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 4 March 2026, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
4 Mar 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 75 64 68
Rank change year-on-year -11 +4 -2
Contract jobs citing User Experience 1,389 1,050 1,273
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 3.30% 3.49% 2.88%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 3.81% 3.88% 3.31%
Number of daily rates quoted 961 689 858
10th Percentile £313 £313 £313
25th Percentile £400 £400 £400
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £488 £500 £500
Median % change year-on-year -2.50% - -1.96%
75th Percentile £575 £588 £588
90th Percentile £650 £688 £688
UK excluding London median daily rate £475 £450 £475
% change year-on-year +5.56% -5.26% +1.17%
Number of hourly rates quoted 49 24 45
10th Percentile £15.50 £25.26 £19.25
25th Percentile £17.69 £34.88 £25.00
Median hourly rate £38.94 £45.00 £41.68
Median % change year-on-year -13.47% +7.98% -7.39%
75th Percentile £61.25 £53.56 £72.90
90th Percentile £70.85 £73.86 £80.25
UK excluding London median hourly rate £32.50 £41.00 £32.50
% change year-on-year -20.73% +26.15% -30.85%

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 36,453 27,072 38,415
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 86.50% 90.11% 86.78%
Number of daily rates quoted 23,124 16,979 25,034
10th Percentile £313 £305 £300
25th Percentile £413 £413 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £525 £525
Median % change year-on-year -4.76% - -4.55%
75th Percentile £613 £638 £638
90th Percentile £725 £738 £738
UK excluding London median daily rate £483 £493 £500
% change year-on-year -2.13% -1.40% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 2,168 886 2,250
10th Percentile £14.64 £15.62 £13.25
25th Percentile £18.25 £21.05 £16.13
Median hourly rate £27.94 £32.50 £32.85
Median % change year-on-year -14.03% -1.05% -6.16%
75th Percentile £63.75 £64.31 £58.75
90th Percentile £73.46 £75.13 £71.90
UK excluding London median hourly rate £25.15 £31.76 £33.50
% change year-on-year -20.81% -5.19% -4.29%

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 4 March 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 4 March 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 4 March 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 -6 1,193 £488 -2.50% 1,082
London -19 619 £500 -4.76% 384
UK excluding London -8 602 £475 +5.56% 835
Work from Home -30 358 £500 +0.81% 616
North of England +14 205 £465 +3.33% 203
North West +14 133 £420 -6.67% 104
South East -2 123 £485 -5.83% 253
Midlands -15 108 £520 +30.00% 128
South West -11 67 £450 +16.13% 92
Scotland -7 61 £473 +5.00% 26
West Midlands -39 60 £475 +1.33% 60
Yorkshire -26 51 £519 +29.61% 67
East Midlands +4 48 £550 +54.49% 67
East of England -19 30 £425 -10.99% 108
North East 0 20 £388 -8.82% 33
Wales +6 15 £300 -29.41% 35
Northern Ireland -7 4 £625 +92.31% 10

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 59 (4.25%) SharePoint
2 54 (3.89%) Confluence
3 38 (2.74%) CMS
4 24 (1.73%) Adobe Experience Manager
