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

6 months to
6 Apr 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 79 60 71
Rank change year-on-year -19 +11 -8
Contract jobs citing User Experience 1,408 1,074 1,265
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 3.11% 3.67% 2.88%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 3.65% 4.06% 3.34%
Number of daily rates quoted 969 735 838
10th Percentile £313 £308 £306
25th Percentile £400 £400 £400
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £488 £490 £500
Median % change year-on-year -0.51% -2.00% -
75th Percentile £575 £580 £600
90th Percentile £663 £688 £688
UK excluding London median daily rate £475 £450 £475
% change year-on-year +5.56% -5.26% +2.37%
Number of hourly rates quoted 44 23 48
10th Percentile £17.01 £28.31 £16.25
25th Percentile £20.10 £41.58 £24.69
Median hourly rate £50.00 £52.50 £32.11
Median % change year-on-year -4.76% +63.53% -18.20%
75th Percentile £61.81 £77.73 £62.45
90th Percentile £79.68 £93.50 £73.15
UK excluding London median hourly rate £37.50 £61.75 £25.00
% change year-on-year -39.27% +147.00% -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 38,628 26,479 37,892
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 85.41% 90.55% 86.36%
Number of daily rates quoted 24,477 17,189 24,572
10th Percentile £314 £308 £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 £750
UK excluding London median daily rate £487 £488 £500
% change year-on-year -0.10% -2.50% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 2,295 988 2,354
10th Percentile £15.00 £15.00 £12.75
25th Percentile £19.00 £19.99 £16.00
Median hourly rate £35.91 £31.58 £32.50
Median % change year-on-year +13.71% -2.83% -13.33%
75th Percentile £65.00 £63.75 £57.50
90th Percentile £77.50 £75.73 £70.27
UK excluding London median hourly rate £35.55 £30.00 £32.12
% change year-on-year +18.50% -6.59% -13.90%

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 6 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 6 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 6 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 -18 1,221 £486 -2.75% 728
London -21 630 £500 -2.91% 296
UK excluding London -11 610 £475 +5.56% 522
Work from Home -26 364 £475 -3.94% 357
North of England -5 208 £450 - 176
North West +2 130 £420 -6.67% 94
South East -15 122 £490 -2.24% 122
Midlands -18 122 £500 +25.00% 93
West Midlands -25 81 £475 +9.51% 62
South West -8 67 £475 +26.67% 59
Yorkshire -20 53 £506 +26.40% 45
Scotland -6 51 £496 +13.43% 23
East Midlands -6 41 £550 +54.06% 31
East of England -20 29 £425 -10.99% 33
North East -1 24 £405 -15.63% 39
Wales -3 15 £375 -6.25% 19
Northern Ireland -10 3 - - 5

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 56 (3.98%) SharePoint
2 47 (3.34%) Confluence
3 39 (2.77%) CMS
4 20 (1.42%) Adobe Experience Manager
5 18 (1.28%) Microsoft Exchange
6 9 (0.64%) Apache
7 8 (0.57%) Headless CMS
8 6 (0.43%) Sitecore CMS
8 6 (0.43%) Umbraco
9 5 (0.36%) Camunda
