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Confidence among London-based architects has crashed back to levels last seen just after the EU referendum.

Practices based in the capital are the most cautious in the country about future workloads, according to the RIBA鈥檚 latest Future Trends survey.

More practices expect workloads to shrink than to rise, indicated by a score for August of -6, down from -2 the previous month.

The last time confidence was this low in London was a year ago. It contrasts sharply with the +17 score for April, although even then London was more cautious than elsewhere in the country. Anything over 0 means more practices expect workloads to rise than expect them to fall.

The most bullish region is the north of England, at +39, followed by East Anglia and the Midlands.

The overall score for the country was +11 in August. This compares with +14 in July and a recent high of +23 in May.

In terms of different work sectors, it was a very mixed picture. The private housing sector workload forecast was the stand-out performer with a score of +19. Housing at all scales remains the primary engine that is sustaining modest growth in overall workloads.

In contrast, the commercial sector workload forecast fell back significantly, with a balance figure of +2 in August, down from +8 in July.

Both the community sector workload forecast (balance figure -7) and the public-sector workload forecast (balance figure -4) fell back in August and now stand in negative territory, indicating that practices anticipate a fall in public and third sector work in the next quarter.

At the same time the RIBA Future Trends staffing index also fell, down to +5 in August from +10 in July. But the positive scores mean most practices expect their permanent staffing levels to either remain the same or increase over the coming quarter.

Large and medium practices were significantly more confident about future staffing levels than small practices.

RIBA鈥檚 executive director for members, Adrian Dobson, said: 鈥淎ugust鈥檚 RIBA Future Trends survey continues with the consistent themes we have seen over summer 2017, namely a steady outlook in the medium term, but a sense of a more unpredictable longer-term outlook.

鈥淗ousing remains the area of most growth, though many of our corresponding practices report that fee competition remains fairly intense.鈥�

In its 2016 financial results, architect AHR, which emerged from the Aedas split three years ago, said regional cities such as Leeds and Birmingham were now a better bet than Brexit-hit London.