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 8 July 2026.

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

6 months to
8 Jul 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 135 175 177
Rank change year-on-year +40 +2 -37
Contract jobs requiring a Designer 1,044 521 610
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 2.00% 1.63% 1.41%
As % of the Job Titles category 2.16% 1.77% 1.52%
Number of daily rates quoted 737 394 349
10th Percentile £357 £301 £323
25th Percentile £406 £363 £400
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £475 £461 £500
Median % change year-on-year +3.10% -7.86% -4.76%
75th Percentile £538 £550 £574
90th Percentile £588 £600 £638
UK excluding London median daily rate £475 £440 £475
% change year-on-year +7.95% -7.37% -0.68%
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% +32.60%
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 48,237 29,379 40,107
% of contract IT jobs with a recognized job title 92.46% 91.96% 93.00%
Number of daily rates quoted 29,223 18,754 25,817
10th Percentile £325 £287 £285
25th Percentile £417 £400 £409
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 3,243 1,333 2,768
10th Percentile £15.75 £13.75 £12.86
25th Percentile £21.25 £17.44 £16.62
Median hourly rate £43.00 £26.45 £37.50
Median % change year-on-year +62.57% -29.47% -12.79%
75th Percentile £67.50 £55.25 £62.50
90th Percentile £80.00 £73.25 £73.75
UK excluding London median hourly rate £45.00 £25.15 £40.00
% change year-on-year +78.93% -37.13% +1.07%

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 8 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 8 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 8 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 +49 891 £475 +3.39% 279
UK excluding London +51 463 £475 +7.95% 149
London +9 445 £464 -2.42% 161
Work from Home +32 282 £471 +4.61% 152
North of England -4 155 £469 +7.20% 47
Midlands +11 96 £425 +0.12% 13
West Midlands +7 90 £425 -0.93% 7
South East -22 66 £525 +19.32% 39
Yorkshire +1 59 £475 +18.75% 12
South West +1 56 £425 -10.53% 16
North West -29 56 £436 -0.34% 21
East of England +13 44 £500 +5.26% 7
Scotland -5 44 £550 +15.79% 21
North East -12 40 £420 -9.19% 14
East Midlands -11 6 £402 +24.69% 6
Wales -20 6 £625 +104.42% 3

Designer Skill Set
Top 30 Co-Occurring Skills & Capabilities

For the 6 months to 8 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.

