UX Designer Contract Job Trends

User Experience Designer
UK

The median User Experience Designer daily rate in the UK is £463, according to job vacancies posted in the 6 months leading up to 11 January 2026.

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

 6 months to
11 Jan 2026		 Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 468 406 458
Rank change year-on-year -62 +52 -67
Contract jobs requiring a UX Designer 121 111 133
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 0.33% 0.35% 0.31%
As % of the Job Titles category 0.36% 0.38% 0.33%
Number of daily rates quoted 82 72 86
10th Percentile £360 £338 £325
25th Percentile £400 £380 £402
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £463 £498 £500
Median % change year-on-year -7.04% -0.50% -6.98%
75th Percentile £536 £573 £575
90th Percentile £592 £648 £621
UK excluding London median daily rate £413 £405 £450
% change year-on-year +1.85% -10.00% -5.26%
Number of hourly rates quoted 2 3 3
10th Percentile £33.13 £30.65 £54.01
25th Percentile £37.81 £30.97 £60.04
Median hourly rate £46.25 £33.00 £70.07
Median % change year-on-year +40.15% -52.90% -
75th Percentile £55.31 £34.02 £71.91
90th Percentile £60.38 £34.31 £73.01
UK excluding London median hourly rate £30.00 £32.21 £70.07
% change year-on-year -6.85% -54.04% -

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 33,229 29,465 40,074
% of contract IT jobs with a recognized job title 91.31% 92.70% 93.26%
Number of daily rates quoted 21,002 18,045 26,741
10th Percentile £300 £291 £280
25th Percentile £405 £409 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £525 £525
Median % change year-on-year -4.76% - -4.55%
75th Percentile £618 £638 £638
90th Percentile £720 £738 £738
UK excluding London median daily rate £475 £480 £500
% change year-on-year -1.04% -4.00% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 1,953 888 1,677
10th Percentile £14.38 £15.60 £14.16
25th Percentile £18.25 £21.22 £18.93
Median hourly rate £26.50 £32.50 £42.50
Median % change year-on-year -18.46% -23.53% +28.79%
75th Percentile £60.00 £62.31 £65.00
90th Percentile £70.60 £73.75 £76.25
UK excluding London median hourly rate £25.15 £31.51 £44.78
% change year-on-year -20.18% -29.63% +65.05%

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 11 January 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 11 January 2026.

Hourly rate histogram for UX Designer in the UK

UX Designer
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 Designer within the UK over the 6 months to 11 January 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 -35 98 £463 -10.84% 41
London -8 55 £495 -5.71% 15
UK excluding London -46 55 £413 +1.85% 35
Work from Home -26 31 £413 -5.71% 27
North of England -27 24 £388 -3.25% 9
North West -14 16 £388 +40.91% 7
Scotland +4 11 £447 +15.35% 1
Midlands -39 6 £400 +5.12% 2
East of England -13 5 £425 -5.56%
West Midlands -28 5 £400 -18.37% 2
Yorkshire -47 5 £531 +13.27% 2
South East -16 4 £463 -9.76% 10
North East -6 3 £410 -
South West -15 3 £700 +77.78% 11
Wales - 2 £588 - 2
East Midlands -23 1 £485 +39.26%

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

For the 6 months to 11 January 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.

1 121 (100.00%) User Experience
1 121 (100.00%) UX Design
2 70 (57.85%) Figma
3 61 (50.41%) User Research
4 46 (38.02%) Accessibility
5 44 (36.36%) Agile
6 42 (34.71%) Usability Testing
6 42 (34.71%) Wireframes
7 41 (33.88%) Prototyping
8 36 (29.75%) Sketch
9 35 (28.93%) User-Centered Design (UCD)
10 32 (26.45%) Interaction Design
11 27 (22.31%) Adobe
12 26 (21.49%) Service Design
13 25 (20.66%) UX Research
14 18 (14.88%) Adobe XD
14 18 (14.88%) CSS
14 18 (14.88%) HTML
15 15 (12.40%) Axure RP
15 15 (12.40%) Security Cleared
16 14 (11.57%) High-Fidelity Prototypes
16 14 (11.57%) Problem-Solving
16 14 (11.57%) Workshop Facilitation
17 13 (10.74%) Analytics
17 13 (10.74%) WCAG
18 12 (9.92%) InVision
19 11 (9.09%) Journey Map
20 10 (8.26%) SC Cleared
21 9 (7.44%) Continuous Improvement
21 9 (7.44%) E-Commerce

