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 4 July 2026, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
4 Jul 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 83 65 78
Rank change year-on-year -18 +13 -19
Contract jobs citing User Experience 1,535 1,172 1,163
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 2.97% 3.72% 2.68%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 3.50% 4.09% 3.14%
Number of daily rates quoted 951 762 767
10th Percentile £313 £305 £313
25th Percentile £404 £384 £400
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £488 £475 £500
Median % change year-on-year +2.63% -5.00% -1.96%
75th Percentile £586 £577 £600
90th Percentile £680 £688 £700
UK excluding London median daily rate £475 £449 £475
% change year-on-year +5.91% -5.58% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 70 37 46
10th Percentile £16.00 £18.35 £16.25
25th Percentile £25.25 £34.48 £25.00
Median hourly rate £33.99 £49.50 £30.86
Median % change year-on-year -31.33% +60.43% +4.26%
75th Percentile £67.84 £65.00 £54.19
90th Percentile £85.22 £85.50 £74.44
UK excluding London median hourly rate £33.99 £70.00 £25.00
% change year-on-year -51.44% +180.00% +41.08%

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 43,890 28,628 37,028
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 85.04% 90.75% 85.24%
Number of daily rates quoted 27,271 18,064 23,618
10th Percentile £325 £300 £300
25th Percentile £415 £405 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £515 £505 £525
Median % change year-on-year +1.98% -3.81% -4.55%
75th Percentile £623 £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 2,636 1,406 2,527
10th Percentile £14.82 £14.20 £12.75
25th Percentile £20.00 £17.46 £16.06
Median hourly rate £43.96 £25.15 £37.50
Median % change year-on-year +74.79% -32.93% -
75th Percentile £68.00 £53.75 £61.30
90th Percentile £81.25 £70.00 £72.50
UK excluding London median hourly rate £44.50 £24.66 £38.12
% change year-on-year +80.45% -35.31% +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 4 July 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 4 July 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 4 July 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 -14 1,319 £475 -1.04% 948
UK excluding London -8 717 £475 +5.91% 532
London -22 658 £525 +5.00% 521
Work from Home -26 397 £513 +7.89% 460
North of England -19 202 £450 - 161
Midlands +3 154 £475 +11.90% 72
South East -17 137 £500 +5.26% 154
West Midlands -6 113 £475 -5.00% 46
North West -20 111 £435 -3.33% 80
Scotland +13 87 £510 +10.87% 35
South West -2 77 £475 +26.67% 47
Yorkshire -33 58 £500 +24.92% 42
East of England -3 44 £410 -13.68% 50
East Midlands +1 41 £550 +54.49% 26
North East -16 33 £440 -8.33% 40
Wales -11 17 £543 +77.29% 6
Northern Ireland 0 3 - - 16

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 68 (4.43%) SharePoint
2 50 (3.26%) CMS
3 44 (2.87%) Confluence
4 28 (1.82%) Microsoft Exchange
5 10 (0.65%) WordPress
6 8 (0.52%) Adobe Experience Manager
7 6 (0.39%) Mendix
8 5 (0.33%) Apache
