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

6 months to
24 Jun 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 81 63 79
Rank change year-on-year -18 +16 -20
Contract jobs citing User Experience 1,501 1,123 1,164
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 2.95% 3.74% 2.68%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 3.47% 4.11% 3.15%
Number of daily rates quoted 951 732 766
10th Percentile £320 £300 £300
25th Percentile £404 £380 £400
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £494 £475 £500
Median % change year-on-year +3.89% -5.00% -1.57%
75th Percentile £588 £575 £600
90th Percentile £680 £688 £700
UK excluding London median daily rate £475 £425 £470
% change year-on-year +11.76% -9.57% +1.08%
Number of hourly rates quoted 69 33 46
10th Percentile £16.00 £32.91 £16.25
25th Percentile £23.00 £35.25 £25.00
Median hourly rate £33.99 £52.50 £30.86
Median % change year-on-year -35.26% +70.15% +16.43%
75th Percentile £65.00 £70.16 £64.75
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 43,234 27,342 36,961
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 84.93% 91.04% 85.04%
Number of daily rates quoted 26,976 17,315 23,545
10th Percentile £325 £300 £300
25th Percentile £413 £406 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £513 £502 £525
Median % change year-on-year +2.09% -4.38% -4.55%
75th Percentile £620 £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 2,595 1,301 2,587
10th Percentile £14.82 £14.20 £12.65
25th Percentile £20.09 £17.79 £16.06
Median hourly rate £43.96 £25.15 £37.50
Median % change year-on-year +74.79% -32.93% +7.14%
75th Percentile £68.00 £55.00 £61.30
90th Percentile £81.25 £72.50 £72.50
UK excluding London median hourly rate £44.50 £25.08 £38.12
% change year-on-year +77.47% -34.22% +17.29%

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 24 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 24 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 24 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 -13 1,286 £488 +2.63% 451
UK excluding London -3 689 £475 +11.76% 378
London -27 654 £522 +2.35% 178
Work from Home -32 390 £500 +5.26% 228
North of England -26 193 £450 +3.21% 112
Midlands +6 152 £475 +18.16% 54
South East -12 134 £495 +4.21% 122
North West -21 113 £435 -2.68% 66
West Midlands -4 109 £475 -9.52% 32
Scotland +8 85 £525 +15.38% 10
South West -2 73 £475 +26.67% 36
Yorkshire -35 50 £519 +29.69% 24
East Midlands +3 43 £550 +54.49% 22
East of England -6 36 £410 -13.68% 37
North East -19 30 £440 -8.33% 23
Wales -7 17 £530 +73.20% 5
Northern Ireland -1 3 - - 9

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 67 (4.46%) SharePoint
2 48 (3.20%) Confluence
3 46 (3.06%) CMS
4 27 (1.80%) Microsoft Exchange
5 10 (0.67%) WordPress
6 8 (0.53%) Adobe Experience Manager
