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

6 months to
14 Mar 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 78 66 69
Rank change year-on-year -12 +3 -5
Contract jobs citing User Experience 1,388 1,025 1,257
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 3.22% 3.47% 2.82%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 3.74% 3.85% 3.26%
Number of daily rates quoted 954 682 837
10th Percentile £313 £310 £304
25th Percentile £400 £400 £400
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £488 £492 £500
Median % change year-on-year -0.91% -1.60% -
75th Percentile £575 £586 £588
90th Percentile £650 £688 £688
UK excluding London median daily rate £475 £450 £468
% change year-on-year +5.56% -3.79% +0.59%
Number of hourly rates quoted 47 27 48
10th Percentile £15.50 £25.26 £16.25
25th Percentile £17.69 £38.25 £24.69
Median hourly rate £40.50 £47.50 £36.25
Median % change year-on-year -14.74% +31.03% -15.20%
75th Percentile £61.25 £63.88 £65.75
90th Percentile £77.36 £89.50 £77.88
UK excluding London median hourly rate £31.05 £53.00 £25.00
% change year-on-year -41.42% +112.00% -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 37,150 26,655 38,571
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 86.07% 90.32% 86.63%
Number of daily rates quoted 23,527 17,023 25,087
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 £745 £738
UK excluding London median daily rate £480 £490 £500
% change year-on-year -2.04% -2.00% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 2,218 906 2,334
10th Percentile £14.88 £15.39 £13.00
25th Percentile £18.50 £21.00 £16.06
Median hourly rate £30.00 £32.50 £32.50
Median % change year-on-year -7.69% - -7.14%
75th Percentile £65.00 £65.00 £57.50
90th Percentile £75.00 £77.50 £70.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £27.50 £32.50 £31.65
% change year-on-year -15.38% +2.69% -9.57%

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 14 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 14 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 14 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 -9 1,191 £488 -2.50% 798
London -18 614 £500 -3.85% 354
UK excluding London 0 602 £475 +5.56% 573
Work from Home -25 357 £494 -0.10% 432
North of England +8 210 £450 +3.21% 171
North West +16 137 £405 -9.70% 90
South East -9 125 £485 -3.96% 175
Midlands -11 110 £505 +26.25% 90
West Midlands -39 65 £475 +17.28% 60
South West -19 61 £450 +20.00% 64
Scotland +2 57 £484 +10.57% 18
Yorkshire -22 52 £513 +28.13% 45
East Midlands 0 45 £550 +54.49% 30
East of England -15 31 £413 -13.16% 45
North East +1 20 £388 -14.36% 37
Wales +1 16 £375 -9.09% 20
Northern Ireland -8 3 - - 4

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 (4.32%) SharePoint
2 51 (3.67%) Confluence
3 39 (2.81%) CMS
4 24 (1.73%) Adobe Experience Manager
5 19 (1.37%) Microsoft Exchange
6 12 (0.86%) Headless CMS
7 10 (0.72%) Apache
8 8 (0.58%) Sitecore CMS
8 8 (0.58%) Umbraco
9 4 (0.29%) Camunda
9 4 (0.29%) Ethereum
