Highest Paying Design Careers in India: Salary, Colleges and Hiring Companies
Design is one of the most dynamic industries in India. This industry is showing a massive increase in employment and job opportunities for people. Read in detail to know about the highest-paying career opportunities in India.
Highest Paying Design Careers in India
Making a career in Design demands a creative mind and soul, along with hard work. As this industry is booming very fast, it is offering lucrative salaries to people. One can become a Fashion designer, Footwear designer, Jewellery designer, Textile designer, Apparel Developer, Knitwear Designer, Apparel Developer, Sampling Coordinator, Pattern Maker, Fashion Stylist, Visual Merchandiser, Photographer, etc, if he/she pursues Design as a career in India.
- Top Highest-paying Design Career Opportunities in India
- Salary of Design Careers in India
- Colleges and Exams to get Admission in Design Colleges
- Top Companies Hiring Design Graduates and Post Graduates
Top Highest-paying Design Career Opportunities in India
Some of the highest paying careers in Design are given below.
- UI/UX Designer: With the rising demand of IT companies, e-commerce services, apps, etc, UI/UX designer is trending. It focuses on understanding user needs and designing user-friendly interfaces.
- Graphic Designer: This specialization is trending because there is an increase in demand for branding, marketing, advertising, etc. Graphic Designers work on illustrations and layouts. They use various graphical tools, like Adobe Photoshop, Figma, CorelDRAW, etc.
- Advertising and Brand Designer: Here, the main work is to design ad films, short films for brands for promotion. Big companies hire brand designers for their brands and pay them really well.
- Product Designer: This specialisation opens the door to industries like consumer electronics, tech innovations, etc. Many startups are also emerging, which require a Product designer to bring new products to the market. It required designing physical or digital products.
- Animation Film Designer: It is one of the most trending fields as there is a boom in the OTT and gaming industry. It focuses on creating animated content for short films, documentaries, games and social media. Brands like Vodafone, Disney, Mc Donald's hire Animation film designers.
- Fashion Designer: This career can never go out of trend. The fashion industry is dynamic and creative, with new trends every day. It focuses on apparel design and market trends. For example, the revival of Benarasi Saree or Sustainable clothing by famous brands like H&M and ZARA, all comes under Fashion Design.
- Interior Designer: With the increase in infrastructural development, like apartments, studio apartments, cafes, and restaurants, there is a demand for Interior and Spatial Design graduates and post-graduates. They focus on eco-friendly and modern designs.
- Sustainable Designer: The world is now focusing more on curbing the effects of globalisation. More focus is now being given to making recyclable and sustainable products, which are eco-friendly. A career in Sustainable Design helps in getting into organisations that focus on creating such products and services.
- Game Designer: The Gaming industry has seen tremendous growth in recent years. This career focuses on designing games and interactive experiences. This industry is growing at a very fast pace and offeres good salary.
- Social Impact Designer: Social Impact Designer is the new trend as big organisations, NGOs and even the government are hiring professionals to solve social problems by designing products and services that will help in curbing social problems. Graduates with this specialisation will need to focus on solving social, environments and community challenges with their products and services.
Commonly asked questions
The participating institutes of NID DAT 2026 offers B. Des and M.Des courses. The B. Des programme is available at five participating NIDs and has an intake capacity of 425 seats. Meanwhile, the M.Des programme is three NIDs and has a combined intake of 347 seats.
Admission to both B. Des and M.Des courses will be through the NID DAT entrance exam. The seat allotment to the above courses wlll be based on respective merit lists which will be prepared considering weighted scores of DAT Prelims and DAT Mains.
The NIFTs currently offers the following specializations at the B.Des level - Fashion Design,
Leather Design, Accessory Design, Textile Design, Knitwear Design, and Fashion Communication.
Admission to the above courses will be on the basis of NIFT 2025 scores. Currently, there are 18 participating institutes that offer a combined intake of 5,289 seats (including domestic and NRI/Foreign national seats). Note that NRI/Foreign national don’t need to appear in the NIFT entrance exam.
The program-wise total seat intake for the B.Des programme is given below:
Program | Seat Intake |
Fashion Design | 742 |
Leather Design | 172 |
Accessory Design | 654 |
Textile Design | 743 |
Knitwear Design | 346 |
Fashion Communication | 742 |
Total | 3,399 |
Candidates will be able to check the cutoff for NIFT Delhi on the website of NIFT: nift.admissions.nic.in. The opening and closing rank of all the programmes is given on this page. This year, NIFT 2026 cutoff is expected to be on the lower side.
