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 10 October 2026, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
10 Oct 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 99 64 80
Rank change year-on-year -35 +16 -10
Contract jobs citing User Experience 1,552 1,243 1,041
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 2.84% 3.75% 2.74%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 3.36% 4.15% 3.19%
Number of daily rates quoted 935 795 615
10th Percentile £313 £300 £313
25th Percentile £402 £375 £400
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £488 £475 £500
Median % change year-on-year +2.63% -5.00% -1.96%
75th Percentile £588 £575 £588
90th Percentile £700 £675 £688
UK excluding London median daily rate £450 £450 £463
% change year-on-year - -2.70% -2.63%
Number of hourly rates quoted 75 55 26
10th Percentile £16.56 £15.50 £27.63
25th Percentile £27.17 £20.25 £30.48
Median hourly rate £42.31 £35.60 £39.75
Median % change year-on-year +18.85% -10.44% -16.32%
75th Percentile £68.50 £53.13 £68.94
90th Percentile £80.60 £63.75 £74.44
UK excluding London median hourly rate £35.22 £25.15 £33.54
% change year-on-year +40.04% -25.01% +2.85%

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 46,195 29,974 32,629
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 84.63% 90.49% 86.03%
Number of daily rates quoted 27,749 18,609 19,667
10th Percentile £325 £294 £308
25th Percentile £425 £404 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £500 £525
Median % change year-on-year +5.00% -4.76% -2.78%
75th Percentile £638 £623 £638
90th Percentile £738 £725 £750
UK excluding London median daily rate £500 £475 £500
% change year-on-year +5.26% -5.00% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 3,350 1,884 1,294
10th Percentile £13.54 £14.35 £15.00
25th Percentile £17.00 £17.30 £20.03
Median hourly rate £37.50 £25.15 £40.16
Median % change year-on-year +49.11% -37.38% -8.38%
75th Percentile £65.00 £43.00 £65.00
90th Percentile £78.75 £65.00 £73.93
UK excluding London median hourly rate £37.50 £22.27 £41.50
% change year-on-year +68.43% -46.35% -2.35%

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 10 October 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 10 October 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 10 October 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 -32 1,345 £475 - 3,072
UK excluding London -9 734 £450 - 1,342
London -32 683 £507 +4.05% 1,878
Work from Home -28 392 £500 - 1,343
North of England -7 273 £425 - 378
North West -22 145 £408 -2.19% 205
Midlands -10 143 £475 +5.56% 188
West Midlands -5 113 £463 -7.34% 123
South East -61 95 £400 -15.79% 286
Scotland +1 93 £538 +18.13% 113
Yorkshire 0 81 £500 +15.94% 117
South West -6 75 £475 +5.56% 148
North East -3 46 £325 -27.78% 56
East of England -16 44 £410 -21.90% 137
East Midlands -15 30 £500 +23.92% 65
Wales -12 13 £530 +66.36% 34
Northern Ireland +9 4 £638 +2.00% 64

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 76 (4.90%) SharePoint
2 65 (4.19%) CMS
3 50 (3.22%) Confluence
4 29 (1.87%) Microsoft Exchange
5 16 (1.03%) WordPress
6 7 (0.45%) Adobe Experience Manager
