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

6 months to
13 May 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 75 58 74
Rank change year-on-year -17 +16 -13
Contract jobs citing User Experience 1,456 1,094 1,214
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 3.08% 3.78% 2.84%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 3.66% 4.15% 3.29%
Number of daily rates quoted 972 739 810
10th Percentile £313 £305 £306
25th Percentile £400 £400 £400
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £489 £480 £500
Median % change year-on-year +1.82% -4.00% -
75th Percentile £575 £578 £600
90th Percentile £688 £714 £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 54 24 46
10th Percentile £16.22 £35.25 £16.25
25th Percentile £21.75 £46.25 £23.75
Median hourly rate £35.75 £53.50 £29.14
Median % change year-on-year -33.18% +83.63% -1.55%
75th Percentile £61.25 £75.12 £61.63
90th Percentile £78.40 £92.50 £73.67
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 39,805 26,361 36,876
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 84.33% 90.96% 86.25%
Number of daily rates quoted 24,996 16,941 23,723
10th Percentile £325 £305 £300
25th Percentile £413 £410 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £505 £516 £525
Median % change year-on-year -2.13% -1.71% -4.55%
75th Percentile £613 £626 £638
90th Percentile £725 £738 £750
UK excluding London median daily rate £492 £479 £500
% change year-on-year +2.71% -4.20% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 2,368 1,073 2,431
10th Percentile £14.82 £14.41 £12.75
25th Percentile £19.90 £18.38 £16.00
Median hourly rate £42.50 £28.60 £36.50
Median % change year-on-year +48.60% -21.64% +1.39%
75th Percentile £67.31 £60.00 £60.00
90th Percentile £80.00 £75.00 £72.50
UK excluding London median hourly rate £45.00 £25.78 £38.00
% change year-on-year +74.59% -32.17% +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 13 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 13 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 13 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 -10 1,265 £490 -2.00% 765
London -16 650 £513 -0.49% 326
UK excluding London -2 644 £475 +11.76% 528
Work from Home -26 388 £475 -1.04% 404
North of England +4 199 £450 +0.33% 138
Midlands +6 156 £488 +21.88% 76
North West +8 123 £420 -6.67% 84
South East -23 115 £475 +2.26% 152
West Midlands -13 105 £475 +1.33% 49
South West -17 67 £475 +26.67% 57
Scotland +6 62 £481 +6.94% 30
Yorkshire -18 53 £513 +28.04% 29
East Midlands +5 51 £550 +54.06% 25
East of England -18 30 £410 -13.68% 71
North East -10 21 £445 -1.66% 25
Wales -10 13 £450 +47.06% 9
Northern Ireland -3 3 - - 8

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 (3.50%) Confluence
2 49 (3.37%) SharePoint
3 37 (2.54%) CMS
4 18 (1.24%) 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 41 (2.82%) Sketch
2 27 (1.85%) Adobe XD
3 24 (1.65%) Microsoft Excel
4 20 (1.37%) Photoshop
5 19 (1.30%) Chatbot
6 17 (1.17%) MS Visio
7 15 (1.03%) Adobe Illustrator
8 14 (0.96%) Microsoft Office
9 13 (0.89%) Adobe After Effects
10 12 (0.82%) Adobe Creative Suite
11 10 (0.69%) InVision
12 6 (0.41%) Microsoft PowerPoint
13 4 (0.27%) Trello
14 3 (0.21%) Adobe Captivate
14 3 (0.21%) Microsoft Project
14 3 (0.21%) Spreadsheet
14 3 (0.21%) UserZoom
14 3 (0.21%) UXPin