Salary of Design Careers in India
The average salary of design careers in India is given below.
| Career | Average Salary |
|---|---|
| UI/UX Designer | 5.6 LPA |
| Graphic Designer | 1.7 to 6.3 LPA |
| Advertising and Brand Designer | 3.8 to 19.0 LPA |
| Product Designer | 3.5 to 26.0 LPA |
| Animation Film Designer | 4 - 8 LPA |
| Fashion Designer | 5 - 10 LPA |
| Interior Designer | 9 to 25 LPA |
| Sustainable Designer | 4 to 20 LPA |
| Game Designer | 4.7 to 15 LPA |
| Social Impact Designer | 4.5 to 6 LPA |
Colleges and Exams to get Admission in Design Colleges
Some of the top institutes to study design are given below.
| Exam Name | Conducting Body | Top Institutes | Course Offered (B.Des and M.Des) |
|---|---|---|---|
| NID DAT | National Institute of Design | NID Ahmedabad, NID AP, NID Haryana, NID Madhya Pradesh | Graphic Design, Animation, Product Design, Textile, Film & Video, Exhibition, etc. |
| UCEED | IIT Bombay | IIT Bombay, IIT Guwahati, IIT Delhi, IIT Hyderabad, IIITDM Jabalpur | UI/UX, Product Design, Visual Communication, Mobility Design, etc. |
| NIFT Entrance Exam | National Testing Agency (NTA) | NIFT Delhi, Mumbai, Bengaluru, Chennai, etc. | Fashion Design, Textile, Knitwear, Accessory, Leather, Fashion Communication, Apparel Prod. |
| SEED | Symbiosis Institute of Design (SID) | SID Pune | Communication Design, Industrial Design, Fashion Communication, Fashion Design |
| AIEED | ARCH College of Design & Business | ARCH Jaipur | Fashion, Interior, Product, Graphic, Jewellery Design |
| Pearl Academy Entrance | Pearl Academy | Pearl Academy (Delhi, Mumbai, Bengaluru, Jaipur) | Fashion Design, Product Design, Communication Design, Interior Design |
| IIAD Entrance Exam | Indian Institute of Art and Design | IIAD | Fashion Design, Communication Design, Interior Architecture |
| Srishti Entrance (SMEAT) | Srishti Manipal Institute | Srishti Manipal (Bangalore) | Animation, Industrial Arts, Digital Media, Visual Communication, Contemporary Art |
| MIT DAT | MIT Institute of Design | MIT Institute of Design, Pune | Product, Transportation, Interior, Graphic, Fashion Design |
| UPES DAT | University of Petroleum and Energy Studies | UPES School of Design, Dehradun | Game Design, Product Design, UI/UX, Interior, Animation |
Commonly asked questions
The expected cutoff for NIFT 2026 for B.Des is:
| Category | Expected Cutoff for B.Des |
|---|---|
| Open | 30-80 |
| EWS | 26-29 |
| OBC | 26-29 |
| SC | 22 |
| ST | 19 |
The CEED 2026 exam will have two mandatory parts - Part A and Part B. Interestingly, Part B answer booklet will be evaluated only if the candidate qualifies Part A. If the candidate fails to qualify Part A or doesn’t meet the qualifying cut-off, then his or her Part A answer booklet will not be evaluated.
The scorecards of candidates who fails to meet Part A cut-off would only include Part A marks. Part B and Total marks, along with merit rank, will only be issued to those candidates who meet the cut-off.
IIT Bombay released the qualifying marks for CEED 2023 - Part A on February 9, 2023. The qualifying cut-off was released in the form of Standard and Mean Deviations.
Type of Deviation for Part A | Deviations |
Mean Deviation | 22.59 |
Standard Deviation | 11.82 |
Note that the cut-off marks for Part A are the minimum marks the candidate needs to secure in the paper to get shortlisted. Further, Part B answer booklets of only shortlisted candidates will be evaluated. To be included in the CEED 2024 merit list, the candidate also must qualify Part A.
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Top Companies Hiring Design Graduates and Post Graduates
Some of the companies which hire people from design background are given below.
- Raymonds
- Arvind Garments
- Levis
- Madura Garments
- Omega Designs
- Pantaloon
- Shahi Exports
- Spykar
- Uni Style India
-
Pearl Global
-
Kimaya
- Indus League Clothing
- United Colors of Benetton
- ITC Ltd.
- Lifestyle
- Modelama Exports
- Orient Craft
- Proline
- Span India
- Swarovski India
- Texport Overseas
- Shoppers Stop
- Mahajan Overseas
- Gokuldas Images
- H&M
- Zara
- Marks and Spencer
- FabIndia
- Aditya Birla Fashion
- Myntra
- Nykaa
- Ajio
Sayeba Naushad is a commerce postgraduate from Banaras Hindu University. She has over five years of experience in content writing and editing. She has a nose for current events in design field. At Shiksha.com, she s
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