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 13 August 2026, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
13 Aug 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 270 203 244
Rank change year-on-year -67 +41 -55
Contract jobs citing UX Design 489 442 399
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 0.92% 1.34% 1.02%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 1.08% 1.48% 1.20%
Number of daily rates quoted 289 285 273
10th Percentile £363 £313 £350
25th Percentile £406 £365 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £495 £460 £500
Median % change year-on-year +7.61% -8.00% -9.09%
75th Percentile £588 £538 £600
90th Percentile £668 £600 £675
UK excluding London median daily rate £465 £425 £450
% change year-on-year +9.41% -5.56% -6.49%
Number of hourly rates quoted 13 18 6
10th Percentile £21.45 £33.14 £28.50
25th Percentile £27.24 £35.25 £31.10
Median hourly rate £42.31 £36.50 £33.07
Median % change year-on-year +15.92% +10.37% -46.01%
75th Percentile £72.50 £66.81 £39.65
90th Percentile £92.75 £70.71 £41.84
UK excluding London median hourly rate £28.09 £42.30 £30.88
% change year-on-year -33.59% +37.00% -55.97%

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 45,250 29,801 33,299
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 84.81% 90.48% 85.50%
Number of daily rates quoted 27,843 18,616 21,279
10th Percentile £325 £300 £310
25th Percentile £423 £404 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £500 £525
Median % change year-on-year +5.00% -4.76% -3.67%
75th Percentile £625 £625 £638
90th Percentile £725 £725 £750
UK excluding London median daily rate £500 £475 £500
% change year-on-year +5.26% -5.00% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 2,819 1,703 1,838
10th Percentile £14.22 £14.20 £14.05
25th Percentile £18.75 £17.31 £18.50
Median hourly rate £42.50 £25.15 £41.50
Median % change year-on-year +68.99% -39.40% -1.55%
75th Percentile £68.00 £47.81 £65.00
90th Percentile £81.38 £68.00 £75.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £43.96 £22.74 £42.50
% change year-on-year +93.36% -46.51% +13.33%

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 13 August 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 13 August 2026.

Hourly rate histogram for UX Design in the UK

UX Design
Top 16 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 13 August 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 -51 415 £475 +3.50% 504
London -63 220 £520 +9.47% 317
UK excluding London -58 215 £465 +9.41% 248
Work from Home -71 117 £500 +17.65% 244
North of England -44 69 £450 +18.42% 77
Scotland -3 37 £531 +14.86% 24
South West -13 37 £475 +6.26% 27
Midlands -43 37 £550 +37.50% 36
West Midlands -32 31 £513 +0.59% 28
Yorkshire -28 30 £500 - 18
North West -50 24 £375 - 39
South East -69 23 £550 +29.41% 52
North East -30 15 £450 -4.00% 20
East of England -16 13 £410 -10.87% 13
East Midlands -17 6 £575 +63.35% 8
Wales -11 2 - - 3

