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

6 months to
30 Jun 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 259 195 223
Rank change year-on-year -64 +28 -51
Contract jobs citing UX Design 504 428 472
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 0.98% 1.40% 1.09%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 1.16% 1.54% 1.28%
Number of daily rates quoted 323 284 326
10th Percentile £363 £302 £350
25th Percentile £404 £358 £403
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £475 £450 £500
Median % change year-on-year +5.56% -10.00% -9.09%
75th Percentile £575 £546 £611
90th Percentile £663 £624 £675
UK excluding London median daily rate £475 £425 £425
% change year-on-year +11.76% - -10.53%
Number of hourly rates quoted 13 13 8
10th Percentile £20.85 £34.63 £30.17
25th Percentile £26.00 £35.25 £32.73
Median hourly rate £33.99 £47.50 £37.37
Median % change year-on-year -28.44% +27.10% -35.00%
75th Percentile £65.00 £70.16 £52.00
90th Percentile £92.75 £91.22 £88.61
UK excluding London median hourly rate £27.67 £70.16 £91.44
% change year-on-year -60.57% -23.27% +30.30%

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 43,613 27,816 36,814
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 84.98% 90.91% 85.28%
Number of daily rates quoted 27,139 17,565 23,448
10th Percentile £325 £300 £300
25th Percentile £414 £405 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £515 £504 £525
Median % change year-on-year +2.18% -4.00% -4.55%
75th Percentile £623 £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 2,612 1,364 2,554
10th Percentile £14.82 £14.20 £12.74
25th Percentile £20.00 £17.49 £16.06
Median hourly rate £43.96 £25.15 £37.50
Median % change year-on-year +74.79% -32.93% +4.17%
75th Percentile £68.00 £53.95 £61.30
90th Percentile £81.25 £70.00 £72.50
UK excluding London median hourly rate £44.50 £25.00 £38.12
% change year-on-year +78.00% -34.42% +8.91%

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 30 June 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 30 June 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 30 June 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 -40 419 £475 +5.56% 146
London -51 238 £500 +7.53% 89
UK excluding London -38 205 £475 +11.76% 87
Work from Home -67 119 £488 +14.71% 72
North of England -52 66 £450 +12.50% 23
Scotland -4 37 £518 +11.17% 4
North West -35 36 £375 -6.25% 12
Midlands -41 33 £550 +54.49% 7
South West -10 32 £475 +11.76% 7
West Midlands -35 26 £500 +66.67% 5
South East -68 26 £550 +21.15% 32
Yorkshire -48 17 £500 +24.84% 7
North East -25 13 £450 +5.88% 4
East of England -23 11 £410 -14.14% 7
East Midlands -17 7 £588 +65.03% 2
Wales -13 1 £450 +2.86% 2
Northern Ireland - 1 - - 5

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 25 (4.96%) CMS
2 17 (3.37%) Confluence
3 5 (0.99%) WordPress
4 4 (0.79%) Kentico
4 4 (0.79%) Umbraco
5 3 (0.60%) Headless CMS
5 3 (0.60%) SharePoint
6 2 (0.40%) Mendix
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%) Moodle
7 1 (0.20%) nginx
7 1 (0.20%) Strapi
7 1 (0.20%) Traefik
Applications
1 29 (5.75%) Sketch
2 15 (2.98%) Adobe XD
3 11 (2.18%) Adobe After Effects
3 11 (2.18%) Adobe Creative Suite
4 10 (1.98%) Photoshop