10 4 (0.28%) Ethereum
10 4 (0.28%) Hyperledger
10 4 (0.28%) Mendix
11 3 (0.21%) Anypoint
11 3 (0.21%) Apache Spark
11 3 (0.21%) Drupal
11 3 (0.21%) Jupyter
11 3 (0.21%) nginx
12 2 (0.14%) Appian
13 1 (0.071%) Strapi
Applications
1 45 (3.20%) Sketch
2 35 (2.49%) Adobe XD
3 28 (1.99%) Microsoft Excel
4 23 (1.63%) MS Visio
5 22 (1.56%) Chatbot
6 16 (1.14%) Microsoft Office
7 15 (1.07%) InVision
8 12 (0.85%) Photoshop
9 8 (0.57%) Adobe Illustrator
10 7 (0.50%) Microsoft PowerPoint
11 6 (0.43%) Spreadsheet
12 5 (0.36%) Adobe After Effects
12 5 (0.36%) Adobe Creative Suite
13 4 (0.28%) Trello
13 4 (0.28%) UXPin
14 3 (0.21%) Adobe Captivate
14 3 (0.21%) Microsoft Project
14 3 (0.21%) UserZoom
15 2 (0.14%) Camtasia
15 2 (0.14%) OmniGraffle
Business Applications
1 16 (1.14%) Dynamics CRM
2 12 (0.85%) SAP S/4HANA
3 7 (0.50%) Shopify
3 7 (0.50%) Workday HCM
4 6 (0.43%) Sage X3
5 2 (0.14%) Magento
5 2 (0.14%) NEC Housing
5 2 (0.14%) Oracle EBS
5 2 (0.14%) ResourceLink
5 2 (0.14%) SAP CO
5 2 (0.14%) SAP ERP
5 2 (0.14%) SAP FI
5 2 (0.14%) SAP FI/CO
5 2 (0.14%) Sprinklr
6 1 (0.071%) iTrent
6 1 (0.071%) Oracle ERP
6 1 (0.071%) Oracle Payables
6 1 (0.071%) Oracle Payroll
6 1 (0.071%) Oracle Receivables
6 1 (0.071%) SAP CRM
Cloud Services
1 236 (16.76%) Azure
2 196 (13.92%) Figma
3 132 (9.38%) AWS
4 102 (7.24%) Power Platform
5 89 (6.32%) Microsoft 365
6 65 (4.62%) Azure DevOps
7 56 (3.98%) Entra ID
7 56 (3.98%) GCP
8 53 (3.76%) GitHub
9 43 (3.05%) SaaS
10 38 (2.70%) PowerApps
11 37 (2.63%) Power Automate
11 37 (2.63%) Serverless
12 32 (2.27%) GitHub Actions
13 29 (2.06%) Microsoft Copilot
14 24 (1.70%) Dynamics 365
15 23 (1.63%) Google Workspace
16 22 (1.56%) Cloud Computing
16 22 (1.56%) Miro
17 20 (1.42%) Google Sheets
Communications & Networking
1 18 (1.28%) DNS
2 14 (0.99%) Wireless
3 13 (0.92%) LAN
3 13 (0.92%) VPN
4 12 (0.85%) HTTP
5 11 (0.78%) Firewall
5 11 (0.78%) Internet
5 11 (0.78%) Intranet
5 11 (0.78%) SD-WAN
5 11 (0.78%) TCP/IP
5 11 (0.78%) WAN
5 11 (0.78%) Wi-Fi
6 10 (0.71%) DHCP
7 8 (0.57%) Network Security
7 8 (0.57%) SSL
8 6 (0.43%) BGP
8 6 (0.43%) Cisco ISE
8 6 (0.43%) Cisco Wireless
9 5 (0.36%) WLAN
10 4 (0.28%) SMS
Database & Business Intelligence
1 68 (4.83%) Power BI
2 34 (2.41%) NoSQL
3 33 (2.34%) Relational Database
4 29 (2.06%) PostgreSQL
5 25 (1.78%) Data Warehouse
6 23 (1.63%) SQL Server
7 22 (1.56%) MySQL
8 18 (1.28%) Tableau
9 17 (1.21%) Metadata
9 17 (1.21%) MongoDB
10 12 (0.85%) BigQuery
11 9 (0.64%) Looker
12 8 (0.57%) Power Query
13 7 (0.50%) Pinecone
13 7 (0.50%) Redis
14 6 (0.43%) DynamoDB
14 6 (0.43%) Oracle BI Publisher
14 6 (0.43%) ZAP BI
15 5 (0.36%) Hadoop
16 4 (0.28%) Azure SQL Database
Development Applications
1 110 (7.81%) JIRA
2 84 (5.97%) Git
3 42 (2.98%) GitLab
4 28 (1.99%) Cypress.io
4 28 (1.99%) Jenkins
5 26 (1.85%) JUnit
6 23 (1.63%) Axure RP
7 14 (0.99%) Gradle
8 13 (0.92%) Selenium
9 12 (0.85%) Android Studio
9 12 (0.85%) CircleCI
10 11 (0.78%) Browser DevTools
11 10 (0.71%) Postman
11 10 (0.71%) Xcode
12 8 (0.57%) Eclipse
