User Research
UK

The following table provides summary statistics for permanent job vacancies with a requirement for User Research skills. Included is a benchmarking guide to the salaries offered in vacancies that have cited User Research over the 6 months to 10 May 2024 with a comparison to the same period in the previous 2 years.

6 months to
10 May 2024
Same period 2023 Same period 2022
Rank 377 412 258
Rank change year-on-year +35 -154 +160
Permanent jobs citing User Research 706 787 2,456
As % of all permanent jobs advertised in the UK 0.71% 0.78% 1.56%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 0.83% 0.81% 1.63%
Number of salaries quoted 330 349 788
10th Percentile £40,954 £40,000 £38,750
25th Percentile £42,725 £45,000 £46,250
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £52,500 £57,500 £57,500
Median % change year-on-year -8.70% - +4.55%
75th Percentile £65,938 £73,750 £70,000
90th Percentile £75,077 £81,250 £85,000
UK excluding London median annual salary £49,000 £57,500 £53,112
% change year-on-year -14.78% +8.26% +6.22%

All Process and Methodology Skills
UK

User Research is in the Processes and Methodologies category. The following table is for comparison with the above and provides summary statistics for all permanent job vacancies with a requirement for process or methodology skills.

Permanent vacancies with a requirement for process or methodology skills 84,917 96,578 150,488
As % of all permanent jobs advertised in the UK 85.59% 95.61% 95.67%
Number of salaries quoted 59,883 56,844 82,330
10th Percentile £29,008 £34,000 £33,515
25th Percentile £40,000 £45,000 £43,750
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £55,000 £61,190 £60,000
Median % change year-on-year -10.12% +1.98% +9.09%
75th Percentile £72,500 £81,250 £80,000
90th Percentile £92,500 £100,000 £96,250
UK excluding London median annual salary £50,000 £55,000 £52,500
% change year-on-year -9.09% +4.76% +9.38%

User Research
Job Vacancy Trend

Job postings citing User Research as a proportion of all IT jobs advertised.

Job vacancy trend for User Research in the UK

User Research
Salary Trend

3-month moving average salary quoted in jobs citing User Research.

Salary trend for User Research in the UK

User Research
Salary Histogram

Salary distribution for jobs citing User Research over the 6 months to 10 May 2024.

Salary histogram for User Research in the UK

User Research
Top 17 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 10 May 2024. 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
UK excluding London +110 530 £49,000 -14.78% 68
England +3 496 £52,100 -13.17% 111
Work from Home +109 311 £49,000 -18.33% 57
North of England +125 180 £45,249 -35.36% 30
London -36 147 £59,400 -1.00% 51
Scotland +58 137 £49,000 +3.16% 7
North West +56 99 £50,000 -28.57% 20
Midlands +33 72 £54,700 +21.56% 10
Yorkshire +101 53 £45,249 -37.59% 5
West Midlands +30 48 £57,734 +28.30% 6
South West -8 46 £58,700 +31.85% 5
South East -11 43 £45,000 - 9
North East +14 28 £45,249 +95.23% 6
East Midlands +3 24 £45,000 - 4
Wales +23 22 £50,000 +27.39%
Northern Ireland - 21 £58,800 - 2
East of England -55 9 £35,000 -53.33% 5

User Research
Co-occurring Skills and Capabilities by Category

The follow tables expand on the table above by listing co-occurrences grouped by category. The same employment type, locality and period is covered with up to 20 co-occurrences shown in each of the following categories:

