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 24 July 2026, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
24 Jul 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 257 210 236
Rank change year-on-year -47 +26 -53
Contract jobs citing UX Design 514 428 443
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 0.97% 1.31% 1.08%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 1.15% 1.45% 1.27%
Number of daily rates quoted 317 278 307
10th Percentile £363 £313 £350
25th Percentile £405 £368 £406
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £488 £465 £500
Median % change year-on-year +4.84% -7.00% -9.09%
75th Percentile £588 £549 £600
90th Percentile £668 £629 £675
UK excluding London median daily rate £460 £425 £425
% change year-on-year +8.24% - -10.53%
Number of hourly rates quoted 13 14 6
10th Percentile £20.85 £34.71 £29.14
25th Percentile £26.00 £35.25 £32.05
Median hourly rate £33.99 £42.00 £33.07
Median % change year-on-year -19.07% +27.00% -44.88%
75th Percentile £72.50 £66.81 £39.65
90th Percentile £92.75 £70.16 £41.84
UK excluding London median hourly rate £28.09 £70.16 -
% change year-on-year -59.96% - -

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 44,871 29,543 34,928
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 85.02% 90.39% 85.53%
Number of daily rates quoted 27,803 18,563 22,435
10th Percentile £325 £300 £306
25th Percentile £419 £404 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £520 £500 £525
Median % change year-on-year +4.00% -4.76% -4.46%
75th Percentile £625 £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 2,660 1,589 2,131
10th Percentile £14.85 £14.20 £13.46
25th Percentile £20.09 £17.44 £17.25
Median hourly rate £43.96 £25.15 £40.00
Median % change year-on-year +74.79% -37.13% -6.98%
75th Percentile £68.13 £50.00 £63.75
90th Percentile £83.00 £69.00 £73.75
UK excluding London median hourly rate £44.50 £24.34 £40.00
% change year-on-year +82.83% -39.15% -1.95%

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 24 July 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 24 July 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 24 July 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 -44 433 £475 +2.15% 187
London -45 235 £513 +5.67% 109
UK excluding London -37 220 £460 +8.24% 107
Work from Home -69 123 £495 +16.47% 100
North of England -43 69 £413 +3.13% 37
Scotland +3 39 £525 +13.51% 7
South West -16 38 £475 +6.26% 16
Midlands -31 35 £550 +54.49% 5
North West -39 31 £375 -6.25% 13
West Midlands -38 29 £488 +21.88% 4
South East -68 27 £550 +25.14% 26
Yorkshire -41 21 £500 - 13
North East -21 17 £413 -9.59% 11
East of England -13 13 £410 -13.68% 9
East Midlands -13 6 £575 +61.52% 1
Wales -14 2 - - 2
Northern Ireland - 1 - - 6

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 (5.45%) CMS
2 19 (3.70%) Confluence
3 7 (1.36%) WordPress
4 4 (0.78%) Headless CMS
4 4 (0.78%) Kentico
5 3 (0.58%) Umbraco
6 2 (0.39%) Mendix
7 1 (0.19%) Apache
7 1 (0.19%) Apache Spark
7 1 (0.19%) Camunda
7 1 (0.19%) Drupal
7 1 (0.19%) Moodle
7 1 (0.19%) nginx
7 1 (0.19%) SharePoint
7 1 (0.19%) Strapi
7 1 (0.19%) Traefik
Applications
1 28 (5.45%) Sketch
2 15 (2.92%) Adobe XD
3 14 (2.72%) Adobe Creative Suite
4 11 (2.14%) Adobe After Effects
5 10 (1.95%) Photoshop
6 9 (1.75%) Chatbot
7 8 (1.56%) Adobe Illustrator
