ABSTRACT
This chapter will employ data to develop a comprehensive picture of the global market for architectural services. This picture is essential because architecture is intimately linked to the design and construction cycle. Currently, data and information statistics about the economic activity of the architectural profession across the globe is by and large scant. However, IbisWorld claims in the five years out after the global financial crisis (GFC) revenue in this global market was $204 billion (USD). Across the globe, data concerning the market for architectural design services is fragmented, reflecting different information and professional regimes across different nations, regional states and cities. Moreover, very little data has been collected or analysed regarding international architectural practices and cross-border activities. In contrast, the global construction, engineering and infrastructure sectors appear to be reasonably well-covered via their inclusion in various stock indices, information aggregated at the national level and as a result of disclosures to stock exchanges.
Current national and state regimes are surveyed in this chapter for the collection and distribution of information regarding the market for architectural services. In doing so, the chapter describes the extent to which information infrastructure related to architects exists in each national jurisdiction. This approach will include summarising information from well-developed markets such as those in the United States, the UK and Europe. This information will be briefly contrasted to professional service markets in China, India and Africa. The chapter will discuss a range of aggregated data related to architectural firms including revenues, profit, labour force statistics, gender balance, rates of pay and working hours. The chapter also examines the global ranking systems of large architectural firms to further build up a picture of the global market for architectural services. In creating this global picture, it will be seen that the data associated with the global market in architectural services has a socio-technical agency or influence. The chapter categorises the global data related to architectural services as having either a normative, dynamic or strategic agency. The use to which this global architectural data is put, and the agency that is conferred upon it, points to the paradoxes and contradictions across the global market for architectural services.
