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

6 months to
4 Jun 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 246 197 219
Rank change year-on-year -49 +22 -49
Contract jobs citing UX Design 513 400 482
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 1.05% 1.39% 1.12%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 1.24% 1.52% 1.32%
Number of daily rates quoted 347 273 339
10th Percentile £363 £313 £352
25th Percentile £402 £400 £411
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £475 £475 £500
Median % change year-on-year - -5.00% -9.09%
75th Percentile £575 £550 £618
90th Percentile £655 £638 £675
UK excluding London median daily rate £475 £425 £425
% change year-on-year +11.76% - -10.53%
Number of hourly rates quoted 12 6 7
10th Percentile £20.58 £35.25 £29.65
25th Percentile £25.25 £37.81 £32.39
Median hourly rate £31.04 £48.25 £41.68
Median % change year-on-year -35.67% +15.78% -18.68%
75th Percentile £66.25 £85.49 £62.17
90th Percentile £94.75 £97.52 £90.65
UK excluding London median hourly rate £27.67 £70.35 £91.44
% change year-on-year -60.67% -23.07% +37.83%

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 41,432 26,234 36,612
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 84.66% 91.00% 85.42%
Number of daily rates quoted 25,858 16,712 23,486
10th Percentile £325 £300 £300
25th Percentile £413 £406 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £513 £513 £525
Median % change year-on-year - -2.38% -4.55%
75th Percentile £614 £625 £638
90th Percentile £725 £738 £750
UK excluding London median daily rate £500 £475 £500
% change year-on-year +5.26% -5.00% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 2,493 1,127 2,523
10th Percentile £14.64 £14.20 £12.75
25th Percentile £20.00 £17.87 £16.00
Median hourly rate £42.71 £27.64 £36.50
Median % change year-on-year +54.50% -24.27% +1.39%
75th Percentile £67.84 £56.25 £60.75
90th Percentile £81.24 £73.75 £72.50
UK excluding London median hourly rate £45.00 £25.15 £38.12
% change year-on-year +78.93% -34.02% +8.91%

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 4 June 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 4 June 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 4 June 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 -35 426 £475 - 294
London -35 230 £500 - 173
UK excluding London -22 217 £475 +11.76% 160
Work from Home -41 133 £475 +11.76% 285
North of England -30 76 £450 +12.50% 51
North West +2 50 £401 +0.25% 32
Midlands -33 41 £500 +40.45% 16
West Midlands -33 33 £463 +14.91% 13
South West -15 32 £475 +11.76% 9
Scotland -6 31 £525 +14.13% 5
South East -62 25 £538 +19.44% 46
Yorkshire -52 18 £513 +33.90% 10
East of England -30 9 £410 -14.58% 13
East Midlands -23 8 £575 +62.89% 3
North East -24 8 £450 +5.88% 10
Wales -12 4 £450 +2.86% 3
Northern Ireland - 1 - - 17

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 22 (4.29%) CMS
2 19 (3.70%) Confluence
3 5 (0.97%) SharePoint
4 4 (0.78%) Kentico
4 4 (0.78%) Umbraco
4 4 (0.78%) WordPress
5 3 (0.58%) Headless CMS
6 1 (0.19%) Adobe Experience Manager
6 1 (0.19%) Apache
6 1 (0.19%) Appian
6 1 (0.19%) Camunda
6 1 (0.19%) Drupal
6 1 (0.19%) Mendix
6 1 (0.19%) Moodle
6 1 (0.19%) nginx
6 1 (0.19%) Strapi
6 1 (0.19%) Traefik
Applications
1 35 (6.82%) Sketch
2 22 (4.29%) Adobe XD
3 11 (2.14%) Photoshop
4 10 (1.95%) Chatbot
5 9 (1.75%) Adobe After Effects
