User Research Contracts

User Research
UK

The table below provides summary statistics for contract job vacancies requiring User Research skills. It includes a benchmarking guide to the contractor rates offered in vacancies that cited User Research over the 6 months leading up to 16 May 2025, comparing them to the same period in the previous two years.

6 months to
16 May 2025
Same period 2024 Same period 2023
Rank 253 264 167
Rank change year-on-year +11 -97 -22
Contract jobs citing User Research 304 368 878
As % of all contract jobs advertised in the UK 1.04% 0.86% 1.54%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 1.14% 1.00% 1.71%
Number of daily rates quoted 232 268 690
10th Percentile £340 £363 £402
25th Percentile £410 £438 £441
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £495 £539 £525
Median % change year-on-year -8.08% +2.57% -
75th Percentile £550 £601 £600
90th Percentile £650 £675 £657
UK excluding London median daily rate £450 £500 £478
% change year-on-year -10.00% +4.71% -4.50%
Number of hourly rates quoted 1 3 1
10th Percentile - - -
25th Percentile £89.68 £25.25 -
Median hourly rate £93.08 £25.50 £45.00
Median % change year-on-year +265.02% -43.33% +76.47%
75th Percentile £96.49 £25.75 -
90th Percentile - - -
UK excluding London median hourly rate - - -

All Process and Methodology Skills
UK

User Research 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 26,555 36,687 51,295
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 90.98% 86.22% 89.83%
Number of daily rates quoted 17,047 23,611 35,552
10th Percentile £305 £300 £325
25th Percentile £410 £413 £438
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £515 £525 £550
Median % change year-on-year -1.90% -4.55% +3.77%
75th Percentile £626 £638 £650
90th Percentile £738 £750 £750
UK excluding London median daily rate £475 £500 £500
% change year-on-year -5.00% - +5.04%
Number of hourly rates quoted 1,084 2,428 1,693
10th Percentile £14.20 £12.75 £10.77
25th Percentile £18.13 £16.00 £16.13
Median hourly rate £28.00 £36.05 £36.00
Median % change year-on-year -22.32% +0.13% +40.19%
75th Percentile £60.00 £60.00 £65.00
90th Percentile £75.00 £72.50 £75.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £25.15 £37.50 £35.00
% change year-on-year -32.93% +7.14% +75.00%

User Research
Job Vacancy Trend

Job postings citing User Research as a proportion of all IT jobs advertised.

Job vacancy trend for User Research in the UK

User Research
Contractor Daily Rate Trend

3-month moving average daily rate quoted in jobs citing User Research.

Daily rate trend for User Research in the UK

User Research
Daily Rate Histogram

Daily rate distribution for jobs citing User Research over the 6 months to 16 May 2025.

Daily rate histogram for User Research in the UK

User Research
Contractor Hourly Rate Trend

3-month moving average hourly rates quoted in jobs citing User Research.

Hourly rate trend for User Research in the UK

User Research
Top 17 Contract Locations

The table below looks at the demand and provides a guide to the median contractor rates quoted in IT jobs citing User Research within the UK over the 6 months to 16 May 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 +19 197 £500 -9.09% 369
London +20 139 £506 -5.81% 254
Work from Home -17 110 £465 -15.45% 233
UK excluding London +7 91 £450 -10.00% 169
Scotland -14 35 £425 -15.00% 10
North of England -8 25 £400 +6.67% 57
South West +45 11 £575 -23.33% 9
North West -8 10 £408 +12.41% 32
South East +53 9 £550 +22.22% 63
Yorkshire +4 8 £400 -20.00% 17
Midlands +17 7 £463 +2.78% 20
North East -1 7 £288 -52.58% 8
West Midlands +12 5 £550 +22.22% 16
East of England - 3 £450 - 4
Wales - 2 £650 - 6
East Midlands - 2 £318 - 4
Northern Ireland -10 1 £450 -12.20% 3

User Research
Co-occurring Skills and Capabilities by Category

The follow tables expand on the table above by listing co-occurrences grouped by category. The same employment type, locality and period is covered with up to 20 co-occurrences shown in each of the following categories:

