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

6 months to
18 Aug 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 287 206 233
Rank change year-on-year -81 +27 -40
Contract jobs citing UX Design 483 436 392
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 0.90% 1.33% 1.01%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 1.06% 1.47% 1.18%
Number of daily rates quoted 282 277 268
10th Percentile £363 £313 £350
25th Percentile £406 £365 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £475 £463 £500
Median % change year-on-year +2.70% -7.50% -9.09%
75th Percentile £588 £538 £600
90th Percentile £667 £600 £675
UK excluding London median daily rate £460 £425 £450
% change year-on-year +8.24% -5.56% -10.00%
Number of hourly rates quoted 13 19 5
10th Percentile £21.45 £33.58 £28.11
25th Percentile £27.24 £35.25 £30.44
Median hourly rate £42.31 £36.50 £33.07
Median % change year-on-year +15.92% +10.37% -46.01%
75th Percentile £72.50 £63.46 -
90th Percentile £92.75 £70.53 £38.33
UK excluding London median hourly rate £28.09 £49.00 £30.88
% change year-on-year -42.67% +58.70% -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 45,374 29,740 33,103
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 84.72% 90.47% 85.44%
Number of daily rates quoted 27,858 18,514 21,188
10th Percentile £325 £300 £310
25th Percentile £425 £402 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £500 £525
Median % change year-on-year +5.00% -4.76% -3.58%
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 2,851 1,725 1,782
10th Percentile £14.22 £14.20 £14.00
25th Percentile £18.50 £17.30 £18.17
Median hourly rate £42.00 £25.15 £40.94
Median % change year-on-year +67.00% -38.57% +0.86%
75th Percentile £68.00 £48.75 £65.00
90th Percentile £81.25 £68.00 £75.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £43.96 £23.00 £42.50
% change year-on-year +91.13% -45.88% +19.72%

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 18 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 18 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 18 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 -68 413 £475 +3.50% 165
London -57 218 £513 +8.47% 76
UK excluding London -49 212 £460 +8.24% 115
Work from Home -65 118 £485 +14.12% 92
North of England -60 70 £450 +19.21% 32
South West -14 37 £475 +0.64% 21
Midlands -43 37 £550 +45.12% 24
Scotland -8 34 £538 +16.22% 4
Yorkshire -31 31 £500 - 13
West Midlands -35 31 £513 +0.59% 20
North West -53 24 £375 - 9
South East -81 22 £550 +29.41% 34
North East -27 15 £450 -4.00% 10
East of England -18 13 £410 -10.87% 2
East Midlands -20 6 £575 +63.82% 4
Wales -17 2 - -

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 (5.80%) CMS
2 20 (4.14%) Confluence
3 8 (1.66%) WordPress
4 4 (0.83%) Headless CMS
4 4 (0.83%) Kentico
5 3 (0.62%) Umbraco
6 2 (0.41%) Mendix
7 1 (0.21%) Apache
7 1 (0.21%) Apache Spark
7 1 (0.21%) Camunda
7 1 (0.21%) ColdFusion
7 1 (0.21%) Drupal
7 1 (0.21%) Moodle
7 1 (0.21%) nginx
7 1 (0.21%) Strapi
7 1 (0.21%) Traefik
Applications
1 24 (4.97%) Sketch
2 15 (3.11%) Adobe Creative Suite
3 12 (2.48%) Adobe XD
4 10 (2.07%) Adobe After Effects
5 9 (1.86%) Photoshop
6 8 (1.66%) Adobe Illustrator
