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 30 June 2026, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
30 Jun 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 85 62 79
Rank change year-on-year -23 +17 -20
Contract jobs citing User Experience 1,512 1,142 1,155
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 2.95% 3.73% 2.68%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 3.47% 4.11% 3.14%
Number of daily rates quoted 939 744 764
10th Percentile £318 £305 £305
25th Percentile £405 £381 £400
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £492 £475 £500
Median % change year-on-year +3.58% -5.00% -1.96%
75th Percentile £588 £580 £600
90th Percentile £682 £688 £700
UK excluding London median daily rate £475 £447 £470
% change year-on-year +6.26% -4.89% -1.05%
Number of hourly rates quoted 69 36 47
10th Percentile £16.00 £26.57 £16.25
25th Percentile £23.16 £35.06 £25.00
Median hourly rate £33.99 £51.00 £31.71
Median % change year-on-year -33.35% +60.83% +7.15%
75th Percentile £65.00 £66.29 £61.50
90th Percentile £85.43 £85.50 £74.44
UK excluding London median hourly rate £33.99 £70.08 £27.50
% change year-on-year -51.50% +154.84% +55.19%

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 43,613 27,816 36,814
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 84.98% 90.91% 85.28%
Number of daily rates quoted 27,139 17,565 23,448
10th Percentile £325 £300 £300
25th Percentile £414 £405 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £515 £504 £525
Median % change year-on-year +2.18% -4.00% -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 2,612 1,364 2,554
10th Percentile £14.82 £14.20 £12.74
25th Percentile £20.00 £17.49 £16.06
Median hourly rate £43.96 £25.15 £37.50
Median % change year-on-year +74.79% -32.93% +4.17%
75th Percentile £68.00 £53.95 £61.30
90th Percentile £81.25 £70.00 £72.50
UK excluding London median hourly rate £44.50 £25.00 £38.12
% change year-on-year +78.00% -34.42% +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 30 June 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 30 June 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 30 June 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 -15 1,298 £485 +1.04% 597
UK excluding London -8 701 £475 +6.26% 395
London -29 653 £525 +3.96% 283
Work from Home -27 391 £503 +5.79% 248
North of England -22 200 £450 - 110
Midlands +6 153 £475 +18.16% 59
South East -17 134 £500 +5.26% 131
North West -21 112 £435 -3.33% 56
West Midlands +3 111 £475 -9.52% 36
Scotland +9 87 £525 +14.13% 13
South West -2 75 £475 +26.67% 41
Yorkshire -32 56 £500 +24.84% 29
East Midlands +2 42 £550 +54.49% 23
East of England -5 37 £410 -13.68% 43
North East -16 32 £440 -8.33% 26
Wales -9 16 £536 +75.25% 5
Northern Ireland +1 3 - - 1

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 (4.50%) SharePoint
2 46 (3.04%) CMS
3 43 (2.84%) Confluence
4 28 (1.85%) Microsoft Exchange
5 10 (0.66%) WordPress
6 6 (0.40%) Adobe Experience Manager
6 6 (0.40%) Mendix
7 5 (0.33%) Apache
7 5 (0.33%) Drupal
