what firm do you work for? I can recommend a few people. :)

a 55-year-old painter will make the same $16.06 as a 22-year-old painter ...

is that what you hope to make as an architect when you're 55 ?

Point well taken, but the upward mobility is not that fast in architecture either, albeit better than for painters.

i suppose we all have our own perspective ... i think becoming a good architect is a lot harder than becoming a good painter ... for most people, it takes a long time to become a seasoned architect

now, having said that, i've seen some very talented, very hardworking young architects experience meteoric career progress ... for the most part, i believe they deserved that rapid advancement and the economic rewards that brought ... they got ahead by solving problems, delivering results, knowing how to manage client relationships, knowing how to manage staff, knowing how to bring in new work, etc.

my first arch job out of school i got paid $10/hr. i asked for $15 at one point and they gave me $12.

who said a 55 year old painter will get the same as a 22 year old one??? talented painters (who generally try to open their own shops at that age) will make much more than 16$ per hour

Plus, you make large changes in monetary compensation by working your way up (at least when you work for someone else).

So...

If you work for a painting company that has 100 employees, then work your way up to top dog, you make a shit load.

How much can an architect working for himself expect to make at 55? Probably only pennies more than when he started on his own, unless he has a bunch of employees.


Just making sure we are comparing apples to apples. Architect's won't make anymore, just like painters, unless they are A)moving up a corporate ladder or B)have employees so they can take on more work.

I can't imagine it's any different in the painting industry (or garbage collecting, or whatever). Not many professions can you actually make large financial changes with only experience - it takes expansion.



Oh, as a side note, a good friend of my father's is a painter. Makes his own hours, etc., and is by no means doing really well, but he does take a 2 month vacation each year.

"Not many professions can you actually make large financial changes with only experience - it takes expansion."

very good point there, trace

simply to clarify, i interpret dingle's original question to address employees of firms ... not owners ... the question was about "wages"

i stand by my view that a 55 year old employee of an architectural firm will have experienced SUBSTANTIALLY more salary advancement over the course of a career than a 55 year old painter employed by a painting subcontractor

these most recent posts have changed the direction of the thread

a good thread ..i must say...

To re-focus the thread...

If only painters make less than entry level architects, it is going to be very challenging for the arch profession to attract highly qualified architects that are both well rounded and skilled at many levels/subjects (i.e. able to effectively communicate with investors, contractors, subs, consultants, other architects, and academics, while still able to both design, detail, and explain architecture intelligently). Today's global labor pool is more savvy than that, and rightfully expects more.

The arch profession must be more than a haven for the stereotypical, and often secretely wealthy, indi-punk art student with nowhere else to go. Even half of those on the fashionable academic lecture circuit are so full of shit that it is entertaining to watch some of these kids frantically take notes, as if they were listening to aristotle give the meaning of life.

Every step along the road one takes to becoming an architect is important, but in order to ensure the quality/intelligence of those on the road, we (empoyers) must change the archaic and un-ethical tradition of expecting intelligent kids to work for nothing. There is nothing intelligent about it.

i certainly hope you are not generalizing for the whole profession with this sweeping statement ...

i know for certain that our firm (40-50 people) never uses unpaid interns ... the wages we pay clearly are competitive with the marketplace and we provide a comprehensive benefit package to all employees ...

the same is true with all of the other local firms about which i have knowledge and the vast majority of national firms where i have a passing acquintance ... my impression is that the main problem witn unpaid interns resides mostly in the so-called "design center" metropolitan areas that are home to the so-called "starchitects"

the aia has taken a strong stance against the use of unpaid interns and enforces it by requiring firms and individuals submitting for any type of recognition to certify that they do not employ such individuals

firms would not employ unpaid interns if those individuals refused to work for free ... while i would never defend any firm that used unpaid labor, you have to remember that "it takes two to tango"

in todays world, even $15-20 per hour is nothing. especially when you factor in the loan re-payments most arch grads have after 7+ years of higher education (assuming they hold a master degree). i should have specified what i meant by "nothing", sorry.

