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 17 June 2026, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
17 Jun 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 244 194 210
Rank change year-on-year -50 +16 -44
Contract jobs citing UX Design 504 419 481
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 1.00% 1.41% 1.10%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 1.18% 1.55% 1.30%
Number of daily rates quoted 340 280 330
10th Percentile £363 £305 £356
25th Percentile £402 £365 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £475 £459 £500
Median % change year-on-year +3.38% -8.11% -9.09%
75th Percentile £575 £550 £620
90th Percentile £663 £626 £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 9 8
10th Percentile £20.31 - £30.17
25th Percentile £24.50 £35.25 £32.73
Median hourly rate £28.09 £47.50 £37.37
Median % change year-on-year -40.86% +27.10% -27.08%
75th Percentile £58.58 £70.16 £52.00
90th Percentile £97.50 £96.90 £88.61
UK excluding London median hourly rate £27.24 £70.16 £91.44
% change year-on-year -61.17% -23.27% +37.83%

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 42,679 27,009 37,072
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 84.81% 91.00% 85.05%
Number of daily rates quoted 26,607 17,137 23,609
10th Percentile £325 £300 £300
25th Percentile £413 £406 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £513 £508 £525
Median % change year-on-year +0.99% -3.33% -4.55%
75th Percentile £619 £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 2,567 1,242 2,598
10th Percentile £14.82 £14.20 £12.75
25th Percentile £20.09 £17.87 £16.03
Median hourly rate £43.96 £26.27 £37.34
Median % change year-on-year +67.37% -29.66% +6.69%
75th Percentile £68.00 £55.25 £61.30
90th Percentile £81.25 £73.75 £72.50
UK excluding London median hourly rate £44.50 £25.15 £38.12
% change year-on-year +76.94% -34.02% +17.29%

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 17 June 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 17 June 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 17 June 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 -47 419 £475 +3.50% 405
London -43 230 £495 +4.21% 113
UK excluding London -27 212 £475 +11.76% 414
Work from Home -63 124 £475 +11.76% 402
North of England -34 73 £450 +12.50% 93
North West -13 48 £398 +2.58% 44
Midlands -35 35 £550 +54.49% 44
Scotland -6 34 £525 +14.13% 44
South West -9 32 £475 +11.76% 26
West Midlands -34 27 £488 +21.88% 21
South East -58 26 £550 +22.22% 99
Yorkshire -55 14 £500 +24.84% 24
East of England -23 11 £410 -14.58% 55
North East -25 11 £450 +5.88% 25
East Midlands -18 8 £575 +62.89% 23
Wales -10 2 £450 +2.86% 19
Northern Ireland - 1 - - 40

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 24 (4.76%) CMS
2 18 (3.57%) Confluence
3 4 (0.79%) Kentico
3 4 (0.79%) SharePoint
3 4 (0.79%) Umbraco
3 4 (0.79%) WordPress
4 3 (0.60%) Headless CMS
5 2 (0.40%) Mendix
6 1 (0.20%) Adobe Experience Manager
6 1 (0.20%) Apache
6 1 (0.20%) Appian
6 1 (0.20%) Camunda
6 1 (0.20%) Drupal
6 1 (0.20%) Moodle
6 1 (0.20%) nginx
6 1 (0.20%) Strapi
6 1 (0.20%) Traefik
Applications
1 31 (6.15%) Sketch
2 17 (3.37%) Adobe XD
3 11 (2.18%) Photoshop
