As work on the Profiling the Profession is progressing I have had to look at a variety of different data sources. One source I have looked at is planning applications for construction in England. Raw number of applications do not capture the nuances of work for archaeologists. For example, building a single house will not have the same impact on archaeology as lets say a highway. That being said, if that house was in the middle of a cemetery that could be potentially generate more work than lets say a shopping center with no archaeology in the area. Basically, raw planning applications numbers capture quantity (potential) of archaeology work. The numbers for planning applications (permission to build) in England is below from this report:
Financial Year |
Quarter |
Granted (‘000s) |
% change over year |
% change from 2007-08 to 2012-13 |
2005-06 |
Jun |
130 |
||
Sep |
125 |
|||
Dec |
112 |
|||
Mar |
105 |
|||
2006-07 |
Jun |
123 |
-5% |
|
Sep |
122 |
-2% |
||
Dec |
111 |
-1% |
||
Mar |
107 |
2% |
||
2007-08 |
Jun |
124 |
1% |
|
Sep |
126 |
3% |
||
Dec |
116 |
5% |
||
Mar |
102 |
-5% |
||
2008-09 |
Jun |
114 |
-8% |
|
Sep |
108 |
-14% |
||
Dec |
91 |
-22% |
||
Mar |
73 |
-28% |
||
2009-10 |
Jun |
84 |
-26% |
|
Sep |
90 |
-17% |
||
Dec |
85 |
-7% |
||
Mar |
77 |
5% |
||
2010-11 |
Jun |
91 |
8% |
|
Sep |
97 |
8% |
||
Dec |
89 |
5% |
||
Mar |
78 |
1% |
||
2011-12 |
Jun |
89 |
-2% |
|
Sep |
95 |
-2% |
||
Dec |
89 |
0% |
||
Mar |
82 |
5% |
||
2012-13 |
Jun |
90 |
1% |
-27% |
Sep |
90 |
-5% |
-29% |
|
Dec |
85 |
-4% |
-27% |
Basically, there has been a loss of around 30% in potential archaeology work in the UK (England, but Scotland, Wales, NI are probably similar). This has implications for the number of archaeologists working the in the UK. I use these numbers to confirm some of the results of employment numbers in PP (more on that later). Essentially, there are multiple sources pointing towards a loss of 1/3 of archaeology jobs in the last 5 years (most concentrated around the 2008 collapse).
May 14th, 2013 → 3:17 pm
[…] are fewer jobs in archaeology than before the collapse (see Doug Rocks-McQueen’s summary of the decreased archaeology job market in the UK). Government agencies are streamlining the cultural resources evaluation process, which may result […]
November 18th, 2013 → 2:25 pm
[…] as a McJob and the split between academic and commercial archaeologists’ interests, and the loss of 30% of jobs in the […]