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

6 months to
25 Jul 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 259 213 226
Rank change year-on-year -46 +13 -45
Contract jobs citing UX Design 515 428 440
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 0.97% 1.31% 1.08%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 1.14% 1.45% 1.27%
Number of daily rates quoted 317 279 303
10th Percentile £363 £313 £350
25th Percentile £405 £370 £406
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £475 £465 £500
Median % change year-on-year +2.15% -7.00% -9.09%
75th Percentile £588 £548 £601
90th Percentile £668 £628 £675
UK excluding London median daily rate £460 £425 £425
% change year-on-year +8.24% - -10.53%
Number of hourly rates quoted 13 14 6
10th Percentile £20.85 £34.71 £29.14
25th Percentile £26.00 £35.25 £32.05
Median hourly rate £33.99 £42.00 £33.07
Median % change year-on-year -19.07% +27.00% -44.88%
75th Percentile £72.50 £66.81 £39.65
90th Percentile £92.75 £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 45,072 29,587 34,698
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 85.08% 90.43% 85.53%
Number of daily rates quoted 27,942 18,578 22,301
10th Percentile £325 £300 £306
25th Percentile £419 £404 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £520 £500 £525
Median % change year-on-year +4.00% -4.76% -4.55%
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 2,665 1,596 2,086
10th Percentile £14.82 £14.20 £13.50
25th Percentile £20.02 £17.33 £17.31
Median hourly rate £43.96 £25.15 £40.00
Median % change year-on-year +74.79% -37.13% -5.88%
75th Percentile £68.00 £50.00 £63.75
90th Percentile £82.80 £68.75 £73.75
UK excluding London median hourly rate £43.96 £24.00 £40.00
% change year-on-year +83.17% -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 25 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 25 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 25 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 -36 436 £475 +2.15% 180
London -38 237 £513 +5.67% 99
UK excluding London -20 221 £460 +8.24% 108
Work from Home -81 124 £485 +14.12% 95
North of England -56 70 £413 +3.13% 41
Scotland -4 39 £525 +13.82% 7
South West -6 38 £475 +6.26% 12
Midlands -32 35 £550 +54.49% 6
North West -47 31 £375 -6.25% 15
West Midlands -31 29 £488 +21.88% 5
South East -73 27 £550 +25.14% 27
Yorkshire -45 22 £500 - 16
North East -28 17 £413 -9.59% 10
East of England -12 13 £410 -13.68% 9
East Midlands -16 6 £575 +61.52% 1
Wales -14 2 - - 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 28 (5.44%) CMS
2 19 (3.69%) Confluence
3 7 (1.36%) WordPress
4 4 (0.78%) Headless CMS
4 4 (0.78%) Kentico
5 3 (0.58%) Umbraco
6 2 (0.39%) Mendix
7 1 (0.19%) Apache
7 1 (0.19%) Apache Spark
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 28 (5.44%) Sketch
2 15 (2.91%) Adobe XD
3 14 (2.72%) Adobe Creative Suite
4 11 (2.14%) Adobe After Effects
5 10 (1.94%) Photoshop
6 9 (1.75%) Chatbot
7 8 (1.55%) Adobe Illustrator
8 6 (1.17%) Final Cut Pro
9 3 (0.58%) Microsoft Excel
9 3 (0.58%) MS Visio
10 2 (0.39%) InVision
10 2 (0.39%) Microsoft Office
11 1 (0.19%) Adobe Captivate