12 8 (0.57%) Mocha
12 8 (0.57%) Mockito
12 8 (0.57%) Visual Studio
12 8 (0.57%) Vite
13 7 (0.50%) Artifactory
General
1 451 (32.03%) Social Skills
2 271 (19.25%) Finance
3 202 (14.35%) Public Sector
4 167 (11.86%) Analytical Skills
5 116 (8.24%) Banking
6 57 (4.05%) Marketing
7 49 (3.48%) Retail
8 31 (2.20%) Legal
9 30 (2.13%) Presentation Skills
10 28 (1.99%) Influencing Skills
11 21 (1.49%) Manufacturing
12 20 (1.42%) Documentation Skills
13 18 (1.28%) Pharmaceutical
14 17 (1.21%) Games
15 14 (0.99%) Financial Institution
15 14 (0.99%) Front Office
15 14 (0.99%) Investment Banking
15 14 (0.99%) Organisational Skills
16 13 (0.92%) Inclusion and Diversity
16 13 (0.92%) Publishing
Job Titles
1 271 (19.25%) Designer
2 218 (15.48%) Developer
3 214 (15.20%) Senior
4 139 (9.87%) UX Designer
5 132 (9.38%) Analyst
6 66 (4.69%) Business Analyst
6 66 (4.69%) Lead
7 65 (4.62%) Consultant
8 63 (4.47%) Architect
9 60 (4.26%) Product Designer
10 58 (4.12%) Senior Designer
11 51 (3.62%) User Researcher
12 46 (3.27%) UI Designer
13 41 (2.91%) Senior Developer
14 40 (2.84%) Full-Stack Developer
14 40 (2.84%) Service Designer
15 38 (2.70%) Software Engineer
15 38 (2.70%) Support Engineer
16 36 (2.56%) IT Support
17 35 (2.49%) UI/UX Designer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 171 (12.14%) React
2 151 (10.72%) CSS
3 139 (9.87%) HTML
4 114 (8.10%) REST
5 87 (6.18%) RESTful
6 82 (5.82%) AngularJS
7 66 (4.69%) Spring
8 65 (4.62%) Spring Boot
9 58 (4.12%) .NET
10 49 (3.48%) Node.js
11 43 (3.05%) HTML5
12 37 (2.63%) CSS3
13 35 (2.49%) Redux
14 34 (2.41%) GraphQL
14 34 (2.41%) Jest
15 31 (2.20%) JSON
16 27 (1.92%) Next.js
17 26 (1.85%) Vue
18 22 (1.56%) Playwright
19 21 (1.49%) Kafka
Miscellaneous
1 140 (9.94%) Product Ownership
2 79 (5.61%) Mobile App
3 50 (3.55%) Onboarding
4 31 (2.20%) Enterprise Software
5 30 (2.13%) AI Agents
6 27 (1.92%) Data Structures
7 24 (1.70%) Analytical Mindset
8 19 (1.35%) Data Protection Act
9 18 (1.28%) Cloud Native
10 17 (1.21%) Distributed Systems
10 17 (1.21%) Foreign Exchange (FX)
11 15 (1.07%) NHS
12 13 (0.92%) Algorithms
12 13 (0.92%) Legacy Systems
12 13 (0.92%) Virtual Team
13 12 (0.85%) Data Centre
13 12 (0.85%) Management Information System
14 11 (0.78%) Graphic Design
14 11 (0.78%) Low-Code
14 11 (0.78%) Self-Motivation
Operating Systems
1 118 (8.38%) Windows
2 44 (3.13%) Windows 10
3 43 (3.05%) Android
4 31 (2.20%) Apple iOS
5 23 (1.63%) Mac OS
6 22 (1.56%) Linux
7 8 (0.57%) Unix
8 7 (0.50%) Windows Server
9 1 (0.071%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
9 1 (0.071%) Ubuntu
9 1 (0.071%) Windows 7
9 1 (0.071%) Windows Server 2008
9 1 (0.071%) Windows Server 2016
Processes & Methodologies
1 465 (33.03%) Agile
2 456 (32.39%) UX Design
3 225 (15.98%) Problem-Solving
4 207 (14.70%) User Research
5 203 (14.42%) Analytics
6 197 (13.99%) AI
7 179 (12.71%) CI/CD
8 172 (12.22%) DevOps
9 168 (11.93%) Stakeholder Management
10 163 (11.58%) Stakeholder Engagement
11 161 (11.43%) Continuous Improvement
12 141 (10.01%) Prototyping
