Last month, our friends at the Association of Consulting Architects circulated their latest “Pulse Check” No 6 survey, which we shared and encouraged you all to participate in. These surveys provide us all with invaluable insight into the profession. Thanks to ACA’s unwavering collegiate attitude within the industry, the results of these surveys assist the architecture profession as a whole.
With over 350 practices responding, representing more than 7,000 staff. More than half the respondents were small practices, with 1–5 people - that’s a lot of ArchiTeam members. Some of the key findings that have jumped out to us include:
- an increase in practices working in all types of housing. ‘slightly fewer practices involved in aged care and retail now as compared to before the pandemic’. ‘hospitality has reversed the trend identified in previous pulse checks’ and ‘slightly more practices involved than before the pandemic are cultural projects, heritage and conservation, community and health’.
- ‘New staff have been employed by 60% of the responding practices – accounting for new jobs for 960 people – while only 14% have had to let people go.’
- ‘Flexible and hybrid working is now the norm for many practices.’ ‘Overall, two-thirds of responding practices (69%) anticipate operating with flexible or hybrid working models in the long term’
- ‘The outlook on wellbeing is not as positive as it was in the previous Pulse Check. Comments in this section and elsewhere point to exhaustion, fatigue and ongoing uncertainty, as well as the correlation between levels of work and wellbeing.’
- ‘The pipeline of work also continues to improve’. With ‘most responding practices are busy. Over three quarters are either very busy (44%) or moderately busy (33%) – and only 4.8% describe their situation as ‘very quiet’.’
To access the preliminary findings, visit ACA here