In our annual Student Prize issue you’ll see the future of the profession on display, and there is much inspiring and creative work to discover by students completing undergraduate and postgraduate architecture courses in the UK.

Where architectural education can fall down is in the technical and the practical. We take a look at how mentoring schemes are helping engage students in built environment issues at an earlier stage, as a grounding for a possible career in the industry.

We also interview some leading architectural tutors to discuss the how education has changed since the late-20th century, including the impact of tuition fees and the aftershocks of the Bartlett ‘bullying’ scandal.

Earlier this month the Grenfell Inquiry published its final conclusions. The AJ news team take a look at what the findings could mean for architects, and Russell Curtis writes a column about what the inquiry missed: the inadequacies of Design & Build.

Elsewhere in the issue you can read the key takeaways from AJ Retrofit Live; discover which buildings have been shortlisted for the AJ Architecture Awards 2024; and find out what our critic thought of a new, illustration-led book on school design.

Columns this month are written by the Secret Architect (‘AI, take the wheel’) and Scott McAulay, who focuses on how sustainability is being taught within architectural education.

Our competition pick for September is a £100 million Shakespeare campus in Stratford-upon-Avon, while reader favourites David Grandorge, Hellman and Sketchbook round out this bumper issue.