4 10 (1.98%) Adobe After Effects
4 10 (1.98%) Chatbot
5 9 (1.79%) Adobe Creative Suite
5 9 (1.79%) Adobe Illustrator
6 7 (1.39%) InVision
7 5 (0.99%) Final Cut Pro
8 3 (0.60%) Microsoft Excel
8 3 (0.60%) MS Visio
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%) OmniGraffle
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
1 149 (29.56%) Figma
2 60 (11.90%) Azure
3 30 (5.95%) AWS
4 26 (5.16%) Azure DevOps
5 18 (3.57%) Power Platform
6 15 (2.98%) GitHub
6 15 (2.98%) GitHub Actions
7 12 (2.38%) SaaS
8 10 (1.98%) Firebase
9 8 (1.59%) GCP
10 7 (1.39%) Microsoft Copilot
10 7 (1.39%) Serverless
11 6 (1.19%) AWS Lambda
12 5 (0.99%) Amazon S3
12 5 (0.99%) AWS CloudFormation
12 5 (0.99%) Google Play
12 5 (0.99%) Slack
13 4 (0.79%) BigCommerce
13 4 (0.79%) Microsoft 365
13 4 (0.79%) Miro
Communications & Networking
1 1 (0.20%) Internet
1 1 (0.20%) Reverse Proxy
Database & Business Intelligence
1 10 (1.98%) SQL Server
2 9 (1.79%) Power BI
3 7 (1.39%) PostgreSQL
4 6 (1.19%) Metadata
5 5 (0.99%) Power Query
6 4 (0.79%) Elasticsearch
6 4 (0.79%) NoSQL
7 3 (0.60%) MongoDB
7 3 (0.60%) Pinecone
7 3 (0.60%) SQL Server Integration Services
8 2 (0.40%) CockroachDB
8 2 (0.40%) DynamoDB
8 2 (0.40%) Redis
8 2 (0.40%) Relational Database
8 2 (0.40%) Star Schema
9 1 (0.20%) Azure SQL Database
9 1 (0.20%) Data Warehouse
9 1 (0.20%) Flink
9 1 (0.20%) MySQL
9 1 (0.20%) SQLite
Development Applications
1 30 (5.95%) JIRA
2 27 (5.36%) Git
3 18 (3.57%) Cypress.io
4 16 (3.17%) Jenkins
5 15 (2.98%) GitLab
6 10 (1.98%) fastlane
7 8 (1.59%) Axure RP
8 6 (1.19%) CircleCI
8 6 (1.19%) JUnit
9 5 (0.99%) Android Studio
9 5 (0.99%) Crashlytics
9 5 (0.99%) Gradle
9 5 (0.99%) Mocha
9 5 (0.99%) Xcode
10 4 (0.79%) Visual Studio
11 3 (0.60%) Vite
11 3 (0.60%) webpack
12 2 (0.40%) REST Assured
12 2 (0.40%) Selenium
12 2 (0.40%) Storybook
General
1 151 (29.96%) Social Skills
2 99 (19.64%) Public Sector
3 82 (16.27%) Finance
4 58 (11.51%) Banking
5 26 (5.16%) Analytical Skills
6 24 (4.76%) Retail
7 23 (4.56%) Presentation Skills
8 20 (3.97%) Inclusion and Diversity
9 15 (2.98%) Automotive
10 13 (2.58%) Marketing
11 12 (2.38%) Publishing
12 9 (1.79%) Influencing Skills
13 6 (1.19%) Documentation Skills
13 6 (1.19%) Legal
13 6 (1.19%) Pharmaceutical
14 5 (0.99%) Games
14 5 (0.99%) Local Government
15 4 (0.79%) Corporate Banking
15 4 (0.79%) Investment Banking
15 4 (0.79%) Retail Banking
Job Titles
1 251 (49.80%) Designer
2 138 (27.38%) UX Designer
3 80 (15.87%) Senior
4 72 (14.29%) Developer
5 59 (11.71%) UI Designer
6 45 (8.93%) Content Designer
7 42 (8.33%) Senior Designer
7 42 (8.33%) UI/UX Designer
8 39 (7.74%) Lead
9 34 (6.75%) Product Designer
10 28 (5.56%) Senior UX Designer
11 22 (4.37%) User Researcher
12 20 (3.97%) User Experience Researcher
13 19 (3.77%) Service Designer
14 18 (3.57%) Analyst
15 17 (3.37%) Architect
16 15 (2.98%) Front-End Developer (Client-Side Developer)
17 14 (2.78%) Business Analyst
17 14 (2.78%) Consultant
17 14 (2.78%) Full-Stack Developer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 66 (13.10%) React
2 59 (11.71%) CSS
3 57 (11.31%) HTML
4 38 (7.54%) RESTful
5 28 (5.56%) AngularJS
6 25 (4.96%) .NET
7 24 (4.76%) HTML5
8 23 (4.56%) CSS3
9 21 (4.17%) REST
