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 23 April 2026, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
23 Apr 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 81 59 72
Rank change year-on-year -22 +13 -10
Contract jobs citing User Experience 1,405 1,105 1,241
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 3.03% 3.74% 2.84%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 3.57% 4.12% 3.29%
Number of daily rates quoted 959 756 828
10th Percentile £313 £305 £300
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 £589
90th Percentile £675 £701 £688
UK excluding London median daily rate £475 £425 £475
% change year-on-year +11.76% -10.53% +2.70%
Number of hourly rates quoted 47 23 48
10th Percentile £17.04 £28.31 £16.25
25th Percentile £21.12 £41.58 £24.69
Median hourly rate £50.00 £53.50 £32.11
Median % change year-on-year -6.54% +66.64% -8.27%
75th Percentile £62.38 £77.73 £64.65
90th Percentile £77.36 £93.50 £73.96
UK excluding London median hourly rate £43.75 £70.00 £25.00
% change year-on-year -37.50% +180.00% -3.85%

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 39,369 26,799 37,747
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 84.81% 90.74% 86.34%
Number of daily rates quoted 24,829 17,326 24,410
10th Percentile £318 £307 £300
25th Percentile £413 £413 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £521 £525
Median % change year-on-year -4.03% -0.76% -4.55%
75th Percentile £613 £630 £638
90th Percentile £725 £738 £750
UK excluding London median daily rate £485 £485 £500
% change year-on-year - -3.00% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 2,359 1,054 2,423
10th Percentile £14.96 £14.84 £12.75
25th Percentile £19.88 £18.51 £16.00
Median hourly rate £39.50 £29.90 £35.00
Median % change year-on-year +32.11% -14.57% -6.67%
75th Percentile £65.60 £62.25 £58.70
90th Percentile £78.25 £75.00 £71.90
UK excluding London median hourly rate £41.56 £28.18 £35.00
% change year-on-year +47.46% -19.49% -6.17%

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 23 April 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 23 April 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 23 April 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 1,217 £488 -1.52% 869
London -20 626 £513 - 222
UK excluding London -3 610 £475 +11.76% 747
Work from Home -26 354 £475 -1.04% 295
North of England +4 198 £449 -0.33% 381
Midlands -4 142 £500 +25.00% 113
North West +8 124 £423 -6.11% 307
South East -18 115 £488 +7.38% 113
West Midlands -20 94 £475 +2.70% 63
South West -20 63 £456 +21.67% 53
Scotland -11 51 £533 +18.33% 24
Yorkshire -23 50 £500 +24.84% 55
East Midlands -1 48 £550 +53.63% 50
East of England -15 28 £425 -10.53% 48
North East -9 22 £405 -10.50% 20
Wales -5 15 £375 +22.55% 10
Northern Ireland -3 3 - - 18

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 53 (3.77%) SharePoint
2 45 (3.20%) Confluence
3 37 (2.63%) CMS
4 19 (1.35%) Adobe Experience Manager
5 18 (1.28%) Microsoft Exchange
6 7 (0.50%) Apache
