12 Reasons Architecture Is the Best (Most Fulfilling) Career
Does becoming an architect shape the architect’s nature, or are certain types of people drawn to architecture because it suits their skills and abilities.
What are the perks of being an architect?
Are there any unique advantages?
Architects study for a long time and must spend time getting additional certification if they want to practice in business for themselves.
Architects acquire many skills and have a wide choice of career options as an architect covers a broad range of possible employment and industries.
What is it like being an architect?
1. Architects are Spiritual People
Architects design sacred and secular space and they are drawn to writing prayers in stone – all the way from Stonehenge to the present day.
You think of architects working with wood, stone, and glass but look what they do with it.
Architects connect with space in a way that non-architects can only glimpse. Perhaps only spiritual architects are drawn to creating sacred spaces?
Maybe, but take a peek into an architect-design family home and see the little touches of light and space.
Architecture is more of a vocation than a profession, and like all vocational people, architects live a life filled with meaning, and dare we say it? Joy.
2. Architects Live Reasonably Happy Lives
It is a bold claim, but look at the evidence; Architects rate themselves as 3.1 out of 5 stars for career happiness. It is not top of the heap, but neither is it bottom (source).
Plus, this is a self-reported survey, which means polite, modest, and blissfully happy architects are not going to rub everyone else’s unhappy noses in their joyful lives.
There is a lot of myths about stressed-out architects, but most of them live happy, fulfilled lives and consistently beat the other professionals for overall quality of life.
You get to spend your day being creative, and when you go home, you know you have achieved something with your day.
3. You Can Design and Build Your Own House
That is one of the perks of being a licensed architect – your dream house does not stay in your imagination.
As an architect, you can draw out the plans and design every detail. If you want to, you can build it, the way you saw it in your mind’s eye.
Not every architect wants to build their own house. Some prefer to restore unloved properties to give them a new lease of life.
Some architects are busy building homes for other people and prefer to spend their free time doing something else.
Many architects who don’t go through registering with the Architects Board are happy to live in an ordinary home.
4. Build a Reputation
No one goes sightseeing to visit where accountants did their last audit.
Lawyers have a mixed reputation. There are famous lawyers, Abraham Lincoln and Gandhi, but they are not known for their lawyer skills.
Some lawyers achieve high salaries and reputations, but these are related to the notoriety of the cases they defend.
Architects create buildings, interiors, and other structures. These may be loved or hated, but the architect’s reputation builds on their creations as architects.
5. Improve Life for Others
When you think about the caring professions, you probably think of a nurse, doctor, and care worker.
You probably don’t list architects as a caring profession. But architects care about people’s quality of life in almost everything they design.
A basic human need is for shelter and security, and that is what architects design – homes, hospitals, towns, and offices. All these buildings are for people to live, work, and play.
Perhaps the assisted living complex won’t win any awards, but architects improve the lives of the people who live there.
And in many cases, no-one notices, because everything works, fuss-free.
6. Money is Alright
Some top architects earn incredible salaries, and the vast majority do all right. The pay is comparable to other certified professionals, and jobs are plentiful.
Money is important, and it helps to have enough to meet your needs, raise a family, and see them settled in careers of their own.
Architects earn professional salaries, and they have a reasonable rate of job satisfaction.
Most architects dream and create their whole life. Retired architects may build scale buildings or take part in restoration projects.
Architects don’t really retire because there is something about people with creative skills – they keep using them their whole life.
7. The World is Your Building Site
Architects can work across the globe using the skills they got studying for their qualifications.
Lawyers and accountants can practice in another country, but they need to study and pass more exams. The law and accountancy practices have rules that people make up differently in different countries and states.
Architects learn the language of materials, forces, and design, and these skills apply in every country and state. It is straightforward for an architect to work anywhere in the world.
8. So Many Career Choices
Architects have the advantage of choosing if they have an indoor office-based career or an outdoor construction-focused job.
Opportunities for being an architect involve a broad range of exciting careers – interior design, business buildings, urban planning, and sacred spaces.
Architects have many paths open to them (including career choices outside architecture) and turn up in some surprising organizations.
Opportunities by being an architect are not limited to work – architects are in high demand for volunteer positions on school boards and not for profits.
Architects are known for being creative and organized and often play active roles in their communities.
9. Planners and Achievers
Architects are superb project planners, and they complete projects after projects.
It is a satisfying life without the routine repetition of other professions because all projects have a start and an end and are different.
An accountant faces the same round of accounts preparation and taxation year after year. Lawyers follow the rules.
Architects have more fun and live creative lives. Many architect’s creations delight generations of people as landmarks and national treasures. The only other profession that may come close to that is engineers.
10. Run Your Own Business
Not every architect chooses to run an independent business, but it is an option.
A qualified or licensed architect has a relatively easy route into setting up as an independent practice or in partnership with other architects.
Entrepreneurs have more control over their working lives and can choose to work a little or a lot.
You still need to pay the bills, but as a self-employed person, the architect can choose to flex how they work around other life ambitions.
11. See the World Through Different Eyes
Architects have a unique focus on the buildings they visit and use. They can read a structure for its age, aesthetic appeal, and functionality.
They can see if it works for the people that use it and how small adjustments would change the way people flow through it.
They see opportunities to redesign and redefine, where others see only problems and expenses. Architects understand the built landscape from a unique perspective.
Artists record cities and city life, but architects shape them to their vision.
12. Touch Many Lives
What are the advantages of being an architect? The principal one is that as an architect, you will change lives for generations of people.
Architects plan for future needs of houses, offices, and cities. Architects help restore slums to useable living and working spaces.
People live, breathe, and raise families in the world that architects create.
How many other professions leave the legacy that a single architect can leave?
There are many more reasons why being an architect beats the other professions as a career choice, but the main one is that all architects have a sense of proportion.
All that studying of ancient monuments, skylines, and how culture and people shape their buildings give architects that grounded approach to all life’s problems.
Architects train to see solutions where other people see problems. They work with what they have – the terrain, the geology, the local stone, and people’s needs.
More than that, they are sensitive to people’s dreams and are among the few professions that can help make those dreams a reality.
An investment manager can build a portfolio to give you a nest egg.
An accountant can track your wealth and calculate your taxes.
A lawyer can defend your wealth from others (but not themselves), but an architect will build your nest to shelter your family now and in generations to come.
What’s more, the nest will meet your aspirations, value, and budget with the perfect design that will surprise and delight you.
Architecture is one of the creative professions. Architects have been building the world since humans first started piling one stone on top of another and look at what they have created.
Immense pyramids to house dead pharaohs, temples, cathedrals, cities – all buildings from the modest cottage to the stately pleasure-dome originate with an architect.
It is hardly surprising that the well-balanced architect lives a happy life, content to apply their creativity to make the places we live work better for everyone.
