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 20 January 2026, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
20 Jan 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 229 213 222
Rank change year-on-year -16 +9 -52
Contract jobs citing UX Design 448 373 457
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 1.20% 1.19% 1.05%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 1.37% 1.34% 1.20%
Number of daily rates quoted 320 233 309
10th Percentile £350 £313 £340
25th Percentile £400 £385 £408
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £463 £500 £500
Median % change year-on-year -7.50% - -9.09%
75th Percentile £538 £575 £600
90th Percentile £606 £638 £675
UK excluding London median daily rate £450 £438 £475
% change year-on-year +2.86% -7.89% -5.00%
Number of hourly rates quoted 13 5 10
10th Percentile £27.62 £30.86 £48.17
25th Percentile £35.60 £31.50 £71.25
Median hourly rate £44.50 £33.54 £77.50
Median % change year-on-year +32.68% -56.72% +42.20%
75th Percentile £63.75 £53.75 £82.19
90th Percentile £70.13 £79.39 £84.54
UK excluding London median hourly rate £35.60 £32.21 £77.50
% change year-on-year +10.53% -58.44% +38.39%

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 32,673 27,807 37,942
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 87.64% 88.90% 87.55%
Number of daily rates quoted 20,708 16,856 25,065
10th Percentile £305 £306 £300
25th Percentile £406 £413 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £525 £525
Median % change year-on-year -4.76% - -4.55%
75th Percentile £613 £638 £645
90th Percentile £720 £743 £738
UK excluding London median daily rate £475 £500 £500
% change year-on-year -5.00% - -
Number of hourly rates quoted 1,982 890 1,770
10th Percentile £14.55 £15.62 £14.00
25th Percentile £17.69 £21.00 £17.16
Median hourly rate £25.15 £32.50 £38.00
Median % change year-on-year -22.62% -14.47% +16.92%
75th Percentile £57.25 £62.50 £63.29
90th Percentile £69.25 £75.00 £75.25
UK excluding London median hourly rate £24.41 £30.88 £40.13
% change year-on-year -20.96% -23.05% +54.33%

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 20 January 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 20 January 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 20 January 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 -8 365 £460 -8.00% 199
London -20 210 £475 -9.31% 79
UK excluding London +7 179 £450 +2.86% 159
Work from Home -21 121 £460 +2.22% 128
North of England -23 62 £400 +1.20% 29
North West -1 41 £388 +1.31% 14
Midlands -16 38 £425 +19.38% 19
Scotland +11 32 £475 +8.57% 6
West Midlands -9 31 £425 -24.44% 13
South East -29 18 £525 +16.67% 60
South West +5 15 £450 +63.64% 16
Yorkshire -46 15 £506 +6.58% 9
East of England -18 8 £460 +2.22% 22
Wales +1 7 £450 +5.88% 8
East Midlands -25 7 £485 +36.24% 6
North East -7 6 £369 +5.43% 6
Northern Ireland -4 1 £625 +16.28% 2

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 (4.02%) Confluence
2 17 (3.79%) CMS
3 8 (1.79%) SharePoint
4 6 (1.34%) SugarCRM
5 3 (0.67%) Jupyter
6 2 (0.45%) Appian
6 2 (0.45%) Headless CMS
6 2 (0.45%) Sitecore CMS
6 2 (0.45%) Umbraco
7 1 (0.22%) Adobe Experience Manager
7 1 (0.22%) Cloud Foundry
7 1 (0.22%) Drupal
7 1 (0.22%) WordPress
Applications
1 46 (10.27%) Sketch
2 32 (7.14%) Adobe XD
3 13 (2.90%) InVision
4 10 (2.23%) Chatbot
5 6 (1.34%) Adobe Creative Suite
6 5 (1.12%) Adobe Illustrator
7 4 (0.89%) Adobe After Effects