7 6 (0.43%) Headless CMS
7 6 (0.43%) Mendix
7 6 (0.43%) Sitecore CMS
7 6 (0.43%) Umbraco
8 5 (0.36%) Camunda
9 4 (0.28%) Ethereum
9 4 (0.28%) Hyperledger
10 3 (0.21%) Anypoint
10 3 (0.21%) Apache Spark
10 3 (0.21%) Drupal
10 3 (0.21%) nginx
11 2 (0.14%) HCL Notes
11 2 (0.14%) IIS
11 2 (0.14%) WordPress
Applications
1 46 (3.27%) Sketch
2 34 (2.42%) Adobe XD
3 24 (1.71%) Microsoft Excel
4 21 (1.49%) MS Visio
5 19 (1.35%) Chatbot
6 13 (0.93%) InVision
6 13 (0.93%) Microsoft Office
7 12 (0.85%) Photoshop
8 9 (0.64%) Adobe Creative Suite
9 8 (0.57%) Adobe After Effects
9 8 (0.57%) Adobe Illustrator
10 6 (0.43%) Microsoft PowerPoint
11 5 (0.36%) Spreadsheet
11 5 (0.36%) Trello
12 4 (0.28%) UserZoom
13 3 (0.21%) Adobe Captivate
13 3 (0.21%) Microsoft Project
13 3 (0.21%) UXPin
14 2 (0.14%) Blender
14 2 (0.14%) Oracle Smart View
Business Applications
1 16 (1.14%) Dynamics CRM
2 13 (0.93%) SAP S/4HANA
3 9 (0.64%) Shopify
4 8 (0.57%) Workday HCM
5 6 (0.43%) 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 CO
6 2 (0.14%) SAP ERP
6 2 (0.14%) SAP FI
6 2 (0.14%) SAP FI/CO
6 2 (0.14%) Sprinklr
7 1 (0.071%) assyst
7 1 (0.071%) Oracle ERP
7 1 (0.071%) SAP CRM
7 1 (0.071%) SAP QM
Cloud Services
1 228 (16.23%) Azure
2 203 (14.45%) Figma
3 120 (8.54%) AWS
4 103 (7.33%) Power Platform
5 93 (6.62%) Microsoft 365
6 65 (4.63%) Azure DevOps
7 56 (3.99%) Entra ID
8 53 (3.77%) GCP
9 52 (3.70%) GitHub
10 39 (2.78%) SaaS
11 38 (2.70%) PowerApps
12 36 (2.56%) Power Automate
13 35 (2.49%) Microsoft Copilot
14 33 (2.35%) Serverless
15 30 (2.14%) GitHub Actions
16 24 (1.71%) Dynamics 365
16 24 (1.71%) Miro
17 23 (1.64%) Google Workspace
18 20 (1.42%) Copilot Studio
18 20 (1.42%) Google Sheets
Communications & Networking
1 16 (1.14%) DNS
2 12 (0.85%) LAN
2 12 (0.85%) Wireless
3 11 (0.78%) Internet
3 11 (0.78%) Intranet
3 11 (0.78%) SD-WAN
3 11 (0.78%) Wi-Fi
4 10 (0.71%) DHCP
4 10 (0.71%) HTTP
5 9 (0.64%) VPN
6 8 (0.57%) WAN
7 7 (0.50%) TCP/IP
8 6 (0.43%) Cisco Wireless
8 6 (0.43%) Firewall
8 6 (0.43%) Network Security
8 6 (0.43%) SSL
8 6 (0.43%) WLAN
9 5 (0.36%) 5G
9 5 (0.36%) Cisco ISE
9 5 (0.36%) SMS
Database & Business Intelligence
1 71 (5.05%) Power BI
2 28 (1.99%) NoSQL
3 27 (1.92%) PostgreSQL
3 27 (1.92%) Relational Database
4 24 (1.71%) SQL Server
5 20 (1.42%) Data Warehouse
6 19 (1.35%) MySQL
7 16 (1.14%) MongoDB
8 15 (1.07%) Metadata
8 15 (1.07%) Tableau
9 11 (0.78%) BigQuery
10 10 (0.71%) Power Query
11 8 (0.57%) Looker
12 7 (0.50%) Pinecone
13 6 (0.43%) Big Data
13 6 (0.43%) DynamoDB
13 6 (0.43%) Oracle BI Publisher
13 6 (0.43%) Oracle Database
13 6 (0.43%) ZAP BI
14 5 (0.36%) Redis
Development Applications
1 106 (7.54%) JIRA
2 81 (5.77%) Git
3 38 (2.70%) GitLab
4 27 (1.92%) Cypress.io
5 26 (1.85%) Jenkins
6 25 (1.78%) JUnit
7 20 (1.42%) Axure RP
8 13 (0.93%) Gradle
8 13 (0.93%) Selenium
9 11 (0.78%) Browser DevTools
9 11 (0.78%) CircleCI
10 9 (0.64%) Android Studio
11 8 (0.57%) Visual Studio
11 8 (0.57%) Vite
11 8 (0.57%) Xcode
12 7 (0.50%) Mockito
12 7 (0.50%) Postman
13 6 (0.43%) Eclipse
