TL;DR: The RIBA Plan of Work sets out 8 stages, Stage 0 to Stage 7, that structure every UK architecture project from strategic definition through to the building in use. Each stage ends with a formal sign-off before the next begins. Most practices still track that progress in spreadsheets, which is a large part of why over a third aren’t confident they’re recovering every fee they’re owed. This post covers the 8 stages, what changed in the 2020 update, and what to actually look for if you want stage tracking that holds up.
Ask a project lead how Stage 3 went and you’ll usually get a shrug, then a guess. The RIBA Plan of Work is supposed to prevent that: eight defined stages, each with a client sign-off before the next one starts, so nobody’s guessing where a project actually stands. In practice, plenty of UK architecture practices know the plan of work by heart and still can’t tell you, on any given Tuesday, which stage a project is really in, how many hours it’s eaten, or whether the fee proposal for that stage still holds up.
That difference between the framework on paper and what’s actually tracked is where margin quietly disappears. This post covers the 8 RIBA stages, what changed in the 2020 update, and what most explainers skip: what decent stage tracking looks like in practice, and where it usually goes wrong.
What is the RIBA Plan of Work?
The RIBA Plan of Work is the UK architecture industry’s standard framework for structuring a building project into 8 stages, from Strategic Definition (Stage 0) through to Use (Stage 7). First introduced in 1963 and most recently updated in 2020, it sets out what happens, who’s responsible, and what gets handed over at each stage, giving architects, clients and contractors a shared reference point for the life of a project.
It’s grown well beyond architects since then too. Contractors, planners and clients all use the same stage language now, which is partly why “what stage are we at” is such a loaded question when the honest answer depends on who you ask.
The 8 RIBA Plan of Work stages, explained
Here’s the full breakdown, stage by stage:
| Stage | Name | What actually happens |
|---|---|---|
| 0 | Strategic Definition | Confirming a building project is genuinely the right answer to the client’s brief, before anyone reaches for a pencil |
| 1 | Preparation and Briefing | Developing the brief properly and checking the site can support it |
| 2 | Concept Design | Landing on an architectural approach that fits the client’s vision and budget |
| 3 | Spatial Coordination | Making sure every design element actually works together before detailed design starts |
| 4 | Technical Design | Producing the complete information needed to manufacture and build |
| 5 | Manufacturing and Construction | The building gets made and assembled on site |
| 6 | Handover | The building transfers to the client, defects get rectified, the contract closes |
| 7 | Use | The building operates for the rest of its working life |
Two things trip people up here. First, Stages 4 and 5 typically overlap on most projects rather than running end to end, which makes “which stage is this time actually billable to” a genuinely fair question if you’re not tracking it properly. Second, Stage 7 runs concurrently with Stage 6 and keeps going indefinitely, so it’s less a stage and more an ongoing relationship with the building.
Every stage ends with a formal gateway. RIBA’s own framing is blunt: a good outcome at one stage depends on a good outcome at the stage before, and the client is expected to sign off the Stage Report before the project moves on. That sign-off should be a real checkpoint, not a formality, and we’ll come back to why it often isn’t.
RIBA Plan of Work 2020 vs 2013: what changed
The 2020 Plan of Work kept the 0 to 7 stage numbering that the 2013 revision introduced, replacing the older lettered stages, A to L. The practical shift wasn’t a different set of stages: it was a sharper “Information Exchanges” structure showing how outputs from one stage feed the next, plus a firmer emphasis on formal stage sign-off.
If you trained on the old lettered system, the rough translation is Stage A/B to today’s Stage 0/1, Stage C/D to Stage 2, and Stage E through H to Stage 3 and 4. The same NBS/RIBA collaboration also produced an online digital Plan of Work through Innovate UK funding, though that specific tool was retired in June 2022. The numbering survived; the standalone digital tool didn’t.
Why do practices struggle to track RIBA stages accurately?