15 2 (0.14%) Oracle Smart View
16 1 (0.069%) 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 (0.069%) Adobe Campaign
7 1 (0.069%) Eloqua
7 1 (0.069%) Integrated Workplace Management System
7 1 (0.069%) iTrent
7 1 (0.069%) Salesforce CRM
7 1 (0.069%) Sprinklr
Cloud Services
1 225 (15.45%) Azure
2 209 (14.35%) Figma
3 119 (8.17%) AWS
4 114 (7.83%) Power Platform
5 96 (6.59%) Microsoft 365
6 56 (3.85%) Azure DevOps
7 54 (3.71%) Entra ID
8 48 (3.30%) GCP
9 46 (3.16%) GitHub
10 43 (2.95%) SaaS
11 38 (2.61%) Power Automate
12 37 (2.54%) Microsoft Copilot
12 37 (2.54%) PowerApps
13 32 (2.20%) Serverless
14 27 (1.85%) GitHub Actions
15 24 (1.65%) 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 (0.76%) Intranet
4 11 (0.76%) SD-WAN
4 11 (0.76%) Wireless
5 10 (0.69%) DHCP
5 10 (0.69%) HTTP
5 10 (0.69%) 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 80 (5.49%) Power BI
2 27 (1.85%) Relational Database
3 25 (1.72%) NoSQL
4 24 (1.65%) 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 14 (0.96%) Power Query
9 12 (0.82%) Tableau
10 11 (0.76%) Big Data
11 10 (0.69%) BigQuery
12 7 (0.48%) Oracle BI Publisher
12 7 (0.48%) Pinecone
13 6 (0.41%) DynamoDB
13 6 (0.41%) Looker
13 6 (0.41%) Oracle Database
13 6 (0.41%) Redis
13 6 (0.41%) ZAP BI
Development Applications
1 106 (7.28%) JIRA
2 84 (5.77%) Git
3 33 (2.27%) GitLab
4 27 (1.85%) Cypress.io
5 20 (1.37%) Jenkins
6 18 (1.24%) 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 (0.76%) Android Studio
12 10 (0.69%) CircleCI
12 10 (0.69%) Selenium
12 10 (0.69%) 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
1 435 (29.88%) Social Skills
2 261 (17.93%) Finance
3 203 (13.94%) Public Sector
4 148 (10.16%) Analytical Skills
5 114 (7.83%) Banking
6 58 (3.98%) Marketing
7 55 (3.78%) Retail
8 35 (2.40%) Legal
9 30 (2.06%) Inclusion and Diversity
9 30 (2.06%) Influencing Skills
9 30 (2.06%) Presentation Skills
10 23 (1.58%) Manufacturing
11 21 (1.44%) Automotive
12 20 (1.37%) Publishing
13 18 (1.24%) Organisational Skills
14 17 (1.17%) Games
14 17 (1.17%) Pharmaceutical
15 16 (1.10%) Documentation Skills
16 15 (1.03%) Investment Banking
17 12 (0.82%) Local Government
Job Titles
1 307 (21.09%) Designer
2 221 (15.18%) Senior
3 191 (13.12%) Developer
4 141 (9.68%) UX Designer
5 128 (8.79%) Analyst
6 78 (5.36%) Consultant
6 78 (5.36%) Lead
7 65 (4.46%) Business Analyst
8 64 (4.40%) Architect
8 64 (4.40%) Product Designer
9 62 (4.26%) UI Designer
10 60 (4.12%) Senior Designer
11 49 (3.37%) User Researcher
12 47 (3.23%) Content Designer
13 44 (3.02%) User Experience Researcher
14 43 (2.95%) Service Designer
15 41 (2.82%) UI/UX Designer
16 36 (2.47%) IT Support
17 35 (2.40%) Product Manager
17 35 (2.40%) Senior Developer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 155 (10.65%) React
2 130 (8.93%) CSS
3 118 (8.10%) HTML
4 102 (7.01%) REST
5 71 (4.88%) RESTful
6 69 (4.74%) AngularJS
7 55 (3.78%) Spring
8 54 (3.71%) Spring Boot
9 51 (3.50%) .NET
10 38 (2.61%) GraphQL
11 36 (2.47%) Node.js
12 33 (2.27%) JSON
13 32 (2.20%) HTML5
13 32 (2.20%) Redux
14 30 (2.06%) CSS3
15 29 (1.99%) Next.js
16 28 (1.92%) Jest
17 26 (1.79%) Kafka
18 22 (1.51%) OAuth
19 21 (1.44%) Playwright
Miscellaneous
1 143 (9.82%) Product Ownership
2 70 (4.81%) Mobile App
3 55 (3.78%) Onboarding
4 34 (2.34%) AI Agents
5 33 (2.27%) Data Structures
6 29 (1.99%) Enterprise Software