Application Platforms
1 37 (5.24%) Confluence
2 8 (1.13%) CMS
3 6 (0.85%) Umbraco
4 3 (0.42%) SharePoint
5 2 (0.28%) Sitecore CMS
5 2 (0.28%) WordPress
Applications
1 53 (7.51%) Sketch
2 38 (5.38%) UserZoom
3 34 (4.82%) Adobe XD
4 28 (3.97%) MS Visio
5 20 (2.83%) InVision
6 14 (1.98%) Photoshop
7 13 (1.84%) Adobe Illustrator
8 12 (1.70%) Adobe Creative Suite
9 6 (0.85%) Trello
10 4 (0.57%) InDesign
10 4 (0.57%) Microsoft Office
11 3 (0.42%) Microsoft PowerPoint
11 3 (0.42%) Zeplin
12 2 (0.28%) Notion
13 1 (0.14%) Adobe Captivate
13 1 (0.14%) Blender
13 1 (0.14%) Microsoft Excel
13 1 (0.14%) Microsoft Project
13 1 (0.14%) SPSS
13 1 (0.14%) Stata
Business Applications
1 26 (3.68%) Endur
2 1 (0.14%) Dynamics CRM
2 1 (0.14%) Salesforce CRM
Cloud Services
1 140 (19.83%) Figma
2 70 (9.92%) SurveyMonkey
3 42 (5.95%) AWS
4 29 (4.11%) Miro
5 24 (3.40%) SaaS
6 21 (2.97%) Azure
7 14 (1.98%) Microsoft 365
8 12 (1.70%) GCP
9 11 (1.56%) GitHub
10 10 (1.42%) Google Analytics
11 8 (1.13%) Salesforce Sales Cloud
11 8 (1.13%) Serverless
12 7 (0.99%) Azure DevOps
12 7 (0.99%) dbt
12 7 (0.99%) Dynamics 365
12 7 (0.99%) IaaS
12 7 (0.99%) PaaS
13 6 (0.85%) Amazon EKS
13 6 (0.85%) AWS Lambda
13 6 (0.85%) GitHub Actions
Communications & Networking
1 9 (1.27%) Wi-Fi
2 6 (0.85%) Intranet
3 5 (0.71%) Internet
3 5 (0.71%) Software-Defined Networking
3 5 (0.71%) WAN
3 5 (0.71%) Wireless
Database & Business Intelligence
1 70 (9.92%) BigQuery
2 5 (0.71%) Power BI
2 5 (0.71%) SQL Server
3 4 (0.57%) Apache Cassandra
3 4 (0.57%) PostgreSQL
3 4 (0.57%) Redis
4 1 (0.14%) Elasticsearch
4 1 (0.14%) Geospatial Data
4 1 (0.14%) GIS
4 1 (0.14%) Metadata
4 1 (0.14%) Metadata Repository
4 1 (0.14%) MongoDB
4 1 (0.14%) NoSQL
Development Applications
1 60 (8.50%) JIRA
2 40 (5.67%) Jenkins
3 17 (2.41%) Axure RP
4 14 (1.98%) Balsamiq
5 12 (1.70%) Git
6 6 (0.85%) CircleCI
6 6 (0.85%) git-flow
6 6 (0.85%) GitLab
7 4 (0.57%) RSpec
8 1 (0.14%) Visual Studio Code
General
1 216 (30.59%) Inclusion and Diversity
2 186 (26.35%) Social Skills
3 168 (23.80%) Finance
4 136 (19.26%) Marketing
5 118 (16.71%) Law
6 63 (8.92%) Public Sector
7 47 (6.66%) Retail
8 39 (5.52%) Presentation Skills
9 38 (5.38%) Social Science
10 33 (4.67%) Analytical Skills
11 27 (3.82%) Banking
12 16 (2.27%) Investment Banking
13 11 (1.56%) Influencing Skills
14 10 (1.42%) Legal
15 8 (1.13%) Local Government
16 7 (0.99%) Games
17 5 (0.71%) Aerospace
17 5 (0.71%) Digital Economy
18 4 (0.57%) Organisational Skills
19 2 (0.28%) Financial Institution
Job Titles
1 153 (21.67%) Senior
2 151 (21.39%) Designer
3 125 (17.71%) Analyst
4 120 (17.00%) Lead
5 111 (15.72%) Product Manager
6 98 (13.88%) User Researcher
7 74 (10.48%) UX Designer
8 70 (9.92%) Digital Analyst
8 70 (9.92%) Digital Performance Analyst
8 70 (9.92%) Performance Analyst
9 65 (9.21%) User Experience Researcher
10 55 (7.79%) Business Analyst
11 45 (6.37%) Senior User Researcher
12 37 (5.24%) Senior Analyst
12 37 (5.24%) Senior Business Analyst
13 31 (4.39%) UI Designer
14 29 (4.11%) Service Designer
14 29 (4.11%) UI/UX Designer
15 24 (3.40%) Senior Designer
16 20 (2.83%) Consultant
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 51 (7.22%) CSS