10 15 (2.98%) Jest
10 15 (2.98%) Spring
11 14 (2.78%) Node.js
11 14 (2.78%) Spring Boot
12 13 (2.58%) OAuth
13 12 (2.38%) Redux
14 11 (2.18%) Vue
15 9 (1.79%) ASP.NET
15 9 (1.79%) Playwright
16 8 (1.59%) .NET Framework
16 8 (1.59%) VML
Miscellaneous
1 67 (13.29%) Product Ownership
2 39 (7.74%) Mobile App
3 14 (2.78%) Animation
4 13 (2.58%) Onboarding
5 12 (2.38%) Self-Motivation
6 11 (2.18%) Cloud Native
7 10 (1.98%) Graphic Design
8 9 (1.79%) Taxonomies
9 8 (1.59%) Data Protection Act
9 8 (1.59%) Enterprise Software
9 8 (1.59%) Greenfield Project
10 5 (0.99%) AI Agents
10 5 (0.99%) Data Structures
10 5 (0.99%) Legacy Systems
10 5 (0.99%) Virtual Reality
10 5 (0.99%) Virtual Team
11 4 (0.79%) Algorithms
11 4 (0.79%) Digital Wallet
11 4 (0.79%) Educational Technology
11 4 (0.79%) Team-Oriented Environment
Operating Systems
1 10 (1.98%) Android
2 9 (1.79%) Apple iOS
3 1 (0.20%) Linux
Processes & Methodologies
1 504 (100.00%) User Experience
2 214 (42.46%) Agile
3 132 (26.19%) User Research
4 104 (20.63%) Prototyping
5 98 (19.44%) Wireframes
6 94 (18.65%) User-Centered Design (UCD)
7 81 (16.07%) AI
7 81 (16.07%) Service Design
8 76 (15.08%) Usability Testing
9 72 (14.29%) UX Research
10 64 (12.70%) CI/CD
10 64 (12.70%) Interaction Design
11 62 (12.30%) Analytics
12 59 (11.71%) Problem-Solving
13 56 (11.11%) Stakeholder Management
14 55 (10.91%) DevOps
15 50 (9.92%) Workshop Facilitation
16 47 (9.33%) Customer Experience
16 47 (9.33%) Journey Map
17 41 (8.13%) Scrum
Programming Languages
1 62 (12.30%) JavaScript
2 51 (10.12%) TypeScript
3 32 (6.35%) Java
4 28 (5.56%) Python
5 20 (3.97%) C#
6 17 (3.37%) SQL
7 7 (1.39%) Kotlin
8 6 (1.19%) Data Analysis Expressions
9 5 (0.99%) C++
9 5 (0.99%) Korn
9 5 (0.99%) Lua
9 5 (0.99%) Swift
10 3 (0.60%) Apex Code
11 2 (0.40%) Bicep
11 2 (0.40%) PowerShell
12 1 (0.20%) Gremlin
12 1 (0.20%) Objective-C
12 1 (0.20%) Shell Script
12 1 (0.20%) SPARQL
12 1 (0.20%) VBScript
Qualifications
1 74 (14.68%) Security Cleared
2 55 (10.91%) SC Cleared
3 50 (9.92%) Degree
4 10 (1.98%) BPSS Clearance
4 10 (1.98%) DV Cleared
4 10 (1.98%) Master's Degree
5 4 (0.79%) Computer Science Degree
6 3 (0.60%) CCA
6 3 (0.60%) DBS Check
7 1 (0.20%) Azure Certification
7 1 (0.20%) Citrix Certification
7 1 (0.20%) Microsoft Certification
7 1 (0.20%) Microsoft Certified Professional
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 179 (35.52%) Accessibility
2 67 (13.29%) WCAG
3 25 (4.96%) QA
4 8 (1.59%) Data Quality
5 5 (0.99%) Actionable Recommendations
6 3 (0.60%) 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 19 (3.77%) Docker
2 1 (0.20%) Virtual Desktop
Systems Management
1 16 (3.17%) Kubernetes
2 14 (2.78%) Terraform
3 2 (0.40%) Single Sign-On
4 1 (0.20%) Ansible
4 1 (0.20%) Grafana
4 1 (0.20%) HP ALM
Vendors
1 42 (8.33%) Adobe
2 25 (4.96%) Microsoft
3 20 (3.97%) Salesforce
4 10 (1.98%) Dynatrace
5 9 (1.79%) Google
6 8 (1.59%) SAP
7 6 (1.19%) ServiceNow
8 5 (0.99%) Apple
9 4 (0.79%) Sitecore
10 3 (0.60%) Foundry
10 3 (0.60%) Oracle
10 3 (0.60%) Progress
10 3 (0.60%) Xamarin
11 2 (0.40%) Blue Prism
11 2 (0.40%) Databricks
11 2 (0.40%) OpenAI
12 1 (0.20%) Automation Anywhere
12 1 (0.20%) Qualtrics
12 1 (0.20%) Telerik
12 1 (0.20%) TOWER Software