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 23 May 2026, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
23 May 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 247 202 205
Rank change year-on-year -45 +3 -31
Contract jobs citing UX Design 501 381 488
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 1.03% 1.33% 1.15%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 1.22% 1.46% 1.34%
Number of daily rates quoted 349 267 346
10th Percentile £363 £325 £351
25th Percentile £400 £400 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £475 £475 £500
Median % change year-on-year - -5.00% -9.09%
75th Percentile £575 £550 £612
90th Percentile £650 £643 £675
UK excluding London median daily rate £475 £425 £450
% change year-on-year +11.76% -5.56% -5.26%
Number of hourly rates quoted 11 5 6
10th Percentile £20.31 £39.35 £29.14
25th Percentile £24.50 £45.50 £34.16
Median hourly rate £28.09 £49.00 £41.68
Median % change year-on-year -42.67% +17.58% -14.95%
75th Percentile £58.58 £96.49 £72.33
90th Percentile £70.00 £97.73 £92.69
UK excluding London median hourly rate £27.24 £70.35 £91.44
% change year-on-year -61.28% -23.07% +46.30%

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 41,015 26,042 36,506
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 84.42% 91.03% 86.05%
Number of daily rates quoted 25,698 16,721 23,544
10th Percentile £325 £303 £300
25th Percentile £413 £409 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £510 £513 £525
Median % change year-on-year -0.49% -2.38% -4.55%
75th Percentile £613 £625 £638
90th Percentile £725 £738 £750
UK excluding London median daily rate £497 £475 £500
% change year-on-year +4.59% -5.00% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 2,419 1,056 2,449
10th Percentile £14.79 £14.25 £12.75
25th Percentile £19.91 £18.13 £16.00
Median hourly rate £42.50 £27.97 £36.05
Median % change year-on-year +51.98% -22.42% -2.58%
75th Percentile £67.50 £58.70 £60.00
90th Percentile £80.00 £75.00 £72.50
UK excluding London median hourly rate £44.50 £25.15 £38.00
% change year-on-year +76.94% -33.82% +8.57%

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 23 May 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 23 May 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 23 May 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 -28 417 £475 - 201
London -38 232 £493 -1.50% 109
UK excluding London -15 205 £475 +11.76% 131
Work from Home -35 131 £475 +7.95% 120
North of England -27 70 £426 +6.50% 35
North West -5 45 £397 -0.88% 22
Midlands -44 37 £523 +46.77% 18
South West -16 31 £475 +11.76% 12
Scotland 0 30 £510 +8.27% 8
West Midlands -39 29 £475 +17.28% 14
South East -70 24 £538 +22.86% 29
Yorkshire -53 16 £506 +9.40% 6
North East -20 9 £410 +5.68% 8
East of England -28 9 £410 -14.14% 9
East Midlands -27 8 £575 +61.52% 4
Wales - 4 £450 - 4
Northern Ireland - 1 - - 17

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 20 (3.99%) Confluence
2 19 (3.79%) CMS
3 5 (1.00%) SharePoint
4 4 (0.80%) Kentico
4 4 (0.80%) WordPress
5 3 (0.60%) Headless CMS
5 3 (0.60%) Umbraco
6 2 (0.40%) Appian
7 1 (0.20%) Adobe Experience Manager
7 1 (0.20%) Camunda
7 1 (0.20%) Drupal
7 1 (0.20%) Mendix
7 1 (0.20%) Moodle
7 1 (0.20%) nginx
7 1 (0.20%) Strapi
7 1 (0.20%) Traefik
Applications
1 34 (6.79%) Sketch
2 24 (4.79%) Adobe XD
3 10 (2.00%) Chatbot
3 10 (2.00%) InVision
