Grant for Hiring an Interior Designer in Singapore: CCP 2026

In short: Yes. The grant for hiring an interior designer in Singapore is the Career Conversion Programme (CCP). Per the SWDA factsheet, it pays up to 70% or 90% of a new hire's salary while they train. It works when the basic salary is at least S$3,000 (our threshold; some partners ask S$3,500) and approval lands within 3 months of the start date. On the government's own list, 12 of 829 company-specific CCP listings are held by interior-design firms or name an interior designer role.

Key takeaways

• There is no live interior or furniture sector CCP. The government's scheme list shows the last one, for furniture and industrial designers, ran from 2017 to 2019 (MyCareersFuture scheme list, read 5 October 2026).
• Even so, in our count of that list on 5 October 2026, 12 company-specific CCP listings are held by interior-design or renovation firms, or name an interior designer role. Seven name an interior designer role.
• In the same day's 100 newest interior-designer job ads on MyCareersFuture, 24 offered a minimum under S$3,000. That is the group this grant usually cannot help.
• Commission does not lift you over the line. We count the basic monthly salary only, before allowances and CPF.

Is there a grant for hiring an interior designer in Singapore?

Yes, but not under a programme with "interior design" in its name. The grant is the Career Conversion Programme, run by the Skills and Workforce Development Agency (SWDA). Under its Place-and-Train mode, as the SWDA factsheet puts it, a company hires a jobseeker and puts that person through on-the-job training (OJT) for a new growth role. The government pays part of the salary for the training period.

The catch for this trade is that it is a conversion grant. It funds someone moving into interior design, project management or design sales from another line of work. It is not a general subsidy for hiring an experienced designer from the firm down the road. If your candidate has done this exact job for years, read our note on what counts as a growth job role before you count on it.

It also funds new hires only. If the person is already on your payroll, this route is closed. That is a different scheme, and not one we file.

What is the salary support worth on an interior-design salary?

The rates are set nationally. The SWDA factsheet pays up to 70% of monthly salary, capped at $5,000 a month, for a Citizen or PR under 40. The rate rises to up to 90%, capped at $7,500, for a hire aged 40 or above or long-term unemployed. Our note on the grant for hiring older workers covers that higher band.

Basic monthly salary	Up to 70% (under 40)	Up to 90% (40+ or long-term unemployed)
S$3,000	S$2,100 a month	S$2,700 a month
S$3,500	S$2,450 a month	S$3,150 a month
S$4,500	S$3,150 a month	S$4,050 a month

Our arithmetic on the rates in the SWDA factsheet. Not a quotation. "Up to" means the approved rate can be lower.

The table is per month of training. The number of months is set by the programme your application goes under, and the company-specific listings we counted do not publish theirs. So budget per month, and ask for the duration in writing before you plan around a total. Our guide to how CCP salary support is calculated walks through the full sum.

Which roles do 12 interior-design CCP listings name?

We wanted to know whether this trade actually gets approved, or only reads about the grant. So on 5 October 2026 we pulled the full government list of CCP schemes from MyCareersFuture. It held 1,153 entries.

Of those, 829 were company-specific: one named employer, one application number, one set of roles. So 12 of 829 belonged to an interior-design or renovation firm, or named an interior designer role. All 12 were still live, with expiry dates between June and December 2027.

Role named in the listing	Listings that name it (of 12)
Interior designer (incl. senior)	7
Sales or business development (manager, executive, project sales)	7
Project manager	5
Operations, marketing or CAD specialist	5

Source: our count of the MyCareersFuture CCP scheme list, 5 October 2026. Eight listings name more than one role, so the column adds up to more than 12. Firm names and application numbers are left out.

Two readings matter for an owner.

First, approvals in this trade are not only for designers. Sales and project roles show up just as often.

Second, only one of the 12 names an assistant-level role, a sales assistant. Most of the listed roles are executive or manager level.

What the list cannot tell you: how many people each firm hired, what it pays them, or which partner approved the listing. MyCareersFuture does not publish that.

