Junior architect vs draftsman/designer

The differences between junior architects and draftsman/designers can be seen in a few details. Each job has different responsibilities and duties. While it typically takes 2-4 years to become a junior architect, becoming a draftsman/designer takes usually requires 6-12 months. Additionally, a junior architect has an average salary of $60,719, which is higher than the $52,529 average annual salary of a draftsman/designer.

The top three skills for a junior architect include revit, schematic design and design development. The most important skills for a draftsman/designer are design layouts, solidworks, and shop drawings.

Junior architect vs draftsman/designer overview

	Junior Architect	Draftsman/Designer
Yearly salary	$60,719	$52,529
Hourly rate	$29.19	$25.25
Growth rate	3%	-3%
Number of jobs	85,359	47,341
Job satisfaction	-	-
Most common degree	Bachelor's Degree, 75%	Associate Degree, 51%
Average age	45	45
Years of experience	4	12

Junior architect vs draftsman/designer salary

Junior architects and draftsman/designers have different pay scales, as shown below.

	Junior Architect	Draftsman/Designer
Average salary	$60,719	$52,529
Salary range	Between $45,000 And $81,000	Between $30,000 And $89,000
Highest paying City	Washington, DC	Washington, DC
Highest paying state	Rhode Island	New Jersey
Best paying company	Chubb	TalentBurst
Best paying industry	Energy	Technology

Differences between junior architect and draftsman/designer education

There are a few differences between a junior architect and a draftsman/designer in terms of educational background:

	Junior Architect	Draftsman/Designer
Most common degree	Bachelor's Degree, 75%	Associate Degree, 51%
Most common major	Architecture	Drafting And Design
Most common college	Cornell University	Carnegie Mellon University

Junior architect vs draftsman/designer demographics

Here are the differences between junior architects' and draftsman/designers' demographics:

	Junior Architect	Draftsman/Designer
Average age	45	45
Gender ratio	Male, 54.7% Female, 45.3%	Male, 92.2% Female, 7.8%
Race ratio	Black or African American, 2.3% Unknown, 3.9% Hispanic or Latino, 11.9% Asian, 16.1% White, 65.4% American Indian and Alaska Native, 0.3%	Black or African American, 3.1% Unknown, 5.2% Hispanic or Latino, 11.7% Asian, 7.0% White, 72.3% American Indian and Alaska Native, 0.7%
LGBT Percentage	15%	6%

Differences between junior architect and draftsman/designer duties and responsibilities

Junior architect example responsibilities.

Accomplish the following projects as the job captain using Revit software from conceptual design to sets of construction documents.
Manage technical architects for development and support of existing and new terminal platforms to support Walmart mobile and batch application infrastructure.
Sketch design, municipal drawings, presentation drawings, elevations, co- ordination with consultants.
Assist the team with the design process starting from concept and sketch to final design project.
Participate in meetings with MEP consultants and contractors.
Design will support either in-house or cloud base services.

Draftsman/designer example responsibilities.

Manage and supervise other draftsmen.
Assist with structural steel detailing, machine design, CNC graphics and ceramics machine design projects.
Detail preliminary design drawings to create BOM's, production use shop layouts, and specific details.
Travele to various work sites to dimension and sketch details of the projects.
Develop and maintain current Revit templates for consistency and overall visual quality of projects.
Design and draft building components from red lines create by MEP engineers with revit software.

Junior architect vs draftsman/designer skills

Common junior architect skills

Revit, 19%
Schematic Design, 6%
Design Development, 6%
Auto CAD, 5%
SketchUp, 5%
Construction Administration, 5%

Common draftsman/designer skills

Design Layouts, 16%
Solidworks, 10%
Shop Drawings, 5%
R, 4%
HVAC, 4%
Customer Specifications, 3%