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

6 months to
24 Jan 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 231 214 220
Rank change year-on-year -17 +6 -55
Contract jobs citing UX Design 463 377 470
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 1.22% 1.19% 1.07%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 1.39% 1.34% 1.22%
Number of daily rates quoted 335 237 318
10th Percentile £350 £313 £347
25th Percentile £400 £383 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £468 £500 £500
Median % change year-on-year -6.50% - -9.09%
75th Percentile £538 £575 £600
90th Percentile £600 £650 £675
UK excluding London median daily rate £450 £425 £475
% change year-on-year +5.88% -10.53% -5.00%
Number of hourly rates quoted 12 5 10
10th Percentile £27.32 £30.86 £48.17
25th Percentile £34.20 £31.50 £71.25
Median hourly rate £46.00 £33.54 £77.50
Median % change year-on-year +37.15% -56.72% +42.20%
75th Percentile £57.19 £53.75 £82.19
90th Percentile £69.38 £79.39 £84.54
UK excluding London median hourly rate £35.60 £32.21 £77.50
% change year-on-year +10.53% -58.44% +38.39%

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 33,264 28,130 38,528
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 87.54% 88.98% 87.40%
Number of daily rates quoted 21,071 17,089 25,387
10th Percentile £305 £306 £300
25th Percentile £408 £413 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £525 £525
Median % change year-on-year -4.76% - -4.55%
75th Percentile £613 £638 £644
90th Percentile £725 £738 £738
UK excluding London median daily rate £480 £500 £500
% change year-on-year -4.00% - -
Number of hourly rates quoted 2,016 886 1,898
10th Percentile £14.50 £15.62 £13.91
25th Percentile £17.50 £20.96 £17.00
Median hourly rate £25.15 £32.50 £36.42
Median % change year-on-year -22.62% -10.76% +16.69%
75th Percentile £57.50 £62.50 £62.50
90th Percentile £69.82 £74.93 £75.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £24.00 £30.41 £37.50
% change year-on-year -21.08% -18.91% +44.23%

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 January 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 January 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 January 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 -17 376 £460 -8.00% 303
London -13 217 £470 -10.05% 86
UK excluding London -4 182 £450 +5.88% 272
Work from Home -31 130 £475 +5.56% 168
North of England -25 67 £400 - 51
North West -5 44 £388 +0.32% 23
Midlands -22 38 £425 +19.38% 33
Scotland +5 32 £475 +8.57% 11
West Midlands -26 31 £425 -22.73% 14
South East -31 17 £525 +16.67% 94
Yorkshire -52 17 £513 +7.89% 16
South West -9 14 £450 +63.64% 30
East of England -16 8 £460 +2.22% 38
Wales 0 7 £450 +5.88% 14
East Midlands -24 7 £485 +36.24% 19
North East -8 6 £369 +5.43% 12
Northern Ireland -7 1 £625 +16.28% 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 19 (4.10%) Confluence
2 18 (3.89%) CMS
3 8 (1.73%) SharePoint
4 6 (1.30%) SugarCRM
5 3 (0.65%) Jupyter
6 2 (0.43%) Adobe Experience Manager
6 2 (0.43%) Appian
6 2 (0.43%) Headless CMS
6 2 (0.43%) Sitecore CMS
6 2 (0.43%) Umbraco
7 1 (0.22%) Cloud Foundry
7 1 (0.22%) Drupal
Applications
1 48 (10.37%) Sketch
2 32 (6.91%) Adobe XD
3 13 (2.81%) InVision
4 10 (2.16%) Chatbot
5 6 (1.30%) Adobe Creative Suite
6 5 (1.08%) Adobe Illustrator
7 4 (0.86%) Adobe After Effects
7 4 (0.86%) Photoshop
