Throughout the past few years and as we look ahead to 2024, the interior design job market has consistently maintained its "candidate's market" status. This means that there are consistently more job openings than there are qualified candidates available, leading to the emergence of several notable trends.

Most notably, there has been a precipitous increase in salaries being offered to designers. Current rates of inflation and the shortage of candidates means that not only are candidates asking for significant pay increases, they are achieving them.

This increase is seen most at the middleweight and senior levels with junior designer salaries remaining largely unaffected given the number of graduates entering the market being uninterrupted.

Salary is the headliner of any package, but studios are now giving more attention to benefits with a focus on employee wellbeing. To attract and retain talented designers, studios of all sizes are introducing benefits such as private healthcare and enhanced maternity/paternity leave.

The routes to promotion have become more important than ever. Designers are in demand, and they know it. They hear of competitors advertising with improved titles and will leave if they feel their current employer is passing them over. The studios most successful at retaining and attracting staff are presenting clear criteria for promotion and regular intervals for review.

Working patterns that once felt impossible are now the standard, with three days in the studio and two days from home being commonplace. There remain studios that make the case for five days a week in person attendance in the studio. However, studios should expect to lose talented designers to that policy and will struggle to replace them with designers accustomed to flexibility.

Market trends don’t stay trends for long, so we will produce an updated summary during the spring of 2024.

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