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

6 months to
26 Aug 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 89 65 78
Rank change year-on-year -24 +13 -17
Contract jobs citing User Experience 1,532 1,255 1,013
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 2.86% 3.84% 2.61%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 3.38% 4.24% 3.06%
Number of daily rates quoted 920 796 629
10th Percentile £300 £300 £300
25th Percentile £390 £375 £400
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £475 £475 £500
Median % change year-on-year - -5.00% -2.44%
75th Percentile £575 £575 £600
90th Percentile £688 £675 £700
UK excluding London median daily rate £450 £447 £475
% change year-on-year +0.67% -5.89% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 75 48 30
10th Percentile £16.94 £23.58 £15.98
25th Percentile £26.13 £34.11 £30.00
Median hourly rate £33.99 £47.50 £45.84
Median % change year-on-year -28.44% +3.63% +22.23%
75th Percentile £67.84 £63.75 £73.10
90th Percentile £74.50 £72.15 £74.50
UK excluding London median hourly rate £33.99 £48.25 £66.00
% change year-on-year -29.55% -26.89% +272.46%

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 45,367 29,590 33,147
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 84.58% 90.44% 85.35%
Number of daily rates quoted 27,794 18,422 20,982
10th Percentile £325 £300 £310
25th Percentile £425 £402 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £500 £525
Median % change year-on-year +5.00% -4.76% -3.67%
75th Percentile £625 £625 £638
90th Percentile £725 £725 £750
UK excluding London median daily rate £500 £475 £500
% change year-on-year +5.26% -5.00% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 2,879 1,766 1,695
10th Percentile £14.22 £14.20 £13.86
25th Percentile £17.97 £17.30 £18.13
Median hourly rate £41.06 £25.15 £40.50
Median % change year-on-year +63.26% -37.90% -4.71%
75th Percentile £67.89 £47.50 £65.00
90th Percentile £80.00 £67.50 £75.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £43.96 £22.63 £42.50
% change year-on-year +94.26% -46.75% +6.25%

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 26 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 26 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 26 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 -27 1,330 £475 - 595
UK excluding London -15 725 £450 +0.67% 333
London -34 672 £513 +2.50% 330
Work from Home -36 385 £475 -2.56% 266
North of England -20 240 £425 - 94
Midlands -5 151 £475 +9.83% 53
West Midlands -15 122 £475 -8.57% 36
North West -34 118 £393 -9.86% 44
South East -58 106 £408 -8.84% 49
Scotland +7 92 £538 +16.53% 18
South West -16 79 £475 +1.28% 84
Yorkshire -18 72 £500 +25.00% 33
North East -5 49 £363 -24.48% 19
East of England 0 45 £410 -14.14% 24
East Midlands -13 29 £500 +39.66% 17
Wales -11 15 £579 +89.22% 7
Northern Ireland +3 3 £638 +56.44% 12

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 66 (4.31%) SharePoint
2 58 (3.79%) CMS
3 42 (2.74%) Confluence
4 31 (2.02%) Microsoft Exchange
5 16 (1.04%) WordPress
