Life As An Interior Designer

Interior designing is such a rewarding profession; some long-time interior designers liken the process of creating a house as akin to giving birth to a child. It takes time and effort, and can sometimes be painful, but in the end is always worthwhile. What will your life be like as an interior designer? We check out what’s usual for the profession.
Employment status

Around 25% of interior designers are self-employed. If you fall into this portion, you’ll need to do your own business administration, create your own advertising and marketing campaigns, find your own clients, and deal with all the contractors yourself. This quarter of interior designers usually become self employed after some years as an employed interior designer.

Job opportunities

Worldwide, the jobs that are available for interior designers are hotly contested. Many young people originally trained in interior designer end up working in a related field for some time before they’re successful in getting an interior designing-focused position.

Earnings for interior designers

You will set your own hourly rate and the markup on the goods that you provide. Hourly rates vary wildly, between $80 and $250 per hour. With the amount of chargeable versus non-chargeable time in the average interior designer’s year, the median salary comes out to around $42,000 in the US. The lowest-earning 10% of interior designers earned $24,000 per year, and the highest 10% earned more than $78,000. Remember that cost of living and average wages vary enormously across the globe for interior designers, though!

A month in the life

A typical month in the interior designing business might consist of:

* Three days spent keeping the office in order and taking care of administrative tasks
* Three days spent creating and pitching interior designing proposals to potential clients
* Ten days spent on creating drawings and liaising with architects, contractors and suppliers to create a client’s space
* Two days spent looking for new clients – creating advertisements, chasing up opportunities

Being an interior designer requires a lot of self-motivation, but is also very rewarding.