The Association of Consulting Architects (ACA) has revealed the results of their eighth annual Pulse Check Survey, in which “global instability, economic volatility and shifting market conditions” have surfaced as significant issues in the day-to-day running of Australian architectural practices.
The Pulse Check Survey was run between 24 March and 9 April, receiving responses from 270 practices – employing approximately 5,000 staff – across all states and territories. According to the ACA, the results paint “a clear picture of the health of architectural practice and practitioners across Australia,” demonstrating “a profession that remains active and committed, but is increasingly feeling the impact of an uncertain world.”
In their key findings report, the ACA highlighted five takeaways from across the country, including increased pressure on revenue, cost escalation as a key challenge, workforces in flux, wellbeing concerns for practice directors, and the broad uptake of artificial intelligence (AI).
Of the participating practices, more than half experienced revenue decline in the past six months, however close to one-third reported revenue growth, demonstrating an increasing divide between practices “with a solid pipeline and those in survival mode,” the ACA noted.
These results were reflected in recruitment trends, with ACA observing that hiring and redundancies – 76 percent of which were reportedly driven by insufficient work – were reportedly happening simultaneously.
According to the ACA, the results also showed that while most practices (83 percent) continue to keep their workforce local, a small cohort is offshoring production-heavy tasks such as documentation, building information modelling (BIM) and 3D visualisation, with this trend drawing strong opposition from the profession.
AI adoption was also evidenced across the country (70 percent), with large language models (LLMs) dominating AI usage (80 percent of AI users), and with respondents primarily using AI for written communications (76 percent) and marketing or proposals (56 percent).
Looking to identify key issues in practice, the ACA noted that cost escalation was nominated by the majority (72 percent) of practices as the single most significant challenge, with regulatory complexity and delayed projects compounding pressure.
Despite this, 65 percent of respondents rated overall practice wellbeing as good or very good. Directors and senior management emerged as the most at-risk group as compared with employees, with almost three times as many directors (29 percent as compared to 10 percent of employees) reporting worrying wellbeing.
“While the profession is not in crisis, the pressure is clearly building,” the ACA commented. “Some practices continue to perform strongly, buoyed by scale or sectoral positioning. Others are contending with declining revenue, a weakened pipeline and intensifying competition for fewer opportunities.”
The national and state-based summaries of the ACA’s 2026 Pulse Check Survey can be viewed on their website.
Source: Architecture - architectureau
