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

6 months to
27 Aug 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 95 65 80
Rank change year-on-year -30 +15 -22
Contract jobs citing User Experience 1,534 1,263 1,017
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 2.86% 3.86% 2.62%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 3.38% 4.26% 3.07%
Number of daily rates quoted 922 807 630
10th Percentile £301 £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 £438 £475
% change year-on-year +2.86% -7.89% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 74 49 29
10th Percentile £16.88 £19.30 £15.70
25th Percentile £26.25 £33.00 £30.00
Median hourly rate £33.99 £47.50 £41.68
Median % change year-on-year -28.44% +13.98% +11.13%
75th Percentile £67.84 £63.75 £70.39
90th Percentile £74.63 £72.10 £74.44
UK excluding London median hourly rate £33.99 £47.50 £62.00
% change year-on-year -28.44% -23.39% +249.89%

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 45,399 29,629 33,143
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 84.55% 90.46% 85.37%
Number of daily rates quoted 27,782 18,436 20,950
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 2,881 1,773 1,687
10th Percentile £14.22 £14.20 £13.86
25th Percentile £17.87 £17.30 £18.13
Median hourly rate £41.00 £25.15 £40.50
Median % change year-on-year +63.02% -37.90% -4.71%
75th Percentile £67.84 £47.50 £65.00
90th Percentile £80.00 £67.50 £75.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £43.96 £23.00 £42.50
% change year-on-year +91.13% -45.88% +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 27 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 27 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 27 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 -28 1,332 £475 - 1,930
UK excluding London -16 725 £450 +2.86% 849
London -30 674 £513 +2.50% 1,297
Work from Home -43 388 £475 -3.01% 804
North of England -14 240 £425 +3.03% 226
Midlands -6 151 £475 +9.83% 112
West Midlands -5 122 £475 -8.57% 72
North West -33 119 £397 -6.71% 123
South East -50 106 £408 -8.84% 189
Scotland +10 91 £538 +16.22% 67
South West -15 80 £475 +1.28% 130
Yorkshire -25 72 £500 +25.00% 65
North East -6 48 £350 -27.08% 41
East of England +1 45 £410 -14.14% 76
East Midlands -13 29 £500 +39.66% 40
Wales -11 15 £579 +89.22% 21
Northern Ireland +3 3 £638 +56.44% 37

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 67 (4.37%) SharePoint
2 59 (3.85%) CMS
3 41 (2.67%) Confluence
4 32 (2.09%) Microsoft Exchange
5 16 (1.04%) WordPress
6 8 (0.52%) Adobe Experience Manager
7 7 (0.46%) Apache
7 7 (0.46%) Skype for Business
8 6 (0.39%) Drupal
9 5 (0.33%) Apache Airflow
9 5 (0.33%) Headless CMS
9 5 (0.33%) Oracle Workflow
10 4 (0.26%) Kentico
11 3 (0.20%) Camunda
11 3 (0.20%) Mendix
11 3 (0.20%) Moodle
11 3 (0.20%) Umbraco
12 2 (0.13%) HCL Notes
12 2 (0.13%) IIS
12 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 (1.30%) 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 8 (0.52%) Workday HCM
2 7 (0.46%) Dynamics CRM
3 6 (0.39%) Shopify
4 5 (0.33%) SAP S/4HANA
5 4 (0.26%) NetSuite
5 4 (0.26%) Oracle iProcurement
