There is definitely a market for freelance designers. Just look at Dribbble - more than half of the users there are freelancers who take on clients locally or remotely.

I run a remote design studio and have been a UI/UX designer for over 8 years. I decided to go the self-employed (freelance) route because I wanted to work with a variety of clients and grow a company, rather than work at an agency or startup (something I was less passionate about doing).

To answer your questions:

1. It really depends on your interests and niche. Figure out if you want to focus on designing mobile or web products (or both) and for what industry. I chose to focus on internet startups - whether it be SaaS, social, b2b etc because there is usually a high demand for UI/UX talent in this niche. And internet startups value great design, unlike some other industries.

2. 5 years of experience is pretty vague. Focus more on building a portfolio of quality projects where you show your design and UX skills. This will take time of course if you are new, but if you have 5-10 projects most companies will find that you have experience. If you have 1 project then you don't look as experienced or have as much under your belt.

Hope that helps. Feel free to email me at marco@masswerks.com if you want to ask some more questions or talk shop.

Do you have any coding experience? In addition to HTML/CSS?

I'm not sure if there is UX/UI position that doesn't require coding...but I'd take a designer with a lesser years if they were competent around frameworks, such as Compass/SASS/Less, etc. and various build systems.

Speaking as a general web developer, I find that it's not at all fun working with UX/UI people whose primary experience is in providing sliced layers from PhotoShop...and greatly value designers who understand the overall workflow of web dev. If you want to skimp on years, I would highly suggest getting practical web development experience, even if it's just building your own sites and getting familiar with commonly-used frameworks and systems.

+1. Understanding the front-end development workflow is a big plus. Also, familiarize yourself with the limitations of different browsers/platforms, file types (fonts, images, video, etc...), interaction patterns (by device), and grid systems. I'd go as far to say that your development skills should be solid enough (HTML, CSS and JS) to enable you to build a style guide like Google's Material Design. If you haven't seen it yet, you should definitely check it out... http://www.google.com/design/spec/material-design/introducti...

Being a good UI designer means being able to empathise with the users, understand their needs, and enable them to do what they came to do in a most efficient and pleasant way possible.

If you don't have much experience in these fields (UI and UX, as if they are two different things) you will quickly learn that the above trumps most of what you might have learned throughout a formal graphic design education and/or experience as a graphic designer.

So, my direct advice would be to study user behavior on the Web, psychology, and usability. Learn (if you don't already have the habit) how to think through user flows in lo-fi mockups and wireframes, immerse yourself in good UI design, and make it your priority to pay attention to details when using other people's software; and I don't just mean on the UI side. Pay attention at the company behind the app, how they prioritize features, and how they handle unsexy, menial tasks such as recurring billing, support, and how they integrate that into their work, the software itself.

I strongly believe that you can't be just a UI designer. I mean, you can be to a certain point, but you need to know all of the ins and outs of what it takes to take a product to market in order to be one of the few superstars who we all look up to and learn from. You need to be aware of the entire process, have insight into the business decisions that need to be made, so that you can paint a whole picture.

It's important to both 1) understand user needs & 2) communicate those needs through design.

To best understand user needs, you need the soft skills of empathy and humility. However, you also need to be able to understand a user's mindset through the various tools/tech they use, who they are, and where they come from.

In order to communicate those needs, you need to best understand the constraints of what is possible with the given tools/tech of the product you are involved with. From there, you need to be able to use existing paradigms to give stakeholders a vision they can aspire to and then ultimately build.

Portfolio worthy projects: Take a high-visibility product/process and redesign it from the ground up. Make sure it's in a market you are interested in tackling. Go through the process of understanding user needs and communicating the design.

You should definitely try to get a full-time position to get the reputation which yields contacts and potential future contracts. Learn from the best and keep a healthy portfolio of side projects that are fresh and hone your skills.