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 7 February 2026.

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

 6 months to
7 Feb 2026		 Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 460 416 452
Rank change year-on-year -44 +36 -61
Contract jobs requiring a UX Designer 132 111 156
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 0.34% 0.36% 0.35%
As % of the Job Titles category 0.37% 0.38% 0.37%
Number of daily rates quoted 94 69 99
10th Percentile £363 £338 £345
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 £522 £575 £572
90th Percentile £565 £650 £600
UK excluding London median daily rate £402 £401 £450
% change year-on-year +0.37% -11.00% -5.26%
Number of hourly rates quoted 2 3 2
10th Percentile £51.77 £31.91 £52.13
25th Percentile £53.35 £32.52 £55.31
Median hourly rate £56.97 £33.54 £61.25
Median % change year-on-year +69.86% -45.24% -
75th Percentile £60.85 £41.63 £67.81
90th Percentile £62.59 £45.90 £71.38
UK excluding London median hourly rate - £33.54 -

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 35,711 28,902 42,066
% of contract IT jobs with a recognized job title 91.50% 92.95% 93.13%
Number of daily rates quoted 22,518 17,719 27,795
10th Percentile £300 £291 £275
25th Percentile £405 £406 £410
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £525 £525
Median % change year-on-year -4.76% - -4.55%
75th Percentile £613 £638 £638
90th Percentile £717 £738 £738
UK excluding London median daily rate £475 £476 £490
% change year-on-year -0.21% -2.86% -2.00%
Number of hourly rates quoted 2,166 840 2,312
10th Percentile £14.50 £15.89 £13.15
25th Percentile £18.57 £21.25 £16.67
Median hourly rate £29.82 £33.77 £35.00
Median % change year-on-year -11.69% -3.51% -
75th Percentile £61.25 £63.38 £61.51
90th Percentile £71.25 £75.00 £72.88
UK excluding London median hourly rate £28.00 £32.13 £35.95
% change year-on-year -12.85% -10.63% +8.94%

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 7 February 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
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 7 February 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 -55 111 £450 -12.20% 69
London -13 68 £470 -10.48% 30
UK excluding London -65 53 £402 +0.37% 51
Work from Home -22 30 £413 +3.13% 37
North of England -53 23 £388 -3.13% 12
North West -20 17 £388 -3.13% 9
Scotland +11 10 £461 +20.92% 2
South West -12 7 £382 -3.11% 11
East of England -18 5 £425 -5.56% 3
North East -12 3 £410 - 2
South East -36 3 £444 -15.48% 14
Midlands -50 3 £400 +5.12% 6
Yorkshire -56 3 £531 +13.27% 1
West Midlands -43 2 £400 -18.37% 5
Wales - 2 £588 - 2
East Midlands -28 1 £485 +39.26% 1

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

For the 6 months to 7 February 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.

1 132 (100.00%) User Experience
2 130 (98.48%) UX Design
3 77 (58.33%) Figma
4 59 (44.70%) User Research
5 51 (38.64%) Prototyping
6 47 (35.61%) Accessibility
6 47 (35.61%) Agile
6 47 (35.61%) Wireframes
7 44 (33.33%) Usability Testing
8 36 (27.27%) Sketch
9 35 (26.52%) Interaction Design
9 35 (26.52%) User-Centered Design (UCD)
10 26 (19.70%) UX Research
11 23 (17.42%) Adobe
12 22 (16.67%) Service Design
13 19 (14.39%) High-Fidelity Prototypes
14 18 (13.64%) Problem-Solving
15 17 (12.88%) Adobe XD
15 17 (12.88%) Analytics
15 17 (12.88%) Axure RP
16 16 (12.12%) CSS
16 16 (12.12%) HTML
17 15 (11.36%) WCAG
18 14 (10.61%) Journey Map
18 14 (10.61%) Workshop Facilitation
19 12 (9.09%) Design Thinking
20 11 (8.33%) AI
20 11 (8.33%) E-Commerce
20 11 (8.33%) Information Architecture
20 11 (8.33%) Security Cleared

