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

6 months to
9 Mar 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 74 66 70
Rank change year-on-year -8 +4 -4
Contract jobs citing User Experience 1,377 1,021 1,276
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 3.26% 3.43% 2.85%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 3.78% 3.80% 3.29%
Number of daily rates quoted 954 677 855
10th Percentile £313 £310 £306
25th Percentile £400 £400 £400
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £488 £499 £500
Median % change year-on-year -2.30% -0.20% -
75th Percentile £575 £588 £588
90th Percentile £650 £701 £691
UK excluding London median daily rate £475 £450 £475
% change year-on-year +5.56% -5.26% +2.15%
Number of hourly rates quoted 47 24 49
10th Percentile £15.50 £25.26 £16.25
25th Percentile £17.69 £34.88 £25.00
Median hourly rate £40.00 £45.00 £40.00
Median % change year-on-year -11.11% +12.50% -11.11%
75th Percentile £61.25 £53.56 £72.50
90th Percentile £71.70 £73.86 £79.25
UK excluding London median hourly rate £35.50 £41.00 £25.00
% change year-on-year -13.41% +64.00% -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 36,399 26,862 38,734
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 86.19% 90.27% 86.61%
Number of daily rates quoted 23,113 17,118 25,178
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 £612 £638 £638
90th Percentile £725 £743 £738
UK excluding London median daily rate £481 £491 £500
% change year-on-year -2.04% -1.80% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 2,154 913 2,346
10th Percentile £14.64 £15.52 £13.00
25th Percentile £18.50 £21.00 £16.06
Median hourly rate £29.00 £32.50 £32.50
Median % change year-on-year -10.77% - -7.14%
75th Percentile £63.75 £64.52 £57.50
90th Percentile £74.26 £76.25 £71.50
UK excluding London median hourly rate £25.77 £31.76 £31.50
% change year-on-year -18.86% +0.83% -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 9 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 9 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 9 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 -4 1,181 £489 -2.25% 886
London -15 611 £500 -4.76% 306
UK excluding London -3 597 £475 +5.56% 734
Work from Home -27 354 £500 +0.91% 550
North of England +15 204 £465 +9.41% 173
North West +21 131 £420 -6.67% 93
South East -11 122 £488 -2.99% 231
Midlands -13 111 £505 +26.25% 114
South West -13 65 £450 +20.00% 89
West Midlands -31 62 £475 +18.01% 61
Scotland -2 59 £496 +13.43% 23
Yorkshire -22 52 £513 +28.13% 55
East Midlands +2 49 £550 +54.49% 50
East of England -26 29 £400 -16.67% 94
North East +2 20 £388 -8.82% 26
Wales +2 14 £375 -9.09% 22
Northern Ireland -8 4 £625 +92.31% 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 60 (4.36%) SharePoint
2 50 (3.63%) Confluence
3 38 (2.76%) CMS
4 24 (1.74%) Adobe Experience Manager
5 18 (1.31%) Microsoft Exchange
6 12 (0.87%) Headless CMS
7 10 (0.73%) Apache
8 9 (0.65%) SugarCRM
9 8 (0.58%) Sitecore CMS
