Founded in 1991, BBP specialises in mid to high-end residential projects, incorporating new-build, conversion/refurbishment and extension/alteration projects both as one-off schemes for private end users and as speculative developments for commercial clients.

The trustee of the BB partnership employee ownership trust has purchased every BBP share from the founders and directors, all of whom will remain active in the firm but with all staff now benefitting from the company's success.

The practice said this model underpins the long-term stability of the practice and strengthens existing teamwork, generating promotion based on merit rather than a willingness to invest.

Julian Williams, director of BB Partnership Ltd, said: ‘Employee trust ownership is the way that most architects practices will one day be owned. This was our clear conclusion after reviewing how best to plan for management and ownership succession in the practice.’

Graeme Nuttal, partner at Fieldfisher, and an employee ownership expert, who was part of the legal team advising on the move, said: ‘Employee ownership is very popular among architects' practices. There are numerous successful examples of practices that have adopted this improved way of working since the 1990s. 

‘But BBP is the first firm to assert that employee trust ownership will become the norm for architects. Architectural schools need to teach this method of owning and running a practice alongside other business models, and firms built around the reputation of a named architect should consider employee ownership as the way to sustain that practice.’

Deb Oxley, chief executive of the Employee Ownership Association, said: ‘The professional services sector is one of the employee ownership sector's key growth areas and architects in particular seem to find this model suits their business.

‘In most professional services companies the main assets of the business go home at the end of each day, so it makes real sense that those assets, the people, have a real stake in the business and a vested interest in seeing it perform well.’

Mid-tier firm Grant Thornton has spearheaded changes in the way in which accountancy practices are organised. In 2015, it launched an all employee consultation on a model for shared enterprise which won backing from 99% of the 185 partners. Grant Thornton is the only accounting firm in the Top Ten to pursue a shared reward approach across its entire employee and partnership base.

At the time, the firm said it believed shared enterprise would enable it to deliver higher profitability and pointed to a different, more inclusive form of ownership, which will be attractive to its people and its clients.

In February 2016 the firm launched its three-year Vision 2020 which included a new reward system with a long-term incentive programme, which works on a three-year cycle, across the entire workforce, and is designed to create a more collaborative environment, where all level of employees up to and including partners, shape the future of the business and are able to contribute to innovation, business practice and growth.

However, unlike shared ownership models where there is a tax incentive, for example through the use of enterprise management incentive (EMI) schemes, by contrast shared ownership models, particularly within a partnership environment, do not offer comparable tax advantages.

In its most recent annual report, Grant Thornton stated: ‘As to shared reward, in addition to our investment in salaries and bonuses for our people, £2m has been added to our shared reward pool which runs in this first period to June 2018.’