The new edition of Construction Futures shows that architects’ workloads have continued their rebound this quarter, rising dramatically.
There is considerably more work at both the early design (New Commissions) stage and the post-planning (Production Drawings) stage.
New Commissions are higher by 19 per cent in constant prices, while Production Drawings are up by even more: 33 per cent. Architects are gearing up to get these jobs on site.
The common theme emerging this quarter is that the growth is coming more from clients re-purposing existing building stock than from new build.
Aziz Mirza, who compiles Construction Futures, said: “As is so often the case, much of this quarter’s rise is down to the private housing sector. We are seeing architects gaining many more house extension and conversion projects than in 2018 or 2019. But it’s not just housing that is growing, the largest rise this quarter is in office new work. This sector is dramatically higher on the back of more refurbishment work – re-fits, improvements and the like.”
The recovery looks to be underway and established in the key sectors. Architects are feeling more confident, now 44 per cent expect workloads to continue to rise. The architects’ prediction ‘balance’ figure is at its highest level since 2017, clear evidence of future confidence.
An unexpected consequence of rising workloads in the last quarter has been the emergence of material shortages, exacerbated by rising prices of raw materials. That inflationary and supply effect will dampen the industry’s ability to complete jobs on site and start new ones, so we appear to be heading for a significant backlog of jobs currently in the pipeline.
