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In 2023, labor, unions, and salaries were up for discussion and debate in architecture

2023-12-24T08:00:00-05:00

At the end of last year, we described 2022 as the year that “architecture’s labor movement roared back to life.” In 2023, the movement kept the volume on 'high.' Across the U.S. and internationally, reforms in labor conditions continued from the top down and the bottom up.

Throughout the year, worker-led movements across both academia and practice exercised their right to form a union, as well as their right to strike against unfair or unsatisfactory working conditions. Meanwhile, conversations over working conditions in design studios were joined by concerns over treatment and protections for construction workers.

In tandem with conversations over workplace conditions, moves were also made to improve salary transparency, whether from the passing of new laws on a state level, or workers themselves taking the initiative to collect and share salary information.

To further explore these trends, we have set out the key developments and stories throughout 2023 related to topics surroundi...

Ranking UK firms by pay: The Pay 100's report on salaries and unpaid overtime

2023-11-02T12:10:00-04:00

The UK-based salary transparency advocates The Pay 100 have released their latest set of survey data on average salaries across UK firms. Expanding upon last year’s inaugural snapshot of results, the 2023 addition also includes data on unpaid overtime.

As reported by the Architect’s Journal, almost 1000 submissions have been made to the database. Like the 2022 edition, the latest tables are organized into three common job titles in the UK industry: Part I Architectural Assistant (less than three years in the role), Part II Architectural Assistant (less than three years in the role), and Architect / Architectural Designer (less than five years in the role).

The Archinect Salary Poll features thousands of crowdsourced salary data from across the architecture community

For Part I Assistants, the highest average annual surveys were to be found at Foster + Partners (£31,000), Allford Hall Monaghan Morris (£30,000), Burwell Architects (£30,000), and Zaha Hadid Architects (£29,000). For Par...

New York State’s salary transparency law comes into effect

2023-09-18T11:48:00-04:00

New York State’s pay transparency law has come into effect, requiring employers to disclose proposed pay rates. As of Sunday, September 17th, employers with at least four workers must disclose the minimum and maximum annual salary or hourly range of compensation in any advertisement for job, promotion, and transfer opportunities.

The law covers advertised opportunities “physically performed, at least in part, in the State of New York,” including “any opportunities that are performed outside the state, including remote or telecommuting opportunities, that report to a supervisor, office or other work site in New York State.”

“If an employee’s physical presence in New York State is only for occasional work-related purposes, such as a meeting, a conference, or communicating with employees based in New York State, that would not be enough activity to be considered a job performed in New York State,” New York State Department of Labor (NYSDOL) adds.

Related on Archinect: The 15 highest-pa...

The 15 highest-paying countries for architects, according to Yahoo! and ERI research

2023-09-11T13:21:00-04:00

Yahoo! Finance has compiled a list of the highest-paying countries for architects. Using data acquired from the Economic Research Institute (ERI), the outlet “identified the countries with the highest demand for architects and then made a list for 27 countries with the average salaries for architects.”

“Of those 27, the 15 with the highest average salaries were selected and have been ranked,” Yahoo data journalist Afifa Mushtaque added.

Yahoo!’s resulting list of countries, and the average salary for architects, is as follows (salaries in USD):

Switzerland — $130,898
Luxembourg — $111,552
United States — $100,330
Denmark — $96,877
Ireland — $89,943
Belgium — $87,626
Germany — $84,679
Australia — $84,230
Norway — $83,515
Netherlands — $82,893
United Arab Emirates — $79,274
Canada — $78,019
Finland — $76,279
France — $73,627
United Kingdom — $72,557

Yahoo!’s analysis derives from data collected by the ERI...

New York State to require salary ranges in job adverts from September 2023

2022-12-22T12:36:00-05:00

New York Governor Kathy Hochul has signed legislation establishing a statewide pay transparency law in New York State. The law was passed by both the New York State Assembly and Senate in June, and requires employers to list salary ranges for all advertised jobs and promotions.

The new legislation closely resembles a similar salary transparency law that recently came into force in New York City last month, requiring employers of at least four businesses with four or more employees in the city, including architecture firms, to include salary ranges in job adverts or risk a financial penalty.

The New York State law will apply to jobs which “can or will be performed” in the state, as well as positions that are performed out of state but report to a New York employer. Individuals will be able to report violations of the law to the New York State Department of Labor, which can issue fines for non-compliance....

