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

6 months to
21 Jul 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 251 207 221
Rank change year-on-year -44 +14 -38
Contract jobs citing UX Design 529 427 450
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 1.00% 1.31% 1.09%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 1.18% 1.45% 1.27%
Number of daily rates quoted 329 281 313
10th Percentile £363 £308 £350
25th Percentile £405 £365 £406
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £490 £465 £500
Median % change year-on-year +5.38% -7.00% -9.09%
75th Percentile £588 £545 £610
90th Percentile £668 £625 £675
UK excluding London median daily rate £465 £425 £425
% change year-on-year +9.41% - -10.53%
Number of hourly rates quoted 14 12 6
10th Percentile £21.12 £34.56 £29.14
25th Percentile £26.31 £35.25 £32.05
Median hourly rate £42.72 £42.00 £33.07
Median % change year-on-year +1.70% +27.00% -44.88%
75th Percentile £70.63 £60.10 £39.65
90th Percentile £90.38 £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 44,806 29,445 35,310
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 84.99% 90.36% 85.44%
Number of daily rates quoted 27,768 18,486 22,647
10th Percentile £325 £300 £306
25th Percentile £419 £405 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £520 £500 £525
Median % change year-on-year +4.00% -4.76% -4.11%
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 2,649 1,571 2,189
10th Percentile £14.85 £14.20 £13.06
25th Percentile £20.00 £17.44 £16.86
Median hourly rate £43.96 £25.15 £38.12
Median % change year-on-year +74.79% -34.02% -10.31%
75th Percentile £68.55 £50.88 £62.50
90th Percentile £83.00 £68.75 £73.55
UK excluding London median hourly rate £45.00 £24.00 £40.00
% change year-on-year +87.50% -40.00% -1.45%

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 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 21 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 21 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 -22 444 £475 +2.15% 230
London -34 241 £513 +7.89% 135
UK excluding London -35 224 £465 +9.41% 115
Work from Home -66 133 £500 +17.65% 130
North of England -47 74 £419 +4.69% 39
Scotland -3 39 £525 +13.51% 9
South West -12 38 £475 +1.28% 14
Midlands -26 35 £550 +54.49% 12
North West -40 34 £375 -6.25% 19
West Midlands -30 29 £500 +66.67% 9
South East -73 27 £550 +25.14% 30
Yorkshire -47 23 £500 - 11
North East -28 17 £413 -9.59% 9
East of England -17 12 £410 -13.68% 6
East Midlands -14 6 £575 +61.52% 3
Wales -14 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 29 (5.48%) CMS
2 20 (3.78%) Confluence
3 7 (1.32%) WordPress
4 4 (0.76%) Headless CMS
4 4 (0.76%) Kentico
5 3 (0.57%) Umbraco
6 2 (0.38%) Mendix
7 1 (0.19%) Adobe Experience Manager
7 1 (0.19%) Apache
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 29 (5.48%) Sketch
2 15 (2.84%) Adobe XD
3 13 (2.46%) Adobe Creative Suite
4 11 (2.08%) Adobe After Effects
5 10 (1.89%) Photoshop
6 9 (1.70%) Chatbot
7 8 (1.51%) Adobe Illustrator
8 6 (1.13%) Final Cut Pro
9 3 (0.57%) Microsoft Excel
9 3 (0.57%) MS Visio
10 2 (0.38%) InVision
