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 14 September 2026, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
14 Sep 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 272 204 221
Rank change year-on-year -68 +17 -24
Contract jobs citing UX Design 495 443 431
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 0.91% 1.36% 1.12%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 1.08% 1.50% 1.31%
Number of daily rates quoted 277 288 278
10th Percentile £363 £307 £342
25th Percentile £413 £375 £406
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £495 £454 £500
Median % change year-on-year +8.92% -9.11% -9.09%
75th Percentile £588 £532 £588
90th Percentile £668 £596 £675
UK excluding London median daily rate £475 £425 £450
% change year-on-year +11.76% -5.56% -10.00%
Number of hourly rates quoted 15 19 6
10th Percentile £22.59 £33.58 £28.50
25th Percentile £27.67 £35.25 £31.10
Median hourly rate £51.50 £36.50 £33.07
Median % change year-on-year +41.10% +10.37% -52.80%
75th Percentile £73.13 £55.88 £33.42
90th Percentile £88.50 £70.16 £43.65
UK excluding London median hourly rate £33.99 £47.50 £32.21
% change year-on-year -28.44% +47.48% -54.85%

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 45,698 29,594 32,877
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 84.42% 90.53% 85.62%
Number of daily rates quoted 27,784 18,388 20,318
10th Percentile £325 £300 £310
25th Percentile £425 £403 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £500 £525
Median % change year-on-year +5.00% -4.76% -2.78%
75th Percentile £625 £625 £638
90th Percentile £726 £725 £750
UK excluding London median daily rate £500 £475 £500
% change year-on-year +5.26% -5.00% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 3,048 1,782 1,485
10th Percentile £13.85 £14.23 £14.84
25th Percentile £17.44 £17.30 £20.00
Median hourly rate £40.00 £25.15 £43.00
Median % change year-on-year +59.05% -41.51% +1.18%
75th Percentile £67.50 £43.75 £65.00
90th Percentile £79.00 £66.95 £75.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £41.00 £22.50 £43.00
% change year-on-year +82.22% -47.67% +7.50%

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 14 September 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 14 September 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 14 September 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 -54 431 £475 +5.56% 622
UK excluding London -47 227 £475 +11.76% 287
London -67 224 £513 +10.81% 402
Work from Home -68 126 £475 +11.76% 359
North of England -52 75 £450 +19.21% 80
Midlands -33 47 £550 +33.33% 30
South West -14 41 £475 -5.00% 50
West Midlands -29 41 £475 +7.34% 21
Yorkshire -15 35 £500 - 21
Scotland -20 32 £531 +14.86% 25
North West -59 26 £375 - 50
South East -58 21 £580 +27.12% 52
North East -28 14 £450 -4.00% 10
East of England -26 12 £410 -6.02% 21
East Midlands -19 6 £575 +60.61% 9
Wales -13 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 (5.66%) CMS
2 25 (5.05%) Confluence
3 8 (1.62%) WordPress
4 4 (0.81%) Kentico
5 3 (0.61%) ColdFusion
5 3 (0.61%) Headless CMS
5 3 (0.61%) Umbraco
6 2 (0.40%) Camunda
7 1 (0.20%) Apache
7 1 (0.20%) Apache Spark
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 21 (4.24%) Sketch
2 16 (3.23%) Adobe Creative Suite
