Training to become an architect is a long process, involving five years of study interspersed with two years of practical experience in architects offices, and ending in a final exam, also taken in practice. As a result students are dependant not only on a university education but also on their ability to find placements in the businesses of their elders.
The last few years have been particularly difficult for graduates (known as Part Is) and postgraduates (Part IIs) struggling to find somewhere to get enough reasonable experience and support to take their finals. As a result many will put behind them years of design teaching and debt to leave the professional conveyor belt. I know this because in the last recession, my path to RIBA Part III came to an abrupt end for the same reason.
Now something is going to be done to help at least some of these students stay in architecture. At least that is the plan. But will it work?
The Minimum Wage Ruling
Last week the the RIBA announced that from 1 July, Chartered Practices should pay PEDR students (that is, Part I and II graduates and postgraduates working towards their finals) the National Minimum Wage as a minimum.
The decision comes from a recommendation by the RIBA’s Pay and Conditions Working Group, set up last autumn to look into “significant concerns over pay and conditions for architecture students completing fee-earning work in practices”.
In her statement published last week, Ruth Reed, President of the RIBA, says that the National Minimum Wage will help students, who will soon be facing higher fees at college as well, complete their education, thereby helping the profession as a whole.
The decision on the minimum wage is seen as the first step, and the RIBA intends to work with students and practices to set appropriate rates of pay across the UK in the coming year.
What is the National Minimum Wage?
You can find out about the detail here, but the minimum wage is £4.92 an hour for 18-20 year olds and £5.93 and hour for 21 year olds and older. Most Part I graduates are 21 or older, so lets look at that figure. It equates to a salary of approximately 11,500 a year. How does that compare with what I earned when I was a Part I graduate?
What did you earn in your years out?
I completed my first architecture degree in Liverpool in the Summer of 1989, and was offered one job at £7.5k and one at £6.5k. I took the lower salary because it was a smaller practice where I thought (correctly) that I would get a good grounding in the nuts and bolts of architectural practice.
Three years later I completed my second degree, it was 1992 and there were no jobs to be had in Liverpool for a Part II graduate. Practices in London were offering placements, but for ‘expenses only’ and I couldn’t afford to take one. So I took the opportunity to do research and teaching in the University instead.
According to the Bank of England’s inflation calculator, Six and a half thousand pounds in 1989 would be equivalent to £12,600 today. So around £1000 more than the National Minimum wage. It wasn’t hard for me to live on in 1989, but I was living in Liverpool (which was, at the time, quite a cheap place to live).
I also had the benefit of a full grant to complete my education. This paid for all my university fees, plus a maintenance grant of around £3800 a year to live on. By the end of two degrees I had an overdraft of about £1800, and no Student Loan to pay back.
What does this mean for the profession?
In a few years time an architecture student is going to be looking at a debt of £30-£45,000 just in university fees. Add to that the cost of living as a student (which if it were the same prices as my education would be around £40,000 for the five years) and just the years of study are going to be out of reach for many students who studied when I did. A student loan will not cover all this cost, and many architecture students will have to work during their degrees to make ends meet.
In the long term, I feel that the architectural profession, which before the post-war expansion of the redbrick universities was a wholly elitist one, will return to being the province of the elite, in the same way that the legal profession is. Young working and middle class (or middle income) people who aspire to this profession can forget it. I was one of the lucky few.
The minimum wage sticking plaster is to be welcomed, but it is much too little, too late for the future of our profession.
What you can do
If you’re an employer, you can pay your staff fairly. If you don’t think you can, then read this post and this one about the very subject.
I’m all in favour of the minimum wage being paid to graduates. In fact, I’m in favour of graduates being paid a fair wage for a fair days work, because a good practice can turn a year out student into a profitable fee earner in a few weeks. If you aren’t doing this in your practice then chances are you’re showing yourself up as being unable to run your business properly.
Can you help the debate about the wages of architects and part qualified architects? If you are one, please take a few minutes to complete the archaos survey. Archaos is the UK architects student society, and they are gathering evidence of what people are actually earning at the moment to help inform the debate.
Complete the survey here.
Thank you.
While you’re at it, why not work out how your year out salary compares to the minimum wage?
forgive me if I am wrong but this statement by the RIBA is worthless for two reasons: –
1) the Host Practice Scheme set up by the RIBA allows graduates to gain experience in an office for no pay!
2) pre-requisites to becoming a ‘Chartered Practice’ are having proper employment contracts and conditions, QA systems, health & safety policies etc etc. Most chartered practices would not even consider employing somebody illegally! or am I wrong and just assuming everyone has the same high standards of my own practice?
