UX Designer Contract Job Trends

User Experience Designer
UK

The median User Experience Designer daily rate in the UK is £475, according to job vacancies posted in the 6 months leading up to 9 August 2026.

The table below compares current contractor rates and summary statistics with the previous two years.

 6 months to
9 Aug 2026		 Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 529 443 445
Rank change year-on-year -86 +2 -9
Contract jobs requiring a UX Designer 142 104 126
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 0.26% 0.31% 0.32%
As % of the Job Titles category 0.29% 0.34% 0.35%
Number of daily rates quoted 96 72 80
10th Percentile £363 £313 £348
25th Percentile £405 £355 £400
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £475 £460 £481
Median % change year-on-year +3.26% -4.42% -9.88%
75th Percentile £556 £500 £573
90th Percentile £638 £574 £621
UK excluding London median daily rate £450 £425 £418
% change year-on-year +5.88% +1.67% -1.65%
Number of hourly rates quoted 2 2 1
10th Percentile £28.38 £32.23 -
25th Percentile £31.94 £35.56 £30.44
Median hourly rate £39.25 £42.25 £30.88
Median % change year-on-year -7.10% +36.84% -46.34%
75th Percentile £46.94 £50.06 £31.31
90th Percentile £50.73 £54.08 -
UK excluding London median hourly rate £27.00 £30.00 £30.88
% change year-on-year -10.00% -2.83% -55.94%

All Contract IT Job Roles
UK

For comparison with the information above, the following table provides summary statistics for all contract IT job vacancies. Most job vacancies include a discernible job title that can be normalized. As such, the figures in the second row provide an indication of the number of contract jobs in our overall sample.

Contract vacancies in the UK with a recognized job title 49,618 30,282 36,100
% of contract IT jobs with a recognized job title 92.59% 91.38% 92.91%
Number of daily rates quoted 29,853 19,212 23,341
10th Percentile £329 £283 £300
25th Percentile £425 £400 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £500 £525
Median % change year-on-year +5.00% -4.76% -1.87%
75th Percentile £625 £625 £638
90th Percentile £725 £725 £750
UK excluding London median daily rate £500 £475 £500
% change year-on-year +5.26% -5.00% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 3,461 1,511 2,024
10th Percentile £15.00 £13.60 £14.16
25th Percentile £20.75 £17.28 £20.30
Median hourly rate £42.30 £25.15 £43.00
Median % change year-on-year +68.19% -41.51% +1.18%
75th Percentile £67.84 £53.75 £65.00
90th Percentile £80.00 £72.75 £75.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £42.65 £25.13 £45.00
% change year-on-year +69.72% -44.16% +23.29%

UX Designer
Job Vacancy Trend

Historical trend showing the proportion of contract IT job postings featuring 'UX Designer' in the job title relative to all contract IT jobs advertised.

UX Designer job vacancy trend in the UK

UX Designer
Daily Rate Trend

Contractor daily rate distribution trend for UX Designer job vacancies in the UK.

Contractor daily rate distribution trend for UX Designer job vacancies in the UK

UX Designer
Daily Rate Histogram

Daily rate distribution for jobs citing UX Designer over the 6 months to 9 August 2026.

Daily rate histogram for UX Designer in the UK

UX Designer
Hourly Rate Trend

Contractor hourly rate distribution trend for UX Designer job vacancies in the UK.

Contractor hourly rate distribution trend for UX Designer job vacancies in the UK

UX Designer
Hourly Rate Histogram

Hourly rate distribution of jobs citing UX Designer over the 6 months to 9 August 2026.

Hourly rate histogram for UX Designer in the UK

UX Designer
Top 14 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 Designer within the UK over the 6 months to 9 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 -83 124 £475 +1.06% 45
UK excluding London -51 75 £450 +5.88% 26
London -87 60 £525 +16.67% 27
Work from Home -60 32 £550 +41.03% 23
North of England -51 26 £413 - 9
South West -27 22 £475 - 4
Yorkshire -30 13 £504 +38.01% 5
Scotland -6 12 £600 +50.00% 1
North West -41 11 £375 -11.76% 4
East of England -14 8 £410 -13.68% 1
South East -65 4 £450 -16.28% 10
West Midlands -51 3 £425 +6.25% 1
Midlands -55 3 £425 +31.38% 1
North East - 2 £338 -

UX Designer Skill Set
Top 30 Co-Occurring Skills & Capabilities

For the 6 months to 9 August 2026, UX Designer contract job roles required the following skills and capabilities in order of popularity. The figures indicate the absolute number of co-occurrences and as a proportion of all contract job ads featuring UX Designer in the job title.

