2026 Hiring Outlook for Architecture & Engineering Firms: Build, Pause, or Restructure?
As 2026 approaches, many firm leaders are asking the same question: Should we expand, pause hiring, or rethink our workforce structure? For firms in architecture and engineering, the answer depends on market demand, financial stability, project pipelines, and team adaptability. Long-term demand remains strong. According to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, employment in architecture and engineering occupations is […]
Why Workforce Stability Is a Compliance Issue in A/E Firms
Architecture and engineering firms tend to think of compliance as something external. Building codes. Permits. Safety standards. Contracts. Audits. But one of the most overlooked risks in A/E firms today does not live in drawings or documentation. It lives in the workforce. Frequent layoffs and unclear employment practices are no longer just internal HR concerns. They […]
The Operational Shift Helping Firms Do More With Less
Architecture and engineering firms are being asked to deliver more work, faster timelines, and higher quality results, even as resources become increasingly limited. To keep up, many firms are rethinking how they scale their teams and operations, often turning to an architecture staffing firm to stay flexible amid rising costs and ongoing talent shortages. Industry […]
How A&E Firms Keep Projects Moving With Limited Manpower
Across the architecture and engineering world, one challenge keeps coming up in conversations, meetings, and late-night A&E project reviews: there’s more work to do, but fewer people to do it. Deadlines are tightening, clients expect faster turnarounds, and projects are growing more complex. Yet hiring is slower, talent is harder to find, and budgets remain under pressure. According to OpenAsset, 69% of firms believe hiring difficulties will persist, […]
How A&E Firms Are Expanding Teams Without Adding Offices
For decades, growth in architecture and engineering (A&E) firms followed a predictable path: more projects meant more hires, which meant bigger offices. New leases, added overhead, and higher fixed costs came with the territory. Today, that playbook is changing. Across the U.S., A&E firms are expanding their teams, increasing capacity, and delivering more work without […]
The Smarter Way A&E Firms Build Teams Today
Pressure on architecture and engineering firms continues to grow. Projects are more complex, clients expect faster turnaround, and costs continue to rise. Finding the right talent has become a major challenge, with 69% of firms expecting ongoing recruitment difficulties, according to trends reported by OpenAsset. For years, firms relied on local hiring and adding headcount to manage demand. […]
How Remote Teams Help Small Firms Compete With Industry Giants in 2026
For decades, the architecture and engineering (A&E) industry has followed a predictable pattern: large firms win the biggest projects because they have the largest teams, the widest skill sets, and the deepest resources. Smaller firms, even those with incredible talent, often get boxed out simply because they can’t match the headcount or capacity of their […]
The Real Reason A&E Firms Struggle to Hire — And How Remote Teams Solve It
Ask any architecture or engineering leader in A&E firms what keeps them up at night, and you’ll hear the same thing: “We just can’t hire fast enough.” Whether you run a small boutique firm or manage a multi-office operation, the talent crunch feels the same. Project demand keeps rising, deadlines keep tightening, and qualified candidates seem […]
Want to Win More Bids? Start with a Scalable Engineering Team
Winning bids takes more than great design ideas and competitive pricing — it takes the capacity to deliver. Many architecture and engineering firms lose promising opportunities not because they lack skill, but because they don’t have enough bandwidth to take on more work confidently. Building scalable engineering capacity is often what separates firms that keep […]
The Flexible Workforce Model Every Engineering Firm Should Explore
Projects are getting larger, deadlines tighter, and budgets thinner. Yet, the challenge that keeps many firm owners awake at night isn’t technology or competition — it’s people. Finding the right engineers has become harder, keeping them is costly, and scaling teams quickly feels almost impossible. According to the ACEC Research Institute’s 2024 Q4 Engineering Business Sentiment […]