design jobs in 2026 — demand, top roles hiring, and related skills
As of 2026-10-29, design appears in 231 job postings indexed by Skillenai over the past 90 days — Software Engineer has the most postings mentioning design, with demand share down 8.8% vs the prior 4 weeks.
Last updated · 90d ending 2026-10-29
Which roles want design?
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Frequently asked questions about design
+Is design in demand in 2026?
Yes. design appears in 231 job postings indexed by Skillenai over the 90 days ending 2026-10-29. Software Engineer accounts for the most postings mentioning design (14.7% of all postings mentioning design).
+What jobs require design?
According to the Skillenai jobs index over the 90 days ending 2026-10-29, among roles with at least 20 postings, the highest shares mentioning design are Art Director (8.7% of that role’s postings mention design), Salesforce Technical Lead (6.9% of that role’s postings mention design), Electrical Engineering Manager (6.7% of that role’s postings mention design).
+What skills are commonly paired with design?
Across job postings indexed by Skillenai (90 days ending 2026-10-29), design most often appears alongside testing, Integration, systems engineering, Agile, development.
+Where is design most in demand?
As of 2026-10-29, the metro areas posting the most jobs requiring design are Columbus, El Segundo, Cedar Rapids, San Jose, Washington, according to the Skillenai jobs index.
+How can I keep up with new design content and jobs?
Skillenai indexes news, blog posts, and research papers mentioning design alongside the jobs index. You can subscribe to a daily email digest of new design content from your Skillenai account.
+Which skills come before and after design?
The skill-flow chart shows skills documented in adjacent positions across observed employer changes. An outgoing skill is documented in the following position but not the preceding one. These are ideas to explore, not proven prerequisites, acquisition dates, or levels of mastery. Each ribbon counts employer moves with that skill pair; one move can contribute several pairs.
Weekly indexed postings requiring design — last 90 days
Salary distribution
Box = 25th–75th percentile · tick = median · whisker = 10th–90th · USD, annualized
Career paths around design
Skills documented before and after this skill across employer changes.
Historical career profiles · all locations
Skills before design
Skills after design
How to read this chart · view counts
Each side is an independent set of observed employer moves, not the same people followed through three stages. Ribbon widths compare move counts within that side. Internal moves are not included.
The following position documents a skill that the preceding position does not. Skills must be linked to both positions, with clear dates and no overlap. One move can connect several skill pairs. These patterns suggest skills to explore; they do not establish prerequisites, when a skill was learned, or a higher skill level.
Source: Skillenai talent graph, historical career profiles. Historical descriptions and coverage can change. Only the leading published connections are shown.
| Connection | Moves |
|---|---|
| Before: testing | 8 |
| Before: sql | 6 |
| Before: Jira | 5 |
| Before: training | 5 |
| Before: python | 4 |
| Before: JavaScript | 4 |
| Before: Java | 4 |
| Before: implementation | 3 |
| After: Java | 4 |
| After: PHP | 4 |
| After: HTML | 4 |
| After: JavaScript | 4 |
| After: oracle | 3 |
| After: sql | 3 |
| After: Salesforce | 3 |
| After: Azure | 3 |
Roles most likely to require design
Among roles with at least 20 postings in the same period.
| Role | Postings mentioning skill | % of role postings mentioning skill |
|---|---|---|
| Art Director | 2 | 8.7% |
| Salesforce Technical Lead | 2 | 6.9% |
| Electrical Engineering Manager | 3 | 6.7% |
| Customer Delivery Architect | 1 | 5.0% |
| Security Solutions Architect | 1 | 3.8% |
| Interaction Designer | 1 | 2.8% |
| Systems Engineering Manager | 2 | 2.4% |
| Quality Assurance Lead | 1 | 2.0% |
| Space Systems Engineer | 1 | 1.8% |
| IT Program Manager | 1 | 1.6% |
Roles with the most design postings
| Role | Postings mentioning skill | Share of skill postings |
|---|---|---|
| Software Engineer | 34 | 14.7% |
| Product Manager | 32 | 13.9% |
| Systems Engineer | 23 | 10.0% |
| Engineering Manager | 9 | 3.9% |
| Embedded Software Engineer | 8 | 3.5% |
| Program Manager | 6 | 2.6% |
| Software Engineering Manager | 5 | 2.2% |
| Solutions Architect | 5 | 2.2% |
| AI Software Engineer | 3 | 1.3% |
| Architect | 3 | 1.3% |
Top companies posting jobs requiring design
Employers ranked by indexed job postings in the last 90 days.
| Company | Postings · 90 days |
|---|---|
| Northrop Grumman | 13 |
| Globalpr | 7 |
| JPMorgan Chase & Co. | 7 |
| Cisco | 6 |
| Veeva Systems | 6 |
| GlobaliD | 5 |
| Aero | 5 |
| 4 | |
| Renesas | 3 |
| NXP | 3 |
Job postings indexed over the past 90 days, grouped by resolved employer. Counts are postings, not hires. Companies without a published page appear without a link.
Top metros hiring for design
| Name | Postings | Share |
|---|---|---|
| Columbus | 5 | 2.2% |
| El Segundo | 5 | 2.2% |
| Cedar Rapids | 4 | 1.7% |
| San Jose | 4 | 1.7% |
| Washington | 4 | 1.7% |
| Annapolis | 3 | 1.3% |
| Bellevue | 3 | 1.3% |
| Kodaira | 3 | 1.3% |
| New York City | 3 | 1.3% |
Skills commonly paired with design
Explore related pages
How this was computed
Weekly job-count charts omit the incomplete current week (weeks start Monday, UTC). Totals include all postings in the stated window. Counts derive from the Skillenai jobs index over the 90 days ending 2026-10-29. Skills are resolved against the Skillenai canonical taxonomy, so the same entity is counted whether a posting writes 'Python', 'Python 3', or 'python'. Role prevalence divides postings mentioning design by all postings for each role in the same window, ranking roles with at least 20 postings. Role distribution divides each role’s design postings by all design postings, including postings without a role. Shares need not sum to 100% for the displayed roles. Pages refresh weekly (or daily for the top-50 most-requested skills). Adjusted posting share: 0.1% to 0.1%. Demand share change is the relative percentage change between these adjusted shares. Each employer-and-ATS group has at least 10 postings in each 90-day window; its earlier posting count supplies the same weight in both windows. The panel includes 2,482 identified employers and covers 71% of earlier and 70% of latest indexed postings. Windows: 2026-06-30 to 2026-09-28 and 2026-07-28 to 2026-10-26 (UTC; end dates excluded). The windows overlap by 62 days. Dates reflect indexing, not the employer’s posting date. This measures posting mix, not total hiring or market-wide demand. Matching excludes entrants and exits; changes in crawl completeness within an employer or ATS can still affect the result.
- source
- Skillenai jobs index, deduplicated daily
- entity_id
- 363c49e6c6e6dffb
- data_as_of
- 2026-10-29
- window_days
- 90