How to Negotiate Your First UX Job Salary: UX Salary Trends to Know?
While User Experience is one of the most thriving industries of the present time, there has been a lot of anomaly around it. For instance, the UX salary that one individual is getting might be vastly different from another. Therefore, if you are just starting your career, then you should read this post about user experience salary. From the UX job salary trends to the UX designer's average salary, this post will provide all the vital details and help you negotiate your first remuneration like a pro.
Part 1: UX Job Market and UX Designer Average Salary Trends
Although the User Experience industry has been around for a while, it has certainly taken a huge leap in the last few years. With tons of similar services and apps being released, companies are focused on developing a one-of-a-kind product. To achieve this, they would like to hire the best UX designers that would bring something new to the table.
Therefore, the UX salary trends have also improved drastically in the last few years. According to a report by Glassdoor, UX Designing is the sixth highest-paying entry-level job, which makes it so sought-after. (source)
Today, there are over a million companies in the world hiring UX designers for different entry, mid, and high-level positions. That's why the user experience salary that you might expect would vary based on different parameters.
UX Designer Average Salary
When we talk about the UX designer's average salary for entry-level, then it would vary from $56 to $100K annually. In most cases, if you have 0 to 2 years of experience, then you can take home the UX designer's average salary of $81K per year. Though, if you have an advanced skillset, then the UX job salary of up to $100K can be bagged.
Source: Springboard
Needless to say, if you have more professional experience, then your UX salary would also be increased and it can climb to even $200K.
To further improve your UX job's salary, you can implement the following suggestions.
Part 2: Perform Extensive Research About UX Salary Trends
Before you accept your first UX job salary, you need to do extensive research to know the ins and outs of the industry. For instance, you can explore tons of online resources like Glassdoor, Monster, or LinkedIn to check the UX salary trends.
According to a projection by Emsi Analyst, we are expecting to see a hike of 15% in the UX design industry. That is, in the coming years, there will be a demand of over 200 thousand UX designers to meet the growing industry needs.
Source: Springboard
UX Salary Trends by Location
You might already know that the Covid-19 pandemic has changed the landscape of almost every industry and UX design is no such exception. While companies are hiring UX designers in different cities, they also encourage us to work remotely.
Before you set up an expectation for your user experience salary, you need to consider your present/target location. For instance, some countries just pay a better UX job salary than others. As of now, countries like the US, UK, Canada, Australia, Germany, and China are considered as the best locations for UX salary trends.
Source: CareerFoundry
In the US, the UX designer's average salary is expected to be around $85K annually while Canada and Australia have the average UX salary of around $55K per year. On the other hand, China and the UK have the average UX job salary of around $30-40K as of now. Some of the major cities with the best UX salaries are New York, Seattle, San Francisco, Berlin, London, Barcelona, Melbourne, Sydney, and Shenzhen.
UX Salary Trends by Company
Apart from your current location, the company where you would like to work as a UX designer would largely affect the salary as well. Most of the big companies in the world come up with an estimated bracket for the UX designer average salary that they offer.
For instance, when we talk about some Fortune 100 companies, Microsoft, Adobe, Amazon, Facebook, IBM, Google, and Alibaba are known for their top-notch UX salary trends.
Source: CareerFoundry
You can expect a UX job salary of up to $150K annually in companies like Microsoft and Adobe. Besides that, tech unicorns like Uber, Airbnb, Tinder, SpaceX, Discord, and Canva are also known for decent UX salary benchmarks.
If you want to do more research and know the recent UX salary trends, then you can head to the website of UX Designer Salaries ( https://uxdesignersalaries.com/). Here, you can find statistics about UX job salaries from 107 countries based on different parameters.
Source: UX Designer Salaries
Part 3: Develop Your Skillset to Improve Your Resume
You might already know that getting a degree related to UI/UX design is not enough. This is because there is a lot of skill gap between the academic institutes and the current industry demand. To bridge that gap, you can develop your skills by getting all kinds of certification courses.
While you can learn a lot from books and online videos, enrolling in a dedicated UX design course would be a better option. Some of the popular online sources where you can explore these courses are Udemy, Coursera, Lynda, Future Learn, EdX, Udacity, Plural Sight, and LinkedIn Learning. Most of these online certification providers are free, while others would charge a nominal amount.
Source: Coursera
To get a better UX job salary, you can consider improving some of these skills:
- Communication Skills
- Visual Designing
- Voice Designing
- Technical Writing
- Project Management
- Animation
- Artificial Intelligence
- Quality Assurance and Testing
- Micro Interactions
- Neumorphism
- 3D Modeling and Immersive Experience
- Mobile Interaction and Design
You can also learn new and popular tools and applications that are related to UI/UX to add value to your resume. Ideally, the more impressive your resume is, the better the user experience salary you might get.
Part 4: Consider Developing your Auxiliary and Personal Skills
Getting a job interview for a UX designer is just the first step. If you want to bag an impressive UX job salary, then you need to work on your interpersonal skills as well. A lot of times, individuals with an impressive resume and experience are not able to get a deserving salary as they lack personal skills.
By developing your auxiliary skills, you would be able to present and implement your UX designing expertise in the best way. Consider a scenario in which an individual might have the best UX skills but cannot communicate with their team. Even after being well-versed with UX designing, they will not be able to add much to the company in this case.
According to leading experts, if you want to improve your user experience salary, then you should work on developing the following auxiliary and personal skills:
- Communication skills
- Writing skills
- Frontend development
- Coding
- Domain-specific UI designing
- Team-building skills
- Collaborative skills
- Problem-solving skills
- Leadership skills (and more)
Part 5: Ask Around and Keep Looking
Last, but most importantly, before you accept any job, make sure that you ask around other UX designers. If you have a friend or an acquittance who is already working in the same industry, then you can ask them about the job offer. From friends to mentors and old classmates to colleagues, you can simply ask about the experience of other UX designers.
There are plenty of freely available online sources that can also help you calculate the UX designer's average salary. Glassdoor and PayScale are the two most popular places to check the UX salary of other individuals and even read their experience of working in a company. All of this would help you prepare for the kind of job that you would be doing later.
If you want, you can also ask questions on websites like Reddit or Quora to know the experience and salary of other individuals. This will help you clear your doubts by getting one-on-one assistance from a dedicated professional.
To get a decent UX job salary for your first gig, you should keep looking for the most rewarding opportunity. Some of the popular websites to find freelance gigs related to UX designing are Upwork, PeoplePerHour, Indeed, LinkedIn, 99 Designs, and more. Besides that, you can also lookup for user experience designing full-time jobs from places like Monster, Hiree, Glassdoor, FlexJob, Angel List, LinkedIn, Google Jobs, and Indeed.
Well, this brings us to the end of this extensive analysis of UX salary trends to look out for and how to negotiate your UX job salary. To make things easier for you, I have provided researched statistics on UX designer average salary based on different parameters. You can also consider the suggestions that are included above to get a better user experience salary. Since your first job's salary can be a dealbreaker, try to build up your resume and feel free to negotiate with the employer to get the best compensation in hand.
Go ahead and get your first UX design job with a great salary. All the best!
