What is the career status of people who have not acquired the Part III qualification?
For the RIBA, Part II is not a destination. It is merely a stepping stone to Part III. The RIBA only seem to recognise Part II’s on the basis they will all move on to Part III. If you don’t acquire Part III after five years the RIBA quickly disown you. OK, you can join the RIBA as a ‘second class’ member but what is the point of that? They don’t lift a finger to represent you and why should they! Fair enough, the RIBA are only interested in architects but are registered architects the only members of the architectural profession? Is there no room for Part II’s?
Having acquired a post-graduate qualification you are in the top 5% of the working population even without Part III. So how does the architectural profession reward you for all that hard work and what we now know to be an investment of £50,000 plus?
Well, first it labels you as an ‘assistant’ (so you don’t get ideas above your station no doubt) and then it terminates your career. The RIBA don’t or won’t publish statistics that would undermine its members so no-one knows exactly how many Part II’s are working in architects offices, It doesn’t publish statistics on what proportion of ‘associates’ or ‘directors’ or ‘partners’ in big architectural practices have not acquired Part III. (Anecdotal evidence would point to a heavy majority being architects and a tiny minority being non-architects.) So without Part III you can kiss goodbye to any meaningful career progression if you remain in the big architectural offices.
