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 21 August 2026, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
21 Aug 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 275 206 238
Rank change year-on-year -69 +32 -40
Contract jobs citing UX Design 492 439 388
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 0.92% 1.34% 1.00%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 1.08% 1.48% 1.17%
Number of daily rates quoted 282 281 264
10th Percentile £363 £313 £335
25th Percentile £406 £375 £411
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £485 £463 £500
Median % change year-on-year +4.86% -7.50% -9.09%
75th Percentile £588 £538 £600
90th Percentile £668 £600 £675
UK excluding London median daily rate £460 £425 £425
% change year-on-year +8.24% - -15.00%
Number of hourly rates quoted 13 20 5
10th Percentile £21.45 £34.03 £28.11
25th Percentile £27.24 £35.25 £30.44
Median hourly rate £42.31 £36.50 £33.07
Median % change year-on-year +15.92% +10.37% -46.01%
75th Percentile £72.50 £60.10 -
90th Percentile £92.75 £70.34 £38.33
UK excluding London median hourly rate £28.09 £48.25 £30.88
% change year-on-year -41.78% +56.28% -55.97%

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 45,356 29,667 33,233
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 84.68% 90.51% 85.39%
Number of daily rates quoted 27,834 18,495 21,131
10th Percentile £325 £300 £310
25th Percentile £425 £402 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £500 £525
Median % change year-on-year +5.00% -4.76% -3.58%
75th Percentile £625 £625 £638
90th Percentile £730 £725 £750
UK excluding London median daily rate £500 £475 £500
% change year-on-year +5.26% -5.00% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 2,855 1,741 1,763
10th Percentile £14.22 £14.20 £14.00
25th Percentile £18.31 £17.33 £18.00
Median hourly rate £42.00 £25.15 £40.50
Median % change year-on-year +67.00% -37.90% -1.22%
75th Percentile £67.94 £49.50 £65.00
90th Percentile £80.00 £68.00 £75.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £43.96 £24.00 £41.50
% change year-on-year +83.17% -42.17% +12.54%

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 21 August 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 21 August 2026.

Hourly rate histogram for UX Design in the UK

UX Design
Top 16 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 21 August 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 -59 423 £475 +3.38% 183
London -53 223 £520 +10.05% 96
UK excluding London -46 217 £460 +8.24% 118
Work from Home -83 121 £465 +9.41% 99
North of England -59 69 £450 +19.21% 32
South West -18 41 £475 +0.64% 25
Midlands -36 41 £513 +35.22% 20
West Midlands -36 35 £475 -6.77% 14
Scotland -16 33 £538 +16.22% 5
Yorkshire -27 32 £500 - 14
North West -50 23 £375 - 9
South East -72 21 £580 +36.47% 33
North East -25 14 £450 -4.00% 9
East of England -10 13 £410 -10.87% 2
East Midlands -20 6 £575 +63.82% 6
Wales -15 2 - - 1

