Architect costs

[Gus Potter]

On 25/03/2026 at 12:58, fatgus said:

No worries... The fees to date cover items 1-8 below. 9-21 are another couple of thousand. We have planning approval, have discharged the pre-commencement conditions and we're probably 50% of the way through the remaining points.

Great thanks from me for responding to my question.. which was what did you get for your 1%.

 

Say your build cost was 400k then 1% is 4.0k. For items 1 -8 that is ok ish but most of the info will be general.  The rest is much more expensive. 

[fatgus]

On 29/03/2026 at 21:41, Gus Potter said:

Great thanks from me for responding to my question.. which was what did you get for your 1%.

No problem at all
 

On 29/03/2026 at 21:41, Gus Potter said:

Say your build cost was 400k then 1% is 4.0k. For items 1 -8 that is ok ish but most of the info will be general.  The rest is much more expensive. 

I’m not sure I follow, sorry Gus… do you think £4k for 1-8 is low or high? And do you think 9-21 should be more than a couple of thousand? It’s actually nearer to £3k, to be fair 

 

Based on the other quotes we had, these guys appear very reasonable. It doesn’t bother me one way or the other really, as I’m very happy with what they’d done (and continue to do) but it’s still interesting to hear other people’s take on fees…

[Gus Potter]

On 30/03/2026 at 22:13, fatgus said:

’m not sure I follow, sorry Gus… do you think £4k for 1-8 is low or high? And do you think 9-21 should be more than a couple of thousand? It’s actually nearer to £3k, to be fair

 

I can see how you might not follow. 

 

I said something like this:

 

Now typical rates for a structural engineer working under the IR35 scheme in the UK are about £350 to £500 a day, equates to £45 - £70 an hour as they get paid for a full 8 hour day. Much depends on experience! 

 

I'm taking this as a new build, much of the below is just general and intended for all BH folk to let folk see a bit of what is behind the curtain. Lastly please excuse my spelling and grammer as I'm off duty.

 

For a bit of fun I've copied your brief items 1 - 8 below  (made it gold colour text and italic) and tried to guess the time (with a bit of interpretation) that I may set against each item to work out the time. Once you know the time you set the rate.. then add profit and VAT if applicable. It's going to be a guess but hopefully it lets BH folk see how someone like me puts together a fee quote and the thought process behind it. I've put my own slant on the time.

 

Oh now.. you know Lawyers do it but the 1/4 hour or less and have different rates. If any want to quibble then convert to legal rates.. and we can work back from there... just joking. 

 

No worries... The fees to date cover items 1-8 below. 9-21 are another couple of thousand. We have planning approval, have discharged the pre-commencement conditions and we're probably 50% of the way through the remaining points.

 

PREPARATION
1. Development of initial statement of requirements into the Design Brief on behalf of the
client confirming key requirements and constraints.

 

Half a day to meet you, ask questions, listen to what you want,understand how you live. Interrogate you a bit, gently. Work out if we can get along. If the personal chemistry stinks then walk away. 

Often I find folk are actually nervious and that comes over at times as a bit aggressive on the Client side. You have to have the skills to recognise that and cut folk a fair bit of slack. 

 

Half a day to do a bit of background reasearch, quick due dilligence on you, the Client.

 

Half a day to think about the design, what the Client has told you and what they have not. When I go to meet knew Clients I observe how the live curently, I encougrage them just to talk about themselves. Say husband and wife how they try and communicate their ideas. Once I'm in the room the answers they give are often different from the way they talk to each other. 

 

One day to put together a design brief of requirements / constraints with some ideas on how you go about meeting thier requirements. This can be things as simple as.. we want a traditional pantry. We want that to be cool and ventilated for example.. plays a bit of havoc with the U Values but if that is what is required then srecognise that. 

 

2.5 days work.

 

For context: You are running a small Architectural or Engineering practice with 2 / 3  Directors and a few staff and generating plenty leads then the hit rate should be between 1 in 3 to 1 in 5 jobs. Less than 1 in 3 and you are not maximising profit. More than 1 in 5 you are wasting money. This is an old accounting rule of thumb. Many practices have repeat customers so you can maybe drop the price a bit due to regular custom in these cases.  

 

On a personal note.. you have to want to do the job. You are going to invest in the project and if your not then the Client will sniff that out, it's not a good look!

2. Surveyor and measure the house.
DESIGN

Ok on a new build you get a setting out engineer that has all the right equipment. Their stuff can cost 15 - 20k for a high end total station. Say a day for them.

Get their info, take the data into you CAD package and think about what you are seeing. 1 day

 

2 days work

3. Prepare a number of sketch designs as your brief and for discussion purposes.
This can include hand sketches, 3D computer modelling and physical models.

2D cad sketeches, use colour to helop visualse: 3 days

3D This is something that Architects love but usually is complete mince and gets put in the bin later.

Hand sketches fine. 

Physical Models.. few these days can do it. 2 weeks. 

 

At this stage the contract is signed and the objective is to get the key information you need to communicate with the Client. It's early stage stuff. You can much more quickly adapt 2D drawings than a 3D model.  The secret is to produce lots of 2D concept drawings to narrow down the options before you go into 3D mode, if you ever have to. 

 

Ok say 4 days for this item.

4. Prepare final design/make alterations in accordance with your instructions this will be
weighted at 20% of the design fee.

