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

6 months to
28 May 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 241 199 205
Rank change year-on-year -42 +6 -30
Contract jobs citing UX Design 507 391 486
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 1.04% 1.36% 1.14%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 1.23% 1.50% 1.33%
Number of daily rates quoted 350 269 345
10th Percentile £363 £320 £351
25th Percentile £402 £400 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £475 £475 £500
Median % change year-on-year - -5.00% -9.09%
75th Percentile £575 £550 £611
90th Percentile £651 £640 £675
UK excluding London median daily rate £475 £425 £450
% change year-on-year +11.76% -5.56% -5.26%
Number of hourly rates quoted 12 6 6
10th Percentile £20.58 £35.25 £29.14
25th Percentile £25.25 £37.81 £34.16
Median hourly rate £31.04 £48.25 £41.68
Median % change year-on-year -35.67% +15.78% -14.95%
75th Percentile £55.37 £85.49 £72.33
90th Percentile £69.50 £97.52 £92.69
UK excluding London median hourly rate £27.67 £70.35 £91.44
% change year-on-year -60.67% -23.07% +46.30%

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 41,286 26,078 36,653
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 84.54% 91.02% 85.75%
Number of daily rates quoted 25,818 16,706 23,627
10th Percentile £325 £300 £300
25th Percentile £413 £408 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £512 £513 £525
Median % change year-on-year -0.19% -2.38% -4.55%
75th Percentile £613 £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 2,472 1,084 2,486
10th Percentile £14.68 £14.20 £12.75
25th Percentile £19.85 £18.08 £16.00
Median hourly rate £42.28 £27.52 £36.00
Median % change year-on-year +53.64% -23.57% -1.09%
75th Percentile £67.50 £57.84 £60.00
90th Percentile £80.19 £75.00 £72.50
UK excluding London median hourly rate £45.00 £25.15 £37.50
% change year-on-year +78.93% -32.93% +7.14%

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 May 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 May 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 May 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 -35 421 £475 - 239
London -33 230 £498 -0.50% 137
UK excluding London -3 212 £475 +11.76% 137
Work from Home -48 130 £475 +9.83% 135
North of England -32 70 £450 +12.50% 37
North West -9 47 £400 - 22
Midlands -34 40 £500 +40.45% 16
South West -6 32 £475 +11.76% 13
West Midlands -35 32 £463 +14.91% 12
Scotland -2 31 £518 +9.86% 6
South East -54 26 £550 +25.71% 36
Yorkshire -50 16 £506 +9.40% 7
East of England -25 9 £410 -14.58% 14
East Midlands -24 8 £575 +62.89% 4
North East -24 7 £450 +16.13% 9
Wales - 4 £450 - 6
Northern Ireland - 1 - - 10

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 21 (4.14%) CMS
2 19 (3.75%) Confluence
3 5 (0.99%) SharePoint
4 4 (0.79%) Kentico
4 4 (0.79%) Umbraco
4 4 (0.79%) WordPress
5 3 (0.59%) Headless CMS
6 2 (0.39%) Appian
7 1 (0.20%) Adobe Experience Manager
7 1 (0.20%) Apache
7 1 (0.20%) Camunda
7 1 (0.20%) Drupal
7 1 (0.20%) Mendix
7 1 (0.20%) Moodle
7 1 (0.20%) nginx
7 1 (0.20%) Strapi
7 1 (0.20%) Traefik
Applications
1 37 (7.30%) Sketch
2 25 (4.93%) Adobe XD
3 11 (2.17%) Photoshop
4 10 (1.97%) Chatbot
4 10 (1.97%) InVision
5 9 (1.78%) Adobe After Effects
5 9 (1.78%) Adobe Illustrator
6 6 (1.18%) Adobe Creative Suite
