The Design Economy: design, community and levelling up

Earlier this year, we were delighted to hold two roundtables with the Design Council on their flagship research, the Design Economy. 

This briefing document summarises the key messages from those roundtables, with headline messages:

• The Design Economy is the Design Council’s flagship research that assesses the current and future value of design to the UK.
• Design is a very significant driver of economic growth at £70bn export GVA, 10% of all UK exports.
• Design has a key role in the climate crisis, with 80% of a product’s environmental impact determined at the design stage.
• It can contribute to levelling-up, as well-paying design jobs can be located anywhere.
• Two significant barriers to progress have been identified:
  • Lack of diversity in design workers, particularly in terms of gender, age and disability;
  • Alarming fall-off in Design & Technology GCSE numbers. With a 68% drop-off in the last decade, there is a significant risk the pipeline into the industry is running dry.

Read the briefing online.