Job Architecture
The structured framework that organises roles into families, subfamilies, functions, and levels — forming the skeletal logic through which roles are classified, compared, and governed.
Job architecture is the organising logic for how roles are categorised and related to one another across an organisation. It typically defines role families (broad groupings of related work, such as Finance, Technology, or People), subfamilies (more specific clusters within families), and career streams (specialist, management, leadership), arranged across a grade structure.
A well-designed job architecture does more than name and sort roles. It establishes comparability (roles in the same family and level are assessed against the same expectations), provides a basis for career progression design (how roles at different levels are differentiated), and creates the structural foundation for sound pay decisions (how salary ranges are applied consistently across the organisation).
Job architecture is not static. As organisations change — through growth, restructuring, new capabilities, or market shifts — the architecture must be maintained and recalibrated. Architectures that are not updated become constraints rather than enablers, creating inconsistency, progression ambiguity, and pay friction.
Usage note
Job architecture design precedes effective job evaluation in practice. Attempting to evaluate roles without a clear architecture results in inconsistent comparability and grading that is difficult to defend across functions.
Doctrine boundary
This definition reflects how Evalio uses this term within its evaluation methodology. Usage may differ in other frameworks or contexts.
Terms used alongside this one.
Grade Structure
The defined hierarchy of grades used to classify roles across an organisation, each with associated anchors, boundaries, and decision implications.
Internal Equity
The principle that roles of comparable scope, complexity, and accountability should be compensated comparably, independent of who holds them or how long they have been in post.
Job Evaluation
A structured methodology for assessing the relative scope, complexity, and accountability of roles, producing a grade assignment that can be used for pay positioning and workforce decision-making.
Job Leveling
The process of assigning roles to levels or grades within a defined structure, using evaluation methodology to ensure consistent, defensible differentiation across the organisation.