Other specialized design services
This industry comprises establishments, not classified to any other industry, primarily engaged in providing professional design services. — Statistics Canada, NAICS 2022A
- Establishments · CanadaA
- 469
- Under 10 employeesA
- 95%
- Establishments · USA
- 3,407
- Employment · USA
- 11,914
- Payroll · USA
- $862M
Size and shape
How many businesses there are and how small they are. Fragmentation is the first thing an entrant — or anyone selling software into this industry — needs to know, and it is one of the few things that is actually measured.
Canadian establishments by number of employeesA
Of 469 Canadian establishments with employees, 95% have fewer than ten — an industry of very small operators.
Where they areA
Largest four provinces by establishment count. Establishments with employees only — sole operators with no payroll are not in this table, so in trades and personal services the true number of businesses is higher.
Measured, not forecast: the share of US establishments opening in one year that were still active later. It counts good operators and bad ones together, which is exactly why it is the honest answer to “what are the odds”. It is for the whole sector rather than this market, and the ten-year figure comes from an older cohort because no younger one has reached ten years.
How businesses here compete
The structural profile of subsector 541, which every industry beneath it inherits. This is analyst judgment from how the subsector is organised — not research into this industry, and not a measurement.
Professional licensing is the barrier and the principal's time is the ceiling. Firms are built from a book of clients, and an aging partner group makes acquisition and succession the common entry.
- Who sets the price
- The firm, by reputation, against hourly-rate comparison.
- The software it runs on
- Practice management, time and billing, and a specialist tool per profession — the densest vertical-software territory in the economy.
Market screens and studies
Market-entry records filed along this branch of the hierarchy. A record at or beneath this code is about this industry; one above it is about something wider that contains it.
Screened one level up. Nothing is filed at this exact code; the screen for 5414 Specialized design services covers it.
Software serving this industry
The vertical software markets filed along the same branch — who sells to these businesses and who they would have to displace — and then the generic categories every business buys whatever it does.
Sold across the wider branch
And what every business buys · 25 generic categories
Sold to every industry rather than this one, so they are filed against the software industry's own code. The same few vendors recur across most of them.
Who works here
The occupations employed in Professional, scientific and technical services, most concentrated in it first. The share is measured against the whole sector, not this industry — the published cross-tabulation stops there.
Concentrated in this sectorA
These jobs are mostly done here. An operator in this industry is competing for them against others in the same industry, not against the whole economy.
And the jobs every business has
Found across at least fourteen of the twenty sectors. But note the shape of this industry: 95% of establishments have fewer than ten employees, and at that size most of these roles are one person wearing several hats, or bought in from outside.
Inside this industry
1 row sits directly beneath 54149. Each has a base report of its own.
| Code | Industry | Establishments · CA | What is known |
|---|---|---|---|
| 541490 | Other specialized design services | 469 | screened at 5414 |
Alongside it, under 5414 Specialized design services
| Code | Industry | Establishments · CA | What is known |
|---|---|---|---|
| 54141 | Interior design services | 2,274 | screened at 5414 |
| 54142 | Industrial design services | 460 | screened at 5414 |
| 54143 | Graphic design services | 1,924 | screened at 5414 |