9 4 (0.29%) Hyperledger
9 4 (0.29%) Mendix
10 3 (0.22%) Anypoint
10 3 (0.22%) Apache Spark
10 3 (0.22%) Drupal
10 3 (0.22%) Jupyter
10 3 (0.22%) SugarCRM
11 2 (0.14%) Appian
12 1 (0.072%) Apache Airflow
Applications
1 45 (3.24%) Sketch
2 35 (2.52%) Adobe XD
3 24 (1.73%) Microsoft Excel
4 23 (1.66%) MS Visio
5 19 (1.37%) Chatbot
6 16 (1.15%) Microsoft Office
7 14 (1.01%) InVision
8 12 (0.86%) Photoshop
9 9 (0.65%) Adobe Illustrator
10 6 (0.43%) Microsoft PowerPoint
10 6 (0.43%) Spreadsheet
10 6 (0.43%) 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%) Adobe Creative Suite
13 3 (0.22%) UserZoom
14 2 (0.14%) InDesign
14 2 (0.14%) OmniGraffle
Business Applications
1 20 (1.44%) SAP S/4HANA
2 15 (1.08%) Dynamics CRM
3 7 (0.50%) Workday HCM
4 6 (0.43%) Sage X3
5 5 (0.36%) Shopify
6 3 (0.22%) SAP CO
6 3 (0.22%) SAP FI
6 3 (0.22%) SAP FI/CO
7 2 (0.14%) iTrent
7 2 (0.14%) Magento
7 2 (0.14%) Oracle EBS
7 2 (0.14%) SAP ERP
7 2 (0.14%) SAP SD
7 2 (0.14%) SAP Travel Management
8 1 (0.072%) assyst
8 1 (0.072%) Elite 3E
8 1 (0.072%) Integrated Workplace Management System
8 1 (0.072%) NetSuite
8 1 (0.072%) ResourceLink
8 1 (0.072%) SAP QM
Cloud Services
1 225 (16.21%) Azure
2 186 (13.40%) Figma
3 141 (10.16%) AWS
4 103 (7.42%) Power Platform
5 86 (6.20%) Microsoft 365
6 61 (4.39%) Azure DevOps
7 58 (4.18%) GCP
8 57 (4.11%) SaaS
9 54 (3.89%) Entra ID
10 53 (3.82%) GitHub
11 39 (2.81%) PowerApps
12 38 (2.74%) Power Automate
13 36 (2.59%) Serverless
14 31 (2.23%) GitHub Actions
15 27 (1.95%) Miro
16 25 (1.80%) Microsoft Copilot
17 24 (1.73%) Google Workspace
18 23 (1.66%) Dynamics 365
19 22 (1.59%) Cloud Computing
20 20 (1.44%) Google Analytics
Communications & Networking
1 23 (1.66%) DNS
2 19 (1.37%) Wireless
3 18 (1.30%) Internet
4 13 (0.94%) HTTP
4 13 (0.94%) Wi-Fi
5 12 (0.86%) Intranet
6 11 (0.79%) DHCP
6 11 (0.79%) VPN
7 10 (0.72%) TCP/IP
8 9 (0.65%) BGP
8 9 (0.65%) Cisco ISE
8 9 (0.65%) Firewall
8 9 (0.65%) LAN
8 9 (0.65%) WAN
9 8 (0.58%) Cisco Wireless
9 8 (0.58%) SD-WAN
10 7 (0.50%) NX-OS
10 7 (0.50%) VXLAN
11 6 (0.43%) Network Security
11 6 (0.43%) SSL
Database & Business Intelligence
1 69 (4.97%) Power BI
2 36 (2.59%) Relational Database
3 33 (2.38%) NoSQL
4 29 (2.09%) PostgreSQL
5 28 (2.02%) MySQL
6 24 (1.73%) Data Warehouse
7 21 (1.51%) SQL Server
8 17 (1.22%) Tableau
9 16 (1.15%) MongoDB
10 15 (1.08%) Metadata
11 13 (0.94%) BigQuery
12 10 (0.72%) Looker
13 8 (0.58%) Power Query
14 7 (0.50%) DynamoDB
14 7 (0.50%) Pinecone
15 6 (0.43%) Redis
15 6 (0.43%) ZAP BI
16 5 (0.36%) Hadoop
17 4 (0.29%) Azure SQL Database
17 4 (0.29%) Oracle Reports
Development Applications
1 115 (8.29%) JIRA
2 90 (6.48%) Git
3 47 (3.39%) GitLab
4 31 (2.23%) Cypress.io
4 31 (2.23%) Jenkins
5 27 (1.95%) JUnit
6 24 (1.73%) Axure RP
7 18 (1.30%) Android Studio
8 17 (1.22%) Xcode
9 16 (1.15%) Gradle
10 14 (1.01%) Eclipse
11 13 (0.94%) Browser DevTools
11 13 (0.94%) Selenium
12 12 (0.86%) CircleCI
13 9 (0.65%) Artifactory
13 9 (0.65%) Postman
14 8 (0.58%) Mocha
14 8 (0.58%) Mockito
14 8 (0.58%) Visual Studio
