UX Designer jobs: skills, pay and how to get hired

What a UX designer does

UX stands for user experience: everything a person goes through while using a product, from finding a button to understanding an error. A UX designer finds out what users are trying to do and where they get stuck, then designs the flows, the structure and the screens that get them there, and tests those designs with real people before and after they are built.

The day mixes several kinds of work: talking to users, sorting what was learned, sketching and prototyping, reviewing designs with developers and product managers, and checking the numbers after a release. In small teams one designer does all of it; larger companies split it into UX researchers, interaction designers and visual or UI designers. Either way the job rewards framing the right problemFrame the real problem before drawing screens, and keep it in view when ideas pile up. before drawing, designing in the openDesign with others in the open: shared files, critiques and credit given. with others, and explaining decisionsWrite and speak plainly about users, trade-offs and decisions, and listen to pushback. to people who did not sit in the research.

Titles vary: UX Designer, UI Designer, UX/UI Designer, Product Designer, Interaction Designer. We count them as one role. The ladder runs from junior to senior, lead or principal designer, design manager and head of design; see the career paths.

The skills the ads ask for

We read a sample of the ads every day and count the skills they name. On a computer, hover a skill in the text to see its share; on a phone, the table has the same figures.

Ads use UX designThe whole craft: research, flows, structure, interaction and testing, from a problem to a screen that works. as the umbrella for research, information architecture, interaction design and usability testing. They rarely list the methods, but interviews go through them one by one, so be ready to say which you used and why.

FigmaFlows, components, variants and prototypes in the tool most teams share with developers. is the tool nearly every team shares: designs, components, prototypes and the hand-off to developers all live there. Some ads add PhotoshopImage work and visuals; named in some ads, rarely the core of a UX role. for visuals. A working knowledge of HTML and CSSKnow how screens are built, so your designs fit the web and you can talk with developers in their terms. is not required in most ads but makes every conversation with developers easier.

Around the craft sit the team skills: working in agileDesign in short cycles alongside development, a step or two ahead of the build. teams and ScrumWork in sprints with the team: refinement, reviews and the rhythm of releases. sprints, tracking work in JiraTrack design work and hand-offs in the same tool as the developers., reading product data through data analysisRead product data to find where people struggle and to check whether a change helped., and presentingPresent research and designs so a room understands the problem before it judges the solution. research so a room acts on it. These decide whether good designs get built.

Research is done in the users' own language, so GermanAsked in many ads in Germany, Austria and Switzerland, above all for research with local users. appears in many ads from German-speaking countries, while international product teams work in EnglishThe working language of most product teams and of the design community..

Where the jobs are, country by country

Each country below has its own figures: which cities have the most jobs in our list, whether the number is going up or down, how often ads offer remote or hybrid work, the accessibility rules and titles used there, and pay ranges from published research, in the local currency.

Your CV and portfolio for a UX designer job

For a UX designer the portfolio does most of the work, and the CV gets it opened. The hiring software reads the CV for the words of the ad; a design lead then opens the portfolio and looks for how you think: the problem, the research, the options and what changed for users.

Use the keywords the ads use

• Name the methods and outputs the way ads do: "user research", "usability testing", "wireframes", "prototypes", "design system", "information architecture", "accessibility (WCAG)". The skills table above shows which keywords the ads use most.
• Name the tools you design in, such as FigmaFlows, components, variants and prototypes in the tool most teams share with developers., and the team setting: agileDesign in short cycles alongside development, a step or two ahead of the build., sprints, hand-off to developers.
• Put the portfolio link at the top, next to your name, and check it opens on a phone and needs no password, or give the password in the CV.
• A course certificate is written exactly as issued; one still running is written "in progress".

Prove each skill, in the portfolio and on the CV

Each portfolio piece should be a short case study: the problem and who had it, what you found out, the options you tried, what you chose and why, and what happened after release. Three good case studies beat ten pretty screens. On the CV, one line per project carries the result.

Never present team work as yours alone, and never show a client's confidential screens without permission. Say which part was yours, and blur or rebuild what you may not show.

How we read our data

• The jobs: the UX designer jobs in our job search, matched the same way the search matches them. Our list is not the whole market, so we give shares and rankings, never counts.
• The skills: we read a sample of the ads every day and count the skills in them with a fixed word list. We keep only the counts, never the ad text.
• Pay: from published salary research, with each source and its date, as a range from entry level to senior. It is not worked out from our ads.
• Dates: every figure is worked out again each day, and shows the day it was worked out.

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