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 13 March 2026, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
13 Mar 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 76 66 70
Rank change year-on-year -10 +4 -5
Contract jobs citing User Experience 1,380 1,021 1,256
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 3.22% 3.47% 2.82%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 3.74% 3.83% 3.26%
Number of daily rates quoted 951 678 840
10th Percentile £313 £309 £306
25th Percentile £400 £400 £400
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £488 £492 £500
Median % change year-on-year -0.91% -1.60% -
75th Percentile £575 £586 £588
90th Percentile £650 £688 £688
UK excluding London median daily rate £475 £450 £475
% change year-on-year +5.56% -5.26% +2.15%
Number of hourly rates quoted 46 26 47
10th Percentile £15.50 £25.26 £16.25
25th Percentile £17.69 £37.13 £24.38
Median hourly rate £39.72 £47.50 £32.50
Median % change year-on-year -16.38% +46.15% -27.78%
75th Percentile £61.25 £54.88 £64.77
90th Percentile £72.13 £84.23 £78.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £31.05 £52.50 £25.00
% change year-on-year -40.87% +110.00% -44.44%

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 36,854 26,627 38,581
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 86.05% 90.37% 86.59%
Number of daily rates quoted 23,339 16,995 25,088
10th Percentile £313 £306 £300
25th Percentile £413 £413 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £525 £525
Median % change year-on-year -4.76% - -4.55%
75th Percentile £613 £638 £638
90th Percentile £725 £744 £738
UK excluding London median daily rate £480 £490 £500
% change year-on-year -2.04% -2.00% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 2,197 898 2,338
10th Percentile £14.82 £15.48 £13.00
25th Percentile £18.50 £21.00 £16.06
Median hourly rate £30.00 £32.50 £32.50
Median % change year-on-year -7.69% - -7.14%
75th Percentile £65.00 £65.00 £57.50
90th Percentile £75.00 £77.50 £70.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £27.36 £32.50 £31.50
% change year-on-year -15.82% +3.17% -10.00%

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 13 March 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 13 March 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 13 March 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 -6 1,183 £489 -2.25% 833
London -14 612 £500 -3.85% 367
UK excluding London -8 597 £475 +5.56% 587
Work from Home -21 357 £494 -0.20% 443
North of England +7 208 £450 +5.88% 181
North West +11 135 £403 -10.20% 96
South East -13 124 £485 -3.96% 174
Midlands -17 108 £510 +27.50% 91
West Midlands -41 63 £475 +17.28% 61
South West -18 61 £450 +20.00% 66
Scotland +1 57 £484 +10.57% 17
Yorkshire -21 52 £513 +33.99% 45
East Midlands -2 45 £550 +54.49% 30
East of England -15 31 £413 -13.16% 47
North East +1 20 £388 -14.36% 41
Wales +3 16 £375 -9.09% 19
Northern Ireland -8 3 - - 4

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 60 (4.35%) SharePoint
2 51 (3.70%) Confluence
3 39 (2.83%) CMS
4 24 (1.74%) Adobe Experience Manager
