Product design titles are rarer in Hired Creative's MENA LinkedIn feed
In LinkedIn listings found with one shared keyword list, the MENA feed has 15.5% product, UX and UI titles against 22.1% in the Asia feed, and 26.8% graphic titles against 18.4%.
Hired Creative collects four LinkedIn feeds with the same search-keyword list. In the feed for the Gulf, Levant and Egypt (the MENA feed), product, UX and UI titles are 15.5% of 1,421 creative-discipline titles. In the Asia feed they are 22.1% (n=2,244) and in the Latin America feed 27.3% (n=900). Graphic and visual titles are 26.8% of the MENA feed, 18.4% of the Asia feed and 17.4% of the Latin America feed. The Africa feed (n=888; 18.9% product, 25.1% graphic) cannot be told apart from the MENA feed on either measure.
Key points
- Product, UX and UI titles are 15.5% of creative titles in the MENA LinkedIn feed (n=1,421), against 22.1% in the Asia feed (n=2,244).
- Graphic and visual titles are the reverse: 26.8% against 18.4% in Asia. The Africa feed (n=888) cannot be told apart from the MENA feed on either measure.
- Content, social and video titles are about a third of creative titles in the MENA, Africa and Asia feeds alike (34.6%, 33.2%, 33.4%).
- This covers LinkedIn listings found by one keyword list, first seen 2026-06-11 to 2026-10-08. It is not a statement about hiring, demand or the wider MENA market.
What the data covers
The data is a snapshot of the Hired Creative listings export of 2026-10-08 (20,857 listings), with listings first seen between 2026-06-11 and 2026-10-08. It describes LinkedIn postings found by one keyword list. It does not describe hiring, demand or the wider MENA market.
A gap between two regions in Hired Creative's listings can come from which boards are read in each region. Of the 2,440 listings with region MENA, 79% come from LinkedIn feeds that have a documented keyword list. Outside LinkedIn, MENA has too few listings per source to compare, so source can be held fixed only inside LinkedIn.
This piece therefore compares four LinkedIn feeds (6,983 listings) collected with one 26-keyword list:
- MENA feed: UAE, Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Jordan, Qatar, Lebanon, Kuwait and Oman. About half of its rows are from the UAE.
- Africa feed: includes North Africa.
- Asia feed.
- Latin America feed: an English-keyword search of a Spanish and Portuguese market. Some of its titles are not in English, and the rest lean to employers who post in English. The Asia feed is the main comparator.
The list has three product keywords (ux designer, ui designer, ux researcher) and no "product designer" keyword, so the product share is the share of titles this list surfaced.
Product and graphic titles
Product, UX and UI titles are a smaller share of the MENA feed than of the Asia and Latin America feeds. The 95% interval for MENA (13.2 to 18.0) does not overlap Asia (20.1 to 24.1) or Latin America (23.7 to 31.0). It does overlap Africa (15.7 to 22.7).
Show the numbers
| Feed | % | Listings (n) |
|---|---|---|
| MENA | 15.5% | 1,421 |
| Africa | 18.9% | 888 |
| Asia | 22.1% | 2,244 |
| Latin America | 27.3% | 900 |
Source: Hired Creative listings export, 2026-10-08 (four LinkedIn feeds sharing one keyword list, n=6,983 listings). n is creative-discipline titles in the feed. Latin America is an English-keyword search of a Spanish and Portuguese market.
Against the other three feeds pooled, the MENA share is 7.1 points lower (interval 4.1 to 10.0 points lower). Africa is in that pool and is not distinguishable from MENA, so the pooled figure is carried by Asia and Latin America.
Graphic and visual titles run the other way.
Show the numbers
| Feed | % | Listings (n) |
|---|---|---|
| Latin America | 17.4% | 900 |
| Asia | 18.4% | 2,244 |
| Africa | 25.1% | 888 |
| MENA | 26.8% | 1,421 |
Source: Hired Creative listings export, 2026-10-08 (four LinkedIn feeds sharing one keyword list, n=6,983 listings). n is creative-discipline titles in the feed.
The MENA interval (24.3 to 29.5) does not overlap Asia (16.7 to 20.0) or Latin America (14.8 to 20.3). It does overlap Africa (22.1 to 28.3). Against the pooled other three feeds the MENA share is 7.2 points higher (interval 4.3 to 10.0 points higher), with the same Africa caveat. Within the MENA feed, graphic and visual titles (26.8%) and content, social and comms titles (24.1%, interval 21.8 to 26.4) are a tie, not a ranking.
Three variations keep the MENA feed below Asia and Latin America on product titles and above them on graphic titles. The full order of the feeds is not the same in every variation.
- Titles that say only "Designer" removed from the denominator. Product: 16.5% (MENA), 20.0% (Africa), 23.3% (Asia), 31.5% (Latin America). Graphic: 28.5%, 26.5%, 19.3%, 20.1%.
- Every row in the feed as the denominator. Product: 12.0%, 14.9%, 17.7%, 20.1%. Graphic: 20.8%, 19.8%, 14.7%, 12.8%.
