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

6 months to
29 Jul 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 260 209 228
Rank change year-on-year -51 +19 -46
Contract jobs citing UX Design 510 429 435
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 0.97% 1.31% 1.09%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 1.14% 1.45% 1.28%
Number of daily rates quoted 309 283 296
10th Percentile £363 £313 £350
25th Percentile £406 £364 £406
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £476 £468 £500
Median % change year-on-year +1.82% -6.50% -9.09%
75th Percentile £588 £548 £603
90th Percentile £668 £635 £681
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% -46.01%
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 44,620 29,684 34,056
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 84.91% 90.46% 85.49%
Number of daily rates quoted 27,627 18,648 21,888
10th Percentile £325 £300 £308
25th Percentile £420 £404 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £500 £525
Median % change year-on-year +5.00% -4.76% -4.11%
75th Percentile £625 £625 £638
90th Percentile £725 £734 £750
UK excluding London median daily rate £500 £475 £500
% change year-on-year +5.26% -5.00% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 2,682 1,621 1,980
10th Percentile £14.64 £14.20 £13.69
25th Percentile £19.73 £17.33 £17.74
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 £82.35 £68.75 £74.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £43.96 £23.57 £40.33
% change year-on-year +86.55% -41.56% -

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 29 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 29 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 29 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 -31 434 £475 +1.44% 196
London -32 239 £513 +5.67% 110
UK excluding London -30 217 £460 +8.24% 116
Work from Home -81 123 £495 +16.47% 103
North of England -49 67 £425 +6.25% 43
South West -12 39 £475 +6.26% 18
Scotland -9 38 £525 +13.51% 5
Midlands -40 35 £550 +54.49% 11
West Midlands -37 29 £488 +34.48% 10
North West -44 29 £375 - 17
South East -72 25 £550 +21.15% 27
Yorkshire -39 22 £500 - 17
North East -32 16 £450 -7.69% 9
East of England -12 13 £410 -13.68% 7
East Midlands -15 6 £575 +61.52% 1
Wales -13 2 - - 1
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 (5.49%) CMS
2 20 (3.92%) Confluence
3 7 (1.37%) WordPress
4 4 (0.78%) Headless CMS
4 4 (0.78%) Kentico
5 3 (0.59%) Umbraco
6 2 (0.39%) Mendix
7 1 (0.20%) Apache
7 1 (0.20%) Apache Spark
7 1 (0.20%) Camunda
7 1 (0.20%) Drupal
7 1 (0.20%) Moodle
7 1 (0.20%) nginx
7 1 (0.20%) SharePoint
7 1 (0.20%) Strapi
7 1 (0.20%) Traefik
Applications
1 29 (5.69%) Sketch
2 15 (2.94%) Adobe Creative Suite
2 15 (2.94%) Adobe XD
3 11 (2.16%) Adobe After Effects
4 10 (1.96%) Photoshop
5 9 (1.76%) Chatbot
6 8 (1.57%) Adobe Illustrator
7 6 (1.18%) Final Cut Pro
8 3 (0.59%) Microsoft Excel
8 3 (0.59%) MS Visio
9 2 (0.39%) InVision
9 2 (0.39%) Microsoft Office
10 1 (0.20%) Adobe Captivate
10 1 (0.20%) Trello
10 1 (0.20%) UserZoom
Business Applications
1 5 (0.98%) Shopify
2 4 (0.78%) Dynamics CRM
