How much to charge as a freelance graphic designer in the UK

In the UK, a midweight to senior freelance designer charges between £250 and £425 a day. That's the band in the 2026 salary survey from Represent, a London creative recruitment agency. YunoJuno's 2026 design rates report puts graphic designers at £348 a day.

Where you land depends on experience, specialism, the client and how much use they'll get from the work. For the general method behind any day rate, see our guide to pricing your freelance work.

What UK graphic designers charge right now

Represent gives bands by seniority; YunoJuno gives a figure for each role. They measure different things, so they sit side by side here, not blended.

Both lean towards bigger clients. YunoJuno's figures draw on 2024 and 2025 data from its own platform, which large brands and agency groups use to hire freelancers. Represent's rates assume the work is outside IR35. Neither gives a separate figure for London or for direct work with small businesses. A café owner buying a logo is a different buyer from an agency booking a senior designer for a fortnight.

What moves you up or down the range

Experience makes the widest spread in the table: clients pay more for a designer who needs less direction. Specialism comes next: in YunoJuno's figures, branding designers come out well above artworkers.

The client matters as much as the skill. Agencies and in-house teams book by the day and budget for it, while small businesses buy a result and compare fixed prices. So does use: packaging on shelves across the country is worth more to a client than a flyer for one event.

If you work through your own limited company, check IR35 too. When a larger client puts a role inside IR35, the client or agency deducts Income Tax and employee National Insurance from your fee. Our free IR35 checker shows whether the rules can apply to you.

Day rate or project price

Day rates suit work where the scope moves: agency cover, in-house campaigns, artworking, social assets that change week to week. The client carries the risk of it running long, and you invoice the days you worked. Say in your contract how many hours make a day.

Project prices suit work with a clear finish line: a logo, a brochure, packaging for one product. Direct clients often prefer them, because they're buying the result rather than your time. Build the price from your day rate anyway: estimate the days for each stage, multiply, and add a margin for what you can't see yet. If the brief grows, the scope in your proposal is what you point to.

Track your time on fixed-price jobs too. After a few logos you'll know whether your three-day estimate is really five.

Pricing a logo or brand identity

There's no credible, current UK survey of what freelancers charge for a logo or brand identity. Online price guides disagree and rarely say where their figures come from. So build the price from your day rate, stage by stage:

1. Discovery: the brief, research and a look at competitors.
2. Concepts: the first routes you present.
3. Refinement: developing the chosen route through the agreed revision rounds.
4. Final files: every format and colour version the client needs.
5. Guidelines: colour, type, spacing and use, if the package includes them.

Then shape it into two or three packages that differ in what the client gets, not just in hours. A logo with final files. A logo plus colours, type and a few templates. A full identity with guidelines. Extra concepts are where the days go, so price them as an add-on rather than throwing one in to win the job.

Revision rounds: how many, and what counts

Unlimited revisions are how a fixed price turns into a loss. Two lines in the proposal prevent it: how many rounds are included, and what a round is.

A round is one set of feedback from the client, collected and sent in one go, followed by one set of changes from you. Two rounds is a common convention in design, not a rule. Pick a number that fits the job and write it down.

Ask for one named person to collect feedback, because overruns often come from several people disagreeing on your time. Keep revisions apart from a new direction: recolouring the chosen route is a revision, dropping it for a new concept is new work. And price extra rounds up front, so the client hears the cost before the round starts, not on the invoice.

Usage, licensing and who owns the artwork

In the UK, the person who creates a design is its first copyright owner. The government's guidance on ownership of copyright works says a freelancer usually keeps copyright unless a contract says otherwise. Paying for the work doesn't transfer it. Without a written agreement, a client may only get a limited licence to use it.

So there are two ways to hand work over, and they're worth different amounts:

• A licence: you keep copyright and the client may use the work, broadly or for named uses.
• An assignment: the client becomes the owner. Under the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act, an assignment only takes effect in writing, signed by you.

A brand identity is the usual case for assignment, because the client builds their business on the logo and will want to own it. Price that in: a licence for one campaign is a smaller thing than ownership forever. Keep the right to show the work in your portfolio either way.

Paid fonts and stock images aren't yours to hand over: the client may need its own licence, so list them as their cost. Our guide to IP assignment versus licence covers the clauses.

Illustration is priced by use

A designer is often paid for days or an outcome. An illustrator is more often paid for an image and for what the client may do with it. The fee for a commission usually reflects:

• the media, such as a book cover, packaging, a website banner or a national advert
• the territory, such as the UK, Europe or worldwide
• the duration, from a single year to the full life of the copyright

The wider the use, the higher the fee, and buying the copyright outright costs more again. That follows from the rules above: you own the image unless you assign it in writing, so the licence is what you're selling.

Day rates still exist in illustration, mostly for agency and in-house bookings. If you do both, quote the illustration as a licensed fee and the design around it by the day or the project.

Work out your floor, then quote it

A market range tells you what others charge, not what you need. Our free day rate calculator works that out from your target income, costs, holiday and the days you'll really bill. The result is your floor. If it's below the table, charge the market rate. If it's above what your clients will pay, look at your costs and billable days before taking cheaper work.

Then put the price in a proposal. A good design quote names the deliverables and file formats, the revision rounds, who owns the work and when, and what's not included, priced as optional extras. It names the deposit too: many designers ask for half up front, and our guide to asking for a deposit covers how much and when. Our page for designers shows how HelloNoa handles design projects.

The bottom line

Use the table to see where you sit, and the day rate calculator to check that rate pays you. Price logos and identities as projects built from your day rate, name the revision rounds, and charge for ownership separately. If you illustrate, sell the licence. Then redo the sum every year.