All about Design

In a rapidly changing and increasingly demanding marketplace, design is a critical source of competitive advantage. Embedded within, and throughout a business, design can impact across the total enterprise transforming its fortunes and tangibly realising its strategic intent. 

From measuring success to sharing excellence and best practice, we work to build universal confidence in design investment, and to enable thriving partnerships between those commissioning and managing design and the agencies delivering it.

Through our work, and with the powerful collective voice of our membership, the DBA is uniquely placed to drive design ever further up the agenda in business and government. 

Main Content

Careers in Design

Are you at school, thinking about which options to take? Are you a student, starting to think about career options? The UK has the third largest creative economy in the world – providing jobs for three million people – and design is its fastest-growing sector. To ensure we remain at the top of our game, we need a healthy, flowing talent pipeline, with the option to pursue a career in this £100 billion industry instilled at a young age. So when it comes to careers advice, we’re here for you. 

So, what does a designer do? Which subjects will offer the best route to UX design? What does it take to manage a studio? We’re here to help you answer these questions. Explore our careers hub for useful role descriptions and tips to entering the creative world.

Produced in partnership with The Creative Careers Programme, an industry-designed initiative, delivered by ScreenSkills, Creative & Cultural Skills and the Creative Industries Federation, to raise awareness of opportunities for work across the creative economy. It was a commitment made by government and industry through the special sector deal for the Creative Industries, championed and supported by the Creative Industries Council. The department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport has provided funding to kick-start the programme.

 

Studio manager

Studio managers organise the projects that an agency wins so that the agency can find the right people to work on the job. They make sure the agency delivers work to a deadline and that work is high quality, even when teams are working under pressure.

Read more

UX designer

UX designers focus on the experience a consumer has. They look at how something works and how people interact with it and then decide whether it works well.

Read more

Project manager

Project managers look after the delivery of projects, both small and large. They ensure a project is finished on time and that no-one spends too much money. They have an understanding of the area of design they work in and make sure the project is kept on track.

Read more

Product designer

Everything you touch in your life has been designed by a product designer. Product designers generate ideas with the goal to design and engineer products – anything from a kettle through to a fuel pump at a service station.

Read more

Graphic designer

Graphic designers create images that communicate ideas or products to people, either by hand or software. They can work on layout and production of anything from adverts for magazines through to business reports. You would work with text and image, selecting the best colours, fonts and detail to deliver the right message.

Read more

Digital designer

Similar to Graphic Design, digital designers use creativity and problem solving to design visuals for an electronic/technology-based environment. This ranges from websites to special effects for film. 

Read more

Artworker

Artworkers produce the design that designers create. It could be a website, it could be poster, it could be anything! It might be part of the document or all of it. The role is extremely varied.

Read more

Creative director

Creative directors are the people with the ideas and imagination behind a successful business. They are in charge of the creative process  and manage/guide the creative people that work for them. 

Read more

Account manager

Account managers look after the agency’s clients. Clients pay the agency to work for them, managing projects and designing campaigns. Account managers make sure a client is happy and that they continue to work with the agency.

Read more

Cookies

We use cookies to help improve our website. By continuing to use this website, you agree to our use of cookies.