UK Design – Buying & Selling for a Global Industry sought to build on previous research, The Business of Design – Design Industry, 2005.
It investigates the issues surrounding international competition from the perspective of both designers and design buyers. It examines the challenges, threats and opportunities associated with globalisation of the industry, and challenges met and strategies employed by those working in overseas markets.
Only figures that are statistically reliable have been reported and all figures have been rounded to the closest percentage point. No weights have been applied to this data. Totals to 100% may vary by one percentage point due to rounding. However, to ensure graphic consistency all charts have used a scale to 100%.
The research work was conducted by Stratagia Limited, Synchronicity Consultants Limited and QA Research. The survey was conducted between October 2006 and March 2007.
1. Literature review
In the first stage of the research, desk-based research was carried out to identify information on international issues relating to UK design; strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats. This information was found in publications from UK Trade and Investment, British Design Innovation, the online archive of Design Week articles, and other individual reports.
2. Qualitative research
Following the literature review, focus groups and in-depth telephone and face-to-face interviews were carried out with UK designers and design buyers located throughout the UK, working in a broad range of disciplines:
- Design buyers: 1 focus group, 18 depth interviews
- Designers: 3 focus groups, 10 depth interviews
3. Quantitative research
The information gathered from the qualitative research was used to inform the development of questionnaires for two separate surveys of design buyers and designers.
Telephone interviews were conducted with 120 design buyers from business with 100 or more employees, 18 of whom had experience in purchasing design from overseas. Respondents were selected to have the job title of Buyer of Design Services, Marketing Director, Advertising Director, Communications Director, Marketing Manager, Group/Senior Brand/Product Manager, or New Product Development Manager.
The survey of design buyers used a sampling frame of 2,500 contacts supplied by AP Information Services – following de-duplication this gave 2263 contacts. The first 100 survey completions were based on a random sample from this sampling frame to give an overall picture of these design buyers. Thereafter any respondents that agreed to take part in the survey but had no experience of purchasing design services from overseas were screened out at the beginning and did not proceed with the survey. In total 941 UK-based design buyers were contacted in the process of conducting the survey. Only 2% of these were found to be purchasing design from overseas.
Telephone interviews were conducted with 285 designers, 44 of whom were freelancers.
Those who did not consider themselves to be facing international competition were screened out of the survey. The sample for this survey is therefore not nationally representative (17% Business of Design) , but rather sought to explore a particular issue in depth…
We contacted designers who participated in Business of Design – Design Industry Research, 2005 and were willing to be re-contacted, and supplemented by contacts purchased from the Experian database. The designers surveyed operated in a range of disciplines.
Levels of the design service
The survey asked respondents o indicate which levels of the design process they were purchasing or providing – these were defined these as:
- Strategic design: Strategic design planning and management across the client organisation
- Conceptual design: Concept projects, creative exploration and idea generation
- Design production & implementation: Working to a specification to produce or implement a given design idea
- Design research: Ethnography work, user research and market research
Characteristics of surveyed buying organisations
The buying organisations surveyed are broadly nationally representative of businesses with over 100 employees
Chart 1
How many people are employed by design businesses?
| Number employed in the organisation |
% |
| 100-249 |
 21 |
| 250-999 |
28 |
| 1,000-4,999 |
23 |
| 5,000+ |
26 |
Chart 2
How are design businesses best described?
| Organisation is best described as |
% |
| a UK organisation operating primarily in the UK |
57 |
| international business with its headquarters outside the UK |
23 |
| an international business with its headquarters in the UK |
20 |
Chart 3
Where are design businesses' customers primarily based?
| Customers primarily based |
% |
| Locally in the UK |
26/SPAN> |
| Elsewhere in the UK |
36 |
| Elsewhere in the EU |
3 |
| Worldwide |
35 |
Characteristics of surveyed design businesses
We surveyed 285 design businesses that are facing overseas competition, either for work in the UK or in overseas markets, and found that the majority (62%) of businesses have been operating for at least seven years and almost half (46%) have been around for over ten years. They also tend to have a relatively high fee income, with almost a quarter (22%) taking £500,000 per year or more in fees. Nevertheless, three quarters of respondents (72%) were small businesses with fewer than ten employees.
Of the businesses we surveyed, most offered communications design (52%) and digital and multimedia design (45%). Around 15% were freelancers, the remainder consultancies.
Further detail is available below. Information from the 2005 Design Council survey of the UK design industry has been included in the table below for comparison.
47% of the respondents offer a full design service, from initial concept to implementation, in their work. 5% only offer a partial service specialising in part of the design process, and 49% offer both full and partial services, depending on the client and project.
The table below shows the type of design services offered for particular disciplines.
Product and industrial designers were most likely to say they offer full design services only (56%), and interior and exhibition designers least likely (41%); they are most likely to offer partial design services (11%). None of the respondents offer partial design services in their communications design work.
In addition,
- 85% of respondents offer design production and implementation; working to a specification to produce or implement a given design idea
- 83% offer conceptual design; concept projects, creative exploration and idea generation
- 63% offer strategic design; strategic design planning and management across the client organisation
- 43% offer design research; ethnography work, user research and market research
The majority of the design businesses and freelances have been operating for seven years or more (62%); in fact almost half (46%) have been established for more than ten years. The average was seven to ten years.
61% of the respondents reported a total fee income for the previous full financial year of under £250,000.
Almost three-quarters (72%) of the design businesses were micro businesses, with less than ten employees. The average size of business was five to nine employees.
Given they tend to be younger organisations it is not surprising to find that design businesses that offer digital and multimedia design tend to be smaller with just 15% having ten or more employees, compared to 38% of those that do not offer this discipline.