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 21 December 2025, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
21 Dec 2025
Same period 2024 Same period 2023
Rank 66 70 69
Rank change year-on-year +4 -1 -8
Contract jobs citing User Experience 1,310 1,092 1,300
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 3.57% 3.22% 2.97%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 4.04% 3.64% 3.35%
Number of daily rates quoted 875 661 904
10th Percentile £300 £306 £325
25th Percentile £375 £400 £412
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £475 £500 £500
Median % change year-on-year -5.00% - -9.09%
75th Percentile £560 £588 £600
90th Percentile £650 £695 £700
UK excluding London median daily rate £450 £458 £475
% change year-on-year -1.75% -3.58% -5.00%
Number of hourly rates quoted 54 27 28
10th Percentile £15.50 £25.26 £18.79
25th Percentile £17.69 £30.51 £30.00
Median hourly rate £35.60 £41.91 £55.25
Median % change year-on-year -15.06% -24.14% -11.60%
75th Percentile £60.50 £52.75 £70.99
90th Percentile £70.16 £74.00 £81.25
UK excluding London median hourly rate £32.50 £30.88 £60.00
% change year-on-year +5.26% -48.54% -7.69%

All Process and 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 32,432 29,959 38,773
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 88.29% 88.23% 88.50%
Number of daily rates quoted 20,397 18,286 25,908
10th Percentile £300 £307 £306
25th Percentile £406 £413 £420
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £525 £530
Median % change year-on-year -4.76% -0.94% -3.64%
75th Percentile £615 £638 £650
90th Percentile £723 £743 £744
UK excluding London median daily rate £475 £500 £500
% change year-on-year -5.00% - -
Number of hourly rates quoted 2,093 972 1,488
10th Percentile £14.51 £15.62 £14.33
25th Percentile £17.50 £20.30 £18.99
Median hourly rate £25.15 £32.50 £43.84
Median % change year-on-year -22.62% -25.86% +25.25%
75th Percentile £50.00 £62.50 £65.00
90th Percentile £68.00 £73.75 £77.50
UK excluding London median hourly rate £23.00 £31.50 £44.50
% change year-on-year -26.98% -29.21% +39.26%

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 21 December 2025.

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 21 December 2025.

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 21 December 2025. 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 +3 1,137 £475 -5.00% 495
UK excluding London +10 591 £450 -1.75% 425
London -8 575 £476 -9.29% 176
Work from Home -15 346 £475 -3.85% 240
North of England +24 212 £425 -5.56% 110
North West +17 138 £402 -10.67% 68
Midlands +10 112 £449 -5.08% 79
South East -1 111 £447 -3.35% 140
West Midlands +6 79 £432 -19.63% 53
South West +10 67 £550 -4.35% 44
Yorkshire -4 58 £475 - 32
Scotland -20 55 £466 +3.61% 23
East of England -11 36 £460 -6.03% 37
East Midlands -2 33 £480 +34.83% 26
North East +8 15 £410 - 11
Wales +4 10 £283 -33.43% 7
Northern Ireland -16 1 £625 +92.31%

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 55 (4.20%) Confluence
2 53 (4.05%) SharePoint
3 50 (3.82%) CMS
4 18 (1.37%) Adobe Experience Manager
