Salary Talk: What are UX/UI Designers Earning?

You’ve probably heard about tech salaries and that you can expect to earn a nice salary in the tech field. And while tech salaries vary significantly based on country, you can expect lots of room for growth, flexibility, benefits, and that salary you’ve dreamed of. Are you aware of all these benefits? After we dive into some average UX/UI design salaries in some major European countries, we’ll explore other advantages - like bonuses! - that you can expect from a career in tech. 

Average Salary for UX/UI Designers

A lot of factors go into someone’s salary, like their experience level, education, location, position, and more. And while we can’t guarantee the exact salary you’ll earn at your role as a UX/UI designer, we can provide average salaries for Spain, Germany, France, the UK, and the Netherlands: 

What determines a tech salary?

As we mentioned, it’s hard to determine an exact salary based on just the role, but we can try to explain some of the main factors. For example, the cost of living of where your company is located, even if you aren’t located there, is major. Countries with higher costs of living will typically offer higher salaries and remember that if you’re in a place with lower salaries and a low cost of living, you’ll probably have the same disposable income as those who hold similar roles in other countries. 

Apart from location, your experience level also makes a difference when it comes to deciding your salary. Do you have similar experience in other roles? Or is it your first time working in tech? It can be disappointing at first, but understand that you may have to start at a lower-paying role for a few months before you’re promoted or given a raise. This is quite common in on-the-job learning roles like those that exist in tech. 

Lastly, another major factor to keep in mind is your education level. Companies are placing increasingly less importance on university or master’s degrees and prioritizing skill-based hiring, but some still may ask for a degree in a certain field or want to see some sort of bootcamp or additional course. 

Additional remunerated benefits of tech

The growing international skills gap in tech means that employers need to be providing candidates with incredibly attractive offers to not only get their attention in the first place, but also retain them. Employers have two main ways of doing this: signing bonuses and yearly or performance-based bonuses. 

As the need for highly specialized tech workers continues to grow and companies are faced with a shrinking candidate pool, many have turned to offering attractive signing bonuses, an extra bonus given upon beginning your new job, performance-based bonuses, bonuses given when you reach a specific goal, or yearly bonuses, annual bonuses awarded at the beginning of each year. 

Other benefits of tech roles 

Although it can be hard to see past the number of your salary, there are other benefits of UX/UI design roles that may be hidden behind the dollar signs. Lots of tech companies offer health insurance, childcare, and other programs that can help you save money in other areas. 

One of tech’s most infamous benefits is probably its flexibility, which can have incredible effects on your overall life and wellbeing. Are you spending an hour each way on your commute? Tech companies that boast flexible working conditions such as completely remote or hybrid can help you enjoy more of your personal time. 

Another important thing to consider is that tech is moving away from traditional hiring processes that rely heavily on university or higher education degrees. Tech is evolving fast and the programming language or design style that students learn in university may not be relevant once they reach the workforce. Now more than ever before, employers are prioritizing skill-based hiring, meaning instead of looking at where a candidate has studied, they’ll look at what they’ve studied to see if they could meet the job requirements. Recently, companies have also begun to look for soft skills in addition to hard skills, such as communication, teamwork, collaboration, problem solving, and critical thinking. 

And let’s not forget about tech’s upward mobility options; the dizzying speed at which tech is moving means that there’s always a new tool or skill that employers are looking for and as the skills gap increases, employers see more value in re- or upskilling their current employees instead of hiring new ones. Not only will you begin in a junior role and be set to move up, but you’ll also get to try your hand at various skills and roles and see what the best fit for you is. 

Why UX/UI Design? 

If you’ve decided that jumping into tech is the right decision for you, you might be wondering exactly what area you should pursue. And UX/UI design is not only an area of tech that will let your creative juices flow, but it’s also in high demand and will continue to be: UX/UI design helps clients create both highly functional and visually appealing designs for websites, apps, and more. 

UX/UI designers do work specifically with clients to figure out exactly what is needed for the design and continuously consult with them to ensure their vision is accurate. They also work to improve customer satisfaction and therefore ROI; customers that are frustrated with an app design or can’t find what they need will go to a competitor’s site instead.

Why should you get into UX/UI design? 

If you’re interested in getting into tech and maintaining your creativity, UX/UI design might be just for you: 

Is UX/UI design seeming like the right choice for you? Makes total sense! At Ironhack, we’re eager to help you take that next step, sign up for an UX/UI design bootcamp, and get started on your new and improved tech career.