This second white paper from the Future Business of Architecture programme draws on the findings of quantitative and qualitative research to reflect on where practice management is heading – from turning a profit and financial planning to staff wellbeing and workplace culture.
Architects often enter the profession because of their design skills. However, because of the professional services business model, adopted across the industry, many will become business owners or leaders. This comes with the weight of responsibility for managing practices, either as sole principals or as principals in partnerships.
Practice management is not a niche interest, but one that involves over 50% of the profession, as demonstrated below by findings from RIBA/The Fees Bureau Architects’ Employment & Earnings Survey 2025.
Architects’ fields of employment and levels of business ownership. Source: RIBA/The Fees Bureau Architects’ Employment & Earnings Survey 2025
This paper explores some of the challenges of practice management, and how they may play out over the coming decade. To provide a structure, the future of practice management is discussed using three closely related themes:
- turning a profit
- staff
- business development
While this piece is future looking, the fundamentals of managing a practice are unlikely to change over the next 10 years. The need to understand the business’s plan, position, purpose, legal structure, and financial health will remain. As will the need to understand the market context, staff, and clients’ needs. But clients’ needs, staff, the market, and revenue could all be affected by external changes. Business planning and financial standing, and even business ownership, can change in response.
As a research programme output, much of this paper is dedicated to what recent data tells us, providing significant pointers to the future. This is from both qualitative and quantitative research specifically undertaken for the programme in the spring and summer of 2025 (details are at the close of the paper) and from historical data analysis. Quotations from practitioners in this paper are drawn from the qualitative research.
Some of the data about practice management is discouraging. Many architects are having a difficult time, whether as employees or business owners. And yet, UK architecture is a success story, producing globally recognised design, transforming towns and cities in the UK and internationally, leading the digitisation of the construction industry, and contributing strongly to the UK economy. While remuneration is lower than in many professions, architecture remains a highly rewarding career for many, providing the opportunity to be creative while shaping the built environment and, with it, society’s future.
Even so, perhaps the next decade is one to look forward to. Overall, the profession is optimistic about what lies ahead. Perhaps with future-ready practice management, it can be even better.
Attitudes to the future business of architecture. Source: RIBA Future Business of Architecture Survey 2025.
Turning a profit
The future of architecture in the UK depends on practices being able to remain profitable in the coming years. Turning a profit has, however, become increasingly challenging for many practices.
"It’s becoming more difficult to make money … I’m not sure that clients value good quality … we're being squeezed … I look now at what we do for a planning application, and I remember what we did for a planning application when we started, which was literally a set of drawings and filling out a form, and now we produce volumes and volumes and volumes of information."
Source: RIBA Qualitative Research, 2025, medium-sized UK practice
As profit, simply put, is revenue minus expenditure, this section explores each in turn.
Revenue
RIBA Chartered Practices have been successfully growing their revenue over recent years. In 2024, the total revenue of Chartered Practice reached £4 billion for the first time. Exports of UK architectural services also reached a high, at almost £1 billion.
Overall, Chartered Practice revenue has grown strongly since 2015.
But revenue is under pressure. Increases in regulatory requirements and the greater levels of information required for planning applications often mean more work is needed for the same fee. Planning delays have negatively affected cash flow, as planned projects are taking longer to reach work stages or are cancelled altogether. Fee competition is often reported to be driving down earnings per project, and raised interest rates have deterred client investment.
The picture is nuanced, however, as revenue growth varies by practice size. Looking at inflation-adjusted revenue per practice between 2015 and 2024, large practices have seen revenue hold steady. Mid-size practices, of between 10 and 19 staff, have seen the strongest growth, while smaller practices have seen revenues increase only modestly, overall.
It has been a decade of two halves. The period 2015 to 2020 saw brisk growth in practice revenue, but the COVID-19 pandemic ushered in a challenging five years. Average practice revenues contracted sharply in 2020/2021, although they are now recovering.
Our survey data indicates that UK practices are actively seeking new sources of revenue, with 64% telling us that in the next decade they will be working in new markets, 52% in new national regions, and a third in new countries. Income from overseas work has increased by almost a third in real terms over the past decade, a trend of growth that is set to continue. New markets, sectors, and building types are increasing in importance.
While new revenue sources look set to grow, winning that revenue remains intensely challenging. It is vital that the challenge is not met through offering unsustainable fees, fees so low that profitability cannot be achieved.
When bidding for revenue-earning work, expenditure needs to be very carefully considered.
