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 12 May 2026, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
12 May 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 77 58 70
Rank change year-on-year -19 +12 -10
Contract jobs citing User Experience 1,460 1,101 1,227
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 3.07% 3.77% 2.85%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 3.64% 4.15% 3.31%
Number of daily rates quoted 976 745 818
10th Percentile £313 £301 £306
25th Percentile £400 £400 £400
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £488 £480 £500
Median % change year-on-year +1.56% -4.00% -
75th Percentile £575 £575 £598
90th Percentile £688 £716 £688
UK excluding London median daily rate £475 £425 £475
% change year-on-year +11.76% -10.53% +2.15%
Number of hourly rates quoted 53 24 47
10th Percentile £16.15 £35.25 £16.25
25th Percentile £21.33 £46.25 £23.75
Median hourly rate £37.50 £53.50 £31.71
Median % change year-on-year -29.91% +68.72% +7.15%
75th Percentile £61.25 £75.12 £61.50
90th Percentile £79.60 £92.50 £73.51
UK excluding London median hourly rate £33.99 £76.00 £25.00
% change year-on-year -55.28% +204.00% +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 40,059 26,552 37,102
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 84.33% 90.94% 86.27%
Number of daily rates quoted 25,139 17,089 23,891
10th Percentile £321 £306 £300
25th Percentile £413 £410 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £505 £519 £525
Median % change year-on-year -2.69% -1.24% -4.55%
75th Percentile £613 £630 £638
90th Percentile £725 £745 £750
UK excluding London median daily rate £492 £478 £500
% change year-on-year +2.93% -4.40% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 2,402 1,086 2,440
10th Percentile £14.97 £14.42 £12.75
25th Percentile £19.87 £18.50 £16.00
Median hourly rate £42.40 £28.75 £36.50
Median % change year-on-year +47.48% -21.23% +0.29%
75th Percentile £67.25 £60.50 £60.00
90th Percentile £80.00 £75.00 £72.50
UK excluding London median hourly rate £45.00 £26.50 £38.00
% change year-on-year +69.81% -30.26% +8.57%

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 12 May 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 12 May 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 12 May 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 -9 1,271 £490 -2.00% 774
London -18 651 £513 -0.49% 330
UK excluding London 0 646 £475 +11.76% 536
Work from Home -26 390 £475 -1.04% 394
North of England 0 200 £450 +0.33% 137
Midlands +5 156 £475 +18.75% 81
North West +8 124 £413 -8.33% 84
South East -20 117 £475 +4.63% 143
West Midlands -12 103 £475 +2.70% 54
South West -17 67 £475 +26.67% 62
Scotland -1 61 £470 +4.44% 39
East Midlands +4 53 £550 +54.06% 25
Yorkshire -20 53 £513 +28.04% 28
East of England -16 30 £410 -13.68% 69
North East -9 21 £445 -1.66% 25
Wales -10 13 £450 +47.06% 9
Northern Ireland -1 3 - - 10

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 51 (3.49%) Confluence
2 49 (3.36%) SharePoint
3 37 (2.53%) CMS
4 18 (1.23%) Microsoft Exchange
