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 21 September 2026, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
21 Sep 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 288 208 224
Rank change year-on-year -80 +16 -28
Contract jobs citing UX Design 485 443 418
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 0.89% 1.36% 1.09%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 1.06% 1.50% 1.27%
Number of daily rates quoted 268 284 266
10th Percentile £363 £313 £336
25th Percentile £413 £373 £407
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £454 £500
Median % change year-on-year +10.02% -9.11% -9.09%
75th Percentile £588 £525 £588
90th Percentile £668 £594 £675
UK excluding London median daily rate £475 £430 £450
% change year-on-year +10.47% -4.44% -10.00%
Number of hourly rates quoted 15 20 6
10th Percentile £23.08 £34.03 £28.50
25th Percentile £31.04 £35.25 £31.10
Median hourly rate £55.00 £36.50 £33.07
Median % change year-on-year +50.68% +10.37% -52.84%
75th Percentile £73.13 £58.50 £33.42
90th Percentile £88.50 £70.16 £43.65
UK excluding London median hourly rate £55.00 £47.50 £32.21
% change year-on-year +15.79% +47.48% -55.58%

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 45,811 29,562 32,919
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 84.30% 90.52% 85.75%
Number of daily rates quoted 27,773 18,345 20,161
10th Percentile £325 £300 £309
25th Percentile £425 £404 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £500 £525
Median % change year-on-year +5.00% -4.76% -2.78%
75th Percentile £625 £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 3,152 1,818 1,440
10th Percentile £13.81 £14.23 £14.84
25th Percentile £17.25 £17.30 £20.00
Median hourly rate £40.00 £25.15 £43.00
Median % change year-on-year +59.05% -41.51% +0.58%
75th Percentile £67.47 £43.75 £65.00
90th Percentile £78.75 £66.15 £75.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £41.06 £22.32 £43.00
% change year-on-year +84.00% -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 21 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 21 September 2026.

Hourly rate histogram for UX Design in the UK

UX Design
Top 16 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 21 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 -62 422 £475 +5.56% 784
London -74 221 £513 +11.67% 532
UK excluding London -56 220 £475 +10.47% 326
Work from Home -70 119 £485 +14.12% 366
North of England -45 75 £450 +19.21% 99
Midlands -31 48 £500 +21.21% 35
West Midlands -28 42 £485 +9.60% 23
South West -10 38 £475 -5.00% 47
Yorkshire -21 34 £500 - 22
Scotland -26 32 £531 +14.86% 24
North West -56 27 £400 +6.67% 64
South East -71 16 £610 +25.13% 63
North East -29 14 £450 -4.00% 14
East of England -23 12 £410 -6.02% 21
East Midlands -17 6 £575 +60.61% 12
Wales -13 2 - - 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 29 (5.98%) CMS
2 25 (5.15%) Confluence
3 8 (1.65%) WordPress
4 4 (0.82%) Kentico
5 3 (0.62%) ColdFusion
5 3 (0.62%) Headless CMS
5 3 (0.62%) 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 21 (4.33%) Sketch
2 16 (3.30%) Adobe Creative Suite
3 11 (2.27%) Adobe XD
4 10 (2.06%) Adobe After Effects
