Less Archaeology Work- Duh! but still interesting to see the numbers

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).

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Tagged: Archaeology

Posted in: Archaeology the Profession