Architectural services, 2019
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Released: 2021-02-01
$ 5.3 billion
2019
1.9% 
(annual change)
$ 4.8 billion
2019
2.4%
(annual change)
$ 0.5 billion
2019
-2.3% 
(annual change)
In 2019, the combined total operating revenue of the architectural services and landscape architectural services industries—which are responsible for planning and designing residential, industrial, commercial, institutional and government buildings and land developments—increased 1.9% to $5.3 billion, the industries' slowest growth since 2014.
While housing starts remained at historically high levels, they eased nonetheless from 212,843 units in 2018 to 208,685 units in 2019 because of lower demand for single-detached homes. In addition, business non-residential and public investment in infrastructure grew at a more subdued pace in 2019. Total operating expenses for the industries increased at a faster rate (+3.0%) than total operating revenue, reaching $4.4 billion and leading to a lower operating profit margin of 18.5% in 2019 compared with 19.3% in 2018.
Architectural services for non-residential building projects, such as office buildings, educational institutions, health care institutions, and retail stores and restaurants, accounted for 56.4% of the combined sales in the two industries in 2019. Residential building projects accounted for 18.3% of the sales, with the remaining sales for the two industries (25.1%) generated by landscape architectural services, urban planning and other related services.
In 2019, Ontario companies providing architectural and landscape architectural services generated 43.0% of total operating revenue in Canada. With strong growth in its operating revenue in 2019 (+9.0%), Quebec became the second-largest contributor, surpassing British Columbia. British Columbia's operating revenue advanced by 16.5% in 2018 because of large-scale private and public projects, but that growth was not sustained in 2019.
Industry sales to businesses represented 53.4% of total sales, followed by sales to governments, non-profit organizations and public institutions (32.1%); individuals and households (11.2%); and customers outside of Canada (3.3%).
In 2020, the COVID-19 pandemic disrupted the operations of many professional businesses, but several of them (i.e., those not reliant on close proximity to operate) began to recover. Nevertheless, several months into the pandemic, economic activity in the architectural, engineering and related services industry group had still not recovered fully. Weaker investment in non-residential construction likely impacted this group of industries. However, architectural services have benefited from strong household demand for new home construction, as well as from government investment, which has grown steadily. Housing starts in Canada reached 217,802 units in 2020—an increase of 4.4% from the 208,685 housing starts in 2019. This survey for the 2020 reference year will provide insight into how architectural services have been impacted by the divergent residential and non-residential investment trends that have emerged during the COVID-19 pandemic.
Note to readers
Data for 2017 and 2018 have been revised.
The data for reference year 2019 were collected during spring and summer 2020. This collection period included the events and business disruptions around COVID-19 and response rates were generally lower. As a result, there may be larger-than-normal revisions to the data in future releases. For more information on data quality and revisions please refer to 2420— Annual Survey of Service Industries: Architectural Services
Information on housing starts and the number of units was taken from table 34-10-0126-01.
Information on business non-residential and public investment in infrastructure was taken from table 36-10-0108-01.
Information on the recovery of economic activity for the architectural, engineering and related services industry group was taken from table 36-10-0434-01.
Contact information
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