11 1 (0.19%) Trello
11 1 (0.19%) UserZoom
Business Applications
1 5 (0.97%) Shopify
2 4 (0.78%) Dynamics CRM
3 2 (0.39%) 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
1 148 (28.74%) Figma
2 58 (11.26%) Azure
3 29 (5.63%) AWS
3 29 (5.63%) Azure DevOps
4 22 (4.27%) Power Platform
5 14 (2.72%) GitHub
5 14 (2.72%) SaaS
6 11 (2.14%) Firebase
6 11 (2.14%) GCP
7 10 (1.94%) GitHub Actions
8 9 (1.75%) Microsoft Copilot
9 7 (1.36%) Serverless
9 7 (1.36%) Slack
10 6 (1.17%) Google Play
10 6 (1.17%) Miro
11 5 (0.97%) Azure AI
12 4 (0.78%) AWS Lambda
12 4 (0.78%) BigCommerce
12 4 (0.78%) Copilot Studio
12 4 (0.78%) PowerApps
Communications & Networking
1 1 (0.19%) Bluetooth
1 1 (0.19%) NFC
1 1 (0.19%) Reverse Proxy
Database & Business Intelligence
1 15 (2.91%) Power BI
2 10 (1.94%) PostgreSQL
3 6 (1.17%) Metadata
3 6 (1.17%) NoSQL
3 6 (1.17%) Power Query
3 6 (1.17%) SQL Server
4 4 (0.78%) Elasticsearch
4 4 (0.78%) MongoDB
4 4 (0.78%) Redis
5 3 (0.58%) Azure SQL Database
5 3 (0.58%) MySQL
5 3 (0.58%) Relational Database
5 3 (0.58%) Star Schema
6 2 (0.39%) Data Warehouse
6 2 (0.39%) DynamoDB
6 2 (0.39%) SQL Server Integration Services
6 2 (0.39%) SQLite
7 1 (0.19%) Amazon QuickSight
7 1 (0.19%) Pinecone
7 1 (0.19%) Qlik Sense
Development Applications
1 32 (6.21%) JIRA
2 26 (5.05%) Git
3 16 (3.11%) Cypress.io
4 15 (2.91%) Jenkins
5 10 (1.94%) fastlane
6 7 (1.36%) GitLab
7 6 (1.17%) Android Studio
7 6 (1.17%) Gradle
7 6 (1.17%) Vite
7 6 (1.17%) webpack
8 5 (0.97%) Crashlytics
8 5 (0.97%) Storybook
8 5 (0.97%) Xcode
9 4 (0.78%) Claude Code
10 3 (0.58%) Axure RP
10 3 (0.58%) JUnit
11 2 (0.39%) Jasmine
11 2 (0.39%) Karma Test Runner
11 2 (0.39%) REST Assured
11 2 (0.39%) Selenium
General
1 164 (31.84%) Social Skills
2 103 (20.00%) Public Sector
3 93 (18.06%) Finance
4 49 (9.51%) Banking
5 30 (5.83%) Analytical Skills
5 30 (5.83%) Retail
6 22 (4.27%) Inclusion and Diversity
7 19 (3.69%) Presentation Skills
8 18 (3.50%) Publishing
9 15 (2.91%) Automotive
10 12 (2.33%) Marketing
11 11 (2.14%) Influencing Skills
12 10 (1.94%) Legal
12 10 (1.94%) Military
13 7 (1.36%) Pharmaceutical
14 6 (1.17%) Documentation Skills
15 5 (0.97%) Games
15 5 (0.97%) Law
16 3 (0.58%) Aerospace
16 3 (0.58%) Manufacturing
Job Titles
1 262 (50.87%) Designer
2 140 (27.18%) UX Designer
3 90 (17.48%) Senior
4 70 (13.59%) Developer
5 63 (12.23%) UI Designer
6 47 (9.13%) Senior Designer
7 46 (8.93%) UI/UX Designer
8 45 (8.74%) Content Designer
9 42 (8.16%) Lead
10 32 (6.21%) Product Designer
11 29 (5.63%) Senior UX Designer
12 25 (4.85%) User Researcher
13 19 (3.69%) Analyst
13 19 (3.69%) Service Designer
13 19 (3.69%) User Experience Researcher
14 17 (3.30%) Front-End Developer (Client-Side Developer)
15 16 (3.11%) Business Analyst
16 15 (2.91%) Consultant
16 15 (2.91%) Senior Developer
17 13 (2.52%) Junior
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 62 (12.04%) React
2 61 (11.84%) CSS
3 57 (11.07%) HTML
4 34 (6.60%) RESTful
5 28 (5.44%) AngularJS
6 25 (4.85%) HTML5
7 24 (4.66%) CSS3
8 21 (4.08%) REST
9 15 (2.91%) .NET
10 14 (2.72%) Redux
11 13 (2.52%) Jest
12 10 (1.94%) GraphQL
12 10 (1.94%) Vue
13 9 (1.75%) Android SDK
13 9 (1.75%) Node.js
