The Design Council has issued an opinion piece discussing diversity in the workplace, raising questions on how best to promote and discuss matters relating to genuine diversity, inclusion and ‘belonging’.
The Design Council writes:
In our research, we consistently find there is a diversity challenge in design. In our recently-released Design Economy 2018 research we found that the design economy is 78% male, which is a higher figure than for the wider UK workforce (53% male) and has not improved since the last edition of the Design Economy in 2015.
Overall, women form the minority in six of the eight design subsectors included in the design economy, with product and industrial design being the most male-dominated (95%) followed by digital design (85%) and architecture and built environment (80%). This is despite women making up 63% of all students studying creative arts and design courses at university, and 38% of students studying architecture, building and planning. Even when employed in design, women typically earn less and are less likely than men to be in senior roles.
The design economy employs a slightly higher proportion of people from Black, Asian and Minority Ethnic (BAME) groups than are employed in the wider UK economy (13% compared with 11%), however there is some indication that BAME designers are less likely to be in senior roles. More research is needed to understand the extent of barriers to BAME designers’ progression and the mechanisms by which these might operate.
