The data in The Business of Design is drawn from the Design Council’s 2005 Design Industry Research, conducted by the Design Council in association with the DBA.
It is a comprehensive study of the industry which seeks to explore the size and shape of the industry, the nature of its clients and competitors, how the industry wins business and the state of design education, training and skills.
The survey is based on 2,433 telephone interviews conducted with designers from design consultancies and in-house teams as well as freelances.
In order that the results of the survey are representative of the UK, the data has been weighted to reflect the distribution of design activity across the English regions and countries of the UK. This means that the published data is statistically representative of the result that would have been achieved from a census of all design businesses in the UK (excluding in-house teams with fewer than 100 employees). Weighting the data is a particularly challenging task due to the very large numbers of designers that are self-employed and freelances. Such people will tend to be under-represented in commercial and official business databases. To take account of this problem we have weighted the results for this group against data from the Labour Force Survey (LFS). Other data has been weighted to reflect the original sampling frame figures.
The total number of design consultancies is far higher than previous estimates. The Inter-Departmental Business Register (IDBR) maintained by the Office for National Statistics and compiled for VAT and PAYE information records 4,525 businesses in the Standard Industrial Classification sub-class 74.87/2, ‘Speciality Design Services’. However, the IDBR omits 1.77 million partnership businesses and covers less than half of all self employment. The category of speciality design activity also has critically important exclusions. For example, it does not cover product and industrial, web and exhibition design. This also explains why we were not able to use the IDBR data to weight our results.
For in-house design teams we have used the results of the survey to estimate the proportion of businesses with 100 or more employees that have design teams. To give an estimate of the number of businesses with in-house design teams in the UK, the proportion of businesses which say they have an in-house design team was applied to the total number of UK businesses with 100 or more employees. This weighting gives an employment figure for in-house design businesses that is broadly in line with the numbers from the LFS. However, this number may be somewhat large because a number of survey respondents said their businesses had an in-house design team, but subsequently terminated the interview on the grounds that they were not themselves designers. We have nonetheless assumed that these businesses have in-house teams. Also, the effect
of these terminated interviews in increasing the number of businesses with in-house teams is offset by the number of businesses with fewer than 100 employees that may have in-house design teams, but did not take part in the Design Industry Research.
While we believe the LFS data provides the most reliable estimate of the number of designers, it also has an important limitation. The data does not include designers with supervisory responsibilities, such as design managers in in-house design teams or creative directors in design consultancies; these appear in managerial and directorial occupations where design cannot be separately identified. In the Design Industry Research we asked each respondent how many designers were employed in the business at various levels of seniority. In order to estimate the number of design managers and directors in the UK, we took the total number of design directors and managers identified by respondents and weighted this by the total number of designers from the LFS data divided by the total number of designers from our survey.
All figures from the Design Industry Research have been rounded to the closest percentage point. 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%.
This report only shows figures that are statistically reliable. As a result, some analysis by region or discipline has not been possible.
The research work was conducted by Stratagia Limited, Synchronicity Consultants Limited and QA Research. The survey was conducted between May and July 2005.
Primary, utilities and construction
Agriculture, forestry and fishing, mining and quarrying, electricity, gas and water supply, sewage, refuse disposal and sanitation, building, transport and communication
Manufacturing
Fuel processing and production, manufacture of chemicals and man-made fibres, metal goods, engineering and vehicles industries, other manufacturing industries
Professional business services
Banking, finance and insurance, real estate, renting and business activities
Retail, wholesale and leisure services
Wholesale and retail trade, personal and household goods, hotels and restaurants, other community, social and personal service activities
Unless otherwise stated, all the statistical information presented in The Business of Design is drawn from the Design Council Design Industry Research, commissioned through Stratagia in 2005.
Aside from the Design Council’s Design Industry Research, we have used these other sources:
Labour Force Survey (LFS), 2003–04,
Office of National Statistics
This major government survey now covers approximately 172,000 households annually. A major benefit of this project is that participants are selected using National Insurance numbers. This means there should be no initial selection bias that would risk understating the numbers of designers working on a self-employed basis or in non-design businesses. Further information on the LFS is available on the Office for National Statistics website at www.statistics.gov.uk
National Employers Skills Survey, 2004,
Office of National Statistics
The National Employers Skills Survey 2003 (NESS) was commissioned by the Learning and Skills Council (LSC), in partnership with the Sector Skills Development Agency (SSDA) and the Department for Education and Skills (DfES). It provides detailed information about the extent, causes, and implications of recruitment problems and skill gaps. It also measures employers’ training activities. This survey only covers England. NESS was the largest survey of its kind ever commissioned, involving 72,100 interviews with a representative sample of employers in England. A subsequent smaller survey was carried out in 2004.
Higher Education Skills Mapping, 2005,
Design Council
The Higher Education Skills Survey was commissioned by the Design Council in May 2005. A total of 128 telephone interviews were conducted, 78 with Heads of Design Education Institutions and 50 with Heads of Business Education Institutions. The survey sought to review the teaching of business skills and design skills. Read more about the Higher Education Skills Survey
Student Record, 2002–03/2003–04,
Higher Education Statistics Agency
HESA is the UK’s central source for higher education statistics and collects five main data sets: students; destination of leavers from higher education; staff; finance and non-credit-bearing course records. Further information is available on HESA’s website: www.hesa.ac.uk