6 8 (1.66%) Chatbot
7 6 (1.24%) Final Cut Pro
8 3 (0.62%) Microsoft Excel
8 3 (0.62%) MS Visio
9 2 (0.41%) InVision
9 2 (0.41%) Microsoft Office
10 1 (0.21%) Adobe Captivate
10 1 (0.21%) Trello
10 1 (0.21%) UserZoom
Business Applications
1 4 (0.83%) Dynamics CRM
1 4 (0.83%) Shopify
2 2 (0.41%) SAP S/4HANA
3 1 (0.21%) Eloqua
3 1 (0.21%) Payment Gateway
3 1 (0.21%) SAP HR
3 1 (0.21%) Sprinklr
Cloud Services
1 124 (25.67%) Figma
2 50 (10.35%) Azure
3 26 (5.38%) AWS
3 26 (5.38%) Azure DevOps
4 20 (4.14%) Power Platform
5 15 (3.11%) GitHub
6 13 (2.69%) GCP
6 13 (2.69%) SaaS
7 11 (2.28%) Firebase
8 10 (2.07%) GitHub Actions
9 9 (1.86%) Microsoft Copilot
10 7 (1.45%) Slack
11 6 (1.24%) Google Play
11 6 (1.24%) Serverless
12 5 (1.04%) Azure AI
13 4 (0.83%) BigCommerce
13 4 (0.83%) Copilot Studio
13 4 (0.83%) Microsoft 365
13 4 (0.83%) Miro
13 4 (0.83%) PowerApps
Communications & Networking
1 1 (0.21%) Bluetooth
1 1 (0.21%) NFC
1 1 (0.21%) Reverse Proxy
Database & Business Intelligence
1 14 (2.90%) Power BI
2 9 (1.86%) PostgreSQL
3 6 (1.24%) Metadata
3 6 (1.24%) Power Query
4 5 (1.04%) NoSQL
4 5 (1.04%) SQL Server
5 4 (0.83%) Data Warehouse
5 4 (0.83%) Elasticsearch
5 4 (0.83%) Redis
6 3 (0.62%) Azure SQL Database
6 3 (0.62%) MongoDB
6 3 (0.62%) Relational Database
6 3 (0.62%) 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 (0.21%) Flink
8 1 (0.21%) Pinecone
8 1 (0.21%) Qlik Sense
Development Applications
1 30 (6.21%) JIRA
2 25 (5.18%) Git
3 15 (3.11%) Jenkins
4 14 (2.90%) Cypress.io
5 10 (2.07%) fastlane
6 6 (1.24%) Android Studio
6 6 (1.24%) GitLab
6 6 (1.24%) Gradle
7 5 (1.04%) Crashlytics
7 5 (1.04%) Storybook
7 5 (1.04%) Vite
7 5 (1.04%) Xcode
8 4 (0.83%) Claude Code
8 4 (0.83%) webpack
9 3 (0.62%) JUnit
10 2 (0.41%) Babel
10 2 (0.41%) Jasmine
10 2 (0.41%) Karma Test Runner
11 1 (0.21%) REST Assured
11 1 (0.21%) rollup.js
General
1 135 (27.95%) Social Skills
2 93 (19.25%) Public Sector
3 91 (18.84%) Finance
4 47 (9.73%) Banking
5 29 (6.00%) Retail
6 27 (5.59%) Analytical Skills
7 23 (4.76%) Inclusion and Diversity
8 19 (3.93%) Publishing
9 16 (3.31%) Presentation Skills
10 15 (3.11%) Automotive
11 12 (2.48%) Marketing
12 10 (2.07%) Influencing Skills
12 10 (2.07%) Military
13 9 (1.86%) Legal
14 6 (1.24%) Pharmaceutical
15 5 (1.04%) Advertising
15 5 (1.04%) Law
16 4 (0.83%) Games
16 4 (0.83%) Investment Banking
16 4 (0.83%) Retail Banking
Job Titles
1 243 (50.31%) Designer
2 126 (26.09%) UX Designer
3 94 (19.46%) Senior
4 72 (14.91%) Developer
5 61 (12.63%) UI Designer
6 45 (9.32%) Content Designer
7 44 (9.11%) Senior Designer
7 44 (9.11%) UI/UX Designer
8 42 (8.70%) Lead
9 27 (5.59%) Senior UX Designer
10 24 (4.97%) Product Designer
11 19 (3.93%) Front-End Developer (Client-Side Developer)
12 18 (3.73%) User Experience Researcher
12 18 (3.73%) User Researcher
13 17 (3.52%) Analyst
14 16 (3.31%) Senior Developer
14 16 (3.31%) Service Designer
15 15 (3.11%) Business Analyst
15 15 (3.11%) Consultant
16 12 (2.48%) Junior
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 57 (11.80%) React
2 56 (11.59%) CSS
3 52 (10.77%) HTML
4 27 (5.59%) RESTful
5 26 (5.38%) AngularJS
6 23 (4.76%) HTML5
7 22 (4.55%) CSS3
8 20 (4.14%) REST
9 14 (2.90%) .NET
10 12 (2.48%) Android SDK
