


However, making calculated, strategic moves can greatly boost your base salary. Often it can be difficult to get substantial raises from your current employer, beyond the standard 3% - 5% cost of living increases. Based on an average "Unlicensed Architecture / Design Staff 1" salary of $58,200, this translates to an annual increase of $5,800 to $11,600! The average salary increase an employee receives when starting a new job is between 10% and 20%. The book The Compound Effect by Darren Hardy explains this process beautifully. Focus on one topic per day and try to tweak one aspect of your work day or routine to improve one of these skills. These typically take longer to perfect so you need to start now. However it is just as important to develop your "soft skills." What can you do today that will make you more valuable tomorrow? Increasing your "hard skills" is a relatively easy first step to implement. If you are doing the same thing everyday and expecting a higher salary it is unlikely to happen. The same is true for your architecture career. The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting a different result.

The sooner you can master the following points the better positioned you will be in the future to command a higher salary than your less capable peers. The architecture profession is a relatively slow accumulation of experience and qualifications. By the time you are twenty years into your career and earning half of what you should be it is often too late to make up the difference. However, now is the time to focus on developing the points below. If you are just beginning your architecture career it is unlikely you will be able to earn $100,000+ per year today. However this can be a route to a high income-potentially very high. I won't cover running your own office for this post. Just a quick note, I will be discussing how you can earn a large salary through an employer. While earning six figures doesn't mean what it used to, it is still a very admirable (and achievable) goal. So how do you go about reaching this significant architecture salary milestone? Let's discuss. However, for this article I want to highlight the areas that will produce the best return on your investment of time and money. Previously, in 5 Factors Affecting Your Architecture Salary, I covered several variables that contribute to your income. Perhaps one of the most talked about and passionately debated topics in the design community. I receive more emails on this subject than almost anything else.
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This article was originally published by The Architect's Guide as " How To Earn A Six Figure Architecture Salary."Īrchitecture salary.