- The same feeds grouped by each listing's region field instead of by feed. MENA: product 16.1%, graphic 26.1%.
What does not differ
Content, social, comms and video titles together are about a third of creative-discipline titles in three feeds: 34.6% in MENA, 33.2% in Africa and 33.4% in Asia. Latin America is lower at 25.4%. The MENA share is 3.0 points above the pooled other three, and the interval (0.2 below to 6.4 above) includes zero. A row-level permutation test that ignores company clustering gives p=0.0414, borderline on that crude test and null on the clustered interval.
The region field alone would suggest otherwise. Across all sources, the 2,440 listings with region MENA show 24.8% content, social and comms plus 10.4% video, 35.2% together. Once the search list is held fixed, the Africa and Asia feeds show the same level.
Video titles alone are 10.5% of the MENA feed and 9.8% of the Asia feed, against 7.4% in the Africa feed and 5.2% in the Latin America feed. This is not a finding about MENA. A title that names two disciplines goes to the class whose rule runs first, and the video rule runs before the product and graphic rules, so "Graphic Designer / Video Editor" counts as video.
Titles naming brand, branding or identity are about 3% of creative-discipline titles in each feed: 2.9% (MENA), 3.4% (Africa), 3.7% (Asia) and 3.4% (Latin America). The MENA share is 0.7 points below the pooled other three, and the interval (1.7 below to 0.4 above) includes zero. Only illustration and photography titles are smaller (0.6% to 2.3%). These are titles, not branding work: some brand work may be advertised as graphic design.
Method
Data: the Hired Creative listings export dated 2026-10-08, 20,857 listings, one row per listing, each with a title, company, location, region field and source feed. Every listing is kept in the aggregates.
Feeds: the four LinkedIn feeds were collected with one shared English keyword list of 26 keywords, taking two result pages per keyword and location. The feeds search different sets of locations. The smallest feed has 888 creative-discipline titles.
Classification: each title is lower-cased and tested against an ordered list of keyword rules. The first rule that matches decides the class, and a title that matches none is unclassified. Engineering and developer titles are tech unless they also say design, designer, art director, creative director, content, writer or social. The order after that is creative direction, physical design (interiors, fashion, industrial and similar), motion, animation and 3D, video, product, UX and UI, marketing and brand management, brand identity, illustration and photography, graphic and visual, content, social and comms, and generic "designer".
- Product, UX and UI matches ux, ui, user experience, user interface, product design, interaction design, design system, service designer, app designer, web designer and similar terms.
- Graphic and visual matches graphic, visual, layout, print, presentation, multimedia, packaging, logo, 2D, creative designer and digital designer.
- Video matches video, videographer, cinematographer, montage and film.
- Brand identity matches brand, branding and identity, except in titles that say manager or strategist (those are marketing).
Share = titles in a class divided by the titles in the nine creative disciplines in that feed or group. Tech, marketing and brand management, physical design and unclassified titles are outside that denominator, except in the variation that uses every row.
Intervals: 95% bootstrap intervals that resample companies, not rows, with 2,000 resamples. Differences between the MENA feed and the pooled other three feeds use the same bootstrap. A permutation test (row-level shuffle of feed labels, 5,000 shuffles) was run once, on the combined content, social, comms and video share. Nine disciplines were compared with no correction for multiple comparisons.
Hand check: 182 titles from the six documented LinkedIn feeds, 14 per assigned class, were read by hand. The hand label matched the classifier on 166 (91%). Product, UX and UI and graphic and visual were each 14 of 14. The sample measures precision, not recall.
Countries with fewer than 30 listings, and any whose separate reporting could identify a sensitive location, are pooled.
Limits
- Source. Only LinkedIn can be compared like for like. The finding is about LinkedIn postings found by one 26-keyword list, not about the MENA hiring market or other job boards.
- Query effect. The list asks for specific titles, two pages per keyword and location. A discipline with many openings is cut off at the page limit, and one with few is not, so shares are partly set by the cap. The feeds share the list but not the locations searched or the market size, and the data do not show how many searches hit the cap. The comparison is fair on the list, not on the cap. The list does not map onto the results mechanically: of its 18 creative keywords, 39% are content, social or comms terms and one is graphic, yet the MENA feed returns 24.1% content and 26.8% graphic. That does not rule the cap out.
- Classifier. Titles are classified by keyword rules, not by reading job descriptions. Hand-read precision is lowest for illustration and photography (10 of 14) and brand identity (11 of 14). The labels were made by the author of the rules, and recall was not measured.
- Samples. Feeds of 888 to 2,244 creative-discipline titles give intervals of roughly 2 to 4 points either side of a share. Intervals resample companies, so repeated listings from one employer are not counted as independent. The permutation test ignores company clustering.
- Time and meaning. Listings accumulated as a stock between 2026-06-11 and 2026-10-08, so no trend is supported. A listing is not a hire or an application, and a title mix is not a finding about salary, skill, seniority, demand or the number of people available.
- What a critic would say. The gap may reflect what the keyword list and the page limit return, not what employers post. This piece does not rule that out.
Sources
Hired Creative listings export, 2026-10-08 (20,857 listings). No outside source is used.