (0.35%) Asana
12 2 (0.35%) GitHub
12 2 (0.35%) Google Gemini
12 2 (0.35%) Heroku
12 2 (0.35%) Microsoft 365
12 2 (0.35%) Power Automate
Communications & Networking
1 7 (1.21%) LAN
2 6 (1.04%) BGP
2 6 (1.04%) MPLS
2 6 (1.04%) OSPF
2 6 (1.04%) SMS
2 6 (1.04%) SNMP
2 6 (1.04%) TACACS
2 6 (1.04%) WAN
2 6 (1.04%) Wireless
3 3 (0.52%) Broadband
3 3 (0.52%) Firewall
3 3 (0.52%) GPRS
3 3 (0.52%) GSM
3 3 (0.52%) IPv4
3 3 (0.52%) IPv6
3 3 (0.52%) Network Security
3 3 (0.52%) TCP/IP
3 3 (0.52%) VLAN
3 3 (0.52%) VPN
4 1 (0.17%) Ethernet
Database & Business Intelligence
1 4 (0.69%) Power BI
2 3 (0.52%) Metadata
3 1 (0.17%) BigQuery
3 1 (0.17%) Tableau
Development Applications
1 27 (4.68%) JIRA
2 26 (4.51%) Axure RP
3 4 (0.69%) Git
4 2 (0.35%) Balsamiq
4 2 (0.35%) GitLab
5 1 (0.17%) Cypress.io
5 1 (0.17%) Dreamweaver
5 1 (0.17%) Postman
5 1 (0.17%) SoapUI
5 1 (0.17%) Visual Studio
5 1 (0.17%) Visual Studio Code
General
1 149 (25.82%) Social Skills
2 114 (19.76%) Public Sector
3 97 (16.81%) Finance
4 65 (11.27%) Banking
5 30 (5.20%) Marketing
6 19 (3.29%) Analytical Skills
7 14 (2.43%) Publishing
8 12 (2.08%) Inclusion and Diversity
9 10 (1.73%) Pharmaceutical
10 9 (1.56%) Billing
10 9 (1.56%) Influencing Skills
10 9 (1.56%) Legal
10 9 (1.56%) Manufacturing
11 8 (1.39%) Presentation Skills
12 7 (1.21%) Advertising
12 7 (1.21%) Documentation Skills
12 7 (1.21%) Retail
13 6 (1.04%) Telecoms
14 5 (0.87%) Local Government
14 5 (0.87%) Organisational Skills
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 43 (7.45%) HTML
2 38 (6.59%) CSS
3 6 (1.04%) .NET
3 6 (1.04%) Framer.js
3 6 (1.04%) React
4 5 (0.87%) AngularJS
5 4 (0.69%) HTML5
6 3 (0.52%) CSS3
6 3 (0.52%) Lightning Web Components
6 3 (0.52%) RESTful
7 2 (0.35%) Sass
8 1 (0.17%) Blazor
8 1 (0.17%) HTML5 Canvas
8 1 (0.17%) JWT
8 1 (0.17%) Razor View Engine
8 1 (0.17%) SAP Fiori
8 1 (0.17%) Svelte
8 1 (0.17%) Unity (Game Engine)
8 1 (0.17%) Unity DI Container
8 1 (0.17%) Unreal Engine
Miscellaneous
1 43 (7.45%) Mobile App
2 39 (6.76%) Product Ownership
3 20 (3.47%) Onboarding
4 14 (2.43%) NHS
5 11 (1.91%) Social Media
6 10 (1.73%) Graphic Design
7 9 (1.56%) Data Centre
7 9 (1.56%) e-Learning
8 6 (1.04%) Animation
8 6 (1.04%) Data Protection Act
8 6 (1.04%) Data Structures
8 6 (1.04%) Hybrid Cloud
9 5 (0.87%) Blog
9 5 (0.87%) Mainframe
9 5 (0.87%) Management Information System
9 5 (0.87%) Motion Graphics
9 5 (0.87%) Taxonomies
9 5 (0.87%) Team-Oriented Environment
10 4 (0.69%) AI Agents
10 4 (0.69%) Digital Wallet
Operating Systems
1 7 (1.21%) Android
1 7 (1.21%) Apple iOS
2 3 (0.52%) Unix
3 1 (0.17%) Mac OS
3 1 (0.17%) VMS
3 1 (0.17%) Windows
Processes & Methodologies
1 221 (38.30%) User Experience
2 201 (34.84%) Service Design
3 178 (30.85%) UX Design
4 169 (29.29%) Agile
5 147 (25.48%) User Research
6 123 (21.32%) User-Centered Design (UCD)
7 114 (19.76%) Prototyping
8 94 (16.29%) Workshop Facilitation
9 85 (14.73%) Usability Testing
10 83 (14.38%) Interaction Design
10 83 (14.38%) Wireframes
11 81 (14.04%) Journey Map
12 60 (10.40%) Problem-Solving
13 56 (9.71%) Design Thinking
14 50 (8.67%) Stakeholder Engagement
15 47 (8.15%) Inclusive Design
16 46 (7.97%) Stakeholder Management
17 45 (7.80%) Continuous Improvement
17 45 (7.80%) Storytelling
18 43 (7.45%) Analytics
Programming Languages
1 14 (2.43%) Python
2 11 (1.91%) JavaScript
3 7 (1.21%) SQL
4 3 (0.52%) Java
4 3 (0.52%) PL/SQL
5 2 (0.35%) TypeScript
Qualifications
1 117 (20.28%) Security Cleared
2 90 (15.60%) SC Cleared
3 38 (6.59%) Degree
4 20 (3.47%) BPSS Clearance
5 16 (2.77%) Cisco Certification
5 16 (2.77%) DV Cleared
6 10 (1.73%) CCNP
7 6 (1.04%) AWS Certification
7 6 (1.04%) CCIE
7 6 (1.04%) JNCIE
8 5 (0.87%) SAP Certification
9 4 (0.69%) HND
10 3 (0.52%) CCNA
10 3 (0.52%) JNCIS
10 3 (0.52%) Master's Degree
11 1 (0.17%) DBS Check
11 1 (0.17%) MCP
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 157 (27.21%) Accessibility
2 42 (7.28%) WCAG
3 8 (1.39%) GDPR
4 4 (0.69%) ISO 9001
4 4 (0.69%) QA
5 3 (0.52%) GMP
5 3 (0.52%) GxP
6 2 (0.35%) Data Quality
7 1 (0.17%) Actionable Recommendations
7 1 (0.17%) SLA
System Software
1 6 (1.04%) VMware Infrastructure
1 6 (1.04%) VMware NSX
Systems Management
1 6 (1.04%) Ansible
1 6 (1.04%) Terraform
2 3 (0.52%) Nagios
Vendors
1 80 (13.86%) Adobe
2 38 (6.59%) Microsoft
3 12 (2.08%) Cisco
3 12 (2.08%) Juniper
4 10 (1.73%) Oracle
4 10 (1.73%) SAP
4 10 (1.73%) ServiceNow
5 9 (1.56%) F5
5 9 (1.56%) Google
5 9 (1.56%) Salesforce
6 7 (1.21%) Pega
7 6 (1.04%) Fortinet
7 6 (1.04%) Sage
7 6 (1.04%) VMware
8 5 (0.87%) Cadence
8 5 (0.87%) Hopewiser
9 4 (0.69%) Hotjar
10 3 (0.52%) Amdocs
10 3 (0.52%) SolarWinds
11 2 (0.35%) Foundry