Designer Contract Job Trends

Designer
UK

The median Designer daily rate in the UK is £465, according to job vacancies posted in the 6 months leading up to 30 September 2026.

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

6 months to
30 Sep 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 161 179 179
Rank change year-on-year +18 0 -6
Contract jobs requiring a Designer 945 535 537
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 1.72% 1.63% 1.43%
As % of the Job Titles category 1.87% 1.79% 1.54%
Number of daily rates quoted 608 384 321
10th Percentile £360 £310 £300
25th Percentile £406 £402 £383
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £465 £475 £475
Median % change year-on-year -2.05% - -8.87%
75th Percentile £538 £575 £573
90th Percentile £588 £625 £645
UK excluding London median daily rate £465 £447 £500
% change year-on-year +3.97% -10.60% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 39 24 18
10th Percentile £27.50 £22.75 £32.20
25th Percentile £33.25 £35.06 £45.00
Median hourly rate £39.00 £48.25 £57.35
Median % change year-on-year -19.17% -15.87% +15.39%
75th Percentile £62.00 £64.10 £61.30
90th Percentile £62.60 £69.65 -
UK excluding London median hourly rate £39.00 £55.00 £57.35
% change year-on-year -29.09% -4.10% +4.84%

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 50,615 29,871 34,958
% of contract IT jobs with a recognized job title 92.21% 90.97% 92.96%
Number of daily rates quoted 29,878 18,887 21,169
10th Percentile £325 £275 £300
25th Percentile £425 £400 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £500 £525
Median % change year-on-year +5.00% -4.76% -0.94%
75th Percentile £630 £623 £638
90th Percentile £733 £725 £749
UK excluding London median daily rate £500 £475 £500
% change year-on-year +5.26% -5.00% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 3,942 1,601 1,551
10th Percentile £14.50 £13.75 £14.85
25th Percentile £20.00 £17.30 £20.88
Median hourly rate £41.71 £25.15 £43.00
Median % change year-on-year +65.84% -41.51% -3.37%
75th Percentile £67.50 £51.25 £65.00
90th Percentile £78.75 £68.55 £75.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £41.74 £25.08 £43.00
% change year-on-year +66.44% -41.69% -2.16%

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 30 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 30 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 30 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 +24 830 £464 -2.42% 957
London -6 434 £464 -6.36% 598
UK excluding London +27 412 £465 +3.97% 412
Work from Home -11 230 £450 - 433
North of England -29 136 £475 +7.65% 127
Midlands +23 88 £428 -2.40% 52
West Midlands +19 86 £425 -0.93% 45
South West +14 74 £425 -22.73% 62
Yorkshire -3 62 £475 -9.52% 42
Scotland +3 40 £550 +17.33% 35
North West -56 40 £525 +20.00% 71
South East -51 39 £500 +13.64% 80
North East -15 33 £433 -6.49% 15
East of England 0 32 £410 -0.61% 24
Wales -18 6 £375 +17.71% 18
East Midlands -19 2 £575 +22.99% 7

Designer Skill Set
Top 30 Co-Occurring Skills & Capabilities

For the 6 months to 30 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.

