Architect costs and RICS table

[DannyT]

Does anyone know anything about RICS table and how a architects fees are calculated using it?

The architect Im looking at using has emailed back saying his fees are usually 2.5%-3% of estimated cost as per RICS table.
Don’t plan on having them involved after the plans drawn and passed with building regs.

No design input from them.

We have drawn up a house design we want and kind of want it copied and pasted.

Plot has planning but changing design using same footprint.

 

House is single story, 150m2, block and block rendered with slate roof long house style.

pretty much fully self built and self managed.

 

What kind of fees does it equate to before I send emails back. 
we are in Scotland, Dumfries.

 

cheers

 

 

[jack]

Brace yourself for several posts complaining about how basing the fees on an estimated build cost is ridiculous because if you do some of the work yourself the build cost is lower.

 

10 minutes ago, DannyT said:

No design input from them.

We have drawn up a house design we want and kind of want it copied and pasted.

 

Out of curiosity, why are you engaging an architect in this situation? A draftsperson who specialises in building regs drawings will be more than sufficient, especially if your local council is self-build friendly (i.e., it's generally straightforward to get planning permission). Some on here have even done their own, although I suspect there are traps for the unwary in that approach.

[Thorfun]

How are you building? If timber frame then your chosen TF company might do what you need for you as part of their service 

[nod]

Your better with a fixed fee 

From memory ours each time have been under 5k

[DannyT]

4 hours ago, jack said:

Brace yourself for several posts complaining about how basing the fees on an estimated build cost is ridiculous because if you do some of the work yourself the build cost is lower.

To be fair I’m going to be one of those people 😂

 

4 hours ago, jack said:

Out of curiosity, why are you engaging an architect in this situation?

The reason been at the moment is this architect did all the previous work, gained planning and he was present when foundations were poured so knows the plot well.

If the price is too much i be studying the system in Scotland and having a go my self.

I’m no stranger to drawings and the local planning department have been friendly so far.

 

3 hours ago, Thorfun said:

How are you building? If timber frame then your chosen TF company might do what you need for you as part of their service 

Traditional block and block, 200mm cavity.

As a bricklayer/builder that’s where all my savings come in. 

3 hours ago, nod said:

Your better with a fixed fee 

From memory ours each time have been under 5k

Under 5k would be good.

I only like working on fixed prices.

Tell me it’s £1200 for X and £1500 for Y and I’m happy with that but don’t tell me 2.5% of a estimate 🙈

[Thorfun]

6 minutes ago, DannyT said:

Traditional block and block, 200mm cavity.

As a bricklayer/builder that’s where all my savings come in. 

that's fair enough! 🙂 

[Alan Ambrose]

Unless you're looking for some architectural magic worked over your own design (which IMO is very valuable stuff), I might either draw myself or get someone else to and either submit myself or get a planning consultant to (might depend on how difficult you think it might be to get planning). Planning is looking for look and feel and it strikes me you have that. You (or a consultant) will need to check your LPA's validation rules re items to be submitted, scales, drawing requirements etc. Not difficult but detail work.

[kandgmitchell]

Get a fixed price from someone who draws building reg plans for a living then use those drawings to revise planning yourself.

[jack]

2 hours ago, DannyT said:

To be fair I’m going to be one of those people 😂

 

I don't understand why. The cost that you could potentially build a particular design for makes no difference to the amount of work the architect has to do.

 

2 hours ago, DannyT said:

Tell me it’s £1200 for X and £1500 for Y and I’m happy with that but don’t tell me 2.5% of a estimate 🙈

 

It still ends up being a number though. 2.5% of a £300k build = £7500. Ignore the fact it's based on an estimate and just decide whether you think the number is reasonable.

If you want less from them than is implied by the stage you're considering paying to, then I'd be arguing that point to reduce the fees. If you've worked with them before then presumably they know what to expect, in which case there's less uncertainty for the architect when pricing the job.

Good luck, whatever you choose to do.

[nod]

I’m just looking at our Architects invoices We paid just short of £4000 inc vat For design Obtaining full pp

Materials submission working drawings etc 

415m2 

£800 to SE for foundation design Steels etc 

 

If we had gone the route of TF I would have expected most of that to be in the package 

 

You need to be very careful with fees 

Your back can be up against the wall before you even break ground 

[DannyT]

1 hour ago, nod said:

You need to be very careful with fees 

Your back can be up against the wall before you even break ground 

Exactly and some of the figures I have seen as examples on a few websites belonging to architects are eye watering!

Your figures seem about right. I’m expecting about £5k especially given that most of the work was done by the same architect with the previous owner. 
Everything is passed off by planning and permission is in place. I’m just looking to change the design on the same footprint, access, soak aways, landscaping, garage stays same too.

I’ve even designed it for him!
I’ll speak to him to see if we can agree a fixed price for submitting a change of design and getting through building warrant.

If not I’ll look round for someone who can or brave it and go some of it alone.

