“How you think covid-19 will affect architecture in the future?” is a recent question I received from Sami, a first-year student at Reading. Like many in education I am receiving a slow drip of emails from students asking for advice on when it might be advisable to start applying for jobs in practices and what the long-term prospects might be.

All I know is that practice is going to radically change, far sooner than we thought, and that we are entering into an age when social value and the climate change agenda will become firmly interlinked. The ability to deliver and demonstrate impact in these areas will be fundamental. On this note it has been interesting to witness a small boom in social value consultancy work during the pandemic by those interested in assessing its impact.

Having graduated from architecture school in a deep recession myself, my feeling is that, for those who are truly bent on the calling of architecture, the best place to be in the coming couple of years is probably education (with or without a “year out”) while the dust settles.

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