Fire safety competence for architects: we know what it looks like. So why don’t we define it?

A reflection on ARB’s latest guidance, and the gap that still remains for architects

There is a quiet inconsistency in the latest tranche of guidance from the Architects Registration Board.

Not because it is flawed. In fact, much of it is strong.

The new guidance on environmental sustainability is particularly effective. It sets out not only what architects should do, but what they should understand. It describes the knowledge base, the tools, the design strategies. It shows what competence looks like in practice.

The leadership guidance follows a similar pattern. It recognises that poor leadership leads to poor decisions, and that poor decisions introduce risk. It addresses workload, challenge, culture, and accountability in a way that reflects the reality of project delivery.

Even the mentoring guidance acknowledges that professional judgement is not innate. It is developed, influenced, and refined over time.

And yet, when it comes to fire safety, the guidance becomes less precise.

Architects are expected to exercise professional judgement, act in the public interest, and seek specialist advice where required.

All reasonable expectations.

But the guidance does not set out what level of fire safety understanding is necessary to support those expectations in practice.

This matters.

Because fire safety is not a discrete input. It is not something that arrives fully formed as a strategy to be accepted or rejected. It is shaped continuously through design decisions, often made outside formal fire engineering input.

Move a wall. Adjust a layout. Change a façade. Rationalise a stair. Value engineer a door. Each of these decisions carries fire safety implications, whether recognised or not.

If those implications are not understood, fire safety becomes something that is checked after the fact, rather than designed into the building.

That is where the gap sits.

The current guidance assumes that architects will recognise when something falls outside their competence and seek specialist advice. That assumption relies on a prior condition: the ability to recognise the limits of one’s competence in the first place.

Without that, delegation becomes the default.

This is not a criticism of architects. It is a structural issue within how competence is currently described.

The profession has already demonstrated that it can define competence clearly when required. Sustainability guidance now expects architects to understand carbon, performance, and environmental risk at a meaningful level. It does not suggest that these can simply be handed over to others.

Fire safety should be treated in the same way.

This is particularly relevant in the context of the Principal Designer role under the Building Safety Act. Architects may hold responsibility for coordinating design and managing safety risks across a project. They are expected to challenge, to lead, and to ensure that safety intent is maintained.

These are leadership responsibilities.

But leadership without a defined technical foundation introduces risk.

It creates a situation where architects are accountable for decisions they may not be fully equipped to interrogate.

The solution is not to turn every architect into a fire engineer. It is to define, clearly and proportionately, the level of fire safety understanding required to support safe design and effective coordination.

We know how to do this. We already do it in other areas of practice.

The question is why it has not yet been done here.

Because in a life safety discipline, clarity around competence is not optional.