7 4 (0.89%) Photoshop
8 3 (0.67%) Microsoft Excel
8 3 (0.67%) Microsoft Office
8 3 (0.67%) MS Visio
9 2 (0.45%) Blender
9 2 (0.45%) CINEMA 4D
9 2 (0.45%) InDesign
9 2 (0.45%) OmniGraffle
9 2 (0.45%) Trello
9 2 (0.45%) Zeplin
10 1 (0.22%) Camtasia
10 1 (0.22%) Marvel
10 1 (0.22%) UXPin
Business Applications
1 4 (0.89%) Dynamics CRM
2 1 (0.22%) Maximo
2 1 (0.22%) Salesforce CRM
2 1 (0.22%) SAP CO
2 1 (0.22%) SAP FI
2 1 (0.22%) SAP FI/CO
Cloud Services
1 131 (29.24%) Figma
2 58 (12.95%) Azure
3 54 (12.05%) AWS
4 32 (7.14%) SaaS
5 20 (4.46%) Miro
6 18 (4.02%) GCP
7 15 (3.35%) Power Platform
8 14 (3.13%) GitHub
9 11 (2.46%) Azure DevOps
9 11 (2.46%) GitHub Actions
10 6 (1.34%) Microsoft 365
10 6 (1.34%) Serverless
11 5 (1.12%) Firebase
11 5 (1.12%) PaaS
11 5 (1.12%) PowerApps
12 4 (0.89%) AWS Lambda
12 4 (0.89%) Contentful
12 4 (0.89%) Entra ID
12 4 (0.89%) IaaS
12 4 (0.89%) Lucidchart
Communications & Networking
1 5 (1.12%) Internet
2 3 (0.67%) HTTP
3 2 (0.45%) Intranet
4 1 (0.22%) HTTPS
4 1 (0.22%) Network Security
Database & Business Intelligence
1 12 (2.68%) NoSQL
2 10 (2.23%) MySQL
3 9 (2.01%) SQL Server
4 8 (1.79%) Power BI
5 7 (1.56%) MongoDB
5 7 (1.56%) Relational Database
6 5 (1.12%) Mixpanel
6 5 (1.12%) PostgreSQL
7 4 (0.89%) DynamoDB
8 2 (0.45%) Amazon RDS
8 2 (0.45%) CockroachDB
8 2 (0.45%) Data Warehouse
8 2 (0.45%) Metadata
8 2 (0.45%) Pinecone
9 1 (0.22%) Amazon Aurora
9 1 (0.22%) Azure SQL Database
9 1 (0.22%) BigQuery
9 1 (0.22%) Elasticsearch
9 1 (0.22%) SAP BW
9 1 (0.22%) SQL Server Integration Services
Development Applications
1 50 (11.16%) Git
2 36 (8.04%) JIRA
3 21 (4.69%) Axure RP
4 18 (4.02%) Cypress.io
5 16 (3.57%) GitLab
6 15 (3.35%) Jenkins
7 12 (2.68%) JUnit
8 8 (1.79%) CircleCI
9 7 (1.56%) Gradle
10 6 (1.34%) Xcode
11 5 (1.12%) Mocha
11 5 (1.12%) Visual Studio
11 5 (1.12%) Visual Website Optimizer
12 4 (0.89%) Android Studio
12 4 (0.89%) Eclipse
13 3 (0.67%) Balsamiq
13 3 (0.67%) Lerna
14 2 (0.45%) Maven
14 2 (0.45%) Selenium
14 2 (0.45%) Snyk
General
1 149 (33.26%) Social Skills
2 100 (22.32%) Finance
3 67 (14.96%) Public Sector
4 55 (12.28%) Banking
5 40 (8.93%) Analytical Skills
6 31 (6.92%) Marketing
7 13 (2.90%) Influencing Skills
8 12 (2.68%) Financial Institution
9 10 (2.23%) Presentation Skills
10 9 (2.01%) Legal
10 9 (2.01%) Pharmaceutical
11 8 (1.79%) Retail
12 7 (1.56%) Automotive
13 6 (1.34%) Inclusion and Diversity
14 4 (0.89%) Local Government
15 3 (0.67%) Aerospace
15 3 (0.67%) Front Office
15 3 (0.67%) Organisational Skills
15 3 (0.67%) Telecoms
15 3 (0.67%) Wearables
Job Titles
1 182 (40.63%) Designer
2 126 (28.13%) UX Designer
3 87 (19.42%) Developer
4 77 (17.19%) Senior
5 36 (8.04%) Senior Designer
6 33 (7.37%) Service Designer
7 30 (6.70%) UI Designer
8 29 (6.47%) Lead
9 25 (5.58%) Senior UX Designer
10 23 (5.13%) UI/UX Designer
11 22 (4.91%) Product Designer
12 21 (4.69%) Front-End Developer (Client-Side Developer)
13 20 (4.46%) User Researcher
14 15 (3.35%) Business Analyst
15 14 (3.13%) Analyst
15 14 (3.13%) Content Designer
15 14 (3.13%) Full-Stack Developer
16 13 (2.90%) Senior Developer
17 12 (2.68%) UX Service Designer
18 10 (2.23%) React Developer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 83 (18.53%) CSS
1 83 (18.53%) HTML
2 70 (15.63%) React
3 46 (10.27%) RESTful
4 31 (6.92%) HTML5
4 31 (6.92%) REST
5 29 (6.47%) AngularJS
6 24 (5.36%) CSS3
6 24 (5.36%) Node.js
7 23 (5.13%) Spring
8 20 (4.46%) .NET
