This study’s principal aim is to identify the multi-sector impact of an architecture degree within the context of Europe and the extent to which skills taught to architecture students are needed in other sectors. The study seeks to understand the skills gaps and mismatches between (1) what is taught in architecture schools and what is needed by today’s architecture practices (2) what is taught in architecture schools and what is needed by other professions, industries and sectors with the goal to identify opportunities for a multi-disciplinary and transdisciplinary curriculum that could more effectively serve student, labour market and societal needs. It responds to early-stage findings from a pre-application survey entitled “Architectural education: a progression inquiry” that elicited over 2500 responses from architecture graduates across the EU, and identified that on average, 40% of European Architecture graduates choose to work in the creative and cultural professions other than architecture. This study seeks to understand why this is. It will identify the push and pull factors facing graduates, the sectors to where its target group - architecture graduates - are gravitating, the skills that are lacking in these sectors and how this deficit is impacting upon sector growth. Its main objectives are to, (1) To map the extent to which architecture graduates are migrating into other creative and cultural sectors, across EU members-states and draw country-specific comparisons, (2) explore which industries architecture graduates are migrating towards, and to map their advancement levels within these sectors, (3) identify which skills are most transferable between different sectors, those that are most valuable, and in which sectors skills shortages are situated (4) assess the potential positive impact upon the architecture industry and upon the affected sectors, (5) assess the impact for HE curricula, with a view to identifying key trans-disciplinary skills, and (6) to yield outcomes that benefit students, academe and industry. Methodologically, the study aims to ensure all EU countries are represented and able to have access to and benefit from country-specific performance metrics to make school, region, country or trans-national comparisons. Respondents will be recruited using a combination of professional networks and representative (across all affected sectors) and university alumni offices, in effect, the same tactics used in the pre-application enquiry. A mixed methods approach will blend online (quantitative data) with qualitative evidence provided in interviews and examined against cross-European sector-specific performance data including skills deficit forecasts and analysis. A grounded theory approach will provide a framework for identifying unanticipated challenges, correlations and opportunities for deeper analysis. The collected results in each country will be compared with the local general higher education frameworks to understand when a lack of specific education is the main reason for the moving of architectural students toward other sectors. The research partners represent established academics drawn from North, South Central and Eastern Europe who have each already established a portfolio of work that is directly related to the focus of this study. The study is innovative because it will provide a much-needed trans-national and trans-sector taxonomy of skills needed to sustain and grow a range of non-architectural sectors, that benefit from employing graduates who hold architecture’s core competencies, such as spatial skills, complexity management, spatial envisioning, and digital visualization. It will address the lack of alignment between discipline-specific skills and sector-specific skills. This study will help HE institutions address this mismatch, by identifying which digital skills can transfer easily across sectors, and by implication, adjust pedagogy and improve employability by changing curricula in response to this. Findings from the study will impact in several ways, including, (i) enabling higher education institutions to focus upon teaching more trans-sector, industry-relevant skills and in doing so increase the competitiveness of European Higher Education against other world-leading education institutions, (ii) providing recommendations for European directives and professional qualification frameworks that will increase trans-national mobility and knowledge exchange (iii) increase student confidence in the value and utility of their skills and qualifications, their preparedness for their professional lives and range of career options and, (iv) impact positively on employers by reconfiguring qualification curricula and categorisation to better represent skills rather than disciplines that will improve task-relevant recruitment and retention and, as a consequence, improve post-graduate employment prospects and pan-sector performance.
While the Architecture’s Afterlife study focused on one specific degree type, that of architecture, as its core dataset, it sought to offer a methodology for how other disciplines could assess their own qualification mobility across a range of sectors beyond architecture. Drawing on both qualitative and quantitative data, the AA study surveyed 2637 respondents living in 65 countries and conducted 49 in depth interviews with architecture graduates working as architects and in other sectors related and unrelated to architecture. While it has already been established that the majority of all graduates will work in sectors not directly related to their original degree subject, the research sought to identify which skills are most transferable across sectors – both those that are currently taught and those that aren't but graduates feel are needed. All of this has significant implications for sectors facing skills shortages – including and beyond construction – which assume that such shortages are due to the inability of higher education to produce qualified/skilled candidates, rather than the employers’ inability to recognise the skills candidates actually possess.
The Architecture's Afterlife study (AA) sought to identify the cross-sector employment destinations of graduates who did not remain in the architecture sector after graduation. Anecdotal evidence based on the mobility of architecture graduates in the UK suggested that up to a third of architecture graduates choose careers other than architecture. Initially, the AA study sought to establish whether this was the case across Europe too. We were also curious as to whether architecture, by virtue of its inherent interdisciplinarity (being informed by social sciences, applied sciences, humanities, natural sciences, etc.), was predisposed to facilitate mobility across sectors. Therefore, in surveying architecture graduates who had moved to other sectors, we sought to identify which of the skills acquired during their training had proved most transferable and useful in their current jobs. This research, we reasoned, could provide more general insights not only into which skills are transferable across sectors, but also into which sectors are most receptive to professionals with unrelated degrees, all of which has important implications for sectors facing skills shortages – within and beyond the construction industry.