Interior Designer Profile

The Work

Interior designers plan and organise the design and decoration of the inside of both new and existing buildings. This can include
private houses and buildings such as offices, hotels, restaurants and shops.

Your work as an interior designer would typically involve:
meeting with clients to discuss their requirements and ideas (the 'brief') developing a design that suits the needs of the client, the available budget and the type of building preparing initial sketches for the approval of the client advising on colour schemes, fabrics, fittings and furniture working out costs and preparing estimates developing initial sketches into detailed drawings, usually on a computer sourcing fittings, furniture, fabrics and wall and floor coverings.

You may also recommend people to carry out the work on site, and supervise their progress.

Hours

You may need to work long, irregular hours, which could include evenings and weekends.
You will usually be based in a studio, but will also spend a lot of time visiting clients and sites.
As a freelance designer, you may work from home, share offices or rent a studio.

Income

Junior designers can earn from around £15,000 to £20,000 a year.
Experienced interior designers can earn up to, and over, £25,000.
Senior designers can earn over £45,000.
Freelance designers set their own hourly rates.

Figures are intended as a guideline only.

Skills and Knowledge
creativity practical skills excellent organisational skills project management skills drawing, computer-aided design (CAD) and model-making skills an understanding of building and safety regulations knowledge of products, properties of materials, and architectural history effective communication skills, for working with suppliers, contractors and clients the ability to find practical solutions to problems the ability to work out costs and keep within budgets business skills if self-employed.

Opportunities

You could be employed by retail outlets, interior design consultancies or architectural practices. However, many interior designers are freelance (either completely self-sufficient or under contract to a design agency).

You could use your experience in interior design to move into other related work, such as theatre set design, visual merchandising or exhibition design.

Sign up now for the Level 3 Award in Interior Design