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

6 months to
3 Jun 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 80 58 76
Rank change year-on-year -22 +18 -18
Contract jobs citing User Experience 1,497 1,091 1,184
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 3.06% 3.79% 2.75%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 3.62% 4.17% 3.22%
Number of daily rates quoted 968 724 791
10th Percentile £315 £304 £306
25th Percentile £400 £400 £401
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £489 £480 £500
Median % change year-on-year +1.82% -4.00% -2.44%
75th Percentile £575 £580 £600
90th Percentile £675 £692 £688
UK excluding London median daily rate £475 £425 £475
% change year-on-year +11.76% -10.53% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 66 27 46
10th Percentile £16.00 £25.84 £16.25
25th Percentile £23.04 £40.38 £23.75
Median hourly rate £33.99 £53.50 £29.14
Median % change year-on-year -36.47% +83.63% -1.55%
75th Percentile £61.05 £68.75 £59.69
90th Percentile £76.00 £89.50 £74.44
UK excluding London median hourly rate £33.99 £70.00 £25.00
% change year-on-year -51.44% +180.00% +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 41,363 26,184 36,825
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 84.68% 91.01% 85.46%
Number of daily rates quoted 25,810 16,717 23,641
10th Percentile £325 £300 £300
25th Percentile £413 £408 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £513 £513 £525
Median % change year-on-year - -2.38% -4.55%
75th Percentile £613 £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 2,496 1,118 2,535
10th Percentile £14.64 £14.20 £12.75
25th Percentile £19.98 £17.87 £16.00
Median hourly rate £42.69 £27.85 £36.50
Median % change year-on-year +53.27% -23.70% +1.39%
75th Percentile £67.84 £57.19 £60.75
90th Percentile £81.14 £73.75 £72.50
UK excluding London median hourly rate £45.00 £25.15 £38.12
% change year-on-year +78.93% -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 3 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 3 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 3 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 -10 1,284 £481 -2.93% 1,056
UK excluding London +6 692 £475 +11.76% 605
London -21 643 £513 -0.24% 587
Work from Home -18 406 £500 +4.22% 1,025
North of England -12 201 £450 +0.67% 181
Midlands +6 166 £475 +17.72% 78
South East -10 128 £490 +7.93% 158
North West +2 126 £420 -6.67% 119
West Midlands -12 115 £475 -7.32% 55
Scotland +16 78 £505 +12.22% 28
South West -5 72 £475 +26.67% 48
Yorkshire -27 55 £525 +34.96% 42
East Midlands +5 51 £550 +54.49% 22
East of England -16 31 £410 -14.14% 70
North East -24 20 £450 -6.25% 22
Wales -10 15 £475 +55.23% 23
Northern Ireland -1 3 - - 25

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 60 (4.01%) SharePoint
2 49 (3.27%) Confluence
3 43 (2.87%) CMS
4 23 (1.54%) Microsoft Exchange
5 14 (0.94%) Adobe Experience Manager
6 8 (0.53%) Apache
7 7 (0.47%) WordPress
8 5 (0.33%) Camunda
8 5 (0.33%) Drupal
8 5 (0.33%) Mendix