5 9 (1.86%) Photoshop
6 8 (1.65%) Adobe Illustrator
7 6 (1.24%) Chatbot
7 6 (1.24%) Final Cut Pro
8 2 (0.41%) MS Visio
9 1 (0.21%) Adobe Captivate
9 1 (0.21%) InVision
9 1 (0.21%) Microsoft Excel
9 1 (0.21%) Trello
9 1 (0.21%) UserZoom
Business Applications
1 6 (1.24%) Dynamics CRM
2 3 (0.62%) Shopify
3 2 (0.41%) SAP S/4HANA
4 1 (0.21%) Eloqua
4 1 (0.21%) Payment Gateway
4 1 (0.21%) SAP HR
4 1 (0.21%) Sprinklr
Cloud Services
1 114 (23.51%) Figma
2 49 (10.10%) Azure
3 32 (6.60%) AWS
4 22 (4.54%) Azure DevOps
4 22 (4.54%) Power Platform
5 18 (3.71%) GitHub
6 15 (3.09%) SaaS
7 10 (2.06%) GitHub Actions
7 10 (2.06%) Microsoft Copilot
8 9 (1.86%) Firebase
8 9 (1.86%) GCP
9 7 (1.44%) Slack
10 6 (1.24%) Dynamics 365
10 6 (1.24%) Miro
11 5 (1.03%) Azure AI
11 5 (1.03%) Copilot Studio
11 5 (1.03%) Google Play
11 5 (1.03%) PowerApps
11 5 (1.03%) Serverless
12 4 (0.82%) AWS CloudFormation
Communications & Networking
1 1 (0.21%) Bluetooth
1 1 (0.21%) NFC
1 1 (0.21%) Reverse Proxy
Database & Business Intelligence
1 12 (2.47%) Power BI
2 9 (1.86%) PostgreSQL
3 8 (1.65%) Elasticsearch
4 7 (1.44%) Metadata
4 7 (1.44%) NoSQL
5 6 (1.24%) Power Query
5 6 (1.24%) SQL Server
6 5 (1.03%) MongoDB
6 5 (1.03%) Redis
7 4 (0.82%) Data Warehouse
8 3 (0.62%) Star Schema
9 2 (0.41%) Azure SQL Database
9 2 (0.41%) DynamoDB
9 2 (0.41%) MySQL
9 2 (0.41%) Relational Database
9 2 (0.41%) SQL Server Integration Services
9 2 (0.41%) SQLite
10 1 (0.21%) Amazon RDS
10 1 (0.21%) Flink
10 1 (0.21%) Qlik Sense
Development Applications
1 37 (7.63%) Git
2 31 (6.39%) JIRA
3 18 (3.71%) Jenkins
4 13 (2.68%) Cypress.io
5 10 (2.06%) Storybook
6 8 (1.65%) fastlane
7 6 (1.24%) GitLab
7 6 (1.24%) webpack
8 5 (1.03%) Android Studio
8 5 (1.03%) Gradle
8 5 (1.03%) REST Assured
8 5 (1.03%) Vite
9 4 (0.82%) Claude Code
9 4 (0.82%) Crashlytics
9 4 (0.82%) IBM UrbanCode
9 4 (0.82%) Jasmine
9 4 (0.82%) Xcode
10 3 (0.62%) Babel
10 3 (0.62%) JUnit
10 3 (0.62%) Karma Test Runner
General
1 144 (29.69%) Social Skills
2 87 (17.94%) Public Sector
3 84 (17.32%) Finance
4 35 (7.22%) Banking
5 32 (6.60%) Retail
6 24 (4.95%) Analytical Skills
7 21 (4.33%) Publishing
8 19 (3.92%) Inclusion and Diversity
9 16 (3.30%) Automotive
9 16 (3.30%) Marketing
10 15 (3.09%) Influencing Skills
11 13 (2.68%) Presentation Skills
12 12 (2.47%) Military
13 10 (2.06%) Legal
14 6 (1.24%) Investment Banking
15 5 (1.03%) Law
15 5 (1.03%) Pharmaceutical
16 4 (0.82%) Aerospace
16 4 (0.82%) Corporate Banking
16 4 (0.82%) Front Office
Job Titles
1 229 (47.22%) Designer
2 125 (25.77%) UX Designer
3 99 (20.41%) Senior
4 86 (17.73%) Developer
5 55 (11.34%) UI Designer
6 45 (9.28%) Senior Designer
7 44 (9.07%) Lead
8 40 (8.25%) UI/UX Designer
9 37 (7.63%) Content Designer
10 30 (6.19%) Front-End Developer (Client-Side Developer)
11 28 (5.77%) Senior UX Designer
12 24 (4.95%) Product Designer
13 18 (3.71%) User Experience Researcher
13 18 (3.71%) User Researcher
14 17 (3.51%) Senior Developer
15 16 (3.30%) React Developer
16 14 (2.89%) Service Designer
17 13 (2.68%) Architect
18 12 (2.47%) Analyst
18 12 (2.47%) Business Analyst
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 72 (14.85%) React
2 69 (14.23%) CSS
