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 1 September 2026.

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

6 months to
1 Sep 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 149 178 192
Rank change year-on-year +29 +14 -31
Contract jobs requiring a Designer 1,011 536 522
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 1.88% 1.64% 1.35%
As % of the Job Titles category 2.04% 1.79% 1.45%
Number of daily rates quoted 668 384 299
10th Percentile £362 £304 £305
25th Percentile £406 £375 £382
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £475 £468 £475
Median % change year-on-year +1.60% -1.58% -9.52%
75th Percentile £538 £555 £566
90th Percentile £588 £613 £650
UK excluding London median daily rate £475 £435 £500
% change year-on-year +9.20% -13.00% +2.56%
Number of hourly rates quoted 39 24 43
10th Percentile £25.90 £22.75 £37.05
25th Percentile £32.50 £35.06 £53.40
Median hourly rate £35.82 £47.50 £57.35
Median % change year-on-year -24.59% -17.18% +4.84%
75th Percentile £62.00 £61.28 £61.30
90th Percentile £63.40 £69.65 -
UK excluding London median hourly rate £35.00 £55.00 £57.35
% change year-on-year -36.36% -4.10% -1.10%

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 49,606 29,880 35,937
% of contract IT jobs with a recognized job title 92.46% 91.25% 93.08%
Number of daily rates quoted 29,580 18,873 22,662
10th Percentile £325 £281 £300
25th Percentile £425 £400 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £500 £525
Median % change year-on-year +5.00% -4.76% -1.69%
75th Percentile £625 £623 £638
90th Percentile £725 £725 £750
UK excluding London median daily rate £500 £475 £500
% change year-on-year +5.26% -5.00% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 3,581 1,559 1,838
10th Percentile £14.96 £13.69 £14.16
25th Percentile £20.53 £17.04 £20.00
Median hourly rate £42.50 £25.15 £43.00
Median % change year-on-year +68.99% -41.51% +1.18%
75th Percentile £67.84 £53.81 £65.00
90th Percentile £80.00 £70.33 £75.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £42.50 £25.15 £43.95
% change year-on-year +68.99% -42.78% +11.13%

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 1 September 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 September 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 September 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 +31 881 £473 +0.85% 494
UK excluding London +57 462 £475 +9.20% 248
London +2 438 £471 -4.85% 315
Work from Home +14 254 £457 +1.56% 255
North of England -8 146 £475 +8.57% 70
Midlands +2 88 £425 -0.93% 37
West Midlands +7 85 £425 -0.93% 34
South West +14 75 £428 -18.57% 43
South East -33 61 £500 +19.05% 40
Yorkshire +1 59 £475 +14.46% 19
East of England +16 46 £500 +29.03% 14
Scotland +4 43 £550 +37.50% 22
North East -18 43 £450 - 8
North West -56 43 £481 +10.00% 43
Wales -16 8 £425 +38.89% 7
East Midlands -16 3 £575 +45.66% 3

Designer Skill Set
Top 30 Co-Occurring Skills & Capabilities

For the 6 months to 1 September 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.

1 327 (32.34%) User Experience
2 322 (31.85%) Service Design
3 260 (25.72%) Agile
4 245 (24.23%) UX Design
5 213 (21.07%) Accessibility
6 198 (19.58%) Security Cleared
7 193 (19.09%) Figma
8 184 (18.20%) User Research
9 176 (17.41%) Interaction Design
10 172 (17.01%) User-Centered Design (UCD)
11 157 (15.53%) SC Cleared
12 134 (13.25%) Stakeholder Management
13 131 (12.96%) Prototyping
14 127 (12.56%) Workshop Facilitation
15 118 (11.67%) Journey Map
16 97 (9.59%) AI
17 89 (8.80%) Wireframes
18 85 (8.41%) Adobe
19 83 (8.21%) Stakeholder Engagement
20 82 (8.11%) Problem-Solving
21 69 (6.82%) WCAG
22 66 (6.53%) BPSS Clearance
23 57 (5.64%) Customer Experience
24 56 (5.54%) Continuous Improvement
25 54 (5.34%) Degree
26 52 (5.14%) Design Thinking
27 50 (4.95%) Collaborative Working
27 50 (4.95%) Digital Transformation Programme
27 50 (4.95%) Inclusive Design
28 49 (4.85%) Analytics

