Summary
Industry Focus
- Digital design dominates with 61.8% in product/UX roles, while traditional design maintains 22.7% presence
- Full-time employment prevails (79.3%), with growing flexible workforce (18.8% combined contractors and freelancers)
- Product/UX design leads specialisations (41.7%), followed by visual/UI design (16.9%)
Career Levels
- Mid-level IC forms largest segment (42.6%), with limited senior representation (5.9% in leadership)
- Clear distinction between IC (94.1%) and management tracks (5.9%)
- Junior IC (21.3%) and Senior IC (20.5%) show similar representation
Experience and Education
- Young workforce dominates with 60% having 1-5 years design experience, yet diverse total work histories
- Strong formal education background (77.5% hold bachelor's degrees) paired with self-taught skills (17.12%)
- Primarily local-centric roles with limited international exposure (14.19% reporting overseas experience)
Job Titles
The word cloud analysis reveals distinct role categories and specialisations in the Southeast Asian design industry.
Key Statistics
- "Designer" remains the central role designation
- Product and UI/UX form primary specialisations
- Creative roles maintain significant presence
- Leadership titles span Lead, Manager, and Director levels
Notable
- Strong digital focus in role descriptions
- Traditional design roles maintain presence
- Hybrid roles emerging at intersection of design and development
Employment Type
Traditional employment models remain dominant, with nearly 80% in full-time roles.
Key Statistics
- Full-time employment: 79.30%
- Fixed-term contractors: 13.75%
- Self-employed/Freelancers: 5.01%
- Interns/Apprentices: 1.95%
Notable
- Dominant full-time employment model
- Combined flexible workforce at 18.76%
- Small but present early-career segment
Levelling
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Clear pyramid structure emerges with broad mid-level base (42.57%) and tapered leadership representation.
Key Statistics
Core workforce (94.1%):
- Junior IC (Entry level): 21.26%
- Mid-level IC: 42.57%
- Senior IC: 20.53%
- Lead/Staff/Principal IC: 9.74%
Management tiers (5.9%):
- Management roles: 3.73%
- Director/VP: 0.89%
- Head of department/Senior leadership: 1.28%
Notable
- Strong concentration in mid-level positions
- Clear separation between IC and management tracks
- Tapered representation at senior levels
Primary Field of Work
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Design specialisations show clear digital dominance, with product and UX design leading the industry landscape.
Key Statistics
Digital design (61.83%):
- Product/UX design: 41.74%
- Visual/UI design: 16.86%
- Product/UX research: 3.23%
Traditional design (22.65%):
- Marketing/graphic design: 20.65%
- Motion/animation: 1.84%
- Industrial design: 0.67%
Emerging specialities (8.67%):
- Design leadership: 3.67%
- Design operations: 1.39%
- Service design: 1.39%
- Front-end/design engineering: 1.06%
Notable
- Digital product roles form largest segment
- Traditional design maintains significant presence
- Emergence of specialised operational and research roles
Years of experience
The experience distribution reveals multiple dimensions of career development in Southeast Asia's design industry, showing distinct patterns between design-specific experience and total working years.
- Majority of designers have 5 years or less of relevant design experience
- Total working experience skews higher, with 17.20% at 20+ years
- Clear experience level bands emerge in both design and total work history
Design Experience Distribution
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Key Statistics
- Peak concentration at 3 years: 20.31%
- Strong early-career representation (1-5 years): >60%
- Mid-career (6-10 years): 12.74%
- Senior designers (10+ years): 7.95%
- Veteran designers (20+ years): 1.62%
Notable
- Clear clustering in early career stages
- Sharp decline after 5-year mark
- Small but sustained presence in senior bands
Total Working Experience
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Key Statistics
- Entry level (0-1 years): 6.52%
- Early career (2-5 years): 37.37%
- Mid-career (6-10 years): 19.37%
- Established (11-20 years): 19.54%
- Senior (20+ years): 17.20%
Notable
- More balanced distribution across experience bands
- Significant representation in senior bands
- Higher retention in advanced career stages
Experience Correlation
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Key Statistics
- 68% have total experience within 2 years of design experience
- Largest cluster: 3-7 years in both categories
- Significant outliers: 20+ years total with <10 years design
Notable
From the density plot:
- Strong diagonal alignment for early career
- Increasing variance in later career stages
- Clear patterns of career transition into design
- Higher density in 2-5 year range for both metrics
Career Transition
The data suggests multiple career entry points:
- Direct entry: Similar total and design experience
- Career transitions: Higher total than design experience
- Early-career clustering: Strongest in 2-5 year range
Education
The educational landscape of Southeast Asian designers reveals a complex ecosystem combining formal tertiary education with various forms of continuous learning and professional development.