7 5 (0.33%) Skype for Business
8 4 (0.26%) Camunda
8 4 (0.26%) Ethereum
8 4 (0.26%) Hyperledger
8 4 (0.26%) Kentico
8 4 (0.26%) Umbraco
9 3 (0.20%) Headless CMS
9 3 (0.20%) nginx
10 2 (0.13%) IIS
10 2 (0.13%) Moodle
10 2 (0.13%) Palantir Foundry
Applications
1 37 (2.45%) Sketch
2 28 (1.85%) Microsoft Excel
3 27 (1.79%) Adobe Creative Suite
4 21 (1.39%) Chatbot
5 20 (1.32%) Photoshop
6 19 (1.26%) Adobe After Effects
7 16 (1.06%) Adobe Illustrator
7 16 (1.06%) Adobe XD
8 14 (0.93%) Microsoft Office
9 13 (0.86%) MS Visio
10 9 (0.60%) Microsoft PowerPoint
11 6 (0.40%) Final Cut Pro
12 4 (0.26%) Adobe Captivate
12 4 (0.26%) InVision
13 3 (0.20%) Spreadsheet
13 3 (0.20%) UserZoom
13 3 (0.20%) UXPin
14 2 (0.13%) Oracle Smart View
15 1 (0.066%) Camtasia
15 1 (0.066%) Trello
Business Applications
1 13 (0.86%) SAP S/4HANA
2 10 (0.66%) Dynamics CRM
2 10 (0.66%) Workday HCM
3 8 (0.53%) Shopify
4 6 (0.40%) Sage X3
5 4 (0.26%) NetSuite
5 4 (0.26%) Oracle iProcurement
6 2 (0.13%) Oracle EBS
6 2 (0.13%) Oracle Payables
6 2 (0.13%) Oracle Receivables
6 2 (0.13%) Payment Gateway
6 2 (0.13%) Remedy ITSM
6 2 (0.13%) ResourceLink
6 2 (0.13%) Salesforce CRM
7 1 (0.066%) Integrated Workplace Management System
7 1 (0.066%) iTrent
7 1 (0.066%) NEC Housing
7 1 (0.066%) SAP HR
7 1 (0.066%) SAP QM
7 1 (0.066%) Sprinklr
Cloud Services
1 243 (16.07%) Azure
2 215 (14.22%) Figma
3 125 (8.27%) AWS
4 121 (8.00%) Microsoft 365
5 114 (7.54%) Power Platform
6 63 (4.17%) Entra ID
7 57 (3.77%) Azure DevOps
8 54 (3.57%) SaaS
9 53 (3.51%) Microsoft Copilot
10 48 (3.17%) GitHub
11 42 (2.78%) GCP
11 42 (2.78%) PowerApps
12 37 (2.45%) OneDrive
13 36 (2.38%) Power Automate
14 31 (2.05%) Serverless
15 30 (1.98%) Copilot Studio
15 30 (1.98%) GitHub Actions
16 20 (1.32%) Azure AI
17 17 (1.12%) Google Workspace
18 16 (1.06%) Snowflake
Communications & Networking
1 32 (2.12%) DNS
2 28 (1.85%) DHCP
3 24 (1.59%) TCP/IP
4 23 (1.52%) Wi-Fi
5 20 (1.32%) Wireless
6 18 (1.19%) LAN
7 13 (0.86%) Internet
8 12 (0.79%) WAN
9 11 (0.73%) Firewall
10 10 (0.66%) Intranet
10 10 (0.66%) SD-WAN
10 10 (0.66%) VPN
11 8 (0.53%) Cisco Wireless
11 8 (0.53%) HTTP
12 7 (0.46%) 5G
12 7 (0.46%) Skype
12 7 (0.46%) SNMP
12 7 (0.46%) WLAN
13 6 (0.40%) Network Security
14 5 (0.33%) 802.11
Database & Business Intelligence
1 70 (4.63%) Power BI
2 27 (1.79%) PostgreSQL
3 26 (1.72%) NoSQL
4 25 (1.65%) Relational Database
5 22 (1.46%) Metadata
6 21 (1.39%) SQL Server
7 19 (1.26%) Power Query
8 15 (0.99%) MongoDB
9 13 (0.86%) Data Warehouse
10 12 (0.79%) MySQL
11 11 (0.73%) Big Data
12 9 (0.60%) Tableau
13 7 (0.46%) Oracle Database
13 7 (0.46%) Redis
14 6 (0.40%) Azure SQL Database
14 6 (0.40%) DynamoDB
14 6 (0.40%) Elasticsearch
14 6 (0.40%) Snowflake Schema
14 6 (0.40%) ZAP BI
15 5 (0.33%) Star Schema
Development Applications
1 90 (5.95%) JIRA
2 84 (5.56%) Git
3 26 (1.72%) Jenkins
4 23 (1.52%) Vite
5 22 (1.46%) Cypress.io
6 19 (1.26%) GitLab
7 14 (0.93%) JUnit
8 10 (0.66%) Claude Code
8 10 (0.66%) fastlane
8 10 (0.66%) Selenium
9 9 (0.60%) Android Studio