6 7 (0.46%) Adobe Experience Manager
6 7 (0.46%) Apache
6 7 (0.46%) Skype for Business
7 6 (0.39%) Drupal
8 5 (0.33%) Apache Airflow
8 5 (0.33%) Headless CMS
8 5 (0.33%) Oracle Workflow
9 4 (0.26%) Kentico
10 3 (0.20%) Camunda
10 3 (0.20%) Mendix
10 3 (0.20%) Moodle
10 3 (0.20%) Umbraco
11 2 (0.13%) HCL Notes
11 2 (0.13%) IIS
11 2 (0.13%) nginx
Applications
1 35 (2.28%) Adobe Creative Suite
2 31 (2.02%) Sketch
3 23 (1.50%) Chatbot
3 23 (1.50%) Microsoft Excel
4 20 (1.31%) Microsoft Office
5 19 (1.24%) Photoshop
6 18 (1.17%) Adobe After Effects
7 15 (0.98%) Adobe Illustrator
8 13 (0.85%) Adobe XD
9 8 (0.52%) Microsoft PowerPoint
9 8 (0.52%) MS Visio
10 6 (0.39%) Final Cut Pro
11 2 (0.13%) InVision
11 2 (0.13%) Oracle Smart View
11 2 (0.13%) Spreadsheet
11 2 (0.13%) UserZoom
12 1 (0.065%) Adobe Captivate
12 1 (0.065%) Blender
12 1 (0.065%) Microsoft Project
12 1 (0.065%) Trello
Business Applications
1 7 (0.46%) Dynamics CRM
1 7 (0.46%) Workday HCM
2 6 (0.39%) Shopify
3 5 (0.33%) SAP S/4HANA
4 4 (0.26%) NetSuite
4 4 (0.26%) Oracle iProcurement
4 4 (0.26%) Remedy ITSM
5 3 (0.20%) iTrent
5 3 (0.20%) Payment Gateway
5 3 (0.20%) Salesforce CRM
6 2 (0.13%) Oracle EBS
6 2 (0.13%) Oracle Payables
6 2 (0.13%) Oracle Receivables
6 2 (0.13%) ResourceLink
6 2 (0.13%) Sage X3
7 1 (0.065%) Bloomberg TOMS
7 1 (0.065%) Eloqua
7 1 (0.065%) Exchequer
7 1 (0.065%) Oracle EBS R12
7 1 (0.065%) SAP HR
Cloud Services
1 226 (14.75%) Azure
2 192 (12.53%) Figma
3 148 (9.66%) Microsoft 365
4 132 (8.62%) AWS
5 113 (7.38%) Power Platform
6 69 (4.50%) Entra ID
7 62 (4.05%) GitHub
8 54 (3.52%) Microsoft Copilot
9 53 (3.46%) SaaS
10 51 (3.33%) Azure DevOps
11 39 (2.55%) GCP
12 33 (2.15%) OneDrive
12 33 (2.15%) PowerApps
13 26 (1.70%) Serverless
14 25 (1.63%) Power Automate
15 24 (1.57%) Copilot Studio
15 24 (1.57%) GitHub Actions
16 22 (1.44%) Azure AI
17 18 (1.17%) GitHub Copilot
18 17 (1.11%) Snowflake
Communications & Networking
1 45 (2.94%) DNS
2 37 (2.42%) DHCP
3 32 (2.09%) TCP/IP
4 30 (1.96%) Wi-Fi
5 22 (1.44%) Wireless
6 21 (1.37%) LAN
7 17 (1.11%) VPN
8 16 (1.04%) Firewall
8 16 (1.04%) WAN
9 13 (0.85%) Internet
10 11 (0.72%) SD-WAN
11 9 (0.59%) Cisco Wireless
11 9 (0.59%) NetScaler
11 9 (0.59%) Skype
12 8 (0.52%) Intranet
12 8 (0.52%) Network Security
13 7 (0.46%) 5G
13 7 (0.46%) SNMP
13 7 (0.46%) WLAN
14 6 (0.39%) SSL
Database & Business Intelligence
1 68 (4.44%) Power BI
2 25 (1.63%) Metadata
3 18 (1.17%) NoSQL
3 18 (1.17%) PostgreSQL
4 15 (0.98%) Power Query
5 14 (0.91%) Relational Database
5 14 (0.91%) SQL Server
6 13 (0.85%) MongoDB
6 13 (0.85%) Tableau
7 12 (0.78%) Elasticsearch
8 11 (0.72%) Big Data
9 9 (0.59%) Looker
10 8 (0.52%) Data Warehouse
10 8 (0.52%) Redis
11 7 (0.46%) MySQL
11 7 (0.46%) Snowflake Schema
12 6 (0.39%) Flink
12 6 (0.39%) Qlik Sense
12 6 (0.39%) Star Schema
13 5 (0.33%) BigQuery
Development Applications
1 87 (5.68%) JIRA
2 81 (5.29%) Git
3 29 (1.89%) Cypress.io
3 29 (1.89%) Jenkins
4 24 (1.57%) Vite
5 16 (1.04%) GitLab
6 14 (0.91%) Claude Code
7 11 (0.72%) Storybook
8 10 (0.65%) Android Studio
8 10 (0.65%) Browser DevTools
