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 27 November 2025.

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

6 months to
27 Nov 2025
Same period 2024 Same period 2023
Rank 186 158 193
Rank change year-on-year -28 +35 -45
Contract jobs requiring a Designer 567 584 593
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 1.57% 1.59% 1.31%
As % of the Job Titles category 1.73% 1.72% 1.40%
Number of daily rates quoted 408 367 422
10th Percentile £325 £312 £300
25th Percentile £406 £382 £400
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £475 £485 £500
Median % change year-on-year -2.06% -3.00% -4.76%
75th Percentile £575 £575 £588
90th Percentile £638 £650 £638
UK excluding London median daily rate £450 £500 £475
% change year-on-year -10.00% +5.26% -5.00%
Number of hourly rates quoted 20 7 15
10th Percentile £20.48 £31.08 £32.05
25th Percentile £29.97 £31.63 £45.11
Median hourly rate £42.00 £33.54 £50.00
Median % change year-on-year +25.22% -32.92% +6.16%
75th Percentile £66.27 £61.88 £64.12
90th Percentile £69.65 £75.00 £68.84
UK excluding London median hourly rate £55.00 £33.54 £50.00
% change year-on-year +63.98% -32.92% +21.95%

All Contract IT Job Vacancies
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 32,869 34,044 42,453
% of contract IT jobs with a recognized job title 91.00% 92.79% 93.58%
Number of daily rates quoted 20,808 20,593 28,688
10th Percentile £281 £300 £290
25th Percentile £401 £410 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £525 £525
Median % change year-on-year -4.76% - -4.55%
75th Percentile £619 £638 £649
90th Percentile £725 £738 £738
UK excluding London median daily rate £475 £494 £500
% change year-on-year -3.85% -1.20% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 1,928 1,258 1,517
10th Percentile £14.25 £15.22 £15.21
25th Percentile £17.88 £20.75 £19.12
Median hourly rate £25.15 £35.00 £44.50
Median % change year-on-year -28.14% -21.35% +48.33%
75th Percentile £56.69 £65.00 £65.00
90th Percentile £71.00 £74.00 £77.50
UK excluding London median hourly rate £25.15 £35.00 £45.00
% change year-on-year -28.14% -22.22% +81.52%

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 27 November 2025.

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 27 November 2025.

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 27 November 2025. 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 -25 480 £475 -4.04% 183
London +18 285 £500 +4.17% 94
UK excluding London -57 200 £450 -10.00% 150
Work from Home -51 172 £463 +2.78% 89
North of England -12 79 £438 -7.89% 41
North West -1 43 £436 -1.30% 24
South East -44 40 £563 +10.84% 76
Midlands -38 27 £429 -14.20% 9
South West -2 26 £600 +2.13% 13
West Midlands -34 24 £429 -18.29% 6
Yorkshire -37 23 £474 -5.25% 10
Scotland -20 16 £456 +3.81% 5
North East -3 14 £450 - 7
East of England -11 10 £425 -12.82% 6
East Midlands -18 3 £386 -3.44% 3
Wales - 3 £588 -
Northern Ireland -4 2 £625 +12.61% 3

Designer Skill Set
Top 30 Co-Occurring Skills & Capabilities

For the 6 months to 27 November 2025, 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.

1 217 (38.27%) User Experience
2 179 (31.57%) Figma
3 175 (30.86%) Service Design
4 169 (29.81%) UX Design
5 150 (26.46%) Agile
6 147 (25.93%) Accessibility
7 134 (23.63%) User Research
8 108 (19.05%) User-Centered Design (UCD)
9 99 (17.46%) Security Cleared
10 94 (16.58%) Prototyping
11 88 (15.52%) SC Cleared
12 78 (13.76%) Interaction Design
13 77 (13.58%) Adobe
13 77 (13.58%) Workshop Facilitation
14 75 (13.23%) Journey Map
15 72 (12.70%) Wireframes
16 58 (10.23%) Usability Testing
17 57 (10.05%) Problem-Solving
18 54 (9.52%) Design Thinking
19 50 (8.82%) Sketch
20 49 (8.64%) Inclusive Design
21 45 (7.94%) Stakeholder Engagement
22 43 (7.58%) Analytics
23 41 (7.23%) Stakeholder Management
24 40 (7.05%) HTML
24 40 (7.05%) Storytelling
25 39 (6.88%) Microsoft
26 38 (6.70%) Continuous Improvement
26 38 (6.70%) Degree
27 37 (6.53%) CSS