3 12 (2.42%) Adobe XD
4 10 (2.02%) Adobe After Effects
5 9 (1.82%) Photoshop
6 8 (1.62%) Adobe Illustrator
7 6 (1.21%) Chatbot
7 6 (1.21%) Final Cut Pro
8 4 (0.81%) MS Visio
9 3 (0.61%) Microsoft Excel
10 2 (0.40%) Microsoft Office
11 1 (0.20%) Adobe Captivate
11 1 (0.20%) InVision
11 1 (0.20%) Trello
11 1 (0.20%) UserZoom
Business Applications
1 5 (1.01%) Dynamics CRM
2 4 (0.81%) Shopify
3 2 (0.40%) SAP S/4HANA
4 1 (0.20%) Eloqua
4 1 (0.20%) Payment Gateway
4 1 (0.20%) SAP HR
4 1 (0.20%) Sprinklr
Cloud Services
1 120 (24.24%) Figma
2 54 (10.91%) Azure
3 29 (5.86%) AWS
4 26 (5.25%) Azure DevOps
5 21 (4.24%) Power Platform
6 19 (3.84%) GitHub
7 14 (2.83%) SaaS
8 11 (2.22%) Firebase
8 11 (2.22%) GitHub Actions
9 10 (2.02%) Microsoft Copilot
10 9 (1.82%) GCP
11 7 (1.41%) Slack
12 6 (1.21%) Google Play
12 6 (1.21%) Miro
13 5 (1.01%) Azure AI
13 5 (1.01%) Copilot Studio
13 5 (1.01%) PowerApps
13 5 (1.01%) Serverless
14 4 (0.81%) BigCommerce
14 4 (0.81%) Dynamics 365
Communications & Networking
1 1 (0.20%) Bluetooth
1 1 (0.20%) NFC
1 1 (0.20%) Reverse Proxy
Database & Business Intelligence
1 13 (2.63%) Power BI
2 9 (1.82%) PostgreSQL
3 8 (1.62%) Elasticsearch
4 7 (1.41%) Metadata
5 6 (1.21%) Power Query
5 6 (1.21%) SQL Server
6 5 (1.01%) NoSQL
6 5 (1.01%) Redis
7 4 (0.81%) Data Warehouse
7 4 (0.81%) MongoDB
8 3 (0.61%) Star Schema
9 2 (0.40%) Azure SQL Database
9 2 (0.40%) DynamoDB
9 2 (0.40%) MySQL
9 2 (0.40%) Relational Database
9 2 (0.40%) SQL Server Integration Services
9 2 (0.40%) SQLite
10 1 (0.20%) Amazon RDS
10 1 (0.20%) Flink
10 1 (0.20%) Qlik Sense
Development Applications
1 33 (6.67%) Git
1 33 (6.67%) JIRA
2 19 (3.84%) Jenkins
3 14 (2.83%) Cypress.io
4 10 (2.02%) fastlane
5 8 (1.62%) Storybook
6 6 (1.21%) Android Studio
6 6 (1.21%) GitLab
6 6 (1.21%) Gradle
6 6 (1.21%) Vite
6 6 (1.21%) webpack
7 5 (1.01%) Crashlytics
7 5 (1.01%) Xcode
8 4 (0.81%) Claude Code
8 4 (0.81%) Jasmine
8 4 (0.81%) REST Assured
9 3 (0.61%) Babel
9 3 (0.61%) IBM UrbanCode
9 3 (0.61%) JUnit
9 3 (0.61%) Karma Test Runner
General
1 146 (29.49%) Social Skills
2 92 (18.59%) Public Sector
3 84 (16.97%) Finance
4 41 (8.28%) Banking
5 31 (6.26%) Retail
6 27 (5.45%) Analytical Skills
7 21 (4.24%) Inclusion and Diversity
7 21 (4.24%) Publishing
8 16 (3.23%) Automotive
9 13 (2.63%) Influencing Skills
9 13 (2.63%) Marketing
9 13 (2.63%) Presentation Skills
10 12 (2.42%) Military
11 9 (1.82%) Legal
12 6 (1.21%) Investment Banking
13 5 (1.01%) Law
14 4 (0.81%) Advertising
14 4 (0.81%) Aerospace
14 4 (0.81%) Pharmaceutical
15 3 (0.61%) Front Office
Job Titles
1 237 (47.88%) Designer
2 128 (25.86%) UX Designer
3 103 (20.81%) Senior
4 85 (17.17%) Developer
5 58 (11.72%) UI Designer
6 45 (9.09%) Lead
6 45 (9.09%) Senior Designer
7 41 (8.28%) UI/UX Designer
8 38 (7.68%) Content Designer
9 28 (5.66%) Senior UX Designer
10 27 (5.45%) Front-End Developer (Client-Side Developer)
11 24 (4.85%) Product Designer
12 20 (4.04%) Senior Developer
13 18 (3.64%) User Experience Researcher
13 18 (3.64%) User Researcher
14 16 (3.23%) Service Designer
15 15 (3.03%) React Developer
16 14 (2.83%) Analyst
16 14 (2.83%) Business Analyst
17 13 (2.63%) Consultant
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 72 (14.55%) React
2 67 (13.54%) CSS
3 63 (12.73%) HTML
4 27 (5.45%) RESTful
