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???

 

 

[Gus Potter]

On 02/04/2026 at 04:45, ETC said:

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!

It's hard to argue with something like this, best is to just smile politely and wish them the best of luck. 

 

On 02/04/2026 at 07:01, fatgus said:

Bear in mind that the work we’ve done ourselves reduced the burden on the architect.

Well done you. Big savings to be made here. One practical example is say you have to deal with the water board or other service companies You can be hanging on the phone for ages, then get cut off!. When, I can, encourage Clients to do this initial work but brief them first on the right questions to ask. I get paid for guiding, you save money, doing something yourself and being proactive.  It is also beneficial as Client gets a deeper understanding of the project mechanics and who the desing all fits together. They feel they have more control and are better informed. 

 

On 02/04/2026 at 07:01, fatgus said:

I very much doubt the director was charging himself out at £100/hour.

In the example above I allocated 8 days of director time. I had a feeling when I wrote that it would provoke a response, probably incredulous mostly, some may have had a choking fit. But I set it up in the context of a small practice. 

The director is not trousering £100.00 an hour. That rate has to pay for admin, PI insurance, Software ( expensive), unpaid time spent generating the buisiness in the first place and a whole host of other expenses.  Actually the £100.00 an hour is likely too cheep. 

 

I allocated 15% profit. You can in life work for someone, often with less financial risk. When you run a business you have to build some capital to cover bad payers, the govenment changing the tax and rating system .. and its fair you should be able to take some reward at the end of the day, maybe have enough to build a pension fund similar to what someone in the NHS may have? 

 

 

On 02/04/2026 at 07:01, fatgus said:

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

 

Your point on enjoying working with your Architect and have enjoyed working together is hugely valid. This has hidden value as they are invested in the project. I engourage this. Often I keep an eye on my projects even though my formal brief may be concluded. Clients often phone me during the build and say.. Gus what about this? Often with a comment I can save thousands or just reassure them.. and that kind of puts my design fee into perspective. Another way of looking at this. If I save two weeks of tradespersons time that can amount to often over 2.0k.. 

 

On BH there are a few folk that do desing / project management as a day job. There used to be a guy called the R_Sole ( something like that) who worked in Scotland, highly knowlegeable but got hounded / many thought they knew better and.. he left. There was a bit of a gap then @ETC turned up with his valuable Architect input. In terms of fee rates for SE's / Architect's I am confident we can justify our rates (which may not be the cheepest but maybe best value) and what you get for your money. Of course there are bad Architect's and SE's, but this is often due to a lack of experience rather than them being chancers.

 

One key thing that can cause you to fall is poor communication with the Client. Fom time to time a Client may ask me something that I can't answer straight away. I just fesse up and say I don't know! , but I'm going to go off and find out, then work it out and give you a reasoned and evidence based answer. 

On 02/04/2026 at 07:01, fatgus said:

we’ll go elsewhere

If you are generally happy and have a good personal relashionship then grow together, pay their current rate. 

 

Last thing today I got asked by a Contractor I work with to come and look at a job where the Scottish SE (SER Engineer) has been sacked by the Client, from my initial findings I get a smell of profession incompetancy. Their Architect has dropped some clangers. They are in mid build. They told me what fee they had paid to the SE (SER Engineer) .. I can't see straight away that it's unlikely they could have produced an competent design for that amount of fee money.

 

I'll not post much more but my initial suggestion was let's see if we can find some tools that might encourage the SE to want to be "unsacked" and the Architect to come back to the table in an "enthusiastic manner" on our terms. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[fatgus]

14 minutes ago, Gus Potter said:

The director is not trousering £100.00 an hour. That rate has to pay for admin, PI insurance, Software ( expensive), unpaid time spent generating the buisiness in the first place and a whole host of other expenses.  Actually the £100.00 an hour is likely too cheep. 

Understand totally and agree 100%. I’ve been a director for 23 years. Used to love it, briefly loathed it, now mostly a means to an end… enjoying this build project infinitely more, even though we haven’t broken ground yet. We’ve been gradually clearing our site for well over a year… today I was pulling the guts out of an old caravan and putting in my first ever field gate. Now knackered, but looking forward to more of the same tomorrow… a great way to spend the long weekend 

 

Gus… Thanks for taking the time to add your thoughts. It’s all informative and interesting stuff, and one of the reasons I frequent this forum
 

 

[Gus Potter]

31 minutes ago, fatgus said:

Gus… Thanks for taking the time to add your thoughts.

Thank you for the kind words. To expand a bit..

 

I do this sort of stuff as a day job.. But once you have designed your first hundred steel beams the excitement kind of wears off. I has to be done and you have to knuckle down as it puts bread on the table and vitally impoprtant you are perfoming a Civil duty. You can't be lazy and drop your guard as folks lives are at stake. There is a common miss conception that SE's and Civil Engineers design for the Client alone. This is far from the case. Our primary duty is to the public, that can be anyone that later buys your house for example. It sets us aside from Layers, QS's etc.