8 5 (0.33%) Skype for Business
9 4 (0.27%) Ethereum
9 4 (0.27%) Hyperledger
9 4 (0.27%) Kentico
9 4 (0.27%) Umbraco
10 3 (0.20%) Anypoint
10 3 (0.20%) Headless CMS
10 3 (0.20%) nginx
11 2 (0.13%) Moodle
11 2 (0.13%) Palantir Foundry
Applications
1 42 (2.81%) Sketch
2 24 (1.60%) Adobe XD
2 24 (1.60%) Microsoft Excel
3 23 (1.54%) Photoshop
4 19 (1.27%) Chatbot
5 18 (1.20%) Adobe After Effects
5 18 (1.20%) Adobe Creative Suite
5 18 (1.20%) Adobe Illustrator
6 15 (1.00%) MS Visio
7 14 (0.94%) Microsoft Office
8 8 (0.53%) InVision
8 8 (0.53%) Microsoft PowerPoint
9 4 (0.27%) Adobe Captivate
9 4 (0.27%) Trello
10 3 (0.20%) Final Cut Pro
10 3 (0.20%) Spreadsheet
10 3 (0.20%) UserZoom
10 3 (0.20%) UXPin
11 2 (0.13%) Oracle Smart View
12 1 (0.067%) Blender
Business Applications
1 12 (0.80%) SAP S/4HANA
2 9 (0.60%) Dynamics CRM
2 9 (0.60%) Shopify
2 9 (0.60%) Workday HCM
3 6 (0.40%) Sage X3
4 4 (0.27%) NetSuite
5 2 (0.13%) Oracle iProcurement
5 2 (0.13%) Oracle Payables
5 2 (0.13%) Oracle Receivables
5 2 (0.13%) Payment Gateway
5 2 (0.13%) ResourceLink
5 2 (0.13%) SAP ERP
6 1 (0.067%) assyst
6 1 (0.067%) Eloqua
6 1 (0.067%) Integrated Workplace Management System
6 1 (0.067%) NEC Housing
6 1 (0.067%) Oracle EBS
6 1 (0.067%) Salesforce CRM
6 1 (0.067%) SAP QM
6 1 (0.067%) Sprinklr
Cloud Services
1 230 (15.36%) Azure
2 213 (14.23%) Figma
3 133 (8.88%) AWS
4 111 (7.41%) Microsoft 365
5 107 (7.15%) Power Platform
6 60 (4.01%) Entra ID
7 54 (3.61%) Azure DevOps
8 51 (3.41%) GitHub
9 48 (3.21%) SaaS
10 46 (3.07%) GCP
11 43 (2.87%) Microsoft Copilot
12 35 (2.34%) PowerApps
13 33 (2.20%) GitHub Actions
13 33 (2.20%) Power Automate
13 33 (2.20%) Serverless
14 29 (1.94%) OneDrive
15 24 (1.60%) Google Workspace
16 23 (1.54%) Copilot Studio
17 21 (1.40%) Google Sheets
18 19 (1.27%) Cloud Computing
Communications & Networking
1 21 (1.40%) DNS
2 20 (1.34%) Wi-Fi
3 18 (1.20%) DHCP
4 16 (1.07%) Wireless
5 14 (0.94%) LAN
6 13 (0.87%) Internet
7 12 (0.80%) Intranet
7 12 (0.80%) TCP/IP
8 10 (0.67%) HTTP
8 10 (0.67%) SD-WAN
9 8 (0.53%) Cisco Wireless
9 8 (0.53%) VPN
9 8 (0.53%) WAN
10 7 (0.47%) 5G
10 7 (0.47%) Skype
10 7 (0.47%) WLAN
11 6 (0.40%) Firewall
11 6 (0.40%) SNMP
12 5 (0.33%) 802.11
12 5 (0.33%) Network Security
Database & Business Intelligence
1 70 (4.68%) Power BI
2 27 (1.80%) Relational Database
3 26 (1.74%) PostgreSQL
4 25 (1.67%) NoSQL
5 23 (1.54%) Metadata
6 22 (1.47%) SQL Server
7 17 (1.14%) Data Warehouse
8 15 (1.00%) MongoDB
8 15 (1.00%) Power Query
9 14 (0.94%) MySQL
10 10 (0.67%) Big Data
10 10 (0.67%) Tableau
11 8 (0.53%) DynamoDB
12 6 (0.40%) Elasticsearch
12 6 (0.40%) Oracle BI Publisher
12 6 (0.40%) Oracle Database
12 6 (0.40%) Pinecone
12 6 (0.40%) Redis
12 6 (0.40%) ZAP BI
13 5 (0.33%) BigQuery
Development Applications
1 99 (6.61%) JIRA
2 91 (6.08%) Git
3 32 (2.14%) GitLab
4 26 (1.74%) Cypress.io
5 24 (1.60%) Jenkins
6 17 (1.14%) JUnit
7 15 (1.00%) Gradle
7 15 (1.00%) Vite
8 12 (0.80%) Android Studio
9 11 (0.73%) Axure RP
9 11 (0.73%) Browser DevTools
10 10 (0.67%) CircleCI
10 10 (0.67%) Xcode