5 19 (1.38%) Microsoft Exchange
6 12 (0.87%) Headless CMS
7 10 (0.72%) Apache
8 8 (0.58%) Sitecore CMS
8 8 (0.58%) Umbraco
9 4 (0.29%) Camunda
9 4 (0.29%) Ethereum
9 4 (0.29%) Hyperledger
9 4 (0.29%) Mendix
10 3 (0.22%) Anypoint
10 3 (0.22%) Apache Spark
10 3 (0.22%) Drupal
10 3 (0.22%) Jupyter
10 3 (0.22%) SugarCRM
11 2 (0.14%) Appian
12 1 (0.072%) Apache Airflow
Applications
1 45 (3.26%) Sketch
2 35 (2.54%) Adobe XD
3 24 (1.74%) Microsoft Excel
4 23 (1.67%) MS Visio
5 19 (1.38%) Chatbot
6 16 (1.16%) Microsoft Office
7 14 (1.01%) InVision
8 12 (0.87%) Photoshop
9 9 (0.65%) Adobe Illustrator
10 6 (0.43%) Microsoft PowerPoint
10 6 (0.43%) Spreadsheet
10 6 (0.43%) Trello
11 5 (0.36%) Adobe After Effects
12 4 (0.29%) Microsoft Project
12 4 (0.29%) UXPin
13 3 (0.22%) Adobe Captivate
13 3 (0.22%) Adobe Creative Suite
13 3 (0.22%) UserZoom
14 2 (0.14%) InDesign
14 2 (0.14%) OmniGraffle
Business Applications
1 20 (1.45%) SAP S/4HANA
2 15 (1.09%) Dynamics CRM
3 6 (0.43%) Sage X3
3 6 (0.43%) Workday HCM
4 5 (0.36%) Shopify
5 3 (0.22%) SAP CO
5 3 (0.22%) SAP FI
5 3 (0.22%) SAP FI/CO
6 2 (0.14%) iTrent
6 2 (0.14%) Magento
6 2 (0.14%) Oracle EBS
6 2 (0.14%) SAP ERP
6 2 (0.14%) SAP SD
6 2 (0.14%) SAP Travel Management
7 1 (0.072%) assyst
7 1 (0.072%) Elite 3E
7 1 (0.072%) Integrated Workplace Management System
7 1 (0.072%) NetSuite
7 1 (0.072%) ResourceLink
7 1 (0.072%) SAP QM
Cloud Services
1 223 (16.16%) Azure
2 186 (13.48%) Figma
3 140 (10.14%) AWS
4 103 (7.46%) Power Platform
5 85 (6.16%) Microsoft 365
6 60 (4.35%) Azure DevOps
7 58 (4.20%) GCP
8 57 (4.13%) SaaS
9 54 (3.91%) Entra ID
10 53 (3.84%) GitHub
11 39 (2.83%) PowerApps
12 38 (2.75%) Power Automate
13 35 (2.54%) Serverless
14 31 (2.25%) GitHub Actions
15 27 (1.96%) Miro
16 24 (1.74%) Google Workspace
16 24 (1.74%) Microsoft Copilot
17 22 (1.59%) Cloud Computing
17 22 (1.59%) Dynamics 365
18 20 (1.45%) Google Analytics
Communications & Networking
1 23 (1.67%) DNS
2 18 (1.30%) Wireless
3 17 (1.23%) Internet
4 13 (0.94%) HTTP
5 12 (0.87%) Intranet
5 12 (0.87%) Wi-Fi
6 11 (0.80%) DHCP
6 11 (0.80%) VPN
7 10 (0.72%) TCP/IP
8 9 (0.65%) Firewall
9 8 (0.58%) BGP
9 8 (0.58%) Cisco ISE
9 8 (0.58%) Cisco Wireless
9 8 (0.58%) LAN
9 8 (0.58%) WAN
10 7 (0.51%) NX-OS
10 7 (0.51%) SD-WAN
10 7 (0.51%) VXLAN
11 6 (0.43%) Network Security
11 6 (0.43%) SSL
Database & Business Intelligence
1 69 (5.00%) Power BI
2 36 (2.61%) Relational Database
3 32 (2.32%) NoSQL
4 28 (2.03%) PostgreSQL
5 27 (1.96%) MySQL
6 24 (1.74%) Data Warehouse
7 21 (1.52%) SQL Server
8 17 (1.23%) Tableau
9 15 (1.09%) Metadata
9 15 (1.09%) MongoDB
10 13 (0.94%) BigQuery
11 10 (0.72%) Looker
12 8 (0.58%) Power Query
13 7 (0.51%) DynamoDB
13 7 (0.51%) Pinecone
14 6 (0.43%) Redis
14 6 (0.43%) ZAP BI
15 5 (0.36%) Hadoop
16 4 (0.29%) Azure SQL Database
16 4 (0.29%) Oracle Reports
Development Applications
1 114 (8.26%) JIRA
2 90 (6.52%) Git
3 47 (3.41%) GitLab
4 31 (2.25%) Cypress.io
4 31 (2.25%) Jenkins
5 27 (1.96%) JUnit
6 24 (1.74%) Axure RP
7 18 (1.30%) Android Studio
8 17 (1.23%) Xcode
9 16 (1.16%) Gradle
10 14 (1.01%) Eclipse
11 13 (0.94%) Browser DevTools
