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

6 months to
1 Jul 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 253 196 223
Rank change year-on-year -57 +27 -55
Contract jobs citing UX Design 506 427 472
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 0.98% 1.39% 1.09%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 1.16% 1.53% 1.28%
Number of daily rates quoted 327 283 326
10th Percentile £363 £301 £350
25th Percentile £404 £358 £403
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £475 £450 £500
Median % change year-on-year +5.56% -10.00% -9.09%
75th Percentile £575 £544 £611
90th Percentile £663 £619 £675
UK excluding London median daily rate £470 £425 £425
% change year-on-year +10.59% - -10.53%
Number of hourly rates quoted 13 13 8
10th Percentile £20.85 £34.63 £30.17
25th Percentile £26.00 £35.25 £32.73
Median hourly rate £33.99 £47.50 £37.37
Median % change year-on-year -28.44% +27.10% -35.00%
75th Percentile £65.00 £70.16 £52.00
90th Percentile £92.75 £91.22 £88.61
UK excluding London median hourly rate £27.67 £70.16 £91.44
% change year-on-year -60.57% -23.27% +30.30%

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 43,674 27,949 36,811
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 84.97% 90.88% 85.28%
Number of daily rates quoted 27,163 17,650 23,450
10th Percentile £325 £300 £300
25th Percentile £414 £405 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £515 £501 £525
Median % change year-on-year +2.79% -4.57% -4.55%
75th Percentile £621 £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 2,623 1,373 2,554
10th Percentile £14.82 £14.20 £12.74
25th Percentile £20.00 £17.61 £16.06
Median hourly rate £43.96 £25.15 £37.50
Median % change year-on-year +74.79% -32.93% +3.81%
75th Percentile £68.00 £53.86 £61.30
90th Percentile £81.25 £70.00 £72.50
UK excluding London median hourly rate £43.96 £25.00 £38.12
% change year-on-year +75.84% -34.42% +8.91%

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 1 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 1 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 1 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 -36 422 £475 +5.56% 195
London -44 238 £500 +7.53% 113
UK excluding London -36 205 £470 +10.59% 120
Work from Home -66 119 £488 +14.71% 102
North of England -50 67 £450 +12.50% 35
North West -28 36 £375 -6.25% 18
Scotland +1 35 £510 +9.55% 11
Midlands -39 33 £550 +54.49% 9
South West -11 32 £475 +11.76% 9
West Midlands -32 26 £500 +66.67% 7
South East -66 26 £550 +21.15% 38
Yorkshire -45 18 £500 +24.84% 12
North East -23 13 £450 +5.88% 5
East of England -17 12 £410 -14.14% 7
East Midlands -13 7 £588 +65.03% 2
Wales -13 1 £450 +2.86% 6
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 26 (5.14%) CMS
2 18 (3.56%) Confluence
3 5 (0.99%) WordPress
4 4 (0.79%) Kentico
4 4 (0.79%) Umbraco
5 3 (0.59%) Headless CMS
5 3 (0.59%) SharePoint
6 2 (0.40%) Mendix
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%) Moodle
7 1 (0.20%) nginx
7 1 (0.20%) Strapi
7 1 (0.20%) Traefik
Applications
1 27 (5.34%) Sketch
2 13 (2.57%) Adobe XD
3 11 (2.17%) Adobe After Effects
3 11 (2.17%) Adobe Creative Suite
4 10 (1.98%) Photoshop
5 8 (1.58%) Adobe Illustrator
5 8 (1.58%) Chatbot
6 6 (1.19%) Final Cut Pro
