Architecture in crisis: a profession undermined by its own structures

Once viewed as a rewarding and respected profession, architecture in the UK is now increasingly defined by diminishing fees, increased costs, more liability, rising risk, and a growing disconnect between architects and the institutions that represent them. Behind our professional body’s glitz of awards ceremonies, revamped headquarters and pledges, a deeper crisis is unfolding, one that is a slow and continual erosion of the profession’s value and viability.

For decades, architecture offered the promise of meaningful, creative and rewarding work that shaped public life. But many architects now report a very different reality: mounting stress, diminishing margins, unpaid work, and regulatory burdens and liabilities that grow heavier each year.

This steady decline has taken place in full view of two professional bodies, ARB and RIBA, who many regard as having done progressively less to support architects. ARB, the profession’s regulator, rightly protects the public. RIBA promotes “architecture”. Today, no one supports the architects themselves.

Central to this is an insidious race to the bottom in procurement. Firms increasingly feel pressure to undercut one another on fees to secure turnover.

We know of practices that tout pre-planning design services for free, resource complex projects to unqualified students, and offer fees at levels that cannot support safe, competent delivery. These are not rogue operators looking to maximise profit; they are reputable practices struggling to remain viable within a broken system.

RIBA recently launched a taskforce to address working hours, pay and wellbeing, all important issues, yet it continues to sidestep the root cause of these challenges: the unsustainable race to the bottom. We’re rightly told the profession needs to pay better wages, improve work-life balance, offer more training, and create rewarding careers.

But unless we deal with the economic foundations of the profession, these ambitions remain wishful thinking. It’s like trying to patch a leaking roof while ignoring the crumbling foundations.

We regularly read about RIBA’s latest awards, the Stirling Prize, the new multimillion-pound architecture centre, “industry issues” and countless surveys, product promotions and new registers. The institution urges higher standards, promoting design competitions that demand free design work.

The winning practice is lauded, but nothing is said of the four or five other firms who incurred significant cost with nothing to show for it, and most honorariums don’t even come close to covering the expenditure. In promoting such competitions, RIBA reinforces a narrative that what we do is disposable and not worth paying for.

This is not a debate about profit. It is about financial sustainability

The passing of the Building Safety Act (BSA) was a unique opportunity for the profession to assert a clear principle: that public safety and architectural quality require proper investment. But instead of using the moment to stop the race to the bottom, the RIBA responded with additional layers of bureaucracy: more competency registers, more administrative hurdles and more cost to individuals and practices.

The underlying economic issues remained unaddressed.

Today, an architect may be expected to pay separate annual fees to two professional bodies. Each organisation imposes its own training requirements, codes of conduct and competency assessments, many of which now overlap.

>> Also read: The regulator steps into the spotlight

>> Also read: The Building Safety Act provides a once in a generation opportunity for architects to deliver meaningful change

Add to this the RIBA Chartered Practice scheme and the new Principal Designer Register, and the result is unnecessary complexity and cost. Yet there’s silence about how practices are meant to absorb this burden while fee income declines.

This is not a debate about profit. It is about financial sustainability, about whether firms can afford to hire, train and retain staff, invest in quality systems, resource projects adequately and maintain professional standards over the long term.

Without adequate fees, internal investment becomes impossible. Mentorship, career development and quality assurance are diminished, along with the ability to deliver the quality of profession that the public rightly expects.

There is also a growing sense of alienation. Many architects now view RIBA not as a representative body but as a poorly performing service provider, one that collects subscriptions, imposes obligations and launches initiatives without clear connection to the daily realities of practice.

The feeling is no longer one of collective membership, but of being beholden to an institution that does not speak for them.

I would not wish today’s version of the profession on my children: underpaid, undervalued and unsupported

The consequences are visible. Talented professionals are leaving the field. Young people are reconsidering whether architecture offers a viable career path. Practices are forced to operate project to project, unable to plan or invest long term.

Across the sector, there is a quiet consensus: the current system and its representative professional body is not working, not for practitioners and not for the public outcomes architecture is meant to serve.

I was fortunate to grow in a practice that was rewarded sufficiently to invest in the staff, systems and support that helped shape me into the architect I became. That kind of investment is essential to developing future architects, and it simply will not happen with insufficient fees.

It’s not about profit margins; it’s about sustaining a profession that claims to value design and safety but fails to value those who deliver it.

Architecture should be a brilliant career. And for a long time, I was lucky to practise it in a time when that felt true.

But I would not wish today’s version of the profession on my children: underpaid, undervalued and unsupported. And that, more than anything, should be a wake-up call.