3 10 (2.00%) Photoshop
4 8 (1.60%) Adobe After Effects
4 8 (1.60%) Adobe Illustrator
5 4 (0.80%) Adobe Creative Suite
6 3 (0.60%) Microsoft Excel
6 3 (0.60%) MS Visio
7 2 (0.40%) Final Cut Pro
7 2 (0.40%) Microsoft Office
7 2 (0.40%) Trello
7 2 (0.40%) UserZoom
8 1 (0.20%) Microsoft PowerPoint
8 1 (0.20%) OmniGraffle
Business Applications
1 5 (1.00%) Shopify
2 2 (0.40%) Dynamics CRM
3 1 (0.20%) Eloqua
3 1 (0.20%) SAP S/4HANA
3 1 (0.20%) Sprinklr
Cloud Services
1 153 (30.54%) Figma
2 55 (10.98%) Azure
3 27 (5.39%) AWS
4 22 (4.39%) Azure DevOps
5 17 (3.39%) Power Platform
6 14 (2.79%) SaaS
7 13 (2.59%) GitHub
7 13 (2.59%) GitHub Actions
8 9 (1.80%) GCP
9 7 (1.40%) Firebase
9 7 (1.40%) Serverless
10 6 (1.20%) AWS CloudFormation
10 6 (1.20%) AWS Lambda
10 6 (1.20%) Miro
11 5 (1.00%) Amazon S3
11 5 (1.00%) Slack
12 4 (0.80%) BigCommerce
12 4 (0.80%) Google Play
13 3 (0.60%) Amazon Bedrock
13 3 (0.60%) Anthropic Claude
Communications & Networking
1 1 (0.20%) HTTP
1 1 (0.20%) Internet
1 1 (0.20%) Intranet
1 1 (0.20%) Reverse Proxy
Database & Business Intelligence
1 9 (1.80%) Power BI
2 8 (1.60%) SQL Server
3 7 (1.40%) NoSQL
4 5 (1.00%) PostgreSQL
4 5 (1.00%) Power Query
5 4 (0.80%) Metadata
5 4 (0.80%) MongoDB
6 3 (0.60%) Elasticsearch
6 3 (0.60%) Pinecone
6 3 (0.60%) Relational Database
7 2 (0.40%) CockroachDB
7 2 (0.40%) DynamoDB
7 2 (0.40%) SQL Server Integration Services
7 2 (0.40%) Star Schema
8 1 (0.20%) Amazon RDS
8 1 (0.20%) Azure SQL Database
8 1 (0.20%) Data Warehouse
8 1 (0.20%) MySQL
8 1 (0.20%) Redis
8 1 (0.20%) SQLite
Development Applications
1 34 (6.79%) Git
2 32 (6.39%) JIRA
3 21 (4.19%) Cypress.io
4 15 (2.99%) GitLab
5 12 (2.40%) Axure RP
5 12 (2.40%) Jenkins
6 8 (1.60%) CircleCI
7 7 (1.40%) JUnit
8 6 (1.20%) fastlane
8 6 (1.20%) Mocha
9 5 (1.00%) Gradle
10 4 (0.80%) Android Studio
10 4 (0.80%) Crashlytics
10 4 (0.80%) Visual Studio
11 3 (0.60%) Selenium
11 3 (0.60%) Vite
11 3 (0.60%) webpack
11 3 (0.60%) Xcode
12 2 (0.40%) REST Assured
12 2 (0.40%) Storybook
General
1 140 (27.94%) Social Skills
2 91 (18.16%) Public Sector
3 85 (16.97%) Finance
4 60 (11.98%) Banking
5 30 (5.99%) Analytical Skills
6 21 (4.19%) Presentation Skills
7 20 (3.99%) Retail
8 17 (3.39%) Inclusion and Diversity
8 17 (3.39%) Marketing
9 11 (2.20%) Automotive
10 9 (1.80%) Pharmaceutical
10 9 (1.80%) Publishing
11 8 (1.60%) Legal
12 7 (1.40%) Influencing Skills
13 6 (1.20%) Games
13 6 (1.20%) Local Government
14 5 (1.00%) Documentation Skills
14 5 (1.00%) Retail Banking
15 4 (0.80%) Corporate Banking
15 4 (0.80%) Investment Banking
Job Titles
1 252 (50.30%) Designer
2 143 (28.54%) UX Designer
3 86 (17.17%) Senior
4 70 (13.97%) Developer
5 54 (10.78%) UI Designer
6 45 (8.98%) Senior Designer
7 41 (8.18%) UI/UX Designer
8 40 (7.98%) Content Designer
9 37 (7.39%) Product Designer
10 35 (6.99%) Lead
11 32 (6.39%) Service Designer
12 31 (6.19%) Senior UX Designer
13 20 (3.99%) Analyst
13 20 (3.99%) User Researcher
14 16 (3.19%) Architect
14 16 (3.19%) User Experience Researcher
15 15 (2.99%) Business Analyst
15 15 (2.99%) Front-End Developer (Client-Side Developer)
15 15 (2.99%) Full-Stack Developer
16 13 (2.59%) Consultant
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 72 (14.37%) React
2 61 (12.18%) CSS
3 60 (11.98%) HTML
4 43 (8.58%) RESTful
5 28 (5.59%) HTML5
6 27 (5.39%) AngularJS
6 27 (5.39%) CSS3
7 26 (5.19%) .NET
8 21 (4.19%) REST
