Foster's tops biggest architects list

Foster & Partners has again topped the list of the country’s biggest practice by the number of UK architects employed.

The list has been put together by BD’s sister title Building for its annual Top 150 consultants table which is out this Friday.

Foster’s employs 387 architects, over 100 more than second-placed BDP which is over 60 ahead of third-placed Atkins.

In its latest accounts filed at Companies House, revenue at the practice led by chairman Norman Foster broke through the £200 million barrier for the first time, rising 30% to £205 million while underlying profits were up 44% to £51.7 million.

New entrants to Building’s top 10 list include Purcell, Stride Treglown, Scott Brownrigg and Broadway Malyan.

Practices making their debut in the wider list, which covers 50 architects, include HLM, Jestico & Whiles and Penoyre & Prasad.

Meanwhile, BD has begun its search for the world’s biggest architects with the launch of our annual WA100 survey.

The survey of the world’s largest practices ranks firms by the number of fee-earning architects they employ. The full table will be published in December with the deadline for completing the survey October 5.

US practice Aecom, which is masterplanniing the Rio 2016 Olympics site, topped the 2015 survey, ahead of Japanese practice Nikken Sekkei. Another US firm, Gensler, which was 2014’s number one practice, slipped to third. The highest-placed British firm was Foster & Partners.

For more details on the WA100 2016 survey, click on the link here.