PathLensSOUTH AFRICA · CLEARER PATHS. BRIGHTER OPTIONS.

Fashion Designer

OFO Code: 216301

Last checked 7 October 2026

PATHLENS

1. Occupation identity

OFO code
216301
Occupation
Fashion Designer
Classification
OFO 2021
Major group
PROFESSIONALS
Unit group
2163 · Product and Garment Designers

Official description
Product and garment designers design and develop products for manufacture and prepare designs and specifications of products for mass, batch and one-off production.

More official OFO detail

Specialisations: Clothing Designer, Costume Designer, Dress Designer, Knitwear Designer, Leisurewear Designer, Bag and Accessories Designer

  • Negotiating design solutions with clients, management, and sales and manufacturing staff
  • Determining the objectives and constraints of the design brief by consulting with clients and stakeholders
  • Selecting, specifying and recommending functional and aesthetic materials, production methods and finishes for manufacture
  • Harmonizing aesthetic considerations with technical, functional, ecological and production requirements
  • Supervising the preparation of patterns, programs and tooling, and the manufacturing process
  • Preparing sketches, diagrams, illustrations, plans, samples and models to communicate design concepts
  • Detailing and documenting the selected design for production
  • Preparing and commissioning prototypes and samples
  • Formulating design concepts for clothing, textiles, industrial, commercial and consumer products, and jewellery

2. Demand status

Demand evidence unavailable

No approved governed OIHD graph relationship is available on this deployment for this OFO code.

PathLens does not fall back to legacy specimen demand flags when governed evidence is unavailable.

A national demand signal is not a promise of a vacancy in your town.

3. Salary evidence

No approved governed salary observation or sourced snapshot salary record is available for this OFO code yet.

Open remuneration history & calculator →

4. Quick EE check

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5. Qualification

Qualification evidence pending.

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6. Study funding

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A funding match will only be shown once a recognised qualification or study route has been identified.

7. Industry, sector and provincial context

National occupation classification. Industry and provincial context are shown only where a separate official source supports the link.

No source-backed modern OFO↔SIC 7 industry link has been ingested for this occupation yet. PathLens does not infer one from the job title.

Browse the official South African industry classification →

8. Next steps — official links

9. Decision tools

10. Sources for this page

  • DHET Organising Framework for Occupations (OFO 2021) · Ingested · identity spine active
    Canonical OFO identity data has been ingested and validated. 1511 occupation records are recorded in the ingest artifact.
  • DHET Occupations in High Demand · Validated pipeline · graph publication not confirmed
    The governed OIHD pipeline is active, but a successful populated graph run is not currently confirmed on this deployment.
  • Critical Skills List · Monitored · occupation linkage pending
    Official migration sources are monitored, but PathLens does not infer visa eligibility or occupation-level eligibility from monitoring alone.
  • QCTO qualifications and occupational certificates · Candidate staging ready · not published
    Qualification staging and human review are implemented; no qualification↔OFO relationship is published without an explicit source identifier or governed human review.
  • Stats SA Quarterly Labour Force Survey · Acquisition active · no approved evidence on this deployment
    Official QLFS artifact discovery is active. Dataset-specific schema, weighting, reliability and review gates remain separate; a discovered artifact or executable estimator does not itself create a public claim.
  • SETA Sector Skills Plans / hard-to-fill vacancy tables · Partial · explicit source links only
    PathLens preserves explicit source-backed SETA/activity links where present and does not infer modern SIC relationships from occupation titles.
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