UX Design Contract Job Trends

User Experience Design (UXD)
UK

The table below provides summary statistics and contractor rates for jobs requiring UX Design skills. It covers contract job vacancies from the 6 months leading up to 28 September 2026, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
28 Sep 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 287 204 218
Rank change year-on-year -83 +14 -9
Contract jobs citing UX Design 478 450 415
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 0.88% 1.37% 1.09%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 1.04% 1.51% 1.27%
Number of daily rates quoted 266 291 259
10th Percentile £363 £313 £330
25th Percentile £413 £375 £406
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £498 £460 £500
Median % change year-on-year +8.15% -8.00% -5.44%
75th Percentile £586 £538 £588
90th Percentile £668 £608 £675
UK excluding London median daily rate £475 £450 £450
% change year-on-year +5.56% - -10.00%
Number of hourly rates quoted 15 20 6
10th Percentile £23.08 £34.03 £30.97
25th Percentile £31.04 £35.25 £31.89
Median hourly rate £55.00 £36.50 £33.07
Median % change year-on-year +50.68% +10.37% -52.87%
75th Percentile £73.13 £58.50 £34.26
90th Percentile £88.50 £70.16 £44.13
UK excluding London median hourly rate £55.00 £47.50 £32.21
% change year-on-year +15.79% +47.48% -57.06%

All Process & Methodology Skills
UK

UX Design 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 45,850 29,737 32,777
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 84.30% 90.62% 85.83%
Number of daily rates quoted 27,722 18,491 19,844
10th Percentile £325 £294 £308
25th Percentile £425 £403 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £500 £525
Median % change year-on-year +5.00% -4.76% -2.78%
75th Percentile £630 £625 £638
90th Percentile £730 £725 £750
UK excluding London median daily rate £500 £475 £500
% change year-on-year +5.26% -5.00% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 3,198 1,854 1,372
10th Percentile £13.69 £14.25 £15.00
25th Percentile £17.23 £17.30 £20.12
Median hourly rate £39.00 £25.15 £42.50
Median % change year-on-year +55.07% -40.82% -1.16%
75th Percentile £65.60 £43.75 £65.00
90th Percentile £78.72 £65.00 £74.49
UK excluding London median hourly rate £40.00 £22.32 £43.00
% change year-on-year +79.25% -48.10% +1.18%

UX Design
Job Vacancy Trend

Historical trend showing the proportion of contract IT job postings citing UX Design relative to all contract IT jobs advertised.

UX Design job vacancy trend in the UK

UX Design
Daily Rate Trend

Contractor daily rate distribution trend for jobs in the UK citing UX Design.

Contractor daily rate distribution trend for jobs in the UK citing UX Design

UX Design
Daily Rate Histogram

Daily rate distribution for jobs citing UX Design over the 6 months to 28 September 2026.

Daily rate histogram for UX Design in the UK

UX Design
Hourly Rate Trend

Contractor hourly rate distribution trend for jobs in the UK citing UX Design.

Contractor hourly rate distribution trend for jobs in the UK citing UX Design

UX Design
Hourly Rate Histogram

Hourly rate distribution of jobs citing UX Design over the 6 months to 28 September 2026.

Hourly rate histogram for UX Design in the UK

UX Design
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 UX Design within the UK over the 6 months to 28 September 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 -63 413 £475 +5.56% 549
UK excluding London -47 218 £475 +5.56% 252
London -80 215 £511 +10.97% 342
Work from Home -70 111 £485 +7.78% 264
North of England -48 73 £450 +19.21% 82
Midlands -30 47 £500 +19.40% 28
West Midlands -28 42 £495 +10.00% 12
South West -9 38 £475 - 37
Yorkshire -23 33 £500 - 26
Scotland -25 32 £531 +14.86% 14
North West -63 26 £400 +6.67% 46
South East -65 16 £610 +22.00% 42
North East -27 14 £450 -4.00% 11
East of England -16 12 £410 -10.87% 18
East Midlands -19 5 £573 +59.92% 16
Wales -15 2 - - 5
Northern Ireland +3 1 - - 26