10 2 (0.38%) Microsoft Office
10 2 (0.38%) UserZoom
11 1 (0.19%) Adobe Captivate
11 1 (0.19%) Microsoft PowerPoint
11 1 (0.19%) Trello
Business Applications
1 5 (0.95%) Shopify
2 4 (0.76%) Dynamics CRM
3 2 (0.38%) 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
1 152 (28.73%) Figma
2 60 (11.34%) Azure
3 29 (5.48%) Azure DevOps
4 28 (5.29%) AWS
5 22 (4.16%) Power Platform
6 16 (3.02%) GitHub
7 15 (2.84%) SaaS
8 12 (2.27%) GitHub Actions
9 11 (2.08%) Firebase
10 9 (1.70%) GCP
10 9 (1.70%) Microsoft Copilot
11 7 (1.32%) Serverless
11 7 (1.32%) Slack
12 6 (1.13%) Google Play
12 6 (1.13%) Miro
13 5 (0.95%) Azure AI
14 4 (0.76%) AWS Lambda
14 4 (0.76%) BigCommerce
14 4 (0.76%) Copilot Studio
14 4 (0.76%) PowerApps
Communications & Networking
1 1 (0.19%) Bluetooth
1 1 (0.19%) Internet
1 1 (0.19%) NFC
1 1 (0.19%) Reverse Proxy
Database & Business Intelligence
1 15 (2.84%) Power BI
2 10 (1.89%) PostgreSQL
3 6 (1.13%) Metadata
3 6 (1.13%) NoSQL
3 6 (1.13%) Power Query
3 6 (1.13%) SQL Server
4 4 (0.76%) Elasticsearch
4 4 (0.76%) MongoDB
5 3 (0.57%) Azure SQL Database
5 3 (0.57%) MySQL
5 3 (0.57%) Redis
5 3 (0.57%) Relational Database
5 3 (0.57%) Star Schema
6 2 (0.38%) DynamoDB
6 2 (0.38%) SQL Server Integration Services
6 2 (0.38%) 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 33 (6.24%) JIRA
2 27 (5.10%) Git
3 17 (3.21%) Cypress.io
4 15 (2.84%) Jenkins
5 10 (1.89%) fastlane
6 8 (1.51%) GitLab
7 6 (1.13%) Android Studio
7 6 (1.13%) Gradle
7 6 (1.13%) Vite
7 6 (1.13%) webpack
8 5 (0.95%) Crashlytics
8 5 (0.95%) Storybook
8 5 (0.95%) Xcode
9 4 (0.76%) Claude Code
9 4 (0.76%) JUnit
10 3 (0.57%) Axure RP
11 2 (0.38%) Babel
11 2 (0.38%) Jasmine
11 2 (0.38%) Karma Test Runner
11 2 (0.38%) Selenium
General
1 163 (30.81%) Social Skills
2 109 (20.60%) Public Sector
3 92 (17.39%) Finance
4 51 (9.64%) Banking
5 30 (5.67%) Analytical Skills
5 30 (5.67%) Retail
6 22 (4.16%) Inclusion and Diversity
7 20 (3.78%) Presentation Skills
8 18 (3.40%) Publishing
9 15 (2.84%) Automotive
10 14 (2.65%) Marketing
11 11 (2.08%) Influencing Skills
12 10 (1.89%) Legal
12 10 (1.89%) Military
13 7 (1.32%) Pharmaceutical
14 6 (1.13%) Documentation Skills
15 5 (0.95%) Games
15 5 (0.95%) Law
16 4 (0.76%) Investment Banking
16 4 (0.76%) Retail Banking
Job Titles
1 266 (50.28%) Designer
2 143 (27.03%) UX Designer
3 91 (17.20%) Senior
4 75 (14.18%) Developer
5 65 (12.29%) UI Designer
6 49 (9.26%) UI/UX Designer
7 47 (8.88%) Senior Designer
8 45 (8.51%) Content Designer
9 43 (8.13%) Lead
10 33 (6.24%) Product Designer
11 30 (5.67%) Senior UX Designer
12 27 (5.10%) User Researcher
13 19 (3.59%) Analyst
13 19 (3.59%) Service Designer
13 19 (3.59%) User Experience Researcher
14 18 (3.40%) Front-End Developer (Client-Side Developer)
15 16 (3.02%) Business Analyst
16 15 (2.84%) Consultant
16 15 (2.84%) Senior Developer
17 14 (2.65%) Architect
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 66 (12.48%) React
2 64 (12.10%) CSS
3 60 (11.34%) HTML
4 39 (7.37%) RESTful
5 29 (5.48%) AngularJS
6 27 (5.10%) HTML5
7 26 (4.91%) CSS3
8 23 (4.35%) REST
9 20 (3.78%) .NET
10 15 (2.84%) Jest
