In today’s digital world, most of us are struggling with our professions to earn the living wage because many professions are being paid poorly. Although this is no news for architects as they’ve been fighting to get paid fairly since architecture was first defined as a profession.
Why is the work of the architects undervalued?
The answer lies in another question –
How many of us actually know the importance of hiring an architect?
According to me, hardly any clients are aware about the importance of hiring one and even lesser actually appoint one.
Architects may provide for public safety in their designs, but they are not directly associated with saving people’s lives so much as in the other areas. In addition to the lack of appreciation associated with lives, licensed architects in India have a median pay of about 15k/month.
For well established architects, the opportunities surrounding them are in millions but only few architects surpass those in reality. It isn’t always talent that comes into the picture but also the demand for architects in the industry.
Despite a cultural reputation that would suggest otherwise, architecture is notoriously low-paying. Why does it have to go begging when it is one of the most essential processes which helps in transformation of society for a better environment and lifestyle?
This is about the experienced ones. What happens to the interns? Truth often is bitter and in this bitter world most of them are not even paid stipend during their internship period. We as architects always hire the talented one. The word talented is emphasized
here because everyone needs quality before anything. And getting an idea without having to pay for it is a win-win. Though interns have lack of architectural knowledge but their inputs add a different way to the valuable perspective in design.
Nowadays many architectural firms fail to make payments to their subordinates and conveniently blame it on their clients. But does this situation make them stop fulfilling their basic needs or change their lifestyle? Not always. But people who are under their umbrella, who helped them to achieve peak in their journey suffer a lot. Sadly though, we live in a hypocrite world where only good work & high responsibility is expected of them with low or no remuneration.
In part, it is due to human mindset. Architecture is a missional profession. Most of us would do it for free—and often do—simply because we cannot help ourselves. The salaries of architects reflect that willingness and the relative value. No amount of marketing effort, branding or hype, can create monetary value for our services if we’re happy to do what we do and accept minimal pay for doing it. As I mentioned earlier, it is the human mindset that counts.
