Ask pre-millennial generations what disruptive innovation is and they will come back to you with a blank stare. Recently the Design Council released a 2015 report on the value of design to the UK economy. It has been reviewed as the most comprehensive and thorough reports on how we all as designers (in a traditional or non traditional sense) contribute to the UK. Finally, when our parents ask the inevitable questions over Christmas dinner regarding what we actually do, with the perfect amount of sharpness that keeps it from turning into an all out war, we finally have metrics to defend ourselves.
Not only does the Design industry provide over £70 billion to the economy, but it ranks as the 9th biggest employer and has ties to nearly every sector, from healthcare to those independent coffee shops we’re too scared to order a filter coffee from.
Below is an infographic outlining what regions across the UK contributed to the economy in 2013:
So don’t worry about the explaining the semantic field surrounding disruptive innovation to your parents. We have the facts and figures to inform our families at the Christmas meal exactly how important our industry is to the UK. For further reading check out the full report here.