7 6 (0.40%) Mendix
8 5 (0.33%) Apache
8 5 (0.33%) Camunda
8 5 (0.33%) Drupal
8 5 (0.33%) Skype for Business
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%) Moodle
Applications
1 37 (2.47%) Sketch
2 26 (1.73%) Adobe Creative Suite
2 26 (1.73%) Microsoft Excel
3 20 (1.33%) Photoshop
4 19 (1.27%) Adobe After Effects
5 18 (1.20%) Chatbot
6 16 (1.07%) Adobe Illustrator
6 16 (1.07%) Adobe XD
7 14 (0.93%) Microsoft Office
7 14 (0.93%) MS Visio
8 10 (0.67%) Microsoft PowerPoint
9 6 (0.40%) Final Cut Pro
10 4 (0.27%) Adobe Captivate
10 4 (0.27%) InVision
11 3 (0.20%) Spreadsheet
11 3 (0.20%) UserZoom
11 3 (0.20%) UXPin
12 2 (0.13%) Oracle Smart View
12 2 (0.13%) Trello
13 1 (0.067%) Blender
Business Applications
1 13 (0.87%) SAP S/4HANA
2 10 (0.67%) Dynamics CRM
3 9 (0.60%) Workday HCM
4 8 (0.53%) Shopify
5 6 (0.40%) Sage X3
6 4 (0.27%) NetSuite
6 4 (0.27%) Oracle iProcurement
7 2 (0.13%) Oracle EBS
7 2 (0.13%) Oracle Payables
7 2 (0.13%) Oracle Receivables
7 2 (0.13%) Payment Gateway
7 2 (0.13%) Remedy ITSM
7 2 (0.13%) ResourceLink
8 1 (0.067%) Eloqua
8 1 (0.067%) Integrated Workplace Management System
8 1 (0.067%) Magento
8 1 (0.067%) NEC Housing
8 1 (0.067%) Oracle EBS R12
8 1 (0.067%) Salesforce CRM
8 1 (0.067%) Sprinklr
Cloud Services
1 237 (15.79%) Azure
2 213 (14.19%) Figma
3 127 (8.46%) AWS
4 118 (7.86%) Microsoft 365
5 108 (7.20%) Power Platform
6 62 (4.13%) Entra ID
7 57 (3.80%) Azure DevOps
8 52 (3.46%) SaaS
9 48 (3.20%) GitHub
10 47 (3.13%) Microsoft Copilot
11 42 (2.80%) GCP
12 37 (2.47%) OneDrive
12 37 (2.47%) PowerApps
13 36 (2.40%) Power Automate
14 31 (2.07%) GitHub Actions
15 29 (1.93%) Serverless
16 25 (1.67%) Copilot Studio
17 18 (1.20%) Google Workspace
18 16 (1.07%) Google Sheets
19 15 (1.00%) Azure AI
Communications & Networking
1 31 (2.07%) DNS
2 27 (1.80%) DHCP
3 23 (1.53%) Wi-Fi
4 22 (1.47%) TCP/IP
5 20 (1.33%) Wireless
6 17 (1.13%) LAN
7 13 (0.87%) Internet
8 11 (0.73%) Intranet
8 11 (0.73%) WAN
9 10 (0.67%) Firewall
9 10 (0.67%) SD-WAN
10 9 (0.60%) HTTP
10 9 (0.60%) VPN
11 8 (0.53%) Cisco Wireless
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 68 (4.53%) Power BI
2 26 (1.73%) PostgreSQL
3 24 (1.60%) NoSQL
3 24 (1.60%) Relational Database
4 23 (1.53%) SQL Server
5 21 (1.40%) Metadata
6 18 (1.20%) Power Query
7 14 (0.93%) 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%) Redis
12 6 (0.40%) DynamoDB
12 6 (0.40%) Elasticsearch
12 6 (0.40%) Oracle Database
12 6 (0.40%) ZAP BI
13 5 (0.33%) Data Mining
13 5 (0.33%) Snowflake Schema
13 5 (0.33%) Star Schema
Development Applications
1 96 (6.40%) JIRA
2 84 (5.60%) Git
3 26 (1.73%) Jenkins
4 23 (1.53%) Cypress.io
5 22 (1.47%) Vite
6 19 (1.27%) GitLab
7 14 (0.93%) JUnit
8 10 (0.67%) fastlane
8 10 (0.67%) Selenium
9 9 (0.60%) Android Studio
9 9 (0.60%) Browser DevTools
9 9 (0.60%) Claude Code
