Top skills and qualifications to kickstart your interior design career

November 21, 2025

Interior design is about so much more than having great taste or knowing the principles of design. Designers who stand out — and stay in demand — bring together life experience, technical knowledge, creative thinking and a deep understanding of how people actually live in their homes.

Take someone like Greg Natale, for example. His designs draw on his Italian heritage and love of bold, patterned, high–concept interiors. Others might weave in passions like sustainable living or bushfire-resilient design, shaping a style that feels uniquely their own.

So, how do you carve out your place in the industry? It starts with building skills and qualifications that help you develop your eye, your confidence and ultimately, your own design identity.

Here are the core skills today’s interior designers are adding to their toolkit.

Design psychology

Understanding how design influences human behaviour is becoming a powerful tool in a designer’s toolkit.

Basic colour psychology is usually covered in design school, but going deeper — whether through short courses, design-thinking programs or even a graduate diploma in psychology — can help you create interiors that feel thoughtful, purposeful and emotionally aligned with how a space is meant to function.

We see this often in commercial interiors. For example, warm tones that make cafés feel inviting, cool colours that calm hospitals and clinics, and playful palettes in childcare centres.

But design psychology goes beyond colour. Materials, textures and even the shapes you repeat in a scheme can shift the mood of a room. We often hear about how tactile natural wood can add warmth and ground a space, whereas materials like steel and marble can add drama.

A stronger understanding of these elements helps you design with intention rather than intuition alone.

Feng shui

Feng shui has been around for thousands of years, but its principles are more relevant than ever — especially as homes get smaller and apartment living becomes the norm.

Interior designers who understand energy flow, balance and placement naturally have an advantage when working with compact or awkward layouts.

You don’t need to become a feng shui master. Short courses, books and even hands-on experimentation (like rearranging a room and observing how it feels) can help you grasp the fundamentals of feng shui. Knowing how to enhance Chi and create harmony can give your designs an extra layer of meaning and comfort.

Sustainability

Sustainability in design is no longer an afterthought — it’s becoming one of the most in-demand skills homeowners look for when choosing a designer. People want homes that feel beautiful and behave beautifully: energy-efficient, thermally comfortable, low-tox, durable and aligned with the way they want to live.

A strong understanding of passive design is a huge advantage here. Knowing how to work with orientation, glazing, shading, natural ventilation, insulation and thermal mass allows you to design spaces that stay cooler in summer, warmer in winter and reduce the need for artificial heating and cooling. And clients love when their designer can explain why a space feels good, not just how it looks.

Material selection is another big part of sustainable design. Designers today are expanding their knowledge in:

eco-friendly materials with low embodied energy
recycled or responsibly sourced products
finishes that are low-tox and VOC-free
durable selections that extend a building’s life cycle
water-wise fixtures and smart technology to reduce consumption.

We’re also seeing more designers upskill in bushfire-resistant design principles, particularly in BAL-rated areas, as well as Passive House concepts like airtightness and continuous insulation.

Short courses in sustainability, Passive House fundamentals, or even modules on material life cycle assessment can really sharpen your confidence in this space. Designers who can speak clearly about environmental impact, long-term performance and healthier home choices are positioning themselves miles ahead of the industry curve.

Financial and project management

Interior designers need to be collaborative, oftentimes partnering with property developers, contractors, and architects in creating showstopping built environments. But with all this collaboration, comes ample opportunities to butt heads and lose track of the overarching goals behind any given project, which is why the best interior designers aren’t just creatives — they’re also businesspeople.

Here, having commercial skills like financial management and project management can help ensure that interior designers maintain an active and authoritative role in design projects, being able to keep their fellow collaborators on track and making sure that all finished results align perfectly with client expectations.

Basic budgeting and financial literacy skills are also a must, because chances are high that most of your future commercial and residential clients will want to keep a firm eye on their bottom line. If you’re able to maintain meticulous financial records detailing the work you’ve delivered and/or planned for, you’re more likely to accrue client trust and gather higher quality testimonials.

Again, even just some short business courses can help equip you with the business management skills you’ll need to support your day-to-day responsibilities as a professional interior designer.

Marketing and promotion

Finally, being a creative professional, you will need to learn how to market yourself and showcase your portfolio as an interior designer. Here, even basic web development skills like learning how to set up a digital portfolio website can help you get your work out there and bring in some good quality leads.

Alongside this, interior designers should also develop great photography and photo editing skills if they can — just so you can maintain greater control over the design and presentation of your professional portfolio and any accompanying social media profiles (i.e. your Instagram feed, LinkedIn posts, etc.).

You can find plenty of digital entrepreneurship courses online that are designed to help digital-era professionals develop strong marketing and promotional skills. Completing these courses can also be more efficient than relying on learning by trial and error, as digital landscapes can be quite competitive. You don’t want to waste any time in establishing a strong brand to back up your design services.

If you’re an emerging interior designer, we hope this article has given you some ideas on how you can add to your skillset and stand out amongst the rest. Equipping yourself with psychological, sustainable, business or marketing skills, will position you well ahead of the curve.