Design Week Salary Survey – what you need to know

What’s the average salary for a designer? Where in the country would you earn the most and which sectors are the best remunerated? Find out with the results of the 2015 Design Week Salary Survey.

By Angus Montgomery April 10, 2015 10:22 am April 13, 2015 9:29 am

Image by flickr user JD Mack

Vital statistics

The average salary for designers in the UK is £33,443
Freelance designers earn more than those working for consultancies, while designers working in-house earn the least.
Designers working for networked consultancies earn more than those working for independent groups
Interior design is the best-paid sector, followed retail and branding. Editorial design is the lowest-paid sector
Men earn more than women, while designers working overseas command the highest salaries. Salaries in London outstrip the rest of the UK.

How much does the average designer earn?

More than 1,500 designers from across the country working in a variety of sectors have been surveyed for the 2015 Design Week creative survey.

The results show that the average salary for a designer is £33,443. Men earn 17 per cent more than women, with the average male designer commanding a salary of £35,809 – while his female equivalent earns £30,733.

This far outstrips the average national gender pay gap, which currently stands at 9.4 per cent, according to the most recent Office for National Statistics figures.

Designers working overseas command the highest salaries – an average of £41,324. In the UK, salaries in London outstrip the rest of the country. The average designer in London earns £36,791. The lowest salaries are in Northern Ireland – an average of £21,818.

Area	East Midlands	East of England	London	N. Ireland	North East	North West	Overseas	Scotland
Average salary (£)	30,599	27,653	36,791	21,818	24,766	27,279	41,324	29,643

Area	South East (excluding London)	South West	Wales	West Midlands	Yorkshire & Humberside
Average salary (£)	32,795	28,781	24,554	25,361	26,642

Where should you work to get paid the most?

Freelance designers earn, on average, more than those on staff. The average salary for a freelance designer is £34,659. A designer working for a consultancy earns on average £33,680, while designers working in-house have the lowest average salaries – £31,587.

In the consultancy world, designers working for networked consultancies earn more than those at independent studios. The average salary for a designer at a networked consultancy is £35,480, while the average salary at an independent consultancy is £33,364.

Interior design is the highest-paid sector, with designers working in interiors earning an average of £37,817. Editorial design is the lowest-paid sector, with editorial designers earning an average of £27,237.

Discipline	Advertising	Architecture	Branding	Digital	Direct Marketing	Editorial	Exhibitions
Average salary (£)	30,833	28,333	36,998	32,123	31,905	27,237	36,667

Discipline	Furniture	Graphics	Interior	Packaging	Print	Product	Retail	Other
Average salary (£)	30,500	30,078	37,817	33,836	29,771	35,038	37,550	35,430

What will you earn at different stages of your career?

The spread of average salaries in the design sector ranges from junior art workers, who get paid an average salary of £18,000, to chief executives, who receive an average of £88,750.

Job title	Junior artworker	Middleweight artworker	Senior artworker	Junior designer	Middleweight designer	Senior designer
Average salary (£)	18,000	26,167	31,400	19,727	26,766	36,281

Job title	Design director	Strategy director	Creative director	Executive creative director	Managing director	Chief executive
Average salary (£)	47,005	63,250	52,857	82,188	65,395	88,750