Architect Portal publishes independent rankings of architects by real approved planning applications, council by council, using public planning records. It is designed for homeowners who want evidence of local planning track record before they choose who to speak to.
The site compares architects and planning agents by the approved applications attributed to them in each London council we currently cover. The rankings are based on recorded approvals, not paid placement, adverts, reviews, testimonials, or self-reported directory profiles.
The planning record: the source data is approvals-only public planning record data covering roughly three years, from 2023-2026, across 12 South London councils. Because the source contains approvals but not refused applications, we count approvals. We do not calculate rates.
Architect mapping: each approval usually names an agent or practice. We group clear name variants where the match is safe, then count the approvals against that practice. This is useful, but not perfect: rebrands, acquisitions, abbreviations, and firms filing under several names can mean a practice is under-counted.
Council-specific ranking: each council has its own ranking because planning departments, local policies, streets, conservation areas, and precedent vary. A broad London-wide count is less useful than a record of who repeatedly gets applications approved by the council that will decide your scheme. The Local Specialist ordering weighs how concentrated a practice's approved work is in that council together with how much it has actually done there, so borough-focused practices rank ahead of firms that spread the same volume across many councils.
Local Specialist: a practice whose record is treated as locally relevant for the council ranking rather than part of the high-volume national drafting group.
Loft Specialist: a practice with a meaningful number of loft conversion approvals in the record, where lofts form a substantial part of its approved work.
Established: consistent activity across the full span of our records, from the earliest year we track through to the most recent. It is not a claim about how many years the business has existed.
Newcomer: a practice first seen in the current record window relatively recently.
High-volume national drafting operations: firms that appear across many councils at volume are listed separately for transparency. They may be active and legitimate, but ranking them beside smaller local practices would blur the thing homeowners usually need to know: who has a strong local record with this specific council.
Built independently by a small team who work in South London residential construction and got tired of watching homeowners choose architects on marketing instead of track record.
Think our data is wrong? Tell us through the alerts form on the homepage and we will check and fix it.
Logos and descriptions shown on profile pages are drawn from practices' own public websites, and any practice can have theirs corrected or removed on request via the same form.