With the industry being bombarded with information and requests for your time to fill out a survey, it’s easy to ignore requests, say ‘I’ll do it later’ or half-complete them as you attend to more urgent tasks.

​But a survey of ‘how did we do today?’ when you purchase your morning coffee, is different to legitimate industry research – and although the terms can be interchangeable, they can often be misunderstood. Industry research is geared towards external analysis – it’s not a guess or emotionally driven, it’s data driven – which makes the results much more powerful. The more concentrated and specific the research is – the more valuable the conclusions and insights.

​Market research surveys force you to examine your own practices. What you may uncover by formally reflecting on your own business practices, may be as useful as the final survey results themselves.

For example, reflection may make you realise your business is not as flexible as you promote it to be, or that pay rises areactuallybeing given due to tenure rather than merit.



Taking the time to hold up the mirror and reflect on our business practices ensures we are creating business plans with an accurate understanding of where we are starting. This, in turn, gives us a much clearer vision of what the journey to achieve our goals really looks like.

We often assess our organisation’s performance relative to it’s prior performance, keeping the blinkers on to what is happening in the market. What we may fail to take into account is the relativity of this change, to the change in the market. 2020 was not a great year for my business, compared to previous years. But a more accurate assessment of performance is how we performed against industry standards in 2020.



It’s easy to get carried away with anecdotal industry feedback, drawing conclusions from a beer with an industry colleague, or a well written article in an industry publication. It’s important we draw our conclusions from comprehensive and accurate industry data.

By understanding where your industry is at and where it is headed, means that you can quickly get in front of any emerging trends.

For example, if 85% of Melbourne’s architecture firms are planning to offer staff the opportunity to work from home, you can anticipate this will be expected from your staff, and plan accordingly



By knowing where the market stands, you can make well-informed, evidence-backed decisions and relay them to your team with confidence. Having access to market data validates strategic direction and takes out the guesswork out of the decision-making and strategy.

As Recruitment Consultants, we are continually asked about competitors’ practices, market trends and where we see the industry heading. Never has this been more the case than in January 2021.

We’re more than happy to summarise recent conversations with clients and provide you with anecdotal information, but what if we could provide you with definitive, data-driven, comprehensive responses to your questions? Enter Aspect’s PACE Survey.

PACE is a not-for-profit, comprehensive market study of Victoria’s planning, architecture, construction, engineering, surveying, and project management industries.

The objective of the final report is to provide you with industry-information to make better business decisions including:

• Market conditions and predictions for 2021, including the impacts of COVID-19

• Up-to-date salary levels for over 360 industry related roles

• Best practices for flexibility and benefits

• Staff retention and turnover predictions

For the next 5 weeks, we are collecting information for our industry from our 400 + strong PACE community for the 2021 PACE Survey. The final results (available via digital report in March) will then give you the ability to benchmark your business against the market.

All responses are completely anonymous and will be used solely for the purpose of the PACE Survey.

If you have any questions regarding the survey – please contact our PACE team.

Still not sure? Access last year’s PACE report here to see the value it can add to your business.