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

6 months to
9 Mar 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 252 216 222
Rank change year-on-year -36 +6 -34
Contract jobs citing UX Design 454 364 488
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 1.08% 1.22% 1.09%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 1.25% 1.36% 1.26%
Number of daily rates quoted 340 244 333
10th Percentile £355 £313 £325
25th Percentile £400 £388 £400
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £477 £495 £500
Median % change year-on-year -3.69% -1.00% -9.09%
75th Percentile £569 £578 £600
90th Percentile £638 £675 £675
UK excluding London median daily rate £463 £425 £463
% change year-on-year +8.82% -8.11% -5.13%
Number of hourly rates quoted 7 3 13
10th Percentile £25.42 £34.45 £33.67
25th Percentile £35.64 £38.88 £41.51
Median hourly rate £51.44 £47.50 £72.50
Median % change year-on-year +8.29% -34.48% +61.11%
75th Percentile £64.38 £72.62 £81.25
90th Percentile £67.00 £86.94 £82.50
UK excluding London median hourly rate £65.00 - £77.50
% change year-on-year - - +58.16%

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 36,399 26,862 38,734
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 86.19% 90.27% 86.61%
Number of daily rates quoted 23,113 17,118 25,178
10th Percentile £313 £306 £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 £612 £638 £638
90th Percentile £725 £743 £738
UK excluding London median daily rate £481 £491 £500
% change year-on-year -2.04% -1.80% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 2,154 913 2,346
10th Percentile £14.64 £15.52 £13.00
25th Percentile £18.50 £21.00 £16.06
Median hourly rate £29.00 £32.50 £32.50
Median % change year-on-year -10.77% - -7.14%
75th Percentile £63.75 £64.52 £57.50
90th Percentile £74.26 £76.25 £71.50
UK excluding London median hourly rate £25.77 £31.76 £31.50
% change year-on-year -18.86% +0.83% -10.00%

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 9 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 9 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 9 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 -34 366 £475 -5.00% 224
London -4 227 £485 -7.62% 75
UK excluding London -47 159 £463 +8.82% 182
Work from Home -47 118 £475 +5.56% 161
North of England -27 64 £402 +0.50% 52
North West -7 42 £402 +3.08% 26
Scotland +11 31 £550 +25.71% 7
Midlands -52 21 £425 +19.38% 16
South East -45 20 £525 +2.44% 58
West Midlands -42 17 £425 +4.94% 11
Yorkshire -51 14 £513 +13.83% 12
South West -28 13 £450 +20.00% 22
North East -6 8 £364 -6.06% 14
Wales 0 7 £450 - 11
East Midlands -37 4 £595 +67.08% 5
East of England -37 4 £425 -19.05% 18
Northern Ireland -3 2 £625 +28.21% 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 16 (3.52%) Confluence
2 13 (2.86%) CMS
3 8 (1.76%) SharePoint
4 4 (0.88%) SugarCRM
5 3 (0.66%) Headless CMS
5 3 (0.66%) Jupyter
6 2 (0.44%) Adobe Experience Manager
6 2 (0.44%) Appian
6 2 (0.44%) Sitecore CMS
6 2 (0.44%) Umbraco
7 1 (0.22%) Cloud Foundry
7 1 (0.22%) Drupal
7 1 (0.22%) Mendix
Applications
1 43 (9.47%) Sketch
2 34 (7.49%) Adobe XD
3 13 (2.86%) InVision
4 12 (2.64%) Chatbot
5 5 (1.10%) Adobe Illustrator
5 5 (1.10%) Photoshop
6 4 (0.88%) Adobe After Effects
