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Senior architectural designer vs designer

The differences between senior architectural designers and designers can be seen in a few details. Each job has different responsibilities and duties. It typically takes 6-12 months to become both a senior architectural designer and a designer. Additionally, a senior architectural designer has an average salary of $74,891, which is higher than the $66,347 average annual salary of a designer.

The top three skills for a senior architectural designer include revit, autocad and design concepts. The most important skills for a designer are sketch, customer service, and graphic design.

Senior architectural designer vs designer overview

Senior Architectural DesignerDesigner
Yearly salary$74,891$66,347
Hourly rate$36.01$31.90
Growth rate-3%3%
Number of jobs53,72452,433
Job satisfaction-5
Most common degreeBachelor's Degree, 60%Bachelor's Degree, 61%
Average age4538
Years of experience1212

What does a senior architectural designer do?

A senior architectural designer's responsibilities include designing buildings, providing instructions to a manufacturing team, and using architectural design software to create models. Specifications for designs may be provided by clients or by a company. Senior architectural designers must also ensure that their buildings comply with all legal standards.

What does a designer do?

A designer is someone who creates a master plan of the look or workings of something before it will be made. It could be tangible or intangible objects, products, procedures, laws, events, games, graphics, services, and even experiences. Designers are creative thinkers with a great eye to configure the skeletal and structural properties of the targeted output. They work in several fields, such as fashion, architecture, web graphics, and user experience. In spite of the variety of professionals in the design industry, all of them are artistic, passionate, inspiring, and emotionally connected to their projects and brands.

Senior architectural designer vs designer salary

Senior architectural designers and designers have different pay scales, as shown below.

Senior Architectural DesignerDesigner
Average salary$74,891$66,347
Salary rangeBetween $55,000 And $101,000Between $45,000 And $97,000
Highest paying CitySan Francisco, CASeattle, WA
Highest paying stateNew JerseyWashington
Best paying companyWestern DigitalMeta
Best paying industryMediaTechnology

Differences between senior architectural designer and designer education

There are a few differences between a senior architectural designer and a designer in terms of educational background:

Senior Architectural DesignerDesigner
Most common degreeBachelor's Degree, 60%Bachelor's Degree, 61%
Most common majorArchitectureGraphic Design
Most common collegeCarnegie Mellon UniversityUniversity of Pennsylvania

Senior architectural designer vs designer demographics

Here are the differences between senior architectural designers' and designers' demographics:

Senior Architectural DesignerDesigner
Average age4538
Gender ratioMale, 73.9% Female, 26.1%Male, 56.9% Female, 43.1%
Race ratioBlack or African American, 3.1% Unknown, 5.2% Hispanic or Latino, 11.7% Asian, 7.0% White, 72.3% American Indian and Alaska Native, 0.7%Black or African American, 3.4% Unknown, 5.0% Hispanic or Latino, 10.6% Asian, 10.4% White, 70.2% American Indian and Alaska Native, 0.4%
LGBT Percentage6%13%

Differences between senior architectural designer and designer duties and responsibilities

Senior architectural designer example responsibilities.

  • Lead the development of BIM modeling content for the architecture team as a direct report to the executive and lead architects.
  • Provide leadership and training to REVIT BIM team.
  • Create full construction set for permitting including electrical layout and HVAC (coordination with MEP and structural engineers).
  • Produce project renderings and animations in Revit for marketing purposes.
  • Design light fixtures to customer and principal specifications, utilizing sheet metal and aluminum extrusion methods using SolidWorks.
  • Design, develop and prepare documents for commercial/corporate building projects, condominiums, educational and recreational facilities.

Designer example responsibilities.

  • Lead & design all creative content stemming from apparel design to web identity.
  • Manage various PCB designs utilizing state of the art DFM techniques and comply with company standards.
  • Utilize CSS, DHTML, HTML, and JavaScript for cross browser, cross platform compatibility and consistency.
  • Develop different kinds of functions globally, locally for the development of forms using JavaScript, CSS.
  • Transform customer specifications into usable SolidWorks 3D models and assemblies from which all manufacturing are derived.
  • Process ECR's and ECO's using Windchill.
  • Show more

Senior architectural designer vs designer skills

Common senior architectural designer skills
  • Revit, 24%
  • Autocad, 15%
  • Design Concepts, 9%
  • BIM, 6%
  • Design Development, 6%
  • Visualization, 6%
Common designer skills
  • Sketch, 10%
  • Customer Service, 7%
  • Graphic Design, 6%
  • CSS, 5%
  • HTML, 4%
  • PowerPoint, 4%

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