It is a little over twenty years since mandatory fee scales were abolished by UK professional bodies. During this period fee levels have fluctuated with economic demand, and new procurement strategies such as partnering have been developed, but there is still a widespread view in industry, that fee levels are too low. This view is shared by many professionals, and perhaps more surprisingly by clients, even in the current construction and property boom. The link between competitive fee tendering and service quality has been investigated by several researchers. The research reported in this paper involved a postal questionnaire study of one hundred and thirty three UK based clients. The public and private sector clients each assess the service quality received from a professional using a measurement scale developed from the generic service industry instrument SERVQUAL. The scale is used to test the hypothesis that there is a causal relationship between service quality and the method of appointment of the professional. The study follows on from an almost identical one carried out by the author eight years ago but in very different economic conditions. The results of the recent study are similar to the earlier one (in that evidence of the predicted relationship is not provided by the data) but there are some interesting differences in the results of both studies.