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 1 August 2026, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
1 Aug 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 85 67 80
Rank change year-on-year -18 +13 -21
Contract jobs citing User Experience 1,581 1,226 1,044
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 2.97% 3.73% 2.65%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 3.49% 4.12% 3.10%
Number of daily rates quoted 968 790 667
10th Percentile £313 £303 £300
25th Percentile £400 £376 £400
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £476 £475 £500
Median % change year-on-year +0.11% -5.00% -1.96%
75th Percentile £575 £588 £600
90th Percentile £688 £688 £700
UK excluding London median daily rate £450 £450 £464
% change year-on-year - -2.96% -2.37%
Number of hourly rates quoted 75 43 32
10th Percentile £16.29 £21.20 £16.25
25th Percentile £25.25 £34.48 £29.14
Median hourly rate £33.99 £49.00 £41.68
Median % change year-on-year -30.63% +17.58% +51.55%
75th Percentile £67.67 £64.38 £71.29
90th Percentile £73.25 £72.40 £74.44
UK excluding London median hourly rate £33.99 £53.50 £70.00
% change year-on-year -36.47% -23.57% +295.03%

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 45,324 29,743 33,722
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 85.01% 90.43% 85.47%
Number of daily rates quoted 28,013 18,657 21,666
10th Percentile £325 £300 £308
25th Percentile £420 £404 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £523 £500 £525
Median % change year-on-year +4.60% -4.76% -4.55%
75th Percentile £625 £625 £638
90th Percentile £725 £734 £750
UK excluding London median daily rate £500 £475 £500
% change year-on-year +5.26% -5.00% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 2,761 1,640 1,941
10th Percentile £14.50 £14.20 £13.86
25th Percentile £19.50 £17.32 £17.80
Median hourly rate £43.96 £25.15 £40.00
Median % change year-on-year +74.79% -37.13% -5.88%
75th Percentile £68.00 £50.00 £63.75
90th Percentile £82.25 £68.75 £74.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £43.96 £23.57 £40.94
% change year-on-year +86.55% -42.44% +2.35%

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 1 August 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 1 August 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 1 August 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 -16 1,373 £475 - 1,106
UK excluding London -9 732 £450 - 618
London -23 700 £525 +5.00% 636
Work from Home -33 399 £500 +2.56% 555
North of England -10 225 £438 -2.67% 168
Midlands -10 144 £475 +12.43% 82
South East -33 128 £483 +1.58% 152
West Midlands -15 115 £475 -5.00% 60
North West -30 112 £425 -5.56% 92
Scotland +18 95 £525 +13.51% 41
South West -13 78 £475 +18.75% 82
Yorkshire -24 61 £500 +25.00% 55
North East -1 52 £375 -21.88% 21
East of England +11 50 £410 -16.33% 52
East Midlands -11 29 £468 +31.32% 22
Wales -7 15 £579 +89.22% 36
Northern Ireland 0 2 - - 18

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 64 (4.05%) SharePoint
2 60 (3.80%) CMS
3 41 (2.59%) Confluence
