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 2 May 2026, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
2 May 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 79 58 71
Rank change year-on-year -21 +13 -9
Contract jobs citing User Experience 1,451 1,099 1,228
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 3.07% 3.75% 2.82%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 3.63% 4.12% 3.27%
Number of daily rates quoted 982 748 822
10th Percentile £313 £304 £305
25th Percentile £400 £400 £400
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £488 £480 £500
Median % change year-on-year +1.56% -4.00% -
75th Percentile £575 £575 £594
90th Percentile £688 £701 £688
UK excluding London median daily rate £475 £425 £475
% change year-on-year +11.76% -10.53% +2.15%
Number of hourly rates quoted 47 22 48
10th Percentile £16.44 £26.78 £16.25
25th Percentile £21.12 £42.50 £23.75
Median hourly rate £50.00 £53.50 £31.71
Median % change year-on-year -6.54% +68.72% -9.40%
75th Percentile £62.38 £80.35 £61.38
90th Percentile £74.80 £94.50 £73.36
UK excluding London median hourly rate £43.75 £70.00 £25.00
% change year-on-year -37.50% +180.00% +3.09%

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 40,021 26,651 37,570
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 84.60% 90.87% 86.35%
Number of daily rates quoted 25,214 17,176 24,190
10th Percentile £319 £308 £300
25th Percentile £413 £413 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £520 £525
Median % change year-on-year -3.85% -0.95% -4.55%
75th Percentile £613 £630 £638
90th Percentile £725 £745 £750
UK excluding London median daily rate £488 £485 £500
% change year-on-year +0.62% -3.10% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 2,391 1,063 2,453
10th Percentile £14.96 £14.63 £12.75
25th Percentile £19.91 £18.50 £16.00
Median hourly rate £41.56 £29.00 £35.50
Median % change year-on-year +43.29% -18.31% -2.53%
75th Percentile £66.00 £61.87 £59.95
90th Percentile £78.75 £75.00 £72.50
UK excluding London median hourly rate £43.31 £27.94 £36.50
% change year-on-year +54.99% -23.45% +4.29%

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 2 May 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 2 May 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 2 May 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 -11 1,251 £490 -1.41% 763
London -21 648 £513 -0.49% 362
UK excluding London 0 630 £475 +11.76% 480
Work from Home -28 380 £475 -1.04% 396
North of England +7 198 £449 -0.33% 138
Midlands -4 146 £500 +25.00% 82
North West +3 122 £420 -6.67% 89
South East -23 114 £485 +4.86% 125
West Midlands -22 95 £475 +1.33% 59
South West -16 69 £469 +25.00% 48
Scotland -7 59 £496 +10.28% 31
Yorkshire -17 52 £513 +28.04% 30
East Midlands +1 51 £550 +53.63% 23
East of England -20 30 £418 -12.11% 55
North East -9 22 £418 -7.73% 20
Wales -3 15 £375 +22.55% 9
Northern Ireland -2 3 - - 7

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 51 (3.51%) Confluence
2 50 (3.45%) SharePoint
3 40 (2.76%) CMS
4 17 (1.17%) Microsoft Exchange