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 (2.27%) CMS
1 3 (2.27%) Confluence
2 1 (0.76%) SharePoint
Applications
1 36 (27.27%) Sketch
2 17 (12.88%) Adobe XD
3 10 (7.58%) InVision
4 3 (2.27%) Adobe Illustrator
4 3 (2.27%) Photoshop
5 2 (1.52%) Adobe Creative Suite
5 2 (1.52%) OmniGraffle
5 2 (1.52%) Zeplin
6 1 (0.76%) Chatbot
6 1 (0.76%) InDesign
6 1 (0.76%) Marvel
6 1 (0.76%) UserZoom
6 1 (0.76%) UXPin
Cloud Services
1 77 (58.33%) Figma
2 6 (4.55%) Miro
2 6 (4.55%) SaaS
3 3 (2.27%) Power Platform
3 3 (2.27%) PowerApps
4 2 (1.52%) ChatGPT
4 2 (1.52%) Contentful
4 2 (1.52%) GitHub
5 1 (0.76%) Adobe Creative Cloud
5 1 (0.76%) AWS
5 1 (0.76%) Azure
5 1 (0.76%) Dropbox
5 1 (0.76%) Dynamics 365
5 1 (0.76%) Google Analytics
5 1 (0.76%) Google Drive
5 1 (0.76%) Heroku
5 1 (0.76%) Microsoft 365
5 1 (0.76%) Slack
Communications & Networking
1 1 (0.76%) Internet
1 1 (0.76%) Intranet
Database & Business Intelligence
1 1 (0.76%) Metadata
Development Applications
1 17 (12.88%) Axure RP
2 6 (4.55%) JIRA
3 2 (1.52%) Git
4 1 (0.76%) Balsamiq
4 1 (0.76%) Cypress.io
General
1 48 (36.36%) Social Skills
2 34 (25.76%) Finance
3 21 (15.91%) Banking
4 13 (9.85%) Public Sector
5 7 (5.30%) Analytical Skills
5 7 (5.30%) Presentation Skills
6 5 (3.79%) Retail
7 3 (2.27%) Influencing Skills
7 3 (2.27%) Marketing
8 2 (1.52%) Financial Institution
8 2 (1.52%) Front Office
8 2 (1.52%) Legal
8 2 (1.52%) Pharmaceutical
8 2 (1.52%) Telecoms
8 2 (1.52%) Wearables
9 1 (0.76%) Back Office
9 1 (0.76%) Billing
9 1 (0.76%) Investment Banking
9 1 (0.76%) Local Government
9 1 (0.76%) Military
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 16 (12.12%) CSS
1 16 (12.12%) HTML
2 3 (2.27%) AngularJS
2 3 (2.27%) Framer.js
2 3 (2.27%) HTML5
2 3 (2.27%) React
3 2 (1.52%) CSS3
3 2 (1.52%) RESTful
4 1 (0.76%) HTML5 Canvas
4 1 (0.76%) Lightning Web Components
4 1 (0.76%) Unreal Engine
Miscellaneous
1 12 (9.09%) Mobile App
1 12 (9.09%) Product Ownership
2 7 (5.30%) Onboarding
3 4 (3.03%) Data Protection Act
3 4 (3.03%) Digital Wallet
4 3 (2.27%) Digital Media
5 2 (1.52%) Analytical Mindset
5 2 (1.52%) Enterprise Software
5 2 (1.52%) Low-Code
5 2 (1.52%) Midjourney
5 2 (1.52%) Virtual Team
6 1 (0.76%) Blog
6 1 (0.76%) Cloud Native
6 1 (0.76%) Foreign Exchange (FX)
6 1 (0.76%) Graphic Design
6 1 (0.76%) Greenfield Project
6 1 (0.76%) Management Information System
6 1 (0.76%) Social Media
6 1 (0.76%) Team-Oriented Environment
6 1 (0.76%) Web Conferencing
Operating Systems
1 2 (1.52%) Android
2 1 (0.76%) Apple iOS
2 1 (0.76%) Mac OS
2 1 (0.76%) VMS
2 1 (0.76%) Windows
Processes & Methodologies
1 132 (100.00%) User Experience
2 130 (98.48%) UX Design
3 59 (44.70%) User Research
4 51 (38.64%) Prototyping
5 47 (35.61%) Agile
5 47 (35.61%) Wireframes
6 44 (33.33%) Usability Testing
7 35 (26.52%) Interaction Design
7 35 (26.52%) User-Centered Design (UCD)
8 26 (19.70%) UX Research
9 22 (16.67%) Service Design
10 19 (14.39%) High-Fidelity Prototypes
11 18 (13.64%) Problem-Solving
12 17 (12.88%) Analytics
13 14 (10.61%) Journey Map
13 14 (10.61%) Workshop Facilitation
14 12 (9.09%) Design Thinking
15 11 (8.33%) AI
15 11 (8.33%) E-Commerce
15 11 (8.33%) Information Architecture
Programming Languages
1 5 (3.79%) JavaScript
2 3 (2.27%) Korn
3 1 (0.76%) TypeScript
Qualifications
1 11 (8.33%) Security Cleared
2 10 (7.58%) Degree
3 8 (6.06%) SC Cleared
4 3 (2.27%) BPSS Clearance
5 2 (1.52%) Master's Degree
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 47 (35.61%) Accessibility
2 15 (11.36%) WCAG
3 2 (1.52%) QA
4 1 (0.76%) GDPR
Vendors
1 23 (17.42%) Adobe
2 7 (5.30%) Microsoft
3 4 (3.03%) Hopewiser
4 2 (1.52%) Google
4 2 (1.52%) MuleSoft
4 2 (1.52%) Salesforce
5 1 (0.76%) Hotjar
78 UX Designer jobs Nationwide