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 2 December 2025, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
2 Dec 2025
Same period 2024 Same period 2023
Rank 70 72 73
Rank change year-on-year +2 +1 -13
Contract jobs citing User Experience 1,272 1,085 1,330
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 3.54% 3.04% 2.93%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 3.97% 3.48% 3.30%
Number of daily rates quoted 837 646 923
10th Percentile £300 £300 £325
25th Percentile £375 £400 £405
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £475 £500 £500
Median % change year-on-year -5.00% - -8.26%
75th Percentile £565 £588 £600
90th Percentile £661 £688 £700
UK excluding London median daily rate £450 £452 £475
% change year-on-year -0.44% -4.84% -5.00%
Number of hourly rates quoted 50 30 26
10th Percentile £15.50 £25.26 £17.72
25th Percentile £17.69 £30.11 £27.50
Median hourly rate £34.48 £41.00 £55.00
Median % change year-on-year -15.90% -25.45% -12.00%
75th Percentile £44.75 £51.50 £72.83
90th Percentile £70.16 £74.00 £81.25
UK excluding London median hourly rate £25.15 £30.44 £58.79
% change year-on-year -17.37% -48.22% -9.56%

All Process and 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 32,041 31,135 40,262
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 89.06% 87.25% 88.57%
Number of daily rates quoted 20,133 18,828 26,941
10th Percentile £300 £310 £310
25th Percentile £404 £413 £425
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £525 £533
Median % change year-on-year -4.76% -1.50% -3.09%
75th Percentile £619 £638 £650
90th Percentile £725 £744 £745
UK excluding London median daily rate £475 £500 £500
% change year-on-year -5.00% - -
Number of hourly rates quoted 2,077 1,103 1,555
10th Percentile £14.58 £15.22 £14.38
25th Percentile £17.50 £20.22 £19.06
Median hourly rate £25.15 £33.00 £43.50
Median % change year-on-year -23.79% -24.14% +24.29%
75th Percentile £45.46 £63.75 £65.00
90th Percentile £67.50 £73.75 £77.50
UK excluding London median hourly rate £22.85 £32.50 £43.83
% change year-on-year -29.69% -25.84% +37.15%

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 2 December 2025.

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 2 December 2025.

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 2 December 2025. 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 1,098 £470 -6.00% 860
London -1 586 £475 -9.52% 326
UK excluding London +3 546 £450 -0.44% 793
Work from Home -13 345 £475 -2.06% 471
North of England +20 192 £425 -5.56% 184
North West +13 117 £400 -11.11% 95
South East -9 105 £475 +16.14% 342
Midlands +10 98 £450 -10.00% 106
West Midlands +4 68 £456 -13.10% 72
South West +20 65 £538 -6.52% 68
Yorkshire +9 60 £450 -5.26% 64
Scotland -14 58 £469 +4.17% 33
East of England -5 33 £468 +2.97% 43
East Midlands -6 30 £425 +6.25% 34
North East +6 14 £393 - 27
Wales +4 8 £267 -37.22% 19
Northern Ireland -8 1 £625 +19.05% 2

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 (4.72%) Confluence
2 53 (4.17%) CMS
3 47 (3.69%) SharePoint
4 14 (1.10%) Microsoft Exchange
