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 10 June 2026, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
10 Jun 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 80 61 75
Rank change year-on-year -19 +14 -15
Contract jobs citing User Experience 1,489 1,120 1,195
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 3.01% 3.81% 2.74%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 3.55% 4.19% 3.21%
Number of daily rates quoted 953 734 794
10th Percentile £325 £304 £313
25th Percentile £402 £386 £400
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £493 £475 £500
Median % change year-on-year +3.68% -5.00% -2.91%
75th Percentile £585 £577 £600
90th Percentile £679 £688 £688
UK excluding London median daily rate £475 £425 £475
% change year-on-year +11.76% -10.53% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 64 30 49
10th Percentile £16.00 £31.11 £16.25
25th Percentile £21.22 £35.25 £23.75
Median hourly rate £33.99 £53.50 £31.71
Median % change year-on-year -36.47% +68.72% +7.15%
75th Percentile £54.43 £68.87 £61.25
90th Percentile £67.87 £86.50 £74.44
UK excluding London median hourly rate £33.99 £70.08 £25.00
% change year-on-year -51.51% +180.32% +42.86%

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 41,920 26,731 37,187
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 84.71% 91.01% 85.22%
Number of daily rates quoted 26,154 16,984 23,772
10th Percentile £325 £300 £300
25th Percentile £413 £406 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £513 £508 £525
Median % change year-on-year +0.99% -3.33% -4.55%
75th Percentile £619 £625 £638
90th Percentile £725 £738 £750
UK excluding London median daily rate £500 £475 £500
% change year-on-year +5.26% -5.00% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 2,513 1,182 2,587
10th Percentile £14.68 £14.20 £12.75
25th Percentile £20.00 £17.87 £16.00
Median hourly rate £43.96 £27.28 £36.50
Median % change year-on-year +61.14% -25.26% +1.39%
75th Percentile £67.84 £56.00 £61.16
90th Percentile £81.24 £73.75 £72.50
UK excluding London median hourly rate £43.96 £25.15 £38.12
% change year-on-year +74.79% -34.02% +8.91%

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 10 June 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 10 June 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 10 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 -13 1,280 £488 +1.04% 635
UK excluding London +3 683 £475 +11.76% 439
London -27 649 £522 +4.40% 301
Work from Home -24 397 £500 +3.36% 367
North of England -16 197 £450 +7.46% 122
Midlands -5 155 £475 +18.16% 54
South East -17 130 £490 +3.16% 146
North West -6 121 £423 -5.48% 83
West Midlands -9 106 £475 -9.52% 37
Scotland +9 80 £505 +10.99% 12
South West +1 74 £475 +26.67% 32
Yorkshire -29 55 £513 +29.91% 25
East Midlands 0 49 £550 +55.81% 17
East of England -8 32 £410 -13.68% 51
North East -16 21 £450 -6.25% 15
Wales -13 14 £503 +64.22% 16
Northern Ireland -2 3 - - 13

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 (3.90%) SharePoint
2 50 (3.36%) Confluence
3 44 (2.96%) CMS
4 23 (1.54%) Microsoft Exchange
