4 Reasons Why To Become A UX Designer

Choosing a career path is as much about following your heart as much as about finding practical job opportunities in the market. In the fast-paced technology driven world, things are changing so rapidly that we must update our skills every 4-5 years in order to stay in the game. LinkedIn makes our lives slightly easier every year by analyzing the demand of the job market and predicting the top skills that are most valued by companies.

Now the skills could be narrowly divided into two categories: soft skills and hard skills. Creativity, time management, collaboration, persuasion, and adaptability are the soft skills most in demand, and 57% senior leaders say that soft skills are more important than the hard skills. So not only one should focus on upgrading hard skills but put time and effort into enhancing leadership, communication, and negotiation skills.

But as the world is continually in the transformation to become more and more digital, there is a high demand to improve digital experience, even with design and that is where UI/UX designer plays a major role but for this article we will solely focus on the UX designer, even though most of the reasons mentioned below are equally valid for UI designers.

Good Read: The Difference Between UI and UX Designer

IMAGE: PEXELS

Why Become A UX designer

High in Demand: UX design ranks at number 5 on the LinkedIn’s top skills to learn in 2019, and was also ranked at 5 on the last year’s list. The high demand is mainly due to the rise in Social media websites and applications, e-commerce, and mobile apps of all categories.
High salary: High demand for a professional tends to result in a higher salary, especially if the skills are in shortage. The average salary for UX professional according to Indeed is $94,421 and according to Glassdoor is 90,697 as of May 2019 which gives an average of $92,559. Google and Amazon’s UX designer take home an average of $132,133 and $112,481, based on the average of both Glassdoor and Indeed’s data.
Put your creativity into action: Sir Ken Robinson defines creativity as the process of having original ideas that have value. Being a UX designer allows creative individuals to create something unique or improve on something existing by understanding human behavior as well as data. In the initial stages of UX process, the UX designer adopts a persona of an individual and tries to identify the path that this individual might take and comes up with possible problems and alternative solutions to make the life of a user as easy as possible.
Possibility of becoming a freelancer: With the growing digital nomad culture, being a freelancer seems such a desirable career option. Being able to work anytime from anywhere offers flexibility to travel lovers and family oriented individuals. 70% of the designers working in the freelance IT-related market are designers. Being a freelancer does have its pros and cons, but there is a high possibility of being a successful UX freelancer or establishing your own personal brand.