8 5 (0.33%) Drupal
8 5 (0.33%) Skype for Business
9 4 (0.26%) Ethereum
9 4 (0.26%) Hyperledger
9 4 (0.26%) Kentico
9 4 (0.26%) Umbraco
10 3 (0.20%) Camunda
10 3 (0.20%) Headless CMS
10 3 (0.20%) nginx
11 2 (0.13%) HCL Notes
11 2 (0.13%) IIS
11 2 (0.13%) Palantir Foundry
Applications
1 34 (2.21%) Sketch
2 29 (1.89%) Microsoft Excel
3 28 (1.82%) Adobe Creative Suite
4 20 (1.30%) Chatbot
4 20 (1.30%) Photoshop
5 19 (1.24%) Adobe After Effects
6 16 (1.04%) Adobe Illustrator
7 15 (0.98%) Adobe XD
8 14 (0.91%) Microsoft Office
9 13 (0.85%) MS Visio
10 9 (0.59%) Microsoft PowerPoint
11 6 (0.39%) Final Cut Pro
12 4 (0.26%) Adobe Captivate
13 3 (0.20%) Spreadsheet
13 3 (0.20%) UserZoom
13 3 (0.20%) UXPin
14 2 (0.13%) InVision
14 2 (0.13%) Oracle Smart View
15 1 (0.065%) Blender
15 1 (0.065%) Trello
Business Applications
1 13 (0.85%) SAP S/4HANA
2 11 (0.72%) Workday HCM
3 10 (0.65%) Dynamics CRM
4 8 (0.52%) Shopify
5 6 (0.39%) Sage X3
6 4 (0.26%) NetSuite
6 4 (0.26%) Oracle iProcurement
7 3 (0.20%) Payment Gateway
7 3 (0.20%) Salesforce CRM
8 2 (0.13%) iTrent
8 2 (0.13%) Oracle EBS
8 2 (0.13%) Oracle Payables
8 2 (0.13%) Oracle Receivables
8 2 (0.13%) Remedy ITSM
8 2 (0.13%) ResourceLink
9 1 (0.065%) Magento
9 1 (0.065%) Oracle EBS R12
9 1 (0.065%) SAP ERP
9 1 (0.065%) SAP HR
9 1 (0.065%) SAP QM
Cloud Services
1 246 (16.03%) Azure
2 216 (14.07%) Figma
3 124 (8.08%) Microsoft 365
4 122 (7.95%) AWS
5 114 (7.43%) Power Platform
6 63 (4.10%) Entra ID
7 58 (3.78%) Azure DevOps
8 56 (3.65%) SaaS
9 54 (3.52%) Microsoft Copilot
10 53 (3.45%) GitHub
11 42 (2.74%) GCP
12 41 (2.67%) PowerApps
13 36 (2.35%) OneDrive
14 35 (2.28%) Power Automate
15 30 (1.95%) Copilot Studio
15 30 (1.95%) GitHub Actions
15 30 (1.95%) Serverless
16 25 (1.63%) Azure AI
17 17 (1.11%) Snowflake
18 16 (1.04%) Google Workspace
Communications & Networking
1 35 (2.28%) DNS
2 29 (1.89%) DHCP
3 25 (1.63%) TCP/IP
4 23 (1.50%) Wi-Fi
5 20 (1.30%) Wireless
6 19 (1.24%) LAN
7 14 (0.91%) Internet
8 13 (0.85%) WAN
9 12 (0.78%) Firewall
10 11 (0.72%) SD-WAN
10 11 (0.72%) VPN
11 10 (0.65%) Intranet
12 8 (0.52%) Cisco Wireless
13 7 (0.46%) 5G
13 7 (0.46%) HTTP
13 7 (0.46%) Network Security
13 7 (0.46%) Skype
13 7 (0.46%) SNMP
13 7 (0.46%) WLAN
14 5 (0.33%) SMS
Database & Business Intelligence
1 70 (4.56%) Power BI
2 24 (1.56%) NoSQL
2 24 (1.56%) PostgreSQL
3 23 (1.50%) Relational Database
4 22 (1.43%) Metadata
5 19 (1.24%) Power Query
5 19 (1.24%) SQL Server
6 13 (0.85%) Data Warehouse
6 13 (0.85%) MongoDB
7 11 (0.72%) Big Data
7 11 (0.72%) MySQL
8 9 (0.59%) Tableau
9 7 (0.46%) Oracle Database
9 7 (0.46%) Snowflake Schema
10 6 (0.39%) Azure SQL Database
10 6 (0.39%) DynamoDB
10 6 (0.39%) Elasticsearch
10 6 (0.39%) Redis
10 6 (0.39%) ZAP BI
11 5 (0.33%) Star Schema
Development Applications
1 92 (5.99%) JIRA
2 83 (5.41%) Git
3 26 (1.69%) Jenkins
4 24 (1.56%) Vite
5 23 (1.50%) Cypress.io
6 20 (1.30%) GitLab
7 14 (0.91%) JUnit
8 11 (0.72%) Claude Code
9 10 (0.65%) Android Studio
9 10 (0.65%) Browser DevTools
9 10 (0.65%) fastlane
9 10 (0.65%) Selenium
10 9 (0.59%) Postman
