READERS' COMMENTS
• SteveJ 12 June, 2009
I appreciate the disparity between study costs and starting salaries - I like others have been there: and survived - my part one was 1992 also not a very good year! I have always thought that people are drawn to architecture because of the contributions they can make not what they can earn out!
• muhammad badr 12 June, 2009
The way to deal with this is protection of function, and i'll tell you why. Architects earn so little because society does not require their services so much. This situation would be turned on it's head if architects were statutorially required from stages RIBA A- C/D. This would also give much needed back up and expertise to planners (in a round about way), may help to re-focus some schools of architecture, and would lead to a much better designed built environment. BUT, this only makes sense if a well designed built environment is important to society/government. For this to be the case, the built environment has to be held as more of a resource for all. At the moment it is (and has been) a cash cow.
• Peter Czajkowskyj 12 June, 2009
I entered architecture in the late 1970's not being in a position to leave for university I trained as a technologist. In later years I used the downturns in the industry of which I have work through many to study my part I on a part time basis. I then entered the Riba OBE programme to complete my part II and III. Sunand please note the access to older students already exists through the Riba. This is an excellent course run by Oxford Brookes without snobbery. Neither do I feel any less an architect nore so a rounded architect with years of practical experience and technical knowledge.
• Gordon Gecko 12 June, 2009
The market economics of supply and demand are the answer to this - more demand for architects and less supply of them. The profession should control the number of new architects qualifying, so that only the best make the grade. You get well-paid architects and a well-designed built environment as a result. A doctor can save your life; a lawyer can keep you out of jail; an architect can get you planning permission and save you money through good design.
• Jim Bond 12 June, 2009
Having finished in 2008 as a 'mature' student with a young family with debts of 32k and a derisively low starting salary I look at other professionals who are quite often future clients earning two / three times more. It is clear that some layers of society does not value the built environment as opposed to some of our european neighbors. My feelings are to protect the profession two ways, projects over a certain value have to be architect lead and by limiting the number of part 2 or 3 students gaining accreditation, part 1 with no design talent should not be architects, there is not failure to be a technician thus we hopefully raising design standards, and we then could be payed more in line with the expertise we provide. Lastly I doubt that anyone went into this profession to became rich but that does not mean that we should not expect remuneration equal to our expertise and education.
• Manuj Darshan 12 June, 2009
This is nothing. I am from India. Was always a design topper and famous in here for innovative architecture. The starting salary was INR 2500 pm or £2400 per year. One cannot even survive and meet his daily bread and need 4 times to survive even as a bachelor.
• Katrin 12 June, 2009
Well, maybe salaries are so low, because we have too many architects? So maybe we don't need so many students firs of all? Architect’s profession is the worst for what you can earn for the amount of work you do. And it doesn’t matter at all if you a beginner or already an experienced specialist. I earn £25000 per year and I have a 5 years experience. My working hours are not even near to 9 to 5 pm.
• MatthewS 12 June, 2009
Isn’t it time that the length of the part 2 course was adjusted? The general consensus seems to be that the first year is unnecessary and Cardiff has already shown a successful model for reducing the time required to qualify. This would instantly knock about £7000+ off the financial burden that students currently face.
• Anna 12 June, 2009
My son is nearly fourteen & considering what he would like to do for a career. He absolutely does not want to be an architect as he has seen his mother struggling for Part III recognition his entire life & earning a pittance in comparison to his father (an IT software systems designer). He now sees his mother out of work due to the recession. He has even offered to keep me in my old age - bless him - & I'm worried that may come about!
• Dan from Liverpool 12 June, 2009
I really enjoy architecture, but my optimisim is much lower now compared to when i started the course in 2004. I'm concerned about the security of my career as an architect in the future, as well as the financial benefits (pay) and the financial disadvantages (cost of getting degree). I will be in approx £50,000 debt when leaving university, not as bad as the 60,000 under new fees system, but still bad! I have no problem with the length of the course, its required, however it is not financially viable! The government have been raising fee's non stop,this is one of the main downfalls of degress in general, never mind a degree 7 years long. I hope to see a drop in fees in the near future, why do we pay taxes? Our taxes should fund our education! It's not fair or healthy to be automatically in £40-60g in debt, plus loss of earnings over degree duration, so that when I am earning and have a family, I'll be paying taxes so my children too can be in debt?! Tis a joke!
