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

6 months to
6 Apr 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 258 207 211
Rank change year-on-year -51 +4 -30
Contract jobs citing UX Design 456 377 495
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 1.01% 1.29% 1.13%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 1.18% 1.42% 1.31%
Number of daily rates quoted 334 268 343
10th Percentile £361 £313 £350
25th Percentile £400 £390 £400
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £475 £478 £513
Median % change year-on-year -0.52% -6.83% -6.82%
75th Percentile £571 £575 £624
90th Percentile £638 £662 £675
UK excluding London median daily rate £466 £425 £450
% change year-on-year +9.71% -5.56% -5.26%
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 38,628 26,479 37,892
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 85.41% 90.55% 86.36%
Number of daily rates quoted 24,477 17,189 24,572
10th Percentile £314 £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 £744 £750
UK excluding London median daily rate £487 £488 £500
% change year-on-year -0.10% -2.50% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 2,295 988 2,354
10th Percentile £15.00 £15.00 £12.75
25th Percentile £19.00 £19.99 £16.00
Median hourly rate £35.91 £31.58 £32.50
Median % change year-on-year +13.71% -2.83% -13.33%
75th Percentile £65.00 £63.75 £57.50
90th Percentile £77.50 £75.73 £70.27
UK excluding London median hourly rate £35.55 £30.00 £32.12
% change year-on-year +18.50% -6.59% -13.90%

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 6 April 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 6 April 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 6 April 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 -55 375 £475 -5.00% 206
London -33 221 £488 -3.47% 92
UK excluding London -45 168 £466 +9.71% 138
Work from Home -49 122 £450 +2.27% 114
North of England -39 65 £402 +0.50% 57
North West -15 44 £400 - 31
Scotland +5 27 £575 +35.29% 11
South East -52 24 £500 +10.13% 35
South West -14 22 £475 +26.67% 11
Midlands -57 22 £463 +29.92% 9
West Midlands -43 18 £425 +4.94% 6
Yorkshire -49 13 £519 +15.21% 11
North East -8 8 £364 -6.06% 16
Wales -8 5 £450 - 8
East of England -31 5 £443 -7.33% 5
East Midlands -35 4 £573 +64.38% 3
Northern Ireland -4 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 14 (3.07%) Confluence
2 13 (2.85%) CMS
3 7 (1.54%) SharePoint
4 3 (0.66%) Headless CMS
4 3 (0.66%) Jupyter
5 2 (0.44%) Appian
5 2 (0.44%) Sitecore CMS
5 2 (0.44%) 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%) nginx
6 1 (0.22%) Strapi
6 1 (0.22%) Traefik
Applications
1 41 (8.99%) Sketch
2 33 (7.24%) Adobe XD
3 14 (3.07%) Chatbot
3 14 (3.07%) InVision
4 4 (0.88%) Adobe After Effects
4 4 (0.88%) Microsoft Excel
4 4 (0.88%) Photoshop
5 3 (0.66%) Adobe Illustrator
5 3 (0.66%) MS Visio
6 2 (0.44%) Microsoft Office
6 2 (0.44%) OmniGraffle
6 2 (0.44%) Trello
7 1 (0.22%) Adobe Creative Suite
7 1 (0.22%) Blender
7 1 (0.22%) CINEMA 4D
7 1 (0.22%) InDesign
7 1 (0.22%) Microsoft PowerPoint
7 1 (0.22%) Spreadsheet
7 1 (0.22%) UserZoom
7 1 (0.22%) UXPin
Business Applications
