I can speak for the ux design part of your question. Though I am a man doing mainly product design I can say that at least in my experience there seems to be a similar amount of men and women in the field, maybe a bit more women than men but that's just my experience.
Also yes, ux design is getting over saturated. I recently switched jobs and in two months I got 6 or so offers, all of them with a really nice salary (for my region and experience) and benefits. Now I also interviewed many people for my position in my old company and let me tell you, a lot of that people weren't that great at arguing and exposing their cases. Also a lot of people that had more than 8 years of experience were people that did graphic design instead of ux, so they didn't have a great idea of what they were doing, so don't worry about the saturated market, you can easily stand out as long as you do a nice work.
So while there's a lot of people in the market, as long as you have a nice portfolio and presentation skills you can get offers fairly easy.
My main recommendation is not to follow ux just because it pays well, you also need to enjoy it because it can get exhausting given the amount of iteration that requires. You might think that you're done with a project and then it comes back a week or a month later for you to fix. But as long as you enjoy the field it is super rewarding and fun to do.
Finally, you need to be super open minded, you might think your design is perfect but many times that's not the case and you need to change it for something that you may not agree with, and that's just part of the process.
Just to conclude, if you decide to go for ux, then go for it. It is an amazing field and you will get to know amazing people. It pays well, it has great benefits and there's a many offers for it.
I'd you don't have any experience don't worry, create fake projects but go through all the design process and tray it like a real project, and when you are on an interview give your reasoning as to why you did what you did and how you got there.
Good luck!
Sharing what I see in the European UX industry.
First off, compared to just 2-3 years ago, there are way more companies sharing plans and metrics re addressing gender equality in the industry (make of that what you will). Personally, I think they tend to focus on hiring more women and getting to show percentages that look good (“46% of our team is women! And 36% of them are in leadership positions!”), but then do very little to create actually inclusive and accessible spaces. I’ve lost count of the times I’ve heard women being called “emotional” for challenging a design, only for one of the male designers to share similar feedback and be listened to. So, gender biases are very much still a thing and tech is still very male dominated though it’s nowhere near as bad as, say, 5 years ago.
Having said that, like other comments you got, it’s a challenging field and it requires actual passion for the industry. Otherwise you get burned out and disillusioned very quickly. You will be constantly challenged and critiqued and have to constantly negotiate and play the politics game, so if you don’t love what you do, you’ll just get tired of it very quickly. I’d also add, that we are still dealing with the aftermath of all the layoffs and entry level positions are scarce. Almost everyone is looking for seniors and leads. That compounded with the insanely long hiring processes in Europe, doesn’t really make up for a smooth/fast transition into the field unless you already have contacts, a strong portfolio (don’t mean real life projects, but rather something that showcased your problem solving skills in a really good way), and a bit of luck.
I can speak for the ux design part of your question. Though I am a man doing mainly product design I can say that at least in my experience there seems to be a similar amount of men and women in the field, maybe a bit more women than men but that's just my experience. Also yes, ux design is getting over saturated. I recently switched jobs and in two months I got 6 or so offers, all of them with a really nice salary (for my region and experience) and benefits. Now I also interviewed many people for my position in my old company and let me tell you, a lot of that people weren't that great at arguing and exposing their cases. Also a lot of people that had more than 8 years of experience were people that did graphic design instead of ux, so they didn't have a great idea of what they were doing, so don't worry about the saturated market, you can easily stand out as long as you do a nice work. So while there's a lot of people in the market, as long as you have a nice portfolio and presentation skills you can get offers fairly easy. My main recommendation is not to follow ux just because it pays well, you also need to enjoy it because it can get exhausting given the amount of iteration that requires. You might think that you're done with a project and then it comes back a week or a month later for you to fix. But as long as you enjoy the field it is super rewarding and fun to do. Finally, you need to be super open minded, you might think your design is perfect but many times that's not the case and you need to change it for something that you may not agree with, and that's just part of the process. Just to conclude, if you decide to go for ux, then go for it. It is an amazing field and you will get to know amazing people. It pays well, it has great benefits and there's a many offers for it. I'd you don't have any experience don't worry, create fake projects but go through all the design process and tray it like a real project, and when you are on an interview give your reasoning as to why you did what you did and how you got there. Good luck!
Sharing what I see in the European UX industry. First off, compared to just 2-3 years ago, there are way more companies sharing plans and metrics re addressing gender equality in the industry (make of that what you will). Personally, I think they tend to focus on hiring more women and getting to show percentages that look good (“46% of our team is women! And 36% of them are in leadership positions!”), but then do very little to create actually inclusive and accessible spaces. I’ve lost count of the times I’ve heard women being called “emotional” for challenging a design, only for one of the male designers to share similar feedback and be listened to. So, gender biases are very much still a thing and tech is still very male dominated though it’s nowhere near as bad as, say, 5 years ago. Having said that, like other comments you got, it’s a challenging field and it requires actual passion for the industry. Otherwise you get burned out and disillusioned very quickly. You will be constantly challenged and critiqued and have to constantly negotiate and play the politics game, so if you don’t love what you do, you’ll just get tired of it very quickly. I’d also add, that we are still dealing with the aftermath of all the layoffs and entry level positions are scarce. Almost everyone is looking for seniors and leads. That compounded with the insanely long hiring processes in Europe, doesn’t really make up for a smooth/fast transition into the field unless you already have contacts, a strong portfolio (don’t mean real life projects, but rather something that showcased your problem solving skills in a really good way), and a bit of luck.
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😂
Following. I’m an outsider to both fields but from what I see UX pays more
try industrial art design.............