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

6 months to
26 Mar 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 255 206 210
Rank change year-on-year -49 +4 -22
Contract jobs citing UX Design 459 365 493
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 1.04% 1.26% 1.11%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 1.22% 1.39% 1.29%
Number of daily rates quoted 341 257 338
10th Percentile £360 £313 £334
25th Percentile £400 £390 £400
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £480 £490 £500
Median % change year-on-year -2.04% -2.00% -9.09%
75th Percentile £575 £575 £612
90th Percentile £638 £675 £675
UK excluding London median daily rate £461 £425 £425
% change year-on-year +8.53% - -10.53%
Number of hourly rates quoted 7 3 10
10th Percentile £24.80 £53.97 £31.71
25th Percentile £26.51 £65.54 £41.51
Median hourly rate £44.50 £91.69 £61.25
Median % change year-on-year -51.47% +49.70% +36.11%
75th Percentile £58.58 £97.52 £80.63
90th Percentile £67.00 £98.14 £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 37,733 26,318 38,291
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 85.81% 90.56% 86.48%
Number of daily rates quoted 23,910 17,091 24,889
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 £738 £746
UK excluding London median daily rate £483 £488 £500
% change year-on-year -0.89% -2.50% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 2,221 949 2,344
10th Percentile £14.96 £15.19 £12.85
25th Percentile £18.50 £20.45 £16.00
Median hourly rate £34.50 £32.00 £32.50
Median % change year-on-year +7.81% -1.54% -9.72%
75th Percentile £65.00 £63.75 £58.69
90th Percentile £76.00 £76.25 £71.89
UK excluding London median hourly rate £30.00 £31.52 £31.80
% change year-on-year -4.82% -0.88% -12.28%

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 26 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 26 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 26 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 -38 375 £476 -4.80% 206
London -19 226 £498 -3.86% 92
UK excluding London -44 165 £461 +8.53% 138
Work from Home -59 122 £460 +2.22% 114
North of England -27 66 £402 +0.50% 57
North West -14 43 £400 - 31
Scotland +12 29 £563 +30.43% 11
South East -46 25 £513 +2.50% 35
Midlands -55 21 £425 +19.38% 9
West Midlands -50 18 £425 +4.94% 6
South West -23 16 £450 +20.00% 11
Yorkshire -46 15 £513 +27.97% 11
North East -6 8 £364 -6.06% 16
Wales -7 5 £450 - 8
East of England -29 5 £443 -7.33% 5
East Midlands -38 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 (3.27%) Confluence
2 12 (2.61%) CMS
3 7 (1.53%) SharePoint
4 3 (0.65%) Headless CMS
4 3 (0.65%) Jupyter
5 2 (0.44%) Appian
5 2 (0.44%) Sitecore CMS
5 2 (0.44%) Umbraco
6 1 (0.22%) Adobe Experience Manager
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 (8.50%) Sketch
2 32 (6.97%) Adobe XD
3 16 (3.49%) 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 (0.44%) Microsoft Office
7 2 (0.44%) OmniGraffle
7 2 (0.44%) 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 (0.44%) 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
2 1 (0.22%) Sprinklr
Cloud Services
1 141 (30.72%) Figma
2 59 (12.85%) Azure
3 44 (9.59%) AWS
4 22 (4.79%) SaaS
5 18 (3.92%) Azure DevOps
6 15 (3.27%) Power Platform
7 14 (3.05%) GCP
8 13 (2.83%) Miro
9 11 (2.40%) GitHub
9 11 (2.40%) GitHub Actions
10 6 (1.31%) Serverless
11 5 (1.09%) AWS Lambda
11 5 (1.09%) Microsoft 365
12 4 (0.87%) Amazon S3
12 4 (0.87%) AWS CloudFormation
12 4 (0.87%) IaaS
12 4 (0.87%) PaaS
12 4 (0.87%) PowerApps
13 3 (0.65%) ChatGPT
13 3 (0.65%) Contentful
Communications & Networking
1 6 (1.31%) Internet
2 2 (0.44%) HTTP
2 2 (0.44%) Intranet
Database & Business Intelligence
1 12 (2.61%) NoSQL
2 7 (1.53%) Power BI
2 7 (1.53%) SQL Server
3 6 (1.31%) MongoDB
4 5 (1.09%) PostgreSQL
4 5 (1.09%) Relational Database
5 3 (0.65%) Mixpanel
5 3 (0.65%) Pinecone
6 2 (0.44%) CockroachDB
6 2 (0.44%) DynamoDB
6 2 (0.44%) Elasticsearch
6 2 (0.44%) 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 (8.06%) Git
2 29 (6.32%) JIRA
3 21 (4.58%) Axure RP
3 21 (4.58%) Cypress.io
4 18 (3.92%) GitLab
5 11 (2.40%) Jenkins
5 11 (2.40%) JUnit
6 9 (1.96%) CircleCI
7 6 (1.31%) Mocha
8 5 (1.09%) Visual Studio
9 4 (0.87%) Selenium
9 4 (0.87%) Vite
10 3 (0.65%) Balsamiq
10 3 (0.65%) Gradle
10 3 (0.65%) Lerna
