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 10 April 2026, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
10 Apr 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 80 59 68
Rank change year-on-year -21 +9 -6
Contract jobs citing User Experience 1,415 1,076 1,269
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 3.08% 3.68% 2.88%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 3.62% 4.06% 3.34%
Number of daily rates quoted 973 736 843
10th Percentile £313 £308 £305
25th Percentile £400 £400 £400
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £488 £487 £500
Median % change year-on-year +0.15% -2.65% -
75th Percentile £575 £584 £600
90th Percentile £663 £688 £688
UK excluding London median daily rate £475 £447 £475
% change year-on-year +6.26% -5.89% +2.15%
Number of hourly rates quoted 46 23 48
10th Percentile £17.21 £28.31 £16.25
25th Percentile £21.01 £41.58 £24.69
Median hourly rate £50.00 £52.50 £32.11
Median % change year-on-year -4.76% +63.53% -18.20%
75th Percentile £62.94 £77.73 £62.45
90th Percentile £78.13 £93.50 £73.15
UK excluding London median hourly rate £43.75 £61.75 £25.00
% change year-on-year -29.15% +147.00% -44.44%

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 39,137 26,475 37,986
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 85.32% 90.62% 86.33%
Number of daily rates quoted 24,793 17,183 24,611
10th Percentile £315 £308 £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 £744 £750
UK excluding London median daily rate £487 £488 £500
% change year-on-year -0.05% -2.50% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 2,316 1,000 2,387
10th Percentile £15.00 £15.00 £12.81
25th Percentile £19.34 £19.25 £16.00
Median hourly rate £36.71 £31.04 £33.07
Median % change year-on-year +18.27% -6.12% -8.15%
75th Percentile £65.00 £63.75 £57.50
90th Percentile £77.50 £75.28 £70.43
UK excluding London median hourly rate £36.71 £29.23 £33.07
% change year-on-year +25.59% -11.60% -7.64%

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 10 April 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 10 April 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 10 April 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 -17 1,224 £488 -2.50% 728
London -21 626 £500 -2.91% 296
UK excluding London -2 617 £475 +6.26% 522
Work from Home -27 366 £475 -3.85% 357
North of England +1 210 £450 - 176
North West +14 132 £420 -6.67% 94
Midlands -15 126 £500 +24.38% 93
South East -17 120 £490 -2.00% 122
West Midlands -28 84 £475 +2.70% 62
South West -12 70 £475 +26.67% 59
Yorkshire -20 53 £500 +24.84% 45
Scotland -5 51 £500 +14.29% 23
East Midlands -3 42 £550 +45.12% 31
East of England -25 29 £425 -10.99% 33
North East -4 24 £405 -15.63% 39
Wales -2 15 £375 -6.25% 19
Northern Ireland -8 3 - - 5

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 56 (3.96%) SharePoint
2 47 (3.32%) Confluence
3 40 (2.83%) CMS
4 19 (1.34%) Adobe Experience Manager
4 19 (1.34%) Microsoft Exchange
5 9 (0.64%) Apache
6 7 (0.49%) Headless CMS
