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 12 June 2026, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
12 Jun 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 81 61 78
Rank change year-on-year -20 +17 -18
Contract jobs citing User Experience 1,500 1,126 1,198
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 3.00% 3.83% 2.75%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 3.54% 4.20% 3.22%
Number of daily rates quoted 965 734 797
10th Percentile £325 £304 £313
25th Percentile £402 £386 £400
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £494 £475 £500
Median % change year-on-year +3.89% -5.00% -2.91%
75th Percentile £585 £577 £600
90th Percentile £678 £688 £688
UK excluding London median daily rate £475 £425 £475
% change year-on-year +11.76% -10.53% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 64 30 49
10th Percentile £16.00 £31.11 £16.25
25th Percentile £21.22 £35.25 £23.75
Median hourly rate £33.99 £53.50 £31.71
Median % change year-on-year -36.47% +68.72% +7.15%
75th Percentile £52.24 £68.87 £61.25
90th Percentile £67.87 £86.50 £74.44
UK excluding London median hourly rate £33.98 £70.08 £25.00
% change year-on-year -51.51% +180.32% +42.86%

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 42,365 26,787 37,171
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 84.77% 91.01% 85.18%
Number of daily rates quoted 26,429 17,005 23,768
10th Percentile £325 £300 £300
25th Percentile £413 £406 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £513 £508 £525
Median % change year-on-year +0.99% -3.33% -4.55%
75th Percentile £619 £625 £638
90th Percentile £725 £738 £750
UK excluding London median daily rate £500 £475 £500
% change year-on-year +5.26% -5.00% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 2,540 1,187 2,585
10th Percentile £14.68 £14.20 £12.75
25th Percentile £20.00 £17.87 £16.00
Median hourly rate £43.96 £27.21 £36.50
Median % change year-on-year +61.56% -25.45% +4.20%
75th Percentile £68.00 £56.00 £61.25
90th Percentile £81.25 £73.75 £72.50
UK excluding London median hourly rate £45.00 £25.15 £38.12
% change year-on-year +78.93% -34.02% +15.02%

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 12 June 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 12 June 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 12 June 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 -14 1,286 £488 +1.56% 583
UK excluding London +9 689 £475 +11.76% 408
London -24 653 £522 +4.40% 279
Work from Home -26 401 £500 +4.17% 310
North of England -13 198 £450 +5.88% 118
Midlands -3 154 £475 +18.16% 42
South East -22 134 £490 +3.16% 147
North West -2 121 £425 -4.92% 82
West Midlands -10 107 £475 -9.52% 30
Scotland +15 82 £518 +13.74% 11
South West -3 73 £475 +26.67% 36
Yorkshire -29 55 £513 +29.91% 23
East Midlands +2 47 £550 +55.81% 12
East of England -6 32 £410 -13.68% 43
North East -26 22 £450 -6.25% 14
Wales -14 15 £530 +73.20% 12
Northern Ireland -3 3 - - 8

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 (4.00%) SharePoint
2 50 (3.33%) Confluence
3 44 (2.93%) CMS
4 23 (1.53%) Microsoft Exchange