8 3 (0.65%) Microsoft Excel
8 3 (0.65%) Microsoft Office
8 3 (0.65%) MS Visio
9 2 (0.43%) Blender
9 2 (0.43%) CINEMA 4D
9 2 (0.43%) InDesign
9 2 (0.43%) OmniGraffle
9 2 (0.43%) Trello
9 2 (0.43%) Zeplin
10 1 (0.22%) Camtasia
10 1 (0.22%) Spreadsheet
10 1 (0.22%) UXPin
Business Applications
1 4 (0.86%) Dynamics CRM
2 1 (0.22%) Maximo
2 1 (0.22%) Salesforce CRM
2 1 (0.22%) SAP CO
2 1 (0.22%) SAP FI
2 1 (0.22%) SAP FI/CO
Cloud Services
1 138 (29.81%) Figma
2 60 (12.96%) Azure
3 54 (11.66%) AWS
4 34 (7.34%) SaaS
5 20 (4.32%) Miro
6 18 (3.89%) GCP
7 16 (3.46%) GitHub
8 15 (3.24%) Power Platform
9 13 (2.81%) GitHub Actions
10 11 (2.38%) Azure DevOps
11 6 (1.30%) Microsoft 365
11 6 (1.30%) PaaS
11 6 (1.30%) Serverless
12 5 (1.08%) Firebase
12 5 (1.08%) IaaS
12 5 (1.08%) PowerApps
13 4 (0.86%) AWS Lambda
13 4 (0.86%) Contentful
13 4 (0.86%) Entra ID
13 4 (0.86%) Google Gemini
Communications & Networking
1 6 (1.30%) Internet
2 3 (0.65%) HTTP
3 2 (0.43%) Intranet
4 1 (0.22%) HTTPS
Database & Business Intelligence
1 11 (2.38%) NoSQL
2 10 (2.16%) MySQL
3 9 (1.94%) SQL Server
4 8 (1.73%) Power BI
5 7 (1.51%) MongoDB
5 7 (1.51%) Relational Database
6 5 (1.08%) Mixpanel
6 5 (1.08%) PostgreSQL
7 4 (0.86%) DynamoDB
8 2 (0.43%) Amazon RDS
8 2 (0.43%) CockroachDB
8 2 (0.43%) Metadata
8 2 (0.43%) Pinecone
9 1 (0.22%) Amazon Aurora
9 1 (0.22%) Azure SQL Database
9 1 (0.22%) BigQuery
9 1 (0.22%) Elasticsearch
9 1 (0.22%) MariaDB
9 1 (0.22%) SAP HANA
9 1 (0.22%) SQL Server Integration Services
Development Applications
1 51 (11.02%) Git
2 37 (7.99%) JIRA
3 21 (4.54%) Axure RP
4 19 (4.10%) Cypress.io
5 17 (3.67%) GitLab
6 15 (3.24%) Jenkins
7 13 (2.81%) JUnit
8 9 (1.94%) CircleCI
9 7 (1.51%) Gradle
10 6 (1.30%) Mocha
10 6 (1.30%) Xcode
11 5 (1.08%) Visual Studio
11 5 (1.08%) Visual Website Optimizer
12 4 (0.86%) Android Studio
12 4 (0.86%) Eclipse
13 3 (0.65%) Balsamiq
13 3 (0.65%) Lerna
14 2 (0.43%) Maven
14 2 (0.43%) Selenium
14 2 (0.43%) Snyk
General
1 152 (32.83%) Social Skills
2 101 (21.81%) Finance
3 71 (15.33%) Public Sector
4 56 (12.10%) Banking
5 40 (8.64%) Analytical Skills
6 34 (7.34%) Marketing
7 12 (2.59%) Financial Institution
7 12 (2.59%) Influencing Skills
8 11 (2.38%) Presentation Skills
9 9 (1.94%) Legal
9 9 (1.94%) Pharmaceutical
9 9 (1.94%) Retail
10 6 (1.30%) Automotive
10 6 (1.30%) Inclusion and Diversity
11 5 (1.08%) Local Government
12 4 (0.86%) Telecoms
13 3 (0.65%) Front Office
13 3 (0.65%) Investment Banking
13 3 (0.65%) Organisational Skills
13 3 (0.65%) Publishing
Job Titles
1 188 (40.60%) Designer
2 130 (28.08%) UX Designer
3 95 (20.52%) Developer
4 80 (17.28%) Senior
5 38 (8.21%) Senior Designer
6 33 (7.13%) UI Designer
7 30 (6.48%) Service Designer
8 27 (5.83%) Lead
8 27 (5.83%) Senior UX Designer
9 26 (5.62%) UI/UX Designer
10 25 (5.40%) Product Designer
11 23 (4.97%) Front-End Developer (Client-Side Developer)
12 21 (4.54%) User Researcher
13 16 (3.46%) Full-Stack Developer
14 15 (3.24%) Business Analyst
15 14 (3.02%) Analyst
15 14 (3.02%) Content Designer
16 13 (2.81%) Senior Developer
17 12 (2.59%) React Developer
18 11 (2.38%) Architect
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 86 (18.57%) CSS
1 86 (18.57%) HTML
2 75 (16.20%) React
3 51 (11.02%) RESTful
4 34 (7.34%) HTML5
4 34 (7.34%) REST
5 30 (6.48%) AngularJS
6 27 (5.83%) CSS3
7 26 (5.62%) Node.js
8 25 (5.40%) .NET
9 23 (4.97%) Spring
10 22 (4.75%) Jest
11 21 (4.54%) Spring Boot
