---
title: "Interior Designer"
description: "Plan, design, and furnish the internal space of rooms or buildings. Design interior environments or create physical layouts that are practical…"
canonical: "https://nuecareer.com/careers/interior-designer"
last-updated: "2026-10-09T10:57:55.138Z"
---

# Interior Designer

**Category:** Arts, Design, Entertainment, Sports, and Media · **SOC code:** 27-1025 · **O\*NET-SOC code:** 27-1025.00

Plan, design, and furnish the internal space of rooms or buildings. Design interior environments or create physical layouts that are practical, aesthetic, and conducive to the intended purposes. May specialize in a particular field, style, or phase of interior design.

Also advertised as: Certified Kitchen Designer; Color and Materials Designer; Commercial Interior Designer; Decorating Consultant; Designer; Interior Decorator; Interior Design Consultant; Interior Design Coordinator.

## At a glance

- **Median annual wage:** $67,190 (BLS OEWS, May 2025)
- **Median hourly wage:** $32.31/hr
- **Wage range (10th–90th percentile):** $41,420 to $114,140, with the middle half between $51,840 and $85,740
- **Total US employment:** 71,500
- **Typical entry education:** Bachelor's
- **Preparation required:** Medium preparation — O\*NET rates this "Job Zone Four: Considerable Preparation Needed"
- **Projected growth:** +2.7% over 2025–2035 (BLS EP, 2025–2035)
- **Annual job openings:** 7,700 openings a year
- **AI-resilience score:** 37/100 — a NueCareer heuristic over O\*NET work activities and context, not a BLS or O\*NET figure

## Pay

National wage distribution, BLS OEWS, May 2025, across 71,500 US jobs.

| Percentile | Annual wage |
| --- | --- |
| 10th | $41,420 |
| 25th | $51,840 |
| 50th (median) | $67,190 |
| 75th | $85,740 |
| 90th | $114,140 |
| Mean (average) | $74,540 |

### Pay by state

The 15 highest-paying states, by median annual wage. The cost-of-living-adjusted column divides the state median by that state's BEA Regional Price Parity, so the columns answer different questions: the first is what the job pays there, the second is what that pay buys there.

| State | Median annual wage | Cost-of-living adjusted | Employment |
| --- | --- | --- | --- |
| DC | $98,450 | $89,581 | 620 |
| WY | $96,100 | $103,678 | 90 |
| CA | $80,230 | $72,462 | 8,500 |
| MA | $80,110 | $75,749 | 1,580 |
| CO | $78,390 | $76,068 | 2,300 |
| WA | $76,570 | $71,552 | 1,330 |
| IL | $76,290 | $76,322 | 2,570 |
| NY | $75,580 | $70,033 | 5,340 |
| NJ | $74,020 | $68,030 | 1,670 |
| MN | $73,270 | $74,295 | 1,220 |
| GA | $71,760 | $74,523 | 3,050 |
| AR | $69,990 | $80,507 | 740 |
| OK | $68,520 | $78,003 | 490 |
| CT | $67,330 | $64,984 | 630 |
| OR | $66,350 | $64,192 | 1,030 |

35 more states with published wage data are omitted here. The full table for all 50 states is at https://nuecareer.com/careers/interior-designer/salary-by-state, or as JSON at https://nuecareer.com/api/v1/careers/interior-designer.

## Outlook

BLS projects employment to move from 97,100 in the 2025–2035 base year to 99,700 by the end of the cycle — a gain of 2,600 jobs, or +2.7%. About as fast as average: 2.7% against 3.5% projected for all occupations over the same cycle. About 7,700 openings a year are expected on average, counting openings from growth as well as from workers leaving the occupation permanently. Source: BLS EP, 2025–2035.

## How to get in

- **Typical entry education:** Bachelor's degree (BLS Employment Projections).
- **Preparation level:** Medium preparation — O\*NET's preparation band for this occupation is "Job Zone Four: Considerable Preparation Needed".
- **Related work experience typically required:** None.
- **Typical on-the-job training:** None.

### Education people in this job actually hold

O\*NET surveys incumbents, so this distribution describes who is in the job today and can differ from the BLS entry requirement above.

| Education level | Share of workers |
| --- | --- |
| Bachelor's Degree | 84.0% |
| Some College Courses | 4.0% |
| Associate's Degree or other 2-year degree | 4.0% |
| Master's Degree | 4.0% |
| First Professional Degree | 4.0% |

## What the work involves

- Design plans to be safe and to be compliant with the American Disabilities Act (ADA).
- Research health and safety code requirements to inform design.
- Confer with client to determine factors affecting planning of interior environments, such as budget, architectural preferences, purpose, and function.
- Advise client on interior design factors, such as space planning, layout and use of furnishings or equipment, and color coordination.
- Coordinate with other professionals, such as contractors, architects, engineers, and plumbers, to ensure job success.
- Review and detail shop drawings for construction plans.
- Inspect construction work on site to ensure its adherence to the design plans.
- Render design ideas in form of paste-ups or drawings.

