User Experience Contract Job Trends

UX
UK

The table below provides summary statistics and contractor rates for jobs requiring User Experience skills. It covers contract job vacancies from the 6 months leading up to 24 February 2026, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
24 Feb 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 70 66 68
Rank change year-on-year -4 +2 0
Contract jobs citing User Experience 1,395 1,054 1,289
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 3.40% 3.49% 2.90%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 3.92% 3.88% 3.34%
Number of daily rates quoted 974 688 871
10th Percentile £313 £313 £313
25th Percentile £400 £400 £400
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £485 £500 £500
Median % change year-on-year -3.00% - -4.76%
75th Percentile £575 £588 £588
90th Percentile £650 £697 £688
UK excluding London median daily rate £475 £450 £475
% change year-on-year +5.56% -5.26% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 48 23 42
10th Percentile £15.50 £25.26 £19.33
25th Percentile £17.69 £32.52 £25.00
Median hourly rate £37.22 £42.50 £36.25
Median % change year-on-year -12.42% +17.24% -28.57%
75th Percentile £61.25 £52.25 £70.63
90th Percentile £71.28 £70.60 £81.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £30.30 £30.33 £25.00
% change year-on-year -0.12% +21.33% -48.98%

All Process & Methodology Skills
UK

User Experience falls under the Processes and Methodologies category. For comparison with the information above, the following table provides summary statistics for all contract job vacancies requiring process or methodology skills.

Contract vacancies with a requirement for process or methodology skills 35,552 27,150 38,650
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 86.77% 89.86% 87.02%
Number of daily rates quoted 22,564 16,816 25,267
10th Percentile £313 £306 £300
25th Percentile £410 £413 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £525 £525
Median % change year-on-year -4.76% - -4.55%
75th Percentile £613 £638 £638
90th Percentile £720 £738 £738
UK excluding London median daily rate £481 £493 £500
% change year-on-year -2.38% -1.40% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 2,120 854 2,192
10th Percentile £14.61 £15.62 £13.29
25th Percentile £17.96 £21.25 £16.25
Median hourly rate £25.77 £33.00 £34.00
Median % change year-on-year -21.91% -2.94% -2.86%
75th Percentile £60.90 £63.75 £60.00
90th Percentile £72.50 £75.43 £72.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £25.15 £31.76 £35.00
% change year-on-year -20.81% -9.26% -

User Experience
Job Vacancy Trend

Historical trend showing the proportion of contract IT job postings citing User Experience relative to all contract IT jobs advertised.

User Experience job vacancy trend in the UK

User Experience
Daily Rate Trend

Contractor daily rate distribution trend for jobs in the UK citing User Experience.

Contractor daily rate distribution trend for jobs in the UK citing User Experience

User Experience
Daily Rate Histogram

Daily rate distribution for jobs citing User Experience over the 6 months to 24 February 2026.

Daily rate histogram for User Experience in the UK

User Experience
Hourly Rate Trend

Contractor hourly rate distribution trend for jobs in the UK citing User Experience.

Contractor hourly rate distribution trend for jobs in the UK citing User Experience

User Experience
Hourly Rate Histogram

Hourly rate distribution of jobs citing User Experience over the 6 months to 24 February 2026.

Hourly rate histogram for User Experience in the UK

User Experience
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 User Experience within the UK over the 6 months to 24 February 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 0 1,202 £485 -3.00% 647
London -12 629 £500 -4.76% 283
UK excluding London +2 602 £475 +5.56% 498
Work from Home -23 365 £489 -2.20% 316
North of England +12 210 £450 - 121
North West +20 140 £405 -10.00% 68
South East -9 119 £475 -5.47% 181
Midlands -13 109 £500 +25.00% 84
South West -3 67 £450 -5.26% 55
West Midlands -42 60 £450 -4.00% 51
Scotland -3 59 £473 +5.00% 14
Yorkshire -22 50 £525 +31.09% 36
East Midlands +6 49 £548 +53.79% 33
East of England -14 30 £426 -10.32% 34
North East -2 19 £375 -11.76% 18
Wales +7 15 £300 -29.41% 13
Northern Ireland -7 4 £625 +92.31% 2

