What are Senior UX Designer Salaries Around the World?
See how your salary stacks up with these insights from worldwide, open-sourced 2022 salary data
Reading Time: 10 minutes
The Senior UX designer job market is evolving at a rapid pace in response to a growing industry.
After cutting your teeth as a junior and mid-level UX designer one of the first questions you might ask yourself is how much you should be expecting to get paid in a senior position.
As with any professional field, there is a great degree of variance in salaries. Senior UX Designer salaries vary according to:
Location
Company
Seniority
Your negotiation skills
We’ve analysed anonymously reported salaries from 400 designers, so let’s get straight into some insights on what you can earn as a Senior UX Designer in 2022.
Average Senior UX Designer Salaries Worldwide
[Based on anonymous data reported in the Designer Open Salaries spreadsheet]
The Average Senior UX Designer Salaries varied across these countries:
USA: $99,000
Canada: $99,000 (CAD)
UK: £89,000
Finland: €63,000
Germany: €75,000
Ireland: €78,000
The Netherlands: €63,000
Please note we have included salaries for “senior UX/UI designer,” “senior experience designer,” “senior product designer,” “senior UX designer” and “senior interaction designer” here under the umbrella job title “senior UX designer.”
What affects your salary?
1.) Location
It’s no surprise that larger cities offer higher senior UX designer salaries. We found that London, UK had the highest overall with €106,000 being the average in our sample. The range in London varied from €86,000 up to €132,000.
One big question that many Senior UX Designers in 2022 are asking is whether remote positions pay less.
The data suggests that whether a job is remote or not doesn’t bear any significant weight on the salary. Good to know for those weighing up the pros and cons of working from home or a co-working space!
2.) Company
It’s a well-known fact that some companies pay lower than others. It’s far from a level playing field, and some employers trade other benefits in place of salary.
Some of these additional perks might include:
Additional holiday days
Gym memberships
A 4-day work week
Stock options
Start-ups also often offer more modest salaries. This is often in exchange for the exciting, dynamic experience of working at a company with more open doors and opportunities for growth.
Here are some employee-reported senior UX designer salaries at some well-known tech companies:
Google - €112,000
Shopify - €106,000
Spotify - €98,000
Amazon - €92,500
Meta - €89,000
3.) Seniority
As with any profession, the level of experience of potential employees rightfully bears a significant influence on the pay scale.
Senior UX designers with more years of experience can expect to earn significantly more than their less-experienced counterparts.
For example, we found the following averages in our data for Germany:
[Based on anonymous data reported in the Designer Open Salaries spreadsheet]
4.) Your Negotiation skills
Well done, you’ve already taken the first step of effective salary negotiation by reading this article. You’ve familiarised yourself with Senior UX designer salary trends.
The truth is, most senior UX designers aren’t great at salary negotiation because they spend their time focusing on things like… Design.
Who would have thought it?
Anyway, negotiating for the compensation you think you deserve may require a little strategy and a tad further reading.
An hour or two of dry research for a €5,000+ boost per annum? Perhaps that’s the best two hours you’ve spent in a while.
How do I negotiate for a design job?
If you can spare a precious few moments more, we’d love to share a few more tips for effective negotiation:
1.) Don’t start negotiating until you have a “yes, if…”
Salary negotiations should only begin after the prospective employer has said that they actively want to hire you. Any discussion prior to receiving this ‘yes’ is untactful and may affect your prospect of landing the job.
2.) Don’t be afraid.
Understand that employers see employees as ‘fully-loaded’ costs. In Germany, this usually means that employees cost employers 25%+ more than their salary alone in social security fees and other associated costs. You’re costing them a lot anyway. €5,000 is likely to be inconsequential to them.
Employers expect you to negotiate. They will not dislike you for asking for more…this is a common misconception. Ultimately, they’ve already invested time and resources in taking you through the hiring process, and they don’t want to turn their back on the deal now just because you had the audacity to ask for a little more.
3.) Be nice.
Agreeableness (otherwise known as ‘likability’) should not be underestimated in any negotiation. It’s essential to self-reflect on how you are perceived. Nobody likes rude, entitled, or pushy people. So don’t act like that. Act in a virtuous manner and on principle. Your negotiations should be grounded in the fact that you know your worth better than they do, and you are simply helping them to understand that.
4.) Don’t play hard to get.
Always be prepared to walk, but don’t act like you are. If you constantly play that old card that you’re being simultaneously headhunted by 15 other companies, the company might just decide they’re better off poaching easier targets. Why wouldn’t they? Make sure they know that you’re ready to sign, providing you reach a fair compromise.
5.) Understand who you’re dealing with.
Investigate the financial situation of your prospective new employer. Maybe they have annual revenue of €200 billion and thousands of employees. In that case, they can probably afford to chuck you a few extra cents.
Maybe they’ve just launched with a €500,000 investment and are yet to make a penny. In that case, don’t take the mickey. Be tactful and respect your future colleagues' limitations.
Designer Open Salaries Spreadsheet
Check out the Designer Open Salaries Spreadsheet where we sourced our anonymous salary data. Don’t forget to add your salary!
Learn more
Read Salary Negotiation: Make More Money, Be More Valued by Patrick McKenzie
Read 15 Rules for Negotiating a Job Offer by Deepak Malhotra
