Not the OP but as ex-designer, the pay is mediocre and the best clients most designers would like to work on (i.e. creative, interesting) don't pay very much. I know a lot of small studios that produced beautiful work and won awards, but didn't make amazing revenue, which resulted in having to keep the staff small and the pay for themselves relatively low. They always have to take giant, boring and sometimes difficult clients to keep the lights on.

All in all, the vast majority of my friends switched to FAANG so they could earn good money after years slaving away at agencies. They don't love the work but the pay makes up for it.

The other comment gives a good overview, I'll try to elaborate a bit.

I worked for a few independent studios that a lot of design students would think were up there in terms of reputation. We did work for cultural institutions, museums, galleries, architects, artists, fashion brands, etc. The kind of thing you dream of doing as a design student.

The pay at these "cool" studios is generally awful. £25k after 5 years kind of thing. One guy who was at a studio I worked for before me was on £16k. Factoring in the long hours, that works out to well below minimum wage. This is in London, btw. I did get to sit on a chair that cost more than my monthly salary though. I know the directors of these companies make very good money.

Generally they all have a huge list of previous employees. They hire graduates on low salaries because you get to do "cool" work, these are almost exclusively young people with parents that can subsidize their living expenses whilst they start out. They last one to two years, rinse and repeat.The graduate to job ratio is depressing, we used to get tens of applications a day, it's very easy to find replacements.

Unpaid internships are normal, although some pay minimum wage. I had a job throughout university and blew all my savings doing an unpaid three month internship after graduating. It was stupid but also got me a job (on £18k, as a "freelancer" to save the employer money), it's basically impossible to get a foot in the door without working for free for a while. This obviously leads to an industry with very little diversity, most people simply can't afford it.

There is a lot of pandering to artists and curators and talk of "giving shape to contemporary visual culture" that everyone knows is complete bullshit. The art and design world is full of the most egotistical people imaginable, and graphic designers are on the bottom rung generally speaking. We worked with one curator who literally refused to speak to anyone below director level. As in to your face, would just completely blank you, it was bizarre.

The only viable option if you want to have a career is to run your own studio, but again that is very difficult unless you have the money and connections.

In the end I decided it wasn't worth it, I'd rather have a pension and a family one day, it's not worth giving that stuff up to design books or typefaces for artists or curators that don't even know your name.

I still really love design, and I do know a lot of nice people who still do it, but the industry is not great!