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 27 June 2026.

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

6 months to
27 Jun 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 515 451 444
Rank change year-on-year -64 -7 -66
Contract jobs requiring a UX Designer 141 92 141
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 0.28% 0.30% 0.33%
As % of the Job Titles category 0.30% 0.33% 0.35%
Number of daily rates quoted 99 64 85
10th Percentile £363 £309 £354
25th Percentile £394 £355 £400
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £475 £400 £465
Median % change year-on-year +18.68% -13.92% -13.08%
75th Percentile £550 £500 £558
90th Percentile £640 £546 £600
UK excluding London median daily rate £463 £401 £422
% change year-on-year +15.48% -4.98% -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 47,106 27,940 40,291
% of contract IT jobs with a recognized job title 92.40% 92.14% 92.92%
Number of daily rates quoted 28,573 17,914 25,878
10th Percentile £325 £289 £281
25th Percentile £415 £402 £410
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £520 £500 £525
Median % change year-on-year +4.00% -4.76% -2.33%
75th Percentile £625 £625 £638
90th Percentile £725 £738 £750
UK excluding London median daily rate £500 £475 £493
% change year-on-year +5.26% -3.65% -1.40%
Number of hourly rates quoted 3,158 1,233 2,861
10th Percentile £15.38 £13.76 £12.86
25th Percentile £21.14 £17.30 £16.50
Median hourly rate £43.25 £26.50 £37.50
Median % change year-on-year +63.21% -29.33% -14.29%
75th Percentile £67.50 £56.25 £62.50
90th Percentile £80.00 £73.75 £74.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £45.00 £25.15 £40.00
% change year-on-year +78.93% -37.13% -

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 27 June 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 27 June 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 27 June 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 -96 120 £475 +17.28% 46
London -52 72 £500 +25.00% 26
UK excluding London -85 59 £463 +15.48% 25
Work from Home -56 29 £550 +37.50% 14
South West -23 18 £475 +11.76% 4
North of England -64 17 £375 -6.25% 8
Scotland 0 13 £600 +50.00% 2
North West -45 12 £375 -6.25% 1
East of England -24 6 £410 -13.68% 3
Yorkshire -40 4 £500 +30.63% 6
South East -58 4 £450 -18.18% 4
West Midlands -63 1 £450 +2.27% 2
Midlands -64 1 £450 +23.80% 3
North East - 1 £350 - 1

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

For the 6 months to 27 June 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.

