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

6 months to
8 Oct 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 98 64 81
Rank change year-on-year -34 +17 -12
Contract jobs citing User Experience 1,543 1,236 1,040
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 2.83% 3.74% 2.75%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 3.35% 4.13% 3.20%
Number of daily rates quoted 930 795 617
10th Percentile £313 £300 £313
25th Percentile £402 £375 £400
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £488 £475 £500
Median % change year-on-year +2.63% -5.00% -2.44%
75th Percentile £588 £575 £588
90th Percentile £707 £675 £688
UK excluding London median daily rate £450 £450 £466
% change year-on-year - -3.38% -1.95%
Number of hourly rates quoted 74 54 26
10th Percentile £16.45 £15.50 £27.63
25th Percentile £26.71 £21.44 £30.48
Median hourly rate £38.77 £35.60 £39.75
Median % change year-on-year +8.89% -10.44% -16.32%
75th Percentile £68.37 £53.44 £68.94
90th Percentile £77.00 £63.75 £74.44
UK excluding London median hourly rate £35.22 £27.58 £33.54
% change year-on-year +27.72% -17.78% +2.85%

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 46,126 29,916 32,545
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 84.57% 90.50% 85.97%
Number of daily rates quoted 27,740 18,573 19,640
10th Percentile £325 £295 £308
25th Percentile £425 £404 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £500 £525
Median % change year-on-year +5.00% -4.76% -2.78%
75th Percentile £638 £623 £638
90th Percentile £736 £725 £750
UK excluding London median daily rate £500 £475 £500
% change year-on-year +5.26% -5.00% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 3,322 1,863 1,307
10th Percentile £13.63 £14.38 £15.00
25th Percentile £17.00 £17.30 £20.12
Median hourly rate £37.50 £25.15 £40.33
Median % change year-on-year +49.11% -37.63% -7.56%
75th Percentile £65.00 £43.21 £65.00
90th Percentile £77.95 £65.23 £74.44
UK excluding London median hourly rate £37.50 £22.32 £42.50
% change year-on-year +68.05% -47.49% -

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 8 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 8 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 8 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 -27 1,337 £475 - 3,070
UK excluding London -8 730 £450 - 1,407
London -32 678 £509 +2.21% 1,851
Work from Home -35 392 £500 - 1,314
North of England -5 272 £425 +1.49% 391
North West -23 145 £408 -0.40% 214
Midlands -15 142 £464 +3.02% 192
West Midlands -6 112 £463 -7.34% 122
South East -59 94 £400 -11.11% 340
Scotland +2 92 £538 +18.13% 107
Yorkshire -8 80 £500 +15.94% 122
South West -10 75 £475 +5.56% 148
North East -2 46 £325 -27.78% 55
East of England -16 44 £410 -21.90% 126
East Midlands -14 30 £500 +23.92% 70
Wales -8 13 £530 +66.36% 43
Northern Ireland +12 4 £638 +2.00% 64

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 75 (4.86%) SharePoint
2 65 (4.21%) CMS
3 50 (3.24%) Confluence
4 30 (1.94%) Microsoft Exchange
