Industrial Designers Exist!
We have an SOC code - 3429/01
The Standard Occupational Classification (SOC) is a common classification of occupational information for the UK. Bizarrely, until 2020 the occupations of Product Designer or Industrial Designer did not have their own classification. The result of having an SOC code is that statistics can now be gathered on the occupation and education programmes can use a recognised description of the roles and career paths that their graduates might be able to follow.
The creation of the SOC code took a lot of effort from the trade organisation British Industrial Design Association (formerly BDI), the work being led by Gus Desbarats and Les Stokes. These bureaucratic things might not seem to be important, but it's pretty chaotic without them.
The next mission is to get a Standard Industrial Classification (SIC) code for Industrial Design. At the moment all we have is SIC code 74100 Specialised Design Activities.
74100 includes:-
- Boot and shoe designing
- Lace designing
- Jewellery designing
- Interior designers
- Interior decorator activities
- Interior decor design
- Graphic designer
- Furniture designing
- Fashion designing
- Costume designing
- Clothes designer
- Calico printers designing
- Textile or wallpaper printing designing
It's the best we have without diving into very niche categories of design activity, but it's not very helpful! Unfortunately government economic data is gathered in reference to SIC codes, so this lack of a specific SIC code means that there is no reliable data to inform policy and highlight the contribution Industrial Designers make to our home and export figures.
