How to write an architect's fee proposal against the RIBA Plan of Work

An architect's fee proposal is written against the RIBA Plan of Work by deciding which of its eight stages you are being appointed for, saying what the client receives at the end of each, putting a fee against each stage and listing what the fee leaves out. It goes out with written terms of engagement, which the Architects Registration Board (ARB) expects the client to have before work starts. Most of the document is assembly, which can be handed over; the stages, the fee and the exclusions stay with a director.

Where does a proposal start, and why does it wait?

It starts with an enquiry, which may be an email with a site address and three photographs, a form on the website or a call from a past client. The proposal then tends to wait, because the person who can price it is a director with a day of project work first.

How should a fee proposal be structured by RIBA stage?

1. Find out what you are pricing. The site, what the client wants built, the budget, the date they hope to start, which other consultants are already appointed. Today a director asks, over several emails. One fixed list of questions gets the same answers sooner.

2. Choose the stages. The RIBA Plan of Work 2020 has eight: 0 Strategic Definition, 1 Preparation and Briefing, 2 Concept Design, 3 Spatial Coordination, 4 Technical Design, 5 Manufacturing and Construction, 6 Handover and 7 Use. Few appointments cover them all. A householder may want you as far as the planning application, which the Plan of Work generally places at the end of Stage 3. A director decides where the appointment starts and stops.

3. Say what each stage delivers. RIBA calls the Plan of Work the basis for professional services contracts, and says in the same sentence that it is not contractual and does not set out who does what. Your proposal has to. For each stage, write what you will produce and what the client must sign off before the next one begins.

4. List what is left out. The work other consultants will do, the fees paid to the council, anything you would charge for separately: a list a director writes once.

5. Put a fee against each stage. A fee set out by stage tells the client what they owe and when, and tells you later whether a stage stayed inside it. Say whether it is a lump sum, a percentage of the construction cost or time charged. This is the line a director cannot delegate.

6. Attach the terms of engagement. ARB's guidance of June 2025 lists what all terms should include: the contracting parties, the scope of services, the fee or the method of calculating it, each side's responsibilities, any limitation of liability, how disputes are resolved and the agreement ended, confirmation that professional indemnity insurance is held, the complaints procedure, how data will be handled, and the name of the architect in control of the work with the fact that they are regulated by ARB.

7. Send, follow up and record the agreement. ARB says it is important to receive the client's confirmation that they understand and agree. A new commission needs new terms even from a client you have worked for before, and a later change to the terms is recorded in writing with a copy to the client.

Can an AI worker draft the proposal?

An AI worker can draft it and do the assembly at both ends, with a named person checking its work. This is work for an AI worker. It works to a written job and is reviewed each month. It can read the enquiry and send your list of questions, then remind the enquirer if nothing comes back. It can draft the proposal in your template, with the stages you usually offer for that kind of project, the deliverables and exclusions from your past proposals and your rates, and mark every line it could not fill from them. It can check the terms against ARB's list and tell the director which item is missing. Once the director has sent the proposal, it can follow up a quiet one in wording you approved, file the client's written agreement against the job, and remind a project lead that a change agreed in a meeting has no written amendment yet. Our page for architects covers the rest of the practice admin it can take on, from timesheets and stage invoices to planning application sets.

What stays with a director, and why

The stages, the fee and the exclusions, because they are a judgement about the building, the client and the risk, and no past proposal settles them. The sending, because ARB's guidance says that inadequate terms of engagement are the most common cause of complaints about architects to the regulator, and the person answerable for them should read what goes out. Where you are appointed as principal designer or designer, the written advice to the client about their own legal duties is yours to give. And any phone call: ARB expects you to be ready to guide a client through the document.

What to have ready before you start

• Three or four past proposals for each kind of project you take on.

• One table of the eight stages with your usual deliverables under each.

• Your standard exclusions, in the words you want every client to read.

• Your terms of engagement, checked once against ARB's list.

• The questions every enquiry must answer before you can price it.

• The name of the director who signs off, and who covers when they are away.

With those six things written down, whoever types the proposal starts from the practice's own decisions. Why the proposal is one of the jobs that decides when a practice needs its next office hire is in how to scale an architecture practice without hiring.

A director would still set the stages, the fee and the exclusions, and an AI worker would draft each proposal by stage, check the terms against ARB's list and follow up a quiet one. Talk to our agent about the fee proposals that get written after hours.