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

6 months to
4 May 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 238 210 207
Rank change year-on-year -28 -3 -27
Contract jobs citing UX Design 479 382 495
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 1.02% 1.30% 1.15%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 1.20% 1.43% 1.33%
Number of daily rates quoted 344 270 351
10th Percentile £363 £313 £350
25th Percentile £400 £400 £410
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 £653 £675
UK excluding London median daily rate £470 £425 £450
% change year-on-year +10.59% -5.56% -5.26%
Number of hourly rates quoted 8 3 7
10th Percentile £25.10 £53.97 £29.65
25th Percentile £26.77 £65.54 £31.71
Median hourly rate £36.30 £91.69 £41.68
Median % change year-on-year -60.42% +120.01% -12.26%
75th Percentile £55.37 £97.52 £62.17
90th Percentile £66.50 £98.14 £90.65
UK excluding London median hourly rate £28.09 £91.69 £91.44
% change year-on-year -69.36% +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 39,853 26,632 37,270
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 84.47% 90.92% 86.37%
Number of daily rates quoted 25,078 17,168 24,015
10th Percentile £319 £306 £300
25th Percentile £413 £413 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £520 £525
Median % change year-on-year -3.85% -0.95% -4.55%
75th Percentile £613 £630 £638
90th Percentile £725 £745 £750
UK excluding London median daily rate £488 £481 £500
% change year-on-year +1.46% -3.90% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 2,383 1,080 2,442
10th Percentile £14.84 £14.63 £12.75
25th Percentile £19.91 £18.50 £16.00
Median hourly rate £41.56 £29.00 £35.83
Median % change year-on-year +43.29% -19.06% -0.47%
75th Percentile £67.13 £61.69 £60.00
90th Percentile £79.40 £75.00 £72.50
UK excluding London median hourly rate £44.00 £27.57 £37.50
% change year-on-year +59.59% -26.48% +7.14%

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 4 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 4 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 4 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 -34 398 £475 - 237
London -24 228 £500 - 100
UK excluding London -28 179 £470 +10.59% 159
Work from Home -43 122 £450 +2.27% 108
North of England -18 63 £402 +0.50% 42
North West -5 42 £397 -0.88% 24
Midlands -47 34 £523 +46.77% 32
South West -19 30 £475 +18.75% 16
West Midlands -40 26 £425 +4.94% 20
South East -59 22 £475 +11.76% 35
Scotland -14 21 £525 +27.27% 10
Yorkshire -41 14 £513 +10.75% 10
East Midlands -29 8 £575 +61.52% 12
North East -15 7 £364 -6.06% 8
East of England -36 6 £435 -8.90% 18
Wales - 5 £450 - 6
Northern Ireland +1 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 19 (3.97%) Confluence
2 15 (3.13%) CMS
3 5 (1.04%) SharePoint
4 4 (0.84%) Headless CMS
5 3 (0.63%) WordPress
6 2 (0.42%) Appian
6 2 (0.42%) Kentico
6 2 (0.42%) Sitecore CMS
6 2 (0.42%) Umbraco
7 1 (0.21%) Adobe Experience Manager
7 1 (0.21%) Camunda
7 1 (0.21%) Cloud Foundry
7 1 (0.21%) Drupal
7 1 (0.21%) Mendix
7 1 (0.21%) Moodle
7 1 (0.21%) nginx
7 1 (0.21%) Strapi
7 1 (0.21%) Traefik
Applications
1 35 (7.31%) Sketch
2 28 (5.85%) Adobe XD
3 12 (2.51%) Chatbot
4 11 (2.30%) InVision
5 9 (1.88%) Photoshop
6 8 (1.67%) Adobe After Effects
7 7 (1.46%) Adobe Illustrator
8 3 (0.63%) Microsoft Excel
8 3 (0.63%) MS Visio