6 7 (0.45%) Headless CMS
6 7 (0.45%) Skype for Business
7 6 (0.39%) Apache
7 6 (0.39%) Oracle Workflow
7 6 (0.39%) Traefik
8 5 (0.32%) Apache Airflow
8 5 (0.32%) Drupal
9 4 (0.26%) Kentico
9 4 (0.26%) Mendix
10 3 (0.19%) ColdFusion
10 3 (0.19%) Umbraco
11 2 (0.13%) HCL Notes
11 2 (0.13%) IIS
11 2 (0.13%) Moodle
Applications
1 31 (2.00%) Adobe Creative Suite
2 25 (1.61%) Microsoft Office
2 25 (1.61%) Sketch
3 21 (1.35%) Microsoft Excel
4 19 (1.22%) Photoshop
5 18 (1.16%) Adobe After Effects
6 17 (1.10%) Adobe Illustrator
7 16 (1.03%) Chatbot
8 12 (0.77%) Adobe XD
9 10 (0.64%) MS Visio
10 8 (0.52%) Microsoft PowerPoint
11 7 (0.45%) Final Cut Pro
12 4 (0.26%) Spreadsheet
13 2 (0.13%) Adobe Premiere
13 2 (0.13%) Oracle Smart View
13 2 (0.13%) UserZoom
14 1 (0.064%) Adobe Captivate
14 1 (0.064%) Blender
14 1 (0.064%) Microsoft Project
14 1 (0.064%) Trello
Business Applications
1 11 (0.71%) Dynamics CRM
2 7 (0.45%) SAP S/4HANA
2 7 (0.45%) Workday HCM
3 5 (0.32%) NetSuite
3 5 (0.32%) Salesforce CRM
4 4 (0.26%) IBM Planning Analytics
4 4 (0.26%) Oracle iProcurement
4 4 (0.26%) Remedy ITSM
5 3 (0.19%) iTrent
5 3 (0.19%) Payment Gateway
5 3 (0.19%) SAP HR
5 3 (0.19%) Shopify
6 2 (0.13%) Oracle EBS
6 2 (0.13%) SAP HCM
6 2 (0.13%) SAP Payroll
7 1 (0.064%) Bloomberg TOMS
7 1 (0.064%) Elite 3E
7 1 (0.064%) Eloqua
7 1 (0.064%) Exchequer
7 1 (0.064%) Oracle EBS R12
Cloud Services
1 222 (14.30%) Azure
2 176 (11.34%) Figma
3 150 (9.66%) AWS
3 150 (9.66%) Microsoft 365
4 127 (8.18%) Power Platform
5 68 (4.38%) Entra ID
6 63 (4.06%) GitHub
7 62 (3.99%) SaaS
8 59 (3.80%) Microsoft Copilot
9 46 (2.96%) Azure DevOps
10 38 (2.45%) GCP
10 38 (2.45%) PowerApps
11 33 (2.13%) OneDrive
12 29 (1.87%) GitHub Actions
13 28 (1.80%) Copilot Studio
13 28 (1.80%) Power Automate
14 23 (1.48%) Serverless
15 20 (1.29%) Azure AI
16 17 (1.10%) GitHub Copilot
17 15 (0.97%) Snowflake
Communications & Networking
1 44 (2.84%) DNS
2 38 (2.45%) DHCP
3 35 (2.26%) TCP/IP
4 27 (1.74%) Wi-Fi
5 20 (1.29%) VPN
6 19 (1.22%) Wireless
7 16 (1.03%) Firewall
8 15 (0.97%) NetScaler
9 14 (0.90%) LAN
9 14 (0.90%) WAN
10 9 (0.58%) Network Security
11 7 (0.45%) Cisco Wireless
11 7 (0.45%) Skype
11 7 (0.45%) SNMP
12 6 (0.39%) 5G
12 6 (0.39%) Internet
12 6 (0.39%) Intranet
13 5 (0.32%) SD-WAN
13 5 (0.32%) Wireshark
14 4 (0.26%) Remote Desktop
Database & Business Intelligence
1 76 (4.90%) Power BI
2 25 (1.61%) Metadata
3 21 (1.35%) NoSQL
4 19 (1.22%) Power Query
5 18 (1.16%) PostgreSQL
6 16 (1.03%) SQL Server
7 14 (0.90%) MongoDB
7 14 (0.90%) MySQL
8 13 (0.84%) Tableau
9 12 (0.77%) Relational Database
10 11 (0.71%) Elasticsearch
10 11 (0.71%) Redis
11 10 (0.64%) Big Data
12 9 (0.58%) Looker
13 8 (0.52%) Qlik Sense
14 7 (0.45%) Snowflake Schema
14 7 (0.45%) Star Schema
15 6 (0.39%) BigQuery
15 6 (0.39%) Flink
15 6 (0.39%) QlikView
Development Applications
1 90 (5.80%) Git
2 87 (5.61%) JIRA
3 34 (2.19%) Jenkins
4 28 (1.80%) Cypress.io
5 26 (1.68%) Vite
6 24 (1.55%) Storybook
7 19 (1.22%) Claude Code
8 15 (0.97%) GitLab
9 12 (0.77%) fastlane
10 9 (0.58%) Android Studio
10 9 (0.58%) webpack
11 8 (0.52%) Xcode
12 7 (0.45%) Postman
