Design firms across the Northwest continued to see tough market conditions, but there were signs of improvement as 2009 came to a close.
Revenue of the top 44 firms totaled $1.48 billion in 2009, up more than 5% over 2008 revenue. Despite this slight gain in revenue, design staffs were still gutted in 2009, meaning fewer licensed designers produced the same amount of revenue. The number of licensed architects reported by this year’s top 44 firms shrank by 37% from last year, while the number of engineers dropped a mere 1%.