10 15 (2.84%) Redux
11 11 (2.08%) Node.js
11 11 (2.08%) Vue
12 10 (1.89%) GraphQL
12 10 (1.89%) Playwright
13 9 (1.70%) Android SDK
13 9 (1.70%) Next.js
14 8 (1.51%) OAuth
14 8 (1.51%) Spring
14 8 (1.51%) VML
Miscellaneous
1 69 (13.04%) Product Ownership
2 53 (10.02%) Mobile App
3 15 (2.84%) Animation
4 14 (2.65%) Self-Motivation
5 13 (2.46%) Onboarding
6 12 (2.27%) Cloud Native
7 10 (1.89%) Data Protection Act
8 9 (1.70%) AI Agents
9 8 (1.51%) Graphic Design
9 8 (1.51%) Greenfield Project
9 8 (1.51%) Taxonomies
10 7 (1.32%) Enterprise Software
11 6 (1.13%) Legacy Systems
11 6 (1.13%) NHS
12 5 (0.95%) Social Media
12 5 (0.95%) Virtual Reality
13 4 (0.76%) Algorithms
13 4 (0.76%) Data Structures
13 4 (0.76%) IoT
14 3 (0.57%) Virtual Team
Operating Systems
1 16 (3.02%) Android
2 11 (2.08%) Apple iOS
3 2 (0.38%) Windows
4 1 (0.19%) Linux
4 1 (0.19%) Unix
Processes & Methodologies
1 529 (100.00%) User Experience
2 226 (42.72%) Agile
3 141 (26.65%) User Research
4 112 (21.17%) Prototyping
5 106 (20.04%) Wireframes
6 101 (19.09%) User-Centered Design (UCD)
7 97 (18.34%) AI
8 87 (16.45%) Service Design
9 82 (15.50%) Usability Testing
10 72 (13.61%) UX Research
11 70 (13.23%) Stakeholder Management
12 68 (12.85%) CI/CD
13 67 (12.67%) Analytics
14 64 (12.10%) Interaction Design
14 64 (12.10%) Problem-Solving
15 54 (10.21%) DevOps
16 52 (9.83%) Customer Experience
16 52 (9.83%) Journey Map
17 50 (9.45%) Workshop Facilitation
18 48 (9.07%) Continuous Improvement
Programming Languages
1 60 (11.34%) JavaScript
2 53 (10.02%) TypeScript
3 29 (5.48%) Java
4 26 (4.91%) Python
5 20 (3.78%) SQL
6 15 (2.84%) C#
7 11 (2.08%) Kotlin
8 10 (1.89%) Data Analysis Expressions
9 5 (0.95%) C++
9 5 (0.95%) Korn
9 5 (0.95%) Lua
9 5 (0.95%) Swift
10 4 (0.76%) Apex Code
11 2 (0.38%) Bicep
11 2 (0.38%) PHP
11 2 (0.38%) PowerShell
12 1 (0.19%) C
12 1 (0.19%) Shell Script
12 1 (0.19%) SPARQL
12 1 (0.19%) VBScript
Qualifications
1 90 (17.01%) Security Cleared
2 64 (12.10%) SC Cleared
3 53 (10.02%) Degree
4 14 (2.65%) BPSS Clearance
5 12 (2.27%) DV Cleared
6 10 (1.89%) Master's Degree
7 7 (1.32%) Computer Science Degree
8 3 (0.57%) Azure Certification
8 3 (0.57%) DBS Check
9 2 (0.38%) 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
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 179 (33.84%) Accessibility
2 70 (13.23%) WCAG
3 29 (5.48%) QA
4 11 (2.08%) Data Quality
5 5 (0.95%) Actionable Recommendations
6 3 (0.57%) ISO/IEC 42001
7 2 (0.38%) 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 17 (3.21%) Docker
2 1 (0.19%) Virtual Desktop
Systems Management
1 13 (2.46%) Kubernetes
1 13 (2.46%) Terraform
2 1 (0.19%) Grafana
2 1 (0.19%) HP ALM
2 1 (0.19%) Kibana
Vendors
1 43 (8.13%) Adobe
2 35 (6.62%) Microsoft
3 17 (3.21%) Salesforce
4 11 (2.08%) Google
5 10 (1.89%) Dynatrace
6 8 (1.51%) SAP
6 8 (1.51%) ServiceNow
7 5 (0.95%) Apple
7 5 (0.95%) Foundry
8 4 (0.76%) Databricks
8 4 (0.76%) Oracle
8 4 (0.76%) Sitecore
9 3 (0.57%) Progress
9 3 (0.57%) Xamarin
10 2 (0.38%) Blue Prism
10 2 (0.38%) IBM
10 2 (0.38%) OpenAI
10 2 (0.38%) Optimizely
11 1 (0.19%) Automation Anywhere
11 1 (0.19%) Qualtrics