The latest RIBA Future Trends Survey certainly makes more pleasant reading than the majority of last year which had been stagnated by torturous Brexit negotiations. Whether you were Remain or Leave, the thing that was having the greatest impact on potential projects was the indecision. Now, this has finally been cleared, there has been a noticeable increase in optimism within the majority of our clients which has been validated by today's report. The future workload figure has leapt by 19 points from -2 to 17, a figure not seen since June 2018.
This, however, hasn't turned on the taps to a flood of new jobs just yet. The start of 2020 has though been full of very positive conversations about planning for expansion over the next few months as projects are confirmed. Encouragingly we are also starting to hear about more senior strategic roles which have been put on hold for so long.
The biggest increases in recruitment activity we have found to be within the smaller studios who are predominantly working on private residential projects. These clients tend to have a faster decision-making process and the impact of a more stable government has delivered a quick response. For Part 2s especially, this has been a great improvement. Some of our larger clients, however, have struggled recently and have been hanging onto staff as long as possible, in the expectation of a turnaround. Due to the scale of some of their impending projects, the decision to proceed is taking far longer than hoped and some redundancies are occurring. Hopefully, this is just a short term blip and these practices will be rehiring again soon.
Other sectors that are busy are hospitality and commercial which should continue throughout 2020. From an employers point of view, if you are considering recruiting, there are a good number of people looking for new roles after putting their search on hold during 2019. At the senior end of the market especially, there are some incredibly talented Architects available who would usually have been snapped up but due to the political uncertainty, were often ignored last year. If however, you are looking for Project Architects with strong Revit and technical skills, you may find yourself in a bidding war. Since the referendum result, there has been a notable number of EU architects leaving the UK which is starting to create a skills shortage. This level also coincides with the people who left the industry during the last recession and therefore the impact is now far greater.
If you would like to discuss any of the above further, do give us a call on the details below:
+44 (0)20 8004 0369
info@9bcareers.com
www.9bcareers.com