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 16 October 2026, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
16 Oct 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 98 66 79
Rank change year-on-year -32 +13 -8
Contract jobs citing User Experience 1,553 1,241 1,045
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 2.81% 3.73% 2.78%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 3.31% 4.12% 3.23%
Number of daily rates quoted 936 788 614
10th Percentile £312 £300 £313
25th Percentile £400 £375 £400
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £480 £475 £500
Median % change year-on-year +1.05% -5.00% -2.82%
75th Percentile £588 £575 £588
90th Percentile £704 £675 £688
UK excluding London median daily rate £450 £450 £463
% change year-on-year - -2.70% -2.63%
Number of hourly rates quoted 80 56 26
10th Percentile £17.14 £15.50 £27.63
25th Percentile £26.25 £19.61 £30.48
Median hourly rate £41.16 £35.60 £39.75
Median % change year-on-year +15.60% -10.44% -16.32%
75th Percentile £68.88 £52.81 £68.94
90th Percentile £83.20 £63.75 £74.44
UK excluding London median hourly rate £45.11 £25.15 £43.02
% change year-on-year +79.36% -41.54% -9.43%

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 46,911 30,121 32,352
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 84.81% 90.54% 86.01%
Number of daily rates quoted 28,189 18,721 19,488
10th Percentile £325 £296 £308
25th Percentile £425 £404 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £500 £525
Median % change year-on-year +5.00% -4.76% -2.42%
75th Percentile £638 £623 £638
90th Percentile £738 £725 £750
UK excluding London median daily rate £500 £475 £500
% change year-on-year +5.26% -5.00% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 3,476 1,911 1,239
10th Percentile £13.51 £14.38 £15.00
25th Percentile £16.75 £17.30 £20.12
Median hourly rate £37.24 £25.15 £40.00
Median % change year-on-year +48.07% -37.13% -10.11%
75th Percentile £65.00 £42.79 £65.00
90th Percentile £78.75 £66.00 £73.75
UK excluding London median hourly rate £37.24 £22.27 £40.00
% change year-on-year +67.26% -44.34% -8.88%

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 16 October 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 16 October 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 16 October 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 -25 1,346 £475 - 373
UK excluding London -15 731 £450 - 291
London -33 689 £505 +2.80% 151
Work from Home -33 393 £500 - 213
North of England -8 274 £425 - 62
North West -24 147 £417 -1.88% 42
Midlands -17 138 £469 +2.86% 48
West Midlands -12 107 £463 -7.34% 32
South East -57 95 £380 -20.00% 92
Scotland -5 93 £525 +13.51% 15
Yorkshire -8 80 £500 +11.11% 14
South West -18 73 £475 +5.56% 56
North East -1 46 £325 -27.78% 6
East of England -10 46 £410 -13.68% 18
East Midlands -6 31 £500 +18.76% 16
Wales -6 14 £530 +22.90% 5
Northern Ireland +7 4 £638 +2.00% 3

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 76 (4.89%) SharePoint
2 66 (4.25%) CMS
3 53 (3.41%) Confluence
4 33 (2.12%) Microsoft Exchange
5 16 (1.03%) WordPress
6 9 (0.58%) Headless CMS
