Can architecture's class of '25 crack the job market?

This summer will see thousands of young people in the UK graduate from architecture school, but they will find it tougher than ever to land a job afterwards. Amy Peacock reports.

Starting a career in architecture has always been a long, arduous and competitive process, but in recent years it has become even harder to get a foot into the profession.

George Smith has just completed a master's degree at the Royal College of Art and is set to graduate in September. To continue along the path to becoming a registered architect, he must now gain experience working in practice in a Part 2 role. His job search so far has been disheartening, to say the least.

"The market is still bad since I was applying as a Part 1 [post-undergraduate] five years ago," he told Dezeen.

"I was hoping I could finish and start working immediately, but it's unlikely now," he continued. "I have been applying to adverts from practices only advertising on Instagram – they have told me they've received over 100 applications in a few days."

"I sent out hundreds of portfolios and got less than 20 responses"

Smith's experience echoes that of many architecture graduates in recent years, including Hamssini Sukumaran, who graduated with a master's in architecture at Cardiff University in 2022.

"I sent out hundreds of portfolios and got less than 20 responses, and one interview," she said.

Sukumaran searched for a Part 2 job for nine months before considering alternative career paths. She now works for architecture-specialised PR firm Salt, which she said is "more sustainable creatively, emotionally, financially" than architecture.

"What I really enjoyed in architecture school was the narrative part, so I started thinking how I could use the transferable skills that I gained in different ways – that's how I found comms and marketing in architecture," Sukumaran said. "I'd never heard of it, no one talks about it at uni."

UK experienced its most competitive job market in 30 years in 2024

Graduates are facing a tough environment across the board. Last year, the UK's graduate job market was the most competitive in three decades, with 140 applications for every graduate vacancy.

According to job search site Indeed, UK university graduates this year are facing the toughest job market since 2018. Indeed, and others, have claimed that artificial intelligence (AI) is a significant factor, with employers in white-collar industries like architecture seeking to cut costs by turning to the technology for tasks typically done by more junior staff.

"Demand for graduates is inevitably going to go down, slightly because of economics but mainly because of AI and its effect on repetitive tasks, which are often entry-level tasks," said architecture educator Jeremy Till, head of Central Saint Martins school in London for 10 years until 2022.

But while AI affects a broad range of jobs, architecture graduates are facing their own unique set of challenges, with additional compounding factors making it even harder to find employment.

Ben Derbyshire, chair of London architecture studio HTA Design and former president of the Royal Institute of British Architects (RIBA), argued that industry uncertainty around prospective projects could be one of the reasons why graduates are struggling to find jobs, as some architecture studios are focusing on retaining their existing staff.

The National House Building Council reported a 38 per cent drop in house building in the first quarter of 2025 compared to 2024 in London, where many graduates flock for job opportunities.

"We're managing okay, and we do have a pipeline of work, but a lot of projects are being delayed and postponed for a wide variety of reasons," Derbyshire told Dezeen. "We're not growing numbers of staff. We won't be having a big recruitment round from the degree shows."

Russell Curtis, founding director of architecture studio RCKa, echoed that sentiment.

"It's been an extremely difficult few years for everyone in the industry, and it doesn't surprise me that it's had an effect on people's job prospects, because it's still very uncertain out there," he said.

Part 1 graduates "not worth the investment"

Even if studios are hiring, Curtis argued that many are put off from hiring Part 1 roles – year-long practical experience positions currently required for undergraduates to progress to Part 2 master's level en route to becoming registered architects – mainly because they need more mentoring and will only be at the studio for a limited time before returning to university for postgraduate studies.

"Having somebody in the office for just a year, being perfectly blunt, it's not worth the investment," he said.

"I do wonder whether Part 1 graduates are well equipped enough to come into the world of practice," Curtis continued. "It does surprise me how little engagement a lot of young architects have with things like planning policy – it's really dry, but these are the challenges that we're facing."

After a two-year hiring freeze, RCKa recently opened a Part 2 vacancy – aimed at master's graduates – following an uptick in projects.

"A lot of practices like ours are slightly in survival mode still, and what we're doing is we're hoping to grow our way out of the current situation," said Curtis. "I don't think we're in a position at the moment to be taking on Part 1s because of the amount of support that they need, and for Part 2s, the difference in salary is sadly not that big."

