Graduates of the typical architecture, building and planning course in the UK earn £33,500 five years after graduating, the 8th highest of the 21 subject areas we compare. The best-paying, Construction Engineering, Innovation and Leadership at University College London, earns £59,000.
Graduates go into architecture practices, quantity surveying, construction and project management, town planning and property.
Graduates of the typical architecture, building and planning course earn £33,500 five years after graduating (£28,000 after 15 months), above the £31,500 median across all subjects and the 8th highest of the 21 subject areas we compare. Behind that median, its 334 courses range from £23,000 to £59,000: the best-paying earns 1.8 times the typical course.
Qualifying as an architect takes around seven years, so many architecture graduates are still training five years on, while surveying and construction-management graduates can start on full salaries straight away.
Data last updated · HESA Discover Uni
| Course | After 5 years | |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Construction Engineering, Innovation and Leadership | £59,000 |
| 2 | Architecture | £59,000 |
| 3 | Building Surveying | £56,500 |
| 4 | Architecture | £52,000 |
| 5 | BSc Building Surveying | £50,500 |
| 6 | Building Surveying | £49,500 |
| 7 | Building Services Engineering | £49,500 |
| 8 | BSc (Hons) Building Surveying with Foundation Year | £48,500 |
| 9 | Building Surveying | £45,500 |
| 10 | BSc (Hons) Building Surveying | £45,500 |
The best-paying course at each university, ranked by salary five years after graduating. Each figure is the median of each course's own median graduate salary (HESA Discover Uni). Salaries 15 months after graduating come from the Graduate Outcomes survey; three and five years on, from LEO tax data. Joint courses that HESA also files under another subject are left out of this list but appear in the chart below.
A median salary is one number standing in for hundreds of courses. This chart plots every course individually, so you can see the spread behind it: how tightly courses in a subject cluster together, or how far apart the best- and worst-paying ones sit.
Each dot is one course's own median graduate salary (not individual graduates' pay), from the HESA Discover Uni dataset. Courses with a cohort too small to report are excluded, and postgrad/top-up/alternate-entry courses are excluded site-wide. Figures compare courses, not people.
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Each dot is one course, positioned by its salary along the horizontal axis (never shifted by more than one dot-width). Vertical position means nothing. It only spreads dots apart so they don't overlap. Hover a dot for details, or click it to open that course's page.
| Course | Institution | Subject | Salary |
|---|
← See the highest paying degrees across every subject
Not counting joint courses, Construction Engineering, Innovation and Leadership at University College London, whose graduates earn a median £59,000 five years after graduating. Next are Architecture at the University of Cambridge (£59,000) and Building Surveying at Oxford Brookes University (£56,500).
Graduates of the typical architecture, building and planning course earn £28,000 15 months after graduating and £33,500 five years after graduating, 20% more than at 15 months. Across all its courses, joint ones included, salaries range from £23,000 to £59,000.
6 of the top 10 courses above ask for between DD and A*AA at A level. Many also require particular subjects, so check each course's entry requirements.
Yes, on average: it ranks 8th of the 21 subject areas we compare, with the typical course paying £33,500 five years after graduating against £31,500 across all subjects. Where you study matters too: the best-paying course earns 1.8 times the typical course.