Hugh Simpson, chief executive of the Architects Registration Board (ARB), discusses how the consultation on the Prescribed Exam is affecting architectural professional access
Anyone with the competence to become an architect should have a fair and proportionate route to becoming an architect. This does not mean making registration easier or lowering the standards required to join the Architects Register. It means ensuring that how we assess those standards reflects the different ways people develop their knowledge and skills.
This principle runs through our current programme of reform. From our work to modernise the Prescribed Examination to recent changes to professional practical experience (PPE), we are asking whether historic requirements are genuinely necessary to assure standards and protect the public. We want to remove unnecessary barriers for people who can meet the standards required for registration.
Keeping up with the times
The architecture profession is changing, and we recognise that not everyone follows a traditional, linear route through education and practice: people may gain qualifications in different countries, study architecture through a range of academic pathways, or develop valuable competence through varied forms of professional experience.
Our regulatory framework must be able to recognise those different routes. In setting requirements to join the Register, our focus and ultimate concern should not simply be on whether someone has followed a particular route, or indeed the time they have spent following that route, but on whether they can demonstrate that they have achieved the knowledge, skills and experience, as well as demonstrate the right behaviours required to practise as an architect in the UK.
This thinking underpins our current consultation on proposals for a revised Prescribed Examination.
The Prescribed Exam provides a route to registration for people who do not have Architects Registration Board (ARB) accredited qualifications but may nevertheless have reached an equivalent level of academic competence. Our proposals would modernise the examination to align with our new outcomes-based framework for architectural education and training. They would assess applicants against ARB’s Academic Outcomes, rather than requiring them to navigate a system built around the previous Part 1 and Part 2 criteria. The intention is to make the route clearer and more transparent, while focusing assessment directly on whether an individual can demonstrate the required academic competence.
Under the proposals, the examination would have three stages: an application stage to establish eligibility; a review of a self-assessment and portfolio of evidence against the Academic Outcomes; and an online interview. This approach is designed to provide a structured, proportionate assessment while reducing the unnecessary complexity of the current format.
Crucially, improving access does not mean creating a shortcut. Applicants would still need to demonstrate that they meet the required standards. What is changing is how we allow them to do so, and the ways they can provide that evidence.
That distinction matters: public confidence in the Architects Register depends on maintaining the standards required for registration. But high standards and accessible pathways are not competing objectives, and a well-designed regulatory system should recognise competence wherever it has been gained, provided it can be demonstrated and assessed robustly.
Still time to contribute
Our consultation on the revised Prescribed Examination is open until 16 September 2026, and we are seeking views on the proposed changes to the examination, its eligibility requirements and the rules that would underpin it. Subject to the outcome of the consultation and Board approval, we expect to introduce the revised examination in spring 2027.
The same principle has shaped our recent work on professional practical experience (PPE). Historically, requirements for gaining practical experience have included a minimum period in practice. While time can provide a useful proxy for experience, it does not necessarily tell us what an individual has learned or how well they have developed the competence required for practice. That is why ARB has recently changed its approach to PPE, following recommendations from the independent PPE Commission and a public consultation on proposals earlier this year.
The Commission’s work highlighted the challenges that many trainees can face in accessing suitable practical experience, and concluded that too much responsibility and risk can fall on trainees themselves. Its recommendations challenged ARB and the wider sector to focus more closely on the quality, breadth and support associated with practical experience. Our response is to shift the emphasis away from rigid time-based measurement and towards the quality of experience and the competence trainees actually gain.
The changes include removing the requirement for applicants to have completed a minimum of two years’ practical experience. During the transition, existing requirements will continue to apply to those completing qualifications under the current framework. We are also removing the so-called “double counting” rule, which previously prevented some periods of practical experience from counting towards registration requirements where that experience also contributed to academic credits.
Making the right adjustments for the future
Again, these changes are not about reducing expectations. They ensure our requirements focus on what matters most: whether future architects have gained meaningful, appropriate experience and developed the competence required for professional practice.
The removal of the minimum time requirement is supported by wider changes intended to strengthen the quality and consistency of practical experience. These include a greater coordinating role for learning providers, clearer guidance for employers and trainees, and the development of a new Trainee Record of Experience. Together, these changes will give trainees much more transparency about what to expect from practical experience, where to get support, and how far along they are in their journey to registration, while also providing greater flexibility.
The reforms to the Prescribed Exam and professional practical experience address different stages of the journey towards registration, but the same underlying principle connects them.
Requirements and routes have an important role in maintaining standards. They can also become barriers when they focus on the form a person’s journey has taken rather than the competence achieved on that journey. Regulators should also be prepared to ask whether a requirement is genuinely necessary to assure competence, or simply an established feature of the system.
We are moving towards an approach that places greater emphasis on outcomes and evidence: what someone knows, what they can do and whether they are ready to meet the responsibilities of professional practice. For aspiring UK architects, this should mean clearer and more flexible pathways. For the public, it should mean continued assurance that every person on the Architects Register has met the standards required to practise safely and effectively.
ARB’s consultation on proposals for a revised Prescribed Examination is open until 16 September 2026. More information and consultation materials are available on the ARB consultation platform
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