Careers in UX, UI and Product Design

Career in UX, UI, and Product Design: Salary, Roles, and Responsibilities

Are you interested in pursuing a career in UX, UI, or Product Design? These roles are at the forefront of creativity and innovation, where technology and design come together to create something truly magical. Everything from the apps we use to the systems we work with is touched by design, and businesses that prioritise design are outperforming their competitors. Here's what you need to know about the roles and their day-to-day responsibilities, as well as the salary you can expect to earn.

1. UX Designer

User experience (UX) designers are in high demand, with over 80% of hiring managers making recruiting UX designers their number one priority in 2021. The primary responsibility of UX designers is to enhance the customer experience, making them integral to branding and business. They gather extensive research on customer requirements and use these findings to make crucial design decisions. A UX designer ensures that the project is user-friendly and suitable for its intended purpose.

As a UX designer, you might find yourself creating user personas, prototypes, wireframes, or organising user testing for different projects. You are the empath on the project who can understand and relate to how users engage with the product.

Here are the rates of pay you can expect to earn as a UX designer:

• Junior Role (1-2 years of experience): £25,000 - £40,000
• Mid-Level Role (2-4 years of experience): £40,000 - £55,000
• Senior Role (4-6 years of experience): £55,000 - £75,000
• Lead Role (6-8 years of experience): £75,000 - £95,000
• Director/Head of Role (8-10 years of experience): £95,000 upwards

2. UI Designer

User interface (UI) design focuses on the visual experience of the user, establishing how they interact with the product interface. A UI designer creates all the screens through which a user navigates and designs all the visual points of reference and interactions that facilitate this movement. They manage the journey of a user when engaging with a digital product, ensuring simple and effective engagement.

As a UI designer, you might find yourself creating boards to share assets and mood boards to help shape a customer's perception of a brand. The role offers a variety of activities on a daily basis ranging from creating animations, style guides, establishing brand colours and typeface, iconography, prototyping, and testing. UI designers might work on apps, websites, video games, and software, anything with an interface!

Here are the rates of pay you can expect to earn as a UI designer:

• Junior Role (1-2 years): £25,000 - £40,000
• Mid-Level Role (2-4 years): £40,000 - £60,000
• Senior Role (4-6 years): £60,000 - £75,000
• Lead Role (6-8 years): £75,000 - £90,000
• Director/Head of Role (8-10 years): £90,000 upwards

3. Product Designer

The day-to-day life of a product designer involves creating the end-to-end experience. A product designer is concerned with both the beauty and functionality of a product. They coordinate user research before planning their ideas and generating blueprints using specialised software. Together with Product Managers and Engineers, they then turn sketches into prototypes, ready for testing. When designing for digital products, you will find your work impacts the whole product life cycle, and everyone is reliant on your delivery being perfect.

As a product designer, you are responsible for finding the most efficient production methods.

Here are the rates of pay you can expect to earn as a Product Designer:

• Junior Role - (1 - 2yrs ) £30,000 - £45,000
• Mid-Level Role - (2 -4yrs) £45,000 - £60,000
• Senior Role - (4 - 6yrs)  £60,000 - £75,000
• Lead Role - (6 - 8yrs) £75,000 - £100,000
• Director/Head of Role - (8 - 10yrs) £100,000 upwards