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Senior web designer vs web developer

The differences between senior web designers and web developers can be seen in a few details. Each job has different responsibilities and duties. It typically takes 2-4 years to become both a senior web designer and a web developer. Additionally, a senior web designer has an average salary of $80,678, which is higher than the $78,975 average annual salary of a web developer.

The top three skills for a senior web designer include html css, sketch and UI. The most important skills for a web developer are javascript, html css, and HTML.

Senior web designer vs web developer overview

Senior Web DesignerWeb Developer
Yearly salary$80,678$78,975
Hourly rate$38.79$37.97
Growth rate13%13%
Number of jobs52,749227,881
Job satisfaction-3
Most common degreeBachelor's Degree, 70%Bachelor's Degree, 71%
Average age3737
Years of experience44

What does a senior web designer do?

A senior web designer leads a team of website designers to create, enhance, and optimize company websites. The senior web designer's goal is to meet the clients' expectations and build a website that embodies the company's characteristics, voice, style, and vision. The web designer also ensures that customers accessing the website experiences a smooth, functional, and fast website, free from bugs and other problems that may affect user experience and satisfaction. A senior web designer's responsibilities are to efficiently delegate tasks to other team members to meet client expectations.

What does a web developer do?

A web developer is responsible for designing and maintaining a website to attract customers and direct web traffic. Web developers' duty also includes analyzing software and database to develop new applications. A web developer must have extensive knowledge of programming languages and technology solutions to provide the best web design services for the clients, following their specifications, and submitting projects on or before the deadline. Web developers should have excellent time-management and decision-making skills to do tasks efficiently and accurately.

Senior web designer vs web developer salary

Senior web designers and web developers have different pay scales, as shown below.

Senior Web DesignerWeb Developer
Average salary$80,678$78,975
Salary rangeBetween $55,000 And $116,000Between $60,000 And $103,000
Highest paying CitySan Francisco, CABothell, WA
Highest paying stateCaliforniaWashington
Best paying companyRokuGoogle
Best paying industryTechnologyProfessional

Differences between senior web designer and web developer education

There are a few differences between a senior web designer and a web developer in terms of educational background:

Senior Web DesignerWeb Developer
Most common degreeBachelor's Degree, 70%Bachelor's Degree, 71%
Most common majorGraphic DesignComputer Science
Most common collegeUniversity of PennsylvaniaMassachusetts Institute of Technology

Senior web designer vs web developer demographics

Here are the differences between senior web designers' and web developers' demographics:

Senior Web DesignerWeb Developer
Average age3737
Gender ratioMale, 66.7% Female, 33.3%Male, 78.2% Female, 21.8%
Race ratioBlack or African American, 6.7% Unknown, 6.6% Hispanic or Latino, 12.5% Asian, 15.1% White, 58.6% American Indian and Alaska Native, 0.4%Black or African American, 6.4% Unknown, 6.5% Hispanic or Latino, 12.0% Asian, 15.9% White, 58.8% American Indian and Alaska Native, 0.4%
LGBT Percentage9%9%

Differences between senior web designer and web developer duties and responsibilities

Senior web designer example responsibilities.

  • Manage all QA sessions and assign fixes when necessary.
  • Lead redesign, code development, and transition of corporate website to WordPress.
  • Manage prototype content in wireframes when necessary.
  • Create a customize WordPress theme using PHP, JavaScript and XHTML/CSS for use on NCI's intranet.
  • Design and implement different layouts using HTML5 and CSS3.
  • Work with technologies such as JQuery and Ajax to make the website more attractive and user friendly.
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Web developer example responsibilities.

  • Lead front-end design and creation.
  • Manage high transaction databases including all database objects, triggers, procedures, user rights and functions.
  • Manage social media including Facebook advertising.
  • Interact with java controllers (JQUERY, AJAX, and JSON to write/read data from back end systems).
  • Used JSP, HTML, CSS and JavaScript to render the dynamic web pages (presentation layer) for the application.
  • Re-Design, update and maintain LinkWorth's WordPress plug-in using PHP and XML files to import data from LinkWorth's servers.
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Senior web designer vs web developer skills

Common senior web designer skills
  • Html Css, 9%
  • Sketch, 7%
  • UI, 6%
  • WordPress, 5%
  • HTML, 4%
  • CSS, 4%
Common web developer skills
  • JavaScript, 8%
  • Html Css, 6%
  • HTML, 5%
  • CSS, 5%
  • Web Forms, 4%
  • JQuery, 4%

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