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 (5.73%) CMS
2 20 (4.09%) Confluence
3 8 (1.64%) WordPress
4 4 (0.82%) Headless CMS
4 4 (0.82%) Kentico
5 3 (0.61%) Umbraco
6 2 (0.41%) Mendix
7 1 (0.20%) Apache
7 1 (0.20%) Apache Spark
7 1 (0.20%) Camunda
7 1 (0.20%) ColdFusion
7 1 (0.20%) Drupal
7 1 (0.20%) Moodle
7 1 (0.20%) nginx
7 1 (0.20%) Strapi
7 1 (0.20%) Traefik
Applications
1 25 (5.11%) Sketch
2 15 (3.07%) Adobe Creative Suite
3 13 (2.66%) Adobe XD
4 10 (2.04%) Adobe After Effects
5 9 (1.84%) Photoshop
6 8 (1.64%) Adobe Illustrator
6 8 (1.64%) Chatbot
7 6 (1.23%) Final Cut Pro
8 3 (0.61%) Microsoft Excel
8 3 (0.61%) MS Visio
9 2 (0.41%) InVision
9 2 (0.41%) Microsoft Office
10 1 (0.20%) Adobe Captivate
10 1 (0.20%) Trello
10 1 (0.20%) UserZoom
Business Applications
1 4 (0.82%) Dynamics CRM
1 4 (0.82%) Shopify
2 2 (0.41%) SAP S/4HANA
3 1 (0.20%) Eloqua
3 1 (0.20%) Payment Gateway
3 1 (0.20%) SAP HR
3 1 (0.20%) Sprinklr
Cloud Services
1 130 (26.58%) Figma
2 51 (10.43%) Azure
3 27 (5.52%) AWS
4 26 (5.32%) Azure DevOps
5 20 (4.09%) Power Platform
6 15 (3.07%) GitHub
6 15 (3.07%) SaaS
7 13 (2.66%) GCP
8 11 (2.25%) Firebase
9 10 (2.04%) GitHub Actions
10 9 (1.84%) Microsoft Copilot
11 7 (1.43%) Serverless
11 7 (1.43%) Slack
12 6 (1.23%) Google Play
13 5 (1.02%) Azure AI
14 4 (0.82%) AWS Lambda
14 4 (0.82%) BigCommerce
14 4 (0.82%) Microsoft 365
14 4 (0.82%) Miro
14 4 (0.82%) PowerApps
Communications & Networking
1 1 (0.20%) Bluetooth
1 1 (0.20%) NFC
1 1 (0.20%) Reverse Proxy
Database & Business Intelligence
1 14 (2.86%) Power BI
2 9 (1.84%) PostgreSQL
3 6 (1.23%) Metadata
3 6 (1.23%) Power Query
4 5 (1.02%) NoSQL
4 5 (1.02%) SQL Server
5 4 (0.82%) Elasticsearch
5 4 (0.82%) Redis
6 3 (0.61%) Azure SQL Database
6 3 (0.61%) Data Warehouse
6 3 (0.61%) MongoDB
6 3 (0.61%) Relational Database
6 3 (0.61%) Star Schema
7 2 (0.41%) DynamoDB
7 2 (0.41%) MySQL
7 2 (0.41%) SQL Server Integration Services
7 2 (0.41%) SQLite
8 1 (0.20%) Amazon QuickSight
8 1 (0.20%) Pinecone
8 1 (0.20%) Qlik Sense
Development Applications
1 33 (6.75%) JIRA
2 25 (5.11%) Git
3 15 (3.07%) Jenkins
4 14 (2.86%) Cypress.io
5 10 (2.04%) fastlane
6 6 (1.23%) Android Studio
6 6 (1.23%) GitLab
6 6 (1.23%) Gradle
7 5 (1.02%) Crashlytics
7 5 (1.02%) Storybook
7 5 (1.02%) Vite
7 5 (1.02%) Xcode
8 4 (0.82%) Claude Code
8 4 (0.82%) webpack
9 3 (0.61%) JUnit
10 2 (0.41%) Babel
10 2 (0.41%) Jasmine
10 2 (0.41%) Karma Test Runner
11 1 (0.20%) REST Assured
11 1 (0.20%) rollup.js
General
1 144 (29.45%) Social Skills
2 96 (19.63%) Public Sector
3 91 (18.61%) Finance
4 48 (9.82%) Banking
5 29 (5.93%) Retail
6 27 (5.52%) Analytical Skills
7 23 (4.70%) Inclusion and Diversity
8 19 (3.89%) Publishing
9 16 (3.27%) Presentation Skills
10 15 (3.07%) Automotive
11 12 (2.45%) Marketing
12 10 (2.04%) Influencing Skills
12 10 (2.04%) Military
13 9 (1.84%) Legal
14 6 (1.23%) Pharmaceutical
15 5 (1.02%) Advertising
15 5 (1.02%) Documentation Skills
15 5 (1.02%) Law
16 4 (0.82%) Aerospace
16 4 (0.82%) Investment Banking
Job Titles
1 247 (50.51%) Designer
2 134 (27.40%) UX Designer
3 95 (19.43%) Senior
4 71 (14.52%) Developer
5 63 (12.88%) UI Designer
6 46 (9.41%) UI/UX Designer
7 45 (9.20%) Content Designer
8 44 (9.00%) Senior Designer
9 41 (8.38%) Lead
10 27 (5.52%) Senior UX Designer
11 24 (4.91%) Product Designer
12 19 (3.89%) Front-End Developer (Client-Side Developer)
12 19 (3.89%) User Researcher
13 18 (3.68%) User Experience Researcher
14 17 (3.48%) Analyst
15 16 (3.27%) Senior Developer
