Although 2019 was still relatively busy, when it came to making the final decision to employ someone new or maybe to take the next step up in your career, often people decided to delay until the political and economic outlook became clearer.
A number of our clients, however, have been pitching for a lot of new work which would require significant resourcing if they are successful. Following the election, confidence appears to have improved dramatically and enquiry levels are increasing. Although a lot of the feedback we are receiving is very positive, news of other practices struggling and making redundancies around Christmas sadly was not uncommon either. Hopefully, the beginning of 2020 will see a period of stabilisation after the chaotic last few years and investment in the UK will return before the inevitable torturous trade negotiations at the end of the year.
In terms of regions, last year seemed to be unusual in that a number of areas outside London appeared far busier and less affected by Brexit. Since the election, it feels as though London has started to rebound and hopefully there will be more confidence to hire this year. It will be interesting to see if the budget in March, however, gives a strong boost to some of the regions who have voted Conservative for the first time.
Sectorwise, with Crossrail slowly nearing completion and HS2 under review, infrastructure appears very slow at the moment. The majority of roles we are seeing are working in high-end residential and housing. In the City, there is also a reasonable amount of commercial and hotel projects to keep practices busy and hopefully, there will be an increase in public sector work coming through later this year.
Architectural salaries have sadly moved very little in the last few years apart from rates for BIM Coordinators/Managers who have been in high demand. As the National BIM Report shows increasing digitisation of the industry, this trend is likely to continue.
Free advertising for Part 1/Year Out positions
Every year we receive a fantastic number of CVs from talented Part 1 graduates looking for their first role in the architecture industry. Sadly, however, the vast majority of positions we are asked to fill are at far more senior levels. To try and help this situation, we have therefore decided to offer free advertising on our website to anyone looking to employ Part 1s. The only proviso being we ask you to include an image of your work within the advert to help promote the role further. Candidates can then contact you directly. If this is of interest, please email your copy to info@9bcareers.com.
Career 2020 Recharge
If you are looking to re-energise yourself in 2020, career and leadership coach, Britta Siggelkow, from THINK:BUILD will be offering a career coaching programme for architects + designers in January. This is an exclusive offer limited to just 10 people and needs to be booked by Friday, 10th January 2020.
For further details and to book, please see THINK:BUILD - 2020 Career Recharge