Anas Houssein on why juniors will arrive with more to teach the people hiring them

It’s a tough time for people starting out in the creative industry right now. Together with Creative Lives in Progress we asked 28 people to predict what starting a creative career will look like over the next three years.

Words: It's Nice That
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Date: 9 November 2026
Tags: Career Predictions

Starting a creative career has rarely felt harder. Junior roles are disappearing, budgets are tightening and AI is taking over much of the work that new starters once learned on. So we asked studio founders, recruiters, educators, organisations and emerging creatives themselves to predict what they think starting a creative career will look like over the next three years. What skills will matter most? How will the pipeline work? And what can people do to take advantage of new opportunities? Their answers will help shape how Creative Lives in Progress can best support emerging talent through this period and beyond.

Contributor specific paragraph.

Anas Houssein, Designer at the chase

Over the next three years, I think junior creatives will arrive in studios with more to offer, and more to teach the people hiring them.

I’ve mentored interns whose ideas were picked by clients, who pushed themselves into new areas of design, and who still haven’t found full-time jobs. My former tutor recently told me some of his strongest graduates are still interning more than a year after graduating. It’s difficult to tell people to work harder when they’re already doing so much.

But I’m excited by what this generation could bring. As a graphic designer, I taught myself animation, UX and creative coding because I wanted more ways to bring ideas to life. I expect that movement between disciplines to become much more common. With AI making it easier to experiment, a junior could arrive with an idea, a working prototype and a tool they’ve built to take it further.

“So what do you do when you can’t find soil to take root in? You build the foundation yourself.”
Anas Houssein, Designer at the chase

The challenge will be developing the judgement to use those possibilities well. A beautiful visual still needs to communicate something. Knowing what to make, why it matters and when it isn’t working will become more valuable as more people gain the ability to produce it.

I’m less worried about young creatives adapting to new tools than experienced creatives assuming they don’t need to. Years in the industry bring judgement and craft. They can also make familiar approaches feel like the only approaches. Someone starting out might question an assumption the rest of the room has stopped noticing. There’s value in that, even before they’ve mastered the job.

My prediction is that the strongest studios will build this exchange into junior roles: experienced creatives sharing their judgement, and emerging creatives helping teams explore unfamiliar tools, references and ways of thinking. Learning will happen in both directions.

For that to happen, studios have to see junior hires as an investment in how the whole team develops. If we wait for people to be fully formed before giving them a job, where are they supposed to learn?

I’m optimistic about what young creatives can do next. I want the industry to be curious enough to find out.

This series has been put together in collaboration with It's Nice That's sister company Creative Lives in Progress; a creative careers resource, on a mission to transform the way emerging talent access, understand and connect with the industry. Find out more at creativelivesinprogress.com