UX Research Job Trends

User Experience Research (UXR)
UK

The table below provides summary statistics and salary benchmarking for jobs requiring UX Research skills. It covers permanent job vacancies from the 6 months leading up to 5 January 2026, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
5 Jan 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 591 643 620
Rank change year-on-year +52 -23 -7
Permanent jobs citing UX Research 59 64 105
As % of all permanent jobs in the UK 0.100% 0.12% 0.20%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 0.12% 0.13% 0.22%
Number of salaries quoted 37 27 53
10th Percentile £40,179 £40,000 £23,850
25th Percentile £46,750 £44,375 £33,250
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £51,500 £59,684 £50,000
Median % change year-on-year -13.71% +19.37% -14.53%
75th Percentile £58,750 £77,500 £66,500
90th Percentile £65,000 £92,500 £74,750
UK excluding London median annual salary £55,000 £51,250 £39,748
% change year-on-year +7.32% +28.94% -27.86%

All Process & Methodology Skills
UK

UX 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 48,249 48,920 48,231
As % of all permanent jobs advertised in the UK 81.52% 90.19% 90.95%
Number of salaries quoted 28,284 23,965 36,703
10th Percentile £28,500 £35,000 £31,250
25th Percentile £37,000 £45,000 £42,500
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £55,000 £60,000 £60,000
Median % change year-on-year -8.33% - -4.00%
75th Percentile £75,000 £80,000 £78,750
90th Percentile £95,000 £100,000 £97,500
UK excluding London median annual salary £50,000 £55,000 £52,500
% change year-on-year -9.09% +4.76% -4.55%

UX Research
Job Vacancy Trend

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

UX Research job vacancy trend in the UK

UX Research
Salary Trend

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

Salary distribution trend for jobs in the UK citing UX Research

UX Research
Salary Histogram

Salary distribution for jobs citing UX Research over the 6 months to 5 January 2026.

Salary histogram for UX Research in the UK

UX Research
Top 13 Job Locations

The table below looks at the demand and provides a guide to the median salaries quoted in IT jobs citing UX Research within the UK over the 6 months to 5 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
England +70 54 £50,750 -14.97% 32
London +34 28 £50,000 -16.22% 22
UK excluding London +63 27 £55,000 +7.32% 15
Work from Home +54 17 £53,250 -26.55% 14
South East +26 10 £55,000 - 6
South West +9 7 £65,000 +18.18% 2
North of England +28 5 £49,250 +34.93% 6
Midlands +26 4 - -
East Midlands - 4 - -
North West +21 2 £56,250 +54.11% 3
Yorkshire - 2 £47,750 - 2
Northern Ireland - 1 - -
North East - 1 - - 1