8 6 (1.17%) Final Cut Pro
9 3 (0.58%) Microsoft Excel
9 3 (0.58%) MS Visio
10 2 (0.39%) InVision
10 2 (0.39%) Microsoft Office
11 1 (0.19%) Adobe Captivate
11 1 (0.19%) Trello
11 1 (0.19%) UserZoom
Business Applications
1 5 (0.97%) Shopify
2 4 (0.78%) Dynamics CRM
3 2 (0.39%) SAP S/4HANA
4 1 (0.19%) Eloqua
4 1 (0.19%) Payment Gateway
4 1 (0.19%) SAP HR
4 1 (0.19%) Sprinklr
Cloud Services
1 148 (28.79%) Figma
2 58 (11.28%) Azure
3 29 (5.64%) Azure DevOps
4 28 (5.45%) AWS
5 22 (4.28%) Power Platform
6 14 (2.72%) GitHub
6 14 (2.72%) SaaS
7 11 (2.14%) Firebase
8 10 (1.95%) GCP
8 10 (1.95%) GitHub Actions
9 9 (1.75%) Microsoft Copilot
10 7 (1.36%) Serverless
10 7 (1.36%) Slack
11 6 (1.17%) Google Play
11 6 (1.17%) Miro
12 5 (0.97%) Azure AI
13 4 (0.78%) AWS Lambda
13 4 (0.78%) BigCommerce
13 4 (0.78%) Copilot Studio
13 4 (0.78%) PowerApps
Communications & Networking
1 1 (0.19%) Bluetooth
1 1 (0.19%) NFC
1 1 (0.19%) Reverse Proxy
Database & Business Intelligence
1 15 (2.92%) Power BI
2 10 (1.95%) PostgreSQL
3 6 (1.17%) Metadata
3 6 (1.17%) NoSQL
3 6 (1.17%) Power Query
3 6 (1.17%) SQL Server
4 4 (0.78%) Elasticsearch
4 4 (0.78%) MongoDB
4 4 (0.78%) Redis
5 3 (0.58%) Azure SQL Database
5 3 (0.58%) MySQL
5 3 (0.58%) Relational Database
5 3 (0.58%) Star Schema
6 2 (0.39%) DynamoDB
6 2 (0.39%) SQL Server Integration Services
6 2 (0.39%) SQLite
7 1 (0.19%) Amazon QuickSight
7 1 (0.19%) Flink
7 1 (0.19%) Pinecone
7 1 (0.19%) Qlik Sense
Development Applications
1 32 (6.23%) JIRA
2 26 (5.06%) Git
3 16 (3.11%) Cypress.io
4 15 (2.92%) Jenkins
5 10 (1.95%) fastlane
6 7 (1.36%) GitLab
7 6 (1.17%) Android Studio
7 6 (1.17%) Gradle
7 6 (1.17%) Vite
7 6 (1.17%) webpack
8 5 (0.97%) Crashlytics
8 5 (0.97%) Storybook
8 5 (0.97%) Xcode
9 4 (0.78%) Claude Code
10 3 (0.58%) Axure RP
10 3 (0.58%) JUnit
11 2 (0.39%) Jasmine
11 2 (0.39%) Karma Test Runner
11 2 (0.39%) REST Assured
11 2 (0.39%) Selenium
General
1 163 (31.71%) Social Skills
2 103 (20.04%) Public Sector
3 92 (17.90%) Finance
4 49 (9.53%) Banking
5 30 (5.84%) Analytical Skills
5 30 (5.84%) Retail
6 22 (4.28%) Inclusion and Diversity
7 19 (3.70%) Presentation Skills
8 18 (3.50%) Publishing
9 15 (2.92%) Automotive
10 12 (2.33%) Marketing
11 11 (2.14%) Influencing Skills
12 10 (1.95%) Legal
12 10 (1.95%) Military
13 7 (1.36%) Pharmaceutical
14 6 (1.17%) Documentation Skills
15 5 (0.97%) Games
15 5 (0.97%) Law
16 3 (0.58%) Police
16 3 (0.58%) Social Science
Job Titles
1 262 (50.97%) Designer
2 140 (27.24%) UX Designer
3 90 (17.51%) Senior
4 69 (13.42%) Developer
5 64 (12.45%) UI Designer
6 47 (9.14%) Senior Designer
6 47 (9.14%) UI/UX Designer
7 45 (8.75%) Content Designer
8 42 (8.17%) Lead
9 32 (6.23%) Product Designer
10 29 (5.64%) Senior UX Designer
11 25 (4.86%) User Researcher
12 19 (3.70%) Analyst
12 19 (3.70%) Service Designer
12 19 (3.70%) User Experience Researcher
13 17 (3.31%) Front-End Developer (Client-Side Developer)
14 16 (3.11%) Business Analyst
15 15 (2.92%) Consultant
15 15 (2.92%) Senior Developer
16 13 (2.53%) Junior
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 62 (12.06%) React
2 61 (11.87%) CSS
3 57 (11.09%) HTML
4 34 (6.61%) RESTful
5 28 (5.45%) AngularJS
6 25 (4.86%) HTML5
7 24 (4.67%) CSS3
8 21 (4.09%) REST
9 15 (2.92%) .NET
10 14 (2.72%) Redux
11 13 (2.53%) Jest
12 10 (1.95%) GraphQL
