Designer Contract Job Trends

Designer
UK

The median Designer daily rate in the UK is £469, according to job vacancies posted in the 6 months leading up to 9 June 2026.

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

6 months to
9 Jun 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 125 177 173
Rank change year-on-year +52 -4 -41
Contract jobs requiring a Designer 1,022 463 602
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 2.06% 1.58% 1.39%
As % of the Job Titles category 2.23% 1.71% 1.50%
Number of daily rates quoted 734 346 352
10th Percentile £350 £300 £325
25th Percentile £402 £360 £400
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £469 £459 £498
Median % change year-on-year +2.19% -7.75% -5.24%
75th Percentile £538 £550 £569
90th Percentile £598 £600 £625
UK excluding London median daily rate £475 £428 £450
% change year-on-year +11.11% -5.00% -5.26%
Number of hourly rates quoted 29 15 48
10th Percentile £22.46 £22.75 £27.63
25th Percentile £28.09 £30.20 £45.00
Median hourly rate £33.99 £36.50 £57.35
Median % change year-on-year -6.88% -36.36% +20.74%
75th Percentile £47.50 £50.63 £61.30
90th Percentile £63.80 £57.60 -
UK excluding London median hourly rate £33.99 £47.00 £57.35
% change year-on-year -27.68% -18.05% -10.04%

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 45,859 27,036 40,213
% of contract IT jobs with a recognized job title 92.31% 92.35% 92.87%
Number of daily rates quoted 27,926 17,399 25,887
10th Percentile £325 £287 £280
25th Percentile £413 £402 £408
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £513 £500 £525
Median % change year-on-year +2.50% -4.76% -2.78%
75th Percentile £619 £625 £638
90th Percentile £725 £738 £750
UK excluding London median daily rate £500 £475 £488
% change year-on-year +5.26% -2.56% -2.50%
Number of hourly rates quoted 3,063 1,119 2,897
10th Percentile £15.15 £14.00 £12.86
25th Percentile £20.75 £17.84 £16.30
Median hourly rate £43.61 £28.00 £37.50
Median % change year-on-year +55.73% -25.33% -16.67%
75th Percentile £67.50 £58.47 £61.75
90th Percentile £80.00 £75.00 £73.75
UK excluding London median hourly rate £45.00 £25.15 £40.00
% change year-on-year +78.93% -37.13% -5.88%

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 9 June 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 9 June 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 9 June 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 +52 861 £459 +0.44% 185
UK excluding London +72 456 £475 +11.11% 103
London +29 424 £438 -4.67% 103
Work from Home +38 287 £459 +2.00% 85
North of England +11 147 £459 +13.75% 35
Midlands +17 98 £425 +4.29% 12
West Midlands +15 92 £425 +3.66% 9
South East -14 67 £505 +11.60% 25
North West -1 61 £402 -10.07% 14
Yorkshire -23 52 £480 +20.00% 17
South West +8 51 £425 -3.85% 10
East of England +10 46 £477 +0.42% 11
Scotland -3 43 £550 +15.79% 4
North East -5 34 £433 -8.95% 4
Wales -13 8 £513 +67.63% 4
East Midlands -25 6 £402 +24.69% 3

Designer Skill Set
Top 30 Co-Occurring Skills & Capabilities

For the 6 months to 9 June 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.

1 324 (31.70%) User Experience
2 321 (31.41%) Service Design
3 264 (25.83%) Agile
4 256 (25.05%) UX Design
5 226 (22.11%) Accessibility
6 225 (22.02%) User Research
7 219 (21.43%) Security Cleared
8 218 (21.33%) Figma
9 178 (17.42%) Interaction Design
10 171 (16.73%) SC Cleared
11 163 (15.95%) User-Centered Design (UCD)
12 148 (14.48%) Prototyping
13 118 (11.55%) Workshop Facilitation
14 117 (11.45%) Journey Map
15 104 (10.18%) Wireframes
16 90 (8.81%) AI
17 87 (8.51%) Adobe
18 79 (7.73%) Stakeholder Management
19 77 (7.53%) WCAG
20 74 (7.24%) Stakeholder Engagement
21 70 (6.85%) Usability Testing
22 66 (6.46%) Degree
23 64 (6.26%) Analytics
24 61 (5.97%) Problem-Solving
25 60 (5.87%) Inclusive Design
26 59 (5.77%) Collaborative Working
27 58 (5.68%) Continuous Improvement
28 57 (5.58%) Roadmaps
29 51 (4.99%) Storytelling
30 50 (4.89%) Customer Experience

