So you decided to pursue a UX Designer career path and are curious about what your career may look like in a few years?
Or, maybe, you're still deciding if a UX Designer career path is the right track for you.
Either way, we've got you covered! In this article, we'll be sharing:
- UX Designer Careers To Pursue
- The UX Designer Career Path: Roles, Skills, & Progression
- UX Designer Salaries (Entry-Level, Mid-Level, & Senior Level)
- Level-Up Your Game: How To Step Into A New UX Designer Role
UX Designer Careers To Pursue
There are several different career opportunities you can explore in the UX design field. However, different industries might require more expertise in specific areas.
For example:
- A UX Designer role at a tech startup might focus heavily on rapid prototyping, iterative product design, and usability testing to ship improvements quickly and support business growth.
- A UX Designer role at a healthcare company could emphasize accessibility, user research, and compliance-driven design to create safe, inclusive experiences for patients and providers.
- A UX Designer role at a finance firm could offer opportunities in information architecture, interaction design, and trust-building UX to simplify complex workflows and drive adoption.
Not all companies will demand every specialty, but every specialty has a place within many different companies!
So, if you're thinking about which UX Designer career you should pursue, it might be a good idea to first consider what kind of company you would like to work for.
Maybe you'd like to work for a company in big tech.
Maybe you're aiming for a recognized brand in healthcare.
Or, maybe, you'd like to join a startup.
You will find different UX design opportunities with different scopes and setups. Having clarity about where you'd like to be within a certain time frame is key to deciding which path is right for you.
Most skills you need for a UX design career are transferable across different roles, industries, and companies. The purpose of the exercise is so you can look at the opportunities on your horizon and decide where you'd like to be in the short term and eventually down the road!
💡 Pro Tip:
If you're struggling to find out where you'd like to be, check out the article “What Should I Do With My Life? A Step-By-Step Guide” and read it from top to bottom. If “UX design” still feels like the right path, head back here and continue reading!
Once you've set your mind on your career path, it's time to understand what roles might be a good fit for you.
The UX Designer Career Path: Roles, Skills, & Progression
We've selected the most common UX Designer roles for each level and their job descriptions. Take a look below!
Entry-Level UX Designer Roles
Most people begin their UX Designer careers in specialist roles, such as:
UX Designer
This role offers broad exposure to different UX design activities and doesn't usually require extensive experience.
📝 UX Designer Job Description: Responsible for designing user-centered experiences by conducting research, creating user flows, wireframes, and prototypes, and collaborating with product and engineering teams to ship intuitive solutions.
✅ Skills Required: Proficiency in Figma (or similar tools), wireframing, prototyping, usability testing basics, and strong communication skills are key skills companies look for in UX Designers.
⬆️ Possible progression: UX Designers can progress into a Senior UX Designer role.
Junior UX Researcher
This role requires a basic understanding of UX research principles, including qualitative and quantitative methods.
📝 Junior UX Researcher Job Description: Responsible for supporting research efforts through usability tests, interviews, surveys, and analysis to uncover user needs and inform design decisions.
✅ Requirements: Familiarity with research methods, note-taking and synthesis, basic data analysis, and strong analytical thinking are the most required skills for this role.
⬆️ Possible progression: Junior UX Researchers can progress into a UX Researcher or Senior UX Researcher role.
UI/UX Designer
This role generally requires proficiency in UI design and the ability to translate product requirements into polished interfaces, but doesn't typically require extensive experience.
📝 UI/UX Designer Job Description: Responsible for designing user interfaces and interaction patterns that align with brand guidelines while supporting usability and accessibility best practices across digital products.
✅ Requirements: Proficiency in Figma (or similar tools), understanding of typography and layout, basic design systems knowledge, and strong communication skills are the most required skills for this role.
⬆️ Possible progression: UI/UX Designers can progress into a Senior UI/UX Designer or Product Designer role.
Mid-Level UX Designer Roles
As you gain experience, mid-level roles often involve more responsibility and the opportunity to lead projects or teams. Some common mid-level UX Designer roles include:
Senior UX Designer
At this level, professionals are responsible for owning complex design initiatives, guiding junior designers, and communicating user-centered rationale to stakeholders.
