About
What design work is worth,
out in the open.
Inequality shows up in pay first. Since 2020, Design Pay Asia has asked designers across Southeast Asia what they are paid, what they are offered, and what they settle for. Open, cited, and free to read.
The project
Design Pay Asia
Designers across the region already compare pay in private messages, in closed group chats, over drinks after work. Design Pay Asia puts the same numbers in public, with the methodology attached.
Talking about salary is still taboo across much of Southeast Asia, shaped by gender, business culture, education, immigration status, and family background. Silence always has a beneficiary, and it is whoever already knows what the job pays.
The reports are built by volunteers and given away. There is no paywall, and no sponsor with a say over what gets published.
Credits
The people behind it
Every report was made by volunteers who fitted the work around full-time jobs. Some came back for a second year.
Community supporters
Where the work travelled
Nobody was paid to help. These communities passed the research to their own members because those members were already asking the same question, and a survey only reaches the people someone chooses to hand it to.
- Design SG
- Friends of Figma SG
- HaloDesigners
- Maturis
- Singapore Product Design
- Tiny Design Club
- UXMY
- UXPH
- UXTH