9 17 (3.39%) Node.js
10 16 (3.19%) Jest
11 14 (2.79%) Spring
12 13 (2.59%) Redux
12 13 (2.59%) Spring Boot
13 12 (2.40%) OAuth
14 10 (2.00%) Playwright
14 10 (2.00%) Vue
15 9 (1.80%) JSON
16 8 (1.60%) GraphQL
17 7 (1.40%) Unity (Game Engine)
Miscellaneous
1 61 (12.18%) Product Ownership
2 36 (7.19%) Mobile App
3 11 (2.20%) Animation
3 11 (2.20%) Onboarding
4 9 (1.80%) Cloud Native
4 9 (1.80%) Data Protection Act
5 8 (1.60%) Graphic Design
5 8 (1.60%) NHS
5 8 (1.60%) Self-Motivation
6 7 (1.40%) Enterprise Software
6 7 (1.40%) Greenfield Project
6 7 (1.40%) Virtual Team
7 6 (1.20%) Taxonomies
7 6 (1.20%) Virtual Reality
8 5 (1.00%) Digital Wallet
9 4 (0.80%) AI Agents
9 4 (0.80%) Augmented Reality
9 4 (0.80%) Data Structures
9 4 (0.80%) Team-Oriented Environment
10 3 (0.60%) Low-Code
Operating Systems
1 10 (2.00%) Android
2 7 (1.40%) Apple iOS
3 1 (0.20%) Linux
Processes & Methodologies
1 501 (100.00%) User Experience
2 212 (42.32%) Agile
3 135 (26.95%) User Research
4 100 (19.96%) Prototyping
5 92 (18.36%) User-Centered Design (UCD)
6 91 (18.16%) Wireframes
7 84 (16.77%) Service Design
8 78 (15.57%) Usability Testing
9 74 (14.77%) UX Research
10 73 (14.57%) AI
11 64 (12.77%) CI/CD
12 61 (12.18%) Interaction Design
12 61 (12.18%) Problem-Solving
13 53 (10.58%) Stakeholder Management
13 53 (10.58%) Workshop Facilitation
14 52 (10.38%) Analytics
15 49 (9.78%) DevOps
16 46 (9.18%) Journey Map
17 43 (8.58%) Continuous Improvement
18 40 (7.98%) Front End Development
Programming Languages
1 63 (12.57%) JavaScript
2 48 (9.58%) TypeScript
3 28 (5.59%) Java
4 27 (5.39%) Python
5 18 (3.59%) C#
6 15 (2.99%) SQL
7 7 (1.40%) Kotlin
8 6 (1.20%) Data Analysis Expressions
9 5 (1.00%) C++
9 5 (1.00%) Korn
9 5 (1.00%) Lua
10 3 (0.60%) Swift
11 2 (0.40%) Apex Code
11 2 (0.40%) Bicep
11 2 (0.40%) PowerShell
12 1 (0.20%) C
12 1 (0.20%) Objective-C
12 1 (0.20%) Shell Script
12 1 (0.20%) SPARQL
12 1 (0.20%) VBScript
Qualifications
1 72 (14.37%) Security Cleared
2 54 (10.78%) SC Cleared
3 46 (9.18%) Degree
4 11 (2.20%) Master's Degree
5 10 (2.00%) BPSS Clearance
5 10 (2.00%) DV Cleared
6 5 (1.00%) Computer Science Degree
7 3 (0.60%) CCA
7 3 (0.60%) DBS Check
7 3 (0.60%) Microsoft Certification
8 1 (0.20%) Azure Certification
8 1 (0.20%) Citrix Certification
8 1 (0.20%) Microsoft Certified Professional
8 1 (0.20%) PMI Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 168 (33.53%) Accessibility
2 66 (13.17%) WCAG
3 31 (6.19%) QA
4 6 (1.20%) Actionable Recommendations
5 5 (1.00%) Data Quality
6 2 (0.40%) GDPR
7 1 (0.20%) California Consumer Privacy Act
7 1 (0.20%) EU AI Act
7 1 (0.20%) GMP
7 1 (0.20%) GxP
7 1 (0.20%) ISO/IEC 42001
7 1 (0.20%) PCI DSS
7 1 (0.20%) PMO
7 1 (0.20%) WAI
7 1 (0.20%) WAI-ARIA
System Software
1 19 (3.79%) Docker
2 1 (0.20%) Virtual Desktop
Systems Management
1 16 (3.19%) Kubernetes
2 14 (2.79%) Terraform
3 2 (0.40%) HP ALM
3 2 (0.40%) Single Sign-On
4 1 (0.20%) Ansible
4 1 (0.20%) Grafana
4 1 (0.20%) Podman
Vendors
1 44 (8.78%) Adobe
2 20 (3.99%) Salesforce
3 19 (3.79%) Microsoft
4 8 (1.60%) Google
5 7 (1.40%) SAP
6 6 (1.20%) Dynatrace
6 6 (1.20%) MuleSoft
6 6 (1.20%) ServiceNow
7 4 (0.80%) Sitecore
8 3 (0.60%) Apple
8 3 (0.60%) Progress
8 3 (0.60%) Xamarin
9 2 (0.40%) Blue Prism
9 2 (0.40%) Databricks
9 2 (0.40%) HP
9 2 (0.40%) OpenAI
10 1 (0.20%) Automation Anywhere
10 1 (0.20%) Citrix
10 1 (0.20%) Qualtrics
10 1 (0.20%) UiPath