Interior Designer

Career Area: Design, Media, and Writing

Occupation Group: Fashion, Floral, and Interior Design

Salary

Percentile wages tell how much a certain percentage of an overall population in a geographic area or within a given industry or field makes. The percentile wage estimate is the value of a wage below which a certain percent of workers fall.

An example would be the 25th percentile, 25 percent of workers employed in that occupation earn less and 75 percent earn more than the estimated wage value. At the 75th percentile, 75 percent of workers employed in that occupation earn less and 25 percent earn more than the estimated wage value.

A typical Interior Designer earns the following wages (national and state):

State

The average salary in North Carolina for those pursuing this career is $51,726

National

The average salary in the United States for those pursuing this career is $53,321

What Does a Professional in this Career Do?

Plans and designs interior spaces for buildings, including houses, offices and commercial buildings. Recommends and selects material, colors and furnishings to be used, including fabrics, flooring and furniture. May specialize in lighting design, or designing kitchens, bath rooms or closets; may focus on improving energy and water efficiency in a building.

Employment Trends

The job demand and job growth statistics shown here were derived from job posts over the past year. Expected job growth projections are extrapolated from year-over-year job post listing history.

Job demand and job growth is expected at the following rates:

Skills

A professional in this position typically utilizes the following skills in the course of everyday work in this exciting and challenging field:

Baseline Skills

The following are baseline skills every Interior Designer is expected to have in order to experience success in this field:

• Communication Skills: The ability to convey information to another effectively and efficiently.
• Creativity: Mental characteristic that allows a person to think outside of the box, which results in innovative or different approaches to a particular task.
• Microsoft Office: Microsoft Office is an office suite of applications, servers, and services developed by Microsoft.
• Organizational Skills: Experience with a systematic process of structuring, integrating, co-ordinating task goals, and activities to resources in order to attain objectives.
• Detail-Oriented: A detail oriented person is someone who pays attention to the details and can make a conscious effort to understand causes instead of just the effects, and that does this in a second nature type of way.

Specialized Skills

These skills are specific to working in this career:

• Interior Design: Interior design is the art and science of enhancing the interiors, sometimes including the exterior, of a space or building, to achieve a healthier and more aesthetically pleasing environment for the end user.
• Customer Service: Working experience with the provision of service to customers before, during and after a purchase.
• Customer Contact: Experience working with business processes and technologies that are designed to engage customers and facilitate communication by a variety of channels.
• AutoCAD: AutoCAD is a commercial computer-aided design (CAD) and drafting software application.
• SketchUp: Working experience of SketchUp. SketchUp, formerly Google Sketchup, is a 3D modeling computer program for a wide range of drawing applications such as architectural, interior design, landscape architecture, civil and mechanical engineering, film and video game design. It is available as a freeware version, SketchUp Make, and a paid version with additional functionality, SketchUp Pro.

Distinguishing Skills

Any Interior Designer that possesses the following skills will stand out against the competition:

• Cabinetry: A cabinet is a box-shaped piece of furniture with doors or drawers for storing miscellaneous items.
• Residential Design: Residential design is a process that results in a new home. Architectural clients might experience confusion about this term because it represents several phases of the home design process. The process of residential design includes a contract that specifies details about design, construction and pricing obligations. Home owners who plan on interacting with an architectural firm can benefit from exploring residential design related concepts before the residential design meetings begin.
• Interior Architecture: Interior Architecture is the design of a space inside any building or shelter type home that can be fixed. It can also be the initial design and plan for use, then later redesign to accommodate a changed purpose, or a significantly revised design for adaptive reuse of the building shell.
• Schematic Design: A schematic, or schematic diagram, is a representation of the elements of a system using abstract, graphic symbols rather than realistic pictures.
• Renovation: Renovation (also called remodeling) is the process of improving a broken, damaged, or outdated structure.

Experience

This position typically requires the following level of experience. The numbers presented in the pie charts below were derived from actual job posts over the past year. Not all job postings list experience requirements.

Common Job Titles

It is possible to find work in this field in positions commonly listed as the following job titles:

• Designer - Kitchen/Bath
• Interior Designer
• Design Consultant
• Interior Design Assistant
• Kitchen Designer

Similar Occupations

If you are interested in exploring similar occupations, you may want to research the following job titles:

• Architect
• Set / Exhibit Designer
• Graphic Designer / Desktop Publisher
• Product Designer
• Construction Electrical Designer