User Research Contracts

User Research
UK

The following table provides summary statistics for contract job vacancies with a requirement for User Research skills. Included is a benchmarking guide to the contractor rates offered in vacancies that have cited User Research over the 6 months to 16 May 2024 with a comparison to the same period in the previous 2 years.

6 months to
16 May 2024
Same period 2023 Same period 2022
Rank 277 170 144
Rank change year-on-year -107 -26 -22
Contract jobs citing User Research 368 862 1,696
As % of all contract jobs advertised in the UK 0.86% 1.51% 1.94%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 1.00% 1.68% 2.14%
Number of daily rates quoted 268 676 1,279
10th Percentile £363 £405 £403
25th Percentile £438 £448 £450
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £539 £525 £525
Median % change year-on-year +2.57% - +10.53%
75th Percentile £601 £600 £586
90th Percentile £675 £663 £650
UK excluding London median daily rate £500 £488 £500
% change year-on-year +2.56% -2.50% +5.26%
Number of hourly rates quoted 3 1 10
10th Percentile - - £19.86
25th Percentile £25.25 - £20.63
Median hourly rate £25.50 £45.00 £25.50
Median % change year-on-year -43.33% +76.47% +48.91%
75th Percentile £25.75 - £55.68
90th Percentile - - £65.08
UK excluding London median hourly rate - - £23.00
% change year-on-year - - +53.33%

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 contract job vacancies with a requirement for process or methodology skills.

Contract vacancies with a requirement for process or methodology skills 36,679 51,168 79,259
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 86.19% 89.82% 90.63%
Number of daily rates quoted 23,608 35,479 55,636
10th Percentile £300 £325 £345
25th Percentile £413 £438 £429
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £550 £530
Median % change year-on-year -4.55% +3.77% +8.16%
75th Percentile £638 £650 £638
90th Percentile £750 £750 £738
UK excluding London median daily rate £500 £500 £479
% change year-on-year - +4.38% +9.49%
Number of hourly rates quoted 2,436 1,692 1,900
10th Percentile £12.75 £10.64 £12.50
25th Percentile £15.94 £16.10 £15.50
Median hourly rate £36.27 £35.65 £25.68
Median % change year-on-year +1.75% +38.82% +5.35%
75th Percentile £60.00 £65.00 £49.75
90th Percentile £72.50 £75.00 £65.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £37.50 £35.00 £20.00
% change year-on-year +7.14% +75.00% -6.21%

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
Contractor Daily Rate Trend

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

Daily rate trend for User Research in the UK

User Research
Daily Rate Histogram

Daily rate distribution for jobs citing User Research over the 6 months to 16 May 2024.

Daily rate histogram for User Research in the UK

User Research
Contractor Hourly Rate Trend

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

Hourly rate trend for User Research in the UK

User Research
Top 14 Contract Locations

The table below looks at the demand and provides a guide to the median contractor rates quoted in IT jobs citing User Research within the UK over the 6 months to 16 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
Contract
IT Job Ads
Median
Daily Rate
Past 6 Months
Median Daily Rate
% Change
on Same Period
Last Year
Live
Jobs
England -106 254 £550 - 109
Work from Home -53 160 £550 +4.76% 59
London -58 149 £538 -2.27% 55
UK excluding London -107 129 £500 +2.56% 63
Scotland -18 58 £500 +13.64% 7
North of England -40 50 £375 -31.82% 30
North West -10 25 £363 -36.96% 20
Yorkshire -28 18 £500 -9.09% 4
North East +10 7 £606 +16.31% 6
South West -20 7 £750 +31.29% 4
South East -23 7 £450 - 4
West Midlands -16 4 £450 -18.18% 8
Midlands -17 4 £450 -18.18% 13
Northern Ireland - 3 £513 - 2

