Sector expertise
R&D Tax Credits for Architecture Firms
Architecture firms are constantly balancing design ambition, technical performance, planning constraints, sustainability, buildability and client budgets. Where your practice is developing new design methods, improving building performance, overcoming technical uncertainty or creating better ways to deliver complex projects, you may be carrying out qualifying R&D. InnoFund helps architecture firms identify eligible activity, prepare compliant R&D Tax Credit claims and protect future innovation funding opportunities.
Sector innovation
Innovation in Architecture
Architecture is a highly innovative sector, but many firms do not recognise their work as R&D because it happens inside live client projects. Qualifying activity can arise where a practice goes beyond routine design and has to solve technical problems around sustainability, materials, structural performance, retrofit, accessibility, digital design, building physics or construction methodology.
This includes work across:
- Sustainable building design
- Low-carbon architecture
- Retrofit and heritage projects
- Modular construction
- Advanced BIM workflows
- Parametric design
- Smart building systems
- Thermal performance
- Acoustic performance
- Inclusive design
- Material innovation
- RIBA Stages 3 to 5
Qualifying architecture R&D can arise where a firm is not simply applying known design methods, but is testing, modelling or developing new technical approaches because the answer is uncertain.
A note from Simba
Architecture R&D Claims Need Technical Detail and Compliance Discipline
In architecture, R&D is often hidden within the design process. A project may look like a normal client commission, but beneath the surface the practice may have had to resolve uncertainty around structure, materials, thermal performance, acoustics, accessibility, energy use, conservation constraints or buildability.
This is where compliance matters. HMRC will not accept a claim simply because a design is creative, sustainable or complex. The claim must explain what technical advance was being sought, what uncertainty could not be readily solved by a competent professional, and what systematic work was carried out to resolve it.
Simba Mareverwa, InnoFund's Head of Compliance and Tax Disputes, helps ensure claims are prepared with that level of care. With experience defending hundreds of R&D claims in HMRC enquiry, Simba's role is to make sure architecture claims are not just commercially compelling, but robust, evidence-led and defensible.
Simba Mareverwa
Head of Tax Compliance & HMRC Disputes
- 20+ years in corporation tax compliance, including leadership of HMRC disputes.
- Extensive experience defending UK R&D Tax Credit claims under enquiry.
- Patent Box claim and enquiry experience dating from the scheme’s introduction.
Client experience
Architecture Companies Recommend InnoFund
Practical support from a multidisciplinary team that understands both the technical work and the claim.
Clear boundaries
Not Every Architecture Project Qualifies for R&D Tax Credits.
Not every design project or creative improvement will qualify for R&D Tax Credits. The key question is whether the firm faced technical uncertainty that could not be readily solved by a competent professional.
Examples of work that may not qualify include:
- Standard planning applications
- Routine design work
- Normal CAD or BIM use
- Standard material selection
- Basic client revisions
- Routine project management
- Standard building regulation compliance
- Off-the-shelf system specification
- General aesthetic improvements
- Commercial feasibility work
- Standard site surveys
- Work after uncertainty is resolved
Architecture projects often contain a mixture of qualifying and non-qualifying activity. A client commission may still include qualifying R&D if part of the project required investigation, testing or development to resolve a genuine technical uncertainty.
Eligible expenditure
Eligible R&D Costs for Architecture Firms
Architecture firms may be able to claim relief on qualifying costs linked to eligible R&D projects, including:
- Architect and designer staff time
- Technical director time
- CAD and BIM specialist time
- Employer NIC and pension costs
- Subcontracted technical R&D
- Externally provided workers
- Software used for modelling or testing
- Cloud computing and data costs
- Prototype and model materials
- Testing and simulation costs
- Consumables used in R&D
- Technical consultancy costs, where eligible
The treatment of staff time, subcontracted technical work, client-funded projects, modelling software, cloud costs and prototype materials can be particularly important in architecture claims. InnoFund helps identify which costs are eligible and ensures the claim is built around the qualifying technical work, not just the wider commercial project.
Evidence & scrutiny
HMRC Risk Areas for Architecture R&D Claims
HMRC is applying greater scrutiny to R&D Tax Credit claims, including claims from professional, scientific and technical businesses. Architecture firms should expect to explain the technical uncertainty clearly and show why the work went beyond routine design.
Common risk areas include:
- Treating creative design as R&D without technical uncertainty
- Weak explanation of the technical advance
- No clear baseline of existing knowledge
- Overclaiming routine RIBA stage work
- Including standard CAD or BIM activity
- Poor evidence of testing or iteration
- Incorrect subcontracted R&D treatment
- Claiming client-funded work incorrectly
- No input from competent technical staff
- Failing to separate qualifying and non-qualifying work
- Generic sustainability claims
- Lack of contemporaneous project records
Your next step
Don't guess. Know for sure.
Got a project you want to discuss? InnoFund helps separate routine delivery from genuine R&D so that claims are accurate, compliant and properly evidenced. Speak to our innovation funding experts today.
- 30 minutes
- Expert guidance
- Commitment free