What basic salary must the offer clear: S$3,000 or S$3,500?

SWDA itself sets no salary figure. Its FAQ asks for a full-time contract, permanent or at least one year, with pay "commensurate with the market rate". The figures come from two other places.

• Our line, S$3,000 basic. Our eligibility check asks whether the basic monthly salary, before allowances and CPF, is S$3,000 or above. It is our practice threshold, not SWDA's.
• A partner's line, S$3,500 fixed. SBF, one of the partners for CCP for SME Professionals, sets its line higher: $3,500 a month, and it must be fixed pay. SBF's page notes the floor was lowered to $3,000 only for applications approved until 30 June 2026. That window has closed.

Now set those lines against what the trade advertises. In the 100 newest interior-designer ads on MyCareersFuture on 5 October 2026:

Advertised minimum monthly pay	Ads (of 100)
Below S$3,000	24
S$3,000 to S$3,499	31
S$3,500 or more	45

Source: our read of the 100 newest MyCareersFuture "interior designer" ads, 5 October 2026. Half the ads started at S$3,000 or less, and half topped out at S$5,000 or less. Ads show asking pay, not signed contracts.

So roughly a quarter of the market is under our S$3,000 line. Another third clears it but would miss SBF's S$3,500 floor. If your offer sits in that middle band, the route matters as much as the role.

Does commission count towards the salary line?

Many interior-design jobs are paid partly in commission, and the ads say so in their own words.

One reads "Salary: $3000 (Basic) + Commission". Another describes "a dynamic, commission-based sales role". A third offers "Basic Salary + Incentive + VB".

For the grant, only the fixed part of that package matters. Our eligibility check counts the basic monthly salary before allowances and CPF. SBF's criterion is a fixed monthly salary. A designer on S$2,400 basic who usually earns S$4,500 with commission is a S$2,400 hire for this purpose.

We would not try to argue round that. If the role really is worth our S$3,000 line or more, write it into the basic and keep commission on top. If the business can only carry a low basic, this grant is the wrong tool, and it is better to hear that before you pay anyone.

Which CCP route fits an interior-design hire? Our call

There are three ways to look at it. Only one is a dead end.

1. A sector CCP for interior design. There isn't one live. The government list shows "CCP for Furniture & Industrial Designers" ran from March 2017 to February 2019 (MyCareersFuture scheme list). You may read elsewhere that interior-design approvals sit under a furniture programme. We could not find a live one.
2. CCP for SME Professionals. The programme factsheet lists four role areas. They are leadership and management; sales, marketing and business development; project management; and operations and administration. That fits a sales manager or project manager in an ID firm well. A pure design role is not on the list, and we would not assume it fits. SBF defines an SME as up to 200 staff or up to S$100 million turnover. Our CCP for SME Professionals guide has the detail.
3. A company-specific listing. This is what the 12 listings in our count are, and it is how designer roles appear. Which partner sits behind each listing is not published. Settle it with whoever files for you before the offer letter, not after.

Our call: for a sales manager or project manager, plan around SME Professionals and SBF's S$3,500 fixed-salary line. For an interior designer, treat the route as a question to settle first, because the published SME role areas don't cover design.

Can a freelance designer become a full-time CCP hire?

Many ID firms already work with freelance designers or commission-only salespeople. The natural move is to put the good ones on the payroll. Whether that counts as a "new hire" for the grant is not answered in writing. SWDA publishes no rule on freelancers.

What its FAQ does publish are four exclusions. The person cannot be a shareholder, related to the people deciding on the application, immediate ex-staff, or related to the owners.

On a plain reading, a freelancer is none of those. Whether a long freelance history with your firm is treated like ex-staff is a judgement we would not guess. We cover the exclusions in the four CCP exclusions. If this is your situation, raise it in the eligibility check before you change anyone's contract.

When is this grant the wrong plan for your firm?

For some firms the honest answer is no, and it is cheaper to hear it before the offer letter than after three months of salary.

