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 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 begin to celebrate named practices individually for their wage averages via a competitive leader boards published by The Pay 100: prospective employees will be able to refer to this for job application guidance and expectation management, therefore encouraging future wage cooperation between practices listed on The Pay 100,” the group adds.

The group’s formation is the latest step in a series of grassroots-led initiatives in the UK seeking to improve working conditions. Last month, workers at London-based Atomik Architecture announced that they were preparing to ballot for strike action over pay and conditions, while the UK-based Future Architects Front (FAF) has actively lobbied for improved conditions in the industry as seen in our feature article on unpaid overtime.

FAF were also one of a number of worker-led groups who endorsed Muyiwa Oki during the 2022 RIBA presidential election. In August, Oki became RIBA’s youngest and first Black president, having put forward a worker-friendly vision for the institute’s future in our Q+A with the candidates.

The Pay 100’s founding also mirrors efforts in the United States to improve salary transparency, including Archinect’s own Architecture Salary Poll. While The Pay 100 represents a grassroots effort to place conversations on compensation in the public domain, efforts in the U.S. have comprised of regulatory changes mandating companies disclose salary information.

In 2022 alone, numerous U.S. cities and states have passed or advanced laws introducing salary transparency requirements in 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, which was signed into law by Governor Newsom later that month. Measures designed to improve salary transparency already exist on a state-wide level in Colorado, Nevada, Connecticut, Washington, and Maryland. 

As such laws steadily become reality, companies in the United States appear divided on their benefits and implementation. As we reported last week, a recent survey on the topic found that while some companies have taken a proactive approach in publicizing salary information without being required to by law, others have expressed concerns over the “administrative complexity” of the requirements.

You can help us in our continued effort to provide salary insights into architectural practice across the USA by anonymously responding to the Architecture Salary Poll here.