Design and engineering
What does an Interior 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.
- People all day.
- Answerable for your own work.
The facts
- Pay
- $67,190 a year, median
- Interior Designers, May 2025
- Usually needs
- Bachelor's degree
- A year or two, often while earning something.
- Jobs
- +3% projected change in jobs, 2025-2035 projections
- Demand looks growing slowly
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
- Clients changing their minds
- Chasing suppliers
- Unpaid pitching
Much of the work is project management and budgets rather than taste.
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
Design one real room to a budget, and price every item.
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.