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

6 months to
3 Oct 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 297 205 231
Rank change year-on-year -92 +26 -21
Contract jobs citing UX Design 491 449 408
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 0.90% 1.35% 1.07%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 1.06% 1.50% 1.25%
Number of daily rates quoted 272 292 257
10th Percentile £363 £313 £329
25th Percentile £413 £375 £406
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £495 £463 £500
Median % change year-on-year +7.03% -7.50% -4.76%
75th Percentile £575 £538 £588
90th Percentile £668 £605 £675
UK excluding London median daily rate £475 £450 £450
% change year-on-year +5.56% - -10.00%
Number of hourly rates quoted 15 20 6
10th Percentile £23.08 £34.03 £30.97
25th Percentile £31.04 £35.25 £31.89
Median hourly rate £55.00 £36.50 £33.07
Median % change year-on-year +50.68% +10.37% -54.39%
75th Percentile £73.13 £58.50 £34.26
90th Percentile £88.50 £70.16 £44.13
UK excluding London median hourly rate £55.00 £47.50 £32.21
% change year-on-year +15.79% +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 46,356 30,019 32,670
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 84.50% 90.58% 85.90%
Number of daily rates quoted 27,940 18,640 19,751
10th Percentile £325 £300 £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 £632 £625 £638
90th Percentile £736 £725 £750
UK excluding London median daily rate £500 £475 £500
% change year-on-year +5.26% -5.00% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 3,287 1,869 1,348
10th Percentile £13.69 £14.32 £15.00
25th Percentile £17.17 £17.30 £20.12
Median hourly rate £38.72 £25.15 £42.27
Median % change year-on-year +53.96% -40.49% -0.55%
75th Percentile £65.60 £43.75 £65.00
90th Percentile £78.75 £65.00 £74.44
UK excluding London median hourly rate £39.02 £22.32 £43.00
% change year-on-year +74.86% -48.10% +1.18%

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 3 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 3 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 3 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 -73 424 £475 +4.52% 991
UK excluding London -61 224 £475 +5.56% 654
London -70 221 £509 +9.95% 536
Work from Home -78 113 £488 +8.33% 698
North of England -51 79 £450 +12.50% 171
Midlands -34 48 £498 +17.06% 60
West Midlands -22 43 £485 +7.78% 29
Yorkshire -19 37 £500 +1.27% 51
South West -12 36 £475 +5.56% 66
Scotland -25 32 £531 +14.86% 115
North West -56 28 £375 - 89
South East -67 16 £610 +22.00% 108
North East -34 14 £450 -4.00% 35
East of England -18 13 £410 -10.87% 52
East Midlands -20 5 £573 +51.86% 31
Wales -13 2 - - 47
Northern Ireland +4 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 29 (5.91%) CMS
2 26 (5.30%) Confluence
3 9 (1.83%) WordPress
4 4 (0.81%) Kentico
5 3 (0.61%) ColdFusion
5 3 (0.61%) Headless CMS
5 3 (0.61%) Umbraco
6 1 (0.20%) Apache
6 1 (0.20%) Apache Spark
6 1 (0.20%) Camunda
6 1 (0.20%) Drupal
6 1 (0.20%) Mendix
Applications
1 20 (4.07%) Sketch
2 16 (3.26%) Adobe Creative Suite