12 19 (4.10%) Playwright
13 17 (3.67%) Next.js
14 14 (3.02%) Redux
15 12 (2.59%) GraphQL
16 10 (2.16%) jQuery
16 10 (2.16%) OAuth
16 10 (2.16%) Web Services
Miscellaneous
1 51 (11.02%) Product Ownership
2 42 (9.07%) Mobile App
3 25 (5.40%) Onboarding
4 12 (2.59%) Virtual Team
5 10 (2.16%) Low-Code
5 10 (2.16%) NHS
6 9 (1.94%) Distributed Systems
7 7 (1.51%) Cloud Native
8 6 (1.30%) Enterprise Software
8 6 (1.30%) Greenfield Project
8 6 (1.30%) Mobile Banking
8 6 (1.30%) W3C
9 5 (1.08%) Data Protection Act
9 5 (1.08%) Digital Media
9 5 (1.08%) Digital Wallet
9 5 (1.08%) RIA
10 4 (0.86%) Blog
10 4 (0.86%) Data Structures
10 4 (0.86%) e-Learning
10 4 (0.86%) Life Science
Operating Systems
1 18 (3.89%) Android
2 15 (3.24%) Apple iOS
3 5 (1.08%) Windows
4 4 (0.86%) Linux
5 3 (0.65%) Windows 10
6 2 (0.43%) Mac OS
7 1 (0.22%) VMS
7 1 (0.22%) Windows Server
Processes & Methodologies
1 463 (100.00%) User Experience
2 216 (46.65%) Agile
3 125 (27.00%) User Research
4 102 (22.03%) User-Centered Design (UCD)
5 88 (19.01%) Usability Testing
6 84 (18.14%) Problem-Solving
7 83 (17.93%) Wireframes
8 81 (17.49%) Prototyping
9 76 (16.41%) CI/CD
9 76 (16.41%) Service Design
10 67 (14.47%) Front End Development
11 65 (14.04%) Analytics
12 57 (12.31%) UX Research
13 53 (11.45%) Interaction Design
14 51 (11.02%) DevOps
15 49 (10.58%) Workshop Facilitation
16 47 (10.15%) Continuous Improvement
17 44 (9.50%) Journey Map
18 41 (8.86%) Microservices
19 40 (8.64%) Stakeholder Management
Programming Languages
1 87 (18.79%) JavaScript
2 52 (11.23%) TypeScript
3 48 (10.37%) Java
4 21 (4.54%) SQL
5 20 (4.32%) C#
6 16 (3.46%) Python
7 13 (2.81%) Kotlin
8 10 (2.16%) Swift
9 8 (1.73%) Objective-C
10 7 (1.51%) PHP
11 5 (1.08%) Ruby
11 5 (1.08%) Scala
12 4 (0.86%) C++
13 3 (0.65%) C
14 2 (0.43%) Bash
14 2 (0.43%) COBOL
14 2 (0.43%) Groovy
14 2 (0.43%) PL/SQL
15 1 (0.22%) BeanShell
15 1 (0.22%) PowerShell
Qualifications
1 50 (10.80%) Degree
2 32 (6.91%) Security Cleared
3 19 (4.10%) SC Cleared
4 14 (3.02%) BPSS Clearance
5 10 (2.16%) Computer Science Degree
6 6 (1.30%) Master's Degree
7 4 (0.86%) MCP
8 2 (0.43%) Microsoft Certification
8 2 (0.43%) PMI Certification
9 1 (0.22%) AWS Certification
9 1 (0.22%) Azure Certification
9 1 (0.22%) CCA
9 1 (0.22%) DBS Check
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 140 (30.24%) Accessibility
2 48 (10.37%) WCAG
3 42 (9.07%) QA
4 11 (2.38%) GDPR
5 8 (1.73%) Actionable Recommendations
6 4 (0.86%) California Consumer Privacy Act
6 4 (0.86%) ISO/IEC 27001
7 3 (0.65%) Data Quality
8 1 (0.22%) PCI DSS
System Software
1 34 (7.34%) Docker
2 3 (0.65%) Active Directory
3 1 (0.22%) VMware Infrastructure
Systems Management
1 20 (4.32%) Kubernetes
2 15 (3.24%) Terraform
3 6 (1.30%) Ansible
3 6 (1.30%) Grafana
4 3 (0.65%) Single Sign-On
5 2 (0.43%) Systems Management Server (SMS)
6 1 (0.22%) Consul
6 1 (0.22%) HP ALM
6 1 (0.22%) Microsoft Intune
6 1 (0.22%) Podman
6 1 (0.22%) Prometheus
6 1 (0.22%) SCCM
Vendors
1 49 (10.58%) Adobe
2 36 (7.78%) Microsoft
3 20 (4.32%) Google
4 16 (3.46%) Salesforce
5 8 (1.73%) ServiceNow
6 7 (1.51%) Optimizely
6 7 (1.51%) Oracle
6 7 (1.51%) SAP
7 6 (1.30%) Hopewiser
7 6 (1.30%) Hotjar
8 5 (1.08%) Amplitude
8 5 (1.08%) Apple
8 5 (1.08%) MuleSoft
8 5 (1.08%) OutSystems
9 4 (0.86%) Xamarin
10 3 (0.65%) Dataiku
10 3 (0.65%) OpenAI
11 2 (0.43%) OneTrust
11 2 (0.43%) Progress
11 2 (0.43%) Sitecore