5 13 (1.02%) Adobe Experience Manager
6 12 (0.94%) Headless CMS
7 11 (0.86%) SugarCRM
8 10 (0.79%) Sitecore CMS
9 9 (0.71%) Apache
10 8 (0.63%) Umbraco
11 5 (0.39%) WordPress
12 4 (0.31%) Apache Airflow
12 4 (0.31%) Jupyter
13 3 (0.24%) Drupal
14 2 (0.16%) Apache Spark
14 2 (0.16%) Cloud Foundry
14 2 (0.16%) SharePoint Server
14 2 (0.16%) WebLogic
15 1 (0.079%) IIS
15 1 (0.079%) Tomcat
Applications
1 50 (3.93%) Sketch
2 24 (1.89%) Adobe XD
3 21 (1.65%) Microsoft Office
4 20 (1.57%) Chatbot
4 20 (1.57%) MS Visio
5 15 (1.18%) Microsoft Excel
6 14 (1.10%) Adobe Illustrator
6 14 (1.10%) InVision
7 13 (1.02%) Photoshop
8 9 (0.71%) Adobe Creative Suite
8 9 (0.71%) Trello
9 8 (0.63%) Microsoft PowerPoint
9 8 (0.63%) Microsoft Project
10 5 (0.39%) Camtasia
11 4 (0.31%) Adobe After Effects
11 4 (0.31%) OmniGraffle
11 4 (0.31%) Siemens NX
11 4 (0.31%) UXPin
12 3 (0.24%) Adobe Premiere
12 3 (0.24%) Spreadsheet
Business Applications
1 22 (1.73%) SAP S/4HANA
2 19 (1.49%) Dynamics CRM
3 6 (0.47%) Teamcenter
4 5 (0.39%) Workday HCM
5 4 (0.31%) Magento
6 3 (0.24%) Salesforce CRM
6 3 (0.24%) SAP CO
6 3 (0.24%) SAP FI
6 3 (0.24%) SAP FI/CO
6 3 (0.24%) Shopify
7 2 (0.16%) iTrent
7 2 (0.16%) Maximo
7 2 (0.16%) Oracle EBS
7 2 (0.16%) SAP PLM
7 2 (0.16%) SAP SD
7 2 (0.16%) SAP Travel Management
8 1 (0.079%) Elite 3E
8 1 (0.079%) NetSuite
8 1 (0.079%) ResourceLink
8 1 (0.079%) Summit
Cloud Services
1 220 (17.30%) Azure
2 153 (12.03%) AWS
3 143 (11.24%) Figma
4 85 (6.68%) SaaS
5 81 (6.37%) Microsoft 365
6 76 (5.97%) Power Platform
7 70 (5.50%) GCP
8 55 (4.32%) Entra ID
9 46 (3.62%) Azure DevOps
10 37 (2.91%) GitHub
11 36 (2.83%) Miro
12 28 (2.20%) Serverless
13 25 (1.97%) Google Analytics
14 24 (1.89%) Power Automate
15 21 (1.65%) GitHub Actions
15 21 (1.65%) PowerApps
16 19 (1.49%) Dynamics 365
16 19 (1.49%) Google Workspace
17 18 (1.42%) Sauce Labs
18 16 (1.26%) Firebase
Communications & Networking
1 31 (2.44%) Wireless
2 29 (2.28%) DNS
3 18 (1.42%) Internet
4 12 (0.94%) HTTP
5 10 (0.79%) VPN
6 9 (0.71%) DHCP
6 9 (0.71%) Firewall
6 9 (0.71%) TCP/IP
6 9 (0.71%) Wi-Fi
7 8 (0.63%) Network Security
7 8 (0.63%) SSL
8 7 (0.55%) BGP
8 7 (0.55%) Cisco ISE
8 7 (0.55%) Cisco Wireless
8 7 (0.55%) NFC
8 7 (0.55%) NX-OS
8 7 (0.55%) PPP
8 7 (0.55%) VXLAN
9 6 (0.47%) Intranet
9 6 (0.47%) Unified Communications
Database & Business Intelligence
1 48 (3.77%) Power BI
2 42 (3.30%) MySQL
3 39 (3.07%) Relational Database
4 38 (2.99%) PostgreSQL
5 31 (2.44%) SQL Server
6 24 (1.89%) Tableau
7 22 (1.73%) NoSQL
8 21 (1.65%) MongoDB
9 15 (1.18%) Data Warehouse
10 13 (1.02%) Redis
11 12 (0.94%) BigQuery
11 12 (0.94%) Looker
12 9 (0.71%) SAP HANA
13 8 (0.63%) Metadata
14 6 (0.47%) Mixpanel
15 5 (0.39%) DynamoDB
16 4 (0.31%) Amazon Aurora
16 4 (0.31%) DB2
17 3 (0.24%) Amazon Athena
17 3 (0.24%) Azure SQL Database
Development Applications
1 126 (9.91%) JIRA
2 97 (7.63%) Git
3 47 (3.69%) Jenkins
4 35 (2.75%) GitLab
5 31 (2.44%) Xcode
6 30 (2.36%) Eclipse
7 26 (2.04%) Android Studio
8 24 (1.89%) Axure RP
8 24 (1.89%) Cypress.io
9 22 (1.73%) webpack
10 20 (1.57%) Browser DevTools