- Bachelor's degrees are the most common formal education level at 77.46%
- Master's degrees and diplomas follow at 5.23% and 8.40% respectively
- 65.99% have taken self-taught or informal courses
In this analysis, formal education refers specifically to academic qualifications from universities or colleges (e.g., diplomas, degrees), while informal education encompasses self-directed learning, certifications, bootcamps, and other unstructured learning pathways.
Highest Formal Education
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Key Statistics
Primary qualifications:
- High school/secondary: 7.85%
- Diploma: 8.40%
- Bachelor's degree: 77.46%
- Post-graduate diploma: 0.78%
- Master's degree: 5.23%
- Doctoral or higher: 0.06%
Notable
- Strong undergraduate concentration
- Limited postgraduate pursuit
- Accessible entry points through diplomas
- Very selective doctoral-level qualification
Design-Related Education
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The data shows a balanced mix between formal and informal design education pathways.
Key Statistics
- Have design-related education: 65.33%
- No formal design training: 34.67%
Notable
- Majority have some form of design education
- Significant proportion of self-taught practitioners
- Multiple learning pathways common
Design-Related Education Types
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The data shows diverse pathways for acquiring design expertise, with strong representation across both formal academic and informal learning channels.
Key Statistics
Distribution by type:
- Formal academic design education: 65.57%
- Online certifications: 32.99%
- Bootcamps/workshops: 32.74%
- In-person certified courses: 10.07%
- Self-taught/informal courses: 34.01%
Notable
- Lower uptake of in-person certified courses
- High complementary use of multiple learning types
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The co-occurrence data suggests designers actively combine multiple learning approaches, with a clear preference for flexible and accessible learning formats.
Key Statistics
Higher combinations:
- Self-taught + Online certification: 17.21%
- Formal education + Self-taught: 17.12%
- Bootcamps + Online certification: 16.52%
- Formal education + Online certification: 15.33%
Moderate combinations:
- Bootcamps + Self-taught: 14.05%
- Bootcamps + Formal education: 13.03%
Lower combinations:
- In-person courses + Bootcamps: 3.66%
- In-person courses + Formal education: 4.34%
- In-person courses + Online certification: 5.62%
- In-person courses + Self-taught: 6.30%
Notable
- Most adopted combination using online certification and self-taught methods
- Formal education frequently complemented by self-directed learning
- Bootcamps show good integration with both formal and online learning
- In-person courses consistently show lowest combination rates
- Online and self-taught methods emerge as preferred complementary pathways
The high adoption of multiple learning pathways reflects the industry's rapid evolution and need for continuous skill development.
Overseas working experience
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The data indicates primarily domestic career development with limited international exposure.
Key Statistics
- International experience: 14.19%
- Domestic careers: 85.81%
Notable
- Predominantly local career development
- One in seven designers with international exposure
🎙️ Commentary
In understanding where design teams stand today, we find that
- For every design manager, there are 16 individual designers - this might suggests we need more design leaders
- Digital design roles (like UX/UI) are nearly 3 times more common than traditional design roles, though traditional industries are adapting more slowly
- Most designers (77.5%) have university degrees, especially important in places like Indonesia where companies often require them
- People who switched to design from other fields bring valuable different perspectives
What This Means For You
If you're a designer:
- Consider how your previous experience in other fields could make you stand out
- Look for skills beyond design that could help you advance (like business or technology)
If you're leading a team:
- Think about how your company views and supports design leadership
- Be ready to show how design adds value to your business, especially when budgets are tight
If you're running an organisation:
- Check if you're helping individual designers become managers and the potential value it could bring
- Compare how you develop design leaders versus other departments like tech
Questions Worth Exploring
- Why aren't we seeing more design leaders in our region?
- How important are university degrees in different companies and countries?
- How will budget cuts affect developing future design leaders and career pathways?
Additional reading and references
Jump to
Overview
DemographicsRoles and ExperiencesCompensationCompanySentiments and Perceptions
Offer and NegotiationCareer ProgressionValue of DesignJob Market and OpportunitiesSupport this community initiative
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- 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.