11 9 (0.60%) fastlane
11 9 (0.60%) Selenium
12 8 (0.53%) Visual Studio
13 7 (0.47%) Postman
14 6 (0.40%) Mocha
14 6 (0.40%) Mockito
14 6 (0.40%) webpack
General
1 452 (30.19%) Social Skills
2 252 (16.83%) Finance
3 193 (12.89%) Public Sector
4 145 (9.69%) Analytical Skills
5 110 (7.35%) Banking
6 66 (4.41%) Retail
7 63 (4.21%) Marketing
8 37 (2.47%) Inclusion and Diversity
9 33 (2.20%) Legal
10 32 (2.14%) Presentation Skills
11 31 (2.07%) Influencing Skills
12 28 (1.87%) Manufacturing
13 27 (1.80%) Automotive
14 21 (1.40%) Publishing
15 17 (1.14%) Documentation Skills
15 17 (1.14%) Investment Banking
15 17 (1.14%) Organisational Skills
16 16 (1.07%) Pharmaceutical
17 13 (0.87%) Games
17 13 (0.87%) Local Government
Job Titles
1 318 (21.24%) Designer
2 226 (15.10%) Senior
3 205 (13.69%) Developer
4 142 (9.49%) UX Designer
5 118 (7.88%) Analyst
6 95 (6.35%) Lead
7 75 (5.01%) UI Designer
8 71 (4.74%) Consultant
9 65 (4.34%) Senior Designer
10 63 (4.21%) Architect
11 62 (4.14%) Product Designer
12 60 (4.01%) Business Analyst
13 49 (3.27%) Content Designer
14 48 (3.21%) User Experience Researcher
14 48 (3.21%) User Researcher
15 46 (3.07%) UI/UX Designer
16 45 (3.01%) IT Support
17 41 (2.74%) Product Manager
18 38 (2.54%) Service Designer
19 37 (2.47%) Senior Developer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 164 (10.96%) React
2 136 (9.08%) CSS
3 125 (8.35%) HTML
4 108 (7.21%) REST
5 76 (5.08%) AngularJS
5 76 (5.08%) RESTful
6 56 (3.74%) Spring
7 55 (3.67%) Spring Boot
8 54 (3.61%) .NET
9 39 (2.61%) Node.js
10 38 (2.54%) GraphQL
11 34 (2.27%) HTML5
12 33 (2.20%) JSON
13 32 (2.14%) CSS3
13 32 (2.14%) Redux
14 30 (2.00%) Jest
15 28 (1.87%) Kafka
16 23 (1.54%) ASP.NET
16 23 (1.54%) Next.js
16 23 (1.54%) OAuth
Miscellaneous
1 153 (10.22%) Product Ownership
2 72 (4.81%) Mobile App
3 58 (3.87%) Onboarding
4 33 (2.20%) AI Agents
5 32 (2.14%) Cloud Native
6 30 (2.00%) Data Structures
7 28 (1.87%) Enterprise Software
8 23 (1.54%) Legacy Systems
9 20 (1.34%) Animation
9 20 (1.34%) Data Protection Act
10 19 (1.27%) Self-Motivation
11 18 (1.20%) Analytical Mindset
12 17 (1.14%) Foreign Exchange (FX)
13 16 (1.07%) Data Centre
14 15 (1.00%) Virtual Reality
15 14 (0.94%) Distributed Systems
15 14 (0.94%) Graphic Design
15 14 (0.94%) NHS
15 14 (0.94%) Social Media
16 13 (0.87%) Taxonomies
Operating Systems
1 107 (7.15%) Windows
2 47 (3.14%) Android
3 46 (3.07%) Apple iOS
4 35 (2.34%) Windows 10
5 25 (1.67%) Mac OS
6 15 (1.00%) Linux
7 8 (0.53%) Windows Server
8 6 (0.40%) Windows 7
9 5 (0.33%) Unix
9 5 (0.33%) Windows Server 2016
10 4 (0.27%) Windows Server 2019
11 2 (0.13%) Windows Server 2012
12 1 (0.067%) Windows Server 2008
Processes & Methodologies
1 508 (33.93%) UX Design
2 458 (30.59%) Agile
3 241 (16.10%) AI
4 221 (14.76%) Problem-Solving
5 201 (13.43%) User Research
6 200 (13.36%) Analytics
7 188 (12.56%) Continuous Improvement
8 186 (12.42%) Stakeholder Management
9 178 (11.89%) CI/CD
10 166 (11.09%) Stakeholder Engagement
11 161 (10.75%) Roadmaps
12 149 (9.95%) DevOps
