User Research
UK

The table below provides summary statistics and salary benchmarking for jobs requiring User Research skills. It covers permanent job vacancies from the 6 months leading up to 9 May 2026, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
9 May 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 330 413 415
Rank change year-on-year +83 +2 -17
Permanent jobs citing User Research 491 257 575
As % of all permanent jobs in the UK 0.54% 0.59% 0.60%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 0.73% 0.63% 0.70%
Number of salaries quoted 221 128 333
10th Percentile £43,481 £41,950 £41,060
25th Percentile £46,959 £44,688 £42,725
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £55,000 £57,500 £52,500
Median % change year-on-year -4.35% +9.52% -8.70%
75th Percentile £65,000 £72,761 £66,250
90th Percentile £75,000 £88,750 £74,750
UK excluding London median annual salary £53,171 £55,000 £49,000
% change year-on-year -3.33% +12.24% -12.89%

All Process & Methodology Skills
UK

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.

Permanent vacancies with a requirement for process or methodology skills 67,307 40,602 82,234
As % of all permanent jobs advertised in the UK 74.25% 93.30% 85.26%
Number of salaries quoted 42,652 22,587 59,697
10th Percentile £30,000 £30,450 £29,000
25th Percentile £40,000 £42,000 £40,000
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £60,000 £60,000 £55,000
Median % change year-on-year - +9.09% -10.10%
75th Percentile £78,750 £80,000 £72,500
90th Percentile £100,000 £102,446 £92,500
UK excluding London median annual salary £52,500 £52,500 £50,000
% change year-on-year - +5.00% -9.09%

User Research
Job Vacancy Trend

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

User Research job vacancy trend in the UK

User Research
Salary Trend

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

Salary distribution trend for jobs in the UK citing User Research

User Research
Salary Histogram

Salary distribution for jobs citing User Research over the 6 months to 9 May 2026.

Salary histogram for User Research in the UK

User Research
Top 16 Job Locations

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 over the 6 months to 9 May 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
England +172 451 £55,000 -7.85% 117
Work from Home +146 309 £55,000 -7.44% 68
UK excluding London +44 249 £53,171 -3.33% 70
London +55 185 £55,000 -15.38% 58
South East +59 84 £52,500 -2.33% 16
East of England +49 62 £30,000 -45.45% 4
North of England -26 59 £55,000 +4.76% 29
North West -6 27 £52,500 -4.55% 11
Midlands -26 19 £45,497 -20.87% 10
North East -33 16 £53,000 +24.71% 9
Yorkshire -41 16 £55,233 +5.21% 9
South West -46 15 £60,000 -12.44% 4
West Midlands -28 13 £45,497 -20.87% 8
Wales -24 11 £53,171 +18.16% 4
East Midlands - 6 £55,000 - 2
Scotland -75 1 £47,500 -2.86% 1

