The Datum Report

Occupation 3429 · Associate professional occupations

Design occupations n.e.c.

Half of full-time design occupations n.e.c. in the UK earn more than £39,779 a year, and half earn less.

Job holders in this unit group plan, direct and undertake the creation of designs for new industrial and commercial products, stage sets, and other areas not elsewhere classified in minor group 342: Design occupations.

How people enter it

Entrants have usually completed a foundation course, BTEC/SQA award, degree and/or postgraduate qualification. A variety of vocational qualifications are available.

What the work involves

• liaises with client to determine the purpose, cost, technical specification and potential uses/users of product
• prepares sketches, designs, patterns, prototypes, mock-ups and storyboards for consideration by theatre/film director, management, sales department or a client
• undertakes research to determine market trends, production requirements, availability of resources and formulates design concepts
• specifies materials, production method and finish for aesthetic or functional effect, and oversees production of sample and/or finished product
• observes and manages intellectual property issues
• create many types of special effects make-up, which can include prosthetics
• define, design and implement a creative visual merchandising strategy

Also called

Design consultant · Craft designer · Make-up artist (films) · Production designer (film, television production) · Visual merchandiser (design)

What it pays

How pay has changed

Median gross annual pay for design occupations n.e.c., full-time employees, 2023 to 2025. Each point is that year's ASHE April snapshot as published — revisions are not backfilled into earlier years, and a year ONS withheld is a gap rather than a joined line.

ONS, ASHE Table 14 - occupation by four-digit SOC (national). Table

Year-on-year change

The change from each year to the next, in per cent, computed from the figures in the chart above — so the two cannot disagree.

ONS, ASHE Table 14 - occupation by four-digit SOC (national). Table

Pay by region

Median gross annual pay for full-time employees, ranked, against the UK figure. 4 of 11 regions are published: ONS withholds a cell where the survey sample cannot support it, and those are shown as gaps rather than dropped — an absent region is not a region without the work in it.

ONS, ASHE Table 14 - occupation by four-digit SOC (national). Period 2025. Table

Every regional figure

ONS does not publish occupational pay below region. Cells the survey could not support are shown as withheld, with its reason — adding a region split to a specific occupation leaves roughly a tenth of cells publishable.

Common questions

Classified alongside this

Clothing, fashion and accessories designers · Interior designers