7 3 (0.59%) Final Cut Pro
7 3 (0.59%) Microsoft Excel
7 3 (0.59%) MS Visio
8 2 (0.39%) Microsoft Office
8 2 (0.39%) Trello
8 2 (0.39%) UserZoom
9 1 (0.20%) Adobe Captivate
9 1 (0.20%) Microsoft PowerPoint
9 1 (0.20%) OmniGraffle
Business Applications
1 5 (0.99%) Shopify
2 2 (0.39%) Dynamics CRM
3 1 (0.20%) Eloqua
3 1 (0.20%) SAP S/4HANA
3 1 (0.20%) Sprinklr
Cloud Services
1 154 (30.37%) Figma
2 57 (11.24%) Azure
3 30 (5.92%) AWS
4 22 (4.34%) Azure DevOps
5 17 (3.35%) Power Platform
6 14 (2.76%) GitHub
6 14 (2.76%) GitHub Actions
6 14 (2.76%) SaaS
7 10 (1.97%) GCP
8 8 (1.58%) Serverless
9 7 (1.38%) AWS Lambda
9 7 (1.38%) Firebase
10 6 (1.18%) Amazon S3
10 6 (1.18%) AWS CloudFormation
10 6 (1.18%) Miro
11 5 (0.99%) Slack
12 4 (0.79%) BigCommerce
12 4 (0.79%) Google Play
13 3 (0.59%) Amazon Bedrock
13 3 (0.59%) Anthropic Claude
Communications & Networking
1 1 (0.20%) HTTP
1 1 (0.20%) Internet
1 1 (0.20%) Intranet
1 1 (0.20%) Reverse Proxy
Database & Business Intelligence
1 9 (1.78%) Power BI
1 9 (1.78%) SQL Server
2 7 (1.38%) NoSQL
3 6 (1.18%) PostgreSQL
4 5 (0.99%) Power Query
5 4 (0.79%) Elasticsearch
5 4 (0.79%) Metadata
5 4 (0.79%) MongoDB
6 3 (0.59%) DynamoDB
6 3 (0.59%) Pinecone
6 3 (0.59%) Relational Database
6 3 (0.59%) SQL Server Integration Services
7 2 (0.39%) CockroachDB
7 2 (0.39%) Star Schema
8 1 (0.20%) Amazon RDS
8 1 (0.20%) Azure SQL Database
8 1 (0.20%) Data Warehouse
8 1 (0.20%) MySQL
8 1 (0.20%) Redis
8 1 (0.20%) SQLite
Development Applications
1 35 (6.90%) Git
2 31 (6.11%) JIRA
3 20 (3.94%) Cypress.io
4 15 (2.96%) GitLab
5 13 (2.56%) Jenkins
6 11 (2.17%) Axure RP
7 8 (1.58%) CircleCI
8 7 (1.38%) JUnit
9 6 (1.18%) fastlane
9 6 (1.18%) Mocha
10 5 (0.99%) Gradle
11 4 (0.79%) Android Studio
11 4 (0.79%) Crashlytics
11 4 (0.79%) Visual Studio
12 3 (0.59%) Vite
12 3 (0.59%) webpack
12 3 (0.59%) Xcode
13 2 (0.39%) REST Assured
13 2 (0.39%) Selenium
13 2 (0.39%) Storybook
General
1 144 (28.40%) Social Skills
2 93 (18.34%) Public Sector
3 84 (16.57%) Finance
4 58 (11.44%) Banking
5 31 (6.11%) Analytical Skills
6 21 (4.14%) Presentation Skills
6 21 (4.14%) Retail
7 17 (3.35%) Inclusion and Diversity
7 17 (3.35%) Marketing
8 12 (2.37%) Automotive
9 11 (2.17%) Publishing
10 9 (1.78%) Pharmaceutical
11 8 (1.58%) Influencing Skills
11 8 (1.58%) Legal
12 6 (1.18%) Games
12 6 (1.18%) Local Government
13 5 (0.99%) Documentation Skills
13 5 (0.99%) Retail Banking
14 4 (0.79%) Advertising
14 4 (0.79%) Investment Banking
Job Titles
1 253 (49.90%) Designer
2 139 (27.42%) UX Designer
3 88 (17.36%) Senior
4 72 (14.20%) Developer
5 57 (11.24%) UI Designer
6 45 (8.88%) Senior Designer
7 42 (8.28%) UI/UX Designer
8 41 (8.09%) Content Designer
9 36 (7.10%) Lead
9 36 (7.10%) Product Designer
10 30 (5.92%) Senior UX Designer
10 30 (5.92%) Service Designer
11 20 (3.94%) User Researcher
12 19 (3.75%) Analyst
12 19 (3.75%) User Experience Researcher
13 16 (3.16%) Architect
13 16 (3.16%) Front-End Developer (Client-Side Developer)
14 15 (2.96%) Business Analyst
14 15 (2.96%) Full-Stack Developer
15 13 (2.56%) Consultant
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 75 (14.79%) React
2 64 (12.62%) CSS
3 63 (12.43%) HTML
4 43 (8.48%) RESTful
5 30 (5.92%) AngularJS
6 29 (5.72%) HTML5
7 28 (5.52%) CSS3
8 27 (5.33%) .NET
9 22 (4.34%) REST
10 17 (3.35%) Jest
10 17 (3.35%) Node.js
11 15 (2.96%) Spring