1 336 (32.18%) User Experience
2 333 (31.90%) Service Design
3 263 (25.19%) UX Design
4 262 (25.10%) Agile
5 224 (21.46%) Accessibility
5 224 (21.46%) Security Cleared
6 218 (20.88%) User Research
7 212 (20.31%) Figma
8 182 (17.43%) SC Cleared
9 179 (17.15%) Interaction Design
10 167 (16.00%) User-Centered Design (UCD)
11 142 (13.60%) Prototyping
12 123 (11.78%) Journey Map
13 117 (11.21%) Workshop Facilitation
14 100 (9.58%) AI
14 100 (9.58%) Wireframes
15 93 (8.91%) Stakeholder Management
16 85 (8.14%) Adobe
17 76 (7.28%) WCAG
18 73 (6.99%) Stakeholder Engagement
19 66 (6.32%) Degree
20 64 (6.13%) Analytics
21 62 (5.94%) Continuous Improvement
21 62 (5.94%) Problem-Solving
22 60 (5.75%) Inclusive Design
23 58 (5.56%) Roadmaps
24 56 (5.36%) BPSS Clearance
24 56 (5.36%) Customer Experience
25 55 (5.27%) Collaborative Working
25 55 (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 (1.92%) CMS
2 10 (0.96%) CICS
3 9 (0.86%) Confluence
4 6 (0.57%) Moodle
5 5 (0.48%) LiveCycle
5 5 (0.48%) SharePoint
6 4 (0.38%) Drupal
6 4 (0.38%) WordPress
7 3 (0.29%) OpenStack
8 2 (0.19%) Headless CMS
8 2 (0.19%) Oracle Collaboration Suite
8 2 (0.19%) Umbraco
9 1 (0.096%) Kentico
Applications
1 41 (3.93%) Adobe Creative Suite
2 37 (3.54%) Sketch
3 35 (3.35%) Photoshop
4 33 (3.16%) Adobe Illustrator
5 28 (2.68%) Adobe After Effects
6 12 (1.15%) Adobe XD
6 12 (1.15%) Chatbot
7 10 (0.96%) Microsoft PowerPoint
8 9 (0.86%) InDesign
9 8 (0.77%) Microsoft Excel
10 6 (0.57%) Final Cut Pro
11 5 (0.48%) AutoCAD
11 5 (0.48%) CINEMA 4D
11 5 (0.48%) SOLIDWORKS
12 4 (0.38%) Adobe Premiere
12 4 (0.38%) InVision
12 4 (0.38%) Revit
13 3 (0.29%) MS Visio
14 2 (0.19%) Microsoft Office
14 2 (0.19%) UserZoom
Business Applications
1 4 (0.38%) Oracle ERP
2 2 (0.19%) Shopify
3 1 (0.096%) Eloqua
3 1 (0.096%) SmartPlant
Cloud Services
1 212 (20.31%) Figma
2 29 (2.78%) SaaS
3 24 (2.30%) Azure
4 23 (2.20%) AWS
5 19 (1.82%) Microsoft 365
6 17 (1.63%) Microsoft Copilot
7 12 (1.15%) Miro
8 9 (0.86%) Power Platform
9 8 (0.77%) Adobe Creative Cloud
10 4 (0.38%) Azure AI
10 4 (0.38%) Canva
10 4 (0.38%) Copilot Studio
10 4 (0.38%) GCP
10 4 (0.38%) PowerApps
11 3 (0.29%) ChatGPT
11 3 (0.29%) Dynamics 365
12 2 (0.19%) AWS CloudFormation
12 2 (0.19%) Azure ExpressRoute
12 2 (0.19%) Entra ID
12 2 (0.19%) Serverless
Communications & Networking
1 23 (2.20%) Firewall
2 21 (2.01%) Wi-Fi
3 12 (1.15%) Network Security
4 11 (1.05%) IPsec
5 10 (0.96%) Broadband
6 9 (0.86%) 5G
7 8 (0.77%) Diameter Protocol
8 7 (0.67%) 4G
9 6 (0.57%) 3G
10 4 (0.38%) 2G
10 4 (0.38%) BGP
10 4 (0.38%) SIGTRAN
10 4 (0.38%) SS7
11 3 (0.29%) 3GPP
11 3 (0.29%) DNS
11 3 (0.29%) Internet
11 3 (0.29%) LTE
11 3 (0.29%) OSPF
11 3 (0.29%) VLAN
11 3 (0.29%) VPN
Database & Business Intelligence
1 11 (1.05%) Metadata
2 10 (0.96%) DataStage
3 4 (0.38%) Oracle ODI
3 4 (0.38%) Power BI
4 3 (0.29%) Electronic Patient Records
5 2 (0.19%) Amazon Aurora
5 2 (0.19%) Amazon RDS
5 2 (0.19%) Amazon Redshift
5 2 (0.19%) Data Vault
5 2 (0.19%) MySQL
5 2 (0.19%) NoSQL
5 2 (0.19%) PostgreSQL
6 1 (0.096%) Data Lake
6 1 (0.096%) Data Warehouse
6 1 (0.096%) Pinecone
6 1 (0.096%) Qlik Sense
6 1 (0.096%) Tableau
Development Applications
1 14 (1.34%) JIRA
2 4 (0.38%) Axure RP
3 3 (0.29%) Claude Code
4 2 (0.19%) Git
5 1 (0.096%) Cypress.io
5 1 (0.096%) Dreamweaver
5 1 (0.096%) Subversion
General
1 223 (21.36%) Public Sector
2 204 (19.54%) Social Skills
3 126 (12.07%) Finance
4 47 (4.50%) Banking
5 46 (4.41%) Retail
6 44 (4.21%) Marketing
7 29 (2.78%) Influencing Skills
8 28 (2.68%) Telecoms
9 26 (2.49%) Automotive
10 24 (2.30%) Legal
11 21 (2.01%) Publishing
12 19 (1.82%) Analytical Skills
12 19 (1.82%) Manufacturing
13 11 (1.05%) Presentation Skills
14 10 (0.96%) Inclusion and Diversity
15 8 (0.77%) Local Government
15 8 (0.77%) Organisational Skills
16 6 (0.57%) Games
16 6 (0.57%) Military
