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

6 months to
31 Mar 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 247 200 215
Rank change year-on-year -47 +15 -34
Contract jobs citing UX Design 460 371 492
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 1.03% 1.28% 1.11%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 1.21% 1.41% 1.29%
Number of daily rates quoted 339 265 341
10th Percentile £360 £318 £338
25th Percentile £400 £383 £400
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £485 £475 £500
Median % change year-on-year +2.11% -5.00% -9.09%
75th Percentile £575 £575 £613
90th Percentile £638 £668 £675
UK excluding London median daily rate £460 £425 £438
% change year-on-year +8.24% -2.86% -7.89%
Number of hourly rates quoted 7 3 9
10th Percentile £24.80 £53.97 £30.68
25th Percentile £26.51 £65.54 £31.71
Median hourly rate £44.50 £91.69 £41.68
Median % change year-on-year -51.47% +120.01% -11.33%
75th Percentile £58.58 £97.52 £73.75
90th Percentile £67.00 £98.14 £86.57
UK excluding London median hourly rate £46.55 £91.69 £91.44
% change year-on-year -49.24% +0.28% +53.45%

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 38,122 26,294 38,266
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 85.61% 90.44% 86.45%
Number of daily rates quoted 24,155 17,082 24,859
10th Percentile £313 £308 £300
25th Percentile £413 £413 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £525 £525
Median % change year-on-year -4.76% - -4.55%
75th Percentile £613 £638 £638
90th Percentile £725 £738 £750
UK excluding London median daily rate £485 £488 £500
% change year-on-year -0.51% -2.50% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 2,251 966 2,351
10th Percentile £14.96 £15.00 £12.84
25th Percentile £18.87 £20.24 £16.00
Median hourly rate £35.50 £31.88 £32.50
Median % change year-on-year +11.36% -1.91% -10.48%
75th Percentile £65.00 £63.75 £57.50
90th Percentile £77.50 £76.72 £70.66
UK excluding London median hourly rate £33.00 £31.50 £31.50
% change year-on-year +4.76% - -12.50%

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 31 March 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 31 March 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 31 March 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 -53 377 £478 -4.50% 206
London -26 226 £500 -2.91% 92
UK excluding London -48 166 £460 +8.24% 138
Work from Home -49 127 £460 +2.22% 114
North of England -32 66 £402 +0.50% 57
North West -8 44 £400 - 31
Scotland +4 28 £563 +32.35% 11
South East -48 25 £513 +7.44% 35
Midlands -57 22 £463 +29.92% 9
West Midlands -42 18 £425 +4.94% 6
South West -22 17 £450 +20.00% 11
Yorkshire -48 14 £513 +27.97% 11
North East -6 8 £364 -6.06% 16
Wales -6 5 £450 - 8
East of England -37 5 £443 -6.84% 5
East Midlands -42 4 £573 +60.81% 3
Northern Ireland -2 1 - - 3

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 15 (3.26%) Confluence
2 13 (2.83%) CMS
3 7 (1.52%) SharePoint
4 3 (0.65%) Headless CMS
4 3 (0.65%) Jupyter
5 2 (0.43%) Appian
5 2 (0.43%) Sitecore CMS
5 2 (0.43%) Umbraco
6 1 (0.22%) Adobe Experience Manager
6 1 (0.22%) Camunda
6 1 (0.22%) Cloud Foundry
6 1 (0.22%) Drupal
6 1 (0.22%) Mendix
6 1 (0.22%) Moodle
6 1 (0.22%) Strapi
Applications
1 40 (8.70%) Sketch
2 33 (7.17%) Adobe XD
3 16 (3.48%) Chatbot
4 13 (2.83%) InVision
5 4 (0.87%) Adobe After Effects
5 4 (0.87%) Microsoft Excel