## Skills and knowledge

### Essential skills

- Reading Comprehension — importance 4.0 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Active Listening — importance 4.0 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Speaking — importance 4.0 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Critical Thinking — importance 4.0 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Writing — importance 3.6 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Active Learning — importance 3.1 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Monitoring — importance 3.1 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Mathematics — importance 3.0 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale

### Transferable skills

These are the skills that carry into other occupations, and they drive the related-occupation and career-change rankings on this site.

- Social Perceptiveness — importance 3.8 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Coordination — importance 3.8 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Service Orientation — importance 3.8 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Complex Problem Solving — importance 3.6 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Persuasion — importance 3.5 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Judgment and Decision Making — importance 3.5 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Time Management — importance 3.4 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Negotiation — importance 3.1 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale

### Knowledge areas

- Design — importance 4.9 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Customer and Personal Service — importance 4.5 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Building and Construction — importance 4.2 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- English Language — importance 4.1 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Sales and Marketing — importance 3.8 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Administration and Management — importance 3.6 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale

### Abilities

- Fluency of Ideas — importance 4.1 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Originality — importance 4.1 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Oral Comprehension — importance 4.0 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Oral Expression — importance 4.0 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Visualization — importance 4.0 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Near Vision — importance 4.0 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale

## Who it suits

O\*NET rates every occupation on the six Holland (RIASEC) interest areas, on a 1–7 scale. This occupation's strongest areas are Artistic (A), Realistic (R), Conventional (C).

| Interest area | Score (1–7) |
| --- | --- |
| A — Artistic | 5.56 |
| R — Realistic | 4.12 |
| C — Conventional | 3.82 |
| E — Enterprising | 3.70 |
| I — Investigative | 3.07 |
| S — Social | 2.68 |

### Personality fit

These scores are **derived by NueCareer**, not published by any government agency: they are cosine similarities between a personality type's trait profile and this occupation's O\*NET interest and work-style ratings, expressed 0–100. Treat them as a starting point for exploration, not as evidence that a type belongs in a job.

| Type | Fit score (0–100) |
| --- | --- |
| INTP | 65.7 |
| INFP | 64.2 |
| INTJ | 62.3 |
| INFJ | 60.4 |
| ENTP | 60.0 |

Best-fitting types: INTP, INFP, INTJ.

## Related occupations

O\*NET's primary related occupations, in its own ranked order.

- [Commercial and Industrial Designer](https://nuecareer.com/careers/commercial-and-industrial-designer) — median $83,910
- [Craft Artist](https://nuecareer.com/careers/craft-artist) — median $46,080
- [Landscape Architect](https://nuecareer.com/careers/landscape-architect) — median $79,870
- [Fashion Designer](https://nuecareer.com/careers/fashion-designer) — median $80,960
- [Merchandise Displayer and Window Trimmer](https://nuecareer.com/careers/merchandise-displayer-and-window-trimmer) — median $39,390
- [Set and Exhibit Designer](https://nuecareer.com/careers/set-and-exhibit-designer) — median $75,240
- [Architectural and Civil Drafter](https://nuecareer.com/careers/architectural-and-civil-drafter) — median $66,150
- [Graphic Designer](https://nuecareer.com/careers/graphic-designer) — median $62,960
- [Art Director](https://nuecareer.com/careers/art-director) — median $114,850
- [Mechanical Drafter](https://nuecareer.com/careers/mechanical-drafter) — median $71,550

## Sources

- **O\*NET** — O\*NET 31.0 Database, August 2026. https://www.onetcenter.org/database.html
- **BLS OEWS** — BLS Occupational Employment and Wage Statistics, May 2025. https://www.bls.gov/oes/
- **BLS EP** — BLS Employment Projections, Table 1.2, 2025–2035. https://www.bls.gov/emp/
- **BLS OOH** — BLS Occupational Outlook Handbook, 2025–2035 edition. https://www.bls.gov/ooh/
- **BEA RPP** — BEA Regional Price Parities by State, 2024. https://www.bea.gov/data/prices-inflation/regional-price-parities-state-and-metro-area

---

This bank includes information from the O\*NET 31.0 Database by the U.S. Department of Labor, Employment and Training Administration (USDOL/ETA). Used under the CC BY 4.0 license (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/). O\*NET® is a trademark of USDOL/ETA. NueCareer has transformed the data by joining it to BLS wage and projection data and deriving facet, personality-fit and AI-resilience scores. BLS and BEA data are public domain (17 U.S.C. §105).

O\*NET content is used under [CC BY 4.0](https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/). How these figures are sourced and derived: https://nuecareer.com/careers/methodology

JSON representation of this page: https://nuecareer.com/api/v1/careers/interior-designer