Summary
- Over half (52.5%) of design professionals actively negotiate compensation
- Senior leaders are 2.1x more likely to negotiate than junior designers
- Most negotiations achieve positive outcomes. Successful negotiations typically result in 5-10% increases
Takeaways
- Experience significantly impacts negotiation success.
- Junior to Mid-level IC shows a big shift for negotiations, suggesting having real world experience influences confidence and capability to negotiate.
- Salary history disclosure remains persistent challenge.
- Designers still face significant challenge in pushing back salary disclosure, often failing half the time.
Negotiation Landscape
Design professionals split evenly on negotiation participation, with a slight majority (52.5%) choosing to negotiate.
- Active negotiators achieve increases 79.5% of the time
- Most common outcome is 5-10% increase (25.6%)
- One in five (19.8%) secure increases above 20%
Career Stage Impact
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Negotiation confidence shows clear progression with experience, nearly doubling from junior to senior levels.
- Clear progression in negotiation confidence with seniority
- Significant jump in negotiation rates from Junior (39.1%) to Mid-level (53.6%)
- Highest negotiation activity at senior leadership level (82.6%)
- Consistent 50%+ negotiation rate from mid-level upward
Negotiation rates show consistent upward trend, with significant jump between junior and mid-level roles, suggesting critical skill development period.
Negotiation Outcomes
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Four in five negotiations (79.5%) result in some compensation increase, with moderate gains most common.
Key Statistic
Increase breakdown:
- 5-10%: 25.6% (most common outcome)
- 11-20%: 19.5%
- Above 20%: 19.8%
- Below 5%: 14.5%
- No increase: 20.5%
Notable
- Majority achieved some increase through negotiation
- Most common outcome is moderate increase (5-10%)
- Significant portion (39.3%) achieved >10% increase
- One in five negotiations resulted in no increase
Negotiation Confidence
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Design professionals trend towards moderate to high confidence in negotiation skills, with 65.9% rating their confidence level at 4 or above.
- High confidence (6-7): 22.2%
- Moderate confidence (4-5): 43.7%
- Low confidence (1-3): 34.1%
Peak confidence appears at level 5 (26.2%), suggesting room for improvement even among those feeling relatively confident.
Past Salary Information
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Most employers (58.1%) still require past salary disclosure, despite growing pushback against this practice.
- Required disclosure: 58.1%
- No requirement: 41.9%
This practice particularly impacts Southeast Asian markets, where:
- Salary history remains standard hiring practice
- Junior designers face higher pressure to disclose
- Successfully declining remains challenging
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Designers experience significant pressure to disclose salary history, with 70.3% indicating moderate to high pressure levels (ratings 4-7).
This pressure is particularly pronounced in Southeast Asian markets, where salary history disclosure remains deeply embedded in hiring practices.
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While 44.4% have attempted to decline salary disclosure, only 8.8% consistently succeed in doing so.
- Never able to decline: 55.6%
- Sometimes successful: 35.6%
- Always successful: 8.8%
Key implication for the data:
- Clear gap between desire and ability to decline
- Majority face challenges in pushing back
- Consistent success remains rare
🎙️ Commentary
When it comes to understanding job offers and pay conversations
- While 79.5% of designers who negotiate succeed, only 52.5% try to negotiate - suggesting there are barriers beyond confidence
- Many companies still offer "previous salary plus 20%" instead of using clear pay ranges, especially outside Singapore and big international firms
- Cultural factors (like avoiding conflict) and personal situations (like visa status) might affect whether people feel they can negotiate
- More people are becoming aware of market pay rates through shared data, though some companies resist this transparency
What This Means For You
If you're a designer:
- Use market data and community knowledge to build confidence in pay discussions
- Find ways to discuss pay that feel comfortable with your cultural values
If you're leading a team:
- Consider how your pay practices work for people from different cultural backgrounds
- Think about how to help team members feel comfortable discussing pay
If you're running an organisation:
- Consider how unclear pay ranges might affect hiring and keeping good designers
- Weigh the costs of keeping things as they are versus being more open about pay
Questions Worth Exploring
- How will more open discussions about pay affect the "previous salary plus 20%" practice?
- What should companies do to make pay talks easier for everyone?
- How can we respect cultural differences while ensuring fair pay?
- Will budget cuts make pay differences bigger or smaller?
Additional reading and references
Jump to
Overview
DemographicsRoles and ExperiencesCompensationCompanySentiments and Perceptions
Offer and NegotiationCareer ProgressionValue of DesignJob Market and OpportunitiesSupport this community initiative
Help grow our impact:
- Share this report with your networks and tag us at #DesignPayAsia
- Share your story on social media using #DesignPayAsia
- Contribute to our open pay database, especially if you're based in Southeast Asia
- Take part in future research to strengthen our understanding of the regional design industry
Your input helps create transparency and enables better career decisions for designers across the region.
