It’s that time of year, when Business Link Magazine invites the region’s business leaders to offer up their predictions for the year ahead.
It has become something of a tradition, given that we’ve been doing this now for over 30 years.
Here we speak to Graham Edward, Managing Director at Edward Architects.
Edward Architects has experienced a consistently high workload in 2023 and has enjoyed continued growth which has led to investment in a new Leeds studio. The market definitely feels tighter though. This is primarily as a result of interest rates which have affected investment in Real Estate and property sales.
We are finding that our residential workload remains strong however. The housebuilding machines keep rolling as they do deals with housing associations to keep sites churning. This does though affect their margins.
Industrial demand remains high and off shore investment is allowing this market to remain buoyant.
Strategic land remains a solid workload for us as these clients take the long term view.
The UK has experienced more than a decade of consistently low interest rates and the last year or so of bigger numbers has been a bit of a shock to the system. There are signs that they are stabilising and may even start to come down in 2024. This has also happened with construction costs which is encouraging news.
The government is doing its best to stabilise the economy, which is helping trading conditions, but Britain’s incredibly resilient business world needs to remain so in 2024 as I think it will remain a bumpy ride though global uncertainties and a government focused on the next General Election.
So more belt tightening is required in 2024, but I don’t see a reduction in the order book.
At Edward Architects we are excited to face the challenges that 2024 is going to throw at us and will spread our specialisms of residential, strategic land and accessible design into new client bases. We are ready for the next phase of continued growth.