3 10 (2.04%) Adobe After Effects
3 10 (2.04%) Adobe XD
4 9 (1.83%) Photoshop
5 8 (1.63%) Adobe Illustrator
6 6 (1.22%) Final Cut Pro
7 3 (0.61%) MS Visio
8 2 (0.41%) Chatbot
9 1 (0.20%) Adobe Captivate
9 1 (0.20%) InVision
9 1 (0.20%) Trello
9 1 (0.20%) UserZoom
Business Applications
1 5 (1.02%) Dynamics CRM
2 2 (0.41%) SAP S/4HANA
2 2 (0.41%) Shopify
3 1 (0.20%) Eloqua
3 1 (0.20%) Payment Gateway
3 1 (0.20%) SAP HR
Cloud Services
1 120 (24.44%) Figma
2 47 (9.57%) Azure
3 33 (6.72%) AWS
4 23 (4.68%) Azure DevOps
5 19 (3.87%) GitHub
5 19 (3.87%) Power Platform
6 16 (3.26%) SaaS
7 10 (2.04%) GitHub Actions
8 9 (1.83%) Firebase
8 9 (1.83%) GCP
8 9 (1.83%) Microsoft Copilot
9 7 (1.43%) Miro
9 7 (1.43%) Slack
10 6 (1.22%) Dynamics 365
10 6 (1.22%) Google Play
11 5 (1.02%) Copilot Studio
11 5 (1.02%) PowerApps
11 5 (1.02%) Serverless
12 4 (0.81%) AWS CloudFormation
12 4 (0.81%) Azure AI
Communications & Networking
1 1 (0.20%) Bluetooth
1 1 (0.20%) NFC
Database & Business Intelligence
1 11 (2.24%) Power BI
2 8 (1.63%) NoSQL
2 8 (1.63%) PostgreSQL
3 7 (1.43%) Elasticsearch
3 7 (1.43%) Metadata
4 6 (1.22%) Power Query
4 6 (1.22%) SQL Server
5 5 (1.02%) MongoDB
5 5 (1.02%) Redis
6 4 (0.81%) Data Warehouse
7 3 (0.61%) 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 (0.20%) Amazon RDS
9 1 (0.20%) Flink
9 1 (0.20%) Qlik Sense
9 1 (0.20%) SQLite
Development Applications
1 36 (7.33%) Git
2 32 (6.52%) JIRA
3 18 (3.67%) Jenkins
4 12 (2.44%) Cypress.io
5 10 (2.04%) Storybook
6 8 (1.63%) fastlane
7 7 (1.43%) Claude Code
8 6 (1.22%) GitLab
8 6 (1.22%) webpack
9 5 (1.02%) Android Studio
9 5 (1.02%) Gradle
9 5 (1.02%) REST Assured
10 4 (0.81%) Crashlytics
10 4 (0.81%) IBM UrbanCode
10 4 (0.81%) Jasmine
10 4 (0.81%) Vite
10 4 (0.81%) Xcode
11 3 (0.61%) Babel
11 3 (0.61%) JUnit
11 3 (0.61%) Karma Test Runner
General
1 148 (30.14%) Social Skills
2 89 (18.13%) Public Sector
3 82 (16.70%) Finance
4 32 (6.52%) Banking
4 32 (6.52%) Retail
5 22 (4.48%) Analytical Skills
6 20 (4.07%) Publishing
7 19 (3.87%) Inclusion and Diversity
8 17 (3.46%) Marketing
9 16 (3.26%) Automotive
10 14 (2.85%) Presentation Skills
11 13 (2.65%) Influencing Skills
12 12 (2.44%) Military
13 9 (1.83%) Legal
14 6 (1.22%) Investment Banking
15 4 (0.81%) Aerospace
15 4 (0.81%) Corporate Banking
15 4 (0.81%) Front Office
15 4 (0.81%) Law
15 4 (0.81%) Pharmaceutical
Job Titles
1 233 (47.45%) Designer
2 132 (26.88%) UX Designer
3 100 (20.37%) Senior
4 90 (18.33%) Developer
5 56 (11.41%) UI Designer
6 46 (9.37%) Senior Designer
7 42 (8.55%) Lead
8 41 (8.35%) UI/UX Designer
9 34 (6.92%) Content Designer
10 33 (6.72%) Front-End Developer (Client-Side Developer)
11 29 (5.91%) Senior UX Designer
12 25 (5.09%) Product Designer
13 19 (3.87%) User Experience Researcher
14 18 (3.67%) Senior Developer
14 18 (3.67%) User Researcher
15 16 (3.26%) React Developer
16 15 (3.05%) Service Designer
17 13 (2.65%) Business Analyst
17 13 (2.65%) Senior UI Designer
18 12 (2.44%) Analyst
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 75 (15.27%) React
2 72 (14.66%) CSS
3 67 (13.65%) HTML
4 26 (5.30%) RESTful
