File image of the Affordable Housing project.
The Architectural Association of Kenya (AAK) has formed an ad hoc committee to audit the country’s Affordable Housing Programme (AHP).
In a statement seen by KDRTV, AAK questioned rising public investment into construction, yet the rate of underemployment is growing.
According to the association, before the rollout of the AHP, unemployment within the built-environment sector existed but was neither as visible nor as severe.
“The Government of Kenya has committed an estimated Ksh80–200 billion into housing delivery. Ordinarily, an investment of this magnitude should have triggered a surge in professional work, project pipelines, and employment across architecture, engineering, quantity surveying, and construction consultancy.
“Instead, what we are witnessing is the opposite: widespread downsizing across major firms and rising unemployment among built-environment professionals,” the association stated.
AAK cited the 2025 State of the Built Environment Report which revealed that while the government spending on housing and community amenities rose 40.68 per cent from Ksh59 billion in 2023/24 to Ksh83 billion in 2024/25, private-sector employment in construction declined by 1.29 per cent, from 226,300 workers to 223,383.
“The numbers are not reconciling. If billions are being committed to construction, yet consultants are under-engaged, underpaid, or excluded, then the structure of procurement, fee allocation, and project delivery requires urgent scrutiny,” AAK stated.
The association also highlighted the macroeconomic pressures, including a rise in inflation from 2.7 per cent in October 2024 to 4.6 per cent in October 2025, which has dampened private developer confidence.
Meanwhile, Kenyan universities and polytechnics produced 2,585-degree graduates and 2,014 diploma holders in built-environment disciplines by November 2025.
However, a July 2025 survey by AAK found 90 per cent of surveyed graduates unemployed, underscoring a severe mismatch between training output and market absorption.
AAK argued that the absence of clear regulatory frameworks has contributed to informality, fee compression, and reduced opportunities for trained graduates to transition into stable professional careers.
“Addressing this imbalance will require coordinated policy reform aimed at strengthening professional regulation, enhancing the uptake of professional services in public and private projects, and aligning training output with the sector’s absorptive capacity,” added AAK.
