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 11 September 2026.

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

 6 months to
11 Sep 2026		 Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 541 452 435
Rank change year-on-year -89 -17 +10
Contract jobs requiring a UX Designer 128 113 128
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 0.23% 0.34% 0.33%
As % of the Job Titles category 0.25% 0.38% 0.36%
Number of daily rates quoted 78 80 79
10th Percentile £355 £307 £350
25th Percentile £391 £357 £402
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £475 £456 £500
Median % change year-on-year +4.11% -8.75% -9.09%
75th Percentile £538 £525 £575
90th Percentile £599 £594 £623
UK excluding London median daily rate £425 £419 £425
% change year-on-year +1.49% -1.47% -8.11%
Number of hourly rates quoted 2 2 2
10th Percentile £28.38 £32.23 £30.75
25th Percentile £31.94 £35.56 £31.21
Median hourly rate £39.25 £42.25 £32.21
Median % change year-on-year -7.10% +31.18% -54.04%
75th Percentile £46.94 £50.06 £32.98
90th Percentile £50.73 £54.08 £33.32
UK excluding London median hourly rate £27.00 £30.00 £32.21
% change year-on-year -10.00% -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 50,390 30,066 35,884
% of contract IT jobs with a recognized job title 92.29% 91.06% 93.05%
Number of daily rates quoted 29,936 18,964 22,304
10th Percentile £325 £281 £300
25th Percentile £425 £400 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £500 £525
Median % change year-on-year +5.00% -4.76% -0.94%
75th Percentile £625 £621 £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 3,743 1,564 1,744
10th Percentile £14.56 £13.69 £14.73
25th Percentile £20.07 £17.06 £20.50
Median hourly rate £42.00 £25.15 £43.00
Median % change year-on-year +67.00% -41.51% +1.18%
75th Percentile £67.60 £52.50 £65.00
90th Percentile £79.00 £70.16 £75.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £42.50 £25.15 £45.00
% change year-on-year +68.99% -44.11% +12.50%

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 11 September 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 September 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 11 September 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 -98 114 £450 -2.70% 41
UK excluding London -63 73 £425 +1.49% 27
London -87 51 £520 +11.23% 19
Work from Home -77 29 £425 -1.73% 20
South West -29 22 £475 -20.83% 9
North of England -62 22 £419 +14.73% 9
Yorkshire -31 13 £504 +38.01% 4
Scotland -12 10 £650 +62.50% 2
East of England -27 8 £410 -0.61%
West Midlands -42 8 £378 +16.15%
Midlands -45 8 £378 +16.15%
North West -41 7 £375 +4.17% 5
South East -56 3 - - 2
North East -45 2 £338 -25.00%

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

For the 6 months to 11 September 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.

1 128 (100.00%) User Experience
2 126 (98.44%) UX Design
3 45 (35.16%) Wireframes
4 44 (34.38%) Figma
5 33 (25.78%) Agile
5 33 (25.78%) User Research
6 32 (25.00%) Prototyping
7 30 (23.44%) Accessibility
8 27 (21.09%) Interaction Design
9 25 (19.53%) User-Centered Design (UCD)
10 22 (17.19%) Security Cleared
11 21 (16.41%) Usability Testing
12 17 (13.28%) Design Thinking
13 15 (11.72%) AI
13 15 (11.72%) High-Fidelity Prototypes
14 14 (10.94%) Workshop Facilitation
15 13 (10.16%) Design Patterns
15 13 (10.16%) Journey Map
15 13 (10.16%) SC Cleared
15 13 (10.16%) Service Design
15 13 (10.16%) Stakeholder Management
16 11 (8.59%) Customer Experience
16 11 (8.59%) Information Architecture
17 10 (7.81%) E-Commerce
17 10 (7.81%) Problem-Solving
17 10 (7.81%) Workflow
18 8 (6.25%) Digital Transformation Programme
18 8 (6.25%) SaaS
18 8 (6.25%) Stakeholder Engagement
18 8 (6.25%) Storytelling