5 14 (0.96%) Adobe Experience Manager
6 7 (0.48%) Apache
6 7 (0.48%) WordPress
7 5 (0.34%) Camunda
7 5 (0.34%) Drupal
7 5 (0.34%) Mendix
8 4 (0.27%) Ethereum
8 4 (0.27%) Hyperledger
8 4 (0.27%) Kentico
9 3 (0.21%) Anypoint
9 3 (0.21%) Headless CMS
9 3 (0.21%) nginx
10 2 (0.14%) Apache Spark
10 2 (0.14%) Appian
10 2 (0.14%) Skype for Business
10 2 (0.14%) Umbraco
Applications
1 40 (2.74%) Sketch
2 27 (1.85%) Adobe XD
3 24 (1.64%) Microsoft Excel
4 19 (1.30%) Chatbot
4 19 (1.30%) Photoshop
5 17 (1.16%) MS Visio
6 14 (0.96%) Adobe Illustrator
6 14 (0.96%) Microsoft Office
7 11 (0.75%) Adobe After Effects
7 11 (0.75%) Adobe Creative Suite
8 10 (0.68%) InVision
9 6 (0.41%) Microsoft PowerPoint
10 4 (0.27%) Trello
11 3 (0.21%) Adobe Captivate
11 3 (0.21%) Microsoft Project
11 3 (0.21%) Spreadsheet
11 3 (0.21%) UserZoom
11 3 (0.21%) UXPin
12 2 (0.14%) Oracle Smart View
13 1 (0.068%) Blender
Business Applications
1 13 (0.89%) SAP S/4HANA
2 9 (0.62%) Dynamics CRM
2 9 (0.62%) Shopify
3 8 (0.55%) Workday HCM
4 6 (0.41%) Sage X3
5 3 (0.21%) NetSuite
5 3 (0.21%) Oracle EBS
6 2 (0.14%) NEC Housing
6 2 (0.14%) Oracle iProcurement
6 2 (0.14%) Oracle Payables
6 2 (0.14%) Oracle Receivables
6 2 (0.14%) Payment Gateway
6 2 (0.14%) ResourceLink
6 2 (0.14%) SAP ERP
7 1 (0.068%) Adobe Campaign
7 1 (0.068%) Eloqua
7 1 (0.068%) Integrated Workplace Management System
7 1 (0.068%) iTrent
7 1 (0.068%) Salesforce CRM
7 1 (0.068%) Sprinklr
Cloud Services
1 226 (15.48%) Azure
2 208 (14.25%) Figma
3 119 (8.15%) AWS
4 113 (7.74%) Power Platform
5 96 (6.58%) Microsoft 365
6 56 (3.84%) Azure DevOps
7 54 (3.70%) Entra ID
8 48 (3.29%) GCP
9 46 (3.15%) GitHub
10 43 (2.95%) SaaS
11 38 (2.60%) Power Automate
12 37 (2.53%) Microsoft Copilot
12 37 (2.53%) PowerApps
13 32 (2.19%) Serverless
14 27 (1.85%) GitHub Actions
15 24 (1.64%) Google Workspace
16 23 (1.58%) Copilot Studio
17 21 (1.44%) Google Sheets
18 20 (1.37%) Miro
18 20 (1.37%) OneDrive
Communications & Networking
1 16 (1.10%) Wi-Fi
2 14 (0.96%) DNS
3 12 (0.82%) Internet
3 12 (0.82%) LAN
4 11 (0.75%) Intranet
4 11 (0.75%) SD-WAN
4 11 (0.75%) Wireless
5 10 (0.68%) DHCP
5 10 (0.68%) HTTP
5 10 (0.68%) VPN
6 8 (0.55%) WAN
7 7 (0.48%) TCP/IP
8 6 (0.41%) 5G
8 6 (0.41%) Cisco Wireless
8 6 (0.41%) Firewall
8 6 (0.41%) Network Security
8 6 (0.41%) SNMP
8 6 (0.41%) WLAN
9 5 (0.34%) SMS
9 5 (0.34%) SSL
Database & Business Intelligence
1 79 (5.41%) Power BI
2 27 (1.85%) Relational Database
3 25 (1.71%) NoSQL
4 24 (1.64%) PostgreSQL
5 21 (1.44%) SQL Server
6 19 (1.30%) Data Warehouse
6 19 (1.30%) Metadata
7 15 (1.03%) MongoDB
7 15 (1.03%) MySQL
8 13 (0.89%) Power Query
9 12 (0.82%) Tableau
10 11 (0.75%) Big Data
11 10 (0.68%) BigQuery
12 7 (0.48%) Looker
12 7 (0.48%) Oracle BI Publisher
12 7 (0.48%) Pinecone
13 6 (0.41%) DynamoDB
13 6 (0.41%) Oracle Database
13 6 (0.41%) Redis
13 6 (0.41%) ZAP BI
Development Applications
1 106 (7.26%) JIRA
2 84 (5.75%) Git
3 33 (2.26%) GitLab
4 27 (1.85%) Cypress.io
5 20 (1.37%) Jenkins
6 18 (1.23%) JUnit
7 16 (1.10%) Axure RP
8 14 (0.96%) Gradle
9 13 (0.89%) Vite
10 12 (0.82%) Browser DevTools