9 9 (0.60%) Browser DevTools
9 9 (0.60%) Postman
9 9 (0.60%) Xcode
10 8 (0.53%) Gradle
10 8 (0.53%) Visual Studio
11 7 (0.46%) webpack
12 6 (0.40%) JMeter
13 5 (0.33%) CircleCI
13 5 (0.33%) Fiddler
General
1 464 (30.69%) Social Skills
2 269 (17.79%) Finance
3 188 (12.43%) Public Sector
4 147 (9.72%) Analytical Skills
5 120 (7.94%) Banking
6 78 (5.16%) Retail
7 58 (3.84%) Marketing
8 42 (2.78%) Inclusion and Diversity
9 37 (2.45%) Legal
10 30 (1.98%) Influencing Skills
11 28 (1.85%) Automotive
11 28 (1.85%) Presentation Skills
12 25 (1.65%) Publishing
13 24 (1.59%) Manufacturing
14 20 (1.32%) Documentation Skills
15 19 (1.26%) Organisational Skills
16 18 (1.19%) Investment Banking
17 13 (0.86%) Games
18 12 (0.79%) Front Office
19 11 (0.73%) Pharmaceutical
Job Titles
1 323 (21.36%) Designer
2 224 (14.81%) Senior
3 205 (13.56%) Developer
4 142 (9.39%) UX Designer
5 109 (7.21%) Analyst
5 109 (7.21%) Lead
6 84 (5.56%) UI Designer
7 77 (5.09%) Consultant
8 70 (4.63%) Senior Designer
9 64 (4.23%) Architect
10 63 (4.17%) Product Designer
11 57 (3.77%) Business Analyst
12 53 (3.51%) User Researcher
13 51 (3.37%) Content Designer
14 49 (3.24%) UI/UX Designer
15 47 (3.11%) User Experience Researcher
16 45 (2.98%) IT Support
17 41 (2.71%) Product Manager
18 40 (2.65%) Full-Stack Engineer
19 34 (2.25%) Senior Developer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 151 (9.99%) React
2 115 (7.61%) CSS
3 101 (6.68%) HTML
4 94 (6.22%) REST
5 69 (4.56%) RESTful
6 58 (3.84%) AngularJS
7 55 (3.64%) .NET
8 48 (3.17%) Spring
9 47 (3.11%) Spring Boot
10 40 (2.65%) GraphQL
11 33 (2.18%) Redux
12 31 (2.05%) Node.js
13 29 (1.92%) HTML5
13 29 (1.92%) JSON
13 29 (1.92%) Kafka
14 27 (1.79%) CSS3
14 27 (1.79%) Jest
14 27 (1.79%) Next.js
15 25 (1.65%) ASP.NET
16 22 (1.46%) OAuth
Miscellaneous
1 160 (10.58%) Product Ownership
2 79 (5.22%) Mobile App
3 64 (4.23%) Onboarding
4 44 (2.91%) Cloud Native
5 41 (2.71%) AI Agents
6 33 (2.18%) Enterprise Software
7 30 (1.98%) Data Structures
8 29 (1.92%) Self-Motivation
9 26 (1.72%) Data Protection Act
10 25 (1.65%) Legacy Systems
11 23 (1.52%) Animation
12 20 (1.32%) Data Centre
13 18 (1.19%) Analytical Mindset
14 17 (1.12%) Foreign Exchange (FX)
15 16 (1.06%) Taxonomies
16 15 (0.99%) Algorithms
16 15 (0.99%) Graphic Design
16 15 (0.99%) Greenfield Project
17 14 (0.93%) Social Media
18 13 (0.86%) Virtual Reality
Operating Systems
1 114 (7.54%) Windows
2 51 (3.37%) Apple iOS
3 47 (3.11%) Android
4 33 (2.18%) Windows 10
5 24 (1.59%) Mac OS
6 14 (0.93%) Linux
6 14 (0.93%) Windows Server
7 7 (0.46%) Unix
8 6 (0.40%) 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 (0.066%) Windows Server 2008
Processes & Methodologies
1 504 (33.33%) UX Design
2 452 (29.89%) Agile
3 275 (18.19%) AI
4 227 (15.01%) Problem-Solving
5 211 (13.96%) Stakeholder Management
6 193 (12.76%) Analytics
6 193 (12.76%) User Research
7 189 (12.50%) Continuous Improvement
8 177 (11.71%) CI/CD
9 166 (10.98%) Stakeholder Engagement
10 158 (10.45%) Roadmaps
11 147 (9.72%) Prototyping
12 145 (9.59%) DevOps
