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 27 December 2025, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
27 Dec 2025
Same period 2024 Same period 2023
Rank 238 226 232
Rank change year-on-year -12 +6 -72
Contract jobs citing UX Design 438 387 455
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 1.18% 1.15% 1.04%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 1.34% 1.30% 1.18%
Number of daily rates quoted 307 242 317
10th Percentile £350 £313 £350
25th Percentile £400 £400 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £475 £500 £513
Median % change year-on-year -5.00% -2.44% -6.82%
75th Percentile £550 £575 £600
90th Percentile £608 £638 £675
UK excluding London median daily rate £450 £450 £500
% change year-on-year - -10.00% -2.44%
Number of hourly rates quoted 13 4 11
10th Percentile £27.62 £30.76 £50.00
25th Percentile £35.60 £31.23 £67.54
Median hourly rate £44.50 £33.27 £72.50
Median % change year-on-year +33.75% -54.11% +33.03%
75th Percentile £63.75 £39.31 £81.25
90th Percentile £70.13 £47.98 £82.50
UK excluding London median hourly rate £35.60 £32.21 £77.50
% change year-on-year +10.53% -58.44% +38.39%

All Process and 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 32,729 29,699 38,511
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 88.02% 88.28% 88.04%
Number of daily rates quoted 20,612 18,123 25,677
10th Percentile £300 £308 £306
25th Percentile £406 £413 £420
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £525 £528
Median % change year-on-year -4.76% -0.47% -4.09%
75th Percentile £615 £638 £650
90th Percentile £723 £738 £744
UK excluding London median daily rate £475 £500 £500
% change year-on-year -5.00% - -
Number of hourly rates quoted 2,069 965 1,551
10th Percentile £14.73 £15.62 £14.25
25th Percentile £17.69 £20.30 £18.93
Median hourly rate £25.15 £32.50 £42.50
Median % change year-on-year -22.62% -23.53% +21.43%
75th Percentile £51.65 £62.50 £65.00
90th Percentile £68.75 £74.63 £77.50
UK excluding London median hourly rate £23.58 £30.88 £44.50
% change year-on-year -23.64% -30.62% +48.33%

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 27 December 2025.

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 27 December 2025.

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 27 December 2025. 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 -20 357 £475 -5.00% 841
London -29 200 £483 -8.10% 173
UK excluding London +10 180 £450 - 753
Work from Home -13 126 £475 +5.56% 571
North of England -12 65 £400 -5.88% 176
North West +3 39 £388 +1.31% 91
Midlands -16 37 £425 +19.38% 124
Scotland +10 31 £475 +8.57% 31
West Midlands -3 31 £425 -26.09% 65
South East -19 21 £519 +29.69% 214
Yorkshire -32 20 £500 -3.61% 69
South West +4 13 £450 +2.86% 81
East of England -21 8 £460 +2.22% 109
Wales +3 6 £463 +8.82% 20
North East -1 6 £369 - 16
East Midlands -20 6 £455 +27.81% 52
Northern Ireland -10 1 £625 +16.28% 10