16 6 (0.57%) Retail Banking
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 30 (2.87%) HTML
2 21 (2.01%) CSS
3 13 (1.25%) Middleware
4 8 (0.77%) REST
5 5 (0.48%) React
5 5 (0.48%) SOAP
5 5 (0.48%) 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 (0.19%) AngularJS
7 2 (0.19%) AWS CDK
7 2 (0.19%) CSS3
7 2 (0.19%) Framer.js
7 2 (0.19%) HTML5
7 2 (0.19%) Kafka
7 2 (0.19%) OAuth
7 2 (0.19%) OpenID
7 2 (0.19%) SAML
Miscellaneous
1 48 (4.60%) Product Ownership
2 42 (4.02%) Mobile App
3 32 (3.07%) Onboarding
4 28 (2.68%) Animation
5 25 (2.39%) NHS
6 24 (2.30%) Graphic Design
7 19 (1.82%) Self-Motivation
8 17 (1.63%) AI Agents
9 16 (1.53%) Cloud Native
9 16 (1.53%) Data Centre
10 15 (1.44%) IoT
11 12 (1.15%) BYOD
12 11 (1.05%) Taxonomies
13 10 (0.96%) CMDB
13 10 (0.96%) Mainframe
13 10 (0.96%) VSAM
14 9 (0.86%) Data Protection Act
14 9 (0.86%) Greenfield Project
15 7 (0.67%) Management Information System
16 6 (0.57%) Motion Graphics
Operating Systems
1 14 (1.34%) Android
2 13 (1.25%) Apple iOS
3 10 (0.96%) AIX
3 10 (0.96%) Linux
3 10 (0.96%) Solaris
3 10 (0.96%) Unix
4 1 (0.096%) MVS
4 1 (0.096%) Windows
Processes & Methodologies
1 336 (32.18%) User Experience
2 333 (31.90%) Service Design
3 263 (25.19%) UX Design
4 262 (25.10%) Agile
5 218 (20.88%) User Research
6 179 (17.15%) Interaction Design
7 167 (16.00%) User-Centered Design (UCD)
8 142 (13.60%) Prototyping
9 123 (11.78%) Journey Map
10 117 (11.21%) Workshop Facilitation
11 100 (9.58%) AI
11 100 (9.58%) Wireframes
12 93 (8.91%) Stakeholder Management
13 73 (6.99%) Stakeholder Engagement
14 64 (6.13%) Analytics
15 62 (5.94%) Continuous Improvement
15 62 (5.94%) Problem-Solving
16 60 (5.75%) Inclusive Design
17 58 (5.56%) Roadmaps
18 56 (5.36%) Customer Experience
Programming Languages
1 10 (0.96%) COBOL
2 8 (0.77%) Python
3 7 (0.67%) JavaScript
4 4 (0.38%) 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 (0.19%) Bash
6 2 (0.19%) Ruby
6 2 (0.19%) TypeScript
7 1 (0.096%) Data Analysis Expressions
Qualifications
1 224 (21.46%) Security Cleared
2 182 (17.43%) SC Cleared
3 66 (6.32%) Degree
4 56 (5.36%) BPSS Clearance
5 33 (3.16%) DV Cleared
6 5 (0.48%) CISSP
7 4 (0.38%) Cisco Certification
7 4 (0.38%) CISM
7 4 (0.38%) Computer Science Degree
7 4 (0.38%) TOGAF Certification
8 3 (0.29%) ITIL Certification
8 3 (0.29%) Master's Degree
9 2 (0.19%) Azure Certification
9 2 (0.19%) CCNA
9 2 (0.19%) CCNP
10 1 (0.096%) (ISC)2 CCSP
10 1 (0.096%) CEH
10 1 (0.096%) JNCIE
10 1 (0.096%) JNCIP
10 1 (0.096%) JNCIS
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 224 (21.46%) Accessibility
2 76 (7.28%) WCAG
3 9 (0.86%) Data Quality
4 8 (0.77%) ISO/IEC 20000
4 8 (0.77%) NCSC
5 7 (0.67%) Government Security Classifications
6 6 (0.57%) NIST
7 5 (0.48%) ISO/IEC 27001
7 5 (0.48%) QA
8 4 (0.38%) GDPR
9 3 (0.29%) Actionable Recommendations
9 3 (0.29%) PCI DSS
10 2 (0.19%) GMP
10 2 (0.19%) GxP
10 2 (0.19%) ISO/IEC 42001
11 1 (0.096%) California Consumer Privacy Act
11 1 (0.096%) HL7
11 1 (0.096%) SLA
11 1 (0.096%) WAI
11 1 (0.096%) WAI-ARIA
System Software
1 5 (0.48%) Virtual Machines
2 4 (0.38%) IAG
2 4 (0.38%) VMware Infrastructure
3 3 (0.29%) Firmware
4 2 (0.19%) Active Directory
5 1 (0.096%) Virtual Desktop
Systems Management
1 4 (0.38%) Terraform
2 3 (0.29%) Kubernetes
3 2 (0.19%) Ansible
3 2 (0.19%) FortiGate
4 1 (0.096%) Kibana
4 1 (0.096%) Microsoft Intune
4 1 (0.096%) Nagios
4 1 (0.096%) Network Intrusion Detection System
Vendors
1 85 (8.14%) Adobe
2 38 (3.64%) Microsoft
3 14 (1.34%) IBM
3 14 (1.34%) ServiceNow
4 12 (1.15%) Cisco
5 10 (0.96%) VMware
6 8 (0.77%) Google
6 8 (0.77%) Oracle
6 8 (0.77%) Salesforce
7 6 (0.57%) Juniper
8 5 (0.48%) BiZZdesign
8 5 (0.48%) Ericsson
8 5 (0.48%) Nokia
8 5 (0.48%) SAP
9 4 (0.38%) EMC
9 4 (0.38%) Foundry
9 4 (0.38%) Virgin Media
10 3 (0.29%) F5
10 3 (0.29%) Fortinet
10 3 (0.29%) Huawei