黑洞社区

Seven of the industry鈥檚 biggest consultants have lost more than 40% of their UK staff in the past 12 months, exclusive research for 黑洞社区 has found.

Architect RTKL has shed the highest proportion of its British workforce, axing 59 people to reduce it by 48% in the period.

This proportion is slightly greater than HOK and Darling Associates, which lost 48% (157 people) and 47% (33), respectively. Larry Malcic, HOK鈥檚 director of design, pointed out that 鈥�100 design staff in London were lost as part of the well publicised management buy-out of the HOK Sport practice鈥�, which is now called Populous.

The numbers of jobs lost emerged from 黑洞社区鈥檚 annual rankings of the top 250 consultants, which show that the biggest 250 consultants have shed 7% of their UK workforce, which means they now employ 110,600 in Britain.

This compares with last year鈥檚 survey, which found that staff had grown by 14% in the 12 months to July 2008.

Hugh Blackwood, chief executive of consulting engineer Scott Wilson, which lost 750 staff, described 2009 as 鈥渁s bad as it gets鈥�.

Among the top 10 consultants by fee income, the biggest cutter was Arup, which reduced its workforce by 555.

Martin Hewes, the economist who conducted the research, said architects looked worst off because they have been the first to feel the effects of the recession. 鈥淣ew business just hasn鈥檛 been coming in, so firms have had to let staff go, particularly firms that work on projects in the early stages.鈥�

But he warned that, as the effects of the downturn filtered through the rest of the industry, most consultants would be forced to make further lay-offs. 鈥淭here will be another fall next year,鈥� he said.