6 4 (0.88%) Adobe Creative Suite
7 2 (0.44%) InDesign
7 2 (0.44%) OmniGraffle
7 2 (0.44%) Trello
8 1 (0.22%) Blender
8 1 (0.22%) CINEMA 4D
8 1 (0.22%) Microsoft Excel
8 1 (0.22%) Microsoft Office
8 1 (0.22%) Microsoft PowerPoint
8 1 (0.22%) Microsoft Project
8 1 (0.22%) Spreadsheet
8 1 (0.22%) UserZoom
8 1 (0.22%) UXPin
Business Applications
1 1 (0.22%) Dynamics CRM
1 1 (0.22%) SAP CO
1 1 (0.22%) SAP FI
1 1 (0.22%) SAP FI/CO
1 1 (0.22%) Shopify
Cloud Services
1 143 (31.50%) Figma
2 56 (12.33%) Azure
3 48 (10.57%) AWS
4 26 (5.73%) SaaS
5 16 (3.52%) Miro
5 16 (3.52%) Power Platform
6 15 (3.30%) GCP
7 13 (2.86%) Azure DevOps
7 13 (2.86%) GitHub
8 11 (2.42%) GitHub Actions
9 6 (1.32%) Microsoft 365
9 6 (1.32%) Serverless
10 5 (1.10%) AWS Lambda
10 5 (1.10%) IaaS
10 5 (1.10%) PaaS
11 4 (0.88%) Amazon S3
11 4 (0.88%) AWS CloudFormation
11 4 (0.88%) PowerApps
12 3 (0.66%) CloudFront
12 3 (0.66%) Datadog
Communications & Networking
1 6 (1.32%) Internet
2 2 (0.44%) HTTP
2 2 (0.44%) Intranet
3 1 (0.22%) HTTPS
Database & Business Intelligence
1 12 (2.64%) NoSQL
2 9 (1.98%) Power BI
3 6 (1.32%) MongoDB
3 6 (1.32%) MySQL
3 6 (1.32%) SQL Server
4 5 (1.10%) Mixpanel
4 5 (1.10%) PostgreSQL
4 5 (1.10%) Relational Database
5 3 (0.66%) DynamoDB
5 3 (0.66%) Pinecone
6 2 (0.44%) CockroachDB
6 2 (0.44%) Elasticsearch
7 1 (0.22%) Amazon RDS
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 39 (8.59%) Git
2 31 (6.83%) JIRA
3 22 (4.85%) Axure RP
4 19 (4.19%) Cypress.io
5 18 (3.96%) GitLab
6 11 (2.42%) JUnit
7 10 (2.20%) Jenkins
8 9 (1.98%) CircleCI
9 6 (1.32%) Mocha
10 5 (1.10%) Visual Studio
10 5 (1.10%) Visual Website Optimizer
11 4 (0.88%) Android Studio
11 4 (0.88%) Gradle
11 4 (0.88%) Selenium
12 3 (0.66%) Balsamiq
12 3 (0.66%) Lerna
12 3 (0.66%) Xcode
13 2 (0.44%) Maven
13 2 (0.44%) SonarQube
13 2 (0.44%) Vite
General
1 146 (32.16%) Social Skills
2 89 (19.60%) Finance
3 82 (18.06%) Public Sector
4 54 (11.89%) Banking
5 35 (7.71%) Analytical Skills
6 29 (6.39%) Marketing
7 17 (3.74%) Presentation Skills
8 12 (2.64%) Retail
9 10 (2.20%) Financial Institution
9 10 (2.20%) Pharmaceutical
10 8 (1.76%) Legal
11 6 (1.32%) Games
11 6 (1.32%) Inclusion and Diversity
12 5 (1.10%) Local Government
13 4 (0.88%) Documentation Skills
13 4 (0.88%) Influencing Skills
14 3 (0.66%) Investment Banking
14 3 (0.66%) Retail Banking
14 3 (0.66%) Telecoms
14 3 (0.66%) Wearables
Job Titles
1 195 (42.95%) Designer
2 129 (28.41%) UX Designer
3 83 (18.28%) Senior
4 75 (16.52%) Developer
5 41 (9.03%) Senior Designer
6 33 (7.27%) Senior UX Designer
6 33 (7.27%) Service Designer
7 30 (6.61%) Product Designer
7 30 (6.61%) UI Designer
8 25 (5.51%) UI/UX Designer
8 25 (5.51%) User Researcher
9 17 (3.74%) Content Designer
9 17 (3.74%) Lead
10 15 (3.30%) Front-End Developer (Client-Side Developer)
11 14 (3.08%) Analyst
12 12 (2.64%) Full-Stack Developer
12 12 (2.64%) Product Manager
12 12 (2.64%) React Developer
12 12 (2.64%) Senior Developer
13 11 (2.42%) Business Analyst
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 71 (15.64%) HTML
2 69 (15.20%) CSS
2 69 (15.20%) React
3 47 (10.35%) RESTful
4 31 (6.83%) HTML5
5 27 (5.95%) CSS3
5 27 (5.95%) REST
6 26 (5.73%) Node.js
7 24 (5.29%) AngularJS
8 21 (4.63%) Jest
9 20 (4.41%) .NET
10 19 (4.19%) Spring
