Mark Hobson, Managing Director of Maber Architects, says firms owe it to young people - and themselves - to cope better with demand for jobs.
Back in the early 1980s, I was one of only 30 architecture students who made up the first year intake at Manchester Metropolitan University.
Today, Leicester’s De Montfort University has 90 first year architecture students, Derby University has 190 and the two Nottingham universities have a combined total of more than 400.
While the economy has been shrinking, the number of graduates has not, so demand for career opportunities in architecture comfortably outstrips supply across the East Midlands and nationwide. I am sure it is a similar story in other professions.
As a growing architectural practice with several high profile clients, we are inundated with requests for internships from university students, job applications from graduates and work experience requests from schools.
About a year ago, we decided to take a look at this situation and to put some order into the chaos. We felt we had a duty to provide opportunities for the next generation of architects but we also saw it as an opportunity for ourselves. How could we make the most of this huge pool of fresh new talent while helping people into a career in architecture?
Our response was to create MAP, the Maber Academy Programme. The idea was to create a route map for the next generation of employees from work experience to post-graduate positions. The programme is structured so that it provides continuous learning and development, whether individuals are in an administrative support role or working towards professional qualifications.
We reasoned that as a practice of 50 people, we should have enough projects going on at any one time to continually create openings for young people at a variety of levels.
Then, as we were implementing the plans, the idea of apprenticeships came along. With local authorities prepared to pay half of some people’s salary, we saw that we could now afford to give opportunities to a wider group of people to join our business, not necessarily on the architectural side, but in areas such as marketing, business development and administration.
Now we could fully integrate MAP into our business objectives with our apprentices, interns and young recruits coming together to help us develop some of our new growth areas such as interior design, landscaping and advanced computer modelling.
So what does it look like when you create a programme like ours for the next generation in your profession? At Maber, we have work experience students constantly at one or other of our offices. Undergraduates and Masters students are employed as support staff on projects. You have to consider the balance between experienced people and new faces but we try to have at least one graduate and one Masters student at each of our three East Midlands offices. They are on a steep learning curve but they are valuable, often brilliant at 3D computer modelling and technology.
We have created a structure so that everyone responsible for recruiting knows what we are looking for - the young people who are genuinely passionate about architecture - so that we fill even the transient posts with the right people.
MAP provides sensible limits for the number of school students we take on work experience and includes agreements with a number of schools. In a way, it’s a natural extension of our commitment to support young people across the East Midlands through sponsorship of initiatives such as the Spark Children’s Festival in Leicester and the Young Creatives Awards in Nottingham.
Of course, helping young people is great, but you have to be able to justify any decision from a business perspective. A year since we set up MAP, the rewards are plain to see. Our interns, apprentices and recruits have brought new energy, fresh thinking and the opportunity to grow the business.
Long term, it’s about longevity and continuity. By the time our young apprentices and graduates complete their training, they will have matured and grown up with the business and be ready to take us into the future.