In 2022, architecture's labor movement roared back to life

2022-12-19T12:34:00-05:00

In any future analysis of architectural workplace conditions, the impact of 2022 cannot be understated. Throughout the year, our editorial played host to a wide variety of labor-related developments in the profession, from top-down efforts to improve salary transparency to bottom-up unionization drives across the United States and the world.

Notwithstanding decisions by lawmakers and firm principals to reform laws and business structures, respectively, the seismic shifts in architectural labor conditions were predominantly the results of grassroots efforts. Union groups such as Architectural Workers United and Bernheimer Architecture Union set valuable precedents for workers seeking to collectively organize in the years ahead, while The Architecture Lobby set out a vision for the profession that dispels the employee-employer relationship entirely.

Beyond the U.S., meanwhile, grassroots groups led to the formation of a union in Portugal, strike action and salary disclosure platforms...

UK salary transparency group releases first average pay lists in architecture firms

2022-11-03T04:00:00-04:00

A UK-based organization dedicated to salary transparency in architecture has published its first snapshot of salary results following hundreds of grassroots submissions. As we reported in October, The Pay 100 is calling on architecture workers in the UK to submit their salaries to the group, who will ultimately publish a list of the top 100 salary averages of UK practices.

The first salaries published by the group are organized in three categories corresponding to typical positions in the UK architecture profession. The group anticipate an additional seven categories will be published when sufficient data is collected.

The Archinect Salary Poll features thousands of crowdsourced salary data from across the architecture community

The three published categories center on positions typically occupied by those in the earlier part of their architectural career. The first category, “Part I Architectural Assistant <3 years” represents those in the UK system who are working in a practice ha...

UK worker-led group launched to improve salary transparency in architecture firms

2022-10-13T03:13:00-04:00

A worker-led organization has launched in the United Kingdom with the aim of improving salary transparency in the architecture profession. The Pay 100, founded earlier this year, is currently calling on architecture workers in the UK to submit their salaries to the group, who will ultimately publish a list of the top 100 salary averages of UK practices.

“By incentivising higher wages using pay transparency, we can help reduce fee-undercutting between practices and benefit the profession as a collective,” the group says. “This is a systemic issue in which no one practice is solely responsible.”

The Archinect Salary Poll features thousands of crowdsourced salary data from across the architecture community

The motivation for The Pay 100 is fuelled by a stagnation of UK architectural salaries in recent years. According to the group, the annual publication of pay-scale bands for architectural positions in the UK has caused salaries to stand still despite rising costs of living.

“If we be...

Companies divided over including salaries in job adverts, survey finds

2022-10-05T15:36:00-04:00

A series of salary transparency laws emerging across the U.S. is already having an impact on how companies approach disclosing pay range information, one survey has found. The study, undertaken by insurance advisor company WTW, found that many businesses are choosing to include information on salary ranges in job adverts, even when not required to under state or local laws.

WTW’s Pay Clarity Survey elicited 388 responses from businesses across North America, and was not specific to architecture or the AEC industry.

The survey was conducted between June 27th and July 8th of this year, at a time when several U.S. states were advancing plans to introduce salary transparency laws for job adverts. In May, it was confirmed that New York City businesses will have to disclose salary ranges in job adverts starting from November 2022, while a similar move by New York State was advanced in June.

In early September, California lawmakers updated and passed their own salary transparency law, wh...

California lawmakers pass salary transparency law for job adverts

2022-09-02T11:43:00-04:00

Legislators in California have passed a bill strengthening the state’s pay transparency requirements. Elements contained in the bill, SB 1162, include a requirement for many employers to include salary ranges in job postings, disclose salary scales to employees for their current positions, and to file pay data reports.

The new bill requires an employer with 15 or more employees to include a pay scale in any job posting, and to maintain records of their employees' job titles and wage rate histories. The bill also requires that employers of 15 or more employees using a third party to advertise job postings to provide the pay scale to the third party for publication.

Upon request, an employer must provide an employee with the pay scale for the position in which the employee is currently employed. The bill also requires employers with...

New York State may join NYC in wage transparency laws after senate vote

2022-06-09T08:00:00-04:00

A bill has passed both the New York State Assembly and Senate which would require employers to disclose salary ranges in job postings. If signed into law by Governor Kathy Hochul, New York would become the latest state to pass wage transparency laws, following similar moves in Colorado, Nevada, Connecticut, California, Washington, and Maryland.

