According to a recent report from Statistics Canada, the value of architectural and landscape architectural services reached a high of $5.2 billion in 2018—an increase of more than 6 percent compared with 2017.

Architects and landscape architects are responsible for planning and designing residential, industrial, commercial, institutional and government buildings and land developments. Their combined revenues in 2018 grew at a rate faster than that of the economy as a whole.

The Statistics Canada report shows that nearly 55 percent of sales in these two industries combined were from the design of non-residential structures—office buildings, educational institutions, health care institutions, and retail and restaurant establishments.

The design of residential building projects accounted for 19.1 percent of sales. This share has been growing steadily since 2016 because of multi-family residential projects. Housing starts for apartments and other multiple-type units rose 24.4 percent from 2016 to 2018, reaching a high of 112,401 units in 2018. The balance of sales for the two industries (26.1 percent) was generated by landscape architectural services, urban planning and other related services.

The combined operating profit margin for the architectural services and the landscape architectural services industries has been rising, from 13.8 percent in 2012 to 18.2 percent in 2018, down slightly from 18.4 percent in 2017. Operating expenses for these industries increased by 6.4 percent to reach $4.3 billion in 2018. Salaries, wages, commissions and benefits amounted to $2.2 billion in 2018, accounting for 51.5 percent of total operating expenses. Subcontracts were the second-largest operating expense (12.2 percent).

In 2018, Ontario companies providing architectural and landscape architectural services generated 43.4 percent of total operating revenue. After a few years of strong growth, British Columbia had the second-largest share of operating revenue (18.4 percent) for the first time since 2008. In 2018, operating revenue grew by 15.8 percent in British Columbia. Quebec and Alberta followed, with operating revenue shares of 18.0 percent and 13.3 percent, respectively. Manitoba and Saskatchewan were the only two provinces with declines in operating revenues in 2018.

Industry sales to businesses represented 56.6 percent of total sales, followed by sales to governments, non-profit organizations and public institutions (30.5 percent), individuals and households (9.2 percent) and customers outside of Canada (3.7 percent). These shares have remained relatively stable since 2014.

Ontario architects and landscape architects generated $2.2 billion worth of sales in 2018—a jump of 3.4 percent over the previous year. Their combined profit margins rose from 17.3 percent in 2017 to 18.7 percent in 2018.