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 12 August 2026, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
12 Aug 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 93 65 79
Rank change year-on-year -28 +14 -19
Contract jobs citing User Experience 1,512 1,239 1,016
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 2.83% 3.76% 2.61%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 3.34% 4.15% 3.05%
Number of daily rates quoted 915 789 638
10th Percentile £313 £302 £304
25th Percentile £400 £375 £400
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £475 £475 £500
Median % change year-on-year - -5.00% -
75th Percentile £578 £588 £600
90th Percentile £688 £678 £700
UK excluding London median daily rate £450 £450 £475
% change year-on-year - -5.26% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 74 46 33
10th Percentile £16.88 £22.63 £16.25
25th Percentile £26.06 £33.37 £30.00
Median hourly rate £33.99 £45.50 £41.68
Median % change year-on-year -25.30% +9.18% +54.35%
75th Percentile £67.84 £63.75 £70.39
90th Percentile £73.38 £72.25 £74.44
UK excluding London median hourly rate £33.99 £42.30 £66.00
% change year-on-year -19.65% -35.91% +272.46%

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 45,292 29,826 33,298
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 84.86% 90.48% 85.52%
Number of daily rates quoted 27,883 18,657 21,289
10th Percentile £325 £300 £310
25th Percentile £423 £404 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £500 £525
Median % change year-on-year +5.00% -4.76% -3.67%
75th Percentile £625 £625 £638
90th Percentile £725 £725 £750
UK excluding London median daily rate £500 £475 £500
% change year-on-year +5.26% -5.00% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 2,827 1,696 1,836
10th Percentile £14.22 £14.20 £14.05
25th Percentile £18.80 £17.30 £18.35
Median hourly rate £42.50 £25.15 £41.08
Median % change year-on-year +68.99% -38.77% -1.96%
75th Percentile £68.00 £47.66 £65.00
90th Percentile £81.51 £68.00 £75.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £43.96 £22.84 £42.50
% change year-on-year +92.47% -46.26% +17.24%

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 12 August 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 12 August 2026.

Hourly rate histogram for User Experience in the UK

User Experience
Top 16 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 12 August 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 -23 1,310 £475 - 2,006
UK excluding London -15 703 £450 - 898
London -29 665 £525 +5.00% 1,308
Work from Home -39 384 £500 +2.56% 888
North of England -12 219 £438 -2.67% 263
Midlands -10 142 £475 +8.02% 117
South East -42 117 £438 -2.67% 205
West Midlands -13 111 £475 -8.65% 84
North West -33 101 £420 -6.67% 159
Scotland +19 94 £538 +16.22% 74
South West -19 73 £475 +26.67% 104
Yorkshire -22 67 £500 +25.00% 69
North East -5 50 £350 -27.08% 36
East of England +12 49 £410 -18.41% 78
East Midlands -1 31 £468 +30.59% 33
Wales -9 14 £640 +108.99% 29

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 63 (4.17%) SharePoint
2 58 (3.84%) CMS
