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Discover IA industry trends, software and education patterns among IAs, including our latest surveys:

2010 Salary Survey

UX Local Group Leaders SurveyPDF Icon

Salary Survey 2009 Comments


5. If you answered "Other" in the previous question, please enter your title in the box below.

  • Director of User Experience
  • Unemployed
  • Manager, Digital Communications
  • Director of User Experience
  • UX Research Strategist and Planner
  • Information strategist
  • (Other wasn't an option in the previous dropdown, but... I'm a Usability Analyst (purely analyze/report data; don't design test plans or do UX design)
  • Principal Designer
  • Director, User Experience Design
  • Interactive Director


10. If you are a freelance consultant, what is the average hourly rate you charged in 2009 (please convert amount to US Dollars)?

Median Rate = 85.00 USD per hour

  • 25.00
  • 30.00
  • 35.00
  • 40.00
  • 49.00
  • 50.00
  • 50.00
  • 50.00
  • 50.00
  • 50.00
  • 55.00
  • 55.00
  • 55.00
  • 60.00
  • 60.00
  • 61.80
  • 64.00
  • 65.00
  • 65.00
  • 65.00
  • 65.00
  • 65.00
  • 65.00
  • 65.00
  • 70 .00
  • 70.00
  • 72.00
  • 73.00
  • 75.00
  • 75.00
  • 75.00
  • 75.00
  • 75.00
  • 75.00
  • 80.00
  • 80.00
  • 80.00
  • 80.00
  • 81.00
  • 83.00
  • 85.00
  • 85.00
  • 85.00
  • 85.00
  • 85.00
  • 88.00
  • 89.75
  • 90.00
  • 95.00
  • 95.00
  • 100.00
  • 100.00
  • 100.00
  • 100.00
  • 100.00
  • 100.00
  • 100.00
  • 100.00
  • 100.00
  • 100.00
  • 100.00
  • 100.00
  • 100.00
  • 105.00
  • 110.00
  • 110.00
  • 115.00
  • 115.00
  • 120.00
  • 125.00
  • 135.00
  • 150.00
  • 150.00
  • 150.00
  • 150.00
  • 250 .00
  • 250.00
  • 250.00
  • 394.00
  • 607.00
  • 625.00
  • 638.00
  • USD 65,000
  • Unemployed for a year plus
  • N/A
  • N/A
  • N/A


13. If you answered "Other" in the previous question, please let us know what kind of activity you perform.

  • Managing customer relationships (even though all my customers are internal, I still spend a lot of time doing that to the point where I think it merits a mention)
  • Accounting
  • Review the work of development teams for compliance with corporate design standards
  • client conference calls, requirement gathering, presenting
  • look for work or a job
  • Research
  • Product management
  • Presenting (ideas, lectures, etc)
  • Business Semantic and Metadata Management
  • Internal Education
  • project-specific problem-solving; internal consults
  • Collaboration and knowledge sharing
  • Contextual Inquiry, survey analysis, search data analysis
  • develop/customize templates of various sorts
  • Community envolvment and authoring
  • Front-end development
  • Stakeholder/client management
  • Business Requirements, Functional Sepc creation
  • Research
  • social media: strategy and monitoring
  • Release documentation
  • Prototyping
  • Writing reports
  • Mentoring, writing articles, participating in UX community
  • Evangalizing User Experince Research Findings and Recommendations
  • Front-end development, production, document creation - style guide, spec creation, gathering and defining requirements
  • Presentation Creation
  • Requirements gathering, requirements management, use cases
  • Writing use cases and stories for agile product development
  • Meetings
  • content and/or competitive asessments
  • attending lectures
  • training
  • Prototypes developement, product roadmaps
  • previous question really isn't helpful ... it really depends on where you are in a UX cycle, you may do a lot of one thing one day and different another
  • Specification writing, design reviews
  • Content development (blog posts, essays, conferences, etc.)
  • Boring admin tasks like timesheets and expense claims
  • UI Implmentation
  • domain modelling, evangelism, workshops, meetings
  • Meeting with clients to review current work and understand business requirements.
  • Report generation
  • Business analysis, requirements development, QA, testing
  • Building and documenting the internal design research practice
  • Attending meetings (which do not fit in the categories above)
  • Qualitative data analysis
  • Product strategy and management
  • Evangelism - communication - selling IA
  • Estimates
  • problem solving
  • Evangelizing strategy
  • Prototyping
  • End-user support & assisting tech support teams
  • Writing strategic deliverables such as Creative Briefs.
  • Blogging, writing, speaking at conferences


