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• Part 1 accreditation is being withdrawn.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 route is planned for those holding Part 2 and Part 3 but no Part 1. ARB has said it will not require a formal examination and expects to launch it by the end of 2026.
• A single examination gateway replaces the current structure. Where the old system could require proving equivalence to both Part 1 and Part 2, the replacement is one gateway plus a UK Adaptation Assessment, planned for 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.

ARB's own survey of internationally qualified architects found that three quarters had sought additional support to adapt to UK practice, and the most common gap was UK building regulations and legal requirements. That is the gap the new UK Adaptation Assessment is built around, which tells you where preparation should go.

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 have already moved once: the partial-qualification route is expected by the end of 2026, the new examination in 2027, and a further consultation was scheduled for 2026.

Sources: ARB consultation results and registration guidance, plus sector reporting; read August 2026. This is an area in active reform. Verify against arb.org.uk before making a decision that depends on a date.

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.