1 142 (100.00%) User Experience
2 139 (97.89%) UX Design
3 56 (39.44%) Figma
4 55 (38.73%) Wireframes
5 43 (30.28%) User Research
6 38 (26.76%) Agile
7 37 (26.06%) Accessibility
7 37 (26.06%) Prototyping
8 34 (23.94%) Interaction Design
9 28 (19.72%) Usability Testing
10 26 (18.31%) Security Cleared
11 23 (16.20%) User-Centered Design (UCD)
12 21 (14.79%) AI
13 19 (13.38%) Design Thinking
13 19 (13.38%) Journey Map
14 18 (12.68%) SC Cleared
15 16 (11.27%) High-Fidelity Prototypes
16 13 (9.15%) Customer Experience
16 13 (9.15%) Service Design
17 12 (8.45%) Information Architecture
17 12 (8.45%) UX Research
17 12 (8.45%) Workshop Facilitation
18 11 (7.75%) CSS
18 11 (7.75%) E-Commerce
18 11 (7.75%) HTML
18 11 (7.75%) SaaS
18 11 (7.75%) Stakeholder Management
18 11 (7.75%) WCAG
19 10 (7.04%) Adobe
19 10 (7.04%) Degree

UX Designer Skill Set
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 4 (2.82%) Confluence
2 2 (1.41%) CMS
3 1 (0.70%) Drupal
3 1 (0.70%) Kentico
Applications
1 7 (4.93%) Sketch
2 6 (4.23%) Adobe XD
3 2 (1.41%) Adobe Creative Suite
3 2 (1.41%) Photoshop
4 1 (0.70%) Adobe Illustrator
4 1 (0.70%) UserZoom
Business Applications
1 1 (0.70%) Eloqua
Cloud Services
1 56 (39.44%) Figma
2 11 (7.75%) SaaS
3 3 (2.11%) Power Platform
4 1 (0.70%) Adobe Creative Cloud
4 1 (0.70%) AWS
4 1 (0.70%) Azure
4 1 (0.70%) Miro
4 1 (0.70%) Slack
Database & Business Intelligence
1 3 (2.11%) Power BI
2 1 (0.70%) Qlik Sense
Development Applications
1 7 (4.93%) JIRA
2 4 (2.82%) Claude Code
3 3 (2.11%) Git
4 1 (0.70%) Cypress.io
4 1 (0.70%) Dreamweaver
4 1 (0.70%) Subversion
General
1 31 (21.83%) Social Skills
2 28 (19.72%) Finance
3 22 (15.49%) Banking
4 17 (11.97%) Public Sector
5 8 (5.63%) Retail
6 7 (4.93%) Marketing
7 5 (3.52%) Military
8 4 (2.82%) Inclusion and Diversity
9 3 (2.11%) Presentation Skills
10 2 (1.41%) Analytical Skills
10 2 (1.41%) Investment Banking
10 2 (1.41%) Retail Banking
11 1 (0.70%) Corporate Banking
11 1 (0.70%) Games
11 1 (0.70%) Legal
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 11 (7.75%) CSS
1 11 (7.75%) HTML
2 6 (4.23%) React
3 4 (2.82%) AngularJS
4 3 (2.11%) CSS3
4 3 (2.11%) HTML5
5 2 (1.41%) React Native
5 2 (1.41%) REST
5 2 (1.41%) Vue
6 1 (0.70%) .NET
6 1 (0.70%) Compass CSS Framework
6 1 (0.70%) Google Maps API
6 1 (0.70%) jQuery
6 1 (0.70%) Microformats
6 1 (0.70%) OOCSS
6 1 (0.70%) Sass
6 1 (0.70%) Tailwind CSS
6 1 (0.70%) XHTML
Miscellaneous
1 15 (10.56%) Mobile App
2 10 (7.04%) Product Ownership
3 5 (3.52%) Onboarding
4 4 (2.82%) Graphic Design
5 2 (1.41%) Greenfield Project
5 2 (1.41%) Team-Oriented Environment
6 1 (0.70%) Clustering
6 1 (0.70%) Data Protection Act
6 1 (0.70%) Digital Media
6 1 (0.70%) Educational Technology
6 1 (0.70%) Life Science
6 1 (0.70%) Management Information System
6 1 (0.70%) NHS
6 1 (0.70%) Online Banking
6 1 (0.70%) Social Media
6 1 (0.70%) Taxonomies
Operating Systems
1 1 (0.70%) Android
1 1 (0.70%) Apple iOS
Processes & Methodologies
1 142 (100.00%) User Experience
2 139 (97.89%) UX Design
3 55 (38.73%) Wireframes
4 43 (30.28%) User Research
5 38 (26.76%) Agile
6 37 (26.06%) Prototyping
7 34 (23.94%) Interaction Design
8 28 (19.72%) Usability Testing
9 23 (16.20%) User-Centered Design (UCD)
10 21 (14.79%) AI
11 19 (13.38%) Design Thinking
11 19 (13.38%) Journey Map
12 16 (11.27%) High-Fidelity Prototypes
13 13 (9.15%) Customer Experience
13 13 (9.15%) Service Design
14 12 (8.45%) Information Architecture
14 12 (8.45%) UX Research
14 12 (8.45%) Workshop Facilitation
15 11 (7.75%) E-Commerce
15 11 (7.75%) Stakeholder Management
Programming Languages
1 4 (2.82%) JavaScript
2 2 (1.41%) Java
2 2 (1.41%) TypeScript
Qualifications
1 26 (18.31%) Security Cleared
2 18 (12.68%) SC Cleared
3 10 (7.04%) Degree
4 3 (2.11%) BPSS Clearance
5 1 (0.70%) DV Cleared
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 37 (26.06%) Accessibility
2 11 (7.75%) WCAG
3 1 (0.70%) GDPR
3 1 (0.70%) WAI
3 1 (0.70%) WAI-ARIA
Systems Management
1 1 (0.70%) Kibana
Vendors
1 10 (7.04%) Adobe
2 3 (2.11%) Salesforce
3 1 (0.70%) CODA
3 1 (0.70%) Google
3 1 (0.70%) Pardot
3 1 (0.70%) ServiceNow
51 UX Designer jobs Nationwide