3 38 (2.51%) Confluence
4 29 (1.92%) Microsoft Exchange
5 16 (1.06%) WordPress
6 8 (0.53%) Adobe Experience Manager
6 8 (0.53%) Apache
7 7 (0.46%) Skype for Business
8 6 (0.40%) Drupal
8 6 (0.40%) Mendix
9 5 (0.33%) Apache Airflow
9 5 (0.33%) Headless CMS
10 4 (0.26%) Kentico
10 4 (0.26%) Oracle Workflow
11 3 (0.20%) Moodle
11 3 (0.20%) Umbraco
12 2 (0.13%) Camunda
12 2 (0.13%) HCL Notes
12 2 (0.13%) IIS
12 2 (0.13%) nginx
Applications
1 35 (2.31%) Adobe Creative Suite
2 34 (2.25%) Sketch
3 28 (1.85%) Microsoft Excel
4 23 (1.52%) Chatbot
5 19 (1.26%) Photoshop
6 18 (1.19%) Adobe After Effects
6 18 (1.19%) Microsoft Office
7 15 (0.99%) Adobe Illustrator
7 15 (0.99%) Adobe XD
8 8 (0.53%) Microsoft PowerPoint
9 6 (0.40%) Final Cut Pro
9 6 (0.40%) MS Visio
10 2 (0.13%) Adobe Captivate
10 2 (0.13%) InVision
10 2 (0.13%) Microsoft Project
10 2 (0.13%) Oracle Smart View
10 2 (0.13%) UserZoom
11 1 (0.066%) Blender
11 1 (0.066%) Camtasia
11 1 (0.066%) Trello
Business Applications
1 10 (0.66%) SAP S/4HANA
2 8 (0.53%) Workday HCM
3 7 (0.46%) Dynamics CRM
4 6 (0.40%) Shopify
5 5 (0.33%) Sage X3
6 4 (0.26%) NetSuite
6 4 (0.26%) Oracle iProcurement
6 4 (0.26%) Remedy ITSM
7 3 (0.20%) iTrent
7 3 (0.20%) Payment Gateway
7 3 (0.20%) Salesforce CRM
8 2 (0.13%) Oracle EBS
8 2 (0.13%) Oracle Payables
8 2 (0.13%) Oracle Receivables
8 2 (0.13%) ResourceLink
9 1 (0.066%) Bloomberg TOMS
9 1 (0.066%) Eloqua
9 1 (0.066%) SAP ERP
9 1 (0.066%) SAP HR
9 1 (0.066%) SAP QM
Cloud Services
1 233 (15.41%) Azure
2 194 (12.83%) Figma
3 137 (9.06%) Microsoft 365
4 134 (8.86%) AWS
5 115 (7.61%) Power Platform
6 65 (4.30%) Entra ID
7 58 (3.84%) GitHub
8 53 (3.51%) Azure DevOps
8 53 (3.51%) SaaS
9 51 (3.37%) Microsoft Copilot
10 44 (2.91%) GCP
11 32 (2.12%) PowerApps
12 31 (2.05%) OneDrive
13 27 (1.79%) Serverless
14 26 (1.72%) Power Automate
15 24 (1.59%) Azure AI
16 23 (1.52%) Copilot Studio
17 22 (1.46%) GitHub Actions
18 16 (1.06%) GitHub Copilot
18 16 (1.06%) Snowflake
Communications & Networking
1 43 (2.84%) DNS
2 35 (2.31%) DHCP
3 31 (2.05%) Wi-Fi
4 29 (1.92%) TCP/IP
5 21 (1.39%) Wireless
6 20 (1.32%) LAN
7 16 (1.06%) Firewall
7 16 (1.06%) VPN
7 16 (1.06%) WAN
8 12 (0.79%) Internet
8 12 (0.79%) SD-WAN
9 10 (0.66%) Intranet
10 9 (0.60%) Skype
11 8 (0.53%) Cisco Wireless
11 8 (0.53%) Network Security
12 7 (0.46%) 5G
12 7 (0.46%) SNMP
13 6 (0.40%) WLAN
14 5 (0.33%) SMS
14 5 (0.33%) SSL
Database & Business Intelligence
1 73 (4.83%) Power BI
2 27 (1.79%) Metadata
3 18 (1.19%) NoSQL
4 17 (1.12%) Power Query
5 16 (1.06%) PostgreSQL
6 14 (0.93%) Relational Database
7 13 (0.86%) Tableau
8 11 (0.73%) Big Data
8 11 (0.73%) Data Warehouse
8 11 (0.73%) SQL Server
9 10 (0.66%) MongoDB
10 9 (0.60%) Looker
11 7 (0.46%) Elasticsearch
11 7 (0.46%) MySQL
11 7 (0.46%) Snowflake Schema
11 7 (0.46%) Star Schema
12 6 (0.40%) BigQuery
12 6 (0.40%) Flink
12 6 (0.40%) Qlik Sense
12 6 (0.40%) Redis
Development Applications
1 85 (5.62%) JIRA
2 75 (4.96%) Git
3 28 (1.85%) Cypress.io
4 27 (1.79%) Jenkins
5 24 (1.59%) Vite
6 19 (1.26%) GitLab
7 14 (0.93%) Claude Code
8 11 (0.73%) Storybook
9 10 (0.66%) Android Studio
