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Recommended Minimum Conditions of Employment – August 2009

In October 2000 RIBA Council accepted archaos’s paper for the introduction of RIBA/archaos recommended minimum conditions of employment and indicative rates of pay for year out, (Post Part 1) students. This guidance was prepared by archaos in conjunction with the RIBA, and was subsequently directed to employers, employees, students and academic staff. The purpose of this guidance is to raise awareness amongst the architectural community of the RIBA/archaos benchmark conditions of employment and indicative rates of pay.

This paper serves to update the sums from those initially agreed in February 2000, October 2003 and March 2006.

It is proposed that the indicative rates of pay are increased in line with the National Minimum Wage, which has risen from £5.05 per hour in October 2005 and currently stands at £5.73 per hour. This represents an increase of 13.5% since 2005, which was the last NMW rate used to assist in developing an RIBA/archaos indicative rate of pay.

The National Minimum Wage is set by the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills and is reviewed once a year.

Statutory responsibilities

An employer has a statutory responsibility to provide all employees with conditions of employment that conform to National Minimum Wage legislation and the Working Time Regulations. If an architect employer, (registered with the RIBA/ARB) breaches their statutory responsibilities, they may be subject to disciplinary action by the RIBA/ARB as a breach of the RIBA Code of Conduct/ ARB Code of Professional Conduct (and hence the Architects Act 1997).

The employer’s statutory responsibilities include the provision of a contract of employment. The National Minimum Wage, (as of 1st October 2008) is £5.73 per hour. The Working Time Regulations limit an employee’s working hours to an average of 48 hours per week. In order to exceed this, the employee must be asked to sign a voluntary waiver.

RIBA/archaos Indicative Rate of Pay for Post Part 1 employees

• The RIBA/archaos recommends a minimum rate of pay of £8.56¹ per hour as of August 2009
• This rate should be adjusted accordingly to accommodate higher living costs in some UK locations. The indicative rate of pay for those Post Part 1 employees working in London is £10.27 per hour (+20%).

To give some indication of salary levels, assuming a standard employment document of 52 weeks/year and 37.5hours/week, the hourly figures would translate to £16,692 per annum nationwide, or £20,027 in London. MANY EMPLOYERS WILL HAVE DIFFERENT CONTRACT TERMS.
THESE VALUES ARE INDICATIVE ONLY AND DO NOT FORM PART OF THE RIBA/archaos RECOMMENDATIONS.

Data from the 2008 Hays Salary Guide shows that the national typical Post Part 1 salary is an average of £17,692 per annum and the typical London salary is an average of £22,000 per annum.

As an additional indicative comparison, the Association of Graduate Recruiters reported a MEDIAN starting salary of £25,000 per annum for graduates (of all disciplines) in 2008.

RIBA/archaos recommends…

That the contract of employment between the employer and the employee will be signed prior to the start of work date and stipulate the start date of employment, probationary period (if applicable), period of employment, level of remuneration (see above) the number of working hours per week, method of payment, conditions for overtime payment/benefit, holiday and sick pay.

That holiday and sick pay entitlement will be in accordance with that of all employees at the practice/company. As a minimum this must accord with the current Working Time Regulations and the requirements of the Statutory Sick Pay Act.

That Post Part 1 employees should not work beyond the number of hours outlined in their contract without both parties agreeing additional remuneration in accordance with the rate outlined above/time in lieu/appropriate bonus.

1. The hourly rates are based on figures originally proposed at RIBA Council in May 2000 and accepted at RIBA Council in October 2000
2. The current Working Time Regulations stipulate 5.6 weeks paid annual leave per year, subject to a maximum statutory entitlement to 28 days holiday (inclusive of bank holidays) and sick leave must be paid in accordance with company (contractual) or statutory requirements