1 311 (32.91%) User Experience
2 300 (31.75%) Service Design
3 269 (28.47%) Agile
4 232 (24.55%) UX Design
5 219 (23.17%) Accessibility
6 216 (22.86%) Security Cleared
7 196 (20.74%) User Research
8 185 (19.58%) Interaction Design
9 184 (19.47%) Figma
10 183 (19.37%) User-Centered Design (UCD)
11 174 (18.41%) SC Cleared
12 140 (14.81%) Prototyping
13 138 (14.60%) Stakeholder Management
14 124 (13.12%) Workshop Facilitation
15 114 (12.06%) Journey Map
16 96 (10.16%) AI
17 90 (9.52%) Stakeholder Engagement
17 90 (9.52%) Wireframes
18 83 (8.78%) Problem-Solving
19 81 (8.57%) Adobe
20 69 (7.30%) WCAG
21 65 (6.88%) Digital Transformation Programme
22 62 (6.56%) BPSS Clearance
23 58 (6.14%) Collaborative Working
24 56 (5.93%) Inclusive Design
25 55 (5.82%) Usability Testing
26 50 (5.29%) Continuous Improvement
27 48 (5.08%) Design Thinking
28 47 (4.97%) Degree
29 45 (4.76%) 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 20 (2.12%) CMS
2 13 (1.38%) Confluence
3 6 (0.63%) SharePoint
3 6 (0.63%) WordPress
4 5 (0.53%) Drupal
4 5 (0.53%) LiveCycle
5 3 (0.32%) Moodle
6 2 (0.21%) CICS
6 2 (0.21%) Headless CMS
6 2 (0.21%) OpenStack
6 2 (0.21%) Umbraco
7 1 (0.11%) Appian
7 1 (0.11%) Kentico
7 1 (0.11%) Mendix
7 1 (0.11%) Oracle Collaboration Suite
Applications
1 44 (4.66%) Adobe Creative Suite
2 30 (3.17%) Photoshop
2 30 (3.17%) Sketch
3 29 (3.07%) Adobe Illustrator
4 25 (2.65%) Adobe After Effects
5 13 (1.38%) Microsoft PowerPoint
6 12 (1.27%) Adobe XD
7 9 (0.95%) Microsoft Excel
8 8 (0.85%) AutoCAD
8 8 (0.85%) InDesign
9 7 (0.74%) Revit
10 6 (0.63%) Final Cut Pro
11 5 (0.53%) SOLIDWORKS
12 4 (0.42%) Chatbot
13 3 (0.32%) Microsoft Office
14 2 (0.21%) Adobe Premiere
14 2 (0.21%) InVision
14 2 (0.21%) Navisworks
15 1 (0.11%) Camtasia
15 1 (0.11%) UserZoom
Business Applications
1 1 (0.11%) Dynamics NAV
1 1 (0.11%) Eloqua
1 1 (0.11%) Oracle ERP
1 1 (0.11%) Remedy ITSM
1 1 (0.11%) Shopify
Cloud Services
1 184 (19.47%) Figma
2 31 (3.28%) Azure
3 22 (2.33%) Miro
3 22 (2.33%) SaaS
4 20 (2.12%) AWS
5 18 (1.90%) Microsoft 365
6 17 (1.80%) Microsoft Copilot
7 11 (1.16%) Power Platform
8 5 (0.53%) Adobe Creative Cloud
8 5 (0.53%) Dynamics 365
9 4 (0.42%) Azure AI
9 4 (0.42%) Canva
9 4 (0.42%) Copilot Studio
9 4 (0.42%) GCP
9 4 (0.42%) Google Analytics
9 4 (0.42%) PowerApps
10 3 (0.32%) Azure Data Factory
10 3 (0.32%) Azure Databricks
10 3 (0.32%) Entra ID
11 2 (0.21%) Lucidchart
Communications & Networking
1 15 (1.59%) Wi-Fi
2 14 (1.48%) 4G
2 14 (1.48%) Diameter Protocol
3 13 (1.38%) 5G
4 12 (1.27%) 3G
5 11 (1.16%) 2G
5 11 (1.16%) SIGTRAN
5 11 (1.16%) SS7
6 10 (1.06%) Firewall
7 8 (0.85%) Broadband
8 7 (0.74%) BGP
9 6 (0.63%) HTTP
10 5 (0.53%) OSPF
11 4 (0.42%) Ethernet
11 4 (0.42%) IPsec
11 4 (0.42%) Network Security
12 3 (0.32%) Cisco ISE
12 3 (0.32%) Cisco Nexus
12 3 (0.32%) EIGRP
12 3 (0.32%) HSRP
Database & Business Intelligence
1 9 (0.95%) Metadata
2 6 (0.63%) Power BI
3 4 (0.42%) Delta Lake
3 4 (0.42%) Qlik Sense
4 3 (0.32%) QlikView
4 3 (0.32%) Tableau
5 2 (0.21%) Data Warehouse
5 2 (0.21%) DataStage
6 1 (0.11%) Data Lake
6 1 (0.11%) Data Mart
6 1 (0.11%) Enterprise Data Warehouse
6 1 (0.11%) Oracle ODI
6 1 (0.11%) Star Schema
Development Applications
1 13 (1.38%) JIRA
2 7 (0.74%) Claude Code
3 3 (0.32%) ER Studio
3 3 (0.32%) ERwin
3 3 (0.32%) Git
4 1 (0.11%) Axure RP
4 1 (0.11%) Cypress.io
4 1 (0.11%) Dreamweaver
4 1 (0.11%) Subversion
4 1 (0.11%) Visual Studio
General
1 219 (23.17%) Social Skills
2 192 (20.32%) Public Sector
3 108 (11.43%) Finance
4 50 (5.29%) Retail
5 43 (4.55%) Banking
6 41 (4.34%) Analytical Skills
7 40 (4.23%) Marketing
8 35 (3.70%) Telecoms
9 26 (2.75%) Automotive
10 21 (2.22%) Manufacturing
10 21 (2.22%) Publishing
11 19 (2.01%) Legal
12 16 (1.69%) Influencing Skills
13 14 (1.48%) Local Government
