Almost any business these days requires some kind of online presence. One of the most valuable things for modern people is time. Thus, they would rather do groceries online, book a table or buy a ticket using an app or a website. It saves time and it’s much more convenient. It goes far beyond daily activities. Technology is everywhere and every solid business wants to keep up with it. We already have self-driving cars, drones, and robots so a simple website is rather a must-have than an advanced option. There are several types of websites depending on their focus and goal.
It is well-known that WordPress is the most popular CMS (content management system) on the market. Its main competitors are Drupal, Joomla, and Magento. Still, WordPress keeps its leading place and stays on top of the list. Taking into account the popularity and success of this CMS, it’s no surprise that there’s a great number of WordPress developers out there. But, what does it mean to be a WordPress developer and what kind of salary one can expect? Let’s dig into this question and make a little research of our own.
Who is a WordPress developer?
WordPress developers can be divided depending on skill sets and responsibilities. Thus, some of them create themes/templates while others build new plugins. Being a WordPress developer does not mean managing content of a WP website – content managers do that. Also, you can be a designer or web developer with a set of skills that includes WP (meaning WP is not the main skill).
A WordPress template developer should be skilled in HTML, CSS, responsive design and the basics of PHP (because WordPress is written with PHP) to be able to build new WP themes. To be a WordPress plugin developer, one should be skilled not only in HTML, CSS, and PHP but also in JS, jquery, SQL. These skills allow the dev to provide additional features and functionalities to an out-of-box WP website.
WordPress Developer Salary Overview
Now when we know there are different types of WordPress devs, let’s check out if this makes their salaries any different. Also, let’s see how experience and other skills affect the salary. The focus is on the U.S. market!
Obviously, the job position affect salary. Those who work with WordPress as designers (almost don’t’ interfere with code) have the lowers rates. Those who do both front-end and engineering have the highest. Everything depends on your responsibilities and skills.
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WP Web Developer
Average web developer with WordPress skills earns $52K per year, according to PayScale. Salaries start from $35K and reach $75K! Skills in C#, SQL and JavaScript are the top 3 that affect the salary raise for a WP web dev.
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WP Web Designer
The average annual salary of a web designer with WordPress skills is $44K. It’s only $32K for an entry-level designer and $64 for highly experienced. Among the top 3 skills that affect the salary raise are:
- User Interface Design
- Web Design
- HTML5
Being skilled in Adobe Photoshop and Adobe Illustrator can get you a better wage as well.
WP Front-End Developer / Engineer
The average annual salary is $58K but the salary bar starts at $40K and ends at $83K. As always, experience has the most critical effect on the wage.
Meanwhile, skills like React.js, Angular.js, and others can also significantly change your career as well as salary. No wonder, because these JS frameworks are in great demand in the web development world. Thus, React.js front-end developer has an average annual salary of $80K and Anugual front-end develope has $75K! This means WordPress is not quite the best skill for such a job position.
Thus, it really matters what skills aside WordPress you master. It’s not only about money but also about your career and projects you’ll be working on. In any case, the way WP developer salary ranges are very usual in the IT field. Those skills that have the hardest learning curve are always paid the best. Also, keep in mind that there a big difference between a freelance WordPress developer and an in-office one. Sometimes really skilled and hard-working people can earn way more freelancing than the average wages.
If you have solid skills in HTML, CSS, PHP, JS, and SQL, you can create WP templates and plugins. If you are to browse freelance platforms, you would find out that there’s a great amount of work for WP devs. Building a template or a plugin is the right kind of project for freelancing as it doesn’t really require teamwork and it’s not too comprehensive. Thus, skilled WP devs have a chance to earn a lot of money, I would say up to $100K. On the other hand, WP seems like not the best skill for a web developer. In any case, this CMS was and would be popular so it’s a go for starting web developers.