7 8 (0.52%) Traefik
8 7 (0.45%) Adobe Experience Manager
8 7 (0.45%) Skype for Business
9 6 (0.39%) Apache
9 6 (0.39%) Oracle Workflow
10 5 (0.32%) Apache Airflow
10 5 (0.32%) Drupal
11 4 (0.26%) Kentico
11 4 (0.26%) Mendix
12 3 (0.19%) ColdFusion
12 3 (0.19%) Umbraco
13 2 (0.13%) Camunda
13 2 (0.13%) HCL Notes
13 2 (0.13%) Moodle
Applications
1 30 (1.93%) Adobe Creative Suite
2 27 (1.74%) Microsoft Office
3 24 (1.55%) Sketch
4 21 (1.35%) Microsoft Excel
5 18 (1.16%) Photoshop
6 17 (1.09%) Adobe After Effects
7 16 (1.03%) Adobe Illustrator
7 16 (1.03%) Chatbot
8 13 (0.84%) Adobe XD
9 10 (0.64%) MS Visio
10 8 (0.52%) Microsoft PowerPoint
11 7 (0.45%) Final Cut Pro
12 4 (0.26%) Spreadsheet
13 2 (0.13%) Adobe Premiere
13 2 (0.13%) Microsoft Project
13 2 (0.13%) UserZoom
14 1 (0.064%) Adobe Captivate
14 1 (0.064%) Blender
14 1 (0.064%) Oracle Smart View
Business Applications
1 11 (0.71%) Dynamics CRM
2 6 (0.39%) SAP S/4HANA
2 6 (0.39%) Workday HCM
3 5 (0.32%) NetSuite
3 5 (0.32%) Salesforce CRM
4 4 (0.26%) IBM Planning Analytics
4 4 (0.26%) Oracle iProcurement
4 4 (0.26%) Payment Gateway
4 4 (0.26%) Remedy ITSM
5 3 (0.19%) iTrent
5 3 (0.19%) SAP HR
6 2 (0.13%) Eikon
6 2 (0.13%) Oracle EBS
6 2 (0.13%) SAP HCM
6 2 (0.13%) SAP Payroll
6 2 (0.13%) Shopify
7 1 (0.064%) Bloomberg TOMS
7 1 (0.064%) Elite 3E
7 1 (0.064%) Eloqua
7 1 (0.064%) Oracle Payables
Cloud Services
1 228 (14.68%) Azure
2 178 (11.46%) Figma
3 159 (10.24%) Microsoft 365
4 157 (10.11%) AWS
5 124 (7.98%) Power Platform
6 71 (4.57%) Entra ID
7 67 (4.31%) GitHub
8 62 (3.99%) SaaS
9 58 (3.73%) Microsoft Copilot
10 47 (3.03%) Azure DevOps
11 38 (2.45%) GCP
12 37 (2.38%) PowerApps
13 33 (2.12%) OneDrive
14 32 (2.06%) GitHub Actions
15 27 (1.74%) Copilot Studio
15 27 (1.74%) Power Automate
16 24 (1.55%) Serverless
17 20 (1.29%) Azure AI
18 17 (1.09%) Amazon S3
18 17 (1.09%) GitHub Copilot
Communications & Networking
1 43 (2.77%) DNS
2 37 (2.38%) DHCP
3 35 (2.25%) TCP/IP
4 27 (1.74%) Wi-Fi
5 20 (1.29%) VPN
6 18 (1.16%) Wireless
7 16 (1.03%) Firewall
8 15 (0.97%) NetScaler
9 14 (0.90%) LAN
9 14 (0.90%) WAN
10 9 (0.58%) Network Security
11 7 (0.45%) Skype
11 7 (0.45%) SNMP
12 6 (0.39%) 5G
12 6 (0.39%) Cisco Wireless
12 6 (0.39%) Intranet
13 5 (0.32%) Internet
13 5 (0.32%) SD-WAN
13 5 (0.32%) Wireshark
14 4 (0.26%) Remote Desktop
Database & Business Intelligence
1 72 (4.64%) Power BI
2 26 (1.67%) Metadata
3 22 (1.42%) NoSQL
4 18 (1.16%) Power Query
5 17 (1.09%) PostgreSQL
5 17 (1.09%) SQL Server
6 16 (1.03%) MySQL
7 14 (0.90%) MongoDB
8 13 (0.84%) Tableau
9 12 (0.77%) Relational Database
10 11 (0.71%) Elasticsearch
10 11 (0.71%) Redis
11 10 (0.64%) Big Data
12 9 (0.58%) Looker
13 8 (0.52%) Qlik Sense
14 7 (0.45%) Snowflake Schema
14 7 (0.45%) Star Schema
15 6 (0.39%) BigQuery
15 6 (0.39%) Flink
15 6 (0.39%) QlikView
Development Applications
1 92 (5.92%) Git
2 90 (5.80%) JIRA
3 34 (2.19%) Jenkins
4 30 (1.93%) Cypress.io
5 26 (1.67%) Vite
6 24 (1.55%) Storybook
7 20 (1.29%) Claude Code
8 15 (0.97%) GitLab
9 12 (0.77%) fastlane
10 9 (0.58%) Android Studio
10 9 (0.58%) webpack
11 8 (0.52%) Postman
11 8 (0.52%) Xcode
12 7 (0.45%) REST Assured
