How much do web designers really earn? Finding a way to balance a fixed salary with a job that allows you to show your creativity and sensitivity to design is an ongoing challenge for creatives, but it's a challenge that can be overcome with a career in web design. Working as a web designer involves ensuring an excellent user experience on all the web pages of a site, including establishing a color palette, a set of fonts, and other visual themes that match the brand's identity, creating the design, and more. Then, a front-end web developer brings the user experience (UX) design and user interface (UI) design of their website to life with code. In fact, there are web designers who are also dedicated to WordPress templates and the development of user interfaces, and learning a little code never hurts anyone's job prospects.
That all sounds great, but I'm sure you're wondering how much money a web designer makes. Is website design really one of those elusive creative jobs that pay just enough to cover the bills? Yes, there are technology positions that pay more, such as programming jobs, but if you have experience in traditional graphic or print design, making the leap to web design can be a fairly easy transition and you won't need another degree, graduate studies or any other certification. Finally, web designer salaries also vary depending on your geographical area (or the geographical location of the company you are applying to, if you work remotely). Here's a breakdown of how the average beginner's salary varies between the East and West Coast (New York and Los Angeles) and between a city with a high cost of living and a city with a low cost of living (we've used San Francisco and Salt Lake City as examples)).
What if you're wondering what specific skills you'll need to start working in web design and earn these salaries? While we teach you all the skills you need in our Break Into Tech program, an online course that can be completed in three months by dedicating just an hour or two a day to materials, it doesn't hurt to know how to use wireframes for your user interface designs and some basic HTML, CSS and JavaScript. Another factor that brings variability to web design salaries is the fact that web design work is not always a one-time commitment to a company that pays a fixed salary. Yes, it's possible to get a full-time job as a web designer working for a company, but like all creative jobs, web design can be a freelance career, where the amount of income you generate will depend on the number of clients you get, your hourly rate, and the amount of work you're interested in and willing to do. If you love earning a good salary as a web designer, but you also want to flirt with the idea of working as a freelancer, web design can give you the flexibility you need to try both or become a full-time freelancer. If you're only looking for part-time work to generate additional income in addition to a day job (or in addition to being a parent or other domestic job), becoming a freelance web designer is a good secondary option.
And if you're an experienced designer with a lot of creative resources, but you're looking for a job as a presenter that's your main source of income, web design can also meet those requirements. The scalability of web design allows you to achieve the specific income level for your needs, which is as important as the average starting salary. And remember, whether you want to work as a freelancer, or find a full-time job in a company, Skillcrush's Break Into Tech course will teach you the skills you need to do it. While there are several factors that will determine what type of salary you can expect to earn (amount of experience, skill, or platform), it's good to know the average salary of most designers.
Of the 771 web designers surveyed, 449 (more than 58%) said they had invested money in some form of professional development when starting their web design business. I was very curious to know how the answers would differ between designers who charge higher prices and, as expected, young people earn a little less than the average web design salary and older adults earn a little more. Yes, there are higher-paying tech positions, such as programming jobs, but if you have experience in traditional graphic or print design, making the leap to web design can be a pretty smooth transition and you won't need another degree, graduate studies, or any other certification.
For example, San Francisco and Seattle (two major technology centers) are prime locations for web designers, but less obvious places like Minneapolis, Atlanta, and Dallas are also very friendly to web designers.
But while the industry values web design less than the development aspect, you won't earn a penny for your work.If you're new to the field of web design, an introductory course for beginners, such as Web Design for All, offered by the University of Michigan, is a good point to departure. While web designers work with the big picture, selecting colors or the overall design of the elements, user interface designers deal with the smallest details. We asked them to explain all kinds of topics to us, from their annual income as web designers to what products and services they offer, who they serve, where they find customers and even what it has cost them the most since they started their business. If attending a traditional institution is impossible, inconvenient, or simply too expensive, aspiring web designers can learn programming (and related) skills through programming camps immersive.