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 22 (5.98%) Confluence
2 8 (2.17%) govService
3 4 (1.09%) CMS
4 1 (0.27%) Adobe Experience Manager
4 1 (0.27%) Headless CMS
4 1 (0.27%) SAS
4 1 (0.27%) SharePoint
Applications
1 23 (6.25%) Sketch
2 16 (4.35%) Adobe XD
3 7 (1.90%) UserZoom
4 6 (1.63%) Adobe Creative Suite
5 5 (1.36%) InVision
6 3 (0.82%) Photoshop
7 2 (0.54%) Trello
7 2 (0.54%) Zeplin
8 1 (0.27%) Adobe Illustrator
8 1 (0.27%) Microsoft Office
8 1 (0.27%) SPSS
Business Applications
1 1 (0.27%) SAP S/4HANA
Cloud Services
1 53 (14.40%) Figma
2 48 (13.04%) AWS
3 16 (4.35%) Azure
4 13 (3.53%) Azure DevOps
5 10 (2.72%) Miro
6 4 (1.09%) SaaS
7 3 (0.82%) GitHub
8 2 (0.54%) Power Platform
9 1 (0.27%) Adobe Analytics
9 1 (0.27%) Adobe Creative Cloud
9 1 (0.27%) Amazon EKS
9 1 (0.27%) Apigee
9 1 (0.27%) AWS CloudFormation
9 1 (0.27%) Entra ID
9 1 (0.27%) Google Analytics
9 1 (0.27%) Google Tag Manager
9 1 (0.27%) Kong
9 1 (0.27%) Pendo
9 1 (0.27%) Salesforce Service Cloud
Communications & Networking
1 7 (1.90%) Intranet
2 1 (0.27%) Internet
Database & Business Intelligence
1 44 (11.96%) Apache Cassandra
2 2 (0.54%) Data Warehouse
2 2 (0.54%) PostgreSQL
2 2 (0.54%) Power BI
2 2 (0.54%) Relational Database
3 1 (0.27%) Amazon Athena
3 1 (0.27%) Looker
3 1 (0.27%) Metadata
3 1 (0.27%) MongoDB
3 1 (0.27%) Power Query
3 1 (0.27%) Tableau
Development Applications
1 32 (8.70%) JIRA
2 7 (1.90%) Axure RP
3 3 (0.82%) Jenkins
4 2 (0.54%) Appium
4 2 (0.54%) JUnit
4 2 (0.54%) LoadRunner
4 2 (0.54%) Postman
4 2 (0.54%) Selenium
4 2 (0.54%) SonarQube
5 1 (0.27%) Balsamiq
5 1 (0.27%) Gatling
5 1 (0.27%) Git
5 1 (0.27%) JMeter
5 1 (0.27%) Maven
5 1 (0.27%) webpack
General
1 122 (33.15%) Public Sector
2 93 (25.27%) Social Skills
3 38 (10.33%) Finance
4 26 (7.07%) Analytical Skills
5 16 (4.35%) Marketing
6 14 (3.80%) Influencing Skills
7 13 (3.53%) Presentation Skills
8 9 (2.45%) Banking
9 8 (2.17%) Telecoms
10 7 (1.90%) Manufacturing
10 7 (1.90%) Publishing
11 6 (1.63%) Electronics
12 5 (1.36%) Health Technology
12 5 (1.36%) Inclusion and Diversity
13 4 (1.09%) Games
13 4 (1.09%) Local Government
13 4 (1.09%) Retail
13 4 (1.09%) Tech for Good
14 3 (0.82%) Advertising
14 3 (0.82%) French Language
Job Titles
1 115 (31.25%) Designer
2 76 (20.65%) User Researcher
3 64 (17.39%) Senior
4 45 (12.23%) UX Designer
5 44 (11.96%) Software Engineer
6 36 (9.78%) Product Manager
7 31 (8.42%) Senior Software Engineer
8 26 (7.07%) Lead
8 26 (7.07%) Service Designer
9 20 (5.43%) Analyst
10 18 (4.89%) Content Designer
11 16 (4.35%) Interaction Designer
12 15 (4.08%) Business Analyst
13 12 (3.26%) Head of Customer Experience
13 12 (3.26%) Head of Digital
13 12 (3.26%) Senior Designer