UX Design
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 28 (5.86%) CMS
2 26 (5.44%) Confluence
3 8 (1.67%) WordPress
4 4 (0.84%) Kentico
5 3 (0.63%) ColdFusion
5 3 (0.63%) Headless CMS
5 3 (0.63%) Umbraco
6 1 (0.21%) Apache
6 1 (0.21%) Apache Spark
6 1 (0.21%) Camunda
6 1 (0.21%) Drupal
6 1 (0.21%) Mendix
6 1 (0.21%) nginx
6 1 (0.21%) Traefik
Applications
1 20 (4.18%) Sketch
2 16 (3.35%) Adobe Creative Suite
3 10 (2.09%) Adobe After Effects
3 10 (2.09%) Adobe XD
4 9 (1.88%) Photoshop
5 8 (1.67%) Adobe Illustrator
6 6 (1.26%) Final Cut Pro
7 3 (0.63%) Chatbot
7 3 (0.63%) MS Visio
8 1 (0.21%) Adobe Captivate
8 1 (0.21%) InVision
8 1 (0.21%) Trello
8 1 (0.21%) UserZoom
Business Applications
1 5 (1.05%) Dynamics CRM
2 2 (0.42%) SAP S/4HANA
2 2 (0.42%) Shopify
3 1 (0.21%) Eloqua
3 1 (0.21%) Payment Gateway
3 1 (0.21%) SAP HR
Cloud Services
1 115 (24.06%) Figma
2 47 (9.83%) Azure
3 32 (6.69%) AWS
4 23 (4.81%) Azure DevOps
5 19 (3.97%) GitHub
5 19 (3.97%) Power Platform
6 16 (3.35%) SaaS
7 10 (2.09%) GitHub Actions
8 9 (1.88%) Firebase
8 9 (1.88%) GCP
8 9 (1.88%) Microsoft Copilot
9 7 (1.46%) Miro
9 7 (1.46%) Slack
10 6 (1.26%) Dynamics 365
10 6 (1.26%) Google Play
11 5 (1.05%) Copilot Studio
11 5 (1.05%) PowerApps
11 5 (1.05%) Serverless
12 4 (0.84%) Azure AI
12 4 (0.84%) Microsoft 365
Communications & Networking
1 1 (0.21%) Bluetooth
1 1 (0.21%) NFC
1 1 (0.21%) Reverse Proxy
Database & Business Intelligence
1 11 (2.30%) Power BI
2 9 (1.88%) PostgreSQL
3 8 (1.67%) Elasticsearch
4 7 (1.46%) Metadata
4 7 (1.46%) NoSQL
5 6 (1.26%) Power Query
5 6 (1.26%) SQL Server
6 5 (1.05%) MongoDB
6 5 (1.05%) Redis
7 4 (0.84%) Data Warehouse
8 3 (0.63%) Star Schema
9 2 (0.42%) Azure SQL Database
9 2 (0.42%) DynamoDB
9 2 (0.42%) MySQL
9 2 (0.42%) Relational Database
9 2 (0.42%) SQL Server Integration Services
9 2 (0.42%) SQLite
10 1 (0.21%) Amazon RDS
10 1 (0.21%) Flink
10 1 (0.21%) Qlik Sense
Development Applications
1 36 (7.53%) Git
2 32 (6.69%) JIRA
3 18 (3.77%) Jenkins
4 12 (2.51%) Cypress.io
5 10 (2.09%) Storybook
6 8 (1.67%) fastlane
7 6 (1.26%) GitLab
7 6 (1.26%) webpack
8 5 (1.05%) Android Studio
8 5 (1.05%) Claude Code
8 5 (1.05%) Gradle
8 5 (1.05%) REST Assured
9 4 (0.84%) Crashlytics
9 4 (0.84%) IBM UrbanCode
9 4 (0.84%) Jasmine
9 4 (0.84%) Vite
9 4 (0.84%) Xcode
10 3 (0.63%) Babel
10 3 (0.63%) JUnit
10 3 (0.63%) Karma Test Runner
General
1 142 (29.71%) Social Skills
2 87 (18.20%) Public Sector
3 78 (16.32%) Finance
4 31 (6.49%) Banking
4 31 (6.49%) Retail
5 22 (4.60%) Analytical Skills
6 21 (4.39%) Publishing
7 19 (3.97%) Inclusion and Diversity
8 16 (3.35%) Automotive
8 16 (3.35%) Marketing
9 13 (2.72%) Influencing Skills
9 13 (2.72%) Presentation Skills
10 12 (2.51%) Military
11 9 (1.88%) Legal
12 6 (1.26%) Investment Banking
13 4 (0.84%) Aerospace
13 4 (0.84%) Corporate Banking
13 4 (0.84%) Front Office
13 4 (0.84%) Law
13 4 (0.84%) Pharmaceutical
Job Titles
1 226 (47.28%) Designer
2 128 (26.78%) UX Designer
3 99 (20.71%) Senior
4 88 (18.41%) Developer
5 55 (11.51%) UI Designer
6 46 (9.62%) Senior Designer
7 42 (8.79%) Lead
8 40 (8.37%) UI/UX Designer
9 34 (7.11%) Content Designer
10 31 (6.49%) Front-End Developer (Client-Side Developer)
11 29 (6.07%) Senior UX Designer
12 24 (5.02%) Product Designer
13 18 (3.77%) User Experience Researcher
14 17 (3.56%) Senior Developer
14 17 (3.56%) User Researcher
15 16 (3.35%) React Developer
16 14 (2.93%) Service Designer
17 13 (2.72%) Business Analyst
18 12 (2.51%) Analyst
