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 July 2026.

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

 6 months to
9 Jul 2026		 Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 510 446 448
Rank change year-on-year -64 +2 -61
Contract jobs requiring a UX Designer 148 94 154
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 0.28% 0.29% 0.36%
As % of the Job Titles category 0.30% 0.32% 0.38%
Number of daily rates quoted 102 65 95
10th Percentile £363 £310 £358
25th Percentile £388 £356 £400
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £475 £415 £475
Median % change year-on-year +14.46% -12.63% -11.21%
75th Percentile £550 £500 £563
90th Percentile £638 £558 £600
UK excluding London median daily rate £413 £413 £422
% change year-on-year - -2.14% -4.20%
Number of hourly rates quoted 3 2 0
10th Percentile £30.75 £46.85 -
25th Percentile £37.88 £47.75 -
Median hourly rate £51.44 £51.00 -
Median % change year-on-year +0.86% - -
75th Percentile £52.71 £54.75 -
90th Percentile £53.03 £55.95 -
UK excluding London median hourly rate £27.00 - -

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 48,533 29,683 40,331
% of contract IT jobs with a recognized job title 92.47% 91.90% 92.99%
Number of daily rates quoted 29,422 18,950 25,979
10th Percentile £325 £288 £286
25th Percentile £419 £400 £410
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £523 £500 £525
Median % change year-on-year +4.50% -4.76% -2.33%
75th Percentile £625 £625 £638
90th Percentile £725 £738 £750
UK excluding London median daily rate £500 £475 £494
% change year-on-year +5.26% -3.85% -1.20%
Number of hourly rates quoted 3,255 1,354 2,780
10th Percentile £15.93 £13.75 £12.86
25th Percentile £21.25 £17.33 £16.65
Median hourly rate £43.50 £26.39 £37.50
Median % change year-on-year +64.87% -29.64% -12.79%
75th Percentile £67.50 £55.87 £62.50
90th Percentile £80.00 £73.10 £73.75
UK excluding London median hourly rate £45.00 £25.15 £40.00
% change year-on-year +78.93% -37.13% +0.50%

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 July 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 July 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 July 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 -73 130 £450 +2.86% 77
London -51 72 £500 +20.48% 40
UK excluding London -77 67 £413 - 50
Work from Home -44 31 £550 +37.50% 36
South West -17 23 £475 - 4
North of England -69 21 £375 -6.25% 20
North West -37 12 £375 -6.25% 12
Scotland -4 11 £600 +50.00% 5
East of England -19 7 £410 -13.68% 3
Yorkshire -46 7 £456 +25.00% 5
South East -53 4 £450 -18.18% 8
North East - 2 £338 - 3
Midlands -62 1 £450 +39.75% 6
West Midlands -64 1 £450 -5.26% 4

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

For the 6 months to 9 July 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.

1 148 (100.00%) User Experience
2 143 (96.62%) UX Design
3 61 (41.22%) Figma
4 53 (35.81%) Wireframes
5 42 (28.38%) Agile
6 41 (27.70%) Prototyping
6 41 (27.70%) User Research
7 40 (27.03%) Accessibility
8 30 (20.27%) Interaction Design
9 27 (18.24%) Usability Testing
10 23 (15.54%) Security Cleared
10 23 (15.54%) User-Centered Design (UCD)
11 22 (14.86%) AI
12 21 (14.19%) Design Thinking
12 21 (14.19%) Journey Map
13 18 (12.16%) High-Fidelity Prototypes
13 18 (12.16%) SC Cleared
14 17 (11.49%) Information Architecture
15 14 (9.46%) Analytics
16 13 (8.78%) Customer Experience
16 13 (8.78%) Service Design
16 13 (8.78%) UX Research
16 13 (8.78%) WCAG
17 12 (8.11%) E-Commerce
17 12 (8.11%) Workshop Facilitation
18 11 (7.43%) Degree
18 11 (7.43%) Stakeholder Management
19 10 (6.76%) CSS
19 10 (6.76%) Fintech
19 10 (6.76%) HTML

