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 22 November 2025, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
22 Nov 2025
Same period 2024 Same period 2023
Rank 69 74 73
Rank change year-on-year +5 -1 -12
Contract jobs citing User Experience 1,293 1,072 1,372
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 3.60% 2.92% 2.94%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 4.02% 3.37% 3.32%
Number of daily rates quoted 839 628 955
10th Percentile £300 £305 £325
25th Percentile £375 £386 £406
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £475 £500 £500
Median % change year-on-year -5.00% - -9.01%
75th Percentile £566 £588 £600
90th Percentile £650 £688 £700
UK excluding London median daily rate £450 £453 £475
% change year-on-year -0.66% -4.63% -5.00%
Number of hourly rates quoted 52 30 27
10th Percentile £15.50 £25.26 £17.72
25th Percentile £17.69 £30.11 £25.63
Median hourly rate £34.24 £39.00 £50.00
Median % change year-on-year -12.21% -22.00% -20.00%
75th Percentile £42.50 £53.25 £71.91
90th Percentile £69.52 £74.04 £81.25
UK excluding London median hourly rate £25.15 £30.88 £58.79
% change year-on-year -18.54% -47.48% -9.56%

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 32,181 31,778 41,284
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 89.57% 86.49% 88.58%
Number of daily rates quoted 20,153 19,119 27,753
10th Percentile £300 £310 £308
25th Percentile £404 £413 £425
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £525 £530
Median % change year-on-year -4.76% -0.94% -3.64%
75th Percentile £619 £638 £650
90th Percentile £725 £740 £745
UK excluding London median daily rate £475 £500 £500
% change year-on-year -5.00% - -
Number of hourly rates quoted 2,131 1,159 1,593
10th Percentile £14.50 £15.10 £14.25
25th Percentile £17.50 £20.12 £19.00
Median hourly rate £25.15 £33.93 £44.00
Median % change year-on-year -25.88% -22.89% +25.71%
75th Percentile £45.46 £63.75 £65.00
90th Percentile £67.50 £73.75 £77.50
UK excluding London median hourly rate £22.85 £32.50 £44.50
% change year-on-year -29.71% -26.97% +44.76%

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 22 November 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 22 November 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 22 November 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 +8 1,113 £470 -6.00% 1,531
London -1 586 £475 -9.52% 848
UK excluding London +7 563 £450 -0.66% 794
Work from Home -8 363 £488 +2.09% 1,048
North of England +25 199 £419 -6.94% 225
North West +12 125 £408 -9.44% 142
Midlands +6 108 £449 -10.30% 100
South East -10 105 £475 +10.59% 289
West Midlands +6 73 £463 -15.91% 62
South West +21 66 £538 -6.52% 80
Yorkshire +6 63 £450 -5.26% 54
Scotland -19 56 £463 +2.10% 32
East Midlands +2 35 £425 +19.38% 37
East of England -3 33 £475 +5.56% 45
North East +5 10 £375 - 30
Wales +4 9 £331 -22.08% 17
Northern Ireland -8 1 £625 +19.05% 15

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 62 (4.80%) Confluence
2 55 (4.25%) CMS
3 49 (3.79%) SharePoint
4 15 (1.16%) Microsoft Exchange
