Creating a job architecture: what it is, how to build it and an example

A job architecture is a structured overview of all roles, job families, job levels and job profiles within an organisation. You can think of it as your organisation’s blueprint: it shows which roles exist, the responsibilities associated with them and how they relate to one another.

Suppose your organisation has an HR Administrator, an HR Adviser and a Senior HR Business Partner. Without a clear structure, it is not always apparent exactly how these roles differ. Is it the experience required, the complexity of the work, the level of autonomy or the responsibility for organisation-wide decisions? A job architecture makes these differences clear.

This involves more than simply collecting job descriptions. Grouping roles into families and levels creates a shared structure that HR, managers and employees can use. It clarifies expectations, lays the foundations for career paths and provides a starting point for objective job evaluation and a well-founded salary structure.

The difference lies in the amount and type of information you record. The job architecture describes the entire job structure, a job profile sets out the expectations for a single role, and a job description focuses primarily on tasks and duties.

The job architecture brings all roles together in a single overview. It shows which roles belong together, which levels exist and what career progression opportunities employees have.

The job profile describes what someone needs to succeed in a role: responsibilities, competencies, skills, desired behaviours and expected outcomes. A modern job profile also makes clear which behaviours are appropriate at different levels. Read more about creating a job profile.

The job description focuses primarily on tasks and duties and is usually part of the job profile. While a job description explains what someone does, a job profile also sets out the knowledge and responsibilities required. A list of duties alone is usually insufficient to determine the relative weight of a role or the appropriate remuneration.

A job architecture helps organise expectations, responsibilities and pay more clearly. This supports day-to-day HR processes while also providing practical preparation for the Dutch pay transparency bill.

1. Clear expectations for employees

A job architecture clarifies the responsibilities, skills and outcomes associated with each role. Employees have a better understanding of what is expected of them, and managers have a shared framework for performance reviews and development conversations.

2. A stronger foundation for recruitment

With up-to-date job profiles, you can define more precisely the knowledge, experience and skills a candidate needs. You prevent individual managers from applying their own interpretations of the same role and assess candidates against comparable criteria.

3. Clarity on career paths

A job architecture shows how employees can progress within a job family or move into another professional field. Documenting the competencies required at each level makes it clear what development is needed to take the next step. Read more about how to develop career paths.

4. A foundation for fair pay

When you describe and classify roles consistently, you can better justify why roles fall within the same or different pay bands. Job evaluation allows you to compare the relative demands of roles, rather than relying on job titles or historical pay arrangements.

5. Preparing for pay transparency legislation

The Dutch pay transparency bill requires employers to have an objective, gender-neutral system for job evaluation and classification. A job architecture records the necessary job information in a structured way, providing an important foundation for equal pay for equal work or work of equal value.

Please note: as of 14 October 2026, the bill has not yet been passed. The final requirements and commencement date may still change. Read more about pay transparency legislation and its implications for employers.

A complete job architecture consists of job families, job levels, job profiles and associated competencies and skills. Connecting these elements and linking them to salary scales creates a structure you can use for development, appraisal and remuneration.

1. Job families

Job families are groups of related roles, such as Sales, Finance, HR, Marketing, IT or Operations. They make it clear which roles exist within the same professional field and how employees can develop within it. A job family does not have to correspond to a department: in larger organisations, similar roles often exist across different teams.

2. Job levels

Job levels clarify how roles differ in complexity, autonomy and responsibilities. For example, you could use four levels:

This is an illustrative classification. The right number of levels depends on the complexity and size of your organisation. A job level is not the same as an employee's level of experience: someone can have extensive experience without the demands of the role changing.

3. Job profiles

Each role has a job profile outlining its purpose, responsibilities, required knowledge and skills, key result areas and competencies. Make profiles specific enough to compare roles, but not so detailed that you have to document every minor change in duties.

4. Competencies and skills

Competencies and skills describe what employees need to succeed: technical skills such as financial analysis or project planning, as well as competencies such as communication and collaboration. Distinguish between proficiency levels where possible. A junior finance employee processes data accurately, while a senior specialist analyses complex discrepancies and proposes improvements. A competency matrix allows you to document these skills and levels clearly.

5. Linking to salary scales

Once roles have been classified and evaluated, you can link them to salary scales. This creates a logical connection between the demands of a role and its corresponding salary range. The job architecture does not determine an individual employee's salary, but it does provide the foundation for a salary structure in which you define remuneration in more detail.

You can present a job architecture clearly in a job matrix with job families and job levels. The example below shows how a fictional organisation could group roles within Sales, Finance and HR into four levels.

This example is fictional. The job titles and levels are illustrative and do not constitute a validated job evaluation.

How do you use this example?

Start with the roles that actually exist within your organisation. Check which roles are comparable in content and which differences in responsibilities or complexity justify a separate level. You do not need to fill every cell: your Finance department may not have a strategic-level role, or HR may have several specialist roles. Do not create roles simply to complete the table.