10 9 (0.59%) Xcode
11 8 (0.52%) Gradle
11 8 (0.52%) Visual Studio
11 8 (0.52%) webpack
12 6 (0.39%) JMeter
12 6 (0.39%) Storybook
13 5 (0.33%) REST Assured
General
1 477 (31.07%) Social Skills
2 273 (17.79%) Finance
3 202 (13.16%) Public Sector
4 152 (9.90%) Analytical Skills
5 117 (7.62%) Banking
6 80 (5.21%) Retail
7 65 (4.23%) Marketing
8 43 (2.80%) Inclusion and Diversity
9 39 (2.54%) Legal
10 31 (2.02%) Influencing Skills
11 30 (1.95%) Presentation Skills
12 27 (1.76%) Automotive
13 26 (1.69%) Publishing
14 25 (1.63%) Manufacturing
15 22 (1.43%) Organisational Skills
16 21 (1.37%) Documentation Skills
17 18 (1.17%) Investment Banking
18 13 (0.85%) Games
18 13 (0.85%) Military
19 12 (0.78%) Front Office
Job Titles
1 327 (21.30%) Designer
2 225 (14.66%) Senior
3 205 (13.36%) Developer
4 143 (9.32%) UX Designer
5 113 (7.36%) Lead
6 112 (7.30%) Analyst
7 84 (5.47%) UI Designer
8 77 (5.02%) Consultant
9 71 (4.63%) Senior Designer
10 66 (4.30%) Architect
11 61 (3.97%) Product Designer
12 60 (3.91%) Business Analyst
13 57 (3.71%) User Researcher
14 52 (3.39%) Content Designer
15 49 (3.19%) UI/UX Designer
16 47 (3.06%) User Experience Researcher
17 45 (2.93%) IT Support
18 44 (2.87%) Product Manager
19 39 (2.54%) Full-Stack Engineer
20 37 (2.41%) Support Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 147 (9.58%) React
2 110 (7.17%) CSS
3 98 (6.38%) REST
4 96 (6.25%) HTML
5 72 (4.69%) RESTful
6 54 (3.52%) AngularJS
7 53 (3.45%) .NET
8 46 (3.00%) Spring
9 45 (2.93%) Spring Boot
10 40 (2.61%) GraphQL
11 33 (2.15%) Redux
12 32 (2.08%) Node.js
13 29 (1.89%) HTML5
13 29 (1.89%) Jest
14 28 (1.82%) JSON
14 28 (1.82%) Kafka
15 27 (1.76%) CSS3
16 26 (1.69%) Next.js
17 23 (1.50%) ASP.NET
18 22 (1.43%) Playwright
Miscellaneous
1 161 (10.49%) Product Ownership
2 82 (5.34%) Mobile App
3 70 (4.56%) Onboarding
4 47 (3.06%) AI Agents
5 43 (2.80%) Cloud Native
6 33 (2.15%) Enterprise Software
7 31 (2.02%) Self-Motivation
8 30 (1.95%) Data Structures
9 26 (1.69%) Data Protection Act
10 25 (1.63%) Legacy Systems
11 23 (1.50%) Animation
12 20 (1.30%) Data Centre
13 18 (1.17%) Analytical Mindset
14 17 (1.11%) Foreign Exchange (FX)
14 17 (1.11%) Taxonomies
15 16 (1.04%) Graphic Design
16 15 (0.98%) Algorithms
16 15 (0.98%) Greenfield Project
17 14 (0.91%) Social Media
18 13 (0.85%) Virtual Reality
Operating Systems
1 121 (7.88%) Windows
2 53 (3.45%) Apple iOS
3 51 (3.32%) Android
4 36 (2.35%) Windows 10
5 25 (1.63%) Mac OS
6 16 (1.04%) Linux
6 16 (1.04%) Windows Server
7 7 (0.46%) Unix
8 6 (0.39%) Windows 7
9 5 (0.33%) Windows Server 2016
10 4 (0.26%) Windows Server 2019
11 2 (0.13%) Windows Server 2012
12 1 (0.065%) Windows Server 2008
Processes & Methodologies
1 515 (33.55%) UX Design
2 460 (29.97%) Agile
3 286 (18.63%) AI
4 232 (15.11%) Problem-Solving
5 215 (14.01%) Stakeholder Management
6 201 (13.09%) Continuous Improvement
7 197 (12.83%) User Research
8 193 (12.57%) Analytics
9 176 (11.47%) CI/CD
10 171 (11.14%) Stakeholder Engagement
11 162 (10.55%) Roadmaps
12 149 (9.71%) Prototyping
13 146 (9.51%) DevOps
14 140 (9.12%) Decision-Making