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 22 (3.88%) CMS
2 13 (2.29%) Confluence
3 11 (1.94%) OpenStack
4 5 (0.88%) Headless CMS
5 4 (0.71%) Appian
5 4 (0.71%) Camunda
6 3 (0.53%) Tomcat
7 2 (0.35%) SharePoint
8 1 (0.18%) LiveCycle
8 1 (0.18%) Umbraco
Applications
1 50 (8.82%) Sketch
2 32 (5.64%) Adobe Creative Suite
3 27 (4.76%) Adobe XD
4 23 (4.06%) Adobe Illustrator
5 22 (3.88%) Photoshop
6 16 (2.82%) InVision
7 14 (2.47%) InDesign
8 10 (1.76%) Adobe After Effects
8 10 (1.76%) Microsoft PowerPoint
8 10 (1.76%) Zeplin
9 9 (1.59%) Microsoft Office
10 6 (1.06%) Adobe Captivate
10 6 (1.06%) Microsoft Excel
11 5 (0.88%) Adobe Premiere
12 4 (0.71%) Acrobat
12 4 (0.71%) MS Visio
12 4 (0.71%) OmniGraffle
12 4 (0.71%) UXPin
13 3 (0.53%) Spreadsheet
13 3 (0.53%) UserZoom
Business Applications
1 7 (1.23%) SAP ERP
2 5 (0.88%) Dynamics GP
2 5 (0.88%) SAP S/4HANA
3 3 (0.53%) Oracle BRM
4 2 (0.35%) Salesforce CRM
5 1 (0.18%) Oracle CRM
5 1 (0.18%) Remedy ITSM
5 1 (0.18%) Workfront
Cloud Services
1 179 (31.57%) Figma
2 31 (5.47%) AWS
3 27 (4.76%) Miro
4 19 (3.35%) SaaS
5 9 (1.59%) Azure
5 9 (1.59%) Power Platform
6 8 (1.41%) Adobe Creative Cloud
7 7 (1.23%) Lucidchart
8 6 (1.06%) OpenShift
9 5 (0.88%) Amazon Cognito
9 5 (0.88%) Amazon ECS
9 5 (0.88%) Amazon EKS
9 5 (0.88%) Amazon S3
9 5 (0.88%) AWS Lambda
9 5 (0.88%) Google Analytics
9 5 (0.88%) Serverless
10 4 (0.71%) Canva
10 4 (0.71%) Copilot Studio
10 4 (0.71%) GitHub
10 4 (0.71%) Microsoft Copilot
Communications & Networking
1 14 (2.47%) BGP
1 14 (2.47%) Firewall
1 14 (2.47%) OSPF
2 12 (2.12%) LAN
2 12 (2.12%) MPLS
3 9 (1.59%) Wireless
4 8 (1.41%) DHCP
4 8 (1.41%) DNS
4 8 (1.41%) IPsec
4 8 (1.41%) SNMP
5 7 (1.23%) Wireshark
6 6 (1.06%) 4G
6 6 (1.06%) 5G
6 6 (1.06%) Radio Access Network
6 6 (1.06%) SMS
6 6 (1.06%) TACACS
6 6 (1.06%) VLAN
6 6 (1.06%) WAN
6 6 (1.06%) Wi-Fi
7 5 (0.88%) 3GPP
Database & Business Intelligence
1 5 (0.88%) DynamoDB
2 4 (0.71%) Power BI
3 3 (0.53%) Metadata
4 1 (0.18%) BigQuery
4 1 (0.18%) Tableau
Development Applications
1 26 (4.59%) Axure RP
2 22 (3.88%) JIRA
3 5 (0.88%) Balsamiq
4 2 (0.35%) Git
4 2 (0.35%) Postman
5 1 (0.18%) Cypress.io
5 1 (0.18%) Dreamweaver
5 1 (0.18%) GitLab
5 1 (0.18%) Visual Studio
5 1 (0.18%) Visual Studio Code
General
1 137 (24.16%) Social Skills
2 97 (17.11%) Finance
3 91 (16.05%) Public Sector
4 61 (10.76%) Banking
5 28 (4.94%) Marketing
6 20 (3.53%) Publishing
7 15 (2.65%) Analytical Skills
7 15 (2.65%) Legal
8 12 (2.12%) Inclusion and Diversity
9 8 (1.41%) Influencing Skills
9 8 (1.41%) Retail
10 7 (1.23%) Billing
10 7 (1.23%) Documentation Skills
10 7 (1.23%) Organisational Skills
11 6 (1.06%) Manufacturing
11 6 (1.06%) Telecoms
12 5 (0.88%) Advertising
12 5 (0.88%) Financial Institution
12 5 (0.88%) Presentation Skills
13 4 (0.71%) Local Government
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 40 (7.05%) HTML
2 37 (6.53%) CSS
3 10 (1.76%) Framer.js
4 5 (0.88%) .NET
4 5 (0.88%) Lightning Web Components
4 5 (0.88%) OAuth
4 5 (0.88%) OAuth2
4 5 (0.88%) OpenID
4 5 (0.88%) SAML
