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 7 October 2026, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
7 Oct 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 96 65 80
Rank change year-on-year -31 +15 -11
Contract jobs citing User Experience 1,555 1,236 1,032
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 2.83% 3.74% 2.74%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 3.35% 4.13% 3.19%
Number of daily rates quoted 933 794 611
10th Percentile £313 £300 £313
25th Percentile £402 £375 £400
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £488 £475 £500
Median % change year-on-year +2.63% -5.00% -1.96%
75th Percentile £588 £575 £588
90th Percentile £700 £675 £688
UK excluding London median daily rate £450 £450 £469
% change year-on-year - -4.05% -1.26%
Number of hourly rates quoted 76 54 26
10th Percentile £18.63 £15.50 £27.63
25th Percentile £26.99 £21.44 £30.48
Median hourly rate £38.77 £35.60 £39.75
Median % change year-on-year +8.89% -10.44% -16.32%
75th Percentile £68.11 £53.44 £68.94
90th Percentile £77.00 £63.75 £74.44
UK excluding London median hourly rate £35.22 £27.58 £33.54
% change year-on-year +27.72% -17.78% +2.85%

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 46,438 29,893 32,352
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 84.57% 90.54% 85.94%
Number of daily rates quoted 27,948 18,567 19,512
10th Percentile £325 £295 £308
25th Percentile £425 £404 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £500 £525
Median % change year-on-year +5.00% -4.76% -2.78%
75th Percentile £638 £623 £638
90th Percentile £736 £725 £750
UK excluding London median daily rate £500 £475 £500
% change year-on-year +5.26% -5.00% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 3,331 1,864 1,314
10th Percentile £13.65 £14.35 £15.00
25th Percentile £17.08 £17.30 £20.12
Median hourly rate £37.87 £25.15 £41.50
Median % change year-on-year +50.56% -39.40% -2.92%
75th Percentile £65.00 £43.20 £65.00
90th Percentile £78.00 £65.00 £74.44
UK excluding London median hourly rate £38.13 £22.32 £43.00
% change year-on-year +70.85% -48.10% +1.18%

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 7 October 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 7 October 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 7 October 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 -27 1,345 £475 - 3,378
UK excluding London -12 737 £450 - 1,707
London -32 681 £509 +2.73% 1,936
Work from Home -32 393 £500 - 1,630
North of England -2 273 £425 +1.49% 465
Midlands -9 145 £464 +3.02% 237
North West -18 144 £403 -3.53% 261
West Midlands -6 115 £463 -7.34% 145
Scotland +1 94 £538 +18.13% 155
South East -65 92 £403 -10.26% 383
Yorkshire -5 82 £500 +21.21% 135
South West -13 78 £475 +5.56% 186
North East 0 46 £325 -27.78% 69
East of England -6 44 £410 -21.90% 159
East Midlands -19 30 £500 +23.92% 92
Wales -12 13 £530 +66.36% 64
Northern Ireland +9 4 £638 +2.00% 67

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 75 (4.82%) SharePoint
2 67 (4.31%) CMS
3 50 (3.22%) Confluence
4 30 (1.93%) Microsoft Exchange
5 17 (1.09%) WordPress
