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    Interface Designer

    Book open Reading time: 9 mins

    Are you looking for a career that combines technology with design? Do you want to help users have the best experience possible on websites and apps? If you enjoy graphic design and tech, a career as a user interface (UI) designer could be for you.

    In our UI designer job profile, we’ll take you through:

    What is a UI designer?

    UI designers (or interface designers) create the visual side of digital products, like websites and apps.

    A UI designer is responsible for designing a product’s interface (ie. its layout, the colours, fonts and images used and interactive elements like buttons and menus). They want the UI to look good while still being usable. Part of their job involves collaborating with user experience (UX) designers to test the interface’s ease of use. UI designers also need to understand digital accessibility and how to create an interface that works well for users with varying disabilities.

    What does a UI designer do?

    The day-to-day tasks a UI designer will do will vary depending on whether they work in-house (ie. they design interfaces for the products their employer owns) or for an agency (ie. they’re employed to work on multiple clients). Some interface designers also work on a freelance basis, becoming their own bosses and managing their own client lists while pitching for business.

    If you want to be a UI designer, expect to:

    • Receive briefs from clients or supervisors.
    • Create storyboards and illustrate your ideas to show your initial interface suggestions.
    • Make prototypes of your designs, combining brief requirements and your ideas.
    • Review your prototypes to identify issues and fix them.
    • Present your ideas to your colleagues, supervisors, clients and any other stakeholders.
    • Edit your work based on feedback
    • Work with designers, UX teams, software engineers and copywriters to produce a complete website or app.

    Interface designer career path

    A career as an interface designer could take you to exciting places.

    While everyone’s career journey is unique, here are the steps you could take if you want to progress as a UI designer.

    Entry-level

    You might begin in a junior interface designer position. A junior role is ideal if you’ve got a lot of passion but little experience. You won’t be expected to know everything and should receive on-the-job training.

    If you’ve got prior experience in design and a great portfolio of work, you could go straight into an entry-level interface designer role. You don’t have to have worked as an interface designer to prove you’ve got what it takes. So, if you’ve made apps or websites in your free time, you could start your career at a higher level.

    In either a junior or entry-level position, you’ll receive clear guidelines for the work you’re set. Typically, your work won’t be overly complex. However, it’s still meant to challenge you and teach you the skills you’ll need to progress in your career.

    Career progression

    After junior and entry-level positions, you can progress to mid-level interface design jobs. As you climb the ladder, your work will increase in complexity and skill level. You’ll also gain more autonomy over the work you do and receive less direction from your supervisor.

    After several years of mid-level experience, you may have enough skills to get a senior interface designer role. Like the move from entry-level to mid-level, the complexity of your work will increase, as does the skill level required to complete it. You’ll likely work with higher-profile clients or companies because you’ll have a positive track record backing up your years of experience.

    The next move you could make is becoming a design manager. In a management role, you oversee the work completed by everyone in your team, check it’s at the standard that you set and assign work according to priority and your colleagues’ skills.

    Future career

    Once you’ve got the relevant skills and years of experience, you enter the executive levels. You could be a director of design where you oversee all the broader work for a client (including advertising and branding). In that role, you’d maintain high standards of work and make sure every design element – UI and beyond – ties up to a single vision.

    After the director of design comes the vice president (VP) of design and then the head of design. As these positions are high up in a company, theytypically require more than 10 years of experience. Your work will be wider, taking responsibility for more departments.

    Alternatively, you might continue to work hands-on as an experienced UI designer. Having many years of experience could still mean you’ll earn a higher salary as an employer will pay for your expertise. Alternatively, you might use your contact list and knowledge to work for yourself as a freelance interface designer.

    Interface designer salaries

    How much you’ll earn as a UI designer will depend on your exact role, the company you work for, your experience and your location.

    While there’s no one-size-fits-all salary for interface designers, here are some rough estimates of the salary levels to expect while working your way up:

    • Starting jobs like junior interface designer typically have salaries between £23,000 and £32,000. 
    • A mid-level interface designer usually earns between £33,000 and £46,000 per year.
    • Senior interface designers unlock higher earnings, potentially having an annual wage of between £50,000 and £70,000.
    • If you go into a management role, design managers usually earn between £44,000 and £68,000 as their base pay.
    • A design director’s average salary range is between £59,000 and £90,000. Typically, directors of design, VPs and heads of design will earn even more.

    Qualifications and training

    Fancy becoming a UI designer? Having relevant qualifications and experience will help you get your first role.

    Education

    Interface designers don’t typically need any formal qualifications. Having some education in art or graphic design will boost your technical understanding of how to combine colours and use art design software, but a degree isn’t essential. You could build up your art knowledge through A-Level study, a diploma or a professional certification.