8 3 (0.63%) Trello
9 2 (0.42%) Adobe Creative Suite
9 2 (0.42%) Microsoft Office
9 2 (0.42%) UserZoom
10 1 (0.21%) Blender
10 1 (0.21%) CINEMA 4D
10 1 (0.21%) InDesign
10 1 (0.21%) Microsoft PowerPoint
10 1 (0.21%) OmniGraffle
10 1 (0.21%) Spreadsheet
Business Applications
1 5 (1.04%) Shopify
2 2 (0.42%) Dynamics CRM
3 1 (0.21%) Eloqua
3 1 (0.21%) SAP S/4HANA
3 1 (0.21%) Sprinklr
Cloud Services
1 153 (31.94%) Figma
2 51 (10.65%) Azure
3 32 (6.68%) AWS
4 18 (3.76%) Azure DevOps
5 15 (3.13%) Power Platform
6 14 (2.92%) SaaS
7 10 (2.09%) GitHub
7 10 (2.09%) GitHub Actions
7 10 (2.09%) Miro
8 7 (1.46%) GCP
9 6 (1.25%) AWS CloudFormation
9 6 (1.25%) Serverless
10 5 (1.04%) AWS Lambda
10 5 (1.04%) Slack
11 4 (0.84%) Amazon S3
11 4 (0.84%) BigCommerce
12 3 (0.63%) CloudFront
12 3 (0.63%) IaaS
12 3 (0.63%) PaaS
12 3 (0.63%) Salesforce Commerce Cloud
Communications & Networking
1 2 (0.42%) HTTP
2 1 (0.21%) Internet
2 1 (0.21%) Intranet
2 1 (0.21%) Reverse Proxy
Database & Business Intelligence
1 7 (1.46%) NoSQL
1 7 (1.46%) Power BI
1 7 (1.46%) SQL Server
2 5 (1.04%) MongoDB
2 5 (1.04%) PostgreSQL
3 3 (0.63%) Elasticsearch
3 3 (0.63%) Pinecone
3 3 (0.63%) Power Query
3 3 (0.63%) Relational Database
4 2 (0.42%) CockroachDB
4 2 (0.42%) Metadata
5 1 (0.21%) Amazon RDS
5 1 (0.21%) Azure SQL Database
5 1 (0.21%) Data Warehouse
5 1 (0.21%) DynamoDB
5 1 (0.21%) MySQL
5 1 (0.21%) Redis
5 1 (0.21%) SQL Server Integration Services
5 1 (0.21%) SQLite
5 1 (0.21%) Star Schema
Development Applications
1 34 (7.10%) Git
2 33 (6.89%) JIRA
3 21 (4.38%) Cypress.io
4 15 (3.13%) Axure RP
5 13 (2.71%) GitLab
6 9 (1.88%) CircleCI
7 7 (1.46%) Jenkins
7 7 (1.46%) JUnit
8 6 (1.25%) Mocha
9 5 (1.04%) Visual Studio
10 4 (0.84%) Selenium
10 4 (0.84%) Vite
11 3 (0.63%) Gradle
12 2 (0.42%) Android Studio
12 2 (0.42%) Balsamiq
12 2 (0.42%) Crashlytics
12 2 (0.42%) fastlane
12 2 (0.42%) REST Assured
12 2 (0.42%) TestRail
12 2 (0.42%) webpack
General
1 139 (29.02%) Social Skills
2 94 (19.62%) Public Sector
3 81 (16.91%) Finance
4 58 (12.11%) Banking
5 31 (6.47%) Analytical Skills
6 20 (4.18%) Presentation Skills
7 18 (3.76%) Retail
8 16 (3.34%) Marketing
9 10 (2.09%) Inclusion and Diversity
9 10 (2.09%) Pharmaceutical
10 8 (1.67%) Automotive
10 8 (1.67%) Legal
10 8 (1.67%) Publishing
11 7 (1.46%) Influencing Skills
12 6 (1.25%) Documentation Skills
12 6 (1.25%) Games
13 5 (1.04%) Local Government
14 4 (0.84%) Advertising
14 4 (0.84%) Retail Banking
15 3 (0.63%) Telecoms
Job Titles
1 240 (50.10%) Designer
2 139 (29.02%) UX Designer
3 78 (16.28%) Senior
4 62 (12.94%) Developer
5 49 (10.23%) UI Designer
6 40 (8.35%) Senior Designer
7 39 (8.14%) Content Designer
7 39 (8.14%) UI/UX Designer
8 35 (7.31%) Service Designer
9 33 (6.89%) Product Designer
10 30 (6.26%) Senior UX Designer
11 28 (5.85%) Lead
11 28 (5.85%) User Researcher
12 19 (3.97%) Analyst
13 16 (3.34%) Architect
14 15 (3.13%) Full-Stack Developer
15 14 (2.92%) Business Analyst
15 14 (2.92%) React Developer
16 13 (2.71%) User Experience Researcher
17 12 (2.51%) Front-End Developer (Client-Side Developer)
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 72 (15.03%) React
2 60 (12.53%) CSS
2 60 (12.53%) HTML
3 40 (8.35%) RESTful
4 28 (5.85%) HTML5
5 27 (5.64%) CSS3
6 26 (5.43%) AngularJS
7 24 (5.01%) .NET
8 19 (3.97%) REST
9 18 (3.76%) Node.js
10 16 (3.34%) Jest
11 15 (3.13%) Redux