5 9 (1.75%) Adobe Illustrator
6 7 (1.36%) Adobe Creative Suite
6 7 (1.36%) InVision
7 4 (0.78%) Final Cut Pro
8 3 (0.58%) Microsoft Excel
8 3 (0.58%) MS Visio
9 2 (0.39%) Microsoft Office
9 2 (0.39%) UserZoom
10 1 (0.19%) Adobe Captivate
10 1 (0.19%) Microsoft PowerPoint
10 1 (0.19%) OmniGraffle
10 1 (0.19%) Trello
Business Applications
1 5 (0.97%) Shopify
2 2 (0.39%) Dynamics CRM
3 1 (0.19%) Eloqua
3 1 (0.19%) SAP S/4HANA
3 1 (0.19%) Sprinklr
Cloud Services
1 152 (29.63%) Figma
2 59 (11.50%) Azure
3 30 (5.85%) AWS
4 22 (4.29%) Azure DevOps
5 19 (3.70%) Power Platform
6 15 (2.92%) GitHub
6 15 (2.92%) GitHub Actions
7 14 (2.73%) SaaS
8 9 (1.75%) GCP
9 8 (1.56%) Firebase
9 8 (1.56%) Serverless
10 7 (1.36%) AWS Lambda
11 6 (1.17%) Amazon S3
11 6 (1.17%) AWS CloudFormation
11 6 (1.17%) Microsoft Copilot
12 5 (0.97%) Google Play
12 5 (0.97%) Miro
12 5 (0.97%) Slack
13 4 (0.78%) Microsoft 365
13 4 (0.78%) PowerApps
Communications & Networking
1 1 (0.19%) HTTP
1 1 (0.19%) Internet
1 1 (0.19%) Intranet
1 1 (0.19%) Reverse Proxy
Database & Business Intelligence
1 9 (1.75%) Power BI
1 9 (1.75%) SQL Server
2 6 (1.17%) NoSQL
2 6 (1.17%) PostgreSQL
3 5 (0.97%) Metadata
3 5 (0.97%) Power Query
4 4 (0.78%) Elasticsearch
4 4 (0.78%) MongoDB
5 3 (0.58%) DynamoDB
5 3 (0.58%) Pinecone
5 3 (0.58%) Relational Database
5 3 (0.58%) SQL Server Integration Services
6 2 (0.39%) CockroachDB
6 2 (0.39%) Star Schema
7 1 (0.19%) Amazon RDS
7 1 (0.19%) Azure SQL Database
7 1 (0.19%) Data Warehouse
7 1 (0.19%) Flink
7 1 (0.19%) Redis
7 1 (0.19%) SQLite
Development Applications
1 34 (6.63%) Git
2 30 (5.85%) JIRA
3 19 (3.70%) Cypress.io
4 16 (3.12%) GitLab
5 14 (2.73%) Jenkins
6 8 (1.56%) Axure RP
6 8 (1.56%) CircleCI
7 7 (1.36%) fastlane
7 7 (1.36%) JUnit
8 6 (1.17%) Gradle
8 6 (1.17%) Mocha
9 5 (0.97%) Android Studio
9 5 (0.97%) Crashlytics
10 4 (0.78%) Visual Studio
11 3 (0.58%) Vite
11 3 (0.58%) webpack
11 3 (0.58%) Xcode
12 2 (0.39%) REST Assured
12 2 (0.39%) Selenium
12 2 (0.39%) Storybook
General
1 151 (29.43%) Social Skills
2 97 (18.91%) Public Sector
3 82 (15.98%) Finance
4 56 (10.92%) Banking
5 31 (6.04%) Analytical Skills
6 22 (4.29%) Presentation Skills
6 22 (4.29%) Retail
7 17 (3.31%) Inclusion and Diversity
8 16 (3.12%) Marketing
9 13 (2.53%) Automotive
10 11 (2.14%) Publishing
11 9 (1.75%) Pharmaceutical
12 8 (1.56%) Influencing Skills
13 7 (1.36%) Legal
14 6 (1.17%) Local Government
15 5 (0.97%) Documentation Skills
15 5 (0.97%) Games
16 4 (0.78%) Corporate Banking
16 4 (0.78%) Law
16 4 (0.78%) Retail Banking
Job Titles
1 255 (49.71%) Designer
2 139 (27.10%) UX Designer
3 87 (16.96%) Senior
4 75 (14.62%) Developer
5 59 (11.50%) UI Designer
6 44 (8.58%) Senior Designer
7 43 (8.38%) Content Designer
7 43 (8.38%) UI/UX Designer
8 39 (7.60%) Lead
9 36 (7.02%) Product Designer
10 29 (5.65%) Senior UX Designer
11 26 (5.07%) Service Designer
12 21 (4.09%) User Researcher
13 19 (3.70%) Analyst
13 19 (3.70%) User Experience Researcher
14 17 (3.31%) Front-End Developer (Client-Side Developer)
15 16 (3.12%) Architect
16 15 (2.92%) Business Analyst
16 15 (2.92%) Full-Stack Developer
17 13 (2.53%) Consultant
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 76 (14.81%) React
2 64 (12.48%) CSS
3 63 (12.28%) HTML
4 42 (8.19%) RESTful
5 32 (6.24%) AngularJS
6 29 (5.65%) HTML5
7 28 (5.46%) CSS3
8 26 (5.07%) .NET
9 23 (4.48%) REST
10 16 (3.12%) Jest
