Overview
Interior design resumes have a unique challenge. Your best work is visual, but your resume is text. The portfolio does the heavy lifting for showing your style and aesthetic judgment. The resume needs to do something different: prove you can manage budgets, coordinate suppliers, hit deadlines, and keep clients happy.
This resume belongs to Isla, an interior designer at Todhunter Earle Interiors in Bath. She has five years of experience working on residential and boutique hospitality projects, including a 420,000 Georgian townhouse renovation and 12 guest bedrooms for The Pig hotel. Before that, she was a junior designer at Sims Hilditch and an intern at HAM Interiors.
What makes this resume work is the balance between creative credentials and practical project management detail.
Your summary should name your niche and your numbers
Interior design is a broad field. Residential, commercial, hospitality, retail, set design. Your summary needs to tell the reader which world you work in and what size projects you handle.
Isla's:
Interior designer with five years of experience working on residential and boutique hospitality projects in the South West. I've managed schemes from concept to installation for projects ranging from £15,000 single-room makeovers to a £420,000 full townhouse renovation. Comfortable producing mood boards, technical drawings, FF&E schedules, and managing contractor relationships on site.
She names the project types (residential, boutique hospitality), the budget range (15K to 420K), and the deliverables she produces (mood boards, technical drawings, FF&E schedules, contractor management). A hiring manager or studio director can immediately see whether her experience matches what they need.
Your formula: Years of experience plus your niche. Budget range of projects you have worked on. The deliverables you produce. The types of clients you work with.
Project budgets and outcomes make your experience section
The biggest mistake on interior design resumes is listing tasks without context. "Created mood boards" is a task. "Led the design of a 420,000 Georgian townhouse renovation, 6 rooms across 3 floors, completed on time and 2% under budget" is an achievement.
From Isla's current role:
"Lead designer on a £420,000 Georgian townhouse renovation in Bath, 6 rooms across 3 floors, completed on time and 2% under budget"
"Designed 12 guest bedrooms for The Pig near Bath as part of their 2024 refurbishment, project value £185,000"
"Manage 4-6 active projects simultaneously, coordinating with builders, electricians, and specialist suppliers"
Each bullet has a project value, a scope (how many rooms, which client), and an outcome. The "2% under budget" detail is especially useful because it shows financial discipline, something studio directors and clients both care about.
Count things. How many rooms? What was the budget? How many suppliers? How many active projects at once? These numbers turn a generic design CV into proof of capability.
How to present earlier or junior roles
When you were a junior designer or intern, you probably were not leading projects. That is fine. Show what you contributed and what you learned.
From Isla's junior role at Sims Hilditch:
"Assisted on 8 residential projects with combined budgets of £1.2 million"
"Produced technical drawings in AutoCAD for kitchen, bathroom, and joinery layouts"
"Managed the sample library, organised 3,000+ fabric, tile, and paint samples by supplier and project"
None of these are lead designer work. But they show technical skill (AutoCAD), organisation (3,000 samples), and exposure to serious budgets (1.2 million combined). The sample library bullet might seem mundane, but anyone who has worked in an interiors studio knows that a well-organised sample library is genuinely valuable.
Even from the internship at HAM Interiors: the shop was featured in House & Garden during her placement, and she sourced vintage furniture from auctions. These small details add personality and show the kind of design world she operates in.
Skills: balance creative and technical
Interior design hiring managers want to see both aesthetic capability and practical skills. Isla's skills list covers concept development, AutoCAD, SketchUp and V-Ray rendering, FF&E specification, fabric and material selection, budget management, contractor coordination, and Adobe Creative Suite.
If you use specific software, name it. Not just "CAD software" but "AutoCAD (2D Technical Drawings)." Not just "rendering" but "SketchUp & V-Ray." Specificity helps with ATS scanning and shows the reader you actually use these tools daily.
One thing to consider: if you have experience with particular supplier networks (UK fabric houses, European tile suppliers, antique dealers), mention that. Sourcing is a big part of interior design work, and knowing where to find things is a skill that takes years to build.
Certifications and professional memberships
Isla is an Associate Member of the British Institute of Interior Design (BIID). She also holds an Autodesk AutoCAD Professional Certification and a CDM Awareness for Designers certificate from IOSH.
BIID membership is the standard professional credential for interior designers in the UK. If you have it (or are working towards it), include it. CDM awareness is increasingly important because designers who work on construction projects need to understand health and safety regulations. It is not glamorous, but it shows a hiring manager that you can work on site without creating liability.
The projects section: your portfolio in text form
Isla's two featured projects are the Georgian townhouse and The Pig hotel bedrooms. The townhouse project includes working with heritage consultants for listed building consent and getting featured in Homes & Gardens magazine. The hotel project involved creating 4 distinct room schemes and sourcing vintage pieces from 8 UK dealers.
These project entries do what a portfolio does, but in words. They show the brief, the scale, the budget, the approach, and the outcome. If your portfolio is on your website, the projects section on your resume gives the reader enough to decide whether to look at it.
Common mistakes on interior design resumes
No budget figures. This is the most common one. If you do not include project values, the reader has no idea whether you have managed a 5,000 room refresh or a 500,000 renovation. The skills required are completely different. Always include the budget.
Listing software without context. "AutoCAD" in your skills section is fine. But "Produced technical drawings in AutoCAD for kitchen, bathroom, and joinery layouts" is much more useful. Show what you made with the software, not just that you own a licence.
Ignoring the commercial side. Interior design is creative work, but it is also a business. Mentioning budget management, procurement, and supplier coordination shows you understand that projects need to come in on time and on budget. Studios care about this as much as they care about your aesthetic sensibility.
Using an overly creative resume template. This might seem counterintuitive for a design role, but heavily designed resumes with unusual layouts can be hard to read quickly. Isla's resume uses Opal, which has a clean structure with a subtle design accent. It looks professional without sacrificing readability. Save the creative layout for your portfolio.
One more thing
Interior design is a relationship business. If you have worked with recognisable clients, hotels, restaurants, or publications, name them. Isla mentions The Pig and Homes & Gardens. Those names carry weight. If your work has been featured anywhere or if you have worked with a well-known brand, that belongs on your resume.