4 27 (1.71%) Microsoft Exchange
5 16 (1.01%) WordPress
6 9 (0.57%) Apache
7 8 (0.51%) Adobe Experience Manager
8 6 (0.38%) Drupal
8 6 (0.38%) Mendix
8 6 (0.38%) Skype for Business
9 5 (0.32%) Apache Airflow
9 5 (0.32%) Headless CMS
10 4 (0.25%) Kentico
11 3 (0.19%) Moodle
11 3 (0.19%) Umbraco
12 2 (0.13%) Camunda
12 2 (0.13%) HCL Notes
12 2 (0.13%) IIS
12 2 (0.13%) nginx
12 2 (0.13%) Oracle Workflow
Applications
1 39 (2.47%) Sketch
2 35 (2.21%) Adobe Creative Suite
3 31 (1.96%) Microsoft Excel
4 22 (1.39%) Chatbot
5 20 (1.27%) Photoshop
6 19 (1.20%) Adobe After Effects
7 17 (1.08%) Adobe XD
7 17 (1.08%) Microsoft Office
8 15 (0.95%) Adobe Illustrator
9 10 (0.63%) Microsoft PowerPoint
10 9 (0.57%) MS Visio
11 6 (0.38%) Final Cut Pro
12 4 (0.25%) Adobe Captivate
13 2 (0.13%) InVision
13 2 (0.13%) Microsoft Project
13 2 (0.13%) Oracle Smart View
13 2 (0.13%) UserZoom
14 1 (0.063%) Camtasia
14 1 (0.063%) Spreadsheet
14 1 (0.063%) Trello
Business Applications
1 13 (0.82%) SAP S/4HANA
2 11 (0.70%) Workday HCM
3 8 (0.51%) Dynamics CRM
4 7 (0.44%) Shopify
5 6 (0.38%) Sage X3
6 4 (0.25%) NetSuite
6 4 (0.25%) Oracle iProcurement
7 3 (0.19%) iTrent
7 3 (0.19%) Payment Gateway
7 3 (0.19%) Salesforce CRM
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 (0.063%) Eloqua
9 1 (0.063%) Magento
9 1 (0.063%) Oracle EBS R12
9 1 (0.063%) SAP HR
9 1 (0.063%) SAP QM
Cloud Services
1 246 (15.56%) Azure
2 221 (13.98%) Figma
3 138 (8.73%) AWS
4 130 (8.22%) Microsoft 365
5 116 (7.34%) Power Platform
6 64 (4.05%) Entra ID
7 58 (3.67%) Azure DevOps
8 57 (3.61%) GitHub
9 51 (3.23%) GCP
9 51 (3.23%) SaaS
10 50 (3.16%) Microsoft Copilot
11 35 (2.21%) PowerApps
12 31 (1.96%) OneDrive
13 30 (1.90%) Serverless
14 28 (1.77%) Power Automate
15 26 (1.64%) Copilot Studio
16 24 (1.52%) Azure AI
17 22 (1.39%) GitHub Actions
18 17 (1.08%) Snowflake
19 13 (0.82%) GitHub Copilot
Communications & Networking
1 41 (2.59%) DNS
2 33 (2.09%) DHCP
3 29 (1.83%) TCP/IP
4 26 (1.64%) Wi-Fi
5 21 (1.33%) Wireless
6 20 (1.27%) LAN
7 14 (0.89%) Firewall
7 14 (0.89%) WAN
8 13 (0.82%) VPN
9 12 (0.76%) Internet
10 10 (0.63%) Intranet
10 10 (0.63%) SD-WAN
11 8 (0.51%) Cisco Wireless
11 8 (0.51%) Network Security
11 8 (0.51%) Skype
12 7 (0.44%) 5G
12 7 (0.44%) SNMP
13 6 (0.38%) WLAN
14 5 (0.32%) SMS
14 5 (0.32%) SSL
Database & Business Intelligence
1 73 (4.62%) Power BI
2 25 (1.58%) Metadata
3 22 (1.39%) PostgreSQL
4 21 (1.33%) NoSQL
5 18 (1.14%) Power Query
5 18 (1.14%) Relational Database
6 15 (0.95%) SQL Server
7 14 (0.89%) Data Warehouse
7 14 (0.89%) Tableau
8 11 (0.70%) Big Data
8 11 (0.70%) MongoDB
9 10 (0.63%) MySQL
10 8 (0.51%) Looker
11 7 (0.44%) BigQuery
11 7 (0.44%) Elasticsearch
11 7 (0.44%) Snowflake Schema
11 7 (0.44%) Star Schema
12 6 (0.38%) Azure SQL Database
12 6 (0.38%) DynamoDB
12 6 (0.38%) ZAP BI
Development Applications
1 88 (5.57%) JIRA
2 80 (5.06%) Git
3 28 (1.77%) Jenkins
4 26 (1.64%) Cypress.io
5 25 (1.58%) Vite
6 19 (1.20%) GitLab
7 12 (0.76%) Claude Code
8 10 (0.63%) Android Studio
8 10 (0.63%) Browser DevTools
8 10 (0.63%) fastlane
8 10 (0.63%) Selenium
