Unlike most professions, I don't believe Architecture is a 9-5 profession. Almost all jobs I've had have required me to work overtime at some point. It's almost a given. The role of an architect is to deliver a result or make something happen.
The average hours that architects work per day range from 8 to 10 hours. However, it is not surprising to find architects who clock longer hours, either routinely or due to project demands. Architects working in public offices (like town planning) generally work routine office hours around seven or eight per day.
Architects typically work in comfortable offices, spending most their days designing structures, developing plans and meeting with clients. They often travel to construction sites to review construction progress. Architects work 40 hour weeks, often working extra hours and weekends to meet deadlines.
A 2016 survey conducted by Seek Learning showed that 37 percent of professionals in the architecture and design field rank their work-life balance as average, poor, or terrible. Architecture was found to be the fifth-worst profession for positive work-life balance.
If you're like most architecture/engineering (A/E) firms, you allow each employee somewhere between 10 and 20 vacation days (2-4 weeks) per year, depending on their seniority (and how generous your policy is).
Architects work for 40 hours a week and sometimes on the weekend to meet specific deadlines. If you are self-employed, the number of hours depends on how much work you have. Your work hours are also flexible as self-employed.
Work Schedules
Most architects work full time and many work additional hours, especially when facing deadlines. Self-employed architects may have more flexible work schedules.
Architects spend a lot of time in comfortable offices developing reports and drawings, communicating with clients and working with other architects and engineers. Travel is sometimes required in order to oversee the progress of a project. Approximately 1 in 5 architects work longer than 50 hours per week.
Architects have been voted the sexiest male professionals, in a survey of women's ideal partners.
Being a mother in architecture isn't easy. Although architecture history is full of fathers who have balanced family and work (and in some cases, multiple families and work), there are fewer examples of mothers who have been able — or been given equal opportunity — to do it all.
Some architects sit at a desk all day. Some architects are outside all day visiting construction sites. Some architects draw all day.
There are plenty of people in the industry (perhaps the majority) who typically work 40-45 hour weeks and pull overtime beyond that only occasionally. The trade off may be fewer promotions and raises, or at least a slower road to those things. Not everyone in architecture feels they need to work 12 hour days.
As of May 19, 2022, the average hourly pay for an Architect in the United States is $39.66 an hour. While ZipRecruiter is seeing hourly wages as high as $65.14 and as low as $17.55, the majority of Architect wages currently range between $30.29 (25th percentile) to $43.51 (75th percentile) across the United States.
Many architects are intense, energetic, competitive and driven. But real workaholics have few (if any) outside interests. They let their family lives fall apart. They often have health problems and suffer from depression and deep insecurities.
The 2002 Hauser study of IQ for various professions found an average IQ of 120-130 for architects - roughly the same range as for surgeons, lawyers, and engineers. That range straddles the line between "superior" and "very superior" intelligence.
Architects can stay up all night
Dating an architect means you're dating a night owl in many cases. As a partner, you might be happy that they can stay up all night doing more fun things, being used to the lack of sleep. All night action is reserved for pen and paper.
It is one of the nicest things about dating an architect. They care about you, their neighborhood, the environment, and the kid in a wheelchair that needs a ramp to go to school. Architecture is about making life better for people, and when you date an architect, you are one of those people they care about.
From the moment we attend our very first lecture to the peak of our careers, architects are plagued with stressful events that are unlike any other profession. Meeting deadlines, dealing with planning and fabricating the dreams of our clients, our job can be intense and extremely demanding.
Technically, at least in the US, architects are "rich." An upper-level manager, a partner or a principal generally make more than about 95-98% of the U.S. It's also sort of the same way how people believe those working in the tech industry or engineering believe them to be well off.
Asked why so many architects lived long lives, Philip Johnson quipped, “Of course they live long—they have a chance to act out all their aggressions.” Johnson must have had a lot of acting out left to do, for his well-publicized “retirement” at 85 turned out to be only the first of many, and he continued to design and ...
You have free weekends and holidays
As an architect, you don't have to work during those times and can rather enjoy nice weekend trips or barbecues with your family and your friends.
Do architecture students have a social life? Despite the demanding amount of work while studying, with proper time management and a solid work ethic, architecture students can still enjoy a social life.
Is it actually worth it? The short answer is yes, its a creative, diverse and ever changing subject and profession that provides a huge array of opportunities and avenues to explore. To date, it has been an absolute pleasure to study the subject and work within it as a qualified professional.