"Part 1 placement year has relied on a level of altruism from practices"

Nimi Attanayake and Tim O'Callaghan, co-founders of London studio Nimtim Architects, also raised the issue of the role of Part 1s in a strained job market.

"We've been hearing that Part 1s are struggling to find work, more than Part 2s," said Attanyake. "That resonated with us, because if we had the option between a Part 1 and a Part 2 candidate, even understanding that the Part 2 is going to want a bigger salary, they potentially would stay for longer."

"There's been an issue in that the Part 1 placement year has relied on a level of altruism from practices to support it," added O'Callaghan. "The whole system needs to change. The burden of the Part 1 training that's been passed on to practices isn't working anymore."

RIBA president Muyiwa Oki defended the role of Part 1 placements, arguing that it's right for practices to bear some of the responsibility for training the next generation of architects.

"We need to bring practices into the framework because they have their role to play in educating and training students," he said. "The role of Part 1 [employment] is that students need to be upskilled through Continuing Professional Development (CPD) and get a taste of what it's like to work in an architecture practice and support the design and delivery of architectural work," Oki continued.

"Perhaps it's the bigger practices that have to take more of the responsibility to educate, encourage and bring up the practical skills level of students."

"There's a deadly equation between demand and supply at the moment"

But questions about the suitability of Part 1-level applicants for the demands of practice are not the only concerns raised about architecture education in the UK.

The sheer number of degree-level architecture graduates entering the job market has dramatically increased in recent years, despite fewer vacancies.

"When I was president of the RIBA, new schools were being formed and numbers of students were burgeoning," said Derbyshire, who held the title from 2017 to 2019. "I must say, I did question whether it was wise to create such a large cohort of architectural graduates, but it's a free market and people want to learn architecture."

According to the Complete University Guide, there are currently 75 universities in the UK that offer undergraduate courses in architecture and 62 universities with postgraduate architecture courses.

"There's a deadly equation between demand and supply at the moment," said Till. "We've got 60 universities or institutions with registered RIBA courses. Thirty years ago, there were 36, and those courses have also got bigger."

"You've got many more people graduating with architecture degrees, which shouldn't be a problem, apart from the fact that we're setting a false expectation that an architecture degree means a job in architecture."

From 2027, the Architects Registration Board (ARB) – the UK's regulator for registered architects – will scrap the traditional three-part architecture qualification structure for an alternative framework that aims to be more flexible.

An undergraduate degree will no longer be required to become a qualified architect, meaning graduates with other degrees or apprenticeship backgrounds can undertake an ARB-accredited master's degree in architecture and subsequently enter the profession.

Despite this change in the industry, the RIBA – a professional membership body – will continue to validate the architecture education system according to its Part 1, 2 and 3 stages.

Till argued that by resisting change and maintaining Part 1-validated courses, the RIBA is accrediting undergraduate degrees "on the basis of a very old-fashioned notion of what constitutes an architect".

He would rather see the RIBA's Part 1 validation abandoned altogether, and bachelor's degrees becoming a broader introduction to architecture and related disciplines with master's studies geared to professional architecture practice.

"I would turn the undergraduate course into a much broader course in which you still use architectural thinking, but you could apply it to a whole series of areas – journalism, housing policy, climate activism," he suggested.

"As long as it's framed by the limited, outdated version of professional practice which the RIBA accredits, then I think it's unethical to give that false expectation to architecture graduates."

Till's views ring true for graduates Smith and Sukumaran. While they said they largely enjoyed studying architecture, they expressed frustration that their courses did not encourage career paths other than architecture – something they had to figure out themselves while unemployed.

"Universities should make an effort to reach out to people in different industries within the design realm," said Sukumaran, who is now enjoying a career in PR. "I feel like I didn't leave architecture, I just found a different way to communicate design."

"I know the general trend across the country is a service-oriented economy, but I think too many people are encouraged to go to uni and study, taking on debt, when many of my friends and myself would have probably been happier learning a craft or trade in a technical school, earning while studying," said Smith, who is now exploring job opportunities outside of architecture.

The top photo is by Good Free Photos via Unsplash.

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