ABI April 2022: Architecture firm billings continue to expand at a steady pace

Architecture firm billings continued to experience strong growth in April. While the pace of growth slowed slightly from March, the ABI score of 56.5 for the month still indicates strong business conditions at most architecture firms (any score over 50 indicates billings growth). In addition, inquiries into new projects remained strong as well, as did the value of new signed design contracts. While both of these indicators of future work have slowed in recent months from the elevated levels seen in mid-2021, they remain very strong overall, and are a good sign of work in the pipeline for firms.

In welcome news, billings finally began to rise again at firms located in the Northeast in April, following a protracted seven-month period of decline. Billings also continued to grow at firms in the rest of the country, with the firms located in the West in particular seeing a surge over the last three months. Business conditions also remained positive at firms of all specializations this month. Firms with a commercial/industrial specialization reported the strongest growth, while firms with a multifamily residential specialization experienced a rebound from slower conditions at the end of 2020.

Read the April ABI release for additional data on industry performance and expectations.