3 2 (0.39%) SAP S/4HANA
4 1 (0.20%) Eloqua
4 1 (0.20%) Payment Gateway
4 1 (0.20%) SAP HR
4 1 (0.20%) Sprinklr
Cloud Services
1 149 (29.22%) Figma
2 58 (11.37%) Azure
3 30 (5.88%) AWS
4 29 (5.69%) Azure DevOps
5 22 (4.31%) Power Platform
6 15 (2.94%) GitHub
7 14 (2.75%) SaaS
8 11 (2.16%) Firebase
8 11 (2.16%) GCP
9 10 (1.96%) GitHub Actions
10 9 (1.76%) Microsoft Copilot
11 7 (1.37%) Serverless
11 7 (1.37%) Slack
12 6 (1.18%) Google Play
12 6 (1.18%) Miro
13 5 (0.98%) Azure AI
14 4 (0.78%) BigCommerce
14 4 (0.78%) Copilot Studio
14 4 (0.78%) Microsoft 365
14 4 (0.78%) PowerApps
Communications & Networking
1 1 (0.20%) Bluetooth
1 1 (0.20%) NFC
1 1 (0.20%) Reverse Proxy
Database & Business Intelligence
1 15 (2.94%) Power BI
2 10 (1.96%) PostgreSQL
3 6 (1.18%) Metadata
3 6 (1.18%) NoSQL
3 6 (1.18%) Power Query
3 6 (1.18%) SQL Server
4 4 (0.78%) Elasticsearch
4 4 (0.78%) MongoDB
4 4 (0.78%) Redis
5 3 (0.59%) Azure SQL Database
5 3 (0.59%) MySQL
5 3 (0.59%) Relational Database
5 3 (0.59%) 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 (0.20%) Amazon QuickSight
7 1 (0.20%) Pinecone
7 1 (0.20%) Qlik Sense
Development Applications
1 33 (6.47%) JIRA
2 26 (5.10%) Git
3 16 (3.14%) Cypress.io
3 16 (3.14%) Jenkins
4 10 (1.96%) fastlane
5 7 (1.37%) GitLab
6 6 (1.18%) Android Studio
6 6 (1.18%) Gradle
6 6 (1.18%) Vite
6 6 (1.18%) webpack
7 5 (0.98%) Crashlytics
7 5 (0.98%) Storybook
7 5 (0.98%) Xcode
8 4 (0.78%) Claude Code
9 3 (0.59%) Axure RP
9 3 (0.59%) JUnit
10 2 (0.39%) Jasmine
10 2 (0.39%) Karma Test Runner
10 2 (0.39%) REST Assured
10 2 (0.39%) Selenium
General
1 161 (31.57%) Social Skills
2 101 (19.80%) Public Sector
3 92 (18.04%) Finance
4 48 (9.41%) Banking
5 30 (5.88%) Analytical Skills
5 30 (5.88%) Retail
6 22 (4.31%) Inclusion and Diversity
7 18 (3.53%) Presentation Skills
7 18 (3.53%) Publishing
8 15 (2.94%) Automotive
9 12 (2.35%) Marketing
10 11 (2.16%) Influencing Skills
11 10 (1.96%) Legal
11 10 (1.96%) Military
12 7 (1.37%) Pharmaceutical
13 6 (1.18%) Documentation Skills
14 5 (0.98%) Law
15 4 (0.78%) Games
16 3 (0.59%) Advertising
16 3 (0.59%) Manufacturing
Job Titles
1 262 (51.37%) Designer
2 141 (27.65%) UX Designer
3 90 (17.65%) Senior
4 70 (13.73%) Developer
5 65 (12.75%) UI Designer
6 48 (9.41%) UI/UX Designer
7 45 (8.82%) Content Designer
7 45 (8.82%) Senior Designer
8 41 (8.04%) Lead
9 31 (6.08%) Product Designer
10 28 (5.49%) Senior UX Designer
11 22 (4.31%) User Researcher
12 19 (3.73%) Analyst
13 18 (3.53%) Service Designer
13 18 (3.53%) User Experience Researcher
14 17 (3.33%) Front-End Developer (Client-Side Developer)
15 16 (3.14%) Business Analyst
16 15 (2.94%) Consultant
16 15 (2.94%) Senior Developer
17 13 (2.55%) Junior Designer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 62 (12.16%) React
2 61 (11.96%) CSS
3 57 (11.18%) HTML
4 34 (6.67%) RESTful
5 28 (5.49%) AngularJS
6 25 (4.90%) HTML5
7 24 (4.71%) CSS3
8 21 (4.12%) REST
9 15 (2.94%) .NET
10 14 (2.75%) Redux
11 13 (2.55%) Jest
12 11 (2.16%) Android SDK
13 10 (1.96%) GraphQL
13 10 (1.96%) Vue
14 9 (1.76%) Node.js
15 8 (1.57%) Next.js
15 8 (1.57%) OAuth
15 8 (1.57%) Playwright
15 8 (1.57%) VML
16 7 (1.37%) FastAPI
