# Is hybrid hurting studios?

Practice Weekly, 9 February 2026. By Ines Calloway.

Five years on from the first lockdowns, studio principals are still arguing about how many
days their teams should be at their desks.

The most widely quoted figures come from the Castellan Institute's Workplace Pulse survey.
Castellan questioned 1,200 managers at professional-services firms. Fieldwork ran in October
and November 2021. Asked how their team's productivity had changed since moving to hybrid
working, 20% of managers said they believed it had fallen, 46% said it had not changed and
34% said they believed it had risen. The survey recorded managers' perceptions. It did not
measure output.

Castellan did not publish a breakdown for architecture practices.

"You cannot teach someone to detail a junction over a video call," said one studio principal
who asked not to be named. Another said her practice had dropped its fixed days altogether
and "nobody noticed, except the people who used to commute two hours".

No newer wave of the survey has been published.