Foster + Partners Reviews

Where to start. I’ll start with the role. I joined the project management team as an associate. I expected to be managing projects, as the name suggests. But unfortunately the role was paper pushing to justify the salary of the partner who headed up the department. The work we were asked to do rarely left the department and mostly consisted of producing dashboards to present to the partner reporting on the projects. Which were worthless as you did not get close to a project. I could’ve put up with the mind numbing tasks until I found a new role but what I could not and refused to put up with was the openly accepted and encouraged bullying, racism and sexism. If you could imagine working in an office environment in the 50’s; rapidly ageing suited white men with egos as big as their combovers calling all women ‘secretaries’ and mocking anyone whose first language was not English. I say this acknowledging that it comes from a place of privilege, it’s something I’ve ever experienced before and am staggered still goes on in a company with such a world renowned reputation. I could go on, but in essence. Your mental health, morals and overall wellbeing is not worth it. Run, run as fast as you can.

Extreme hours, horrible work environment, people tend to be mean spirited and beaten down due to workload and hours. Very little mobility within the office, very hierarchical, Norman Foster is god. Once you are in the door, very difficult to get pay raises, you have to threaten leaving. You can't choose projects you are working on, even if you have experience on said project. Partners tend to be very egotistical and will expect/make you work extremely late nights (1am-4am) and weekends. Worked there for a number of years, probably only had 10-15 weekends to myself