9 10 (0.66%) Browser DevTools
9 10 (0.66%) fastlane
9 10 (0.66%) Selenium
10 9 (0.60%) Xcode
11 7 (0.46%) Gradle
11 7 (0.46%) JMeter
11 7 (0.46%) webpack
12 6 (0.40%) JUnit
12 6 (0.40%) Postman
13 5 (0.33%) Crashlytics
13 5 (0.33%) Fiddler
General
1 473 (31.28%) Social Skills
2 263 (17.39%) Finance
3 201 (13.29%) Public Sector
4 153 (10.12%) Analytical Skills
5 113 (7.47%) Banking
6 78 (5.16%) Retail
7 74 (4.89%) Marketing
8 51 (3.37%) Inclusion and Diversity
9 36 (2.38%) Influencing Skills
9 36 (2.38%) Legal
10 28 (1.85%) Organisational Skills
10 28 (1.85%) Publishing
11 27 (1.79%) Automotive
11 27 (1.79%) Presentation Skills
12 26 (1.72%) Manufacturing
13 21 (1.39%) Documentation Skills
14 18 (1.19%) Investment Banking
15 16 (1.06%) Military
16 10 (0.66%) Front Office
16 10 (0.66%) Games
Job Titles
1 331 (21.89%) Designer
2 221 (14.62%) Senior
3 190 (12.57%) Developer
4 139 (9.19%) UX Designer
5 119 (7.87%) Lead
6 98 (6.48%) Analyst
7 84 (5.56%) UI Designer
8 79 (5.22%) Consultant
9 66 (4.37%) User Researcher
10 64 (4.23%) Senior Designer
11 61 (4.03%) Architect
12 53 (3.51%) Content Designer
13 51 (3.37%) Business Analyst
14 50 (3.31%) Support Engineer
15 49 (3.24%) IT Support
16 48 (3.17%) UI/UX Designer
17 47 (3.11%) Product Manager
18 43 (2.84%) Product Designer
18 43 (2.84%) User Experience Researcher
19 33 (2.18%) IT Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 134 (8.86%) React
2 111 (7.34%) CSS
3 98 (6.48%) HTML
4 93 (6.15%) REST
5 62 (4.10%) RESTful
6 48 (3.17%) AngularJS
7 42 (2.78%) GraphQL
7 42 (2.78%) HTML5
8 39 (2.58%) CSS3
9 38 (2.51%) .NET
10 33 (2.18%) Jest
10 33 (2.18%) Node.js
11 29 (1.92%) Kafka
12 28 (1.85%) Playwright
13 27 (1.79%) Redux
14 25 (1.65%) Next.js
14 25 (1.65%) OAuth
14 25 (1.65%) Spring
15 24 (1.59%) Spring Boot
16 20 (1.32%) JSON
Miscellaneous
1 140 (9.26%) Product Ownership
2 94 (6.22%) Mobile App
3 86 (5.69%) Onboarding
4 49 (3.24%) Cloud Native
5 43 (2.84%) AI Agents
6 33 (2.18%) Self-Motivation
7 32 (2.12%) Enterprise Software
8 28 (1.85%) Data Protection Act
9 27 (1.79%) Data Structures
10 25 (1.65%) Legacy Systems
11 22 (1.46%) Data Centre
11 22 (1.46%) Social Media
12 21 (1.39%) Animation
13 19 (1.26%) Educational Technology
13 19 (1.26%) Management Information System
14 18 (1.19%) NHS
15 17 (1.12%) Analytical Mindset
15 17 (1.12%) Graphic Design
16 15 (0.99%) Virtual Reality
17 14 (0.93%) Algorithms
Operating Systems
1 137 (9.06%) Windows
2 60 (3.97%) Android
3 56 (3.70%) Apple iOS
4 48 (3.17%) Windows 10
5 27 (1.79%) Mac OS
6 21 (1.39%) Windows Server
7 18 (1.19%) Linux
8 10 (0.66%) Unix
8 10 (0.66%) Windows 7
9 4 (0.26%) Windows Server 2016
9 4 (0.26%) Windows Server 2019
10 3 (0.20%) Windows Server 2008
11 2 (0.13%) Windows Server 2012
Processes & Methodologies
1 488 (32.28%) UX Design
2 430 (28.44%) Agile
3 306 (20.24%) AI
4 244 (16.14%) Problem-Solving
5 238 (15.74%) Stakeholder Management
6 217 (14.35%) Continuous Improvement
7 208 (13.76%) User Research
8 201 (13.29%) Analytics
9 177 (11.71%) CI/CD
10 172 (11.38%) Stakeholder Engagement
11 150 (9.92%) Roadmaps
12 142 (9.39%) Decision-Making