10 3 (0.65%) Visual Website Optimizer
11 2 (0.44%) Android Studio
11 2 (0.44%) Maven
11 2 (0.44%) TestRail
11 2 (0.44%) webpack
General
1 138 (30.07%) Social Skills
2 90 (19.61%) Finance
3 87 (18.95%) Public Sector
4 61 (13.29%) Banking
5 34 (7.41%) Analytical Skills
6 22 (4.79%) Marketing
7 18 (3.92%) Presentation Skills
8 11 (2.40%) Retail
9 8 (1.74%) Legal
9 8 (1.74%) Pharmaceutical
10 7 (1.53%) Financial Institution
10 7 (1.53%) Inclusion and Diversity
11 6 (1.31%) Games
12 5 (1.09%) Documentation Skills
12 5 (1.09%) Local Government
13 4 (0.87%) Advertising
13 4 (0.87%) Influencing Skills
14 3 (0.65%) Retail Banking
14 3 (0.65%) Telecoms
15 2 (0.44%) Corporate Banking
Job Titles
1 205 (44.66%) Designer
2 131 (28.54%) UX Designer
3 85 (18.52%) Senior
4 70 (15.25%) Developer
5 39 (8.50%) Senior Designer
6 36 (7.84%) UI Designer
7 34 (7.41%) Service Designer
8 32 (6.97%) Product Designer
8 32 (6.97%) Senior UX Designer
9 29 (6.32%) UI/UX Designer
10 25 (5.45%) User Researcher
11 20 (4.36%) Content Designer
12 19 (4.14%) Lead
13 16 (3.49%) Senior Developer
14 15 (3.27%) Analyst
15 14 (3.05%) Front-End Developer (Client-Side Developer)
16 13 (2.83%) Architect
16 13 (2.83%) Full-Stack Developer
16 13 (2.83%) React Developer
17 12 (2.61%) Business Analyst
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 73 (15.90%) React
2 65 (14.16%) HTML
3 64 (13.94%) CSS
4 46 (10.02%) RESTful
5 31 (6.75%) HTML5
6 28 (6.10%) CSS3
7 27 (5.88%) AngularJS
8 26 (5.66%) Node.js
9 24 (5.23%) REST
10 23 (5.01%) .NET
11 22 (4.79%) Jest
12 20 (4.36%) Spring
13 19 (4.14%) Spring Boot
14 15 (3.27%) Playwright
15 14 (3.05%) Next.js
15 14 (3.05%) Redux
16 9 (1.96%) GraphQL
16 9 (1.96%) JSON
16 9 (1.96%) OAuth
17 7 (1.53%) ASP.NET
Miscellaneous
1 52 (11.33%) Product Ownership
2 38 (8.28%) Mobile App
3 15 (3.27%) Onboarding
4 12 (2.61%) Virtual Team
5 8 (1.74%) Cloud Native
6 7 (1.53%) Data Protection Act
6 7 (1.53%) Enterprise Software
7 6 (1.31%) Animation
7 6 (1.31%) Distributed Systems
7 6 (1.31%) Graphic Design
7 6 (1.31%) NHS
7 6 (1.31%) 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 8 (1.74%) Android
2 5 (1.09%) Apple iOS
3 3 (0.65%) Windows
4 2 (0.44%) Linux
4 2 (0.44%) Windows 10
5 1 (0.22%) Windows Server
Processes & Methodologies
1 459 (100.00%) User Experience
2 205 (44.66%) Agile
3 136 (29.63%) User Research
4 97 (21.13%) Prototyping
5 96 (20.92%) User-Centered Design (UCD)
6 86 (18.74%) Service Design
6 86 (18.74%) Usability Testing
7 84 (18.30%) Wireframes
8 73 (15.90%) Problem-Solving
9 71 (15.47%) UX Research
10 68 (14.81%) CI/CD
11 61 (13.29%) AI
11 61 (13.29%) Interaction Design
12 55 (11.98%) Analytics
13 52 (11.33%) DevOps
13 52 (11.33%) Front End Development
14 49 (10.68%) Journey Map
15 45 (9.80%) Workshop Facilitation
16 44 (9.59%) Continuous Improvement
17 42 (9.15%) Stakeholder Management
Programming Languages
1 72 (15.69%) JavaScript
2 47 (10.24%) TypeScript
3 33 (7.19%) Java
4 28 (6.10%) Python
5 20 (4.36%) C#
6 17 (3.70%) SQL
7 5 (1.09%) C++
7 5 (1.09%) Kotlin
7 5 (1.09%) Lua
8 4 (0.87%) Korn
9 2 (0.44%) 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 (10.46%) Degree
2 47 (10.24%) Security Cleared
3 28 (6.10%) SC Cleared
4 13 (2.83%) BPSS Clearance
5 10 (2.18%) Master's Degree
6 5 (1.09%) Computer Science Degree
7 3 (0.65%) DV Cleared
7 3 (0.65%) Microsoft Certification
8 2 (0.44%) Azure Certification
8 2 (0.44%) PMI Certification
9 1 (0.22%) CCA
9 1 (0.22%) Citrix Certification
9 1 (0.22%) Microsoft Certified Professional
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 153 (33.33%) Accessibility
2 58 (12.64%) WCAG
3 37 (8.06%) QA
4 10 (2.18%) 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 30 (6.54%) Docker
2 1 (0.22%) Active Directory
2 1 (0.22%) Virtual Desktop
Systems Management
1 23 (5.01%) Kubernetes
2 16 (3.49%) Terraform
3 5 (1.09%) Grafana
4 4 (0.87%) Ansible
5 2 (0.44%) HP ALM
5 2 (0.44%) Single Sign-On
6 1 (0.22%) Consul
6 1 (0.22%) Podman
6 1 (0.22%) Systems Management Server (SMS)
Vendors
1 40 (8.71%) Adobe
2 25 (5.45%) Microsoft
3 16 (3.49%) Salesforce
4 13 (2.83%) Google
5 10 (2.18%) ServiceNow
6 6 (1.31%) 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 (0.44%) Blue Prism
10 2 (0.44%) Databricks
10 2 (0.44%) Dynatrace
10 2 (0.44%) HP
10 2 (0.44%) OpenAI
11 1 (0.22%) Salesforce Marketing Cloud