5 12 (0.81%) Adobe Experience Manager
6 7 (0.47%) WordPress
7 5 (0.34%) Apache
7 5 (0.34%) Camunda
7 5 (0.34%) Drupal
7 5 (0.34%) Mendix
7 5 (0.34%) Skype for Business
8 4 (0.27%) Ethereum
8 4 (0.27%) Hyperledger
8 4 (0.27%) Kentico
8 4 (0.27%) Umbraco
9 3 (0.20%) Headless CMS
9 3 (0.20%) nginx
10 2 (0.13%) IIS
10 2 (0.13%) Moodle
10 2 (0.13%) Palantir Foundry
Applications
1 37 (2.48%) Sketch
2 24 (1.61%) Microsoft Excel
3 22 (1.48%) Photoshop
4 21 (1.41%) Adobe Creative Suite
5 20 (1.34%) Chatbot
6 18 (1.21%) Adobe After Effects
6 18 (1.21%) Adobe XD
7 17 (1.14%) Adobe Illustrator
8 14 (0.94%) Microsoft Office
8 14 (0.94%) MS Visio
9 8 (0.54%) Microsoft PowerPoint
10 7 (0.47%) InVision
11 4 (0.27%) Adobe Captivate
11 4 (0.27%) Final Cut Pro
12 3 (0.20%) Spreadsheet
12 3 (0.20%) Trello
12 3 (0.20%) UserZoom
12 3 (0.20%) UXPin
13 2 (0.13%) Oracle Smart View
14 1 (0.067%) Blender
Business Applications
1 13 (0.87%) SAP S/4HANA
2 9 (0.60%) Dynamics CRM
2 9 (0.60%) Workday HCM
3 8 (0.54%) Shopify
4 6 (0.40%) Sage X3
5 4 (0.27%) NetSuite
6 2 (0.13%) Oracle iProcurement
6 2 (0.13%) Oracle Payables
6 2 (0.13%) Oracle Receivables
6 2 (0.13%) Payment Gateway
6 2 (0.13%) Remedy ITSM
6 2 (0.13%) ResourceLink
6 2 (0.13%) SAP ERP
7 1 (0.067%) Adobe Campaign
7 1 (0.067%) Eloqua
7 1 (0.067%) Integrated Workplace Management System
7 1 (0.067%) NEC Housing
7 1 (0.067%) Oracle EBS R12
7 1 (0.067%) Salesforce CRM
7 1 (0.067%) Sprinklr
Cloud Services
1 232 (15.58%) Azure
2 212 (14.24%) Figma
3 127 (8.53%) AWS
4 113 (7.59%) Microsoft 365
5 109 (7.32%) Power Platform
6 60 (4.03%) Entra ID
7 54 (3.63%) Azure DevOps
8 48 (3.22%) GitHub
9 47 (3.16%) Microsoft Copilot
9 47 (3.16%) SaaS
10 43 (2.89%) GCP
11 36 (2.42%) PowerApps
12 34 (2.28%) Power Automate
13 31 (2.08%) GitHub Actions
13 31 (2.08%) OneDrive
13 31 (2.08%) Serverless
14 25 (1.68%) Copilot Studio
15 23 (1.54%) Google Workspace
16 20 (1.34%) Google Sheets
17 18 (1.21%) Cloud Computing
Communications & Networking
1 27 (1.81%) DNS
2 23 (1.54%) DHCP
3 21 (1.41%) Wi-Fi
4 18 (1.21%) Wireless
5 17 (1.14%) TCP/IP
6 14 (0.94%) LAN
7 13 (0.87%) Internet
8 12 (0.81%) Intranet
9 10 (0.67%) SD-WAN
10 9 (0.60%) HTTP
11 8 (0.54%) Cisco Wireless
11 8 (0.54%) VPN
11 8 (0.54%) WAN
12 7 (0.47%) 5G
12 7 (0.47%) Firewall
12 7 (0.47%) Skype
12 7 (0.47%) WLAN
13 6 (0.40%) Network Security
13 6 (0.40%) SNMP
14 5 (0.34%) SMS
Database & Business Intelligence
1 71 (4.77%) Power BI
2 25 (1.68%) PostgreSQL
2 25 (1.68%) Relational Database
3 24 (1.61%) NoSQL
4 23 (1.54%) Metadata
5 22 (1.48%) SQL Server
6 17 (1.14%) Power Query
7 16 (1.07%) Data Warehouse
8 14 (0.94%) MongoDB
9 13 (0.87%) MySQL
10 10 (0.67%) Big Data
11 9 (0.60%) Tableau
12 7 (0.47%) DynamoDB
12 7 (0.47%) Redis
13 6 (0.40%) Elasticsearch
13 6 (0.40%) Oracle Database
13 6 (0.40%) Pinecone
13 6 (0.40%) ZAP BI
14 5 (0.34%) BigQuery
14 5 (0.34%) Oracle BI Publisher
Development Applications
1 96 (6.45%) JIRA
2 85 (5.71%) Git
3 24 (1.61%) Cypress.io
4 23 (1.54%) Jenkins
5 22 (1.48%) GitLab
6 16 (1.07%) JUnit
7 15 (1.01%) Vite
8 11 (0.74%) Gradle
9 10 (0.67%) Android Studio