Expenditure
For any business, an increase in expenditure without a commensurate increase in revenue means stagnant or falling profit.
Looking overall, the graph below shows the average composition of RIBA Chartered practice expenditure overall (excluding recoverable costs) by type:
Share of practice expenditure by element. Source: RIBA Business Benchmarking Survey
For the past 10 years, total RIBA Chartered Practice profits have been almost stagnant. Staff costs account for around half of all practice expenditure, and in most practice size groups they have been rising at a faster rate than revenue, so reducing profit. Yet, at the same time, once overtime is considered, many employees are not earning the Real Living Wage. Further, post Grenfell, professional indemnity insurance (PII) premiums have risen sharply and now average over £33,000 per practice, and more than £500,000 for practices with over 100 staff. Information technology (IT) costs, including software costs and subscriptions for specialist design software, are also reported to be rising.
There are no clear signs that any of the significant costs associated with running a practice – for staff, premises, IT, or insurance – are set to fall or can easily be managed down. Adoption of artificial intelligence (AI) may lead to increased automation, enhanced business efficiency, and improved productivity, but AI is as yet an unproven technology. Future profitability might rely more on maximising revenue than reducing costs.
Profitability
UK architecture has a problem with profitability. In 2024, RIBA Chartered Practices saw an overall fall of 2% in profitability. Larger practices, especially those with 100 or more staff, saw the sharpest fall in average profit margins.
Inflation-adjusted total expenditure and profits from all RIBA Chartered Practices, 2015 to 2024. Source: RIBA Benchmarking Survey
The link between growing revenue and growing profits is increasingly fragile. While revenue has been on an upward trend, profits have remained flat. If practices are unprofitable for too long, they fail and close.
Poor profitability can also have a deeply adverse effect on both staff and practice owners, including, as the RIBA Workplace Conditions and Wellbeing report 2025 showed, long hours, insufficient pay, and eroded personal wellbeing – this is explored later.
The profession faces a challenge to profitability, caused by the upward pressure on costs and a downward pressure on fees.
So what is going on? Growing revenue but falling profitability is symptomatic of:
- increased costs, such as for premises, insurance, and existing staff
- higher workload demand for revenue earned, particularly where fee competition drives down the revenue earned for an amount of work done, or where workload increases for the same fee due to increased complexity or added regulatory burden
- static or falling productivity
Productivity gains, measured as inflation-adjusted revenue per staff member, have been positive, but not dramatically so. In the period 2015 to 2024, small practices (1 to 9 staff) have seen productivity increase by less than 10%, and large practices (50+ staff) by less than 1%. Only medium-sized practices have made significant productivity gains: 26% for practices with 10 to 19 staff and 14% for those with 20 to 49 staff. The productivity gains that once seemed on the horizon due to digitisation and building information modelling (BIM) have not fully materialised. This may be significant for the coming 10 years; technology alone is unlikely to bring the productivity gains associated with higher margins.
A review of the past 10 years reveals that, while practices have faced similar challenges, practice profitability has not been uniform. Some practices have thrived and grown rapidly, others have seen steady, incremental growth, while others have shrunk. Many practices have been formed from the former staff of shrinking practices. Some practices have gone out of business. Yet others have been as cyclical as the market.
These differences show that it is more than the market, or uniform increases in costs, that determines practice profitability. Staff and practice management play a very significant part too.
The successful practices of the future will be those that are well managed and have the right staff.
Staff
Talent acquisition and retention
While architecture is cyclical, long-term trends suggest that the number of projects available to architects will increase over the next decade. International projects will arise through increased overseas demand, while UK work will result from investment in housing and long-neglected public sector buildings, increased refurbishment to adapt to and mitigate the climate emergency, and initiatives to meet the needs of an aging population.
At the same time, the pool of architects may diminish. Over a third of architects are aged 55 or over, and over 10% are aged over 65. Architects from the EU once made up nearly half of new ARB registrants, but the flow of EU architects to the UK has slowed markedly, post-Brexit. Indeed, in 2024, the number of architects on the ARB register fell below 40,000 for the first time since 2017, down almost 7% when compared with 2023.
So, to meet future demand, practices will have to have the right numbers of the right staff in place. This means recruiting the staff that are best placed to meet practice objectives, putting in place mechanisms and rewards to retain the necessary staff, and identifying the staff who may be right for succession.