12 14 (2.92%) Spring
13 13 (2.71%) Spring Boot
14 11 (2.30%) Next.js
14 11 (2.30%) OAuth
14 11 (2.30%) Playwright
15 10 (2.09%) GraphQL
15 10 (2.09%) JSON
16 9 (1.88%) Vue
Miscellaneous
1 50 (10.44%) Product Ownership
2 33 (6.89%) Mobile App
3 11 (2.30%) Onboarding
4 10 (2.09%) Animation
5 9 (1.88%) Cloud Native
6 8 (1.67%) Data Protection Act
6 8 (1.67%) Enterprise Software
6 8 (1.67%) Graphic Design
7 7 (1.46%) Virtual Reality
8 6 (1.25%) Greenfield Project
8 6 (1.25%) NHS
8 6 (1.25%) Self-Motivation
8 6 (1.25%) Virtual Team
9 5 (1.04%) Augmented Reality
9 5 (1.04%) Data Structures
9 5 (1.04%) Digital Wallet
9 5 (1.04%) Distributed Systems
10 4 (0.84%) AI Agents
10 4 (0.84%) Low-Code
10 4 (0.84%) Taxonomies
Operating Systems
1 8 (1.67%) Android
2 5 (1.04%) Apple iOS
3 1 (0.21%) Linux
Processes & Methodologies
1 479 (100.00%) User Experience
2 210 (43.84%) Agile
3 143 (29.85%) User Research
4 102 (21.29%) Prototyping
5 91 (19.00%) Service Design
5 91 (19.00%) User-Centered Design (UCD)
6 89 (18.58%) Wireframes
7 86 (17.95%) Usability Testing
8 76 (15.87%) UX Research
9 67 (13.99%) Problem-Solving
10 66 (13.78%) AI
11 62 (12.94%) Interaction Design
12 61 (12.73%) CI/CD
13 53 (11.06%) Workshop Facilitation
14 50 (10.44%) Analytics
15 48 (10.02%) Stakeholder Management
16 47 (9.81%) Journey Map
17 46 (9.60%) Front End Development
18 45 (9.39%) DevOps
19 43 (8.98%) Continuous Improvement
Programming Languages
1 65 (13.57%) JavaScript
2 48 (10.02%) TypeScript
3 27 (5.64%) Python
4 26 (5.43%) Java
5 19 (3.97%) C#
6 15 (3.13%) SQL
7 5 (1.04%) C++
7 5 (1.04%) Kotlin
7 5 (1.04%) Lua
8 4 (0.84%) Data Analysis Expressions
8 4 (0.84%) Korn
9 2 (0.42%) Apex Code
9 2 (0.42%) Bicep
9 2 (0.42%) PowerShell
10 1 (0.21%) C
10 1 (0.21%) Objective-C
10 1 (0.21%) Scala
10 1 (0.21%) Shell Script
10 1 (0.21%) SPARQL
10 1 (0.21%) VBScript
Qualifications
1 69 (14.41%) Security Cleared
2 50 (10.44%) SC Cleared
3 48 (10.02%) Degree
4 13 (2.71%) BPSS Clearance
5 11 (2.30%) Master's Degree
6 8 (1.67%) DV Cleared
7 5 (1.04%) Computer Science Degree
8 3 (0.63%) CCA
8 3 (0.63%) DBS Check
8 3 (0.63%) Microsoft Certification
9 2 (0.42%) Azure Certification
9 2 (0.42%) PMI Certification
10 1 (0.21%) Citrix Certification
10 1 (0.21%) Microsoft Certified Professional
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 161 (33.61%) Accessibility
2 61 (12.73%) WCAG
3 32 (6.68%) QA
4 12 (2.51%) Actionable Recommendations
5 4 (0.84%) Data Quality
5 4 (0.84%) GDPR
6 3 (0.63%) California Consumer Privacy Act
7 1 (0.21%) EU AI Act
7 1 (0.21%) GMP
7 1 (0.21%) GxP
7 1 (0.21%) ISO/IEC 42001
7 1 (0.21%) PCI DSS
7 1 (0.21%) WAI
7 1 (0.21%) WAI-ARIA
System Software
1 19 (3.97%) Docker
2 1 (0.21%) Virtual Desktop
Systems Management
1 16 (3.34%) Kubernetes
2 14 (2.92%) Terraform
3 2 (0.42%) Grafana
3 2 (0.42%) HP ALM
3 2 (0.42%) Single Sign-On
4 1 (0.21%) Ansible
4 1 (0.21%) Podman
4 1 (0.21%) Systems Management Server (SMS)
Vendors
1 44 (9.19%) Adobe
2 23 (4.80%) Salesforce
3 18 (3.76%) Microsoft
4 9 (1.88%) SAP
5 8 (1.67%) Google
6 6 (1.25%) MuleSoft
6 6 (1.25%) Sitecore
7 4 (0.84%) ServiceNow
8 3 (0.63%) Xamarin
9 2 (0.42%) Blue Prism
9 2 (0.42%) Databricks
9 2 (0.42%) Dynatrace
9 2 (0.42%) HP
9 2 (0.42%) OpenAI
9 2 (0.42%) Oracle
9 2 (0.42%) Progress
10 1 (0.21%) Automation Anywhere
10 1 (0.21%) OneTrust
10 1 (0.21%) Qualtrics
10 1 (0.21%) UiPath