5 13 (1.01%) Adobe Experience Manager
6 12 (0.93%) Headless CMS
7 11 (0.85%) SugarCRM
8 10 (0.77%) Apache
8 10 (0.77%) Sitecore CMS
9 9 (0.70%) Umbraco
10 5 (0.39%) WordPress
11 4 (0.31%) Apache Airflow
11 4 (0.31%) Jupyter
12 3 (0.23%) Drupal
13 2 (0.15%) Apache Spark
13 2 (0.15%) Cloud Foundry
13 2 (0.15%) Moodle
13 2 (0.15%) SharePoint Server
13 2 (0.15%) WebLogic
14 1 (0.077%) SharePoint 2010
Applications
1 52 (4.02%) Sketch
2 23 (1.78%) Adobe XD
3 22 (1.70%) Chatbot
4 21 (1.62%) Microsoft Office
5 20 (1.55%) MS Visio
6 15 (1.16%) Microsoft Excel
7 14 (1.08%) Adobe Illustrator
7 14 (1.08%) InVision
7 14 (1.08%) Photoshop
8 9 (0.70%) Adobe Creative Suite
8 9 (0.70%) Microsoft PowerPoint
8 9 (0.70%) Trello
9 8 (0.62%) Microsoft Project
10 5 (0.39%) Camtasia
11 4 (0.31%) Adobe After Effects
11 4 (0.31%) OmniGraffle
11 4 (0.31%) Siemens NX
11 4 (0.31%) UserZoom
11 4 (0.31%) UXPin
12 3 (0.23%) Spreadsheet
Business Applications
1 21 (1.62%) SAP S/4HANA
2 20 (1.55%) Dynamics CRM
3 6 (0.46%) Teamcenter
4 5 (0.39%) Workday HCM
5 4 (0.31%) Magento
6 3 (0.23%) Oracle EBS
6 3 (0.23%) Salesforce CRM
6 3 (0.23%) Shopify
7 2 (0.15%) Maximo
7 2 (0.15%) Oracle Assets
7 2 (0.15%) Oracle EBS R12
7 2 (0.15%) Oracle ERP
7 2 (0.15%) SAP CO
7 2 (0.15%) SAP FI
7 2 (0.15%) SAP FI/CO
7 2 (0.15%) SAP PLM
7 2 (0.15%) SAP SD
7 2 (0.15%) SAP Travel Management
8 1 (0.077%) SAP PP
8 1 (0.077%) Summit
Cloud Services
1 219 (16.94%) Azure
2 165 (12.76%) AWS
3 146 (11.29%) Figma
4 90 (6.96%) SaaS
5 79 (6.11%) Microsoft 365
6 74 (5.72%) Power Platform
7 71 (5.49%) GCP
8 54 (4.18%) Entra ID
9 43 (3.33%) Azure DevOps
10 41 (3.17%) GitHub
11 37 (2.86%) Miro
12 31 (2.40%) Serverless
13 27 (2.09%) Google Analytics
14 23 (1.78%) GitHub Actions
14 23 (1.78%) Power Automate
15 20 (1.55%) Google Workspace
16 19 (1.47%) Dynamics 365
17 18 (1.39%) PowerApps
17 18 (1.39%) Sauce Labs
18 17 (1.31%) Firebase
Communications & Networking
1 31 (2.40%) Wireless
2 29 (2.24%) DNS
3 18 (1.39%) Internet
4 13 (1.01%) HTTP
5 10 (0.77%) VPN
6 9 (0.70%) DHCP
6 9 (0.70%) Firewall
7 8 (0.62%) Network Security
7 8 (0.62%) NFC
7 8 (0.62%) PPP
7 8 (0.62%) SSL
7 8 (0.62%) Wi-Fi
8 7 (0.54%) BGP
8 7 (0.54%) Cisco ISE
8 7 (0.54%) Cisco Wireless
8 7 (0.54%) NX-OS
8 7 (0.54%) TCP/IP
8 7 (0.54%) VXLAN
9 6 (0.46%) Intranet
10 5 (0.39%) Unified Communications
Database & Business Intelligence
1 48 (3.71%) Power BI
2 42 (3.25%) MySQL
3 41 (3.17%) PostgreSQL
4 39 (3.02%) Relational Database
5 34 (2.63%) SQL Server
6 25 (1.93%) Tableau
7 24 (1.86%) NoSQL
8 23 (1.78%) MongoDB
9 14 (1.08%) Data Warehouse
9 14 (1.08%) Redis
10 11 (0.85%) Looker
11 10 (0.77%) BigQuery
11 10 (0.77%) Metadata
11 10 (0.77%) Mixpanel
12 9 (0.70%) SAP HANA
13 7 (0.54%) DynamoDB
14 4 (0.31%) Amazon Aurora
14 4 (0.31%) DB2
15 3 (0.23%) Amazon Athena
15 3 (0.23%) Electronic Patient Records
Development Applications
1 128 (9.90%) JIRA
2 103 (7.97%) Git
3 48 (3.71%) Jenkins
4 37 (2.86%) GitLab
5 34 (2.63%) Xcode
6 31 (2.40%) Eclipse
7 28 (2.17%) Android Studio
8 24 (1.86%) Cypress.io
9 23 (1.78%) Axure RP
10 22 (1.70%) webpack
11 20 (1.55%) Browser DevTools
12 15 (1.16%) JUnit