15 134 (8.73%) User-Centered Design (UCD)
16 130 (8.47%) Wireframes
17 125 (8.14%) Service Design
18 123 (8.01%) UX Research
19 114 (7.43%) Workshop Facilitation
20 109 (7.10%) Scrum
Programming Languages
1 136 (8.86%) JavaScript
2 123 (8.01%) Python
2 123 (8.01%) TypeScript
3 120 (7.82%) SQL
4 110 (7.17%) Java
5 57 (3.71%) C#
6 49 (3.19%) PowerShell
7 32 (2.08%) Kotlin
8 25 (1.63%) Data Analysis Expressions
9 16 (1.04%) Swift
10 15 (0.98%) Bash
11 12 (0.78%) C++
12 9 (0.59%) Lua
13 8 (0.52%) Korn
14 7 (0.46%) Apex Code
14 7 (0.46%) R
15 6 (0.39%) VBA
15 6 (0.39%) VBScript
16 5 (0.33%) Go
16 5 (0.33%) VB
Qualifications
1 221 (14.40%) Security Cleared
2 168 (10.94%) SC Cleared
3 152 (9.90%) Degree
4 35 (2.28%) Computer Science Degree
5 26 (1.69%) BPSS Clearance
6 25 (1.63%) DV Cleared
7 24 (1.56%) Azure Certification
8 22 (1.43%) Microsoft Certification
9 11 (0.72%) Cisco Certification
10 10 (0.65%) Master's Degree
11 9 (0.59%) ITIL Certification
12 8 (0.52%) CCNP
12 8 (0.52%) PMP
13 7 (0.46%) AWS Certification
13 7 (0.46%) CCA
13 7 (0.46%) CCIE
13 7 (0.46%) Citrix Certification
13 7 (0.46%) VMware Certified Professional (VCP)
14 6 (0.39%) DBS Check
15 5 (0.33%) CISSP
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 266 (17.33%) Accessibility
2 96 (6.25%) QA
3 88 (5.73%) WCAG
4 45 (2.93%) Data Quality
5 27 (1.76%) GDPR
6 20 (1.30%) Actionable Recommendations
7 11 (0.72%) ISO/IEC 27001
8 9 (0.59%) PMO
9 8 (0.52%) SLA
10 7 (0.46%) ISO/IEC 42001
11 6 (0.39%) Cyber Essentials
12 4 (0.26%) HMG Security Policy Framework
13 3 (0.20%) GMP
13 3 (0.20%) GRC
13 3 (0.20%) GxP
14 2 (0.13%) HIPAA
14 2 (0.13%) NIST
14 2 (0.13%) PCI DSS
14 2 (0.13%) PSD2
15 1 (0.065%) ISO/IEC 20000
System Software
1 78 (5.08%) Active Directory
2 48 (3.13%) Docker
3 24 (1.56%) Virtual Desktop
4 14 (0.91%) VMware Infrastructure
5 6 (0.39%) Firmware
6 5 (0.33%) BitLocker
7 4 (0.26%) Microsoft App-V
7 4 (0.26%) VMware ESXi
7 4 (0.26%) vSphere
8 3 (0.20%) Hyper-V
8 3 (0.20%) Virtual Machines
9 2 (0.13%) UAG
9 2 (0.13%) VMware Workstation
9 2 (0.13%) XenApp
9 2 (0.13%) XenDesktop
10 1 (0.065%) Varnish
10 1 (0.065%) VMware NSX
Systems Management
1 48 (3.13%) Kubernetes
2 47 (3.06%) Microsoft Intune
3 44 (2.87%) Terraform
4 34 (2.21%) SCCM
5 31 (2.02%) Grafana
6 17 (1.11%) Single Sign-On
7 14 (0.91%) Jamf Pro
8 13 (0.85%) Ansible
9 9 (0.59%) Prometheus
10 4 (0.26%) Clonezilla
10 4 (0.26%) vCenter Server
11 3 (0.20%) Podman
11 3 (0.20%) Systems Management Server (SMS)
11 3 (0.20%) WSUS
12 2 (0.13%) Argo
12 2 (0.13%) Failover Clustering
12 2 (0.13%) Packer
12 2 (0.13%) SCOM
12 2 (0.13%) vMotion
13 1 (0.065%) AirWatch
Vendors
1 260 (16.94%) Microsoft
2 88 (5.73%) Adobe
3 70 (4.56%) ServiceNow
4 56 (3.65%) Google
5 47 (3.06%) SAP
6 41 (2.67%) Oracle
7 39 (2.54%) Salesforce
8 21 (1.37%) Databricks
8 21 (1.37%) Dynatrace
9 20 (1.30%) Citrix
9 20 (1.30%) Workday
10 19 (1.24%) Splunk
11 18 (1.17%) Cisco
12 17 (1.11%) Foundry
12 17 (1.11%) OpenAI
13 16 (1.04%) Apple
13 16 (1.04%) VMware
14 12 (0.78%) Aruba
15 11 (0.72%) Zscaler
16 8 (0.52%) Okta