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

6 months to
24 Mar 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 241 210 214
Rank change year-on-year -31 +4 -28
Contract jobs citing UX Design 460 366 491
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 1.05% 1.26% 1.11%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 1.22% 1.39% 1.28%
Number of daily rates quoted 345 256 338
10th Percentile £361 £313 £334
25th Percentile £400 £388 £400
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £478 £485 £500
Median % change year-on-year -1.55% -3.00% -9.09%
75th Percentile £575 £575 £611
90th Percentile £638 £675 £675
UK excluding London median daily rate £460 £425 £438
% change year-on-year +8.24% -2.86% -7.89%
Number of hourly rates quoted 7 4 10
10th Percentile £24.80 £35.93 £31.71
25th Percentile £26.51 £42.56 £41.51
Median hourly rate £44.50 £69.60 £61.25
Median % change year-on-year -36.06% +13.62% +36.11%
75th Percentile £58.58 £97.00 £80.63
90th Percentile £67.00 £97.93 £84.54
UK excluding London median hourly rate £46.55 £91.69 £78.75
% change year-on-year -49.24% +16.43% +60.71%

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 37,633 26,370 38,295
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 85.88% 90.52% 86.50%
Number of daily rates quoted 23,862 17,096 24,871
10th Percentile £313 £308 £300
25th Percentile £413 £413 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £525 £525
Median % change year-on-year -4.76% - -4.55%
75th Percentile £613 £638 £638
90th Percentile £725 £743 £745
UK excluding London median daily rate £481 £488 £500
% change year-on-year -1.28% -2.50% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 2,214 936 2,338
10th Percentile £14.96 £15.20 £12.85
25th Percentile £18.50 £20.75 £16.00
Median hourly rate £32.50 £32.50 £32.50
Median % change year-on-year - - -9.47%
75th Percentile £65.00 £64.50 £57.75
90th Percentile £75.00 £77.35 £71.75
UK excluding London median hourly rate £29.61 £31.76 £31.25
% change year-on-year -6.77% +1.63% -13.19%

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 24 March 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 24 March 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 24 March 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 -43 375 £475 -5.00% 201
London -20 224 £495 -4.81% 89
UK excluding London -41 166 £460 +8.24% 141
Work from Home -53 122 £470 +4.44% 111
North of England -32 66 £402 +0.50% 56
North West -11 43 £400 - 30
Scotland +6 29 £563 +30.43% 12
South East -44 25 £513 +2.50% 37
Midlands -59 21 £425 +19.38% 9
West Midlands -48 18 £425 +4.94% 6
South West -25 17 £450 +20.00% 12
Yorkshire -53 15 £513 +27.97% 10
North East -11 8 £364 -6.06% 17
Wales -4 5 £450 - 8
East of England -28 5 £443 -7.33% 5
East Midlands -37 3 £545 +53.09% 3
Northern Ireland -5 1 - - 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 15 (3.26%) Confluence
2 12 (2.61%) CMS
3 7 (1.52%) SharePoint
4 3 (0.65%) Headless CMS
4 3 (0.65%) Jupyter
5 2 (0.43%) Adobe Experience Manager
5 2 (0.43%) Appian
5 2 (0.43%) Sitecore CMS
5 2 (0.43%) Umbraco
6 1 (0.22%) Camunda
6 1 (0.22%) Cloud Foundry
6 1 (0.22%) Drupal
6 1 (0.22%) Mendix
6 1 (0.22%) Moodle
6 1 (0.22%) Strapi
Applications
1 39 (8.48%) Sketch
2 32 (6.96%) Adobe XD
3 15 (3.26%) Chatbot
4 13 (2.83%) InVision
5 4 (0.87%) Adobe After Effects
5 4 (0.87%) Photoshop
