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Architect (B.Arch)

Design buildings - houses, schools, offices, stations - and see them through from a drawing to a finished thing people walk into.

First question

What does this person do?

You work out what a building should be, then draw it precisely enough that someone can build it. That means talking to the person paying for it about what they need, sketching options, checking what the law allows on that plot, and then producing hundreds of detailed drawings on the computer covering everything down to where each pipe and switch goes. You coordinate with structural engineers, electrical engineers and contractors, and you visit the site while it is going up to check that what is being built matches what you drew. Two honest warnings.

First, this is a design course, not a science course: you will spend nights on studio projects, you will be marked on judgement rather than right answers, and drawing ability matters. Second, the money is modest for a five-year professional degree - noticeably below engineering, and the first few years are known for long hours at low pay. People stay in it because they want to make buildings.

Next question

What are they paid?

LPA = lakhs per annum; ₹1 lakh = ₹100,000. These are broad India market estimates across common employers and work settings—not guaranteed offers, audited statistics or the ceiling. References give context, not proof of each exact band. Historical anchors and evidence gaps remain in Sources.

  1. Entry first role

    Estimated range₹2.5–6.0LPA

    Broad India market estimate, not a guaranteed offer or audited statistic. These are architecture-practice roles, not IT architects. BIM, project ownership, city and running a studio can change income.

    Science estimated midpoint at this rung: ₹5.0 LPA · midpoint median across 13 editorial Science routes · compare all routes

    Market reference: ArchiEase www.archiease.com Estimate dated

  2. Mid about 5 years in

    Estimated range₹5.0–12LPA

    Broad India market estimate, not a guaranteed offer or audited statistic. These are architecture-practice roles, not IT architects. BIM, project ownership, city and running a studio can change income.

    Science estimated midpoint at this rung: ₹9.0 LPA · midpoint median across 13 editorial Science routes · compare all routes

    Market reference: ArchiEase www.archiease.com Estimate dated

  3. Senior about 10 years in

    Estimated range₹8.0–20LPA

    Broad India market estimate, not a guaranteed offer or audited statistic. These are architecture-practice roles, not IT architects. BIM, project ownership, city and running a studio can change income.

    Science estimated midpoint at this rung: ₹15 LPA · midpoint median across 13 editorial Science routes · compare all routes

    Market reference: ArchiEase www.archiease.com Estimate dated

The vertical line marks the midpoint median of the editorial estimates for this stream. Published examples are excluded. Scale: ₹ lakhs per annum.

Hiring landscape

Who hires for this work?

Examples of large employers and institutions associated with this route in India:

  • CP Kukreja Architects
  • Morphogenesis
  • Sikka Associates
  • architecture practices across Delhi NCR

Examples, not a ranking or a promise of a current vacancy. Hiring changes; check the employer’s own careers page.

What it takes to get in

Entrance exam
NATA, the National Aptitude Test in Architecture, run by the Council of Architecture. JEE Main Paper 2A is the other accepted route and is what the NITs and the Schools of Planning and Architecture use. IIT Roorkee and IIT Kharagpur admit through JEE Advanced followed by an Architecture Aptitude Test. Most colleges accept one or the other; some accept both.
Realistic cut-off
Class 12 with Physics, Chemistry and Maths, or with Maths as a compulsory subject, depending on the year's rules - check the Council of Architecture's current notification, because this requirement has been changed more than once. What is different from every other route in this stream is that the exam tests drawing and spatial reasoning, not only Physics and Maths: you are asked to sketch, to judge proportion, and to imagine three-dimensional objects from flat drawings. Students who are strong at Maths but cannot draw find this genuinely hard, and it cannot be crammed in a month.
How long
5 years
Roughly what it costs

₹1.5–25 lakh

Roughly Rs 1.5-4 lakh in total at the government Schools of Planning and Architecture and at Jamia Millia Islamia, and Rs 5-10 lakh at an NIT or IIT for the five years. Private architecture colleges typically run Rs 8-25 lakh. Add materials, which are a real and continuing cost on this course in a way they are not on engineering: models, drawing equipment, printing and a laptop that can run design software, plausibly Rs 1-3 lakh across five years.

Approximate, tuition only, excluding coaching and living costs unless the source text says otherwise.

Can you switch out later?
Moderate. The degree is a licence-bound professional qualification, so it points strongly at architecture, but architects do move sideways into interior design, urban planning, real estate development, construction project management, product and furniture design, and increasingly into architectural visualisation and building software. A master's in urban planning or construction management is the common formal switch. Moving into architecture from another degree is not really possible without doing the five-year course.

Delhi entry paths

These are the routes people in Delhi commonly take into this career. This is not a ranking of institutions and does not list cut-offs for any particular college.