Mostly because they track them in spreadsheets, or don’t track billable time at all. RIBA’s 2025 Business Benchmarking data found 38% of practices don’t record the time staff spend on billable work, and a separate RIBAJ survey found 68% still rely on spreadsheets for financial management, compared with 35% using dedicated project management software.
That 38% figure is worth sitting with. If you’re not recording billable time at all, you can’t know which RIBA stage is eating more hours than it was quoted for, regardless of what the fee proposal says on paper. And even among practices that do log time, 41% do it in spreadsheets rather than a system built for the job, compared with 28% using project management software.
The knock-on effect shows up in fee recovery. 36% of practices aren’t confident they’re recovering every fee they’re owed, and only 17% find it straightforward to tell whether a project is actually profitable. Most overruns get caught as expected: 32% through manual review, and 8% not until the project’s already finished, at which point there’s nothing left to bill it against. We’ve written more on where this shows up as revenue leakage across architecture firms, and pulled apart the wider numbers in our breakdown of the RIBAJ 2026 practice survey if you want the full picture.
None of this is a surprise, exactly. It’s just expensive.
What should you look for in software that tracks RIBA stages properly?
It should map directly to your 8 RIBA stages, not a generic project template. It should flag a budget or time overrun automatically rather than waiting for someone to notice, tie logged time and disbursements straight to the fee proposal for that stage, and make scope changes (known as “variations”) visible and billable the moment they happen, not at year-end reconciliation.
Four things worth checking before you commit to anything:
- Stage-native structure. The system should let you set up jobs by RIBA stage from the start, not bolt stages on as a custom field nobody fills in.
- Real-time overrun flags. Only 22% of practices currently have software that flags a budget or time overrun automatically. Everyone else finds out the hard way.
- Fee proposal linkage. Time and disbursements logged against a stage should tie straight back to what was quoted for it, so the gap is visible before you invoice, not after.
- Capacity visibility across concurrent stages. Because Stage 4 and 5 usually overlap, and Stage 6 and 7 run alongside each other indefinitely, you need to see who’s actually working on what, not just what stage the job file claims it’s in.
This is also where RIBA-stage-based time tracking earns its keep: the difference between catching a Stage 3 overrun in Stage 3, or finding out in Stage 6 when there’s nothing left to do about it. Four-fifths of practices already believe better technology will help profitability.
Common mistakes when tracking RIBA stages in your PM system
Treating stage sign-off as a formality is the big one. The client signs the Stage Report, everyone moves on, and nobody uses that moment to check whether the hours logged against the stage matched what was quoted. That sign-off should trigger billing, not a box-ticking exercise.
Second: not separating variation work from the original stage fee. If a client asks for three extra design iterations partway through Stage 2, and that time gets logged into the same bucket as the original Stage 2 fee, the cost of a scope change nobody billed for gets quietly absorbed. Variations need their own line, tracked separately, from the moment the scope shifts.
Third: letting the Stage 4/5 overlap blur who’s doing what. When technical design and construction run concurrently, it’s easy to log time against whichever stage happens to be open in the system, rather than the stage the work actually belongs to. That makes stage-level profitability data wrong even when the total project numbers look fine.
Fourth: not revisiting the fee proposal when a stage’s scope genuinely changes. The Plan of Work is a framework for the project, not the fee. If Stage 3 grows in scope, the fee proposal for it should grow too, and that only happens if someone’s actually looking.
Structure isn’t the same as tracking
The RIBA Plan of Work gives you the structure. It doesn’t give you tracking; that depends on whatever system sits underneath it. The gap between the two is where recoverable margin usually hides: in stages that ran over and nobody flagged it, variations that got absorbed instead of billed, sign-offs treated as a formality instead of a checkpoint.
If your current setup means you’re finding out about a Stage 3 problem in Stage 6, fix that before your next project, not your next financial year.
We implement WorkflowMax for UK architecture practices specifically because it maps to how RIBA stages actually work, not a generic project template. If you want to see what that looks like for your practice, book a discovery call and we’ll talk it through.
