Architectural graduates can earn more at McDonald’s. That’s bad for diversity and the profession

A job advert for McDonald’s recently received a lot of attention on Facebook because the advertised hourly rate – for what appeared to be entry-level openings – was apparently just £1 per hour more than that of a graduate nurse’s pay. The overriding reaction to the post was shock and anger that nurses are barely paid more than a job considered low skilled.

I wondered what would be the reaction to a post pointing out that average graduate architectural students earn less than the rate being offered by McDonald’s in the advert. I didn’t brave Facebook but instead posted on LinkedIn.

The focus of my post was not the injustice of architects’ pay in a free market economy - as frankly who do we expect to care about what we, a “privileged” profession earn? Rather, with such financial pressure on students and young architects, my concern was that the profession is at risk of going backwards with regards to socioeconomic and gender representation.

There is a growing risk that less advantaged young people will be driven out of architecture because they cannot afford the cost of education and cannot survive on the low wages the profession pays. I firmly believe that the world is a better place when those designing it reflect those living in it. But architecture’s low wage culture is the enemy of diversity.

Whilst my LinkedIn post was initially motivated by a somewhat flippant curiosity, as I read some of the comments and started to think more deeply about the issue, I identified two interrelated aspects of architectural practice that perpetuate the relatively low salaries that architects get paid. The first issue is that the pay profile of our profession is inherently structured in a way that inhibits diversity, and secondly, we do not charge fees high enough to do what is required to properly execute our responsibilities.

On the first point, the typical architectural career path goes something like this: slog it out on low pay through your training and first few years after qualification, often working long hours with unpaid overtime yet gaining invaluable experience. Then, in your mid-thirties, say, if you’re the right fit (and especially if you have the right contacts to bring in work) you may start to gain more responsibility and see your salary finally improve in line with mid-range professions - albeit you are likely to still be expected to do the long, anti-social hours.

Perhaps for a time, your love and passion for the job keeps you going

The problem is that students from lower income households are less likely to be able to afford to risk the cost associated with those long years of training and the postponement of income earning. Perhaps for a time, your love and passion for the job keeps you going. But as one commenter on my LinkedIn post put it, while setting out the painful reality of living on a shoestring budget in London: “Do I have to live under a bridge because architecture is my ‘passion?’”

Without a financially secure background and the “bank of mum and dad” that more affluent students may have access to, those years of deferred income can be ruinous. Even for those with some degree of family financial support, the prospect of years of low pay can be deeply demoralizing.

Students from less privileged backgrounds may be disadvantaged when competing for business development brownie points, being less likely to be able to tap into the affluent social circles where work is often won. And, for women, that point in their career when the slog might otherwise start paying off, often coincides with the biological reality that their choice of entering parenthood is quickly becoming time limited.

Too many practices still adopt working practices that are not conducive to family life. And we know – for well-versed reasons beyond the remit of this piece – that it’s women who suffer most with this lack of flexibility, often resulting in a withdrawal from architectural practice either in part, or wholly.

So, prospective architects from low-income households may be put off even applying to study architecture in the first place – or change direction midway through training – choosing instead the relative financial security of other career paths. And women are squeezed out just as they’re poised to benefit from the slog they’ve put in.

Is it any surprise then that by looking at gender representation in senior architectural roles, women are markedly absent? And those that do “succeed” often do so within a structure that relies on a repressed and poorly paid workforce at the bottom of the food chain, working long hours for low pay to enable those at the top to finally earn better salaries.

…architects do not charge high enough fees to properly discharge their role and responsibilities professionally

It’s a professional pyramid scheme where your gender and background will strongly influence whether you reach the apex. Perhaps this is just how most commercial professions work, but what’s different here are the baseline salaries that we’re talking about. Lawyers, accountants, and IT graduates starting a training contract can expect to earn over 40% more than architectural staff – and once qualified they are more likely to make a decent living without getting into senior leadership roles.

And so on to the second issue; low fees. This is a vast subject but it’s clear that generally, architects do not charge high enough fees to properly discharge their role and responsibilities professionally.

There are a myriad of reasons for this, and as another commenter on my post put it, “there’s always someone willing to do it for less”, whether that be within or outside of the architectural profession, and it is very difficult at the outset to demonstrate your value above theirs. But the main reason is because we undervalue ourselves.

Cutting corners or providing poor levels of service risks the reputation of the profession as well as the firms doing it

I have seen eye-wateringly low fees charged by practices. Whilst on occasion, firms may do a loss-leader, only a tiny proportion of projects can realistically be subsidized by the profit of another.

Rather, such low fees can only be possible if architects are cutting corners in their services, risking mistakes with under-qualified staff, or exploiting staff through unpaid overtime. Cutting corners or providing poor levels of service risks the reputation of the profession as well as the firms doing it, undermining the very effort that most of us are trying to make by demonstrating the value we bring.

Fundamentally, such actions suppress fees across the whole profession. Setting such a low benchmark results in many practices struggling to pay their staff decent salaries, especially if they don’t subscribe to the culture of long unpaid hours or compromising the quality of their service.

Finally, what was apparent from the many replies that my LinkedIn post received, is that architectural skills are being recognized elsewhere within the construction industry. Many qualified architects reported securing much better salaries when they went to work for contractors and developers.

This is somewhat reassuring but where does it leave conventional architectural practice? If we don’t address this issue head on as a profession, are we, by default, just accepting that the flawed culture of conventional architectural practice will never foster the diversity that society deserves in its designers.

Also read >> Is it time to look again at fee scales?