13 6 (0.39%) Bitbucket
13 6 (0.39%) Browser DevTools
13 6 (0.39%) CircleCI
13 6 (0.39%) JMeter
13 6 (0.39%) JUnit
14 5 (0.32%) TeamCity
General
1 521 (33.55%) Social Skills
2 259 (16.68%) Finance
3 222 (14.29%) Public Sector
4 152 (9.79%) Analytical Skills
5 96 (6.18%) Banking
6 84 (5.41%) Marketing
7 78 (5.02%) Retail
8 52 (3.35%) Inclusion and Diversity
9 48 (3.09%) Legal
10 46 (2.96%) Influencing Skills
11 25 (1.61%) Organisational Skills
12 24 (1.55%) Publishing
13 23 (1.48%) Presentation Skills
14 22 (1.42%) Automotive
14 22 (1.42%) Military
15 18 (1.16%) Manufacturing
16 17 (1.09%) Documentation Skills
16 17 (1.09%) Investment Banking
17 13 (0.84%) Front Office
18 11 (0.71%) Local Government
Job Titles
1 293 (18.87%) Designer
2 239 (15.39%) Developer
3 207 (13.33%) Senior
4 142 (9.14%) Lead
5 127 (8.18%) UX Designer
6 92 (5.92%) Analyst
7 73 (4.70%) UI Designer
8 65 (4.19%) Senior Designer
9 63 (4.06%) Architect
10 61 (3.93%) User Researcher
11 58 (3.73%) Consultant
11 58 (3.73%) IT Support
12 57 (3.67%) Support Engineer
13 55 (3.54%) Front-End Developer (Client-Side Developer)
14 53 (3.41%) Product Manager
15 49 (3.16%) Business Analyst
16 43 (2.77%) Product Designer
17 39 (2.51%) IT Engineer
17 39 (2.51%) UI/UX Designer
18 38 (2.45%) IT Support Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 166 (10.69%) React
2 118 (7.60%) CSS
3 106 (6.83%) HTML
4 99 (6.37%) REST
5 67 (4.31%) RESTful
6 48 (3.09%) HTML5
7 44 (2.83%) Terraform
8 43 (2.77%) CSS3
9 42 (2.70%) AngularJS
9 42 (2.70%) GraphQL
10 36 (2.32%) Next.js
10 36 (2.32%) Node.js
11 35 (2.25%) .NET
12 33 (2.12%) OAuth
13 32 (2.06%) Playwright
14 31 (2.00%) Jest
14 31 (2.00%) Spring
14 31 (2.00%) Spring Boot
15 26 (1.67%) Redux
16 25 (1.61%) OAuth2
Miscellaneous
1 171 (11.01%) Product Ownership
2 100 (6.44%) Mobile App
3 84 (5.41%) Onboarding
4 62 (3.99%) Cloud Native
5 54 (3.48%) AI Agents
6 35 (2.25%) Management Information System
7 32 (2.06%) Legacy Systems
8 30 (1.93%) Enterprise Software
8 30 (1.93%) Self-Motivation
9 26 (1.67%) Data Protection Act
10 21 (1.35%) Data Centre
11 20 (1.29%) NHS
11 20 (1.29%) Social Media
12 19 (1.22%) Educational Technology
13 18 (1.16%) Data Structures
14 17 (1.09%) Virtual Team
15 16 (1.03%) Animation
15 16 (1.03%) Graphic Design
15 16 (1.03%) Low-Code
16 15 (0.97%) Taxonomies
Operating Systems
1 158 (10.17%) Windows
2 76 (4.89%) Apple iOS
3 68 (4.38%) Android
4 65 (4.19%) Windows 10
5 35 (2.25%) Windows Server
6 30 (1.93%) macOS
7 17 (1.09%) Linux
8 14 (0.90%) Unix
9 9 (0.58%) Windows 7
10 4 (0.26%) AIX
11 2 (0.13%) Windows Server 2008
11 2 (0.13%) Windows Server 2016
11 2 (0.13%) Windows Server 2019
Processes & Methodologies
1 483 (31.10%) UX Design
2 460 (29.62%) Agile
3 326 (20.99%) Stakeholder Management
4 299 (19.25%) AI
5 265 (17.06%) Continuous Improvement
6 248 (15.97%) Problem-Solving
7 218 (14.04%) User Research
8 210 (13.52%) Analytics
9 187 (12.04%) Stakeholder Engagement
10 184 (11.85%) CI/CD
11 175 (11.27%) Decision-Making
12 166 (10.69%) Roadmaps
13 155 (9.98%) User-Centered Design (UCD)
14 146 (9.40%) Service Design
15 127 (8.18%) Scrum