17. Does your job provide any of the following benefits? (check all that apply)

  • free soda/coffee/juice and discounted vending
  • unemployment
  • Dential/Optical
  • 6 week sabbatical every 4 years
  • pre-tax transportation/commuting benefit.
  • Home internet & cell phone reimbursement
  • Conference Fee Reimbursement
  • Many of the above, but all out of pocket (meaning they reduce my profit), so not marking
  • pet insurance
  • subsidized dependent care (sick child)
  • Childcare vouchers
  • 300$ x month. Rent support
  • Free coffee and snacks
  • Conference Registration, Travel, Food
  • I work for myself; expenses are tax deductions
  • phone
  • Health & wellness reimbursement
  • Simple IRA, 6 weeks maternity leave, $1500/yr tuition reimbursement for college credit courses, $750/yr for CEU-credit courses & conferences/other professional development
  • As my business partner and I own the company, all benefits come out of the money we ourselves actually earn.
  • self employed
  • Robust 401(k) match at 100% of first 4%, plus 10% of your salary contributed quarterly
  • This is a pretty USer POV - many of these are either just legal or not applicable in Europe you know...
  • Free breakfast, fruit and coffee.
  • Paid Conferences (4-6/year)


25. Metropolitan areas, listed in order from most responses to least responses:

    Metropolitan AreaNumber of Responses
    New York City, NY, USA40
    San Francisco, CA, USA31
    Washington, DC, USA30
    Seattle, WA, USA25
    London, UK23
    Toronto, ON, Canada 21
    Chicago, IL, USA17
    Boston, MA, USA17
    Dallas-Fort Worth, TX, USA 12
    Los Angeles, CA, USA 11
    Portland, OR, USA 10
    Atlanta, GA, USA 9
    Minneapolis-St. Paul, MN, USA 9
    Austin, TX, USA 7
    Philadelphia, PA, USA 7
    Denver, CO, USA 6
    Detroit, MI, USA 6
    Barcelona, Spain4
    Baltimore, MD, USA 4
    Calgary, AB, Canada4
    Vancouver, AB, Canada4
    Madrid, Spain4
    Bangalore, India3
    Bogotá, Colombia3
    Canberra, ACT, Australia3
    Cleveland, OH, USA 3
    Melbourne, VIC, Australia3
    Paris, France3
    Pittsburgh, PA, USA 3
    Rio de Janeiro, Brazil3
    Salt Lake City, UT, USA 3
    San Jose, CA, USA 3
    São Paulo, Brazil3
    Sydney, Australia3
    Wellington, UK3
    Birmingham, UK2
    Copenhagen, Denmark2
    Manchester, UK2
    Milwaukee, WI, USA 2
    Montreal, ON, Canada2
    Newcastle, UK2
    Orlando, FL, USA 2
    San Antonio, TX, USA 2
    Tokyo, Japan2
    Amsterdam, Netherlands1
    Berlin, Germany1
    Boise, ID, USA 1
    Brighton, UK1
    Buffalo, NY, USA 1
    Cape Town, South Africa1
    Charlotte, NC, USA 1
    Chevy Chase, MD, USA 1
    Cincinnati, OH, USA 1
    Cologne, Germany1
    Columbus, OH, USA 1
    Dubai, UAE1
    Edmonton, UK1
    Frankfurt, Germany1
    Greensboro, NC, USA 1
    Hannover, Germany1
    Hyderabad, India1
    Istanbul, Turkey1
    Jackson, MS, USA 1
    Kansas City, MO, USA 1
    Las Vegas, NV, USA 1
    Lisbon, Portugal1
    Manila, Philippines1
    Monterrey, CA, USA 1
    Mountain View, CA, USA 1
    München, Germany1
    Nürnberg, Germany1
    Orlando, FL, USA 1
    Ottawa, ON, Canada1
    Phoenix, AZ, USA 1
    Porto Alegre, Brazil1
    Raleigh, NC, USA 1
    Richland/Kennewick/Pasco, WA, USA1
    Richmond, VA, USA1
    San Diego, CA, USA 1
    San José, Costa Rica1
    Santa Barbara, CA, USA 1
    Seoul, Korea1
    Silver Spring, MD, USA 1
    St. Louis, MO, USA 1
    Valencia, Spain1
    Victoria, BC, Canada1
    Vienna, Austria1
    Waterloo, Belgium1
26. Please use this space to provide any additional information, clarification or thoughts on salaries and compensation in the field of Information Architecture.
  • I'm not just an employee; I'm also a member. Between the benefits of membership and the company's benefits, I can't keep up with it all. The company is USAA.
  • re: question #17, I'm assuming by "provides" you meant "makes available," not necessarily that the company pays for all of it (e.g., I get paid time off, but I pay for part of my medical benefits).
  • Salaries in New Zealand are generally lower than overseas, and the currently NZ-US exchange rate is bad.
  • Position is "Intermediate Information Architect" meaning 2-3 years experience.
  • N/A
  • How do you define "Information Architecture" - I'm an interaction designer; do you include interaction design as part of your IA definition?
  • Generally, my salary increases/decreases of late have only come from job change, not from internal pay sources
  • I was making 120K in my previous job and plan to get towards this levels. A corporate takeover derailed me.
  • I wish I had a job, but so far after applying hundreds and hundreds of times, no luck. I am qualifed to do many jobs, as a IA, UI/UX, PM etc.
  • The six managers of the company, including myself, are also partners and our remuneration depends on results.
  • My employer's office is also my own office. I own the business.
  • IA and UX tasks primarily associated with Enterprise Portal and Intranet.
  • Development, strategy, interaction design and BAs tend to fall on the upper salary range in my company, while graphic/interface design and content management and copywriting are likely on the lower scale.
  • Took a major hit this year due to economy.
  • I consider myself a user experience manager, combining all sorts of aspects of IA, UX, and research...
  • I market myself as an Experience Strategist - I do general interactive strategy and also focus on experience design (user research, IA, content strategy)