5 12 (0.80%) Adobe Experience Manager
6 7 (0.47%) WordPress
7 5 (0.33%) Apache
7 5 (0.33%) Camunda
7 5 (0.33%) Drupal
7 5 (0.33%) Mendix
7 5 (0.33%) Skype for Business
8 4 (0.27%) Ethereum
8 4 (0.27%) Hyperledger
8 4 (0.27%) Kentico
8 4 (0.27%) Umbraco
9 3 (0.20%) Headless CMS
9 3 (0.20%) nginx
10 2 (0.13%) IIS
10 2 (0.13%) Moodle
10 2 (0.13%) Palantir Foundry
Applications
1 38 (2.53%) Sketch
2 25 (1.67%) Microsoft Excel
3 23 (1.53%) Adobe Creative Suite
4 22 (1.47%) Photoshop
5 20 (1.33%) Chatbot
6 19 (1.27%) Adobe After Effects
7 18 (1.20%) Adobe XD
8 17 (1.13%) Adobe Illustrator
9 14 (0.93%) MS Visio
10 13 (0.87%) Microsoft Office
11 8 (0.53%) Microsoft PowerPoint
12 7 (0.47%) InVision
13 5 (0.33%) Final Cut Pro
14 4 (0.27%) Adobe Captivate
15 3 (0.20%) Spreadsheet
15 3 (0.20%) Trello
15 3 (0.20%) UserZoom
15 3 (0.20%) UXPin
16 2 (0.13%) Oracle Smart View
17 1 (0.067%) Blender
Business Applications
1 13 (0.87%) SAP S/4HANA
2 10 (0.67%) Dynamics CRM
3 9 (0.60%) Workday HCM
4 8 (0.53%) Shopify
5 6 (0.40%) Sage X3
6 4 (0.27%) NetSuite
7 2 (0.13%) Oracle iProcurement
7 2 (0.13%) Oracle Payables
7 2 (0.13%) Oracle Receivables
7 2 (0.13%) Payment Gateway
7 2 (0.13%) Remedy ITSM
7 2 (0.13%) ResourceLink
7 2 (0.13%) SAP ERP
8 1 (0.067%) Adobe Campaign
8 1 (0.067%) Eloqua
8 1 (0.067%) Magento
8 1 (0.067%) NEC Housing
8 1 (0.067%) Oracle EBS R12
8 1 (0.067%) Salesforce CRM
8 1 (0.067%) Sprinklr
Cloud Services
1 234 (15.60%) Azure
2 214 (14.27%) Figma
3 126 (8.40%) AWS
4 112 (7.47%) Microsoft 365
5 110 (7.33%) Power Platform
6 59 (3.93%) Entra ID
7 55 (3.67%) Azure DevOps
8 49 (3.27%) GitHub
9 48 (3.20%) SaaS
10 47 (3.13%) Microsoft Copilot
11 39 (2.60%) GCP
12 36 (2.40%) PowerApps
13 34 (2.27%) Power Automate
14 33 (2.20%) OneDrive
15 32 (2.13%) GitHub Actions
16 31 (2.07%) Serverless
17 25 (1.67%) Copilot Studio
18 22 (1.47%) Google Workspace
19 20 (1.33%) Google Sheets
20 18 (1.20%) Cloud Computing
Communications & Networking
1 28 (1.87%) DNS
2 24 (1.60%) DHCP
3 21 (1.40%) Wi-Fi
4 18 (1.20%) TCP/IP
4 18 (1.20%) Wireless
5 14 (0.93%) LAN
6 13 (0.87%) Internet
7 12 (0.80%) Intranet
8 10 (0.67%) SD-WAN
9 9 (0.60%) HTTP
10 8 (0.53%) Cisco Wireless
10 8 (0.53%) VPN
10 8 (0.53%) WAN
11 7 (0.47%) 5G
11 7 (0.47%) Firewall
11 7 (0.47%) Skype
11 7 (0.47%) WLAN
12 6 (0.40%) Network Security
12 6 (0.40%) SNMP
13 5 (0.33%) 802.11
Database & Business Intelligence
1 71 (4.73%) Power BI
2 25 (1.67%) PostgreSQL
2 25 (1.67%) Relational Database
3 24 (1.60%) NoSQL
4 23 (1.53%) Metadata
5 22 (1.47%) SQL Server
6 17 (1.13%) Power Query
7 16 (1.07%) Data Warehouse
8 14 (0.93%) MongoDB
9 13 (0.87%) MySQL
10 10 (0.67%) Big Data
11 9 (0.60%) Tableau
12 7 (0.47%) DynamoDB
12 7 (0.47%) Redis
13 6 (0.40%) Elasticsearch
13 6 (0.40%) Oracle Database
13 6 (0.40%) Pinecone
13 6 (0.40%) ZAP BI
14 5 (0.33%) Oracle BI Publisher
14 5 (0.33%) Snowflake Schema
Development Applications
1 97 (6.47%) JIRA
2 86 (5.73%) Git
3 24 (1.60%) Cypress.io
3 24 (1.60%) Jenkins
4 22 (1.47%) GitLab
5 16 (1.07%) JUnit
6 15 (1.00%) Vite
7 12 (0.80%) Gradle
8 11 (0.73%) Android Studio
9 10 (0.67%) Axure RP