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 (1.88%) CMS
2 9 (0.89%) Confluence
3 7 (0.69%) Moodle
4 5 (0.49%) Drupal
4 5 (0.49%) LiveCycle
4 5 (0.49%) SharePoint
5 4 (0.40%) WordPress
6 3 (0.30%) OpenStack
7 2 (0.20%) CICS
7 2 (0.20%) Headless CMS
7 2 (0.20%) Umbraco
8 1 (0.099%) Kentico
8 1 (0.099%) Oracle Collaboration Suite
Applications
1 48 (4.75%) Adobe Creative Suite
2 33 (3.26%) Sketch
3 32 (3.17%) Photoshop
4 31 (3.07%) Adobe Illustrator
5 25 (2.47%) Adobe After Effects
6 11 (1.09%) Adobe XD
6 11 (1.09%) Microsoft PowerPoint
7 10 (0.99%) InDesign
8 8 (0.79%) AutoCAD
8 8 (0.79%) Chatbot
9 7 (0.69%) Microsoft Excel
9 7 (0.69%) Revit
10 6 (0.59%) Final Cut Pro
11 5 (0.49%) SOLIDWORKS
12 3 (0.30%) InVision
12 3 (0.30%) Microsoft Office
13 2 (0.20%) Adobe Premiere
13 2 (0.20%) CINEMA 4D
13 2 (0.20%) Navisworks
14 1 (0.099%) UserZoom
Business Applications
1 3 (0.30%) Oracle ERP
2 1 (0.099%) Dynamics NAV
2 1 (0.099%) Eloqua
2 1 (0.099%) Remedy ITSM
2 1 (0.099%) Shopify
Cloud Services
1 193 (19.09%) Figma
2 32 (3.17%) Azure
3 25 (2.47%) AWS
3 25 (2.47%) SaaS
4 19 (1.88%) Microsoft 365
5 18 (1.78%) Miro
6 17 (1.68%) Microsoft Copilot
7 13 (1.29%) Power Platform
8 6 (0.59%) GCP
9 5 (0.49%) Dynamics 365
10 4 (0.40%) Adobe Creative Cloud
10 4 (0.40%) Azure AI
10 4 (0.40%) Canva
10 4 (0.40%) Copilot Studio
10 4 (0.40%) Google Analytics
10 4 (0.40%) PowerApps
11 3 (0.30%) Azure Data Factory
11 3 (0.30%) Azure Databricks
11 3 (0.30%) Azure ExpressRoute
11 3 (0.30%) Entra ID
Communications & Networking
1 23 (2.27%) Wi-Fi
2 18 (1.78%) Firewall
3 17 (1.68%) Diameter Protocol
4 16 (1.58%) 4G
4 16 (1.58%) 5G
5 14 (1.38%) 3G
6 13 (1.29%) 2G
6 13 (1.29%) Broadband
6 13 (1.29%) SIGTRAN
6 13 (1.29%) SS7
7 12 (1.19%) IPsec
8 8 (0.79%) BGP
8 8 (0.79%) Network Security
9 7 (0.69%) HTTP
10 6 (0.59%) OSPF
11 4 (0.40%) Ethernet
12 3 (0.30%) 3GPP
12 3 (0.30%) DNS
12 3 (0.30%) EIGRP
12 3 (0.30%) VPN
Database & Business Intelligence
1 15 (1.48%) Metadata
2 8 (0.79%) Power BI
3 4 (0.40%) Qlik Sense
3 4 (0.40%) Tableau
4 3 (0.30%) Data Warehouse
4 3 (0.30%) Delta Lake
4 3 (0.30%) Oracle ODI
4 3 (0.30%) QlikView
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%) DataStage
5 2 (0.20%) MySQL
5 2 (0.20%) NoSQL
5 2 (0.20%) PostgreSQL
6 1 (0.099%) Data Lake
6 1 (0.099%) Electronic Patient Records
6 1 (0.099%) Enterprise Data Warehouse
