Membership demographics
The following report aggregates key demographic trends regarding The American Institute of Architects’ (AIA’s) membership, board of directors, strategic council, and national staff. Please note that while AIA’s membership is an extensive community of more than 94,000 architectural professionals, participation in AIA is not mandatory to practice, and not all AIA members are licensed in the United States. Therefore, any current and future reporting of AIA members should not be construed as a census of the entire profession. Additionally, reporting demographic information to AIA is not a prerequisite for membership and is strictly voluntary, and some members choose not to disclose their race and/or ethnicity, gender identity and expression, or age. In some cases, nonreporting makes it challenging to fully determine AIA’s member demographics.
Read the 2021 Membership Demographics Report >
Past reports
Key findings
AIA member race and/or ethnicity
AIA is committed to increasing equity and diversity within the profession and encouraging members to provide race and/or ethnicity data. It is important to note that incomplete member data on race and/or ethnicity as a result of under-reporting impacts our ability to show trends.
- In 2021, 17.1% of AIA members did not report a race and or an ethnicity. However, there are data points that reveal trends.
- In 2019, NAAB reported that 30.3% of its graduates were from underrepresented racial and ethnic groups. The highest shares of underrepresented racial and ethnic groups were Hispanic/Latina/o and Asian at 14.3% and 8.5%, respectively.
- NCARB reports that 29% of people completing the ARE “identified as a person of color” in 2020. Asians made up the second largest proportion of those completing exams at 13.71%.
- 17% of AIA members across all member categories identify as belonging to an underrepresented racial or ethnic group, while just under 66% were White/Caucasian.
- Within the Associate membership category, a greater number of members identify as underrepresented races and ethnicities than in the membership as a whole, growing 13.8-points since 2012.
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