9 10 (0.67%) Axure RP
9 10 (0.67%) Browser DevTools
10 9 (0.60%) Selenium
10 9 (0.60%) Xcode
11 8 (0.54%) CircleCI
11 8 (0.54%) fastlane
11 8 (0.54%) Visual Studio
12 7 (0.47%) Claude Code
12 7 (0.47%) Postman
13 6 (0.40%) webpack
14 5 (0.34%) Mockito
General
1 447 (30.02%) Social Skills
2 253 (16.99%) Finance
3 190 (12.76%) Public Sector
4 138 (9.27%) Analytical Skills
5 113 (7.59%) Banking
6 71 (4.77%) Retail
7 63 (4.23%) Marketing
8 37 (2.48%) Inclusion and Diversity
9 33 (2.22%) Legal
10 31 (2.08%) Presentation Skills
11 30 (2.01%) Influencing Skills
12 28 (1.88%) Automotive
13 26 (1.75%) Manufacturing
14 21 (1.41%) Publishing
15 17 (1.14%) Documentation Skills
15 17 (1.14%) Investment Banking
16 15 (1.01%) Organisational Skills
16 15 (1.01%) Pharmaceutical
17 13 (0.87%) Games
18 12 (0.81%) Local Government
Job Titles
1 319 (21.42%) Designer
2 229 (15.38%) Senior
3 200 (13.43%) Developer
4 144 (9.67%) UX Designer
5 117 (7.86%) Analyst
6 95 (6.38%) Lead
7 76 (5.10%) UI Designer
8 72 (4.84%) Consultant
9 67 (4.50%) Senior Designer
10 63 (4.23%) Product Designer
11 62 (4.16%) Architect
12 59 (3.96%) Business Analyst
13 51 (3.43%) Content Designer
14 49 (3.29%) User Researcher
15 48 (3.22%) User Experience Researcher
16 46 (3.09%) IT Support
17 45 (3.02%) UI/UX Designer
18 42 (2.82%) Product Manager
19 38 (2.55%) Senior Developer
20 33 (2.22%) Senior UX Designer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 157 (10.54%) React
2 128 (8.60%) CSS
3 115 (7.72%) HTML
4 96 (6.45%) REST
5 70 (4.70%) AngularJS
6 68 (4.57%) RESTful
7 53 (3.56%) .NET
8 51 (3.43%) Spring
9 50 (3.36%) Spring Boot
10 34 (2.28%) GraphQL
11 33 (2.22%) Node.js
12 32 (2.15%) Redux
13 31 (2.08%) JSON
14 29 (1.95%) Kafka
15 28 (1.88%) HTML5
16 27 (1.81%) Jest
17 26 (1.75%) CSS3
18 25 (1.68%) ASP.NET
19 24 (1.61%) OAuth
20 23 (1.54%) Next.js
Miscellaneous
1 150 (10.07%) Product Ownership
2 73 (4.90%) Mobile App
3 61 (4.10%) Onboarding
4 37 (2.48%) AI Agents
5 33 (2.22%) Cloud Native
6 30 (2.01%) Data Structures
7 27 (1.81%) Enterprise Software
8 25 (1.68%) Legacy Systems
9 21 (1.41%) Animation
9 21 (1.41%) Self-Motivation
10 20 (1.34%) Data Protection Act
11 17 (1.14%) Analytical Mindset
11 17 (1.14%) Data Centre
12 16 (1.07%) Foreign Exchange (FX)
13 15 (1.01%) Distributed Systems
13 15 (1.01%) Social Media
13 15 (1.01%) Taxonomies
14 14 (0.94%) Algorithms
15 13 (0.87%) Greenfield Project
15 13 (0.87%) Virtual Team
Operating Systems
1 107 (7.19%) Windows
2 48 (3.22%) Apple iOS
3 46 (3.09%) Android
4 32 (2.15%) Windows 10
5 24 (1.61%) Mac OS
6 14 (0.94%) Linux
7 12 (0.81%) Windows Server
8 6 (0.40%) Windows 7
9 5 (0.34%) Windows Server 2016
10 4 (0.27%) Unix
10 4 (0.27%) Windows Server 2019
11 2 (0.13%) Windows Server 2012
12 1 (0.067%) Windows Server 2008
Processes & Methodologies
1 506 (33.98%) UX Design
2 449 (30.15%) Agile
3 253 (16.99%) AI
4 221 (14.84%) Problem-Solving
5 202 (13.57%) User Research
6 197 (13.23%) Analytics
7 189 (12.69%) Stakeholder Management
8 184 (12.36%) Continuous Improvement
9 162 (10.88%) Roadmaps
9 162 (10.88%) Stakeholder Engagement
