Architecture Project Leads: Where to Find Them in 2026

Architecture project leads in Australia come from five places: construction project databases such as Cordell Connect (from $577.50 a month for one state) and Hubexo’s LeadManager, council development application (DA) registers and PlanningAlerts, government tender portals such as AusTender, design competitions, and developer relationships. Databases give volume; the source that reaches you before an architect is appointed wins.

At a glance:

• Paid databases: Cordell Connect (Cotality) publishes one online package; Hubexo’s LeadManager (formerly BCI Central) quotes each subscription individually.
• Free early signal: PlanningAlerts emails new council planning applications near an address at no cost; its commercial API starts at $3,850 + GST a month.
• Public work: AusTender lists Commonwealth approaches to market; each state runs its own portal, such as buy.nsw and QTenders.
• Competitions: in NSW, the Government Architect’s Design Competition Guidelines apply where a planning instrument requires a competition.
• The query is not a job title: this page is about finding projects, not hiring an “architecture project lead”.

Rules of thumb (the first two are sourced; the rest are arithmetic from the worked example on this page):

• Start with free alerts: PlanningAlerts email updates are free, while its Standard API plan is $3,850 AUD + GST a month.
• Budget a database by the year, not the month: Cordell Connect Lite shows a minimum of $6,930 including GST over 12 months for one state.
• Principal time costs more than the data: the subscription is 29%, 15% and 10% of total pursuit cost across the three bands in the example.
• Volume and conversion move together: going from 40 fit projects at 10% reaching a proposal (Band A) to 120 at 20% (Band C) cuts cost per win from $23,730 to $11,955 in the example.

Where do architecture project leads come from in Australia?

Architecture project leads in Australia come from the six sources compared below, and each one shows a project at a different stage, at a different price and to a different number of competitors. Prices and features below were read on each provider’s own site on 11 November 2026.

A lodged DA already carries drawings, so by the time a project appears in a planning register or a database at DA stage, an architect or building designer has been engaged. For an architect, the useful database records are the earliest ones: site sales, rezonings and feasibility-stage developments. For engineers, specification reps and suppliers who chase architect-specified work, DA stage is often exactly the right moment. The US version of this question, with SAM.gov and ConstructConnect, is covered on our architecture leads guide.

FAQ: architecture project leads

What is an architecture project lead?

An architecture project lead is a planned building project whose owner or developer has not yet appointed an architect, or a public procurement inviting architects to bid. It is different from a general enquiry, and different from the “architecture project lead” job title that dominates search results for the phrase.

Is a project-lead database worth it for a small practice?

A project-lead database is worth it when your sectors produce enough fit projects in your state to keep a principal qualifying them every week. In the worked example on this page, 40 fit projects a year left the cost per win at $23,730, nearly 30% of an assumed $80,000 fee. Below that volume, free planning alerts and relationships often do better.

Where are government architecture projects advertised in Australia?

Commonwealth agencies publish approaches to market on AusTender, which lists requests for tender, quote, expression of interest, information and proposal. States run their own portals, such as buy.nsw in NSW and QTenders in Queensland, and some design work only goes to prequalified suppliers.

Can I get DA alerts for free?

Yes. PlanningAlerts, run by the OpenAustralia Foundation, emails new planning applications near an address for free. Commercial use of its API is a paid plan, with the Standard plan published at $3,850 AUD + GST a month.

How much does Cordell Connect cost?

Cordell Connect’s published Lite package is $577.50 a month for one state with two users and all categories, with a minimum cost of $6,930 including GST over 12 months, as shown on Cotality’s Cordell Connect page on 11 November 2026. National access and large commercial, civil or mining coverage are priced by phone.

What does a project-lead database cost per won commission?

A project-lead database costs far more per won commission than its subscription suggests, because every listed project still needs principal hours to qualify and a fee proposal to win. There is no public Australian benchmark for an architect’s database-to-proposal or proposal-to-win rate, so the worked example below uses labelled assumption bands. Replace them with your own numbers.

