Mapping the UK’s Design Economy
How do you measure the economic impact of design? In the United Kingdom, WDO Promotional Member Design Council has emerged as a referent voice on all things design economy, due in large part to their pioneering Design Economy Research Programme. We connected with two members of the Design Council team, Benjamin Kulka — Senior Research and Impact Manager and Laura Casali — Head of Communications, to learn more about their groundbreaking work mapping one of the continent’s largest design economies.
Founded in 1944, Design Council is the UK’s national strategic advisor for design. In those early years, their mandate was specifically around the promotion of good design to help shift the UK’s economy from a wartime one to a post-war, consumer one. Today, this mandate continues, albeit with a slightly different positioning. “Our role is to champion design. That means being able to advise on the scale of the design economy and its value. We’ve been counting the number of designers for more than 10 years, but a decade ago we did our first piece of economic analysis.”
That first piece, a comprehensive study published in 2015 exploring the value that design adds to the UK economy, has now expanded to include three other publications. The research presented across these reports highlights just how vast the design economy really is. It spans diverse sectors from architecture and product design to fashion and craft, and includes all those working in design industries as well as those working in design roles in other parts of the economy.
“Until recently, people’s understanding of design has been limited to the design of luxury products — which do of course play a part in driving the economy. But design is everywhere, and fuels economic growth in less obvious ways. A new train station that connects people and businesses and provides local employment. Wind turbines that have been designed to provide renewable energy. And even wetlands designed to protect houses against costly flooding.”
In the UK alone, there are 1.6 million designers, and 1.97 million people working in the design industry. There are an additional 2.5 million people using design skills in their roles. In 2019 alone, the design economy contributed £97.4 billion in Gross Value Added (GVA) to the UK economy, almost matching the value of the hospitality and real-estate sectors combined. By Design Council’s estimates, design in the UK is worth just over £276 billion, or 4.47 million jobs.
“There is a rich tapestry of design clusters across the nation from digital design in Northern Ireland to craft in the West Midlands. The presence of design clusters is also positively correlated with higher employment, business growth and wages for key design sectors. Investment in design clusters can unlock wider economic and social benefits for the places they are a part of.”
You might be wondering where this data comes from. In order to provide a comprehensive view year over year, Design Council has been using the same mapping methodology since 2015. It’s based on the Standard Industrial Classifications (SIC) and Standard Occupational Classifications (SOC) data collected by the Office of National Statistics, which show the number of people in design occupations, the intensity of designers in other industries and the design skills used by other professions.
To supplement the data, they’ve also conducted surveys and two policy roundtables and consultations with their Design Economy Steering Group and Design Economy Ambassadors. They’ve also developed a Design Value Framework for designers to identify and evaluate the wider social, environmental and democratic impacts of their work.
And yet the country’s design economy is still far from representing the society that it shapes. In 2020, 77% of designers in the UK identified as male, and there’s been hardly any change in that percentage since 2015.
In addition to gender disparity, the research also points to a push to reframe design as a “core green skill” — from front-line physical design skills needed to use fewer resources in products and buildings, to the transitional heart and mind design skills needed to make sustainable products, service and places the easy and attractive choice for everyone. This push was a key reason as to why the Design Council expanded their most recent research to include the social and environmental implications of design.
“As part of our Design for Planet mission, we believe that design creates huge environmental and social value as well as economic value. But it is notoriously harder to measure these as there are multiple metrics rather than a single pound sign. We would love to have a more definitive ‘Designers have saved XX carbon, or increased biodiversity by XX’ but at the moment, we have to do this through individual case studies.”
“On the one hand, skills and knowledge are seen as important enablers, but only 50% of designers believe their education has equipped them to design for planet.”
In the UK, recent survey research shows that 66% of designers have designed for an environmental impact in the last 12 months. 73% think that the demand for environmental design is going to grow in the next three years, but only 43% think they have the capability to do so. Design Council points to the upcoming World Design Congress, which they will host in London in 2025, as a key platform to help empower designers with the skills and knowledge to support a much needed global green transition.
To learn more Design Council and their work, we encourage you to visit their website and follow them on social media Design Council.