User Experience
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 58 (4.16%) SharePoint
2 55 (3.94%) Confluence
3 39 (2.80%) CMS
4 23 (1.65%) Adobe Experience Manager
5 13 (0.93%) Microsoft Exchange
6 11 (0.79%) Headless CMS
6 11 (0.79%) SugarCRM
7 10 (0.72%) Apache
8 8 (0.57%) Sitecore CMS
8 8 (0.57%) Umbraco
9 4 (0.29%) Camunda
9 4 (0.29%) Ethereum
9 4 (0.29%) Hyperledger
10 3 (0.22%) Anypoint
10 3 (0.22%) Apache Spark
10 3 (0.22%) Jupyter
11 2 (0.14%) Apache Airflow
11 2 (0.14%) Drupal
11 2 (0.14%) Mendix
11 2 (0.14%) WordPress
Applications
1 51 (3.66%) Sketch
2 38 (2.72%) Adobe XD
3 25 (1.79%) MS Visio
4 23 (1.65%) Microsoft Excel
5 19 (1.36%) Chatbot
5 19 (1.36%) Microsoft Office
6 14 (1.00%) InVision
7 11 (0.79%) Photoshop
8 10 (0.72%) Adobe Illustrator
9 7 (0.50%) Microsoft PowerPoint
10 6 (0.43%) Spreadsheet
10 6 (0.43%) Trello
11 5 (0.36%) Adobe After Effects
12 4 (0.29%) Adobe Creative Suite
12 4 (0.29%) Microsoft Project
12 4 (0.29%) UXPin
13 3 (0.22%) Adobe Captivate
13 3 (0.22%) UserZoom
14 2 (0.14%) Camtasia
14 2 (0.14%) InDesign
Business Applications
1 22 (1.58%) SAP S/4HANA
2 15 (1.08%) Dynamics CRM
3 5 (0.36%) Shopify
3 5 (0.36%) Workday HCM
4 4 (0.29%) Sage X3
5 3 (0.22%) SAP CO
5 3 (0.22%) SAP FI
5 3 (0.22%) SAP FI/CO
6 2 (0.14%) iTrent
6 2 (0.14%) Magento
6 2 (0.14%) Oracle EBS
6 2 (0.14%) SAP ERP
6 2 (0.14%) SAP SD
6 2 (0.14%) SAP Travel Management
7 1 (0.072%) Elite 3E
7 1 (0.072%) Eloqua
7 1 (0.072%) Integrated Workplace Management System
7 1 (0.072%) NEC Housing
7 1 (0.072%) NetSuite
7 1 (0.072%) Salesforce CRM
Cloud Services
1 234 (16.77%) Azure
2 193 (13.84%) Figma
3 150 (10.75%) AWS
4 101 (7.24%) Power Platform
5 76 (5.45%) Microsoft 365
6 73 (5.23%) SaaS
7 70 (5.02%) GCP
8 55 (3.94%) Azure DevOps
9 52 (3.73%) Entra ID
9 52 (3.73%) GitHub
10 36 (2.58%) Power Automate
11 34 (2.44%) Miro
11 34 (2.44%) PowerApps
12 33 (2.37%) GitHub Actions
13 32 (2.29%) Serverless
14 23 (1.65%) Google Analytics
14 23 (1.65%) Google Workspace
14 23 (1.65%) Microsoft Copilot
15 22 (1.58%) Cloud Computing
15 22 (1.58%) Dynamics 365
Communications & Networking
1 26 (1.86%) DNS
2 20 (1.43%) Wireless
3 16 (1.15%) Internet
4 15 (1.08%) HTTP
5 12 (0.86%) Wi-Fi
6 11 (0.79%) VPN
7 10 (0.72%) DHCP
8 9 (0.65%) Intranet
8 9 (0.65%) TCP/IP
9 8 (0.57%) BGP
9 8 (0.57%) Cisco ISE
9 8 (0.57%) Firewall
10 7 (0.50%) Cisco Wireless
