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In the UK, an individual must join the Architects Register in order to legally call themselves an architect.  Architects pay an annual retention fee by 31 December the preceding year in order to remain registered in the new year.

The fee is our main source of income for funding our regulatory activities.  We are pleased to have been able to hold the fee at £111 despite the additional requirements of Brexit and a growing demand across all our services, including an increase in the number and complexity of requests for prescription of new qualifications.

We aim to deliver our statutory duties without placing undue financial pressure on the profession.  The level of the fee is set by our Board who make every effort to balance the impact on the profession with our requirement to deliver our statutory responsibilities.

The fee enables us to protect the public and help maintain standards, and therefore trust, in the profession by:

  • Maintaining the Architects Register – a public record that anyone can access online to check if someone is a geuine professional.
  • Setting the UK standards required to enter the Register
  • Ensuring only appropriate applicants from overseas join the Register
  • Setting and enforcing professional standards for architects
  • Take action against those who use the title ‘architect’ illegally

—ENDS—

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Notes for Editors

• ARB has a Board of 11 members all appointed by the Privy Council. This includes one independent, non-executive Chair and ten non-executive Board members made up of five members of the public and five architects.

• The Architects Registration Board (ARB) is the statutory body established by Parliament under the Architects Act 1997 to regulate the UK architects’ profession in the public interest. Among other duties, the Act requires ARB to:

    • Maintain the Architects Register
    • Prescribe the UK qualifications needed to become an architect in the UK
    • Issue a code laying down the standards of professional conduct and practice expected of architects
    • Investigate allegations of unacceptable professional conduct or serious professional incompetence
    • Investigate and where appropriate prosecute unregistered individuals who unlawfully call themselves an architect
    • Act as the UK’s Competent Authority for architects

• In addition to retention fee, we are able to recover costs for a small number of other activities including the Prescribed Examination and applications to join the Register. As well as being cost recovery only, these are charged on a ‘user pays’ basis meaning only those who use these services pay for them rather than the profession as a whole. Money raised from misuse of title and architect disciplinary fines are paid to the HM Treasury, not to ARB.

For further information, please contact Kate Howlett, Communications Lead on 020 7580 5861 or by email at KateH@arb.org.uk.