5 4 (0.26%) Remedy ITSM
6 3 (0.20%) iTrent
6 3 (0.20%) Payment Gateway
6 3 (0.20%) Salesforce CRM
7 2 (0.13%) Oracle EBS
7 2 (0.13%) Oracle Payables
7 2 (0.13%) Oracle Receivables
7 2 (0.13%) ResourceLink
7 2 (0.13%) Sage X3
8 1 (0.065%) Bloomberg TOMS
8 1 (0.065%) Eloqua
8 1 (0.065%) Magento
8 1 (0.065%) NEC Housing
8 1 (0.065%) Oracle EBS R12
Cloud Services
1 228 (14.86%) Azure
2 192 (12.52%) Figma
3 148 (9.65%) Microsoft 365
4 132 (8.60%) AWS
5 115 (7.50%) Power Platform
6 68 (4.43%) Entra ID
7 63 (4.11%) GitHub
8 55 (3.59%) Microsoft Copilot
9 54 (3.52%) SaaS
10 52 (3.39%) Azure DevOps
11 39 (2.54%) GCP
12 34 (2.22%) OneDrive
13 33 (2.15%) PowerApps
14 26 (1.69%) Power Automate
14 26 (1.69%) Serverless
15 24 (1.56%) Copilot Studio
15 24 (1.56%) GitHub Actions
16 22 (1.43%) Azure AI
17 18 (1.17%) GitHub Copilot
18 17 (1.11%) Snowflake
Communications & Networking
1 45 (2.93%) DNS
2 37 (2.41%) DHCP
3 32 (2.09%) TCP/IP
4 30 (1.96%) Wi-Fi
5 22 (1.43%) 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 70 (4.56%) Power BI
2 26 (1.69%) Metadata
3 18 (1.17%) NoSQL
3 18 (1.17%) PostgreSQL
4 16 (1.04%) Power Query
5 14 (0.91%) SQL Server
6 13 (0.85%) MongoDB
6 13 (0.85%) Relational Database
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 (5.67%) JIRA
2 82 (5.35%) Git
3 29 (1.89%) Cypress.io
3 29 (1.89%) Jenkins
4 24 (1.56%) 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%) Visual Studio
11 6 (0.39%) webpack
12 5 (0.33%) Oracle Forms
General
1 489 (31.88%) Social Skills
2 262 (17.08%) Finance
3 210 (13.69%) Public Sector
4 155 (10.10%) Analytical Skills
5 111 (7.24%) Banking
6 78 (5.08%) Retail
7 74 (4.82%) Marketing
8 52 (3.39%) Inclusion and Diversity
9 39 (2.54%) Influencing Skills
9 39 (2.54%) Legal
10 28 (1.83%) Automotive
10 28 (1.83%) Organisational Skills
11 27 (1.76%) Publishing
12 26 (1.69%) Presentation Skills
13 23 (1.50%) Documentation Skills
14 22 (1.43%) 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
1 329 (21.45%) Designer
2 215 (14.02%) Senior
3 206 (13.43%) Developer
4 134 (8.74%) UX Designer
5 124 (8.08%) Lead
6 103 (6.71%) Analyst
7 81 (5.28%) UI Designer
8 76 (4.95%) Consultant
9 66 (4.30%) Senior Designer
10 63 (4.11%) User Researcher
11 60 (3.91%) Architect
12 54 (3.52%) Support Engineer
13 53 (3.46%) IT Support
14 52 (3.39%) Product Manager
15 51 (3.32%) Business Analyst
16 50 (3.26%) Content Designer
17 45 (2.93%) 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 (9.78%) React
2 118 (7.69%) CSS
3 106 (6.91%) HTML
4 91 (5.93%) REST
5 62 (4.04%) RESTful
6 48 (3.13%) AngularJS
6 48 (3.13%) Terraform
7 43 (2.80%) HTML5
8 42 (2.74%) CSS3
9 41 (2.67%) 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 (1.56%) Redux
Miscellaneous
1 141 (9.19%) Product Ownership
2 94 (6.13%) Mobile App
3 85 (5.54%) 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 31 (2.02%) Enterprise Software
9 26 (1.69%) Legacy Systems
10 24 (1.56%) Data Structures
11 23 (1.50%) Management Information System
12 22 (1.43%) Social Media
13 21 (1.37%) NHS
14 20 (1.30%) Data Centre
15 19 (1.24%) Animation
15 19 (1.24%) Educational Technology
16 17 (1.11%) Graphic Design
