Are you curious about what kind of salary you could earn as a UI designer? We’ve pulled the data to give you a snapshot of what a UI designer salary looks like in 2023.
We’ve included the average salary for junior, mid-level and senior UI designers in a range of locations, plus some factors that will likely impact how much you can actually earn in the field.
- The average junior UI designer salary
- The average mid-level UI designer salary
- The average senior UI designer salary
- Factors that impact UI designer salaries
- How to start your career as a UI designer
Use this as a guide when setting your salary expectations for your first – or next – UI design job.
The average junior UI designer salary
Here you can see the average junior UI designer salary in different locations. Junior designers typically have between 0 and 3 years’ experience.
| Ireland | UK | Germany | France | Australia | New Zealand | Canada | United States |
| €30,000 | £29,648 | €36,495 | €33,414 | $91,540 | $71,250 | $50,000 | $78,179 |
This is based on data from Prosperity.ie, talent.com, Payscale, Indeed and Glassdoor.
The average UI designer salary (mid-level)
In the following table, you can see the average mid-level UI designer salary in different locations.
| Ireland | UK | Germany | France | Australia | New Zealand | Canada | United States |
| €57,948 | £62,500 | €41,785 | €40,700 | $104,791 | $81,437 | $65,000 | $96,254 |
This is based on data from Payscale, Totaljobs, Indeed, talent.com, salary.com and Glassdoor.
The average senior UI designer salary
Here you can see the average salary for a senior UI designer. Senior UI designers generally have over 5 years’ experience.
| Ireland | UK | Germany | France | Australia | New Zealand | Canada | United States |
| €71,698 | £65,000 | €57,000 | €45,116 | $125,093 | $129,000 | $102,000 | $107,268 |
This is based on data from Prosperity.ie, Glassdoor, Indeedand talent.com.
Factors that may impact your salary as a UI designer
The UI designer salaries we’ve shared are based on average data found across various websites. In reality, there are many different factors that will affect exactly what salary you earn as a UI designer. These include location, experience level, industry and the type of company you work for.
How does location impact the UI designer salary?
When considering your salary, it’s important to factor in your location (or the company’s location, if you’re applying for a remote position). Generally, bigger cities tend to pay higher salaries. For example: Adzuna reports that the average UI designer salary in London is 20.5% higher than the national average salary for the same job title.
Before you set your salary expectations and apply for UI design jobs, do your research to find out what the average UI designer salary is within your specific location — don’t just base it on the national average.
How does experience level impact the UI designer salary?
It stands to reason that the more experience you have in the field, the higher you can expect your salary to be. If you’re applying for your first ever UI design job, base your salary expectations on the average junior or entry-level UI designer salaries for your location.
However, if you bring unique and hard-to-come-by skills and experience from a different field and are applying for your first UI design job within a similar or related sector, you may be able to go for a higher salary. For example, if you’ve worked extensively in the financial sector and are now applying to work as a UI designer for a financial startup, you’re not starting out as a complete beginner. In such cases, your previous experience should be factored into your salary.
How does the industry you work in impact your UI designer salary?
As with most jobs, your salary will also be determined by the sector you work in. As a rule, tech companies pay the highest designer salaries. If you consider this list of the five highest-paying companies for designers in the U.S., you’ll see that it’s predominantly made up of tech companies — Google, Dropbox, Amazon, Microsoft and the likes.
If you’re applying for UI design jobs outside of the tech sector, be prepared for the possibility that you might not get a Google-level salary. However, that’s not to say you can’t earn well outside of tech; industry is just one factor that impacts your UI designer salary, after all.
How does the type of company you work at impact your UI designer salary?
Another factor to keep in mind when benchmarking your UI designer salary is the type of company you work for. Startups, agencies and small businesses typically offer lower salaries than big corporations and tech giants like Google and Amazon.
In summary: When defining your salary expectations within the UI design field, it’s useful to factor in the national average salary (as found on sites like Indeed, Glassdoor and Payscale) as well as those four points we just outlined (location, how much experience you have, industry and company type).
With all of these factors combined, you should be able to come up with a reasonable salary benchmark to guide you.
How to start your career as a UI designer
To get hired as a UI designer, you’ll need to master the fundamental concepts of UI design. That includes knowing exactly what UI design is, what a UI designer does and being clear on how UI design is different to UX.
More specifically, you’ll need to learn core UI design principles and tenets such as interactivity, typography, colours, shapes and iconography — all within the context of the overall UI design process (i.e. the process of moving from basic sketches through to professional, polished, user-ready interfaces). You’ll also need to learn the most popular UI design tools such as Figma, Sketch and Adobe XD.
Are you keen to get your UI design career off the ground? Consider obtaining a professional certificate in UI design. This is an effective and flexible way to cover all the most important UI principles in depth and to build your first design portfolio.
You can learn more about what it takes to get qualified in UI design in this video:
Emily is a professional writer and content strategist with an MSc in Psychology. She has 8+ years of experience in the tech industry, with a focus on UX and design thinking. A regular contributor to top design publications, she also authored a chapter in The UX Careers Handbook. Emily also holds a BA in French and German and is passionate about languages and continuous learning.