5 16 (1.04%) WordPress
6 7 (0.45%) Adobe Experience Manager
6 7 (0.45%) Headless CMS
6 7 (0.45%) Skype for Business
7 6 (0.39%) Apache
7 6 (0.39%) Oracle Workflow
7 6 (0.39%) Traefik
8 5 (0.32%) Apache Airflow
8 5 (0.32%) Drupal
9 4 (0.26%) Kentico
9 4 (0.26%) Mendix
10 3 (0.19%) ColdFusion
10 3 (0.19%) Umbraco
11 2 (0.13%) HCL Notes
11 2 (0.13%) IIS
11 2 (0.13%) Moodle
Applications
1 31 (2.01%) Adobe Creative Suite
2 25 (1.62%) Microsoft Office
2 25 (1.62%) Sketch
3 21 (1.36%) Microsoft Excel
4 19 (1.23%) Photoshop
5 18 (1.17%) Adobe After Effects
6 17 (1.10%) Adobe Illustrator
7 16 (1.04%) Chatbot
8 12 (0.78%) Adobe XD
9 10 (0.65%) MS Visio
10 8 (0.52%) Microsoft PowerPoint
11 7 (0.45%) Final Cut Pro
12 3 (0.19%) Spreadsheet
13 2 (0.13%) Adobe Premiere
13 2 (0.13%) Oracle Smart View
13 2 (0.13%) UserZoom
14 1 (0.065%) Adobe Captivate
14 1 (0.065%) Blender
14 1 (0.065%) Microsoft Project
14 1 (0.065%) Trello
Business Applications
1 11 (0.71%) Dynamics CRM
2 7 (0.45%) SAP S/4HANA
2 7 (0.45%) 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%) Remedy ITSM
5 3 (0.19%) iTrent
5 3 (0.19%) SAP HR
5 3 (0.19%) Shopify
6 2 (0.13%) Oracle EBS
6 2 (0.13%) Payment Gateway
6 2 (0.13%) SAP HCM
6 2 (0.13%) SAP Payroll
7 1 (0.065%) Bloomberg TOMS
7 1 (0.065%) Elite 3E
7 1 (0.065%) Exchequer
7 1 (0.065%) Oracle EBS R12
7 1 (0.065%) SAP MDG
Cloud Services
1 223 (14.45%) Azure
2 178 (11.54%) Figma
3 152 (9.85%) Microsoft 365
4 150 (9.72%) AWS
5 125 (8.10%) Power Platform
6 71 (4.60%) Entra ID
7 62 (4.02%) GitHub
8 61 (3.95%) SaaS
9 58 (3.76%) Microsoft Copilot
10 46 (2.98%) Azure DevOps
11 38 (2.46%) GCP
12 37 (2.40%) PowerApps
13 33 (2.14%) OneDrive
14 29 (1.88%) Power Automate
15 28 (1.81%) GitHub Actions
16 27 (1.75%) Copilot Studio
17 23 (1.49%) Serverless
18 20 (1.30%) Azure AI
19 17 (1.10%) GitHub Copilot
20 16 (1.04%) Dynamics 365
Communications & Networking
1 45 (2.92%) DNS
2 38 (2.46%) DHCP
3 35 (2.27%) TCP/IP
4 27 (1.75%) Wi-Fi
5 20 (1.30%) VPN
6 18 (1.17%) Wireless
7 16 (1.04%) Firewall
8 15 (0.97%) NetScaler
9 14 (0.91%) LAN
9 14 (0.91%) WAN
10 9 (0.58%) Network Security
11 7 (0.45%) Cisco Wireless
11 7 (0.45%) Skype
11 7 (0.45%) SNMP
12 6 (0.39%) Internet
12 6 (0.39%) Intranet
13 5 (0.32%) 5G
13 5 (0.32%) SD-WAN
14 4 (0.26%) Remote Desktop
15 3 (0.19%) Unified Communications
Database & Business Intelligence
1 75 (4.86%) Power BI
2 25 (1.62%) Metadata
3 20 (1.30%) NoSQL
3 20 (1.30%) Power Query
4 18 (1.17%) PostgreSQL
5 16 (1.04%) SQL Server
6 14 (0.91%) MongoDB
6 14 (0.91%) MySQL
7 13 (0.84%) Tableau
8 12 (0.78%) Relational Database
9 11 (0.71%) Elasticsearch
9 11 (0.71%) Redis
10 10 (0.65%) Big Data
11 9 (0.58%) Looker
12 8 (0.52%) Qlik Sense
13 7 (0.45%) Snowflake Schema
13 7 (0.45%) Star Schema
14 6 (0.39%) BigQuery
14 6 (0.39%) Flink
14 6 (0.39%) QlikView
Development Applications
1 90 (5.83%) Git
2 87 (5.64%) JIRA
3 34 (2.20%) Jenkins
4 28 (1.81%) Cypress.io
5 26 (1.69%) Vite
6 24 (1.56%) Storybook
7 18 (1.17%) Claude Code
8 15 (0.97%) GitLab
9 12 (0.78%) fastlane
