Web Designer Salary

Just ten years ago, the internet looked very different from how it does now. Bright blue or green backgrounds full of blinking text and animated .gifs abounded. Now, in the second age of the internet, that kind of amateur design style just won't cut it. The internet has become a commerce tool that few businesses, from mom-and-pop organizations to multinational corporations, can afford to ignore. To function as an effective moneymaking tool, a website must not only be attractive to the eye, but also easy and intuitive to use. Maintaining this delicate balance is the task of the modern web designer. A web designer usually has some experience with graphic design and with actually building a web page; research into user experience and effective testing strategies can also be beneficial to the art of web design. With more and more graduates entering the work force every day, it's important to have fresh, accurate salary data to back up your web design salary negotiations. PayScale's web designer salary data shows how factors such as degree, experience, location and more can affect the salary of a web designer.

What is the Starting Salary for a Web Designer?

Web design requires a great deal of technical skill, not to mention the ability to adapt quickly to new techniques and technologies. Becoming a web designer usually requires a college degree, although a wide variety of majors are relevant. View the report on the median Salary of a Web Designer by Degree/Major Subject to see which undergraduate majors could lead to higher web design salary offers. With student loans to pay off, fledgling designers all want to know: what is the starting salary for a web designer? The Web Designer Salary by Years Experience chart puts the starting salary for a web designer in the $30,000 to $40,000 range. However, this web design salary range increases fairly quickly; the median income after just five to nine years of experience is significantly higher than the starting salary for a web designer.

Cost of Living and Web Design Salary Data

When people think "computers," many of them think Silicon Valley. But measuring Web Design Salary by City shows that Seattle, home to the Microsoft headquarters and the 35,000 or so people who keep it going, holds its own when it comes to web designer salary range. Seattle is also a more affordable area in which to live than Silicon Valley; comparing Cost of Living and Web Designer Salary Data in Seattle and San Jose, we can see that Seattle's cost of living is lower almost across the board. If you're a web designer living on the East Coast, consider New York and Illinois, the eastern states in first and second place on the Web Designer Salary by State Chart. Of course, the salary of a web designer in New York might be slightly higher, but Chicago can offer web designers a lower Cost of Living.