Contract Variations: Why Your Percentage Fee Doesn’t Always Keep Up
TL;DR: A contract variation changes the value of the job it’s attached to. If your fee is a percentage of the contract sum, or claimed in stages against it, that fee should move too, but on a live project, it often doesn’t. This post covers how percentage fees are meant to track contract variations, why […]
The RIBA Plan of Work: The 8 Stages Explained (and How to Actually Track Them)
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 […]
AI in Architecture Practice: Why Adoption Is Rising but Confidence Isn’t
TL;DR: AI use in UK architecture practices jumped from 41% to 74% between 2024 and 2026, but RIBA’s latest survey shows the gains haven’t reached fees, design quality, or confidence in the profession’s future. A separate survey of 230+ UK practices, run with RIBAJ, shows why: the worst-rated problems in day-to-day practice are financial, recovering […]
What the RIBAJ Technology in Practice Survey 2026 Told Us About 230+ UK Architecture Practices (and What It Means for Yours)
TL;DR: RIBAJ’s Technology in Practice Survey, in association with Hyphen Digital, surveyed more than 230 UK architecture practices and found most still run finance on spreadsheets, over a third aren’t confident they’re recovering all their fees, and a meaningful share only discover budget overruns after it’s too late. In a survey conducted by RIBAJ and […]
Reducing Revenue Leakage in Architecture Firms: Root Causes and Fixes
TL;DR: Revenue leakage in architecture is rarely one big problem. It’s several small ones compounding unnoticed: time that never gets logged, variations delivered before a fee conversation, proposal hours absorbed as overhead, and invoices raised after the fact. This post covers the root causes and explains how the right project management setup makes each gap […]
WIP Accounting for Architects: What It Is, Why It Matters, and How to Track It Properly
TL;DR: WIP accounting is how architecture practices recognise fees earned but not yet invoiced. In a stage-fee model, time and costs build up against each RIBA stage before the milestone invoice goes out. That gap between work done and work billed is work in progress. Get it right and your balance sheet, P&L, and cash […]
Why You Shouldn’t Use Spreadsheets for Project Management
TL;DR: Spreadsheets work for one or two projects, but they break in predictable ways once a business runs more than a handful at once. No real version control, no native link to your accounting platform, and silent errors that don’t surface until the invoice goes out. 94% of business spreadsheets used in decision-making contain errors. […]
How to Manage Scope Creep in an Architecture Practice
TL;DR: Scope creep in architecture is almost always a systems failure before it’s a contract failure. Most practices don’t spot it until the invoice is being drafted. This guide covers how to prevent scope creep from the fee proposal stage, how to handle mid-project changes without damaging client relationships, and how time tracking and WIP […]
Accounting Software for Architects: Why the Tool Is Only Half the Decision
TL;DR: Most UK architecture practices searching for accounting software are asking the wrong question. The right question is: which accounting platform connects cleanly to the project management tools your practice actually needs? For most UK firms, that answer is Xero, not because it’s the cheapest or most familiar, but because its integrations and the depth […]
Resource Planning for Architecture Practices: The Fee Budget Problem Nobody Talks About
TL;DR: Resource planning for a UK architecture practice means working out who does what, across which projects, before you commit to a commission. Done well, it protects fee budgets per RIBA stage, catches variations before they’re written off, and gives Directors a view of margin while there’s still time to act. Most practices are running […]