• The basic salary is under S$3,000 (the line in our eligibility check), and the role can't carry more.
• The package is mostly commission, with a low fixed base.
• The person has done the same job before and is not converting from another field.
• The person is a shareholder, an owner's relative or immediate ex-staff (SWDA FAQ).
• The hire is not a Singapore Citizen or PR.
• They started work some time ago and approval can't land within 3 months of that date.

What to settle before the offer letter goes out

Timing is the rule that is easiest to miss. SWDA's FAQ says the application must be approved within 3 months of the start date of employment. SBF says it needs about 6 weeks to review and rejects files with less than 4 weeks left for approval. More on that in our piece on the 3-month CCP approval deadline.

1. Fix the basic salary. Put at least S$3,000 in the basic (our line), or S$3,500 if the route is SME Professionals (SBF). Keep commission on top, not instead.
2. Name the role you are converting into. Designer, project manager or sales manager. Then check it against the route above.
3. Check the person. Citizen or PR, coming from a different line of work, and not caught by the four exclusions.
4. Decide the order. Our eligibility page recommends getting the approval letter first. That page puts approval at 12 to 15 weeks, keeps the letter valid for 6 months, and starts support only once it is issued.
5. Plan the training. The OJT plan has to stand up on its own. See how to write the OJT training plan.
6. Budget the fee. Our pricing page sets out two options. Option A is SGD 4,500 plus a 1.5% success fee capped at SGD 360. Option B is a SGD 100 consultation, then SGD 2,250 to proceed and SGD 2,250 on approval. If the SGD 2,250 step is a strain, the salary line usually is too.

Our list of why CCP applications get rejected covers the other ways an application fails.

Check the role before you sign

Before the offer letter goes out, run the one-minute eligibility check on the role and the person. It asks the salary, citizenship and start-date questions above.

If it clears, the published payment options unlock and we file. If it doesn't, you'll know before anyone's salary depends on a grant. Questions? Email us. For the wider picture, start with our CCP grant guide for employers.

Frequently asked questions

How much do interior designers earn in Singapore?

Going by ads, not payslips: in the 100 newest interior-designer ads on MyCareersFuture on 5 October 2026, half started at S$3,000 a month or less and half topped out at S$5,000 or less. A quarter started below S$3,000. Some ads add commission on top of the basic, and commission does not count towards the grant's salary line.

Can a junior interior designer qualify for the grant?

Seniority isn't the test, but pay and change of career are. A junior hire can qualify if the basic salary clears our S$3,000 line, the person is moving into design from another field, and approval lands within 3 months of the start date. A junior role advertised under S$3,000 basic usually fails on pay before anything else.

What other hiring grants could an interior-design firm use?

CCP is the one that pays part of salary during training. For a side-by-side view of the other schemes for hiring Singaporeans in 2026, see our guide to the government grant for hiring a Singaporean. Each has its own conditions, so check the one that fits your hire before the offer letter.

Method

On 5 October 2026 we fetched the full CCP scheme list from the MyCareersFuture API once, with a named user agent, and saved the raw file with its checksum. The frame was every company-specific entry: those naming a firm and an application number (829 of 1,153). An entry was in scope if the firm name contained an interior, renovation, carpentry, fit-out or décor word, or the role text named an interior designer. That rule was written into the collection script before roles were coded.

We coded each in-scope entry's roles by hand, and all 12 were read twice. Pay comes from the 100 newest "interior designer" ads on MyCareersFuture the same day, using each ad's advertised minimum.

Limits

A listing shows an approved company-specific CCP. It does not show how many people were hired, their pay, or the approving partner. Our name-based rule misses ID firms whose names lack an interior word, so 12 is a floor, not a total. Ads show asking pay, not contracts, and both readings are one day's snapshot.

This dataset comes from our MyCareersFuture read. We may reuse it, with a note saying so, in related articles.

Cite this

Interior-design CCP listings and interior-designer pay: a census of MyCareersFuture, CCP Consulting, collected 5 October 2026, dataset version 1 (829 listings, 12 in scope; 100 ads). Dataset: anonymised CSV.