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

6 months to
13 Oct 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 290 211 223
Rank change year-on-year -79 +12 +3
Contract jobs citing UX Design 484 446 399
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 0.88% 1.35% 1.06%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 1.04% 1.50% 1.24%
Number of daily rates quoted 272 285 246
10th Percentile £363 £313 £336
25th Percentile £414 £375 £400
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £463 £498
Median % change year-on-year +8.11% -7.04% -5.24%
75th Percentile £588 £538 £575
90th Percentile £674 £633 £630
UK excluding London median daily rate £475 £450 £438
% change year-on-year +5.56% +2.86% -12.50%
Number of hourly rates quoted 15 20 6
10th Percentile £23.42 £34.03 £30.97
25th Percentile £38.15 £35.25 £31.89
Median hourly rate £70.00 £36.50 £33.07
Median % change year-on-year +91.78% +10.37% -55.91%
75th Percentile £74.38 £58.50 £34.26
90th Percentile £94.50 £70.16 £44.13
UK excluding London median hourly rate £70.00 £47.50 £32.21
% change year-on-year +47.37% +47.48% -58.44%

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 46,512 29,792 32,258
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 84.69% 90.47% 86.03%
Number of daily rates quoted 27,938 18,529 19,417
10th Percentile £325 £294 £308
25th Percentile £425 £404 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £500 £525
Median % change year-on-year +5.00% -4.76% -2.78%
75th Percentile £638 £623 £638
90th Percentile £737 £725 £750
UK excluding London median daily rate £500 £475 £500
% change year-on-year +5.26% -5.00% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 3,382 1,881 1,250
10th Percentile £13.63 £14.38 £15.00
25th Percentile £17.00 £17.30 £20.03
Median hourly rate £37.50 £25.15 £40.00
Median % change year-on-year +49.11% -37.13% -10.11%
75th Percentile £65.00 £42.75 £65.00
90th Percentile £78.54 £65.14 £73.75
UK excluding London median hourly rate £37.50 £22.27 £40.33
% change year-on-year +68.43% -44.79% -7.83%

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 October 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 October 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 13 October 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 -78 420 £488 +5.41% 620
UK excluding London -38 222 £475 +5.56% 274
London -77 220 £513 +9.57% 387
Work from Home -72 115 £500 +7.82% 328
North of England -31 84 £450 +12.50% 73
Midlands -30 46 £500 +17.65% 29
West Midlands -34 40 £485 +7.78% 19
Yorkshire -16 37 £500 +2.56% 27
Scotland -26 33 £531 +14.86% 28
North West -51 33 £438 +16.67% 36
South West -16 28 £450 - 28
South East -66 18 £550 -4.35% 60
North East -30 14 £450 -4.00% 10
East of England -18 13 £410 -10.87% 22
East Midlands -13 6 £570 +51.19% 10
Wales -16 2 - - 9
Northern Ireland +4 1 - - 25

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 29 (5.99%) CMS
2 28 (5.79%) Confluence
3 9 (1.86%) WordPress
4 4 (0.83%) Kentico
5 3 (0.62%) ColdFusion
5 3 (0.62%) Headless CMS
5 3 (0.62%) Umbraco
6 1 (0.21%) Apache
6 1 (0.21%) Apache Spark
6 1 (0.21%) Camunda
6 1 (0.21%) Drupal
6 1 (0.21%) Mendix
Applications
1 19 (3.93%) Sketch
2 16 (3.31%) Adobe Creative Suite
3 10 (2.07%) Adobe XD
4 9 (1.86%) Adobe After Effects