That said, staff productivity is not just about the recruiting and retaining staff, it’s also about long-term investment in training and technology, so that staff can produce more and better work in less time.
Different strategies might be right for different people.
"I think the expectations that come with changing generations, changes culture. I think we worked very hard to try and generate a more people-centric culture … younger people have a very different approach to what their career is going to look like."
Source: RIBA Qualitative Research, 2025, large UK practice
With attracting and retaining the best of the young talent a priority, practices we consulted stressed the importance of building an inclusive workplace.
"How do we change our spots to become more friendly? What they don't seem to recognise is that all the change that we're talking about, so less long hours, more flexible working, better pay regime is the way that you're going to crack that nut. Because currently a black kid in London, a schoolgirl wherever, thinks architecture looks interesting but when they approach it finds at their first portal it says, long hours, low pay, low prospects of career, seven years of education."
Source: RIBA Qualitative Research, 2025, small UK practice
Staff wellbeing and development
"The architect’s profession needs to be a fulfilling and enriching career where individuals feel valued. Our profession thrives on values and vision, but we have also developed a dangerous relationship with overtime, long hours and a workplace culture that can take more than it gives."
Muyiwa Oki – RIBA President The RIBA Workplace Conditions and Wellbeing report 2025 described a profession where overtime is prevalent, remuneration is often inadequate, and wellbeing is under threat. Low pay, exacerbated by additional hours without compensation, means significant numbers of young, early-stage career staff are not receiving the Real Living Wage.
When asked to describe the causes of the culture of long hours, research participants highlighted:
- unrealistic fee structures
- poor management of client expectations
- poor management and allocation of practice resources
- unpredictability of construction projects
- exploitative drive for profitability
Staff wellbeing is, in large part, a function of practice management.
A key tool for supporting staff wellbeing is the staff development plan, so that staff have a structured approach to acquiring and developing skills and career progression. A staff development plan also provides a way for a practice to align its future skill base to its strategic direction, to the future work it seeks to win and carry out. Yet just 50% of all RIBA Chartered Practices have a staff development plan. The smaller a practice, the less likely it is to have such a plan, although over 90% of large practices do.
Collaboration
The future is collaborative and specialist.
"Our industry is moving into a focus on specialisation, and that’s just a reality, you know, and that will probably drive higher economic success."
Source: RIBA Qualitative Research, 2025, large global practice.
A hallmark of post-industrial society is increased complexity going hand in hand with increased specialisation. Buildings are becoming ever more complex, roles more specialised.
The next 10 years will likely see an acceleration towards buildings being created by diverse teams of domain specialists, working collaboratively to achieve a shared goal.
"We trade very strongly on collaboration, I say we are a practice that operates without ego … we often collaborate with other designers, with other consultants … we know that design is not something you do as an island, it’s not something that is done in a vacuum, it’s done as a team, and we are much better for it."
Source: RIBA Qualitative Research, 2025, large UK practice
Sixty-four per cent of respondents to our Future Business of Architecture survey agreed their organisation will become more collaborative in the next 10 years, with only 11% disagreeing. That said, increased collaboration does not mean that flatter company structures are to come; just 21% agreed that their company would become less hierarchical in the next 10 years, while 28% disagreed.
Business development
Practices expect business development to become even more important over the next 10 years. Sixty-three per cent of respondents anticipate its importance increasing, while only 1% expect it to diminish. Among all the topics examined, business development ranked second in expected future importance. Only AI scored higher.
This section examines some, but not all, of the elements of practice management that are likely to become increasingly important over the next decade.
Management through uncertainty and cyclicality: preparedness and resilience
In the previous white paper, What are tomorrow’s work types? Where and in what sectors will future architects practice?, the cyclicality of architects’ work was explored. The paper also looked at the importance of sectoral change, the dominance of London practices, how societal changes will affect the demand for buildings, and how international work is increasing. While the paper included scenarios for future work types, one thing was clear: although we can see the direction of travel, the destination, and challenges of the journey to come, remain unclear.
So, practices need to invest in preparedness to be resilient: preparing and planning for the lean times as well as the times of plenty, for the unexpected as well the intended.
Financial and business planning
The foundation of planning is information.
All practices that took part in the qualitative research gather management and financial information in some form, although the extent of digitisation varies from practice to practice. In smaller practices, off-the-shelf financial packages provide most of their business information. As practices get larger, the range and capabilities of financial and business planning tools increase.
But whatever the tools, the basics should remain the same.