11 11 (0.75%) Android Studio
11 11 (0.75%) CircleCI
12 10 (0.68%) Selenium
12 10 (0.68%) Xcode
13 7 (0.48%) Postman
13 7 (0.48%) Visual Studio
14 6 (0.41%) Eclipse
14 6 (0.41%) fastlane
14 6 (0.41%) Mocha
14 6 (0.41%) Mockito
General
1 436 (29.86%) Social Skills
2 263 (18.01%) Finance
3 203 (13.90%) Public Sector
4 149 (10.21%) Analytical Skills
5 115 (7.88%) Banking
6 58 (3.97%) Marketing
7 55 (3.77%) Retail
8 34 (2.33%) Legal
9 30 (2.05%) Inclusion and Diversity
9 30 (2.05%) Presentation Skills
10 29 (1.99%) Influencing Skills
11 22 (1.51%) Manufacturing
12 20 (1.37%) Automotive
13 19 (1.30%) Publishing
14 18 (1.23%) Organisational Skills
15 17 (1.16%) Games
15 17 (1.16%) Pharmaceutical
16 16 (1.10%) Documentation Skills
17 15 (1.03%) Investment Banking
18 12 (0.82%) Local Government
Job Titles
1 306 (20.96%) Designer
2 222 (15.21%) Senior
3 192 (13.15%) Developer
4 141 (9.66%) UX Designer
5 130 (8.90%) Analyst
6 79 (5.41%) Consultant
7 78 (5.34%) Lead
8 66 (4.52%) Business Analyst
9 65 (4.45%) Product Designer
10 63 (4.32%) Architect
11 60 (4.11%) UI Designer
12 59 (4.04%) Senior Designer
13 49 (3.36%) User Researcher
14 47 (3.22%) Content Designer
15 44 (3.01%) User Experience Researcher
16 43 (2.95%) Service Designer
17 41 (2.81%) UI/UX Designer
18 36 (2.47%) IT Support
19 35 (2.40%) Product Manager
19 35 (2.40%) Senior Developer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 156 (10.68%) React
2 131 (8.97%) CSS
3 119 (8.15%) HTML
4 102 (6.99%) REST
5 69 (4.73%) AngularJS
5 69 (4.73%) RESTful
6 55 (3.77%) Spring
7 54 (3.70%) Spring Boot
8 51 (3.49%) .NET
9 39 (2.67%) GraphQL
10 36 (2.47%) Node.js
11 33 (2.26%) HTML5
11 33 (2.26%) JSON
11 33 (2.26%) Redux
12 30 (2.05%) CSS3
13 29 (1.99%) Next.js
14 28 (1.92%) Jest
15 26 (1.78%) Kafka
16 22 (1.51%) OAuth
17 21 (1.44%) Playwright
Miscellaneous
1 143 (9.79%) Product Ownership
2 71 (4.86%) Mobile App
3 55 (3.77%) Onboarding
4 34 (2.33%) AI Agents
5 33 (2.26%) Data Structures
6 29 (1.99%) Enterprise Software
7 26 (1.78%) Cloud Native
8 19 (1.30%) Analytical Mindset
9 18 (1.23%) Data Protection Act
10 17 (1.16%) Foreign Exchange (FX)
10 17 (1.16%) Legacy Systems
11 15 (1.03%) Distributed Systems
11 15 (1.03%) Virtual Reality
12 13 (0.89%) Animation
12 13 (0.89%) Augmented Reality
12 13 (0.89%) Management Information System
12 13 (0.89%) NHS
12 13 (0.89%) Self-Motivation
13 12 (0.82%) Graphic Design
13 12 (0.82%) Taxonomies
Operating Systems
1 98 (6.71%) Windows
2 47 (3.22%) Android
3 40 (2.74%) Apple iOS
4 34 (2.33%) Windows 10
5 21 (1.44%) Mac OS
6 16 (1.10%) Linux
7 9 (0.62%) Windows Server
8 6 (0.41%) Unix
9 5 (0.34%) Windows Server 2016
10 4 (0.27%) Windows Server 2019
11 3 (0.21%) Windows 7
12 2 (0.14%) Windows Server 2012
13 1 (0.068%) Windows Server 2008
Processes & Methodologies
1 473 (32.40%) UX Design
2 454 (31.10%) Agile
3 225 (15.41%) AI
4 214 (14.66%) Problem-Solving
5 209 (14.32%) User Research
6 208 (14.25%) Analytics
7 181 (12.40%) Continuous Improvement
8 172 (11.78%) Stakeholder Management
9 168 (11.51%) CI/CD
10 163 (11.16%) Stakeholder Engagement
