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

6 months to
22 Apr 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 249 212 209
Rank change year-on-year -37 -3 -34
Contract jobs citing UX Design 461 387 494
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 0.99% 1.31% 1.14%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 1.17% 1.45% 1.32%
Number of daily rates quoted 333 276 345
10th Percentile £363 £313 £350
25th Percentile £400 £398 £402
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £475 £475 £500
Median % change year-on-year - -5.00% -9.09%
75th Percentile £568 £550 £638
90th Percentile £638 £650 £675
UK excluding London median daily rate £461 £425 £450
% change year-on-year +8.53% -5.56% -5.26%
Number of hourly rates quoted 8 3 8
10th Percentile £25.10 £53.97 £30.17
25th Percentile £26.77 £65.54 £31.71
Median hourly rate £36.30 £91.69 £41.68
Median % change year-on-year -60.42% +120.01% -13.63%
75th Percentile £55.37 £97.52 £75.94
90th Percentile £66.50 £98.14 £88.61
UK excluding London median hourly rate £28.09 £91.69 £91.44
% change year-on-year -69.36% +0.28% +53.45%

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 39,324 26,741 37,503
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 84.82% 90.76% 86.35%
Number of daily rates quoted 24,807 17,298 24,232
10th Percentile £318 £306 £300
25th Percentile £413 £413 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £520 £525
Median % change year-on-year -3.89% -0.90% -4.55%
75th Percentile £613 £630 £638
90th Percentile £725 £738 £750
UK excluding London median daily rate £485 £480 £500
% change year-on-year +1.09% -4.00% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 2,359 1,048 2,416
10th Percentile £14.96 £14.84 £12.75
25th Percentile £19.88 £18.51 £16.00
Median hourly rate £39.00 £30.00 £35.00
Median % change year-on-year +30.00% -14.29% -6.67%
75th Percentile £65.60 £62.50 £58.69
90th Percentile £78.31 £75.00 £71.90
UK excluding London median hourly rate £40.54 £28.75 £35.00
% change year-on-year +41.01% -17.86% -6.67%

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 22 April 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 22 April 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 22 April 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 -51 380 £475 - 204
London -23 223 £493 -1.50% 91
UK excluding London -36 169 £461 +8.53% 137
Work from Home -52 119 £433 +1.82% 107
North of England -32 61 £400 - 39
North West -13 43 £400 - 25
Midlands -47 28 £500 +40.45% 27
South West -26 25 £475 +26.67% 12
South East -54 24 £481 +13.24% 35
Scotland -7 23 £575 +35.29% 7
West Midlands -40 22 £425 +4.94% 22
Yorkshire -54 10 £531 +6.25% 8
North East -13 8 £364 -6.06% 6
East Midlands -34 6 £600 +68.54% 5
East of England -32 5 £425 -10.99% 8
Wales - 5 £450 - 4
Northern Ireland 0 1 - - 7

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 14 (3.04%) Confluence
2 12 (2.60%) CMS
3 5 (1.08%) SharePoint
4 3 (0.65%) Headless CMS
5 2 (0.43%) Appian
5 2 (0.43%) Sitecore CMS
5 2 (0.43%) Umbraco
6 1 (0.22%) Adobe Experience Manager
6 1 (0.22%) Camunda
6 1 (0.22%) Cloud Foundry
6 1 (0.22%) Mendix
6 1 (0.22%) Moodle
6 1 (0.22%) nginx
6 1 (0.22%) Strapi
6 1 (0.22%) Traefik
Applications
1 39 (8.46%) Sketch
2 32 (6.94%) Adobe XD
3 12 (2.60%) Chatbot
3 12 (2.60%) InVision
4 6 (1.30%) Adobe After Effects
5 5 (1.08%) Photoshop