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 (3.31%) CMS
2 3 (2.48%) Confluence
3 2 (1.65%) SharePoint
Applications
1 36 (29.75%) Sketch
2 18 (14.88%) Adobe XD
3 12 (9.92%) InVision
4 3 (2.48%) Adobe Creative Suite
4 3 (2.48%) Adobe Illustrator
4 3 (2.48%) Photoshop
5 2 (1.65%) OmniGraffle
5 2 (1.65%) Zeplin
6 1 (0.83%) Adobe Premiere
6 1 (0.83%) Chatbot
6 1 (0.83%) InDesign
6 1 (0.83%) Marvel
6 1 (0.83%) Moqups
6 1 (0.83%) UXPin
Business Applications
1 2 (1.65%) Salesforce CRM
Cloud Services
1 70 (57.85%) Figma
2 8 (6.61%) SaaS
3 7 (5.79%) Miro
4 3 (2.48%) Power Platform
4 3 (2.48%) PowerApps
5 2 (1.65%) Adobe Creative Cloud
5 2 (1.65%) Contentful
5 2 (1.65%) GitHub
5 2 (1.65%) Google Analytics
6 1 (0.83%) AWS
6 1 (0.83%) Azure
6 1 (0.83%) Dropbox
6 1 (0.83%) Dynamics 365
6 1 (0.83%) Google Drive
6 1 (0.83%) Heroku
6 1 (0.83%) Microsoft 365
6 1 (0.83%) Slack
Communications & Networking
1 1 (0.83%) Intranet
Database & Business Intelligence
1 1 (0.83%) Metadata
Development Applications
1 15 (12.40%) Axure RP
2 7 (5.79%) JIRA
3 3 (2.48%) Git
4 1 (0.83%) Balsamiq
4 1 (0.83%) Cypress.io
4 1 (0.83%) Visual Studio
4 1 (0.83%) Visual Studio Code
General
1 41 (33.88%) Social Skills
2 36 (29.75%) Finance
3 21 (17.36%) Banking
4 13 (10.74%) Public Sector
5 6 (4.96%) Analytical Skills
6 4 (3.31%) Legal
6 4 (3.31%) Marketing
6 4 (3.31%) Presentation Skills
7 3 (2.48%) Influencing Skills
8 2 (1.65%) Automotive
8 2 (1.65%) Financial Institution
8 2 (1.65%) Front Office
8 2 (1.65%) Organisational Skills
8 2 (1.65%) Pharmaceutical
8 2 (1.65%) Publishing
8 2 (1.65%) Retail
8 2 (1.65%) Wearables
9 1 (0.83%) Arabic Language
9 1 (0.83%) Back Office
9 1 (0.83%) Local Government
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 18 (14.88%) CSS
1 18 (14.88%) HTML
2 4 (3.31%) HTML5
3 3 (2.48%) AngularJS
3 3 (2.48%) CSS3
3 3 (2.48%) Framer.js
3 3 (2.48%) Lightning Web Components
3 3 (2.48%) React
4 2 (1.65%) RESTful
5 1 (0.83%) .NET
5 1 (0.83%) Blazor
5 1 (0.83%) HTML5 Canvas
5 1 (0.83%) jQuery
5 1 (0.83%) Razor View Engine
5 1 (0.83%) Unreal Engine
Miscellaneous
1 13 (10.74%) Product Ownership
2 12 (9.92%) Mobile App
3 7 (5.79%) Onboarding
4 4 (3.31%) Digital Wallet
5 3 (2.48%) Data Protection Act
5 3 (2.48%) Digital Media
6 2 (1.65%) Analytical Mindset
6 2 (1.65%) Enterprise Software
6 2 (1.65%) Low-Code
7 1 (0.83%) Blog
7 1 (0.83%) Client/Server
7 1 (0.83%) Embedded Systems
7 1 (0.83%) Foreign Exchange (FX)
7 1 (0.83%) Graphic Design
7 1 (0.83%) Greenfield Project
7 1 (0.83%) Management Information System
7 1 (0.83%) Social Media
7 1 (0.83%) Team-Oriented Environment
7 1 (0.83%) Web Conferencing
Operating Systems
1 2 (1.65%) Android
1 2 (1.65%) Apple iOS
2 1 (0.83%) Mac OS
2 1 (0.83%) VMS
2 1 (0.83%) Windows
Processes & Methodologies
1 121 (100.00%) User Experience
1 121 (100.00%) UX Design
2 61 (50.41%) User Research
3 44 (36.36%) Agile
4 42 (34.71%) Usability Testing
4 42 (34.71%) Wireframes
5 41 (33.88%) Prototyping
6 35 (28.93%) User-Centered Design (UCD)
7 32 (26.45%) Interaction Design
8 26 (21.49%) Service Design
9 25 (20.66%) UX Research
10 14 (11.57%) High-Fidelity Prototypes
10 14 (11.57%) Problem-Solving
10 14 (11.57%) Workshop Facilitation
11 13 (10.74%) Analytics
12 11 (9.09%) Journey Map
13 9 (7.44%) Continuous Improvement
13 9 (7.44%) E-Commerce
13 9 (7.44%) Scrum
14 8 (6.61%) Responsive Web Design
Programming Languages
1 7 (5.79%) JavaScript
2 1 (0.83%) TypeScript
Qualifications
1 15 (12.40%) Security Cleared
2 10 (8.26%) SC Cleared
3 8 (6.61%) Degree
4 3 (2.48%) BPSS Clearance
5 2 (1.65%) DV Cleared
6 1 (0.83%) Master's Degree
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 46 (38.02%) Accessibility
2 13 (10.74%) WCAG
3 2 (1.65%) QA
4 1 (0.83%) GDPR
Vendors
1 27 (22.31%) Adobe
2 9 (7.44%) Microsoft
3 8 (6.61%) Salesforce
4 5 (4.13%) Google
5 4 (3.31%) Hopewiser
6 2 (1.65%) Hotjar
6 2 (1.65%) MuleSoft
7 1 (0.83%) Mercator
7 1 (0.83%) Oracle
7 1 (0.83%) Palantir
7 1 (0.83%) SAP
7 1 (0.83%) ServiceNow
7 1 (0.83%) Virgin Media
46 UX Designer jobs Nationwide