UX 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 (10.17%) WordPress
2 5 (8.47%) CMS
3 3 (5.08%) Drupal
3 3 (5.08%) Joomla!
3 3 (5.08%) Umbraco
4 2 (3.39%) SharePoint
4 2 (3.39%) Sitecore CMS
5 1 (1.69%) Camunda
5 1 (1.69%) Confluence
Applications
1 6 (10.17%) MS Visio
2 4 (6.78%) Sketch
3 2 (3.39%) Adobe XD
4 1 (1.69%) InVision
4 1 (1.69%) Spreadsheet
Business Applications
1 3 (5.08%) Shopify
Cloud Services
1 10 (16.95%) Figma
2 8 (13.56%) Azure
3 6 (10.17%) GitHub
3 6 (10.17%) Miro
4 3 (5.08%) Google Ads
4 3 (5.08%) Google Analytics
4 3 (5.08%) Google Tag Manager
5 2 (3.39%) Microsoft 365
5 2 (3.39%) Power Platform
5 2 (3.39%) SaaS
6 1 (1.69%) AWS
6 1 (1.69%) Azure DevOps
6 1 (1.69%) ClickUp
6 1 (1.69%) OpenShift
6 1 (1.69%) Power Automate
Communications & Networking
1 1 (1.69%) Broadband
Database & Business Intelligence
1 5 (8.47%) Looker
2 2 (3.39%) Power BI
2 2 (3.39%) Tableau
3 1 (1.69%) MySQL
3 1 (1.69%) PostgreSQL
3 1 (1.69%) Relational Database
Development Applications
1 8 (13.56%) Git
2 7 (11.86%) Axure RP
3 3 (5.08%) Visual Website Optimizer
4 2 (3.39%) JIRA
5 1 (1.69%) Ant
5 1 (1.69%) Cucumber
5 1 (1.69%) Cypress.io
5 1 (1.69%) Gradle
5 1 (1.69%) JUnit
5 1 (1.69%) Maven
5 1 (1.69%) Mockito
General
1 10 (16.95%) Finance
1 10 (16.95%) Social Skills
2 8 (13.56%) Organisational Skills
3 7 (11.86%) Banking
3 7 (11.86%) Law
3 7 (11.86%) Marketing
4 6 (10.17%) Presentation Skills
4 6 (10.17%) Retail
5 4 (6.78%) Analytical Skills
5 4 (6.78%) Inclusion and Diversity
6 2 (3.39%) Legal
6 2 (3.39%) Telecoms
7 1 (1.69%) Health Technology
7 1 (1.69%) Pharmaceutical
7 1 (1.69%) Public Sector
Job Titles
1 25 (42.37%) Designer
2 17 (28.81%) User Experience Researcher
3 16 (27.12%) Senior
4 14 (23.73%) UX Designer
5 12 (20.34%) Senior User Experience Researcher
6 8 (13.56%) Senior Designer
6 8 (13.56%) Service Designer
7 7 (11.86%) Consultant
7 7 (11.86%) Developer
8 6 (10.17%) Front-End Developer (Client-Side Developer)
9 5 (8.47%) Senior UX Designer
10 3 (5.08%) Analyst
10 3 (5.08%) Business Analyst
10 3 (5.08%) Product Designer
10 3 (5.08%) Project Manager
10 3 (5.08%) Senior Product Designer
10 3 (5.08%) SEO Specialist
10 3 (5.08%) UI Designer
10 3 (5.08%) UI/UX Designer
11 2 (3.39%) Head of AI
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 14 (23.73%) HTML
2 11 (18.64%) CSS
3 6 (10.17%) JSON
3 6 (10.17%) REST
3 6 (10.17%) XML
4 2 (3.39%) AngularJS
4 2 (3.39%) EDI
4 2 (3.39%) Framer.js
4 2 (3.39%) React
4 2 (3.39%) Vue
5 1 (1.69%) Bootstrap
5 1 (1.69%) LESS
5 1 (1.69%) Nightwatchjs
5 1 (1.69%) React Native
5 1 (1.69%) Sass
5 1 (1.69%) Spring
5 1 (1.69%) Spring Boot
Miscellaneous
1 9 (15.25%) Product Ownership
2 5 (8.47%) Mobile App
3 2 (3.39%) AI Agents
3 2 (3.39%) Animation
3 2 (3.39%) Onboarding
4 1 (1.69%) Blog
4 1 (1.69%) Data Protection Act
4 1 (1.69%) Housing Association
4 1 (1.69%) PMI
4 1 (1.69%) Podcast
Operating Systems
1 1 (1.69%) Android
1 1 (1.69%) Apple iOS
Processes & Methodologies
1 59 (100.00%) User Experience
2 31 (52.54%) UX Design
3 28 (47.46%) Agile
4 26 (44.07%) User Research
5 21 (35.59%) Stakeholder Management
6 16 (27.12%) Prototyping
6 16 (27.12%) User-Centered Design (UCD)
7 14 (23.73%) Wireframes
8 13 (22.03%) Scrum
9 12 (20.34%) Design Thinking
9 12 (20.34%) Usability Testing
9 12 (20.34%) User Stories
10 11 (18.64%) Problem-Solving
10 11 (18.64%) Roadmaps
10 11 (18.64%) Service Design
11 10 (16.95%) Actionable Insight
11 10 (16.95%) Design Sprint
11 10 (16.95%) Product Management
11 10 (16.95%) Workshop Facilitation
12 9 (15.25%) Customer-Centricity
Programming Languages
1 9 (15.25%) JavaScript
2 2 (3.39%) SQL
3 1 (1.69%) Go
Qualifications
1 9 (15.25%) SC Cleared
1 9 (15.25%) Security Cleared
2 3 (5.08%) BPSS Clearance
2 3 (5.08%) Degree
3 2 (3.39%) Computer Science Degree
4 1 (1.69%) PMI Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 21 (35.59%) Accessibility
2 3 (5.08%) QA
3 2 (3.39%) WCAG
4 1 (1.69%) NCSC
System Software
1 1 (1.69%) Docker
Systems Management
1 1 (1.69%) Grafana
1 1 (1.69%) Kubernetes
Vendors
1 4 (6.78%) Hotjar
2 3 (5.08%) Google
2 3 (5.08%) Screaming Frog
3 2 (3.39%) Adobe
3 2 (3.39%) Sitecore
4 1 (1.69%) Red Hat