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 27 June 2026, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
27 Jun 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 86 63 80
Rank change year-on-year -23 +17 -21
Contract jobs citing User Experience 1,502 1,134 1,162
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 2.95% 3.74% 2.68%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 3.47% 4.11% 3.14%
Number of daily rates quoted 939 740 764
10th Percentile £318 £305 £305
25th Percentile £405 £381 £400
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £492 £475 £500
Median % change year-on-year +3.58% -5.00% -1.57%
75th Percentile £588 £575 £600
90th Percentile £682 £688 £700
UK excluding London median daily rate £475 £438 £475
% change year-on-year +8.57% -7.89% +2.15%
Number of hourly rates quoted 69 35 47
10th Percentile £16.00 £32.93 £16.25
25th Percentile £23.16 £35.25 £25.00
Median hourly rate £33.99 £52.50 £31.71
Median % change year-on-year -35.26% +65.56% +19.66%
75th Percentile £65.00 £67.58 £61.50
90th Percentile £85.43 £85.50 £74.44
UK excluding London median hourly rate £33.99 £70.16 £27.50
% change year-on-year -51.55% +155.13% +55.19%

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 43,335 27,616 36,962
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 85.01% 91.08% 85.25%
Number of daily rates quoted 26,981 17,460 23,548
10th Percentile £325 £300 £300
25th Percentile £414 £406 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £515 £505 £525
Median % change year-on-year +1.98% -3.81% -4.55%
75th Percentile £623 £625 £638
90th Percentile £725 £738 £750
UK excluding London median daily rate £500 £475 £500
% change year-on-year +5.26% -5.00% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 2,593 1,327 2,546
10th Percentile £14.68 £14.20 £12.72
25th Percentile £20.00 £17.44 £16.06
Median hourly rate £43.96 £25.15 £37.50
Median % change year-on-year +74.79% -32.93% +4.17%
75th Percentile £68.00 £53.95 £61.30
90th Percentile £81.77 £70.00 £72.50
UK excluding London median hourly rate £44.50 £24.83 £38.12
% change year-on-year +79.22% -34.86% +8.91%

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 27 June 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 27 June 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 27 June 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 -16 1,290 £485 +2.11% 619
UK excluding London -4 694 £475 +8.57% 419
London -25 652 £522 +3.37% 302
Work from Home -28 387 £500 +5.26% 318
North of England -18 194 £450 +0.67% 116
Midlands 0 152 £475 +17.72% 56
South East -14 135 £500 +5.26% 146
North West -24 112 £435 -3.01% 64
West Midlands -4 110 £475 -9.52% 34
Scotland +15 87 £525 +14.13% 13
South West -7 75 £475 +26.67% 41
Yorkshire -24 51 £500 +24.92% 27
East Midlands +7 42 £550 +54.49% 22
East of England -7 36 £410 -13.68% 45
North East -19 31 £440 -8.33% 26
Wales -10 16 £536 +75.25% 5
Northern Ireland 0 3 - - 6

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 70 (4.66%) SharePoint
2 47 (3.13%) CMS
3 45 (3.00%) Confluence
4 28 (1.86%) Microsoft Exchange
