Pay interns or lose accreditation, RIBA tells architects
One in ten students still not being paid according to RIBA survey
Practices which take on unpaid students will be stripped of their accreditation, the RIBA has warned, after a survey revealed one in ten students are working for free.
The RIBA Student Earnings Survey revealed that 11% of students were not paid in their current or most recent work placement.
For those students yet to attain their part II qualification, the figure rises to 14%. Seventy-seven percent of architecture students are working alongside their studies.
RIBA president Angela Brady promised that offenders would be penalised. The RIBA said practices suspected of taking on unpaid interns could be reported in confidence.
“I am dismayed by the evidence that some architecture students are not being adequately paid, or in some cases paid at all, for the work they contribute to the profession,” said Brady.
“It is totally unacceptable. The RIBA will not allow any practice contravening the Chartered Practice to retain its accreditation.”
The RIBA’s chartered practice criteria states: “Your practice must commit to paying at least the statutory minimum wage to architecture students working within the practice.”
Alex Maxwell, Architecture Students Network representative, said the RIBA needed to take strong action to ensure offending practices are identified and described the survey’s findings as “no surprise”.
“The RIBA have taken steps to prevent this, which the Architecture Students Network welcome, but more needs to be done,” he said.
“We’d like to see the RIBA follow up on their proposal to strip practices of their accreditation, and a public naming-and-shaming would go some way to bring the remaining minority of charted practices into line with requirements.
“When you don’t pay someone, you basically tell the employee that their time and effort are worthless. That’s a huge smack in the face for someone’s who invested at least five years at university - and a large sum of money - into their architectural training.”
Greg Penoyre, director at Penoyre and Prasad, backed the RIBA’s proposal. “The habit that’s developed of internships for recent graduates not being paid is certainly wrong,” he said.
“It’s opportunistic on the part of employers. To blight a young graduate’s immediate career by not paying them is pretty tough. The RIBA is absolutely right to get behind students and make sure employers are fulfilling their duties.”
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Readers' comments (18)
by not paying people to work, they are actively bringing the wage or what people will work for down. ie, if someone is not working cause the practice is using an 'intern' to work for free, that person out of work may consider accepting less.... hard world when your not employed, and understandable why people will accept lower wages just to keep working and gain experience at a young age. not good
It is also essential to break open the fallacy that architecture firms cannot afford to pay their interns. Fees for architects are very low - in part - because many practices are prepared to ruthlessly undercut other practices, delivering a reduced or substandard service. Free or low paid interns simply allow practices to bid lower still, reinfocing this dangerous feedback loop.
Like RIBA membership means anything to small/young practices desperate to keep afloat.
This is excellent news - and is exactly the kind of commitment that the RIBA needs to make to support emerging talent - not least because the survival of the profession depends upon it.
I've always paid students when we have taken them on and if I could not afford to do so then, unfortunately for the greater good of the profession, I would not employ them. It is a hard reality of business, and yes we are all businesses whether we like it or not, that you have to balance the cost of your resources to carry out the work with your fixed costs, and make sufficient profit to pay yourselves.
It has become very much harder in recent years, and I have the utmost sympathy for new students in the present climate who will incur horrific levels of debt during their years at university, and then struggle to enter a lowly paid profession.
Is there an answer, well probably not in the short term whilst work is scarce and fee-bidding remains at eye-wateringly competitive levels, but experience would indicate that times will ease and overall levels of profitability recover, though probably not for a couple of years yet!
Architecture has never been a profession where you make loads of money, except for a few well known exceptions. Most of us work incredibly hard to create good designs in markets where this good design is regarded as at best an indulgence and at worst unecessary, and we do so for an average income.
I think the solution has to be to re-examine the degree/study courses to cut the costs to a level commensurate with the ultimate rewards or we will lose all the potential talent of the next generation. After all psychology or media studies must look a far better bet to most students these days!
Good to see the RIBA tackling this curse of Low Pay / No Pay at last. David's point about low pay feeding a downward spiral of suicidal fee bidding is especially relevant. The bottom is a very long way down...do we really want to go there?
PS The sentence "...you basically tell the employee that there time and effort are worthless..." might benefit from a bit of proof reading. :-)
Most architectural firms are too wretched to pay for bottled water for their existing staff let alone, new students who are likely not to have a clue how near impossible it is for the average architectural boiler room studio to pay its rent. which again is not there fault but the reality. The result of this, will be that most students won't get any jobs because most firms (most studios have a total of 10 max. probably 95% of arch firms). For the records it is often more profitable to hire a technician, or the thousands of unemployed and underemployed well experienced architects on contract. This accreditation nonsense is stupidity, where is the funds to pay students to come from. It would have been more intelligent if the RIBA or whatever, provided funds as grants so that firms can take on young architects and train them in house, then if they balked they could have their accreditation pulled. Prancing about the halls of the RIBA promulgating numbness is why the architectural profession is just like a dinosaur flapping about in a tarpit of continuous failure of perception
This should have been introduced years ago but well done Angela Brady for implementing it, the previous 'slapped knuckles' approach did'nt really hit exploitive firms where it hurts, 'their profits' and their 'appearance on certain frameworks'.
Also - even by paying minimum wage it's like a firm saying 'we would pay you less if we could, but legally we can't. Best thing you can have in your portfolio nowadays is 'mummy and daddys credit card'.
the only to solve this problem is for all, i mean ALL, architects to double their fees on the 1st of July 2012. are you up for it?
the RIBA could go one step further and raise the recommended fees
the ARB could help out and actually seek to properly prosecute people using the term "Architect"