9 10 (0.67%) Browser DevTools
10 9 (0.60%) fastlane
10 9 (0.60%) Selenium
10 9 (0.60%) Xcode
11 8 (0.53%) Visual Studio
12 7 (0.47%) CircleCI
12 7 (0.47%) Claude Code
12 7 (0.47%) Postman
13 6 (0.40%) webpack
14 5 (0.33%) Crashlytics
General
1 453 (30.20%) Social Skills
2 258 (17.20%) Finance
3 192 (12.80%) Public Sector
4 139 (9.27%) Analytical Skills
5 114 (7.60%) Banking
6 75 (5.00%) Retail
7 63 (4.20%) Marketing
8 38 (2.53%) Inclusion and Diversity
9 33 (2.20%) Legal
10 31 (2.07%) Presentation Skills
11 30 (2.00%) Influencing Skills
12 28 (1.87%) Automotive
13 25 (1.67%) Manufacturing
14 22 (1.47%) Publishing
15 17 (1.13%) Documentation Skills
15 17 (1.13%) Investment Banking
16 16 (1.07%) Organisational Skills
17 14 (0.93%) Pharmaceutical
18 13 (0.87%) Games
19 12 (0.80%) Local Government
Job Titles
1 323 (21.53%) Designer
2 230 (15.33%) Senior
3 202 (13.47%) Developer
4 146 (9.73%) UX Designer
5 117 (7.80%) Analyst
6 97 (6.47%) Lead
7 78 (5.20%) UI Designer
8 73 (4.87%) Consultant
9 69 (4.60%) Senior Designer
10 63 (4.20%) Product Designer
11 61 (4.07%) Architect
12 59 (3.93%) Business Analyst
13 51 (3.40%) Content Designer
14 50 (3.33%) User Researcher
15 48 (3.20%) User Experience Researcher
16 47 (3.13%) IT Support
17 45 (3.00%) UI/UX Designer
18 42 (2.80%) Product Manager
19 39 (2.60%) Senior Developer
20 34 (2.27%) Senior UX Designer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 155 (10.33%) React
2 128 (8.53%) CSS
3 115 (7.67%) HTML
4 96 (6.40%) REST
5 70 (4.67%) AngularJS
6 69 (4.60%) RESTful
7 54 (3.60%) .NET
8 51 (3.40%) Spring
9 50 (3.33%) Spring Boot
10 33 (2.20%) GraphQL
10 33 (2.20%) Node.js
11 31 (2.07%) JSON
12 30 (2.00%) Redux
13 29 (1.93%) Kafka
14 28 (1.87%) HTML5
15 27 (1.80%) Jest
16 26 (1.73%) CSS3
17 25 (1.67%) ASP.NET
18 24 (1.60%) Next.js
18 24 (1.60%) OAuth
Miscellaneous
1 153 (10.20%) Product Ownership
2 74 (4.93%) Mobile App
3 61 (4.07%) Onboarding
4 37 (2.47%) AI Agents
5 34 (2.27%) Cloud Native
6 29 (1.93%) Data Structures
6 29 (1.93%) Enterprise Software
7 25 (1.67%) Legacy Systems
8 23 (1.53%) Self-Motivation
9 22 (1.47%) Animation
10 21 (1.40%) Data Protection Act
11 18 (1.20%) Data Centre
12 17 (1.13%) Analytical Mindset
13 16 (1.07%) Foreign Exchange (FX)
14 15 (1.00%) Social Media
14 15 (1.00%) Taxonomies
15 14 (0.93%) Algorithms
15 14 (0.93%) Distributed Systems
15 14 (0.93%) Graphic Design
15 14 (0.93%) Greenfield Project
Operating Systems
1 106 (7.07%) Windows
2 48 (3.20%) Apple iOS
3 47 (3.13%) Android
4 30 (2.00%) Windows 10
5 23 (1.53%) Mac OS
6 15 (1.00%) Linux
7 12 (0.80%) Windows Server
8 6 (0.40%) Windows 7
9 5 (0.33%) Unix
9 5 (0.33%) Windows Server 2016
10 4 (0.27%) Windows Server 2019
11 2 (0.13%) Windows Server 2012
12 1 (0.067%) Windows Server 2008
Processes & Methodologies
1 509 (33.93%) UX Design
2 453 (30.20%) Agile
3 259 (17.27%) AI
4 223 (14.87%) Problem-Solving
5 202 (13.47%) User Research
6 197 (13.13%) Analytics
7 194 (12.93%) Stakeholder Management
8 185 (12.33%) Continuous Improvement
9 163 (10.87%) Roadmaps
10 162 (10.80%) CI/CD
10 162 (10.80%) Stakeholder Engagement