18 12 (2.51%) Senior UI Designer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 74 (15.48%) React
2 69 (14.44%) CSS
3 64 (13.39%) HTML
4 25 (5.23%) RESTful
5 24 (5.02%) AngularJS
5 24 (5.02%) HTML5
5 24 (5.02%) REST
6 22 (4.60%) CSS3
7 14 (2.93%) Next.js
7 14 (2.93%) Redux
8 13 (2.72%) Jest
9 11 (2.30%) .NET
9 11 (2.30%) Android SDK
9 11 (2.30%) Spring
9 11 (2.30%) Spring Boot
10 10 (2.09%) GraphQL
10 10 (2.09%) Node.js
10 10 (2.09%) Vue
11 9 (1.88%) OAuth
11 9 (1.88%) Semantic HTML
Miscellaneous
1 68 (14.23%) Product Ownership
2 45 (9.41%) Mobile App
3 13 (2.72%) Cloud Native
4 12 (2.51%) AI Agents
5 11 (2.30%) Self-Motivation
6 10 (2.09%) Animation
7 8 (1.67%) Legacy Systems
7 8 (1.67%) NHS
7 8 (1.67%) Taxonomies
8 7 (1.46%) Data Protection Act
8 7 (1.46%) Onboarding
9 6 (1.26%) Graphic Design
9 6 (1.26%) Social Media
10 5 (1.05%) Distributed Systems
10 5 (1.05%) Greenfield Project
10 5 (1.05%) Management Information System
10 5 (1.05%) Team-Oriented Environment
10 5 (1.05%) Virtual Reality
11 4 (0.84%) Legacy Applications
11 4 (0.84%) Virtual Team
Operating Systems
1 16 (3.35%) Android
2 9 (1.88%) Apple iOS
3 3 (0.63%) Windows
4 1 (0.21%) Linux
4 1 (0.21%) Unix
Processes & Methodologies
1 478 (100.00%) User Experience
2 203 (42.47%) Agile
3 106 (22.18%) User Research
4 94 (19.67%) User-Centered Design (UCD)
5 90 (18.83%) Prototyping
6 87 (18.20%) AI
7 85 (17.78%) Wireframes
8 76 (15.90%) Service Design
9 69 (14.44%) CI/CD
9 69 (14.44%) Stakeholder Management
10 65 (13.60%) Usability Testing
11 57 (11.92%) Analytics
12 55 (11.51%) Problem-Solving
13 54 (11.30%) UX Research
14 52 (10.88%) Front End Development
15 51 (10.67%) Workshop Facilitation
16 50 (10.46%) Interaction Design
17 49 (10.25%) Journey Map
18 48 (10.04%) Scrum
19 47 (9.83%) Test Automation
Programming Languages
1 71 (14.85%) JavaScript
2 58 (12.13%) TypeScript
3 29 (6.07%) Java
4 21 (4.39%) SQL
5 13 (2.72%) Kotlin
5 13 (2.72%) Python
6 9 (1.88%) Data Analysis Expressions
7 6 (1.26%) C#
8 4 (0.84%) Swift
9 3 (0.63%) Apex Code
9 3 (0.63%) CFML
9 3 (0.63%) PHP
10 2 (0.42%) Bicep
10 2 (0.42%) Ruby
11 1 (0.21%) C
11 1 (0.21%) JSX
11 1 (0.21%) Korn
11 1 (0.21%) Shell Script
Qualifications
1 84 (17.57%) Security Cleared
2 54 (11.30%) SC Cleared
3 42 (8.79%) Degree
4 19 (3.97%) BPSS Clearance
5 13 (2.72%) DV Cleared
6 11 (2.30%) Computer Science Degree
7 5 (1.05%) Master's Degree
8 3 (0.63%) DBS Check
9 2 (0.42%) Azure Certification
9 2 (0.42%) CCA
10 1 (0.21%) CTC Cleared
10 1 (0.21%) IIBA
10 1 (0.21%) ITIL Foundation Certificate
10 1 (0.21%) MBA
10 1 (0.21%) Microsoft Certified Professional
10 1 (0.21%) PhD
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 158 (33.05%) Accessibility
2 62 (12.97%) WCAG
3 25 (5.23%) QA
4 9 (1.88%) Data Quality
5 4 (0.84%) Actionable Recommendations
6 2 (0.42%) GDPR
6 2 (0.42%) ISO/IEC 42001
7 1 (0.21%) GMP
7 1 (0.21%) GRC
7 1 (0.21%) GxP
7 1 (0.21%) PMO
7 1 (0.21%) WAI
7 1 (0.21%) WAI-ARIA
System Software
1 16 (3.35%) Docker
Systems Management
1 13 (2.72%) Kubernetes
2 3 (0.63%) Grafana
3 1 (0.21%) Istio
3 1 (0.21%) Kibana
3 1 (0.21%) Single Sign-On
Vendors
1 38 (7.95%) Adobe
2 36 (7.53%) Microsoft
3 11 (2.30%) Salesforce
4 10 (2.09%) Dynatrace
4 10 (2.09%) ServiceNow
5 7 (1.46%) Google
6 5 (1.05%) Apple
6 5 (1.05%) Oracle
6 5 (1.05%) SAP
7 4 (0.84%) Anaplan
7 4 (0.84%) Foundry
7 4 (0.84%) ION Trading
7 4 (0.84%) OpenAI
8 2 (0.42%) AppDynamics
8 2 (0.42%) Databricks
8 2 (0.42%) Optimizely
8 2 (0.42%) OutSystems
8 2 (0.42%) Progress
8 2 (0.42%) Sitecore
8 2 (0.42%) Splunk