The Toxic Culture of the Architectural Industry.

I’m not an architect, but I did work in an architectural practice for over seven years. During which time, I realised two things. Firstly, architects in general are poorly paid. Secondly, the industry is toxic in more ways than one.

Architects, despite them having to study for seven years, receive a poor salary in comparison to other professions that require a similar amount of study. In the practice that I worked and in most other practices, the culture is that architects are expected to work countless hours of overtime for no extra pay. Yes, architects are expected to work for free.

I remember staff members would often work all night to meet unrealistic deadlines. Younger members of staff would be bullied and guilt-tripped into working over their contracted hours. Part-one and Part-two architects were usually eager to impress, so they would work extra hours with no questions asked, and no matter what they had going on in their personal lives. Qualified architects that were desperate for promotion would also work extra hours for free. For some reason, it is the culture in architecture to need a higher title to justify your worth as an employee.

One of the architects that I worked with calculated her hourly rate after working all the free overtime. She found that she was earning less than minimum wage. This…