{"id":10375,"date":"2025-11-27T13:58:40","date_gmt":"2025-11-27T13:58:40","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/rutha.org\/index.php\/2025\/11\/27\/are-there-too-many-designers\/"},"modified":"2025-11-27T13:58:40","modified_gmt":"2025-11-27T13:58:40","slug":"are-there-too-many-designers","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/rutha.org\/index.php\/2025\/11\/27\/are-there-too-many-designers\/","title":{"rendered":"Are there too many designers?"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Chair<\/div>\n

With entry-level design jobs receiving hundreds of applications per opening, Cajsa Carlson<\/a> explores whether there’s simply an oversupply of aspiring designers as part of our Performance Review<\/a> series.<\/span><\/p>\n

In the 2023\/24 academic year, more than 180,000 students<\/a> in the UK enrolled in higher education degrees within design and creative and performing arts \u2013 almost three times the number who signed up for architecture, building and planning courses.<\/p>\n

But with major brands often choosing to work with established designers and newcomers struggling to get their work seen, can the market support them all when they graduate?<\/p>\n

The competition for jobs in a saturated market can be fierce. Benjamin Hubert<\/a>, founder of design studio Layer<\/a>, said his company receives a large number of applications whenever it posts a new role.<\/p>\n

“When we advertise for designers, no matter whether it’s a graduate or a senior designer, we generally look for one to two roles, and we probably get 500 applicants,” he told Dezeen.<\/p>\n

“And I’m sure large businesses get more, but as an independent design studio, that’s the sort of ratio; we’re hiring about one in 500.”<\/p>\n

Other studios have reported similar figures.<\/p>\n

“It’s kind of a catch-22”<\/strong><\/p>\n

The limited opportunities for roles in established studios mean that many designers instead choose to start their own companies.<\/p>\n

Recently, there has been a particular trend for collectible design<\/a>, where designers create one-off artisanal pieces to be exhibited in a gallery or group show and, hopefully, sold.<\/p>\n

But this approach to starting a career in design presents its own set of challenges.<\/p>\n

“A lot of designers are making [products] in their studios on their own, and there aren’t enough places to put that work into the eyes of people who will potentially buy it,” Findlay MacDonald, co-founder of design platform Slancha<\/a>, told Dezeen.<\/p>\n

“It’s a lot easier for someone to go to an established gallery [if they’re] working with big names already, and hard for the galleries to know that they can trust and invest in an early career designer that doesn’t have that support of clients,” he continued. “So it’s kind of a catch-22.”<\/p>\n

\"Layer
Benjamin Hubert’s projects include speakers for Bang & Olufsen<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

For designers creating work in small batches, the price point often also becomes high, putting another spanner in the works for emerging designers.<\/p>\n

“When you start straight out of university, or whatever your pathway into making furniture is, you’re probably not going to be someone who has the funding to spend on making lots of chairs,” said MacDonald’s fellow co-founder Harvey Everson.<\/p>\n

“The cost that these pieces then have, because of the time and money and effort that goes into making just one, is still ridiculously high,” he added.<\/p>\n

“When you are charging what’s justifiable, it’s not necessarily something that’s easily accessible for the vast majority of people who are buying a chair.”<\/p>\n

According to Slancha<\/a>, one chair could end up costing as much as \u00a33,000 when taking into consideration wages for the designer as well as material costs, tools and workshop fees.<\/p>\n

“I sit in the camp that there are too many designers”<\/strong><\/p>\n

Altogether, it’s a situation that can often leave young people seeking to launch a design career between a rock and a hard place.<\/p>\n

“I graduated four years ago during Covid, and I still haven’t managed to find a role suited to the skills I came out with, or lack thereof,” emerging designer Reianna Shakil told Dezeen.<\/p>\n

“A lot of people in the industry come from backgrounds of privilege; they’ve got parents who have sheds or garages that they can turn into workshops, if not providing real financial support that allows them to establish themselves early on.”<\/p>\n

\"Wooden
Reianna Shakil’s work includes a spalted-beech bowl. Photo by Jared Krauss<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

For this reason, Jo Barnard, founder of product design agency Morrama<\/a>, has come to a sobering conclusion.<\/p>\n

“Controversially, I sit in the camp that there are too many designers,” she told Dezeen.<\/p>\n

“There are too many design courses, and there are too many courses that don’t have a really strong connection with industry.”<\/p>\n

Established designers are increasingly making the complaint<\/a> that design degrees are failing to adequately prepare students for working in the industry.<\/p>\n

“I think there needs to be more alignment between universities and industry,” said Hubert.<\/p>\n

He argues that everyone studying design should be able to test out their practical skills via an internship.<\/p>\n

“When we see people have had an internship between their second and third year, for example, they are infinitely more employable,” he said. “They understand the industry more; their skills are much stronger.”<\/p>\n