5 13 (0.99%) Microsoft Exchange
6 12 (0.92%) Headless CMS
7 11 (0.84%) SugarCRM
8 10 (0.76%) Apache
8 10 (0.76%) Sitecore CMS
9 8 (0.61%) Umbraco
10 5 (0.38%) WordPress
11 4 (0.31%) Apache Airflow
11 4 (0.31%) Jupyter
12 3 (0.23%) Anypoint
12 3 (0.23%) Apache Spark
12 3 (0.23%) Drupal
13 2 (0.15%) WebLogic
14 1 (0.076%) Appian
14 1 (0.076%) IIS
14 1 (0.076%) Mendix
Applications
1 48 (3.66%) Sketch
2 28 (2.14%) Adobe XD
3 22 (1.68%) Microsoft Office
4 21 (1.60%) MS Visio
5 19 (1.45%) Chatbot
6 17 (1.30%) Microsoft Excel
7 14 (1.07%) InVision
8 13 (0.99%) Adobe Illustrator
8 13 (0.99%) Photoshop
9 11 (0.84%) Trello
10 9 (0.69%) Adobe Creative Suite
10 9 (0.69%) Microsoft Project
11 7 (0.53%) Microsoft PowerPoint
12 6 (0.46%) Adobe After Effects
13 5 (0.38%) Camtasia
14 3 (0.23%) Snagit
14 3 (0.23%) Spreadsheet
15 2 (0.15%) Blender
15 2 (0.15%) CINEMA 4D
15 2 (0.15%) OmniGraffle
Business Applications
1 22 (1.68%) SAP S/4HANA
2 19 (1.45%) Dynamics CRM
3 5 (0.38%) Workday HCM
4 4 (0.31%) Magento
4 4 (0.31%) Shopify
5 3 (0.23%) Salesforce CRM
5 3 (0.23%) SAP CO
5 3 (0.23%) SAP FI
5 3 (0.23%) SAP FI/CO
5 3 (0.23%) Teamcenter
6 2 (0.15%) Adobe Campaign
6 2 (0.15%) iTrent
6 2 (0.15%) Maximo
6 2 (0.15%) Oracle EBS
6 2 (0.15%) SAP SD
6 2 (0.15%) SAP Travel Management
7 1 (0.076%) Elite 3E
7 1 (0.076%) NEC Housing
7 1 (0.076%) NetSuite
7 1 (0.076%) SAP PLM
Cloud Services
1 226 (17.25%) Azure
2 158 (12.06%) AWS
3 145 (11.07%) Figma
4 88 (6.72%) SaaS
5 85 (6.49%) Power Platform
6 81 (6.18%) Microsoft 365
7 71 (5.42%) GCP
8 50 (3.82%) Entra ID
9 46 (3.51%) Azure DevOps
10 40 (3.05%) GitHub
11 37 (2.82%) Miro
12 30 (2.29%) Serverless
13 28 (2.14%) Google Analytics
14 24 (1.83%) Google Workspace
14 24 (1.83%) Power Automate
14 24 (1.83%) PowerApps
15 23 (1.76%) GitHub Actions
16 21 (1.60%) Dynamics 365
16 21 (1.60%) Sauce Labs
17 16 (1.22%) AWS Lambda
Communications & Networking
1 29 (2.21%) DNS
1 29 (2.21%) Wireless
2 18 (1.37%) Internet
3 12 (0.92%) HTTP
3 12 (0.92%) VPN
4 10 (0.76%) DHCP
5 9 (0.69%) TCP/IP
5 9 (0.69%) Wi-Fi
6 8 (0.61%) Firewall
6 8 (0.61%) Intranet
7 7 (0.53%) BGP
7 7 (0.53%) Cisco ISE
7 7 (0.53%) Cisco Wireless
7 7 (0.53%) NX-OS
7 7 (0.53%) SSL
7 7 (0.53%) VXLAN
8 6 (0.46%) Network Security
8 6 (0.46%) Unified Communications
9 5 (0.38%) WAN
10 4 (0.31%) PPP
Database & Business Intelligence
1 55 (4.20%) Power BI
2 45 (3.44%) MySQL
3 41 (3.13%) Relational Database
4 34 (2.60%) PostgreSQL
5 27 (2.06%) SQL Server
6 25 (1.91%) Tableau
7 24 (1.83%) NoSQL
8 19 (1.45%) MongoDB
9 18 (1.37%) Data Warehouse
10 14 (1.07%) BigQuery
11 13 (0.99%) Looker
11 13 (0.99%) Metadata
12 11 (0.84%) Redis
13 8 (0.61%) SAP HANA
14 7 (0.53%) Mixpanel
15 6 (0.46%) DynamoDB
16 4 (0.31%) Amazon Aurora
16 4 (0.31%) Big Data
17 3 (0.23%) Amazon Athena
17 3 (0.23%) Power Query
Development Applications
1 125 (9.54%) JIRA
2 91 (6.95%) Git
3 45 (3.44%) GitLab
4 44 (3.36%) Jenkins
5 33 (2.52%) Xcode
6 29 (2.21%) Android Studio
6 29 (2.21%) Eclipse
7 28 (2.14%) Cypress.io
8 23 (1.76%) Browser DevTools
9 21 (1.60%) Axure RP
10 17 (1.30%) webpack