10 9 (0.58%) Android Studio
10 9 (0.58%) webpack
11 8 (0.52%) Xcode
12 7 (0.45%) Postman
12 7 (0.45%) REST Assured
13 6 (0.39%) Bitbucket
13 6 (0.39%) Browser DevTools
13 6 (0.39%) JMeter
14 5 (0.32%) Gradle
14 5 (0.32%) JUnit
14 5 (0.32%) MSI
General
1 513 (33.25%) Social Skills
2 251 (16.27%) Finance
3 223 (14.45%) Public Sector
4 143 (9.27%) Analytical Skills
5 95 (6.16%) Banking
6 83 (5.38%) Marketing
7 75 (4.86%) Retail
8 53 (3.43%) Inclusion and Diversity
9 45 (2.92%) Influencing Skills
10 43 (2.79%) Legal
11 26 (1.69%) Publishing
12 25 (1.62%) Automotive
13 24 (1.56%) Organisational Skills
14 22 (1.43%) Presentation Skills
15 21 (1.36%) Military
16 18 (1.17%) Documentation Skills
16 18 (1.17%) Manufacturing
17 17 (1.10%) Investment Banking
18 11 (0.71%) Front Office
19 9 (0.58%) Law
Job Titles
1 298 (19.31%) Designer
2 237 (15.36%) Developer
3 210 (13.61%) Senior
4 136 (8.81%) Lead
5 129 (8.36%) UX Designer
6 94 (6.09%) Analyst
7 74 (4.80%) UI Designer
8 65 (4.21%) Senior Designer
9 63 (4.08%) Architect
10 61 (3.95%) User Researcher
11 60 (3.89%) Consultant
12 54 (3.50%) IT Support
13 53 (3.43%) Front-End Developer (Client-Side Developer)
13 53 (3.43%) Support Engineer
14 52 (3.37%) Product Manager
15 48 (3.11%) Business Analyst
16 41 (2.66%) Product Designer
17 39 (2.53%) UI/UX Designer
17 39 (2.53%) User Experience Researcher
18 38 (2.46%) Content Designer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 165 (10.69%) React
2 120 (7.78%) CSS
3 108 (7.00%) HTML
4 94 (6.09%) REST
5 65 (4.21%) RESTful
6 47 (3.05%) HTML5
7 45 (2.92%) Terraform
8 44 (2.85%) AngularJS
9 42 (2.72%) CSS3
10 41 (2.66%) GraphQL
11 36 (2.33%) Node.js
12 35 (2.27%) .NET
13 33 (2.14%) Next.js
13 33 (2.14%) OAuth
14 32 (2.07%) Playwright
15 31 (2.01%) Spring
15 31 (2.01%) Spring Boot
16 29 (1.88%) Jest
17 25 (1.62%) OAuth2
17 25 (1.62%) Redux
Miscellaneous
1 164 (10.63%) Product Ownership
2 94 (6.09%) Mobile App
3 82 (5.31%) Onboarding
4 62 (4.02%) Cloud Native
5 50 (3.24%) AI Agents
6 35 (2.27%) Management Information System
7 31 (2.01%) Self-Motivation
8 30 (1.94%) Legacy Systems
9 29 (1.88%) Enterprise Software
10 26 (1.69%) Data Protection Act
11 22 (1.43%) Data Centre
12 21 (1.36%) Social Media
13 20 (1.30%) NHS
14 19 (1.23%) Data Structures
14 19 (1.23%) Educational Technology
15 17 (1.10%) Animation
16 16 (1.04%) Graphic Design
17 15 (0.97%) Taxonomies
18 13 (0.84%) CMDB
18 13 (0.84%) Low-Code
Operating Systems
1 153 (9.92%) Windows
2 72 (4.67%) Apple iOS
3 65 (4.21%) Android
4 60 (3.89%) Windows 10
5 37 (2.40%) Windows Server
6 28 (1.81%) Mac OS
7 17 (1.10%) Linux
8 14 (0.91%) Unix
9 9 (0.58%) Windows 7
10 4 (0.26%) Windows Server 2016
10 4 (0.26%) Windows Server 2019
11 3 (0.19%) AIX
12 2 (0.13%) Windows Server 2008
12 2 (0.13%) Windows Server 2012
Processes & Methodologies
1 483 (31.30%) UX Design
2 449 (29.10%) Agile
3 313 (20.29%) Stakeholder Management
4 292 (18.92%) AI
5 257 (16.66%) Continuous Improvement
6 241 (15.62%) Problem-Solving
7 213 (13.80%) User Research