9 9 (0.60%) Gradle
9 9 (0.60%) Visual Studio
9 9 (0.60%) Xcode
10 8 (0.53%) Postman
11 7 (0.47%) webpack
12 5 (0.33%) Bitbucket
12 5 (0.33%) CircleCI
12 5 (0.33%) Crashlytics
General
1 455 (30.31%) Social Skills
2 263 (17.52%) Finance
3 189 (12.59%) Public Sector
4 142 (9.46%) Analytical Skills
5 119 (7.93%) Banking
6 76 (5.06%) Retail
7 57 (3.80%) Marketing
8 40 (2.66%) Inclusion and Diversity
9 36 (2.40%) Legal
10 31 (2.07%) Influencing Skills
11 29 (1.93%) Presentation Skills
12 28 (1.87%) Automotive
13 25 (1.67%) Publishing
14 23 (1.53%) Manufacturing
15 18 (1.20%) Documentation Skills
15 18 (1.20%) Investment Banking
16 17 (1.13%) Organisational Skills
17 13 (0.87%) Games
18 12 (0.80%) Front Office
19 11 (0.73%) Pharmaceutical
Job Titles
1 317 (21.12%) Designer
2 227 (15.12%) Senior
3 199 (13.26%) Developer
4 138 (9.19%) UX Designer
5 113 (7.53%) Analyst
6 105 (7.00%) Lead
7 82 (5.46%) UI Designer
8 75 (5.00%) Consultant
9 70 (4.66%) Senior Designer
10 63 (4.20%) Product Designer
11 61 (4.06%) Architect
12 58 (3.86%) Business Analyst
13 53 (3.53%) User Researcher
14 50 (3.33%) Content Designer
15 48 (3.20%) User Experience Researcher
16 47 (3.13%) UI/UX Designer
17 44 (2.93%) IT Support
18 40 (2.66%) Product Manager
19 38 (2.53%) Full-Stack Engineer
20 35 (2.33%) Senior Developer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 150 (9.99%) React
2 114 (7.59%) CSS
3 102 (6.80%) HTML
4 93 (6.20%) REST
5 70 (4.66%) RESTful
6 60 (4.00%) AngularJS
7 56 (3.73%) .NET
8 47 (3.13%) Spring
9 46 (3.06%) Spring Boot
10 37 (2.47%) GraphQL
11 32 (2.13%) Redux
12 31 (2.07%) Node.js
13 30 (2.00%) JSON
14 29 (1.93%) HTML5
14 29 (1.93%) Kafka
15 27 (1.80%) CSS3
15 27 (1.80%) Jest
16 25 (1.67%) ASP.NET
16 25 (1.67%) Next.js
17 23 (1.53%) OAuth
Miscellaneous
1 161 (10.73%) Product Ownership
2 77 (5.13%) Mobile App
3 64 (4.26%) Onboarding
4 37 (2.47%) AI Agents
5 36 (2.40%) Cloud Native
6 31 (2.07%) Enterprise Software
7 29 (1.93%) Data Structures
8 26 (1.73%) Legacy Systems
8 26 (1.73%) Self-Motivation
9 23 (1.53%) Animation
9 23 (1.53%) Data Protection Act
10 19 (1.27%) Analytical Mindset
10 19 (1.27%) Data Centre
11 17 (1.13%) Foreign Exchange (FX)
12 16 (1.07%) Taxonomies
13 15 (1.00%) Graphic Design
13 15 (1.00%) Greenfield Project
14 14 (0.93%) Algorithms
14 14 (0.93%) Social Media
15 13 (0.87%) Distributed Systems
Operating Systems
1 110 (7.33%) Windows
2 51 (3.40%) Apple iOS
3 46 (3.06%) Android
4 32 (2.13%) Windows 10
5 23 (1.53%) Mac OS
6 14 (0.93%) Linux
7 13 (0.87%) Windows Server
8 6 (0.40%) Windows 7
9 5 (0.33%) Unix
9 5 (0.33%) Windows Server 2016
10 4 (0.27%) Windows Server 2019
11 2 (0.13%) Windows Server 2012
12 1 (0.067%) Windows Server 2008
Processes & Methodologies
1 498 (33.18%) UX Design
2 456 (30.38%) Agile
3 263 (17.52%) AI
4 225 (14.99%) Problem-Solving