3 64 (13.20%) HTML
4 25 (5.15%) HTML5
4 25 (5.15%) RESTful
5 24 (4.95%) AngularJS
6 23 (4.74%) CSS3
6 23 (4.74%) REST
7 15 (3.09%) Next.js
8 14 (2.89%) Jest
8 14 (2.89%) Redux
9 12 (2.47%) Spring
10 11 (2.27%) .NET
10 11 (2.27%) Android SDK
10 11 (2.27%) GraphQL
10 11 (2.27%) Spring Boot
11 10 (2.06%) Node.js
11 10 (2.06%) Vue
12 9 (1.86%) OAuth
13 8 (1.65%) Semantic HTML
Miscellaneous
1 67 (13.81%) Product Ownership
2 44 (9.07%) Mobile App
3 13 (2.68%) AI Agents
3 13 (2.68%) Cloud Native
3 13 (2.68%) Self-Motivation
4 10 (2.06%) Animation
5 8 (1.65%) Data Protection Act
5 8 (1.65%) Legacy Systems
5 8 (1.65%) NHS
5 8 (1.65%) Taxonomies
6 7 (1.44%) Onboarding
7 6 (1.24%) Graphic Design
7 6 (1.24%) Social Media
8 5 (1.03%) Distributed Systems
8 5 (1.03%) Greenfield Project
8 5 (1.03%) Management Information System
8 5 (1.03%) Team-Oriented Environment
8 5 (1.03%) Virtual Reality
9 4 (0.82%) Legacy Applications
9 4 (0.82%) Virtual Team
Operating Systems
1 15 (3.09%) Android
2 8 (1.65%) Apple iOS
3 3 (0.62%) Windows
4 1 (0.21%) Linux
4 1 (0.21%) Unix
Processes & Methodologies
1 485 (100.00%) User Experience
2 202 (41.65%) Agile
3 106 (21.86%) User Research
4 93 (19.18%) User-Centered Design (UCD)
5 91 (18.76%) AI
6 88 (18.14%) Prototyping
7 84 (17.32%) Wireframes
8 77 (15.88%) Service Design
9 71 (14.64%) CI/CD
9 71 (14.64%) Stakeholder Management
10 66 (13.61%) Usability Testing
11 58 (11.96%) Analytics
11 58 (11.96%) Problem-Solving
12 52 (10.72%) UX Research
13 51 (10.52%) Front End Development
13 51 (10.52%) Interaction Design
14 49 (10.10%) Workshop Facilitation
15 48 (9.90%) Scrum
16 47 (9.69%) Journey Map
16 47 (9.69%) Test Automation
Programming Languages
1 69 (14.23%) JavaScript
2 59 (12.16%) TypeScript
3 30 (6.19%) Java
4 22 (4.54%) SQL
5 14 (2.89%) Python
6 13 (2.68%) Kotlin
7 10 (2.06%) Data Analysis Expressions
8 5 (1.03%) C#
9 4 (0.82%) Swift
10 3 (0.62%) Apex Code
10 3 (0.62%) CFML
10 3 (0.62%) PHP
11 2 (0.41%) Bicep
11 2 (0.41%) Ruby
12 1 (0.21%) C
12 1 (0.21%) JSX
12 1 (0.21%) Korn
12 1 (0.21%) Shell Script
Qualifications
1 85 (17.53%) Security Cleared
2 55 (11.34%) SC Cleared
3 42 (8.66%) Degree
4 18 (3.71%) BPSS Clearance
5 13 (2.68%) DV Cleared
6 12 (2.47%) Computer Science Degree
7 5 (1.03%) Master's Degree
8 3 (0.62%) DBS Check
9 2 (0.41%) Azure Certification
9 2 (0.41%) 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
1 159 (32.78%) Accessibility
2 62 (12.78%) WCAG
3 26 (5.36%) QA
4 11 (2.27%) Data Quality
5 3 (0.62%) Actionable Recommendations
5 3 (0.62%) ISO/IEC 42001
6 2 (0.41%) GDPR
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 17 (3.51%) Docker
Systems Management
1 13 (2.68%) Kubernetes
2 3 (0.62%) Grafana
3 1 (0.21%) Istio
3 1 (0.21%) Kibana
3 1 (0.21%) Single Sign-On
Vendors
1 40 (8.25%) Adobe
2 38 (7.84%) Microsoft
3 13 (2.68%) Salesforce
4 10 (2.06%) Dynatrace
4 10 (2.06%) ServiceNow
5 7 (1.44%) Google
5 7 (1.44%) SAP
6 5 (1.03%) Apple
6 5 (1.03%) Foundry
6 5 (1.03%) OpenAI
6 5 (1.03%) Oracle
7 4 (0.82%) Anaplan
7 4 (0.82%) ION Trading
8 3 (0.62%) Sitecore
9 2 (0.41%) AppDynamics
9 2 (0.41%) IBM
9 2 (0.41%) Optimizely
9 2 (0.41%) Progress
9 2 (0.41%) Qualtrics
9 2 (0.41%) Splunk