5 26 (5.25%) AngularJS
5 26 (5.25%) HTML5
6 24 (4.85%) CSS3
7 22 (4.44%) REST
8 14 (2.83%) .NET
8 14 (2.83%) Jest
8 14 (2.83%) Next.js
8 14 (2.83%) Redux
9 12 (2.42%) Android SDK
10 11 (2.22%) GraphQL
10 11 (2.22%) Spring
10 11 (2.22%) Vue
11 10 (2.02%) Spring Boot
12 8 (1.62%) Node.js
12 8 (1.62%) Sass
12 8 (1.62%) Terraform
Miscellaneous
1 66 (13.33%) Product Ownership
2 45 (9.09%) Mobile App
3 14 (2.83%) AI Agents
3 14 (2.83%) Self-Motivation
4 13 (2.63%) Cloud Native
5 11 (2.22%) Onboarding
6 10 (2.02%) Animation
7 8 (1.62%) Data Protection Act
7 8 (1.62%) NHS
7 8 (1.62%) Taxonomies
8 7 (1.41%) Legacy Systems
9 6 (1.21%) Enterprise Software
9 6 (1.21%) Graphic Design
9 6 (1.21%) Greenfield Project
9 6 (1.21%) Social Media
9 6 (1.21%) Virtual Reality
10 5 (1.01%) Algorithms
10 5 (1.01%) Distributed Systems
10 5 (1.01%) Management Information System
10 5 (1.01%) Team-Oriented Environment
Operating Systems
1 16 (3.23%) Android
2 9 (1.82%) Apple iOS
3 3 (0.61%) Windows
4 1 (0.20%) Linux
4 1 (0.20%) Unix
Processes & Methodologies
1 495 (100.00%) User Experience
2 205 (41.41%) Agile
3 106 (21.41%) User Research
4 97 (19.60%) User-Centered Design (UCD)
5 94 (18.99%) AI
6 88 (17.78%) Prototyping
7 85 (17.17%) Wireframes
8 75 (15.15%) Service Design
9 73 (14.75%) Stakeholder Management
10 72 (14.55%) CI/CD
11 66 (13.33%) Usability Testing
12 64 (12.93%) Analytics
13 63 (12.73%) Problem-Solving
14 53 (10.71%) UX Research
15 52 (10.51%) Customer Experience
15 52 (10.51%) Interaction Design
15 52 (10.51%) Scrum
16 50 (10.10%) Workshop Facilitation
17 49 (9.90%) DevOps
18 48 (9.70%) Front End Development
Programming Languages
1 67 (13.54%) JavaScript
2 56 (11.31%) TypeScript
3 32 (6.46%) Java
4 23 (4.65%) SQL
5 19 (3.84%) Python
6 14 (2.83%) Kotlin
7 10 (2.02%) Data Analysis Expressions
8 9 (1.82%) C#
9 5 (1.01%) Swift
10 3 (0.61%) Apex Code
10 3 (0.61%) CFML
10 3 (0.61%) PHP
11 2 (0.40%) Bicep
11 2 (0.40%) Ruby
12 1 (0.20%) C
12 1 (0.20%) JSX
12 1 (0.20%) Korn
12 1 (0.20%) PowerShell
12 1 (0.20%) Shell Script
12 1 (0.20%) VBScript
Qualifications
1 83 (16.77%) Security Cleared
2 57 (11.52%) SC Cleared
3 42 (8.48%) Degree
4 16 (3.23%) BPSS Clearance
5 13 (2.63%) DV Cleared
6 12 (2.42%) Computer Science Degree
7 5 (1.01%) Master's Degree
8 3 (0.61%) DBS Check
9 2 (0.40%) Azure Certification
9 2 (0.40%) CCA
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 Certified Professional
10 1 (0.20%) PhD
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 159 (32.12%) Accessibility
2 65 (13.13%) WCAG
3 28 (5.66%) QA
4 11 (2.22%) Data Quality
5 3 (0.61%) Actionable Recommendations
5 3 (0.61%) ISO/IEC 42001
6 2 (0.40%) 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 15 (3.03%) Docker
Systems Management
1 13 (2.63%) Kubernetes
2 3 (0.61%) Grafana
3 1 (0.20%) Istio
3 1 (0.20%) Kibana
3 1 (0.20%) Single Sign-On
Vendors
1 42 (8.48%) Adobe
2 38 (7.68%) Microsoft
3 12 (2.42%) Dynatrace
4 11 (2.22%) Salesforce
5 10 (2.02%) ServiceNow
6 8 (1.62%) Google
6 8 (1.62%) SAP
7 6 (1.21%) Apple
7 6 (1.21%) Oracle
8 5 (1.01%) Foundry
8 5 (1.01%) OpenAI
9 4 (0.81%) Anaplan
9 4 (0.81%) Databricks
9 4 (0.81%) Sitecore
10 3 (0.61%) ION Trading
11 2 (0.40%) AppDynamics
11 2 (0.40%) IBM
11 2 (0.40%) Progress
11 2 (0.40%) Qualtrics
11 2 (0.40%) Splunk