5 16 (1.10%) Adobe Experience Manager
6 7 (0.48%) Apache
7 6 (0.41%) Mendix
7 6 (0.41%) WordPress
8 5 (0.34%) Camunda
8 5 (0.34%) Drupal
8 5 (0.34%) Headless CMS
9 4 (0.28%) Ethereum
9 4 (0.28%) Hyperledger
9 4 (0.28%) Sitecore CMS
9 4 (0.28%) Umbraco
10 3 (0.21%) Anypoint
10 3 (0.21%) nginx
11 2 (0.14%) Apache Spark
11 2 (0.14%) Appian
11 2 (0.14%) Kentico
Applications
1 42 (2.89%) Sketch
2 29 (2.00%) Adobe XD
3 24 (1.65%) Microsoft Excel
4 20 (1.38%) Chatbot
5 18 (1.24%) MS Visio
6 14 (0.96%) Microsoft Office
7 13 (0.90%) Photoshop
8 11 (0.76%) Adobe Creative Suite
8 11 (0.76%) InVision
9 9 (0.62%) Adobe After Effects
10 8 (0.55%) Adobe Illustrator
11 6 (0.41%) Microsoft PowerPoint
12 5 (0.34%) Spreadsheet
12 5 (0.34%) Trello
13 4 (0.28%) UserZoom
14 3 (0.21%) Adobe Captivate
14 3 (0.21%) Microsoft Project
14 3 (0.21%) UXPin
15 2 (0.14%) Blender
15 2 (0.14%) Oracle Smart View
Business Applications
1 13 (0.90%) SAP S/4HANA
2 11 (0.76%) Dynamics CRM
3 10 (0.69%) Shopify
4 8 (0.55%) Workday HCM
5 6 (0.41%) Sage X3
6 2 (0.14%) NEC Housing
6 2 (0.14%) Oracle EBS
6 2 (0.14%) Oracle Payables
6 2 (0.14%) Oracle Receivables
6 2 (0.14%) Payment Gateway
6 2 (0.14%) ResourceLink
6 2 (0.14%) SAP ERP
7 1 (0.069%) assyst
7 1 (0.069%) NetSuite
7 1 (0.069%) Oracle ERP
7 1 (0.069%) Oracle Payroll
7 1 (0.069%) SAP CO
7 1 (0.069%) SAP FI/CO
7 1 (0.069%) SAP QM
7 1 (0.069%) Sprinklr
Cloud Services
1 229 (15.78%) Azure
2 207 (14.27%) Figma
3 124 (8.55%) AWS
4 110 (7.58%) Power Platform
5 96 (6.62%) Microsoft 365
6 56 (3.86%) Azure DevOps
7 52 (3.58%) Entra ID
8 49 (3.38%) GCP
9 46 (3.17%) GitHub
10 40 (2.76%) SaaS
11 39 (2.69%) Microsoft Copilot
12 38 (2.62%) Power Automate
12 38 (2.62%) PowerApps
13 33 (2.27%) Serverless
14 26 (1.79%) GitHub Actions
15 24 (1.65%) Copilot Studio
16 23 (1.59%) Google Workspace
17 21 (1.45%) Miro
18 20 (1.38%) Google Sheets
19 19 (1.31%) Dynamics 365
Communications & Networking
1 15 (1.03%) DNS
2 13 (0.90%) Intranet
3 12 (0.83%) Internet
3 12 (0.83%) LAN
3 12 (0.83%) Wi-Fi
4 11 (0.76%) HTTP
4 11 (0.76%) SD-WAN
4 11 (0.76%) Wireless
5 9 (0.62%) DHCP
5 9 (0.62%) VPN
6 8 (0.55%) WAN
7 7 (0.48%) TCP/IP
8 6 (0.41%) Cisco Wireless
8 6 (0.41%) Firewall
8 6 (0.41%) Network Security
8 6 (0.41%) SNMP
8 6 (0.41%) WLAN
9 5 (0.34%) 5G
9 5 (0.34%) SMS
9 5 (0.34%) SSL
Database & Business Intelligence
1 75 (5.17%) Power BI
2 27 (1.86%) Relational Database
3 26 (1.79%) NoSQL
4 25 (1.72%) PostgreSQL
5 22 (1.52%) SQL Server
6 19 (1.31%) Data Warehouse
7 17 (1.17%) Metadata
7 17 (1.17%) MySQL
8 16 (1.10%) MongoDB
9 12 (0.83%) Tableau
10 11 (0.76%) Power Query
11 10 (0.69%) Big Data
11 10 (0.69%) BigQuery
12 7 (0.48%) Looker
12 7 (0.48%) Oracle BI Publisher
12 7 (0.48%) Pinecone
13 6 (0.41%) DynamoDB
13 6 (0.41%) Oracle Database
13 6 (0.41%) Redis
13 6 (0.41%) ZAP BI
Development Applications
1 107 (7.37%) JIRA
2 89 (6.13%) Git
3 33 (2.27%) GitLab
4 30 (2.07%) Cypress.io
5 21 (1.45%) JUnit
6 20 (1.38%) Jenkins
7 17 (1.17%) Axure RP
8 13 (0.90%) Gradle
9 12 (0.83%) Selenium
10 11 (0.76%) Browser DevTools
10 11 (0.76%) CircleCI