5 10 (0.67%) WordPress
6 7 (0.47%) Adobe Experience Manager
7 6 (0.40%) Mendix
8 5 (0.33%) Apache
8 5 (0.33%) Drupal
8 5 (0.33%) Skype for Business
9 4 (0.27%) Camunda
9 4 (0.27%) Ethereum
9 4 (0.27%) Hyperledger
9 4 (0.27%) Kentico
9 4 (0.27%) Umbraco
10 3 (0.20%) Headless CMS
10 3 (0.20%) nginx
11 2 (0.13%) HCL Notes
11 2 (0.13%) IIS
11 2 (0.13%) Palantir Foundry
Applications
1 36 (2.40%) Sketch
2 27 (1.80%) Adobe Creative Suite
2 27 (1.80%) Microsoft Excel
3 20 (1.33%) Photoshop
4 19 (1.26%) Adobe After Effects
5 18 (1.20%) Chatbot
6 16 (1.07%) Adobe Illustrator
7 15 (1.00%) Adobe XD
8 14 (0.93%) Microsoft Office
9 13 (0.87%) MS Visio
10 10 (0.67%) Microsoft PowerPoint
11 6 (0.40%) Final Cut Pro
12 4 (0.27%) Adobe Captivate
12 4 (0.27%) InVision
13 3 (0.20%) Spreadsheet
13 3 (0.20%) UserZoom
13 3 (0.20%) UXPin
14 2 (0.13%) Oracle Smart View
14 2 (0.13%) Trello
15 1 (0.067%) Blender
Business Applications
1 13 (0.87%) SAP S/4HANA
2 10 (0.67%) Dynamics CRM
2 10 (0.67%) Workday HCM
3 8 (0.53%) Shopify
4 6 (0.40%) Sage X3
5 4 (0.27%) NetSuite
5 4 (0.27%) Oracle iProcurement
6 2 (0.13%) Oracle EBS
6 2 (0.13%) Oracle Payables
6 2 (0.13%) Oracle Receivables
6 2 (0.13%) Payment Gateway
6 2 (0.13%) Remedy ITSM
6 2 (0.13%) ResourceLink
6 2 (0.13%) Salesforce CRM
7 1 (0.067%) Integrated Workplace Management System
7 1 (0.067%) iTrent
7 1 (0.067%) NEC Housing
7 1 (0.067%) SAP HR
7 1 (0.067%) SAP QM
7 1 (0.067%) Sprinklr
Cloud Services
1 238 (15.85%) Azure
2 214 (14.25%) Figma
3 123 (8.19%) AWS
4 121 (8.06%) Microsoft 365
5 111 (7.39%) Power Platform
6 63 (4.19%) Entra ID
7 58 (3.86%) Azure DevOps
8 53 (3.53%) SaaS
9 49 (3.26%) Microsoft Copilot
10 47 (3.13%) GitHub
11 42 (2.80%) GCP
12 38 (2.53%) PowerApps
13 37 (2.46%) OneDrive
14 36 (2.40%) Power Automate
15 30 (2.00%) GitHub Actions
15 30 (2.00%) Serverless
16 26 (1.73%) Copilot Studio
17 17 (1.13%) Google Workspace
18 16 (1.07%) Azure AI
18 16 (1.07%) Snowflake
Communications & Networking
1 32 (2.13%) DNS
2 28 (1.86%) DHCP
3 24 (1.60%) TCP/IP
4 23 (1.53%) Wi-Fi
5 20 (1.33%) Wireless
6 18 (1.20%) LAN
7 13 (0.87%) Internet
8 12 (0.80%) WAN
9 11 (0.73%) Firewall
9 11 (0.73%) Intranet
10 10 (0.67%) SD-WAN
10 10 (0.67%) VPN
11 8 (0.53%) Cisco Wireless
11 8 (0.53%) HTTP
12 7 (0.47%) 5G
12 7 (0.47%) Skype
12 7 (0.47%) WLAN
13 6 (0.40%) Network Security
13 6 (0.40%) SNMP
14 5 (0.33%) 802.11
Database & Business Intelligence
1 70 (4.66%) Power BI
2 26 (1.73%) PostgreSQL
3 25 (1.66%) NoSQL
4 24 (1.60%) Relational Database
5 22 (1.46%) Metadata
5 22 (1.46%) SQL Server
6 19 (1.26%) Power Query
7 15 (1.00%) MongoDB
8 13 (0.87%) Data Warehouse
9 11 (0.73%) Big Data
9 11 (0.73%) MySQL
10 9 (0.60%) Tableau
11 7 (0.47%) Oracle Database
11 7 (0.47%) Redis
12 6 (0.40%) DynamoDB
12 6 (0.40%) Elasticsearch
12 6 (0.40%) Snowflake Schema
12 6 (0.40%) ZAP BI
13 5 (0.33%) Data Mining
13 5 (0.33%) Star Schema
Development Applications
1 93 (6.19%) JIRA
2 82 (5.46%) Git
3 25 (1.66%) Jenkins
4 22 (1.46%) Cypress.io
4 22 (1.46%) Vite
5 19 (1.26%) GitLab
6 13 (0.87%) JUnit
7 10 (0.67%) Claude Code
7 10 (0.67%) fastlane