📝 Senior UX Designer Job Description: Responsible for leading UX design projects, translating user insights into product strategy, and delivering wireframes, prototypes, and UX specs that drive measurable improvements.
✅ Skills Required: Advanced interaction design, strong user research skills, information architecture, design systems collaboration, and stakeholder management.
⬆️ Possible progression: Senior UX Designers can advance to roles like UX Design Manager.
Product Designer
This role focuses on end-to-end product design, blending UX strategy and UI execution, and typically requires deeper experience than entry-level roles.
📝 Product Designer Job Description: Responsible for designing product experiences from discovery through delivery, partnering with product and engineering to solve user problems and improve key metrics.
✅ Skills Required: Strong UX fundamentals, UI design, prototyping, experimentation, cross-functional collaboration, and comfort with product metrics.
⬆️ Possible progression: Product Designers can move into positions such as Senior Product Designer or Lead Product Designer.
UX Design Manager
This role is more specialized than entry-level roles and requires the ability to oversee the UX process, from research and discovery to delivery and iteration.
📝 UX Design Manager Job Description: Responsible for managing UX designers, setting design direction, ensuring consistency across experiences, and partnering with leadership to align UX work with business goals.
✅ Skills Required: Leadership, coaching, project management, UX strategy, and strong communication skills.
⬆️ Possible progression: UX Design Managers can progress to roles like Director of UX.
Senior-Level UX Designer Roles
Senior-level roles involve greater strategic oversight and leadership, often requiring professionals to guide larger teams and make high-level decisions.
Head of UX
Heads of UX are responsible for shaping the overall UX strategy and ensuring that design and research efforts align with the company's objectives.
📝 Head of UX Job Description: Responsible for leading the UX organization, defining UX vision and strategy, driving cross-functional alignment, and ensuring teams deliver user-centered outcomes that impact business results.
✅ Skills Required: Leadership, UX strategy, organizational design, stakeholder management, and strong communication skills.
⬆️ Possible progression: Heads of UX can move up to roles such as VP of Design.
Principal UX Designer
This role requires deep UX expertise and is responsible for leading high-impact design initiatives and setting UX standards across teams.
📝 Principal UX Designer Job Description: Responsible for solving complex user experience challenges, influencing product strategy, mentoring designers, and elevating UX quality across products and teams.
✅ Skills Required: Advanced UX craft, systems thinking, strong product intuition, leadership without authority, and high-impact communication.
⬆️ Possible progression: Principal UX Designers can advance to roles like Head of UX or Director of UX.
Director of UX
This role oversees the UX strategy for an organization and manages teams of designers and researchers.
📝 Director of UX Job Description: Responsible for developing and executing UX strategy, leading multiple teams, overseeing design and research operations, and ensuring experiences are optimized to support product and business outcomes.
✅ Skills Required: Leadership, strategic thinking, UX expertise, and strong project and stakeholder management skills.
⬆️ Possible progression: Directors of UX can move up to executive roles such as VP of Design or Chief Experience Officer (CXO).
UX Designer Salaries (Entry-Level, Mid-Level, & Senior Level)
Now that we’ve covered the most common UX Designer career paths, you might be asking yourself what the pay range is for each role.
To answer this question, let’s head over to one of our favorite tools for salary research: Glassdoor.
Glassdoor is one of the world’s top job and recruiting websites, where users can anonymously provide information about their companies – including their current salary. Glassdoor provides an average salary range for various roles based on the information sent by its users.
According to Glassdoor, the base salary for the most common UX Designer roles in 2024 are:
UX Design Roles:
- UX Designer (Entry-Level): $63K – $117K / year base pay
- Senior UX Designer (Mid-Level): $102K – $162K / year base pay
- UX Design Manager (Senior-Level): $116K – $183K / year base pay
Product Design Roles:
- UI/UX Designer (Entry-Level): $58K – $107K / year base pay
- Product Designer (Mid-Level): $71K – $118K / year base pay
- Principal UX Designer (Senior-Level): $136K – $206K / year base pay
UX Research Roles:
- Junior UX Researcher (Entry-Level): $64K – $112K / year base pay
- UX Researcher (Mid-Level): $69K – $122K / year base pay
- Director of UX (Senior-Level): $151K – $233K / year base pay
Level-Up Your Game: How To Step Into A New UX Designer Role
Whether you're looking for an entry-level job in UX design or aiming to advance in your UX design career, it's important to know that you don't necessarily need a graduate degree or specialization to move up the UX design career ladder. Your unique experience and skills can go a long way, as long as you learn how to sell them!
