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

6 months to
29 May 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 249 198 214
Rank change year-on-year -51 +16 -42
Contract jobs citing UX Design 510 392 484
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 1.04% 1.36% 1.13%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 1.23% 1.50% 1.32%
Number of daily rates quoted 348 270 342
10th Percentile £363 £321 £350
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 £612
90th Percentile £654 £639 £675
UK excluding London median daily rate £475 £425 £438
% change year-on-year +11.76% -2.86% -7.89%
Number of hourly rates quoted 12 6 7
10th Percentile £20.58 £35.25 £29.65
25th Percentile £25.25 £37.81 £32.39
Median hourly rate £31.04 £48.25 £41.68
Median % change year-on-year -35.67% +15.78% -18.68%
75th Percentile £55.37 £85.49 £62.17
90th Percentile £69.50 £97.52 £90.65
UK excluding London median hourly rate £27.67 £70.35 £91.44
% change year-on-year -60.67% -23.07% +37.83%

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 41,377 26,173 36,711
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 84.59% 91.02% 85.72%
Number of daily rates quoted 25,864 16,755 23,656
10th Percentile £325 £300 £300
25th Percentile £413 £408 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £512 £513 £525
Median % change year-on-year -0.10% -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 2,474 1,096 2,500
10th Percentile £14.68 £14.20 £12.75
25th Percentile £19.87 £17.87 £16.00
Median hourly rate £42.30 £27.59 £36.50
Median % change year-on-year +53.34% -24.42% +1.04%
75th Percentile £67.65 £57.50 £60.00
90th Percentile £80.76 £74.38 £72.50
UK excluding London median hourly rate £45.00 £25.15 £38.00
% change year-on-year +78.93% -33.82% +8.57%

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 29 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 29 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 29 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 -38 424 £475 - 184
London -40 231 £500 - 97
UK excluding London -16 214 £475 +11.76% 122
Work from Home -31 130 £475 +7.95% 104
North of England -30 72 £450 +12.50% 31
North West -2 49 £400 - 19
Midlands -30 41 £500 +40.45% 14
West Midlands -34 33 £463 +14.91% 10
South West -12 32 £475 +11.76% 13
Scotland -3 31 £518 +9.86% 5
South East -51 26 £550 +25.71% 33
Yorkshire -46 16 £513 +10.75% 4
East of England -24 9 £410 -14.58% 12
East Midlands -24 8 £575 +62.89% 4
North East -23 7 £450 +16.13% 9
Wales -9 4 £450 +2.86% 6
Northern Ireland - 1 - - 9