5 8 (1.65%) Photoshop
6 7 (1.45%) Adobe Illustrator
7 6 (1.24%) Final Cut Pro
8 4 (0.83%) MS Visio
9 2 (0.41%) Chatbot
10 1 (0.21%) Adobe Captivate
10 1 (0.21%) Microsoft Project
10 1 (0.21%) Trello
10 1 (0.21%) UserZoom
Business Applications
1 5 (1.03%) Dynamics CRM
2 3 (0.62%) Payment Gateway
3 2 (0.41%) SAP S/4HANA
4 1 (0.21%) Eloqua
4 1 (0.21%) SAP HR
4 1 (0.21%) Shopify
Cloud Services
1 114 (23.55%) Figma
2 50 (10.33%) Azure
3 35 (7.23%) AWS
4 26 (5.37%) Azure DevOps
5 21 (4.34%) GitHub
6 18 (3.72%) Power Platform
7 17 (3.51%) SaaS
8 10 (2.07%) GitHub Actions
9 9 (1.86%) Firebase
9 9 (1.86%) GCP
9 9 (1.86%) Microsoft Copilot
10 8 (1.65%) Miro
11 7 (1.45%) Slack
12 6 (1.24%) Dynamics 365
12 6 (1.24%) Google Play
13 5 (1.03%) Copilot Studio
13 5 (1.03%) Microsoft 365
13 5 (1.03%) PowerApps
13 5 (1.03%) Serverless
14 4 (0.83%) AWS CloudFormation
Communications & Networking
1 1 (0.21%) Bluetooth
1 1 (0.21%) NFC
Database & Business Intelligence
1 10 (2.07%) Power BI
2 9 (1.86%) NoSQL
3 8 (1.65%) Elasticsearch
3 8 (1.65%) Metadata
3 8 (1.65%) PostgreSQL
4 6 (1.24%) SQL Server
5 5 (1.03%) MongoDB
5 5 (1.03%) Power Query
5 5 (1.03%) Redis
6 4 (0.83%) Data Warehouse
7 3 (0.62%) Star Schema
8 2 (0.41%) Azure SQL Database
8 2 (0.41%) DynamoDB
8 2 (0.41%) MySQL
8 2 (0.41%) Relational Database
8 2 (0.41%) SQL Server Integration Services
9 1 (0.21%) Amazon RDS
9 1 (0.21%) Flink
9 1 (0.21%) Qlik Sense
9 1 (0.21%) SQLite
Development Applications
1 37 (7.64%) Git
2 35 (7.23%) JIRA
3 18 (3.72%) Jenkins
4 13 (2.69%) Cypress.io
5 11 (2.27%) Storybook
6 8 (1.65%) Claude Code
6 8 (1.65%) fastlane
7 6 (1.24%) GitLab
7 6 (1.24%) webpack
8 5 (1.03%) Android Studio
8 5 (1.03%) Gradle
8 5 (1.03%) REST Assured
9 4 (0.83%) Crashlytics
9 4 (0.83%) IBM UrbanCode
9 4 (0.83%) Jasmine
9 4 (0.83%) Vite
9 4 (0.83%) Xcode
10 3 (0.62%) Babel
10 3 (0.62%) JUnit
10 3 (0.62%) Karma Test Runner
General
1 146 (30.17%) Social Skills
2 92 (19.01%) Public Sector
3 81 (16.74%) Finance
4 31 (6.40%) Retail
5 30 (6.20%) Banking
6 21 (4.34%) Analytical Skills
7 18 (3.72%) Marketing
7 18 (3.72%) Publishing
8 17 (3.51%) Inclusion and Diversity
9 14 (2.89%) Influencing Skills
10 13 (2.69%) Automotive
10 13 (2.69%) Presentation Skills
11 12 (2.48%) Military
12 9 (1.86%) Legal
13 6 (1.24%) Investment Banking
14 4 (0.83%) Aerospace
14 4 (0.83%) Corporate Banking
14 4 (0.83%) Front Office
14 4 (0.83%) Law
15 3 (0.62%) Telecoms
Job Titles
1 219 (45.25%) Designer
2 125 (25.83%) UX Designer
3 100 (20.66%) Senior
4 90 (18.60%) Developer
5 50 (10.33%) UI Designer
6 45 (9.30%) Senior Designer
7 43 (8.88%) Lead
8 36 (7.44%) UI/UX Designer
9 33 (6.82%) Front-End Developer (Client-Side Developer)
10 28 (5.79%) Content Designer
11 27 (5.58%) Senior UX Designer
12 26 (5.37%) Product Designer
13 19 (3.93%) Senior Developer
14 18 (3.72%) User Experience Researcher
15 17 (3.51%) User Researcher
16 15 (3.10%) React Developer
16 15 (3.10%) Service Designer
17 14 (2.89%) Business Analyst
18 12 (2.48%) Analyst
18 12 (2.48%) Senior UI Designer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 76 (15.70%) React
2 73 (15.08%) CSS
3 68 (14.05%) HTML
4 29 (5.99%) REST
5 26 (5.37%) RESTful
6 25 (5.17%) HTML5
7 24 (4.96%) AngularJS
8 23 (4.75%) CSS3
9 16 (3.31%) Next.js
10 15 (3.10%) Redux
