Having a degree these days tends to have no impact on your earning potential though it can make it harder to get in the door at some places. If you're good you'll be able to get paid what you deserve. While some would say the market is over saturated at the moment at the top end I think there is a real lack of good designers and developers. Working for a firm though that out-sources everything while being good for your bosses isn't really going to help your career.
Web designer wage?
- Thread starter Phaser
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A lot of places used to specify graduate. Recently I've noticed that they've stopped specifying this and started saying "this position would suit a graduate or junior with x years experience". You can earn just as much as a non-grad as you can as a grad in design, I think. I'm earning more than the 2 grads in my department - it just depends how much effort you put in and how much you bring to the team.
Key word being Freelance.
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
Firstly, you're not fully employed when freelancing, and secondly it's very ambiguous.
I freelanced for as much as £1,000 an hour in the past. I installed osCommerce, applied a template, and resold hosting. I charged £500 for the job and it took 30mins.
More "real" earnings were £100/h for anything that involved actual development.
AND FOR GOD'S SAKE PEOPLE, STOP CALLING IT DESIGN WHEN YOU ARE REFERRING TO DEVELOPMENT!
Soldato
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Exactly. These days, experience and skill is far better than education. Just because someone went to school for it, it doesn't mean they're good at it.
If someone is looking through two portfolios, one with average 'run of the mill' work done by a graduate, and the other with excellent work but done by someone without a degree, who do you think would have a better chance getting picked for a job or project?
So yes, if you have skill, you can easily get away without the degree(s). If you have no skill, you're not going to get far without a degree.
While this is true when it comes to finding a job, there are many skills you can learn from a degree which are still valuable.
On the development side, you wont always be taught cutting-edge web techniques but there are more abstract analyitical skills that you may not necessarily pick up as easily in the real world.
I'm sure there are design aspects like colour theory and composition that are common throughout design that a formal higher education would instill.
As DJ says, Design and Development are seperate entities, there are very few people who can do both well, so target one and stick with it.
I'm of the opinion that design skills are largely a have-them-or-you-don't thing, learning how to be a good designer if you can't draw or pick a decent colourscheme to begin with is probably not going to happen.