11 16 (1.22%) Gradle
12 15 (1.15%) Postman
13 14 (1.07%) JUnit
14 11 (0.84%) CircleCI
14 11 (0.84%) Selenium
15 10 (0.76%) Artifactory
16 9 (0.69%) Visual Website Optimizer
17 8 (0.61%) IntelliJ
18 7 (0.53%) Appium
General
1 468 (35.73%) Social Skills
2 240 (18.32%) Finance
3 190 (14.50%) Public Sector
4 169 (12.90%) Analytical Skills
5 96 (7.33%) Banking
5 96 (7.33%) Marketing
6 36 (2.75%) Influencing Skills
7 32 (2.44%) Legal
8 29 (2.21%) Retail
9 27 (2.06%) Presentation Skills
10 24 (1.83%) Inclusion and Diversity
10 24 (1.83%) Manufacturing
11 22 (1.68%) Pharmaceutical
12 21 (1.60%) Documentation Skills
13 15 (1.15%) Financial Institution
13 15 (1.15%) Investment Banking
13 15 (1.15%) Telecoms
14 13 (0.99%) Automotive
15 11 (0.84%) Organisational Skills
16 10 (0.76%) Publishing
Job Titles
1 235 (17.94%) Developer
2 226 (17.25%) Designer
3 175 (13.36%) Senior
4 120 (9.16%) UX Designer
5 103 (7.86%) Analyst
5 103 (7.86%) Lead
6 61 (4.66%) Business Analyst
7 59 (4.50%) Consultant
8 47 (3.59%) Front-End Developer (Client-Side Developer)
9 46 (3.51%) Architect
9 46 (3.51%) Senior Designer
10 43 (3.28%) Service Designer
11 41 (3.13%) Support Engineer
12 35 (2.67%) Front-End Engineer (Client-Side Engineer)
12 35 (2.67%) Product Designer
13 34 (2.60%) Senior Developer
14 33 (2.52%) UI Designer
14 33 (2.52%) User Researcher
15 32 (2.44%) Full-Stack Developer
16 29 (2.21%) Software Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 184 (14.05%) CSS
2 169 (12.90%) React
3 166 (12.67%) HTML
4 104 (7.94%) REST
5 98 (7.48%) RESTful
6 85 (6.49%) AngularJS
7 60 (4.58%) Node.js
8 55 (4.20%) HTML5
9 52 (3.97%) GraphQL
10 48 (3.66%) .NET
11 36 (2.75%) CSS3
11 36 (2.75%) Jest
12 33 (2.52%) Spring
13 30 (2.29%) Spring Boot
14 27 (2.06%) Redux
14 27 (2.06%) SOAP
15 26 (1.98%) Next.js
16 23 (1.76%) JSON
16 23 (1.76%) Playwright
17 22 (1.68%) Ajax
Miscellaneous
1 124 (9.47%) Product Ownership
2 113 (8.63%) Mobile App
3 69 (5.27%) Onboarding
4 29 (2.21%) Analytical Mindset
5 25 (1.91%) Enterprise Software
6 23 (1.76%) Management Information System
7 22 (1.68%) Data Structures
7 22 (1.68%) Low-Code
8 20 (1.53%) e-Learning
9 18 (1.37%) NHS
10 17 (1.30%) Data Centre
11 16 (1.22%) AI Agents
11 16 (1.22%) Hybrid Cloud
12 15 (1.15%) Cloud Native
12 15 (1.15%) Data Protection Act
12 15 (1.15%) Learning Management System
12 15 (1.15%) Virtual Team
13 14 (1.07%) Legacy Systems
14 13 (0.99%) Greenfield Project
15 12 (0.92%) CMDB
Operating Systems
1 139 (10.61%) Windows
2 77 (5.88%) Android
3 63 (4.81%) Apple iOS
4 42 (3.21%) Linux
5 38 (2.90%) Windows 10
6 27 (2.06%) Mac OS
6 27 (2.06%) Unix
7 9 (0.69%) Windows Server
8 4 (0.31%) Ubuntu
9 2 (0.15%) tvOS
9 2 (0.15%) VMS
10 1 (0.076%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
10 1 (0.076%) watchOS
Processes & Methodologies
1 494 (37.71%) Agile
2 435 (33.21%) UX Design
3 225 (17.18%) Problem-Solving
4 216 (16.49%) Analytics
5 180 (13.74%) CI/CD
6 170 (12.98%) User Research
7 156 (11.91%) DevOps
8 151 (11.53%) Stakeholder Management
9 146 (11.15%) AI
10 144 (10.99%) Roadmaps
11 143 (10.92%) Continuous Improvement