Also look beyond job titles. A Senior Specialist role does not automatically carry less weight than a Team Manager role; the classification must be based on the content and relative weight of the role. A job matrix is therefore a tool for structuring roles, not a substitute for job evaluation. Read more about how to create a job matrix.

Developing a job architecture starts with taking stock of existing roles and ends with validating job profiles with employees and managers. These eight steps will help you build a structure that fits your organisation.

Step 1. Create an overview of all roles in your organisation

Identify the roles that exist within your organisation. Use your HR records, organisational chart, existing job descriptions and information from managers.

Check whether different job titles refer to the same work. One department might use the title Project Coordinator and another Project Manager, even though the responsibilities largely overlap. Conversely, employees with the same title may perform very different tasks. Include roles that are currently vacant but remain part of the organisational structure.

Outcome: an up-to-date list of roles that you can classify further.

Step 2. Define the job families

Group roles with similar responsibilities, for example into professional areas such as Sales, Finance, Marketing, HR and Operations. A small organisation can often manage with a limited number of families; a larger organisation needs more specialisation.

Above all, a job family should help you identify comparable roles and make career progression opportunities visible. Check with managers that the classification reflects day-to-day practice.

Outcome: roles grouped into recognisable families.

Step 3. Establish job levels

Determine the levels at which roles are classified. Use the same four levels as in the example: Execution, Independent, Specialist and Strategic. An execution-level role focuses on clearly defined tasks carried out according to guidelines. At the independent level, individuals take responsibility for their own work. Specialist roles require more complex expertise or coordination, while strategic roles focus on organisation-wide issues.

Describe what each level actually requires and check that the distinction between two consecutive levels can be justified by the nature of the work.

Job levels and skill levels are not the same. Within Learned, we also use four skill levels: generic, operational, tactical and strategic. These help describe competencies and desired behaviour, whereas job levels indicate a role's position and relative weight. Formal classification by job weight also requires objective job evaluation. Further on, under assessing job weight through job evaluation, you can read how to approach this.

Outcome: every role has a provisional level.

Step 4. Map out your organisation-wide values

Document which core values matter and the specific behaviours associated with them, such as ownership, collaboration or customer focus. For ownership, for example, you could specify that employees honour commitments, take responsibility for results and flag when they need support in good time.

You can incorporate these values into job profiles and use them in development and performance review conversations. However, they are not a substitute for the objective criteria used to determine the relative weight of roles.

Step 5. Define the required competencies and skills

Identify the competencies and skills required for each role. Distinguish between technical skills, such as data analysis or knowledge of particular systems, and general competencies such as communication and problem-solving. Also describe the level of proficiency required for each skill.

You can gather this information through conversations with employees and managers: what work is actually carried out, which skills are essential and how do junior and senior roles differ? HR software and AI can help produce an initial draft, for example by suggesting competencies. Always have these suggestions checked by people who know the role well. Describe what the role requires, not just what the current employee can do.

Step 6. Decide how you want to measure success

Document the relevant results and expectations for each role: KPIs, qualitative result areas and specific, observable behaviour. Commercial results may be important for a Sales role; in HR, you might consider process quality, advisory work or project progress. Not every result can be expressed as a number, so combine quantitative and qualitative expectations where necessary.

Keep job requirements separate from performance. Job evaluation concerns the relative weight of a role, while a performance appraisal concerns how an employee performs that role.

Step 7. Draft a job architecture

Bring all the information together in a single overview. Link roles to families and levels, and add the job profiles, competencies and result areas. Initially, you can do this in Excel or a simple job matrix.

Focus on checking that the structure is consistent: do comparable roles have comparable profiles, are the differences between levels clear, and have all roles been included? Then use the draft as a basis for job evaluation, so you can verify that the classification accurately reflects the nature of the roles.

Step 8. Validate the job profiles with employees and (team) managers

Ask employees and managers to review the draft job architecture. They are best placed to indicate whether the descriptions reflect actual practice. Discuss whether the responsibilities are recognisable, whether the competencies are appropriate and whether the differences between levels are clear. Also check for missing roles or comparable roles that have been classified differently without justification.

Agree who will approve the final profiles and levels. The aim is not for every employee to see themselves at a higher level, but to establish a consistent structure that can be clearly explained.

Bonus tip: make career paths visible. A job architecture shows employees the steps they can take and the skills they need to do so. This also makes the job architecture a tool for development and internal mobility.

Job evaluation is the systematic assessment of the relative weight of jobs against predefined criteria. It establishes how jobs compare in terms of their content and provides a rationale for assigning them to a particular job group or level. A job architecture organises jobs; job evaluation objectively assesses the differences between them.

Which criteria do you use for job evaluation?

Job evaluation assesses the demands of the job, not the attributes or performance of the employee. The European Pay Transparency Directive identifies four categories:

These criteria must be applied objectively and in a gender-neutral way. This means recognising not only visible financial responsibility, but also other relevant forms of responsibility and demands. Do not include job requirements that are unnecessary: a qualification, number of years of experience or specific skill must be justified by the content of the job.