Development Applications
1 10 (0.99%) JIRA
2 6 (0.59%) Claude Code
3 3 (0.30%) ER Studio
3 3 (0.30%) ERwin
3 3 (0.30%) Git
4 1 (0.099%) Axure RP
4 1 (0.099%) Cypress.io
4 1 (0.099%) Dreamweaver
4 1 (0.099%) Subversion
General
1 211 (20.87%) Social Skills
2 187 (18.50%) Public Sector
3 123 (12.17%) Finance
4 57 (5.64%) Banking
5 47 (4.65%) Retail
6 43 (4.25%) Analytical Skills
7 42 (4.15%) Marketing
8 39 (3.86%) Telecoms
9 26 (2.57%) Automotive
10 23 (2.27%) Publishing
11 21 (2.08%) Legal
11 21 (2.08%) Manufacturing
12 17 (1.68%) Influencing Skills
13 12 (1.19%) Inclusion and Diversity
14 11 (1.09%) Presentation Skills
15 10 (0.99%) Military
16 9 (0.89%) Games
16 9 (0.89%) Local Government
16 9 (0.89%) Organisational Skills
17 8 (0.79%) Retail Banking
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 30 (2.97%) HTML
2 21 (2.08%) CSS
3 12 (1.19%) REST
4 8 (0.79%) SOAP
4 8 (0.79%) Web Services
5 6 (0.59%) React
5 6 (0.59%) Terraform
6 4 (0.40%) Ajax
6 4 (0.40%) AngularJS
6 4 (0.40%) PySpark
6 4 (0.40%) React Native
6 4 (0.40%) XML
7 3 (0.30%) CSS3
7 3 (0.30%) HTML5
8 2 (0.20%) AWS CDK
8 2 (0.20%) Framer.js
8 2 (0.20%) JSON
8 2 (0.20%) Kafka
8 2 (0.20%) OAuth
8 2 (0.20%) Semantic HTML
Miscellaneous
1 47 (4.65%) Mobile App
2 44 (4.35%) Product Ownership
3 34 (3.36%) Onboarding
4 30 (2.97%) Animation
5 28 (2.77%) Graphic Design
6 27 (2.67%) NHS
7 25 (2.47%) Self-Motivation
8 15 (1.48%) Cloud Native
9 14 (1.38%) CMDB
10 12 (1.19%) AI Agents
10 12 (1.19%) Greenfield Project
10 12 (1.19%) IoT
11 10 (0.99%) Data Protection Act
11 10 (0.99%) Management Information System
11 10 (0.99%) Social Media
12 9 (0.89%) e-Learning
13 8 (0.79%) Data Centre
14 7 (0.69%) Taxonomies
15 6 (0.59%) Legacy Systems
16 5 (0.49%) Motion Graphics
Operating Systems
1 15 (1.48%) Android
2 14 (1.38%) Apple iOS
3 3 (0.30%) Linux
3 3 (0.30%) Unix
4 2 (0.20%) AIX
4 2 (0.20%) Solaris
4 2 (0.20%) Windows
5 1 (0.099%) Mac OS
Processes & Methodologies
1 327 (32.34%) User Experience
2 322 (31.85%) Service Design
3 260 (25.72%) Agile
4 245 (24.23%) UX Design
5 184 (18.20%) User Research
6 176 (17.41%) Interaction Design
7 172 (17.01%) User-Centered Design (UCD)
8 134 (13.25%) Stakeholder Management
9 131 (12.96%) Prototyping
10 127 (12.56%) Workshop Facilitation
11 118 (11.67%) Journey Map
12 97 (9.59%) AI
13 89 (8.80%) Wireframes