12 15 (1.16%) Postman
13 12 (0.93%) Gradle
14 11 (0.85%) Selenium
15 9 (0.70%) Bitbucket
15 9 (0.70%) Visual Website Optimizer
16 8 (0.62%) Artifactory
16 8 (0.62%) Valgrind
17 7 (0.54%) Cucumber
General
1 439 (33.95%) Social Skills
2 264 (20.42%) Finance
3 163 (12.61%) Public Sector
4 162 (12.53%) Analytical Skills
5 113 (8.74%) Banking
6 94 (7.27%) Marketing
7 40 (3.09%) Retail
8 33 (2.55%) Legal
9 31 (2.40%) Influencing Skills
10 29 (2.24%) Documentation Skills
11 28 (2.17%) Inclusion and Diversity
12 23 (1.78%) Presentation Skills
13 20 (1.55%) Manufacturing
14 18 (1.39%) Front Office
14 18 (1.39%) Investment Banking
14 18 (1.39%) Telecoms
15 17 (1.31%) Financial Institution
16 15 (1.16%) Pharmaceutical
16 15 (1.16%) Publishing
17 14 (1.08%) Automotive
Job Titles
1 265 (20.49%) Developer
2 209 (16.16%) Designer
3 160 (12.37%) Senior
4 111 (8.58%) Lead
4 111 (8.58%) UX Designer
5 94 (7.27%) Analyst
6 62 (4.80%) Business Analyst
7 58 (4.49%) Consultant
8 45 (3.48%) Front-End Developer (Client-Side Developer)
9 39 (3.02%) React Developer
10 38 (2.94%) Architect
10 38 (2.94%) UI Designer
11 36 (2.78%) Senior Designer
12 34 (2.63%) Support Engineer
13 33 (2.55%) Senior Developer
14 31 (2.40%) Software Engineer
15 30 (2.32%) Full-Stack Developer
15 30 (2.32%) User Researcher
16 29 (2.24%) Front-End Engineer (Client-Side Engineer)
17 28 (2.17%) UI/UX Designer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 179 (13.84%) CSS
2 165 (12.76%) HTML
3 163 (12.61%) React
4 105 (8.12%) RESTful
5 100 (7.73%) REST
6 77 (5.96%) AngularJS
7 74 (5.72%) Node.js
8 56 (4.33%) HTML5
9 55 (4.25%) .NET
10 45 (3.48%) GraphQL
11 42 (3.25%) Redux
12 38 (2.94%) Jest
13 37 (2.86%) CSS3
14 32 (2.47%) Web Services
15 27 (2.09%) React Native
16 26 (2.01%) Bootstrap
16 26 (2.01%) SOAP
16 26 (2.01%) Spring
17 25 (1.93%) XML
18 24 (1.86%) Spring Boot
Miscellaneous
1 137 (10.60%) Product Ownership
2 129 (9.98%) Mobile App
3 71 (5.49%) Onboarding
4 27 (2.09%) Analytical Mindset
4 27 (2.09%) Enterprise Software
5 20 (1.55%) Hybrid Cloud
5 20 (1.55%) Low-Code
5 20 (1.55%) Management Information System
6 17 (1.31%) Legacy Systems
6 17 (1.31%) Virtual Team
7 16 (1.24%) Data Centre
7 16 (1.24%) Learning Management System
8 15 (1.16%) Cloud Native
8 15 (1.16%) Data Protection Act
8 15 (1.16%) Data Structures
8 15 (1.16%) e-Learning
8 15 (1.16%) Greenfield Project
9 13 (1.01%) AI Agents
10 12 (0.93%) Self-Motivation
11 11 (0.85%) Algorithms
Operating Systems
1 123 (9.51%) Windows
2 88 (6.81%) Android
3 74 (5.72%) Apple iOS
4 45 (3.48%) Linux
5 28 (2.17%) Windows 10
6 24 (1.86%) Mac OS
6 24 (1.86%) Unix
7 11 (0.85%) Windows Server
8 8 (0.62%) Ubuntu
9 2 (0.15%) tvOS
9 2 (0.15%) VMS
10 1 (0.077%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
10 1 (0.077%) watchOS
Processes & Methodologies
1 498 (38.52%) Agile
2 447 (34.57%) UX Design
3 239 (18.48%) Problem-Solving
4 196 (15.16%) Analytics
5 185 (14.31%) CI/CD
6 169 (13.07%) DevOps
7 141 (10.90%) User Research
8 139 (10.75%) Continuous Improvement
8 139 (10.75%) Roadmaps
9 135 (10.44%) AI
9 135 (10.44%) Front End Development
