All subjects

Technology

Design & Technology

UNITS

What this subject builds

Design and Technology takes a real brief through to a working, made prototype.

Creativity & making

Turning a brief into a designed, made solution.

Independent research

A major project managed end-to-end across the year.

Writing & expression

Documenting and justifying your design decisions.

Full skill profile

Writing & expression

Argument & persuasion

Analytical reasoning

Numeracy & modelling

Practical & lab craft

Independent research

Creativity & making

Detail & recall

Filled dots = how strongly this subject develops each quality. What do these mean?

Effort & difficulty

INTENSITY

High

TYPICAL LOAD

4–6 hrs/wk

A big Major Design Project drives the year — practical, and time-hungry late on.

Where students struggle

Project management and folio documentation, not just the making.

Who it suits

Tends to thrive

Makers who like designing, building and iterating.

May find it a grind

Students who struggle to self-manage a long open-ended project.

How it scales

Scaled mean (per unit)

23.1 / 50

3-YEAR STABILITY

Very stable

Scaled mean by year: 2023 22.8 +0.1 2024 22.9 +0.2 2025 23.1

This is the spread of scaled marks across everyone who took the subject — not how hard it is. A high mean usually means a strong cohort sat it. The figures are from UAC’s latest scaling report (2025), with the year-by-year trend above.

4,274

sat it in 2025

47.2%

female

99.9

highest ATAR

Mark explorer

Where might my mark scale to?

Set the HSC mark you’re aiming for. We’ll show a band of where that tends to scale — never a single number, never a prediction.

Expected HSC mark 85 / 100

4070100

Your course mark, out of 100 — a 2-unit course.

A mark in the high 80s tends to scale to roughly

29–33 per unit / 50

Scaled marks are measured per unit, out of 50 — the standard UAC scale. There’s no exact conversion, so this is a zone, not a pinpoint.

There’s no exact HSC-to-scaled conversion. Scaling depends on how the whole cohort performs each year, so treat this as a feel for the range — not a calculator.

Common questions

How does HSC Design & Technology scale?

In the UAC Preliminary Report on the Scaling of the 2025 NSW HSC, Design & Technology had a scaled mean of 23.1 out of 50 per unit, and its scaled mean has been very stable over recent years. Scaling reflects how academically strong the cohort is — not how hard the subject is — and there is no exact HSC-to-scaled conversion, so it's best read as a range, never a single number.

How hard is HSC Design & Technology, and how much work is it?

Design & Technology is high effort — typically 4–6 hrs/wk. A big Major Design Project drives the year — practical, and time-hungry late on. Where students most often struggle: Project management and folio documentation, not just the making.

What does HSC Design & Technology build?

Design and Technology takes a real brief through to a working, made prototype. It especially develops creativity & making, independent research, and writing & expression.

Who should take HSC Design & Technology?

Makers who like designing, building and iterating. It may be more of a grind for students who struggle to self-manage a long open-ended project.

Where’s this data from?

Scaling figures are from the UAC Preliminary Report on the Scaling of the 2025 NSW HSC (Tables A1, A3). Scaled marks are out of 50 per unit.

There is no exact HSC-to-scaled conversion — for any one HSC mark there is a range of scaled marks, which is why we only ever show a band.

The skills, effort and “who it suits” notes are Intuition Education’s editorial guidance, not UAC data.

Why we don’t do an ATAR calculator →