A Business Directory

Find UK Architects, Engineers & Technical Consultants

Welcome to Architect DB, the UK Architecture, Engineering & Technical Consultancy database. We list over 44,000 firms across England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland, from a sole practitioner drawing up a loft conversion to a multidisciplinary practice with hundreds of staff. Pick your region from the menu above, or jump straight to a town below.

Areas Covered

Architect DB features Architects, Engineers & Technical Consultants throughout the UK. Just some of the towns and cities we cover include: Launceston, Hoddesdon, Bradford, Newbury, Westerham, Bedford, Barnstaple, Banbury, Sowerby Bridge, Tunbridge Wells, Harrogate, Belfast, Swadlincote, Ayr, Hook, Buckingham, Preston, Ossett, Waltham Abbey, Chislehurst, Greenock, Welwyn Garden City, Bridgnorth, Oswestry, Welshpool, Basingstoke, Altrincham, Craigavon, Keighley, Reigate, Dewsbury, Cardiff, Stonehaven, Louth, Rochford, Edgware, Letchworth Garden City, Mansfield, Devizes, Kilbirnie, Tarbert, Dingwall, Witney, Tewkesbury, Halifax, Linlithgow, Northampton, Penryn, Leicester, Stockport, Matlock, Croydon, Ascot, Dorchester, Stockton-on-tees, Uxbridge, Folkestone, Bury St. Edmunds, Pulborough, Wakefield, Rochester, Penzance, Kilmarnock, Stafford, Cradley Heath, Ashford, Deeside, Southwell, Warminster, Gravesend, and many more.

When Do You Need an Architect, an Engineer or a Consultant?

Most people first go looking for one of these professionals when a building project stops being a sketch on the back of an envelope: an extension that needs planning permission, a loft conversion that needs a steel beam, a new build that has to satisfy the Building Regulations, or a commercial fit-out with a landlord’s deadline attached. Each of those jobs calls for a different professional, and many call for more than one. Between them, the firms listed here handle:

• Feasibility studies, concept and detailed design, planning applications and appeals, and listed building or conservation area consent.
• Structural calculations for beams, foundations, removing load-bearing walls, underpinning and anything else a building control officer will ask to see on paper.
• Building Regulations drawings and applications, through the local authority or a private building control body.
• Building services design: heating, ventilation, electrical, drainage and the energy calculations that new homes and commercial buildings have to pass.
• Measured surveys, party wall awards, condition surveys, and expert reports for disputes or insurance claims.

Types of Professional Listed Here

“Architect” is a protected title in the UK. Under the Architects Act 1997 nobody may use it unless they are on the register held by the Architects Registration Board, which anyone can search free of charge. Most registered architects are also members of the Royal Institute of British Architects and put RIBA after their name. A RIBA Chartered Practice has met further requirements on insurance, quality management and continuing training.

Architectural Technologists specialise in the technical side of design: how a building is detailed, specified and put together so that it performs as intended. The Chartered Institute of Architectural Technologists awards the MCIAT designation, and many technologists run their own practices, taking extensions, conversions and small commercial work from first sketch to completion.

Structural and Civil Engineers work out how a building stands up and how it sits in the ground. Chartered status comes through the Institution of Structural Engineers or the Institution of Civil Engineers, both licensed by the Engineering Council, and carries the letters CEng. On a domestic job it is the structural engineer who produces the beam calculations that building control wants to see.

Building Services Engineers, known in the trade as M&E engineers, design the mechanical and electrical systems inside a building: heating, cooling, ventilation, lighting, power and plumbing. The Chartered Institution of Building Services Engineers is their professional body.

Surveyors and Technical Consultants make up the rest of the directory: building surveyors and quantity surveyors regulated by the Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors, party wall surveyors acting under the Party Wall etc. Act 1996, planning consultants, energy assessors, and specialists in acoustics, fire engineering, drainage and access.

Choosing the Right Firm

A few practical checks before you appoint anyone:

• Confirm the title. If a firm calls itself an architect, look the name up on the ARB register. Anyone can call themselves an architectural designer, which is legal but tells you nothing about their qualifications.
• Ask what stage they will take the job to. Some practices stop at planning permission; others carry on through Building Regulations drawings, tendering and site inspections. The RIBA Plan of Work sets out the standard stages, and a written appointment should say which ones are included.
• Ask for evidence of professional indemnity insurance, and check the cover is still in force. The ARB code requires registered architects to hold it, and any engineering practice worth appointing will too.
• Ask how fees are charged: a percentage of construction cost, a fixed fee per stage, or an hourly rate. For small domestic jobs a fixed fee is now common and easier to budget for.
• Ask to see something similar they have done nearby. A firm that has taken three extensions through your own council’s planning department knows what that department will and will not accept.

Promote Your Business

Are you an architect, engineer or technical consultant? Architect DB puts over 44,000 UK firms in front of the people searching for them, organised by region and town so that clients find practices near them. A listing gives your firm its own page with your contact details, website link and a description of your services. If your practice is missing, or you would like to take control of an existing listing, submit a new listing today and we will review it for inclusion.