7 4 (0.79%) MS Visio
8 3 (0.59%) Microsoft Excel
9 2 (0.40%) InVision
9 2 (0.40%) Microsoft Office
9 2 (0.40%) UserZoom
10 1 (0.20%) Adobe Captivate
10 1 (0.20%) Microsoft PowerPoint
10 1 (0.20%) Trello
Business Applications
1 5 (0.99%) Shopify
2 2 (0.40%) Dynamics CRM
2 2 (0.40%) SAP S/4HANA
3 1 (0.20%) Eloqua
3 1 (0.20%) SAP HR
3 1 (0.20%) Sprinklr
Cloud Services
1 147 (29.05%) Figma
2 63 (12.45%) Azure
3 29 (5.73%) Azure DevOps
4 27 (5.34%) AWS
5 20 (3.95%) Power Platform
6 15 (2.96%) GitHub
7 13 (2.57%) GitHub Actions
7 13 (2.57%) SaaS
8 10 (1.98%) Firebase
9 9 (1.78%) Microsoft Copilot
10 8 (1.58%) GCP
11 7 (1.38%) Serverless
12 5 (0.99%) Azure AI
12 5 (0.99%) Google Play
12 5 (0.99%) Miro
12 5 (0.99%) Slack
13 4 (0.79%) AWS Lambda
13 4 (0.79%) Copilot Studio
13 4 (0.79%) Microsoft 365
13 4 (0.79%) PowerApps
Communications & Networking
1 1 (0.20%) Internet
1 1 (0.20%) Reverse Proxy
Database & Business Intelligence
1 11 (2.17%) Power BI
2 10 (1.98%) PostgreSQL
3 9 (1.78%) SQL Server
4 6 (1.19%) Metadata
4 6 (1.19%) NoSQL
4 6 (1.19%) Power Query
5 4 (0.79%) Elasticsearch
5 4 (0.79%) MongoDB
6 3 (0.59%) Azure SQL Database
6 3 (0.59%) MySQL
6 3 (0.59%) Redis
6 3 (0.59%) Relational Database
6 3 (0.59%) SQL Server Integration Services
6 3 (0.59%) Star Schema
7 2 (0.40%) DynamoDB
8 1 (0.20%) Amazon QuickSight
8 1 (0.20%) Db2
8 1 (0.20%) Flink
8 1 (0.20%) Pinecone
8 1 (0.20%) SQLite
Development Applications
1 30 (5.93%) JIRA
2 26 (5.14%) Git
3 17 (3.36%) Cypress.io
3 17 (3.36%) Jenkins
4 13 (2.57%) GitLab
5 10 (1.98%) fastlane
6 6 (1.19%) Vite
7 5 (0.99%) Android Studio
7 5 (0.99%) Crashlytics
7 5 (0.99%) Gradle
7 5 (0.99%) JUnit
7 5 (0.99%) webpack
7 5 (0.99%) Xcode
8 4 (0.79%) CircleCI
8 4 (0.79%) Storybook
9 3 (0.59%) Axure RP
9 3 (0.59%) Mocha
9 3 (0.59%) Visual Studio
10 2 (0.40%) Jasmine
10 2 (0.40%) Selenium
General
1 148 (29.25%) Social Skills
2 100 (19.76%) Public Sector
3 85 (16.80%) Finance
4 53 (10.47%) Banking
5 28 (5.53%) Retail
6 25 (4.94%) Analytical Skills
7 20 (3.95%) Inclusion and Diversity
7 20 (3.95%) Presentation Skills
8 15 (2.96%) Automotive
9 14 (2.77%) Publishing
10 13 (2.57%) Marketing
11 9 (1.78%) Influencing Skills
12 8 (1.58%) Legal
13 6 (1.19%) Documentation Skills
13 6 (1.19%) Pharmaceutical
14 5 (0.99%) Games
14 5 (0.99%) Law
15 4 (0.79%) Investment Banking
15 4 (0.79%) Local Government
15 4 (0.79%) Retail Banking
Job Titles
1 254 (50.20%) Designer
2 137 (27.08%) UX Designer
3 85 (16.80%) Senior
4 74 (14.62%) Developer
5 62 (12.25%) UI Designer
6 46 (9.09%) Content Designer
7 45 (8.89%) Senior Designer
7 45 (8.89%) UI/UX Designer
8 42 (8.30%) Lead
9 35 (6.92%) Product Designer
10 29 (5.73%) Senior UX Designer
11 22 (4.35%) User Researcher
12 19 (3.75%) Analyst
13 18 (3.56%) User Experience Researcher
14 17 (3.36%) Front-End Developer (Client-Side Developer)
15 16 (3.16%) Architect
15 16 (3.16%) Business Analyst
15 16 (3.16%) Service Designer
16 14 (2.77%) Consultant
16 14 (2.77%) Full-Stack Developer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 64 (12.65%) React
2 60 (11.86%) CSS
3 56 (11.07%) HTML
4 40 (7.91%) RESTful
5 26 (5.14%) AngularJS
5 26 (5.14%) HTML5
6 25 (4.94%) CSS3
7 24 (4.74%) .NET
8 20 (3.95%) REST
9 15 (2.96%) Jest
9 15 (2.96%) Redux