5 4 (0.87%) Photoshop
6 3 (0.65%) Adobe Illustrator
6 3 (0.65%) MS Visio
7 2 (0.43%) Microsoft Office
7 2 (0.43%) OmniGraffle
7 2 (0.43%) Trello
8 1 (0.22%) Adobe Creative Suite
8 1 (0.22%) Blender
8 1 (0.22%) CINEMA 4D
8 1 (0.22%) InDesign
8 1 (0.22%) Microsoft PowerPoint
8 1 (0.22%) Spreadsheet
8 1 (0.22%) UserZoom
8 1 (0.22%) UXPin
Business Applications
1 3 (0.65%) Shopify
2 2 (0.43%) Dynamics CRM
3 1 (0.22%) SAP CO
3 1 (0.22%) SAP FI
3 1 (0.22%) SAP FI/CO
3 1 (0.22%) Sprinklr
Cloud Services
1 143 (31.09%) Figma
2 56 (12.17%) Azure
3 41 (8.91%) AWS
4 20 (4.35%) SaaS
5 18 (3.91%) Azure DevOps
6 17 (3.70%) Power Platform
7 13 (2.83%) Miro
8 12 (2.61%) GCP
9 10 (2.17%) GitHub
9 10 (2.17%) GitHub Actions
10 6 (1.30%) Serverless
11 5 (1.09%) AWS Lambda
11 5 (1.09%) Microsoft 365
12 4 (0.87%) Amazon S3
12 4 (0.87%) AWS CloudFormation
12 4 (0.87%) IaaS
12 4 (0.87%) PaaS
12 4 (0.87%) PowerApps
13 3 (0.65%) Contentful
13 3 (0.65%) Firebase
Communications & Networking
1 6 (1.30%) Internet
2 2 (0.43%) HTTP
2 2 (0.43%) Intranet
Database & Business Intelligence
1 11 (2.39%) NoSQL
2 8 (1.74%) Power BI
3 7 (1.52%) SQL Server
4 6 (1.30%) MongoDB
5 5 (1.09%) PostgreSQL
5 5 (1.09%) Relational Database
6 3 (0.65%) Pinecone
7 2 (0.43%) CockroachDB
7 2 (0.43%) DynamoDB
7 2 (0.43%) Elasticsearch
7 2 (0.43%) Mixpanel
7 2 (0.43%) MySQL
8 1 (0.22%) Amazon RDS
8 1 (0.22%) Azure SQL Database
8 1 (0.22%) Data Warehouse
8 1 (0.22%) Metadata
8 1 (0.22%) Oracle Reports
8 1 (0.22%) SAP BW
8 1 (0.22%) SAP HANA
8 1 (0.22%) SQL Server Integration Services
Development Applications
1 36 (7.83%) Git
2 29 (6.30%) JIRA
3 21 (4.57%) Axure RP
4 19 (4.13%) Cypress.io
5 16 (3.48%) GitLab
6 11 (2.39%) Jenkins
7 10 (2.17%) JUnit
8 9 (1.96%) CircleCI
9 6 (1.30%) Mocha
10 5 (1.09%) Visual Studio
11 4 (0.87%) Selenium
11 4 (0.87%) Vite
12 3 (0.65%) Balsamiq
12 3 (0.65%) Gradle
13 2 (0.43%) Crashlytics
13 2 (0.43%) fastlane
13 2 (0.43%) Maven
13 2 (0.43%) TestRail
13 2 (0.43%) Visual Website Optimizer
13 2 (0.43%) webpack
General
1 141 (30.65%) Social Skills
2 91 (19.78%) Finance
3 89 (19.35%) Public Sector
4 63 (13.70%) Banking
5 35 (7.61%) Analytical Skills
6 20 (4.35%) Marketing
7 18 (3.91%) Presentation Skills
8 12 (2.61%) Retail
9 8 (1.74%) Legal
9 8 (1.74%) Pharmaceutical
10 7 (1.52%) Financial Institution
10 7 (1.52%) Inclusion and Diversity
11 6 (1.30%) Games
11 6 (1.30%) Influencing Skills
12 5 (1.09%) Documentation Skills
12 5 (1.09%) Local Government
13 4 (0.87%) Advertising
14 3 (0.65%) Retail Banking
14 3 (0.65%) Telecoms
15 2 (0.43%) Electronics
Job Titles
1 212 (46.09%) Designer
2 134 (29.13%) UX Designer
3 82 (17.83%) Senior
4 66 (14.35%) Developer
5 40 (8.70%) Senior Designer
6 36 (7.83%) UI Designer
7 35 (7.61%) Service Designer
8 33 (7.17%) Senior UX Designer
9 32 (6.96%) Product Designer
10 30 (6.52%) UI/UX Designer
11 26 (5.65%) User Researcher
12 23 (5.00%) Content Designer
13 20 (4.35%) Lead
14 16 (3.48%) Analyst
15 15 (3.26%) Architect
16 13 (2.83%) Full-Stack Developer
16 13 (2.83%) Senior Developer
17 12 (2.61%) Business Analyst
17 12 (2.61%) Consultant
17 12 (2.61%) React Developer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 68 (14.78%) React
2 63 (13.70%) CSS
2 63 (13.70%) HTML
3 43 (9.35%) RESTful
4 30 (6.52%) HTML5
5 27 (5.87%) CSS3
6 26 (5.65%) AngularJS
7 22 (4.78%) .NET
7 22 (4.78%) Node.js
7 22 (4.78%) REST
8 19 (4.13%) Spring