11 13 (0.94%) Selenium
12 12 (0.87%) CircleCI
13 9 (0.65%) Artifactory
13 9 (0.65%) Postman
14 8 (0.58%) Mocha
14 8 (0.58%) Mockito
14 8 (0.58%) Visual Studio
15 7 (0.51%) Jasmine
General
1 457 (33.12%) Social Skills
2 252 (18.26%) Finance
3 198 (14.35%) Public Sector
4 156 (11.30%) Analytical Skills
5 106 (7.68%) Banking
6 65 (4.71%) Marketing
7 40 (2.90%) Retail
8 32 (2.32%) Presentation Skills
9 27 (1.96%) Legal
10 26 (1.88%) Influencing Skills
11 21 (1.52%) Manufacturing
12 19 (1.38%) Pharmaceutical
13 17 (1.23%) Documentation Skills
14 16 (1.16%) Games
14 16 (1.16%) Investment Banking
15 14 (1.01%) Financial Institution
16 12 (0.87%) Telecoms
17 11 (0.80%) Front Office
17 11 (0.80%) Inclusion and Diversity
17 11 (0.80%) Publishing
Job Titles
1 242 (17.54%) Designer
2 229 (16.59%) Developer
3 206 (14.93%) Senior
4 132 (9.57%) Analyst
5 131 (9.49%) UX Designer
6 65 (4.71%) Lead
7 64 (4.64%) Consultant
8 63 (4.57%) Business Analyst
9 58 (4.20%) Product Designer
10 56 (4.06%) Senior Designer
11 53 (3.84%) Architect
12 50 (3.62%) User Researcher
13 42 (3.04%) Front-End Developer (Client-Side Developer)
14 41 (2.97%) Software Engineer
15 40 (2.90%) Full-Stack Developer
15 40 (2.90%) Senior Developer
16 39 (2.83%) Support Engineer
17 38 (2.75%) Service Designer
17 38 (2.75%) UI Designer
18 35 (2.54%) Senior UX Designer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 172 (12.46%) React
2 164 (11.88%) CSS
3 150 (10.87%) HTML
4 115 (8.33%) REST
5 95 (6.88%) RESTful
6 92 (6.67%) AngularJS
7 61 (4.42%) Spring
7 61 (4.42%) Spring Boot
8 58 (4.20%) .NET
9 52 (3.77%) Node.js
10 43 (3.12%) HTML5
11 36 (2.61%) Jest
12 35 (2.54%) CSS3
12 35 (2.54%) GraphQL
13 34 (2.46%) JSON
14 30 (2.17%) Redux
15 25 (1.81%) Next.js
16 23 (1.67%) Playwright
17 22 (1.59%) Vue
18 20 (1.45%) OAuth
Miscellaneous
1 139 (10.07%) Product Ownership
2 90 (6.52%) Mobile App
3 51 (3.70%) Onboarding
4 27 (1.96%) Enterprise Software
5 26 (1.88%) AI Agents
6 25 (1.81%) Analytical Mindset
7 24 (1.74%) Data Structures
8 16 (1.16%) Data Protection Act
8 16 (1.16%) Distributed Systems
9 15 (1.09%) Cloud Native
9 15 (1.09%) Data Centre
9 15 (1.09%) Legacy Systems
9 15 (1.09%) Virtual Team
10 14 (1.01%) Low-Code
10 14 (1.01%) NHS
11 13 (0.94%) CMDB
12 11 (0.80%) Algorithms
12 11 (0.80%) Foreign Exchange (FX)
12 11 (0.80%) Graphic Design
12 11 (0.80%) Management Information System
Operating Systems
1 130 (9.42%) Windows
2 49 (3.55%) Android
3 44 (3.19%) Windows 10
4 35 (2.54%) Apple iOS
5 28 (2.03%) Linux
6 21 (1.52%) Mac OS
7 15 (1.09%) Unix
8 6 (0.43%) Windows Server
9 3 (0.22%) Ubuntu
10 1 (0.072%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
10 1 (0.072%) Windows 7
10 1 (0.072%) Windows Server 2008
10 1 (0.072%) Windows Server 2016
Processes & Methodologies
1 461 (33.41%) Agile
2 449 (32.54%) UX Design
3 224 (16.23%) Problem-Solving
4 209 (15.14%) User Research
5 206 (14.93%) Analytics
6 182 (13.19%) CI/CD
7 172 (12.46%) DevOps
8 164 (11.88%) AI
9 161 (11.67%) Stakeholder Management
10 157 (11.38%) Continuous Improvement
10 157 (11.38%) Stakeholder Engagement
