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 22 November 2025.

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

6 months to
22 Nov 2025
Same period 2024 Same period 2023
Rank 185 160 189
Rank change year-on-year -25 +29 -45
Contract jobs requiring a Designer 555 576 627
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 1.54% 1.57% 1.35%
As % of the Job Titles category 1.70% 1.69% 1.44%
Number of daily rates quoted 399 360 450
10th Percentile £325 £306 £305
25th Percentile £406 £381 £406
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £475 £475 £500
Median % change year-on-year - -5.00% -4.76%
75th Percentile £575 £575 £580
90th Percentile £638 £646 £638
UK excluding London median daily rate £450 £499 £500
% change year-on-year -9.73% -0.30% -
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 32,680 34,083 43,648
% of contract IT jobs with a recognized job title 90.96% 92.77% 93.65%
Number of daily rates quoted 20,712 20,554 29,563
10th Percentile £281 £300 £292
25th Percentile £402 £410 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £525 £525
Median % change year-on-year -4.76% - -4.55%
75th Percentile £619 £638 £647
90th Percentile £725 £738 £740
UK excluding London median daily rate £475 £494 £500
% change year-on-year -3.85% -1.20% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 1,932 1,297 1,552
10th Percentile £14.25 £15.21 £15.16
25th Percentile £17.87 £20.30 £19.06
Median hourly rate £25.15 £35.00 £45.00
Median % change year-on-year -28.14% -22.22% +50.00%
75th Percentile £56.25 £65.00 £65.00
90th Percentile £70.92 £73.75 £77.50
UK excluding London median hourly rate £25.15 £34.00 £45.00
% change year-on-year -26.03% -24.44% +83.97%

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 22 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 22 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 22 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 -23 468 £475 -2.56% 331
London +23 278 £500 +5.26% 192
UK excluding London -71 196 £450 -9.73% 190
Work from Home -53 167 £466 +4.19% 169
North of England -18 76 £436 -8.16% 63
North West -4 43 £436 -1.30% 35
South East -41 38 £563 +8.96% 81
Midlands -49 27 £429 -7.27% 16
South West -4 26 £600 - 17
West Midlands -31 24 £429 -18.29% 9
Yorkshire -37 24 £435 -13.00% 13
Scotland -19 17 £456 +3.81% 2
North East -6 10 £450 - 15
East of England -10 10 £425 -12.82% 11
East Midlands -20 3 £386 -3.44% 6
Wales - 3 £588 - 3
Northern Ireland -4 2 £625 +12.61%

Designer Skill Set
Top 30 Co-Occurring Skills & Capabilities

For the 6 months to 22 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.

1 209 (37.66%) User Experience
2 174 (31.35%) Figma
3 169 (30.45%) Service Design
4 164 (29.55%) UX Design
5 152 (27.39%) Agile
6 146 (26.31%) Accessibility
7 133 (23.96%) User Research
8 106 (19.10%) User-Centered Design (UCD)
9 95 (17.12%) Security Cleared
10 92 (16.58%) Prototyping
11 84 (15.14%) SC Cleared
12 77 (13.87%) Interaction Design
13 74 (13.33%) Workshop Facilitation
14 73 (13.15%) Adobe
14 73 (13.15%) Wireframes
15 71 (12.79%) Journey Map
16 56 (10.09%) Usability Testing
17 52 (9.37%) Design Thinking
18 51 (9.19%) Sketch
19 50 (9.01%) Problem-Solving
20 47 (8.47%) Inclusive Design
21 43 (7.75%) Stakeholder Engagement
22 42 (7.57%) Analytics
23 40 (7.21%) HTML
23 40 (7.21%) Stakeholder Management
24 39 (7.03%) Microsoft
25 38 (6.85%) Continuous Improvement
25 38 (6.85%) Storytelling
26 37 (6.67%) CSS
26 37 (6.67%) Degree

