Architectural drawing services in London
Our architectural drawing service gives a London home the plans, elevations and sections that a planning application needs, from £745, a fixed fee. MCIAT chartered architectural technologists draw each set to an identified scale and check it against the council's validation list before it goes in.
Fixed fee from £545 drawings + £200 survey (£745 total) · all prices
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What is in an architectural drawing set
A householder set is a matching group of sheets: existing and proposed floor plans, existing and proposed elevations, and at least one section through the part of the house that changes. National planning practice guidance says plans and drawings must be drawn to an identified scale and must show the direction of north, so every sheet we issue states its scale and carries a north point.
The application also needs a location plan. The same guidance says its scale should typically be 1:1250 or 1:2500. We prepare that sheet and the block plan alongside the set; see location and block plans. If you only need the room layouts, the floor plans service is the narrower option, and our guide to what an architectural drawings package includes lists each sheet.
Read the guidance yourself on GOV.UK: making an application; it sets out the national requirements, and each council adds its own validation list.
Two fees: ours and the council's
DrawingsDirect charges a fixed fee, and for an existing and proposed architectural set it starts at £745. The council charges its own fee when the application is submitted; from 1 April 2026 the fee for a householder application to enlarge, improve or alter a single dwellinghouse is £548.
The two are separate payments, to separate parties. Our pricing page shows the published fixed fees, and the cost guide for architectural drawings in London explains what moves a quote up from the starting figure.
London's 33 councils decided 23,967 householder applications over the four quarters 2025 Q3 to 2026 Q2, including prior approvals (our analysis of MHCLG planning application statistics, table PS2).
What London councils decided last year
London's 33 councils decided 23,967 householder applications over the four quarters 2025 Q3 to 2026 Q2, including prior approvals (our analysis of MHCLG planning application statistics, table PS2). Our analysis finds 86% of those householder decisions were grants. Across every type of application the same councils made 52,543 decisions.
These are past records for the whole capital, not a forecast for your street. They do show how much of London councils' workload is householder work, and the case officer judges each one from the drawings in front of them. For borough-by-borough detail, start from the London council index.
Planning set, Building Regulations set, or both
Planning drawings show the council what will be built and how it will look. Building Regulations drawings show a building control body how it will be constructed. On a full plans application, the Building Regulations 2010 (regulation 14A) require the authority to give its decision within five weeks of receipt, unless a longer period is agreed.
Many projects need both sets, drawn from the same survey so that the two never disagree. The guide on planning drawings versus building regulations drawings explains the split, our planning drawings and Building Regulations drawings pages cover each service, and structural drawings cover the engineering sheets a building control body may also ask for.
Who draws your set, and what we are called
Under the Architects Act 1997, section 20, nobody may practise or carry on business under a name, style or title containing the protected word unless registered. We are chartered architectural technologists (MCIAT), a different profession that specialises in the technical drawings a home project needs, and we describe ourselves that way.
Our guide on what an architectural technologist does sets out which one suits which job. The text of the section is on legislation.gov.uk.
Sources
Every figure on this page, where it comes from and a link to the original.
| Figure | Source | Link |
|---|---|---|
| £745 | DrawingsDirect starting fixed fee for householder planning drawings, a side return or architectural drawings | drawingsdirect.co.uk |
| identified scale | Planning practice guidance, Making an application, paragraph 023: plans and drawings must be drawn to an identified scale and plans must show the direction of north (source wording: "must be drawn to an identified scale") | www.gov.uk |
| Architects Act 1997 | Architects Act 1997 s20(1): a person may not practise or carry on business under a name, style or title containing the word "architect" unless registered (source wording: "A person shall not practise or carry on business under any name, style or title containing the word") | www.legislation.gov.uk |
| 1:1250 | Planning practice guidance, Making an application, paragraph 024: a location plan should typically be at a scale of 1:1250 or 1:2500 (source wording: "The scale should typically be 1:1250 or 1:2500") | www.gov.uk |
| five weeks | Building Regulations 2010 reg 14A(6): the authority must notify the outcome of a full plans application within five weeks of receipt, or a longer agreed period (source wording: "within five weeks beginning with the date the application is received") | www.legislation.gov.uk |
| 23,967 | Our analysis of MHCLG planning application statistics, table PS2 (district open data table) (released 24 Sep 2026, quarters to 2026 Q2) | www.gov.uk |
| 86% | Our analysis of MHCLG planning application statistics, table PS2 (district open data table) (released 24 Sep 2026, quarters to 2026 Q2) | www.gov.uk |
| 52,543 | Our analysis of MHCLG planning application statistics, table PS2 (district open data table) (released 24 Sep 2026, quarters to 2026 Q2) | www.gov.uk |
| £548 | Fees for planning applications in England from 1 April 2026 (MHCLG, SI 2012/2920 as annually indexed), category 6(1): householder application for the enlargement, improvement or alteration of a single dwellinghouse (source wording: £548) | assets.publishing.service.gov.uk |
Questions people ask
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Do architectural drawings need a scale?
Photographs: Tim Green from Bradford (CC BY 2.0).
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