Marketing for architects and architectural practices
You hold the strongest credential in the built environment. Using the title without registration is a criminal offence, the register is free and public, and prosecutions are published. Almost no practice website makes anything of it. This page is about that, and about the fee conversation nobody has published a scale for since 2000.
FINDING
Of 728 AI-recommended UK businesses Whito verified on 28 August 2026, 38 (5.2%) could not be confirmed as an active business trading in the town named, and only 305 (42%) matched a live registered company by name.
Source: UK AI recommendation integrity, Whito Research.
What we know, and what we have not measured yet
Whito has not yet run an AI visibility study on architects. The figures above come from cross-industry work in August 2026 and from ARB and RIBA publications read at source on 8 September 2026.
One thing we could not get and will not estimate: the ONS count of enterprises in architectural activities. The dataset exists and we confirmed its scope, but the file could not be retrieved, so no business count and no UK architecture market size appears anywhere on this page. The 40,315 figure is registered individuals, not practices.
When the architects engine study runs it lands here first, and the obvious question is the one the register makes answerable: of the firms an AI engine names for best architect in a given city, how many are under the control of a registered person. That is a check nobody has published, and it is possible only because the register exists. Until then the AI Visibility Index shows the method across eight other sectors.
Whito need-to-know for architects
- You have the hardest credential in the industry and you are probably burying it. Section 20(1) of the Architects Act 1997 says a person shall not practise or carry on business under any name, style or title containing the word architect unless they are a registered person. Section 21(1) makes contravention an offence, punishable on summary conviction by a fine not exceeding level 4 on the standard scale, which is £2,500. ARB states it can prosecute both individuals and businesses and that the fine is up to £2,500 for each offence.
- The prosecutions are public, and the costs exceed the fines. ARB publishes a table. Derby Magistrates’ Court, November 2019: £8,000 fine plus £1,797.74 costs. Southend, October 2019: £6,400 plus £2,078.13. West Hampshire, November 2021: a twelve month conditional discharge with £5,000 costs. Fines above £2,500 reflect multiple charges. This is real enforcement, not a theoretical rule, and it is a fact worth putting in front of a client comparing you with an unregistered designer.
- The register is free, public and takes ten seconds. The Architects Register is searchable by name, registration number, company name or address, with no login and no fee. ARB’s own framing is blunt: if someone is not on the Register, they are not an architect. Put your registration number on your site and link the register, because you are handing a nervous client a check they can actually run.
- Registration is an annual, revocable thing. The 2026 annual retention fee is £225, due by 31 December 2025, against £205 for 2025. ARB states that architects who have not paid before the collection period closes are automatically removed from the Register and cannot use the title in business or practice. Reinstatement runs £355 to £439 depending on how long you were off.
- Nobody publishes a fee scale, and two guides disagree by four times. RIBA publishes methods, percentage of construction cost, lump sum and time charge, and no numbers. Architecture for London publishes 11% to 14% for residential work. The HomeOwners Alliance publishes 3% to 15% and an hourly rate of £50 to £100. Both read on 8 September 2026. A client arriving with the second figure and meeting a quote built on the first is not being difficult.
- The Building Regulations principal designer is not the CDM principal designer. The Building Regulations etc. (Amendment) (England) Regulations 2023 inserted a new Part 2A with competence duties, including regulation 11G on principal designer competence. That appointment is separate from the CDM 2015 principal designer, and both regimes can bite on the same project. Two competence tests, and most clients have never heard of either.
Why practices lose work they should win
Competing with people who are not architects
Architectural technologists, designers and draughtspeople do good work and are not regulated the same way. The client usually cannot tell the difference and nothing on most practice websites explains it.
No number anywhere in the conversation
RIBA publishes no fee scale, so the client googles and finds ranges from 3% to 15%. A practice that publishes nothing lets a stranger’s range set the expectation.
Portfolios that show the finish, not the problem
Every practice site is beautiful photographs of finished buildings. Almost none shows the constraint that was solved, which is the only thing the client is actually buying.
What actually works
In this order. Structure before scale.
Publish the registration number
Yours, and every registered architect in the practice, as text with a link to the Architects Register. It is free to check and it is the one credential a competitor cannot claim without committing an offence.