10 12 (2.48%) Jest
11 11 (2.28%) Redux
12 10 (2.07%) Vue
13 9 (1.86%) GraphQL
14 8 (1.66%) Next.js
14 8 (1.66%) Node.js
14 8 (1.66%) VML
15 7 (1.45%) .NET Framework
15 7 (1.45%) OAuth
15 7 (1.45%) Sass
Miscellaneous
1 63 (13.04%) Product Ownership
2 49 (10.14%) Mobile App
3 14 (2.90%) Self-Motivation
4 13 (2.69%) Animation
5 12 (2.48%) Cloud Native
5 12 (2.48%) Onboarding
6 11 (2.28%) AI Agents
7 8 (1.66%) Data Protection Act
7 8 (1.66%) Graphic Design
7 8 (1.66%) Taxonomies
8 7 (1.45%) Greenfield Project
8 7 (1.45%) Legacy Systems
8 7 (1.45%) NHS
8 7 (1.45%) Virtual Reality
9 6 (1.24%) Algorithms
9 6 (1.24%) Enterprise Software
9 6 (1.24%) Social Media
10 5 (1.04%) IoT
11 4 (0.83%) Augmented Reality
11 4 (0.83%) Data Structures
Operating Systems
1 15 (3.11%) Android
2 8 (1.66%) Apple iOS
3 2 (0.41%) Windows
4 1 (0.21%) Linux
4 1 (0.21%) Unix
Processes & Methodologies
1 483 (100.00%) User Experience
2 197 (40.79%) Agile
3 112 (23.19%) User Research
4 93 (19.25%) Prototyping
5 92 (19.05%) AI
6 89 (18.43%) User-Centered Design (UCD)
7 88 (18.22%) Wireframes
8 71 (14.70%) Service Design
9 66 (13.66%) Usability Testing
10 63 (13.04%) Analytics
10 63 (13.04%) CI/CD
11 61 (12.63%) Stakeholder Management
12 59 (12.22%) Problem-Solving
13 55 (11.39%) Interaction Design
13 55 (11.39%) UX Research
14 52 (10.77%) Customer Experience
15 50 (10.35%) Workshop Facilitation
16 47 (9.73%) Scrum
17 46 (9.52%) DevOps
18 44 (9.11%) Journey Map
Programming Languages
1 56 (11.59%) JavaScript
2 45 (9.32%) TypeScript
3 27 (5.59%) Java
4 25 (5.18%) Python
5 20 (4.14%) SQL
6 13 (2.69%) Kotlin
7 10 (2.07%) Data Analysis Expressions
8 9 (1.86%) C#
9 5 (1.04%) Swift
10 3 (0.62%) Apex Code
10 3 (0.62%) C++
10 3 (0.62%) Lua
10 3 (0.62%) PHP
11 2 (0.41%) Bicep
11 2 (0.41%) Ruby
12 1 (0.21%) Gremlin
12 1 (0.21%) JSX
12 1 (0.21%) Korn
12 1 (0.21%) PowerShell
12 1 (0.21%) SPARQL
Qualifications
1 81 (16.77%) Security Cleared
2 56 (11.59%) SC Cleared
3 43 (8.90%) Degree
4 11 (2.28%) BPSS Clearance
5 10 (2.07%) DV Cleared
6 8 (1.66%) Computer Science Degree
6 8 (1.66%) Master's Degree
7 3 (0.62%) DBS Check
8 2 (0.41%) Azure Certification
8 2 (0.41%) CCA
9 1 (0.21%) CTC Cleared
9 1 (0.21%) IIBA
9 1 (0.21%) ITIL Foundation Certificate
9 1 (0.21%) MBA
9 1 (0.21%) Microsoft Certified Professional
9 1 (0.21%) PhD
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 155 (32.09%) Accessibility
2 60 (12.42%) WCAG
3 25 (5.18%) QA
4 11 (2.28%) Data Quality
5 3 (0.62%) ISO/IEC 42001
6 2 (0.41%) Actionable Recommendations
6 2 (0.41%) GDPR
7 1 (0.21%) GMP
7 1 (0.21%) GRC
7 1 (0.21%) GxP
7 1 (0.21%) PMO
7 1 (0.21%) WAI
7 1 (0.21%) WAI-ARIA
System Software
1 14 (2.90%) Docker
Systems Management
1 13 (2.69%) Kubernetes
2 9 (1.86%) Terraform
3 2 (0.41%) Grafana
4 1 (0.21%) Kibana
Vendors
1 41 (8.49%) Adobe
2 33 (6.83%) Microsoft
3 13 (2.69%) Salesforce
4 11 (2.28%) Dynatrace
5 10 (2.07%) ServiceNow
6 9 (1.86%) Google
7 8 (1.66%) SAP
8 6 (1.24%) Apple
8 6 (1.24%) Oracle
9 5 (1.04%) Foundry
10 4 (0.83%) Anaplan
10 4 (0.83%) Databricks
10 4 (0.83%) Sitecore
11 3 (0.62%) Progress
12 2 (0.41%) Blue Prism
12 2 (0.41%) IBM
12 2 (0.41%) OpenAI
12 2 (0.41%) Optimizely
13 1 (0.21%) Automation Anywhere
13 1 (0.21%) Qualtrics