5 17 (1.22%) Microsoft Exchange
6 12 (0.86%) Headless CMS
7 10 (0.72%) Apache
8 9 (0.65%) SugarCRM
9 8 (0.58%) Sitecore CMS
9 8 (0.58%) Umbraco
10 4 (0.29%) Camunda
10 4 (0.29%) Ethereum
10 4 (0.29%) Hyperledger
10 4 (0.29%) Mendix
11 3 (0.22%) Anypoint
11 3 (0.22%) Apache Spark
11 3 (0.22%) Drupal
11 3 (0.22%) Jupyter
12 2 (0.14%) Apache Airflow
12 2 (0.14%) WordPress
Applications
1 47 (3.38%) Sketch
2 38 (2.74%) Adobe XD
3 24 (1.73%) MS Visio
4 23 (1.66%) Microsoft Excel
5 17 (1.22%) Microsoft Office
6 16 (1.15%) Chatbot
7 14 (1.01%) InVision
8 11 (0.79%) Photoshop
9 10 (0.72%) Adobe Illustrator
10 6 (0.43%) Microsoft PowerPoint
10 6 (0.43%) Spreadsheet
10 6 (0.43%) Trello
11 5 (0.36%) Adobe After Effects
11 5 (0.36%) Adobe Creative Suite
12 4 (0.29%) Microsoft Project
12 4 (0.29%) UXPin
13 3 (0.22%) Adobe Captivate
13 3 (0.22%) UserZoom
14 2 (0.14%) Camtasia
14 2 (0.14%) InDesign
Business Applications
1 22 (1.58%) SAP S/4HANA
2 15 (1.08%) Dynamics CRM
3 6 (0.43%) Sage X3
3 6 (0.43%) Workday HCM
4 5 (0.36%) Shopify
5 3 (0.22%) SAP CO
5 3 (0.22%) SAP FI
5 3 (0.22%) SAP FI/CO
6 2 (0.14%) iTrent
6 2 (0.14%) Magento
6 2 (0.14%) Oracle EBS
6 2 (0.14%) SAP ERP
6 2 (0.14%) SAP SD
6 2 (0.14%) SAP Travel Management
7 1 (0.072%) Adobe Campaign
7 1 (0.072%) Elite 3E
7 1 (0.072%) Integrated Workplace Management System
7 1 (0.072%) NEC Housing
7 1 (0.072%) Salesforce CRM
7 1 (0.072%) Sprinklr
Cloud Services
1 228 (16.41%) Azure
2 187 (13.46%) Figma
3 153 (11.02%) AWS
4 102 (7.34%) Power Platform
5 82 (5.90%) Microsoft 365
6 69 (4.97%) GCP
6 69 (4.97%) SaaS
7 56 (4.03%) Entra ID
8 55 (3.96%) Azure DevOps
9 51 (3.67%) GitHub
10 36 (2.59%) Power Automate
11 34 (2.45%) PowerApps
12 32 (2.30%) GitHub Actions
12 32 (2.30%) Serverless
13 29 (2.09%) Miro
14 23 (1.66%) Google Workspace
15 22 (1.58%) Cloud Computing
15 22 (1.58%) Dynamics 365
15 22 (1.58%) Microsoft Copilot
16 20 (1.44%) Azure Logic Apps
Communications & Networking
1 23 (1.66%) DNS
2 20 (1.44%) Wireless
3 17 (1.22%) Internet
4 15 (1.08%) HTTP
5 13 (0.94%) Wi-Fi
6 11 (0.79%) VPN
7 10 (0.72%) DHCP
7 10 (0.72%) Intranet
8 9 (0.65%) TCP/IP
9 8 (0.58%) BGP
9 8 (0.58%) Cisco ISE
9 8 (0.58%) Cisco Wireless
9 8 (0.58%) Firewall
10 7 (0.50%) NX-OS
10 7 (0.50%) VXLAN
10 7 (0.50%) WAN
11 6 (0.43%) SD-WAN
11 6 (0.43%) Unified Communications
12 5 (0.36%) Network Security
12 5 (0.36%) SSL
Database & Business Intelligence
1 67 (4.82%) Power BI
2 37 (2.66%) Relational Database
3 36 (2.59%) MySQL
4 31 (2.23%) NoSQL
5 28 (2.02%) PostgreSQL
6 23 (1.66%) Data Warehouse
7 21 (1.51%) SQL Server
8 17 (1.22%) Tableau
9 16 (1.15%) MongoDB
10 15 (1.08%) Metadata
11 14 (1.01%) BigQuery
12 11 (0.79%) Looker
13 8 (0.58%) Power Query
14 7 (0.50%) DynamoDB
14 7 (0.50%) Mixpanel
14 7 (0.50%) Pinecone
15 6 (0.43%) Redis
15 6 (0.43%) ZAP BI
16 5 (0.36%) Hadoop
16 5 (0.36%) SAP HANA
Development Applications
1 119 (8.57%) JIRA
2 92 (6.62%) Git
3 47 (3.38%) GitLab
4 32 (2.30%) Jenkins
5 30 (2.16%) Cypress.io
6 26 (1.87%) JUnit
7 24 (1.73%) Axure RP
8 20 (1.44%) Android Studio
9 19 (1.37%) Xcode
10 16 (1.15%) Eclipse
10 16 (1.15%) Gradle