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 (2.05%) CMS
2 10 (0.98%) CICS
3 9 (0.88%) Confluence
4 6 (0.59%) SharePoint
5 5 (0.49%) LiveCycle
5 5 (0.49%) Moodle
6 4 (0.39%) Drupal
7 3 (0.29%) OpenStack
8 2 (0.20%) Headless CMS
8 2 (0.20%) Oracle Collaboration Suite
8 2 (0.20%) WordPress
9 1 (0.098%) Appian
9 1 (0.098%) Kentico
9 1 (0.098%) Umbraco
Applications
1 43 (4.21%) Sketch
2 37 (3.62%) Adobe Creative Suite
3 36 (3.52%) Photoshop
4 33 (3.23%) Adobe Illustrator
5 27 (2.64%) Adobe After Effects
6 19 (1.86%) Adobe XD
7 11 (1.08%) Chatbot
7 11 (1.08%) InVision
7 11 (1.08%) Microsoft PowerPoint
8 10 (0.98%) Microsoft Excel
9 8 (0.78%) InDesign
10 5 (0.49%) AutoCAD
10 5 (0.49%) CINEMA 4D
10 5 (0.49%) MS Visio
10 5 (0.49%) SOLIDWORKS
11 4 (0.39%) Adobe Premiere
11 4 (0.39%) Final Cut Pro
11 4 (0.39%) Revit
12 3 (0.29%) Zeplin
13 2 (0.20%) Trello
Business Applications
1 4 (0.39%) Oracle ERP
2 2 (0.20%) Shopify
3 1 (0.098%) Eloqua
3 1 (0.098%) SmartPlant
Cloud Services
1 218 (21.33%) Figma
2 26 (2.54%) AWS
3 21 (2.05%) SaaS
4 18 (1.76%) Azure
5 16 (1.57%) Microsoft 365
6 15 (1.47%) Miro
7 11 (1.08%) Microsoft Copilot
8 8 (0.78%) Power Platform
9 7 (0.68%) Adobe Creative Cloud
10 4 (0.39%) Canva
10 4 (0.39%) Dynamics 365
10 4 (0.39%) GCP
10 4 (0.39%) PowerApps
11 2 (0.20%) AWS CloudFormation
11 2 (0.20%) Azure ExpressRoute
11 2 (0.20%) dbt
11 2 (0.20%) GitHub
11 2 (0.20%) Power Automate
11 2 (0.20%) Serverless
11 2 (0.20%) Virtual Private Cloud
Communications & Networking
1 25 (2.45%) Firewall
2 20 (1.96%) Wi-Fi
3 14 (1.37%) Network Security
4 11 (1.08%) IPsec
5 9 (0.88%) Broadband
6 7 (0.68%) 5G
7 6 (0.59%) Diameter Protocol
8 5 (0.49%) VLAN
8 5 (0.49%) VPN
9 4 (0.39%) 3G
9 4 (0.39%) 4G
10 3 (0.29%) 3GPP
10 3 (0.29%) BGP
10 3 (0.29%) DNS
10 3 (0.29%) Ethernet
10 3 (0.29%) Internet
10 3 (0.29%) Intranet
10 3 (0.29%) IPv4
10 3 (0.29%) IPv6
10 3 (0.29%) LTE
Database & Business Intelligence
1 12 (1.17%) Metadata
2 10 (0.98%) DataStage
3 4 (0.39%) Oracle ODI
4 3 (0.29%) Electronic Patient Records
4 3 (0.29%) Power BI
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%) MySQL
5 2 (0.20%) NoSQL
5 2 (0.20%) PostgreSQL
6 1 (0.098%) Data Lake
6 1 (0.098%) Data Warehouse
6 1 (0.098%) Pinecone
6 1 (0.098%) Tableau
Development Applications
1 18 (1.76%) JIRA