    Professional qualifications

    There are many professional qualifications available in interface design. However, you don’t need one to do the job. The benefit of gaining professional qualifications is that you can easily show that you’ve got the required skills during a job application process. It’s not a must-have but it’ll set you apart from other candidates.

    Work experience

    Don’t want to pay for a course? You can get a great deal of experience in interface design at home.

    The most important part of getting a job in UI design is showing your skills through your portfolio (a collection of your work that shows off how great you are at interface design). 

    Building up your portfolio means providing examples of your designs. You could begin by watching free online tutorials on websites like YouTube to learn the basics. You can then experiment by creating UIs for fun. You could take a well-known company’s website and redesign it to show how you’d incorporate the company’s needs into an innovative look.

    Once you’ve got to grips with UI best practices, you could volunteer for a charity to design their website or app. You could also take on an internship in interface design. Take a look at our technology and IT internships to see if there’s a challenge you’d like to take on.

    You can use personal projects and work experience (paid or unpaid) to build your portfolio. A strong portfolio will include your reasoning behind design and colour choices so a hiring manager will immediately understand your thought processes.

    UI designer skills

    Hiring managers don’t solely select candidates to interview based on their education. Skills are extremely important, so always show what you’ve got on your CV and in your cover letter.

    Here are some of the key hard skills and soft skills interface designers need, so make sure you emphasise them in any job application:

    Hard skills

    • A good understanding of design software. It could be Adobe, Sketch, Proto.io or many others. Understanding how to use one or more types of UI software shows that you’re experienced and will easily adapt to a workplace. If you’re unfamiliar, there are how-tos on YouTube that’ll teach you how to use them. 
    • Knowledge of colour palettes. Knowing how to combine colours in a visually pleasing way will make it easier to make great design decisions.
    • Coding knowledge. Coding isn’t an essential skill, but a basic level will help you understand how your designs will work practically. You want to optimise your work for the type of interface you’re using (whether that’s a website or an app), so knowing how coding works will reduce the risk of suggesting impossible designs.

    Soft skills

    • Creativity. Interface design is a highly creative career. You produce new designs for every client so being creative is essential.
    • Research skills. To produce great designs, you must understand the user. To do that, you need to use your research skills to get to know the client, their values and what appeals to their customers.
    • Listening skills. Your work relies on the briefs given to you by clients or your supervisor. Having excellent listening skills means you’ll identify key points from meetings and verbal instructions.

    Pros and cons of being an interface designer

    Like every job, there are positives and negatives to being an interface designer.

    Here are some of the pros and cons of working in UI design:

    Pros

    • It’s a relatively low-stress job if you’re passionate about design and comfortable with presenting your ideas. A fairly low-pressure role could help you maintain a positive work-life balance.
    • Generally, it’s a well-paid specialism with the potential to earn a high salary once you’ve got the right experience.
    • Your work changes regularly, which is great if you like variety. Sometimes, you’ll need to produce designs for different companies or distinct areas of an app or website. It keeps your day-to-day exciting.
    • It’s rewarding work because you get to see the impact of your designs on websites and apps.

    Cons

    • Thinking up fresh ideas for every brief can be tricky. You don’t want to suggest the same designs repeatedly. Keeping a record of your ideas is useful for seeing what you’ve already done. You might even get inspiration from yourself and spot how you can change things up.
    • Sometimes, you’ll receive negative feedback from a supervisor or a client, which can be hard to hear. By listening to or reading every brief carefully and asking relevant questions, you’ll avoid misunderstandings. However, you’ll still come across differing opinions, so be prepared to make tweaks and don’t take critiques personally.
    • Even though you need to be creative, you’ll sometimes have little freedom. Sometimes, you’ll have to work on designs that won’t interest you. Once you progress to higher levels, you’ll have more input in the work that you do but you’ll still have to adjust designs to suit clients or your employer.

    Work-life balance

    Your work-life balance as a UI designer will depend on the company you work for.

    Some firms will allow interface designers to be flexible and work the hours they’re most productive. Others will require set hours (ie. 9 to 5).

    Sometimes, you’ll need to work overtime around deadlines or if you’ve got a challenging brief. If you work for an agency with multiple clients (rather than an in-house UI designer for one firm), you’re more likely to have frequent deadlines which can increase stress levels.

    Ultimately, your work-life balance will depend on your role and employer. Take time to learn about a company’s culture and whether it’ll suit you before you accept a job offer.

    Typical UI designer employers

    As an interface designer, you’ve got the opportunity to work with some of the biggest companies in the world.

    Here are some examples of top companies that hire UI designers for their in-house teams:

    Related jobs to interface designer

    Wondering about interface designer opportunities? Explore available IT and Software Development graduate jobs.

    This article was last updated in June, 2025.

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