5 202 (13.46%) Stakeholder Management
6 195 (12.99%) User Research
7 191 (12.72%) Analytics
8 189 (12.59%) Continuous Improvement
9 167 (11.13%) CI/CD
10 162 (10.79%) Stakeholder Engagement
11 160 (10.66%) Roadmaps
12 142 (9.46%) DevOps
12 142 (9.46%) Prototyping
13 131 (8.73%) User-Centered Design (UCD)
14 128 (8.53%) Decision-Making
15 124 (8.26%) UX Research
15 124 (8.26%) Wireframes
16 121 (8.06%) Service Design
17 108 (7.20%) Scrum
18 104 (6.93%) Workshop Facilitation
Programming Languages
1 143 (9.53%) JavaScript
2 119 (7.93%) Python
3 117 (7.79%) TypeScript
4 116 (7.73%) SQL
5 105 (7.00%) Java
6 60 (4.00%) C#
7 50 (3.33%) PowerShell
8 27 (1.80%) Kotlin
9 22 (1.47%) Data Analysis Expressions
10 14 (0.93%) Swift
11 13 (0.87%) Bash
12 12 (0.80%) C++
13 9 (0.60%) Lua
14 8 (0.53%) Korn
15 6 (0.40%) Apex Code
15 6 (0.40%) Go
15 6 (0.40%) R
15 6 (0.40%) VBA
15 6 (0.40%) VBScript
16 5 (0.33%) VB
Qualifications
1 205 (13.66%) Security Cleared
2 156 (10.39%) SC Cleared
3 148 (9.86%) Degree
4 33 (2.20%) Computer Science Degree
5 27 (1.80%) BPSS Clearance
6 23 (1.53%) DV Cleared
7 22 (1.47%) Microsoft Certification
8 20 (1.33%) 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%) CCA
12 8 (0.53%) CCNP
13 7 (0.47%) AWS Certification
13 7 (0.47%) CCIE
13 7 (0.47%) Citrix Certification
13 7 (0.47%) PMP
13 7 (0.47%) VMware Certified Professional (VCP)
14 6 (0.40%) DBS Check
15 5 (0.33%) CISSP
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 254 (16.92%) Accessibility
2 99 (6.60%) QA
3 86 (5.73%) WCAG
4 44 (2.93%) Data Quality
5 24 (1.60%) GDPR
6 19 (1.27%) Actionable Recommendations
7 11 (0.73%) ISO/IEC 27001
8 8 (0.53%) SLA
9 7 (0.47%) PMO
10 6 (0.40%) Cyber Essentials
10 6 (0.40%) ISO/IEC 42001
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%) NCSC
13 2 (0.13%) NIST
13 2 (0.13%) PCI DSS
13 2 (0.13%) PSD2
System Software
1 73 (4.86%) 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 45 (3.00%) Microsoft Intune
2 45 (3.00%) Terraform
3 34 (2.27%) SCCM
4 30 (2.00%) Grafana
5 17 (1.13%) Single Sign-On
6 14 (0.93%) Jamf Pro
7 13 (0.87%) Ansible
8 9 (0.60%) Prometheus
9 4 (0.27%) Clonezilla
10 3 (0.20%) Podman
10 3 (0.20%) Systems Management Server (SMS)
10 3 (0.20%) WSUS
11 2 (0.13%) Failover Clustering
11 2 (0.13%) HP ALM
11 2 (0.13%) Packer
11 2 (0.13%) SCOM
11 2 (0.13%) vCenter Server
11 2 (0.13%) vMotion
12 1 (0.067%) Argo
Vendors
1 243 (16.19%) Microsoft
2 88 (5.86%) Adobe
3 72 (4.80%) ServiceNow
4 52 (3.46%) Google
5 43 (2.86%) SAP
6 38 (2.53%) Salesforce
7 37 (2.47%) Oracle
8 21 (1.40%) Databricks
9 20 (1.33%) Dynatrace
10 19 (1.27%) Citrix
11 17 (1.13%) Apple
11 17 (1.13%) Cisco
11 17 (1.13%) Splunk
11 17 (1.13%) Workday
12 13 (0.87%) VMware
13 12 (0.80%) Aruba
13 12 (0.80%) Foundry
14 11 (0.73%) OpenAI
15 9 (0.60%) Zscaler
16 8 (0.53%) Okta