The work ahead
Which design jobs are growing, which are shrinking, and roughly when. With the evidence for each, so you can disagree with it properly.
A net gain of about 78 million. The report surveyed more than a thousand employers across 22 industries and 55 economies. World Economic Forum, Future of Jobs
Named among the top ten fastest-growing job roles — eighth in one surveyed segment.
Digital experience is where companies now compete, so the person who shapes it is no longer a finishing touch.
Eleventh in the fastest-declining list, thirteenth in the largest-declining.
Static and print-focused work is being absorbed by tools. The craft is not worthless; the job description is changing.
39% of the skills people hold today are expected to be outdated by 2030. That is the number worth planning around — not the fear of replacement, but the certainty of revision.
Now — already short
Motion is no longer decoration. On our own board, GSAP — the tool used to choreograph movement — appears on 32% of winning sites, more than any other single technology. Sites are judged partly on how they feel to operate, and almost nobody is trained specifically for that.
EvidenceEXHIBITA board: motion tooling on 33 of 102 winners, the most-used technology
Someone has to keep a hundred screens coherent and usable by everyone. It is unglamorous, it is very hard to automate because it is mostly judgement and negotiation, and organisations only discover they needed it after it has gone wrong.
EvidenceUsability is 30% of the score on the largest web design award — second only to appearance
Now — rising fast
Webflow and Framer now appear on award-winning work that would once have required a bespoke engineering team. Our own comparison of the canon against current winners shows Webflow rising from 3% to 17%. That is a genuine new craft: assembling to a professional standard without a developer.
EvidenceEXHIBITA in-and-out: Webflow 3% of the canon, 17% of current winners
2026–2028
The share of award-winning sites using three-dimensional work has fallen from 61% of the historic canon to 29% today — a correction after a bubble, not a death. WebGPU has just reached every major browser, which raises the ceiling considerably. Fewer people will do this, and the ones who do will be worth more.
EvidenceEXHIBITA in-and-out: 3D at 61% of the canon, 29% now
The tools generate; someone still has to decide what is good. The Rijksmuseum project on our front page is the shape of this — the technology was available to everyone who entered, and one person in Bucharest won because of judgement, not access. Taste is the scarce input now.
EvidenceWEF names creative thinking among the most in-demand skills of the period
2027–2030
Audio is the rarest tag on our entire board. Browsers require a click before anything can play, so most teams decide it is not worth the trouble — which means the few sites that commit to it have an atmosphere the others cannot reach. A small field with almost no competition.
EvidenceEXHIBITA board: audio among the rarest tags across every genre
As sites get heavier, the person who can keep something elaborate fast becomes the difference between a project that ships and one that is quietly cut back. This sits between design and engineering and belongs fully to neither, which is exactly why it pays.
EvidenceThe engineering award on the largest design prize now accompanies the large majority of daily winners
Before you panic