11 14 (1.01%) Browser DevTools
12 12 (0.86%) CircleCI
13 10 (0.72%) Postman
14 9 (0.65%) Artifactory
15 8 (0.58%) Mocha
15 8 (0.58%) Mockito
15 8 (0.58%) Selenium
16 6 (0.43%) Cucumber
16 6 (0.43%) Jasmine
General
1 465 (33.48%) Social Skills
2 257 (18.50%) Finance
3 205 (14.76%) Public Sector
4 158 (11.38%) Analytical Skills
5 104 (7.49%) Banking
6 75 (5.40%) Marketing
7 40 (2.88%) Retail
8 30 (2.16%) Influencing Skills
8 30 (2.16%) Presentation Skills
9 27 (1.94%) Legal
10 24 (1.73%) Manufacturing
11 20 (1.44%) Pharmaceutical
12 17 (1.22%) Financial Institution
12 17 (1.22%) Investment Banking
13 16 (1.15%) Documentation Skills
14 14 (1.01%) Games
14 14 (1.01%) Telecoms
15 13 (0.94%) Inclusion and Diversity
16 11 (0.79%) Front Office
17 10 (0.72%) Publishing
Job Titles
1 243 (17.49%) Designer
2 232 (16.70%) Developer
3 205 (14.76%) Senior
4 136 (9.79%) UX Designer
5 126 (9.07%) Analyst
6 75 (5.40%) Lead
7 61 (4.39%) Business Analyst
8 60 (4.32%) Consultant
9 57 (4.10%) Product Designer
9 57 (4.10%) Senior Designer
10 51 (3.67%) Architect
11 48 (3.46%) User Researcher
12 40 (2.88%) Front-End Developer (Client-Side Developer)
12 40 (2.88%) Senior Developer
12 40 (2.88%) Service Designer
12 40 (2.88%) Software Engineer
13 38 (2.74%) Full-Stack Developer
13 38 (2.74%) UI Designer
14 37 (2.66%) Support Engineer
15 35 (2.52%) Senior UX Designer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 175 (12.60%) React
2 169 (12.17%) CSS
3 154 (11.09%) HTML
4 119 (8.57%) REST
5 93 (6.70%) RESTful
6 92 (6.62%) AngularJS
7 60 (4.32%) Spring
7 60 (4.32%) Spring Boot
8 55 (3.96%) .NET
9 52 (3.74%) Node.js
10 42 (3.02%) HTML5
11 40 (2.88%) GraphQL
12 36 (2.59%) Jest
13 34 (2.45%) CSS3
14 33 (2.38%) JSON
15 30 (2.16%) Redux
16 26 (1.87%) Next.js
17 24 (1.73%) SOAP
18 22 (1.58%) OAuth
19 21 (1.51%) Playwright
Miscellaneous
1 141 (10.15%) Product Ownership
2 94 (6.77%) Mobile App
3 57 (4.10%) Onboarding
4 29 (2.09%) Analytical Mindset
5 27 (1.94%) AI Agents
5 27 (1.94%) Enterprise Software
6 26 (1.87%) Data Structures
7 18 (1.30%) Data Protection Act
8 17 (1.22%) Distributed Systems
9 16 (1.15%) Low-Code
10 15 (1.08%) Data Centre
10 15 (1.08%) Legacy Systems
10 15 (1.08%) Virtual Team
11 14 (1.01%) Cloud Native
11 14 (1.01%) NHS
12 13 (0.94%) CMDB
13 12 (0.86%) Algorithms
13 12 (0.86%) Foreign Exchange (FX)
14 10 (0.72%) e-Learning
14 10 (0.72%) Management Information System
Operating Systems
1 132 (9.50%) Windows
2 51 (3.67%) Android
3 41 (2.95%) Windows 10
4 38 (2.74%) Apple iOS
5 30 (2.16%) Linux
6 24 (1.73%) Mac OS
7 17 (1.22%) Unix
8 6 (0.43%) Windows Server
9 3 (0.22%) Ubuntu
10 2 (0.14%) VMS
11 1 (0.072%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
11 1 (0.072%) Windows 7
11 1 (0.072%) Windows Server 2008
11 1 (0.072%) Windows Server 2016
Processes & Methodologies
1 474 (34.13%) Agile
2 461 (33.19%) UX Design
3 221 (15.91%) Problem-Solving
4 220 (15.84%) User Research
5 219 (15.77%) Analytics
6 185 (13.32%) CI/CD
7 168 (12.10%) DevOps
7 168 (12.10%) Stakeholder Management
8 163 (11.74%) AI
9 161 (11.59%) Continuous Improvement
10 153 (11.02%) Stakeholder Engagement