8 10 (0.65%) fastlane
9 9 (0.59%) Selenium
9 9 (0.59%) Xcode
10 7 (0.46%) Gradle
10 7 (0.46%) JMeter
11 6 (0.39%) JUnit
11 6 (0.39%) Postman
11 6 (0.39%) webpack
12 5 (0.33%) Crashlytics
12 5 (0.33%) REST Assured
General
1 490 (31.98%) Social Skills
2 261 (17.04%) Finance
3 209 (13.64%) Public Sector
4 155 (10.12%) Analytical Skills
5 110 (7.18%) Banking
6 78 (5.09%) Retail
7 74 (4.83%) Marketing
8 52 (3.39%) Inclusion and Diversity
9 39 (2.55%) Influencing Skills
9 39 (2.55%) Legal
10 28 (1.83%) Automotive
10 28 (1.83%) Organisational Skills
11 27 (1.76%) Publishing
12 26 (1.70%) Presentation Skills
13 23 (1.50%) Documentation Skills
14 22 (1.44%) Manufacturing
15 18 (1.17%) Military
16 17 (1.11%) Investment Banking
17 10 (0.65%) Law
18 9 (0.59%) Front Office
Job Titles
1 328 (21.41%) Designer
2 215 (14.03%) Senior
3 204 (13.32%) Developer
4 133 (8.68%) UX Designer
5 124 (8.09%) Lead
6 103 (6.72%) Analyst
7 81 (5.29%) UI Designer
8 75 (4.90%) Consultant
9 66 (4.31%) Senior Designer
10 63 (4.11%) User Researcher
11 59 (3.85%) Architect
12 54 (3.52%) Support Engineer
13 53 (3.46%) IT Support
14 52 (3.39%) Product Manager
15 51 (3.33%) Business Analyst
16 50 (3.26%) Content Designer
17 45 (2.94%) Front-End Developer (Client-Side Developer)
18 44 (2.87%) UI/UX Designer
19 42 (2.74%) Product Designer
19 42 (2.74%) User Experience Researcher
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 150 (9.79%) React
2 118 (7.70%) CSS
3 106 (6.92%) HTML
4 92 (6.01%) REST
5 63 (4.11%) RESTful
6 48 (3.13%) AngularJS
6 48 (3.13%) Terraform
7 43 (2.81%) HTML5
8 42 (2.74%) CSS3
9 41 (2.68%) GraphQL
10 38 (2.48%) .NET
11 33 (2.15%) Jest
12 32 (2.09%) Next.js
13 31 (2.02%) Node.js
14 30 (1.96%) Playwright
14 30 (1.96%) Spring
15 29 (1.89%) Kafka
15 29 (1.89%) Spring Boot
16 27 (1.76%) OAuth
17 24 (1.57%) Redux
Miscellaneous
1 140 (9.14%) Product Ownership
2 94 (6.14%) Mobile App
3 88 (5.74%) Onboarding
4 55 (3.59%) Cloud Native
5 46 (3.00%) AI Agents
6 33 (2.15%) Self-Motivation
7 32 (2.09%) Data Protection Act
8 30 (1.96%) Enterprise Software
9 27 (1.76%) Legacy Systems
10 24 (1.57%) Data Structures
11 22 (1.44%) Management Information System
11 22 (1.44%) Social Media
12 21 (1.37%) NHS
13 20 (1.31%) Animation
13 20 (1.31%) Data Centre
14 19 (1.24%) Educational Technology
15 17 (1.11%) Graphic Design
16 15 (0.98%) Analytical Mindset
16 15 (0.98%) Virtual Reality
17 14 (0.91%) Taxonomies
Operating Systems
1 153 (9.99%) Windows
2 66 (4.31%) Android
3 65 (4.24%) Apple iOS
4 58 (3.79%) Windows 10
5 31 (2.02%) Mac OS
6 29 (1.89%) Windows Server
7 19 (1.24%) Linux
8 11 (0.72%) Unix
9 9 (0.59%) Windows 7
10 4 (0.26%) Windows Server 2016
10 4 (0.26%) Windows Server 2019
11 2 (0.13%) Windows Server 2008
11 2 (0.13%) Windows Server 2012
12 1 (0.065%) AIX
Processes & Methodologies
1 501 (32.70%) UX Design
2 441 (28.79%) Agile
3 304 (19.84%) AI
4 263 (17.17%) Stakeholder Management
5 253 (16.51%) Problem-Solving
6 225 (14.69%) Continuous Improvement
7 207 (13.51%) Analytics
8 199 (12.99%) User Research
9 177 (11.55%) CI/CD
10 171 (11.16%) Stakeholder Engagement
