What Do Architects Really Expect for 2026?

There’s a simultaneous, two-threaded rhythm most European architects tread day-to-day. One is anxious, the other quietly optimistic.

The former says clients keep postponing, financing is tight and new build is flatlining. Order books are thinner than they should be, delays turn into cancellations, so confidence is a loose hinge –there, but with a noticeable wobble. 

The latter looks at 2026 with glee, there’s more enquiries and interest rates have finally stopped climbing. Because there’s a noticeable, measurable shift in outlook for 2026, that isn’t just a hunch; it’s backed by workload forecasts, long-term demand indicators and insider opinions on building volumes for the coming 12 to 18 months. 

That’s the mood across much of Europe in Q3 2025. Paradoxical and two-sided, not catastrophic, but uncomfortable. It’s also exactly what the European Architectural Barometer Q3 2025 shows… a continent in a temporary slowdown, but expecting a noticeable rebound in building volumes from 2026 onward. 

The trick is reading the numbers properly, because it may seem like Europe is sinking. It’s actually resetting. So let’s unpack the symptoms.

2025 – a Sharp Reality Check

For the better part of 2025, architects across Europe dealt with a messy combination of:

• tight financing conditions
• cooling residential markets
• clients “waiting to see what happens”
• cancellations and postponements piling up in the UK and France
• order books that fluctuate instead of stabilizing

United Kingdom

The UK remains the market with the highest share of architects expecting empty order books in the coming year. This isn’t an anomaly, but a continuation of the country’s extremely soft architectural pipeline, stretching all the way back to 2023, 2021 even. On top of that, the UK also tops the charts in cancelled projects. Not delayed; cancelled. That’s a red flag for short-term activity.

Practice Size Tells The Story

Small practices rely on smaller-scale private housing and one-off development – they’re the most pessimistic. Industry indices, like the RIBA Future Workload Index, show workload expectations dipping deeply into negative territory and they’ll be the first to feel the impact of tightened financing.

Medium and Large Practices are generally more optimistic, because they’re sustained by more resilient public infrastructure, commercial contracts and international work. This stability creates an uneven recovery, diluting the pressure felt by the industry’s smallest players.

Key Factors Suppressing Workload

UK order books are thinning out because of:

Interest Rates & Financing

• high borrowing costs have disproportionately depressed the residential sector, which is the volume driver for many smaller firms

Planning Delays

• architects consistently report that bureaucratic slowdowns are causing significant friction, often delaying the start of projects by six to nine months and eating into client confidence

Regulatory Burden

• the costs and complexity of meeting new fire safety and climate regulations, like the Building Safety Act, add friction and cost to projects, leading to further delays or cancellations

France

France doesn’t show the same order-book anxiety as the UK does, but it’s one of the two markets with a relatively high rate of cancellations. And the problem is systemic; new housing activity dropped by a staggering 21.9% in 2024 with housing starts plummeting to 253,000 units, the lowest level since 1954. This failure in the new-build pipeline has left architects with little recourse. 

Viability Killers

Financing

• ECB rate increases pushed mortgage rates to 3.6%, making projects financially unviable

Policy Erosion

• the end of the Pinel rental investment program in December 2024 removed a critical investment incentive

The Forecast? A Slow Pivot

The current deep contraction is paving the way for the inevitable rebound, but it will be modest.

Contraction before Growth

• before growth, market correction must happen

Modest Growth

• France is projected to see cumulative growth of only 3.7% between 2025-2027, making it one of the most modest recoveries among major recovery markets

Drivers

• the rebound is dependent on improved financing conditions and necessary housing policy support, specifically the PTZ reintroduction

Other markets

There are countries that show a lower share of cancellations – Germany, Netherlands, Nordic countries… – but there’s an overall slowdown in workload stability indicators. Southern markets (looking at, say, Spain and Italy) remain more resilient on paper, mostly because renovation and small-scale residential work keep the ball rolling.

This matters because architectural order books typically lead construction activity by nine to twelve months. When architects expect empty books, contractors feel it next year. The report basically tells us the 2025 baseline is weak, but the 2026 outlook is not the same story.

But here’s the thing…

Cancellations don’t spell out a collapse. They predict a cycle trough, the point where activity is softest before the next rise. And architects across Europe are feeling more positive about building-volume outlook for 2026 than for 2025. For compelling and good reasons.

The 2026 Outlook

Architects don’t forecast lightly. They know things before contractors, because they see project feasibility studies, initial inquiries, concept designs… in other words, the seeds of next year’s order books. So when building volume forecasts collectively flip from “uncertain” to “expecting volume growth,” it’s worth paying attention because it’s not hunches or sixth senses talking.

