User Research Job Trends in the UK excluding London

User Research
UK > UK excluding London

The table below provides summary statistics and salary benchmarking for jobs advertised in the UK excluding London requiring User Research skills. It covers permanent job vacancies from the 6 months leading up to 14 January 2026, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
14 Jan 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 424 353 375
Rank change year-on-year -71 +22 -18
Permanent jobs citing User Research 85 219 206
As % of all permanent jobs in the UK excluding London 0.20% 0.61% 0.60%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 0.26% 0.68% 0.67%
Number of salaries quoted 46 79 148
10th Percentile £40,537 £41,594 £27,500
25th Percentile £46,313 £42,250 £40,016
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £56,367 £52,500 £56,145
Median % change year-on-year +7.36% -6.49% +2.08%
75th Percentile £65,640 £62,433 £68,750
90th Percentile £75,000 £69,570 £75,772
UK median annual salary £55,000 £57,500 £60,000
% change year-on-year -4.35% -4.17% -

All Process & Methodology Skills
UK excluding London

User Research falls under the Processes and Methodologies category. For comparison with the information above, the following table provides summary statistics for all permanent job vacancies requiring process or methodology skills in the UK excluding London.

Permanent vacancies with a requirement for process or methodology skills 33,283 31,985 30,588
As % of all permanent jobs advertised in the UK excluding London 78.49% 89.04% 88.64%
Number of salaries quoted 19,187 14,363 22,780
10th Percentile £27,750 £31,250 £28,000
25th Percentile £33,500 £41,250 £38,000
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £50,000 £55,000 £52,000
Median % change year-on-year -9.09% +5.77% -5.45%
75th Percentile £65,000 £70,000 £66,250
90th Percentile £80,000 £83,750 £80,000
UK median annual salary £55,000 £60,000 £60,000
% change year-on-year -8.33% - -4.00%

User Research
Job Vacancy Trend in the UK excluding London

Historical trend showing the proportion of permanent IT job postings citing User Research relative to all permanent IT jobs advertised in the UK excluding London.

User Research job vacancy trend in the UK excluding London

User Research
Salary Trend in the UK excluding London

Salary distribution trend for jobs in the UK excluding London citing User Research.

Salary distribution trend for jobs in the UK excluding London citing User Research

User Research
Salary Histogram in the UK excluding London

Salary distribution for jobs citing User Research in the UK excluding London over the 6 months to 14 January 2026.

Salary histogram for User Research in the UK excluding London

User Research
Job Locations in the UK excluding London

The table below looks at the demand and provides a guide to the median salaries quoted in IT jobs citing User Research within the UK excluding London region over the 6 months to 14 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
Permanent
IT Job Ads
Median Salary
Past 6 Months
Median Salary
% Change
on Same Period
Last Year
Live
Jobs
North of England -1 30 £60,625 +12.79% 16
South East -36 29 £52,500 - 40
Yorkshire -1 19 £58,750 +11.90% 5
Midlands +21 11 £65,000 +26.83% 8
North West +8 9 £57,500 -3.25% 5
East Midlands -3 6 £65,000 +52.90% 1
Northern Ireland -9 6 - -
West Midlands +16 5 £63,076 +14.68% 7
South West -7 5 £40,625 -6.59% 8
Wales +1 3 £49,500 +10.00% 2
North East +3 2 £64,038 +42.31% 6
East of England +18 1 - - 3
Scotland -9 1 £47,500 -20.07% 6
User Research
UK

