How big is the web site design industry?

I market our content management system and other technical services to small to medium sized designers who do web design but don't have strong technical resources themselves.  I only look for such companies in London.  I have idenfitied about 1,000 such companies in the London area.  One day the workload will lighten up enough that I can cold call them all and find the rest.  My listing work is far from complete and I would be surprised if I have identified even half the market.  

Over the UK I guess you would have to multiply that by say 10-20.  (Is London about 10% of the population of the UK?)

Asked to segement the market I would say there are:

1. Very large design monsters who have hundreds of staff and a significanty technical resource themselves (tens)

2. Medium design houses that have a have a web team of 1-3 people one or two of whome will have enough technical expertise to install a CMS package or produce a simple PHP site.  (2-3 figures)

3. Mainly print designers who also do web design or have a dedicated designer.  They either don't do CMS sites or rely on someone like me to work with them on their projects. (4 figures))

4. Print designers who don't do the web and turn away this sort of work (4 figures)

5. Web design companies formed specifically to provide design and technical services.  Some of whom crashed and burned spectacularly at the end of the dot com boom.  (2-3 figures)

6. Web design wannabes who really don't have good design skills but wwho can put a site together very cheaply.  (who knows)

Bob

Hi Tom 

We don't give a market valuation as such in our Agency Rate Card Survey 2005: How Much Do UK New Media Agencies Charge? report but there is plenty of data in there on the agency market in the UK. 

In the 2003 version we had the following:

•  There are an estimated 3,000 new media agencies in total in the UK with the market for providing interactive services valued at £600m
•  Only 11% of responding agencies were founded before 1995; 61% were founded after 1998; 38% after 2000 i.e. most were formed at the height, or after, the dot com boom. The proliferation of smaller agencies formed as larger agencies broke up accounts in part for the later growth in the number of agencies founded.
•  Only 14% of agencies have more than 20 employees.
•  Only 27% of agencies have a projected 2003 turnover of more than £800k. 41% of agencies have a turnover of less than £150k. Of those agencies with a turnover of more than £500k the greatest number were founded in 1999, followed by 2000, followed by those founded before 1990 i.e. there are some who have survived as big players from the boom time but there are other more established agencies who have successfully turned themselves to new media too.
•  66% of all responding agencies are based in London or the South East. 77% of those agencies with a turnover of more than £500k are based in London or the South East i.e. there is still a heavy London/South East weighting in terms of where most new media business occurs.

I think it would be nigh on impossible to define the "CMS-driven web site build" market - increasingly all sites have some form of CMS (depending on how you understand that term).

Ashley 
CEO, E-consultancy.com

I work for www.mexley.com we do website development and here is my opinion on your post. Talking about small to medium size web design companies we have two options to develop a CMS. First is to hire a freelancer and second is to hire an in-house programmer. Now the pros and cons. Freelancer might offer a cheaper price for his job, but you usually spend lots of time organizing the whole work process (i.e. contacting him back and forth about bugs). On the other hand hiring the programmer will save you time, but it is more resource consuming. Now its up to you ti make a final decision ;))     

On 10:44:57 25 January 2006 ThomasBannister wrote:

Many thanks Bob for your reply. Tom

On 08:27:34 25 January 2006 textor wrote:

 

I market our content management system and other technical services to small to medium sized designers who do web design but don't have strong technical resources themselves.  I only look for such companies in London.  I have idenfitied about 1,000 such companies in the London area.  One day the workload will lighten up enough that I can cold call them all and find the rest.  My listing work is far from complete and I would be surprised if I have identified even half the market.  

Over the UK I guess you would have to multiply that by say 10-20.  (Is London about 10% of the population of the UK?)

Asked to segement the market I would say there are:

1. Very large design monsters who have hundreds of staff and a significanty technical resource themselves (tens)

2. Medium design houses that have a have a web team of 1-3 people one or two of whome will have enough technical expertise to install a CMS package or produce a simple PHP site.  (2-3 figures)

3. Mainly print designers who also do web design or have a dedicated designer.  They either don't do CMS sites or rely on someone like me to work with them on their projects. (4 figures))

4. Print designers who don't do the web and turn away this sort of work (4 figures)

5. Web design companies formed specifically to provide design and technical services.  Some of whom crashed and burned spectacularly at the end of the dot com boom.  (2-3 figures)

6. Web design wannabes who really don't have good design skills but wwho can put a site together very cheaply.  (who knows)

Bob