Have a plan
A good business plan would include financial planning, risk management, and performance monitoring, aligned to what the practice is trying to achieve, expressed as a vision, a strategy, or just a clear statement.
Most practices have a business plan that covers more than a single year, but a significant number do not. The smaller a practice, the less likely it is to have a business plan that goes beyond a year. Without a business plan – and the monitoring of performance against it – it is difficult to know whether a practice is achieving what it set out to do. It is even more difficult for its staff to understand why they are doing what they are being asked to.
"The vision is for us to maintain those expert skills and services and partnerships moving forward … but also look at aligned sectors for more resilience … so we want steady, sustainable growth"
Source: RIBA Qualitative Research, 2025, medium-sized UK practice
For some practices, the business plan will include a plan for growth. For small or medium-sized practices, this is likely to include a plan on how to diversify within the UK and move into new sectors. The transition from domestic work to other work types can be critical. Larger practices may seek to grow through international work, either by beginning or expanding their work overseas. They may choose either to remain solely UK based, forging working relationships with international partners, or to open new international offices.
Know your numbers
Without the numbers, it is difficult to know what is happening now, let alone what is on the way. Practices that contributed to this research offered the following advice:
- know your win rate, conversion rate, and time to conversion
- know which projects are profitable and which are not
- excitement about design is not the same as profitability
- do work-phase planning
- watch your cash-flow. Stop working if the client’s money stops coming in
- try to separate the money conversation from the design conversation
- know who you will promote if you need to do more work
Billable hours – a key business metric
Law firm are renowned for keeping track of every billable hour its partners and staff accrue. Among architecture practices, the picture is more mixed.
Recording billable hours helps practices track project profitability, ensure accurate client billing, track financial performance, and monitor productivity and financial performance. It also allows evidence-based strategic decision-making about fee levels, work types to pursue, and balancing project work and other practice activities.
Practice owners (partners, directors, and sole principals) spend just under half their time on billable work. In comparison, architects, technologists, and assistants spend nearly 70% on billable work, while associates bill around 63% of their time.
RIBA Charted Practices’ behaviour on the recording of billable hours Source: RIBA Benchmarking
For RIBA Chartered Practices, the approach to the recording of billable hours is mixed. The larger a practice, the more likely it is that billable hours are recorded – from between 50% and 65% for smaller practices, rising to well over 80% for larger practices.
Business relationships and reputation
"I would say the majority of our work still comes through existing relationships and things that come through word of mouth."
Source: RIBA Qualitative Research, 2025, large UK practice
Business relationships and reputation matter. Almost two-thirds of new commissions come from the reputation a practice develops, whether as repeat business or through word of mouth. Word-of-mouth referrals are crucial for smaller practices, for whom one-off residential work is the most significant work type. As a practice becomes larger, repeat business becomes more significant as they take on larger clients with ongoing programmes of projects.
Sources of new projects for all RIBA Chartered Practices. Source: RIBA Business Benchmarking
Staying relevant
"The main threat is relevance, staying relevant, so that our clients come to us architectural practices to deliver their needs."
Source: RIBA Qualitative Research, 2025, medium-sized overseas practice
In the coming decade, practices will be working in a rapidly changing world. The climate emergency, rapid technological innovation, changing client expectations, and environmental, social, and governance (ESG) requirements will all come together to radically alter what architecture is needed, who will need it, and how it will be created. But these changes will also provide significant future opportunities.
So, practices face the challenge of staying relevant in a rapidly changing world.
For many practices, this means balancing practice continuity with practice evolution and transformation. This can be achieved through being clear about the core identity and values – the ‘DNA’ – of the practice, while adopting new ways of working and new technologies, to expand the services it can offer.
Remaining relevant is also achieved through continuous improvement informed by the lessons learned from each client and project. Practices told us this requires agility, commitment to innovation, and a willingness to be ‘comfortable with being uncomfortable’.
It is also about developing and recruiting staff to meet the demands of the future.
Legal status and ownership models
The legal status and ownership model of a business sets the foundation for its ethos and working practice.
Being a limited company is the dominant form of ownership for RIBA Chartered Practices.
Over 80% of Chartered Practices are limited companies. Around 20% of the largest practices are limited liability partnerships (LLPs), while over a quarter of sole practitioners operate as sole traders. Around 3% of all practices, including more than a quarter of large firms, are partly or fully owned by an employee ownership trust (EOT), an employee benefit trust, or a charity. An ownership model, rather than a legal status, the EOT – introduced in the UK by the Finance Act 2014 – is a form of employee ownership that allows a company to be owned indirectly by its employees through a trust that typically has a controlling interest in the business.
