Thousands of young architecture graduates across the United Kingdom are discovering that landing their first job has become significantly more difficult than ever before. As the summer graduation season approaches, the Class of 2025 is confronting what experts describe as the most competitive job market in three decades, with unique challenges facing the architecture profession that go beyond general economic concerns.

George Smith, who recently completed his master's degree at the Royal College of Art and is set to graduate in September, exemplifies the struggles facing new architects. To progress toward becoming a registered architect, Smith must secure a Part 2 role to gain practical experience. However, his job search has been deeply discouraging. "The market is still bad since I was applying as a Part 1 five years ago," Smith told reporters. "I was hoping I could finish and start working immediately, but it's unlikely now. I have been applying to adverts from practices only advertising on Instagram – they have told me they've received over 100 applications in a few days."

Smith's experience mirrors that of many recent graduates, including Hamssini Sukumaran, who graduated with a master's in architecture from Cardiff University in 2022. "I sent out hundreds of portfolios and got less than 20 responses, and one interview," Sukumaran revealed. After searching for a Part 2 position for nine months without success, she pivoted to alternative career paths and now works for Salt, an architecture-specialized public relations firm. She describes her current role as "more sustainable creatively, emotionally, financially" than traditional architecture practice.

The broader graduate job market context adds another layer of difficulty to the situation. In 2024, the UK experienced its most competitive graduate job market in 30 years, with an average of 140 applications for every graduate vacancy. According to job search platform Indeed, university graduates in 2025 are facing the toughest employment landscape since 2018. Industry experts point to artificial intelligence as a significant contributing factor, with employers in white-collar sectors like architecture increasingly turning to technology for tasks traditionally performed by junior staff members.

"Demand for graduates is inevitably going to go down, slightly because of economics but mainly because of AI and its effect on repetitive tasks, which are often entry-level tasks," explained Jeremy Till, an architecture educator who served as head of Central Saint Martins school in London for 10 years until 2022. While AI impacts numerous industries, architecture graduates face additional unique challenges that compound their employment difficulties.

Ben Derbyshire, chair of London architecture studio HTA Design and former president of the Royal Institute of British Architects (RIBA), identifies industry uncertainty around prospective projects as a major factor in graduates' job search struggles. Many architecture studios are focusing on retaining existing staff rather than expanding their teams. The National House Building Council reported a devastating 38 percent drop in house building during the first quarter of 2025 compared to 2024 in London, where many graduates traditionally seek opportunities.

"We're managing okay, and we do have a pipeline of work, but a lot of projects are being delayed and postponed for a wide variety of reasons," Derbyshire explained. "We're not growing numbers of staff. We won't be having a big recruitment round from the degree shows." Russell Curtis, founding director of architecture studio RCKa, echoed these sentiments, describing the past few years as "extremely difficult" for the entire industry.

Even when studios are hiring, many are reluctant to take on Part 1 graduates – those seeking year-long practical experience positions required for undergraduates to progress to master's level studies. Curtis argues that these positions require extensive mentoring for limited-duration employment. "Having somebody in the office for just a year, being perfectly blunt, it's not worth the investment," Curtis stated. "I do wonder whether Part 1 graduates are well equipped enough to come into the world of practice. It does surprise me how little engagement a lot of young architects have with things like planning policy – it's really dry, but these are the challenges that we're facing."

After implementing a two-year hiring freeze, RCKa recently opened a Part 2 vacancy following an uptick in projects. "A lot of practices like ours are slightly in survival mode still, and what we're doing is we're hoping to grow our way out of the current situation," Curtis explained. "I don't think we're in a position at the moment to be taking on Part 1s because of the amount of support that they need, and for Part 2s, the difference in salary is sadly not that big."

Nimi Attanayake and Tim O'Callaghan, co-founders of London studio Nimtim Architects, have observed that Part 1 graduates are struggling more than their Part 2 counterparts. "If we had the option between a Part 1 and a Part 2 candidate, even understanding that the Part 2 is going to want a bigger salary, they potentially would stay for longer," Attanayake noted. O'Callaghan added that "the Part 1 placement year has relied on a level of altruism from practices to support it. The whole system needs to change. The burden of the Part 1 training that's been passed on to practices isn't working anymore."

RIBA president Muyiwa Oki defended the Part 1 placement system, arguing that practices should bear responsibility for training future architects. "We need to bring practices into the framework because they have their role to play in educating and training students," Oki said. "The role of Part 1 employment is that students need to be upskilled through Continuing Professional Development and get a taste of what it's like to work in an architecture practice and support the design and delivery of architectural work. Perhaps it's the bigger practices that have to take more of the responsibility to educate, encourage and bring up the practical skills level of students."

Beyond concerns about graduate preparedness, the sheer volume of architecture degree holders entering the job market has dramatically increased despite fewer available positions. According to the Complete University Guide, 75 UK universities currently offer undergraduate architecture courses, while 62 universities provide postgraduate architecture programs. "When I was president of the RIBA, new schools were being formed and numbers of students were burgeoning," Derbyshire recalled from his 2017-2019 tenure. "I must say, I did question whether it was wise to create such a large cohort of architectural graduates, but it's a free market and people want to learn architecture."

Till describes the situation as a "deadly equation between demand and supply." He explained that "we've got 60 universities or institutions with registered RIBA courses. Thirty years ago, there were 36, and those courses have also got bigger. You've got many more people graduating with architecture degrees, which shouldn't be a problem, apart from the fact that we're setting a false expectation that an architecture degree means a job in architecture."

Starting in 2027, the Architects Registration Board (ARB), the UK's regulator for registered architects, will eliminate the traditional three-part architecture qualification structure in favor of a more flexible framework. Under the new system, an undergraduate degree will no longer be required to become a qualified architect, allowing graduates with other degrees or apprenticeship backgrounds to pursue ARB-accredited master's degrees in architecture. Despite this industry change, RIBA will continue validating architecture education according to its Part 1, 2, and 3 stages.

Till argues that RIBA's resistance to change maintains Part 1-validated courses "on the basis of a very old-fashioned notion of what constitutes an architect." He advocates for abandoning RIBA's Part 1 validation entirely, transforming bachelor's degrees into broader introductions to architecture and related disciplines while reserving master's studies for professional practice preparation. "I would turn the undergraduate course into a much broader course in which you still use architectural thinking, but you could apply it to a whole series of areas – journalism, housing policy, climate activism," Till suggested.

The experiences of graduates like Smith and Sukumaran support Till's perspective. While both largely enjoyed studying architecture, they expressed frustration that their courses failed to encourage alternative career paths – something they had to discover independently while unemployed. "Universities should make an effort to reach out to people in different industries within the design realm," Sukumaran recommended. "I feel like I didn't leave architecture, I just found a different way to communicate design."

Smith, now exploring opportunities outside traditional architecture, offered a broader critique of higher education expectations: "I know the general trend across the country is a service-oriented economy, but I think too many people are encouraged to go to university and study, taking on debt, when many of my friends and myself would have probably been happier learning a craft or trade in a technical school, earning while studying." As the Class of 2025 prepares to enter this challenging landscape, the architecture profession faces fundamental questions about education, training, and career preparation for the next generation of designers.