Our Barometer shows that, across Europe, architects expect a noticeably more positive building-volume outlook for 2026 than for 2025. There’s clear upward movement in building-volume expectations across most markets, with several countries shifting from negative or flat 2025 expectations into the positive range for 2026.

• Markets like UK and France, currently burdened with cancellations, show a meaningful improvement in 2026 expectations, with France up by 1% and the UK by 2.5%
• Germany and Netherlands, which hover around more neutral near-term workloads, project moderate volume expansion in 2026, 1% and 0.5% respectively
• Spain and Italy – already steadier performers – express confidence that 2026 will see further expansion of 3% and 2% respectively

In practice, this shift means architects are reading longer-term indicators (financing thawing, public investment resuming, delayed projects re-entering planning) and they’re adjusting their outlook accordingly. For a sector that typically leans on the cautious side, this is a leading signal.

The Drivers of the 2026 Turnaround

To understand the recovery, we need to understand the fundamentals shaping demand. Here’s the “why” behind the forecasts.

Interest Rates Are Stabilizing

Looking for the main brake on new-building activity in 2023-2024? Sharp financing costs. But stabilization seen throughout 2025 is creating breathing room again:

• mortgage rates peaked
• inflation has fallen
• consumer confidence is improving
• developers are revisiting paused projects

Architects are seeing early-stage effects firsthand. Lower, or at least stable, interest rates get us to project feasibility, which leads to design contracts, which leads to building in 2026-2027.

Renovation is Carrying the Market

The construction sector’s backbone from 2024 to 2026 isn’t new build. It’s renovation, driven by aging housing stock, energy performance regulations, subsidy frameworks, building safety upgrades, climate adaptation retrofits, and so on… 

Demand should remain strong in 2026, providing a stable workload foundation.

Material Prices Have Normalized

Supply shocks, inflation spikes and volatile steel/wood prices were the soundbites of 2022-2023. The situation today is very different, with material inflation returning to normal levels, delivery times stabilizing and tender pricing becoming more predictable.

All this reduces project uncertainty, encouraging more clients to push ahead in 2026.

Labor Shortages

Old, unfortunate, but concrete news – Europe still suffers from severe labor shortages in construction. An aging workforce, a lack of apprentices and strong competition with other industries slows project delivery, but does not reduce architectural volume. In fact, it often increases design workload as clients require more up-front planning, prefabrication studies and risk management.

Which leads to…

Prefab Looking Slow… For Now 

Prefab has remained stable across past waves, with only minor changes and no strong upward momentum. That line is backed by our data, showing nearly identical usage rates quarter after quarter. No spikes. No dips, but a consistent plateau. Despite this flat overall trend, the country differences are striking. The Netherlands, Denmark and Sweden continue to lead with consistently high usage – about 49%, 40% and 47% respectively. But turn to Italy or the UK, we’ll see a persistently low adoption backdrop of 21% and 16%.

However, optimism is rising. Let’s not call it a surging demand, but a warming sentiment. This long horizon matters. Because insiders know prefab makes sense… they also know that it’s not meant for a 2024-2025-shaped market.

But if architects believed prefab adoption would stay marginal or decline, we’d see no optimism in the numbers. In the long run, prefab is one of the only scalable solutions to labor shortages.

Country-by-Country Breakdown

United Kingdom

• highest share expecting empty order books
• highest share experiencing cancellations
• building-volume expectations improve for 2026

France

• high cancellations
• flatter 2025, but more positive 2026 expectations
• prefab optimism moderate

Germany

• fewer cancellations
• more stable order books
• 2026 expectations edge upward
• prefab expected to grow long-term

Netherlands & Belgium

• resilient renovation markets
• moderate 2026 growth expectations
• prefab optimism tied to modular housing policy discussions

Spain & Italy

• steady quarter-to-quarter workloads
• stronger 2026 projections
• prefab interest rising in mid-rise housing

The Takeaway? 

This isn’t a boom forecast. European architects aren’t predicting a construction surge, but rather stating the facts – 2025 is a grind, cancellations sting, order books still wobble. However! Building-volume tide should turn in 2026 across most markets.

The data paints the picture of a sector that has finally passed the bottom of the dip. That reset is welcome, as delayed projects return, public investment normalizes, private capital unfreezes, housing demand pressures reactivate planning, modular/prefab interest grows slowly but steadily. 

Working in a sector used to long cycles and slow tides, architects are reading the signals the same way seasoned practitioners do: 2025 is the last tight year, 2026 is the first normalizing one. So now is the time to prepare pipelines for 2026.