7 6 (0.42%) Sitecore CMS
7 6 (0.42%) Umbraco
8 5 (0.35%) Camunda
9 4 (0.28%) Drupal
9 4 (0.28%) Ethereum
9 4 (0.28%) Hyperledger
9 4 (0.28%) Mendix
10 3 (0.21%) Anypoint
10 3 (0.21%) Apache Spark
10 3 (0.21%) Jupyter
10 3 (0.21%) nginx
11 2 (0.14%) Appian
11 2 (0.14%) WordPress
Applications
1 44 (3.11%) Sketch
2 34 (2.40%) Adobe XD
3 27 (1.91%) Microsoft Excel
4 23 (1.63%) MS Visio
5 21 (1.48%) Chatbot
6 16 (1.13%) Microsoft Office
7 14 (0.99%) InVision
8 11 (0.78%) Photoshop
9 7 (0.49%) Adobe Illustrator
9 7 (0.49%) Microsoft PowerPoint
10 6 (0.42%) Adobe Creative Suite
10 6 (0.42%) Spreadsheet
11 5 (0.35%) Adobe After Effects
12 4 (0.28%) Trello
13 3 (0.21%) Adobe Captivate
13 3 (0.21%) Microsoft Project
13 3 (0.21%) UserZoom
13 3 (0.21%) UXPin
14 2 (0.14%) Autodesk Smoke
14 2 (0.14%) Camtasia
Business Applications
1 16 (1.13%) Dynamics CRM
2 11 (0.78%) SAP S/4HANA
3 8 (0.57%) Shopify
4 7 (0.49%) Workday HCM
5 6 (0.42%) Sage X3
6 2 (0.14%) NEC Housing
6 2 (0.14%) Oracle EBS
6 2 (0.14%) ResourceLink
6 2 (0.14%) SAP CO
6 2 (0.14%) SAP ERP
6 2 (0.14%) SAP FI
6 2 (0.14%) SAP FI/CO
6 2 (0.14%) Sprinklr
7 1 (0.071%) assyst
7 1 (0.071%) Magento
7 1 (0.071%) Oracle ERP
7 1 (0.071%) Oracle Payroll
7 1 (0.071%) SAP CRM
7 1 (0.071%) SAP PP
7 1 (0.071%) SAP QM
Cloud Services
1 236 (16.68%) Azure
2 197 (13.92%) Figma
3 133 (9.40%) AWS
4 102 (7.21%) Power Platform
5 92 (6.50%) Microsoft 365
6 65 (4.59%) Azure DevOps
7 58 (4.10%) Entra ID
8 55 (3.89%) GCP
8 55 (3.89%) GitHub
9 41 (2.90%) SaaS
10 38 (2.69%) Power Automate
10 38 (2.69%) PowerApps
11 37 (2.61%) Serverless
12 32 (2.26%) GitHub Actions
13 30 (2.12%) Microsoft Copilot
14 25 (1.77%) Dynamics 365
15 23 (1.63%) Google Workspace
16 22 (1.55%) Cloud Computing
16 22 (1.55%) Miro
17 20 (1.41%) Azure Logic Apps
Communications & Networking
1 17 (1.20%) DNS
2 15 (1.06%) Wireless
3 14 (0.99%) LAN
4 13 (0.92%) VPN
5 12 (0.85%) HTTP
5 12 (0.85%) SD-WAN
6 11 (0.78%) Firewall
6 11 (0.78%) Internet
6 11 (0.78%) Intranet
6 11 (0.78%) TCP/IP
6 11 (0.78%) WAN
6 11 (0.78%) Wi-Fi
7 10 (0.71%) DHCP
8 8 (0.57%) Network Security
8 8 (0.57%) SSL
9 7 (0.49%) Cisco Wireless
10 6 (0.42%) BGP
10 6 (0.42%) Cisco ISE
10 6 (0.42%) WLAN
11 5 (0.35%) 5G
Database & Business Intelligence
1 70 (4.95%) Power BI
2 33 (2.33%) NoSQL
2 33 (2.33%) Relational Database
3 29 (2.05%) PostgreSQL
4 25 (1.77%) Data Warehouse
5 24 (1.70%) SQL Server
6 22 (1.55%) MySQL
7 18 (1.27%) Metadata
7 18 (1.27%) Tableau
8 17 (1.20%) MongoDB
9 12 (0.85%) BigQuery
10 9 (0.64%) Looker
10 9 (0.64%) Power Query
11 7 (0.49%) Pinecone
11 7 (0.49%) Redis
12 6 (0.42%) DynamoDB
12 6 (0.42%) Oracle BI Publisher
12 6 (0.42%) ZAP BI
13 5 (0.35%) Big Data
13 5 (0.35%) Hadoop
Development Applications
1 109 (7.70%) JIRA
2 85 (6.01%) Git
3 41 (2.90%) GitLab
4 28 (1.98%) Cypress.io
4 28 (1.98%) Jenkins
5 26 (1.84%) JUnit
6 20 (1.41%) Axure RP
7 14 (0.99%) Gradle
8 13 (0.92%) Selenium
9 12 (0.85%) Android Studio
9 12 (0.85%) CircleCI
10 11 (0.78%) Browser DevTools
11 10 (0.71%) Postman
11 10 (0.71%) Xcode
12 8 (0.57%) Eclipse
