Wide divergence in global designer pay scales

The Designer News, which tracks the professional design and technology industry, has just released a compilation of prevailing salaries.

The data, available on a Google Docs spreadsheet, shows the position, annual remuneration (in dollars), city and country where a designer is based. The highest annual compensation was $950,000 (Dh3.48 million) for a developer in Palo Alto, California. The lowest was the $200 for a freelancer in Tunisia. On average a creative/design director earns $115,500 a year, while it’s $85,716 for a senior designer.

More than 1,000 professionals from 58 countries participated in the poll, which included not only designers but art directors, developers, freelancers and product managers as well.

Meanwhile, the American Institute of Graphic Arts (AIGA) released another poll of the salaries of creative professional. But this one is made up almost exclusively of professionals in the US.

No UAE professional participated in the survey, but GulfTalent, an online recruitment portal in the Middle East, and the Salary Explorer website, give clues about the average monthly salary for a creative director in UAE.

The average is between Dh13,500-Dh22,500, and for a senior graphic designer it is Dh7,000. A graphic designer can earn between Dh4,500-Dh5,538 and an art director gets Dh12,000-Dh16,498.