16 15 (3.07%) Business Analyst
16 15 (3.07%) Consultant
16 15 (3.07%) Service Designer
17 12 (2.45%) Junior
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 58 (11.86%) CSS
1 58 (11.86%) React
2 54 (11.04%) HTML
3 27 (5.52%) RESTful
4 26 (5.32%) AngularJS
5 23 (4.70%) HTML5
6 22 (4.50%) CSS3
7 20 (4.09%) REST
8 14 (2.86%) .NET
9 12 (2.45%) Android SDK
9 12 (2.45%) Jest
9 12 (2.45%) Redux
10 10 (2.04%) GraphQL
10 10 (2.04%) Vue
11 9 (1.84%) Next.js
12 8 (1.64%) Node.js
12 8 (1.64%) VML
13 7 (1.43%) .NET Framework
13 7 (1.43%) OAuth
13 7 (1.43%) Sass
Miscellaneous
1 64 (13.09%) Product Ownership
2 50 (10.22%) Mobile App
3 14 (2.86%) Self-Motivation
4 13 (2.66%) Animation
5 12 (2.45%) Cloud Native
6 11 (2.25%) AI Agents
6 11 (2.25%) Onboarding
7 9 (1.84%) Data Protection Act
8 8 (1.64%) Graphic Design
8 8 (1.64%) Taxonomies
9 7 (1.43%) Enterprise Software
9 7 (1.43%) Greenfield Project
9 7 (1.43%) NHS
9 7 (1.43%) Virtual Reality
10 6 (1.23%) Algorithms
10 6 (1.23%) Legacy Systems
10 6 (1.23%) Social Media
11 5 (1.02%) IoT
12 4 (0.82%) Augmented Reality
12 4 (0.82%) Data Structures
Operating Systems
1 15 (3.07%) Android
2 8 (1.64%) Apple iOS
3 2 (0.41%) Windows
4 1 (0.20%) Linux
4 1 (0.20%) Unix
Processes & Methodologies
1 489 (100.00%) User Experience
2 201 (41.10%) Agile
3 120 (24.54%) User Research
4 96 (19.63%) Prototyping
5 95 (19.43%) AI
6 94 (19.22%) Wireframes
7 89 (18.20%) User-Centered Design (UCD)
8 72 (14.72%) Service Design
9 70 (14.31%) Usability Testing
10 65 (13.29%) CI/CD
11 64 (13.09%) Stakeholder Management
12 63 (12.88%) Analytics
13 60 (12.27%) Problem-Solving
14 57 (11.66%) Interaction Design
15 56 (11.45%) UX Research
16 52 (10.63%) Customer Experience
17 49 (10.02%) Workshop Facilitation
18 48 (9.82%) Journey Map
19 47 (9.61%) DevOps
19 47 (9.61%) Scrum
Programming Languages
1 56 (11.45%) JavaScript
2 46 (9.41%) TypeScript
3 27 (5.52%) Java
4 25 (5.11%) Python
5 20 (4.09%) SQL
6 13 (2.66%) Kotlin
7 10 (2.04%) Data Analysis Expressions
8 9 (1.84%) C#
9 5 (1.02%) Swift
10 4 (0.82%) Apex Code
11 3 (0.61%) C++
11 3 (0.61%) Lua
11 3 (0.61%) PHP
12 2 (0.41%) Bicep
12 2 (0.41%) PowerShell
12 2 (0.41%) Ruby
13 1 (0.20%) CFML
13 1 (0.20%) Gremlin
13 1 (0.20%) JSX
13 1 (0.20%) Korn
Qualifications
1 84 (17.18%) Security Cleared
2 59 (12.07%) SC Cleared
3 47 (9.61%) Degree
4 12 (2.45%) BPSS Clearance
5 10 (2.04%) DV Cleared
6 9 (1.84%) Computer Science Degree
7 8 (1.64%) Master's Degree
8 3 (0.61%) Azure Certification
8 3 (0.61%) DBS Check
9 2 (0.41%) 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%) MBA
10 1 (0.20%) Microsoft Certification
10 1 (0.20%) Microsoft Certified Professional
10 1 (0.20%) PhD
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 161 (32.92%) Accessibility
2 64 (13.09%) WCAG
3 25 (5.11%) QA
4 11 (2.25%) Data Quality
5 3 (0.61%) Actionable Recommendations
5 3 (0.61%) ISO/IEC 42001
6 2 (0.41%) GDPR
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 14 (2.86%) Docker
2 1 (0.20%) Virtual Desktop
Systems Management
1 13 (2.66%) Kubernetes
2 11 (2.25%) Terraform
3 2 (0.41%) Grafana
4 1 (0.20%) Kibana
Vendors
1 42 (8.59%) Adobe
2 34 (6.95%) Microsoft
3 16 (3.27%) Salesforce
4 11 (2.25%) Dynatrace
5 10 (2.04%) Google
6 8 (1.64%) SAP
7 7 (1.43%) ServiceNow
8 6 (1.23%) Apple
9 5 (1.02%) Foundry
9 5 (1.02%) Oracle
10 4 (0.82%) Databricks
10 4 (0.82%) Sitecore
11 3 (0.61%) Anaplan
11 3 (0.61%) Progress
12 2 (0.41%) Blue Prism
12 2 (0.41%) IBM
12 2 (0.41%) OpenAI
12 2 (0.41%) Optimizely
13 1 (0.20%) AppDynamics
13 1 (0.20%) MuleSoft