8 10 (0.63%) Storybook
9 9 (0.57%) Xcode
10 8 (0.51%) Gradle
10 8 (0.51%) JUnit
10 8 (0.51%) webpack
11 7 (0.44%) JMeter
12 6 (0.38%) Postman
12 6 (0.38%) Visual Studio
13 5 (0.32%) Crashlytics
General
1 501 (31.69%) Social Skills
2 275 (17.39%) Finance
3 214 (13.54%) Public Sector
4 158 (9.99%) Analytical Skills
5 121 (7.65%) Banking
6 83 (5.25%) Retail
7 76 (4.81%) Marketing
8 50 (3.16%) Inclusion and Diversity
9 39 (2.47%) Influencing Skills
9 39 (2.47%) Legal
10 31 (1.96%) Publishing
11 29 (1.83%) Presentation Skills
12 27 (1.71%) Automotive
13 26 (1.64%) Manufacturing
13 26 (1.64%) Organisational Skills
14 22 (1.39%) Documentation Skills
15 18 (1.14%) Investment Banking
16 16 (1.01%) Military
17 12 (0.76%) Front Office
18 11 (0.70%) Pharmaceutical
Job Titles
1 346 (21.88%) Designer
2 226 (14.29%) Senior
3 204 (12.90%) Developer
4 146 (9.23%) UX Designer
5 120 (7.59%) Lead
6 114 (7.21%) Analyst
7 89 (5.63%) UI Designer
8 81 (5.12%) Consultant
9 67 (4.24%) Senior Designer
9 67 (4.24%) User Researcher
10 63 (3.98%) Architect
11 58 (3.67%) Business Analyst
12 56 (3.54%) Product Designer
13 53 (3.35%) Content Designer
14 51 (3.23%) UI/UX Designer
15 47 (2.97%) Product Manager
16 45 (2.85%) IT Support
17 44 (2.78%) Support Engineer
17 44 (2.78%) User Experience Researcher
18 35 (2.21%) Senior Developer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 146 (9.23%) React
2 117 (7.40%) CSS
3 105 (6.64%) HTML
4 98 (6.20%) REST
5 66 (4.17%) RESTful
6 54 (3.42%) AngularJS
7 43 (2.72%) HTML5
8 42 (2.66%) .NET
8 42 (2.66%) GraphQL
9 40 (2.53%) CSS3
10 36 (2.28%) Node.js
11 33 (2.09%) Jest
12 32 (2.02%) Spring
13 31 (1.96%) Spring Boot
14 30 (1.90%) Kafka
15 29 (1.83%) Redux
16 24 (1.52%) Next.js
16 24 (1.52%) OAuth
16 24 (1.52%) Playwright
17 23 (1.45%) JSON
Miscellaneous
1 152 (9.61%) Product Ownership
2 100 (6.33%) Mobile App
3 84 (5.31%) Onboarding
4 48 (3.04%) Cloud Native
5 45 (2.85%) AI Agents
6 33 (2.09%) Self-Motivation
7 32 (2.02%) Enterprise Software
8 31 (1.96%) Data Structures
9 29 (1.83%) Data Protection Act
10 25 (1.58%) Legacy Systems
11 22 (1.39%) Animation
11 22 (1.39%) Data Centre
12 21 (1.33%) Social Media
13 19 (1.20%) Analytical Mindset
14 17 (1.08%) Graphic Design
15 16 (1.01%) Educational Technology
15 16 (1.01%) NHS
16 15 (0.95%) Foreign Exchange (FX)
16 15 (0.95%) Management Information System
17 14 (0.89%) Taxonomies
Operating Systems
1 133 (8.41%) Windows
2 59 (3.73%) Android
3 56 (3.54%) Apple iOS
4 44 (2.78%) Windows 10
5 28 (1.77%) Mac OS
6 20 (1.27%) Windows Server
7 18 (1.14%) Linux
8 10 (0.63%) Unix
9 9 (0.57%) Windows 7
10 5 (0.32%) Windows Server 2016
11 4 (0.25%) Windows Server 2019
12 3 (0.19%) Windows Server 2008
13 2 (0.13%) Windows Server 2012
Processes & Methodologies
1 511 (32.32%) UX Design
2 458 (28.97%) Agile
3 308 (19.48%) AI
4 249 (15.75%) Problem-Solving
5 240 (15.18%) Stakeholder Management
6 224 (14.17%) Continuous Improvement
7 219 (13.85%) User Research
8 214 (13.54%) Analytics
9 191 (12.08%) CI/CD
10 179 (11.32%) Stakeholder Engagement
11 161 (10.18%) Roadmaps
