Design firms began this year with high hopes that 2020 would provide the tenth straight year of market growth. The emergence of the devastating COVID-19 pandemic in late February put paid to those hopes. Now, design firms, like the rest of the U.S. economy, are scrambling to cope with the disaster and how it will impact them, and the markets, going forward.
Taking a look back to last year, the rise in the markets can be seen in the data collected on revenue earned in 2019 from the participants on ENR’s Top 500 Design Firms list. Taken as a group, the firms had a record total design revenue of $103.24 billion in 2019—up 2.1% from $101.16 billion in 2018. Market growth was up on the domestic side, rising 8.9% to $86.80 billion in 2019 from $80.55 billion in 2018. But revenue from projects outside the U.S. fell 20.2%, to $16.44 billion.