10 134 (10.36%) Stakeholder Management
11 115 (8.89%) Stakeholder Engagement
12 113 (8.74%) Service Design
13 111 (8.58%) User-Centered Design (UCD)
14 106 (8.20%) Decision-Making
15 100 (7.73%) Wireframes
16 99 (7.66%) Scrum
17 88 (6.81%) Microservices
18 86 (6.65%) Test Automation
Programming Languages
1 210 (16.24%) JavaScript
2 136 (10.52%) Python
3 120 (9.28%) Java
4 107 (8.28%) SQL
5 106 (8.20%) TypeScript
6 60 (4.64%) C#
7 55 (4.25%) PowerShell
8 34 (2.63%) Kotlin
9 32 (2.47%) Swift
10 26 (2.01%) Bash
11 23 (1.78%) Perl
12 19 (1.47%) PHP
13 17 (1.31%) Objective-C
14 16 (1.24%) C++
15 10 (0.77%) PL/SQL
16 9 (0.70%) Scala
17 8 (0.62%) Apex Code
17 8 (0.62%) Go
18 7 (0.54%) Lisp
18 7 (0.54%) Ruby
Qualifications
1 178 (13.77%) Security Cleared
2 130 (10.05%) SC Cleared
3 128 (9.90%) Degree
4 42 (3.25%) BPSS Clearance
5 29 (2.24%) Computer Science Degree
6 22 (1.70%) DV Cleared
7 19 (1.47%) Master's Degree
8 13 (1.01%) Microsoft Certification
9 12 (0.93%) PMI Certification
10 11 (0.85%) MOS
11 9 (0.70%) PMP
12 8 (0.62%) CCNP
12 8 (0.62%) Cisco Certification
13 7 (0.54%) ITIL Certification
13 7 (0.54%) OCA
13 7 (0.54%) Oracle Certification
14 4 (0.31%) Citrix Certification
15 3 (0.23%) A+ Certification
15 3 (0.23%) CISSP
15 3 (0.23%) ISTQB
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 225 (17.40%) Accessibility
2 120 (9.28%) QA
3 59 (4.56%) GDPR
4 50 (3.87%) WCAG
5 33 (2.55%) Data Quality
6 23 (1.78%) SLA
7 22 (1.70%) ISO/IEC 27001
8 12 (0.93%) Actionable Recommendations
9 9 (0.70%) California Consumer Privacy Act
10 6 (0.46%) Sarbanes-Oxley
11 5 (0.39%) GxP
12 4 (0.31%) PMO
13 3 (0.23%) Government Security Classifications
13 3 (0.23%) NCSC
14 2 (0.15%) Disclosure Scotland
14 2 (0.15%) FIPS 140-2
14 2 (0.15%) ISO 20022
14 2 (0.15%) ISO/IEC 20000
14 2 (0.15%) PCI DSS
14 2 (0.15%) Section 508
System Software
1 69 (5.34%) Active Directory
2 58 (4.49%) Docker
3 22 (1.70%) VMware Infrastructure
4 8 (0.62%) Virtual Desktop
5 4 (0.31%) VMware ESXi
6 2 (0.15%) Hyper-V
6 2 (0.15%) ProxySG
7 1 (0.077%) BitLocker
7 1 (0.077%) Firmware
7 1 (0.077%) Microsoft App-V
7 1 (0.077%) XenApp
7 1 (0.077%) XenDesktop
Systems Management
1 48 (3.71%) Microsoft Intune
2 46 (3.56%) Kubernetes
3 34 (2.63%) SCCM
3 34 (2.63%) Terraform
4 16 (1.24%) Ansible
5 15 (1.16%) Single Sign-On
6 12 (0.93%) Jamf Pro
7 10 (0.77%) Grafana
8 7 (0.54%) FortiGate
8 7 (0.54%) Prometheus
9 3 (0.23%) Argo
9 3 (0.23%) Systems Management Server (SMS)
10 2 (0.15%) Active Directory Federation Services
10 2 (0.15%) McAfee ePO
10 2 (0.15%) Nagios
10 2 (0.15%) NSN NetAct
10 2 (0.15%) PingFederate
10 2 (0.15%) Rancher
11 1 (0.077%) Consul
11 1 (0.077%) Istio
Vendors
1 215 (16.63%) Microsoft
2 88 (6.81%) Google
3 77 (5.96%) Adobe
4 68 (5.26%) ServiceNow
5 56 (4.33%) Oracle
6 54 (4.18%) SAP
7 45 (3.48%) Salesforce
8 28 (2.17%) Splunk
9 24 (1.86%) VMware
10 21 (1.62%) Apple
11 18 (1.39%) Hotjar
12 16 (1.24%) Cisco
12 16 (1.24%) Citrix
13 14 (1.08%) Optimizely
14 12 (0.93%) Zscaler
15 10 (0.77%) Sitecore
16 9 (0.70%) Amplitude
16 9 (0.70%) OpenAI
16 9 (0.70%) Workday
17 8 (0.62%) Ekahau