12 7 (0.45%) REST Assured
13 6 (0.39%) Bitbucket
13 6 (0.39%) Browser DevTools
13 6 (0.39%) JMeter
14 5 (0.32%) Gradle
14 5 (0.32%) JUnit
14 5 (0.32%) MSI
General
1 511 (32.93%) Social Skills
2 252 (16.24%) Finance
3 226 (14.56%) Public Sector
4 149 (9.60%) Analytical Skills
5 96 (6.19%) Banking
6 84 (5.41%) Marketing
7 79 (5.09%) Retail
8 51 (3.29%) Inclusion and Diversity
9 46 (2.96%) Influencing Skills
10 45 (2.90%) Legal
11 25 (1.61%) Automotive
11 25 (1.61%) Publishing
12 24 (1.55%) Organisational Skills
13 23 (1.48%) Presentation Skills
14 22 (1.42%) Military
15 18 (1.16%) Manufacturing
16 17 (1.10%) Documentation Skills
16 17 (1.10%) Investment Banking
17 11 (0.71%) Front Office
17 11 (0.71%) Local Government
Job Titles
1 299 (19.27%) Designer
2 237 (15.27%) Developer
3 209 (13.47%) Senior
4 140 (9.02%) Lead
5 129 (8.31%) UX Designer
6 94 (6.06%) Analyst
7 74 (4.77%) UI Designer
8 66 (4.25%) Senior Designer
9 64 (4.12%) Architect
10 62 (3.99%) User Researcher
11 59 (3.80%) Consultant
12 53 (3.41%) Front-End Developer (Client-Side Developer)
12 53 (3.41%) IT Support
13 52 (3.35%) Product Manager
13 52 (3.35%) Support Engineer
14 49 (3.16%) Business Analyst
15 43 (2.77%) Product Designer
16 39 (2.51%) UI/UX Designer
16 39 (2.51%) User Experience Researcher
17 36 (2.32%) Content Designer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 164 (10.57%) React
2 118 (7.60%) CSS
3 106 (6.83%) HTML
4 93 (5.99%) REST
5 66 (4.25%) RESTful
6 47 (3.03%) HTML5
7 45 (2.90%) Terraform
8 42 (2.71%) AngularJS
8 42 (2.71%) CSS3
9 41 (2.64%) GraphQL
10 36 (2.32%) Node.js
11 35 (2.26%) .NET
12 33 (2.13%) OAuth
13 32 (2.06%) Next.js
13 32 (2.06%) Playwright
14 31 (2.00%) Spring
14 31 (2.00%) Spring Boot
15 29 (1.87%) Jest
16 25 (1.61%) OAuth2
16 25 (1.61%) Redux
Miscellaneous
1 163 (10.50%) Product Ownership
2 97 (6.25%) Mobile App
3 82 (5.28%) Onboarding
4 61 (3.93%) Cloud Native
5 52 (3.35%) AI Agents
6 35 (2.26%) Management Information System
7 31 (2.00%) Legacy Systems
7 31 (2.00%) Self-Motivation
8 28 (1.80%) Enterprise Software
9 26 (1.68%) Data Protection Act
10 22 (1.42%) Data Centre
11 21 (1.35%) Social Media
12 20 (1.29%) NHS
13 19 (1.22%) Data Structures
13 19 (1.22%) Educational Technology
14 17 (1.10%) Animation
15 16 (1.03%) Graphic Design
15 16 (1.03%) Low-Code
16 15 (0.97%) Taxonomies
17 14 (0.90%) Analytical Mindset
Operating Systems
1 153 (9.86%) Windows
2 74 (4.77%) Apple iOS
3 66 (4.25%) Android
4 60 (3.87%) Windows 10
5 37 (2.38%) Windows Server
6 28 (1.80%) Mac OS
7 17 (1.10%) Linux
8 14 (0.90%) Unix
9 9 (0.58%) Windows 7
10 4 (0.26%) Windows Server 2016
10 4 (0.26%) Windows Server 2019
11 3 (0.19%) AIX
12 2 (0.13%) Windows Server 2008
12 2 (0.13%) Windows Server 2012
Processes & Methodologies
1 484 (31.19%) UX Design
2 450 (28.99%) Agile
3 317 (20.43%) Stakeholder Management
4 296 (19.07%) AI
5 262 (16.88%) Continuous Improvement
6 245 (15.79%) Problem-Solving
7 217 (13.98%) User Research
8 211 (13.60%) Analytics
9 182 (11.73%) CI/CD
10 180 (11.60%) Stakeholder Engagement
11 174 (11.21%) Decision-Making
12 166 (10.70%) Roadmaps
13 152 (9.79%) User-Centered Design (UCD)
14 142 (9.15%) Service Design