Explain the protected title once, plainly
Two sentences: what the title means in law, and that the register is public and free. Not as a slight on anyone else, just as a fact the client did not know.
Publish a fee structure, even without a scale
Which method you use, what a typical stage split looks like, and one or two worked ranges by project type. You do not need a published scale to be clearer than the average practice.
Write the constraint into every project page
Conservation area, north-facing plot, a budget that would not stretch, a neighbour objection. The photograph shows the answer. The words have to show the question.
Own the planning question
Clients search for what they are allowed to build long before they search for an architect. Pages on local planning constraints, permitted development and conservation areas in the places you work are where that search lands.
Name the stages and what each costs
Planning only is typically around 30% of a full fee, and plans only to Stage 4 around 70%. Publishing that structure removes the biggest single confusion in the initial call.
Quick wins this week
Put your ARB number on every page
Footer, as text, with a link to the register. Ten minutes, free, and it is the only credential in the built environment backed by a criminal offence.
Write the stage split
What planning only covers, what plans only to Stage 4 covers, and what full service adds. One page, and it is the question every first call starts with.
Add the constraint to three project pages
Three paragraphs each: the brief, the thing that made it hard, and how it was resolved. It is the only content on a practice site an engine can quote as an answer.
Common mistakes
Treating the register as internal admin
A statutory register, free to search, backed by prosecutions ARB publishes, and most practice websites do not mention it once.
A portfolio with no words
Beautiful photographs with a place name underneath are unquotable by a search engine and unpersuasive to a client who cannot read a drawing.
Refusing to discuss fees before a meeting
The client will find a 3% to 15% range online instead. Publishing your structure does not commit you to a number; it stops somebody else’s number arriving first.
Architect marketing guides
What the Architects Act actually says, what the prosecutions cost in practice, and why almost no practice website mentions any of it.
Architect fees, and what to publishRIBA publishes no scale, two guides disagree by four times, and the stage split answers most of the first call.
Start, Build, Scale for a practiceWhich stage the practice is at, what a sole practitioner fixes first, and what changes at six people.
Practice software, and who publishes a priceArchicad in pounds, Revit showing a placeholder, Monograph in dollars and two that could not be read at all.
The register that matters
A statutory register, a criminal offence, and a free public check.
Architect is a protected title in UK law and very few architects market on it. Section 20(1) of the Architects Act 1997 provides that a person shall not practise or carry on business under any name, style or title containing the word architect unless they are a registered person, with narrow exceptions for naval, landscape and golf-course architects. Section 20(3) lets a body corporate, firm or partnership use the word in its name where the business is under the control and management of a registered person. Section 21(1) makes contravention an offence, on summary conviction, with a fine not exceeding level 4 on the standard scale, which since 1 October 1992 has been £2,500, and section 21 extends the prosecution window to two years rather than six months. ARB’s own wording is that it can prosecute both individuals and businesses and that the fine is currently up to £2,500 for each offence. Its published prosecutions table shows what that means in practice: £8,000 and £1,797.74 costs at Derby in November 2019, £6,400 and £2,078.13 at Southend the month before, and a twelve month conditional discharge with £5,000 costs at West Hampshire in November 2021. The register held 40,315 architects in 2025, ARB opened 586 new title misuse cases in 2024, the 2026 retention fee is £225, and anyone can search the Architects Register free, without a login, by name, number, company or postcode. All read at source on 8 September 2026. Put your registration number on your website. It is the strongest verifiable credential in the built environment and it costs nothing to publish.
Ready to win better projects?
See what search and AI engines can read on your site. Seventeen checks, scored out of 100, every result shown on the page, no email needed. Then list your business free in the Whito directory. Money cannot buy either.
Looking for an architect instead?
Whito is a marketing guide for the trade, not a booking site. If you are trying to hire, the Whito directory lists verified UK businesses, and every listing is checked against the public record before it appears.
Whito is independent and companies cannot pay to appear in our guidance. This page is marketing advice, not legal or professional conduct advice: check registration and title requirements with the Architects Registration Board and practice requirements with RIBA.