12 10 (1.95%) Vue
13 9 (1.75%) Android SDK
13 9 (1.75%) Node.js
14 8 (1.56%) Next.js
14 8 (1.56%) OAuth
14 8 (1.56%) Playwright
14 8 (1.56%) VML
15 7 (1.36%) Spring
Miscellaneous
1 67 (13.04%) Product Ownership
2 50 (9.73%) Mobile App
3 15 (2.92%) Animation
4 14 (2.72%) Self-Motivation
5 13 (2.53%) Onboarding
6 12 (2.33%) Cloud Native
7 10 (1.95%) AI Agents
8 9 (1.75%) Data Protection Act
9 8 (1.56%) Graphic Design
9 8 (1.56%) Greenfield Project
9 8 (1.56%) Taxonomies
10 7 (1.36%) Enterprise Software
11 6 (1.17%) Legacy Systems
11 6 (1.17%) NHS
12 5 (0.97%) Social Media
12 5 (0.97%) Virtual Reality
13 4 (0.78%) Algorithms
13 4 (0.78%) Data Structures
14 3 (0.58%) Educational Technology
14 3 (0.58%) IoT
Operating Systems
1 15 (2.92%) Android
2 11 (2.14%) Apple iOS
3 2 (0.39%) Windows
4 1 (0.19%) Linux
4 1 (0.19%) Unix
Processes & Methodologies
1 514 (100.00%) User Experience
2 220 (42.80%) Agile
3 135 (26.26%) User Research
4 109 (21.21%) Prototyping
5 106 (20.62%) Wireframes
6 98 (19.07%) User-Centered Design (UCD)
7 97 (18.87%) AI
8 85 (16.54%) Service Design
9 82 (15.95%) Usability Testing
10 71 (13.81%) UX Research
11 69 (13.42%) Stakeholder Management
12 65 (12.65%) Analytics
12 65 (12.65%) CI/CD
12 65 (12.65%) Interaction Design
13 62 (12.06%) Problem-Solving
14 52 (10.12%) Customer Experience
14 52 (10.12%) Journey Map
15 51 (9.92%) DevOps
16 50 (9.73%) Workshop Facilitation
17 47 (9.14%) Scrum
Programming Languages
1 56 (10.89%) JavaScript
2 50 (9.73%) TypeScript
3 28 (5.45%) Java
4 27 (5.25%) Python
5 20 (3.89%) SQL
6 11 (2.14%) Kotlin
7 10 (1.95%) C#
7 10 (1.95%) Data Analysis Expressions
8 5 (0.97%) C++
8 5 (0.97%) Korn
8 5 (0.97%) Lua
8 5 (0.97%) Swift
9 4 (0.78%) Apex Code
10 2 (0.39%) Bicep
10 2 (0.39%) PHP
10 2 (0.39%) PowerShell
11 1 (0.19%) Objective-C
11 1 (0.19%) Ruby
11 1 (0.19%) Shell Script
11 1 (0.19%) VBScript
Qualifications
1 89 (17.32%) Security Cleared
2 63 (12.26%) SC Cleared
3 53 (10.31%) Degree
4 13 (2.53%) BPSS Clearance
5 12 (2.33%) DV Cleared
6 9 (1.75%) Master's Degree
7 8 (1.56%) Computer Science Degree
8 3 (0.58%) Azure Certification
8 3 (0.58%) DBS Check
9 2 (0.39%) CCA
10 1 (0.19%) Citrix Certification
10 1 (0.19%) CTC Cleared
10 1 (0.19%) IIBA
10 1 (0.19%) ITIL Foundation Certificate
10 1 (0.19%) Microsoft Certification
10 1 (0.19%) Microsoft Certified Professional
10 1 (0.19%) PhD
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 176 (34.24%) Accessibility
2 68 (13.23%) WCAG
3 27 (5.25%) QA
4 11 (2.14%) Data Quality
5 5 (0.97%) Actionable Recommendations
6 3 (0.58%) ISO/IEC 42001
7 2 (0.39%) GDPR
8 1 (0.19%) EU AI Act
8 1 (0.19%) GMP
8 1 (0.19%) GRC
8 1 (0.19%) GxP
8 1 (0.19%) PMO
8 1 (0.19%) WAI
8 1 (0.19%) WAI-ARIA
System Software
1 16 (3.11%) Docker
2 1 (0.19%) Virtual Desktop
Systems Management
1 13 (2.53%) Kubernetes
2 12 (2.33%) Terraform
3 1 (0.19%) Grafana
3 1 (0.19%) HP ALM
3 1 (0.19%) Kibana
Vendors
1 43 (8.37%) Adobe
2 35 (6.81%) Microsoft
3 16 (3.11%) Salesforce
4 11 (2.14%) Google
5 10 (1.95%) Dynatrace
6 8 (1.56%) SAP
6 8 (1.56%) ServiceNow
7 5 (0.97%) Apple
7 5 (0.97%) Foundry
8 4 (0.78%) Databricks
8 4 (0.78%) Oracle
8 4 (0.78%) Sitecore
9 3 (0.58%) Progress
10 2 (0.39%) Blue Prism
10 2 (0.39%) IBM
10 2 (0.39%) OpenAI
10 2 (0.39%) Optimizely
11 1 (0.19%) Alteryx
11 1 (0.19%) Automation Anywhere
11 1 (0.19%) Qualtrics