11 141 (10.22%) User-Centered Design (UCD)
12 135 (9.78%) Prototyping
12 135 (9.78%) Roadmaps
13 122 (8.84%) Decision-Making
13 122 (8.84%) Service Design
13 122 (8.84%) Wireframes
14 115 (8.33%) UX Research
15 110 (7.97%) Usability Testing
16 102 (7.39%) Front End Development
Programming Languages
1 200 (14.49%) JavaScript
2 141 (10.22%) SQL
3 124 (8.99%) Python
4 118 (8.55%) Java
5 113 (8.19%) TypeScript
6 64 (4.64%) PowerShell
7 63 (4.57%) C#
8 31 (2.25%) Kotlin
9 18 (1.30%) Bash
10 15 (1.09%) C++
10 15 (1.09%) Perl
11 13 (0.94%) Data Analysis Expressions
12 12 (0.87%) Swift
13 10 (0.72%) PHP
14 9 (0.65%) Lua
15 8 (0.58%) PL/SQL
16 7 (0.51%) Lisp
17 6 (0.43%) Go
17 6 (0.43%) Scala
17 6 (0.43%) VBA
Qualifications
1 190 (13.77%) Security Cleared
2 135 (9.78%) SC Cleared
3 130 (9.42%) Degree
4 39 (2.83%) BPSS Clearance
5 25 (1.81%) Computer Science Degree
6 18 (1.30%) DV Cleared
7 16 (1.16%) Master's Degree
8 15 (1.09%) Microsoft Certification
9 11 (0.80%) CCNP
9 11 (0.80%) Cisco Certification
10 8 (0.58%) MOS
10 8 (0.58%) PMI Certification
11 7 (0.51%) OCA
11 7 (0.51%) Oracle Certification
12 5 (0.36%) Azure Certification
12 5 (0.36%) CCA
12 5 (0.36%) Citrix Certification
13 4 (0.29%) ISTQB
13 4 (0.29%) ISTQB Foundation Certification
14 3 (0.22%) ITIL Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 245 (17.75%) Accessibility
2 133 (9.64%) QA
3 75 (5.43%) WCAG
4 47 (3.41%) Data Quality
5 40 (2.90%) GDPR
6 22 (1.59%) ISO/IEC 27001
7 21 (1.52%) Actionable Recommendations
8 16 (1.16%) SLA
9 8 (0.58%) PMO
10 6 (0.43%) NCSC
11 5 (0.36%) HMG Security Policy Framework
12 4 (0.29%) California Consumer Privacy Act
12 4 (0.29%) GMP
12 4 (0.29%) GxP
13 3 (0.22%) Cyber Essentials
13 3 (0.22%) Disclosure Scotland
13 3 (0.22%) Government Security Classifications
13 3 (0.22%) GRC
13 3 (0.22%) HIPAA
13 3 (0.22%) NIST
System Software
1 76 (5.51%) Active Directory
2 68 (4.93%) Docker
3 19 (1.38%) VMware Infrastructure
4 14 (1.01%) Virtual Desktop
5 4 (0.29%) Firmware
6 3 (0.22%) Hyper-V
7 2 (0.14%) ProxySG
8 1 (0.072%) BitLocker
8 1 (0.072%) ISA Server
8 1 (0.072%) Microsoft App-V
8 1 (0.072%) Virtual Machines
8 1 (0.072%) VMware ESXi
8 1 (0.072%) XenApp
8 1 (0.072%) XenDesktop
Systems Management
1 61 (4.42%) Kubernetes
2 45 (3.26%) Microsoft Intune
3 40 (2.90%) Terraform
4 33 (2.39%) SCCM
5 24 (1.74%) Grafana
6 16 (1.16%) Ansible
7 11 (0.80%) Single Sign-On
8 7 (0.51%) FortiGate
9 6 (0.43%) Jamf Pro
9 6 (0.43%) Prometheus
10 4 (0.29%) Argo
11 3 (0.22%) HP ALM
11 3 (0.22%) Nagios
11 3 (0.22%) Rancher
12 2 (0.14%) SysTrack
13 1 (0.072%) Active Directory Federation Services
13 1 (0.072%) Consul
13 1 (0.072%) Kibana
13 1 (0.072%) Podman
13 1 (0.072%) SCOM
Vendors
1 225 (16.30%) Microsoft
2 87 (6.30%) Adobe
3 79 (5.72%) Google
4 77 (5.58%) ServiceNow
5 48 (3.48%) SAP
6 39 (2.83%) Oracle
7 34 (2.46%) Salesforce
8 22 (1.59%) Splunk
9 21 (1.52%) Citrix
10 20 (1.45%) VMware
11 16 (1.16%) Apple
11 16 (1.16%) Cisco
12 13 (0.94%) Zscaler
13 12 (0.87%) Red Hat
14 10 (0.72%) Workday
15 9 (0.65%) Ekahau
15 9 (0.65%) MuleSoft
16 8 (0.58%) OpenAI
16 8 (0.58%) Sitecore
17 7 (0.51%) Remedy