ARB Registration
Is Changing

In the UK, the title architect is protected by law. You can design buildings without it, but you cannot call yourself an architect unless your name is on the ARB Register. For anyone qualified outside the UK, the route onto that register is currently being rebuilt, and most of the guidance written before last year now describes a system that is closing.

What is actually changing

ARB has moved from prescribing qualifications to accrediting them against competency outcomes. The practical consequences for internationally qualified applicants are specific.

• The Part 1 examination is ending. Final sittings run in 2026, after which it is discontinued.
• Part 1 accreditation is being withdrawn. Universities may continue to offer those programmes, but they will no longer count towards registration.
• A new Registration Assurance Process arrives in spring 2027. ARB approved it in May 2026. It introduces routes for applicants whose circumstances do not fit the traditional qualification pathway, and removes the requirement for a recognised Part 1 within the future education model.
• The Part 2 examination is being rebuilt around three stages. An application to establish eligibility, an assessment of a portfolio of evidence, and an online interview with examiners. Eligibility would require a qualification comparable to UK Level 7 in architecture or a related discipline, which replaces the older approach of proving equivalence to Part 1 and Part 2 separately.
• The consultation closes on 16 September 2026. ARB is taking views on the revised examination, the eligibility guidance and the rule changes. Subject to approval, the new examination is expected in spring 2027.

Why this matters more outside the UK

The UK model splits architectural education into three parts across roughly seven years. Most countries do not. A five-year integrated degree from Türkiye, Spain or Italy does not map cleanly onto Part 1 and Part 2, and the old assessment spent considerable effort trying to force that mapping.

The reformed approach assesses competence and UK-specific knowledge rather than equivalence of qualifications, and drops the reference to years spent in education. In principle that is better for anyone whose degree was never designed to match a British structure.

The reformed examination assesses evidence and understanding rather than years served, which is why the portfolio stage carries more weight than it used to. For an applicant trained outside the UK, the preparation that matters is demonstrating competence against ARB's Academic Outcomes, not reconstructing a British three-part education you never had.

What this means for timing

Anyone considering the Part 1 examination has one year left. Anyone planning around the new routes is planning around dates that are still moving. The Registration Assurance Process arrives in spring 2027, the revised examination is expected in spring 2027 subject to approval, and the consultation on it closes on 16 September 2026.

Sources: ARB news releases of 5 August 2026 (Prescribed Examination consultation) and 18 August 2026 (professional practical experience), the Registration Assurance Process announcement of May 2026, and the consultation documents on arb.citizenspace.com; read September 2026. The consultation closes 16 September 2026 and the proposals may still change. Verify against arb.org.uk before acting on any date here.

There is a second decision hiding inside the first. If a UK masters is part of the plan, whether the programme is ARB-accredited changes what it is worth for registration purposes. Two courses with similar names and similar fees can sit on opposite sides of that line.

Registration is not the same as recognition

ARB registration is the legal requirement. RIBA membership is a professional body and a different thing entirely; one permits the title, the other signals standing within the profession. Applicants routinely conflate them and pursue the wrong one first.

And neither is a visa. The Global Talent route allows architects and designers to work in the UK without an employer sponsor, and it runs on its own criteria and its own timetable. Registration, recognition and permission to work are three separate processes that people tend to discover in the wrong order.

Where I come into this

I work with internationally qualified architects on the sequence: which of the three processes applies to your situation, what a UK masters does and does not do for registration, and whether the timing of the reforms makes waiting or moving the better decision.

The answer differs by where you qualified, how many years of practice you hold, and what you want the UK to give you. That last question is the one that decides the rest, and it is usually the one nobody has asked.