Fixed inputs: a Cordell Connect Lite subscription at $6,930 a year (the published minimum for one state). Assumptions, not measured figures: 2 principal hours to qualify each fit project, 8 hours to write each fee proposal, $150 an hour for principal time, a 25% proposal win rate and an $80,000 average fee.

The lesson in the arithmetic is that the subscription is the smallest line once the practice uses the data seriously. Band A is the common trap: a practice buys a database, qualifies a handful of projects, writes four proposals and concludes the data does not work, when the real problem was too few fit projects in one state. If your sectors produce fewer than about 40 fit projects a year in your state, free planning alerts and relationships will often beat a paid subscription.

How do council DA registers and planning alerts help architects?

Council DA registers and PlanningAlerts show every lodged planning application near you for free, which makes them the cheapest early signal for alterations, additions and small multi-residential work. PlanningAlerts describes itself as a “free independent Australian library service collecting information from as many planning authority websites as possible”, run by the OpenAustralia Foundation, a registered charity.

Because a lodged application already has a designer, the value for an architect is indirect: the applicant’s neighbours, the next stage of a staged development, a refused application that needs a redesign, or the owner of a site that has just changed hands. A practice that reads its local alerts weekly builds a map of who is building what, and which builders and developers keep appearing. That map is where developer relationships start. Commercial users who want the data inside their own software need the paid API rather than the free emails.

Where are government architecture projects and design competitions advertised?

Government architecture projects in Australia are advertised on AusTender for Commonwealth agencies and on each state’s own tender portal, while competitions follow the rules of the planning instrument that requires them. AusTender defines an approach to market as “any notice inviting potential suppliers to participate in a procurement which may include a request for tender, request for quote, request for expression of interest, request for information or request for proposal”.

State work sits on separate portals. buy.nsw also lists schemes of “prequalified suppliers grouped into arrangements”, which matters because some government design work only goes to firms already on a scheme. Queensland runs QTenders. Check each portal for the prequalification your target agencies use before you count on open tenders.

Design competitions are a separate route. In NSW, the Government Architect publishes Design Competition Guidelines for competitions that are “required under an environmental planning instrument”, so the developers of sites with that requirement need competing architects before design starts. Those sites can be identified in advance from the planning controls, which turns a competition into a relationship lead: talk to the landowner before the brief is issued.

How do you qualify an architecture project lead?

An architecture project lead is worth pursuing only when it passes three gates: an early enough stage, a construction budget that supports your fee, and a procurement route you are eligible for. We call it the Stage-Budget-Route test.

• Stage: is the architect still to be appointed? Site acquisition, feasibility, rezoning and competition stages pass; a lodged DA or a project in construction fails for an architect, though it may pass for a consultant or supplier.
• Budget: does the stated project value support your minimum fee? Cordell Connect and LeadManager both record project value, so filter by it before anyone spends an hour on a lead.
• Route: is the work direct appointment, open tender, a prequalified panel or a competition? If you are not on the panel, the lead is a relationship to build, not a proposal to write.

A lead that fails one gate goes on a watch list, not in the bin: a refused DA or a stalled development often comes back. The same discipline applies to the fee proposals already in your files. Where LeadsNow fits is narrow and honest: it is not a project-lead database, but it turns a practice’s own enquiries, past clients and stalled fee proposals into booked briefing meetings, as described in our lead generation guide for Australian architecture firms. Builders and developers chasing the same projects from the other side will find the construction company lead generation guide more useful, and dormant proposals are covered under database reactivation.

Sources

1. Cotality: Cordell Connect (package, price, projects added and updated monthly, stages), read 11 November 2026.
2. LeadManager (formerly BCI Central) (data fields, sources, pricing basis), read 11 November 2026.
3. LeadManager is now powered by Hubexo.
4. PlanningAlerts: About and PlanningAlerts API plans, read 11 November 2026.
5. AusTender: Current ATM list.
6. buy.nsw and QTenders.
7. Government Architect NSW: Design Competition Guidelines.