In July 2021 our team conducted a major, nation-wide survey of people who work in architecture. We were delighted to have more than 2,300 respondents to the practitioner survey, with a good spread of geographic location, level of seniority, gender, and representation from different types of practice. We are very grateful to everyone who took the time to complete the survey, and even as we are only in the early stages of analysis, the findings are already revealing, and important.
The survey was designed to collect data relating to work-related wellbeing (social, physical and emotional); professional identity; perceptions of support; and the impact of work cultures, norms and practices on individual wellbeing. It also collected some demographic data. While many of the questions were quantitative (which we are still in the intensive process of analysing) we also included several qualitative, open-ended questions.
Here participants were invited to reflect on questions such as what measures they take to support their own wellbeing, what connections they see between wellbeing issues in educational and practice contexts in architecture, whether there are other factors outside the workplace which have affected their wellbeing at work, and two key open questions: ‘What do you think are the greatest challenges for the wellbeing of people in the architectural profession today?’ and ‘If you could do one thing to improve work-related wellbeing in architecture, what would it be?’
Of the respondents to the whole survey, we had 1483 individuals respond to at least one of the open-ended questions. Many of these responses were long and detailed, insightful and incisive.