 

[nod]

The second time round We intended using our first build’s design as a template But the Architects said it really makes no difference to the cost 

So we started from scratch 

 

 

[tuftythesquirrel]

We went through this process around 2020-2021 so allow for inflation. We had quotes from 5 different architects and architectural technicians. We didn’t intend for there to be so many, however, after the initial quote, when I tried to establish some of the finer details before we appointed them, like, ”exactly where is the airtight barrier?...” “”– the realisation that they didn’t really understand my point, made us think that it was going to be difficult to get above the “we just do building regs.” threshold, rather than getting as near to passive house as possible. The prices ranged from £3k to £30k. The house is around 400 square metres. Our build cost will probably work out to be around £1000-£1200 per square metre. I can’t personally get my head around the basic concept of charging a “percentage of build cost”. Why would the architects fee triple, if our build costs were say £3000 per square metre? Our groundsmen, bricklayer, plasterer, electrician and plumber all charge by the metre or day rate, so  why should the architects fee be any different? It makes no sense!

 

The prices didn’t include the structural engineer. One of the architects said they used a specific engineer who lived 80 miles away from us. Since he charged by the hour, any site visits (even a very short one) were effectively a day out due to the traveling at £700/day. The weren’t flexible enough to use a local guy, so we would end up paying for his driving time with not much to show for it. These sort of costs can add up over time.

 

 I think the biggest reason for the variety in price, is what stage the architect is at, in their career path and their business model. The highest price we got was from a “design practice” that were a bigger outfit, with maybe a dozen people working for them. They had a scale of charges for various disciplines e.g. draftsman £55/hr. to  £85/hr. for a partner. I sort of got the vibe from the quote, that any variations that were necessary after the initial design would have been charged at the specified rate (ad infinitum!). A significant portion of the fee would have been swallowed up by the practice overheads and the drawings were still in 2D.

 

In the end, we went with a young chap that I presume, hadn’t been qualified that long. He was fully fluent in Autocad Revit (3D) and totally got the passive house “thing”. He worked from home and his price was at the lower end of the spectrum and not a lot of difference compared to the architectural technicians. Minor changes along the way were provided as part of the package. However (and probably most importantly), he was great for bouncing ideas off, which is so important at the outset.

 

I think you need to get ensure you get value for money!

 

 

[Russell griffiths]

You don’t need an architect 

get an architectural technician, you said it has planning, foundations poured, so you just need building regs drawings

 

i paid £25 an hour to get my sketches turned into cad, retired architect 

I would expect £30-35 an hour now. I think you could get it all done for £2000-3000, it’s a very simple design. 

[jack]

4 hours ago, tuftythesquirrel said:

I can’t personally get my head around the basic concept of charging a “percentage of build cost”. Why would the architects fee triple, if our build costs were say £3000 per square metre?

I agree that basing architects' fees on actual build costs doesn't make sense, but that isn't what happens. As I understand it, the percentage is not applied to the actual build cost (which would be unknowable at the design stage), but to a nominal estimated build cost that assumes a particular level of finish.

 

To rephrase your question from a different perspective, why would an architect's fee change just because their client decides at the last minute to put marble on every interior surface, add a solid gold bidet, and include 15 Miele ovens in their kitchen?

The alternative would be to esimate the amount of time the job is expected to take and generate a cost estimate by multiplying that number by an hourly or day rate. I'm not an architect, but I'll bet that architects as a profession have figured out that nominal estimated build cost is a reasonable proxy for time, and easier to estimate.

 

12 hours ago, DannyT said:

I’m just looking to change the design on the same footprint, access, soak aways, landscaping, garage stays same too.

 

This is a different prospect from what I understood from your original post. Redesigning an existing plan on the same footprint, for which planning is already in place, should be way less than starting from scratch. To me, £5k sounds expensive for that.

[Gordo]

The architects fee % is based on the estimated cost of works. for the estimated cost of works they refer to the RICS building costs index which has a range of costs per M2. So if you are going for a basic spec they would use the lowest rate and if a high spec like passi house they would use the high rate. The estimated cost of works has nothing to do with the actual cost to build. If the architect is providing tendering, supervision this would be based on the payments to contractor. for a self build it would be based on a realistic agreed estimate. If you build on the cheap it dosent make the architects job easier or less expensive. In fact its often quite the opposite, especially if they are supervising. 

 

Some architects are worth every penny but many are not. What i would say is if you cut the rates the desire they will simply cut their cloth to fit, by spending less time on it, providing less bespoke detailing and specifications. This will suit some self builders and will not suit others, depending on their background in building and time available to resolve issues that haven't been designed out. 

 

I do the odd plans and once charged only £1000 a few years back for a dwelling, because it was a simple design and the client was clear in his head what he was after. I have prepared plans for extensions where i charged more than that because the build would more involved and they were not clear about what they wanted and i knew they would frequently change their mind. I wouldn't quote a rate over the phone only after meeting the client to get a measure of the likely input required.

 

Hope that makes sense.

Edited Friday at 00:37 by Gordo