10 16 (3.12%) Node.js
10 16 (3.12%) Spring
11 15 (2.92%) Spring Boot
12 14 (2.73%) Redux
13 13 (2.53%) OAuth
14 11 (2.14%) Vue
15 10 (1.95%) Playwright
16 9 (1.75%) JSON
17 8 (1.56%) ASP.NET
17 8 (1.56%) GraphQL
Miscellaneous
1 63 (12.28%) Product Ownership
2 38 (7.41%) Mobile App
3 13 (2.53%) Animation
3 13 (2.53%) Onboarding
4 11 (2.14%) Cloud Native
4 11 (2.14%) Self-Motivation
5 9 (1.75%) Graphic Design
6 8 (1.56%) Data Protection Act
7 7 (1.36%) Greenfield Project
7 7 (1.36%) NHS
7 7 (1.36%) Taxonomies
7 7 (1.36%) Virtual Team
8 6 (1.17%) Enterprise Software
9 5 (0.97%) Digital Wallet
9 5 (0.97%) Virtual Reality
10 4 (0.78%) Data Structures
10 4 (0.78%) Distributed Systems
10 4 (0.78%) Educational Technology
10 4 (0.78%) Legacy Systems
10 4 (0.78%) Team-Oriented Environment
Operating Systems
1 11 (2.14%) Android
2 7 (1.36%) Apple iOS
3 1 (0.19%) Linux
Processes & Methodologies
1 513 (100.00%) User Experience
2 217 (42.30%) Agile
3 137 (26.71%) User Research
4 103 (20.08%) Prototyping
5 97 (18.91%) Wireframes
6 94 (18.32%) User-Centered Design (UCD)
7 85 (16.57%) Service Design
8 82 (15.98%) Usability Testing
9 76 (14.81%) AI
10 73 (14.23%) UX Research
11 69 (13.45%) CI/CD
12 64 (12.48%) Problem-Solving
13 61 (11.89%) Interaction Design
14 54 (10.53%) Analytics
15 53 (10.33%) Stakeholder Management
16 52 (10.14%) DevOps
16 52 (10.14%) Workshop Facilitation
17 46 (8.97%) Journey Map
18 44 (8.58%) Customer Experience
19 43 (8.38%) Scrum
Programming Languages
1 67 (13.06%) JavaScript
2 52 (10.14%) TypeScript
3 32 (6.24%) Java
4 27 (5.26%) Python
5 19 (3.70%) C#
6 15 (2.92%) SQL
7 9 (1.75%) Kotlin
8 6 (1.17%) Data Analysis Expressions
9 5 (0.97%) C++
9 5 (0.97%) Korn
9 5 (0.97%) Lua
10 3 (0.58%) Swift
11 2 (0.39%) Apex Code
11 2 (0.39%) Bicep
11 2 (0.39%) PowerShell
12 1 (0.19%) C
12 1 (0.19%) Objective-C
12 1 (0.19%) Shell Script
12 1 (0.19%) SPARQL
12 1 (0.19%) VBScript
Qualifications
1 72 (14.04%) Security Cleared
2 52 (10.14%) SC Cleared
3 51 (9.94%) Degree
4 13 (2.53%) Master's Degree
5 10 (1.95%) BPSS Clearance
5 10 (1.95%) DV Cleared
6 5 (0.97%) Computer Science Degree
7 3 (0.58%) CCA
7 3 (0.58%) DBS Check
8 2 (0.39%) Microsoft Certification
9 1 (0.19%) Azure Certification
9 1 (0.19%) Citrix Certification
9 1 (0.19%) Microsoft Certified Professional
9 1 (0.19%) PMI Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 175 (34.11%) Accessibility
2 70 (13.65%) WCAG
3 28 (5.46%) QA
4 7 (1.36%) Data Quality
5 5 (0.97%) Actionable Recommendations
6 3 (0.58%) ISO/IEC 42001
7 2 (0.39%) GDPR
8 1 (0.19%) California Consumer Privacy Act
8 1 (0.19%) EU AI Act
8 1 (0.19%) GMP
8 1 (0.19%) GxP
8 1 (0.19%) PCI DSS
8 1 (0.19%) PMO
8 1 (0.19%) WAI
8 1 (0.19%) WAI-ARIA
System Software
1 20 (3.90%) Docker
2 1 (0.19%) Virtual Desktop
Systems Management
1 17 (3.31%) Kubernetes
2 15 (2.92%) Terraform
3 2 (0.39%) Single Sign-On
4 1 (0.19%) Ansible
4 1 (0.19%) Grafana
4 1 (0.19%) HP ALM
4 1 (0.19%) Podman
Vendors
1 45 (8.77%) Adobe
2 24 (4.68%) Microsoft
3 19 (3.70%) Salesforce
4 9 (1.75%) Google
5 7 (1.36%) Dynatrace
5 7 (1.36%) SAP
6 6 (1.17%) MuleSoft
6 6 (1.17%) ServiceNow
7 4 (0.78%) Sitecore
8 3 (0.58%) Apple
8 3 (0.58%) Foundry
8 3 (0.58%) Progress
8 3 (0.58%) Xamarin
9 2 (0.39%) Blue Prism
9 2 (0.39%) Databricks
9 2 (0.39%) OpenAI
9 2 (0.39%) Oracle
10 1 (0.19%) Automation Anywhere
10 1 (0.19%) Qualtrics
10 1 (0.19%) UiPath