ARB Is Removing Two
of the Three Barriers

If you qualified as an architect in a country the UK has no recognition agreement with, registration has required three separate things. Two of them are being removed. That is a material change for architects trained in Türkiye, Egypt, Iran, India, Pakistan and most of the rest of the world.

Who this applies to

ARB has mutual recognition agreements with a short list of countries: the United States, Australia, New Zealand, Canada and Hong Kong. Architects qualified there have a direct route.

Everyone else goes through the Prescribed Examination. That includes Türkiye, and it includes most of Europe since Brexit left only a frozen list of pre-existing qualifications recognised.

The three barriers, as they stand today

• Prove Part 1 equivalence, which assumes a three-year course of study.
• Prove Part 2 equivalence, which assumes Part 1 plus two further years of postgraduate architecture.
• Then obtain a UK Part 3 qualification from a UK school, with 24 months of formally recorded practical experience.

For someone with a single five-year integrated degree, the first two are the awkward part. The degree was never designed to split into a British three-plus-two structure, and considerable effort goes into arguing that it maps onto one anyway.

What is being removed

The Part 1 examination is going. ARB is phasing it out, and from 2027 it will no longer require even UK-qualified architects to hold an accredited Level 6 undergraduate degree. The eligibility rules are being rewritten to match.

The two-year practical experience minimum is going. ARB confirmed in August 2026 that it is removing the requirement for applicants for registration to have completed at least two years of practical experience. Competency Outcomes replace time served. This takes effect in December 2028.

And the remaining examination is being rebuilt. The revised Prescribed Examination moves to three stages: an application establishing eligibility, an assessment of a portfolio of evidence, and an online interview with examiners. Subject to approval, it is expected in spring 2027. The consultation closed on 16 September 2026.

So the structure changes from proving equivalence twice against a system you did not study in, to demonstrating competence once against published outcomes.

The question that is still open

Eligibility for the new examination would require a qualification comparable to UK Level 7 in architecture or a related discipline.

Level 7 is master's level in the UK framework. Whether a five-year integrated bachelor's degree from Türkiye, or an equivalent from Egypt or India, is assessed at that level is not something the reform answers. It depends on how the individual qualification is evaluated, and that is a case-by-case determination rather than a country-wide one.

This matters because it is the one place the new system could be harder rather than easier. Removing the Part 1 examination helps everyone. Introducing a Level 7 floor may not.

Sources: ARB news releases of 5 and 18 August 2026, the international routes consultation, and ARB guidance on overseas qualifications; read September 2026. The revised examination is subject to approval and the changes to practical experience take effect in December 2028. Requirements differ by qualification and by individual case. Verify against arb.org.uk before planning around anything here.

Where I come into this

Every file is different and this is not a route that can be assessed from a country name. Two architects with the same Turkish degree, one with a postgraduate qualification and eight years in practice, one straight out of university, are in genuinely different positions under both the old rules and the new ones.

What I work on is establishing which framework applies to your specific qualification, what the assessment will actually want to see, and whether the timing favours starting now or waiting for the revised examination. Those three answers change the plan, and none of them can be given without looking at the file.