10 7 (0.50%) NX-OS
10 7 (0.50%) VXLAN
10 7 (0.50%) WAN
11 6 (0.43%) Unified Communications
12 5 (0.36%) Network Security
12 5 (0.36%) SD-WAN
12 5 (0.36%) SSL
Database & Business Intelligence
1 66 (4.73%) Power BI
2 40 (2.87%) MySQL
3 36 (2.58%) Relational Database
4 30 (2.15%) NoSQL
5 29 (2.08%) PostgreSQL
6 21 (1.51%) Data Warehouse
6 21 (1.51%) SQL Server
7 16 (1.15%) Tableau
8 15 (1.08%) MongoDB
9 14 (1.00%) BigQuery
9 14 (1.00%) Metadata
10 13 (0.93%) Looker
11 7 (0.50%) Mixpanel
12 6 (0.43%) DynamoDB
12 6 (0.43%) Pinecone
12 6 (0.43%) Power Query
13 5 (0.36%) Hadoop
13 5 (0.36%) Redis
13 5 (0.36%) SAP HANA
14 4 (0.29%) Oracle Database
Development Applications
1 121 (8.67%) JIRA
2 90 (6.45%) Git
3 46 (3.30%) GitLab
4 33 (2.37%) Jenkins
5 29 (2.08%) Cypress.io
6 26 (1.86%) JUnit
7 24 (1.72%) Axure RP
8 21 (1.51%) Android Studio
9 20 (1.43%) Xcode
10 17 (1.22%) Eclipse
11 15 (1.08%) Browser DevTools
11 15 (1.08%) Gradle
12 12 (0.86%) CircleCI
13 10 (0.72%) Postman
14 9 (0.65%) Artifactory
15 8 (0.57%) Mocha
15 8 (0.57%) Mockito
16 7 (0.50%) Cucumber
16 7 (0.50%) Selenium
16 7 (0.50%) Visual Website Optimizer
General
1 473 (33.91%) Social Skills
2 262 (18.78%) Finance
3 201 (14.41%) Public Sector
4 160 (11.47%) Analytical Skills
5 103 (7.38%) Banking
6 77 (5.52%) Marketing
7 39 (2.80%) Retail
8 32 (2.29%) Influencing Skills
9 28 (2.01%) Legal
9 28 (2.01%) Presentation Skills
10 22 (1.58%) Manufacturing
11 20 (1.43%) Pharmaceutical
12 17 (1.22%) Financial Institution
13 16 (1.15%) Documentation Skills
14 15 (1.08%) Investment Banking
15 14 (1.00%) Telecoms
16 13 (0.93%) Inclusion and Diversity
17 12 (0.86%) Games
18 10 (0.72%) Organisational Skills
19 9 (0.65%) Publishing
Job Titles
1 251 (17.99%) Designer
2 234 (16.77%) Developer
3 204 (14.62%) Senior
4 141 (10.11%) UX Designer
5 126 (9.03%) Analyst
6 80 (5.73%) Lead
7 61 (4.37%) Business Analyst
8 60 (4.30%) Product Designer
9 59 (4.23%) Senior Designer
10 58 (4.16%) Consultant
11 50 (3.58%) Architect
12 46 (3.30%) User Researcher
13 40 (2.87%) Front-End Developer (Client-Side Developer)
13 40 (2.87%) Full-Stack Developer
13 40 (2.87%) Service Designer
13 40 (2.87%) UI Designer
14 39 (2.80%) Senior Developer
14 39 (2.80%) Software Engineer
15 36 (2.58%) Senior UX Designer
15 36 (2.58%) Support Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 174 (12.47%) React
2 173 (12.40%) CSS