Anyway, author you were very lucky to be offered 7.5k for Part 1 in 1989. Many of us worked for much less in 1998! I left my Part 1 after 9 months as I could earn far more stacking shelves. It almost put me off but thought I’d stick it out as becoming an architect was my dream.
Most people work throughout their entire architectural education now. I know I did. I couldn’t have lived otherwise. You make it sound like it’s unusual to have to do that! The tutors tell you that you can’t work and do the course at the same time as it’s too demanding. I worked part-time throughout – never less than 15 hours a week; sometimes 25+ hours – and still came away with a 2.1 degree, masters with commendation (highest award) and got in BDs Top100 students feature in 2001. Not bad for a working class Batley lad from a ‘deprived’ background.
Hi Ian, thanks for popping by.
It would be interesting to know of others’ experience of chartered practices. It is possible to comment anonymously on this website, by the way.
Things have been different for some time, you’re right. What is interesting is that many established architects in practice won’t be aware of that because they may have qualified in the 80s and early 90s.
During my first degree I’m not aware that any of my 33 other fellow students were working during termtime. There might have been one or possibly two. Incidentally, only four of us were women.
Ian,
A quick result from the archaos survey shows that around 30% of people working in a practice, be they student or qualified architects are working without an employment contract.
Quite simply, not all practices do have the high standards of your own, and I hope we (archaos) make it clear that we support, and have always been supported by practices such as yours. There are lots of practices out there though that duck some of the professional responsibilities.
The RIBA host practice scheme, and a lot of the other ‘internship’ like schemes that are out there are distinct from working for free in that they are for fixed short terms, have clear outcomes and support, (they don’t sit students in front of computers treating them as CAD monkeys).
For a guide to what archaos sees as fair for these type of work experience see, http://www.archaos.org/guide-to-internships.html
It is also easy for us to club together Cartered Practices and RIBA members, and other Architects that have a practice. The vaguaries of who is who and what is what doesn’t do any of us any good, not least with the public who are unsure what any of this means.
By starting her campaign about low pay with chartered practice, then Ruth Reed should be fighting a battle already won, and we can go from there. I personally think that goalpost should have been set at the archaos recommended wage and not the NMW but that’s just me.
Looking at your, and Su’s comments about the salaries paid or not paid when you yourselves were students just highlights that this is a cultural thing. We have always been poorly paid, and so we are poorly paid. Unfortunately, as Su has pointed out, we will suddenly be landed with massive debt come graduation and so can no longer ignore the bottom line.
Architects are stuck between art/design and the professions, Lawyers have no issue with charging for their time by the hour, why do Arhcitects?
Thanks Su for supporting the archaos survey,
Caine
Hi Caine, thanks for the message.
I am really shocked that 30% of people in practice are working without formal employment contracts. This is scandalous. Personally, even in these difficult times I would never accept an offer of employment without a formal contract in place. My current employer would probably only ever offer NMW to 16 year old office juniors fresh out of school but we would give them the same benefits as everyone else and pay for their day release course to train as a technologist. We would definately not expect a Part 1 or Part 2 to work for that amount.
Low pay and bad employment conditions has always been a subject close to my heart. In 2004 I joined the RIBA’s Young Practitioner’s Panel which was set up to advise the RIBA on how it serve its newly formed Graduate class of membership. During this time, I helped the RIBA set up a model employment contract for Part 1 and Part 2 students. This was loosely based on my own employment contract at the time. I believe this is still available for download on the PEDR website. People don’t know that the RIBA have been working in the background for a while now regarding this issue. Obviously when times were good and people had no problem finding jobs, the RIBA went quiet. The recent statements by the RIBA; albeit somewhat late are very welcomed but don’t go far enough in my opinion.
You are right, the whole ‘problem’ of low pay and employment conditions is a cultural one. It starts from day one of architectural education. You could argue that there are way too many people enrolling onto architectural courses for a start – even for a good economy. Secondly, the education system conditions students into thinking they are all going to be the next Hadid, Koolhaas, Foster etc. Truth is they’re not. Some of the very talented ones will; but very few, some will become successful business-people over time and some will become sole practitioners doing Mr&Mrs Bloggs’ kitchen extensions. Yes you need to teach the ‘art’ and design side of architecture but that needs to be grounded in the real world of regulations and budgets and relationships and liability. Architectural education does not prepare students for practice. In order to get my Part 2 placement I had to do a separate City and Guilds Course in AutoCAD from a local college! The RIBA/ARB need to be addressing this. Students are just not employable in this kind of market. Practices who are looking for staff need experienced people who can use their choice of software proficiently (be it CAD or BIM), run a project within statutory and budget constraints, manage clients and know how to detail – not someone who can model an egg on stilts on sketchup. Sadly, all these skills are neglected by the RIBA/ARB validated courses. I always say to students that the architecture course is like learning to drive. You don’t really start to learn until you’ve passed and got a job. In this market most small to medium sized employers cannot afford to train people up.