11 149 (9.73%) Roadmaps
12 144 (9.40%) Decision-Making
12 144 (9.40%) User-Centered Design (UCD)
13 130 (8.49%) Prototyping
14 123 (8.03%) DevOps
14 123 (8.03%) Service Design
15 120 (7.83%) Scrum
16 116 (7.57%) Workshop Facilitation
17 115 (7.51%) Wireframes
18 108 (7.05%) ITIL
Programming Languages
1 142 (9.27%) JavaScript
2 121 (7.90%) TypeScript
3 116 (7.57%) Python
4 99 (6.46%) SQL
5 93 (6.07%) Java
6 52 (3.39%) PowerShell
7 34 (2.22%) C#
8 29 (1.89%) Kotlin
9 20 (1.31%) Bash
9 20 (1.31%) Data Analysis Expressions
10 16 (1.04%) Swift
11 8 (0.52%) Go
11 8 (0.52%) PHP
11 8 (0.52%) VBScript
12 7 (0.46%) C++
12 7 (0.46%) Shell Script
12 7 (0.46%) VB
13 6 (0.39%) Apex Code
13 6 (0.39%) Scala
14 5 (0.33%) Ruby
Qualifications
1 242 (15.80%) Security Cleared
2 180 (11.75%) SC Cleared
3 124 (8.09%) Degree
4 42 (2.74%) BPSS Clearance
5 36 (2.35%) Computer Science Degree
6 27 (1.76%) DV Cleared
7 23 (1.50%) Azure Certification
8 18 (1.17%) Microsoft Certification
9 14 (0.91%) PMP
10 10 (0.65%) Cisco Certification
11 9 (0.59%) ITIL Certification
12 8 (0.52%) AWS Certification
12 8 (0.52%) VMware Certified Professional (VCP)
13 7 (0.46%) DBS Check
13 7 (0.46%) Master's Degree
14 6 (0.39%) CCIE
14 6 (0.39%) CCNP
14 6 (0.39%) MCSE
15 5 (0.33%) CCA
15 5 (0.33%) CISSP
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 267 (17.43%) Accessibility
2 96 (6.27%) WCAG
3 91 (5.94%) QA
4 42 (2.74%) Data Quality
5 19 (1.24%) GDPR
6 16 (1.04%) Actionable Recommendations
7 10 (0.65%) SLA
8 9 (0.59%) ISO/IEC 27001
9 8 (0.52%) PMO
10 7 (0.46%) ISO/IEC 42001
11 5 (0.33%) Cyber Essentials
12 4 (0.26%) GRC
12 4 (0.26%) HMG Security Policy Framework
13 3 (0.20%) GMP
13 3 (0.20%) GxP
14 2 (0.13%) PCI DSS
14 2 (0.13%) PSD2
15 1 (0.065%) ISO 20022
15 1 (0.065%) Sarbanes-Oxley
15 1 (0.065%) SEPA
System Software
1 104 (6.79%) Active Directory
2 48 (3.13%) Docker
3 30 (1.96%) Virtual Desktop
4 24 (1.57%) VMware Infrastructure
5 13 (0.85%) Hyper-V
6 7 (0.46%) BitLocker
6 7 (0.46%) Citrix Hypervisor
6 7 (0.46%) vSphere
7 6 (0.39%) XenApp
7 6 (0.39%) XenDesktop
8 5 (0.33%) VMware ESXi
9 4 (0.26%) Firmware
9 4 (0.26%) Microsoft App-V
10 3 (0.20%) UAG
11 2 (0.13%) Virtual Machines
11 2 (0.13%) VMware NSX
11 2 (0.13%) VMware Workstation
12 1 (0.065%) Varnish
Systems Management
1 51 (3.33%) Microsoft Intune
2 49 (3.20%) Kubernetes
3 34 (2.22%) Grafana
4 32 (2.09%) SCCM
5 21 (1.37%) Single Sign-On
6 17 (1.11%) Ansible
7 15 (0.98%) Jamf Pro
8 14 (0.91%) Prometheus
9 5 (0.33%) SysTrack
9 5 (0.33%) vCenter Server
10 4 (0.26%) Clonezilla
10 4 (0.26%) Podman
11 3 (0.20%) Kibana
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
Vendors
1 267 (17.43%) Microsoft
2 87 (5.68%) Adobe
3 85 (5.55%) ServiceNow
4 51 (3.33%) Google
5 45 (2.94%) Oracle
6 30 (1.96%) Salesforce
6 30 (1.96%) SAP
7 27 (1.76%) VMware
8 26 (1.70%) Citrix
9 25 (1.63%) Dynatrace
10 22 (1.44%) Databricks
10 22 (1.44%) Splunk
11 21 (1.37%) Apple
12 19 (1.24%) Cisco
13 17 (1.11%) OpenAI
13 17 (1.11%) Workday
14 14 (0.91%) Foundry
14 14 (0.91%) Zscaler
15 12 (0.78%) Aruba
16 10 (0.65%) Okta