13 6 (0.43%) Jasmine
13 6 (0.43%) Mocha
General
1 451 (32.10%) Social Skills
2 269 (19.15%) Finance
3 196 (13.95%) Public Sector
4 158 (11.25%) Analytical Skills
5 112 (7.97%) Banking
6 57 (4.06%) Marketing
7 51 (3.63%) Retail
8 34 (2.42%) Legal
9 31 (2.21%) Presentation Skills
10 27 (1.92%) Influencing Skills
11 25 (1.78%) Manufacturing
12 22 (1.57%) Documentation Skills
13 19 (1.35%) Pharmaceutical
14 17 (1.21%) Games
15 15 (1.07%) Inclusion and Diversity
15 15 (1.07%) Organisational Skills
15 15 (1.07%) Publishing
16 13 (0.93%) Investment Banking
17 12 (0.85%) Automotive
17 12 (0.85%) Front Office
Job Titles
1 287 (20.43%) Designer
2 214 (15.23%) Senior
3 197 (14.02%) Developer
4 137 (9.75%) UX Designer
5 129 (9.18%) Analyst
6 68 (4.84%) Consultant
7 67 (4.77%) Business Analyst
8 66 (4.70%) Lead
9 63 (4.48%) Product Designer
10 62 (4.41%) Architect
11 57 (4.06%) Senior Designer
12 54 (3.84%) User Researcher
13 49 (3.49%) UI Designer
14 42 (2.99%) Service Designer
15 38 (2.70%) Content Designer
15 38 (2.70%) UI/UX Designer
15 38 (2.70%) User Experience Researcher
16 36 (2.56%) Full-Stack Developer
17 35 (2.49%) IT Support
17 35 (2.49%) Software Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 156 (11.10%) React
2 144 (10.25%) CSS
3 133 (9.47%) HTML
4 106 (7.54%) REST
5 79 (5.62%) AngularJS
5 79 (5.62%) RESTful
6 64 (4.56%) Spring
7 63 (4.48%) Spring Boot
8 60 (4.27%) .NET
9 38 (2.70%) HTML5
10 37 (2.63%) Node.js
11 34 (2.42%) Redux
12 33 (2.35%) CSS3
12 33 (2.35%) GraphQL
12 33 (2.35%) JSON
13 31 (2.21%) Jest
14 27 (1.92%) Next.js
15 22 (1.57%) Kafka
15 22 (1.57%) Vue
16 21 (1.49%) Playwright
Miscellaneous
1 135 (9.61%) Product Ownership
2 73 (5.20%) Mobile App
3 51 (3.63%) Onboarding
4 34 (2.42%) Enterprise Software
5 30 (2.14%) AI Agents
6 29 (2.06%) Data Structures
7 24 (1.71%) Analytical Mindset
8 21 (1.49%) Cloud Native
9 18 (1.28%) Distributed Systems
10 17 (1.21%) Foreign Exchange (FX)
11 16 (1.14%) Data Protection Act
12 14 (1.00%) Legacy Systems
12 14 (1.00%) NHS
12 14 (1.00%) Virtual Reality
13 13 (0.93%) Augmented Reality
13 13 (0.93%) Self-Motivation
14 12 (0.85%) Algorithms
14 12 (0.85%) Low-Code
14 12 (0.85%) Management Information System
15 11 (0.78%) Graphic Design
Operating Systems
1 100 (7.12%) Windows
2 39 (2.78%) Windows 10
3 37 (2.63%) Android
4 30 (2.14%) Apple iOS
5 20 (1.42%) Mac OS
6 13 (0.93%) Linux
7 9 (0.64%) Windows Server
8 6 (0.43%) Unix
9 5 (0.36%) Windows Server 2016
10 4 (0.28%) Windows Server 2019
11 2 (0.14%) Windows Server 2012
12 1 (0.071%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
12 1 (0.071%) Windows 7
12 1 (0.071%) Windows Server 2008
Processes & Methodologies
1 463 (32.95%) Agile
2 461 (32.81%) UX Design
3 217 (15.44%) Problem-Solving
4 214 (15.23%) AI
5 212 (15.09%) User Research
6 200 (14.23%) Analytics
7 177 (12.60%) CI/CD
8 170 (12.10%) Stakeholder Management
9 168 (11.96%) DevOps
10 165 (11.74%) Stakeholder Engagement
11 162 (11.53%) Continuous Improvement
12 150 (10.68%) Roadmaps
13 143 (10.18%) Prototyping