User Research
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 6 (1.22%) CMS
2 5 (1.02%) Confluence
3 4 (0.81%) SharePoint
4 2 (0.41%) WordPress
5 1 (0.20%) Camunda
5 1 (0.20%) Umbraco
Applications
1 31 (6.31%) UserZoom
2 30 (6.11%) Adobe XD
3 16 (3.26%) Sketch
4 8 (1.63%) Adobe Creative Suite
4 8 (1.63%) InVision
5 2 (0.41%) Microsoft Excel
5 2 (0.41%) Microsoft Office
6 1 (0.20%) Productboard
Business Applications
1 1 (0.20%) Oracle EBS
Cloud Services
1 151 (30.75%) Adobe Analytics
2 131 (26.68%) Figma
3 30 (6.11%) Contentsquare
4 27 (5.50%) Azure
5 20 (4.07%) AWS
6 17 (3.46%) Google Analytics
7 16 (3.26%) GCP
8 14 (2.85%) Miro
9 10 (2.04%) Power Platform
10 7 (1.43%) GitHub
11 6 (1.22%) Azure DevOps
11 6 (1.22%) Heroku
11 6 (1.22%) Microsoft 365
11 6 (1.22%) SaaS
12 4 (0.81%) PaaS
13 3 (0.61%) Power Automate
13 3 (0.61%) PowerApps
14 2 (0.41%) ClickUp
14 2 (0.41%) Google Tag Manager
14 2 (0.41%) OpenShift
Communications & Networking
1 172 (35.03%) Broadband
2 1 (0.20%) HTTP
2 1 (0.20%) WPA
Database & Business Intelligence
1 5 (1.02%) Power BI
1 5 (1.02%) Relational Database
2 4 (0.81%) NoSQL
2 4 (0.81%) PostgreSQL
3 3 (0.61%) Looker
3 3 (0.61%) Metadata
3 3 (0.61%) MongoDB
4 2 (0.41%) BigQuery
4 2 (0.41%) Data Hub
4 2 (0.41%) DTS
4 2 (0.41%) MySQL
4 2 (0.41%) Redis
4 2 (0.41%) Tableau
5 1 (0.20%) GIS
5 1 (0.20%) SQL Server
Development Applications
1 24 (4.89%) Axure RP
2 18 (3.67%) Balsamiq
3 10 (2.04%) JIRA
4 7 (1.43%) Git
5 3 (0.61%) Jenkins
5 3 (0.61%) Storybook
6 2 (0.41%) Cucumber
7 1 (0.20%) Ant
7 1 (0.20%) Cypress.io
7 1 (0.20%) GitLab
7 1 (0.20%) Gradle
7 1 (0.20%) JUnit
7 1 (0.20%) Maven
7 1 (0.20%) Mockito
7 1 (0.20%) SpecFlow
General
1 151 (30.75%) Games
2 138 (28.11%) Public Sector
3 89 (18.13%) Social Skills
4 56 (11.41%) Inclusion and Diversity
5 49 (9.98%) Finance
6 45 (9.16%) Presentation Skills
7 41 (8.35%) Law
8 33 (6.72%) Analytical Skills
9 12 (2.44%) Influencing Skills
10 10 (2.04%) Legal
11 9 (1.83%) Banking
11 9 (1.83%) Organisational Skills
12 6 (1.22%) Marketing
13 5 (1.02%) Retail
14 4 (0.81%) Local Government
15 1 (0.20%) Automotive
15 1 (0.20%) Military
15 1 (0.20%) Pharmaceutical
15 1 (0.20%) Social Science
Job Titles
1 162 (32.99%) Designer
2 137 (27.90%) Lead
3 127 (25.87%) User Researcher
4 102 (20.77%) Senior
5 53 (10.79%) Lead Designer
6 46 (9.37%) UX Designer
7 43 (8.76%) Senior Designer
8 40 (8.15%) Product Designer
9 36 (7.33%) Digital Designer
10 25 (5.09%) Senior Product Designer
11 24 (4.89%) Service Designer
12 23 (4.68%) Interaction Designer
13 21 (4.28%) Product Manager
14 20 (4.07%) Senior User Researcher
15 19 (3.87%) Analyst
16 18 (3.67%) User Experience Researcher
17 17 (3.46%) Delivery Manager
17 17 (3.46%) Digital User Researcher
17 17 (3.46%) Senior Manager
18 16 (3.26%) Agile Delivery Manager