 

3 Days

Planning
5. Prepare planning drawings and other information if needed.

 

3 days for the planning drawings, making the submissionand all the paper work etc. other information is open ended, can't put a time on that as no idea how much work is involved. 

6. Submit the Full Plans and Design Statement.

 

2.0 days, design statement 1 day as you have already spent a bit of thinking time.

 

Say 3.0 days.

7. Act as clients agent during the planning process and advise on planning requirements.

 

2.0 days

8. Notify the neighbouring owners of the construction under the Party Wall Act etc. 1996,
prepare notification letters only under the act.

 

Applcable to England only, not my bag but say 2.0 days. 

 

The above adds up to about 21.5 days work. This will be roughly split between a senior person and a technician. Split it 3/4 technician and 1/4 director. 

 

3*21.5 days  / 4 = 16.0 day technician @ £30.00 per hour = £ 3870

1*21.5 / 4 =        =   8 days director @  100.00 per hour =       £4300

 

Sum of above is £8170. Add profit @ 15% = £ 9395 ex vat. 

 

Now the above is probably going to raise an eyebrow or not. Someone like me who just works for themselves will be cheaper. But I can tell you that for 4.0k you are not going to get much quality information that you can later use. I would say that they are too cheep and you are likely to get stung.

 

For items 9 onwards there is no way you are going to get any useful information for 3.0k. You are likely going to get absolutely pelted by your builder and are putting yourself at massive risk. |Your advisors should be assessing your competancy,  ability, h ow you are going to manage this, what work you are going to do yourself and so on, advising you on your chances of satisfactory copmpletion and telling you where you are likely going to need support and then detailng and drawing accordingly. That is the skill you pay a good designer for.. they recognise you weak spots and where you are strong.  Now actually all I have to do is save you a couple or three week site labour time and I've washed my face even if the fees appear higher at the outset. 

 

Sorry to dish out the tough love. But you are tying you own hands at this stage. To do this amount of design work for such a low fee.. you designer would be much better off working a Tesco/ Are they insured? 

[ETC]

I spoke to a contractor yesterday who told me that he got a set of construction drawings for a detached single storey dwelling from his “architect’ for £2,700 - and he thought that was expensive!

[Oz07]

@Gus Potter i think there are a lot of items in your list that get copied and pasted between jobs with tweaks. For instance design and access. Moving forward maybe AI will also cut the labour involved in design and access down too? I've never used an engineer to set out or survey and have built a few houses now, just use the OS maps. Even though I've never been quoted fees as a % it is relevant because in your example 9k on a half a million pound house is a lot different to half a million on a 2 million quid house. The uplift in plot value on the planning permission will be a lot more. 

[fatgus]

Thanks Gus. That makes a great deal of sense 👍

 

5 hours ago, Gus Potter said:

Now the above is probably going to raise an eyebrow or not. Someone like me who just works for themselves will be cheaper. But I can tell you that for 4.0k you are not going to get much quality information that you can later use. I would say that they are too cheep and you are likely to get stung.

Bear in mind that the work we’ve done ourselves reduced the burden on the architect. That being said, I think they probably did under-price it and I daresay that if we were to approach them now we would receive a higher quote regardless. I should probably also say that we started this process back in 2022. It was also a very small practice in a small office and at the time I very much doubt the director was charging himself out at £100/hour. They’ve grown nicely over the last few years, which is lovely to see, but again that probably means a current job would be priced accordingly. Ultimately, between them and us we achieved planning approval for exactly the house we want… even if we spent £4k and had zero quality information for later use, I’d be happy.
 

I’m sure there will be things that would have been different if we’d gone for one of the several quotes that were >£40k, but looking at what those companies deliver, with one exception, I fail to see how we would have achieved a better outcome at this point.

 

Also, we did our due diligence… we spoke with a few of their current and past clients, and a construction company they’d worked with, as we did with some of the others on our shortlist (easy to find though local contacts and of course historic planning applications). Feedback was positive. The only negative was, as you alluded to, relatively small issues with construction drawings, but having spoken with the home owner, it was nothing significant. Interestingly, the feedback on one of the larger companies (or at least, larger quotes) was not so good… they gave a pretty good sales pitch, albeit with a touch of over-confidence, but the recent client I spoke to was most unimpressed. 

 

You may well be right Gus, and the choice of architect could cost us as we progress through the build, but we didn’t make the choice purely on cost, we enjoyed working with them, the house is exactly what we want, we’re perfectly happy to date and if the construction drawings are lacking, we’ll go elsewhere 🤷🏻‍♂️😁

[fatgus]

1 hour ago, Oz07 said:

@Gus Potter i think there are a lot of items in your list that get copied and pasted between jobs with tweaks.

 

I think this is the case with most of the surveys we've needed (e.g. bat, otter/vole, arboricultural). In one report, the 'other' house name had been left in 🙄 

 

It can be a bit irritating for sure, but if the price is fair, it's factually correct, delivered on time and the outcome is what we need, I'm not sure it really matters if it's a regurgitation of someone else's report 🤷‍♂️ 

 

I might have had a different view if the architect was doing the same, but I don't think they would have had the opportunity with our project

 

What did get my goat: the (swiftly rejected!) quotes for some of the other planning requirements... upwards of £2k for a GIS or a planting plan???