there is a very interesting thread elsewhere in archinect about the disconnect between the profession and academia: discussion thread

i appreciate dingle's post immediatly above ... but, i also take some exception to the idea that firm's are economically abusing recent graduates nationwide ... while we see a lot of very talented people emerging from the academies, a large proportion take a considerable amount of additional training and seasoning in offices before they start to cover their costs

if you want to be upset with someone over wasges being paid, please direct some of that venom to your school ... while i recognize and accept that the profession and the academies have different roles and different perspectives, firm's cannot, and will not, carry employees at a loss for an extended period of time ... the economics of professional practice simply will not permit that to happen

we find graduates from schools that offer (require) meaningful co-op programs (such as Cincinnati) to be highly employable right after graduation and we happily pay those graduates significanly higher wages than graduates who offer only one or two summers of office experience

I think the problem is the pay in general, not simply unpaid interns. That's just a very small part of the problem.

I think we'll start to see more of a separation of powers. There will be more hierarchies where one person does one thing and one does another. It's simply inefficient to expect everyone to be great at everything.
I am sure many will disagree...but this would allow for a natural progression where the people that are great at one thing can focus on that one thing. Hopefully, this will lead to higher paid for those that excel at each skill/talent.
I can think of a few very prominent firms that are leaning more and more in this direction, and doing very well at it.

trace ... what you sugggest may be the way things are heading ... but, i worry that this also may lead to a class-structure in firms that will be uncomfortable and difficult to manage ... you already see this in some departmentalized firms where the design department are the "elite" and the production and ca departments are the "grunts"

i think there is no question that part of the pay problem in our industry arises from operational inefficiency ... we do not (maybe cannot) do what we do quickly ... it's not like in medicine where the surgeon can say "so, you need a bypass operation ... yep, we have a procedure already established for that ... we don't have to make that up from scratch" ... this problem is what has lead some firms to shy away from being generalist firms and to focus on one or two project types

a companion difficulty is the nature of the typical graduate ... highly trained, highly talented architects don't narrow their personal role with ease (unless, of course, they can just do design) ... you are pointing out that we are trained to be "generalists" and we're working in a world that wants us to be "specialists" ... hmmm ... a fertile breeding ground for frustration.

Blue Goose-
"considerable amount of additional training and seasoning in offices before they start to cover their costs"

This is the same for business, law, and medical professions. It is just a cost of doing business in all professions, yet the other professions still find a way to pay entry level positions fairly.

Trace-
The assembly line approach to architecture that you see in larger firms yields poor quality control in my opinion. I agree with the economics of the approach, but strong communication and feedback loops from SD to CD's should be the norm.

dingle ... ah, i wish it were that simple

personally, i don't believe that training in medicine, law or accounting is mostly about the "theory" of those professions ... nor do i believe practitioners in those professions need to spend nearly as much time "getting up to speed" in the real world after graduation ... they tend to come out of school prepared to function at a much higher level ... i know lots of accountants who knew how to put together a complex balance sheet the day they graduated ... i don't know a lot of graduate architects who could detail a complex wall section the day they got their degree

sure, all businesses are required to provide a certain amount of training to entry level staff ... my personal view, based on many, many years of professional practice is that the extent of post-graduate development is much, much higher in architecture

the true issue here is the overall economics of professional practice ... if firms everywhere were truly taking unfair advantage of their younger staff, there'd be a lot more rich firm owners than i know to be the case ...

in my view, this problem is not fundamentally about pay levels ... it's about fee levels ... we're not going to solve the pay issue until we, as a profession, find a way to command appropriate fees

"we're not going to solve the pay issue until we, as a profession, find a way to command appropriate fees"

How does this change?

