diff --git a/distributed/distributed-schema.yaml b/distributed/distributed-schema.yaml
index 06e973a81b7..79e8986b4d9 100644
--- a/distributed/distributed-schema.yaml
+++ b/distributed/distributed-schema.yaml
@@ -959,59 +959,6 @@ properties:
                       Alternatively, the key can be appended to the cert file
                       above, and this field left blank
 
-          ucx:
-            type: object
-            description: |
-              UCX provides access to other transport methods including NVLink and InfiniBand.
-            properties:
-              cuda-copy:
-                type: [boolean, 'null']
-                description: |
-                  Set environment variables to enable CUDA support over UCX. This may be used even if
-                  InfiniBand and NVLink are not supported or disabled, then transferring data over TCP.
-              tcp:
-                type: [boolean, 'null']
-                description: |
-                  Set environment variables to enable TCP over UCX, even if InfiniBand and NVLink
-                  are not supported or disabled.
-              nvlink:
-                type: [boolean, 'null']
-                description: |
-                  Set environment variables to enable UCX over NVLink, implies ``distributed.comm.ucx.tcp=True``.
-              infiniband:
-                type: [boolean, 'null']
-                description: |
-                  Set environment variables to enable UCX over InfiniBand, implies ``distributed.comm.ucx.tcp=True``.
-              rdmacm:
-                type: [boolean, 'null']
-                description: |
-                  Set environment variables to enable UCX RDMA connection manager support,
-                  requires ``distributed.comm.ucx.infiniband=True``.
-              create-cuda-context:
-                type: [boolean, 'null']
-                description: |
-                  Creates a CUDA context before UCX is initialized. This is necessary to enable UCX to
-                  properly identify connectivity of GPUs with specialized networking hardware, such as
-                  InfiniBand. This permits UCX to choose transports automatically, without specifying
-                  additional variables for each transport, while ensuring optimal connectivity. When
-                  ``True``, a CUDA context will be created on the first device listed in
-                  ``CUDA_VISIBLE_DEVICES``.
-              environment:
-                type: object
-                description: |
-                  Mapping for setting arbitrary UCX environment variables.
-                  Names here are translated via the following rules to
-                  map to the relevant UCX environment variable:
-                    - hyphens are replaced with underscores
-                    - words are uppercased
-                    - UCX_ is prepended
-                  So, for example, setting ``some-option=value`` is
-                  equivalent to setting ``UCX_SOME_OPTION=value`` in
-                  the calling environment.
-
-                  For a full list of supported UCX environment
-                  variables, run ``ucx_info -f``.
-
           websockets:
             type: object
             properties:
diff --git a/distributed/distributed.yaml b/distributed/distributed.yaml
index 5ab049c2a2b..21ad5275f25 100644
--- a/distributed/distributed.yaml
+++ b/distributed/distributed.yaml
@@ -230,16 +230,6 @@ distributed:
     offload: 10MiB # Size after which we choose to offload serialization to another thread
     default-scheme: tcp
     socket-backlog: 2048
-    ucx:
-      cuda-copy: null  # enable cuda-copy
-      tcp: null  # enable tcp
-      nvlink: null  # enable cuda_ipc
-      infiniband: null  # enable Infiniband
-      rdmacm: null  # enable RDMACM
-      create-cuda-context: null  # create CUDA context before UCX initialization
-      environment: {}            # Any other environment settings to
-                                 # be transferred to UCX. Name
-                                 # munging: key-name => UCX_KEY_NAME
     zstd:
       level: 3      # Compression level, between 1 and 22.
       threads: 0    # Threads to use. 0 for single-threaded, -1 to infer from cpu count.
diff --git a/distributed/worker.py b/distributed/worker.py
index 7e3c01ba5c5..4c2c1ca6c06 100644
--- a/distributed/worker.py
+++ b/distributed/worker.py
@@ -1626,8 +1626,10 @@ async def close(  # type: ignore
         # Give some time for a UCX scheduler to complete closing endpoints
         # before closing self.batched_stream, otherwise the local endpoint
         # may be closed too early and errors be raised on the scheduler when
-        # trying to send closing message.
-        if self._protocol == "ucx":  # pragma: no cover
+        # trying to send closing message. Using startswith supports variations
+        # of the protocols, e.g., `ucx` and `ucxx` which are both valid in
+        # distributed-ucxx.
+        if self._protocol.startswith("ucx"):  # pragma: no cover
             await asyncio.sleep(0.2)
 
         self.batched_send({"op": "close-stream"})