Most London Studios Pay Part I Assistants Below Living Wage

By Daniel Okafor

Only four of 30 studios pay Part I architectural assistants more than the London Living Wage of £32,136. That is the sharpest number in The Pay 100's fifth annual salary survey, published over the weekend. Twenty-one of those 30 studios sit in Greater London, which makes the capital's record worse than it looks.

The Royal Institute of British Architects (RIBA) declared the London Living Wage a requirement for relevant chartered practices. The survey suggests the requirement is being honored mostly in the breach.

Who pays best?

The anonymous group collected mean salary figures and weekly unpaid overtime hours from 127 UK firms. Topping the leaderboard for architects with under five years' experience is BakerHicks, an engineering and design firm, at £72,000 — proof, perhaps, that the best-paying architecture job isn't at an architecture firm.

The rest of the top of the table:

• Hopkins Architects (London) — £63,700, second place
• Samuel Chisholm Studio and Thomas Alexander Design (both London) — joint third at £56,300
• Transport for London — highest Part II assistant wage at £44,000
• Foster + Partners — £42,000 for Part II roles

For Part I roles (the first stage of professional qualification), only Haworth Tompkins, Allford Hall Monaghan Morris, Studio McW and Studio PDP cleared the London Living Wage. Twelve of the 30 studios paid less than the UK Living Wage of £29,328.

What is The Pay 100 asking RIBA do?

Alongside the data, The Pay 100 published an open letter to RIBA demanding action on financial wellbeing in the profession. It called for two things: "meaningful minimum salaries" for RIBA chartered practices, rising year-on-year with inflation, and full institutional ownership of the survey itself.

"Our aim has always been to create tangible financial incentives for employers to improve pay, empower employees to make informed career decisions, and encourage a healthier, more sustainable profession," the letter states. It concedes the commercial reality — "architecture practices operate within a highly competitive market, often under significant financial pressure themselves" — but doesn't accept it as an excuse. "The commercial challenges facing practices should not prevent the profession from addressing the deteriorating conditions experienced by many employees."

The verdict sentence is blunt: "Poor financial conditions for staff are not merely an employment issue; they are a threat to the long-term health, resilience and future of the profession."

Why hand over the survey?

After five years of running the survey on volunteer labor, The Pay 100 wants RIBA to commit resources and develop it into an industry-wide initiative. "Improving pay transparency across UK architecture should be a core responsibility of the profession's leading membership body," the group argues, promising that RIBA stewardship would bring "significantly greater reach, sustained institutional support and broader participation" — and, in turn, more comprehensive data and better financial conditions across the industry.

"A profession cannot sustainably advocate for the value of its services while leaving the financial conditions of its workforce to market pressures alone," the letter reads. "The RIBA should take a leading role in addressing this imbalance."

The Pay 100 has set a deadline: a public response from RIBA by 1 December. Until then, the chartered-practice requirement sits awkwardly beside a leaderboard where two-thirds of Part I employers miss it.