Web designer wage?

Phaser

Phaser

Phaser

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17 Mar 2004
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Just wondering what the normal wage is for a web designer is as I think i'm slightly underpaid.

I don't have anything to do with the actual design of the website (this is outsourced to India) but I usually get the brief off the client, go through the concepts with them, do a bit of the XHTML and CSS (again, a lot of this is outsourced to India), make any tweaks and so on then make the site live.

I also do the Contribute templates, some basic PHP bits, search engine optimisation, Zen Cart websites, Wordpress blogs etc....

I'm on £6 an hour.

Is this about right? I know i'm not actually doing any of the designs and little coding of the static sites but I feel like I should be on a bit more at least?

I'm up north btw, Wakefield.
 
Its hard to say because I'm not really sure what you do? I guess it would be termed as a junior designer, but you're not actually doing design :/

We took on a junior at £15K a couple of years ago and he's now on £20K + profit related bonus which should bring him up to about £24k. His skillset makes him more of a middleweight now. Thats up north too ;)

Personally if you're interested in it as a career you should be looking to leave where you are. You arent going to develop your skills in a company that outsources to India, and I wouldnt want to work for a company like that anyway, churning out run of the mill template sites day in day out
 
Depends on your experience, whether you have a degree etc.

For instance, I graduated with a first class degree in Software Engineering and I earn slightly more than twice the amount you do. Granted I do a lot of coding in the background using IBM Enterprise products (Webpshere etc.) and that I live down south :)
 
I graduated with a degree in Software engineering and when straight into a job 18k as a web programmer and i joined at the same time as a designer who earned the same. The difference is i moved on after 6 months and i am now on 22k while *** designer is still selling his short at 18k
 
Most of the designers where I work are in the low £20Ks - although a designer is classed as someone who knows photoshop/illustrator etc and produces flat PSDs of how sites should look, not necessarily anything to do with HTML/CSS although an understanding is required.

Web developers on the other hand are on around £25-35K depending on experience and skillset.
 
Sagalout said:
Its hard to say because I'm not really sure what you do? I guess it would be termed as a junior designer, but you're not actually doing design :/
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Yeah thats the problem...

To be honest i'm happy where I am, it's a mix of different jobs and my boss is a great guy but the money is awful and if I look at where i'l be in 5 years time I can't see any improvements.

I don't want to look around for "Web Designer" jobs because i've never done anything in Photoshop. I know bits and pieces from doing my own sites but not enough to do it day in day out as a job (and I don't think i'd want to).

Bit stuck where to go from here really....

Surely uni+degree isn't the only choice?
 
I think it's all about putting in hours outside of your job, so that potentially one day you can take over from the job that is currently being performed by someone above you.

If you've never done anything in photoshop, and it sounds like that's one of the barriers in getting to where you want to be, ask work if you can expense a photoshop book and go to waterstones and pick one up.

In my opinion just about anything in computing you can teach yourself. Be it from the internet and completely free or from a book for £30. Provided you have the motivation and ambition to put the hours in, there's no stopping you. Today Photoshop, tomorrow Flash, day after that Silverlight, there'll always be something to teach yourself.

As your skillset increases get together your own website and whack some of the photoshop/flash/silverlight experiments up on there, so everyone, potential employers mainly, can see you're deadly serious that these are your skills.

That's what i'd do.
 
i would say somewhere between 18-22k personally for a web designer but doesnt seem to suit what you do very well.

id just echo what the other guys have said self learn like mad its possible to progress quickly with the right breaks.
 
Phaser said:
Surely uni+degree isn't the only choice?
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Definitely not, no one at our place has an IT related degree - in fact our best designer has one in biology lol.

However, you do need to know what you want to do. Which area has the most interest to you? Design, build or development? This is one of the few remaining careers thats totally in your own control, but you need to be very self motivated to want to keep learning new stuff all the time.

If I was you I'd start by picking a field, learning as much as I can online and/or by books and then approach your manager and ask if you can have a crack at some of the stuff thats being outsourced to India.

At the moment you're in a sort junior designer/junior account management role - you need to take control and work out what you want to do then go for it.
 
I started on about the same (£6/hr)... but I put myself through uni and got my masters, so now I can charge £25/hr for freelance work (but I do design, animation & programming)

just keep doing as much as you can in you own time... read tutorials, buy books, enroll into night classes... just do whatever you can to develop your skill set.
 
Was thinking about going down the route of getting a steady web design/dev job plus starting a small web design business doing small sites that can be knocked out quickly and charge a fee for.
 
i currently work part-time as a web developer (C Sharp, ASP.NET 2.0 / 3.5) but i also do HTML, CSS, PHP, ColdFusion etc, and I'm on £9.50 an hour. I'm working part-time because I still at uni (4th and final year).

Personally I think its a good wage for someone in my position, but i'll be expecting more when i finish uni.

hope that helps :)
 
Spunkey said:
Oh yeah, forgot to mention in my earlier post, I charge £60 an hour for freelance work.
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£60 and hour and your sturggling with css :eek:, i can only assume the high rate is because you do sites more then just a business card style so things like php programming? or is that £60 an hour for the old table designed business card websites?

how do you get yor customers? i have managed to get a load randomly omnline but most are family/friends/friends of friends etc and as im still uni/college stage i charge very little as i also see it as i get experience
 
designer != developer.

Designer has artistic vision and artistic skill, and indepth knowledge of a graphics package such as Photoshop or Fireworks. They also need good people skills, for extracting what the customer wants, from the customers inadequate design requirements. A few common phrases amongst designers are: "Can I have it in blue?", "Columbo (just one more thing)" and "Pixel ****ing (just move this, just move that.)"

Developer does application development (which is FAR more than just programming.) They manage the system, code, and also need good people skills to extract the functional requirements from the customer. They will also need excellent organisational skills if they want to be efficient and not have a heart attack before 40.

Both depend entirely on your abilities and capabilities, in all fields.

If you feel you are being underpaid, you probably are. Look elsewhere for other offers and a) use it for leverage to get a payrise or b) accept the offer.
 
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I wouldn't have thought a degree would give you that much advantage if joining a small studio, a really strong portfolio is what they are looking for. If you wanted to work for a larger corporate company then they usually place much more importance on having a degree.

I would expect the average graduate to earn 15-20k in a junior position.

But look at job sites, and see what similar jobs in your area go for.
 
Mammalian said:
£60 and hour and your sturggling with css :eek:, i can only assume the high rate is because you do sites more then just a business card style so things like php programming?
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;)

I'm mainly an ASP/.NET/SQL developer, so most of the freelance work I do is for bespoke data management systems.

I only do web front end stuff as and when I have to :)
 
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