• James Curtis 12 June, 2009
Having completed my Part II in 2006 I feel that I belong to this ridiculous government farce and one that is never highlighted by the tabloid press. The government has never taken this into account. Yes people study architecture for the status, love of what it produces, and the benefit it can bring to people, and not the money. However with the addition now of top up fees we can only ever expect a shortfall in the amount of talented designers coming through the ranks. Young people are becoming incredibly savvy to costs of study-and it will and has effected the dedication of students being taken on. I know because I teach Architecture at a major London university. I am against any form of 'fee' for education. It is just yet another tax and I much prefer the NUS proposal of loan based system directly correlated in relation to eventual 'qualified earnings'. How on earth can you pay back something so expensive that takes so long when the money is just not there anymore because the profession is so different to 10 years ago. The rot has started and we've yet to see the results. Wait ten years and the profession will be in a far worse state if action is not taken now to change the system. Its already to late for so many of us forced into unassailable debt for a profession we love where we give so much.
• Nicola 12 June, 2009
The media does not convey the reality of any profession sweat and tears. The appeal of Architecture, a multidisciplined mystery talent, in an aetheist society, is the best substitute for a religious activity. The strong vocational appeal to the multidisciplined seeking viable expression of being (3,000 year tradition) has itself become a cash cow for many architecture associated activities, the more associated interests are involved, the higher the cost to the end product, the architect. Each discipline requires its checking bodies and insurances, ad infinitum all outside of the actual design creative centre of architecture (inside the head): it is a miracle we get any Architects out it at the end at all.
• samuel anderson 12 June, 2009
I studied in a scottish city...minimised my student debt and had a part 2 starting salary of 31k in Edinburgh and got my part 3 in 2 years...I look at folks sho martyr themsleves by studying at fashionable London schools (and cant actually detail of graduation) then continue to martyr themselves working for whatever firm is 'trendy and cool' at the moment...! The London centric nature of the profession is a major problem...Architects need to think outside of teh box and stop dreaming. It is a business first and last!
• James 12 June, 2009
Gordon Gekko, i totally agree, i am a student and i know most professions keep salaries high by barriers to entry....architects take an opposite liberal attitude saying every one who wants to be an architect should have the opportunity even in the article, the president of RIBA says we should have more opportunities for the people that are having trouble financially. Whether people want to admit or not, the fact of the matter is this is a weighing scales and on the other end is the average architect salary. The more we let into the profession, the less we make.... while architecture is the most exclusive profession in the true sense that it excludes people who cannot afford it, i do not believe it is an exclusive thing to do as the social status it once had in the day of Sir William Chambers and those who came immediately after. Those days seem to be long gone....
• Mike Dean 12 June, 2009
I've been working in IT since I Ieft school 17 years ago. As time went on I improved my skillset and everything was fine. However boredom soon set in and after a while the whole thing became a daily tedium and a chore. I enjoyed it less and less and as such I let everything slide. You can't give your all if your heart isn't in it can you? To-date, I have nothing to show for my years of hard graft. So here it begins. After growing up with my parents who ran a successful building company, from the word go I was breakfasting on drawings sprawled out before me, listening to my father who would later interpret these magnificent 2D technical drawings into wonderful 3D buildings. To this day they still stand as a legacy to his talents. A year ago, with my wife in full support, I decided to give up IT as a career and since I was so very unhappy at work, I began an eight year journey to get my Architecture degree, followed by a Masters. I've just come to the end of my first year as an access student, passing with a high mark. I have been accepted into University Portsmouth, UK for the course. At the ripe old age of 32, I'll be one of the eldest students of which I have been told many will not complete. My question is this, my enthusiasm for all things architecture runs very deep, it's been a part of my life through childhood and into my adult life. I'm not in it for giggles, I fully intend to complete the course, get my degree, masters etc and practice until I die. For me it's about the career which I intend to exploit fully for ultimate personal gain, not necessarily for the financial, (there are other ways to get wealthy) but for the intellectual challenges it will afford me. I am fully aware of the costs etc, and I'm willing to travel around the globe to get what I want, but am I about to embark on a career path that will become saturated as it was with IT all those years ago?
• Lazyrobot 13 June, 2009
I have heard this before - back at home, in Poland, 5 years ago. 'Architects are underpaid, there is definetly too many of us, people don't need us anymore... Oh my god, how are we going to survive?' My sad conclusion is: we are not going to survive, unless we will expand our business activities and, sorry for being openly honest, reduce our numbers. Greatly reduce numbers, I should say. Our problem is that we value aesthetics and built environment more than anyone else. No one else recieved training enabling them to recognize good or bad architecture. In general: people do not care that much, as long as they have a place to stay and a bread to eat. Wealthy of this world are different, but simply there are not enough of them to support us all. Rich architects... Phew... Have anyone knew any of them before starchitects emerged from hugely inflated property market? I don't think so. And they will be gone soon as well...