13 138 (9.80%) Roadmaps
14 135 (9.59%) User-Centered Design (UCD)
15 126 (8.95%) Wireframes
16 124 (8.81%) Service Design
17 123 (8.74%) Decision-Making
18 118 (8.38%) UX Research
19 104 (7.39%) Usability Testing
20 95 (6.75%) Test Automation
Programming Languages
1 184 (13.07%) JavaScript
2 144 (10.23%) SQL
3 124 (8.81%) Java
4 122 (8.66%) Python
5 113 (8.03%) TypeScript
6 63 (4.47%) C#
7 53 (3.76%) PowerShell
8 30 (2.13%) Kotlin
9 18 (1.28%) Bash
10 13 (0.92%) Data Analysis Expressions
11 12 (0.85%) C++
12 11 (0.78%) Perl
13 9 (0.64%) Lua
13 9 (0.64%) Swift
14 8 (0.57%) PHP
15 7 (0.50%) PL/SQL
16 6 (0.43%) Go
16 6 (0.43%) Korn
16 6 (0.43%) Scala
16 6 (0.43%) VBA
Qualifications
1 193 (13.71%) Security Cleared
2 141 (10.01%) SC Cleared
3 122 (8.66%) Degree
4 35 (2.49%) BPSS Clearance
5 28 (1.99%) Computer Science Degree
6 19 (1.35%) Microsoft Certification
7 18 (1.28%) DV Cleared
8 16 (1.14%) Master's Degree
9 12 (0.85%) Azure Certification
10 11 (0.78%) Cisco Certification
11 10 (0.71%) CCNP
12 8 (0.57%) PMI Certification
13 6 (0.43%) Citrix Certification
13 6 (0.43%) MOS
13 6 (0.43%) OCA
13 6 (0.43%) Oracle Certification
14 5 (0.36%) CCA
15 4 (0.28%) CCIE
15 4 (0.28%) ISTQB
15 4 (0.28%) ISTQB Foundation Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 249 (17.68%) Accessibility
2 131 (9.30%) QA
3 77 (5.47%) WCAG
4 46 (3.27%) Data Quality
5 40 (2.84%) GDPR
6 22 (1.56%) Actionable Recommendations
7 17 (1.21%) ISO/IEC 27001
8 14 (0.99%) SLA
9 8 (0.57%) PMO
10 6 (0.43%) NCSC
11 5 (0.36%) HMG Security Policy Framework
12 4 (0.28%) California Consumer Privacy Act
12 4 (0.28%) Cyber Essentials
12 4 (0.28%) GMP
12 4 (0.28%) GRC
12 4 (0.28%) GxP
12 4 (0.28%) NIST
13 3 (0.21%) Disclosure Scotland
13 3 (0.21%) HIPAA
13 3 (0.21%) ISO/IEC 42001
System Software
1 77 (5.47%) Active Directory
2 68 (4.83%) Docker
3 19 (1.35%) VMware Infrastructure
4 16 (1.14%) Virtual Desktop
5 5 (0.36%) Firmware
6 4 (0.28%) Hyper-V
7 2 (0.14%) ProxySG
8 1 (0.071%) ISA Server
8 1 (0.071%) Varnish
8 1 (0.071%) Virtual Machines
8 1 (0.071%) VMware ESXi
8 1 (0.071%) XenApp
8 1 (0.071%) XenDesktop
Systems Management
1 61 (4.33%) Kubernetes
2 42 (2.98%) Terraform
3 37 (2.63%) Microsoft Intune
4 26 (1.85%) SCCM
5 24 (1.70%) Grafana
6 16 (1.14%) Single Sign-On
7 14 (0.99%) Ansible
8 7 (0.50%) Jamf Pro
9 6 (0.43%) Prometheus
10 4 (0.28%) Argo
10 4 (0.28%) FortiGate
11 3 (0.21%) HP ALM
11 3 (0.21%) Nagios
11 3 (0.21%) Rancher
12 2 (0.14%) Podman
12 2 (0.14%) Systems Management Server (SMS)
12 2 (0.14%) SysTrack
13 1 (0.071%) Consul
13 1 (0.071%) Kibana
13 1 (0.071%) WMI
Vendors
1 214 (15.20%) Microsoft
2 86 (6.11%) Adobe
3 72 (5.11%) Google
4 62 (4.40%) ServiceNow
5 44 (3.13%) SAP
6 43 (3.05%) Oracle
7 35 (2.49%) Salesforce
8 23 (1.63%) Citrix
9 20 (1.42%) VMware
10 18 (1.28%) Splunk
11 17 (1.21%) Cisco
12 15 (1.07%) Apple
13 13 (0.92%) Workday
14 11 (0.78%) Zscaler
15 10 (0.71%) Red Hat
16 9 (0.64%) Foundry
16 9 (0.64%) MuleSoft
16 9 (0.64%) OpenAI
17 8 (0.57%) Databricks
17 8 (0.57%) Ekahau