2022 State of DesignOps

It is finally out.

After months of hard work, the “2022 State of DesignOps” is here.

So, you might be wondering what are the new findings this year.

Here is a recap:

DesignOps as a discipline is growing FAST. 

An excellent example is DesignOps Assembly, a DesignOps grassroots community. Before 2020, there were about 300 members. As of today, there are over 4000 members signed up as members.

DesignOps is maturing

DesignOps is maturing in practice, sizing, and tooling as a named discipline. DesignOps start to solidify providing value within Design organizations and companies.

The majority of the DesignOps practitioners are identified as SHE/HER (57.4%). 

“Unlike most other disciplines that are heavily male-dominated (e.g. engineering, design, product) DesignOps is a female-led field. Curious.”

Trailing on this note, similar to last year’s findings, DesignOps practitioners are more experienced knowledge workers (71.9% 10 years+).

However, we see a lack of executive-level opportunities for DesignOps practitioners. (2.5% at VP /Senior VP level, 0.5% at C-level)

Although DesignOps started in the U.S., we see evidence that it is growing Globally.

For last year’s report, most responses were from the U.S. We see practitioners thriving in many more countries this year. Outside the U.S., we’ve seen them in Singapore, Patagonia, Paris, Bali, Bangladesh, and Brussels. In the recent DesignOps summit, Patrizia Bertini and Alexandra Mengoni León celebrated DesignOps Latam. 

As I always am excited about being in this field. There is no better time to be a DesignOps practitioner. There’s so much more packed in this report. Find out what interests you and your org.

(All images, charts © 2022 State of DesignOps)