Average Middleweight Graphic Designer Salary

Jri

Member
Hi all,

After a little googling, I am still struggling to find a consistent answer to the following question:

What is the average hourly rate for an in-house middleweight graphic designer in the UK?

I've just cleared the 2.5 years mark at my current job (not including a few years previous freelance experience), and as I no longer sit in the junior camp, I am hoping that my pay may improve.

These figures are what the internet generally spews at me, but how realistic is this - do these numbers directly relate to the hourly rate I should expect from my employer based on a 40 hour week?

Any advice would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks,

Jri.
 
Thanks Hank!

Hmm, seems I am woefully underpaid.

Looks like that agency is London based (I'm up Norf), so presumably the London salary weighting skews the figures a little (anyone know what the general percentages/equivalents are that relate to this by the way?).

I get dribs and drabs of (mostly illustration) freelance work, nothing frequent enough to support me. As an experiment, I tried to figure what my day rate would be if extrapolated out to an annual salary. Essentially it works out at a solid 30K more than I currently make. The reason I mention this, is that to me, freelance work seems, to an extent, to be less bound to regional pay differences than traditional employed-in-a-building. It would follow that - particularly a non-London designer's - time might be better invested in courting freelance work, than slaving away with portfolios, CVs, interviews, notice letters - only to get paid marginally more peanuts.

Am I resonating with anyone here? The money side of the creative design industry seems to be a sort of weird, disorganised taboo.

Cheers,

Jri.
 
If you're underpaid consult your employers.

If you can do it yourself then go for it.

For me it was the fact that I was no good at chasing clients for payment.

Although I'm a bit more savvy now so I no longer operate a per hour. It's per job. And if it's worth their while then it's worth mine.
 
Am I resonating with anyone here? The money side of the creative design industry seems to be a sort of weird, disorganised taboo.

You are Jri.

In many industries there seems to be a pretty standard pay structure (age/experience/skills = pay).
In design it sometimes seem like you get whatever you can.

I guess many people are way under payed/valued (I always was as an in-houser) and may be embarrassed by that.
The ones that are being payed properly may prefer to keep it to themselves?

There will always be that North/South divide though as the cost of living is so much higher in and around the big smoke.

Freelance on the other hand is less location dependant and if you can cut it doing that then that's the way to go.
 
Although I'm a bit more savvy now so I no longer operate a per hour. It's per job. And if it's worth their while then it's worth mine.

Makes sense.

To clarify; I am employed full-time and paid in an hourly format. For what little freelance work I do, I use a day rate.

Maybe it's a weird stigma that I've made up in my head, but part of me has always felt that hourly paid employment is either:

A) Typical of very low-level employment
or
B) For beginners giving small-scale freelance quotes (I generally don't charge hourly for freelance work, instead opting to use a day rate as a crude way of yielding a minimum charge to make sure the jobs are worth taking on).

I'm probably just being judgemental, but to me salaried employment feels somehow more legitimate than hourly paid employment.

There's no tangible reason (the payment method doesn't really affect the money itself, salaried jobs if anything are less likely to compensate you for the little slithers of overtime that always creep in).
 
Maybe it's a weird stigma that I've made up in my head, but part of me has always felt that hourly paid employment is either:

A) Typical of very low-level employment
or
B) For beginners giving small-scale freelance quotes (I generally don't charge hourly for freelance work, instead opting to use a day rate as a crude way of yielding a minimum charge to make sure the jobs are worth taking on).

I guess it depends on your hourly rate.
 
Back
Top