14 133 (9.47%) User-Centered Design (UCD)
15 130 (9.25%) Wireframes
16 128 (9.11%) UX Research
17 127 (9.04%) Service Design
18 118 (8.40%) Decision-Making
19 107 (7.62%) Usability Testing
20 105 (7.47%) Workshop Facilitation
Programming Languages
1 179 (12.74%) JavaScript
2 133 (9.47%) SQL
3 123 (8.75%) Java
4 115 (8.19%) Python
5 108 (7.69%) TypeScript
6 66 (4.70%) C#
7 45 (3.20%) PowerShell
8 27 (1.92%) Kotlin
9 19 (1.35%) Bash
10 15 (1.07%) Data Analysis Expressions
11 11 (0.78%) C++
12 9 (0.64%) Lua
13 8 (0.57%) Swift
14 7 (0.50%) Korn
14 7 (0.50%) Perl
14 7 (0.50%) PL/SQL
15 6 (0.43%) Go
15 6 (0.43%) PHP
15 6 (0.43%) Scala
15 6 (0.43%) VBA
Qualifications
1 181 (12.88%) Security Cleared
2 133 (9.47%) SC Cleared
3 119 (8.47%) Degree
4 35 (2.49%) BPSS Clearance
5 29 (2.06%) Computer Science Degree
6 20 (1.42%) Microsoft Certification
7 16 (1.14%) DV Cleared
8 13 (0.93%) Azure Certification
8 13 (0.93%) Master's Degree
9 12 (0.85%) Cisco Certification
10 10 (0.71%) CCNP
11 8 (0.57%) PMI Certification
12 6 (0.43%) CCA
12 6 (0.43%) CCIE
12 6 (0.43%) Citrix Certification
12 6 (0.43%) OCA
12 6 (0.43%) Oracle Certification
13 4 (0.28%) ISTQB
13 4 (0.28%) ISTQB Foundation Certification
13 4 (0.28%) ITIL Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 248 (17.65%) Accessibility
2 126 (8.97%) QA
3 75 (5.34%) WCAG
4 47 (3.35%) Data Quality
5 39 (2.78%) GDPR
6 24 (1.71%) Actionable Recommendations
7 16 (1.14%) ISO/IEC 27001
8 11 (0.78%) SLA
9 8 (0.57%) PMO
10 6 (0.43%) GMP
10 6 (0.43%) GxP
11 5 (0.36%) Cyber Essentials
11 5 (0.36%) HMG Security Policy Framework
12 4 (0.28%) California Consumer Privacy Act
12 4 (0.28%) GRC
13 3 (0.21%) Disclosure Scotland
13 3 (0.21%) HIPAA
13 3 (0.21%) ISO/IEC 42001
13 3 (0.21%) NCSC
13 3 (0.21%) NIST
System Software
1 76 (5.41%) Active Directory
2 56 (3.99%) Docker
3 19 (1.35%) Virtual Desktop
3 19 (1.35%) VMware Infrastructure
4 6 (0.43%) Firmware
5 4 (0.28%) Hyper-V
6 3 (0.21%) XenApp
6 3 (0.21%) XenDesktop
7 2 (0.14%) Microsoft App-V
8 1 (0.071%) ISA Server
8 1 (0.071%) Varnish
8 1 (0.071%) Virtual Machines
8 1 (0.071%) VMware ESXi
Systems Management
1 58 (4.13%) Kubernetes
2 46 (3.27%) Terraform
3 34 (2.42%) Microsoft Intune
4 28 (1.99%) Grafana
4 28 (1.99%) SCCM
5 15 (1.07%) Ansible
5 15 (1.07%) Single Sign-On
6 9 (0.64%) Prometheus
7 4 (0.28%) Jamf Pro
8 3 (0.21%) Argo
8 3 (0.21%) HP ALM
8 3 (0.21%) Nagios
8 3 (0.21%) Podman
8 3 (0.21%) Rancher
8 3 (0.21%) Systems Management Server (SMS)
9 2 (0.14%) Failover Clustering
9 2 (0.14%) FortiGate
9 2 (0.14%) SysTrack
9 2 (0.14%) WSUS
10 1 (0.071%) AirWatch
Vendors
1 207 (14.73%) Microsoft
2 91 (6.48%) Adobe
3 68 (4.84%) Google
4 54 (3.84%) ServiceNow
5 48 (3.42%) Oracle
5 48 (3.42%) SAP
6 40 (2.85%) Salesforce
7 25 (1.78%) Citrix
8 19 (1.35%) VMware
9 18 (1.28%) Splunk
10 17 (1.21%) Workday
11 15 (1.07%) Cisco
12 14 (1.00%) Apple
13 10 (0.71%) Databricks
13 10 (0.71%) Sitecore
14 9 (0.64%) Foundry
14 9 (0.64%) MuleSoft
15 8 (0.57%) Aruba
15 8 (0.57%) OpenAI
15 8 (0.57%) Zscaler