6 3 (0.65%) Adobe Illustrator
6 3 (0.65%) Microsoft Excel
6 3 (0.65%) MS Visio
7 2 (0.43%) Microsoft Office
7 2 (0.43%) OmniGraffle
7 2 (0.43%) Trello
8 1 (0.22%) Adobe Creative Suite
8 1 (0.22%) Blender
8 1 (0.22%) CINEMA 4D
8 1 (0.22%) InDesign
8 1 (0.22%) Microsoft PowerPoint
8 1 (0.22%) Spreadsheet
8 1 (0.22%) UserZoom
8 1 (0.22%) UXPin
Business Applications
1 2 (0.43%) Shopify
2 1 (0.22%) Dynamics CRM
2 1 (0.22%) SAP CO
2 1 (0.22%) SAP FI
2 1 (0.22%) SAP FI/CO
Cloud Services
1 142 (30.87%) Figma
2 57 (12.39%) Azure
3 45 (9.78%) AWS
4 23 (5.00%) SaaS
5 18 (3.91%) Azure DevOps
6 14 (3.04%) GCP
6 14 (3.04%) Power Platform
7 13 (2.83%) Miro
8 11 (2.39%) GitHub
8 11 (2.39%) GitHub Actions
9 7 (1.52%) Serverless
10 5 (1.09%) AWS Lambda
10 5 (1.09%) Microsoft 365
11 4 (0.87%) Amazon S3
11 4 (0.87%) AWS CloudFormation
11 4 (0.87%) IaaS
11 4 (0.87%) PaaS
11 4 (0.87%) PowerApps
12 3 (0.65%) Cloud Computing
12 3 (0.65%) Google Analytics
Communications & Networking
1 6 (1.30%) Internet
2 2 (0.43%) HTTP
2 2 (0.43%) Intranet
Database & Business Intelligence
1 12 (2.61%) NoSQL
2 7 (1.52%) Power BI
2 7 (1.52%) SQL Server
3 6 (1.30%) MongoDB
4 5 (1.09%) PostgreSQL
4 5 (1.09%) Relational Database
5 3 (0.65%) DynamoDB
5 3 (0.65%) Mixpanel
5 3 (0.65%) Pinecone
6 2 (0.43%) CockroachDB
6 2 (0.43%) Elasticsearch
6 2 (0.43%) MySQL
7 1 (0.22%) Amazon RDS
7 1 (0.22%) Azure SQL Database
7 1 (0.22%) Data Warehouse
7 1 (0.22%) Metadata
7 1 (0.22%) Oracle Reports
7 1 (0.22%) SAP BW
7 1 (0.22%) SAP HANA
7 1 (0.22%) SQL Server Integration Services
Development Applications
1 37 (8.04%) Git
2 29 (6.30%) JIRA
3 21 (4.57%) Axure RP
4 20 (4.35%) Cypress.io
5 18 (3.91%) GitLab
6 11 (2.39%) Jenkins
6 11 (2.39%) JUnit
7 9 (1.96%) CircleCI
8 6 (1.30%) Mocha
9 5 (1.09%) Visual Studio
10 4 (0.87%) Selenium
11 3 (0.65%) Balsamiq
11 3 (0.65%) Gradle
11 3 (0.65%) Lerna
11 3 (0.65%) Visual Website Optimizer
11 3 (0.65%) Vite
12 2 (0.43%) Crashlytics
12 2 (0.43%) fastlane
12 2 (0.43%) TestRail
12 2 (0.43%) webpack
General
1 138 (30.00%) Social Skills
2 89 (19.35%) Finance
3 87 (18.91%) Public Sector
4 60 (13.04%) Banking
5 32 (6.96%) Analytical Skills
6 22 (4.78%) Marketing
7 18 (3.91%) Presentation Skills
8 11 (2.39%) Retail
9 9 (1.96%) Pharmaceutical
10 8 (1.74%) Financial Institution
10 8 (1.74%) Legal
11 7 (1.52%) Inclusion and Diversity
12 6 (1.30%) Games
13 5 (1.09%) Documentation Skills
13 5 (1.09%) Local Government
14 4 (0.87%) Advertising
14 4 (0.87%) Influencing Skills
15 3 (0.65%) Retail Banking
15 3 (0.65%) Telecoms
16 2 (0.43%) Corporate Banking
Job Titles
1 205 (44.57%) Designer
2 131 (28.48%) UX Designer
3 87 (18.91%) Senior
4 70 (15.22%) Developer
5 39 (8.48%) Senior Designer
6 36 (7.83%) UI Designer
7 34 (7.39%) Service Designer
8 32 (6.96%) Product Designer
8 32 (6.96%) Senior UX Designer
9 29 (6.30%) UI/UX Designer
10 26 (5.65%) User Researcher
11 20 (4.35%) Content Designer
12 18 (3.91%) Lead
13 16 (3.48%) Senior Developer
14 15 (3.26%) Analyst
14 15 (3.26%) Front-End Developer (Client-Side Developer)
15 13 (2.83%) Full-Stack Developer
16 12 (2.61%) Architect
16 12 (2.61%) Business Analyst
16 12 (2.61%) React Developer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 74 (16.09%) React
2 64 (13.91%) HTML
3 63 (13.70%) CSS
4 45 (9.78%) RESTful
5 30 (6.52%) HTML5
6 28 (6.09%) AngularJS
6 28 (6.09%) CSS3
7 26 (5.65%) Node.js