9 8 (0.58%) Umbraco
10 4 (0.29%) Camunda
10 4 (0.29%) Ethereum
10 4 (0.29%) Hyperledger
10 4 (0.29%) Mendix
11 3 (0.22%) Anypoint
11 3 (0.22%) Apache Spark
11 3 (0.22%) Drupal
11 3 (0.22%) Jupyter
12 2 (0.15%) Appian
12 2 (0.15%) WordPress
Applications
1 46 (3.34%) Sketch
2 36 (2.61%) Adobe XD
3 23 (1.67%) MS Visio
4 22 (1.60%) Microsoft Excel
5 19 (1.38%) Chatbot
6 17 (1.23%) Microsoft Office
7 14 (1.02%) InVision
8 12 (0.87%) Photoshop
9 10 (0.73%) Adobe Illustrator
10 6 (0.44%) Adobe Creative Suite
10 6 (0.44%) Microsoft PowerPoint
10 6 (0.44%) Spreadsheet
10 6 (0.44%) 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%) UserZoom
14 2 (0.15%) Camtasia
14 2 (0.15%) InDesign
Business Applications
1 20 (1.45%) SAP S/4HANA
2 14 (1.02%) Dynamics CRM
3 6 (0.44%) Sage X3
3 6 (0.44%) 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 (0.15%) iTrent
6 2 (0.15%) Magento
6 2 (0.15%) Oracle EBS
6 2 (0.15%) SAP ERP
6 2 (0.15%) SAP SD
6 2 (0.15%) SAP Travel Management
7 1 (0.073%) assyst
7 1 (0.073%) Elite 3E
7 1 (0.073%) Integrated Workplace Management System
7 1 (0.073%) NetSuite
7 1 (0.073%) SAP QM
7 1 (0.073%) Teamcenter
Cloud Services
1 226 (16.41%) Azure
2 186 (13.51%) Figma
3 151 (10.97%) AWS
4 97 (7.04%) Power Platform
5 82 (5.95%) Microsoft 365
6 65 (4.72%) GCP
7 63 (4.58%) SaaS
8 57 (4.14%) Entra ID
9 55 (3.99%) Azure DevOps
10 52 (3.78%) GitHub
11 35 (2.54%) Power Automate
12 34 (2.47%) PowerApps
13 33 (2.40%) Serverless
14 32 (2.32%) GitHub Actions
15 28 (2.03%) Miro
16 23 (1.67%) Google Workspace
17 22 (1.60%) Cloud Computing
18 21 (1.53%) Dynamics 365
18 21 (1.53%) Microsoft Copilot
19 20 (1.45%) Azure Logic Apps
Communications & Networking
1 21 (1.53%) DNS
2 19 (1.38%) Wireless
3 16 (1.16%) Internet
4 14 (1.02%) HTTP
5 11 (0.80%) Wi-Fi
6 10 (0.73%) DHCP
6 10 (0.73%) Intranet
6 10 (0.73%) VPN
7 9 (0.65%) TCP/IP
8 8 (0.58%) BGP
8 8 (0.58%) Cisco ISE
8 8 (0.58%) Cisco Wireless
8 8 (0.58%) Firewall
9 7 (0.51%) NX-OS
9 7 (0.51%) VXLAN
9 7 (0.51%) WAN
10 6 (0.44%) LAN
10 6 (0.44%) SD-WAN
11 5 (0.36%) Network Security
11 5 (0.36%) SSL
Database & Business Intelligence
1 64 (4.65%) Power BI
2 37 (2.69%) Relational Database
3 34 (2.47%) MySQL
4 32 (2.32%) NoSQL
5 28 (2.03%) PostgreSQL
6 23 (1.67%) Data Warehouse
7 20 (1.45%) SQL Server
8 17 (1.23%) Tableau
9 15 (1.09%) MongoDB
10 14 (1.02%) BigQuery
10 14 (1.02%) Metadata
11 11 (0.80%) Looker
12 8 (0.58%) Power Query
13 7 (0.51%) DynamoDB
13 7 (0.51%) Mixpanel
13 7 (0.51%) Pinecone
14 6 (0.44%) Redis
14 6 (0.44%) ZAP BI
15 5 (0.36%) Hadoop
16 4 (0.29%) Oracle Reports
Development Applications
1 116 (8.42%) JIRA
2 94 (6.83%) Git
3 47 (3.41%) GitLab
4 31 (2.25%) Jenkins
5 30 (2.18%) Cypress.io
6 26 (1.89%) JUnit
7 24 (1.74%) Axure RP
8 19 (1.38%) Android Studio
9 18 (1.31%) Xcode
10 16 (1.16%) Gradle
11 15 (1.09%) Eclipse
12 13 (0.94%) Browser DevTools
13 12 (0.87%) CircleCI
14 9 (0.65%) Artifactory
14 9 (0.65%) Postman
15 8 (0.58%) Mocha
15 8 (0.58%) Mockito
15 8 (0.58%) Selenium
16 7 (0.51%) Jasmine