9 18 (3.91%) Jest
9 18 (3.91%) Spring Boot
10 14 (3.04%) Redux
11 12 (2.61%) Next.js
11 12 (2.61%) Playwright
12 9 (1.96%) GraphQL
12 9 (1.96%) JSON
13 8 (1.74%) OAuth
14 7 (1.52%) Unity (Game Engine)
Miscellaneous
1 50 (10.87%) Product Ownership
2 38 (8.26%) Mobile App
3 14 (3.04%) Onboarding
4 12 (2.61%) Virtual Team
5 8 (1.74%) Cloud Native
6 7 (1.52%) Data Protection Act
6 7 (1.52%) Enterprise Software
7 6 (1.30%) Animation
7 6 (1.30%) Data Structures
7 6 (1.30%) Distributed Systems
7 6 (1.30%) Graphic Design
7 6 (1.30%) NHS
7 6 (1.30%) W3C
8 5 (1.09%) Algorithms
8 5 (1.09%) Augmented Reality
8 5 (1.09%) Digital Wallet
8 5 (1.09%) Greenfield Project
8 5 (1.09%) Low-Code
8 5 (1.09%) RIA
9 4 (0.87%) Self-Motivation
Operating Systems
1 8 (1.74%) Android
2 5 (1.09%) Apple iOS
3 3 (0.65%) Windows
4 2 (0.43%) Linux
4 2 (0.43%) Windows 10
5 1 (0.22%) Windows Server
Processes & Methodologies
1 460 (100.00%) User Experience
2 203 (44.13%) Agile
3 139 (30.22%) User Research
4 98 (21.30%) Prototyping
5 97 (21.09%) User-Centered Design (UCD)
6 90 (19.57%) Service Design
7 86 (18.70%) Wireframes
8 84 (18.26%) Usability Testing
9 74 (16.09%) Problem-Solving
10 70 (15.22%) UX Research
11 64 (13.91%) CI/CD
12 63 (13.70%) AI
12 63 (13.70%) Interaction Design
13 54 (11.74%) Analytics
14 50 (10.87%) Front End Development
15 48 (10.43%) DevOps
15 48 (10.43%) Journey Map
16 47 (10.22%) Continuous Improvement
17 46 (10.00%) Stakeholder Management
17 46 (10.00%) Workshop Facilitation
Programming Languages
1 68 (14.78%) JavaScript
2 43 (9.35%) TypeScript
3 31 (6.74%) Java
4 28 (6.09%) Python
5 19 (4.13%) C#
6 18 (3.91%) SQL
7 5 (1.09%) C++
7 5 (1.09%) Kotlin
7 5 (1.09%) Lua
8 4 (0.87%) Korn
9 2 (0.43%) PowerShell
10 1 (0.22%) Apex Code
10 1 (0.22%) BeanShell
10 1 (0.22%) Data Analysis Expressions
10 1 (0.22%) Objective-C
10 1 (0.22%) PHP
10 1 (0.22%) Ruby
10 1 (0.22%) Scala
10 1 (0.22%) SPARQL
10 1 (0.22%) VBScript
Qualifications
1 50 (10.87%) Security Cleared
2 48 (10.43%) Degree
3 31 (6.74%) SC Cleared
4 13 (2.83%) BPSS Clearance
5 10 (2.17%) Master's Degree
6 5 (1.09%) Computer Science Degree
7 3 (0.65%) DV Cleared
7 3 (0.65%) Microsoft Certification
8 2 (0.43%) Azure Certification
8 2 (0.43%) PMI Certification
9 1 (0.22%) CCA
9 1 (0.22%) Citrix Certification
9 1 (0.22%) Microsoft Certified Professional
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 150 (32.61%) Accessibility
2 59 (12.83%) WCAG
3 33 (7.17%) QA
4 10 (2.17%) Actionable Recommendations
5 5 (1.09%) GDPR
6 3 (0.65%) California Consumer Privacy Act
7 2 (0.43%) Data Quality
8 1 (0.22%) EU AI Act
8 1 (0.22%) ISO/IEC 42001
8 1 (0.22%) PCI DSS
System Software
1 25 (5.43%) Docker
2 1 (0.22%) Active Directory
2 1 (0.22%) Virtual Desktop
Systems Management
1 19 (4.13%) Kubernetes
2 14 (3.04%) Terraform
3 3 (0.65%) Ansible
3 3 (0.65%) Grafana
4 2 (0.43%) HP ALM
4 2 (0.43%) Single Sign-On
5 1 (0.22%) Consul
5 1 (0.22%) Podman
5 1 (0.22%) Systems Management Server (SMS)
Vendors
1 42 (9.13%) Adobe
2 25 (5.43%) Microsoft
3 18 (3.91%) Salesforce
4 12 (2.61%) Google
5 10 (2.17%) ServiceNow
6 7 (1.52%) SAP
7 6 (1.30%) MuleSoft
8 4 (0.87%) Oracle
8 4 (0.87%) Sitecore
9 3 (0.65%) Dataiku
9 3 (0.65%) Hotjar
9 3 (0.65%) Optimizely
9 3 (0.65%) Xamarin
10 2 (0.43%) Amplitude
10 2 (0.43%) Blue Prism
10 2 (0.43%) Databricks
10 2 (0.43%) Dynatrace
10 2 (0.43%) HP
10 2 (0.43%) OpenAI
11 1 (0.22%) Citrix