Connecting Great Technology Architects & Leaders with Great Businesses across UK, US and EMEA | Podcast Host | NPS +89 | 57 Recommendations
The UK Technology Architecture market is in a dangerous position! Here are some stats from some research I conducted over the weekend. In the UK there are; - 301 Architects with less than 2 years experience - 749 with 2-4 years experience - 1.7k with 4-6 years experience - 3k with 6-8 years experience - 4.4k with 8-10 years experience - 14k with 10-15 years experience - 25k with 15-20 years experience This is across the general job titles: #SoftwareArchitect #solutionarchitect #enterprisearchitect #dataarchitect #cloudarchitect This shows that in a few years we won't have enough people with the right experience to plug the gaps at the top. Why is this? Essentially, architecture is seen as an 'end of career' or progressive role, i.e. Engineers that don't want to manage but want to stay close to the tech and want more money become architects. This is just one example. Why don't businesses create junior architect roles and train people to become actual architects? #softwarearchitecture #solutionarchitect #enterprisearchitecture #dataarchitecture
Samuel S.
8mo
Is the answer not in the question? People progress towards Architecture as they gain experience in their relevant field (business, data, app, tech). You build up your domain knowledge over a number of years which naturally navigates you towards an Architecture role. I feel it would be difficult to jump into Architecture without having first worked on the shop floor. Building, deploying, root cause analysis, etc.
🏛Craig Viccars🏛
8mo
We are seeing a big drive and more appreciation of architecture! I don't believe these stats indicate a lack of entry-level opportunities. People will grow up through a domain (BDAT) and evolve into an Architect, so "Junior Architect" is the wrong title and not the right place to be looking. The increasing number of architects at different experience levels can be seen as a positive trend, showcasing the growth and diversity within the field.
Sam Hameed
8mo
We had this conversation at a recent architecture dinner with mixed feedback. I personally don't feel think they can be a position of a "junior" architect as you need years of experience under your belt to build up the content and knowledge it takes to operate as an Architect. Gareth Humphreys Lambros Lambrou
Tawhid Rahman
8mo
Mario Michaels - Reminded me of a time, about 14yrs ago, a group of Business/System/Information Analysts with under 2yrs of experience were placed in a large Enterprise Architecture programme to help with discovery, were later told off by their management for updating their LinkedIn status to “Enterprise Architect”. Was deemed a reputational risk at the time. I’ve come across good Product Owners, Project Managers, Principal Engineers, Process Owners all within ~10yrs experience range who can operate like experienced Architects, within their stable domain, in tech savvy organisations, that have a collaborative culture of shared outcomes. So in a few years, will we have enough people with the right skills to plug the gaps? Hmm .. skills will most likely be there, perhaps different job title, but organisations culture and operating environment will decide who play the role.
John Crickett
8mo
There is no need for an architect role, the team should own architecture.
Andy Howarth
8mo
Careers in Architecture can suffer from a lack of clarity. There’s no agreed definition on what makes up the different architectural roles - just look at EA jobs to see that no one can agree what an EA is. That makes it difficult to build a career path that new starters can look at, see where they want to go and how to get there.
Steven Hemmings
8mo
Completely disagree with the statement its seen as “end of career”, what this shows is the “current” approach to get there
Steven Ruane
8mo
I echo this massively. Companies should plan for continuation by having Junior/Associate Architecture roles
Tom Bennett
8mo
Sounds like a bang average weekend mate.
Technology, Architecture, Governance, Transformation
8moI look at the role of Architect and Engineer as check and balance whilst providing different perspectives on solving the problem. The Architect provides the abstract 'What to do'. The Engineer provides the concrete 'How to do'. This provides the space for blue-sky thinking, whilst ensuring someone throws a dose of realism into the idea (solution approach). In my experience having sat both sides of the fence, Engineers may be biased towards only doing what they personally know how to do. Likewise, having Architects need to know how to implement something up front will limit creativity to only that that the Architect knows already or can learn as they go. Having this space to think the art of the possible and have someone else make it real gives life to new ideas and pushing boundaries. This difference in what each role brings should make it possible to lower the entry point for architecture and develop individuals in orchestrating and inventing solutions without the need to know how to implement. I've experienced lots of push-back on this idea, but that push-back comes from those senior Engineers and Architects who want to protect their experience and seniority rather than develop depth of architecture.