17 6 (0.44%) Cucumber
General
1 461 (33.48%) Social Skills
2 253 (18.37%) Finance
3 203 (14.74%) Public Sector
4 151 (10.97%) Analytical Skills
5 103 (7.48%) Banking
6 76 (5.52%) Marketing
7 40 (2.90%) Retail
8 29 (2.11%) Influencing Skills
8 29 (2.11%) Presentation Skills
9 27 (1.96%) Legal
10 22 (1.60%) Manufacturing
11 19 (1.38%) Pharmaceutical
12 17 (1.23%) Financial Institution
12 17 (1.23%) Investment Banking
13 16 (1.16%) Documentation Skills
13 16 (1.16%) Games
14 13 (0.94%) Telecoms
15 12 (0.87%) Inclusion and Diversity
16 11 (0.80%) Front Office
16 11 (0.80%) Publishing
Job Titles
1 243 (17.65%) Designer
2 232 (16.85%) Developer
3 204 (14.81%) Senior
4 132 (9.59%) UX Designer
5 129 (9.37%) Analyst
6 69 (5.01%) Lead
7 62 (4.50%) Business Analyst
8 61 (4.43%) Consultant
9 57 (4.14%) Senior Designer
10 56 (4.07%) Product Designer
11 51 (3.70%) Architect
12 48 (3.49%) User Researcher
13 41 (2.98%) Software Engineer
14 40 (2.90%) Front-End Developer (Client-Side Developer)
14 40 (2.90%) Senior Developer
15 39 (2.83%) Full-Stack Developer
16 38 (2.76%) Service Designer
16 38 (2.76%) Support Engineer
17 37 (2.69%) UI Designer
18 35 (2.54%) Senior UX Designer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 172 (12.49%) React
2 168 (12.20%) CSS
3 154 (11.18%) HTML
4 120 (8.71%) REST
5 93 (6.75%) RESTful
6 91 (6.61%) AngularJS
7 61 (4.43%) Spring
7 61 (4.43%) Spring Boot
8 55 (3.99%) .NET
9 51 (3.70%) Node.js
10 43 (3.12%) HTML5
11 37 (2.69%) GraphQL
12 36 (2.61%) Jest
13 35 (2.54%) CSS3
14 34 (2.47%) JSON
15 31 (2.25%) Redux
16 26 (1.89%) Next.js
17 24 (1.74%) SOAP
18 22 (1.60%) Vue
19 21 (1.53%) Playwright
Miscellaneous
1 136 (9.88%) Product Ownership
2 91 (6.61%) Mobile App
3 56 (4.07%) Onboarding
4 26 (1.89%) AI Agents
4 26 (1.89%) Analytical Mindset
4 26 (1.89%) Data Structures
5 25 (1.82%) Enterprise Software
6 17 (1.23%) Data Protection Act
7 16 (1.16%) Distributed Systems
8 15 (1.09%) Data Centre
8 15 (1.09%) Legacy Systems
8 15 (1.09%) Virtual Team
9 14 (1.02%) Cloud Native
9 14 (1.02%) Low-Code
9 14 (1.02%) NHS
10 13 (0.94%) CMDB
11 12 (0.87%) Algorithms
12 11 (0.80%) Foreign Exchange (FX)
13 10 (0.73%) Graphic Design
13 10 (0.73%) Management Information System
Operating Systems
1 131 (9.51%) Windows
2 49 (3.56%) Android
3 44 (3.20%) Windows 10
4 37 (2.69%) Apple iOS
5 29 (2.11%) Linux
6 24 (1.74%) Mac OS
7 16 (1.16%) Unix
8 6 (0.44%) Windows Server
9 3 (0.22%) Ubuntu
10 1 (0.073%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
10 1 (0.073%) Windows 7
10 1 (0.073%) Windows Server 2008
10 1 (0.073%) Windows Server 2016
Processes & Methodologies
1 464 (33.70%) Agile
2 454 (32.97%) UX Design
3 220 (15.98%) Problem-Solving
4 211 (15.32%) User Research
5 210 (15.25%) Analytics
6 186 (13.51%) CI/CD
7 166 (12.06%) DevOps
8 164 (11.91%) AI
8 164 (11.91%) Stakeholder Management
9 159 (11.55%) Continuous Improvement
10 156 (11.33%) Stakeholder Engagement
11 141 (10.24%) Roadmaps
11 141 (10.24%) User-Centered Design (UCD)