Miscellaneous
1 67 (13.14%) Product Ownership
2 53 (10.39%) Mobile App
3 14 (2.75%) Animation
3 14 (2.75%) Self-Motivation
4 13 (2.55%) Cloud Native
4 13 (2.55%) Onboarding
5 11 (2.16%) AI Agents
6 9 (1.76%) Data Protection Act
7 8 (1.57%) Graphic Design
7 8 (1.57%) Greenfield Project
7 8 (1.57%) Taxonomies
8 7 (1.37%) Enterprise Software
9 6 (1.18%) Legacy Systems
9 6 (1.18%) NHS
9 6 (1.18%) Social Media
10 5 (0.98%) Virtual Reality
11 4 (0.78%) Algorithms
11 4 (0.78%) Data Structures
11 4 (0.78%) Distributed Systems
12 3 (0.59%) IoT
Operating Systems
1 17 (3.33%) Android
2 11 (2.16%) Apple iOS
3 2 (0.39%) Windows
4 1 (0.20%) Linux
4 1 (0.20%) Unix
Processes & Methodologies
1 510 (100.00%) User Experience
2 216 (42.35%) Agile
3 129 (25.29%) User Research
4 107 (20.98%) Prototyping
5 106 (20.78%) Wireframes
6 98 (19.22%) AI
7 96 (18.82%) User-Centered Design (UCD)
8 80 (15.69%) Service Design
9 76 (14.90%) Usability Testing
10 69 (13.53%) CI/CD
10 69 (13.53%) Stakeholder Management
10 69 (13.53%) UX Research
11 65 (12.75%) Analytics
11 65 (12.75%) Interaction Design
12 62 (12.16%) Problem-Solving
13 53 (10.39%) Customer Experience
14 52 (10.20%) DevOps
15 51 (10.00%) Journey Map
16 49 (9.61%) Workshop Facilitation
17 47 (9.22%) Scrum
Programming Languages
1 56 (10.98%) JavaScript
2 50 (9.80%) TypeScript
3 28 (5.49%) Java
4 27 (5.29%) Python
5 21 (4.12%) SQL
6 13 (2.55%) Kotlin
7 10 (1.96%) C#
7 10 (1.96%) Data Analysis Expressions
8 5 (0.98%) Korn
8 5 (0.98%) Swift
9 4 (0.78%) Apex Code
9 4 (0.78%) C++
9 4 (0.78%) Lua
10 2 (0.39%) Bicep
10 2 (0.39%) PHP
10 2 (0.39%) PowerShell
10 2 (0.39%) Ruby
11 1 (0.20%) Gremlin
11 1 (0.20%) Objective-C
11 1 (0.20%) Shell Script
Qualifications
1 88 (17.25%) Security Cleared
2 63 (12.35%) SC Cleared
3 50 (9.80%) Degree
4 13 (2.55%) BPSS Clearance
5 12 (2.35%) DV Cleared
6 9 (1.76%) Computer Science Degree
7 8 (1.57%) Master's Degree
8 3 (0.59%) Azure Certification
8 3 (0.59%) DBS Check
9 2 (0.39%) CCA
10 1 (0.20%) Citrix Certification
10 1 (0.20%) CTC Cleared
10 1 (0.20%) IIBA
10 1 (0.20%) ITIL Foundation Certificate
10 1 (0.20%) Microsoft Certification
10 1 (0.20%) Microsoft Certified Professional
10 1 (0.20%) PhD
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 175 (34.31%) Accessibility
2 68 (13.33%) WCAG
3 28 (5.49%) QA
4 11 (2.16%) Data Quality
5 3 (0.59%) Actionable Recommendations
5 3 (0.59%) ISO/IEC 42001
6 2 (0.39%) GDPR
7 1 (0.20%) EU AI Act
7 1 (0.20%) GMP
7 1 (0.20%) GRC
7 1 (0.20%) GxP
7 1 (0.20%) PMO
7 1 (0.20%) WAI
7 1 (0.20%) WAI-ARIA
System Software
1 16 (3.14%) Docker
2 1 (0.20%) Virtual Desktop
Systems Management
1 13 (2.55%) Kubernetes
2 12 (2.35%) Terraform
3 2 (0.39%) Grafana
4 1 (0.20%) HP ALM
4 1 (0.20%) Kibana
Vendors
1 44 (8.63%) Adobe
2 34 (6.67%) Microsoft
3 16 (3.14%) Salesforce
4 11 (2.16%) Dynatrace
4 11 (2.16%) Google
5 8 (1.57%) SAP
5 8 (1.57%) ServiceNow
6 5 (0.98%) Apple
6 5 (0.98%) Foundry
7 4 (0.78%) Databricks
7 4 (0.78%) Oracle
7 4 (0.78%) Sitecore
8 3 (0.59%) Progress
9 2 (0.39%) Anaplan
9 2 (0.39%) Blue Prism
9 2 (0.39%) IBM
9 2 (0.39%) OpenAI
9 2 (0.39%) Optimizely
10 1 (0.20%) AppDynamics
10 1 (0.20%) MuleSoft