8 210 (13.61%) Analytics
9 184 (11.92%) CI/CD
10 179 (11.60%) Stakeholder Engagement
11 172 (11.15%) Decision-Making
12 163 (10.56%) Roadmaps
13 150 (9.72%) User-Centered Design (UCD)
14 140 (9.07%) Service Design
15 123 (7.97%) Scrum
16 121 (7.84%) DevOps
16 121 (7.84%) Workshop Facilitation
17 120 (7.78%) Service Management
18 117 (7.58%) Prototyping
19 110 (7.13%) ITIL
Programming Languages
1 149 (9.66%) JavaScript
2 138 (8.94%) TypeScript
3 99 (6.42%) SQL
4 98 (6.35%) Java
5 97 (6.29%) Python
6 51 (3.31%) PowerShell
7 33 (2.14%) C#
8 29 (1.88%) Kotlin
9 25 (1.62%) Data Analysis Expressions
10 20 (1.30%) Swift
11 19 (1.23%) Bash
12 10 (0.65%) Go
13 8 (0.52%) Shell Script
14 7 (0.45%) PHP
14 7 (0.45%) VB
14 7 (0.45%) VBScript
15 6 (0.39%) Scala
16 5 (0.32%) Apex Code
16 5 (0.32%) Objective-C
16 5 (0.32%) Ruby
Qualifications
1 243 (15.75%) Security Cleared
2 186 (12.05%) SC Cleared
3 114 (7.39%) Degree
4 51 (3.31%) BPSS Clearance
5 31 (2.01%) Computer Science Degree
6 23 (1.49%) DV Cleared
7 17 (1.10%) Azure Certification
8 16 (1.04%) PMP
9 12 (0.78%) Microsoft Certification
10 9 (0.58%) 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%) CCA
14 5 (0.32%) Cisco Certification
14 5 (0.32%) CISSP
14 5 (0.32%) TOGAF Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 273 (17.69%) Accessibility
2 104 (6.74%) WCAG
3 99 (6.42%) QA
4 51 (3.31%) Data Quality
5 19 (1.23%) Actionable Recommendations
6 16 (1.04%) SLA
7 15 (0.97%) GDPR
8 13 (0.84%) PMO
9 5 (0.32%) Cyber Essentials
10 4 (0.26%) ISO/IEC 27001
10 4 (0.26%) ISO/IEC 42001
11 2 (0.13%) California Consumer Privacy Act
11 2 (0.13%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
11 2 (0.13%) GRC
11 2 (0.13%) PCI DSS
11 2 (0.13%) PSD2
11 2 (0.13%) Sarbanes-Oxley
12 1 (0.065%) HIPAA
12 1 (0.065%) ISO 20022
12 1 (0.065%) WAI
System Software
1 116 (7.52%) Active Directory
2 51 (3.31%) Docker
3 29 (1.88%) Virtual Desktop
4 27 (1.75%) VMware Infrastructure
5 16 (1.04%) Hyper-V
6 12 (0.78%) Citrix Hypervisor
7 11 (0.71%) XenApp
8 10 (0.65%) 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 (0.065%) Firmware
Systems Management
1 55 (3.56%) Microsoft Intune
2 53 (3.43%) Kubernetes
3 35 (2.27%) Grafana
4 26 (1.69%) SCCM
5 18 (1.17%) Single Sign-On
6 16 (1.04%) Ansible
7 14 (0.91%) Jamf Pro
7 14 (0.91%) Prometheus
8 7 (0.45%) Istio
9 6 (0.39%) SysTrack
9 6 (0.39%) vCenter Server
10 4 (0.26%) Clonezilla
11 3 (0.19%) Kibana
11 3 (0.19%) WSUS
12 2 (0.13%) Argo
12 2 (0.13%) Failover Clustering
12 2 (0.13%) Podman
12 2 (0.13%) SCOM
12 2 (0.13%) Systems Management Server (SMS)
12 2 (0.13%) vMotion
Vendors
1 285 (18.47%) Microsoft
2 91 (5.90%) ServiceNow
3 75 (4.86%) Adobe
4 53 (3.43%) Google
5 48 (3.11%) Oracle
6 30 (1.94%) Salesforce
6 30 (1.94%) SAP
6 30 (1.94%) VMware
7 27 (1.75%) Dynatrace
7 27 (1.75%) Splunk
8 26 (1.69%) Citrix
9 22 (1.43%) Apple
10 20 (1.30%) Databricks
11 19 (1.23%) OpenAI
12 15 (0.97%) Workday
13 14 (0.91%) Zscaler
14 13 (0.84%) Cisco
14 13 (0.84%) Foundry
15 10 (0.65%) Okta
16 8 (0.52%) Cribl.io