From 1932 there has been a statutory Register of Architects under legislation of the United Kingdom Parliament originally enacted in 1931. The originating Act contained ancillary provisions for entering an architect’s name in the register and removing a name from it which later legislation has amended. The 1931 Act gave it the name “the Register of Registered Architects”, but by an Act of 1938 the name was changed to “the Register of Architects”.
Entry in the Register has always been upon voluntary application but subject to payment of an annual retention fee, and the legislation has always required the registration body to publish the current version of the Register annually.
The setting up of the Register had been the result of many years of negotiation by the Royal Institute of British Architects (RIBA), the leading professional society for practising architects in the United Kingdom, which had been incorporated by charter granted by William IV in 1837.
Maintenance of the Register of Architects is the responsibility of a body corporate which, from July 1997, has the statutory name "Architects Registration Board". This body is regarded as a non-departmental public body by the United Kingdom Government and it is liable to judicial review in the Administrative Court of the High Court in England.