A contraction in domestic-housing design work is casting a pall over smaller architecture practices, underpinning a worsening outlook for staffing levels and work pipelines across the whole sector, according to RIBA’s latest survey of industry sentiment.

The institute’s crunch of Future Trends responses from some 122 practices across the nation found the sector as a whole more downbeat about future workloads and staffing levels last month than was the case July.

However, RIBA said responses showed a widening “optimism gap” between larger practices and their smaller counterparts, who traditionally undertake a greater proportion of housing work. It said smaller firms were “markedly less hopeful” about future work pipelines.

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