16 126 (8.11%) Workshop Facilitation
17 123 (7.92%) Service Management
18 120 (7.73%) DevOps
19 119 (7.66%) Prototyping
20 110 (7.08%) ITIL
Programming Languages
1 149 (9.59%) JavaScript
2 140 (9.01%) TypeScript
3 104 (6.70%) SQL
4 97 (6.25%) Java
5 93 (5.99%) Python
6 50 (3.22%) PowerShell
7 34 (2.19%) C#
8 30 (1.93%) Kotlin
9 23 (1.48%) Data Analysis Expressions
9 23 (1.48%) Swift
10 19 (1.22%) Bash
11 10 (0.64%) Go
12 8 (0.52%) Objective-C
12 8 (0.52%) Shell Script
13 7 (0.45%) PHP
13 7 (0.45%) VB
13 7 (0.45%) VBScript
14 6 (0.39%) Ruby
15 5 (0.32%) C++
15 5 (0.32%) Scala
Qualifications
1 248 (15.97%) Security Cleared
2 189 (12.17%) SC Cleared
3 115 (7.41%) Degree
4 56 (3.61%) BPSS Clearance
5 34 (2.19%) Computer Science Degree
6 25 (1.61%) DV Cleared
7 17 (1.09%) Azure Certification
8 16 (1.03%) PMP
9 12 (0.77%) Microsoft Certification
10 10 (0.64%) DBS Check
11 8 (0.52%) AWS Certification
11 8 (0.52%) ITIL Certification
12 7 (0.45%) PMI Certification
13 6 (0.39%) Master's Degree
13 6 (0.39%) VMware Certified Professional (VCP)
14 5 (0.32%) AWS Certified Solutions Architect
14 5 (0.32%) CISSP
14 5 (0.32%) TOGAF Certification
15 4 (0.26%) Cisco Certification
15 4 (0.26%) MCSE
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 272 (17.51%) Accessibility
2 105 (6.76%) QA
3 104 (6.70%) WCAG
4 48 (3.09%) Data Quality
5 20 (1.29%) Actionable Recommendations
6 17 (1.09%) SLA
7 16 (1.03%) GDPR
8 14 (0.90%) PMO
9 5 (0.32%) Cyber Essentials
10 4 (0.26%) ISO/IEC 27001
10 4 (0.26%) ISO/IEC 42001
11 3 (0.19%) California Consumer Privacy Act
12 2 (0.13%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
12 2 (0.13%) Disclosure Scotland
12 2 (0.13%) GRC
12 2 (0.13%) PCI DSS
12 2 (0.13%) PSD2
12 2 (0.13%) Sarbanes-Oxley
13 1 (0.064%) HIPAA
13 1 (0.064%) SOC 2
System Software
1 120 (7.73%) Active Directory
2 54 (3.48%) Docker
3 31 (2.00%) Virtual Desktop
4 25 (1.61%) VMware Infrastructure
5 16 (1.03%) Hyper-V
6 12 (0.77%) Citrix Hypervisor
7 9 (0.58%) XenApp
8 8 (0.52%) XenDesktop
9 7 (0.45%) BitLocker
9 7 (0.45%) vSphere
10 5 (0.32%) VMware ESXi
11 4 (0.26%) Microsoft App-V
12 3 (0.19%) UAG
12 3 (0.19%) Virtual Machines
13 2 (0.13%) VMware NSX
13 2 (0.13%) VMware Workstation
14 1 (0.064%) Firmware
Systems Management
1 61 (3.93%) Microsoft Intune
2 53 (3.41%) Kubernetes
3 35 (2.25%) Grafana
4 26 (1.67%) SCCM
5 20 (1.29%) Single Sign-On
6 16 (1.03%) Ansible
7 15 (0.97%) Jamf Pro
8 14 (0.90%) Prometheus
9 9 (0.58%) Istio
10 6 (0.39%) SysTrack
10 6 (0.39%) vCenter Server
11 4 (0.26%) Clonezilla
12 3 (0.19%) Kibana
13 2 (0.13%) Argo
13 2 (0.13%) Packer
13 2 (0.13%) Podman
13 2 (0.13%) SCOM
13 2 (0.13%) Systems Management Server (SMS)
13 2 (0.13%) vMotion
14 1 (0.064%) PingFederate
Vendors
1 290 (18.67%) Microsoft
2 93 (5.99%) ServiceNow
3 73 (4.70%) Adobe
4 53 (3.41%) Google
5 49 (3.16%) Oracle
6 28 (1.80%) Salesforce
6 28 (1.80%) SAP
6 28 (1.80%) VMware
7 27 (1.74%) Citrix
7 27 (1.74%) Dynatrace
7 27 (1.74%) Splunk
8 24 (1.55%) Apple
9 20 (1.29%) Databricks
10 19 (1.22%) OpenAI
11 14 (0.90%) Zscaler
12 13 (0.84%) Foundry
13 12 (0.77%) Cisco
13 12 (0.77%) Workday
14 11 (0.71%) Okta
15 8 (0.52%) Nexthink