• Bill F, Croydon 13 June, 2009
Architects are self-abusers. They are trained to beg to work long hours for rubbish money and no job security. This is the culture promoted by desperate Directors. They also suffer from being soft airhead academics in a bastard's industry. 50% of the profession should go and find something better to do, which may leave the others with the opportunity to firm up fees, terms, etc, if they have the guts to do so.
• Jonathan Clarke 14 June, 2009
Right now I'd struggle to recommend any of the built environment professions to prospective students. I'm rather surprised that no-one's mentioned it, but the proliferation of design and build contracts has led directly to lower salaries. With the exception of those professions deemed to be servants of society, and I'm thinking nurses, the police, etc (nope not architects), it is the professions that work with money that receive the best salaries. Architects and designers are increasingly bidding for ever tighter shares of the cash, rather than having any sort of control of it. I also think there is a more general problem that 'design' isn't really valued or appreciated. How many clients, and I'm talking about reasonable ones, seem to have an attitude that if designers aren't kept on a really tight leash, they'll be off designing platinum plated follies, or giant fountains of their cash? The current planning system doesn't help either ; 99 times out of one hundred, a mediocre scheme with little design thinking but to a familiar formula, will encounter less problems than an innovative, well thought out new solution. And yes I’m thinking about the many identical brick boxes that crop up all over the land. *sighs* As it happens I also disagree with the fees students have to pay, but unfortunately I can’t see the current system radically changing. I wonder if we’d be better to shorten courses and perhaps looking at some sort of standard foundation between professions, that would allow later changes between professions according to market need.
• Marcus Lee 15 June, 2009
It's about time more people knew the very simple fact that I learnt at an APSAA conference a year ago that I attended whilst representing the national student body ARCHAOS. That is architecture doesn't take 7 years to qualify in. It is increasingly taking 8-10 years for students to pass their part III... Due to a variety of issues such as inadequate placement experience and this problem is only likely to get worse with the current reduction in the prevalence of student placement positions. The profession should seriously reconsider the length and point of its educational standards at all levels or else it will simply die out as far as I can see...
• muhammadbadr 16 June, 2009
8-10yrs? You'll be lucky! I've just qualified, and it took me 13 yrs, I think it takes most people at least 10 yrs nowadays
• Helsinki Dave 16 June, 2009
..well here in Finland, you can't submit a drawing to the council unless you are a 'building professional' of some sort. Why on earth UK doesn't do this - I have no idea.
• Verity Bird 16 June, 2009
If you were in it for the money you'd be better off spending a couple of months to train as a plumber. Muhammad is absolutely right, our profession is not valued, in fact we're percieved as very expensive and widely thought to be highly paid (like doctors and solicitors).
• James Williamson 16 June, 2009
It is pretty depressing when you're the lead consultant with the most resposibility and, lets face it, the most ridiculous work load and you find yourself sitting at design team meeting with 10 other 'professions' and you are earning the least. By far usually. It took me 13 years to qualify with 7 of those in practice. My friend qualified years ago as an engineer. He did nothing about it for years (can't even wire a plug). He thenwalked straight into a graduate job recently and started on £25,000. He admits he does hardly any work compared to me but gets paid a lot more. The highest I got was £23,000. How did this happen and why, whenever you tell someone that you're an architect, do the say "oooh! You must be loaded" Were we ever? And , if so , what happened. minimum fees by law anyone?
• Katrin 17 June, 2009
It’s not exclusive at all, it’s most unvalued. Architect’s title is protected here, but you don’t need an architect to build a house, or get planning permission. In most of other countries in Europe you won’t be able to submit drawings to the council if you are not building professional.
• Nats 18 June, 2009
It took me ten years to qualify and I have been qualified for 11 years. I have struggled with money for years and I am still. If I had gone down the route of an IT consultant I would be on double the salary I am now. I am seriously thinking of getting out of the profession for good, as I have considered doing many times over my career, but architectural experience is not easy to use elsewhere. The salary you end up with is just not worth the workload or stress, and the fact is the times when the architect was the most highly respected building professional professional are well gone. The only people who are respectuful to architects these days are salesmen for suppliers who want to get in your specification. Personally I am very disappointed with the profession I chose and would rather do practically anything else.
