It can't be too hard being a young architect today, if the turnout at a reception last week for the Young Architect of the Year Award is a guide. This is not just a reflection of the talent on show but of the international scale of the award, worth a modest £5,000 but a great deal more in prestige and recognition.

The award, now in its fifth year, coincides with what is turning out to be a boom period for architects in the UK, according to senior members of the profession. Indeed, it is difficult to recall a time when architects had such a high or favourable public profile.

Young practitioners from around the world are flocking to London to study and practise. According to Richard Feilden, chairman of the judging panel for the YAYA, some 80 per cent of the students at the Architectural Association are from overseas.

Still, none of the four shortlisted studios or seven practitioners who work in them was British by origin, although two of the studios are based in London and five of the seven architects studied here. In conversation, they agree that London has become the centre of the business, certainly in Europe, but that the work of architects goes largely underappreciated in Britain.

"When you think about how many architects there are in London and about how little actually gets built, you realise how competitive it is," says Eva Castro, a partner with Holger Kehne in Plasma Studio, the winner of the YAYA. In fact, Castro, who is Argentine, is typical of the influx of young architectural talent into the UK, attracted by the profile of the profession here and the quality of the education available.

"If you are ambitious, you think of London and the Architectural Association or New York and Columbia University," she says. But, she adds: "No matter how difficult it was here, it was probably easier than [being based] in France or Germany. There is a culture of young architects in Britain and it is easier to start out in the profession, although it is harder to jump into big projects."

Feilden is quite adamant, however, that Britain is failing its young architects in many respects. One of the most common complaints is the lack of a competition system for public projects, a trend that will be worsened, he says, by the spread of the "risk-averse" Private Finance Initiative.

This is in contrast to the situation in France, he says, where almost every public project is put to competition. This allows young practices to showcase their talents, although it is still the case that the vast majority are won by established firms.

Remy Marciano, a young Marseilles-based architect who was shortlisted for the YAYA, said the best encouragement in France is a high level of local projects that often are awarded to local architects. Much of his work is in or around his home city.

Bjarke Ingels, a partner with Julien de Smedt in Plot, a Danish practice shortlisted for YAYA, echoes this view, plus a desire to spread its wings. "We've acquired attention if not fame in Denmark," Ingels says. "Now we want to become more European."

The other big issue for British architects is the nation's thrall to its architectural superstars, Norman Foster and Richard Rogers, and their heirs apparent, Will Alsop, Michael Hopkins and Michael Wilford. Foster and Rogers have made the profession exceedingly glamorous. They also attract a particular client - usually corporate - while most of the rest of what gets built in Britain hasn't an architect within 1,000 miles of it.

Feilden sees the Big Five as both a help and a hindrance: "Are they a good training ground? I'm not sure, because they have so many young architects working for them who are small pieces of a very big wheel. I don't think they do enough to bring them on."

Still, you don't become an architect to design kitchen extensions all your life. Sebastian Khourian and Ciro Najle, both also from Argentina and shortlisted for the YAYA, say that the aim of their studio, Meta Infrastructural Domain, is to be a Top Five firm. "I don't agree that the more successful you become the less experimental you can be," Khourian says. "We didn't want second prize [MID was joint second]. We were just interested in the first prize. But we can wait."

vincent.boland@ft.com