Why are so many women leaving architecture?
44% of architecture students are female, yet just 12% are partners in firms. Why are women leaving the profession, and how can we buck the trend?
It is a sad fact that the number of women in architecture is dropping, whilst in many other professions women have long had parity in numbers as well as pay and status. Of the Royal Institute of British Architects’ (RIBA) 27,000 chartered architects, just 4,000 are women.
Whilst the number of female architecture students has grown – now 44%, we can’t seem to retain them in the profession. Just 34% officially qualified chartered architects are women. And the drop-off continues into senior levels: 22% of senior architects are women, 19% of associates and just 12% partners or shareholder directors.