Architects have become the latest group to be hit by the credit crunch, with two major firms making redundancies and a number of others freezing recruitment, writes Dan Stewart.

Hamiltons, the UK鈥檚 fifth largest practice, admitted that 16 staff members would leave the company, while listed rival Aukett Fitzroy Robinson said redundancies were inevitable, given the state of the UK market.

Both said they had frozen recruitment. 3D Reid and Benoy are also understood to have suspended recruitment in the UK, along with many others. Skidmore, Owings & Merrill said it had frozen recruitment in the UK, but was now advertising again owing to new work coming in from the Middle East.

Hamiltons grew from a 50-person practice in 2006 to a 250-strong firm this year, but Paul Birch, its director, said exposure to the UK residential market meant it had been forced to 鈥渃onsolidate鈥�.

He said: 鈥淭here has been a slowdown, so we are taking measures to address it, but we are aware of what happens during these times. We have lots of work on and are looking to maintain a level on the strong base that we have.鈥�

There has been a slowdown, so we are taking measures to address it

Paul Birch, Hamilton Architects

Aukett Fitzroy Robinson, one of the UK鈥檚 few listed architects, revealed sobering interim results this week, with pre-tax profit down 11% and operating margins

down 2%. It blamed this on 鈥渓engthening project programmes and planning permission delays on a number of major UK projects鈥�.

Nicholas Thompson, the firm鈥檚 chief executive, said its resulting 鈥渙perational reorganisation鈥� would likely to mean further redundancies. He said: 鈥淚f the sector goes down you have to change the teams into a different form. One has to cut at the margins.鈥�

Thompson predicted that work in Russia and the Middle East would lead to a rise in the firm鈥檚 fortunes by the end of the year.

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