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 28 (5.69%) CMS
2 25 (5.08%) Confluence
3 8 (1.63%) WordPress
4 4 (0.81%) Headless CMS
4 4 (0.81%) Kentico
5 3 (0.61%) Umbraco
6 2 (0.41%) Camunda
6 2 (0.41%) Mendix
7 1 (0.20%) Apache
7 1 (0.20%) Apache Spark
7 1 (0.20%) ColdFusion
7 1 (0.20%) Drupal
7 1 (0.20%) Moodle
7 1 (0.20%) nginx
7 1 (0.20%) Strapi
7 1 (0.20%) Traefik
Applications
1 22 (4.47%) Sketch
2 15 (3.05%) Adobe Creative Suite
3 11 (2.24%) Adobe XD
4 10 (2.03%) Adobe After Effects
5 9 (1.83%) Photoshop
6 8 (1.63%) Adobe Illustrator
6 8 (1.63%) Chatbot
7 6 (1.22%) Final Cut Pro
8 4 (0.81%) MS Visio
9 3 (0.61%) Microsoft Excel
10 2 (0.41%) InVision
10 2 (0.41%) Microsoft Office
11 1 (0.20%) Adobe Captivate
11 1 (0.20%) Trello
11 1 (0.20%) UserZoom
Business Applications
1 4 (0.81%) Dynamics CRM
1 4 (0.81%) Shopify
2 2 (0.41%) SAP S/4HANA
3 1 (0.20%) Eloqua
3 1 (0.20%) Payment Gateway
3 1 (0.20%) SAP HR
3 1 (0.20%) Sprinklr
Cloud Services
1 127 (25.81%) Figma
2 56 (11.38%) Azure
3 31 (6.30%) AWS
4 26 (5.28%) Azure DevOps
5 21 (4.27%) Power Platform
6 17 (3.46%) GitHub
7 13 (2.64%) SaaS
8 12 (2.44%) GCP
9 11 (2.24%) Firebase
9 11 (2.24%) GitHub Actions
10 10 (2.03%) Microsoft Copilot
11 7 (1.42%) Slack
12 6 (1.22%) Google Play
12 6 (1.22%) Serverless
13 5 (1.02%) Azure AI
13 5 (1.02%) Copilot Studio
13 5 (1.02%) Miro
13 5 (1.02%) PowerApps
14 4 (0.81%) BigCommerce
14 4 (0.81%) Microsoft 365
Communications & Networking
1 1 (0.20%) Bluetooth
1 1 (0.20%) NFC
1 1 (0.20%) Reverse Proxy
Database & Business Intelligence
1 14 (2.85%) Power BI
2 10 (2.03%) PostgreSQL
3 8 (1.63%) Elasticsearch
4 7 (1.42%) SQL Server
5 6 (1.22%) Metadata
5 6 (1.22%) Power Query
6 5 (1.02%) MongoDB
6 5 (1.02%) NoSQL
6 5 (1.02%) Redis
7 4 (0.81%) Data Warehouse
8 3 (0.61%) Azure SQL Database
8 3 (0.61%) Relational Database
8 3 (0.61%) Star Schema
9 2 (0.41%) DynamoDB
9 2 (0.41%) MySQL
9 2 (0.41%) SQL Server Integration Services
9 2 (0.41%) SQLite
10 1 (0.20%) Amazon QuickSight
10 1 (0.20%) Amazon RDS
10 1 (0.20%) Db2
Development Applications
1 35 (7.11%) JIRA
2 30 (6.10%) Git
3 16 (3.25%) Jenkins
4 14 (2.85%) Cypress.io
5 10 (2.03%) fastlane
6 6 (1.22%) Android Studio
6 6 (1.22%) Gradle
7 5 (1.02%) Crashlytics
7 5 (1.02%) GitLab
7 5 (1.02%) Storybook
7 5 (1.02%) Vite
7 5 (1.02%) Xcode
8 4 (0.81%) Claude Code
8 4 (0.81%) webpack
9 3 (0.61%) Jasmine
9 3 (0.61%) JUnit
10 2 (0.41%) Babel
10 2 (0.41%) Karma Test Runner
10 2 (0.41%) REST Assured
11 1 (0.20%) IBM UrbanCode
General
1 142 (28.86%) Social Skills
2 93 (18.90%) Public Sector
3 91 (18.50%) Finance
4 46 (9.35%) Banking
5 29 (5.89%) Retail
6 26 (5.28%) Analytical Skills
7 23 (4.67%) Inclusion and Diversity
8 19 (3.86%) Publishing
9 15 (3.05%) Automotive
9 15 (3.05%) Presentation Skills
10 12 (2.44%) Marketing
10 12 (2.44%) Military
11 10 (2.03%) Influencing Skills
12 9 (1.83%) Legal
13 6 (1.22%) Pharmaceutical
14 5 (1.02%) Advertising
14 5 (1.02%) Investment Banking
14 5 (1.02%) Law
15 4 (0.81%) Aerospace
15 4 (0.81%) Electronics
Job Titles
1 245 (49.80%) Designer
2 129 (26.22%) UX Designer
3 94 (19.11%) Senior
4 78 (15.85%) Developer
5 59 (11.99%) UI Designer
6 44 (8.94%) Senior Designer
7 43 (8.74%) Content Designer
7 43 (8.74%) Lead
8 42 (8.54%) UI/UX Designer
9 27 (5.49%) Senior UX Designer
10 24 (4.88%) Front-End Developer (Client-Side Developer)
11 23 (4.67%) Product Designer
12 18 (3.66%) Analyst
12 18 (3.66%) User Researcher
13 17 (3.46%) Senior Developer
13 17 (3.46%) User Experience Researcher
14 16 (3.25%) Business Analyst