3 156 (11.18%) HTML
4 116 (8.32%) REST
5 93 (6.67%) RESTful
6 92 (6.59%) AngularJS
7 60 (4.30%) Spring
7 60 (4.30%) Spring Boot
8 58 (4.16%) .NET
9 55 (3.94%) Node.js
10 42 (3.01%) HTML5
11 41 (2.94%) GraphQL
12 34 (2.44%) CSS3
12 34 (2.44%) Jest
13 31 (2.22%) JSON
14 28 (2.01%) Redux
15 25 (1.79%) Next.js
15 25 (1.79%) SOAP
16 22 (1.58%) OAuth
16 22 (1.58%) Playwright
Miscellaneous
1 144 (10.32%) Product Ownership
2 95 (6.81%) Mobile App
3 57 (4.09%) Onboarding
4 28 (2.01%) Enterprise Software
5 27 (1.94%) AI Agents
5 27 (1.94%) Analytical Mindset
6 24 (1.72%) Data Structures
7 16 (1.15%) Data Protection Act
7 16 (1.15%) Distributed Systems
7 16 (1.15%) Low-Code
8 15 (1.08%) Cloud Native
8 15 (1.08%) Data Centre
8 15 (1.08%) Legacy Systems
8 15 (1.08%) NHS
8 15 (1.08%) Virtual Team
9 13 (0.93%) CMDB
10 12 (0.86%) Algorithms
10 12 (0.86%) Foreign Exchange (FX)
11 11 (0.79%) e-Learning
11 11 (0.79%) Management Information System
Operating Systems
1 124 (8.89%) Windows
2 55 (3.94%) Android
3 40 (2.87%) Apple iOS
4 37 (2.65%) Windows 10
5 31 (2.22%) Linux
6 24 (1.72%) Mac OS
7 18 (1.29%) Unix
8 6 (0.43%) Windows Server
9 3 (0.22%) Ubuntu
10 2 (0.14%) VMS
11 1 (0.072%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
11 1 (0.072%) Windows 7
11 1 (0.072%) Windows Server 2008
11 1 (0.072%) Windows Server 2016
Processes & Methodologies
1 491 (35.20%) Agile
2 468 (33.55%) UX Design
3 227 (16.27%) Analytics
4 221 (15.84%) Problem-Solving
5 218 (15.63%) User Research
6 185 (13.26%) CI/CD
7 175 (12.54%) Stakeholder Management
8 166 (11.90%) DevOps
9 164 (11.76%) AI
10 158 (11.33%) Continuous Improvement
11 148 (10.61%) Stakeholder Engagement
12 147 (10.54%) Roadmaps
13 142 (10.18%) User-Centered Design (UCD)
14 133 (9.53%) Prototyping
15 127 (9.10%) Wireframes
16 125 (8.96%) Service Design
17 123 (8.82%) Decision-Making
17 123 (8.82%) Usability Testing
18 114 (8.17%) UX Research
19 105 (7.53%) Workshop Facilitation
Programming Languages
1 206 (14.77%) JavaScript
2 134 (9.61%) SQL
3 121 (8.67%) Python
4 118 (8.46%) Java
5 112 (8.03%) TypeScript
6 61 (4.37%) PowerShell
7 60 (4.30%) C#
8 34 (2.44%) Kotlin
9 23 (1.65%) Bash
10 20 (1.43%) PHP
11 18 (1.29%) Perl
12 15 (1.08%) Swift
13 11 (0.79%) C++
13 11 (0.79%) Data Analysis Expressions
14 9 (0.65%) Go
15 8 (0.57%) PL/SQL
16 7 (0.50%) Lisp
16 7 (0.50%) Scala
17 5 (0.36%) Lua
18 4 (0.29%) Objective-C
