User Experience Careers - 2nd Edition - What a Career in UX Looks Like Today

Oct 26, 2026

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User Experience Careers - 2nd Edition compiles practical, experience-based guidance on what UX work looks like today and how professionals develop. It reviews survey findings on respondents’ locations, experience years, roles, responsibilities, industries, and ongoing projects, alongside education, career transitions, and skills gaps. The report also addresses mentorship effects, career satisfaction drivers, pay satisfaction, hiring expectations, and portfolio and learning advice for new UX practitioners.

LanguageEnglish

CategoryResearch & Report

FormatPDF

Pages90

Reading Time3 h 47 min

AccessFree to download

Executive Summary

High-Level Findings

Our Survey Respondents

Locations

Years of Experience

Job Titles and Responsibilities

The Kinds of Work UX Professionals Do

Industries in Which UX Professionals Work

What UX Professionals Are Working On

Activities Performed by UX Professionals

Education and Backgrounds

Formal Education

Most Useful Areas of Study

Changing Careers

There Are Many Accidents into UX

Even Unrelated Fields of Work Provide Relevant Skills

Changing Careers Can Be Hard, but It’s Worthwhile

Skills Needed for the Job

Skills UX Practitioners Have

Skills That UX Practitioners Wish They Had

Should Designers Code?

Mentorship

Experiences with Mentorship

Where to Find a Mentor

How Satisfying Is a Career in UX?

Career Satisfaction

Pay Satisfaction

Hiring UX Professionals

What Hiring Managers Look for in UX Candidates

UX Portfolios

Advice for New UX Practitioners

Keep Learning and Stay Curious

Respect Others

Be in Charge of Your Own Career

Find Your Place

Be Confident

About This Report

Methodology

About the Authors

User Experience Careers What a Career in UX Looks Like Today 2nd Edition Maria Rosala and Rachel Krause 48105 Warm Springs Blvd., Fremont, CA 94539-7498 USA Copyright © Nielsen Norman Group; All Rights Reserved. To get your own copy, please go to: [https://www.nngroup.com/reports/user-experience-careers](https://www.nngroup.com/reports/user-experience-careers) About This Free Report About This Free Report This report is a gift for our loyal audience of UX enthusiasts. Thank you for your support over the years. We hope this information will aid your efforts to improve user experiences for everyone. The research for this report was done in 2019, however, the information presented is not just a snapshot in time. It is a compendium of professional advice based on experience gained over many years. We regularly publish new research reports that span a variety of web and UX related topics. These reports include thousands of actionable, illustrated user experience guidelines for creating and improving your web, mobile, and intranet sites. We sell our new reports to fund independent, unbiased usability research; we do not have investors, government funding, or research grants that pay for this work. Visit our reports page at [https://www.nngroup.com/reports](https://www.nngroup.com/reports) to see a complete list of these reports. HOW TO SHARE Do not link directly to the PDF file (the hosted address could change) . Instead, we encourage you to distribute the following link to this report’s page on our website to allow people to decide whether to download it themselves: [https://www.nngroup.com/reports/user-experience-careers](https://www.nngroup.com/reports/user-experience-careers) REPORT AUTHORS Maria Rosala and Rachel Krause © Nielsen Norman [Group | www.nngroup.com](Group | www.nngroup.com) 2 Copyright Notice Copyright Notice Please do not post this document to the internet or to publicly available file-sharing services. This report is free, but it is still copyrighted information that may be updated from time to time, so please don’t distribute this file or host it elsewhere. Even when people post documents with a private URL to share only with a few colleagues or clients, search engines often index the copy anyway. Indexing means that thousands of people will find the secret copy through searches. © Nielsen Norman [Group | www.nngroup.com](Group | www.nngroup.com) 3 Table of Contents Table of Contents Executive Summary 7 High-Level Findings ........................................................7 Our Survey Respondents 12 Locations ................................................................ 12 Years of Experience ....................................................... 13 Job Titles and Responsibilities .............................................. 15 The Kinds of Work UX Professionals Do 21 Industries in Which UX Professionals Work ................................... 21 What UX Professionals Are Working On ...................................... 22 Activities Performed by UX Professionals ..................................... 23 Education and Backgrounds 30 Formal Education ......................................................... 30 Most Useful Areas of Study................................................. 39 Changing Careers 41 There Are Many Accidents into UX........................................... 41 Even Unrelated Fields of Work Provide Relevant Skills ............................................................ 42 Changing Careers Can Be Hard, but It’s Worthwhile ............................ 43 Skills Needed for the Job 45 Skills UX Practitioners Have ................................................ 45 Skills That UX Practitioners Wish They Had ................................... 50 Should Designers Code? ................................................... 50 Skills that UX Practitioners Found Useful .................

FAQs

What does the report say UX careers look like today?

It synthesizes survey findings and professional guidance describing the kinds of work UX professionals do, including industries, current projects, and typical activities.

What skills and education are highlighted for UX roles?

The report outlines skills UX practitioners have, skills they wish they had, guidance about whether designers should code, and the most useful areas of study based on the survey results.

How do mentorship and career satisfaction influence a UX career?

It discusses experiences with mentorship, where to find a mentor, potential benefits and harms, and how factors such as career satisfaction and pay satisfaction shape overall fulfillment.

Oct 26, 2026

Upload by OmBimo