17 15 (0.98%) Virtual Reality
18 14 (0.91%) Taxonomies
19 13 (0.85%) IoT
Operating Systems
1 150 (9.78%) Windows
2 66 (4.30%) Android
3 65 (4.24%) Apple iOS
4 58 (3.78%) Windows 10
5 31 (2.02%) Mac OS
6 30 (1.96%) 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
1 500 (32.59%) UX Design
2 441 (28.75%) Agile
3 304 (19.82%) AI
4 265 (17.28%) Stakeholder Management
5 250 (16.30%) Problem-Solving
6 227 (14.80%) Continuous Improvement
7 210 (13.69%) Analytics
8 198 (12.91%) User Research
9 177 (11.54%) CI/CD
10 174 (11.34%) Stakeholder Engagement
11 149 (9.71%) Roadmaps
12 146 (9.52%) Decision-Making
13 144 (9.39%) User-Centered Design (UCD)
14 129 (8.41%) Prototyping
15 124 (8.08%) DevOps
16 122 (7.95%) Service Design
17 121 (7.89%) Scrum
18 117 (7.63%) Workshop Facilitation
19 115 (7.50%) Wireframes
20 107 (6.98%) Service Management
Programming Languages
1 142 (9.26%) JavaScript
2 121 (7.89%) TypeScript
3 116 (7.56%) Python
4 98 (6.39%) SQL
5 93 (6.06%) Java
6 51 (3.32%) PowerShell
7 34 (2.22%) C#
8 29 (1.89%) Kotlin
9 21 (1.37%) Data Analysis Expressions
10 20 (1.30%) Bash
11 16 (1.04%) Swift
12 8 (0.52%) Go
12 8 (0.52%) PHP
12 8 (0.52%) VBScript
13 7 (0.46%) Shell Script
13 7 (0.46%) VB
14 6 (0.39%) Apex Code
14 6 (0.39%) C++
14 6 (0.39%) Scala
15 5 (0.33%) Ruby
Qualifications
1 241 (15.71%) Security Cleared
2 180 (11.73%) SC Cleared
3 122 (7.95%) Degree
4 42 (2.74%) BPSS Clearance
5 35 (2.28%) Computer Science Degree
6 27 (1.76%) DV Cleared
7 24 (1.56%) Azure Certification
8 19 (1.24%) 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
14 6 (0.39%) CCIE
14 6 (0.39%) CCNP
14 6 (0.39%) Master's Degree
14 6 (0.39%) MCSE
15 5 (0.33%) CCA
15 5 (0.33%) PMI Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 267 (17.41%) Accessibility
2 96 (6.26%) WCAG
3 92 (6.00%) QA
4 43 (2.80%) 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 6 (0.39%) 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%) NIST
15 1 (0.065%) WAI-ARIA
System Software
1 104 (6.78%) Active Directory
2 49 (3.19%) Docker
3 30 (1.96%) Virtual Desktop
4 24 (1.56%) 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%) Microsoft App-V
10 3 (0.20%) UAG
11 2 (0.13%) Firmware
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 49 (3.19%) Kubernetes
1 49 (3.19%) Microsoft Intune
2 35 (2.28%) Grafana
3 33 (2.15%) SCCM
4 21 (1.37%) Single Sign-On
5 17 (1.11%) Ansible
6 15 (0.98%) Jamf Pro
7 14 (0.91%) Prometheus
8 5 (0.33%) SysTrack
8 5 (0.33%) vCenter Server
9 4 (0.26%) Clonezilla
9 4 (0.26%) Podman
10 3 (0.20%) Kibana
10 3 (0.20%) Systems Management Server (SMS)
10 3 (0.20%) WSUS
11 2 (0.13%) Argo
11 2 (0.13%) Failover Clustering
11 2 (0.13%) Packer
11 2 (0.13%) SCOM
11 2 (0.13%) vMotion
Vendors
1 265 (17.28%) Microsoft
2 88 (5.74%) Adobe
3 87 (5.67%) ServiceNow
4 51 (3.32%) Google
5 46 (3.00%) Oracle
6 31 (2.02%) SAP
7 30 (1.96%) Salesforce
8 27 (1.76%) VMware
9 26 (1.69%) Citrix
9 26 (1.69%) Dynatrace
10 23 (1.50%) Splunk
11 22 (1.43%) Databricks
12 21 (1.37%) Apple
13 19 (1.24%) Cisco
14 18 (1.17%) Workday
15 17 (1.11%) OpenAI
16 14 (0.91%) Foundry
16 14 (0.91%) Zscaler
17 12 (0.78%) Aruba
18 10 (0.65%) Okta