RIBA Chartered Practice 20014455 · Sheffield
Five people on Arundel Street. Our fees, our stages and our registration numbers are all on this website, because you should not have to ask a stranger what they charge before you know whether they are qualified.
Registration
"Architect" is a title protected by the Architects Act 1997 — using it without registration is a criminal offence. The register is public, so a practice that gives you its numbers is handing you the means to verify it. Most do not.
Ruth Fell and Adam Marlow, both on the Architects Registration Board register.
Search the ARB register →Fifteen criteria, audited annually: chartered staffing ratio, PI insurance, quality management, health & safety policy.
Find us on RIBA →Each and every claim, held continuously since 2011. Certificate sent with every fee proposal, before you sign anything.
Acknowledged within 10 working days, answered within 30, by a named director. The written procedure is on the contact page.
Read the procedure →Fees
Nobody should have to ring an architect to find out whether they can afford one. These are our 2026 rates. Which basis suits you depends on how well-defined the job is, and we will say which we think is fairer for yours.
Basis onePercentage of construction cost
9 – 13%of the build cost, full service
For a whole project, stages 1 to 6. The percentage falls as the build cost rises: 13% on a £60,000 extension, 9% on anything over £400,000. It suits work where the scope will move as the design develops, which is most of it.
Basis twoFixed fee
£1,850 – £6,400by scope, quoted before we start
Site appraisal and feasibility £850. Planning drawings £1,850 – £3,200. Planning plus Building Regulations £3,400 – £6,400. Best where the job is well-defined and you want the number fixed. Council application fees are separate and go straight to them.
Basis threeTime charge
£95 / hrdirector · £65 assistant
For early advice, planning appeals, party wall matters and anything genuinely open-ended. Recorded in 15-minute units, reported monthly, and we will tell you when a time charge is about to become worse value than a fixed fee.
Worked example · rear extension, £96,000 build cost
| Stages 1 – 3, to planning permission | £4,600 |
|---|---|
| Stage 4, Building Regulations & tender package | £3,100 |
| Stages 5 – 6, site administration to completion | £2,900 |
| VAT at 20% | £2,120 |
| Total payable to us | £12,720 |
That is 11% of the build cost, plus VAT — the middle of our range for a project this size. Separately, and not to us: planning application £258, Building Regulations approx. £750, structural engineer £900 – £1,400.
RIBA Plan of Work 2020
Every architect in the country writes their fee proposal against these stages. Almost none of them draws you the shape of it. The divisions below are sized by fee share — Stage 4 is the wide one because technical design is where the work is.
0–1
We measure the building, look at what the planners have said to your neighbours, and tell you whether the thing you want is the thing you need. Occasionally we tell people not to build.
2
Plans, sections and massing, at 1:100 and 1:50. Two or three options, priced roughly, so the conversation is about which one rather than whether.
3
The design resolved and submitted. Determination is 8 weeks by statute for a householder application — that clock belongs to the council, not to us, and we will not pretend otherwise.
Most domestic clients stop here — stages 0–3 are roughly 43% of the full fee. You can take the permission and go elsewhere for the rest. We will hand over the files without being difficult about it.
4
Building Regulations package, construction details at 1:20 and 1:5, specification, and the drawings a builder can actually price. The widest division on the bar, because this is where a picture becomes a building.
5–6
Contract administration, site inspections at agreed stages, valuations, and the snagging list nobody enjoys. We are appointed Principal Designer under CDM 2015 on most domestic projects, which is a statutory role rather than a courtesy.
7
A visit at eleven months, before the defects period closes, to write the list while it is still the contractor's problem rather than yours.
Deliverables
A drawing register from a real Stage 3 submission. This is the whole of what "planning drawings" means — no more, and no less.
Location planRed-line boundary, as the council requires
FM-001 · 1:1250
Site planExisting and proposed, with levels
FM-002 · 1:200
Existing plansEvery floor, measured on site
FM-100–104 · 1:50
Existing elevations & sectionAll four faces, one cut
FM-110–114 · 1:50
Proposed plansEvery floor, with the new work shown red
FM-200–203 · 1:50
Proposed elevations & sectionIncluding the street scene with neighbours
FM-210–214 · 1:50
Design & Access StatementWhere the site is in a conservation area
FM-DAS · —
The application itselfSubmitted, monitored and answered by us
Planning Portal
Selected projects
Sheffield S6 · rear extension and fabric retrofit
A two-up two-down opened at the back, with the party wall insulated and the solid walls lined internally. The clients had been quoted for a conservatory; we talked them out of it and into 42 m² that holds its heat.
Sheffield S7 · whole-house retrofit, conservation area
A late-Victorian villa taken back to brick internally and rebuilt to an EnerPhit-informed standard. Airtightness came in at 1.6 ach@50Pa, which is not certified Passivhaus and we do not claim it is.
Sheffield S1 · workshop to studios, change of use
A cutlery works divided into eleven studios and a shared yard. Class E change of use, a new stair core, and as little done to the stone as we could get away with.
Clients
"We had three quotes and Fell & Marlow were not the cheapest. They were the only ones who told us before we appointed them what the whole thing would cost, including the bits that were not theirs."
"Ruth talked us out of the loft conversion at the first meeting and did not charge us for the meeting. Two years later we came back with a better project and a bigger budget."
"Planning took eleven weeks rather than eight and Adam rang us in week nine to say so, unprompted. That is the whole of why we used them again on the second building."
First conversation
We walk round, you tell us what is wrong with the house, and we tell you honestly whether it is worth doing and roughly what it costs. If we are not the right practice we will say so, and usually name someone who is.