12 8 (0.57%) Mocha
12 8 (0.57%) Mockito
12 8 (0.57%) Visual Studio
12 8 (0.57%) Vite
13 7 (0.49%) Jasmine
General
1 459 (32.44%) Social Skills
2 276 (19.51%) Finance
3 199 (14.06%) Public Sector
4 170 (12.01%) Analytical Skills
5 117 (8.27%) Banking
6 57 (4.03%) Marketing
7 51 (3.60%) Retail
8 32 (2.26%) Legal
9 30 (2.12%) Presentation Skills
10 29 (2.05%) Influencing Skills
11 24 (1.70%) Manufacturing
12 21 (1.48%) Documentation Skills
13 20 (1.41%) Pharmaceutical
14 17 (1.20%) Games
15 15 (1.06%) Inclusion and Diversity
15 15 (1.06%) Publishing
16 14 (0.99%) Financial Institution
16 14 (0.99%) Front Office
16 14 (0.99%) Investment Banking
16 14 (0.99%) Organisational Skills
Job Titles
1 273 (19.29%) Designer
2 217 (15.34%) Developer
3 209 (14.77%) Senior
4 135 (9.54%) UX Designer
5 134 (9.47%) Analyst
6 68 (4.81%) Business Analyst
6 68 (4.81%) Lead
7 67 (4.73%) Consultant
8 62 (4.38%) Architect
9 61 (4.31%) Product Designer
10 54 (3.82%) Senior Designer
11 50 (3.53%) User Researcher
12 46 (3.25%) UI Designer
13 41 (2.90%) Service Designer
14 40 (2.83%) Senior Developer
15 39 (2.76%) Full-Stack Developer
16 38 (2.69%) Software Engineer
16 38 (2.69%) Support Engineer
17 37 (2.61%) IT Support
18 36 (2.54%) UI/UX Designer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 169 (11.94%) React
2 149 (10.53%) CSS
3 138 (9.75%) HTML
4 117 (8.27%) REST
5 86 (6.08%) RESTful
6 83 (5.87%) AngularJS
7 66 (4.66%) Spring
8 65 (4.59%) Spring Boot
9 59 (4.17%) .NET
10 45 (3.18%) Node.js
11 41 (2.90%) HTML5
12 36 (2.54%) CSS3
12 36 (2.54%) GraphQL
13 35 (2.47%) Redux
14 34 (2.40%) Jest
15 31 (2.19%) JSON
16 27 (1.91%) Next.js
17 26 (1.84%) Vue
18 22 (1.55%) Kafka
19 20 (1.41%) Playwright
Miscellaneous
1 140 (9.89%) Product Ownership
2 78 (5.51%) Mobile App
3 49 (3.46%) Onboarding
4 31 (2.19%) Enterprise Software
5 30 (2.12%) AI Agents
6 29 (2.05%) Data Structures
7 25 (1.77%) Analytical Mindset
8 19 (1.34%) Cloud Native
9 18 (1.27%) Data Protection Act
10 17 (1.20%) Distributed Systems
10 17 (1.20%) Foreign Exchange (FX)
11 15 (1.06%) NHS
12 13 (0.92%) Algorithms
12 13 (0.92%) Legacy Systems
13 12 (0.85%) Data Centre
13 12 (0.85%) Self-Motivation
13 12 (0.85%) Virtual Team
14 11 (0.78%) Graphic Design
14 11 (0.78%) Management Information System
15 10 (0.71%) Augmented Reality
Operating Systems
1 115 (8.13%) Windows
2 43 (3.04%) Android
3 42 (2.97%) Windows 10
4 31 (2.19%) Apple iOS
5 23 (1.63%) Mac OS
6 22 (1.55%) Linux
7 8 (0.57%) Unix
7 8 (0.57%) Windows Server
8 1 (0.071%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
8 1 (0.071%) Ubuntu
8 1 (0.071%) Windows 7
8 1 (0.071%) Windows Server 2008
8 1 (0.071%) Windows Server 2016
Processes & Methodologies
1 470 (33.22%) Agile
2 456 (32.23%) UX Design
3 232 (16.40%) Problem-Solving
4 208 (14.70%) User Research
5 204 (14.42%) Analytics
6 202 (14.28%) AI
7 180 (12.72%) CI/CD
8 172 (12.16%) DevOps
9 171 (12.08%) Stakeholder Management
10 166 (11.73%) Stakeholder Engagement
11 163 (11.52%) Continuous Improvement
12 143 (10.11%) Roadmaps