Here are a few tips and tricks that will help you land your next UX Designer role.
1. Run A Resume Scan To Find Out Skill Gaps In Your Target Role
Wondering if you are the right fit for that target role you've been eyeing?
We've got you covered.
Here's a simple, step-by-step guide to find out if you have the skills to land a job in UX design you've:
- Copy the job description of the UX Designer role that sparked your interest
- Head over to ResyMatch.io (or use our shortcut below)
- Grab a copy of your most updated resume
- Upload your resume on the left side
- Paste the job description on the right side
- Hit “Start Resume Scan”
Boom! ResyMatch will compare and score your resume against the job's description and identify missing skill gaps, such as:
ResyMatch will also make sure your resume is ATS compatible (ATS is a software that recruiters often use to track candidates through the hiring process). And of course, ResyMatch will provide suggestions and outline best practices you can use to edit and improve your resume!
Use our shortcut below to get started:
Scanning...
2. Update Your Resume With Compelling Resume Bullets
After you've compared your resume against your target job description, you will likely find yourself in one of two scenarios:
1. You have some missing skills that you'll need to master before taking on a new role — if that's the case, you can take action and start building those skills through online courses and a portfolio strategy.
OR…
2. You have already mastered most of the skills — if that's the case, all you need to do is update your resume with compelling resume bullets, leveraging the keywords found in your resume and job description scan.
To get started, you'll want your resume bullets to have just the right amount of hard and soft skills, action words, measurable results, and common words.
This means a compelling resume bullet for someone applying for a UX Designer role might look something like this:
Redesigned user flows and prototypes in Figma, improving onboarding completion rate by 25%.
This bullet focuses on hard and soft skills specific to UX design, while also showcasing measurable results!
To help you write the perfect resume bullet, we've created ResyBullet.io, a free resume bullet analyzer that helps you write your resume in a way that grabs attention and illustrates value. Simply copy and paste your resume bullet below to begin your analysis:
ResyBullet will analyze and score your resume bullet and give you actionable insights for improvement.
Here's how our resume bullet scored on ResyBullet:
If you're a visual learner, check out our video that walks you through the step-by-step of writing a crazy-effective resume bullet:
3. Build A Visually Appealing, ATS-Friendly Resume
Now that you've updated the content on your resume, it's time to transfer it over to an awesome layout that's also ATS-friendly.
We recommend using a resume template so you can save the time you'd normally spend designing your resume and instead allocate it to your job search.
You can use ResyBuild.io, a free AI resume builder, to easily build and customize your resume in no time. Just pick one of the templates below and get started:
Free Job-Winning Resume Templates, Build Yours In No Time.
Choose a resume template below to get started:
Choose from 8 proven templates and easily create, edit, and customize your resume. ResyBuild's AI assistant also helps you craft personalized, job-winning bullets in a single click. Simply add your experience, hit “Optimize,” and watch the magic happen.
4. Don't Apply Online — Do This Instead
The most common next step in the process is to start applying for UX Designer roles.
While applying online can absolutely be the next step in your job search, the truth is, it will only get you so far. In fact, only 2% of resumes submitted for the average open role end up reaching the interview stage.
Sure, optimizing your resume will boost your chances of being a part of that 2%.
But some estimates, like this one from the Wall Street Journal, show that 80% of hires come from referrals.
This means your best shot at landing the role you've been eying is through networking.
And no, we're not talking about attending conferences, events, and meetups. We're talking about a fresh approach that really builds relationships and gets your resume at the top of the resume pile at companies like Microsoft, Google, Uber, and more.
You can read all about it in our flagship guide for effective job searching:
Read More: How To Get A Job Anywhere Without Applying Online
Final Notes
Whether you're just starting out or looking to advance in your UX Designer career, getting clarity on the possibilities ahead of you can help you navigate your career with more ease.
Just don't forget: your career path isn't set in stone. Jobs and career goals will often evolve with life transitions. Always remember that your career should adapt to fit your life and not the other way around.
