Britain may lose a generation of architects to a prolonged construction crisis, with looming government spending cuts likely to hinder a sector recovery, according to the head of the Royal Institute of British Architects (RIBA).
Until the economic crisis paralysed UK construction in 2008, Britain's building boom attracted architects from around the world, cramming cities with cranes and peppering the landscape with some of Europe's finest modern buildings.
New projects have been abandoned or put on hold as credit has dried up and property prices tumbled, leaving about 30 per cent of architects jobless or without enough work to keep them busy, compared to an overall UK unemployment rate of 7.8 per cent at the end of June.
Shares in Britain's biggest companies have bounced nearly 30 per cent from lows seen in March on speculation the worst of the recession could be over, but many involved with the construction sector do not share that optimism.
"We are not planning for a quick recovery, we certainly cannot rely on that, whatever the stock market might be doing and whatever the bank bonuses are," RIBA president Sunand Prasad told Reuters in an interview.
"Every indication is that we are in for a longer recession in construction at least. Architects are indeed very badly hit and one of the biggest dangers is that you lose a generation of talent."
Prasad said that had happened during the last recession in the early 1990s as the slump in construction left little for established architects to do, few places for graduates and scant practical opportunities for those studying at university.
Many were forced to retrain and look for other work and were lost to other professions before remaining architects, model makers and construction workers enjoyed a reversal of fortune towards the end of the 1990s.
Cheap, plentiful credit and rising private sector wealth, accompanied by a boom in public works to mark the new millennium, sparked a building rush which continued until early last year. Demand for architects was so high that throughout 2006 and 2007 there were more vacancies than applicants, RIBA research shows.
The government has so far kept up public spending after the recession slashed private investment but analysts expect big cuts later, which could hit investment in new schools, hospitals and other public buildings hard.
"What we had in the early part of the 2000s is both a buoyant private sector and high levels of government expenditure. That's pretty unique," Prasad said.
"But it is not going to continue ... Whichever government comes to power (is) going to have to do something about public debt and... will be forced to reduce public expenditure."
The dearth of work in Britain has, as in past recessions, pushed UK-trained architects to look for work elsewhere.
But with countries like China and India training ever more architects of their own and others struggling with their own economic problems, even previously fruitful export markets for British architects look barren.
"They certainly are looking abroad but at the same time the recession at present is worldwide and while the emerging economies are not doing so badly they are also producing graduates at a fantastic pace," Prasad said.