I work for a large coporate practice in Britain. Current I am a Project Architect of 3 years, my task is to ”˜deliver' urban regeneration developments from our friendly corporate developer buddies. Everything from retiail, commercial and residential developments between £4m to £50m. As well as helping out other projects in my directors team (mostly early design and concept) I am running a £11m D&B urban redevelopment with the help from some naïve students (new intake for one year just arrived).

I'm up for annual review shortly and RIBA journal have just published the latest figures on salaries. A shot exert below - currency converter. http://www.xe.com/ucc/

Dawning of new age values
August 2004

Architectural salaries have only risen slightly in the past year, according to the RIBA's annual employment and earnings survey. But the demand for staff has given more bargaining power to both young and older architects. By Eleanor Young RIBA Jounal Aug 04

At both ends of the age spectrum the market is flexing its muscles. Too much or too little age and experience used to command the lowest wages of the profession. This year, those past official retirement age saw their salaries leap by more than 25%, while those with less than three years' experience had an 11% rise.
Architects' fortunes have paralleled the economy. Both have seen steady - prudent - growth under Chancellor Gordon Brown. Generous public spending has fed architects a rise in median salaries to £36,027, up from £35,000 last year (the median is the halfway point between all the figures rather than the average). This stability runs across the industry; construction professionals' rise of 8.2% brings the average up to that of architects.

Oldies earn more
The biggest jump in the survey is the year-on-year increase of 26.6% in median earnings for those aged 65 and above. This does not mean they are raking it in; salaries start to fall after the age of 60. For architects between 40 and 59 the median is a fairly steady £40,000 but this drops to £37,200 after 60 and to £30,000 after the official retirement age of 65.
Malcolm Scott, chairman of architecture recruitment agency Adrem, says demand for those with experience is outstripping supply: ”˜The market is very buoyant at the moment.'
In many professions, reaching retirement age means you are out of a job, but this is changing. Britain has signed up to an EU directive outlawing age discrimination and legislation must be in place by 2006.
The government is preparing the ground by pushing an ”˜age positive' campaign pointing out the benefits of employing older workers, such as lower staff turnover, and is trying to explode myths about brain cells dying off after a certain age.
Architects are ahead of the game in this regard. In fact, the government should look at architecture's high achievers, who generally peak in later life. Rem Koolhaas and Will Alsop are nudging 60 while the ever-prolific Frank Gehry is 75. But not everyone wants to work until they are 70, and there was uproar when the government raised the possibility.

Paying for the best
Salary levels are evidence that competition for strong candidates is hotting up. Qualified architects with less than three years' experience are earning 11.5% more than last year. This figure is reinforced by the rise in income for those under 30 (by 12.2% to £27,500) and those between 30 and 34 (a 6.7% rise to £32,000).
In Hampshire, the county council shortlisted two candidates but found neither was willing to work for the salary offered.
These age groups nearly all work in private practice. Such is the demand for younger architects that some practices are touting for staff abroad.
In London, the human resources director of a large commercial firm (which did not wish to be named) admits it has been forced to recruit overseas. ”˜If you want to get strong candidates you are struggling; all practices are really busy and good quality people get snapped up.
”˜We don't have a name like Foster and Partners but we do have an international profile in certain countries from which we get a regular flow of CVs - China, Hong Kong and other parts of Asia. We are planning some recruitment in those countries, targeting architectural magazines and key schools of architecture.'
Big practices are not the only ones looking outside the UK. Sutton Griffin is based in London and Newbury and has 20 staff. Over the last few months it has been struggling to recruit good young architects to Newbury. Its staff hail from Germany, South Africa, China and the US, and it decided to build on that diversity.
”˜We have had most of our foreign staff through agencies,' says director Chris Eisner. ”˜Recruiting abroad is cheaper than agencies. We are planning to use recruitment websites in Germany and put magazine ads in Detail.
”˜The UK is still our main recruiting ground and we need people who will stay in the practice and provide some succession. But the traditional way of coming in on the ground floor and staying for your part III is not bringing us students; they want to be in London, in a big-name practice. And £22,000 or £23,000 is not enough to attract them.'

Mid-life rewards
Earnings for sole principals is closely linked to experience. After 20-24 years on the ARB register, sole principals in Greater London now earn £56,000.
The RIBA suggests they could be taking on advisory roles in addition to practice, perhaps as Cabe facilitators or client advisers to government or private clients. The lottery, for example, gave many a new career as project advisers and the fees all feed back into practice.
Earnings leap when the head counts passes the 50 mark. The median earnings of principals in a practice with 51 or more architectural staff are £72,500. Paul Newman joined the Auketts' board last year and in his first three months earned £16,000 basic salary plus extras. Over a year that would total £136,000 excluding share options, pension contributions and so on. And that was before he was promoted to managing director UK following the shareholder takeover.