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 36 (7.33%) HTML
2 33 (6.72%) CSS
3 14 (2.85%) React
4 12 (2.44%) REST
5 11 (2.24%) AngularJS
5 11 (2.24%) Spring
5 11 (2.24%) Vue
6 10 (2.04%) Spring Boot
7 7 (1.43%) .NET
8 5 (1.02%) RESTful
9 4 (0.81%) Node.js
10 3 (0.61%) ASP.NET
10 3 (0.61%) ASP.NET Core
10 3 (0.61%) SPFx
11 2 (0.41%) JSON
11 2 (0.41%) XML
12 1 (0.20%) Django
12 1 (0.20%) HTML5
12 1 (0.20%) OAuth
12 1 (0.20%) OpenID
Miscellaneous
1 151 (30.75%) Social Media
2 67 (13.65%) Product Ownership
3 43 (8.76%) Mobile App
4 18 (3.67%) Cloud Native
5 8 (1.63%) Legacy Systems
5 8 (1.63%) NHS
6 7 (1.43%) Blog
7 4 (0.81%) e-Learning
8 3 (0.61%) Legacy Applications
8 3 (0.61%) Low-Code
9 2 (0.41%) Public Cloud
9 2 (0.41%) Self-Motivation
9 2 (0.41%) Synthetic Data
10 1 (0.20%) Analytical Mindset
10 1 (0.20%) Distributed Systems
10 1 (0.20%) Graphic Design
10 1 (0.20%) Housing Association
10 1 (0.20%) PropTech
10 1 (0.20%) Virtual Team
10 1 (0.20%) Web Conferencing
Operating Systems
1 3 (0.61%) Windows
2 1 (0.20%) Android
2 1 (0.20%) Apple iOS
Processes & Methodologies
1 329 (67.01%) Agile
2 253 (51.53%) User-Centered Design (UCD)
3 214 (43.58%) Analytics
4 185 (37.68%) Customer Experience
5 179 (36.46%) AI
6 177 (36.05%) Roadmaps
7 170 (34.62%) User Experience
8 163 (33.20%) Product Roadmap
8 163 (33.20%) Storytelling
9 162 (32.99%) Prototyping
10 151 (30.75%) Digital Customer Experience
11 124 (25.25%) Workshop Facilitation
12 109 (22.20%) Usability Testing
13 105 (21.38%) Service Design
14 100 (20.37%) UX Design
15 98 (19.96%) Mentoring
16 87 (17.72%) Inclusive Design
17 71 (14.46%) DesignOps
18 70 (14.26%) Wireframes
19 65 (13.24%) Systems Thinking
Programming Languages
1 25 (5.09%) JavaScript
2 17 (3.46%) Java
3 10 (2.04%) Python
4 8 (1.63%) SQL
5 5 (1.02%) C#
6 4 (0.81%) TypeScript
7 3 (0.61%) PowerShell
7 3 (0.61%) Ruby
8 2 (0.41%) R
9 1 (0.20%) Go
9 1 (0.20%) Kotlin
9 1 (0.20%) PHP
9 1 (0.20%) VB.NET
9 1 (0.20%) XAML
Qualifications
1 110 (22.40%) Security Cleared
2 85 (17.31%) SC Cleared
3 55 (11.20%) Degree
4 18 (3.67%) DV Cleared
5 1 (0.20%) CBAP
5 1 (0.20%) ICAEW
5 1 (0.20%) IIBA
5 1 (0.20%) PMI Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 258 (52.55%) Accessibility
2 73 (14.87%) WCAG
3 12 (2.44%) Actionable Recommendations
4 8 (1.63%) QA
5 3 (0.61%) Data Quality
6 2 (0.41%) PMO
7 1 (0.20%) GDPR
7 1 (0.20%) NCSC
System Software
1 6 (1.22%) Docker
Systems Management
1 7 (1.43%) Kubernetes
2 5 (1.02%) Terraform
3 1 (0.20%) Ansible
3 1 (0.20%) Prometheus
Vendors
1 210 (42.77%) Adobe
2 21 (4.28%) Microsoft
3 19 (3.87%) Google
4 3 (0.61%) Guidewire
4 3 (0.61%) Hotjar
4 3 (0.61%) Pega
4 3 (0.61%) Sitecore
4 3 (0.61%) YouTube
5 2 (0.41%) Dynatrace
6 1 (0.20%) Oracle
6 1 (0.20%) Red Hat
6 1 (0.20%) Salesforce
6 1 (0.20%) UiPath