8 24 (5.22%) REST
9 22 (4.78%) .NET
10 21 (4.57%) Jest
11 19 (4.13%) Spring
11 19 (4.13%) Spring Boot
12 15 (3.26%) Playwright
13 13 (2.83%) Next.js
13 13 (2.83%) Redux
14 10 (2.17%) GraphQL
15 9 (1.96%) JSON
15 9 (1.96%) OAuth
16 7 (1.52%) ASP.NET
Miscellaneous
1 52 (11.30%) Product Ownership
2 39 (8.48%) Mobile App
3 16 (3.48%) Onboarding
4 12 (2.61%) Virtual Team
5 8 (1.74%) Cloud Native
6 7 (1.52%) Data Protection Act
6 7 (1.52%) Distributed Systems
6 7 (1.52%) Enterprise Software
7 6 (1.30%) Animation
7 6 (1.30%) Graphic Design
7 6 (1.30%) NHS
7 6 (1.30%) W3C
8 5 (1.09%) Algorithms
8 5 (1.09%) Augmented Reality
8 5 (1.09%) Data Structures
8 5 (1.09%) Digital Wallet
8 5 (1.09%) Greenfield Project
8 5 (1.09%) Low-Code
8 5 (1.09%) RIA
9 4 (0.87%) Team-Oriented Environment
Operating Systems
1 9 (1.96%) Android
2 6 (1.30%) Apple iOS
3 3 (0.65%) Windows
4 2 (0.43%) Linux
4 2 (0.43%) Windows 10
5 1 (0.22%) Windows Server
Processes & Methodologies
1 460 (100.00%) User Experience
2 206 (44.78%) Agile
3 138 (30.00%) User Research
4 97 (21.09%) Prototyping
4 97 (21.09%) User-Centered Design (UCD)
5 87 (18.91%) Usability Testing
6 86 (18.70%) Service Design
7 84 (18.26%) Wireframes
8 73 (15.87%) UX Research
9 72 (15.65%) Problem-Solving
10 67 (14.57%) CI/CD
11 61 (13.26%) Interaction Design
12 60 (13.04%) AI
13 58 (12.61%) Analytics
14 53 (11.52%) Front End Development
15 52 (11.30%) DevOps
16 49 (10.65%) Journey Map
17 46 (10.00%) Workshop Facilitation
18 42 (9.13%) Continuous Improvement
18 42 (9.13%) Stakeholder Management
Programming Languages
1 72 (15.65%) JavaScript
2 46 (10.00%) TypeScript
3 33 (7.17%) Java
4 27 (5.87%) Python
5 20 (4.35%) C#
6 16 (3.48%) SQL
7 5 (1.09%) C++
7 5 (1.09%) Kotlin
7 5 (1.09%) Lua
8 4 (0.87%) Korn
9 2 (0.43%) PowerShell
10 1 (0.22%) Apex Code
10 1 (0.22%) BeanShell
10 1 (0.22%) Gremlin
10 1 (0.22%) Objective-C
10 1 (0.22%) PHP
10 1 (0.22%) Ruby
10 1 (0.22%) Scala
10 1 (0.22%) SPARQL
10 1 (0.22%) VBScript
Qualifications
1 48 (10.43%) Degree
2 46 (10.00%) Security Cleared
3 27 (5.87%) SC Cleared
4 13 (2.83%) BPSS Clearance
5 10 (2.17%) Master's Degree
6 5 (1.09%) Computer Science Degree
7 3 (0.65%) DV Cleared
7 3 (0.65%) Microsoft Certification
8 2 (0.43%) Azure Certification
8 2 (0.43%) PMI Certification
9 1 (0.22%) CCA
9 1 (0.22%) Citrix Certification
9 1 (0.22%) Microsoft Certified Professional
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 152 (33.04%) Accessibility
2 57 (12.39%) WCAG
3 37 (8.04%) QA
4 10 (2.17%) Actionable Recommendations
5 5 (1.09%) GDPR
6 3 (0.65%) California Consumer Privacy Act
7 1 (0.22%) EU AI Act
7 1 (0.22%) PCI DSS
System Software
1 29 (6.30%) Docker
2 1 (0.22%) Active Directory
2 1 (0.22%) Virtual Desktop
Systems Management
1 23 (5.00%) Kubernetes
2 16 (3.48%) Terraform
3 5 (1.09%) Grafana
4 4 (0.87%) Ansible
5 2 (0.43%) HP ALM
5 2 (0.43%) Single Sign-On
6 1 (0.22%) Consul
6 1 (0.22%) Podman
6 1 (0.22%) Systems Management Server (SMS)
Vendors
1 41 (8.91%) Adobe
2 25 (5.43%) Microsoft
3 15 (3.26%) Salesforce
4 12 (2.61%) Google
5 10 (2.17%) ServiceNow
6 6 (1.30%) MuleSoft
7 5 (1.09%) SAP
8 4 (0.87%) Hotjar
8 4 (0.87%) Optimizely
8 4 (0.87%) Oracle
9 3 (0.65%) Amplitude
9 3 (0.65%) Dataiku
9 3 (0.65%) Sitecore
9 3 (0.65%) Xamarin
10 2 (0.43%) Blue Prism
10 2 (0.43%) Databricks
10 2 (0.43%) Dynatrace
10 2 (0.43%) HP
11 1 (0.22%) Marketo
11 1 (0.22%) OpenAI