UX Designer Contract Job Trends

User Experience Designer
UK

The median User Experience Designer daily rate in the UK is £450, according to job vacancies posted in the 6 months leading up to 31 January 2026.

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

 6 months to
31 Jan 2026		 Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 462 427 457
Rank change year-on-year -35 +30 -66
Contract jobs requiring a UX Designer 129 113 149
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 0.33% 0.36% 0.33%
As % of the Job Titles category 0.36% 0.39% 0.36%
Number of daily rates quoted 91 73 95
10th Percentile £363 £338 £335
25th Percentile £400 £375 £400
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £450 £495 £500
Median % change year-on-year -9.09% -1.00% -4.76%
75th Percentile £521 £573 £569
90th Percentile £550 £646 £600
UK excluding London median daily rate £402 £400 £450
% change year-on-year +0.44% -11.06% -5.26%
Number of hourly rates quoted 3 3 2
10th Percentile £34.14 £30.65 £52.13
25th Percentile £40.36 £30.97 £55.31
Median hourly rate £51.44 £33.00 £61.25
Median % change year-on-year +55.88% -46.12% -
75th Percentile £57.96 £34.02 £67.81
90th Percentile £61.43 £34.31 £71.38
UK excluding London median hourly rate £30.00 £32.21 -
% change year-on-year -6.85% - -

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 35,445 29,208 41,662
% of contract IT jobs with a recognized job title 91.48% 92.89% 93.12%
Number of daily rates quoted 22,347 17,858 27,594
10th Percentile £300 £296 £275
25th Percentile £405 £409 £411
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £525 £525
Median % change year-on-year -4.76% - -4.55%
75th Percentile £613 £638 £638
90th Percentile £719 £738 £738
UK excluding London median daily rate £475 £479 £495
% change year-on-year -0.84% -3.23% -1.00%
Number of hourly rates quoted 2,112 858 2,186
10th Percentile £14.38 £15.91 £13.25
25th Percentile £18.50 £21.25 £17.00
Median hourly rate £29.60 £32.50 £36.50
Median % change year-on-year -8.92% -10.96% +4.29%
75th Percentile £61.18 £62.50 £62.50
90th Percentile £70.00 £75.00 £73.75
UK excluding London median hourly rate £27.50 £31.52 £38.00
% change year-on-year -12.75% -17.05% +26.67%

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 31 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 31 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 31 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 -48 107 £450 -10.00% 70
London -28 63 £469 -10.67% 32
UK excluding London -52 55 £402 +0.44% 56
Work from Home -19 31 £400 -3.03% 41
North of England -43 24 £388 -3.13% 11
North West -19 17 £388 -3.13% 8
Scotland +7 10 £461 +18.97%
South West -16 6 £382 -3.11% 9
East of England -10 5 £425 -5.56% 3
Midlands -44 5 £400 +5.12% 5
West Midlands -42 4 £400 -18.37% 4
Yorkshire -49 4 £531 +13.27% 2
North East -14 3 £410 - 1
South East -36 3 £444 -13.41% 23
Wales - 2 £588 - 5
East Midlands -23 1 £485 +39.26% 1

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

For the 6 months to 31 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.

1 129 (100.00%) User Experience
2 128 (99.22%) UX Design
3 76 (58.91%) Figma
4 62 (48.06%) User Research
5 50 (38.76%) Accessibility
6 47 (36.43%) Agile
7 46 (35.66%) Prototyping
7 46 (35.66%) Usability Testing
7 46 (35.66%) Wireframes
8 36 (27.91%) Interaction Design
9 35 (27.13%) User-Centered Design (UCD)
10 34 (26.36%) Sketch
11 24 (18.60%) Adobe
11 24 (18.60%) Service Design
11 24 (18.60%) UX Research
12 19 (14.73%) High-Fidelity Prototypes
13 17 (13.18%) Adobe XD
13 17 (13.18%) Problem-Solving
14 16 (12.40%) CSS
14 16 (12.40%) HTML
15 15 (11.63%) Analytics
15 15 (11.63%) Axure RP
15 15 (11.63%) WCAG
16 14 (10.85%) Journey Map
16 14 (10.85%) Workshop Facilitation
17 12 (9.30%) Security Cleared
18 10 (7.75%) Degree
18 10 (7.75%) E-Commerce
18 10 (7.75%) Inclusive Design
18 10 (7.75%) Information Architecture