11 14 (2.89%) Jest
12 12 (2.48%) GraphQL
13 11 (2.27%) .NET
13 11 (2.27%) Android SDK
13 11 (2.27%) Semantic HTML
13 11 (2.27%) Spring
13 11 (2.27%) Spring Boot
13 11 (2.27%) Vue
14 10 (2.07%) Node.js
14 10 (2.07%) OAuth
Miscellaneous
1 71 (14.67%) Product Ownership
2 48 (9.92%) Mobile App
3 15 (3.10%) AI Agents
4 12 (2.48%) Cloud Native
5 11 (2.27%) Self-Motivation
6 9 (1.86%) Animation
6 9 (1.86%) NHS
7 8 (1.65%) Legacy Systems
7 8 (1.65%) Taxonomies
8 7 (1.45%) Onboarding
9 6 (1.24%) Data Protection Act
9 6 (1.24%) Graphic Design
9 6 (1.24%) Management Information System
9 6 (1.24%) Social Media
10 5 (1.03%) Distributed Systems
10 5 (1.03%) Enterprise Software
10 5 (1.03%) Team-Oriented Environment
11 4 (0.83%) Educational Technology
11 4 (0.83%) Low-Code
11 4 (0.83%) Virtual Reality
Operating Systems
1 18 (3.72%) Android
2 11 (2.27%) Apple iOS
3 3 (0.62%) Windows
4 1 (0.21%) Linux
4 1 (0.21%) Unix
Processes & Methodologies
1 484 (100.00%) User Experience
2 204 (42.15%) Agile
3 112 (23.14%) User Research
4 99 (20.45%) User-Centered Design (UCD)
5 95 (19.63%) Prototyping
6 92 (19.01%) AI
7 88 (18.18%) Wireframes
8 86 (17.77%) Service Design
9 79 (16.32%) Stakeholder Management
10 71 (14.67%) CI/CD
11 69 (14.26%) Usability Testing
12 62 (12.81%) Analytics
13 56 (11.57%) Interaction Design
13 56 (11.57%) Problem-Solving
14 55 (11.36%) Front End Development
14 55 (11.36%) UX Research
15 53 (10.95%) Workshop Facilitation
16 50 (10.33%) Continuous Improvement
16 50 (10.33%) Scrum
17 48 (9.92%) Journey Map
Programming Languages
1 76 (15.70%) JavaScript
2 59 (12.19%) TypeScript
3 31 (6.40%) Java
4 23 (4.75%) SQL
5 13 (2.69%) Kotlin
6 12 (2.48%) Python
7 8 (1.65%) Data Analysis Expressions
8 6 (1.24%) C#
9 4 (0.83%) Swift
10 3 (0.62%) Bicep
10 3 (0.62%) CFML
10 3 (0.62%) PHP
11 2 (0.41%) Apex Code
11 2 (0.41%) Ruby
12 1 (0.21%) C
12 1 (0.21%) JSX
12 1 (0.21%) Korn
12 1 (0.21%) Shell Script
Qualifications
1 77 (15.91%) Security Cleared
2 47 (9.71%) SC Cleared
3 41 (8.47%) Degree
4 19 (3.93%) BPSS Clearance
5 13 (2.69%) DV Cleared
6 11 (2.27%) Computer Science Degree
7 5 (1.03%) Master's Degree
8 4 (0.83%) DBS Check
9 3 (0.62%) Azure Certification
10 2 (0.41%) CCA
11 1 (0.21%) CTC Cleared
11 1 (0.21%) IIBA
11 1 (0.21%) ITIL Foundation Certificate
11 1 (0.21%) MBA
11 1 (0.21%) Microsoft Certified Professional
11 1 (0.21%) PhD
11 1 (0.21%) TOGAF Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 159 (32.85%) Accessibility
2 65 (13.43%) WCAG
3 26 (5.37%) QA
4 8 (1.65%) Data Quality
5 4 (0.83%) Actionable Recommendations
6 2 (0.41%) GDPR
6 2 (0.41%) ISO/IEC 42001
7 1 (0.21%) GRC
7 1 (0.21%) PMO
7 1 (0.21%) WAI
7 1 (0.21%) WAI-ARIA
System Software
1 17 (3.51%) Docker
2 1 (0.21%) Active Directory
Systems Management
1 15 (3.10%) Kubernetes
2 4 (0.83%) Grafana
3 2 (0.41%) Single Sign-On
4 1 (0.21%) Istio
4 1 (0.21%) Kibana
Vendors
1 39 (8.06%) Microsoft
2 36 (7.44%) Adobe
3 11 (2.27%) Dynatrace
4 10 (2.07%) ServiceNow
5 9 (1.86%) Salesforce
6 7 (1.45%) Google
7 5 (1.03%) Apple
7 5 (1.03%) Oracle
8 4 (0.83%) Anaplan
8 4 (0.83%) Foundry
8 4 (0.83%) ION Trading
8 4 (0.83%) OpenAI
8 4 (0.83%) SAP
9 2 (0.41%) AppDynamics
9 2 (0.41%) Databricks
9 2 (0.41%) IBM
9 2 (0.41%) Optimizely
9 2 (0.41%) OutSystems
9 2 (0.41%) Progress
9 2 (0.41%) Splunk