12 148 (9.36%) Decision-Making
12 148 (9.36%) Prototyping
12 148 (9.36%) User-Centered Design (UCD)
13 144 (9.11%) DevOps
14 135 (8.54%) Wireframes
15 126 (7.97%) Service Design
16 120 (7.59%) UX Research
17 116 (7.34%) Scrum
17 116 (7.34%) Workshop Facilitation
Programming Languages
1 137 (8.67%) JavaScript
2 130 (8.22%) Python
3 115 (7.27%) TypeScript
4 113 (7.15%) SQL
5 104 (6.58%) Java
6 51 (3.23%) PowerShell
7 42 (2.66%) C#
8 37 (2.34%) Kotlin
9 24 (1.52%) Data Analysis Expressions
10 18 (1.14%) Bash
11 17 (1.08%) Swift
12 11 (0.70%) C++
13 8 (0.51%) Go
13 8 (0.51%) Korn
13 8 (0.51%) Lua
13 8 (0.51%) PHP
14 7 (0.44%) Apex Code
14 7 (0.44%) R
14 7 (0.44%) Scala
14 7 (0.44%) VBScript
Qualifications
1 248 (15.69%) Security Cleared
2 189 (11.95%) SC Cleared
3 143 (9.04%) Degree
4 38 (2.40%) Computer Science Degree
5 36 (2.28%) BPSS Clearance
6 29 (1.83%) DV Cleared
7 23 (1.45%) Azure Certification
8 21 (1.33%) Microsoft Certification
9 12 (0.76%) PMP
10 11 (0.70%) Cisco Certification
11 9 (0.57%) ITIL Certification
12 8 (0.51%) AWS Certification
12 8 (0.51%) CCA
12 8 (0.51%) Citrix Certification
12 8 (0.51%) Master's Degree
12 8 (0.51%) VMware Certified Professional (VCP)
13 7 (0.44%) CCNP
14 6 (0.38%) CCIE
14 6 (0.38%) DBS Check
14 6 (0.38%) MCSE
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 282 (17.84%) Accessibility
2 99 (6.26%) WCAG
3 98 (6.20%) QA
4 51 (3.23%) Data Quality
5 20 (1.27%) GDPR
6 16 (1.01%) Actionable Recommendations
7 12 (0.76%) ISO/IEC 27001
8 10 (0.63%) SLA
9 9 (0.57%) PMO
10 7 (0.44%) Cyber Essentials
10 7 (0.44%) ISO/IEC 42001
11 4 (0.25%) GRC
11 4 (0.25%) HMG Security Policy Framework
12 3 (0.19%) GMP
12 3 (0.19%) GxP
13 2 (0.13%) NIST
13 2 (0.13%) PCI DSS
13 2 (0.13%) PSD2
14 1 (0.063%) ISO 20022
14 1 (0.063%) SEPA
System Software
1 88 (5.57%) Active Directory
2 51 (3.23%) Docker
3 31 (1.96%) Virtual Desktop
4 19 (1.20%) VMware Infrastructure
5 7 (0.44%) vSphere
6 6 (0.38%) BitLocker
6 6 (0.38%) Firmware
7 5 (0.32%) VMware ESXi
8 4 (0.25%) Hyper-V
8 4 (0.25%) Microsoft App-V
9 3 (0.19%) UAG
9 3 (0.19%) Virtual Machines
10 2 (0.13%) VMware NSX
10 2 (0.13%) VMware Workstation
10 2 (0.13%) XenApp
10 2 (0.13%) XenDesktop
11 1 (0.063%) Varnish
Systems Management
1 54 (3.42%) Terraform
2 49 (3.10%) Kubernetes
3 47 (2.97%) Microsoft Intune
4 39 (2.47%) Grafana
5 35 (2.21%) SCCM
6 18 (1.14%) Single Sign-On
7 17 (1.08%) Ansible
8 14 (0.89%) Jamf Pro
8 14 (0.89%) Prometheus
9 5 (0.32%) vCenter Server
10 4 (0.25%) Clonezilla
10 4 (0.25%) Podman
11 3 (0.19%) Kibana
11 3 (0.19%) Systems Management Server (SMS)
11 3 (0.19%) 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
Vendors
1 269 (17.01%) Microsoft
2 95 (6.01%) Adobe
3 81 (5.12%) ServiceNow
4 58 (3.67%) Google
5 42 (2.66%) SAP
6 38 (2.40%) Oracle
7 34 (2.15%) Salesforce
8 28 (1.77%) Splunk
9 27 (1.71%) Citrix
10 25 (1.58%) Dynatrace
11 23 (1.45%) Databricks
12 22 (1.39%) VMware
13 21 (1.33%) Workday
14 19 (1.20%) Cisco
15 16 (1.01%) Apple
15 16 (1.01%) Foundry
15 16 (1.01%) OpenAI
16 15 (0.95%) Zscaler
17 12 (0.76%) Aruba
18 10 (0.63%) Okta