13 12 (3.26%) Senior User Researcher
14 9 (2.45%) User Experience Researcher
15 8 (2.17%) UI Designer
15 8 (2.17%) UI/UX Designer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 45 (12.23%) Kafka
2 16 (4.35%) HTML
3 14 (3.80%) CSS
4 3 (0.82%) RESTful
5 2 (0.54%) Node.js
5 2 (0.54%) React Native
5 2 (0.54%) Spring Boot
5 2 (0.54%) Unity (Game Engine)
6 1 (0.27%) AngularJS
6 1 (0.27%) D3.js
6 1 (0.27%) JSON
6 1 (0.27%) React
6 1 (0.27%) Spring
6 1 (0.27%) Vue
6 1 (0.27%) Web Services
Miscellaneous
1 31 (8.42%) Product Ownership
2 11 (2.99%) Mobile App
3 7 (1.90%) Onboarding
4 5 (1.36%) CMDB
4 5 (1.36%) Self-Motivation
5 3 (0.82%) Data Protection Act
5 3 (0.82%) Graphic Design
5 3 (0.82%) Legacy Systems
5 3 (0.82%) Mobile Games
6 2 (0.54%) Blog
6 2 (0.54%) Enterprise Software
6 2 (0.54%) EPoS
6 2 (0.54%) Greenfield Project
6 2 (0.54%) NHS
7 1 (0.27%) BYOD
7 1 (0.27%) Credit Risk
7 1 (0.27%) Cyber Threat
7 1 (0.27%) Hybrid Cloud
7 1 (0.27%) iPad
7 1 (0.27%) iPhone
Operating Systems
1 3 (0.82%) Apple iOS
2 2 (0.54%) Android
3 1 (0.27%) Windows
3 1 (0.27%) Windows 10
Processes & Methodologies
1 200 (54.35%) Agile
2 173 (47.01%) User Experience
3 137 (37.23%) UX Design
4 101 (27.45%) User-Centered Design (UCD)
5 87 (23.64%) Service Design
6 86 (23.37%) UX Research
7 65 (17.66%) User Stories
8 61 (16.58%) Usability Testing
9 58 (15.76%) Software Engineering
10 52 (14.13%) Problem-Solving
11 49 (13.32%) Prototyping
12 47 (12.77%) Fintech
13 41 (11.14%) Wireframes
14 39 (10.60%) Analytics
15 34 (9.24%) Roadmaps
15 34 (9.24%) Workshop Facilitation
16 32 (8.70%) Interaction Design
17 31 (8.42%) Mentoring
18 30 (8.15%) Business Analysis
19 28 (7.61%) Actionable Insight
Programming Languages
1 44 (11.96%) Go
2 12 (3.26%) JavaScript
3 6 (1.63%) Java
4 2 (0.54%) Python
4 2 (0.54%) Swift
5 1 (0.27%) Kotlin
5 1 (0.27%) SQL
Qualifications
1 72 (19.57%) Security Cleared
2 62 (16.85%) SC Cleared
3 26 (7.07%) Degree
4 9 (2.45%) BPSS Clearance
5 7 (1.90%) Master's Degree
6 4 (1.09%) DV Cleared
7 3 (0.82%) Computer Science Degree
7 3 (0.82%) DBS Check
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 69 (18.75%) Accessibility
2 13 (3.53%) Actionable Recommendations
2 13 (3.53%) WCAG
3 6 (1.63%) Disclosure Scotland
4 5 (1.36%) QA
5 4 (1.09%) Data Quality
6 1 (0.27%) SLA
System Software
1 45 (12.23%) Docker
2 1 (0.27%) Active Directory
Systems Management
1 45 (12.23%) Kubernetes
2 3 (0.82%) Ansible
3 1 (0.27%) Microsoft Intune
3 1 (0.27%) Terraform
Vendors
1 26 (7.07%) Adobe
2 8 (2.17%) SAP
3 6 (1.63%) Cadence
3 6 (1.63%) Microsoft
4 5 (1.36%) ServiceNow
5 2 (0.54%) Brio
5 2 (0.54%) Checkmarx
6 1 (0.27%) Apple
6 1 (0.27%) Google
6 1 (0.27%) Qualtrics
6 1 (0.27%) Salesforce
6 1 (0.27%) Virgin Media