14 83 (8.21%) Stakeholder Engagement
15 82 (8.11%) Problem-Solving
16 57 (5.64%) Customer Experience
17 56 (5.54%) Continuous Improvement
18 52 (5.14%) Design Thinking
19 50 (4.95%) Collaborative Working
19 50 (4.95%) Digital Transformation Programme
Programming Languages
1 12 (1.19%) SQL
2 10 (0.99%) Python
3 8 (0.79%) JavaScript
4 4 (0.40%) Java
5 3 (0.30%) PowerShell
6 2 (0.20%) Bash
6 2 (0.20%) COBOL
6 2 (0.20%) Data Analysis Expressions
6 2 (0.20%) Ruby
6 2 (0.20%) TypeScript
7 1 (0.099%) Korn
7 1 (0.099%) PL/SQL
7 1 (0.099%) Shell Script
Qualifications
1 198 (19.58%) Security Cleared
2 157 (15.53%) SC Cleared
3 66 (6.53%) BPSS Clearance
4 54 (5.34%) Degree
5 23 (2.27%) DV Cleared
6 6 (0.59%) ITIL Certification
7 3 (0.30%) Cisco Certification
8 2 (0.20%) Azure Certification
8 2 (0.20%) CISSP
9 1 (0.099%) (ISC)2 CCSP
9 1 (0.099%) AWS Certification
9 1 (0.099%) AWS Certified Solutions Architect
9 1 (0.099%) CCIE
9 1 (0.099%) CCNP
9 1 (0.099%) CEH
9 1 (0.099%) CISM
9 1 (0.099%) Computer Science Degree
9 1 (0.099%) JNCIE
9 1 (0.099%) JNCIP
9 1 (0.099%) Master's Degree
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 213 (21.07%) Accessibility
2 69 (6.82%) WCAG
3 16 (1.58%) Data Quality
4 5 (0.49%) ISO/IEC 27001
4 5 (0.49%) QA
5 4 (0.40%) GDPR
6 3 (0.30%) ISO/IEC 20000
6 3 (0.30%) NCSC
6 3 (0.30%) PCI DSS
7 2 (0.20%) GMP
7 2 (0.20%) Government Security Classifications
7 2 (0.20%) GRC
7 2 (0.20%) GxP
7 2 (0.20%) ISO/IEC 42001
7 2 (0.20%) NIST
8 1 (0.099%) Actionable Recommendations
8 1 (0.099%) California Consumer Privacy Act
8 1 (0.099%) SLA
8 1 (0.099%) WAI
8 1 (0.099%) WAI-ARIA
System Software
1 6 (0.59%) IAG
2 4 (0.40%) Virtual Machines
3 3 (0.30%) Active Directory
3 3 (0.30%) Firmware
3 3 (0.30%) VMware Infrastructure
4 1 (0.099%) Virtual Desktop
4 1 (0.099%) VMware NSX
Systems Management
1 4 (0.40%) Kubernetes
2 2 (0.20%) Ansible
2 2 (0.20%) FortiGate
3 1 (0.099%) Kibana
3 1 (0.099%) Microsoft Intune
3 1 (0.099%) SCCM
Vendors
1 85 (8.41%) Adobe
2 39 (3.86%) Microsoft
3 29 (2.87%) ServiceNow
4 16 (1.58%) Cisco
5 10 (0.99%) IBM
6 9 (0.89%) Google
7 8 (0.79%) Databricks
8 7 (0.69%) Ericsson
8 7 (0.69%) SAP
9 6 (0.59%) Juniper
9 6 (0.59%) Oracle
10 5 (0.49%) EMC
10 5 (0.49%) Nokia
11 4 (0.40%) Foundry
11 4 (0.40%) Virgin Media
12 3 (0.30%) BMC
12 3 (0.30%) F5
12 3 (0.30%) Openreach
12 3 (0.30%) SolarWinds
12 3 (0.30%) Zscaler