Check out the latest design lecturer jobs here.
Speaking at the Design Economy: 2021–2024 roundtable in April 2021, designer Akil Benjamin, co-founder of digital studio Comuzi, offers an insight into the vast potential of design and the role it could play in an equitable economy. "Design allows us to explore,” states Benjamin. “It allows us to challenge and it allows to investigate, reducing the guesswork and ambiguity that comes up in the challenges our clients present us with."
With that in mind, it is important that FE design lecturers have the requisite skills to make a difference to the lives of students. Dan Welsh, games design lecturer at Uxbridge College, states that two qualities are key. “You need strong interpersonal skills. As well as the staff you have a class of up to 19 students with whom you have to have a personal relationship and ‘micro-teach’. It only takes one or two to give your college a bad name. You also have to be organised.”
An ability to demonstrate how they inspire students about the subject and make the subject interesting, lively and accessible through innovative delivery of the curriculum will set candidates apart from their peers and really appeal to potential employers.
You will also need:
The requirement for most teaching jobs in this field would be a relevant degree plus a teaching qualification.
To gain access onto most design-focused degrees you will need a strong portfolio that demonstrates your talent for design and the standard of the work you produce. You will also need decent grades in the range of BBC–ABB for A-level, CCCCD–ABCCC for Scottish Highers or 96–120 UCAS points. An A-level or in art at grade B or above (or equivalent) is often a requirement.
Welsh explains what he needed in terms of background/training/qualifications to put himself in the frame for his role as games design lecturer: “Get a relevant degree and then gain your skills in industry before going on to teach. When I joined Uxbridge College, they paid for me to do an initial six-month teacher training course before putting me on a day release two-year PGCE course that I am finishing in May.
He adds that that continual professional development (CPD) is integral to keeping up-to-date with all of the changes in the field. “I’m shortly due to be sent on CPD training. I also reckon within five years everything will have changed … so you also have to apply yourself to keep up — even if it’s just research into pipelines, hardware, software markets and so on.”
The median salary for a design lecturer stands at £38,111 in the UK or £19.54 an hour, according to Talent.com. Entry level positions start at £30,689 a year, although some of the most experienced workers bring home around £48,305 per year. For comparison, the UK’s median annual pay fell slightly in 2021, from £31,461 for the tax year ending April 2020 to £31,285 for full-time work in 2021, according to the Office for National Statistics.
For Luke Godfrey, programme leader at art and design at East Kent College, teaching students at further education (FE) level is all about giving those students who feel that studying to reach the next stage in their life is unobtainable, the chance to reach their potential.
“I really got the bug during a week-long teaching workshop,” Godfrey explains. “I was keen to give people like me a chance to shine; I wanted to give something back to get ceramics back into fashion.”
After taking a year out to resit his maths GCSE required to do teacher training in 2012, Godfrey then started teaching A-level art a year later at a secondary school. He later switched to East Kent College in 2018.
“My work-life balance is now so much better,” he says. “You have more time to help your students develop at college; they’ll often achieve far more at college than at school as they can start and finish a project in a day, whereas school pupils have to squeeze everything into two-hour periods spread over several days in a packed A-level timetable.”
Creative Practice is a fantastic course to teach, according to Godfrey, who can't praise enough the new-style UAL two-year, level 3 extended diploma course he teaches enough. Creative practice: art, design and communication is “a fantastic new course to teach as it’s all geared towards the students thinking about their careers, how they will survive as artists in future and what specialism they should follow”.
He adds: “We give them mini-workshops about becoming an artist, architect, sculptor, fashion designer, textile designer … We get in external people and those working in the creative industries to talk via video link and run lots of live projects where students work with real clients.”
Given the design economy contributed £85.2bn in gross value added to the UK, it is an industry that should not be underestimated. There are currently 1.97 million people employed in design roles in the UK, underlining the huge importance of FE design lecturers in nurturing the next generation of designers in the UK.
The nature of employment is set to change in the UK and, therefore, the subjects set to come into their own over the next decade and beyond will also change. Design is one of the areas highlighted in a new report examining the nature of employment through 2030.
The Future Skills: Employment in 2030 document states: “Creative, digital, design and engineering occupations have bright outlooks and are strongly complemented by digital technology.” Buoyant demand for certain jobs, including those in design, over the coming years will be a boon for college design lecturer roles as more and more will be needed to help the next generation take their first footsteps towards gaining a job in design.
Design is a relatively general term and encompasses so much more than merely making something look pretty. As much an art as it is a science, according to American designer and architect, Charles Eames, “Design is a plan for arranging elements in such a way as best to accomplish a particular purpose.”
With that broad definition, it should come as no surprise that there are a number of different job titles relating to college design subjects. These include but are not limited to:
As the Creative Industries Council says: “The UK has an internationally-acclaimed design infrastructure which includes strong cultural assets such as the Victoria and Albert Museum, Design Museum and the Science Museum.” Throw in the fact that the UK applies for the second most trademarks within Europe and it is clear there are few better countries in the world to ply your trade as a design teacher than the UK.
https://media.nesta.org.uk/documents/the_future_of_skills_employment_in_2030_0.pdf
https://shakuro.com/blog/the-meaning-of-design-what-design-is-and-why-its-important
https://www.thecreativeindustries.co.uk/site-content/industries-design-design-why-the-uk
https://www.designeconomy.co.uk/
https://www.aocjobs.com/news-detail/my-favourite-lecturer-luke-godfrey
https://www.aocjobs.com/career-advice/day-in-the-life-of-a-game-engines-lecturer
https://uk.talent.com/salary?job=design+lecturer
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