1 3 (0.66%) Shopify
2 2 (0.44%) Dynamics CRM
3 1 (0.22%) Sprinklr
Cloud Services
1 147 (32.24%) Figma
2 55 (12.06%) Azure
3 40 (8.77%) AWS
4 18 (3.95%) Azure DevOps
5 17 (3.73%) Power Platform
6 16 (3.51%) SaaS
7 12 (2.63%) Miro
8 10 (2.19%) GCP
8 10 (2.19%) GitHub
8 10 (2.19%) GitHub Actions
9 6 (1.32%) Serverless
10 5 (1.10%) AWS Lambda
11 4 (0.88%) Amazon S3
11 4 (0.88%) AWS CloudFormation
11 4 (0.88%) Microsoft 365
12 3 (0.66%) CloudFront
12 3 (0.66%) Firebase
12 3 (0.66%) IaaS
12 3 (0.66%) PaaS
12 3 (0.66%) Salesforce Commerce Cloud
Communications & Networking
1 3 (0.66%) Internet
2 2 (0.44%) HTTP
2 2 (0.44%) Intranet
3 1 (0.22%) Reverse Proxy
Database & Business Intelligence
1 11 (2.41%) NoSQL
2 8 (1.75%) Power BI
3 7 (1.54%) SQL Server
4 6 (1.32%) MongoDB
4 6 (1.32%) PostgreSQL
5 5 (1.10%) Relational Database
6 3 (0.66%) Elasticsearch
6 3 (0.66%) Pinecone
7 2 (0.44%) CockroachDB
7 2 (0.44%) DynamoDB
7 2 (0.44%) 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%) Mixpanel
8 1 (0.22%) Oracle Reports
8 1 (0.22%) SAP HANA
8 1 (0.22%) SQL Server Integration Services
8 1 (0.22%) SQLite
Development Applications
1 36 (7.89%) Git
2 28 (6.14%) JIRA
3 21 (4.61%) Axure RP
4 18 (3.95%) Cypress.io
5 16 (3.51%) GitLab
6 11 (2.41%) Jenkins
7 10 (2.19%) JUnit
8 9 (1.97%) CircleCI
9 6 (1.32%) Mocha
10 5 (1.10%) Visual Studio
11 4 (0.88%) Selenium
11 4 (0.88%) Vite
12 3 (0.66%) Balsamiq
12 3 (0.66%) Gradle
13 2 (0.44%) Android Studio
13 2 (0.44%) Crashlytics
13 2 (0.44%) fastlane
13 2 (0.44%) Maven
13 2 (0.44%) TestRail
13 2 (0.44%) webpack
General
1 140 (30.70%) Social Skills
2 89 (19.52%) Public Sector
3 86 (18.86%) Finance
4 63 (13.82%) Banking
5 34 (7.46%) Analytical Skills
6 19 (4.17%) Presentation Skills
7 18 (3.95%) Marketing
8 12 (2.63%) Retail
9 8 (1.75%) Pharmaceutical
10 7 (1.54%) Inclusion and Diversity
10 7 (1.54%) Legal
11 6 (1.32%) Financial Institution
11 6 (1.32%) Games
11 6 (1.32%) Influencing Skills
12 5 (1.10%) Documentation Skills
12 5 (1.10%) Local Government
13 4 (0.88%) Advertising
14 3 (0.66%) Publishing
14 3 (0.66%) Retail Banking
14 3 (0.66%) Telecoms
Job Titles
1 217 (47.59%) Designer
2 136 (29.82%) UX Designer
3 78 (17.11%) Senior
4 67 (14.69%) Developer
5 39 (8.55%) Senior Designer
5 39 (8.55%) UI Designer
6 34 (7.46%) Service Designer
7 33 (7.24%) Senior UX Designer
7 33 (7.24%) UI/UX Designer
8 32 (7.02%) Product Designer
9 26 (5.70%) User Researcher
10 25 (5.48%) Content Designer
11 20 (4.39%) Lead
12 16 (3.51%) Analyst
13 14 (3.07%) Architect
13 14 (3.07%) Full-Stack Developer
14 13 (2.85%) Senior Developer
15 12 (2.63%) Business Analyst
15 12 (2.63%) React Developer
16 11 (2.41%) Consultant
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 68 (14.91%) React
2 62 (13.60%) CSS
2 62 (13.60%) HTML
3 43 (9.43%) RESTful
4 30 (6.58%) HTML5
5 27 (5.92%) CSS3
6 26 (5.70%) AngularJS
7 23 (5.04%) REST
8 22 (4.82%) .NET
8 22 (4.82%) Node.js
9 19 (4.17%) Spring
10 18 (3.95%) Jest
10 18 (3.95%) Spring Boot
11 14 (3.07%) Redux
12 12 (2.63%) Next.js
13 11 (2.41%) Playwright
14 9 (1.97%) GraphQL
14 9 (1.97%) JSON
15 8 (1.75%) OAuth
16 7 (1.54%) Unity (Game Engine)
Miscellaneous