6 7 (0.45%) Adobe Experience Manager
6 7 (0.45%) Headless CMS
6 7 (0.45%) Skype for Business
7 6 (0.39%) Apache
7 6 (0.39%) Drupal
7 6 (0.39%) Oracle Workflow
7 6 (0.39%) Traefik
8 5 (0.32%) Apache Airflow
9 4 (0.26%) Kentico
9 4 (0.26%) Mendix
10 3 (0.19%) ColdFusion
10 3 (0.19%) Umbraco
11 2 (0.13%) HCL Notes
11 2 (0.13%) IIS
11 2 (0.13%) Moodle
Applications
1 32 (2.06%) Adobe Creative Suite
2 26 (1.67%) Sketch
3 25 (1.61%) Microsoft Office
4 21 (1.35%) Microsoft Excel
5 19 (1.22%) Photoshop
6 18 (1.16%) Adobe After Effects
7 17 (1.09%) Adobe Illustrator
8 16 (1.03%) Chatbot
9 12 (0.77%) Adobe XD
10 10 (0.64%) MS Visio
11 8 (0.51%) Microsoft PowerPoint
12 7 (0.45%) Final Cut Pro
13 3 (0.19%) Spreadsheet
14 2 (0.13%) Adobe Premiere
14 2 (0.13%) Oracle Smart View
14 2 (0.13%) UserZoom
15 1 (0.064%) Adobe Captivate
15 1 (0.064%) Blender
15 1 (0.064%) Microsoft Project
15 1 (0.064%) Trello
Business Applications
1 11 (0.71%) Dynamics CRM
2 7 (0.45%) SAP S/4HANA
2 7 (0.45%) Workday HCM
3 5 (0.32%) NetSuite
3 5 (0.32%) Salesforce CRM
4 4 (0.26%) IBM Planning Analytics
4 4 (0.26%) Oracle iProcurement
4 4 (0.26%) Remedy ITSM
4 4 (0.26%) Shopify
5 3 (0.19%) iTrent
5 3 (0.19%) SAP HR
6 2 (0.13%) Oracle EBS
6 2 (0.13%) Payment Gateway
6 2 (0.13%) SAP HCM
6 2 (0.13%) SAP Payroll
7 1 (0.064%) Bloomberg TOMS
7 1 (0.064%) Elite 3E
7 1 (0.064%) Exchequer
7 1 (0.064%) Oracle EBS R12
7 1 (0.064%) SAP MDG
Cloud Services
1 223 (14.34%) Azure
2 181 (11.64%) Figma
3 152 (9.77%) Microsoft 365
4 150 (9.65%) AWS
5 124 (7.97%) Power Platform
6 70 (4.50%) Entra ID
7 64 (4.12%) GitHub
8 61 (3.92%) SaaS
9 58 (3.73%) Microsoft Copilot
10 46 (2.96%) Azure DevOps
11 38 (2.44%) GCP
12 37 (2.38%) PowerApps
13 33 (2.12%) OneDrive
14 29 (1.86%) Power Automate
15 28 (1.80%) GitHub Actions
16 27 (1.74%) Copilot Studio
17 23 (1.48%) Serverless
18 20 (1.29%) Azure AI
19 17 (1.09%) GitHub Copilot
20 16 (1.03%) Snowflake
Communications & Networking
1 45 (2.89%) DNS
2 38 (2.44%) DHCP
3 35 (2.25%) TCP/IP
4 28 (1.80%) Wi-Fi
5 20 (1.29%) VPN
6 19 (1.22%) Wireless
7 16 (1.03%) Firewall
8 15 (0.96%) LAN
9 14 (0.90%) NetScaler
9 14 (0.90%) WAN
10 9 (0.58%) Network Security
11 8 (0.51%) Cisco Wireless
12 7 (0.45%) Internet
12 7 (0.45%) Skype
12 7 (0.45%) SNMP
13 6 (0.39%) Intranet
13 6 (0.39%) SD-WAN
14 5 (0.32%) 5G
15 4 (0.26%) Remote Desktop
15 4 (0.26%) WLAN
Database & Business Intelligence
1 74 (4.76%) Power BI
2 26 (1.67%) Metadata
3 20 (1.29%) NoSQL
4 19 (1.22%) Power Query
5 18 (1.16%) PostgreSQL
6 17 (1.09%) SQL Server
7 14 (0.90%) MongoDB
7 14 (0.90%) MySQL
8 13 (0.84%) Tableau
9 12 (0.77%) Relational Database
10 11 (0.71%) Big Data
10 11 (0.71%) Elasticsearch
10 11 (0.71%) Redis
11 9 (0.58%) Looker
12 8 (0.51%) Qlik Sense
13 7 (0.45%) Snowflake Schema
13 7 (0.45%) Star Schema
14 6 (0.39%) BigQuery
14 6 (0.39%) Flink
14 6 (0.39%) QlikView
Development Applications
1 92 (5.92%) Git
2 87 (5.59%) JIRA
3 34 (2.19%) Jenkins
4 28 (1.80%) Cypress.io
5 26 (1.67%) Vite
6 24 (1.54%) Storybook
7 18 (1.16%) Claude Code
8 15 (0.96%) GitLab
9 12 (0.77%) fastlane
10 9 (0.58%) Android Studio
10 9 (0.58%) webpack
11 8 (0.51%) Xcode
12 7 (0.45%) Postman
