Front-End Engineer Salary: Your 2025 Guide

The layout of a well-designed website attracts users and keeps them engaged. Conversely, an inadequately designed website can hinder visitor experience, diminishing interest and disengagement.

This is precisely why the role of a front-end engineer is pivotal. With your expertise in design and web development technologies, you provide a consistent and enjoyable user experience across different devices and platforms in this role.

Delve deeper into the job responsibilities, salary prospects, and industry trends relevant to front-end engineers, including the factors that might impact your front-end engineer salary.

What does a front-end engineer do?

A front-end engineer, sometimes known as a front-end developer, designs and develops user interface systems for applications, websites, and software. Showing meticulous attention to detail, front-end developers work toward fine-tuning a website's visual appeal and performance by:

• Developing prototypes and graphics elements for a website

• Optimizing web pages for faster loading speeds

• Configuring websites to be browser- and mobile-friendly

• Designing high-resolution mockups for user interface testing

Read More: How to Become a Front-End Web Developer

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How much does a front-end engineer make?

The average annual income in the United States for a front-end engineer ranges from roughly $92,000 to $116,000, according to multiple job listing sites. The US Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) reports a median annual salary of $84,960 for general web developers [2]. 

The following table lists the base salary ranges provided by Zippia, Glassdoor, ZipRecruiter, and Indeed. 

What factors impact front-end engineer salary?

Several key factors can influence your compensation as a front-end engineer. They include education, skills, certification, experience, location, industry, and company.

Education

According to Zippia, front-end engineers with a master's degree earn an annual salary of $99,256 [7]. Those with a bachelor's degree earn an average of $93,883 per year, while individuals with an associate degree earn an average annual income of $89,495 [7].

The most commonly held qualification among front-end engineers is a bachelor's degree, attained by 72 percent of professionals in the field [7]. The second most prevalent credential is a master's degree, held by 15 percent of front-end developers [7]. A smaller percentage, roughly 10 percent, have an associate degree [7].

For those who opted for a degree, computer science is the chosen major for the majority of front-end developers, accounting for approximately 30 percent of experts in this field [7]. Other common majors include graphic design (10 percent), computer engineering (8 percent), and information technology (7 percent) [7]. 

Skills

Cascading style sheets (CSS), React.js, hypertext markup language 5 (HTML5), and JavaScript are among the popular web development skills and programming languages acquired by front-end engineers, according to Payscale. Typical average salaries for front-end engineers with these skills are [8]: 

• CSS: $79,224

• React.js: $91,419

• HTML5: $78,121

• JavaScript: $85,251

• Web development: $84,162

Other in-demand skills for front-end engineers include Angular JS, jQuery, Redux, user interface design (UI), user experience (UX), and RESTful APIs.

Certification

Certifications equip you with the latest tools, techniques, and strategies, allowing you to adapt to industry changes effectively. Below are some widely recognized certifications that you can consider for enhancing your skills in front-end software development:

• CIW Web Foundations Associate: $81,000 [9]

• Certified Secure Software Lifecycle Professional (CSSLP): $114,000 [10]

• Certified Web Developer (CWD): $72,000 [11]

• Amazon Web Services (AWS) Certified Developer - Associate: $116,000 [12]

Experience

You can expect to witness a jump in compensation as you gain more experience. The following figures, obtained from Glassdoor, provide an estimate of the average base compensation for different experience levels [4]:

• 0–1 year: $97,200

• 1–3 years: $111,996

• 4–6 years: $118,653

• 7–9 years: $124,280

• 10–14 years: $132,235

• 15 or more years: $144,593

Location

Pay may vary depending on your geographical location. By analyzing how wages compare to the national average in different cities, you can understand compensation trends comprehensively and make informed choices regarding your career path, which might include relocation.

Here are some top-paying cities for front-end engineers in the United States, according to data aggregated by Zippia [3]:

• San Francisco, CA: $118,538

• Seattle, WA: $106,046

• Portland, OR: $97,093

• Washington, DC: $96,764

• Jersey City, NJ: $92,838

• New York, NY: $92,534

• Arlington, VA: $91,543

• Philadelphia, PA: $89,248

• Austin, TX: $89,069

• Salt Lake City, UT: $88,795

Industry

By choosing industries that adequately compensate for your specific skill set, you can significantly increase your prospects of earning a higher salary while successfully pursuing your career ambitions. The following list provides an estimation of the average base compensation for some of the highest-paying industries for front-end engineers, according to Glassdoor [4]:

• Financial services: $137,779

• Management and consulting: $133,574

• Health care: $131,386

• Pharmaceutical and biotechnology: $125,478

• Insurance: $116,780

• Agriculture: $124,776

• Arts, entertainment, and recreation: $121,844

• Aerospace and defense: $116,774

• Construction, repair, and maintenance service: $115,457

• Legal: $106,950

Company

The variation in pay across different firms can be attributed to various factors that impact compensation structures, such as the size of the company and its financial resources. The list below outlines the top-paying companies in the United States for front-end engineers based on data gathered by Zippia [3]:

• Lifetime: $134,581

• Apple: $131,650

• Atlassian: $128,102

• Platfora: $126,930

• Palo Alto Networks: $125,400

• Benjamin Moore: $124,509

• Quantifind: $124,397

• Barclays: $124,361

• Reddit: $123,773

• SoFi: $122,178 

Job outlook 

It’s an excellent time to pursue a career in front-end development. The BLS has projected an 8 percent increase in employment opportunities for web developers and digital designers between 2023 and 2033 [2]. The bureau estimates roughly 16,500 job openings on average each year [2]. 

Corroborating the forecast, Zippia’s findings reveal a consistent increase in the average salary of front-end engineers from $82,954 in 2021 to $92,147 in 2025 [14]. 

Getting started with Coursera

Front-end engineers are the architects of the digital world we interact with. This exciting career offers a competitive salary and a positive job outlook. 

Explore this interesting job with Introduction to Front-End Development offered by Meta on Coursera. The course is part of the Meta Front-End Developer Professional Certificate. Intended for beginners, the Professional Certificate, which takes approximately seven months to complete, will introduce you to core web development technologies and UI frameworks, including HTML, CSS, Bootstrap, and React.