How To Become A Principal Designer: What It Is and Career Path

What is a principal designer and how to become one

Updated January 8, 2025

4 min read

Quoted expert

Abby Guido

As a Principal Designer, you are someone who the client points to take the lead in managing, planning, monitoring, and coordinating projects in a pre-construction phase. You need the relevant skills, knowledge, and experience to carry out the functions of the role. You will work with other designers, contractors, and clients. You will also consider health and safety risks and plans how to control the risks. You will also need technical knowledge relevant to the project, skills to oversee the design and health, and safety knowledge, and implement these plans during the pre-construction phase of the project.

You will advise the client, assist with client duties, design health and safety, manage designers, ensure staff complies with regulations, and cooperate with the principal contractors. To be a Principal Designer, you need at least a bachelor's degree in design, business, communication, or other relevant courses. You need experience as a senior designer or lead designer. Your annual median salary could be as high as $142,000.

What general advice would you give to a principal designer?

Abby Guido

Assistant Professor, Tyler School of Art and Architecture, Temple University

We've all heard the buzz about networking, and there is so much buzz because it works. Make sure your LinkedIn profile is both up to date and active. Connect with all of your past professors, classmates, and anyone and everyone you meet in a professional setting. I often tell students to get into the habit of searching for any classroom guests, or guest lecturers, to connect, thank them for their time, and build their network. Share content. Write articles, or reshare those you find interesting.

Every job I have ever received in my career has been through someone else I know. I share this with students to help them see the value in relationships. I always remember the students that took the time to write a handwritten thank-you note. And I think of them when I get an email asking if I know any students are looking for work.

ScorePrincipal DesignerUS Average

Salary

8.2

Avg. Salary $123,528

Avg. Salary $59,228

Stability level

4.2

Growth rate 3%

Growth rate 0.3%

Diversity

4.5

Race

American Indian and Alaska Native 0.37%

Asian 10.42%

Black or African American 3.42%

Hispanic or Latino 10.63%

Unknown 4.99%

White 70.17%

Gender

female 33.42%

male 66.58%

Age - 37

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 - 37

Stress level

4.2

Stress level is moderate

7.1 - high

Complexity level

8.5

Complexity level is advanced

7 - challenging

Work life balance

3.9

Work life balance is poor

6.4 - fair

Key steps to become a principal designer

Explore principal designer education requirements

Most common principal designer degrees

Bachelor's

63.7 %

Associate

17.5 %

Master's

11.8 %

Start to develop specific principal designer skills

Skills	Percentages
Sketch	18.05%
UI	6.18%
Digital Marketing	6.17%
User Experience	6.06%
Prototyping	5.25%

Complete relevant principal designer training and internships

Accountants spend an average of 1-3 months on post-employment, on-the-job training. New principal 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 a principal designer based on U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics data and data from real principal designer resumes.

Research principal designer duties and responsibilities

Lead creative brainstorming with internal designers and consultants.
Manage purchase orders, estimates, invoices, and all financial bookkeeping in QuickBooks software, including quarterly sales tax.
Design and partially code (CSS and HTML) entire site using Wordpress.
Work one on one with clients to create corporate identities through logo creation, brochures, business cards, letterhead, education

Get principal designer experience

Generally, it takes 6-12 months to become a principal designer. The most common roles before becoming a principal designer include senior designer, designer team lead and senior piping designer.

Prepare your principal designer resume

When your background is strong enough, you can start writing your principal 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 a principal 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 principal designer resume templates

Build a professional principal 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 principal designer resume.