ARB's Schedule 1 now runs two frameworks with opposite date rules — one locks on the day you graduate, the other on the day you start

The Architects Registration Board’s Schedule 1 states two rules in two consecutive sentences at the top of the page, and they anchor to opposite dates:

“Any qualification must be prescribed by ARB at the time at which it is conferred on an individual for that qualification to be eligible for the purpose of registration.”

“Any ‘Masters-level’, ‘Practice-level’ qualification must be accredited by ARB prior to an individual starting or transferring onto that qualification for it to be eligible for the purpose of registration.”

The old framework locks on the day the certificate is conferred. The new one locks on the day you start. Both are live right now, on the same page, sometimes on two lines describing the same master’s degree at the same university. Read the wrong one and your answer can be out by five years.

That is the first of five things about this schedule that catch people. Here is the rest.

What Schedule 1 is

Architecture is one of the few UK professions where the education register has direct statutory force. ARB’s own summary: “The title ‘architect’ is protected by law. Under the Architects Act 1997 (the Act), only those on the Architects Register are permitted to use the title architect in business or practice in the UK.” And the duty: the Act “places statutory duties on the Architects Registration Board (ARB) to determine the initial education and training necessary to join the Register … and to ‘prescribe’ (accredit) the qualifications that demonstrate achievement of that learning and practical experience.”

Schedule 1 is where that duty is discharged in writing. It is the schedule to ARB’s Registration Rules — and note the footnote, because it affects anyone citing an older version: “Schedule 1 of ARB’s General Rules to September 2024, and Schedule 1 of ARB’s Registration Rules from October 2024.” Same schedule, different parent instrument, changed in October 2024.

It is also explicitly a present-tense document: it “lists all qualifications currently accredited”, is “updated on a regular basis”, and the qualifications on it are “subject to annual monitoring and periodic review.” ARB’s public provider list carries the same word. Neither is a historic archive, and that matters below.

Three words appear on these pages for overlapping ideas — prescribed, accredited, and recognised in the schedule’s own section heading. ARB itself glosses the first two together as “‘prescribe’ (accredit)”, so treat them as one concept with two framework-specific date rules, not as two tiers of quality.

How one row is built

Each entry carries, in order: the provider and school, the exact qualification title, the Part level, and a date range — then, very often, an annotation after the range.

The schedule is organised alphabetically by city, not by university name, which is why a school can be hard to find and why one entry simply cross-refers a reader to another city for the Part 3.

Trap one: the Part level is not implied by the award level

This is the single most common misreading. In the schedule, a Master of Engineering can be a Part 1; a Master of Philosophy and a Master of Studies apprenticeship can both be Part 2; and one Scottish entry covers “Part 1 and Part 2” in a single record.

So “I have a master’s in architecture” answers nothing. Only the Part level in the entry does. And a Part 3 is frequently not a university award at all — the schedule includes professional-institute regional providers and at least one private company delivering a Part 3 examination.

Trap two: an expired date range is usually not a lapse

Read on 3 September 2026, 145 entries in Schedule 1 carry the words “Prescription extended”. A very large number of rows show an original range that ended in 2024 or 2025, immediately followed by an extension. The pattern is systematic rather than case-by-case: on the transition page ARB states that “Part 1 qualifications will remain accredited until the end of December 2027” and that providers must revise qualifications to the new Outcomes “in order to retain accreditation … beyond 31 December 2028”.

So a passed end date, read alone, is evidence of nothing. The next clause in the same cell is the answer. This is the opposite of the intuition most readers bring, and it is the reason no third-party copy of this schedule should be trusted: strip the annotation and every second row looks dead.

One further wrinkle. Not every annotation extends. At least one entry reads “Prescription end amended to 31 December 2027” against an original range that ran to 2028 — that is a date moved earlier. “Extended until” and “end amended to” are not the same instruction, and only one of them is good news.

Trap three: two records, one award title

Where a school has moved a master’s onto the new framework, the schedule can carry two records for the same award at the same university: the old Part 2 record with an extended prescription date and a cohort condition — one reads, in substance, that it applies to graduates who started before 1 September 2025 and did not transfer to the Master’s-level route — and, directly beneath it, a Master’s-level record with an accreditation start date and a first-graduating-cohort year.

Which record covers you is decided by when you started and whether you transferred. Nothing on your certificate will say which.

Trap four: the new records have no end date

Master’s-level and Practice-level entries are written as an accreditation start date plus a note such as “First graduating cohort from” a given year, sometimes with the course start month in brackets. There is no expiry column to read, because under the new framework the question is whether accreditation was in place before you started.

That is also why ARB adds a caution for providers and, indirectly, for applicants: “a qualification being prescribed under the previous process and requirements does not guarantee ongoing accreditation.”

Trap five: where you studied, not just what you studied

Schedule 1 contains an explicit transnational exclusion, written into one English university’s master’s entry:

“The prescribed qualification is only that awarded on the basis of study undertaken in the UK. A qualification of the same name awarded on the basis of study elsewhere is not prescribed.”