11 10 (0.69%) Android Studio
11 10 (0.69%) Vite
12 9 (0.62%) Xcode
13 8 (0.55%) Visual Studio
14 7 (0.48%) Mockito
14 7 (0.48%) Postman
15 6 (0.41%) Eclipse
15 6 (0.41%) Mocha
16 5 (0.34%) Cucumber
General
1 453 (31.22%) Social Skills
2 267 (18.40%) Finance
3 206 (14.20%) Public Sector
4 153 (10.54%) Analytical Skills
5 112 (7.72%) Banking
6 58 (4.00%) Marketing
7 53 (3.65%) Retail
8 35 (2.41%) Legal
9 32 (2.21%) Presentation Skills
10 30 (2.07%) Influencing Skills
11 22 (1.52%) Manufacturing
12 20 (1.38%) Documentation Skills
12 20 (1.38%) Inclusion and Diversity
13 19 (1.31%) Pharmaceutical
14 18 (1.24%) Publishing
15 17 (1.17%) Games
16 16 (1.10%) Organisational Skills
17 14 (0.96%) Automotive
17 14 (0.96%) Investment Banking
18 11 (0.76%) Front Office
Job Titles
1 301 (20.74%) Designer
2 220 (15.16%) Senior
3 197 (13.58%) Developer
4 141 (9.72%) UX Designer
5 130 (8.96%) Analyst
6 76 (5.24%) Consultant
7 74 (5.10%) Lead
8 68 (4.69%) Business Analyst
9 66 (4.55%) Product Designer
10 62 (4.27%) Architect
11 58 (4.00%) Senior Designer
11 58 (4.00%) User Researcher
12 54 (3.72%) UI Designer
13 46 (3.17%) Content Designer
14 43 (2.96%) Service Designer
14 43 (2.96%) User Experience Researcher
15 40 (2.76%) UI/UX Designer
16 38 (2.62%) IT Support
16 38 (2.62%) Senior Developer
17 36 (2.48%) Support Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 161 (11.10%) React
2 142 (9.79%) CSS
3 130 (8.96%) HTML
4 103 (7.10%) REST
5 74 (5.10%) RESTful
6 71 (4.89%) AngularJS
7 57 (3.93%) Spring
8 56 (3.86%) Spring Boot
9 52 (3.58%) .NET
10 39 (2.69%) Node.js
11 36 (2.48%) HTML5
12 35 (2.41%) GraphQL
12 35 (2.41%) Redux
13 34 (2.34%) JSON
14 32 (2.21%) CSS3
15 30 (2.07%) Jest
16 28 (1.93%) Next.js
17 26 (1.79%) Kafka
18 22 (1.52%) Playwright
19 20 (1.38%) OAuth
Miscellaneous
1 141 (9.72%) Product Ownership
2 72 (4.96%) Mobile App
3 54 (3.72%) Onboarding
4 37 (2.55%) AI Agents
5 32 (2.21%) Data Structures
6 31 (2.14%) Enterprise Software
7 25 (1.72%) Cloud Native
8 22 (1.52%) Analytical Mindset
9 18 (1.24%) Data Protection Act
10 17 (1.17%) Foreign Exchange (FX)
11 16 (1.10%) Distributed Systems
11 16 (1.10%) Virtual Reality
12 15 (1.03%) Legacy Systems
13 14 (0.96%) Augmented Reality
13 14 (0.96%) NHS
14 13 (0.90%) Low-Code
14 13 (0.90%) Management Information System
14 13 (0.90%) Self-Motivation
15 12 (0.83%) Algorithms
16 11 (0.76%) Graphic Design
Operating Systems
1 99 (6.82%) Windows
2 42 (2.89%) Android
3 37 (2.55%) Windows 10
4 35 (2.41%) Apple iOS
5 21 (1.45%) Mac OS
6 14 (0.96%) Linux
7 9 (0.62%) Windows Server
8 6 (0.41%) Unix
9 5 (0.34%) Windows Server 2016
10 4 (0.28%) Windows Server 2019
11 2 (0.14%) Windows 7
11 2 (0.14%) Windows Server 2012
12 1 (0.069%) Windows Server 2008
Processes & Methodologies
1 477 (32.87%) UX Design
2 466 (32.12%) Agile
3 229 (15.78%) AI
4 220 (15.16%) User Research
5 217 (14.96%) Problem-Solving
6 207 (14.27%) Analytics
7 172 (11.85%) CI/CD
7 172 (11.85%) Continuous Improvement
8 171 (11.78%) Stakeholder Management
9 168 (11.58%) Stakeholder Engagement
10 160 (11.03%) Roadmaps
11 158 (10.89%) DevOps