14 16 (3.25%) Service Designer
15 15 (3.05%) Consultant
16 12 (2.44%) Senior UI Designer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 66 (13.41%) React
2 63 (12.80%) CSS
3 58 (11.79%) HTML
4 28 (5.69%) RESTful
5 27 (5.49%) AngularJS
6 24 (4.88%) HTML5
7 23 (4.67%) CSS3
8 21 (4.27%) REST
9 14 (2.85%) .NET
9 14 (2.85%) Next.js
10 13 (2.64%) Jest
11 12 (2.44%) Android SDK
11 12 (2.44%) Redux
12 10 (2.03%) Vue
13 9 (1.83%) GraphQL
14 8 (1.63%) Spring
14 8 (1.63%) Terraform
14 8 (1.63%) VML
15 7 (1.42%) Node.js
15 7 (1.42%) OAuth
Miscellaneous
1 64 (13.01%) Product Ownership
2 48 (9.76%) Mobile App
3 14 (2.85%) Cloud Native
3 14 (2.85%) Self-Motivation
4 12 (2.44%) AI Agents
4 12 (2.44%) Animation
5 11 (2.24%) Onboarding
6 8 (1.63%) Data Protection Act
6 8 (1.63%) Graphic Design
7 7 (1.42%) Greenfield Project
7 7 (1.42%) NHS
7 7 (1.42%) Taxonomies
7 7 (1.42%) Virtual Reality
8 6 (1.22%) Algorithms
8 6 (1.22%) Enterprise Software
8 6 (1.22%) Legacy Systems
8 6 (1.22%) Social Media
8 6 (1.22%) Team-Oriented Environment
9 5 (1.02%) IoT
9 5 (1.02%) Management Information System
Operating Systems
1 15 (3.05%) Android
2 8 (1.63%) Apple iOS
3 2 (0.41%) Windows
4 1 (0.20%) Linux
4 1 (0.20%) Unix
Processes & Methodologies
1 492 (100.00%) User Experience
2 204 (41.46%) Agile
3 108 (21.95%) User Research
4 94 (19.11%) AI
5 92 (18.70%) Prototyping
6 91 (18.50%) User-Centered Design (UCD)
7 89 (18.09%) Wireframes
8 72 (14.63%) Service Design
9 70 (14.23%) CI/CD
10 64 (13.01%) Analytics
10 64 (13.01%) Stakeholder Management
11 63 (12.80%) Problem-Solving
12 62 (12.60%) Usability Testing
13 54 (10.98%) Interaction Design
13 54 (10.98%) UX Research
14 52 (10.57%) Workshop Facilitation
15 51 (10.37%) Customer Experience
16 50 (10.16%) Scrum
17 47 (9.55%) DevOps
18 46 (9.35%) Journey Map
Programming Languages
1 61 (12.40%) JavaScript
2 53 (10.77%) TypeScript
3 29 (5.89%) Java
4 25 (5.08%) SQL
5 23 (4.67%) Python
6 13 (2.64%) Kotlin
7 10 (2.03%) Data Analysis Expressions
8 9 (1.83%) C#
9 5 (1.02%) Swift
10 3 (0.61%) Apex Code
10 3 (0.61%) PHP
11 2 (0.41%) Bicep
11 2 (0.41%) C++
11 2 (0.41%) Lua
11 2 (0.41%) Ruby
12 1 (0.20%) C
12 1 (0.20%) CFML
12 1 (0.20%) JSX
12 1 (0.20%) Korn
12 1 (0.20%) PowerShell
Qualifications
1 84 (17.07%) Security Cleared
2 57 (11.59%) SC Cleared
3 46 (9.35%) Degree
4 13 (2.64%) DV Cleared
5 12 (2.44%) BPSS Clearance
5 12 (2.44%) Computer Science Degree
6 7 (1.42%) Master's Degree
7 3 (0.61%) DBS Check
8 2 (0.41%) Azure Certification
8 2 (0.41%) CCA
9 1 (0.20%) CTC Cleared
9 1 (0.20%) IIBA
9 1 (0.20%) ITIL Foundation Certificate
9 1 (0.20%) MBA
9 1 (0.20%) Microsoft Certified Professional
9 1 (0.20%) PhD
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 158 (32.11%) Accessibility
2 62 (12.60%) WCAG
3 26 (5.28%) QA
4 11 (2.24%) Data Quality
5 3 (0.61%) ISO/IEC 42001
6 2 (0.41%) Actionable Recommendations
6 2 (0.41%) GDPR
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 (3.25%) Docker
Systems Management
1 15 (3.05%) Kubernetes
2 2 (0.41%) Grafana
3 1 (0.20%) Istio
3 1 (0.20%) Kibana
3 1 (0.20%) Single Sign-On
Vendors
1 40 (8.13%) Adobe
2 35 (7.11%) Microsoft
3 13 (2.64%) Salesforce
4 11 (2.24%) Dynatrace
5 10 (2.03%) ServiceNow
6 9 (1.83%) Google
7 8 (1.63%) SAP
8 6 (1.22%) Apple
8 6 (1.22%) Oracle
9 5 (1.02%) Foundry
10 4 (0.81%) Anaplan
10 4 (0.81%) Databricks
10 4 (0.81%) Sitecore
11 3 (0.61%) OpenAI
11 3 (0.61%) Progress
12 2 (0.41%) Blue Prism
12 2 (0.41%) IBM
12 2 (0.41%) Optimizely
13 1 (0.20%) Automation Anywhere
13 1 (0.20%) Qualtrics