  • The School of Planning and Architecture, New Delhi, is a government Institute of National Importance and is the best-known architecture school in the country; it admits through JEE Main Paper 2
  • Jamia Millia Islamia's Faculty of Architecture and Ekistics in Delhi runs a five-year B.Arch
  • The Council of Architecture, which runs NATA and maintains the statutory register of architects, is headquartered in New Delhi
  • NATA and JEE Main Paper 2 are both written at test centres across Delhi and Delhi NCR
  • Delhi's coaching ecosystem for NATA is small and separate from the JEE and NEET machine, and is oriented around drawing practice
  • Delhi NCR has a dense concentration of architecture practices, which matters because the six-month internship in the fourth or fifth year is where most students get their first real job offer

How this compares

Nearby routes in Science, ordered by mid-career pay. Ordering is not a recommendation.
RouteEntryMidSenior
Dentist (BDS)₹1.5–5.0 LPA₹3.0–10 LPA₹6.0–20 LPA
Pharmacist (B.Pharm / Pharm.D)₹2.0–5.0 LPA₹4.0–9.0 LPA₹7.0–15 LPA
Allied Health Professional (Physiotherapy, Lab Technology, Radiography, Optometry)₹2.5–6.0 LPA₹4.0–10 LPA₹7.0–16 LPA
Architect (B.Arch) (this route)₹2.5–6.0 LPA₹5.0–12 LPA₹8.0–20 LPA
AYUSH Doctor (BAMS Ayurveda / BHMS Homoeopathy)₹2.5–6.0 LPA₹5.0–12 LPA₹8.0–20 LPA
Agricultural Scientist / Agriculture Officer (B.Sc Hons Agriculture)₹3.0–7.0 LPA₹6.0–12 LPA₹10–20 LPA

See all 57 routes side by side →

Sources

  1. National Institutional Ranking Framework www.nirfindia.org

    2026-08-17: School of Planning and Architecture New Delhi's data submitted to NIRF for India Rankings 2025: median salary of placed five-year B.Arch graduates of Rs 7,50,000 in 2023-24 (47 of 92 placed), Rs 6,00,000 in 2022-23 (67 of 87) and Rs 6,00,000 in 2021-22 (65 of 84) 2026-08-17: Historical published anchor for the entry rung; not validation of the displayed estimate: Published MEDIAN starting packages for five-year B.Arch graduates in 2023-24, taken from each institution's own submission to the National Institutional Ranking Framework: School of Planning and Architecture New Delhi Rs 7,50,000 (47 of 92 graduates placed), Jamia Millia Islamia Rs 7,20,000 (34 of 41 placed), NIT Calicut Rs 6,50,000 (32 of 51 placed), CEPT University Ahmedabad Rs 6,00,000 (65 of 97 placed), IIEST Shibpur Rs 4,80,000 (21 of 23 placed). IIT Roorkee reported a higher median of Rs 10,00,000 but placed only 10 of its 22 graduates, so it is not used to set the top of this band. Look at the placement counts as hard as the salaries: at several of the best-known architecture schools in the country, roughly half the graduating class is not placed through campus recruitment at all, and finds work directly with practices instead. These are the best-known schools; graduates of the many other architecture colleges are not covered by any published figure. A five-year degree that starts here is a real financial trade-off against a four-year engineering degree, and it is worth seeing plainly. 2026-08-17: Historical evidence gap for the mid rung; not validation of the displayed estimate: No acceptable public source gives what an architect earns at around five years in India. The reason is structural: a large share of architects work in small practices or start their own, so their income is business profit rather than a salary and it is not collected in any public dataset. The one thing that is published and dated is the fresh-graduate median above. Government architecture posts do exist - the Central Public Works Department runs a Central Architects Service recruited through the Union Public Service Commission - but the pay level attached to those posts could not be confirmed from a reachable official page at the time of writing, so no figure is given here rather than a guessed one. 2026-08-17: Historical evidence gap for the senior rung; not validation of the displayed estimate: Same reason as the five-year rung, and stronger. By ten years the people who stayed in architecture have mostly either become associates in a practice or set up on their own, and a practice owner's income depends entirely on the projects they win. The spread between an architect with a steady stream of commercial work in a big city and one doing occasional residential projects is wide enough that any single band printed here would be misleading. No figure is given.

  2. National Institutional Ranking Framework www.nirfindia.org

    2026-08-17: Jamia Millia Islamia's NIRF 2025 architecture submission: median salary of placed five-year B.Arch graduates of Rs 7,20,000 in 2023-24, with 34 of 41 graduates placed

  3. National Institutional Ranking Framework www.nirfindia.org

    2026-08-17: NIT Calicut's NIRF 2025 architecture submission: median salary of placed five-year UG graduates of Rs 6,50,000 in 2023-24, with 32 of 51 graduates placed

  4. National Institutional Ranking Framework www.nirfindia.org

    2026-08-17: CEPT University's NIRF 2025 submission: median salary of placed five-year UG graduates of Rs 6,00,000 in 2023-24, with 65 of 97 graduates placed

  5. National Institutional Ranking Framework www.nirfindia.org

    2026-08-17: IIEST Shibpur's NIRF 2025 architecture submission: median salary of placed five-year UG graduates of Rs 4,80,000 in 2023-24, with 21 of 23 graduates placed - the low end of the published band

  6. Council of Architecture www.coa.gov.in

    2026-08-17: Council of Architecture official site, confirming that the Council was established under the Architects Act 1972 and is responsible for regulating architectural education and practice throughout India and for maintaining the statutory register of architects, and that it conducts NATA

  7. ArchiEase www.archiease.com

    2026-08-21: Broad India market estimate, not a guaranteed offer or audited statistic. These are architecture-practice roles, not IT architects. BIM, project ownership, city and running a studio can change income.