 

Architect's fall between the cracks @ETC. They also have to design so the building is weather tight for example, if it's not it can cause deterioration the the stucture. In the round the Architectural profession and Se is very much bound together. That is why you must foster a good design and professional team. At the end of the day they will stand the best chance of delivering what you expect to pay for.

 

I quote Ruskin on the law of economics. 

 

There is hardly anything in the world that someone cannot make a little worse and sell a little cheaper, and the people who consider price alone are that person’s lawful prey. It’s unwise to pay too much, but it’s worse to pay too little. When you pay too much, you lose a little money — that is all. When you pay too little, you sometimes lose everything, because the thing you bought was incapable of doing the thing it was bought to do. The common law of business balance prohibits paying a little and getting a lot — it can’t be done. If you deal with the lowest bidder, it is well to add something for the risk you run, and if you do that you will have enough to pay for something better.”

 

My work is also my hobby. I love desinging stuff. I started out as a builder after getting an HND after leaving school,  became an SE and then married up that with the stuff I learnt as a builder to become a designer that also does the Architectural side and everything else that interests me.

 

The best bit of my job is taking on the hard an unusual stuff as you have to design from first principles and then justify your design to other professionals who may be critical. It's a test of my knowledge, my communication skills, a bit of diplomacy, presentation.. all backed up with hard maths and probablility.

 

Yes there still is the SE sums, the admin, sorting out contracts.. but at the end of the day after forty years of learning I kind of feel I've arrived and I derive immense enjoyment from the creative side and working with folk who know I'm not talking shite. If you look up the definitions of what an SE it often says it is someone who practices the art and craft of design. This is what lots of folk are doing on BH.. they often just don't know they are! It's my job to say.. hey folks you are doing great work, lets see how we make it work to get buiding regs / planning approval etc.

 

43 minutes ago, fatgus said:

I’ve been a director for 23 years.

I hope you are in broad agreement with my above sentiments. Keep posting and don't be a stranger. Take note of this. I learn loads form BH, every day is a school day for me. The folk on BH are often advocating the latest design ideas and innovating. Many come from different backgrounds and are highly knowledgeable both technically and with huge life experience. If I want to keep up it would be daft for me not to take BH folks ideas and ask.. how to I translate that into something that can be practically built. 

 

Lastly.. a pure pitch for BH and the mods. They are doing a fund raiser which I support. 

[fatgus]

10 minutes ago, Gus Potter said:

every day is a school day

Indeed it is 😁 It’s one of the things that keeps life interesting.

 

16 minutes ago, Gus Potter said:

The best bit of my job is taking on the hard an unusual stuff

One of the other things that keeps life interesting! Also the bit I still enjoy in my day job…
 

 

18 minutes ago, Gus Potter said:

My work is also my hobby

You’ve very fortunate Gus. What I’ve done has treated me reasonably well but I would dearly love to make a living from something I really enjoyed.

 

 

21 minutes ago, Gus Potter said:

I hope you are in broad agreement with my above sentiments

I am

 

24 minutes ago, Gus Potter said:

Lastly.. a pure pitch for BH and the mods. They are doing a fund raiser which I support. 

Good shout. Already done

 

 

 

 

[Gus Potter]

2 minutes ago, fatgus said:

Good shout. Already done

That is fab news. It doesn't  matter whether you are someone like me that chips in with a bit of free professional advice or someone that has just got together enough funds for a deposit on their first home. It's essential that we encourage and share ideas and most importantly the enthusiasm.. which can make you money.

 

The easiest way is to avoid unforced errors, which is essential if younger and building a pot of funds. BH does this as you can see the other mistakes folk make. 

 

There are a number of members on BH that are wealthy, if you look back some have come.. milked BH and then gone. Some have stayed and are giving back. I don't resent that, it's just adult life. That said there are many that I know have saved thousands and can't be bothered ( or are just not socially educated)  to donate a tenner. 

 

But the Mods really need folk to gather round them, give them some support both financially and morally. The current mods at some point will have to hang up their boots. I would love to see BH out lasting me! 

[Gus Potter]

4 hours ago, fatgus said:

You’ve very fortunate Gus. What I’ve done has treated me reasonably well but I would dearly love to make a living from something I really enjoyed.

Not quite. It cost me roughly 250 k in lost wages to go to uni. When I came out I had to start at the bottom of the SE  ladder at the age of 44. I sucked it up until I learnt enough about SE stuff and went back to running my own business. So for me I was very lucky as I don't have kids to support. I'm 62 now. It took me about 10 / 15 years to become a really competant and prove to myself SE that I can hold my own against the best. 

 

I deliberately write on BH in a foaksy manner, am chatty as I just want folk to have fun. In my day job I do the same until some idiot starts having a laugh. I also do claims work agaist say the NHBC, I'm not chatty, I can be absolutely brutal in this cases.  Sometimes it's nice to take folk down a few pegs and rub their noses right in it and make them pay compensation, you get that feeling.. I warned you and now you are f_cked. 

 

My financials work like this. I don't have massive pension provision. But I've got a good brain. I recognised that if I educated myself and used my business exerience I can work and have fun well beyond my 70,s.