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 (3.10%) Confluence
2 3 (2.33%) CMS
3 1 (0.78%) SharePoint
Applications
1 34 (26.36%) Sketch
2 17 (13.18%) Adobe XD
3 10 (7.75%) InVision
4 3 (2.33%) Adobe Illustrator
4 3 (2.33%) Photoshop
5 2 (1.55%) Adobe Creative Suite
5 2 (1.55%) OmniGraffle
5 2 (1.55%) Zeplin
6 1 (0.78%) Chatbot
6 1 (0.78%) InDesign
6 1 (0.78%) Marvel
6 1 (0.78%) UserZoom
6 1 (0.78%) UXPin
Business Applications
1 1 (0.78%) Salesforce CRM
Cloud Services
1 76 (58.91%) Figma
2 7 (5.43%) Miro
2 7 (5.43%) SaaS
3 3 (2.33%) Power Platform
3 3 (2.33%) PowerApps
4 2 (1.55%) Contentful
4 2 (1.55%) GitHub
5 1 (0.78%) Adobe Creative Cloud
5 1 (0.78%) AWS
5 1 (0.78%) Azure
5 1 (0.78%) Dropbox
5 1 (0.78%) Dynamics 365
5 1 (0.78%) Google Analytics
5 1 (0.78%) Google Drive
5 1 (0.78%) Heroku
5 1 (0.78%) Microsoft 365
5 1 (0.78%) Slack
Communications & Networking
1 1 (0.78%) Internet
1 1 (0.78%) Intranet
Database & Business Intelligence
1 1 (0.78%) Metadata
Development Applications
1 15 (11.63%) Axure RP
2 7 (5.43%) JIRA
3 2 (1.55%) Git
4 1 (0.78%) Balsamiq
4 1 (0.78%) Cypress.io
General
1 46 (35.66%) Social Skills
2 35 (27.13%) Finance
3 22 (17.05%) Banking
4 13 (10.08%) Public Sector
5 7 (5.43%) Presentation Skills
6 6 (4.65%) Analytical Skills
7 3 (2.33%) Influencing Skills
7 3 (2.33%) Legal
7 3 (2.33%) Marketing
7 3 (2.33%) Retail
8 2 (1.55%) Financial Institution
8 2 (1.55%) Front Office
8 2 (1.55%) Pharmaceutical
8 2 (1.55%) Telecoms
8 2 (1.55%) Wearables
9 1 (0.78%) Arabic Language
9 1 (0.78%) Automotive
9 1 (0.78%) Back Office
9 1 (0.78%) Digital Health
9 1 (0.78%) Digital Healthcare
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 16 (12.40%) CSS
1 16 (12.40%) HTML
2 3 (2.33%) AngularJS
2 3 (2.33%) Framer.js
2 3 (2.33%) HTML5
2 3 (2.33%) React
3 2 (1.55%) CSS3
3 2 (1.55%) Lightning Web Components
3 2 (1.55%) RESTful
4 1 (0.78%) HTML5 Canvas
4 1 (0.78%) Unreal Engine
Miscellaneous
1 13 (10.08%) Product Ownership
2 11 (8.53%) Mobile App
3 7 (5.43%) Onboarding
4 4 (3.10%) Data Protection Act
4 4 (3.10%) Digital Wallet
5 3 (2.33%) Digital Media
6 2 (1.55%) Analytical Mindset
6 2 (1.55%) Enterprise Software
6 2 (1.55%) Low-Code
6 2 (1.55%) Virtual Team
7 1 (0.78%) Blog
7 1 (0.78%) Cloud Native
7 1 (0.78%) Embedded Systems
7 1 (0.78%) Foreign Exchange (FX)
7 1 (0.78%) Graphic Design
7 1 (0.78%) Management Information System
7 1 (0.78%) Social Media
7 1 (0.78%) Team-Oriented Environment
7 1 (0.78%) Web Conferencing
Operating Systems
1 2 (1.55%) Android
2 1 (0.78%) Apple iOS
2 1 (0.78%) Mac OS
2 1 (0.78%) VMS
2 1 (0.78%) Windows
Processes & Methodologies
1 129 (100.00%) User Experience
2 128 (99.22%) UX Design
3 62 (48.06%) User Research
4 47 (36.43%) Agile
5 46 (35.66%) Prototyping
5 46 (35.66%) Usability Testing
5 46 (35.66%) Wireframes
6 36 (27.91%) Interaction Design
7 35 (27.13%) User-Centered Design (UCD)
8 24 (18.60%) Service Design
8 24 (18.60%) UX Research
9 19 (14.73%) High-Fidelity Prototypes
10 17 (13.18%) Problem-Solving
11 15 (11.63%) Analytics
12 14 (10.85%) Journey Map
12 14 (10.85%) Workshop Facilitation
13 10 (7.75%) E-Commerce
13 10 (7.75%) Inclusive Design
13 10 (7.75%) Information Architecture
14 9 (6.98%) AI
Programming Languages
1 5 (3.88%) JavaScript
2 1 (0.78%) TypeScript
Qualifications
1 12 (9.30%) Security Cleared
2 10 (7.75%) Degree
3 9 (6.98%) SC Cleared
4 3 (2.33%) BPSS Clearance
5 2 (1.55%) Master's Degree
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 50 (38.76%) Accessibility
2 15 (11.63%) WCAG
3 2 (1.55%) QA
4 1 (0.78%) GDPR
Vendors
1 24 (18.60%) Adobe
2 7 (5.43%) Microsoft
3 4 (3.10%) Hopewiser
3 4 (3.10%) Salesforce
4 3 (2.33%) Google
5 2 (1.55%) MuleSoft
6 1 (0.78%) Hotjar
6 1 (0.78%) Mercator
75 UX Designer jobs Nationwide