A.R., design systems lead (UK)

I started as a freelance UI designer in 2017, charging £35/hour. By 2022 I was at £60/hour and stuck — the market for pixel-pushing was getting commoditized fast, and AI generation tools weren't yet good enough to replace me but were good enough to anchor client expectations downward.

I made the jump to design systems work in 2023. It wasn't a clean rebrand — I started by offering 'design system audits' as a one-off product to clients who hired me for regular UI work. The audits sold for £2,500 and took me four days. That's effectively £80/hour, but more importantly, it taught me to talk about design as governance, not output.

Within a year I had three retained clients on design-system maintenance contracts, paying £8,000/month each for roughly twenty hours of work — about £100/hour effective rate, which converts to around $145/hour. The work itself is calmer than pixel-pushing: I review PRs, write component documentation, run weekly office hours with the eng team. AI tools speed up the documentation but they don't replace the judgment calls about when to break the system.