This section investigates the skills issues faced by practising designers and design businesses
41% of designers have a degree
According to the Labour Force Survey, just over 40% of designers have a degree or an equivalent qualification. Self-employed designers are slightly more likely to have a degree or equivalent (45%).
Source: Labour Force Survey 2003-2004
88% of design businesses think that all design students should complete extensive work experience, but only 54% of design businesses are willing to provide work experience for students
Just over half of design employers (54%) are willing to provide placements or internships for college and university students. A further 13% say, without prompting, that they will possibly do so in the future. More than four in ten (44%) of those working in businesses that have been operating for less than a year say they might give students the opportunity to gain work experience.
Those that do not provide placements give a range of reasons for this, the most common being that they do not have enough space or equipment (39%). Another reason for not offering placements is the lack of staff to oversee student work (29%).
More than 80% of design employers with an annual turnover or budget of over £500,000 say they are willing to provide placements for students.
Chart 47
Willingness to provide work experience placements by budget/turnover (%)
| Budget/turnover |
Yes |
No |
Possibly in the future |
Don't know |
| Over £500K |
85 |
9 |
5 |
1 |
| £100 - £500K |
60 |
29 |
8 |
3 |
| Under £100K |
43 |
39 |
15 |
3 |
One in five design businesses would like to develop their designers’ business awareness
The most commonly cited skills businesses would like to see their existing designers develop are in design IT and software (44%). This was particularly an issue for freelances (47%). It was less important, though still significant, for consultancies (30%). The other noticeable feature is the still substantial proportion of businesses seeking to improve business awareness among staff (21%).
The results are broadly similar by discipline, although there is evidence that skills are most satisfactory in product and industrial design and that lack of business awareness is a particularly common problem in digital and multimedia design.
Chart 48
Skills design businesses would like to see their designers develop
| Skill |
% |
| Design IT or software skills |
 44 |
| Business awareness |
21 |
| None |
12 |
| Basic technical design skills (eg, drawing) |
8 |
| Creativity |
8 |
| Project management |
5 |
| Don’t know |
5 |
Architects are more than twice as likely as designers to be doing job-related training
When we asked designers about the issues that they thought the industry faced, the need to extend professional development for designers emerged as a key challenge.
The Labour Force Survey shows that the proportion of designers engaging in job-related training is low. The level is less than half that for groups such as architects and IT technicians. In fact, the proportion of people engaged in job related training is far lower among designers than for all other similar occupational groups other than artists.
Chart 50
Proportion undertaking job-related training in the last 13 weeks
| Occupation |
% |
| Designers |
16 |
| IT user support tech |
38 |
| Civil engineers |
37 |
| Architects |
36 |
| Management consultants, etc |
36 |
| Software professionals |
28 |
| Draughtpersons |
27 |
| Media, etc |
22 |
| Artists, etc |
16 |
Source: Labour Force Survey 2003-2004
40% of design consultancies use informal mentoring to develop their staff
The larger the annual turnover or design budget of a design business, the more that business uses a range of training methods for maintaining and developing staff abilities.
68% of businesses pay for all of their designers’ continued professional development
In-house design teams are more likely to pay for at least part of their designers’ continued professional development (CPD) (90%) than consultancies (75%), but still 68% of businesses overall pay for all of their designers’ CPD, and 13% pay for part of it. In the East Midlands, 86% of businesses pay for at least part of their designers’ CPD compared to 75% of those in London.
The most commonly cited barrier to training was lack of time (38%). This is a particularly a problem for product and industrial design businesses, with half of these companies naming time as a problem. Cost is the second most commonly reported barrier to training: 34% of businesses cite it as a reason for not undertaking training and development. More than one in ten freelances (12%) say they are restricted by availability of suitable courses, compared to just 5% of design consultancies and
in-house teams.
A third of all design businesses think there are no barriers to training. However this varies between regions: 42% of design businesses in the South East say they face no barriers to training, compared to 20% in Scotland.