How To Become An Automotive Designer: What It Is and Career Path

What is an automotive designer and how to become one

Updated January 8, 2025

2 min read

There is more than meets the eye when it comes to being an automotive designer. For example, did you know that they make an average of $33.55 an hour? That's $69,782 a year! Between 2018 and 2028, the career is expected to grow 2% and produce 6,400 job opportunities across the U.S.

ScoreAutomotive DesignerUS Average

Salary

5.5

Avg. Salary $69,782

Avg. Salary $59,228

Stability level

7.4

Growth rate 2%

Growth rate 0.3%

Diversity

6.4

Race

American Indian and Alaska Native 0.11%

Asian 11.01%

Black or African American 3.51%

Hispanic or Latino 9.83%

Unknown 4.63%

White 70.92%

Gender

female 19.77%

male 80.23%

Age - 39

Race

American Indian and Alaska Native 3.00%

Asian 7.00%

Black or African American 14.00%

Hispanic or Latino 19.00%

White 57.00%

Gender

female 47.00%

male 53.00%

Age - 39

Stress level

7.4

Stress level is high

7.1 - high

Complexity level

8.6

Complexity level is advanced

7 - challenging

Work life balance

5.1

Work life balance is fair

6.4 - fair

Key steps to become an automotive designer

Explore automotive designer education requirements

Most common automotive designer degrees

Bachelor's

52.7 %

Associate

29.1 %

Master's

5.5 %

Start to develop specific automotive designer skills

Skills	Percentages
Industrial Design	24.02%
Sketch	18.71%
Powertrain	12.54%
FEA	11.35%
Cost Reduction	9.48%

Complete relevant automotive designer training and internships

Accountants spend an average of 1-2 years on post-employment, on-the-job training. New automotive designers learn the skills and techniques required for their job and employer during this time. The chart below shows how long it takes to gain competency as an automotive designer based on U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics data and data from real automotive designer resumes.

Research automotive designer duties and responsibilities

Manage documentation of existing projects, perform ECN resolutions.
Design of brackets and torsion bar components are validated using FEA inSolidworks.
Designate as group training mentor during transition from CADAM to Unigraphics V9.
Complete several fully fillet and draft angle solid models on Unigraphics for direct manufacturing.

Prepare your automotive designer resume

When your background is strong enough, you can start writing your automotive designer resume.

You can use Zippia's AI resume builder to make the resume writing process easier while also making sure that you include key information that hiring managers expect to see on an automotive designer resume. You'll find resume tips and examples of skills, responsibilities, and summaries, all provided by Zippi, your career sidekick.

Choose from 10+ customizable automotive designer resume templates

Build a professional automotive designer resume in minutes. Browse through our resume examples to identify the best way to word your resume. Then choose from 10+ resume templates to create your automotive designer resume.