7 10 (0.67%) Selenium
8 9 (0.60%) Android Studio
8 9 (0.60%) Browser DevTools
8 9 (0.60%) Postman
8 9 (0.60%) Visual Studio
8 9 (0.60%) Xcode
9 8 (0.53%) Gradle
10 7 (0.47%) webpack
11 6 (0.40%) JMeter
12 5 (0.33%) Bitbucket
12 5 (0.33%) Fiddler
General
1 460 (30.63%) Social Skills
2 265 (17.64%) Finance
3 187 (12.45%) Public Sector
4 144 (9.59%) Analytical Skills
5 121 (8.06%) Banking
6 77 (5.13%) Retail
7 59 (3.93%) Marketing
8 41 (2.73%) Inclusion and Diversity
9 37 (2.46%) Legal
10 29 (1.93%) Influencing Skills
11 28 (1.86%) Automotive
11 28 (1.86%) Presentation Skills
12 25 (1.66%) Publishing
13 24 (1.60%) Manufacturing
14 20 (1.33%) Documentation Skills
15 18 (1.20%) Investment Banking
15 18 (1.20%) Organisational Skills
16 13 (0.87%) Games
17 12 (0.80%) Front Office
18 11 (0.73%) Pharmaceutical
Job Titles
1 321 (21.37%) Designer
2 223 (14.85%) Senior
3 200 (13.32%) Developer
4 141 (9.39%) UX Designer
5 111 (7.39%) Analyst
6 109 (7.26%) Lead
7 84 (5.59%) UI Designer
8 76 (5.06%) Consultant
9 70 (4.66%) Senior Designer
10 64 (4.26%) Product Designer
11 63 (4.19%) Architect
12 58 (3.86%) Business Analyst
13 52 (3.46%) User Researcher
14 51 (3.40%) Content Designer
15 49 (3.26%) UI/UX Designer
16 47 (3.13%) User Experience Researcher
17 44 (2.93%) IT Support
18 40 (2.66%) Product Manager
19 39 (2.60%) Full-Stack Engineer
20 33 (2.20%) Senior UX Designer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 147 (9.79%) React
2 114 (7.59%) CSS
3 100 (6.66%) HTML
4 92 (6.13%) REST
5 68 (4.53%) RESTful
6 57 (3.79%) AngularJS
7 56 (3.73%) .NET
8 47 (3.13%) Spring
9 46 (3.06%) Spring Boot
10 39 (2.60%) GraphQL
11 33 (2.20%) Redux
12 31 (2.06%) Node.js
13 29 (1.93%) JSON
13 29 (1.93%) Kafka
14 28 (1.86%) HTML5
15 27 (1.80%) Jest
15 27 (1.80%) Next.js
16 26 (1.73%) CSS3
17 25 (1.66%) ASP.NET
18 23 (1.53%) OAuth
Miscellaneous
1 161 (10.72%) Product Ownership
2 79 (5.26%) Mobile App
3 64 (4.26%) Onboarding
4 38 (2.53%) Cloud Native
5 37 (2.46%) AI Agents
6 31 (2.06%) Enterprise Software
7 30 (2.00%) Data Structures
8 28 (1.86%) Self-Motivation
9 25 (1.66%) Data Protection Act
9 25 (1.66%) Legacy Systems
10 23 (1.53%) Animation
11 20 (1.33%) Data Centre
12 18 (1.20%) Analytical Mindset
13 17 (1.13%) Foreign Exchange (FX)
14 16 (1.07%) Graphic Design
14 16 (1.07%) Taxonomies
15 15 (1.00%) Algorithms
15 15 (1.00%) Greenfield Project
16 14 (0.93%) Social Media
17 13 (0.87%) Virtual Reality
Operating Systems
1 113 (7.52%) Windows
2 51 (3.40%) Apple iOS
3 47 (3.13%) Android
4 33 (2.20%) Windows 10
5 23 (1.53%) Mac OS
6 14 (0.93%) Linux
6 14 (0.93%) Windows Server
7 6 (0.40%) Unix
7 6 (0.40%) Windows 7
8 5 (0.33%) Windows Server 2016
9 4 (0.27%) Windows Server 2019
10 2 (0.13%) Windows Server 2012
11 1 (0.067%) Windows Server 2008
Processes & Methodologies
1 503 (33.49%) UX Design
2 452 (30.09%) Agile
3 268 (17.84%) AI
4 225 (14.98%) Problem-Solving
5 206 (13.72%) Stakeholder Management
6 193 (12.85%) User Research
7 189 (12.58%) Analytics
7 189 (12.58%) Continuous Improvement
8 172 (11.45%) CI/CD
9 163 (10.85%) Stakeholder Engagement
10 157 (10.45%) Roadmaps