15 7 (0.50%) Jasmine
General
1 458 (33.00%) Social Skills
2 252 (18.16%) Finance
3 199 (14.34%) Public Sector
4 157 (11.31%) Analytical Skills
5 107 (7.71%) Banking
6 65 (4.68%) Marketing
7 41 (2.95%) Retail
8 32 (2.31%) Presentation Skills
9 27 (1.95%) Legal
10 26 (1.87%) Influencing Skills
11 21 (1.51%) Manufacturing
12 19 (1.37%) Pharmaceutical
13 17 (1.22%) Documentation Skills
13 17 (1.22%) Games
14 16 (1.15%) Investment Banking
15 14 (1.01%) Financial Institution
16 12 (0.86%) Publishing
16 12 (0.86%) Telecoms
17 11 (0.79%) Front Office
17 11 (0.79%) Inclusion and Diversity
Job Titles
1 243 (17.51%) Designer
2 230 (16.57%) Developer
3 208 (14.99%) Senior
4 133 (9.58%) Analyst
5 131 (9.44%) UX Designer
6 66 (4.76%) Lead
7 64 (4.61%) Consultant
8 63 (4.54%) Business Analyst
9 58 (4.18%) Product Designer
10 57 (4.11%) Senior Designer
11 54 (3.89%) Architect
12 50 (3.60%) User Researcher
13 42 (3.03%) Front-End Developer (Client-Side Developer)
14 41 (2.95%) Senior Developer
14 41 (2.95%) Software Engineer
15 40 (2.88%) Full-Stack Developer
15 40 (2.88%) Support Engineer
16 38 (2.74%) Service Designer
16 38 (2.74%) UI Designer
17 35 (2.52%) IT Support
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 172 (12.39%) React
2 164 (11.82%) CSS
3 150 (10.81%) HTML
4 116 (8.36%) REST
5 96 (6.92%) RESTful
6 92 (6.63%) AngularJS
7 62 (4.47%) Spring
7 62 (4.47%) Spring Boot
8 58 (4.18%) .NET
9 53 (3.82%) Node.js
10 43 (3.10%) HTML5
11 36 (2.59%) Jest
12 35 (2.52%) CSS3
12 35 (2.52%) GraphQL
13 34 (2.45%) JSON
14 30 (2.16%) Redux
15 25 (1.80%) Next.js
16 23 (1.66%) Playwright
17 22 (1.59%) Vue
18 20 (1.44%) OAuth
Miscellaneous
1 140 (10.09%) Product Ownership
2 90 (6.48%) Mobile App
3 51 (3.67%) Onboarding
4 27 (1.95%) Enterprise Software
5 26 (1.87%) AI Agents
6 25 (1.80%) Analytical Mindset
7 24 (1.73%) Data Structures
8 16 (1.15%) Cloud Native
8 16 (1.15%) Data Protection Act
8 16 (1.15%) Distributed Systems
9 15 (1.08%) Data Centre
9 15 (1.08%) Legacy Systems
9 15 (1.08%) Virtual Team
10 14 (1.01%) Low-Code
10 14 (1.01%) NHS
11 13 (0.94%) CMDB
12 11 (0.79%) Algorithms
12 11 (0.79%) Foreign Exchange (FX)
12 11 (0.79%) Graphic Design
12 11 (0.79%) Management Information System
Operating Systems
1 130 (9.37%) Windows
2 49 (3.53%) Android
3 44 (3.17%) Windows 10
4 35 (2.52%) Apple iOS
5 28 (2.02%) Linux
6 21 (1.51%) Mac OS
7 15 (1.08%) Unix
8 6 (0.43%) Windows Server
9 3 (0.22%) Ubuntu
10 1 (0.072%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
10 1 (0.072%) Windows 7
10 1 (0.072%) Windows Server 2008
10 1 (0.072%) Windows Server 2016
Processes & Methodologies
1 463 (33.36%) Agile
2 449 (32.35%) UX Design
3 225 (16.21%) Problem-Solving
4 209 (15.06%) User Research
5 206 (14.84%) Analytics
6 184 (13.26%) CI/CD
7 174 (12.54%) DevOps
8 165 (11.89%) AI
9 161 (11.60%) Stakeholder Management
10 159 (11.46%) Continuous Improvement
11 158 (11.38%) Stakeholder Engagement
12 141 (10.16%) User-Centered Design (UCD)
13 137 (9.87%) Roadmaps
14 135 (9.73%) Prototyping
15 123 (8.86%) Decision-Making