11 15 (1.18%) JUnit
11 15 (1.18%) Postman
12 12 (0.94%) Selenium
13 9 (0.71%) Gradle
13 9 (0.71%) Visual Website Optimizer
14 8 (0.63%) Artifactory
15 7 (0.55%) Appium
15 7 (0.55%) Cucumber
15 7 (0.55%) Valgrind
General
1 435 (34.20%) Social Skills
2 254 (19.97%) Finance
3 172 (13.52%) Public Sector
4 161 (12.66%) Analytical Skills
5 106 (8.33%) Banking
6 93 (7.31%) Marketing
7 36 (2.83%) Legal
8 33 (2.59%) Retail
9 32 (2.52%) Influencing Skills
10 27 (2.12%) Inclusion and Diversity
11 25 (1.97%) Documentation Skills
12 20 (1.57%) Manufacturing
12 20 (1.57%) Presentation Skills
13 17 (1.34%) Financial Institution
13 17 (1.34%) Telecoms
14 16 (1.26%) Investment Banking
14 16 (1.26%) Pharmaceutical
15 14 (1.10%) Front Office
15 14 (1.10%) Publishing
16 13 (1.02%) Automotive
Job Titles
1 240 (18.87%) Developer
2 212 (16.67%) Designer
3 165 (12.97%) Senior
4 114 (8.96%) UX Designer
5 103 (8.10%) Lead
6 98 (7.70%) Analyst
7 64 (5.03%) Business Analyst
8 59 (4.64%) Consultant
9 44 (3.46%) Front-End Developer (Client-Side Developer)
10 41 (3.22%) Architect
11 38 (2.99%) Senior Designer
12 35 (2.75%) UI Designer
13 33 (2.59%) Support Engineer
13 33 (2.59%) User Researcher
14 32 (2.52%) React Developer
14 32 (2.52%) Senior Developer
15 31 (2.44%) Front-End Engineer (Client-Side Engineer)
15 31 (2.44%) Software Engineer
16 30 (2.36%) Product Designer
17 29 (2.28%) Service Designer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 176 (13.84%) CSS
2 159 (12.50%) HTML
3 158 (12.42%) React
4 97 (7.63%) RESTful
5 95 (7.47%) REST
6 74 (5.82%) AngularJS
7 67 (5.27%) Node.js
8 56 (4.40%) HTML5
9 52 (4.09%) .NET
10 45 (3.54%) GraphQL
11 37 (2.91%) CSS3
12 36 (2.83%) Jest
12 36 (2.83%) Redux
13 30 (2.36%) Web Services
14 26 (2.04%) Bootstrap
14 26 (2.04%) Spring
15 24 (1.89%) Next.js
15 24 (1.89%) SOAP
15 24 (1.89%) Spring Boot
15 24 (1.89%) XML
Miscellaneous
1 127 (9.98%) Product Ownership
2 123 (9.67%) Mobile App
3 71 (5.58%) Onboarding
4 28 (2.20%) Enterprise Software
5 27 (2.12%) Analytical Mindset
6 22 (1.73%) Management Information System
7 21 (1.65%) Low-Code
8 18 (1.42%) Data Structures
8 18 (1.42%) Hybrid Cloud
9 17 (1.34%) Data Centre
9 17 (1.34%) Legacy Systems
10 16 (1.26%) AI Agents
10 16 (1.26%) Data Protection Act
11 15 (1.18%) e-Learning
11 15 (1.18%) Learning Management System
11 15 (1.18%) Virtual Team
12 14 (1.10%) Cloud Native
13 13 (1.02%) Greenfield Project
14 11 (0.86%) Video Conferencing
15 10 (0.79%) Life Science
Operating Systems
1 127 (9.98%) Windows
2 86 (6.76%) Android
3 72 (5.66%) Apple iOS
4 44 (3.46%) Linux
5 29 (2.28%) Windows 10
6 27 (2.12%) Mac OS
7 24 (1.89%) Unix
8 10 (0.79%) Windows Server
9 7 (0.55%) Ubuntu
10 2 (0.16%) tvOS
10 2 (0.16%) VMS
11 1 (0.079%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
11 1 (0.079%) watchOS
Processes & Methodologies
1 480 (37.74%) Agile
2 426 (33.49%) UX Design
3 228 (17.92%) Problem-Solving
4 197 (15.49%) Analytics
5 177 (13.92%) CI/CD
6 158 (12.42%) DevOps
7 144 (11.32%) User Research
8 140 (11.01%) AI
9 138 (10.85%) Stakeholder Management
10 136 (10.69%) Roadmaps