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 18 (4.11%) Confluence
2 17 (3.88%) CMS
3 6 (1.37%) SugarCRM
4 5 (1.14%) SharePoint
5 3 (0.68%) Jupyter
6 2 (0.46%) Appian
6 2 (0.46%) Headless CMS
6 2 (0.46%) Sitecore CMS
7 1 (0.23%) Adobe Experience Manager
7 1 (0.23%) Cloud Foundry
7 1 (0.23%) Drupal
7 1 (0.23%) Umbraco
7 1 (0.23%) WordPress
Applications
1 48 (10.96%) Sketch
2 29 (6.62%) Adobe XD
3 15 (3.42%) InVision
4 11 (2.51%) Chatbot
5 7 (1.60%) Adobe Creative Suite
5 7 (1.60%) Adobe Illustrator
6 6 (1.37%) Photoshop
7 5 (1.14%) Adobe After Effects
8 3 (0.68%) Microsoft Excel
8 3 (0.68%) Microsoft Office
8 3 (0.68%) OmniGraffle
8 3 (0.68%) Trello
9 2 (0.46%) Blender
9 2 (0.46%) CINEMA 4D
9 2 (0.46%) InDesign
9 2 (0.46%) MS Visio
9 2 (0.46%) UXPin
9 2 (0.46%) Zeplin
10 1 (0.23%) Adobe Premiere
10 1 (0.23%) Spreadsheet
Business Applications
1 5 (1.14%) Dynamics CRM
2 2 (0.46%) Salesforce CRM
3 1 (0.23%) Maximo
3 1 (0.23%) SAP CO
3 1 (0.23%) SAP FI
3 1 (0.23%) SAP FI/CO
Cloud Services
1 121 (27.63%) Figma
2 55 (12.56%) Azure
3 54 (12.33%) AWS
4 32 (7.31%) SaaS
5 21 (4.79%) GCP
6 20 (4.57%) Miro
7 13 (2.97%) GitHub
7 13 (2.97%) Power Platform
8 10 (2.28%) Azure DevOps
8 10 (2.28%) GitHub Actions
9 7 (1.60%) Firebase
10 6 (1.37%) Microsoft 365
11 5 (1.14%) Contentful
11 5 (1.14%) Google Analytics
11 5 (1.14%) PaaS
11 5 (1.14%) PowerApps
11 5 (1.14%) Serverless
12 4 (0.91%) Google Gemini
12 4 (0.91%) IaaS
12 4 (0.91%) Lucidchart
Communications & Networking
1 5 (1.14%) Internet
2 3 (0.68%) HTTP
3 2 (0.46%) Intranet
4 1 (0.23%) HTTPS
4 1 (0.23%) Network Security
Database & Business Intelligence
1 15 (3.42%) NoSQL
2 11 (2.51%) MongoDB
3 10 (2.28%) MySQL
4 9 (2.05%) Power BI
5 7 (1.60%) PostgreSQL
5 7 (1.60%) Relational Database
6 6 (1.37%) SQL Server
7 5 (1.14%) Mixpanel
8 4 (0.91%) DynamoDB
9 2 (0.46%) Amazon RDS
9 2 (0.46%) Data Warehouse
9 2 (0.46%) Metadata
10 1 (0.23%) Azure SQL Database
10 1 (0.23%) Big Data
10 1 (0.23%) Elasticsearch
10 1 (0.23%) MariaDB
10 1 (0.23%) Oracle Reports
10 1 (0.23%) Pinecone
10 1 (0.23%) SAP BW
10 1 (0.23%) SAP HANA
Development Applications
1 49 (11.19%) Git
2 36 (8.22%) JIRA
3 22 (5.02%) Axure RP
4 16 (3.65%) Cypress.io
4 16 (3.65%) Jenkins
5 13 (2.97%) GitLab
6 10 (2.28%) JUnit
7 7 (1.60%) CircleCI
7 7 (1.60%) Gradle
8 6 (1.37%) Xcode
9 5 (1.14%) Visual Website Optimizer
9 5 (1.14%) webpack
10 4 (0.91%) Android Studio
10 4 (0.91%) Balsamiq
10 4 (0.91%) Eclipse
11 3 (0.68%) Lerna
11 3 (0.68%) Mocha
12 2 (0.46%) Maven
12 2 (0.46%) Snyk
12 2 (0.46%) SonarQube
General
1 153 (34.93%) Social Skills
2 105 (23.97%) Finance
3 68 (15.53%) Public Sector
4 55 (12.56%) Banking
5 42 (9.59%) Analytical Skills
6 31 (7.08%) Marketing
7 13 (2.97%) Influencing Skills
8 12 (2.74%) Financial Institution
9 10 (2.28%) Legal
10 9 (2.05%) Automotive
10 9 (2.05%) Pharmaceutical
10 9 (2.05%) Presentation Skills
11 8 (1.83%) Retail
12 6 (1.37%) Inclusion and Diversity
13 5 (1.14%) Publishing
14 3 (0.68%) Aerospace
14 3 (0.68%) Investment Banking
14 3 (0.68%) Local Government
14 3 (0.68%) Organisational Skills
14 3 (0.68%) Wearables
Job Titles
1 177 (40.41%) Designer
2 123 (28.08%) UX Designer
3 89 (20.32%) Developer
4 79 (18.04%) Senior
5 37 (8.45%) Senior Designer
6 32 (7.31%) Service Designer
6 32 (7.31%) UI Designer
7 27 (6.16%) Lead
8 26 (5.94%) Senior UX Designer
8 26 (5.94%) UI/UX Designer
9 24 (5.48%) Front-End Developer (Client-Side Developer)
10 21 (4.79%) User Researcher
11 19 (4.34%) Product Designer
12 16 (3.65%) Analyst
13 15 (3.42%) Business Analyst
14 12 (2.74%) Content Designer
14 12 (2.74%) Senior Developer
14 12 (2.74%) UX Service Designer
15 11 (2.51%) Full-Stack Developer
15 11 (2.51%) React Developer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 86 (19.63%) CSS
