Design and engineering
What does a Graphic Designer do?
Working out how something should be built, and drawing it so others can build it.
What the day is like
- Indoors, under a roof.
- A screen and a keyboard.
- Answerable for your own work.
The facts
- Pay
- $62,960 a year, median
- Graphic Designers, May 2025
- Usually needs
- Bachelor's degree
- A year or two, often while earning something.
- Jobs
- -2% projected change in jobs, 2025-2035 projections
- Demand looks shrinking
What is good about it
- You answer for your own work rather than for other people, which suits more people than admit it.
What people find hard about it
- Revisions
- Work judged by taste
- Price pressure from generated images
Employment is expected to fall: this is one of the most AI-exposed jobs in the list.
Will machines take this job?
What machines will do to this work. Drafting and routine calculation are automating; the responsibility for a design that has to stand up is not.
How to find out whether it suits you
Take one real brief, deliver it to a deadline, and ask for honest feedback.
Would this actually suit you?
CareerDNA works that out from what you choose rather than from what you say about yourself: two minutes of choosing between real jobs, a few puzzles, and some questions about what you are like. It is free, it saves as you go, and it will tell you plainly where the answer is thin.