Pay for bosses at star architect Norman Foster’s firm triples
Payments to partners in the firm of star architect Norman Foster more than tripled last year despite a fall in profits.
Foster and Partners bosses shared £23.4m in the year ending in April, up from £7m last year, according to the firm’s latest annual filing.
The firm, the largest architecture practice in the UK with over 1,000 employees, reported an almost £30m fall in gross turnover in 2018 to £165.8m. Meanwhile, profits before tax also fell by 11 per cent, to £32m.
Recent projects by Foster and Partners include Bloomberg’s offices in London and Apple’s giant new headquarters in Cupertino, California, which is nearing completion.
In its report the firm said it enjoyed a “strong year of delivery” of 14 completed projects.
Lord Foster, who is a member of the Queen’s Order of Merit, leads the board of directors. The highest-paid director earned £2.2m during the year.
Foster is widely regarded as one of Britain’s most influential architects, with a host of famous projects including the refurbishment of Germany’s Reichstag building, the Hearst Tower in New York, and London’s Gherkin and City Hall.
Foster, who is 83, studied architecture at Manchester Polytechnic School of Architecture, in the city of his birth, after leaving school at 16 and briefly working as a clerk in the town hall and doing a stint as a radar technician for the Royal Air Force.