2 12 (1.17%) Axure RP
3 4 (0.39%) Git
4 1 (0.098%) Cypress.io
4 1 (0.098%) Dreamweaver
4 1 (0.098%) GitLab
4 1 (0.098%) Postman
4 1 (0.098%) SoapUI
4 1 (0.098%) Subversion
General
1 222 (21.72%) Public Sector
2 202 (19.77%) Social Skills
3 120 (11.74%) Finance
4 55 (5.38%) Banking
5 42 (4.11%) Marketing
6 40 (3.91%) Retail
7 28 (2.74%) Telecoms
8 26 (2.54%) Automotive
9 25 (2.45%) Influencing Skills
10 22 (2.15%) Manufacturing
11 21 (2.05%) Legal
12 20 (1.96%) Publishing
13 18 (1.76%) Analytical Skills
14 16 (1.57%) Presentation Skills
15 11 (1.08%) Inclusion and Diversity
15 11 (1.08%) Pharmaceutical
16 8 (0.78%) Organisational Skills
17 7 (0.68%) Games
17 7 (0.68%) Local Government
18 6 (0.59%) Retail Banking
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 40 (3.91%) HTML
2 29 (2.84%) CSS
3 13 (1.27%) Middleware
4 9 (0.88%) REST
5 7 (0.68%) React
6 6 (0.59%) SOAP
7 5 (0.49%) Web Services
8 4 (0.39%) CSS3
8 4 (0.39%) HTML5
9 3 (0.29%) AngularJS
9 3 (0.29%) JSON
9 3 (0.29%) Lightning Web Components
9 3 (0.29%) OAuth
9 3 (0.29%) Semantic HTML
9 3 (0.29%) Visualforce
10 2 (0.20%) AWS CDK
10 2 (0.20%) Framer.js
10 2 (0.20%) React Native
10 2 (0.20%) RESTful
10 2 (0.20%) SAML
Miscellaneous
1 53 (5.19%) Product Ownership
2 38 (3.72%) Mobile App
3 27 (2.64%) Onboarding
4 25 (2.45%) Animation
5 23 (2.25%) NHS
6 20 (1.96%) Graphic Design
7 17 (1.66%) Data Centre
8 16 (1.57%) Cloud Native
9 15 (1.47%) IoT
10 13 (1.27%) AI Agents
11 12 (1.17%) Taxonomies
12 11 (1.08%) BYOD
12 11 (1.08%) Self-Motivation
13 10 (0.98%) Mainframe
13 10 (0.98%) VSAM
14 8 (0.78%) CMDB
14 8 (0.78%) Management Information System
15 6 (0.59%) Data Protection Act
15 6 (0.59%) Motion Graphics
15 6 (0.59%) Social Media
Operating Systems
1 12 (1.17%) Android
2 11 (1.08%) Apple iOS
3 10 (0.98%) AIX
3 10 (0.98%) Linux
3 10 (0.98%) Solaris
3 10 (0.98%) Unix
4 1 (0.098%) MVS
Processes & Methodologies
1 324 (31.70%) User Experience
2 321 (31.41%) Service Design
3 264 (25.83%) Agile
4 256 (25.05%) UX Design
5 225 (22.02%) User Research
6 178 (17.42%) Interaction Design
7 163 (15.95%) User-Centered Design (UCD)
8 148 (14.48%) Prototyping
9 118 (11.55%) Workshop Facilitation
10 117 (11.45%) Journey Map
11 104 (10.18%) Wireframes
12 90 (8.81%) AI
13 79 (7.73%) Stakeholder Management