11 134 (10.53%) Continuous Improvement
12 129 (10.14%) Front End Development
13 115 (9.04%) Service Design
14 114 (8.96%) Stakeholder Engagement
15 112 (8.81%) User-Centered Design (UCD)
16 100 (7.86%) Decision-Making
17 96 (7.55%) Wireframes
18 94 (7.39%) Scrum
19 86 (6.76%) Microservices
20 85 (6.68%) Test Automation
Programming Languages
1 199 (15.64%) JavaScript
2 133 (10.46%) Python
3 116 (9.12%) Java
4 104 (8.18%) SQL
5 97 (7.63%) TypeScript
6 56 (4.40%) PowerShell
7 54 (4.25%) C#
8 31 (2.44%) Kotlin
9 29 (2.28%) Swift
10 26 (2.04%) Bash
11 23 (1.81%) Perl
12 20 (1.57%) PHP
13 14 (1.10%) C++
14 13 (1.02%) Objective-C
15 10 (0.79%) PL/SQL
16 9 (0.71%) Go
17 7 (0.55%) Lisp
17 7 (0.55%) Scala
18 6 (0.47%) Apex Code
18 6 (0.47%) Ruby
Qualifications
1 180 (14.15%) Security Cleared
2 136 (10.69%) SC Cleared
3 120 (9.43%) Degree
4 40 (3.14%) BPSS Clearance
5 27 (2.12%) Computer Science Degree
6 19 (1.49%) DV Cleared
6 19 (1.49%) Master's Degree
7 15 (1.18%) Microsoft Certification
8 12 (0.94%) PMI Certification
9 11 (0.86%) MOS
10 9 (0.71%) PMP
11 8 (0.63%) CCNP
11 8 (0.63%) Cisco Certification
11 8 (0.63%) OCA
11 8 (0.63%) Oracle Certification
12 6 (0.47%) ITIL Certification
13 4 (0.31%) Citrix Certification
14 3 (0.24%) AWS Certification
14 3 (0.24%) CISSP
14 3 (0.24%) ISTQB
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 221 (17.37%) Accessibility
2 121 (9.51%) QA
3 62 (4.87%) GDPR
4 49 (3.85%) WCAG
5 38 (2.99%) Data Quality
6 23 (1.81%) ISO/IEC 27001
7 20 (1.57%) SLA
8 14 (1.10%) Actionable Recommendations
9 9 (0.71%) California Consumer Privacy Act
10 5 (0.39%) GxP
10 5 (0.39%) Sarbanes-Oxley
11 4 (0.31%) NCSC
11 4 (0.31%) PMO
12 3 (0.24%) Government Security Classifications
12 3 (0.24%) NIST
12 3 (0.24%) PCI DSS
12 3 (0.24%) PERC
12 3 (0.24%) SOC 2
13 2 (0.16%) ISO/IEC 20000
13 2 (0.16%) PSD2
System Software
1 68 (5.35%) Active Directory
2 56 (4.40%) Docker
3 22 (1.73%) VMware Infrastructure
4 9 (0.71%) Virtual Desktop
5 4 (0.31%) VMware ESXi
6 3 (0.24%) Hyper-V
7 2 (0.16%) ProxySG
8 1 (0.079%) BitLocker
8 1 (0.079%) Firmware
8 1 (0.079%) Microsoft App-V
8 1 (0.079%) XenApp
8 1 (0.079%) XenDesktop
Systems Management
1 49 (3.85%) Microsoft Intune
2 44 (3.46%) Kubernetes
3 36 (2.83%) SCCM
4 34 (2.67%) Terraform
5 16 (1.26%) Ansible
6 14 (1.10%) Single Sign-On
7 12 (0.94%) Jamf Pro
8 10 (0.79%) Grafana
9 7 (0.55%) FortiGate
10 6 (0.47%) Prometheus
11 3 (0.24%) Argo
11 3 (0.24%) Systems Management Server (SMS)
12 2 (0.16%) Active Directory Federation Services
12 2 (0.16%) HP ALM
12 2 (0.16%) McAfee ePO
12 2 (0.16%) Nagios
12 2 (0.16%) NSN NetAct
12 2 (0.16%) PingFederate
12 2 (0.16%) Rancher
12 2 (0.16%) SysTrack
Vendors
1 221 (17.37%) Microsoft
2 84 (6.60%) Google
3 78 (6.13%) Adobe
4 71 (5.58%) ServiceNow
5 55 (4.32%) Oracle
6 53 (4.17%) SAP
7 45 (3.54%) Salesforce
8 28 (2.20%) Splunk
9 24 (1.89%) VMware
10 21 (1.65%) Apple
11 17 (1.34%) Citrix
12 16 (1.26%) Cisco
13 14 (1.10%) Optimizely
14 13 (1.02%) Hotjar
14 13 (1.02%) Zscaler
15 10 (0.79%) Sitecore
16 9 (0.71%) Amplitude
16 9 (0.71%) OpenAI
16 9 (0.71%) Workday
17 8 (0.63%) Ekahau