After a particularly busy start to 2017 when firms were playing catch up after the hiatus of the referendum, the last month has witnessed a slight slowdown in central London. Although it’s been a turbulent year for politics, thankfully overall the labour market has held up particularly well and there is currently record high employment and low unemployment.
With a few of the larger practices make redundancies recently though, some practices are using this as a good opportunity to employ talented staff while they are available. This is especially true for firms in the regions where we are seeing a dramatic increase in studios looking for architects with around 3-5 years post part 3. Places like Brighton, Oxford, Cambridge and Reading appear to be particularly busy with award-winning firms seeking to attract talented designers away from London.
The vast majority of roles 9B is currently recruiting for are working on large-scale residential schemes and especially a lot for the Private Rented Sector. There does, however, appear to be more education schemes popping up than previously and the hospitality and luxury residential markets remain strong.
The one thing that does tend to hold recruitment back is uncertainty and the snap election called yesterday in the short term may have a small delay on permanent roles. This impact however I imagine will be offset by an increase in contract roles and thankfully with the election called for the 8th June, we won't have long to wait. In the long term, questions over visas, the ability of firms being able to fill skill shortages, attracting enough work and salary levels for Architects will take a lot longer to answer.
If you are considering a new role with an award winning studio, do please take a look at a small selection of the current firms recruiting via 9B and their projects below:
Experienced Architect : North London
Project Architect : Cambridge
Project Architect : Brighton
Part 2 Assistant : Cambridge
