Research on the Designer Mismatch Characteristic and Talent Cultivation Strategy in China’s Construction Industry

Architectural design stands as a highly knowledge-intensive field, with designers serving as the linchpin for its premium development. China’s construction industry is now navigating a transitional phase of slower growth, where a misalignment in designer capabilities significantly obstructs the nation’s shift from being a mere “construction giant” to becoming a true “construction powerhouse”. Based on the spatial mismatch model and Geodetector, this study empirically analyzes the mismatch relationship among designers and its influencing factors using panel data from 31 provinces in China from 2013 to 2023, and proposes strategies for cultivating architectural design talents. Findings reveal that China’s architectural designers exhibit spatial supply imbalance, and complex trends in designer allocation-simultaneous growth and decline coexist. China exhibits diverse types of architect mismatch: 22.58% of regions are in a state of Positive Mismatch, and 12.90% experience Negative Mismatch. In over one-third of regions, the architectural design talent market can no longer self-correct architect mismatch through market mechanisms, urgently requiring collaborative intervention policies from governments, design associations, and enterprises to address architect supply–demand governance. For a smooth transition during the transformation and upgrading of the construction and design industries, the architectural design talent market should accommodate frictional designer mismatch. The contribution of designer mismatch varies significantly, with factors such as innovation, industrial structure, and fiscal self-sufficiency exerting more direct influence, while other factors play indirect roles through dual-factor enhancement effects and nonlinear enhancement effects. The insights from the analysis results and conclusions for future designer cultivation include fostering an interdisciplinary teaching model for designers through university–enterprise collaboration, enhancing education in AI and intelligent construction literacy, and establishing an intelligent service platform for designer supply–demand matching to promptly build a new differentiated and precise designer supply system.