Revisiting Representation: The Industry Beyond the Classroom

Despite women making up over half of design students in many courses, representation within the industrial design industry tells a different story. In the UK, only 23% of the design workforce identifies as female. The numbers become even more concerning as careers progress, with only 18% of design directors or senior roles held by women, highlighting how many leave the industry by mid-career, citing reasons due to barriers including limited mentorship, lack of representation in leadership, unconscious bias, unequal progression opportunities, and workplace cultures that can often leave women feeling isolated and undervalued.

These figures matter because designers shape far more than products alone. We influence the services and systems people navigate daily and rely on, and the technologies that impact their health and wellbeing. When the people designing these systems lack diversity of experience and perspective, the consequences become embedded in the outcomes themselves.

This is particularly visible within healthcare and wellbeing design, an area I work closely within. Historically, many products, services, and medical systems have been designed around male-centred data and assumptions, leaving significant gaps in women’s experiences of healthcare. Even now, only 6% of private healthcare investment goes towards women’s health innovation, despite women making up half the population. 

Design cannot meaningfully claim to be human-centred if the industry itself leaves large portions of humanity absent from the conversations shaping it.

A few months later, I was invited by Natalie Cameron, an excellent teacher and Head of Design & Technology at Newstead Wood School, to deliver a similar session as part of their International Women’s Day programme. Many of the students came from backgrounds still underrepresented within the design industry, and initially, the room felt apprehensive. But as students realised they could ask open and honest questions about industry, the discussion became engaged and collaborative. 

What became increasingly clear through both experiences was how powerful transparency can be. Students are often taught design as a subject without fully understanding what pathways exist beyond education, what challenges they may encounter professionally, or how varied a creative career can actually look. Hearing directly from people currently working within the industry helps contextualise those possibilities and aspirations in a tangible and human way.

Speaking to students there reinforced something important: representation matters enormously, but so does visibility and honesty.

A Need for Revision

These experiences became part of the foundation for REVISION, a growing initiative I co-founded alongside Sophia Kambouris. What started as casual meetups for women working in design has evolved into a wider movement centred around revisiting how the industry creates space for more representative voices and supports collaboration.

At REVISION, we believe that representation benefits everyone, and schools can play an important role in that industry shift. Creating a more inclusive, empathetic, and representative industry is more than simply encouraging women into design; it requires visibility, transparency, mentorship, and stronger connections between education and practice. It allows young women to see clearer possibilities for themselves, while also encouraging broader awareness and empathy among future colleagues entering the same industry.

One of our ambitions is to build a network of designers from different disciplines and backgrounds who can speak within schools, sharing honest insights into their journeys and helping students better understand both the opportunities and realities of the industry they may one day enter, which cannot always be communicated through curriculum alone. Challenging outdated perceptions of who designers are, what success looks like, and what futures students can imagine for themselves.

The design industry frequently speaks about innovation, disruption, and designing better futures. Perhaps one of the most important things we can redesign is the industry itself.