11 144 (9.59%) Prototyping
12 143 (9.52%) DevOps
13 130 (8.66%) Decision-Making
13 130 (8.66%) User-Centered Design (UCD)
14 125 (8.32%) Wireframes
15 121 (8.06%) UX Research
16 120 (7.99%) Service Design
17 107 (7.12%) Scrum
18 104 (6.92%) Workshop Facilitation
Programming Languages
1 140 (9.32%) JavaScript
2 118 (7.86%) Python
2 118 (7.86%) SQL
3 117 (7.79%) TypeScript
4 106 (7.06%) Java
5 60 (3.99%) C#
6 50 (3.33%) PowerShell
7 28 (1.86%) Kotlin
8 24 (1.60%) Data Analysis Expressions
9 14 (0.93%) Swift
10 13 (0.87%) Bash
11 12 (0.80%) C++
12 9 (0.60%) Lua
13 8 (0.53%) Korn
14 7 (0.47%) Apex Code
15 6 (0.40%) R
15 6 (0.40%) VBA
15 6 (0.40%) VBScript
16 5 (0.33%) Go
16 5 (0.33%) VB
Qualifications
1 204 (13.58%) Security Cleared
2 156 (10.39%) SC Cleared
3 149 (9.92%) Degree
4 33 (2.20%) Computer Science Degree
5 24 (1.60%) BPSS Clearance
6 23 (1.53%) DV Cleared
7 22 (1.46%) Microsoft Certification
8 21 (1.40%) Azure Certification
9 11 (0.73%) Cisco Certification
10 10 (0.67%) Master's Degree
11 9 (0.60%) ITIL Certification
12 8 (0.53%) CCNP
12 8 (0.53%) PMP
13 7 (0.47%) AWS Certification
13 7 (0.47%) CCA
13 7 (0.47%) CCIE
13 7 (0.47%) Citrix Certification
13 7 (0.47%) VMware Certified Professional (VCP)
14 6 (0.40%) DBS Check
15 5 (0.33%) CISSP
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 257 (17.11%) Accessibility
2 95 (6.32%) QA
3 86 (5.73%) WCAG
4 44 (2.93%) Data Quality
5 26 (1.73%) GDPR
6 19 (1.26%) Actionable Recommendations
7 11 (0.73%) ISO/IEC 27001
8 8 (0.53%) PMO
8 8 (0.53%) SLA
9 7 (0.47%) ISO/IEC 42001
10 6 (0.40%) Cyber Essentials
11 4 (0.27%) HMG Security Policy Framework
12 3 (0.20%) GMP
12 3 (0.20%) GRC
12 3 (0.20%) GxP
13 2 (0.13%) HIPAA
13 2 (0.13%) NIST
13 2 (0.13%) PCI DSS
13 2 (0.13%) PSD2
14 1 (0.067%) ISO/IEC 20000
System Software
1 75 (4.99%) Active Directory
2 48 (3.20%) Docker
3 24 (1.60%) Virtual Desktop
4 13 (0.87%) VMware Infrastructure
5 6 (0.40%) Firmware
6 5 (0.33%) BitLocker
7 4 (0.27%) Microsoft App-V
8 3 (0.20%) Hyper-V
8 3 (0.20%) Virtual Machines
9 2 (0.13%) VMware ESXi
9 2 (0.13%) VMware Workstation
9 2 (0.13%) vSphere
9 2 (0.13%) XenApp
9 2 (0.13%) XenDesktop
10 1 (0.067%) Varnish
Systems Management
1 48 (3.20%) Kubernetes
2 46 (3.06%) Microsoft Intune
3 45 (3.00%) Terraform
4 34 (2.26%) SCCM
5 29 (1.93%) Grafana
6 17 (1.13%) Single Sign-On
7 14 (0.93%) Jamf Pro
8 12 (0.80%) Ansible
9 8 (0.53%) Prometheus
10 4 (0.27%) Clonezilla
11 3 (0.20%) Podman
11 3 (0.20%) Systems Management Server (SMS)
11 3 (0.20%) WSUS
12 2 (0.13%) Failover Clustering
12 2 (0.13%) HP ALM
12 2 (0.13%) Packer
12 2 (0.13%) SCOM
12 2 (0.13%) vCenter Server
12 2 (0.13%) vMotion
13 1 (0.067%) Argo
Vendors
1 249 (16.58%) Microsoft
2 87 (5.79%) Adobe
3 72 (4.79%) ServiceNow
4 50 (3.33%) Google
5 45 (3.00%) SAP
6 39 (2.60%) Oracle
6 39 (2.60%) Salesforce
7 21 (1.40%) Databricks
8 20 (1.33%) Dynatrace
9 19 (1.26%) Citrix
9 19 (1.26%) Workday
10 18 (1.20%) Splunk
11 17 (1.13%) Cisco
12 16 (1.07%) Apple
13 13 (0.87%) Foundry
13 13 (0.87%) VMware
14 12 (0.80%) Aruba
15 11 (0.73%) OpenAI
16 10 (0.67%) Zscaler
17 8 (0.53%) Okta