There is a growing consensus that professional work faces an uncertain future. However, debates have tended to take a macro focus, underplaying the role of individuals' accounts of their working lives. In this article we focus on UK architecture, examining how public-sector and private-sector architects construct the purpose and process of their occupation, applying the concept of discourse to explore and explicate the different versions expressed in individuals' accounts. We argue that architecture is constituted in the modes of creative endeavour, business activity and public service. The discourses that are mobilized, and the occasions of their production, reflect architects' orientations to the diverse challenges facing their profession, particularly concerning the role of creativity in the purpose and practice of architecture.