12 147 (10.13%) Prototyping
13 137 (9.44%) User-Centered Design (UCD)
14 132 (9.10%) UX Research
15 130 (8.96%) Wireframes
16 129 (8.89%) Service Design
17 121 (8.34%) Decision-Making
18 113 (7.79%) Usability Testing
18 113 (7.79%) Workshop Facilitation
Programming Languages
1 170 (11.72%) JavaScript
2 130 (8.96%) SQL
3 122 (8.41%) Python
4 119 (8.20%) Java
5 114 (7.86%) TypeScript
6 57 (3.93%) C#
7 43 (2.96%) PowerShell
8 27 (1.86%) Kotlin
9 18 (1.24%) Bash
10 17 (1.17%) Data Analysis Expressions
11 11 (0.76%) C++
12 9 (0.62%) Lua
12 9 (0.62%) Swift
13 7 (0.48%) Korn
14 6 (0.41%) Go
14 6 (0.41%) Perl
14 6 (0.41%) Scala
14 6 (0.41%) VBA
15 5 (0.34%) PL/SQL
15 5 (0.34%) R
Qualifications
1 198 (13.65%) Security Cleared
2 147 (10.13%) SC Cleared
3 123 (8.48%) Degree
4 34 (2.34%) BPSS Clearance
5 30 (2.07%) Computer Science Degree
6 25 (1.72%) DV Cleared
7 21 (1.45%) Microsoft Certification
8 14 (0.96%) Master's Degree
9 12 (0.83%) Azure Certification
9 12 (0.83%) Cisco Certification
10 9 (0.62%) CCNP
11 8 (0.55%) PMI Certification
12 7 (0.48%) CCA
13 6 (0.41%) CCIE
13 6 (0.41%) Citrix Certification
14 4 (0.28%) ISTQB Foundation Certification
14 4 (0.28%) ITIL Certification
14 4 (0.28%) OCA
14 4 (0.28%) Oracle Certification
14 4 (0.28%) PMP
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 260 (17.92%) Accessibility
2 125 (8.61%) QA
3 81 (5.58%) WCAG
4 45 (3.10%) Data Quality
5 38 (2.62%) GDPR
6 26 (1.79%) Actionable Recommendations
7 18 (1.24%) ISO/IEC 27001
8 10 (0.69%) SLA
9 8 (0.55%) PMO
10 7 (0.48%) Cyber Essentials
11 6 (0.41%) GMP
11 6 (0.41%) GxP
12 5 (0.34%) HMG Security Policy Framework
13 4 (0.28%) California Consumer Privacy Act
13 4 (0.28%) GRC
14 3 (0.21%) Disclosure Scotland
14 3 (0.21%) ISO/IEC 42001
14 3 (0.21%) NCSC
14 3 (0.21%) NIST
14 3 (0.21%) PCI DSS
System Software
1 71 (4.89%) Active Directory
2 53 (3.65%) Docker
3 19 (1.31%) Virtual Desktop
4 18 (1.24%) VMware Infrastructure
5 6 (0.41%) Firmware
6 5 (0.34%) Hyper-V
7 3 (0.21%) XenApp
7 3 (0.21%) XenDesktop
8 2 (0.14%) Microsoft App-V
9 1 (0.069%) BitLocker
9 1 (0.069%) ISA Server
9 1 (0.069%) Varnish
9 1 (0.069%) Virtual Machines
Systems Management
1 56 (3.86%) Kubernetes
2 47 (3.24%) Terraform
3 35 (2.41%) Grafana
4 33 (2.27%) Microsoft Intune
5 28 (1.93%) SCCM
6 17 (1.17%) Ansible
7 16 (1.10%) Single Sign-On
8 11 (0.76%) Prometheus
9 5 (0.34%) Jamf Pro
10 4 (0.28%) Podman
11 3 (0.21%) HP ALM
11 3 (0.21%) Systems Management Server (SMS)
12 2 (0.14%) Argo
12 2 (0.14%) Failover Clustering
12 2 (0.14%) Nagios
12 2 (0.14%) Rancher
12 2 (0.14%) SysTrack
12 2 (0.14%) WSUS
13 1 (0.069%) AirWatch
13 1 (0.069%) FortiGate
Vendors
1 210 (14.47%) Microsoft
2 87 (6.00%) Adobe
3 68 (4.69%) Google
4 53 (3.65%) ServiceNow
5 50 (3.45%) SAP
6 47 (3.24%) Oracle
7 44 (3.03%) Salesforce
8 23 (1.59%) Citrix
9 20 (1.38%) Splunk
10 18 (1.24%) VMware
11 17 (1.17%) Workday
12 15 (1.03%) Cisco
12 15 (1.03%) Databricks
13 14 (0.96%) Apple
14 10 (0.69%) Foundry
15 9 (0.62%) Aruba
15 9 (0.62%) Dynatrace
15 9 (0.62%) MuleSoft
15 9 (0.62%) OpenAI
15 9 (0.62%) Zscaler