12 129 (9.37%) Prototyping
13 123 (8.93%) Wireframes
14 122 (8.86%) Service Design
15 120 (8.71%) Decision-Making
16 113 (8.21%) UX Research
17 112 (8.13%) Usability Testing
18 102 (7.41%) Workshop Facilitation
Programming Languages
1 199 (14.45%) JavaScript
2 139 (10.09%) SQL
3 121 (8.79%) Python
4 118 (8.57%) Java
5 111 (8.06%) TypeScript
6 67 (4.87%) PowerShell
7 57 (4.14%) C#
8 32 (2.32%) Kotlin
9 22 (1.60%) Bash
10 17 (1.23%) PHP
11 16 (1.16%) Perl
12 15 (1.09%) C++
13 14 (1.02%) Swift
14 13 (0.94%) Data Analysis Expressions
15 9 (0.65%) Lua
16 8 (0.58%) PL/SQL
17 7 (0.51%) Lisp
18 6 (0.44%) Go
18 6 (0.44%) Scala
18 6 (0.44%) VBA
Qualifications
1 188 (13.65%) Security Cleared
2 134 (9.73%) SC Cleared
3 127 (9.22%) Degree
4 39 (2.83%) BPSS Clearance
5 23 (1.67%) Computer Science Degree
6 18 (1.31%) DV Cleared
7 17 (1.23%) Master's Degree
8 15 (1.09%) Microsoft Certification
9 11 (0.80%) CCNP
9 11 (0.80%) Cisco Certification
10 10 (0.73%) MOS
11 8 (0.58%) PMI Certification
12 7 (0.51%) OCA
12 7 (0.51%) Oracle Certification
13 5 (0.36%) CCA
13 5 (0.36%) Citrix Certification
14 4 (0.29%) Azure Certification
14 4 (0.29%) ITIL Certification
15 3 (0.22%) CESG Certified Professional
16 2 (0.15%) PMP
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 244 (17.72%) Accessibility
2 137 (9.95%) QA
3 73 (5.30%) WCAG
4 47 (3.41%) Data Quality
5 43 (3.12%) GDPR
6 24 (1.74%) ISO/IEC 27001
7 22 (1.60%) Actionable Recommendations
8 19 (1.38%) SLA
9 8 (0.58%) PMO
10 6 (0.44%) NCSC
11 4 (0.29%) California Consumer Privacy Act
12 3 (0.22%) Cyber Essentials
12 3 (0.22%) Disclosure Scotland
12 3 (0.22%) GMP
12 3 (0.22%) Government Security Classifications
12 3 (0.22%) GxP
12 3 (0.22%) HIPAA
12 3 (0.22%) NIST
13 2 (0.15%) ISO 20022
13 2 (0.15%) PCI DSS
System Software
1 78 (5.66%) Active Directory
2 65 (4.72%) Docker
3 23 (1.67%) VMware Infrastructure
4 13 (0.94%) Virtual Desktop
5 4 (0.29%) Firmware
6 3 (0.22%) Hyper-V
7 2 (0.15%) ProxySG
8 1 (0.073%) BitLocker
8 1 (0.073%) ISA Server
8 1 (0.073%) Microsoft App-V
8 1 (0.073%) Virtual Machines
8 1 (0.073%) VMware ESXi
8 1 (0.073%) XenApp
8 1 (0.073%) XenDesktop
Systems Management
1 59 (4.28%) Kubernetes
2 50 (3.63%) Microsoft Intune
3 40 (2.90%) Terraform
4 38 (2.76%) 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 (0.44%) Jamf Pro
9 6 (0.44%) Prometheus
10 4 (0.29%) Argo
10 4 (0.29%) HP ALM
11 3 (0.22%) Nagios
11 3 (0.22%) Rancher
12 2 (0.15%) SysTrack
13 1 (0.073%) Active Directory Federation Services
13 1 (0.073%) Consul
13 1 (0.073%) PingFederate
13 1 (0.073%) Podman
13 1 (0.073%) WMI
Vendors
1 225 (16.34%) Microsoft
2 91 (6.61%) Adobe
3 80 (5.81%) Google
4 78 (5.66%) ServiceNow
5 48 (3.49%) SAP
6 39 (2.83%) Oracle
7 35 (2.54%) Salesforce
8 24 (1.74%) Splunk
8 24 (1.74%) VMware
9 23 (1.67%) Citrix
10 16 (1.16%) Cisco
11 14 (1.02%) Apple
12 12 (0.87%) Red Hat
12 12 (0.87%) Zscaler
13 10 (0.73%) Hotjar
14 9 (0.65%) Amplitude
14 9 (0.65%) Ekahau
14 9 (0.65%) MuleSoft
14 9 (0.65%) Optimizely
14 9 (0.65%) Workday