3 Great Reasons To Be A Freelance UX Designer

Over the last few years, the UK has become the leading country for tech-focused businesses and jobs including digital marketing, SEO and UX design. Whilst growth in the tech industry has been rapid, the need for jobs has also continued to outgrow the number of skilled workers available.

As more of us than ever before are working, shopping and generally spending a lot of time online, user experience has become a huge focus for many businesses. Investing in their online appearance and general user experience has become one of the most popular ways companies spend their marketing budgets and with more UX freelancers being hired than ever before, there’s never been a better time to be a freelance UX designer.

Whilst there are many benefits such as flexible working, variety of projects and financial potential, we share 3 great reasons to be a freelance UX designer in the UK.

1. Creative freedom as a designer

One of the main reasons designers go freelance is the creative freedom it allows them as with the flexibility of freelancing comes more variety too. Being a designer can be restricting when working on the same website or web journey and many clients already have their own vision of the artwork.

Freelancing opens up more opportunity to work on a wider range of websites at the same time, some even invite your creative skills to help reshape or redesign a website. You may be asked to take creative lead or share your own design opinion on projects as more clients turn to UX professionals to take the lead.

Being creative can also be restricting in a full-time position as busy workloads don’t often leave time for you to focus on your own personal design projects. Going freelance offers up the added flexibility of being able to focus on personal projects as well as those paid pieces that help cover the bills!

Having the freedom to design and flex your creative skills when freelancing is one of the great reasons to go freelance as a UX designer.

2. Learn interchangeable skills on the job

It’s never too late to learn something new and that’s exactly what being a UX designer is all about. Working on web projects with other professionals such as web developers and writers, you’ll no doubt be exposed to a whole host of other interchangeable skills.

As UX design is often very collaborative and forms part of a project, many UX freelancers go on to focus on other aspects of the role they love, project management, content creation and even development. UX design harnesses the disciplines needed to work on these other key aspects of a website and by being involved in many different web projects, learning these valuable skills on the job comes as second nature.

If you’ve worked in UX design for years and want to explore other options, going freelance is an excellent way to learn on the job whilst discovering other skills you’re great at too. For example, you may really enjoy working with content teams and want to try your hand at copywriting too, or perhaps learning code is more your thing.

Gaining experience on different projects exposes you to many other skillsets and jobs, and the only way you gain exposure and variety is by going freelance.

‍3. Working from anywhere in the world

Not only does going freelance as a UX professional give you freedom to be creative and gain valuable experience, it also means you can work from anywhere in the world.

Being able to work within teams remotely enables you to focus on other aspects of your life, keeping your mind fresh and creativity flowing. If you fancy travelling but want to keep an income flowing, going freelance is the answer. Offering you the financial freedom to work anywhere in the world, more people than ever are choosing to become ‘digital nomads’.

Whether you fancy working from the beach in the Caribbean or want to brush up on your skiing whilst working, there are endless opportunities to travel and earn when you’re working freelance.

Networking is also an important part of running a freelance business and there’s no better way to meet new people than when travelling the world.

With the current skills gap to full-time employees for tech jobs at a high, as highlighted in the MindThe Gap report, going freelance with a skillset so in-demand means there is no better time to consider making the leap. Why not join our community of freelancers today and discover even more great reasons to go freelance as a UX designer.