Same award title, same awarding university, different study location, different registration outcome. The UK engineering register carries an equivalent rule as a general policy; here it appears inside a single row, which means it is easy to miss and easy to assume does not apply to your own school. If you studied a UK architecture award anywhere other than in the UK, read your own entry before assuming anything. The general problem is in awarded by versus taught by.

Five registers, five different dates

This is the comparison worth carrying away, because every one of these is a published rule and no two agree:

Register	The date that decides
ARB, prescribed qualifications	the date the qualification is conferred
ARB, Master’s-level / Practice-level accreditation	the date you start or transfer onto it
UK Engineering Council	the intake date
British Psychological Society	the intake year
Engineers Ireland (further-learning note)	the graduation date
RIAI (architectural technology)	the qualification date

Sources: each regulator’s own page, all read on 3 September 2026 and linked in this article and in reading the Engineering Council course search, the BPS conversion register and the RIAI accredited and prescribed list.

ARB states the graduation rule twice more, in case anyone doubts it: “Certificates awarded after the date that prescription/accreditation ceases will not be accredited awards, even if prescription/accreditation was in place when a student started a qualification.” And symmetrically, graduates awarded during the accredited period keep it after a withdrawal.

Checking a past year: there is no lookup, and ARB says so

Schedule 1 is current. If you graduated years ago, ARB’s mechanism is not a database you can search — it is the pass lists schools are required to file: “it is a Standard Condition of prescription that following each and every set of examinations, the institution is required to submit to the Board its pass lists of graduating cohorts who have received the prescribed award.”

And ARB will not rely on them alone. Its applicant guidance says it needs the awarding body to confirm the full title of the qualification and the date it was awarded, adding: “We will check this against our pass lists when you apply to join the Register, but we cannot rely on these lists alone.” So the practical answer for a historic year is a letter from your university stating the exact award title and date — not a screenshot of a list.

What ARB’s overseas policy actually says — and what it does not

This is worth correcting, because it circulates in a stronger form than ARB has ever published. ARB’s policy page states:

“ARB’s present policy is only to prescribe UK qualifications for the purpose of Section 4(1) of the Architects Act 1997.”

“This means that the ARB Board will only accept applications for qualification/s to be prescribed from institutions that are based outside of the UK in exceptional circumstances.”

Read the second sentence carefully. “Exceptional circumstances” governs institutions applying to have their qualifications added to Schedule 1. It says nothing about an individual overseas-qualified architect’s application to register. Those people are not asking for prescription; they use different routes entirely — mutual recognition agreements, the interim unilateral recognition of certain EU qualifications, or ARB’s examination for equivalence. Those are set out in routes for an overseas architecture degree and the ARB adaptation assessment.

One caveat on that policy page itself: ARB’s content management data records it as last modified in 2019, and its stated reasoning still refers to ARB’s role as a Competent Authority under EU directives — a role that ended. ARB adds that the policy “is, as are all ARB policies, subject to periodic review”. Treat it as a standing policy of uncertain vintage rather than a 2026 statement.

The reform, stated only as far as ARB has published it

The current framework is in force and this page describes it. ARB has published a set of dates, and we report those and nothing beyond them. A consultation, “Changes to the Prescribed Examination”, was listed as open with a closing date of 16 September 2026. ARB states that from October 2026 it will no longer offer a Part 1 Prescribed Examination, and that, subject to Board approval, it “expects to implement the revised examination in spring 2027”. It has also announced a Route P from spring 2027 for applicants holding accredited Part 2 and Part 3 qualifications without an accredited Part 1, describing it as temporary.

Those are ARB’s published statements of intention. The consultation outcome does not exist yet, and we will not tell you what the new framework will contain or when it will bind you. Current status of the examination itself is tracked in the ARB prescribed examination in 2026.

What the schedule does not carry

No fees of any kind, no international fees, no entry requirements, no admissions information, and no statement about whether a school takes international students. ARB collects none of it. And ARB’s own provider list opens with a warning worth keeping in mind while reading any prospectus: “Not all UK architecture qualifications are recognised by ARB.”

What to do

1. Decide which framework applies to you first. Prescribed qualification: check the date it was conferred. Master’s-level or Practice-level: check the date you started or transferred.
2. Find your entry by city, then by school, then by exact award title.
3. Read the whole cell, including the annotation. An expired range with an extension after it is live; an “end amended to” may be shorter than it looks.
4. Read the Part level. The award title does not tell you.
5. If you studied outside the UK for a UK award, read your own entry’s notes before assuming it is prescribed.
6. For a historic year, get a letter from the awarding body giving the exact title and award date.
7. If you hold an overseas qualification, do not use this schedule at all. It is not the route.

What this page does not do

We do not reproduce Schedule 1 and we cannot tell you whether a qualification was prescribed on a given date. ARB’s schedule and ARB’s own records are the only answer, and registration decisions belong to ARB alone. Nothing here predicts the outcome of the open consultation or of any application.