13 140 (9.89%) Prototyping
14 136 (9.61%) User-Centered Design (UCD)
15 129 (9.12%) Wireframes
16 126 (8.90%) Service Design
17 123 (8.69%) Decision-Making
18 118 (8.34%) UX Research
19 104 (7.35%) Usability Testing
20 96 (6.78%) Test Automation
Programming Languages
1 181 (12.79%) JavaScript
2 143 (10.11%) SQL
3 125 (8.83%) Java
4 124 (8.76%) Python
5 111 (7.84%) TypeScript
6 64 (4.52%) C#
7 55 (3.89%) PowerShell
8 30 (2.12%) Kotlin
9 19 (1.34%) Bash
10 14 (0.99%) Data Analysis Expressions
11 12 (0.85%) C++
12 11 (0.78%) Perl
13 9 (0.64%) Lua
13 9 (0.64%) Swift
14 8 (0.57%) PHP
15 7 (0.49%) PL/SQL
16 6 (0.42%) Go
16 6 (0.42%) Korn
16 6 (0.42%) Scala
16 6 (0.42%) VBA
Qualifications
1 196 (13.85%) Security Cleared
2 144 (10.18%) SC Cleared
3 120 (8.48%) Degree
4 35 (2.47%) BPSS Clearance
5 28 (1.98%) Computer Science Degree
6 20 (1.41%) Microsoft Certification
7 19 (1.34%) DV Cleared
8 16 (1.13%) Master's Degree
9 13 (0.92%) Azure Certification
9 13 (0.92%) Cisco Certification
10 11 (0.78%) CCNP
11 8 (0.57%) PMI Certification
12 6 (0.42%) Citrix Certification
12 6 (0.42%) OCA
12 6 (0.42%) Oracle Certification
13 5 (0.35%) CCA
13 5 (0.35%) CCIE
13 5 (0.35%) MOS
14 4 (0.28%) ISTQB Foundation Certification
14 4 (0.28%) PMP
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 249 (17.60%) Accessibility
2 130 (9.19%) QA
3 75 (5.30%) WCAG
4 47 (3.32%) Data Quality
5 39 (2.76%) GDPR
6 22 (1.55%) Actionable Recommendations
7 18 (1.27%) ISO/IEC 27001
8 12 (0.85%) SLA
9 8 (0.57%) PMO
10 6 (0.42%) GMP
10 6 (0.42%) GxP
10 6 (0.42%) NCSC
11 5 (0.35%) Cyber Essentials
11 5 (0.35%) HMG Security Policy Framework
12 4 (0.28%) California Consumer Privacy Act
12 4 (0.28%) GRC
12 4 (0.28%) NIST
13 3 (0.21%) Government Security Classifications
13 3 (0.21%) HIPAA
13 3 (0.21%) ISO/IEC 42001
System Software
1 76 (5.37%) Active Directory
2 67 (4.73%) Docker
3 20 (1.41%) VMware Infrastructure
4 17 (1.20%) Virtual Desktop
5 5 (0.35%) Firmware
5 5 (0.35%) Hyper-V
6 2 (0.14%) ProxySG
7 1 (0.071%) ISA Server
7 1 (0.071%) Varnish
7 1 (0.071%) Virtual Machines
7 1 (0.071%) VMware ESXi
7 1 (0.071%) XenApp
7 1 (0.071%) XenDesktop
Systems Management
1 61 (4.31%) Kubernetes
2 44 (3.11%) Terraform
3 37 (2.61%) Microsoft Intune
4 25 (1.77%) SCCM
5 24 (1.70%) Grafana
6 16 (1.13%) Single Sign-On
7 15 (1.06%) Ansible
8 7 (0.49%) Jamf Pro
9 6 (0.42%) Prometheus
10 4 (0.28%) Argo
10 4 (0.28%) FortiGate
11 3 (0.21%) HP ALM
11 3 (0.21%) Nagios
11 3 (0.21%) Podman
11 3 (0.21%) Rancher
12 2 (0.14%) Systems Management Server (SMS)
12 2 (0.14%) SysTrack
13 1 (0.071%) AirWatch
13 1 (0.071%) SCOM
13 1 (0.071%) WMI
Vendors
1 214 (15.12%) Microsoft
2 87 (6.15%) Adobe
3 71 (5.02%) Google
4 62 (4.38%) ServiceNow
5 44 (3.11%) Oracle
5 44 (3.11%) SAP
6 36 (2.54%) Salesforce
7 23 (1.63%) Citrix
8 21 (1.48%) VMware
9 19 (1.34%) Cisco
10 18 (1.27%) Splunk
11 15 (1.06%) Apple
11 15 (1.06%) Workday
12 11 (0.78%) Zscaler
13 10 (0.71%) Red Hat
14 9 (0.64%) Databricks
14 9 (0.64%) Ekahau
14 9 (0.64%) Foundry
14 9 (0.64%) MuleSoft
14 9 (0.64%) Sitecore