12 7 (0.45%) REST Assured
13 6 (0.39%) Bitbucket
13 6 (0.39%) Browser DevTools
13 6 (0.39%) JMeter
14 5 (0.32%) Gradle
14 5 (0.32%) JUnit
14 5 (0.32%) MSI
General
1 517 (33.25%) Social Skills
2 252 (16.21%) Finance
3 223 (14.34%) Public Sector
4 147 (9.45%) Analytical Skills
5 96 (6.17%) Banking
6 84 (5.40%) Marketing
7 77 (4.95%) Retail
8 54 (3.47%) Inclusion and Diversity
9 46 (2.96%) Influencing Skills
10 42 (2.70%) Legal
11 27 (1.74%) Publishing
12 26 (1.67%) Automotive
13 25 (1.61%) Organisational Skills
14 23 (1.48%) Presentation Skills
15 21 (1.35%) Manufacturing
15 21 (1.35%) Military
16 19 (1.22%) Documentation Skills
17 17 (1.09%) Investment Banking
18 11 (0.71%) Front Office
19 9 (0.58%) Law
Job Titles
1 306 (19.68%) Designer
2 238 (15.31%) Developer
3 211 (13.57%) Senior
4 137 (8.81%) Lead
5 130 (8.36%) UX Designer
6 96 (6.17%) Analyst
7 75 (4.82%) UI Designer
8 65 (4.18%) Senior Designer
9 63 (4.05%) Architect
10 61 (3.92%) Consultant
10 61 (3.92%) User Researcher
11 54 (3.47%) IT Support
12 53 (3.41%) Front-End Developer (Client-Side Developer)
12 53 (3.41%) Support Engineer
13 52 (3.34%) Product Manager
14 50 (3.22%) Business Analyst
15 44 (2.83%) Product Designer
16 40 (2.57%) Content Designer
16 40 (2.57%) UI/UX Designer
16 40 (2.57%) User Experience Researcher
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 165 (10.61%) React
2 120 (7.72%) CSS
3 109 (7.01%) HTML
4 95 (6.11%) REST
5 65 (4.18%) RESTful
6 47 (3.02%) HTML5
6 47 (3.02%) Terraform
7 44 (2.83%) AngularJS
8 42 (2.70%) CSS3
8 42 (2.70%) GraphQL
9 36 (2.32%) .NET
9 36 (2.32%) Node.js
10 33 (2.12%) Next.js
10 33 (2.12%) OAuth
11 32 (2.06%) Playwright
12 31 (1.99%) Spring
12 31 (1.99%) Spring Boot
13 30 (1.93%) Jest
14 25 (1.61%) OAuth2
14 25 (1.61%) Redux
Miscellaneous
1 163 (10.48%) Product Ownership
2 95 (6.11%) Mobile App
3 81 (5.21%) Onboarding
4 62 (3.99%) Cloud Native
5 50 (3.22%) AI Agents
6 34 (2.19%) Management Information System
7 31 (1.99%) Self-Motivation
8 29 (1.86%) Enterprise Software
8 29 (1.86%) Legacy Systems
9 26 (1.67%) Data Protection Act
10 22 (1.41%) Data Centre
10 22 (1.41%) Social Media
11 21 (1.35%) Data Structures
12 20 (1.29%) NHS
13 19 (1.22%) Educational Technology
14 17 (1.09%) Animation
15 16 (1.03%) Graphic Design
16 15 (0.96%) Taxonomies
17 14 (0.90%) Analytical Mindset
18 13 (0.84%) Low-Code
Operating Systems
1 153 (9.84%) Windows
2 73 (4.69%) Apple iOS
3 66 (4.24%) Android
4 59 (3.79%) Windows 10
5 37 (2.38%) Windows Server
6 28 (1.80%) Mac OS
7 18 (1.16%) Linux
8 14 (0.90%) Unix
9 9 (0.58%) Windows 7
10 4 (0.26%) Windows Server 2016
10 4 (0.26%) Windows Server 2019
11 3 (0.19%) AIX
12 2 (0.13%) Windows Server 2008
12 2 (0.13%) Windows Server 2012
Processes & Methodologies
1 490 (31.51%) UX Design
2 456 (29.32%) Agile
3 309 (19.87%) Stakeholder Management
4 296 (19.04%) AI
5 256 (16.46%) Continuous Improvement
6 246 (15.82%) Problem-Solving
7 216 (13.89%) User Research
8 212 (13.63%) Analytics
9 184 (11.83%) CI/CD
10 179 (11.51%) Stakeholder Engagement
11 171 (11.00%) Decision-Making
12 164 (10.55%) Roadmaps
13 153 (9.84%) User-Centered Design (UCD)
14 139 (8.94%) Service Design