13 133 (8.80%) Decision-Making
14 131 (8.66%) User-Centered Design (UCD)
15 125 (8.27%) Wireframes
16 122 (8.07%) UX Research
17 121 (8.00%) Service Design
18 108 (7.14%) Scrum
19 107 (7.08%) Full-Stack Development
Programming Languages
1 142 (9.39%) JavaScript
2 122 (8.07%) TypeScript
3 121 (8.00%) Python
4 120 (7.94%) SQL
5 108 (7.14%) Java
6 59 (3.90%) C#
7 50 (3.31%) PowerShell
8 28 (1.85%) Kotlin
9 24 (1.59%) Data Analysis Expressions
10 14 (0.93%) Bash
10 14 (0.93%) Swift
11 12 (0.79%) C++
12 9 (0.60%) Lua
13 8 (0.53%) Korn
14 7 (0.46%) Apex Code
15 6 (0.40%) Go
15 6 (0.40%) R
15 6 (0.40%) VBA
15 6 (0.40%) VBScript
16 5 (0.33%) VB
Qualifications
1 206 (13.62%) Security Cleared
2 158 (10.45%) SC Cleared
3 150 (9.92%) Degree
4 34 (2.25%) Computer Science Degree
5 24 (1.59%) BPSS Clearance
6 23 (1.52%) Azure Certification
6 23 (1.52%) DV Cleared
7 22 (1.46%) Microsoft Certification
8 11 (0.73%) Cisco Certification
9 10 (0.66%) Master's Degree
10 9 (0.60%) ITIL Certification
11 8 (0.53%) CCNP
11 8 (0.53%) PMP
12 7 (0.46%) AWS Certification
12 7 (0.46%) CCA
12 7 (0.46%) CCIE
12 7 (0.46%) Citrix Certification
12 7 (0.46%) VMware Certified Professional (VCP)
13 6 (0.40%) DBS Check
14 5 (0.33%) CISSP
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 259 (17.13%) Accessibility
2 95 (6.28%) QA
3 87 (5.75%) WCAG
4 46 (3.04%) Data Quality
5 26 (1.72%) GDPR
6 19 (1.26%) Actionable Recommendations
7 11 (0.73%) ISO/IEC 27001
8 8 (0.53%) PMO
8 8 (0.53%) SLA
9 7 (0.46%) ISO/IEC 42001
10 6 (0.40%) Cyber Essentials
11 4 (0.26%) HMG Security Policy Framework
12 3 (0.20%) GMP
12 3 (0.20%) GRC
12 3 (0.20%) GxP
13 2 (0.13%) HIPAA
13 2 (0.13%) NIST
13 2 (0.13%) PCI DSS
13 2 (0.13%) PSD2
14 1 (0.066%) ISO/IEC 20000
System Software
1 75 (4.96%) Active Directory
2 48 (3.17%) Docker
3 24 (1.59%) Virtual Desktop
4 13 (0.86%) VMware Infrastructure
5 6 (0.40%) Firmware
6 5 (0.33%) BitLocker
7 4 (0.26%) Microsoft App-V
8 3 (0.20%) Hyper-V
8 3 (0.20%) Virtual Machines
9 2 (0.13%) VMware ESXi
9 2 (0.13%) VMware Workstation
9 2 (0.13%) vSphere
9 2 (0.13%) XenApp
9 2 (0.13%) XenDesktop
10 1 (0.066%) Varnish
Systems Management
1 48 (3.17%) Kubernetes
2 47 (3.11%) Microsoft Intune
3 46 (3.04%) Terraform
4 34 (2.25%) SCCM
5 30 (1.98%) Grafana
6 17 (1.12%) Single Sign-On
7 14 (0.93%) Jamf Pro
8 13 (0.86%) Ansible
9 9 (0.60%) Prometheus
10 4 (0.26%) Clonezilla
11 3 (0.20%) Podman
11 3 (0.20%) Systems Management Server (SMS)
11 3 (0.20%) WSUS
12 2 (0.13%) Failover Clustering
12 2 (0.13%) Packer
12 2 (0.13%) SCOM
12 2 (0.13%) vCenter Server
12 2 (0.13%) vMotion
13 1 (0.066%) AirWatch
13 1 (0.066%) HP ALM
Vendors
1 256 (16.93%) Microsoft
2 86 (5.69%) Adobe
3 70 (4.63%) ServiceNow
4 50 (3.31%) Google
5 45 (2.98%) SAP
6 40 (2.65%) Oracle
7 39 (2.58%) Salesforce
8 21 (1.39%) Databricks
8 21 (1.39%) Dynatrace
9 19 (1.26%) Citrix
9 19 (1.26%) Splunk
9 19 (1.26%) Workday
10 17 (1.12%) Apple
10 17 (1.12%) Cisco
10 17 (1.12%) Foundry
11 13 (0.86%) VMware
12 12 (0.79%) Aruba
13 11 (0.73%) OpenAI
14 10 (0.66%) Zscaler
15 8 (0.53%) Okta