We should make a distinction between high profile firms either using their prestige to get away with underpaying people or compensating people in other ways (increased access to grad schools, teaching jobs, commissions, fancy parties whatever) depending how you look on one hand and the underpaid (or just potentially better paid) condition of architects in general. While other industries are constantly riding the margins of collusion and price fixing architects seem willing to compete each other and them selves right into the ground. If our bosses were better at getting paid at a decent rate for all the work they/ we do the business of marking up and passing our wages on wouldn’t be any skin off their backs. It’s these office business models that are based on half the work being basically marketing or loss-leader stuff and the rest being twelve hour days billed as eight hour days that spread the suckiness of architectural compensation out across the industry.

dingle ... well, if i told you that, then you'd be as rich as me ... !

what you ask is, of course the proverbial 64 thousand dollar question ... my own view is that it will be very, very difficult to change without sweeping cultural changes, both within and without the profession ... some aspects of that change will include:

a) an attitudinal change among practitioners that yes, it is important and appropriate to make a good living ... but that a good living doesn't just happen, it's the natural result of knowledge and making good choices

b) an attitudinal change among practitioners that yes, we -- as individuals -- are going to have to change the way we think and the way we operate

c) an attitudinal change among practitioners that people who know something about business (i.e. clients and firm administrators) are not the enemy but natural allies in this endeavor

d) an attitudinal change among our clients and the public that results in a greater appreciation of what we do and how much it costs for us to do the things we do

mostly (and i know this will piss off a lot of people who come here) it's not going to happen until we stop acting like dilettantes and start giving our clients more of what they need ... they pay us for results that work for them ... they don't want to pay us for what we want to do

it also means mustering up the courage to ask for more money and also mustering up the courage to walk away when it's not forthcoming

i'm a believer in the rambling thread but there is a VERY important point being missed here.

believe you me, folks...this upcoming shortage of skilled building trade labor is much, much, MUCH more serious than whatever compensation or status issues we may or may not have.

these SKILLED (yes, SKILLED) workers are the people we collaborate with when we create architecture and they need to be good and well-paid.

indeed, they are our last line of defense against poor quality and life-threatening oversights -- an architect's drawings get checked by multitudes of people but sometimes the building inspector doesn't come around -- or doesn't see what s/he needs to see.

i would much rather have an inexperienced architect (if i'm a client) than an inexperienced contractor -- and a general contractor is ONLY as good as his/her subs and THEIR people.

part of the problem is that our society, for all its historic anti-intellectualism, actually now denigrates the mind and body skills needed to perform these very essential jobs. being a master mason, master plumber, master electrician, master carpenter -- master ANYTHING on a job site -- takes brains, judgment, and coordination skills ON TOP OF physical talent.

i have only a limited amount of respect that i partition out to people in the building field. not much of it goes to me, hardly any to other architects. but i have met contractors and master craftsmen on job sites who i would fight tooth-and-nail to have work WITH me (not FOR me) on every single project i ever get.

and if we spend more time bitching about our own pay and don't take the time or effort to advocate the training of a new round of skilled construction workers -- we will be putting our profession and society at risk as the buildings start failing and our asses start getting hauled to court.

and...if there's nobody around who can do, say, good concrete...then we'll have to adjust our building methods to dumb them down so that the least-skilled, least-talented can execute them sufficiently. not well, just sufficiently.

Very good points Blue Goose and very, very good point (as always) ochona.

it's easy to blame the boss for your low pay ... it's less easy to actually get out there and drum up good work and negotiate high fees ...

when you've been in the business for a while, you understand that making payroll every two weeks and keeping everybody busy is not a trivial activity ... it doesn't happen by magic ... and, it's damn hard work ...

when you've had to terminate an employee because there's not enough work in the pipeline to keep everybody paid, you realize just how important it is to have work, even when it's not glamorous or high paying

when you don't have to put yourself out there in a marketing and business development role, it's easy to criticize ... when you've walked a few miles in your boss' shoes, then you actually have earned the right to make such an outrageous statement ...