Design & creative · Creating & Designing
Interior designer: what the job actually is
Planning how rooms work and feel, from the layout and materials to the lighting, to a client's budget and a building code.
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The work
What this job actually is
- Planning interior spaces so they work for the people who use them: where the walls and furniture go, how people move through, what the materials and lighting are, and how it all fits a budget.
- Interior design is different from decorating. Design deals with layout, building codes, accessibility and technical drawings. Decorating deals with finishes and furnishings.
- A large share of the job is drawings, specifications, ordering and coordination. You work with contractors, suppliers, architects and clients, and a lot of the job is making sure they all hear the same thing.
- Projects range from a kitchen in a family home to an office, a restaurant or a hospital. Commercial work involves codes and approvals that residential work often does not.
- Clients often have strong opinions and a budget smaller than their ideas. You are paid to make the best version of the space inside those limits.
A Tuesday
What a normal day looks like
Not a good day or a bad one. The ordinary version, which is what you would actually be living.
- 8:30 — Review the day's emails from contractors. One needs a decision before they can order.
- 9:00 — Draw. A floor plan in software, adjusting a wall by a hand's width so the door can open.
- 10:30 — Visit a site to measure. Everything in the drawings is wrong by a few centimetres, and you find out now.
- 12:00 — Lunch in the car. Look at fabric and tile samples on your knee.
- 13:00 — Meet the client with three layouts and a material board. They choose the layout you liked least.
- 14:30 — Rework the budget after learning one material has doubled in price.
- 15:30 — Call a supplier about a delivery date that has slipped again.
- 16:30 — Write the specifications so the contractor knows exactly which products to use, with no room to substitute.
- 17:30 — Update the schedule for the next three weeks and send it to everyone on the job.
Honestly
Who loves this, and who should not do it
The second list is the useful one. Nearly every careers page leaves it out, which is why nearly every careers page reads like an advert.
- You notice how a room feels and you want to know why it does.
- You can draw to scale, or you want to learn, and you do not mind the technical side.
- You can explain your reasons to a client who does not share your taste.
- You like coordinating many people to finish something physical.
- You are happy to work to a budget and a set of rules instead of a blank page.
- You want to make what you like. Clients choose, and you work within their taste and budget.
- Technical drawings and building codes sound dull. They are a big part of the job.
- You want a steady wage. Job Bank's Ontario outlook for this group is Limited, and a lot of design work is project-based or freelance.
- You dislike chasing people. Delays, wrong deliveries and changed orders are routine.
- You do not want a long road to registration. The registered title takes education, supervised experience and an exam, and the process is slow.
The route in
How you actually get there in Ontario
Understand the two levels
Job Bank says interior designers usually need a university degree or college diploma in interior design, and that certification by a provincial association is required to use protected titles. In Ontario that body is the Association of Registered Interior Designers of Ontario (ARIDO). You can do decorating and design work without it, but you cannot call yourself a registered interior designer.Take an interior design programme
ontariocolleges.ca describes programmes covering drawing, drafting, rendering, digital 2D and 3D drawing, spatial design, colour, materials, design history and business skills. It says some prepare students for recognition through associations such as ARIDO. Universities also offer degree programmes in the field.Do supervised work experience
ARIDO's route has three parts: education, supervised experience and an examination. ARIDO's pages say candidates join as intern members, then complete an examination before becoming Registered members. Check ARIDO's current hours and requirements before you plan, because they have been changing.Pass the exam
ARIDO's examination page says there are two recognised pathways: the Registered Interior Designer Assessment, or the NCIDQ exams. ARIDO says passing NCIDQ is not required to maintain registered membership or to practise in Ontario, but it matters if you want to work in the United States.
Where this comes from: ARIDO — Examination requirements · ARIDO — NCIDQ exam eligibility · Job Bank — Interior designers: requirements in Ontario · ontariocolleges.ca — Interior Design and Decorating programmes
The money
What it pays in Ontario
Job Bank's own figures, quoted rather than summarised, with the period they describe — so you can tell how old they are and go and check them.
- $17.95
- Low (hourly)
- $27.40
- Median (hourly)
- $50.00
- High (hourly)
Ontario, NOC 52121. Reference period 2023-2024, last updated by Job Bank on 19 November 2025. Wages vary a lot by region inside Ontario and by how long you have been doing it — the low figure is roughly where you start, not what the job is worth.
Where it is heading
The outlook for the next three years
Job Bank publishes a three-year outlook for every job in every province. It is the closest thing to an honest forecast, and it moves, so read it as a weather report rather than a verdict.
Limited2 out of 5 stars
- Employment growth will lead to a few new positions.
- A moderate number of positions will become available due to retirements.
- There are a moderate number of unemployed workers with recent experience in this occupation.
What that rating means: how many openings Job Bank expects in Ontario for this kind of work against how many people are likely to be looking — not whether it is a good job. A “limited” rating means more competition for each opening; it does not close the door, and it can change before you are ready to walk through it.
- 12,900
- people work in this job in Ontario
- 80%
- are women (48% across all jobs)
- 46%
- are self-employed (15% across all jobs)
Source: Job Bank — Interior designers and interior decorators job prospects in Ontario (NOC 52121). Outlook updated by Job Bank on 10 December 2025; read by us on 5 October 2026.
Before you leave school
Things you can do now
- Take visual arts, drafting, technological design and any course that has you draw to scale.
- Measure and redraw your own bedroom or classroom to scale on paper, then redesign it. This is the core exercise of the job.
- Ask a local designer, kitchen showroom or furniture store whether you can see how they present a plan to a client.
- Build a small portfolio of redesigned spaces. Programmes and employers both ask to see one.
Test it
Do this before you decide anything
Reading about a job tells you almost nothing. This is designed to be done alone, this week, for free.
Measure a real room and redesign it to scale
About 90 minutes- Measure a room in your home with a tape: walls, doors, windows, and where the outlets are. Write the numbers down.
- Draw the empty room to scale on graph paper, then cut out scaled pieces of paper for the furniture.
- Rearrange it so that it works for one specific person's daily routine, and note two things that cannot move.
- Show it to the person who lives there and ask what you got wrong.
What it tells you. If you were absorbed in making it fit, and enjoyed being told what you got wrong, the planning side of design could be for you. If you only cared about how it looked and the measuring was a chore, you may be happier in decorating or graphic design, where the technical load is lighter.
Better than any article
Questions for somebody who does this job
Most people say yes to a teenager who asks good questions. These are the ones that get real answers rather than encouragement.
- “What does a normal week look like, and how much is drawing versus talking to people?”
- “Are you registered, and was it worth it?”
- “How did you find your first clients or your first job?”
- “What is the hardest part of working with contractors?”
- “How do you handle a client who wants something that will not work?”
- “How long did it take to feel you were actually earning a living?”
Could you own one of these?
The part other career sites never mention
Yes. Many designers run their own studios or freelance for homeowners, builders and businesses. You can do decorating and design work without registration, but you cannot use the protected title without it. The challenges are finding clients, pricing your time, and covering the slow periods.
Not sure this is the right list to be reading
Start from yourself, not from the job.
Future Finder is free, takes about ten minutes, needs no account and stores nothing. It will tell you which kinds of work you lean toward, and which of these pages are worth your time.
Parent of a teenager weighing this up? Career coaching for teens gets them talking to people who do the work, anywhere in Ontario.
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Wages and training requirements change. Every figure on this page is linked to the body that publishes it, and the review date above says when we last checked. If you find something out of date, tell us and we will fix it.