14 13 (1.38%) Inclusion and Diversity
14 13 (1.38%) Military
15 10 (1.06%) Presentation Skills
16 8 (0.85%) Games
17 7 (0.74%) Investment Banking
18 6 (0.63%) Aerospace
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 25 (2.65%) HTML
2 18 (1.90%) CSS
3 7 (0.74%) React
4 6 (0.63%) REST
5 5 (0.53%) React Native
6 4 (0.42%) Ajax
6 4 (0.42%) AngularJS
6 4 (0.42%) PySpark
6 4 (0.42%) SOAP
6 4 (0.42%) Web Services
6 4 (0.42%) XML
7 3 (0.32%) CSS3
7 3 (0.32%) HTML5
7 3 (0.32%) Terraform
8 2 (0.21%) Framer.js
8 2 (0.21%) OAuth
8 2 (0.21%) OpenID
8 2 (0.21%) SAML
8 2 (0.21%) Vue
8 2 (0.21%) YAML
Miscellaneous
1 49 (5.19%) Mobile App
2 32 (3.39%) Product Ownership
3 30 (3.17%) Animation
4 24 (2.54%) NHS
5 23 (2.43%) Self-Motivation
6 22 (2.33%) Graphic Design
6 22 (2.33%) Onboarding
7 12 (1.27%) Cloud Native
8 11 (1.16%) Greenfield Project
9 10 (1.06%) Social Media
10 9 (0.95%) AI Agents
10 9 (0.95%) Data Protection Act
10 9 (0.95%) e-Learning
11 8 (0.85%) CMDB
11 8 (0.85%) Management Information System
12 7 (0.74%) Data Centre
12 7 (0.74%) Legacy Systems
12 7 (0.74%) Taxonomies
13 6 (0.63%) IoT
14 5 (0.53%) Learning Management System
Operating Systems
1 15 (1.59%) Android
2 14 (1.48%) Apple iOS
3 3 (0.32%) Linux
3 3 (0.32%) Unix
4 2 (0.21%) AIX
4 2 (0.21%) Solaris
4 2 (0.21%) Windows
5 1 (0.11%) Mac OS
Processes & Methodologies
1 311 (32.91%) User Experience
2 300 (31.75%) Service Design
3 269 (28.47%) Agile
4 232 (24.55%) UX Design
5 196 (20.74%) User Research
6 185 (19.58%) Interaction Design
7 183 (19.37%) User-Centered Design (UCD)
8 140 (14.81%) Prototyping
9 138 (14.60%) Stakeholder Management
10 124 (13.12%) Workshop Facilitation
11 114 (12.06%) Journey Map
12 96 (10.16%) AI
13 90 (9.52%) Stakeholder Engagement
13 90 (9.52%) Wireframes
14 83 (8.78%) Problem-Solving
15 65 (6.88%) Digital Transformation Programme
16 58 (6.14%) Collaborative Working
17 56 (5.93%) Inclusive Design
18 55 (5.82%) Usability Testing
19 50 (5.29%) Continuous Improvement
Programming Languages
1 9 (0.95%) SQL
2 6 (0.63%) JavaScript
3 4 (0.42%) Java
3 4 (0.42%) Python
4 2 (0.21%) COBOL
4 2 (0.21%) Data Analysis Expressions
4 2 (0.21%) TypeScript
5 1 (0.11%) Korn
5 1 (0.11%) PL/SQL
5 1 (0.11%) PowerShell
5 1 (0.11%) Shell Script
Qualifications
1 216 (22.86%) Security Cleared
2 174 (18.41%) SC Cleared
3 62 (6.56%) BPSS Clearance
4 47 (4.97%) Degree
5 11 (1.16%) DV Cleared
6 6 (0.63%) ITIL Certification
7 3 (0.32%) Cisco Certification
8 2 (0.21%) Azure Certification
8 2 (0.21%) CISSP
9 1 (0.11%) (ISC)2 CCSP
9 1 (0.11%) CCIE
9 1 (0.11%) CCNA
9 1 (0.11%) CCNP
9 1 (0.11%) CEH
9 1 (0.11%) CISM
9 1 (0.11%) JNCIE
9 1 (0.11%) JNCIP
9 1 (0.11%) Master's Degree
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 219 (23.17%) Accessibility
2 69 (7.30%) WCAG
3 12 (1.27%) Data Quality
4 5 (0.53%) QA
5 4 (0.42%) GxP
6 3 (0.32%) Actionable Recommendations
6 3 (0.32%) ISO/IEC 27001
7 2 (0.21%) GMP
7 2 (0.21%) GRC
7 2 (0.21%) ISO/IEC 42001
7 2 (0.21%) NIST
8 1 (0.11%) GDPR
8 1 (0.11%) PCI DSS
8 1 (0.11%) WAI
8 1 (0.11%) WAI-ARIA
System Software
1 5 (0.53%) IAG
2 4 (0.42%) Virtual Machines
3 3 (0.32%) Active Directory
3 3 (0.32%) VMware Infrastructure
4 2 (0.21%) Firmware
5 1 (0.11%) Virtual Desktop
5 1 (0.11%) VMware NSX
Systems Management
1 3 (0.32%) Kubernetes
2 1 (0.11%) Ansible
2 1 (0.11%) FortiGate
2 1 (0.11%) Kibana
2 1 (0.11%) Microsoft Intune
2 1 (0.11%) SCCM
Vendors
1 81 (8.57%) Adobe
2 39 (4.13%) Microsoft
3 24 (2.54%) ServiceNow
4 13 (1.38%) Cisco
5 10 (1.06%) IBM
6 9 (0.95%) Google
7 6 (0.63%) Databricks
7 6 (0.63%) SAP
8 5 (0.53%) Ericsson
9 4 (0.42%) EMC
9 4 (0.42%) Foundry
9 4 (0.42%) Juniper
9 4 (0.42%) Oracle
9 4 (0.42%) Salesforce
9 4 (0.42%) Virgin Media
10 3 (0.32%) BMC
10 3 (0.32%) BT
10 3 (0.32%) Nokia
10 3 (0.32%) SolarWinds
10 3 (0.32%) VMware