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 3 (2.34%) Confluence
2 2 (1.56%) CMS
3 1 (0.78%) Drupal
3 1 (0.78%) Kentico
Applications
1 4 (3.13%) Sketch
2 3 (2.34%) Adobe XD
3 2 (1.56%) Adobe Creative Suite
3 2 (1.56%) Photoshop
4 1 (0.78%) Adobe Illustrator
4 1 (0.78%) UserZoom
Business Applications
1 1 (0.78%) Eloqua
Cloud Services
1 44 (34.38%) Figma
2 8 (6.25%) SaaS
3 2 (1.56%) Power Platform
4 1 (0.78%) Adobe Creative Cloud
4 1 (0.78%) AWS
4 1 (0.78%) Azure
4 1 (0.78%) Slack
Database & Business Intelligence
1 2 (1.56%) Power BI
2 1 (0.78%) Qlik Sense
Development Applications
1 4 (3.13%) Claude Code
2 3 (2.34%) Git
2 3 (2.34%) JIRA
3 1 (0.78%) Cypress.io
3 1 (0.78%) Dreamweaver
3 1 (0.78%) Subversion
General
1 24 (18.75%) Finance
2 22 (17.19%) Social Skills
3 19 (14.84%) Banking
4 11 (8.59%) Public Sector
5 8 (6.25%) Retail
6 7 (5.47%) Marketing
6 7 (5.47%) Military
7 4 (3.13%) Investment Banking
8 2 (1.56%) Analytical Skills
8 2 (1.56%) Inclusion and Diversity
8 2 (1.56%) Presentation Skills
9 1 (0.78%) Corporate Banking
9 1 (0.78%) Games
9 1 (0.78%) Legal
9 1 (0.78%) Retail Banking
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 7 (5.47%) CSS
1 7 (5.47%) HTML
2 6 (4.69%) React
3 4 (3.13%) AngularJS
4 3 (2.34%) CSS3
4 3 (2.34%) HTML5
5 2 (1.56%) React Native
5 2 (1.56%) REST
5 2 (1.56%) Vue
6 1 (0.78%) .NET
6 1 (0.78%) Compass CSS Framework
6 1 (0.78%) jQuery
6 1 (0.78%) Microformats
6 1 (0.78%) OOCSS
6 1 (0.78%) Sass
6 1 (0.78%) Tailwind CSS
6 1 (0.78%) XHTML
Miscellaneous
1 11 (8.59%) Mobile App
2 5 (3.91%) Product Ownership
3 3 (2.34%) Greenfield Project
3 3 (2.34%) Management Information System
3 3 (2.34%) Onboarding
4 2 (1.56%) Graphic Design
5 1 (0.78%) Cloud Native
5 1 (0.78%) Clustering
5 1 (0.78%) Data Protection Act
5 1 (0.78%) Digital Media
5 1 (0.78%) Educational Technology
5 1 (0.78%) Legacy Applications
5 1 (0.78%) Legacy Systems
5 1 (0.78%) Life Science
5 1 (0.78%) NHS
5 1 (0.78%) Online Banking
5 1 (0.78%) Social Media
5 1 (0.78%) Taxonomies
Operating Systems
1 1 (0.78%) Android
1 1 (0.78%) Apple iOS
Processes & Methodologies
1 128 (100.00%) User Experience
2 126 (98.44%) UX Design
3 45 (35.16%) Wireframes
4 33 (25.78%) Agile
4 33 (25.78%) User Research
5 32 (25.00%) Prototyping
6 27 (21.09%) Interaction Design
7 25 (19.53%) User-Centered Design (UCD)
8 21 (16.41%) Usability Testing
9 17 (13.28%) Design Thinking
10 15 (11.72%) AI
10 15 (11.72%) High-Fidelity Prototypes
11 14 (10.94%) Workshop Facilitation
12 13 (10.16%) Design Patterns
12 13 (10.16%) Journey Map
12 13 (10.16%) Service Design
12 13 (10.16%) Stakeholder Management
13 11 (8.59%) Customer Experience
13 11 (8.59%) Information Architecture
14 10 (7.81%) Problem-Solving
Programming Languages
1 4 (3.13%) JavaScript
2 2 (1.56%) Java
2 2 (1.56%) TypeScript
Qualifications
1 22 (17.19%) Security Cleared
2 13 (10.16%) SC Cleared
3 4 (3.13%) BPSS Clearance
4 3 (2.34%) Degree
4 3 (2.34%) DV Cleared
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 30 (23.44%) Accessibility
2 7 (5.47%) WCAG
3 1 (0.78%) GDPR
3 1 (0.78%) QA
3 1 (0.78%) WAI
3 1 (0.78%) WAI-ARIA
Systems Management
1 1 (0.78%) Kibana
Vendors
1 7 (5.47%) Adobe
2 1 (0.78%) Apple
2 1 (0.78%) CODA
2 1 (0.78%) Pardot
2 1 (0.78%) ServiceNow
52 UX Designer jobs Nationwide