5 9 (1.79%) Chatbot
6 8 (1.59%) Adobe Illustrator
7 6 (1.19%) Final Cut Pro
8 4 (0.79%) InVision
9 3 (0.60%) Microsoft Excel
9 3 (0.60%) MS Visio
10 2 (0.40%) Microsoft Office
10 2 (0.40%) UserZoom
11 1 (0.20%) Adobe Captivate
11 1 (0.20%) Microsoft PowerPoint
11 1 (0.20%) Trello
Business Applications
1 5 (0.99%) Shopify
2 2 (0.40%) Dynamics CRM
2 2 (0.40%) SAP S/4HANA
3 1 (0.20%) Eloqua
3 1 (0.20%) SAP HR
3 1 (0.20%) Sprinklr
Cloud Services
1 149 (29.56%) Figma
2 63 (12.50%) Azure
3 28 (5.56%) AWS
3 28 (5.56%) Azure DevOps
4 20 (3.97%) Power Platform
5 15 (2.98%) GitHub
6 13 (2.58%) GitHub Actions
6 13 (2.58%) SaaS
7 10 (1.98%) Firebase
8 9 (1.79%) Microsoft Copilot
9 8 (1.59%) GCP
9 8 (1.59%) Serverless
10 5 (0.99%) AWS Lambda
10 5 (0.99%) Azure AI
10 5 (0.99%) Google Play
10 5 (0.99%) Slack
11 4 (0.79%) BigCommerce
11 4 (0.79%) Copilot Studio
11 4 (0.79%) Microsoft 365
11 4 (0.79%) Miro
Communications & Networking
1 1 (0.20%) Internet
1 1 (0.20%) Reverse Proxy
Database & Business Intelligence
1 11 (2.18%) Power BI
2 10 (1.98%) PostgreSQL
3 9 (1.79%) SQL Server
4 6 (1.19%) Metadata
4 6 (1.19%) NoSQL
4 6 (1.19%) Power Query
5 4 (0.79%) Elasticsearch
5 4 (0.79%) MongoDB
6 3 (0.60%) Azure SQL Database
6 3 (0.60%) MySQL
6 3 (0.60%) Redis
6 3 (0.60%) Relational Database
6 3 (0.60%) SQL Server Integration Services
6 3 (0.60%) Star Schema
7 2 (0.40%) DynamoDB
7 2 (0.40%) Pinecone
8 1 (0.20%) Amazon QuickSight
8 1 (0.20%) CockroachDB
8 1 (0.20%) Flink
8 1 (0.20%) SQLite
Development Applications
1 29 (5.75%) JIRA
2 27 (5.36%) Git
3 17 (3.37%) Jenkins
4 16 (3.17%) Cypress.io
5 13 (2.58%) GitLab
6 10 (1.98%) fastlane
7 5 (0.99%) Android Studio
7 5 (0.99%) Axure RP
7 5 (0.99%) Crashlytics
7 5 (0.99%) Gradle
7 5 (0.99%) JUnit
7 5 (0.99%) Vite
7 5 (0.99%) Xcode
8 4 (0.79%) CircleCI
8 4 (0.79%) Storybook
8 4 (0.79%) webpack
9 3 (0.60%) Mocha
9 3 (0.60%) Visual Studio
10 2 (0.40%) Jasmine
10 2 (0.40%) Selenium
General
1 149 (29.56%) Social Skills
2 97 (19.25%) Public Sector
3 86 (17.06%) Finance
4 55 (10.91%) Banking
5 27 (5.36%) Retail
6 24 (4.76%) Analytical Skills
7 20 (3.97%) Inclusion and Diversity
8 19 (3.77%) Presentation Skills
9 15 (2.98%) Automotive
10 14 (2.78%) Publishing
11 12 (2.38%) Marketing
12 8 (1.59%) Influencing Skills
12 8 (1.59%) Legal
13 6 (1.19%) Documentation Skills
13 6 (1.19%) Pharmaceutical
14 5 (0.99%) Games
15 4 (0.79%) Investment Banking
15 4 (0.79%) Law
15 4 (0.79%) Local Government
15 4 (0.79%) Retail Banking
Job Titles
1 253 (50.20%) Designer
2 137 (27.18%) UX Designer
3 84 (16.67%) Senior
4 73 (14.48%) Developer
5 62 (12.30%) UI Designer
6 45 (8.93%) Content Designer
6 45 (8.93%) Senior Designer
6 45 (8.93%) UI/UX Designer
7 42 (8.33%) Lead
8 35 (6.94%) Product Designer
9 29 (5.75%) Senior UX Designer
10 22 (4.37%) User Researcher
11 19 (3.77%) Analyst
12 18 (3.57%) User Experience Researcher
13 17 (3.37%) Front-End Developer (Client-Side Developer)
14 16 (3.17%) Architect
14 16 (3.17%) Service Designer
15 15 (2.98%) Business Analyst
16 14 (2.78%) Consultant
16 14 (2.78%) Full-Stack Developer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 65 (12.90%) React
2 60 (11.90%) CSS
3 56 (11.11%) HTML
4 40 (7.94%) RESTful
5 28 (5.56%) AngularJS
6 25 (4.96%) HTML5
