Design in Wales

The headline

Welsh businesses value design.

Well over half of them think it’s becoming increasingly important as a way of competing. And there are proportionally more dedicated design departments here than anywhere else in the UK.

Design could be one of the key ways to stimulate Welsh economic growth in the coming years.

The details

What role does design play in business?

A third (32%) of Welsh businesses think design has a significant role to play in their business.
UK average 22%

While Welsh businesses are slightly less likely than others to see design as integral, a third see it as significant.

How important is design to success, compared to other factors?

One in six (16%) of Welsh businesses think design is crucial to their success. That matches the UK average.
UK average 15%

Of course, traditional factors remain more important to success.

For example, 66% of Welsh businesses rate financial management as crucial. And 62% point to both operational management and the quality of staff.

How do businesses use design to compete?

Well over half (59%) of businesses in Wales believe that, over the past decade, design has become more important in helping them compete.
UK average 46%

This makes Welsh businesses some of the UK’s most positive toward the role of design in business.

When investing in design over the past three years, Welsh businesses have been slightly more likely to maintain investment levels (31%) than increase them (25%). The UK trend is the opposite.

Like businesses in other areas, those in Wales mostly compete on the added value of their product or service (82%). Only 12% see innovation as grounds for competing – one of the UK’s lowest ratings, but better than the 6% of businesses who compete on innovation in the West Midlands.

How many businesses have developed new products or services?

Just a third (33%) of Welsh businesses have developed new products or services in the past three years.
UK average 40%

While this is behind the UK average, it’s still ahead of some other areas. In the North East and Northern Ireland, just a quarter of businesses have developed new products or services.

What types of design do businesses use?

Welsh businesses broadly mirror the rest of the UK in using design, with 54% using communications design.
UK average 52%

Only 17% of Welsh businesses use product and industrial design in their business. This matches the fact that only 13% of Welsh design businesses offer product and industrial design services. See The business of design for more details on the UK design industry.

Communications design, and digital and multimedia design are the most popular services.

Do businesses use designers?

Welsh businesses are keen on dedicated design departments – 42% have one.
UK average 25%

In fact, Welsh businesses lead the UK in this respect, and they commission external designers as much as businesses overall. And while just over a third (37%) don’t have any design employment activity, that’s better than the UK average.

Where do businesses apply design?

Welsh businesses apply design fairly consistently, in line with the overall UK picture. Design is mostly applied to marketing and externally facing functions (52% and 51%).
UK average 48% and 50%

Research and development seems to be an area where Welsh businesses have yet to apply as much design as their UK counterparts. Only 7% of Welsh businesses currently do so, compared to 12% of UK businesses overall.

Welsh portrait

In 2004, the gross value added (GVA) of the Welsh economy was £39.2billion. This represents 3.9% of the UK total.

According to national statistics, Wales has one of the lowest levels of GVA per head in the UK, with 79.1% of the average. This hasn’t changed markedly since 1998, suggesting a fairly static economy.

Prominent industry sectors include manufacturing (20% of GVA in 2002). In 2002, Wales also had the highest proportion of agricultural businesses in the UK. Over a fifth of businesses were agricultural businesses.

Over the medium to longer term, Wales has been differentiated from other parts of the UK by lower employment rates rather than by lower productivity. This ‘employment gap’ has been due more to lower activity rates than unemployment.

The Welsh Assembly Government Department for Enterprise, Innovation and Networks included creative industries among the key sectors it targeted for growth. Recent initiatives include The ‘Hub’, a new Welsh Assembly Government ‘one-stop-shop’ service, launched in December 2005. This followed The Welsh Assembly Government’s strategy Creative Success - a strategy which aimed to help Welsh creative businesses achieve profitability and sustainability and contribute more positively to the Welsh economy.

For more information on Wales, please visit these websites:

• The National Assembly for Wales Economic Research Report
• The Welsh Assembly Government Department for Enterprise, Innovation and Networks
• Office for National Statistics.

How can I use this information?

If you’re a business intermediary

Our survey suggests that, while Welsh businesses value design, they may be holding back slightly on acting on that conviction.

For example, while they’re much more likely than the UK average to see design as significant to their operations, they’re slightly less likely to take the next step and see it as integral.

And they’re also more likely to have maintained investment levels than increased them. In most parts of the UK, it’s the other way round.

With a high proportion of dedicated design departments in Welsh businesses, there is scope for a change in attitude.

If you’re a design business

Welsh businesses commission design agencies just as much as those elsewhere.

But they’re more likely to have their own dedicated design department. This suggests that working in partnership with internal teams might be an appropriate way for you to approach clients.

Welsh businesses apply most of their design to externally facing functions such as branding and communications. For designers wanting to tap into areas where design is applied less frequently, Welsh businesses are half as likely to apply design to new product development as businesses in the UK overall. Convincing clients to change this might be one opportunity for designers, given the prominence of manufacturing in Wales.

The most commonly used types of design in Wales are communications design, digital and multimedia design, and interiors and exhibition design. Designers in all these sectors get above average amounts of work.

And as well as the results of this survey (which look at what your clients are doing), we’ve also looked at what your peers are doing. The business of design is the first comprehensive survey of the design industry.

Among other things, the research compares the supply of design services in your area to that in others. This complements the demand for services discussed above, and should further help you discuss these issues with your clients.

If you’re a design educator or student

Researchers might be interested in the fact that Welsh businesses are more convinced than others that design is becoming increasingly important to competing. Should the Welsh economy grow, it could be useful to investigate the extent to which design has been a key factor.

For students interested in a career in design, it’s worth noting that dedicated design departments are popular in Wales.