14 74 (7.24%) Stakeholder Engagement
15 70 (6.85%) Usability Testing
16 64 (6.26%) Analytics
17 61 (5.97%) Problem-Solving
18 60 (5.87%) Inclusive Design
19 59 (5.77%) Collaborative Working
20 58 (5.68%) Continuous Improvement
Programming Languages
1 10 (0.98%) COBOL
1 10 (0.98%) JavaScript
2 8 (0.78%) Python
3 4 (0.39%) Korn
4 3 (0.29%) Apex Code
4 3 (0.29%) Java
4 3 (0.29%) SOQL
4 3 (0.29%) SQL
5 2 (0.20%) Bash
5 2 (0.20%) PowerShell
5 2 (0.20%) Ruby
5 2 (0.20%) TypeScript
6 1 (0.098%) Data Analysis Expressions
Qualifications
1 219 (21.43%) Security Cleared
2 171 (16.73%) SC Cleared
3 66 (6.46%) Degree
4 49 (4.79%) BPSS Clearance
5 38 (3.72%) DV Cleared
6 11 (1.08%) Cisco Certification
7 9 (0.88%) CCNP
8 5 (0.49%) CISSP
9 4 (0.39%) CCNA
9 4 (0.39%) CISM
9 4 (0.39%) Computer Science Degree
9 4 (0.39%) Master's Degree
9 4 (0.39%) TOGAF Certification
10 3 (0.29%) JNCIS
11 2 (0.20%) ITIL Certification
12 1 (0.098%) CCIE
12 1 (0.098%) JNCIE
12 1 (0.098%) JNCIP
12 1 (0.098%) PMI Certification
12 1 (0.098%) PMP
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 226 (22.11%) Accessibility
2 77 (7.53%) WCAG
3 8 (0.78%) ISO/IEC 20000
3 8 (0.78%) NCSC
4 7 (0.68%) Data Quality
4 7 (0.68%) Government Security Classifications
5 6 (0.59%) NIST
6 5 (0.49%) GMP
6 5 (0.49%) GxP
7 4 (0.39%) ISO/IEC 27001
7 4 (0.39%) QA
8 3 (0.29%) Actionable Recommendations
8 3 (0.29%) GDPR
8 3 (0.29%) PCI DSS
9 2 (0.20%) ISO/IEC 42001
10 1 (0.098%) California Consumer Privacy Act
10 1 (0.098%) HL7
10 1 (0.098%) SLA
10 1 (0.098%) WAI
10 1 (0.098%) WAI-ARIA
System Software
1 4 (0.39%) Virtual Machines
1 4 (0.39%) VMware Infrastructure
2 3 (0.29%) Firmware
3 2 (0.20%) IAG
4 1 (0.098%) Active Directory
4 1 (0.098%) Virtual Desktop
Systems Management
1 4 (0.39%) Terraform
2 3 (0.29%) Kubernetes
2 3 (0.29%) Nagios
3 2 (0.20%) Ansible
3 2 (0.20%) FortiGate
4 1 (0.098%) Network Intrusion Detection System
Vendors
1 87 (8.51%) Adobe
2 34 (3.33%) Microsoft
3 14 (1.37%) ServiceNow
4 13 (1.27%) Cisco
5 10 (0.98%) IBM
5 10 (0.98%) VMware
6 9 (0.88%) Google
6 9 (0.88%) Oracle
7 8 (0.78%) Juniper
7 8 (0.78%) Salesforce
8 5 (0.49%) BiZZdesign
8 5 (0.49%) Ericsson
8 5 (0.49%) F5
8 5 (0.49%) Nokia
9 4 (0.39%) EMC
9 4 (0.39%) Virgin Media
10 3 (0.29%) Databricks
10 3 (0.29%) Huawei
10 3 (0.29%) MuleSoft
10 3 (0.29%) SAP