By Carly McDermott, Founder, Calibrate Recruitment. Calibrate places bids, marketing, graphic design and document control talent into UK architecture and built environment practices.
The short answer
Marketing coordinator interviews in UK architecture and design practices are rarely a straight marketing interview. Expect three things: competency questions about juggling deadlines, practical questions about bids and award submissions, and a hands on task in Adobe InDesign. Most practices run a two stage process, and the second stage almost always includes a live or take home exercise such as laying up a project sheet, drafting an award entry, or rewriting a team CV to a house template. Candidates who bring a small portfolio of real submission work, and who can explain what happened after a campaign went out, win these jobs. Generic marketing answers do not.
If you only take one thing from this page: in an architecture practice, marketing sits next to bids. Prepare for both.
What does a marketing coordinator do in an architecture practice?
A marketing coordinator in a UK architecture, engineering or design practice is the person who turns the studio’s work into the material that wins more work. That usually means project sheets and CVs kept current in InDesign, PQQ and tender content pulled from a bid library, award submissions, website and LinkedIn content, photography and case study coordination, client events, and the internal chasing needed to get all of it out of the door on time.
It is a support role with a commercial edge. That is exactly why the interview looks different to a marketing coordinator interview at a consumer brand, and why so many practices blend the role with bids. We covered where the line sits in marketing coordinator vs marketing and bids coordinator, and it is worth reading before you interview so you can ask which version of the job this actually is.
What are the most common marketing coordinator interview questions?
Here are the 22 questions we hear most often from practices we recruit for, grouped by the part of the interview they turn up in. Under each group is what the interviewer is really checking.
Opening and motivation
- Talk me through your CV and how you ended up in marketing.
- Why architecture, and why this practice specifically?
- Which of our projects do you like, and why?
- What does a marketing coordinator do day to day, in your words?
What they are checking: whether you have looked at the work. Question three catches more candidates than any other question in the list. Name two projects, say something specific about the sector or the client, and link it back to something the practice is trying to win more of.
Bids and submissions
- Have you worked on PQQs or tenders, and what was your part in them?
- How do you keep project sheets and staff CVs up to date when nobody sends you anything?
- Walk me through how you would handle two submissions due the same Friday.
- What do you do when a director misses your deadline for their input?
- How do you manage a bid library or content library?
What they are checking: whether you can chase senior people politely and repeatedly without needing to be rescued. This is the single biggest differentiator at interview. If you have not done formal bids, say so plainly and show the adjacent evidence, for example award entries or credentials documents you have pulled together. Our guide to bid coordinator interview questions covers this territory in more depth and is useful preparation even for a pure marketing role.
Design software and output quality
- How confident are you in InDesign, honestly, and what have you built in it?
- How do you work with a brand template you did not create?
- What is your process for proofing a document before it goes to a client?
- Do you work with our graphic designers or do you produce artwork yourself?
What they are checking: whether the work you send out will need redoing. Bring examples. If you cannot share client documents, rebuild one page as a sample with anonymised content. Where the practice has in house creative resource, the line between your work and theirs matters, and we unpacked that split in our piece on the graphic designer in an architecture practice.
Content, campaigns and measurement
- Tell me about a campaign you ran start to finish and what it produced.
- How do you decide what goes on LinkedIn, and how often?
- Which metrics do you actually report on, and to whom?
- How would you get architects to give you content when they are billable and busy?
What they are checking: commercial thinking. “Engagement went up” is a weak answer. “Engagement went up, and two of the three enquiries that quarter mentioned the post” is a strong one, even at coordinator level.
Working with the studio
- Describe a time you had to say no to a request, or push back on a director.
- How do you prioritise when everything is urgent?
- What would your last line manager say you need to get better at?
What they are checking: whether you will survive a studio where five people outrank you and all of them want their thing first.
Questions you should be ready to ask them
- Is this role marketing, bids, or both, and what is the realistic split?
- Who signs off submissions, and what does the approval chain look like on a deadline day?
Ask both. They signal that you understand how the job actually works, and the answers tell you whether the role is the one advertised.
What practical task will you be set?