I left Part 1 thinking I knew everything but as soon as I got into practice, I realised I actually knew nothing. It soon kicked me into shape and I could understand why they were paying me less than shelf stackers. After a few months and becoming ‘up to speed’, I said to my then MD at the time “your daughter will be earning more than me in Burger King”, to which his reply was: “You’re on going rate. Take it or leave it – I’ve got a huge pile of CVs on my desk from students offering to work here for free.” And he was right. I couldn’t argue with that.
Yes students need to get placements but they should not undervalue themselves and offering to work for free. Again, its a cultural thing conditioned by universities. “It’s all about the craft and the maturing of the architectural character”, sorry but that’s bollocks. Maturing of architectural character doesn’t put food on the table.
It was an employer’s market when I applied for jobs in my Part 1. We’ve had some good years since where employees could cherry pick through their job offers and command their own salaries – only to leave six months later for more money somewhere else.
It’s now an employer’s market again.
We also need RIBA/ARB to be changing the attitudes of practice and clients. We still have too many practices doing too much up front free / speculative work. “No duck, no dinner” is a phrase that gets banded around here. Practices are reluctant to clamp down as “if we don’t do it, someone else will and they will get the job at the end” Other consultants don’t do anywhere near as much as they are usually appointed later on in the process where the job is perhaps more ‘real’.
You are too right. Architects should not work for free except for maybe undertaking competition entries. Other people don’t.
Perhaps it is time to re-look at the whole education model and cultural aspects of architecture to make architects more skilled, pragmatic, profitable and employable. There will always be good designers around who will find a niche and become respected in the architectural world. A lot are not even trained in architecture – Tadao Ando, Thomas Heatherwick, Calatrava and Will Bruder spring to mind instantly.
The rest of us who will rely on bread and butter architecture to earn a living and put food on the table need the skillset to undertake their roles.
Sorry, I know I’ve waffled on a bit but this is a subject that I am passionate about.
Ian
Hi, very interesting comments and I totally agree, my son was offered a position for part one the other side of the country , he had a three hour interview with two men,and consequently was offered the job on a good wage, ( the lady who was meant to interview him couldnt make the interview) so all going well no problems, then 6 weeks in the lady called my son into her office and more or less said she wasnt happy with his work, that she had had better part ones, of course he was shocked, he thought he was getting on fine, she was his so called mentor who fills out the forms, and had not mentored him at all. she said nothing about what he could do to improve in her eyes, my son was shocked and when out of the office he asked the other two men who had interviewed him what they thought of his work, (one of them was above the lady) and they said his work was fine, anyway after another week there she called him into her office and said he had to go……she sacked him on monday, said they would pay for the rest of the week, but that he should not go back in the office. Totally shocked, my son is now in big trouble.. the house he had rented , me and his dad had paid for until next June (£4,000 approx) we had to do this as we live the other side of the country and wanted in asap because the company wanted him start asap. his only chance now is hopefully find something in that area, may offer to work free of charge……the whole architecture system is crazy……its driving me crazy and im his mum………
Hello J,
Many thanks for commenting on this blog post. Its always good to hear from people who have found what I’ve written useful in some way, even years after the posts were created.
I’m sorry to hear about your son’s experience.
I hope that your son has been in touch with his school of architecture to discuss the experience with them. He should also take a look at the resources on the RIBA’s PEDR website which has been set up by the RIBA to support students and employers during practical experience in architectural practice (both after Part I and Part II). There are contact details and twitter, linkedin and facebook links and other means of engaging with the RIBA and other students for support.
http://www.pedr.co.uk/
IN addition your son might want to take legal advice to see if what has happened has in any breached his contract of employment. As I understand it, a contract exists even if there is no written document. When I had employment difficulties I contacted the Citizens Advice Bureau where I was able to get some quick advice for free via their service. They would be able to tell your son if he is entitled to any redress, via an employment tribunal for example.
Its disappointing that your son has had such a negative experience in architectural practice. This is by no means the norm and I hope he’ll be able to recover from this and pursue his chosen career.