10 13 (2.57%) Node.js
10 13 (2.57%) Spring
11 12 (2.37%) Spring Boot
12 10 (1.98%) GraphQL
12 10 (1.98%) OAuth
12 10 (1.98%) Playwright
13 9 (1.78%) .NET Framework
13 9 (1.78%) ASP.NET
13 9 (1.78%) Vue
Miscellaneous
1 66 (13.04%) Product Ownership
2 46 (9.09%) Mobile App
3 15 (2.96%) Animation
4 14 (2.77%) Onboarding
4 14 (2.77%) Self-Motivation
5 12 (2.37%) Cloud Native
6 10 (1.98%) Data Protection Act
7 9 (1.78%) Graphic Design
8 8 (1.58%) Greenfield Project
8 8 (1.58%) Taxonomies
9 7 (1.38%) AI Agents
9 7 (1.38%) Enterprise Software
10 5 (0.99%) Legacy Systems
10 5 (0.99%) Virtual Reality
11 4 (0.79%) Algorithms
11 4 (0.79%) Data Structures
11 4 (0.79%) Team-Oriented Environment
11 4 (0.79%) Virtual Team
12 3 (0.59%) IoT
12 3 (0.59%) Mobile Banking
Operating Systems
1 13 (2.57%) Android
2 10 (1.98%) Apple iOS
3 2 (0.40%) Windows
4 1 (0.20%) Linux
4 1 (0.20%) Unix
Processes & Methodologies
1 506 (100.00%) User Experience
2 208 (41.11%) Agile
3 125 (24.70%) User Research
4 99 (19.57%) Prototyping
5 96 (18.97%) Wireframes
6 90 (17.79%) User-Centered Design (UCD)
7 85 (16.80%) AI
8 81 (16.01%) Service Design
9 71 (14.03%) Usability Testing
10 69 (13.64%) UX Research
11 67 (13.24%) CI/CD
12 64 (12.65%) Analytics
13 62 (12.25%) Interaction Design
14 60 (11.86%) Stakeholder Management
15 58 (11.46%) Problem-Solving
16 57 (11.26%) DevOps
17 51 (10.08%) Customer Experience
17 51 (10.08%) Workshop Facilitation
18 50 (9.88%) Journey Map
19 43 (8.50%) Continuous Improvement
Programming Languages
1 58 (11.46%) JavaScript
2 50 (9.88%) TypeScript
3 32 (6.32%) Java
4 25 (4.94%) Python
5 20 (3.95%) SQL
6 19 (3.75%) C#
7 9 (1.78%) Kotlin
8 8 (1.58%) Data Analysis Expressions
9 5 (0.99%) C++
9 5 (0.99%) Korn
9 5 (0.99%) Lua
9 5 (0.99%) Swift
10 4 (0.79%) Apex Code
11 2 (0.40%) Bicep
11 2 (0.40%) PowerShell
12 1 (0.20%) C
12 1 (0.20%) Gremlin
12 1 (0.20%) Objective-C
12 1 (0.20%) Shell Script
12 1 (0.20%) SPARQL
Qualifications
1 76 (15.02%) Security Cleared
2 59 (11.66%) SC Cleared
3 52 (10.28%) Degree
4 11 (2.17%) BPSS Clearance
5 10 (1.98%) DV Cleared
5 10 (1.98%) Master's Degree
6 6 (1.19%) Computer Science Degree
7 3 (0.59%) Azure Certification
7 3 (0.59%) DBS Check
8 2 (0.40%) CCA
9 1 (0.20%) Citrix Certification
9 1 (0.20%) CTC Cleared
9 1 (0.20%) IIBA
9 1 (0.20%) Microsoft Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 173 (34.19%) Accessibility
2 67 (13.24%) WCAG
3 27 (5.34%) QA
4 11 (2.17%) Data Quality
5 5 (0.99%) Actionable Recommendations
6 3 (0.59%) ISO/IEC 42001
7 2 (0.40%) GDPR
8 1 (0.20%) EU AI Act
8 1 (0.20%) GMP
8 1 (0.20%) GRC
8 1 (0.20%) GxP
8 1 (0.20%) PMO
8 1 (0.20%) WAI
8 1 (0.20%) WAI-ARIA
System Software
1 20 (3.95%) Docker
2 1 (0.20%) Virtual Desktop
Systems Management
1 17 (3.36%) Kubernetes
2 13 (2.57%) Terraform
3 1 (0.20%) Grafana
3 1 (0.20%) HP ALM
Vendors
1 40 (7.91%) Adobe
2 28 (5.53%) Microsoft
3 19 (3.75%) Salesforce
4 10 (1.98%) Dynatrace
5 9 (1.78%) Google
6 8 (1.58%) SAP
7 6 (1.19%) ServiceNow
8 5 (0.99%) Apple
8 5 (0.99%) Foundry
9 4 (0.79%) Oracle
9 4 (0.79%) Sitecore
10 3 (0.59%) Progress
10 3 (0.59%) Xamarin
11 2 (0.40%) Blue Prism
11 2 (0.40%) Databricks
11 2 (0.40%) OpenAI
12 1 (0.20%) Alteryx
12 1 (0.20%) Automation Anywhere
12 1 (0.20%) Qualtrics
12 1 (0.20%) UiPath