The government has published guidance on a job evaluation and classification system, including a checklist for reviewing your own job classification.

Which job evaluation methods are available?

Various methods are used in the Netherlands to evaluate jobs systematically. Some are widely applied, while others are primarily used within particular sectors.

Source: ManagementSite, most widely used job evaluation systems. Check the current terms and conditions with the provider.

An established method or your own points-based system?

An established method provides a detailed framework, helping you document differences systematically and consistently. Depending on the method, support, training or licences may be required. Also check whether an applicable collective labour agreement requires a particular method.

You can also develop your own points-based system, assigning scores to factors such as knowledge, complexity, responsibilities and working conditions. The advantage is that you can tailor the criteria to your organisation. However, you must then ensure clear definitions, consistent application and a justified weighting, and be able to explain how you prevent the system from disadvantaging particular groups.

Why is job evaluation important for equal pay?

Job evaluation makes it possible to compare jobs that appear very different at first glance. A specialist Finance role and an HR management role, for example, may be of equal value, in which case they should sit within the same job group and salary range. Without systematic comparison, these relationships remain invisible.

Job evaluation also highlights historical differences. Some jobs may previously have been classified primarily on the basis of job titles or individual salary agreements. A systematic assessment reveals whether that classification is still defensible. This is precisely what the Dutch pay transparency bill requires of employers: being able to explain why work of equal value receives equal pay.

The job architecture defines which roles exist and their relative weight; the pay structure links these to appropriate pay scales. The connection between the two is established through job evaluation:

This sequence matters. If you create pay scales based on current salaries first, you risk embedding historical differences in your new structure. By first assessing the substance of each role, you establish which roles are of equal value and what pay range is appropriate. You then check the scales against collective bargaining agreements and market data, and set out in your remuneration policy how employees progress within their pay scale.

Ready to take this next step? Read our complete guide to creating a pay structure →

A job architecture only remains useful if it reflects day-to-day practice. Organisations change: new roles are added, duties shift and skills become more important or less relevant. Watch out for these five pitfalls:

1. Too many job levels. If the difference between two adjacent levels is difficult to explain, disagreements arise. Only distinguish between levels where there is a meaningful difference in the demands and responsibilities of the roles.
2. Looking only at job titles. The same title can mean different things in different teams. Base the classification on the content of the work.
3. Not updating job profiles. New systems or a different team structure change roles. Check whether the profile and evaluation are still accurate, without rebuilding the entire job architecture for every minor change.
4. No owner. Appoint someone to manage the job architecture and agree on a standard procedure for changes. HR coordinates the process, while managers flag substantive changes.
5. Confusing job evaluation with performance. A high-performing or longer-serving employee does not make a role more demanding. Keep the value of the role, the employee’s performance and salary progression separate.

For many organisations, an annual review is a practical starting point, supplemented by an interim check when there are reorganisations, new roles or significant changes in responsibilities.

You can start building a job architecture in Excel, but as your organisation grows, multiple versions and separate documents make it difficult to maintain. Especially if you also use job profiles for appraisals, development and remuneration, you want everyone to work with the same up-to-date information.

With Learned's job architecture software, you structure roles into families and levels and record the associated competencies and skills centrally. AI helps you create initial drafts of job profiles, which you then check against the actual responsibilities of each role.

Discover how to create job profiles with Learned →

This allows you to use the same job architecture as the basis for recruitment, development conversations, career progression opportunities and your pay structure.

What is the difference between a job architecture and a salary structure?

A job architecture describes all roles, job families, levels and job profiles within an organisation. A salary structure contains the salary bands associated with the classified roles or job groups. The job architecture forms the basis for the salary structure.

How many levels does a job architecture have?

There is no fixed number. Choose a structure that suits the complexity of your organisation and the differences between roles. What matters is that each level can be clearly distinguished in terms of its content.

Is a job architecture mandatory?

A document called a 'job architecture' is not mandatory as such. However, collective labour agreements may set requirements for job classification, and the Dutch pay transparency bill requires employers to have a gender-neutral system of job evaluation and classification. A job architecture provides a logical basis for this.

How often should you update a job architecture?

Review the job architecture at least annually and whenever relevant changes occur, such as a reorganisation or the introduction of new roles. Update profiles sooner if duties or responsibilities change substantially.

Can you create a job architecture using AI?

Yes, AI can help draft job descriptions, suggest competencies and structure job profiles. Always have the results reviewed by HR and the managers responsible. Formal job evaluation still requires a thorough, consistent and gender-neutral assessment.

Building a job architecture involves more than collecting job descriptions. By grouping roles logically, defining clear levels and evaluating roles objectively, you clarify expectations and establish a sound basis for your pay structure. This also leaves you well prepared for pay transparency legislation.