12 14 (2.76%) Redux
12 14 (2.76%) Spring Boot
13 13 (2.56%) OAuth
14 11 (2.17%) Vue
15 10 (1.97%) Playwright
16 9 (1.78%) JSON
17 8 (1.58%) ASP.NET
17 8 (1.58%) GraphQL
Miscellaneous
1 63 (12.43%) Product Ownership
2 37 (7.30%) Mobile App
3 12 (2.37%) Animation
4 11 (2.17%) Onboarding
5 10 (1.97%) Cloud Native
5 10 (1.97%) Graphic Design
5 10 (1.97%) Self-Motivation
6 8 (1.58%) Data Protection Act
6 8 (1.58%) NHS
7 7 (1.38%) Greenfield Project
7 7 (1.38%) Virtual Team
8 6 (1.18%) Enterprise Software
8 6 (1.18%) Taxonomies
8 6 (1.18%) Virtual Reality
9 5 (0.99%) Digital Wallet
10 4 (0.79%) AI Agents
10 4 (0.79%) Augmented Reality
10 4 (0.79%) Data Structures
10 4 (0.79%) Team-Oriented Environment
11 3 (0.59%) Social Media
Operating Systems
1 10 (1.97%) Android
2 7 (1.38%) Apple iOS
3 1 (0.20%) Linux
Processes & Methodologies
1 507 (100.00%) User Experience
2 214 (42.21%) Agile
3 136 (26.82%) User Research
4 101 (19.92%) Prototyping
5 94 (18.54%) Wireframes
6 92 (18.15%) User-Centered Design (UCD)
7 82 (16.17%) Service Design
8 79 (15.58%) Usability Testing
9 73 (14.40%) UX Research
10 72 (14.20%) AI
11 67 (13.21%) CI/CD
12 64 (12.62%) Problem-Solving
13 61 (12.03%) Interaction Design
14 53 (10.45%) Stakeholder Management
15 52 (10.26%) Analytics
15 52 (10.26%) Workshop Facilitation
16 51 (10.06%) DevOps
17 46 (9.07%) Journey Map
18 42 (8.28%) Continuous Improvement
19 40 (7.89%) Front End Development
Programming Languages
1 65 (12.82%) JavaScript
2 51 (10.06%) TypeScript
3 29 (5.72%) Java
4 27 (5.33%) Python
5 19 (3.75%) C#
6 15 (2.96%) SQL
7 7 (1.38%) Kotlin
8 6 (1.18%) Data Analysis Expressions
9 5 (0.99%) C++
9 5 (0.99%) Korn
9 5 (0.99%) Lua
10 3 (0.59%) Swift
11 2 (0.39%) Apex Code
11 2 (0.39%) Bicep
11 2 (0.39%) PowerShell
12 1 (0.20%) Gremlin
12 1 (0.20%) Objective-C
12 1 (0.20%) Shell Script
12 1 (0.20%) SPARQL
12 1 (0.20%) VBScript
Qualifications
1 73 (14.40%) Security Cleared
2 54 (10.65%) SC Cleared
3 51 (10.06%) Degree
4 13 (2.56%) Master's Degree
5 10 (1.97%) BPSS Clearance
5 10 (1.97%) DV Cleared
6 6 (1.18%) Computer Science Degree
7 3 (0.59%) CCA
7 3 (0.59%) DBS Check
7 3 (0.59%) Microsoft Certification
8 1 (0.20%) Azure Certification
8 1 (0.20%) Citrix Certification
8 1 (0.20%) Microsoft Certified Professional
8 1 (0.20%) PMI Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 171 (33.73%) Accessibility
2 69 (13.61%) WCAG
3 31 (6.11%) QA
4 5 (0.99%) Actionable Recommendations
4 5 (0.99%) Data Quality
5 2 (0.39%) GDPR
6 1 (0.20%) California Consumer Privacy Act
6 1 (0.20%) EU AI Act
6 1 (0.20%) GMP
6 1 (0.20%) GxP
6 1 (0.20%) ISO/IEC 42001
6 1 (0.20%) PCI DSS
6 1 (0.20%) PMO
6 1 (0.20%) WAI
6 1 (0.20%) WAI-ARIA
System Software
1 20 (3.94%) Docker
2 1 (0.20%) Virtual Desktop
Systems Management
1 17 (3.35%) Kubernetes
2 15 (2.96%) Terraform
3 2 (0.39%) Single Sign-On
4 1 (0.20%) Ansible
4 1 (0.20%) Grafana
4 1 (0.20%) HP ALM
4 1 (0.20%) Podman
Vendors
1 47 (9.27%) Adobe
2 21 (4.14%) Microsoft
3 20 (3.94%) Salesforce
4 8 (1.58%) Google
5 7 (1.38%) SAP
6 6 (1.18%) Dynatrace
6 6 (1.18%) MuleSoft
7 5 (0.99%) ServiceNow
8 4 (0.79%) Sitecore
9 3 (0.59%) Apple
9 3 (0.59%) Progress
9 3 (0.59%) Xamarin
10 2 (0.39%) Blue Prism
10 2 (0.39%) Databricks
10 2 (0.39%) OpenAI
10 2 (0.39%) Oracle
11 1 (0.20%) Automation Anywhere
11 1 (0.20%) CODA
11 1 (0.20%) Qualtrics
11 1 (0.20%) UiPath