15 123 (7.93%) Workshop Facilitation
16 122 (7.86%) Scrum
17 121 (7.80%) Service Management
18 120 (7.73%) DevOps
19 119 (7.67%) Prototyping
20 111 (7.15%) UX Research
Programming Languages
1 149 (9.60%) JavaScript
2 137 (8.83%) TypeScript
3 101 (6.51%) SQL
4 99 (6.38%) Java
5 97 (6.25%) Python
6 50 (3.22%) PowerShell
7 34 (2.19%) C#
8 29 (1.87%) Kotlin
9 24 (1.55%) Data Analysis Expressions
10 21 (1.35%) Swift
11 19 (1.22%) Bash
12 10 (0.64%) Go
13 8 (0.52%) Shell Script
14 7 (0.45%) PHP
14 7 (0.45%) VB
14 7 (0.45%) VBScript
15 6 (0.39%) Objective-C
15 6 (0.39%) Scala
16 5 (0.32%) Perl
16 5 (0.32%) Ruby
Qualifications
1 244 (15.72%) Security Cleared
2 185 (11.92%) SC Cleared
3 114 (7.35%) Degree
4 55 (3.54%) BPSS Clearance
5 31 (2.00%) Computer Science Degree
6 23 (1.48%) DV Cleared
7 17 (1.10%) Azure Certification
8 16 (1.03%) PMP
9 12 (0.77%) Microsoft Certification
10 10 (0.64%) DBS Check
11 8 (0.52%) AWS Certification
11 8 (0.52%) ITIL Certification
12 7 (0.45%) PMI Certification
13 6 (0.39%) Master's Degree
13 6 (0.39%) VMware Certified Professional (VCP)
14 5 (0.32%) AWS Certified Solutions Architect
14 5 (0.32%) CCA
14 5 (0.32%) Cisco Certification
14 5 (0.32%) CISSP
14 5 (0.32%) TOGAF Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 271 (17.46%) Accessibility
2 105 (6.77%) WCAG
3 101 (6.51%) QA
4 50 (3.22%) Data Quality
5 21 (1.35%) Actionable Recommendations
6 17 (1.10%) SLA
7 16 (1.03%) GDPR
8 14 (0.90%) PMO
9 5 (0.32%) Cyber Essentials
10 4 (0.26%) ISO/IEC 27001
10 4 (0.26%) ISO/IEC 42001
11 3 (0.19%) California Consumer Privacy Act
12 2 (0.13%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
12 2 (0.13%) Disclosure Scotland
12 2 (0.13%) GRC
12 2 (0.13%) PCI DSS
12 2 (0.13%) PSD2
12 2 (0.13%) Sarbanes-Oxley
13 1 (0.064%) HIPAA
13 1 (0.064%) WAI
System Software
1 115 (7.41%) Active Directory
2 52 (3.35%) Docker
3 29 (1.87%) Virtual Desktop
4 27 (1.74%) VMware Infrastructure
5 16 (1.03%) Hyper-V
6 12 (0.77%) Citrix Hypervisor
7 11 (0.71%) XenApp
8 10 (0.64%) XenDesktop
9 7 (0.45%) BitLocker
9 7 (0.45%) vSphere
10 5 (0.32%) VMware ESXi
11 4 (0.26%) Microsoft App-V
12 3 (0.19%) UAG
12 3 (0.19%) Virtual Machines
13 2 (0.13%) VMware NSX
13 2 (0.13%) VMware Workstation
14 1 (0.064%) Firmware
Systems Management
1 54 (3.48%) Microsoft Intune
2 53 (3.41%) Kubernetes
3 35 (2.26%) Grafana
4 26 (1.68%) SCCM
5 19 (1.22%) Single Sign-On
6 16 (1.03%) Ansible
7 14 (0.90%) Jamf Pro
7 14 (0.90%) Prometheus
8 7 (0.45%) Istio
9 6 (0.39%) SysTrack
9 6 (0.39%) vCenter Server
10 4 (0.26%) Clonezilla
11 3 (0.19%) Kibana
11 3 (0.19%) WSUS
12 2 (0.13%) Argo
12 2 (0.13%) Failover Clustering
12 2 (0.13%) Packer
12 2 (0.13%) Podman
12 2 (0.13%) SCOM
12 2 (0.13%) vMotion
Vendors
1 283 (18.23%) Microsoft
2 90 (5.80%) ServiceNow
3 75 (4.83%) Adobe
4 53 (3.41%) Google
5 48 (3.09%) Oracle
6 30 (1.93%) SAP
6 30 (1.93%) VMware
7 29 (1.87%) Salesforce
8 27 (1.74%) Dynatrace
8 27 (1.74%) Splunk
9 26 (1.68%) Citrix
10 22 (1.42%) Apple
11 20 (1.29%) Databricks
12 19 (1.22%) OpenAI
13 14 (0.90%) Zscaler
14 13 (0.84%) Cisco
14 13 (0.84%) Foundry
14 13 (0.84%) Workday
15 10 (0.64%) Okta
16 8 (0.52%) Cribl.io