5 4 (0.71%) React
5 4 (0.71%) Swagger
6 3 (0.53%) AngularJS
7 2 (0.35%) EDI
7 2 (0.35%) HTML5
7 2 (0.35%) Middleware
7 2 (0.35%) OpenAPI
7 2 (0.35%) REST
7 2 (0.35%) Sass
7 2 (0.35%) Web Services
8 1 (0.18%) OpenGL
Miscellaneous
1 52 (9.17%) Mobile App
2 29 (5.11%) Product Ownership
3 27 (4.76%) Onboarding
4 10 (1.76%) Data Protection Act
4 10 (1.76%) Social Media
5 9 (1.59%) Data Centre
5 9 (1.59%) Graphic Design
6 8 (1.41%) Enterprise Software
7 7 (1.23%) e-Learning
7 7 (1.23%) Hybrid Cloud
8 6 (1.06%) Operational Technology
9 5 (0.88%) Animation
9 5 (0.88%) Blog
9 5 (0.88%) Digital Media
9 5 (0.88%) FPGA
9 5 (0.88%) Learning Management System
9 5 (0.88%) NHS
9 5 (0.88%) Self-Motivation
10 4 (0.71%) Mainframe
10 4 (0.71%) Motion Graphics
Operating Systems
1 17 (3.00%) Apple iOS
2 16 (2.82%) Android
3 3 (0.53%) Unix
4 1 (0.18%) Mac OS
4 1 (0.18%) VMS
4 1 (0.18%) Windows
Processes & Methodologies
1 217 (38.27%) User Experience
2 175 (30.86%) Service Design
3 169 (29.81%) UX Design
4 150 (26.46%) Agile
5 134 (23.63%) User Research
6 108 (19.05%) User-Centered Design (UCD)
7 94 (16.58%) Prototyping
8 78 (13.76%) Interaction Design
9 77 (13.58%) Workshop Facilitation
10 75 (13.23%) Journey Map
11 72 (12.70%) Wireframes
12 58 (10.23%) Usability Testing
13 57 (10.05%) Problem-Solving
14 54 (9.52%) Design Thinking
15 49 (8.64%) Inclusive Design
16 45 (7.94%) Stakeholder Engagement
17 43 (7.58%) Analytics
18 41 (7.23%) Stakeholder Management
19 40 (7.05%) Storytelling
20 38 (6.70%) Continuous Improvement
Programming Languages
1 13 (2.29%) JavaScript
2 12 (2.12%) Python
3 7 (1.23%) SQL
4 3 (0.53%) Java
4 3 (0.53%) PL/SQL
5 2 (0.35%) TypeScript
Qualifications
1 99 (17.46%) Security Cleared
2 88 (15.52%) SC Cleared
3 38 (6.70%) Degree
4 22 (3.88%) BPSS Clearance
5 12 (2.12%) AWS Certification
5 12 (2.12%) Cisco Certification
6 7 (1.23%) CCIE
6 7 (1.23%) JNCIE
7 5 (0.88%) DV Cleared
7 5 (0.88%) HND
7 5 (0.88%) SAP Certification
8 4 (0.71%) Master's Degree
9 3 (0.53%) CCNA
9 3 (0.53%) CCNP
9 3 (0.53%) Computer Science Degree
10 2 (0.35%) AWS Certified Solutions Architect
11 1 (0.18%) Azure Certification
11 1 (0.18%) BICSI Certification
11 1 (0.18%) BICSI RCDD
11 1 (0.18%) DBS Check
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 147 (25.93%) Accessibility
2 35 (6.17%) WCAG
3 5 (0.88%) GDPR
3 5 (0.88%) ISO 9001
3 5 (0.88%) QA
4 4 (0.71%) Data Quality
5 1 (0.18%) Actionable Recommendations
5 1 (0.18%) SLA
System Software
1 6 (1.06%) VMware Infrastructure
1 6 (1.06%) VMware NSX
2 5 (0.88%) Docker
Systems Management
1 6 (1.06%) Ansible
1 6 (1.06%) Terraform
2 2 (0.35%) FortiGate
3 1 (0.18%) Single Sign-On
Vendors
1 77 (13.58%) Adobe
2 39 (6.88%) Microsoft
3 19 (3.35%) Cisco
4 13 (2.29%) Salesforce
5 12 (2.12%) F5
5 12 (2.12%) Fortinet
6 11 (1.94%) Juniper
7 10 (1.76%) Google
7 10 (1.76%) SAP
8 8 (1.41%) Oracle
9 7 (1.23%) ServiceNow
10 6 (1.06%) Cadence
10 6 (1.06%) Pega
10 6 (1.06%) Sage
10 6 (1.06%) VMware
11 5 (0.88%) Dell
11 5 (0.88%) Hopewiser
12 4 (0.71%) Hotjar
12 4 (0.71%) Mercator
13 3 (0.53%) Virgin Media