Qualifications
1 183 (13.12%) Security Cleared
2 135 (9.68%) SC Cleared
3 126 (9.03%) Degree
4 41 (2.94%) BPSS Clearance
5 19 (1.36%) Computer Science Degree
6 17 (1.22%) DV Cleared
6 17 (1.22%) Master's Degree
7 13 (0.93%) Microsoft Certification
8 11 (0.79%) MOS
9 10 (0.72%) CCNP
9 10 (0.72%) Cisco Certification
10 8 (0.57%) PMI Certification
11 7 (0.50%) OCA
11 7 (0.50%) Oracle Certification
12 4 (0.29%) Azure Certification
12 4 (0.29%) CCA
12 4 (0.29%) Citrix Certification
13 3 (0.22%) ITIL Certification
14 2 (0.14%) CISM
14 2 (0.14%) PMP
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 255 (18.28%) Accessibility
2 141 (10.11%) QA
3 75 (5.38%) WCAG
4 49 (3.51%) GDPR
5 45 (3.23%) Data Quality
6 26 (1.86%) ISO/IEC 27001
7 23 (1.65%) Actionable Recommendations
8 20 (1.43%) SLA
9 7 (0.50%) PMO
10 6 (0.43%) NCSC
11 5 (0.36%) GxP
12 4 (0.29%) California Consumer Privacy Act
13 3 (0.22%) Cyber Essentials
13 3 (0.22%) Disclosure Scotland
13 3 (0.22%) GMP
13 3 (0.22%) Government Security Classifications
13 3 (0.22%) HIPAA
13 3 (0.22%) NIST
13 3 (0.22%) SOC 2
14 2 (0.14%) Sarbanes-Oxley
System Software
1 73 (5.23%) Active Directory
2 64 (4.59%) Docker
3 22 (1.58%) VMware Infrastructure
4 12 (0.86%) Virtual Desktop
5 3 (0.22%) Hyper-V
6 2 (0.14%) ProxySG
7 1 (0.072%) BitLocker
7 1 (0.072%) ISA Server
7 1 (0.072%) Microsoft App-V
7 1 (0.072%) Virtual Machines
7 1 (0.072%) VMware ESXi
7 1 (0.072%) XenApp
7 1 (0.072%) XenDesktop
Systems Management
1 57 (4.09%) Kubernetes
2 44 (3.15%) Microsoft Intune
3 40 (2.87%) Terraform
4 37 (2.65%) SCCM
5 24 (1.72%) Grafana
6 16 (1.15%) Ansible
6 16 (1.15%) Single Sign-On
7 7 (0.50%) FortiGate
8 6 (0.43%) Jamf Pro
8 6 (0.43%) Prometheus
9 4 (0.29%) Argo
9 4 (0.29%) HP ALM
10 3 (0.22%) Nagios
10 3 (0.22%) Rancher
11 2 (0.14%) PingFederate
11 2 (0.14%) SysTrack
12 1 (0.072%) Active Directory Federation Services
12 1 (0.072%) Consul
12 1 (0.072%) Istio
12 1 (0.072%) Podman
Vendors
1 231 (16.56%) Microsoft
2 92 (6.59%) Adobe
3 88 (6.31%) Google
4 79 (5.66%) ServiceNow
5 52 (3.73%) SAP
6 42 (3.01%) Salesforce
7 41 (2.94%) Oracle
8 28 (2.01%) Splunk
9 23 (1.65%) VMware
10 21 (1.51%) Citrix
11 15 (1.08%) Cisco
12 13 (0.93%) Apple
12 13 (0.93%) Zscaler
13 12 (0.86%) Red Hat
14 11 (0.79%) Amplitude
14 11 (0.79%) Hotjar
15 10 (0.72%) OpenAI
16 9 (0.65%) MuleSoft
16 9 (0.65%) Optimizely
16 9 (0.65%) Workday