User Research
Co-Occurring Skills & Capabilities in the UK excluding London 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 2 (2.35%) Confluence
2 1 (1.18%) Camunda
Applications
1 7 (8.24%) Adobe XD
2 2 (2.35%) Microsoft Office
3 1 (1.18%) Adobe Creative Suite
3 1 (1.18%) InVision
3 1 (1.18%) Sketch
3 1 (1.18%) UserZoom
Cloud Services
1 18 (21.18%) Figma
2 9 (10.59%) Azure
3 8 (9.41%) AWS
4 5 (5.88%) GCP
5 4 (4.71%) Adobe Analytics
5 4 (4.71%) Miro
6 3 (3.53%) OpenShift
6 3 (3.53%) Power Platform
7 2 (2.35%) Amazon CloudWatch
7 2 (2.35%) Azure DevOps
7 2 (2.35%) GitHub
7 2 (2.35%) Google Analytics
7 2 (2.35%) SaaS
7 2 (2.35%) Serverless
8 1 (1.18%) Azure Logic Apps
8 1 (1.18%) Azure Service Bus
8 1 (1.18%) Contentsquare
8 1 (1.18%) Microsoft 365
Communications & Networking
1 8 (9.41%) Broadband
Database & Business Intelligence
1 3 (3.53%) PostgreSQL
1 3 (3.53%) Relational Database
2 2 (2.35%) Geospatial Data
2 2 (2.35%) Metadata
2 2 (2.35%) Power BI
2 2 (2.35%) SQL Server
3 1 (1.18%) GIS
3 1 (1.18%) MySQL
Development Applications
1 6 (7.06%) Axure RP
2 5 (5.88%) Balsamiq
3 4 (4.71%) Git
4 3 (3.53%) Cucumber
4 3 (3.53%) JUnit
5 2 (2.35%) GitLab
5 2 (2.35%) Jenkins
5 2 (2.35%) JIRA
5 2 (2.35%) Selenium
6 1 (1.18%) Ant
6 1 (1.18%) Cypress.io
6 1 (1.18%) Gradle
6 1 (1.18%) Maven
6 1 (1.18%) Mockito
General
1 23 (27.06%) Public Sector
2 16 (18.82%) Social Skills
3 15 (17.65%) Law
3 15 (17.65%) Legal
4 13 (15.29%) Marketing
5 11 (12.94%) Finance
5 11 (12.94%) Inclusion and Diversity
6 8 (9.41%) Presentation Skills
7 7 (8.24%) Organisational Skills
8 5 (5.88%) Banking
9 4 (4.71%) Games
10 3 (3.53%) Analytical Skills
10 3 (3.53%) Welsh Language
11 2 (2.35%) Digital Health
12 1 (1.18%) Italian Language
12 1 (1.18%) Japanese Language
Job Titles
1 22 (25.88%) Designer
2 17 (20.00%) User Researcher
3 16 (18.82%) Senior
4 11 (12.94%) Lead
5 8 (9.41%) Product Manager
5 8 (9.41%) Senior User Researcher
6 7 (8.24%) Architect
6 7 (8.24%) Digital Product Manager
6 7 (8.24%) Service Designer
6 7 (8.24%) User Experience Architect
7 5 (5.88%) Interaction Designer
7 5 (5.88%) Product Designer
8 4 (4.71%) Consultant
8 4 (4.71%) Delivery Manager
8 4 (4.71%) Engagement Manager
8 4 (4.71%) Lead Designer
8 4 (4.71%) Senior User Experience Researcher
8 4 (4.71%) Software Engineer
8 4 (4.71%) User Experience Researcher
9 3 (3.53%) Agile Delivery Manager
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 7 (8.24%) CSS
1 7 (8.24%) HTML
2 5 (5.88%) Spring
2 5 (5.88%) Spring Boot
3 4 (4.71%) AngularJS
3 4 (4.71%) React
3 4 (4.71%) Vue
4 2 (2.35%) Django
4 2 (2.35%) Elastic Stack
4 2 (2.35%) Flask
4 2 (2.35%) pytest
4 2 (2.35%) REST
4 2 (2.35%) Sass
5 1 (1.18%) .NET
5 1 (1.18%) Bootstrap
5 1 (1.18%) LESS
5 1 (1.18%) Nightwatchjs
5 1 (1.18%) Semantic HTML
Miscellaneous
1 9 (10.59%) Product Ownership
2 6 (7.06%) Cloud Native
3 5 (5.88%) Mobile App
4 4 (4.71%) NHS
4 4 (4.71%) Social Media
5 2 (2.35%) Legacy Applications
5 2 (2.35%) Legacy Systems
6 1 (1.18%) Enterprise Software
Processes & Methodologies
1 54 (63.53%) Agile
2 48 (56.47%) User Experience
3 37 (43.53%) User-Centered Design (UCD)
4 32 (37.65%) Service Design
5 27 (31.76%) Usability Testing
6 26 (30.59%) Actionable Insight
7 25 (29.41%) UX Design
8 24 (28.24%) Prototyping
9 23 (27.06%) Customer Experience
10 22 (25.88%) Stakeholder Management
11 21 (24.71%) Analytics
12 20 (23.53%) Interaction Design
13 19 (22.35%) Mentoring
14 18 (21.18%) Roadmaps
15 17 (20.00%) Design Thinking
16 16 (18.82%) Product Management
16 16 (18.82%) Workshop Facilitation
17 14 (16.47%) Community of Practice
18 12 (14.12%) Product Roadmap
18 12 (14.12%) Quantitative Research
Programming Languages
1 4 (4.71%) Java
1 4 (4.71%) JavaScript
2 2 (2.35%) Delphi
2 2 (2.35%) Python
3 1 (1.18%) C#
3 1 (1.18%) Go
3 1 (1.18%) SQL
Qualifications
1 23 (27.06%) Security Cleared
2 22 (25.88%) SC Cleared
3 16 (18.82%) Degree
4 2 (2.35%) BPSS Clearance
4 2 (2.35%) DV Cleared
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 27 (31.76%) Accessibility
2 9 (10.59%) WCAG
3 8 (9.41%) QA
4 6 (7.06%) Actionable Recommendations
5 2 (2.35%) Data Quality
6 1 (1.18%) NCSC
System Software
1 3 (3.53%) Docker
Systems Management
1 3 (3.53%) Kubernetes
2 2 (2.35%) Grafana
Vendors
1 16 (18.82%) Adobe
2 5 (5.88%) Microsoft
3 2 (2.35%) Google
3 2 (2.35%) Oracle
4 1 (1.18%) Red Hat