The director of Race for Opportunity has expressed disappointment in findings that revealed the ethnicity of architects is increasingly white, following a survey from the Royal Institute of British Architects (RIBA) last week.
The survey from RIBA and Fees Bureau’s 2012 Employment and Earnings Survey found that 94% of UK architects were white.
The race equality campaign organisation director Sandra Kerr OBE says: “These are disappointing employment figures from the architectural profession. That 94% of the UK’s architects are white indicates that the issue of diversity is not firmly on the profession’s radar.”
She encourages firms in the profession to try new approaches, such as monitoring the undergraduate recruitment process to see where Black, Asian and minority ethnic (BAME) candidates are dropping out, improving direct engagement with diverse architecture undergraduates to identify top talent early on and asking recruiters to present a diverse shortlist.
“The architecture profession should also consider more active engagement with schools to demonstrate to young BAME students the breadth of careers available to them in architecture, and that it is a profession that welcomes ethnic minorities.”