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 23 (4.14%) CMS
2 13 (2.34%) Confluence
3 11 (1.98%) OpenStack
4 5 (0.90%) Headless CMS
5 4 (0.72%) Appian
5 4 (0.72%) Camunda
6 3 (0.54%) Tomcat
7 2 (0.36%) SharePoint
7 2 (0.36%) Umbraco
8 1 (0.18%) Drupal
8 1 (0.18%) Joomla!
8 1 (0.18%) LiveCycle
8 1 (0.18%) WordPress
Applications
1 51 (9.19%) Sketch
2 30 (5.41%) Adobe Creative Suite
3 26 (4.68%) Adobe XD
4 22 (3.96%) Adobe Illustrator
5 21 (3.78%) Photoshop
6 16 (2.88%) InVision
7 14 (2.52%) InDesign
8 10 (1.80%) Microsoft PowerPoint
8 10 (1.80%) Zeplin
9 9 (1.62%) Adobe After Effects
9 9 (1.62%) Microsoft Office
10 6 (1.08%) Adobe Captivate
10 6 (1.08%) Microsoft Excel
11 4 (0.72%) Acrobat
11 4 (0.72%) Adobe Premiere
11 4 (0.72%) Chatbot
11 4 (0.72%) MS Visio
11 4 (0.72%) OmniGraffle
11 4 (0.72%) UXPin
12 3 (0.54%) UserZoom
Business Applications
1 6 (1.08%) SAP ERP
2 4 (0.72%) Dynamics GP
2 4 (0.72%) SAP S/4HANA
3 3 (0.54%) Oracle BRM
4 2 (0.36%) Salesforce CRM
5 1 (0.18%) Oracle CRM
5 1 (0.18%) Remedy ITSM
5 1 (0.18%) Workfront
Cloud Services
1 174 (31.35%) Figma
2 31 (5.59%) AWS
3 27 (4.86%) Miro
4 19 (3.42%) SaaS
5 9 (1.62%) Azure
5 9 (1.62%) Power Platform
6 8 (1.44%) Adobe Creative Cloud
7 7 (1.26%) Lucidchart
8 6 (1.08%) OpenShift
9 5 (0.90%) Amazon Cognito
9 5 (0.90%) Amazon ECS
9 5 (0.90%) Amazon EKS
9 5 (0.90%) Amazon S3
9 5 (0.90%) AWS Lambda
9 5 (0.90%) Google Analytics
9 5 (0.90%) Serverless
10 4 (0.72%) Copilot Studio
10 4 (0.72%) GitHub
10 4 (0.72%) Microsoft Copilot
11 3 (0.54%) GCP
Communications & Networking
1 14 (2.52%) BGP
1 14 (2.52%) Firewall
1 14 (2.52%) OSPF
2 12 (2.16%) LAN
2 12 (2.16%) MPLS
3 9 (1.62%) Wireless
4 8 (1.44%) DHCP
4 8 (1.44%) DNS
4 8 (1.44%) IPsec
4 8 (1.44%) SNMP
5 7 (1.26%) Wireshark
6 6 (1.08%) 4G
6 6 (1.08%) 5G
6 6 (1.08%) Radio Access Network
6 6 (1.08%) SMS
6 6 (1.08%) TACACS
6 6 (1.08%) VLAN
6 6 (1.08%) WAN
6 6 (1.08%) Wi-Fi
7 5 (0.90%) 3GPP
Database & Business Intelligence
1 5 (0.90%) DynamoDB
2 4 (0.72%) Power BI
3 3 (0.54%) Metadata
4 1 (0.18%) BigQuery
4 1 (0.18%) Tableau
Development Applications
1 26 (4.68%) Axure RP
2 21 (3.78%) JIRA
3 6 (1.08%) Balsamiq
4 2 (0.36%) Git
4 2 (0.36%) 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
1 132 (23.78%) Social Skills
2 96 (17.30%) Finance
3 88 (15.86%) Public Sector
4 57 (10.27%) Banking
5 27 (4.86%) Marketing
6 21 (3.78%) Publishing
7 14 (2.52%) Analytical Skills
7 14 (2.52%) Legal
8 13 (2.34%) Inclusion and Diversity
9 10 (1.80%) Retail
10 8 (1.44%) Influencing Skills
11 7 (1.26%) Billing
11 7 (1.26%) Documentation Skills
11 7 (1.26%) Organisational Skills
12 6 (1.08%) Advertising
12 6 (1.08%) Manufacturing
12 6 (1.08%) Presentation Skills
12 6 (1.08%) Telecoms
13 5 (0.90%) Financial Institution
14 4 (0.72%) Automotive
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 40 (7.21%) HTML
2 37 (6.67%) CSS
3 10 (1.80%) Framer.js
4 5 (0.90%) .NET
4 5 (0.90%) Lightning Web Components
4 5 (0.90%) OAuth
4 5 (0.90%) OAuth2
4 5 (0.90%) OpenID
4 5 (0.90%) SAML
4 5 (0.90%) Swagger
