Things still aren’t looking good out there…

The number of practices expecting workload to decrease rose again by 3% (28% predicting a decrease in July, compared to 25% in June). There continues to be little evidence of a recovery in employment prospects for salaried architects, with 16% of architects expecting a decrease in staff numbers; a one per cent rise on the 15% figure in May and June. 27% of respondents also stated that they were personally underemployed in July (25% in June, compared to 29% in May).

The survey also revealed that practices continued to be markedly less optimistic about forecasted workload predictions across every sector, encompassing public, commercial and private housing. 42% of practices expected a further decrease in future public sector workload; this is compared with just 38% in June and just 25% in May. The number of firms expecting commercial sector work to decrease remained constant at 19%, which was a 6% increase on May’s forecast of 13%. Last month, private housing was the only sector to fare better, however the number of firms expecting more work stayed constant at 26%, compared to 22% in May); the numbers expecting work to decrease also rose by 2% (14% in July, compared to 12% in June).

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