6 4 (0.87%) Adobe Illustrator
7 3 (0.65%) Microsoft Excel
7 3 (0.65%) MS Visio
7 3 (0.65%) Trello
8 2 (0.43%) Microsoft Office
8 2 (0.43%) UserZoom
9 1 (0.22%) Adobe Creative Suite
9 1 (0.22%) Blender
9 1 (0.22%) Camtasia
9 1 (0.22%) CINEMA 4D
9 1 (0.22%) InDesign
9 1 (0.22%) Microsoft PowerPoint
9 1 (0.22%) OmniGraffle
9 1 (0.22%) Spreadsheet
Business Applications
1 5 (1.08%) Shopify
2 2 (0.43%) Dynamics CRM
3 1 (0.22%) SAP S/4HANA
3 1 (0.22%) Sprinklr
Cloud Services
1 151 (32.75%) Figma
2 49 (10.63%) Azure
3 34 (7.38%) AWS
4 17 (3.69%) Azure DevOps
5 14 (3.04%) Power Platform
5 14 (3.04%) SaaS
6 13 (2.82%) Miro
7 10 (2.17%) GitHub
7 10 (2.17%) GitHub Actions
8 7 (1.52%) GCP
9 6 (1.30%) Serverless
10 5 (1.08%) AWS Lambda
11 4 (0.87%) Amazon S3
11 4 (0.87%) AWS CloudFormation
11 4 (0.87%) BigCommerce
12 3 (0.65%) Amazon Bedrock
12 3 (0.65%) Anthropic Claude
12 3 (0.65%) Contentful
12 3 (0.65%) Google Analytics
12 3 (0.65%) PaaS
Communications & Networking
1 2 (0.43%) HTTP
2 1 (0.22%) Internet
2 1 (0.22%) Intranet
2 1 (0.22%) Reverse Proxy
Database & Business Intelligence
1 8 (1.74%) NoSQL
2 6 (1.30%) Power BI
2 6 (1.30%) SQL Server
3 5 (1.08%) MongoDB
3 5 (1.08%) PostgreSQL
4 3 (0.65%) Elasticsearch
4 3 (0.65%) Pinecone
5 2 (0.43%) CockroachDB
5 2 (0.43%) DynamoDB
5 2 (0.43%) Power Query
5 2 (0.43%) Relational Database
6 1 (0.22%) Amazon RDS
6 1 (0.22%) Azure SQL Database
6 1 (0.22%) Data Warehouse
6 1 (0.22%) Metadata
6 1 (0.22%) MySQL
6 1 (0.22%) SAP BW
6 1 (0.22%) SAP HANA
6 1 (0.22%) SQL Server Integration Services
6 1 (0.22%) SQLite
Development Applications
1 28 (6.07%) Git
1 28 (6.07%) JIRA
2 18 (3.90%) Axure RP
2 18 (3.90%) Cypress.io
3 14 (3.04%) GitLab
4 10 (2.17%) JUnit
5 9 (1.95%) CircleCI
5 9 (1.95%) Jenkins
6 6 (1.30%) Mocha
7 5 (1.08%) Visual Studio
8 4 (0.87%) Selenium
8 4 (0.87%) Vite
9 3 (0.65%) Gradle
10 2 (0.43%) Android Studio
10 2 (0.43%) Balsamiq
10 2 (0.43%) Crashlytics
10 2 (0.43%) fastlane
10 2 (0.43%) TestRail
10 2 (0.43%) webpack
11 1 (0.22%) REST Assured
General
1 143 (31.02%) Social Skills
2 90 (19.52%) Public Sector
3 83 (18.00%) Finance
4 61 (13.23%) Banking
5 32 (6.94%) Analytical Skills
6 18 (3.90%) Presentation Skills
7 17 (3.69%) Retail
8 16 (3.47%) Marketing
9 10 (2.17%) Pharmaceutical
10 9 (1.95%) Inclusion and Diversity
11 8 (1.74%) Legal
12 6 (1.30%) Documentation Skills
12 6 (1.30%) Games
12 6 (1.30%) Influencing Skills
13 5 (1.08%) Automotive
13 5 (1.08%) Local Government
13 5 (1.08%) Publishing
14 4 (0.87%) Advertising
14 4 (0.87%) Retail Banking
15 3 (0.65%) Corporate Banking
Job Titles
1 228 (49.46%) Designer
2 135 (29.28%) UX Designer
3 74 (16.05%) Senior
4 61 (13.23%) Developer
5 43 (9.33%) UI Designer
6 40 (8.68%) Senior Designer
7 36 (7.81%) UI/UX Designer
8 34 (7.38%) Service Designer
9 33 (7.16%) Content Designer
10 32 (6.94%) Product Designer
10 32 (6.94%) Senior UX Designer
11 27 (5.86%) User Researcher
12 21 (4.56%) Lead
13 19 (4.12%) Analyst
14 14 (3.04%) Architect
14 14 (3.04%) Business Analyst
14 14 (3.04%) Full-Stack Developer
15 13 (2.82%) React Developer
16 10 (2.17%) Consultant
16 10 (2.17%) User Experience Researcher
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 64 (13.88%) React
2 57 (12.36%) CSS
2 57 (12.36%) HTML
3 39 (8.46%) RESTful
4 27 (5.86%) HTML5
5 26 (5.64%) AngularJS
6 25 (5.42%) CSS3
7 22 (4.77%) .NET
8 18 (3.90%) REST
8 18 (3.90%) Spring
9 17 (3.69%) Node.js