8 20 (4.46%) Spring Boot
9 19 (4.24%) Jest
10 18 (4.02%) Playwright
11 16 (3.57%) Next.js
12 13 (2.90%) Redux
13 12 (2.68%) GraphQL
14 10 (2.23%) jQuery
14 10 (2.23%) OAuth
14 10 (2.23%) Web Services
Miscellaneous
1 48 (10.71%) Product Ownership
2 38 (8.48%) Mobile App
3 25 (5.58%) Onboarding
4 11 (2.46%) Virtual Team
5 10 (2.23%) Low-Code
5 10 (2.23%) NHS
6 9 (2.01%) Distributed Systems
7 6 (1.34%) Cloud Native
7 6 (1.34%) Enterprise Software
7 6 (1.34%) Greenfield Project
7 6 (1.34%) Mobile Banking
7 6 (1.34%) W3C
8 5 (1.12%) Digital Media
8 5 (1.12%) Digital Wallet
8 5 (1.12%) RIA
9 4 (0.89%) Data Protection Act
9 4 (0.89%) Data Structures
9 4 (0.89%) e-Learning
9 4 (0.89%) Graphic Design
9 4 (0.89%) Learning Management System
Operating Systems
1 17 (3.79%) Android
2 15 (3.35%) Apple iOS
3 5 (1.12%) Windows
4 4 (0.89%) Linux
5 3 (0.67%) Windows 10
6 2 (0.45%) Mac OS
7 1 (0.22%) VMS
7 1 (0.22%) Windows Server
Processes & Methodologies
1 448 (100.00%) User Experience
2 210 (46.88%) Agile
3 119 (26.56%) User Research
4 97 (21.65%) User-Centered Design (UCD)
5 87 (19.42%) Usability Testing
6 80 (17.86%) Problem-Solving
6 80 (17.86%) Wireframes
7 78 (17.41%) Service Design
8 75 (16.74%) Prototyping
9 72 (16.07%) CI/CD
10 63 (14.06%) Analytics
10 63 (14.06%) Front End Development
11 53 (11.83%) UX Research
12 50 (11.16%) Interaction Design
13 48 (10.71%) DevOps
14 47 (10.49%) Workshop Facilitation
15 44 (9.82%) Continuous Improvement
16 42 (9.38%) Journey Map
17 41 (9.15%) AI
17 41 (9.15%) Stakeholder Management
Programming Languages
1 83 (18.53%) JavaScript
2 48 (10.71%) Java
2 48 (10.71%) TypeScript
3 21 (4.69%) SQL
4 18 (4.02%) Python
5 15 (3.35%) C#
6 13 (2.90%) Kotlin
7 10 (2.23%) Swift
8 8 (1.79%) Objective-C
9 7 (1.56%) PHP
10 5 (1.12%) Ruby
10 5 (1.12%) Scala
11 4 (0.89%) C++
12 3 (0.67%) C
13 2 (0.45%) Bash
13 2 (0.45%) COBOL
13 2 (0.45%) Groovy
13 2 (0.45%) PL/SQL
14 1 (0.22%) BeanShell
14 1 (0.22%) PowerShell
Qualifications
1 50 (11.16%) Degree
2 33 (7.37%) Security Cleared
3 18 (4.02%) SC Cleared
4 14 (3.13%) BPSS Clearance
5 10 (2.23%) Computer Science Degree
6 5 (1.12%) Master's Degree
7 4 (0.89%) MCP
8 2 (0.45%) DV Cleared
8 2 (0.45%) Microsoft Certification
8 2 (0.45%) PMI Certification
9 1 (0.22%) AWS Certification
9 1 (0.22%) Azure Certification
9 1 (0.22%) CCA
9 1 (0.22%) DBS Check
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 135 (30.13%) Accessibility
2 45 (10.04%) WCAG
3 40 (8.93%) QA
4 12 (2.68%) GDPR
5 8 (1.79%) Actionable Recommendations
6 5 (1.12%) California Consumer Privacy Act
7 4 (0.89%) Data Quality
7 4 (0.89%) ISO/IEC 27001
8 1 (0.22%) PCI DSS
System Software
1 33 (7.37%) Docker
2 3 (0.67%) Active Directory
3 1 (0.22%) VMware Infrastructure
Systems Management
1 20 (4.46%) Kubernetes
2 14 (3.13%) Terraform
3 6 (1.34%) Ansible
3 6 (1.34%) Grafana
4 3 (0.67%) Single Sign-On
5 2 (0.45%) Systems Management Server (SMS)
6 1 (0.22%) Consul
6 1 (0.22%) HP ALM
6 1 (0.22%) Microsoft Intune
6 1 (0.22%) Podman
6 1 (0.22%) Prometheus
6 1 (0.22%) SCCM
Vendors
1 47 (10.49%) Adobe
2 36 (8.04%) Microsoft
3 20 (4.46%) Google
4 16 (3.57%) Salesforce
5 8 (1.79%) ServiceNow
6 7 (1.56%) Optimizely
6 7 (1.56%) Oracle
6 7 (1.56%) SAP
7 6 (1.34%) Hopewiser
7 6 (1.34%) Hotjar
8 5 (1.12%) Amplitude
8 5 (1.12%) Apple
8 5 (1.12%) MuleSoft
8 5 (1.12%) OutSystems
9 3 (0.67%) Dataiku
9 3 (0.67%) OpenAI
10 2 (0.45%) HP
10 2 (0.45%) OneTrust
10 2 (0.45%) Progress
10 2 (0.45%) Sitecore