14 8 (1.55%) Next.js
14 8 (1.55%) OAuth
14 8 (1.55%) Playwright
14 8 (1.55%) VML
15 7 (1.36%) FastAPI
Miscellaneous
1 67 (13.01%) Product Ownership
2 50 (9.71%) Mobile App
3 15 (2.91%) Animation
4 14 (2.72%) Self-Motivation
5 13 (2.52%) Cloud Native
5 13 (2.52%) Onboarding
6 11 (2.14%) AI Agents
7 9 (1.75%) Data Protection Act
8 8 (1.55%) Graphic Design
8 8 (1.55%) Greenfield Project
8 8 (1.55%) Taxonomies
9 7 (1.36%) Enterprise Software
10 6 (1.17%) Legacy Systems
10 6 (1.17%) NHS
11 5 (0.97%) Social Media
11 5 (0.97%) Virtual Reality
12 4 (0.78%) Algorithms
12 4 (0.78%) Data Structures
13 3 (0.58%) Educational Technology
13 3 (0.58%) IoT
Operating Systems
1 15 (2.91%) Android
2 11 (2.14%) Apple iOS
3 2 (0.39%) Windows
4 1 (0.19%) Linux
4 1 (0.19%) Unix
Processes & Methodologies
1 515 (100.00%) User Experience
2 220 (42.72%) Agile
3 135 (26.21%) User Research
4 109 (21.17%) Prototyping
5 107 (20.78%) Wireframes
6 98 (19.03%) AI
6 98 (19.03%) User-Centered Design (UCD)
7 85 (16.50%) Service Design
8 82 (15.92%) Usability Testing
9 71 (13.79%) UX Research
10 70 (13.59%) Stakeholder Management
11 66 (12.82%) Analytics
11 66 (12.82%) CI/CD
12 65 (12.62%) Interaction Design
13 62 (12.04%) Problem-Solving
14 53 (10.29%) Customer Experience
15 52 (10.10%) Journey Map
16 51 (9.90%) DevOps
17 50 (9.71%) Workshop Facilitation
18 47 (9.13%) Scrum
Programming Languages
1 56 (10.87%) JavaScript
2 50 (9.71%) TypeScript
3 28 (5.44%) Java
3 28 (5.44%) Python
4 21 (4.08%) SQL
5 11 (2.14%) Kotlin
6 10 (1.94%) C#
6 10 (1.94%) Data Analysis Expressions
7 5 (0.97%) C++
7 5 (0.97%) Korn
7 5 (0.97%) Lua
7 5 (0.97%) Swift
8 4 (0.78%) Apex Code
9 2 (0.39%) Bicep
9 2 (0.39%) PHP
9 2 (0.39%) PowerShell
9 2 (0.39%) Ruby
10 1 (0.19%) Objective-C
10 1 (0.19%) Shell Script
10 1 (0.19%) VBScript
Qualifications
1 89 (17.28%) Security Cleared
2 63 (12.23%) SC Cleared
3 54 (10.49%) Degree
4 13 (2.52%) BPSS Clearance
5 12 (2.33%) DV Cleared
6 9 (1.75%) Computer Science Degree
6 9 (1.75%) Master's Degree
7 3 (0.58%) Azure Certification
7 3 (0.58%) DBS Check
8 2 (0.39%) CCA
9 1 (0.19%) Citrix Certification
9 1 (0.19%) CTC Cleared
9 1 (0.19%) IIBA
9 1 (0.19%) ITIL Foundation Certificate
9 1 (0.19%) Microsoft Certification
9 1 (0.19%) Microsoft Certified Professional
9 1 (0.19%) PhD
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 175 (33.98%) Accessibility
2 68 (13.20%) WCAG
3 27 (5.24%) QA
4 11 (2.14%) Data Quality
5 5 (0.97%) Actionable Recommendations
6 3 (0.58%) ISO/IEC 42001
7 2 (0.39%) 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 16 (3.11%) Docker
2 1 (0.19%) Virtual Desktop
Systems Management
1 13 (2.52%) Kubernetes
2 12 (2.33%) Terraform
3 1 (0.19%) Grafana
3 1 (0.19%) HP ALM
3 1 (0.19%) Kibana
Vendors
1 43 (8.35%) Adobe
2 35 (6.80%) Microsoft
3 16 (3.11%) Salesforce
4 11 (2.14%) Google
5 10 (1.94%) Dynatrace
6 8 (1.55%) SAP
6 8 (1.55%) ServiceNow
7 5 (0.97%) Apple
7 5 (0.97%) Foundry
8 4 (0.78%) Databricks
8 4 (0.78%) Oracle
8 4 (0.78%) Sitecore
9 3 (0.58%) Progress
10 2 (0.39%) Anaplan
10 2 (0.39%) Blue Prism
10 2 (0.39%) IBM
10 2 (0.39%) OpenAI
10 2 (0.39%) Optimizely
11 1 (0.19%) MuleSoft
11 1 (0.19%) Qualtrics