Architects have never been more needed, yet our influence has never felt more fragile. I hear it everywhere, and I feel it myself. We are on a project from beginning to end, yet on the big decisions that shape the built environment we are rarely in the room. That does not change on its own. It takes agency.
Instead we are in a world of survival. We are the canaries in the mine and what we are signalling is not good. Red Flag Alert has more than 3,400 architecture businesses in significant financial distress, up nearly a fifth in a year. Fees going the wrong way. Liability and regulation getting heavier after every tragedy, rightly asking for competence but landing hardest on the small practices. Wages that struggle to hold good people. A housing crisis measured in millions.
Take the Building Safety Act. The principle is right and the goal is one we share. But the Gateway 2 process was not built around how the industry actually works and sites have stalled for the better part of a year waiting for sign off. That is what happens when the people who deliver are not properly in the room when the rules are written.
Now think how this works for others. When the banks were in trouble, financial services convinced the world it was too big to fail. The bailout followed. The built environment is worth around twice as much to the economy, close to a quarter of everything the country produces, and it carries millions of jobs. Yet when we struggle, the silence is deafening. I sometimes wonder if it is because politicians do not really understand us. A bit like the feeling when the mechanic phones about your car. You nod along, but you cannot really argue back.
So where is our collective advocacy? RIBA, RICS, the HBF, the RTPI need to come together and collaborate. Join up and speak up. One clear voice from a sector that knows how to build is far harder to ignore. That is how a sector this big finally speaks with the influence it has earned.
And we have so much to offer in return. We have the skills and the knowledge to take on the hardest issues of the day. Creating places that build strong communities. Retrofitting our buildings, our towns and our cities for the climate resilience we are going to need. Masterplanning places that are healthy to live in, with more active travel. Reviving failing high streets and giving people pride in where they live. Invest in place and you start to defeat populism, because people feel that someone actually cares.
This is why RIBA has to be more outward facing and proactive. In the room on planning reform, on building safety, on the industrial strategy. And RIBA must use its biggest asset, its members. The tens of thousands who sit on planning committees, advise councils and run studios in every town.
People want somewhere safe to live, that they can afford, that will last. That is the job. We have lost influence and agency, and RIBA has a strong role in winning it back. That is why I am standing. To be that loud, outward facing voice, to collaborate with the wider sector and to put our members to work. We just need to try harder.
Jay Morton is a qualified architect and Director of Bell Phillips. She is standing to be the next RIBA president.
