Architects heavily impacted by the shortage of materials

The survey conducted by CREDOC for the National Council of the Order of Architects was carried out from November 17 to 29, 2021 with 2056 architects practicing as a liberal, partner or employee of an architectural firm. This survey highlights several information:

About 80% of architects' tenders for various companies exceed financial forecasts. 66% of calls for tenders exceed forecasts by 10 to 30% depending on the respondents. 13% of respondents also claim to have overruns greater than 30%. 22% of the architects surveyed observed successful results or with an overrun of less than 10%.

Public and private markets are concerned, with a slight advantage for public contracts (29% of contracts are successful or with an overrun of less than 10% and 57% are subject to overruns of 10 to 30% compared to forecasts.

The materials crisis is the cause of these numerous additional costs for 71% of architects who also cite the overheating of the activity as the second cause, acting concomitantly with the materials crisis, according to 58% of respondents. Surprisingly, the health crisis is not the most involved in these overruns, only 12% of the architects surveyed consider it to be at fault in the current situation.

Heavy consequences for projects

In 45% of cases, project owners must adapt their projects to avoid additional costs and 22% must put projects on hold, if not abandon them in the worst case. 32% of projects still come to an end despite the additional costs.

Construction sites are also impacted with, in three quarters of cases, delays disrupted or even very disrupted by the shortage of materials. 10 to 30% of delay compared to the planned deadlines would be due to the lack of materials according to 55% of the respondents and 20% of them declare a delay of more than 30%. The size of the sites does not influence this impact, all the sizes of the sites are affected in the same way.

A difficult situation for architects, who remain pessimistic about the evolution of the crisis

In addition, this situation complicates relations between architects and owners by revealing difficulties in planning and renegotiating fees. In 38% of cases, architects find the relationship comprehensive despite the difficulties, but 52% say it is "tense" and 10% even "very tense". Once again, public markets seem to be a little more sheltered from this trend.

For architects, the difficulties linked to the materials crisis will last and prices will remain high. For 91% of them, the difficulties are constant and they see no improvement. In the longer term, 51% of those polled believe that an improvement is possible without however going back to the pre-crisis stage. 42% think that no improvement is to come and that the prices will not go down again.