Application Platforms
1 29 (9.54%) Confluence
2 4 (1.32%) CMS
3 3 (0.99%) nginx
4 1 (0.33%) Apache
4 1 (0.33%) Moodle
Applications
1 29 (9.54%) Sketch
2 23 (7.57%) Adobe XD
2 23 (7.57%) Trello
3 8 (2.63%) InVision
4 6 (1.97%) Autodesk Smoke
5 4 (1.32%) MS Visio
6 3 (0.99%) Microsoft Excel
6 3 (0.99%) Microsoft Office
6 3 (0.99%) UserZoom
7 1 (0.33%) Microsoft PowerPoint
7 1 (0.33%) Microsoft Project
7 1 (0.33%) Spreadsheet
7 1 (0.33%) SPSS
7 1 (0.33%) Stata
7 1 (0.33%) UXPin
7 1 (0.33%) Zeplin
Cloud Services
1 70 (23.03%) Figma
2 23 (7.57%) AWS
2 23 (7.57%) Azure
3 20 (6.58%) Miro
4 16 (5.26%) SaaS
5 13 (4.28%) Azure DevOps
6 8 (2.63%) Serverless
7 7 (2.30%) Google Analytics
8 5 (1.64%) Power Platform
9 3 (0.99%) GCP
9 3 (0.99%) Microsoft 365
9 3 (0.99%) Slack
10 2 (0.66%) Azure Functions
10 2 (0.66%) GitHub
11 1 (0.33%) Azure Cosmos DB
11 1 (0.33%) dbt
11 1 (0.33%) Entra ID
11 1 (0.33%) GitHub Actions
11 1 (0.33%) Google Data Studio
11 1 (0.33%) Google Tag Manager
Communications & Networking
1 2 (0.66%) Internet
1 2 (0.66%) WebEx
2 1 (0.33%) Intranet
Database & Business Intelligence
1 6 (1.97%) NoSQL
2 4 (1.32%) Power BI
3 3 (0.99%) Tableau
4 2 (0.66%) Data Warehouse
4 2 (0.66%) Mixpanel
4 2 (0.66%) MongoDB
4 2 (0.66%) SQL Server
5 1 (0.33%) DTS
5 1 (0.33%) Elasticsearch
5 1 (0.33%) Flink
5 1 (0.33%) QGIS
Development Applications
1 43 (14.14%) JIRA
2 17 (5.59%) Axure RP
3 6 (1.97%) Git
4 4 (1.32%) Balsamiq
4 4 (1.32%) NUnit
5 2 (0.66%) GitLab
5 2 (0.66%) Postman
6 1 (0.33%) CircleCI
6 1 (0.33%) Selenium
6 1 (0.33%) SQL Server Management Studio (SSMS)
6 1 (0.33%) Visual Studio Code
General
1 122 (40.13%) Public Sector
2 102 (33.55%) Social Skills
3 41 (13.49%) Analytical Skills
4 33 (10.86%) Finance
5 14 (4.61%) Marketing
6 13 (4.28%) Presentation Skills
7 9 (2.96%) Banking
8 8 (2.63%) Influencing Skills
8 8 (2.63%) Retail
9 6 (1.97%) Digital Health
9 6 (1.97%) Publishing
9 6 (1.97%) Wearables
10 5 (1.64%) Legal
11 3 (0.99%) Games
11 3 (0.99%) Inclusion and Diversity
11 3 (0.99%) Local Government
11 3 (0.99%) Organisational Skills
12 2 (0.66%) Documentation Skills
12 2 (0.66%) Police
13 1 (0.33%) Aviation
Job Titles
1 115 (37.83%) Designer
2 51 (16.78%) User Researcher
3 45 (14.80%) Senior
4 39 (12.83%) UX Designer
5 34 (11.18%) Analyst
6 28 (9.21%) Business Analyst
7 25 (8.22%) Interaction Designer
7 25 (8.22%) Service Designer
8 22 (7.24%) Product Manager
8 22 (7.24%) Senior Designer
9 20 (6.58%) Developer
10 18 (5.92%) User Experience Researcher
11 17 (5.59%) Lead
11 17 (5.59%) Product Designer
12 15 (4.93%) UI Designer
13 14 (4.61%) Content Designer
13 14 (4.61%) UI/UX Designer
14 10 (3.29%) Senior UX Designer
15 8 (2.63%) Data Analyst
15 8 (2.63%) Delivery Manager
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 33 (10.86%) HTML
2 29 (9.54%) CSS