5 4 (0.72%) React
6 3 (0.54%) AngularJS
7 2 (0.36%) EDI
7 2 (0.36%) HTML5
7 2 (0.36%) Middleware
7 2 (0.36%) OpenAPI
7 2 (0.36%) REST
7 2 (0.36%) Sass
7 2 (0.36%) Web Services
8 1 (0.18%) jQuery
Miscellaneous
1 50 (9.01%) Mobile App
2 29 (5.23%) Product Ownership
3 26 (4.68%) Onboarding
4 10 (1.80%) Social Media
5 9 (1.62%) Data Centre
5 9 (1.62%) Graphic Design
6 8 (1.44%) Data Protection Act
7 7 (1.26%) Enterprise Software
7 7 (1.26%) Hybrid Cloud
8 6 (1.08%) e-Learning
8 6 (1.08%) Operational Technology
9 5 (0.90%) Blog
9 5 (0.90%) Digital Media
9 5 (0.90%) FPGA
9 5 (0.90%) Greenfield Project
9 5 (0.90%) Learning Management System
9 5 (0.90%) NHS
9 5 (0.90%) Self-Motivation
10 4 (0.72%) Mainframe
10 4 (0.72%) Management Information System
Operating Systems
1 17 (3.06%) Apple iOS
2 16 (2.88%) Android
3 3 (0.54%) Unix
4 1 (0.18%) Mac OS
4 1 (0.18%) VMS
4 1 (0.18%) Windows
Processes & Methodologies
1 209 (37.66%) User Experience
2 169 (30.45%) Service Design
3 164 (29.55%) UX Design
4 152 (27.39%) Agile
5 133 (23.96%) User Research
6 106 (19.10%) User-Centered Design (UCD)
7 92 (16.58%) Prototyping
8 77 (13.87%) Interaction Design
9 74 (13.33%) Workshop Facilitation
10 73 (13.15%) Wireframes
11 71 (12.79%) Journey Map
12 56 (10.09%) Usability Testing
13 52 (9.37%) Design Thinking
14 50 (9.01%) Problem-Solving
15 47 (8.47%) Inclusive Design
16 43 (7.75%) Stakeholder Engagement
17 42 (7.57%) Analytics
18 40 (7.21%) Stakeholder Management
19 38 (6.85%) Continuous Improvement
19 38 (6.85%) Storytelling
Programming Languages
1 13 (2.34%) JavaScript
2 12 (2.16%) Python
3 7 (1.26%) SQL
4 3 (0.54%) Java
4 3 (0.54%) PL/SQL
5 2 (0.36%) TypeScript
Qualifications
1 95 (17.12%) Security Cleared
2 84 (15.14%) SC Cleared
3 37 (6.67%) Degree
4 22 (3.96%) BPSS Clearance
5 12 (2.16%) AWS Certification
5 12 (2.16%) Cisco Certification
6 7 (1.26%) CCIE
6 7 (1.26%) JNCIE
7 5 (0.90%) DV Cleared
7 5 (0.90%) HND
8 4 (0.72%) SAP Certification
9 3 (0.54%) CCNA
9 3 (0.54%) CCNP
9 3 (0.54%) Computer Science Degree
9 3 (0.54%) Master's Degree
10 2 (0.36%) AWS Certified Solutions Architect
11 1 (0.18%) Azure Certification
11 1 (0.18%) DBS Check
11 1 (0.18%) MCP
11 1 (0.18%) Microsoft Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 146 (26.31%) Accessibility
2 35 (6.31%) WCAG
3 5 (0.90%) GDPR
3 5 (0.90%) ISO 9001
3 5 (0.90%) QA
4 4 (0.72%) Data Quality
5 1 (0.18%) Actionable Recommendations
5 1 (0.18%) SLA
System Software
1 6 (1.08%) VMware Infrastructure
1 6 (1.08%) VMware NSX
2 5 (0.90%) Docker
Systems Management
1 6 (1.08%) Ansible
1 6 (1.08%) Terraform
2 2 (0.36%) FortiGate
3 1 (0.18%) Single Sign-On
Vendors
1 73 (13.15%) Adobe
2 39 (7.03%) Microsoft
3 19 (3.42%) Cisco
4 13 (2.34%) Salesforce
5 12 (2.16%) F5
5 12 (2.16%) Fortinet
6 11 (1.98%) Juniper
7 10 (1.80%) Google
8 9 (1.62%) SAP
9 8 (1.44%) Oracle
10 7 (1.26%) ServiceNow
11 6 (1.08%) Cadence
11 6 (1.08%) Pega
11 6 (1.08%) VMware
12 5 (0.90%) Dell
12 5 (0.90%) Hopewiser
12 5 (0.90%) Sage
13 4 (0.72%) Hotjar
13 4 (0.72%) Mercator
14 3 (0.54%) Virgin Media