7 26 (1.79%) Cloud Native
8 19 (1.30%) Analytical Mindset
9 18 (1.24%) Data Protection Act
10 17 (1.17%) Foreign Exchange (FX)
10 17 (1.17%) Legacy Systems
11 15 (1.03%) Animation
11 15 (1.03%) Virtual Reality
12 14 (0.96%) Distributed Systems
12 14 (0.96%) Self-Motivation
13 13 (0.89%) Augmented Reality
13 13 (0.89%) Management Information System
13 13 (0.89%) NHS
14 12 (0.82%) Graphic Design
14 12 (0.82%) Taxonomies
Operating Systems
1 98 (6.73%) Windows
2 48 (3.30%) Android
3 39 (2.68%) Apple iOS
4 34 (2.34%) 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 (0.069%) Windows Server 2008
Processes & Methodologies
1 473 (32.49%) UX Design
2 453 (31.11%) Agile
3 224 (15.38%) AI
4 212 (14.56%) Problem-Solving
5 209 (14.35%) User Research
6 207 (14.22%) Analytics
7 181 (12.43%) Continuous Improvement
8 173 (11.88%) Stakeholder Management
9 169 (11.61%) CI/CD
10 163 (11.20%) Stakeholder Engagement
11 160 (10.99%) Roadmaps
12 152 (10.44%) DevOps
13 145 (9.96%) Prototyping
14 133 (9.13%) User-Centered Design (UCD)
15 128 (8.79%) UX Research
16 126 (8.65%) Wireframes
17 125 (8.59%) Decision-Making
17 125 (8.59%) Service Design
18 112 (7.69%) Workshop Facilitation
19 106 (7.28%) Usability Testing
Programming Languages
1 157 (10.78%) JavaScript
2 127 (8.72%) SQL
3 126 (8.65%) Python
4 116 (7.97%) Java
5 110 (7.55%) TypeScript
6 53 (3.64%) C#
7 45 (3.09%) PowerShell
8 32 (2.20%) Kotlin
9 20 (1.37%) Bash
9 20 (1.37%) Data Analysis Expressions
10 12 (0.82%) Swift
11 11 (0.76%) C++
12 9 (0.62%) Lua
13 7 (0.48%) Korn
14 6 (0.41%) Perl
14 6 (0.41%) VBA
15 5 (0.34%) Apex Code
15 5 (0.34%) PL/SQL
15 5 (0.34%) R
15 5 (0.34%) Scala
Qualifications
1 195 (13.39%) Security Cleared
2 144 (9.89%) SC Cleared
3 129 (8.86%) Degree
4 32 (2.20%) BPSS Clearance
5 30 (2.06%) Computer Science Degree
6 25 (1.72%) DV Cleared
7 22 (1.51%) Microsoft Certification
8 14 (0.96%) Master's Degree
9 13 (0.89%) Azure Certification
10 11 (0.76%) 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%) OCA
15 4 (0.27%) Oracle Certification
15 4 (0.27%) PMP
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 260 (17.86%) Accessibility
2 120 (8.24%) QA
3 81 (5.56%) WCAG
4 49 (3.37%) Data Quality
5 36 (2.47%) GDPR
6 20 (1.37%) Actionable Recommendations
7 18 (1.24%) ISO/IEC 27001
8 8 (0.55%) SLA
9 7 (0.48%) Cyber Essentials
9 7 (0.48%) PMO
10 6 (0.41%) GMP
10 6 (0.41%) GxP
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 (4.74%) Active Directory
2 53 (3.64%) Docker
3 20 (1.37%) Virtual Desktop
4 18 (1.24%) 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 (0.069%) ISA Server
9 1 (0.069%) Varnish
9 1 (0.069%) Virtual Machines
Systems Management
1 56 (3.85%) Kubernetes
2 48 (3.30%) Terraform
3 35 (2.40%) Grafana
4 31 (2.13%) Microsoft Intune
4 31 (2.13%) SCCM
5 18 (1.24%) Ansible
5 18 (1.24%) Single Sign-On
6 11 (0.76%) 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 (0.069%) HAProxy
Vendors
1 209 (14.35%) Microsoft
2 91 (6.25%) Adobe
3 66 (4.53%) Google
4 53 (3.64%) ServiceNow
5 47 (3.23%) Oracle
6 42 (2.88%) Salesforce
6 42 (2.88%) SAP
7 23 (1.58%) Citrix
8 20 (1.37%) Splunk
9 18 (1.24%) VMware
10 17 (1.17%) Databricks
10 17 (1.17%) Workday
11 16 (1.10%) Cisco
12 15 (1.03%) Dynatrace
13 14 (0.96%) Apple
14 11 (0.76%) Aruba
15 9 (0.62%) Foundry
15 9 (0.62%) MuleSoft
15 9 (0.62%) OpenAI
16 8 (0.55%) Zscaler