11 148 (9.87%) Prototyping
12 142 (9.47%) User-Centered Design (UCD)
13 141 (9.40%) DevOps
14 132 (8.80%) Wireframes
15 127 (8.47%) UX Research
16 120 (8.00%) Decision-Making
16 120 (8.00%) Service Design
17 109 (7.27%) Usability Testing
18 106 (7.07%) Workshop Facilitation
Programming Languages
1 156 (10.40%) JavaScript
2 120 (8.00%) Python
3 117 (7.80%) SQL
4 116 (7.73%) TypeScript
5 110 (7.33%) Java
6 59 (3.93%) C#
7 47 (3.13%) PowerShell
8 30 (2.00%) Kotlin
9 22 (1.47%) Data Analysis Expressions
10 13 (0.87%) Bash
10 13 (0.87%) Swift
11 11 (0.73%) C++
12 9 (0.60%) Lua
13 8 (0.53%) Korn
14 6 (0.40%) R
14 6 (0.40%) VBA
14 6 (0.40%) VBScript
15 5 (0.33%) Apex Code
15 5 (0.33%) Scala
15 5 (0.33%) VB
Qualifications
1 195 (13.00%) Security Cleared
2 145 (9.67%) Degree
3 144 (9.60%) SC Cleared
4 29 (1.93%) Computer Science Degree
5 27 (1.80%) BPSS Clearance
6 22 (1.47%) DV Cleared
6 22 (1.47%) Microsoft Certification
7 17 (1.13%) Azure Certification
8 11 (0.73%) Cisco Certification
9 9 (0.60%) ITIL Certification
9 9 (0.60%) Master's Degree
10 8 (0.53%) CCA
10 8 (0.53%) CCNP
11 7 (0.47%) CCIE
11 7 (0.47%) Citrix Certification
11 7 (0.47%) VMware Certified Professional (VCP)
12 6 (0.40%) DBS Check
12 6 (0.40%) PMP
13 5 (0.33%) MCSE
14 4 (0.27%) CWNA
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 258 (17.20%) Accessibility
2 97 (6.47%) QA
3 89 (5.93%) WCAG
4 45 (3.00%) Data Quality
5 23 (1.53%) GDPR
6 19 (1.27%) Actionable Recommendations
7 11 (0.73%) ISO/IEC 27001
8 6 (0.40%) Cyber Essentials
8 6 (0.40%) ISO/IEC 42001
8 6 (0.40%) PMO
8 6 (0.40%) SLA
9 5 (0.33%) GMP
9 5 (0.33%) GxP
10 4 (0.27%) HMG Security Policy Framework
11 3 (0.20%) GRC
11 3 (0.20%) PCI DSS
12 2 (0.13%) HIPAA
12 2 (0.13%) NCSC
12 2 (0.13%) NIST
13 1 (0.067%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
System Software
1 69 (4.60%) Active Directory
2 49 (3.27%) Docker
3 25 (1.67%) Virtual Desktop
4 13 (0.87%) VMware Infrastructure
5 6 (0.40%) Firmware
6 5 (0.33%) BitLocker
7 4 (0.27%) Microsoft App-V
8 3 (0.20%) Hyper-V
8 3 (0.20%) Virtual Machines
9 2 (0.13%) VMware ESXi
9 2 (0.13%) VMware Workstation
9 2 (0.13%) vSphere
9 2 (0.13%) XenApp
9 2 (0.13%) XenDesktop
10 1 (0.067%) Varnish
Systems Management
1 50 (3.33%) Kubernetes
2 46 (3.07%) Terraform
3 43 (2.87%) Microsoft Intune
4 32 (2.13%) SCCM
5 31 (2.07%) Grafana
6 18 (1.20%) Single Sign-On
7 14 (0.93%) Jamf Pro
8 13 (0.87%) Ansible
9 9 (0.60%) Prometheus
10 4 (0.27%) Clonezilla
11 3 (0.20%) Podman
11 3 (0.20%) Systems Management Server (SMS)
11 3 (0.20%) WSUS
12 2 (0.13%) Failover Clustering
12 2 (0.13%) HP ALM
12 2 (0.13%) Packer
12 2 (0.13%) SCOM
12 2 (0.13%) vCenter Server
12 2 (0.13%) vMotion
13 1 (0.067%) Argo
Vendors
1 240 (16.00%) Microsoft
2 91 (6.07%) Adobe
3 71 (4.73%) ServiceNow
4 57 (3.80%) Google
5 40 (2.67%) Salesforce
5 40 (2.67%) SAP
6 36 (2.40%) Oracle
7 22 (1.47%) Databricks
8 19 (1.27%) Citrix
8 19 (1.27%) Dynatrace
9 17 (1.13%) Cisco
9 17 (1.13%) Splunk
9 17 (1.13%) Workday
10 16 (1.07%) Apple
11 13 (0.87%) VMware
12 12 (0.80%) Aruba
12 12 (0.80%) Foundry
13 11 (0.73%) OpenAI
14 8 (0.53%) Zscaler
15 6 (0.40%) Okta