Articles

Are we neglecting design skills in UK education?

Design skills in education

Designing the future

We’ve republished our Designing the future report from April last year with additional insight on design in the curriculum. Our report features observations and comments from our friends at the Design Business Association (DBA) and the Design Council and is available to download below.

Download the report here

Our industry continues to display huge growth potential, and if it continues at the same pace, research from NESTA suggests this will lead to the generation of 900,000 jobs by 2030. Yet despite this staggering figure, the UK government places less importance on art and design skills in the curriculum, opting to prioritise STEM education.

Nurturing young creative talent

We continue to nurture creative design skills within young talent here at Michon – by donating our time and skills to young creative initiatives, working closely with universities and offering work placements to design graduates. More than ever, we all have a responsibility to safeguard the future of our industry, and that includes at government level.

Our hope is that this report encourages agencies, in-house creative teams, education providers and policy makers to work closer together. We’d like to see schools, colleges and universities working more closely with creative industries to provide hands on work experience for young creatives, enabling them to be better prepared for working within a creative environment. From what we’ve seen personally, lack of commercial work experience continues to be one of the main barriers for aspiring young creatives entering into this industry.

Growth potential

Investing in the future of our creative talent will benefit both the creative industries and the wider national economy – the creative industry contributed £92 billion to the UK economy in 2017 alone. The calibre of our design pool in the UK is second to none – and we need to collectively step up and support them to ensure the sector’s potential growth is realised in years to come.

We hope you find the report interesting and that it provides some take away learnings to apply to your own business or studies. Have an opinion? Let us know via Twitter and LinkedIn.

Download the report here