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 (2.70%) Confluence
2 2 (1.35%) CMS
3 1 (0.68%) Drupal
3 1 (0.68%) Kentico
Applications
1 7 (4.73%) Sketch
2 4 (2.70%) Adobe XD
3 2 (1.35%) Photoshop
3 2 (1.35%) UserZoom
4 1 (0.68%) Adobe Illustrator
Business Applications
1 1 (0.68%) Eloqua
Cloud Services
1 61 (41.22%) Figma
2 10 (6.76%) SaaS
3 3 (2.03%) Power Platform
4 2 (1.35%) ChatGPT
5 1 (0.68%) Adobe Creative Cloud
5 1 (0.68%) AWS
5 1 (0.68%) Azure
5 1 (0.68%) Miro
5 1 (0.68%) Slack
Communications & Networking
1 1 (0.68%) Internet
Database & Business Intelligence
1 3 (2.03%) Power BI
2 1 (0.68%) Qlik Sense
Development Applications
1 7 (4.73%) JIRA
2 3 (2.03%) Claude Code
3 2 (1.35%) Axure RP
3 2 (1.35%) Git
4 1 (0.68%) Cypress.io
4 1 (0.68%) Dreamweaver
4 1 (0.68%) Subversion
General
1 37 (25.00%) Social Skills
2 25 (16.89%) Finance
3 19 (12.84%) Banking
4 17 (11.49%) Public Sector
5 10 (6.76%) Retail
6 7 (4.73%) Marketing
7 5 (3.38%) Presentation Skills
8 4 (2.70%) Inclusion and Diversity
9 3 (2.03%) Military
9 3 (2.03%) Retail Banking
10 2 (1.35%) Analytical Skills
10 2 (1.35%) Corporate Banking
10 2 (1.35%) Investment Banking
10 2 (1.35%) Telecoms
11 1 (0.68%) Billing
11 1 (0.68%) Influencing Skills
11 1 (0.68%) Legal
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 10 (6.76%) CSS
1 10 (6.76%) HTML
2 5 (3.38%) React
3 3 (2.03%) AngularJS
4 2 (1.35%) CSS3
4 2 (1.35%) HTML5
5 1 (0.68%) .NET
5 1 (0.68%) Compass CSS Framework
5 1 (0.68%) Google Maps API
5 1 (0.68%) jQuery
5 1 (0.68%) Microformats
5 1 (0.68%) OOCSS
5 1 (0.68%) React Native
5 1 (0.68%) REST
5 1 (0.68%) Sass
5 1 (0.68%) Tailwind CSS
5 1 (0.68%) Vue
5 1 (0.68%) XHTML
Miscellaneous
1 12 (8.11%) Product Ownership
2 11 (7.43%) Mobile App
3 6 (4.05%) Onboarding
4 4 (2.70%) Graphic Design
5 3 (2.03%) Greenfield Project
6 2 (1.35%) Data Protection Act
6 2 (1.35%) Midjourney
6 2 (1.35%) Team-Oriented Environment
6 2 (1.35%) Virtual Team
7 1 (0.68%) Cloud Native
7 1 (0.68%) Clustering
7 1 (0.68%) Digital Media
7 1 (0.68%) Life Science
7 1 (0.68%) Management Information System
7 1 (0.68%) Online Banking
7 1 (0.68%) Taxonomies
Operating Systems
1 2 (1.35%) Android
2 1 (0.68%) Apple iOS
Processes & Methodologies
1 148 (100.00%) User Experience
2 143 (96.62%) UX Design
3 53 (35.81%) Wireframes
4 42 (28.38%) Agile
5 41 (27.70%) Prototyping
5 41 (27.70%) User Research
6 30 (20.27%) Interaction Design
7 27 (18.24%) Usability Testing
8 23 (15.54%) User-Centered Design (UCD)
9 22 (14.86%) AI
10 21 (14.19%) Design Thinking
10 21 (14.19%) Journey Map
11 18 (12.16%) High-Fidelity Prototypes
12 17 (11.49%) Information Architecture
13 14 (9.46%) Analytics
14 13 (8.78%) Customer Experience
14 13 (8.78%) Service Design
14 13 (8.78%) UX Research
15 12 (8.11%) E-Commerce
15 12 (8.11%) Workshop Facilitation
Programming Languages
1 3 (2.03%) JavaScript
1 3 (2.03%) Korn
2 2 (1.35%) Java
2 2 (1.35%) TypeScript
Qualifications
1 23 (15.54%) Security Cleared
2 18 (12.16%) SC Cleared
3 11 (7.43%) Degree
4 3 (2.03%) BPSS Clearance
5 1 (0.68%) DV Cleared
5 1 (0.68%) Master's Degree
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 40 (27.03%) Accessibility
2 13 (8.78%) WCAG
3 1 (0.68%) GDPR
3 1 (0.68%) WAI
3 1 (0.68%) WAI-ARIA
Systems Management
1 1 (0.68%) Kibana
Vendors
1 6 (4.05%) Adobe
2 3 (2.03%) Salesforce
3 1 (0.68%) CODA
3 1 (0.68%) Google
3 1 (0.68%) Pardot
3 1 (0.68%) ServiceNow
89 UX Designer jobs Nationwide