Design Council launches the Design Economy 2018 at Northern Powerhouse Summit

At the Northern Powerhouse Summit on Thursday 5 July, Design Council CEO Sarah Weir launched our new Design Economy report alongside Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy, Greg Clark. 

Speaking to a packed business audience and underpinning the importance and value of design to the economy, Mr Clark said:

“Just take the North East’s contribution – a region that goes from strength to strength. From cars to chemicals, local jobs and livelihoods rely on the supply chains across the continent – we have 120,000 men and women who work in manufacturing here in the North East, and almost half a million working across the North. And of course, as we will hear later from the Design Council, these jobs in manufacturing are increasingly sophisticated and depend on the excellence of design and creativity of our Universities and industry to come together to form a cluster of excellence that is increasingly successful. Services alone in the North East employ nearly 1 million people, with nearly 4 million across the North.”

Alongside a panel that included Andrea Siodmok, Head of Policy Lab, Malcolm Garrett, Creative Director of Images&Co, Steven Kyffin, Pro Vice-Chancellor (Business and Enterprise) at Northumbria University and Alistair Kitching, Operations Manager at Reece Innovation, Sarah led a discussion on the findings of the report, the importance and value of design to the UK economy, and how design skills can be at the heart of the fourth industrial revolution and help shape the global future of the UK.

The Design Economy 2018 is the Design Council's report on the state of design in the UK, and its value to the economy. It expands on our previous research in 2015, and in addition to exploring the supply of design firms and designers, also explores how the rest of the UK business population interacts with them, and what the demand for design is.