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 22 (4.31%) CMS
2 19 (3.73%) Confluence
3 5 (0.98%) SharePoint
4 4 (0.78%) Kentico
4 4 (0.78%) Umbraco
4 4 (0.78%) 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 (7.25%) Sketch
2 25 (4.90%) Adobe XD
3 11 (2.16%) Photoshop
4 10 (1.96%) Chatbot
4 10 (1.96%) InVision
5 9 (1.76%) Adobe After Effects
5 9 (1.76%) 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 (0.98%) 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 (30.20%) Figma
2 55 (10.78%) Azure
3 29 (5.69%) AWS
4 21 (4.12%) Azure DevOps
5 17 (3.33%) Power Platform
6 14 (2.75%) GitHub
6 14 (2.75%) GitHub Actions
6 14 (2.75%) SaaS
7 9 (1.76%) GCP
8 8 (1.57%) Serverless
9 7 (1.37%) AWS Lambda
9 7 (1.37%) Firebase
10 6 (1.18%) Amazon S3
10 6 (1.18%) AWS CloudFormation
10 6 (1.18%) Miro
11 5 (0.98%) Slack
12 4 (0.78%) BigCommerce
12 4 (0.78%) Google Play
12 4 (0.78%) Microsoft 365
12 4 (0.78%) Microsoft Copilot
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 (1.76%) Power BI
1 9 (1.76%) SQL Server
2 6 (1.18%) NoSQL
2 6 (1.18%) PostgreSQL
3 5 (0.98%) Metadata
3 5 (0.98%) Power Query
4 4 (0.78%) Elasticsearch
4 4 (0.78%) MongoDB
5 3 (0.59%) DynamoDB
5 3 (0.59%) Pinecone
5 3 (0.59%) Relational Database
5 3 (0.59%) SQL Server Integration Services
6 2 (0.39%) CockroachDB
6 2 (0.39%) Star Schema
7 1 (0.20%) Amazon RDS
7 1 (0.20%) Azure SQL Database
7 1 (0.20%) Data Warehouse
7 1 (0.20%) MySQL
7 1 (0.20%) Redis
7 1 (0.20%) SQLite
Development Applications
1 34 (6.67%) Git
2 31 (6.08%) JIRA
3 19 (3.73%) Cypress.io
4 15 (2.94%) GitLab
5 13 (2.55%) Jenkins
6 11 (2.16%) Axure RP
7 8 (1.57%) CircleCI
8 7 (1.37%) JUnit
9 6 (1.18%) fastlane
9 6 (1.18%) Mocha
10 5 (0.98%) Gradle
11 4 (0.78%) Android Studio
11 4 (0.78%) Crashlytics
11 4 (0.78%) Visual Studio
12 3 (0.59%) Vite
12 3 (0.59%) webpack
12 3 (0.59%) Xcode
13 2 (0.39%) Balsamiq
13 2 (0.39%) REST Assured
13 2 (0.39%) Storybook
General
1 146 (28.63%) Social Skills
2 95 (18.63%) Public Sector
3 83 (16.27%) Finance
4 58 (11.37%) Banking
5 31 (6.08%) Analytical Skills
6 22 (4.31%) Presentation Skills
6 22 (4.31%) Retail
7 17 (3.33%) Inclusion and Diversity
7 17 (3.33%) Marketing
8 13 (2.55%) Automotive
9 11 (2.16%) Publishing
10 9 (1.76%) Pharmaceutical
11 8 (1.57%) Influencing Skills
11 8 (1.57%) Legal
12 6 (1.18%) Games
12 6 (1.18%) Local Government
13 5 (0.98%) Documentation Skills
13 5 (0.98%) Retail Banking
14 4 (0.78%) Corporate Banking
14 4 (0.78%) Investment Banking
Job Titles
1 255 (50.00%) Designer
2 139 (27.25%) UX Designer
3 88 (17.25%) Senior
4 73 (14.31%) Developer
5 57 (11.18%) UI Designer
6 45 (8.82%) Senior Designer
7 43 (8.43%) Content Designer
8 42 (8.24%) UI/UX Designer
9 37 (7.25%) Lead
10 36 (7.06%) Product Designer
11 30 (5.88%) Senior UX Designer
11 30 (5.88%) Service Designer
12 20 (3.92%) Analyst
12 20 (3.92%) User Researcher
13 19 (3.73%) User Experience Researcher
14 16 (3.14%) Architect
14 16 (3.14%) Business Analyst
14 16 (3.14%) Front-End Developer (Client-Side Developer)
15 15 (2.94%) Full-Stack Developer
16 13 (2.55%) Consultant
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 74 (14.51%) React
2 64 (12.55%) CSS
2 64 (12.55%) HTML
3 41 (8.04%) RESTful
4 31 (6.08%) AngularJS
5 29 (5.69%) HTML5
6 28 (5.49%) CSS3
7 26 (5.10%) .NET
8 22 (4.31%) REST
9 16 (3.14%) Jest
9 16 (3.14%) Node.js
10 15 (2.94%) Spring
11 14 (2.75%) Redux
11 14 (2.75%) Spring Boot
12 13 (2.55%) OAuth
13 11 (2.16%) Vue
14 10 (1.96%) Playwright
15 9 (1.76%) JSON
16 8 (1.57%) ASP.NET
16 8 (1.57%) GraphQL
Miscellaneous
1 62 (12.16%) Product Ownership
2 37 (7.25%) Mobile App
3 12 (2.35%) Animation
3 12 (2.35%) Onboarding
4 10 (1.96%) Cloud Native
4 10 (1.96%) Graphic Design
4 10 (1.96%) Self-Motivation
5 8 (1.57%) Data Protection Act
5 8 (1.57%) NHS
6 7 (1.37%) Greenfield Project
6 7 (1.37%) Taxonomies
6 7 (1.37%) Virtual Team
7 6 (1.18%) Enterprise Software
7 6 (1.18%) Virtual Reality
8 5 (0.98%) Digital Wallet
9 4 (0.78%) AI Agents
9 4 (0.78%) Augmented Reality
9 4 (0.78%) Data Structures
9 4 (0.78%) Team-Oriented Environment
10 3 (0.59%) Distributed Systems
Operating Systems
1 10 (1.96%) Android
2 7 (1.37%) Apple iOS
3 1 (0.20%) Linux
Processes & Methodologies
1 510 (100.00%) User Experience
2 214 (41.96%) Agile
3 137 (26.86%) User Research
4 102 (20.00%) Prototyping
5 95 (18.63%) Wireframes
6 94 (18.43%) User-Centered Design (UCD)
7 84 (16.47%) Service Design
8 80 (15.69%) Usability Testing
9 73 (14.31%) AI
9 73 (14.31%) UX Research
10 66 (12.94%) CI/CD
11 64 (12.55%) Problem-Solving
12 61 (11.96%) Interaction Design
13 55 (10.78%) Stakeholder Management
14 54 (10.59%) Analytics
15 53 (10.39%) Workshop Facilitation
16 50 (9.80%) DevOps
17 46 (9.02%) Journey Map
18 41 (8.04%) Customer Experience
18 41 (8.04%) Front End Development
Programming Languages
1 66 (12.94%) JavaScript
2 50 (9.80%) TypeScript
3 30 (5.88%) Java
4 27 (5.29%) Python
5 19 (3.73%) C#
6 15 (2.94%) SQL
7 7 (1.37%) Kotlin
8 6 (1.18%) Data Analysis Expressions
9 5 (0.98%) C++
9 5 (0.98%) Korn
9 5 (0.98%) 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%) C
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 (14.31%) Security Cleared
2 54 (10.59%) SC Cleared
3 50 (9.80%) Degree
4 13 (2.55%) Master's Degree
5 10 (1.96%) BPSS Clearance
5 10 (1.96%) DV Cleared
6 5 (0.98%) Computer Science Degree
7 3 (0.59%) CCA
7 3 (0.59%) DBS Check
8 2 (0.39%) Microsoft Certification
9 1 (0.20%) Azure Certification
9 1 (0.20%) Citrix Certification
9 1 (0.20%) Microsoft Certified Professional
9 1 (0.20%) PMI Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 173 (33.92%) Accessibility
2 70 (13.73%) WCAG
3 30 (5.88%) QA
4 5 (0.98%) Actionable Recommendations
4 5 (0.98%) 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 19 (3.73%) Docker
2 1 (0.20%) Virtual Desktop
Systems Management
1 16 (3.14%) Kubernetes
2 15 (2.94%) 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 (9.22%) Adobe
2 22 (4.31%) Microsoft
3 20 (3.92%) Salesforce
4 8 (1.57%) Google
5 7 (1.37%) SAP
6 6 (1.18%) Dynatrace
6 6 (1.18%) MuleSoft
7 5 (0.98%) ServiceNow
8 4 (0.78%) 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