Pittsburgh Community Survey Launch

Hello Pittsburgh! This particular post I wanted to focus on my local architectural community of Pittsburgh. I have always been fascinated by data, surveys, and tracking things to gain a better understanding of my surroundings. I attended the AIA Women’s Leadership Institute 2017 in DC, where Rosa Sheng presented the Equity By Design study done of the architectural community. It was eye opening to see the data from our design community across the globe. There is a more recent presentation for 2018 survey posted on Equity By Design’s website. I highly recommend checking it out to see the architectural profession as a whole. It did leave me curious to learn how this is directly compared to the Pittsburgh area.

From a more compensation side of things, the AIA does the AIA Compensation Reports every other year which helps feed into the AIA Compensation Survey Salary Calculator. This survey heavily focuses on compensation based on the AIA definitions of location, titles, etc. This can be helpful as long as individuals fill out the information during the surveying phase. At building.com there was a current article posted October 7th, 2019 that headlined AIA Compensation Report 2019 Finds Pay and Benefit Increases. The increase in compensation being driven by the 40% increase in non-residential construction that many firms in our area felt the workout go through the roof. The article states that in the Middle Atlantic region (see AIA definitions later in the article) salaries increase 6%. Check out the article to read through some of the other important findings from the latest AIA Compensation Report.

There are some overarching issues that come from the AIA Compensation Report that I have discussed with many individuals in the Pittsburgh region which inspired me to create this particular survey for the Pittsburgh Community. 

My general issues with the AIA Compensation Report:

1. The cost for the report is pretty expensive, especially if you are an individual that just wants to see if you are being compensated fairly. ($415 for the full 2019 AIA Report. $250 if you want to just see your particular region)
2. The regional definition for Pittsburgh area is “Middle Atlantic”. Their definition states this is, “NJ, NY, PA. Salaries in this region may be more influenced by responses from firms in the following specific states and metro areas: New Jersey, New York, New York City, Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, Pittsburgh.”   Does anyone else see the issue with grouping Pittsburgh, with Philadelphia and New York City? (Besides their choice in sports teams) The cost of living is drastically different, which means so is the average pay. Many employers in our region tell their employees to look at Ohio for a more realistic comparison. 
3. The report does go into the particular cities and they do include Pittsburgh in two categories which is great! (metro area and city) But there are HUGE gaps of information. For instance, in the 2017 AIA Compensation Report for the title of “Architect I” in the Pittsburgh metro area AND city location the data is completely BLANK! There is no data at all to see for those individuals that are licensed and still early in their career. Which is frustrating for recently licensed architects in the area. Should you look at straight years experience of another region like Ohio, or look at emerging professional and round up 10% +/-? 
4. Lastly, there is a fundamental gap in the AIA definitions that I personally experienced and continue to see others in the same position I was in. You are an individual that flies through your Architectural Registration Exams and NCARB AXP hours, and you get registered right at that 3 years experience minimum mark for Pennsylvania! (I had friends in Ohio registered earlier than the 3 year mark because Ohio only requires the AXP hours and not and overall minimum too.) However, the AIA states that for the position Architect 1, “Five or more years of experience, licensed architect who exercise independent judgment in evaluation, selection, and use of standard techniques, solves problems when encountered, and receives guidance on complex projects. Licensed architect who is competent in all conventional aspects of architecture. Performs work requiring independent judgment in evaluation, selection, and adaptation/modification of standard techniques, procedures, and criteria. Independently solves problems encountered. Receives technical guidance on unusual or complex issues and supervisory approval on proposed project plans.”  (Source: AIA)  This leaves a two year gap between someone getting licensed at the 3 year requirement mark or the 5 year mark stated in the AIA definition for Architect 1. So for 2 years you are an individual that exceeds AND doesn’t meet any of the definitions defined by the AIA. 

This survey was created due to my curiosity and wanting to provide open source information for the architecture community of Pittsburgh. It pulls some of the information that the Equity By Design team gathers on the industry, some overarching information in the AIA compensation report, and inspired by a third report that you may not know about yet. The Girl Uninterrupted Project, which was a study done mid year 2019 for five major cities: Boston, New York, Washington DC, Los Angeles, and Chicago. They created an awesome interactive data visualization tool to go along with their survey results! 

The Pittsburgh survey’s results will be an open source presentation of information for firms and individuals of our region to see where we stand as far as equity, growth, and compensation. I hope that you can take a quick 5-10 minutes to answer 25 questions presented in the survey, and once you are done please share with at least 3 other architectural professionals once you are done. (Or even better, share with your firm!) The data is only as good as the number of respondents we have so the more participants we have the better the quality of the information. If I missed asking a question in my survey that you and/or your organization would like to see please let me know! I’d be more than happy to have this survey be a yearly or bi-yearly and modify for what our Pittsburgh community would like to know.

Thank you for your time and your help! If you have any questions, leave a comment below.

Polling will close Friday, November 15th at 11:59 pm.

Results will be published in a blog post on December 13th, 2019.

Shareable like: https://forms.gle/Y7eWC93MLQRv1SDz8

Written by Katelyn Rossier