11 160 (10.96%) Roadmaps
12 152 (10.41%) DevOps
13 145 (9.93%) Prototyping
14 132 (9.04%) User-Centered Design (UCD)
15 129 (8.84%) UX Research
16 126 (8.63%) Wireframes
17 124 (8.49%) Decision-Making
17 124 (8.49%) Service Design
18 112 (7.67%) Workshop Facilitation
19 106 (7.26%) Usability Testing
Programming Languages
1 159 (10.89%) JavaScript
2 127 (8.70%) SQL
3 126 (8.63%) Python
4 115 (7.88%) Java
5 111 (7.60%) TypeScript
6 53 (3.63%) C#
7 45 (3.08%) PowerShell
8 30 (2.05%) Kotlin
9 20 (1.37%) Bash
10 19 (1.30%) Data Analysis Expressions
11 12 (0.82%) Swift
12 11 (0.75%) C++
13 9 (0.62%) Lua
14 7 (0.48%) Korn
15 6 (0.41%) Perl
15 6 (0.41%) VBA
16 5 (0.34%) Apex Code
16 5 (0.34%) Go
16 5 (0.34%) PL/SQL
16 5 (0.34%) Scala
Qualifications
1 196 (13.42%) Security Cleared
2 145 (9.93%) SC Cleared
3 127 (8.70%) Degree
4 32 (2.19%) BPSS Clearance
5 30 (2.05%) Computer Science Degree
6 25 (1.71%) DV Cleared
7 22 (1.51%) Microsoft Certification
8 14 (0.96%) Master's Degree
9 13 (0.89%) Azure Certification
10 11 (0.75%) Cisco Certification
11 8 (0.55%) CCNP
12 7 (0.48%) CCA
13 6 (0.41%) CCIE
13 6 (0.41%) Citrix Certification
13 6 (0.41%) ITIL Certification
13 6 (0.41%) PMI Certification
14 5 (0.34%) VMware Certified Professional (VCP)
15 4 (0.27%) ISTQB
15 4 (0.27%) OCA
15 4 (0.27%) PMP
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 258 (17.67%) Accessibility
2 121 (8.29%) QA
3 81 (5.55%) WCAG
4 48 (3.29%) Data Quality
5 36 (2.47%) GDPR
6 20 (1.37%) Actionable Recommendations
7 18 (1.23%) ISO/IEC 27001
8 8 (0.55%) SLA
9 7 (0.48%) Cyber Essentials
10 6 (0.41%) GMP
10 6 (0.41%) GxP
10 6 (0.41%) PMO
11 4 (0.27%) GRC
11 4 (0.27%) HMG Security Policy Framework
12 3 (0.21%) Disclosure Scotland
12 3 (0.21%) HIPAA
12 3 (0.21%) ISO/IEC 42001
12 3 (0.21%) NCSC
12 3 (0.21%) NIST
12 3 (0.21%) PCI DSS
System Software
1 69 (4.73%) Active Directory
2 53 (3.63%) Docker
3 21 (1.44%) Virtual Desktop
4 19 (1.30%) VMware Infrastructure
5 6 (0.41%) Firmware
6 4 (0.27%) Hyper-V
6 4 (0.27%) Microsoft App-V
7 3 (0.21%) XenApp
7 3 (0.21%) XenDesktop
8 2 (0.14%) BitLocker
8 2 (0.14%) VMware Workstation
9 1 (0.068%) ISA Server
9 1 (0.068%) Varnish
9 1 (0.068%) Virtual Machines
Systems Management
1 56 (3.84%) Kubernetes
2 48 (3.29%) Terraform
3 35 (2.40%) Grafana
4 31 (2.12%) Microsoft Intune
4 31 (2.12%) SCCM
5 18 (1.23%) Ansible
5 18 (1.23%) Single Sign-On
6 11 (0.75%) Prometheus
7 4 (0.27%) Jamf Pro
7 4 (0.27%) Podman
8 3 (0.21%) HP ALM
8 3 (0.21%) Systems Management Server (SMS)
9 2 (0.14%) Argo
9 2 (0.14%) Failover Clustering
9 2 (0.14%) Nagios
9 2 (0.14%) Packer
9 2 (0.14%) Rancher
9 2 (0.14%) SysTrack
9 2 (0.14%) WSUS
10 1 (0.068%) HAProxy
Vendors
1 209 (14.32%) Microsoft
2 89 (6.10%) Adobe
3 67 (4.59%) Google
4 53 (3.63%) ServiceNow
5 47 (3.22%) Oracle
6 43 (2.95%) Salesforce
6 43 (2.95%) SAP
7 23 (1.58%) Citrix
8 20 (1.37%) Splunk
9 19 (1.30%) VMware
10 17 (1.16%) Databricks
10 17 (1.16%) Workday
11 16 (1.10%) Cisco
12 15 (1.03%) Dynatrace
13 14 (0.96%) Apple
14 11 (0.75%) Aruba
15 9 (0.62%) Foundry
15 9 (0.62%) MuleSoft
15 9 (0.62%) OpenAI
15 9 (0.62%) Zscaler