13 139 (9.19%) User-Centered Design (UCD)
14 134 (8.86%) Prototyping
15 131 (8.66%) DevOps
16 119 (7.87%) Service Design
16 119 (7.87%) Wireframes
17 114 (7.54%) Scrum
18 113 (7.47%) Workshop Facilitation
19 106 (7.01%) UX Research
Programming Languages
1 132 (8.73%) JavaScript
2 125 (8.27%) Python
3 111 (7.34%) TypeScript
4 101 (6.68%) SQL
5 93 (6.15%) Java
6 54 (3.57%) PowerShell
7 39 (2.58%) C#
8 29 (1.92%) Kotlin
9 23 (1.52%) Data Analysis Expressions
10 19 (1.26%) Bash
11 16 (1.06%) Swift
12 10 (0.66%) C++
13 8 (0.53%) Go
13 8 (0.53%) PHP
13 8 (0.53%) VBScript
14 7 (0.46%) Apex Code
14 7 (0.46%) Lua
14 7 (0.46%) VB
15 6 (0.40%) Scala
15 6 (0.40%) Shell Script
Qualifications
1 236 (15.61%) Security Cleared
2 179 (11.84%) SC Cleared
3 132 (8.73%) Degree
4 37 (2.45%) Computer Science Degree
5 31 (2.05%) BPSS Clearance
6 27 (1.79%) DV Cleared
7 23 (1.52%) Azure Certification
8 21 (1.39%) Microsoft Certification
9 13 (0.86%) PMP
10 11 (0.73%) Cisco Certification
11 8 (0.53%) AWS Certification
11 8 (0.53%) CCA
11 8 (0.53%) Citrix Certification
11 8 (0.53%) ITIL Certification
11 8 (0.53%) VMware Certified Professional (VCP)
12 7 (0.46%) CCNP
12 7 (0.46%) Master's Degree
13 6 (0.40%) CCIE
13 6 (0.40%) DBS Check
13 6 (0.40%) MCSE
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 263 (17.39%) Accessibility
2 95 (6.28%) WCAG
3 87 (5.75%) QA
4 48 (3.17%) Data Quality
5 19 (1.26%) GDPR
6 14 (0.93%) Actionable Recommendations
7 12 (0.79%) ISO/IEC 27001
8 9 (0.60%) PMO
9 8 (0.53%) SLA
10 7 (0.46%) Cyber Essentials
10 7 (0.46%) ISO/IEC 42001
11 4 (0.26%) GRC
11 4 (0.26%) HMG Security Policy Framework
12 3 (0.20%) GMP
12 3 (0.20%) GxP
13 2 (0.13%) NIST
13 2 (0.13%) PCI DSS
13 2 (0.13%) PSD2
14 1 (0.066%) ISO/IEC 20000
14 1 (0.066%) Sarbanes-Oxley
System Software
1 93 (6.15%) Active Directory
2 48 (3.17%) Docker
3 29 (1.92%) Virtual Desktop
4 16 (1.06%) VMware Infrastructure
5 7 (0.46%) BitLocker
5 7 (0.46%) vSphere
6 6 (0.40%) Firmware
6 6 (0.40%) Hyper-V
7 5 (0.33%) VMware ESXi
8 4 (0.26%) Microsoft App-V
9 3 (0.20%) UAG
10 2 (0.13%) Virtual Machines
10 2 (0.13%) VMware NSX
10 2 (0.13%) VMware Workstation
10 2 (0.13%) XenApp
10 2 (0.13%) XenDesktop
11 1 (0.066%) Varnish
Systems Management
1 53 (3.51%) Terraform
2 49 (3.24%) Kubernetes
3 47 (3.11%) Microsoft Intune
4 35 (2.31%) Grafana
5 32 (2.12%) SCCM
6 19 (1.26%) Single Sign-On
7 17 (1.12%) Ansible
8 15 (0.99%) Jamf Pro
8 15 (0.99%) Prometheus
9 5 (0.33%) vCenter Server
10 4 (0.26%) Clonezilla
10 4 (0.26%) Podman
11 3 (0.20%) Kibana
11 3 (0.20%) Systems Management Server (SMS)
11 3 (0.20%) WSUS
12 2 (0.13%) Argo
12 2 (0.13%) Failover Clustering
12 2 (0.13%) Packer
12 2 (0.13%) SCOM
12 2 (0.13%) vMotion
Vendors
1 258 (17.06%) Microsoft
2 91 (6.02%) Adobe
3 84 (5.56%) ServiceNow
4 54 (3.57%) Google
5 41 (2.71%) Oracle
6 36 (2.38%) SAP
7 34 (2.25%) Salesforce
8 25 (1.65%) Dynatrace
9 24 (1.59%) Citrix
10 22 (1.46%) Databricks
10 22 (1.46%) Splunk
11 19 (1.26%) Apple
11 19 (1.26%) Cisco
11 19 (1.26%) VMware
12 18 (1.19%) Workday
13 16 (1.06%) OpenAI
14 15 (0.99%) Foundry
15 14 (0.93%) Zscaler
16 12 (0.79%) Aruba
17 10 (0.66%) Okta