Adoption of the model is gaining ground and looks set to increase in prevalence in the coming decade. An EOT offers several advantages:
- to the company, by fostering a sense of shared purpose and endeavour, and improving productivity, innovation, and resilience
- to employees, giving a sense of shared ownership and an opportunity to receive income tax-free bonuses of up to £3,600 annually
- to the current business owners, with capital gains tax relief and a structured, gradual exit route from the business
- for succession planning, allowing practices to maintain their continuity and legacy, and remain aligned with the practice and founder values
The overall proportion of practices that are owned by a trust is small, just 4%. But it is rising quickly, having increased fourfold since 2019. Among large practices, almost a quarter are now owned by their employees, through a trust. Numbers are increasing among medium-sized practices too.
As more practice founders approach the end of their career and look to step back from practice, while preserving a practice ethos and personal legacy, EOTs are likely to become an increasingly dominant form of practice ownership for medium and larger practices. They draw together the increasingly important themes of staff engagement, shared purpose, and collaboration.
Practice culture
Architecture has seen significant accelerated changes in practice culture over the past decade. Equity, diversity, and inclusion (EDI) has become more important. Work practices have seen rapid change, accelerated by technology and the pandemic. Practices told us that expectations about working practice have altered, especially among early-stage career professionals, with a need for inclusivity, meaning, work–life balance, and career progression.
Flexible and at-home working has become prevalent, although this may come at a price. Remote working can be isolating and restrict the scope for informal learning and mentorship.
"We as practices, must get out, engage, invest in our young people, to be able to learn, and then that’s through mentorship … We don't believe so much in the home office, right? We prefer people to be in the same space. It’s fast moving, and often in early stages, things go all over the place … so we need people working closely together, understanding what’s going on."
Source: RIBA Qualitative Research, 2025, large global practice
Overall, there seems to be a transition in practice culture, as practices increasingly adopt a people-centred approach. This is partly to attract and retain the best talent, but also to meet evolving client needs. In an age of increasing specialisation and collaboration, creativity needs to be infused throughout a practice, and that can mean ceding hierarchical control to the specialists within the practice, to allow autonomous, sometimes idiosyncratic, creativity.
The decade ahead will be one of rapid changes in practice culture – in workplace expectations, cultural norms, and generational outlooks. Practices that respond with agility and empathy may be best place to succeed.
"I think the expectations that come with changing generations, changes culture. I think we worked very hard to try and generate a more people-centric culture … younger people have a very different approach to what their career is going to look like. They’ll have multiple changes, and they’ll move swiftly and seek to onboard information and increase the seller as they go. So, I think that changes the way we must build culture and think more carefully about what it is we’re offering that isn’t just about financial benefit. It is about the working environment."
Source: RIBA Qualitative Research, 2025, large UK practice
A variable future
In a tough business environment, where margins and profitability are being eroded, there is no single future scenario that can be applied to practice across the board. A practice’s destiny hangs on its ability to successfully address competing and complex external forces, while ensuring that costs do not exceed revenue. To be future-ready and relevant, practices must be able to provide the professional services that clients demand. When architects have a competitive edge – whether through their reputation for design excellence or their specialist expertise – they can be confident of their value. This places them in a stronger negotiating position on fees and on their involvement across all work stages of a project. At all times, practices must have access to up-to-date business and financial information so they can make informed decisions. In the past, practices could rely on being able to increase the workloads of their staff during busy periods without fully incurring the salary costs, but in 2035, the long hours culture of architecture should be firmly behind us. In a narrowing labour market with an ageing workforce, practice managers will need to pay more attention than ever to providing an appealing workplace culture – one that is inclusive, flexible, and respectful of their staff’s wellbeing. Ultimately, this should make practices a more fulfilling and pleasurable place to work. Certainly, the indication from our survey is that architects are positive about the future and are up for the challenge!
This paper draws on a range of research sources. These include: a quantitative survey about the future of practice with 275 responses from RIBA members (open mid-June closing mid-July 2025); independent qualitative research, which included 23 in-depth interviews with practice leaders and early career stage architects; the insights of the RIBA Future Business of Architecture Advisory Group; and historical data analysis carried out by RIBA and The Fees Bureau.
We are grateful to all who contributed their views and insight.
