Report finds 20 000 design groups in UK

There are up to 20 000 consultancies in the UK’s 1bn-plus design industry, according to initial estimates from a study by EDR.

The client advisory group is currently compiling a Europe-wide report for an unnamed client into the comparative costs of European design agencies.

“Our client employs designers across Europe and is interested in how an Italian agency compares with a UK one, for example,” says EDR director Richard Watson. This has mushroomed into a much larger project to find out the value of the markets.

Watson says the EDR survey – due to be completed in a month – will be “a well-informed guess. That’s the most we can achieve without proper resources”.

EDR’s sources include the Design Week Top 100 survey, its own database, research it has carried out and questionnaires sent to clients about their expenditure on design disciplines.