Edgingtons Architects, a RIBA Chartered practice founded in Windsor in 1856, has acquired Anderson + Prescott Architects, an award-winning multi-sector practice based in Newbury, Berkshire, England, a deal that matters to building and architecture professionals because it shows an established practice buying breadth of sector expertise rather than building it organically.

Edgingtons Architects works across education, residential, sports and leisure, heritage and conservation, community and healthcare and masterplanning, from offices in Windsor, London and Southampton.

Anderson + Prescott Architects will continue to trade under its own name from Edgingtons’ offices, with David Anderson remaining as a director.

Richard Parsons, director of Edgingtons, said the firm was thrilled that David Anderson and his team had joined and that it would build on its 170-year history of design innovation and project delivery.

David Anderson, director of Anderson + Prescott Architects, said: “We reached the stage in our evolution where our expanding workload demanded access to a broader skill base in order to continue to deliver high-quality projects across all sectors.”

The structural driver is consolidation among smaller practices, with a July 2026 AIA survey, summarised by Axia Growth, finding that 30 per cent of US firm leaders had completed or considered a merger or acquisition in the past year and 65 per cent expected such activity to rise.

For the sector, the timing matters because the same source puts the Architecture Billings Index at 47.2 in August 2026 after a downturn of nearly three and a half years, so scale and skills depth are being sought while demand is soft.

Anderson + Prescott is described by the Built Environment Network as working across commercial and private residential projects from Newbury, which broadens the combined group’s client base across Windsor, London and Southampton.

The broader implication for the sector is that established regional practices are using acquisitions to add specialist teams while keeping acquired brands, a model likely to be repeated across the UK.

Source: UK Property Forums / Axia Growth / Built Environment Network