What does our next generation need to think about?

What skills should landscape professionals focus on to start their own practice? And how are those skills evolving in the 21st century? Anna French shares her experiences ...

After setting up my landscape architecture and ecology practice in 2011, I was accepted onto the Government’s Growth Accelerator Scheme, which offered part-funded business advice to companies looking to flourish. It was an invaluable source of guidance for me in the early days, and has created the foundations for the business today.

Finding a good business mentor is critical when it comes to running a business successfully and my mentor helped me put together a growth plan to look at the key aspects including finance, marketing, route to market, customers and the staff team. They reinforced the notion that every single aspect of running a business is of equal importance. Running your own business, you need to focus on consistently improving all areas, rather than just focusing on your speciality.

They also helped setting up a cashflow forecast – getting paid on time is the perennial problem for any small business. Planning ahead can give you much more control and confidence in knowing where and when expenditure is feasible. I also found that reading the book Profit First by Mike Michalowicz has helped; not only are the financial management principles extremely useful, it’s genuinely entertaining.

People management skills are key to any business and it’s useful to get HR expertise on board – either internally, or through outsourcing. You’ll cover the basics of people management and, crucially, have policies in place to enable the company to bid for larger projects.

One of the most difficult areas to get right is marketing, so engage a specialist to help. Clearly communicating what you do, and why, is vital to landscape professionals and it can really help to have a sounding board to tease that out. Although social media is incredibly effective in getting your business name out there and connecting with your customers, it can be quite overwhelming; it’s also equally important to meet people in person to build lasting relationships.

Technology and ecology skills are going to be crucial in the future, as the environmental professions will be dealing with issues rooted in balancing ecological design, water management, pollution control and carbon capture. We need a better understanding of these areas to lead the way in countering the impacts of development. Whilst landscape and greenspace are currently championed by the local authorities, future priority may be given to carbon and biodiversity mitigation.

It’s critical to look beyond our profession to develop these skills, in particular watching the architectural profession. Architects lead the way in terms of design, technology and services like building information modelling (BIM) – as landscape architects, we are increasingly being expected to work on BIM projects using architectural software such as Revit. 3D printing is another area to watch and build skills, soon we could be printing out the odd bridge or sculpture for a park, rather than building it in the traditional way.

Looking ahead, it will be necessary to employ ecologists, not just to provide the development ecology reports, but also to be involved in the design process itself. With the gradual move towards more wildlife-friendly and ecological landscape design, there is much work needed to create far better-designed and sustainable landscapes, both for individual sites and strategically.

With the possibility looming of more design and drawing work being undertaken by artificial intelligence, it will become important for the landscape architect to focus their skills setting the parameters of a successful design, managing projects and adopting excellent customer service and communication skills.

Hand drawing remains a useful skill, from drawing a quick sketch to explain something to a client, to producing sketches for plans that can then be drawn up using other software. Whilst AI will help speed up these tasks to become part of our everyday life, it can never replace the human touch – interaction is fundamental in the landscape marketplace.

Anna French is a Chartered Landscape Architect and Director at Anna French Associates Ltd.