  • my answers are slightly skewed because I was initially hired as a front-end developer, but have been relegated to other tasks. My "occasionally" tasks aren't part of my active job description, more things I manage to squeeze in around my actual responsibilities.
  • I think it would be great to know how one could get in to doing pure IA or interaction design - where to start, how to advance the career.
  • In the NYC area there seems to be high demand and at a good salary or hourly rate.
  • FYI: my "salary increase" was a result of leaving the field in 2007 and reentering it in 2009. However, it was still a 30% increase that I never would have seen had I stayed at my old job.
  • i need to increase my salary soon
  • You are missing a position level in question 6. I am a mid-level designer-- not junior, not senior. Please consider adding this level in your next survey. Thanks.
  • I was doing Information Architecture tasks in previous positions where I didn't have the title such as when I was a Web Writer. However, my company only counts my experience based on the time I've held the IA title which is frustrating.
  • I've worked in the field as an IA/UXD for about 4 years, but I've worked in the industry of interactive for over 10 years.
  • In Australia there are a lot of high-paying job ads for "Information Architects". Upon closeer inspection they are actually looking for Data/Technical Architects. The term has started to become very ambiguous.
  • Type of company would also be an interesting criterion to track - software company vs agency vs in-house web group for a totally different type of company etc.
  • The 2008/2009 business environment has decreased rates for consultants.
  • This is a good survey but for South americans it ends up looking that we have really bad salaries which is not completly true considering life costs.
  • My salary plus bonus seems high, but considering some of the people I have to work with, its not nearly high enough.
  • I have no idea what to charge people here. I just moved from a much more major metropolitan area to a regionally-large city with a perpetually horrible economy.
  • Its virtually non-existent in Turkey, only foreign companies enforce and field is hopefully flourish soon. Hourly rates are derived from web design business in general.
  • Contract position paid hourly, no overtime paid so a max of 40 hrs per week worked.
  • Though my hourly rate seems high to some, I would do MUCH better financially as a full time employee, though I'd be working many more hours too. I freelance mainly for the time flexibility.
  • I expect salaries to go down over time as companies wise up to some of the less sustainable ideas propagated by publicity-hungry consultancies, and as our roles are eclipsed by other disciplines.
  • I am a freelancer.
  • My company is known to be low in the field. I'd LOVE to know what others here make - to know if I'm low or not - esp in comparison to the guys and folks at the 'equivalent' level but with management responsibilities.
  • I found it strange to organize tasks by percentage of day. I do things on a project basis -- so I could be doing wireframes / ixd for 3 months, then usability testing for 3 weeks.
  • Also, I consider wireframing and ixd nearly synonymous, so separating those into two separate items was confusing!
  • Last, I would consider adding an "Intermediate" option in the job level options. I don't have a specific title, junior or senior, so would classify myself as intermediate (4 yrs experience).
  • Salary is based on UK to US conversion. Salary in Great British Pound Sterling is 30k.
  • Cannot answer question 14 - our organisation doesn't work that way.
  • Being a contractor, I get no 401K benefits, so that's stressful.
  • I was laid off 6 months ago from my previous company (UX group within an IT consulting firm). There, I was doing heuristic reviews & interface design. At my current company (doing more junior-level/assistant-type work), I'm making about $10k less. I'm curious to see how the economy has affected others in this field. Ego blows and empty bank accounts. It was hard enough to find jobs in this field...now it's been even harder, and I wonder how long it will take companies to "bounce back" and begin realizing again how necessary/beneficial UX is...
  • This question was impossible to answer because of the options. Which of the following best describes your position level?
  • There isn't really an option for mid level internal consultant... I'm not junior or senior... and I'm not freelance... :)
  • Look forward to seeing the results. Thanks!
  • As a small business, we noted a dip in contract work at the start of year - Jan. to May. (inclusive). We took this opportunity to participate in a start-up (unpaid).
  • I'm mommy-tracked; I think my title is lower than what it should be.
  • My salary decrease is due to the end of a contract and the beginning of a new job.
  • I would love to see a more detailed breakdown of salary against other variables. So, seeing salary to time worked in field. Salary to title. Salary to degree held, etc.
  • your definition of "US South" is Texas through Delaware, but that would include Northern VA, and Maryland, both of which I think should be considered "US North," since DC was included in the North
  • Salaries for all interactive in Mississippi are grossly below national averages. Talent is scarce as well. Huge disparity between what people who have the skills want and what people are working for.

This page was last modified on December 21, 2009 05:45 PM.