9 17 (3.69%) Spring Boot
10 16 (3.47%) Jest
11 14 (3.04%) Redux
12 11 (2.39%) Next.js
13 10 (2.17%) Playwright
14 9 (1.95%) GraphQL
14 9 (1.95%) JSON
15 8 (1.74%) OAuth
16 7 (1.52%) Unity (Game Engine)
Miscellaneous
1 49 (10.63%) Product Ownership
2 35 (7.59%) Mobile App
3 12 (2.60%) Onboarding
4 9 (1.95%) Cloud Native
5 8 (1.74%) Animation
5 8 (1.74%) Enterprise Software
6 7 (1.52%) Data Protection Act
7 6 (1.30%) Distributed Systems
7 6 (1.30%) Graphic Design
7 6 (1.30%) NHS
7 6 (1.30%) Self-Motivation
7 6 (1.30%) Virtual Reality
7 6 (1.30%) Virtual Team
8 5 (1.08%) Augmented Reality
8 5 (1.08%) Data Structures
8 5 (1.08%) Digital Wallet
8 5 (1.08%) Greenfield Project
9 4 (0.87%) Team-Oriented Environment
10 3 (0.65%) Legacy Systems
10 3 (0.65%) Low-Code
Operating Systems
1 8 (1.74%) Android
2 5 (1.08%) Apple iOS
3 1 (0.22%) Windows
3 1 (0.22%) Windows 10
Processes & Methodologies
1 461 (100.00%) User Experience
2 205 (44.47%) Agile
3 140 (30.37%) User Research
4 97 (21.04%) Prototyping
5 93 (20.17%) User-Centered Design (UCD)
6 90 (19.52%) Service Design
7 86 (18.66%) Wireframes
8 82 (17.79%) Usability Testing
9 76 (16.49%) UX Research
10 67 (14.53%) Problem-Solving
11 65 (14.10%) Interaction Design
12 63 (13.67%) AI
13 61 (13.23%) CI/CD
14 49 (10.63%) Workshop Facilitation
15 48 (10.41%) Analytics
15 48 (10.41%) Journey Map
16 47 (10.20%) Stakeholder Management
17 46 (9.98%) DevOps
18 45 (9.76%) Front End Development
19 44 (9.54%) Continuous Improvement
Programming Languages
1 65 (14.10%) JavaScript
2 40 (8.68%) TypeScript
3 28 (6.07%) Java
4 24 (5.21%) Python
5 19 (4.12%) C#
6 13 (2.82%) SQL
7 5 (1.08%) C++
7 5 (1.08%) Kotlin
7 5 (1.08%) Lua
8 4 (0.87%) Korn
9 3 (0.65%) Data Analysis Expressions
10 2 (0.43%) Apex Code
10 2 (0.43%) PowerShell
11 1 (0.22%) Gremlin
11 1 (0.22%) Objective-C
11 1 (0.22%) Scala
11 1 (0.22%) SPARQL
11 1 (0.22%) Swift
11 1 (0.22%) VBScript
Qualifications
1 60 (13.02%) Security Cleared
2 45 (9.76%) Degree
3 41 (8.89%) SC Cleared
4 13 (2.82%) BPSS Clearance
5 10 (2.17%) Master's Degree
6 5 (1.08%) Computer Science Degree
7 3 (0.65%) DBS Check
7 3 (0.65%) DV Cleared
7 3 (0.65%) Microsoft Certification
8 2 (0.43%) Azure Certification
8 2 (0.43%) CCA
8 2 (0.43%) PMI Certification
9 1 (0.22%) Citrix Certification
9 1 (0.22%) Microsoft Certified Professional
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 153 (33.19%) Accessibility
2 55 (11.93%) WCAG
3 33 (7.16%) QA
4 11 (2.39%) Actionable Recommendations
5 4 (0.87%) GDPR
6 3 (0.65%) California Consumer Privacy Act
6 3 (0.65%) Data Quality
7 1 (0.22%) EU AI Act
7 1 (0.22%) GMP
7 1 (0.22%) GxP
7 1 (0.22%) ISO/IEC 42001
7 1 (0.22%) PCI DSS
System Software
1 20 (4.34%) Docker
2 1 (0.22%) Virtual Desktop
Systems Management
1 15 (3.25%) Kubernetes
2 14 (3.04%) Terraform
3 3 (0.65%) Ansible
4 2 (0.43%) Grafana
4 2 (0.43%) HP ALM
4 2 (0.43%) Single Sign-On
5 1 (0.22%) Podman
5 1 (0.22%) Systems Management Server (SMS)
Vendors
1 44 (9.54%) Adobe
2 21 (4.56%) Salesforce
3 17 (3.69%) Microsoft
4 9 (1.95%) SAP
5 8 (1.74%) Google
6 7 (1.52%) ServiceNow
7 6 (1.30%) MuleSoft
7 6 (1.30%) Sitecore
8 3 (0.65%) Oracle
8 3 (0.65%) Xamarin
9 2 (0.43%) Blue Prism
9 2 (0.43%) Databricks
9 2 (0.43%) Dynatrace
9 2 (0.43%) HP
9 2 (0.43%) OpenAI
10 1 (0.22%) Automation Anywhere
10 1 (0.22%) OneTrust
10 1 (0.22%) Qualtrics
10 1 (0.22%) Salesforce Marketing Cloud
10 1 (0.22%) UiPath