1 141 (100.00%) User Experience
2 136 (96.45%) UX Design
3 59 (41.84%) Figma
4 50 (35.46%) Wireframes
5 42 (29.79%) User Research
6 40 (28.37%) Accessibility
6 40 (28.37%) Agile
7 38 (26.95%) Prototyping
8 31 (21.99%) Interaction Design
9 27 (19.15%) Usability Testing
10 21 (14.89%) AI
11 20 (14.18%) Design Thinking
11 20 (14.18%) Journey Map
11 20 (14.18%) Security Cleared
11 20 (14.18%) User-Centered Design (UCD)
12 17 (12.06%) Information Architecture
12 17 (12.06%) SC Cleared
13 16 (11.35%) Service Design
14 15 (10.64%) High-Fidelity Prototypes
15 14 (9.93%) Analytics
15 14 (9.93%) WCAG
16 13 (9.22%) UX Research
17 12 (8.51%) Customer Experience
18 11 (7.80%) Degree
18 11 (7.80%) Problem-Solving
18 11 (7.80%) Stakeholder Management
18 11 (7.80%) Workshop Facilitation
19 10 (7.09%) CSS
19 10 (7.09%) Fintech
19 10 (7.09%) 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 (2.84%) Confluence
2 2 (1.42%) CMS
3 1 (0.71%) Drupal
3 1 (0.71%) Kentico
Applications
1 10 (7.09%) Sketch
2 7 (4.96%) Adobe XD
3 2 (1.42%) InVision
3 2 (1.42%) Photoshop
3 2 (1.42%) UserZoom
4 1 (0.71%) Adobe Illustrator
Business Applications
1 1 (0.71%) Eloqua
Cloud Services
1 59 (41.84%) Figma
2 9 (6.38%) SaaS
3 2 (1.42%) ChatGPT
3 2 (1.42%) Power Platform
4 1 (0.71%) Adobe Creative Cloud
4 1 (0.71%) AWS
4 1 (0.71%) Azure
4 1 (0.71%) Miro
4 1 (0.71%) Slack
Communications & Networking
1 1 (0.71%) Internet
Database & Business Intelligence
1 2 (1.42%) Power BI
Development Applications
1 7 (4.96%) JIRA
2 4 (2.84%) Axure RP
3 2 (1.42%) Claude Code
3 2 (1.42%) Git
4 1 (0.71%) Cypress.io
4 1 (0.71%) Dreamweaver
4 1 (0.71%) Subversion
General
1 40 (28.37%) Social Skills
2 25 (17.73%) Finance
3 21 (14.89%) Banking
4 15 (10.64%) Public Sector
5 9 (6.38%) Retail
6 5 (3.55%) Presentation Skills
7 4 (2.84%) Inclusion and Diversity
7 4 (2.84%) Marketing
8 3 (2.13%) Analytical Skills
8 3 (2.13%) Retail Banking
9 2 (1.42%) Corporate Banking
9 2 (1.42%) Investment Banking
9 2 (1.42%) Telecoms
10 1 (0.71%) Billing
10 1 (0.71%) Influencing Skills
10 1 (0.71%) Legal
10 1 (0.71%) Military
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 10 (7.09%) CSS
1 10 (7.09%) HTML
2 5 (3.55%) React
3 2 (1.42%) CSS3
3 2 (1.42%) HTML5
4 1 (0.71%) .NET
4 1 (0.71%) AngularJS
4 1 (0.71%) Compass CSS Framework
4 1 (0.71%) Google Maps API
4 1 (0.71%) jQuery
4 1 (0.71%) Microformats
4 1 (0.71%) OOCSS
4 1 (0.71%) React Native
4 1 (0.71%) REST
4 1 (0.71%) Sass
4 1 (0.71%) Tailwind CSS
4 1 (0.71%) Vue
4 1 (0.71%) XHTML
Miscellaneous
1 14 (9.93%) Product Ownership
2 11 (7.80%) Mobile App
3 6 (4.26%) Onboarding
4 4 (2.84%) Graphic Design
5 3 (2.13%) Greenfield Project
6 2 (1.42%) Data Protection Act
6 2 (1.42%) Digital Wallet
6 2 (1.42%) Midjourney
6 2 (1.42%) Team-Oriented Environment
6 2 (1.42%) Virtual Team
7 1 (0.71%) Cloud Native
7 1 (0.71%) Clustering
7 1 (0.71%) Digital Media
7 1 (0.71%) Life Science
7 1 (0.71%) Management Information System
7 1 (0.71%) Online Banking
7 1 (0.71%) Taxonomies
Operating Systems
1 2 (1.42%) Android
2 1 (0.71%) Apple iOS
Processes & Methodologies
1 141 (100.00%) User Experience
2 136 (96.45%) UX Design
3 50 (35.46%) Wireframes
4 42 (29.79%) User Research
5 40 (28.37%) Agile
6 38 (26.95%) Prototyping
7 31 (21.99%) Interaction Design
8 27 (19.15%) Usability Testing
9 21 (14.89%) AI
10 20 (14.18%) Design Thinking
10 20 (14.18%) Journey Map
10 20 (14.18%) User-Centered Design (UCD)
11 17 (12.06%) Information Architecture
12 16 (11.35%) Service Design
13 15 (10.64%) High-Fidelity Prototypes
14 14 (9.93%) Analytics
15 13 (9.22%) UX Research
16 12 (8.51%) Customer Experience
17 11 (7.80%) Problem-Solving
17 11 (7.80%) Workshop Facilitation
Programming Languages
1 3 (2.13%) JavaScript
1 3 (2.13%) Korn
2 2 (1.42%) Java
2 2 (1.42%) TypeScript
Qualifications
1 20 (14.18%) Security Cleared
2 17 (12.06%) SC Cleared
3 11 (7.80%) Degree
4 3 (2.13%) BPSS Clearance
5 1 (0.71%) DV Cleared
5 1 (0.71%) Master's Degree
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 40 (28.37%) Accessibility
2 14 (9.93%) WCAG
3 1 (0.71%) GDPR
3 1 (0.71%) WAI
3 1 (0.71%) WAI-ARIA
Vendors
1 9 (6.38%) Adobe
2 3 (2.13%) Salesforce
3 1 (0.71%) CODA
3 1 (0.71%) Google
3 1 (0.71%) Pardot
3 1 (0.71%) ServiceNow