Members of the Architecture and Surveying Institute (ASI) voted decisively on 24 September for a merger with the CIOB. Of the 65% of the 5,000 ASI members who cast a vote in the ballot, 96% backed the merger, which will now take place.
“We’re delighted with the overwhelming backing,” said CIOB president Stuart Henderson, who first mooted the merger. “We can now bring extra professionals into the CIOB, extending the range of our broad kirk with more skills and disciplines. The ASI merger brings more new-model skills under one CIOB roof. It mirrors the way the industry is going.”

Integrated construction teams were recommended by Rethinking Construction and are the natural undertakers of PFI projects, which demand that the constructor designs, builds, funds and operates a structure.

Constructors make up only half the CIOB membership. The other half consists of consultants, accountants, lawyers, adjudicators and other client-side professionals.

Unlike the failed counter-offer from the Royal Institute of Chartered Surveyors, the CIOB merger offered ASI members like-for-like membership. Enrolling the ASI membership will add some 4,000 to the CIOB’s roll call (20% of ASI members are already CIOB members in their own right), which represents a growth of 10%. The CIOB will now create an architecture and surveying faculty, targeting the needs of the specialism.