1 51 (7.22%) HTML
2 13 (1.84%) React
3 6 (0.85%) Elastic Stack
3 6 (0.85%) Web Services
4 5 (0.71%) AngularJS
4 5 (0.71%) Kafka
4 5 (0.71%) Ruby on Rails
5 4 (0.57%) Node.js
5 4 (0.57%) Sidekiq
6 3 (0.42%) D3.js
6 3 (0.42%) Ember.js
6 3 (0.42%) WebGL
7 2 (0.28%) .NET
7 2 (0.28%) .NET Framework
7 2 (0.28%) HTML5
8 1 (0.14%) CSS3
8 1 (0.14%) Express.js
8 1 (0.14%) RESTful
8 1 (0.14%) SVG
Miscellaneous
1 160 (22.66%) Product Ownership
2 27 (3.82%) Market Risk
3 26 (3.68%) Management Information System
4 18 (2.55%) Onboarding
5 12 (1.70%) Graphic Design
5 12 (1.70%) Legacy Systems
5 12 (1.70%) PropTech
6 10 (1.42%) Cyberattack
6 10 (1.42%) Virtual Team
7 9 (1.27%) NHS
8 8 (1.13%) Blockchain
8 8 (1.13%) Cloud Native
9 7 (0.99%) Social Media
10 5 (0.71%) Public Cloud
11 4 (0.57%) Algorithms
11 4 (0.57%) Blog
11 4 (0.57%) Data Structures
11 4 (0.57%) Housing Association
11 4 (0.57%) Mobile App
12 3 (0.42%) Self-Motivation
Operating Systems
1 9 (1.27%) Linux
2 4 (0.57%) Android
3 3 (0.42%) Apple iOS
3 3 (0.42%) Unix
3 3 (0.42%) Windows
4 1 (0.14%) Mac OS
Processes & Methodologies
1 423 (59.92%) Agile
2 300 (42.49%) User Experience
3 256 (36.26%) Actionable Insight
4 208 (29.46%) User-Centered Design (UCD)
5 183 (25.92%) Mentoring
6 169 (23.94%) UX Design
7 155 (21.95%) UX Research
8 154 (21.81%) Service Design
9 151 (21.39%) Roadmaps
10 149 (21.10%) Analytics
11 142 (20.11%) Visualisation
12 136 (19.26%) DevOps
13 122 (17.28%) Product Management
14 119 (16.86%) Decision-Making
14 119 (16.86%) Psychology
15 116 (16.43%) Qualitative Research
16 107 (15.16%) Wireframes
17 105 (14.87%) Customer Experience
17 105 (14.87%) Strategic Thinking
17 105 (14.87%) Usability Testing
Programming Languages
1 73 (10.34%) SQL
2 43 (6.09%) JavaScript
3 35 (4.96%) R
4 6 (0.85%) Shell Script
5 5 (0.71%) Ruby
6 3 (0.42%) C#
6 3 (0.42%) Go
6 3 (0.42%) Java
6 3 (0.42%) Python
7 2 (0.28%) TypeScript
Qualifications
1 202 (28.61%) Degree
2 190 (26.91%) Security Cleared
3 180 (25.50%) SC Cleared
4 62 (8.78%) Master's Degree
5 45 (6.37%) PhD
6 15 (2.12%) BPSS Clearance
7 14 (1.98%) Microsoft Certification
8 9 (1.27%) DV Cleared
9 8 (1.13%) CSPO
9 8 (1.13%) IIBA
10 5 (0.71%) CCIE
10 5 (0.71%) Cisco Certification
11 4 (0.57%) DBS Check
12 3 (0.42%) APMG
12 3 (0.42%) CITP
13 2 (0.28%) AWS Certification
13 2 (0.28%) AWS Certified DevOps Engineer
13 2 (0.28%) CBAP
13 2 (0.28%) MBA
14 1 (0.14%) Computer Science Degree
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 133 (18.84%) Accessibility
2 43 (6.09%) Actionable Recommendations
3 24 (3.40%) QA
4 21 (2.97%) WCAG
5 9 (1.27%) GDPR
6 3 (0.42%) PMO
System Software
1 14 (1.98%) Docker
2 6 (0.85%) Active Directory
Systems Management
1 11 (1.56%) Terraform
2 9 (1.27%) Kubernetes
3 8 (1.13%) Ansible
Vendors
1 76 (10.76%) Qualtrics
2 52 (7.37%) Adobe
3 38 (5.38%) Microsoft
4 24 (3.40%) Google
5 18 (2.55%) ServiceNow
6 16 (2.27%) Salesforce
7 7 (0.99%) Hotjar
8 6 (0.85%) McAfee
9 5 (0.71%) Cisco
9 5 (0.71%) Meraki
9 5 (0.71%) Mercator
9 5 (0.71%) Palo Alto
10 4 (0.57%) dotdigital
11 3 (0.42%) CrowdStrike
11 3 (0.42%) Remedy
12 2 (0.28%) HubSpot
12 2 (0.28%) Sitecore
13 1 (0.14%) Apple
13 1 (0.14%) SnapLogic