The user experience jobs market has matured rapidly and recruitment requirements continue to change and develop. A 366% increase in listed skill ‘Design Sprints’ illustrates this fluid market. With Sketch as a listed skill up 74% YTD and inVision at a 111% increase, we wanted to share some of our insights.
Design Sprints
People with ‘design sprint’ listed as a skill in the U.K.’s UX and Design market has grown by 366% in the past 12 months. Originally developed at Google to align teams under one shared vision, the tools and skills behind the design sprints methodology have certainly taken off within the last year.
Sketch has increased by 74% as a listed skill and InVision by 111%. The number of candidates that list Sketch as their sprint methodology is 29% more than candidates with inVision listed.
Whilst typically you would work this design process across 5 days, we have experienced companies bring this down to 3 days with a working prototype, creating huge amounts of value in very limited time.
InVision for web design has continued to be a success due to its integration with the Sketch app, and thus this is how the pairing continues to attract UX practitioners. This is clear from the skill uptake since this time last year. In comparison, the Axure rp skill appears to be stagnating somewhat, with only a 16% increase of it being listed from last year. But the creators of these tools must not rest on their laurels, with Adobe XD tipped to take over, as it can do both prototyping and design. With all aspects of the design process in one place, and the growth of this listing at 185% YTD, this is the one to watch.
Digital Design Specialist, Shane P Williams, asserts that the auto-animate feature on Adobe XD “killed InVision Studio with this feature. While it does not yet give you the fine controls InVision Studio allows, the sheer speed of Adobe XD and easy setup is something InVision Studio needs to work hard at to remain relevant.”
Additionally, when pitted against Sketch, Adobe XD comes up trumps in relation to compatibility for Windows and Mac, and this could explain why more practitioners are choosing this skill, so that their skills are more transferable. This may be a particularly apparent trend for contractors or those in cross-functional teams.
“If you work in the multidisciplinary team where designers use Sketch and developers work on Windows, one of the common questions you hear from developers is “I can’t open this Sketch-file on my PC.” - uxplanet.org
Unless you are using the Lunacy software alongside Sketch as a Windows user, it is particularly difficult to get set up and started. Again, this takes away from the ease that alternative Adobe XD can provide.
Growth of the Product Designer
Over the past 12 months, there has been an increase of 34% for the job title ‘Product Designer’, with team sizes ranging from a single individual to 55 at Facebook. The highest concentration of Product Designers is in London, accounting for half of all Product Designers, followed by Edinburgh, then Bristol.
Interestingly, research shows that nearly three quarters of Product Designers changed jobs or changed job titles in the last 12 months. With over 300 job posts for Product Designers across the UK, this should come as no surprise.
If you want help to ensure that your salary and rate bandings are competitive in order to safeguard that you can retain and hire the best talent, please ask for our salary survey.
We have deep-rooted relationships with the best Product Designers, so if you’d like advice on retention or need to hire Product Designers, please get in touch.
Telling a Story & Effective UX Copy
UX Copywriting has also seen a large spike over the last 12 months, with companies building teams of UX Copywriters to compliment the UX team, helping to solve the users’ problems and make engaging and easy to use products via effective copy.
The need for UX copywriters has grown by 30% in the past 12 months, mostly on a contract basis as companies release new products and services.
Education / Background
The amount of UX and UI Designers entering the market with a relevant degree is still the highest, with the University of the Arts London producing the most designers in 2019, however only 8% of UXer’s in the UK list HCI as one of their key skills. Interestingly, this is only slightly ahead of the General Assembly in 2nd place, begging the question, can the industry support this amount of designers with only a 12-week intensive course behind them?
Tools – Supply versus demand
Photoshop still takes the top spot for skills that designers have across the U.K., followed by Axure, Sketch and InVision. However InVision and Sketch are the most demanded skills required by our clients, up 123% and 88% respectively this year alone, where Axure and Photoshop sit at only 12% growth over the same period. Clearly there is a skills gap that needs to be reduced over the coming 12 months.
If you’re looking for further insight on the UX and Design market, please speak to us; we can provide information on the makeup of the market in terms of professionals as well as tools such as: figma, zeplin, invision, sketch, axure, adobe xd etc.
As one of the leading recruiters for UX researcher jobs, as well as other areas of UI UX Design, we ensure we make the process as easy as possible for our clients and candidates alike. Our UI UX Recruitment affords us great insight into what works for both candidates and clients. Consulting with the client on what’s required to keep the candidate happy is part of where we excel. We establish career progression opportunities with the role offer, and match with the perfect candidate to ensure two happy parties. We are trusted recruiters for ux design jobs and place high-calibre candidates in UX UI design jobs for our clients. Hear what our clients say.
*The statistics used in this article come from LinkedIn Talent Insights unless otherwise cited within the text.*