16 122 (8.79%) Service Design
16 122 (8.79%) Wireframes
17 115 (8.29%) UX Research
18 110 (7.93%) Usability Testing
19 102 (7.35%) Front End Development
Programming Languages
1 200 (14.41%) JavaScript
2 142 (10.23%) SQL
3 124 (8.93%) Python
4 120 (8.65%) Java
5 113 (8.14%) TypeScript
6 64 (4.61%) PowerShell
7 63 (4.54%) C#
8 31 (2.23%) Kotlin
9 18 (1.30%) Bash
10 15 (1.08%) C++
10 15 (1.08%) Perl
11 13 (0.94%) Data Analysis Expressions
12 12 (0.86%) Swift
13 10 (0.72%) PHP
14 9 (0.65%) Lua
15 8 (0.58%) PL/SQL
16 7 (0.50%) Lisp
17 6 (0.43%) Go
17 6 (0.43%) Scala
17 6 (0.43%) VBA
Qualifications
1 191 (13.76%) Security Cleared
2 135 (9.73%) SC Cleared
3 130 (9.37%) Degree
4 39 (2.81%) BPSS Clearance
5 25 (1.80%) Computer Science Degree
6 18 (1.30%) DV Cleared
7 16 (1.15%) Master's Degree
7 16 (1.15%) Microsoft Certification
8 12 (0.86%) CCNP
8 12 (0.86%) Cisco Certification
9 8 (0.58%) MOS
9 8 (0.58%) PMI Certification
10 7 (0.50%) OCA
10 7 (0.50%) Oracle Certification
11 5 (0.36%) Azure Certification
11 5 (0.36%) CCA
11 5 (0.36%) Citrix Certification
12 4 (0.29%) ISTQB
12 4 (0.29%) ISTQB Foundation Certification
13 3 (0.22%) ITIL Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 246 (17.72%) Accessibility
2 136 (9.80%) QA
3 76 (5.48%) WCAG
4 47 (3.39%) Data Quality
5 40 (2.88%) GDPR
6 22 (1.59%) ISO/IEC 27001
7 21 (1.51%) Actionable Recommendations
8 16 (1.15%) SLA
9 8 (0.58%) PMO
10 6 (0.43%) NCSC
11 5 (0.36%) HMG Security Policy Framework
12 4 (0.29%) California Consumer Privacy Act
12 4 (0.29%) GMP
12 4 (0.29%) GxP
13 3 (0.22%) Cyber Essentials
13 3 (0.22%) Disclosure Scotland
13 3 (0.22%) Government Security Classifications
13 3 (0.22%) GRC
13 3 (0.22%) HIPAA
13 3 (0.22%) NIST
System Software
1 76 (5.48%) Active Directory
2 69 (4.97%) Docker
3 19 (1.37%) VMware Infrastructure
4 14 (1.01%) Virtual Desktop
5 4 (0.29%) Firmware
6 3 (0.22%) Hyper-V
7 2 (0.14%) ProxySG
8 1 (0.072%) BitLocker
8 1 (0.072%) ISA Server
8 1 (0.072%) Microsoft App-V
8 1 (0.072%) Virtual Machines
8 1 (0.072%) VMware ESXi
8 1 (0.072%) XenApp
8 1 (0.072%) XenDesktop
Systems Management
1 62 (4.47%) Kubernetes
2 45 (3.24%) Microsoft Intune
3 40 (2.88%) Terraform
4 33 (2.38%) SCCM
5 24 (1.73%) Grafana
6 16 (1.15%) Ansible
7 11 (0.79%) Single Sign-On
8 7 (0.50%) FortiGate
9 6 (0.43%) Jamf Pro
9 6 (0.43%) Prometheus
10 4 (0.29%) Argo
11 3 (0.22%) HP ALM
11 3 (0.22%) Nagios
11 3 (0.22%) Rancher
12 2 (0.14%) SysTrack
13 1 (0.072%) Active Directory Federation Services
13 1 (0.072%) Podman
13 1 (0.072%) SCOM
13 1 (0.072%) Systems Management Server (SMS)
13 1 (0.072%) WMI
Vendors
1 228 (16.43%) Microsoft
2 87 (6.27%) Adobe
3 79 (5.69%) Google
4 77 (5.55%) ServiceNow
5 48 (3.46%) SAP
6 41 (2.95%) Oracle
7 34 (2.45%) Salesforce
8 22 (1.59%) Splunk
9 21 (1.51%) Citrix
10 20 (1.44%) VMware
11 17 (1.22%) Cisco
12 16 (1.15%) Apple
13 13 (0.94%) Zscaler
14 12 (0.86%) Red Hat
15 11 (0.79%) Workday
16 10 (0.72%) Ekahau
17 9 (0.65%) MuleSoft
18 8 (0.58%) OpenAI
18 8 (0.58%) Sitecore
19 7 (0.50%) Remedy