The next generation of architects is entering a profession in flux

As development spending and architectural project volume remain weak, the challenge for young and aspiring architects seeking employment and career development continues to be steep, especially for female and minority talent. 

It’s increasingly hard for architecture firms with fewer new opportunities, particularly in government design projects and office and retail work, to not only hire talent but to devote resources for training and mentoring, said Bryan C. Lee, Jr., FAIA, founder at Colloqate Design and president of the National Organization of Minority Architects.

Hiring teams also need to deal with persistent shifts in the way workplaces operate due to the integration of new technology and artificial intelligence. Additional hurdles come from changes to federal immigration and educational policies, making arrivals harder for overseas students and increasing the cost of student loans. This comes at a moment when firms need young talent and ideas more than ever: Recent stats indicate that more than a third of architects are over the age of 60.

The perspective of young talent

Against the backdrop of a difficult hiring environment, a new generation of architects is rethinking what their roles and responsibilities are.  

“I would describe the architect of today as much more cause-oriented, more [focused on social impact] than just, ‘I want to make beautiful things,’” said David Hart, AIA, president and CEO of Steinberg Hart.

Young talent has always needed to navigate the tricky shift from school to business, said Erin Pellegrino, AIA, an architecture professor and a partner at Out of Architecture. Working in architecture was traditionally seen as a “gentleman’s profession” and not a typical vocation, so curricula have long focused on design skills without fully exploring the necessary business skills that tend to get acquired on the job.

There’s also a sense today that the job market has become more and more challenging as architectural billings decrease. (The AIA/Deltek Architecture Billing Index® has charted a three-and-a-half-year business downturn.) As Pellegrino explains it, “essentially, young architects feel like they’re negotiating against themselves in that sense, because there's too many of us” for the roles that are available.

According to the latest figures from the National Architectural Accrediting Board (NAAB), which covers the 2023– 2024 school year, there were roughly 175 collegiate architecture programs enrolling 33,558 students. Factor in non-accredited programs, such as associate’s, non-accredited bachelor’s, or post-professional master’s programs, and the number of students doubles.

During the 2022–2023 school year, the job placement rate for architecture students with bachelor’s degrees was 84%, and it went up to 90% for master’s students, according to the NAAB. Those figures refer to new graduates employed in the field within a year of graduation. While updated NAAB data isn’t available to make a direct comparison, many believe the numbers have gotten worse: According to a recent analysis by the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, architecture graduates have some of the highest unemployment and underemployment rates across different college majors.

Entering the job market at a precarious moment has caused many graduates to chase certainty, said Lisa Sauve, AIA, who is CEO and co-founder at Detroit-based Synecdoche and a professor at Taubman College in Ann Arbor, Michigan. Many of her students are seeking roles at larger firms, convinced that smaller or mid-size companies face a more volatile future.

“The ability to take risks and have more economic freedom is actually limited,” Sauve said. “It’s about the ROI of education and, ‘How am I going to pay back these student loans?’”

The challenge of going international

Finding ways to cultivate international talent has also become a more difficult endeavor. For instance, the Trump administration’s move to cap student visas at four years, when many architecture programs require a five-year stay, will create a need for more creative solutions. The percentage of international students enrolled in architecture programs hit a recent peak of 19% in 2016, and it shrank to 12% by 2024, per NAAB stats.

“From an immigrant standpoint, we’ve had a lot of folks who are just scared to be in smaller firms who can’t necessarily protect them,” said Lee.

Jennifer Abi Saad, AIA, a 33-year-old senior associate at LJC, graduated with an architecture degree in 2016 in Lebanon and then came to the United States on a Fulbright Scholarship. She began working with LJC in 2018. After the two-year scholarship ended, to continue her studies and eventually come back to LJC full-time, she worked remotely, including a multiyear stint in Dubai. 

The firm continues this practice with other international talent to help keep them engaged and on board. “The culture is very flexible,” said Abi Saad.  

Tyler Meyr, AIA, executive director at LJC, said the firm’s efforts are “worth the investment” as part of their goal of recruiting the top 10% of talent.

Engaging new hires

Attracting and keeping top talent requires engagement. Many firms’ employees spoke about making an effort to give interns and new employees more exposure to bigger projects and tasks, often creating a studio system within the firm or specific initiatives to help younger talent find and refine areas of interest and connect with mentors. AI, some said, can be a benefit in that it helps handle busywork and gives young workers the ability to contribute more meaningful work (though not necessarily cutting their work hours significantly).

At Gensler, there has been a focus on creating pathways to interact with budding talent, said Jason Pugh, AIA, the firm’s global director of inclusion. The firm has held a design charrette program with Historically Black Colleges and Universities, helping talent interface Gensler professionals, and the firm also created the Gensler Apprenticeship Program in its Chicago office, which offers a non-university alternative for recruiting and attracting talent.

Lee argues that helping young talent be part of a firm’s outreach and relationship-building, whether it’s with other professionals or communities where their work happens, is vitally important. It’s a networking and business advantage, and it’s a way to meet the increasing mandate from young architects for more meaningful work.

“I think it’s an opportunity to translate what the value proposition is for architects, to create spaces that are fundamentally connected to the soul and the heart of the people in a particular place,” Lee said.

LJC’s Meyr said that while the competition between firms for top young talent is strong, it’s even more difficult to recruit and hire mid-level talent from outside the firm. This only underscores the need for firms to do a better job of developing from within.

While there remains some angst over the impact artificial intelligence will have on entry-level work, there’s also a sense from firms that they want younger, more digitally native, talent to help them adapt to the shifts wrought by AI. Hart said his firm has increased the size of its internship program and “accelerated and deepened its relationship with universities” due to this shift.

“[Young professionals] have a perspective that is very different then a professional who has been working for 10 years, 20, or god forbid, people like me, 30-plus years,” said Hart. “Our perspective is that this group of talent that’s moving into the firm now is more important than ever because of how unique this point in time is.”

Adapting to today’s conditions

Some young architects believe this new technological era is a huge boost to their career prospects, allowing them to do more work and advance more rapidly.

There has been a lot of anxiety over AI taking over work, especially entry-level work, said J.D. Zogg, AIA, a 27-year-old designer at KTGY in Orange County, Ca., focused on low-density multifamily projects. But he believes it offers great opportunities because young architects can learn more, take on more projects, and even build their own firms much earlier in their career.

“I think a lot of people get overcomplicated looking at their career. They spend way too much time thinking about, well, ‘If I do that then this happens,’” he said. “Honestly, it’s momentum. Just get started and just work.”

Sauve, who started her own firm in 2009, said now is the time to make work, start by taking on small projects, and learn the business of running a design practice.  

“Crisis is the birthplace of opportunity and innovation,” she said. “I couldn’t get a job, so I was going to make a job. What better [way to start] your career than as a change maker?

Patrick Sisson is a freelance writer covering architecture and design. He lives in Los Angeles.