10 161 (10.81%) CI/CD
11 147 (9.87%) Prototyping
12 140 (9.40%) DevOps
13 139 (9.34%) User-Centered Design (UCD)
14 130 (8.73%) Wireframes
15 126 (8.46%) UX Research
16 121 (8.13%) Decision-Making
17 120 (8.06%) Service Design
18 106 (7.12%) Usability Testing
18 106 (7.12%) Workshop Facilitation
Programming Languages
1 157 (10.54%) JavaScript
2 118 (7.92%) Python
3 117 (7.86%) TypeScript
4 116 (7.79%) SQL
5 109 (7.32%) Java
6 58 (3.90%) C#
7 49 (3.29%) PowerShell
8 30 (2.01%) Kotlin
9 22 (1.48%) Data Analysis Expressions
10 16 (1.07%) Bash
11 13 (0.87%) Swift
12 11 (0.74%) C++
13 9 (0.60%) Lua
14 8 (0.54%) Korn
15 6 (0.40%) R
15 6 (0.40%) VBA
15 6 (0.40%) VBScript
16 5 (0.34%) Apex Code
16 5 (0.34%) Scala
16 5 (0.34%) VB
Qualifications
1 194 (13.03%) Security Cleared
2 144 (9.67%) SC Cleared
3 139 (9.34%) Degree
4 27 (1.81%) BPSS Clearance
4 27 (1.81%) Computer Science Degree
5 22 (1.48%) DV Cleared
5 22 (1.48%) Microsoft Certification
6 17 (1.14%) Azure Certification
7 11 (0.74%) Cisco Certification
8 9 (0.60%) Master's Degree
9 8 (0.54%) CCA
9 8 (0.54%) CCNP
9 8 (0.54%) ITIL Certification
10 7 (0.47%) CCIE
10 7 (0.47%) Citrix Certification
10 7 (0.47%) VMware Certified Professional (VCP)
11 6 (0.40%) DBS Check
11 6 (0.40%) PMP
12 5 (0.34%) MCSE
13 4 (0.27%) PMI Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 257 (17.26%) Accessibility
2 96 (6.45%) QA
3 88 (5.91%) WCAG
4 46 (3.09%) Data Quality
5 26 (1.75%) GDPR
6 19 (1.28%) Actionable Recommendations
7 14 (0.94%) ISO/IEC 27001
8 6 (0.40%) Cyber Essentials
8 6 (0.40%) GMP
8 6 (0.40%) GxP
8 6 (0.40%) ISO/IEC 42001
8 6 (0.40%) PMO
8 6 (0.40%) SLA
9 4 (0.27%) HMG Security Policy Framework
10 3 (0.20%) GRC
10 3 (0.20%) PCI DSS
11 2 (0.13%) HIPAA
11 2 (0.13%) NCSC
11 2 (0.13%) NIST
12 1 (0.067%) ISO/IEC 20000
System Software
1 70 (4.70%) Active Directory
2 50 (3.36%) Docker
3 24 (1.61%) Virtual Desktop
4 16 (1.07%) VMware Infrastructure
5 6 (0.40%) Firmware
6 5 (0.34%) BitLocker
7 4 (0.27%) Microsoft App-V
8 3 (0.20%) Hyper-V
8 3 (0.20%) Virtual Machines
9 2 (0.13%) VMware ESXi
9 2 (0.13%) VMware Workstation
9 2 (0.13%) vSphere
9 2 (0.13%) XenApp
9 2 (0.13%) XenDesktop
10 1 (0.067%) Varnish
Systems Management
1 50 (3.36%) Kubernetes
2 45 (3.02%) Terraform
3 44 (2.96%) Microsoft Intune
4 34 (2.28%) SCCM
5 31 (2.08%) Grafana
6 17 (1.14%) Single Sign-On
7 13 (0.87%) Ansible
7 13 (0.87%) Jamf Pro
8 9 (0.60%) Prometheus
9 4 (0.27%) Clonezilla
9 4 (0.27%) Podman
10 3 (0.20%) Systems Management Server (SMS)
10 3 (0.20%) WSUS
11 2 (0.13%) Failover Clustering
11 2 (0.13%) HP ALM
11 2 (0.13%) Packer
11 2 (0.13%) SCOM
11 2 (0.13%) vCenter Server
11 2 (0.13%) vMotion
12 1 (0.067%) Argo
Vendors
1 238 (15.98%) Microsoft
2 89 (5.98%) Adobe
3 68 (4.57%) ServiceNow
4 60 (4.03%) Google
5 40 (2.69%) Salesforce
5 40 (2.69%) SAP
6 36 (2.42%) Oracle
7 22 (1.48%) Citrix
8 21 (1.41%) Databricks
9 18 (1.21%) Dynatrace
10 17 (1.14%) Cisco
10 17 (1.14%) Splunk
10 17 (1.14%) Workday
11 16 (1.07%) Apple
11 16 (1.07%) VMware
12 12 (0.81%) Aruba
12 12 (0.81%) Foundry
13 11 (0.74%) OpenAI
14 8 (0.54%) Zscaler
15 6 (0.40%) Cribl.io