3 10 (3.29%) RESTful
4 8 (2.63%) .NET
5 7 (2.30%) .NET Core
5 7 (2.30%) ASP.NET
5 7 (2.30%) OAuth
5 7 (2.30%) React
6 6 (1.97%) Node.js
7 4 (1.32%) ARM Templates
7 4 (1.32%) OpenID
8 3 (0.99%) FastAPI
8 3 (0.99%) OAuth2
9 2 (0.66%) HTML5
9 2 (0.66%) JSON
9 2 (0.66%) OpenAPI
9 2 (0.66%) Swagger
9 2 (0.66%) Vue
9 2 (0.66%) XML
10 1 (0.33%) GraphQL
Miscellaneous
1 55 (18.09%) Product Ownership
2 12 (3.95%) Mobile App
3 6 (1.97%) Enterprise Software
3 6 (1.97%) IoT
4 5 (1.64%) Analytical Mindset
5 4 (1.32%) Cloud Native
5 4 (1.32%) Life Science
5 4 (1.32%) Self-Motivation
5 4 (1.32%) Taxonomies
6 3 (0.99%) Management Information System
6 3 (0.99%) NHS
7 2 (0.66%) Data Protection Act
7 2 (0.66%) Graphic Design
7 2 (0.66%) Legacy Systems
7 2 (0.66%) SCADA
7 2 (0.66%) W3C
8 1 (0.33%) Educational Technology
8 1 (0.33%) Low-Code
8 1 (0.33%) Onboarding
8 1 (0.33%) Sports Betting
Operating Systems
1 5 (1.64%) Android
1 5 (1.64%) Apple iOS
2 1 (0.33%) Linux
Processes & Methodologies
1 170 (55.92%) User Experience
2 166 (54.61%) Agile
3 107 (35.20%) UX Design
4 93 (30.59%) User-Centered Design (UCD)
5 90 (29.61%) Usability Testing
6 76 (25.00%) Service Design
7 60 (19.74%) Wireframes
8 57 (18.75%) Prototyping
9 55 (18.09%) Stakeholder Management
10 53 (17.43%) Interaction Design
11 48 (15.79%) Analytics
12 46 (15.13%) User Stories
13 45 (14.80%) Problem-Solving
14 40 (13.16%) Roadmaps
14 40 (13.16%) UX Research
15 36 (11.84%) Workshop Facilitation
16 33 (10.86%) Sprint Planning
17 32 (10.53%) Actionable Insight
17 32 (10.53%) Decision-Making
18 31 (10.20%) Scrum
Programming Languages
1 31 (10.20%) JavaScript
2 10 (3.29%) Python
3 8 (2.63%) SQL
4 7 (2.30%) C#
5 4 (1.32%) Java
6 2 (0.66%) TypeScript
7 1 (0.33%) Go
7 1 (0.33%) R
7 1 (0.33%) Ruby
7 1 (0.33%) Scala
Qualifications
1 70 (23.03%) Security Cleared
2 56 (18.42%) SC Cleared
3 18 (5.92%) Degree
4 7 (2.30%) BPSS Clearance
5 6 (1.97%) Master's Degree
6 5 (1.64%) DV Cleared
7 4 (1.32%) PhD
8 3 (0.99%) IIBA
8 3 (0.99%) SAFe Agilist
9 1 (0.33%) Computer Science Degree
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 88 (28.95%) Accessibility
2 18 (5.92%) WCAG
3 13 (4.28%) QA
4 6 (1.97%) Actionable Recommendations
4 6 (1.97%) Disclosure Scotland
5 2 (0.66%) Data Quality
6 1 (0.33%) GDPR
6 1 (0.33%) PERC
System Software
1 13 (4.28%) Docker
2 1 (0.33%) Active Directory
Systems Management
1 8 (2.63%) Kubernetes
2 6 (1.97%) Terraform
3 1 (0.33%) Ansible
3 1 (0.33%) Grafana
3 1 (0.33%) Prometheus
Vendors
1 31 (10.20%) Adobe
2 10 (3.29%) Microsoft
3 4 (1.32%) CA Agile Central
4 3 (0.99%) Google
4 3 (0.99%) Palantir
5 2 (0.66%) DataCore
5 2 (0.66%) Optimizely
5 2 (0.66%) Oracle
5 2 (0.66%) SAP
6 1 (0.33%) Brio
6 1 (0.33%) Databricks
6 1 (0.33%) Foundry
6 1 (0.33%) Hotjar
6 1 (0.33%) IBM
6 1 (0.33%) Qualtrics
6 1 (0.33%) Salesforce