13 144 (9.62%) Prototyping
14 140 (9.35%) User-Centered Design (UCD)
15 128 (8.55%) Wireframes
16 125 (8.35%) Decision-Making
16 125 (8.35%) UX Research
17 124 (8.28%) Service Design
18 107 (7.15%) Workshop Facilitation
19 106 (7.08%) Usability Testing
Programming Languages
1 163 (10.89%) JavaScript
2 124 (8.28%) Python
3 121 (8.08%) SQL
4 117 (7.82%) TypeScript
5 115 (7.68%) Java
6 56 (3.74%) C#
7 49 (3.27%) PowerShell
8 34 (2.27%) Kotlin
9 20 (1.34%) Data Analysis Expressions
10 18 (1.20%) Bash
11 14 (0.94%) Swift
12 11 (0.73%) C++
13 9 (0.60%) Lua
14 8 (0.53%) Korn
15 6 (0.40%) VBA
15 6 (0.40%) VBScript
16 5 (0.33%) Apex Code
16 5 (0.33%) R
16 5 (0.33%) Scala
16 5 (0.33%) VB
Qualifications
1 191 (12.76%) Security Cleared
2 142 (9.49%) Degree
3 139 (9.29%) SC Cleared
4 31 (2.07%) Computer Science Degree
5 29 (1.94%) BPSS Clearance
6 24 (1.60%) DV Cleared
7 19 (1.27%) Microsoft Certification
8 13 (0.87%) Azure Certification
8 13 (0.87%) Master's Degree
9 11 (0.73%) Cisco Certification
10 8 (0.53%) CCNP
10 8 (0.53%) ITIL Certification
11 7 (0.47%) CCIE
12 6 (0.40%) CCA
12 6 (0.40%) DBS Check
13 5 (0.33%) Citrix Certification
13 5 (0.33%) PMI Certification
13 5 (0.33%) VMware Certified Professional (VCP)
14 4 (0.27%) CWNA
14 4 (0.27%) PMP
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 262 (17.50%) Accessibility
2 106 (7.08%) QA
3 94 (6.28%) WCAG
4 44 (2.94%) Data Quality
5 30 (2.00%) GDPR
6 19 (1.27%) Actionable Recommendations
7 17 (1.14%) ISO/IEC 27001
8 7 (0.47%) Cyber Essentials
9 6 (0.40%) GMP
9 6 (0.40%) GxP
9 6 (0.40%) PMO
9 6 (0.40%) SLA
10 4 (0.27%) HMG Security Policy Framework
10 4 (0.27%) ISO/IEC 42001
11 3 (0.20%) Disclosure Scotland
11 3 (0.20%) GRC
11 3 (0.20%) PCI DSS
12 2 (0.13%) HIPAA
12 2 (0.13%) NCSC
12 2 (0.13%) NIST
System Software
1 68 (4.54%) Active Directory
2 54 (3.61%) Docker
3 20 (1.34%) Virtual Desktop
4 16 (1.07%) VMware Infrastructure
5 6 (0.40%) Firmware
6 5 (0.33%) BitLocker
7 4 (0.27%) Microsoft App-V
8 3 (0.20%) Hyper-V
9 2 (0.13%) VMware Workstation
9 2 (0.13%) XenApp
9 2 (0.13%) XenDesktop
10 1 (0.067%) ISA Server
10 1 (0.067%) Varnish
10 1 (0.067%) Virtual Machines
Systems Management
1 56 (3.74%) Kubernetes
2 49 (3.27%) Terraform
3 42 (2.81%) Microsoft Intune
4 34 (2.27%) Grafana
5 33 (2.20%) SCCM
6 18 (1.20%) Single Sign-On
7 16 (1.07%) Ansible
8 11 (0.73%) Jamf Pro
9 9 (0.60%) Prometheus
10 4 (0.27%) Podman
11 3 (0.20%) Clonezilla
11 3 (0.20%) Systems Management Server (SMS)
12 2 (0.13%) Failover Clustering
12 2 (0.13%) HP ALM
12 2 (0.13%) Packer
12 2 (0.13%) WSUS
13 1 (0.067%) AirWatch
13 1 (0.067%) HAProxy
13 1 (0.067%) WMI
Vendors
1 230 (15.36%) Microsoft
2 96 (6.41%) Adobe
3 66 (4.41%) ServiceNow
4 64 (4.28%) Google
5 41 (2.74%) Salesforce
6 39 (2.61%) Oracle
7 37 (2.47%) SAP
8 21 (1.40%) Citrix
8 21 (1.40%) Databricks
9 19 (1.27%) Splunk
10 17 (1.14%) Cisco
10 17 (1.14%) Dynatrace
10 17 (1.14%) Workday
11 16 (1.07%) VMware
12 15 (1.00%) Apple
13 12 (0.80%) Aruba
14 10 (0.67%) OpenAI
15 9 (0.60%) Foundry
15 9 (0.60%) MuleSoft
16 7 (0.47%) Zscaler