12 132 (10.08%) User-Centered Design (UCD)
13 130 (9.92%) Service Design
14 126 (9.62%) Stakeholder Engagement
15 123 (9.39%) Front End Development
16 112 (8.55%) Decision-Making
17 99 (7.56%) Wireframes
18 98 (7.48%) Usability Testing
19 95 (7.25%) Scrum
20 92 (7.02%) User Stories
Programming Languages
1 200 (15.27%) JavaScript
2 127 (9.69%) Python
3 120 (9.16%) Java
4 112 (8.55%) SQL
5 98 (7.48%) TypeScript
6 62 (4.73%) PowerShell
7 46 (3.51%) C#
8 36 (2.75%) Kotlin
9 29 (2.21%) Swift
10 26 (1.98%) Perl
11 25 (1.91%) Bash
12 20 (1.53%) PHP
13 13 (0.99%) Objective-C
14 11 (0.84%) C++
14 11 (0.84%) PL/SQL
15 8 (0.61%) Go
16 7 (0.53%) Lisp
16 7 (0.53%) Scala
17 6 (0.46%) Apex Code
17 6 (0.46%) Data Analysis Expressions
Qualifications
1 185 (14.12%) Security Cleared
2 135 (10.31%) SC Cleared
3 125 (9.54%) Degree
4 39 (2.98%) BPSS Clearance
5 30 (2.29%) Computer Science Degree
6 21 (1.60%) Master's Degree
7 19 (1.45%) DV Cleared
8 16 (1.22%) Microsoft Certification
9 15 (1.15%) PMI Certification
10 11 (0.84%) MOS
11 9 (0.69%) OCA
11 9 (0.69%) Oracle Certification
11 9 (0.69%) PMP
12 8 (0.61%) CCNP
12 8 (0.61%) Cisco Certification
13 5 (0.38%) ITIL Certification
14 4 (0.31%) Citrix Certification
14 4 (0.31%) CSPO
15 3 (0.23%) Azure Certification
15 3 (0.23%) ISTQB
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 239 (18.24%) Accessibility
2 134 (10.23%) QA
3 66 (5.04%) GDPR
4 59 (4.50%) WCAG
5 40 (3.05%) Data Quality
6 28 (2.14%) ISO/IEC 27001
7 22 (1.68%) SLA
8 14 (1.07%) Actionable Recommendations
9 8 (0.61%) GxP
10 7 (0.53%) California Consumer Privacy Act
10 7 (0.53%) PMO
11 5 (0.38%) Sarbanes-Oxley
12 4 (0.31%) NCSC
12 4 (0.31%) PCI DSS
13 3 (0.23%) Disclosure Scotland
13 3 (0.23%) GMP
13 3 (0.23%) Government Security Classifications
13 3 (0.23%) NIST
13 3 (0.23%) SOC 2
14 2 (0.15%) ISO 20022
System Software
1 71 (5.42%) Active Directory
2 61 (4.66%) Docker
3 25 (1.91%) VMware Infrastructure
4 10 (0.76%) Virtual Desktop
5 3 (0.23%) Hyper-V
5 3 (0.23%) VMware ESXi
6 2 (0.15%) ProxySG
7 1 (0.076%) BitLocker
7 1 (0.076%) Firmware
7 1 (0.076%) ISA Server
7 1 (0.076%) Microsoft App-V
7 1 (0.076%) XenApp
7 1 (0.076%) XenDesktop
Systems Management
1 51 (3.89%) Kubernetes
2 50 (3.82%) Microsoft Intune
3 40 (3.05%) SCCM
4 33 (2.52%) Terraform
5 19 (1.45%) Ansible
6 17 (1.30%) Grafana
7 14 (1.07%) Single Sign-On
8 7 (0.53%) FortiGate
9 6 (0.46%) Jamf Pro
9 6 (0.46%) Prometheus
10 4 (0.31%) Argo
11 3 (0.23%) Nagios
11 3 (0.23%) Rancher
11 3 (0.23%) Systems Management Server (SMS)
12 2 (0.15%) HP ALM
12 2 (0.15%) PingFederate
12 2 (0.15%) SysTrack
13 1 (0.076%) AirWatch
13 1 (0.076%) Consul
13 1 (0.076%) Istio
Vendors
1 228 (17.40%) Microsoft
2 92 (7.02%) Google
3 88 (6.72%) Adobe
4 74 (5.65%) ServiceNow
5 61 (4.66%) Oracle
6 53 (4.05%) SAP
7 45 (3.44%) Salesforce
8 32 (2.44%) Splunk
9 27 (2.06%) VMware
10 21 (1.60%) Citrix
11 17 (1.30%) Apple
12 15 (1.15%) Cisco
13 14 (1.07%) Optimizely
14 13 (0.99%) Hotjar
14 13 (0.99%) Zscaler
15 11 (0.84%) MuleSoft
15 11 (0.84%) Red Hat
16 10 (0.76%) Sitecore
16 10 (0.76%) Workday
17 9 (0.69%) Amplitude