11 145 (10.44%) Roadmaps
12 143 (10.30%) User-Centered Design (UCD)
13 134 (9.65%) Prototyping
14 128 (9.22%) Wireframes
15 125 (9.00%) Service Design
16 121 (8.71%) Decision-Making
17 118 (8.50%) Usability Testing
18 116 (8.35%) UX Research
19 101 (7.27%) Front End Development
Programming Languages
1 201 (14.47%) JavaScript
2 139 (10.01%) SQL
3 123 (8.86%) Python
4 117 (8.42%) Java
5 112 (8.06%) TypeScript
6 67 (4.82%) PowerShell
7 58 (4.18%) C#
8 33 (2.38%) Kotlin
9 23 (1.66%) Bash
10 17 (1.22%) Perl
10 17 (1.22%) PHP
11 15 (1.08%) Swift
12 13 (0.94%) C++
12 13 (0.94%) Data Analysis Expressions
13 8 (0.58%) PL/SQL
14 7 (0.50%) Go
14 7 (0.50%) Lisp
14 7 (0.50%) Lua
15 6 (0.43%) Scala
15 6 (0.43%) VBA
Qualifications
1 190 (13.68%) Security Cleared
2 137 (9.86%) SC Cleared
3 133 (9.58%) Degree
4 40 (2.88%) BPSS Clearance
5 24 (1.73%) Computer Science Degree
6 18 (1.30%) DV Cleared
6 18 (1.30%) Master's Degree
7 14 (1.01%) Microsoft Certification
8 11 (0.79%) CCNP
8 11 (0.79%) Cisco Certification
8 11 (0.79%) MOS
9 8 (0.58%) PMI Certification
10 7 (0.50%) OCA
10 7 (0.50%) Oracle Certification
11 5 (0.36%) CCA
11 5 (0.36%) Citrix Certification
12 4 (0.29%) Azure Certification
13 3 (0.22%) CESG Certified Professional
13 3 (0.22%) ITIL Certification
14 2 (0.14%) AWS Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 247 (17.78%) Accessibility
2 138 (9.94%) QA
3 74 (5.33%) WCAG
4 47 (3.38%) Data Quality
5 44 (3.17%) GDPR
6 25 (1.80%) ISO/IEC 27001
7 23 (1.66%) Actionable Recommendations
8 20 (1.44%) SLA
9 8 (0.58%) PMO
10 6 (0.43%) NCSC
11 5 (0.36%) GxP
12 4 (0.29%) California Consumer Privacy Act
13 3 (0.22%) Cyber Essentials
13 3 (0.22%) Disclosure Scotland
13 3 (0.22%) GMP
13 3 (0.22%) Government Security Classifications
13 3 (0.22%) HIPAA
13 3 (0.22%) NIST
13 3 (0.22%) SOC 2
14 2 (0.14%) GRC
System Software
1 79 (5.69%) Active Directory
2 66 (4.75%) Docker
3 23 (1.66%) VMware Infrastructure
4 13 (0.94%) Virtual Desktop
5 4 (0.29%) Firmware
6 3 (0.22%) Hyper-V
7 2 (0.14%) ProxySG
8 1 (0.072%) BitLocker
8 1 (0.072%) ISA Server
8 1 (0.072%) Microsoft App-V
8 1 (0.072%) Virtual Machines
8 1 (0.072%) VMware ESXi
8 1 (0.072%) XenApp
8 1 (0.072%) XenDesktop
Systems Management
1 60 (4.32%) Kubernetes
2 51 (3.67%) Microsoft Intune
3 40 (2.88%) Terraform
4 39 (2.81%) SCCM
5 25 (1.80%) Grafana
6 16 (1.15%) Ansible
7 12 (0.86%) Single Sign-On
8 7 (0.50%) FortiGate
8 7 (0.50%) Prometheus
9 6 (0.43%) Jamf Pro
10 4 (0.29%) Argo
10 4 (0.29%) HP ALM
11 3 (0.22%) Nagios
11 3 (0.22%) Rancher
12 2 (0.14%) PingFederate
12 2 (0.14%) SysTrack
13 1 (0.072%) Active Directory Federation Services
13 1 (0.072%) Consul
13 1 (0.072%) Istio
13 1 (0.072%) Podman
Vendors
1 231 (16.63%) Microsoft
2 92 (6.62%) Adobe
3 84 (6.05%) Google
4 80 (5.76%) ServiceNow
5 51 (3.67%) SAP
6 40 (2.88%) Oracle
7 36 (2.59%) Salesforce
8 27 (1.94%) Splunk
9 24 (1.73%) VMware
10 23 (1.66%) Citrix
11 16 (1.15%) Cisco
12 14 (1.01%) Apple
13 12 (0.86%) Red Hat
13 12 (0.86%) Zscaler
14 10 (0.72%) Amplitude
14 10 (0.72%) Hotjar
14 10 (0.72%) Workday
15 9 (0.65%) Ekahau
15 9 (0.65%) MuleSoft
15 9 (0.65%) OpenAI