1 50 (10.96%) Product Ownership
2 37 (8.11%) Mobile App
3 13 (2.85%) Onboarding
4 9 (1.97%) Cloud Native
5 8 (1.75%) Data Protection Act
5 8 (1.75%) Virtual Team
6 7 (1.54%) Enterprise Software
7 6 (1.32%) Animation
7 6 (1.32%) Distributed Systems
7 6 (1.32%) Graphic Design
7 6 (1.32%) NHS
8 5 (1.10%) Augmented Reality
8 5 (1.10%) Data Structures
8 5 (1.10%) Digital Wallet
8 5 (1.10%) Greenfield Project
9 4 (0.88%) Algorithms
9 4 (0.88%) Low-Code
9 4 (0.88%) Mobile Banking
9 4 (0.88%) Self-Motivation
9 4 (0.88%) Team-Oriented Environment
Operating Systems
1 8 (1.75%) Android
2 5 (1.10%) Apple iOS
3 3 (0.66%) Windows
4 2 (0.44%) Linux
4 2 (0.44%) Windows 10
5 1 (0.22%) Windows Server
Processes & Methodologies
1 456 (100.00%) User Experience
2 202 (44.30%) Agile
3 138 (30.26%) User Research
4 97 (21.27%) Prototyping
5 94 (20.61%) User-Centered Design (UCD)
6 89 (19.52%) Service Design
7 86 (18.86%) Wireframes
8 82 (17.98%) Usability Testing
9 71 (15.57%) Problem-Solving
9 71 (15.57%) UX Research
10 66 (14.47%) Interaction Design
11 63 (13.82%) CI/CD
12 58 (12.72%) AI
13 50 (10.96%) Analytics
14 48 (10.53%) Front End Development
15 47 (10.31%) Continuous Improvement
15 47 (10.31%) DevOps
15 47 (10.31%) Journey Map
16 46 (10.09%) Stakeholder Management
17 43 (9.43%) Workshop Facilitation
Programming Languages
1 68 (14.91%) JavaScript
2 43 (9.43%) TypeScript
3 31 (6.80%) Java
4 28 (6.14%) Python
5 19 (4.17%) C#
6 18 (3.95%) SQL
7 5 (1.10%) C++
7 5 (1.10%) Kotlin
7 5 (1.10%) Lua
8 4 (0.88%) Korn
9 2 (0.44%) PowerShell
10 1 (0.22%) Apex Code
10 1 (0.22%) BeanShell
10 1 (0.22%) Data Analysis Expressions
10 1 (0.22%) Gremlin
10 1 (0.22%) Objective-C
10 1 (0.22%) Ruby
10 1 (0.22%) Scala
10 1 (0.22%) SPARQL
10 1 (0.22%) VBScript
Qualifications
1 55 (12.06%) Security Cleared
2 44 (9.65%) Degree
3 36 (7.89%) SC Cleared
4 13 (2.85%) BPSS Clearance
5 10 (2.19%) Master's Degree
6 5 (1.10%) Computer Science Degree
7 3 (0.66%) DV Cleared
7 3 (0.66%) Microsoft Certification
8 2 (0.44%) Azure Certification
8 2 (0.44%) PMI Certification
9 1 (0.22%) CCA
9 1 (0.22%) Citrix Certification
9 1 (0.22%) Microsoft Certified Professional
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 151 (33.11%) Accessibility
2 54 (11.84%) WCAG
3 33 (7.24%) QA
4 10 (2.19%) Actionable Recommendations
5 5 (1.10%) GDPR
6 3 (0.66%) California Consumer Privacy Act
7 2 (0.44%) 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 (5.48%) Docker
2 1 (0.22%) Active Directory
2 1 (0.22%) Virtual Desktop
Systems Management
1 19 (4.17%) Kubernetes
2 14 (3.07%) Terraform
3 3 (0.66%) Ansible
3 3 (0.66%) Grafana
4 2 (0.44%) HP ALM
4 2 (0.44%) Single Sign-On
5 1 (0.22%) Consul
5 1 (0.22%) Podman
5 1 (0.22%) Systems Management Server (SMS)
Vendors
1 42 (9.21%) Adobe
2 21 (4.61%) Microsoft
3 18 (3.95%) Salesforce
4 10 (2.19%) Google
5 9 (1.97%) ServiceNow
6 6 (1.32%) MuleSoft
6 6 (1.32%) SAP
7 4 (0.88%) Oracle
7 4 (0.88%) Sitecore
8 3 (0.66%) Dataiku
8 3 (0.66%) Xamarin
9 2 (0.44%) Blue Prism
9 2 (0.44%) Databricks
9 2 (0.44%) Dynatrace
9 2 (0.44%) Hotjar
9 2 (0.44%) HP
9 2 (0.44%) OpenAI
9 2 (0.44%) Optimizely
10 1 (0.22%) Apple
10 1 (0.22%) Citrix