10 19 (4.19%) Spring Boot
11 15 (3.30%) Redux
12 14 (3.08%) Next.js
12 14 (3.08%) Playwright
13 10 (2.20%) GraphQL
13 10 (2.20%) JSON
13 10 (2.20%) OAuth
14 5 (1.10%) SAML
Miscellaneous
1 47 (10.35%) Product Ownership
2 40 (8.81%) Mobile App
3 18 (3.96%) Onboarding
4 12 (2.64%) Virtual Team
5 8 (1.76%) NHS
6 7 (1.54%) Cloud Native
6 7 (1.54%) Data Protection Act
6 7 (1.54%) Distributed Systems
7 6 (1.32%) Animation
7 6 (1.32%) W3C
8 5 (1.10%) Digital Wallet
8 5 (1.10%) Enterprise Software
8 5 (1.10%) Graphic Design
8 5 (1.10%) Low-Code
8 5 (1.10%) RIA
9 4 (0.88%) Analytical Mindset
9 4 (0.88%) Data Structures
9 4 (0.88%) Team-Oriented Environment
10 3 (0.66%) Greenfield Project
10 3 (0.66%) Legacy Systems
Operating Systems
1 11 (2.42%) Android
2 8 (1.76%) Apple iOS
3 5 (1.10%) Windows
4 3 (0.66%) Windows 10
5 2 (0.44%) Linux
5 2 (0.44%) Mac OS
6 1 (0.22%) Windows Server
Processes & Methodologies
1 454 (100.00%) User Experience
2 204 (44.93%) Agile
3 142 (31.28%) User Research
4 101 (22.25%) User-Centered Design (UCD)
5 92 (20.26%) Prototyping
6 91 (20.04%) Usability Testing
7 86 (18.94%) Wireframes
8 85 (18.72%) Service Design
9 73 (16.08%) Problem-Solving
10 69 (15.20%) CI/CD
10 69 (15.20%) UX Research
11 61 (13.44%) Analytics
12 58 (12.78%) Interaction Design
13 53 (11.67%) Front End Development
14 51 (11.23%) AI
15 50 (11.01%) DevOps
16 49 (10.79%) Journey Map
16 49 (10.79%) Workshop Facilitation
17 43 (9.47%) Continuous Improvement
18 42 (9.25%) Stakeholder Management
Programming Languages
1 75 (16.52%) JavaScript
2 47 (10.35%) TypeScript
3 28 (6.17%) Java
4 21 (4.63%) Python
5 18 (3.96%) SQL
6 17 (3.74%) C#
7 7 (1.54%) Kotlin
8 5 (1.10%) C++
8 5 (1.10%) Lua
8 5 (1.10%) PHP
9 4 (0.88%) Korn
10 3 (0.66%) Swift
11 2 (0.44%) Objective-C
11 2 (0.44%) PowerShell
12 1 (0.22%) Apex Code
12 1 (0.22%) Bash
12 1 (0.22%) BeanShell
12 1 (0.22%) Ruby
12 1 (0.22%) Scala
12 1 (0.22%) SPARQL
Qualifications
1 50 (11.01%) Degree
2 45 (9.91%) Security Cleared
3 26 (5.73%) SC Cleared
4 13 (2.86%) BPSS Clearance
5 10 (2.20%) Master's Degree
6 4 (0.88%) Computer Science Degree
7 3 (0.66%) DV Cleared
7 3 (0.66%) 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
1 145 (31.94%) Accessibility
2 52 (11.45%) WCAG
3 40 (8.81%) QA
4 10 (2.20%) Actionable Recommendations
5 7 (1.54%) GDPR
6 3 (0.66%) California Consumer Privacy Act
6 3 (0.66%) Data Quality
7 2 (0.44%) ISO/IEC 27001
8 1 (0.22%) EU AI Act
8 1 (0.22%) PCI DSS
System Software
1 30 (6.61%) Docker
2 2 (0.44%) Active Directory
3 1 (0.22%) Virtual Desktop
3 1 (0.22%) VMware Infrastructure
Systems Management
1 21 (4.63%) Kubernetes
2 16 (3.52%) Terraform
3 5 (1.10%) Grafana
4 4 (0.88%) Ansible
5 2 (0.44%) HP ALM
5 2 (0.44%) Single Sign-On
6 1 (0.22%) Consul
6 1 (0.22%) Microsoft Intune
6 1 (0.22%) Podman
6 1 (0.22%) SCCM
6 1 (0.22%) Systems Management Server (SMS)
Vendors
1 48 (10.57%) Adobe
2 26 (5.73%) Microsoft
3 16 (3.52%) Google
4 14 (3.08%) Salesforce
5 10 (2.20%) ServiceNow
6 6 (1.32%) Hotjar
6 6 (1.32%) Optimizely
7 5 (1.10%) Amplitude
7 5 (1.10%) MuleSoft
8 4 (0.88%) SAP
8 4 (0.88%) Xamarin
9 3 (0.66%) Dataiku
9 3 (0.66%) Oracle
10 2 (0.44%) Apple
10 2 (0.44%) Citrix
10 2 (0.44%) HP
10 2 (0.44%) OpenAI
10 2 (0.44%) OutSystems
10 2 (0.44%) Sitecore
11 1 (0.22%) VMware