15 125 (8.04%) Scrum
16 123 (7.91%) Workshop Facilitation
17 121 (7.78%) DevOps
18 120 (7.72%) Prototyping
19 118 (7.59%) Service Management
20 108 (6.95%) Workflow
Programming Languages
1 149 (9.58%) JavaScript
2 138 (8.87%) TypeScript
3 100 (6.43%) SQL
4 99 (6.37%) Python
5 98 (6.30%) Java
6 52 (3.34%) PowerShell
7 34 (2.19%) C#
8 29 (1.86%) Kotlin
9 24 (1.54%) Data Analysis Expressions
10 20 (1.29%) Bash
10 20 (1.29%) Swift
11 10 (0.64%) Go
12 8 (0.51%) Shell Script
13 7 (0.45%) PHP
13 7 (0.45%) VB
13 7 (0.45%) VBScript
14 6 (0.39%) Scala
15 5 (0.32%) Apex Code
15 5 (0.32%) Objective-C
15 5 (0.32%) Ruby
Qualifications
1 246 (15.82%) Security Cleared
2 190 (12.22%) SC Cleared
3 114 (7.33%) Degree
4 51 (3.28%) BPSS Clearance
5 31 (1.99%) Computer Science Degree
6 24 (1.54%) DV Cleared
7 18 (1.16%) Azure Certification
8 17 (1.09%) PMP
9 14 (0.90%) Microsoft Certification
10 9 (0.58%) DBS Check
11 8 (0.51%) AWS Certification
11 8 (0.51%) ITIL Certification
12 7 (0.45%) Cisco Certification
12 7 (0.45%) PMI Certification
12 7 (0.45%) VMware Certified Professional (VCP)
13 6 (0.39%) Master's Degree
14 5 (0.32%) AWS Certified Solutions Architect
14 5 (0.32%) CISSP
14 5 (0.32%) MCSE
14 5 (0.32%) TOGAF Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 276 (17.75%) Accessibility
2 104 (6.69%) WCAG
3 101 (6.50%) QA
4 51 (3.28%) Data Quality
5 18 (1.16%) Actionable Recommendations
6 16 (1.03%) GDPR
7 15 (0.96%) SLA
8 12 (0.77%) PMO
9 6 (0.39%) Cyber Essentials
10 5 (0.32%) ISO/IEC 27001
11 4 (0.26%) ISO/IEC 42001
12 2 (0.13%) California Consumer Privacy Act
12 2 (0.13%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
12 2 (0.13%) GMP
12 2 (0.13%) GRC
12 2 (0.13%) GxP
12 2 (0.13%) PCI DSS
12 2 (0.13%) PSD2
12 2 (0.13%) Sarbanes-Oxley
13 1 (0.064%) HIPAA
System Software
1 114 (7.33%) Active Directory
2 52 (3.34%) Docker
3 30 (1.93%) Virtual Desktop
4 27 (1.74%) VMware Infrastructure
5 16 (1.03%) Hyper-V
6 11 (0.71%) Citrix Hypervisor
7 10 (0.64%) XenApp
8 9 (0.58%) XenDesktop
9 7 (0.45%) BitLocker
9 7 (0.45%) vSphere
10 5 (0.32%) VMware ESXi
11 4 (0.26%) Microsoft App-V
12 3 (0.19%) UAG
12 3 (0.19%) Virtual Machines
13 2 (0.13%) VMware NSX
13 2 (0.13%) VMware Workstation
14 1 (0.064%) Firmware
Systems Management
1 55 (3.54%) Microsoft Intune
2 54 (3.47%) Kubernetes
3 36 (2.32%) Grafana
4 26 (1.67%) SCCM
5 17 (1.09%) Ansible
5 17 (1.09%) Single Sign-On
6 14 (0.90%) Jamf Pro
6 14 (0.90%) Prometheus
7 7 (0.45%) Istio
8 6 (0.39%) SysTrack
8 6 (0.39%) vCenter Server
9 4 (0.26%) Clonezilla
10 3 (0.19%) Kibana
10 3 (0.19%) Podman
10 3 (0.19%) WSUS
11 2 (0.13%) Failover Clustering
11 2 (0.13%) Packer
11 2 (0.13%) SCOM
11 2 (0.13%) Systems Management Server (SMS)
11 2 (0.13%) vMotion
Vendors
1 283 (18.20%) Microsoft
2 91 (5.85%) ServiceNow
3 78 (5.02%) Adobe
4 52 (3.34%) Google
5 48 (3.09%) Oracle
6 31 (1.99%) Salesforce
6 31 (1.99%) SAP
7 30 (1.93%) VMware
8 27 (1.74%) Dynatrace
8 27 (1.74%) Splunk
9 25 (1.61%) Citrix
10 22 (1.41%) Apple
11 20 (1.29%) Databricks
12 19 (1.22%) OpenAI
13 15 (0.96%) Cisco
13 15 (0.96%) Workday
14 14 (0.90%) Zscaler
15 13 (0.84%) Foundry
16 9 (0.58%) Aruba
16 9 (0.58%) Okta