7 24 (4.76%) .NET
7 24 (4.76%) CSS3
8 20 (3.97%) REST
9 14 (2.78%) Jest
9 14 (2.78%) Redux
9 14 (2.78%) Spring
10 13 (2.58%) Spring Boot
11 12 (2.38%) Node.js
12 11 (2.18%) OAuth
13 10 (1.98%) GraphQL
13 10 (1.98%) Playwright
13 10 (1.98%) Vue
14 9 (1.79%) .NET Framework
14 9 (1.79%) Next.js
Miscellaneous
1 67 (13.29%) Product Ownership
2 46 (9.13%) Mobile App
3 15 (2.98%) Animation
4 14 (2.78%) Onboarding
5 13 (2.58%) Self-Motivation
6 12 (2.38%) Cloud Native
7 10 (1.98%) Data Protection Act
8 9 (1.79%) Graphic Design
9 8 (1.59%) Enterprise Software
9 8 (1.59%) Greenfield Project
9 8 (1.59%) Taxonomies
10 7 (1.39%) AI Agents
11 5 (0.99%) Legacy Systems
11 5 (0.99%) Virtual Reality
12 4 (0.79%) Algorithms
12 4 (0.79%) Data Structures
12 4 (0.79%) Team-Oriented Environment
12 4 (0.79%) Virtual Team
13 3 (0.60%) IoT
13 3 (0.60%) Mobile Banking
Operating Systems
1 13 (2.58%) Android
2 10 (1.98%) Apple iOS
3 2 (0.40%) Windows
4 1 (0.20%) Linux
4 1 (0.20%) Unix
Processes & Methodologies
1 504 (100.00%) User Experience
2 205 (40.67%) Agile
3 125 (24.80%) User Research
4 102 (20.24%) Prototyping
5 95 (18.85%) Wireframes
6 89 (17.66%) User-Centered Design (UCD)
7 86 (17.06%) AI
8 81 (16.07%) Service Design
9 71 (14.09%) Usability Testing
10 68 (13.49%) UX Research
11 67 (13.29%) CI/CD
12 64 (12.70%) Analytics
13 63 (12.50%) Interaction Design
14 58 (11.51%) Stakeholder Management
15 57 (11.31%) Problem-Solving
16 55 (10.91%) DevOps
17 49 (9.72%) Customer Experience
17 49 (9.72%) Workshop Facilitation
18 47 (9.33%) Journey Map
19 42 (8.33%) Scrum
Programming Languages
1 58 (11.51%) JavaScript
2 51 (10.12%) TypeScript
3 33 (6.55%) Java
4 26 (5.16%) Python
5 20 (3.97%) SQL
6 19 (3.77%) C#
7 9 (1.79%) Kotlin
8 8 (1.59%) Data Analysis Expressions
9 5 (0.99%) C++
9 5 (0.99%) Korn
9 5 (0.99%) Lua
9 5 (0.99%) Swift
10 4 (0.79%) Apex Code
11 2 (0.40%) Bicep
11 2 (0.40%) 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 (14.48%) Security Cleared
2 58 (11.51%) SC Cleared
3 51 (10.12%) Degree
4 10 (1.98%) BPSS Clearance
4 10 (1.98%) DV Cleared
4 10 (1.98%) Master's Degree
5 6 (1.19%) Computer Science Degree
6 3 (0.60%) Azure Certification
6 3 (0.60%) DBS Check
7 2 (0.40%) CCA
8 1 (0.20%) Citrix Certification
8 1 (0.20%) Microsoft Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 173 (34.33%) Accessibility
2 66 (13.10%) WCAG
3 26 (5.16%) QA
4 11 (2.18%) Data Quality
5 5 (0.99%) Actionable Recommendations
6 3 (0.60%) ISO/IEC 42001
7 2 (0.40%) GDPR
8 1 (0.20%) EU AI Act
8 1 (0.20%) GMP
8 1 (0.20%) GRC
8 1 (0.20%) GxP
8 1 (0.20%) PMO
8 1 (0.20%) WAI
8 1 (0.20%) WAI-ARIA
System Software
1 20 (3.97%) Docker
2 1 (0.20%) Virtual Desktop
Systems Management
1 17 (3.37%) Kubernetes
2 14 (2.78%) Terraform
3 1 (0.20%) Grafana
3 1 (0.20%) HP ALM
3 1 (0.20%) Single Sign-On
Vendors
1 42 (8.33%) Adobe
2 29 (5.75%) Microsoft
3 19 (3.77%) Salesforce
4 10 (1.98%) Dynatrace
5 9 (1.79%) Google
6 8 (1.59%) SAP
7 6 (1.19%) ServiceNow
8 5 (0.99%) Apple
8 5 (0.99%) Foundry
9 4 (0.79%) Oracle
9 4 (0.79%) Sitecore
10 3 (0.60%) Progress
10 3 (0.60%) Xamarin
11 2 (0.40%) Blue Prism
11 2 (0.40%) Databricks
11 2 (0.40%) OpenAI
12 1 (0.20%) Alteryx
12 1 (0.20%) Automation Anywhere
12 1 (0.20%) Qualtrics
12 1 (0.20%) UiPath