5 25 (5.09%) REST
6 24 (4.89%) AngularJS
6 24 (4.89%) HTML5
7 22 (4.48%) CSS3
8 14 (2.85%) Next.js
8 14 (2.85%) Redux
9 13 (2.65%) Jest
10 11 (2.24%) .NET
10 11 (2.24%) Android SDK
10 11 (2.24%) GraphQL
10 11 (2.24%) Semantic HTML
10 11 (2.24%) Spring
10 11 (2.24%) Spring Boot
11 10 (2.04%) Node.js
11 10 (2.04%) Vue
12 9 (1.83%) OAuth
Miscellaneous
1 70 (14.26%) Product Ownership
2 46 (9.37%) Mobile App
3 13 (2.65%) AI Agents
4 12 (2.44%) Cloud Native
4 12 (2.44%) Self-Motivation
5 10 (2.04%) Animation
6 9 (1.83%) NHS
7 8 (1.63%) Legacy Systems
7 8 (1.63%) Taxonomies
8 7 (1.43%) Data Protection Act
8 7 (1.43%) Onboarding
9 6 (1.22%) Graphic Design
9 6 (1.22%) Social Media
10 5 (1.02%) Distributed Systems
10 5 (1.02%) Enterprise Software
10 5 (1.02%) Greenfield Project
10 5 (1.02%) Management Information System
10 5 (1.02%) Team-Oriented Environment
10 5 (1.02%) Virtual Reality
11 4 (0.81%) Virtual Team
Operating Systems
1 16 (3.26%) Android
2 9 (1.83%) Apple iOS
3 3 (0.61%) Windows
4 1 (0.20%) Linux
4 1 (0.20%) Unix
Processes & Methodologies
1 491 (100.00%) User Experience
2 206 (41.96%) Agile
3 112 (22.81%) User Research
4 99 (20.16%) User-Centered Design (UCD)
5 96 (19.55%) Prototyping
6 91 (18.53%) AI
7 89 (18.13%) Wireframes
8 79 (16.09%) Service Design
9 74 (15.07%) Stakeholder Management
10 70 (14.26%) CI/CD
11 69 (14.05%) Usability Testing
12 59 (12.02%) Analytics
13 57 (11.61%) UX Research
14 56 (11.41%) Problem-Solving
15 55 (11.20%) Front End Development
15 55 (11.20%) Interaction Design
16 52 (10.59%) Workshop Facilitation
17 48 (9.78%) Journey Map
17 48 (9.78%) Scrum
18 47 (9.57%) Test Automation
Programming Languages
1 74 (15.07%) JavaScript
2 58 (11.81%) TypeScript
3 30 (6.11%) Java
4 22 (4.48%) SQL
5 13 (2.65%) Kotlin
6 12 (2.44%) Python
7 9 (1.83%) Data Analysis Expressions
8 6 (1.22%) C#
9 4 (0.81%) Swift
10 3 (0.61%) Apex Code
10 3 (0.61%) CFML
10 3 (0.61%) PHP
11 2 (0.41%) Bicep
11 2 (0.41%) Ruby
12 1 (0.20%) C
12 1 (0.20%) JSX
12 1 (0.20%) Korn
12 1 (0.20%) Shell Script
Qualifications
1 84 (17.11%) Security Cleared
2 54 (11.00%) SC Cleared
3 42 (8.55%) Degree
4 19 (3.87%) BPSS Clearance
5 13 (2.65%) DV Cleared
6 11 (2.24%) Computer Science Degree
7 5 (1.02%) Master's Degree
8 3 (0.61%) DBS Check
9 2 (0.41%) Azure Certification
9 2 (0.41%) 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
1 162 (32.99%) Accessibility
2 64 (13.03%) WCAG
3 24 (4.89%) QA
4 9 (1.83%) Data Quality
5 4 (0.81%) Actionable Recommendations
6 2 (0.41%) GDPR
6 2 (0.41%) ISO/IEC 42001
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 16 (3.26%) Docker
Systems Management
1 14 (2.85%) 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 38 (7.74%) Adobe
2 36 (7.33%) Microsoft
3 11 (2.24%) Salesforce
4 10 (2.04%) Dynatrace
4 10 (2.04%) ServiceNow
5 7 (1.43%) Google
6 5 (1.02%) Apple
6 5 (1.02%) Oracle
6 5 (1.02%) SAP
7 4 (0.81%) Anaplan
7 4 (0.81%) Foundry
7 4 (0.81%) ION Trading
7 4 (0.81%) OpenAI
8 2 (0.41%) AppDynamics
8 2 (0.41%) Databricks
8 2 (0.41%) IBM
8 2 (0.41%) Optimizely
8 2 (0.41%) OutSystems
8 2 (0.41%) Sitecore
8 2 (0.41%) Splunk