1 86 (19.63%) HTML
2 67 (15.30%) React
3 52 (11.87%) RESTful
4 32 (7.31%) REST
5 31 (7.08%) HTML5
6 27 (6.16%) AngularJS
7 24 (5.48%) CSS3
7 24 (5.48%) Node.js
8 18 (4.11%) Jest
8 18 (4.11%) Spring
9 17 (3.88%) .NET
9 17 (3.88%) Next.js
10 16 (3.65%) Playwright
11 15 (3.42%) Redux
11 15 (3.42%) Spring Boot
12 12 (2.74%) GraphQL
13 10 (2.28%) Web Services
14 9 (2.05%) jQuery
14 9 (2.05%) SOAP
Miscellaneous
1 47 (10.73%) Mobile App
1 47 (10.73%) Product Ownership
2 26 (5.94%) Onboarding
3 13 (2.97%) Low-Code
4 11 (2.51%) Virtual Team
5 10 (2.28%) NHS
6 8 (1.83%) Distributed Systems
7 6 (1.37%) Data Protection Act
7 6 (1.37%) Greenfield Project
7 6 (1.37%) W3C
8 5 (1.14%) Enterprise Software
8 5 (1.14%) Mobile Banking
8 5 (1.14%) RIA
9 4 (0.91%) Blog
9 4 (0.91%) Data Structures
9 4 (0.91%) Digital Media
9 4 (0.91%) e-Learning
9 4 (0.91%) Learning Management System
9 4 (0.91%) Life Science
9 4 (0.91%) Social Media
Operating Systems
1 18 (4.11%) Android
1 18 (4.11%) Apple iOS
2 5 (1.14%) Windows
3 4 (0.91%) Linux
4 3 (0.68%) Windows 10
5 2 (0.46%) Mac OS
6 1 (0.23%) VMS
6 1 (0.23%) Windows Server
Processes & Methodologies
1 438 (100.00%) User Experience
2 206 (47.03%) Agile
3 121 (27.63%) User Research
4 96 (21.92%) User-Centered Design (UCD)
5 86 (19.63%) Usability Testing
6 83 (18.95%) Service Design
7 81 (18.49%) Problem-Solving
8 74 (16.89%) Wireframes
9 71 (16.21%) CI/CD
10 70 (15.98%) Prototyping
11 67 (15.30%) Front End Development
12 60 (13.70%) Analytics
13 53 (12.10%) UX Research
14 51 (11.64%) Interaction Design
15 46 (10.50%) DevOps
16 44 (10.05%) Continuous Improvement
16 44 (10.05%) Workshop Facilitation
17 43 (9.82%) Microservices
18 42 (9.59%) AI
18 42 (9.59%) Journey Map
Programming Languages
1 79 (18.04%) JavaScript
2 49 (11.19%) TypeScript
3 43 (9.82%) Java
4 22 (5.02%) SQL
5 17 (3.88%) Python
6 14 (3.20%) Kotlin
7 13 (2.97%) Swift
8 12 (2.74%) C#
9 9 (2.05%) Objective-C
10 7 (1.60%) PHP
11 5 (1.14%) Ruby
11 5 (1.14%) Scala
12 4 (0.91%) C++
13 3 (0.68%) C
14 2 (0.46%) Bash
14 2 (0.46%) COBOL
14 2 (0.46%) Groovy
14 2 (0.46%) PL/SQL
15 1 (0.23%) Apex Code
15 1 (0.23%) BeanShell
Qualifications
1 48 (10.96%) Degree
2 40 (9.13%) Security Cleared
3 22 (5.02%) SC Cleared
4 17 (3.88%) BPSS Clearance
5 10 (2.28%) Computer Science Degree
6 5 (1.14%) Master's Degree
7 3 (0.68%) DV Cleared
7 3 (0.68%) MCP
8 2 (0.46%) Microsoft Certification
8 2 (0.46%) PMI Certification
9 1 (0.23%) AWS Certification
9 1 (0.23%) Azure Certification
9 1 (0.23%) CCA
9 1 (0.23%) DBS Check
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 122 (27.85%) Accessibility
2 40 (9.13%) QA
2 40 (9.13%) WCAG
3 13 (2.97%) GDPR
4 8 (1.83%) Actionable Recommendations
5 6 (1.37%) California Consumer Privacy Act
6 4 (0.91%) Data Quality
6 4 (0.91%) ISO/IEC 27001
7 3 (0.68%) SLA
8 1 (0.23%) Disclosure Scotland
8 1 (0.23%) PCI DSS
System Software
1 31 (7.08%) Docker
2 3 (0.68%) Active Directory
3 1 (0.23%) VMware Infrastructure
Systems Management
1 18 (4.11%) Kubernetes
2 12 (2.74%) Terraform
3 6 (1.37%) Ansible
3 6 (1.37%) Grafana
4 3 (0.68%) Systems Management Server (SMS)
5 2 (0.46%) Single Sign-On
6 1 (0.23%) Consul
6 1 (0.23%) HP ALM
6 1 (0.23%) Microsoft Intune
6 1 (0.23%) Podman
6 1 (0.23%) Prometheus
6 1 (0.23%) SCCM
Vendors
1 44 (10.05%) Adobe
2 36 (8.22%) Microsoft
3 23 (5.25%) Google
4 16 (3.65%) Salesforce
5 11 (2.51%) ServiceNow
6 9 (2.05%) SAP
7 8 (1.83%) Optimizely
7 8 (1.83%) Oracle
8 7 (1.60%) Hotjar
9 6 (1.37%) Hopewiser
10 5 (1.14%) Amplitude
10 5 (1.14%) Apple
10 5 (1.14%) MuleSoft
10 5 (1.14%) OutSystems
11 4 (0.91%) Mercator
11 4 (0.91%) OpenAI
12 3 (0.68%) Dataiku
12 3 (0.68%) OneTrust
13 2 (0.46%) Palantir
13 2 (0.46%) Sitecore