Designer Job Outlook

The outlook for design jobs, predictably, varies with the type of Designer involved. There is an overall boom predicted for what the Bureau of Labor Statistics describes as Digital Designers and Web and Digital Interface designers under the general rubric of Web Developers and Digital Designers. These are jobs such as UX or UI Designer, or Product Designer that are deeply connected with technology and technological means of doing work. The forecast for Game Designers is almost as optimistic: while slower than usual growth is predicted for Graphic Designers, it’s nonetheless growth, and there are definitely jobs out there to be had, either as a regular employee or as a self-employed freelancer. (The growth predictions for Interior Designers and Mechanical Designers are a good deal less sanguine, with almost no growth or negative growth predicted, respectively for these last two fields.) Nevertheless, most design fields do offer a positive outlook to those aspiring to creative roles within the profession.

What is a Designer?

A designer is a person who comes up with designs—plans, drawings, schematics, renderings, and prototypes—of just about anything you may encounter in today’s world. Everything from a shampoo bottle to the outsides of airplanes had to be designed before they could become tangible realities. The designer is often the person who comes up with the idea for something and then comes up with the plans for it. Designers are idea people and creative types who possess the ability to see things that don’t exist (yet).

Designers come in as many shapes and sizes as the objects they design. You’ll thus encounter everything from Floral Designers to Mechanical Designers and Graphic Designers to UX/UI Designers. Each field requires specialized knowledge, but the threads connecting all of them are a creative spirit and artistic ability. Much designing today is done on the computer, using CAD (computer-assisted design) software, but the good old-fashioned ability to draw is still an essential tool in most designers’ toolkits.

Read more about what a designer does.

What is the Job Outlook for Graphic Design?

Overall, the job outlook for Designers is sunny, although there’s a chance of showers where Mechanical and Interior Designers are concerned. The Bureau of Labor Statistics prognosticates a very promising future indeed for what it terms Digital Designers, although, admittedly, it is less positive when it comes to growth in the Graphic Design field.

Job Outlook

In 2021, there were just over 100,000 people working as Web and Digital Interface Designers (i.e., UX, UI, and Product Designers); the BLS predicts that number is going to swell to over 118,000 by 2031, thanks to an anticipated growth in all things digital, including ecommerce and apps that function across a number of different platforms, the UX/UI Designer’s exact wheelhouse. That said, the expectation is that these new jobs will result, for the most part, from people leaving their situations and the field rather than as the result of newly created positions, although the growth figures would seem to belie that.

There are more employed Graphic Designers than Digital Designers: the graphic design workforce numbered some 265,000 in 2021, a number that is expected to grow slowly over the next ten years, the slowness attributed to the decline in print media, once the chief outlet for a Graphic Designers’ efforts. The expectation is again that openings in the field will result from people switching jobs out of the occupation or retiring, which seems to accord with other BLS findings.

Future Growth

The projected future growth figures for Digital Designers are, for the ten years beginning 2021, predicted to be an impressive 16%, more than three times the average rate of job growth (which lies somewhere around 5%.) Becoming a UX or UI, or Product Designer is stepping into an unquestionable growth industry as Americans’ needs become more and more digital. Game Designers (whom the BLS groups with Special Effects Artists and Animators) have a forecast job growth of 5%, which is the BLS’ forecast average growth figure.

For Graphic Designers, the future isn’t nearly as sanguine, with only a 3% growth forecast over the next ten years, a figure notably smaller than the average overall growth rate. Comparing this figure with that for UX (and such) designers shows a predicted fall-off in job opportunities for people working in and for traditional media. The Graphic Designer would thus do well to become adept at the more technological means through which the profession may be conducted.

Although the need for them will continue to exist, Interior Designers face a forecast of slow growth over the next ten years (the figure is a meager 1%.) The Design field for which negative growth is forecast is AutoCAD drafters (or Mechanical Designers), who, thanks to the capabilities of the software that they employ, are seeing much of their job functionality being taken over by engineers. Fashion Designers, for their part, and despite the BLS’ grim prognostications for small designers over large manufacturers, are set to see job growth of 3%, which, again, is less than the overall job growth forecast for the country as a whole.

Industries

Designers are needed, in some capacity, by just about any business that makes something, whether that something be real or virtual. Among the industry-specific figures for Digital Designers, some of the most interesting are those relating to freelancers: over 14% of the design workforce is self-employed. Curiously, the BLS forecast is for that number to decrease over the next ten years to just less than 13%. That’s a significant trend for a career that traditionally has been a safe harbor for freelancers. Despite the growth forecast for the sector as a whole, there are few industries in which a falling off of jobs is predicted: the 30% decrease in jobs in apparel manufacturing jumps off the page of BLS figures. For their part, the most largest growth areas expected are manufacturing (especially electronics) and retail (other than in traditional stores.)

Among Graphic Designers, an even more freelance-friendly field, the BLS reports that just about 19% of workers in the field are self-employed. That number is projected to drop by a full percentage point over the next ten years, showing a potentially alarming trend for some, even amidst ongoing job growth. Among the industries in which Graphic Designers work, the largest changes predicted are moves away from apparel manufacturing and, especially, print media, a traditional bastion of graphic design.

Salary

Current (2021) BLS salary figures for Digital Interface Designers show a median annual wage of nearly $80,000, with the highest individual figures coming from software publishers. (The lowest figures are in the advertising and retail sectors.) Graphic Designers have a median annual wage of about $50,000, with salaries reported as high as $98,000 and as low as $31,000 per annum. The highest-paid Graphic Designers are those who offer “specialized design services,” and, sign of the times, the lowest-paid are those working in print media. Fashion Designers brought in a median annual wage of over $77,000, with the most lucrative positions found in motion picture and video production (i.e., costume design of one sort or another.) The lowest paid are those who work in apparel manufacturing. As for Game Designers, the BLS’ figures for Special Effects Artists and Animators reveal an annual median wage of nearly $80,000, with the top 10% of salaries reported being over $130,000. The BLS’ net in this case is cast wider than just for video game designers, but it’s worth noting that, overall in the field, the advertising sector is the best-paying, followed by software publishers, which is the sector in which most game design resides.

Learn the Skills to Become a Designer at Noble Desktop

If you wish to become a designer, Noble Desktop, a tech and design school based in New York that teaches worldwide thanks to the wonders of the internet, is available to give you the education you need to get started in this exciting field. Noble teaches certificate programs in numerous aspects of design and the technology that makes design possible in the contemporary world. These certificate programs offer comprehensive instruction in their topics and will arm you for the job market in whichever aspect of design interests you.

Noble has certificate programs in graphic design (the Adobe trio of Photoshop, InDesign, and Illustrator), digital design (the main troika of Adobe programs plus Figma for UI design), UX & UI design, and motion graphics. All these programs feature small class sizes in order to make sure that each student receives ample attention from the instructor, and can be taken either in-person in New York or online from anywhere over the 85% of the Earth’s surface that is reached by the internet (plus the International Space Station.) Classes at Noble Desktop include a free retake option, which can be useful as a refresher course or as a means of maximizing what you learn from fast-paced classes. Noble’s instructors are all experts in their fields and often working professionals whose experience is invaluable when they mentor students in the school’s certificate programs 1-to-1.

Noble offers further design courses that are briefer than the certificate programs. You may also wish to consult Noble’s Learning Hub for a wealth of information on how to learn to be a designer.