The news comes one month after New York City confirmed that its own salary disclosure laws would come into effect from November 1st of this year, following a six-month delay. The NYC law will require businesses with four or more employees in the city, including architecture firms, to include salary ranges in job adverts or risk a financial penalty.

The New York State bill, named S9427, pertains to adverts for new job positions, promotions, or transfer opportunities that will be fully or partly performed in the state of New Y...

New York City firms will have to disclose salary ranges in job adverts, but not until November

2022-05-06T10:20:00-04:00

The New York City Council has voted to postpone the enforcement of a new law which would have seen businesses with four or more employees in the city, including architecture firms, of including salary ranges in job advertisements. The law, which was set to take effect from May 15th, will now take effect on November 1st.

The law was originally passed in January, with the goal of closing the gender and race pay gap through encouraging more transparent salary information. However, heavy lobbying by business groups including JPMorgan Chase and Goldman Sachs saw the implementation delayed by six months. Lobbyists also sought to exempt companies with fewer than 15 employees from the disclosure, up from the original bill’s threshold of four employees or fewer. However, this amendment was unsuccessful.

Under the new law, which will be enforced by the city’s Commission on Human Rights, em...

Protesting Architectural Assistants in the UK are Fed Up: Is the Architectural Education System at Fault?

2021-03-22T14:40:00-04:00

The tough competition faced by architecture practices in the UK has led to the hiring of workers at pay rates that make commercial sense, and there’s not much the RIBA can do to change that.

Part 1 and 2 ‘assistant architects’ have turned to mass protest against the working conditions of the architecture profession with little to no hope for future prospects. Protesters appear to be most strongly after attaining higher salary levels for the profession--a problem that has haunted the professional life of architecture work for many years.

Check out Archinect's Just Design series, in collaboration with the Architecture Lobby, highlighting practices that exhibit fair labor practices in architecture

Tracing back to the 1970s, the Salaried Architects Group was a popular radical reform organization dedicated to changing the RIBA. The group had hoped to foster recognition of design work and the level of RIBA membership fees rather than salaries--since many members were architects. Since the...

Qatar to pass new minimum wage law for contractors

2020-09-24T19:39:00-04:00

Contractors working in Qatar will need to update their employment contracts, and can expect tougher competition in attracting labour, thanks to a new law that guarantees a minimum wage and makes it easier to change employers, a law firm says. Coming into effect 9 October this year, Law No. 17 sets the minimum wage at QAR 1,000 per month ($275), plus QAR 500 per month ($137) for accommodation and QAR 300 per month ($82) for food.

Moreover, the new law also removes the requirement for foreign workers to obtain a No-Objection Certificate (NOC) from their employer to work for someone else, GCR reports. This will naturally heighten the competition for skilled labor since employees will be free to switch employers if they desire to do so.

Wages for architectural workers are up—That's the good news

2019-09-11T19:22:00-04:00

The latest compensation survey conducted by the American Institute of Architects (AIA) has found that in recent years, as demand for design services has increased and unemployment has fallen to historic lows, average pay for architecture staff has increased by over $10,000.

The report credits a 40-percent increase in non-residential construction spending since 2017 with the gains, as well. This economic activity has helped boost pay for architectural workers at a rate 2.5-times the rate of wage growth for all other professional staff in the United States, according to an AIA press release.

That's the good news. The not-so-good news is that the last time this level of wage growth took place, in 1999 and again in 2008, was "either just prior to, or as the economy and the construction sectors were entering national economic downturns," the organization writes.

This AIA graph illustrates national architecture firm billings, design contracts, and inquiries between July 2018 – July 2019....

GSAPP United: how student unions affect architectural labor, ft. A.L. Hu, GSAPP MArch student and organizer with Graduate Workers of Columbia, on Archinect Sessions #81

2016-09-15T18:50:00-04:00

In a landmark decision last month, Columbia University graduate students won the right to unionize in a case filed against the National Labor Relations Board. As a result, graduate students in private universities across the U.S. now have the right to collectively bargain. What effect does this have on architecture student labor, and the valuation of architecture overall?

We're joined this week by special guest A.L. Hu, a third-year GSAPP MArch student and key organizer with Graduate Workers of Columbia (GWC-UAW). Hu shared what's happening at the school after the landmark decision, and how these organizing efforts can affect the architecture profession overall.

Listen to episode 81 of Archinect Sessions, "GSAPP United":

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