Equal opportunities
This year the RIBA asked specifically about equal opportunities and found a gap between the number of companies with policies and those where they were felt to be effective.
The number of ethnic minority architects is not likely to increase until changes at the education level feed through, but women are forming a growing proportion of the profession - though with a median salary for full-time work of £32,000, compared with their male colleagues' £37,500.
Last year the RIBA's research paper Women in Architecture highlighted the weakness of practices' management in keeping members of staff and making their working life pleasurable.
In the latest survey the RIBA probed the issue again. Two questions were posed: ”˜Does the organisation you work for have a formal equal opportunities policy?' and ”˜Do you feel your organisation applies the principles of equal opportunity effectively?'.
The responses showed that many employers (72%) do have formal equal opportunities policies. Government employers were almost certain to have one and this pushed up the average. Eighty per cent of principals in partnership said a policy was in place.
Where there was a policy, not everyone felt the principles were applied - nearly 15% of government employees were unsure about the application.
However, many architects felt the general principles were being applied even without a formal policy, particularly those involved in running a practice: 93% of sole principals and 96% of principals in partnership gave themselves a yes on this question.
Yet the profession is still predominately white - other ethnic groups account for a mere 8%. Initiatives to encourage more ethnic minority students are having some effect: schools report that nearly 20% of students starting part I courses are non-white. But less than 10% starting part III last year were from ethnic minorities.
Over the last decade the number of women architects has risen from 7% of the profession to 14%, but has some way to go before it reflects the proportion of female part I students, which has been 37-38% since 2000.
At the same time a national survey last year by the Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development found women are working longer hours. Their weekly average of 33.9 has increased by nearly half a day since 1998. The same survey showed men are working 44.8 hours a week, a slight fall over the same period.
The percentage of women working full time is up by 6% to 74%. There are a number of possible reasons for this small but significant step.
Most of them relate to children: the national trend is towards having children later or not at all, thus extending the period women are most likely to work full time. Many women move between full- and part-time work, as Jeannine Hall of Bramwell Hall has done (see page 29). In the 10 years since the birth of her son, her work commitments have ranged from nothing to three days a week to long stints including evenings and weekends.
There have been improvements in the way full-time work is managed. The Office of National Statistics says six million employees are now able to take advantage of flexible working.
Since April last year, employers must seriously consider requests for flexible working for parents of those under six, or disabled children under 18. Some practices, for example Hampshire Architects, offer it to all their employees.

Hours creep up
Unfortunately the survey doesn't record actual hours worked. Contracted hours average 38 a week with sole principals reporting the highest at 40 hours. A Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development report recently showed that longer hours are becoming part of our culture. In 1998 10% worked more than 48 hours a week; the figure is now 25%.
Holidays don't offset the long hours. The amount of annual leave varies very little; government architects receive the most, with a median of 30 days in central government and 29 in local, compared with 20-25 days for other architects.
For the RIBA, one of the big alerts the survey has thrown up is the limited number of sole principals who have life assurance - only 17%. This is a ”˜dangerous situation' says Keith Snook, RIBA head of research and development and former director of practice.
It leaves the business and families of sole principals highly vulnerable to loss if the partner becomes ill or dies. Principals in partnership have a slightly more cautious approach, with 32% take-up.
Government offices are more generous in other ways too. They will normally pay for one professional subscription for each member of staff. Anyone who wants to belong to the RIBA as well as the ARB is likely to go for the RIBA subscription of £196 a year for newly qualified architects or £300 for those with five years' post-qualification, rather than ARB at £70.
This is true across the profession: 11% more architects get their RIBA subs paid by an employer than their ARB fees.
But as most architects will point out, benefits are not what attract them to a job. The things that do are less easy to measure: a reputation, a type of work or a form of employment that suits their lifestyle.

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Anyhow - they work me like a dog, I'm trying to implement change but the corporate pyramid remains strong despite the PR telling us we are a practice for the new millennium with a flat structure (outside consultancy b/s). I'm already infiltrating the disenfranchised for a revolution. Every opportunity is open and I'm feeling dangerous.

I'm already a regular in the MD's office for bypassing procedure on matters of ”˜change', where our chats run from outright hostility to the mentor apprentice role.

He doesn't like me and although I'm considered to be:

enthusiastic - an unusual trail in corporate life
the germ -corporate PR for team position as a generator of ideas and enthusiasm

the whole wage / work / stress is getting to me. I think I would either be happier really going for the jugular and try and control the corporate beast or set up my own practice and employ someone like me to spice things up... Oh, what to do?