Most practices we work with set a task at second stage. Here is what those tasks usually look like and what good performance looks like.
| Task type | Typical brief | Time given | What they are marking |
|---|---|---|---|
| InDesign project sheet | Lay up a supplied project into the practice template | 45 to 90 minutes, or overnight | Template discipline, typography, image handling, not creative flair |
| Award entry or bid answer | Write 300 to 500 words to a question and word count | Take home, 2 to 3 days | Answering the actual question, editing to the limit, tone |
| CV or credentials rework | Rewrite two staff CVs to house format | 30 to 60 minutes | Consistency, accuracy, speed |
| Content plan | One month of LinkedIn and website content for the practice | Take home | Understanding of the audience and the pipeline, not volume |
| Presentation | 10 minutes on how you would raise the practice’s profile | Prepared in advance | Structure, confidence in front of directors, commercial reasoning |
Two practical notes from placements we have made. First, finish the task. An unfinished perfect page scores worse than a complete good one, because the job is deadline work. Second, send a short covering note with your task explaining the choices you made, especially where you deviated from the brief. Interviewers consistently tell us that note changes their view of a candidate.
How to prepare in a week
- Read the practice’s last three project pages and their most recent news posts. Note the sectors and the clients.
- Check their LinkedIn. Look at who posts, how often, and what gets traction. You will be asked what you would change.
- Rebuild one page in InDesign to their look and feel. Even roughly. It gives you something to show.
- Write a 150 word answer to a made up question such as “describe your approach to stakeholder engagement”. It warms up the muscle the task will test.
- Have three numbers ready: submissions supported per month, campaign result, and one process you improved.
- Know your salary range. Our benchmarks for practice manager and office manager pay are a useful reference point for the wider support staff market, and we publish a marketing specific benchmark separately.
For hiring managers: how to structure a marketing coordinator interview
The market gives you less room for a bad hire than it did. CIPD’s Labour Market Outlook has UK employers at a net employment balance of +9, with around a quarter of employers expecting to increase headcount and roughly a third still reporting hard to fill vacancies. RIBA’s Future Trends data through 2026 shows permanent staffing intentions bouncing around either side of zero, with larger practices markedly more confident than small ones. In plain terms: fewer roles are being signed off, and the ones that are get scrutinised. A vague interview wastes that approval.
A structure that works:
| Stage | Length | Who is in the room | Purpose |
|---|---|---|---|
| Screening call | 20 minutes | Practice manager or recruiter | Software, notice period, salary, motivation |
| First interview | 45 minutes | Line manager plus one associate | Competency questions 5 to 20 above, scored |
| Task | 1 hour to 3 days | Set by line manager | Output quality under a real constraint |
| Final | 30 minutes | Director | Culture, client facing confidence, offer conversation |
Three things to add. Score against the same four criteria for every candidate, for example submission experience, software, communication and initiative, so you are comparing like with like. Pay for the task if it takes longer than two hours, or keep it under two hours. And move quickly, because good support staff in this sector are usually interviewing in two or three places at once.
If you are still at the stage of writing the role up, our job advert template guide and our piece on permanent, contract and freelance hiring models will help you decide what you are actually advertising before you start interviewing for it.
The red flags practices tell us about
- No examples. A candidate who cannot show or describe a single document they produced.
- InDesign listed on the CV but described as “I can edit templates” at interview.
- Campaign answers with no outcome attached.
- No questions at the end, or only questions about holiday and hybrid days.
- Blaming a previous employer for missed deadlines without owning any part of it.
None of these are fatal on their own. All five together mean the shortlist is wrong, which is usually a briefing problem rather than a candidate problem.
FAQ
How long is a marketing coordinator interview in an architecture practice? Typically two stages over two to three weeks, plus a task. First interviews run 45 minutes to an hour, finals are shorter and often with a director.
Do I need architecture experience to get a marketing coordinator job? No, but you need to close the gap credibly. Practices hire from PR, events, agency and other professional services backgrounds regularly. What they will not forgive is turning up without having looked at the projects.
Is InDesign essential for a marketing coordinator role? In this sector, almost always yes. Canva alone will not get you shortlisted. If your InDesign is basic, say so and show what you have built, because practices will often accept developing skills where the attitude and organisation are strong.
What questions should I ask at a marketing coordinator interview? Ask what the marketing and bids split really is, who signs off submissions, what the practice wants to win more of in the next year, and what success looks like at six months.
What should I be paid as a marketing coordinator in the UK? It depends on the mix of bids work, the size of the practice and whether you are in London. We publish sector specific benchmarks and are happy to give you a live read on what is being offered right now.
How should employers test a marketing coordinator at interview? Set one realistic task tied to work the person will actually do, keep it under two hours or pay for it, and score every candidate against the same criteria.
Interviewing soon, or hiring soon?
If you are a candidate, send us your CV and we will tell you which practices are hiring, what they pay, and what their interview process looks like before you walk in. Start with our current positions or register through seeking opportunities.
If you are hiring, we can shortlist marketing and bids support staff who have already done this work in practices like yours, and give you a ready made interview structure and scorecard to run them through. Take a look at seeking talent or just get in touch for a straight conversation about the market.
