Unpaid Architecture: Are Internships and Work Experience OK?

Architecture work experience, internships, volunteer work and trials - are they ever OK?

Gosh, there’s a lot of confusion around this topic, but I don’t think it’s actually that complex. Is the person generally doing work that contributes to the revenue of the business? Yes? Then it’s not OK. Simple, right? Feel free to take this epiphany with you and return to your daily activities.

…Still here? I guess you’re looking for more information, so here it is.

The Australian Fair Work Ombudsmen and the Architect’s Award generally outline three situations where unpaid work is OK:

ONE: Volunteer work. This is where you’re taking part in something that is genuinely not-for-profit, like volunteering time to help a firm out with some bushfire pro-bono community projects.

TWO: Work experience and genuine internships. Remember when you did work experience in year 10? Sure, you might have cleaned up the material library and made some coffees, but generally, you were a fly on the wall, shadowing site visits or hanging around in the back of a meeting. Any ‘unpaid work experience’ should follow a similar vibe, and should meet the following criteria:

1. The purpose is to experience what the work is like, and not to productively assist the business.

2. It’s over a short period of time.

3. While the person might do some productive tasks here and there, there’s not an expectation or obligation to be generally productive in terms of contribution to the business’ activities.

4. The person doing the experience should benefit more than the employer/business. If this balance switches, then that’s a good sign that you’ve crosses the threshold into an employer/employee type relationship.

5. If the arrangement is entered through via a training organisation like a university, then it’s probably a work experience relationship.

For a more detailed and formal explanation of these criteria, please refer to this document from the Australian Institute of Architects

THREE: Vocational work. Work arrangements that are a mandatory requirement for Australian training or education courses are deemed by the Fair Work Ombudsmen to not require payment. The above reference document from the AIA also provides further detail on this definition.

NOTE: Trail and probationary periods should NOT be unpaid. The purpose of a trial period is to test how the person goes as an employee and therefore doing employee type work. Therefore, even if the period is probationary, they are still deemed an employee and must be paid.

Now, I’m sure you don’t need me to point out that I’m not a lawyer, so if you need more detail on this you’re going to need to refer to the latest Fair Work Act and the most recent Architect’s Award. The following two resources are also excellent, and generally assumed to be accurate, though they have a few years under their belt now:

Australian Institute of Architects: “Work Experience, Internships and Trial Work - Should it be Paid?” 2013

Association of Consulting Architects: “Legal Advice: Unpaid Internships” 2018

Also worth a read is this meaty thought piece, written by Warwick Mihaly and published by Parlour in 2013, titled “Why Working for Free is Not OK”.

What if you think it should be a paid position? What then?

If based on the information above, you think you’ve crossed the threshold and have entered an employee-employer relationship, you might be wondering how much should you be paid? Here’s a simple answer in the form of a handy little flowchart which you can access here:

Click the image to access the latest version of this table which is updated annually.