No two Salesforce orgs are the same, even if they’re of a similar size or in a similar vertical. This is what makes studying org structures difficult – there is no “standard” for a traditional org, as factors such as complexity, company size, and budgets all play a part in determining this.
This also makes determining how many Salesforce professionals are needed in each company difficult, especially when it comes to the architect. According to our latest Salesforce Architect Survey, a third of respondents said their team is “mostly developers with a few admins and one architect”, prompting questions on whether or not just one architect is enough. Although architects are typically supported by developers, admins, consultants, and external specialists, are architects becoming the single point of failure?
Are ‘Lone Architects’ Common?
According to our Salesforce Architect Surveys between 2025 and 2026, the single most common team structure was several developers, a few admins, and one architect, with 33.2% of respondents in 2025 reporting this structure and 33.8% in 2026. However, it is important to note that these architects are rarely operating alone, as around three-quarters of respondents also relied on external partners or system integrators for at least some development work.
This, of course, varies with company size too. Our data shows that architects are disproportionately visible in larger organizations. In our 2025 Survey, one-third worked at companies with more than 5,000 employees, and in 2026, that remained the largest individual bracket, at 26.1%. 69.6% of respondents said they worked in teams of 2-19 people, suggesting that most architects work inside modest-sized multidisciplinary teams.
This likely means that architectural capacity becomes more likely as businesses scale, especially as our 2025-2026 Salesforce Salary Survey shows that administrators are most concentrated in companies with 200–999 employees. However, it does not establish that every large company has multiple architects, or that smaller companies do not need one.
Salesforce Architects also rely a lot on external partners as an architectural safety net, with 76.4% of respondents from our latest Architect Survey claiming they used an external partner or SI for some or all development work.
What Architects Actually Do Now
The bottom line is that many companies do not truly have one architect; they have one internal architecture owner supported by a distributed, partly outsourced team of subcontractors. This, however, does not mean that architects are handling easy workloads, especially as the list of responsibilities increases.
The changing software environment alongside the growing complexity of Salesforce has some architects rethinking their careers, and when you look at what that makes an architect responsible for, it begins to make sense as to why.
Our Architect Surveys indicate that architects are responsible for (but are not limited to):
- Understanding the business, industry, and requirements.
- Designing scalable systems with minimal technical debt.
- Aligning stakeholders and communicating decisions.
- System design, integration design, and data modelling.
- Working across connected systems inside and outside Salesforce.
- Increasingly, understanding AI fundamentals such as orchestration, context engineering, guardrails, observability, and evaluation.
Not only that, but they also have material financial influence, as in 2025, 55.7% said they had some control over Salesforce budgets.
Ravi Kishan Telu, a Salesforce Architect at Techforce Services, told SF Ben that the architect is “expected to wear multiple hats.”
“They’re responsible for solution design, reviewing code, setting standards, engaging with stakeholders, making integration decisions, ensuring security and governance, and often helping unblock delivery teams,” he explained. “That’s a lot for one person.”
Cecilia Chiderski, a Quote-to-Cash Solution Architect at CLD Partners, said that although the ‘lone architect’ model was something to observe, the more pressing aspect is the way architects’ work is split.
“What’s more concerning to me is that 92% of architects are doing hands-on technical work, with 45% of their work sitting outside Salesforce,” she told SF Ben. “So, now you have a single person making every design, governance, and integration decision, splitting their time between platforms, yet very involved in the technical work.”
“And all that on a platform that is getting more complex. I can see these architects burning out, not to mention the risk that it adds to the organization if that architect leaves.”
This particular point is further emphasized by the fact that our data shows only 12.1% of architects are specialized in a single product or area; given the scope of Salesforce, it is unrealistic for one person to master everything.
When One Architect May Be Enough
Now, let’s be clear here: our survey data, any anecdotal data, or even larger data sets cannot produce a numerical architect-to-user or architect-to-developer ratio. A practical conclusion should instead be based on complexity.
That being said, there are some instances in which one architect may be enough in an org, some of which we have covered already.
These include when a Salesforce team is small and works as one delivery unit, when the team doesn’t work across multiple clouds, security and regulatory requirements are limited, there is reliable access to specialist partners, and when someone else can cover decisions during absence or turnover.
When One Architect May Not Be Enough
There are two sides to every scenario, so of course there will also be instances in which one architect is not enough, too.
Additional or fractional architecture capacity becomes more defensible where the organization has multiple delivery teams, clouds, and integrations, complex identity, sharing, security, or regulatory requirements, several SIs or vendors whose designs need coordination, and large teams.
Most importantly, an architectural strategy should be heavily considered when there is only one architect covering solution, technical, data, integration, security, governance, mentoring, and delivery responsibilities.
Our 2026 Architect Survey found that 74.4% of architects believed purpose-built data security and management solutions were necessary for larger or more complex Salesforce environments. That is another indicator that complexity creates needs beyond generic, one-size-fits-all oversight.
The Cost Dilemma
For a lot of companies within the Salesforce space, having more than one architect, especially if they’re needed, would be ideal. However, cost is a considerable factor that will be holding many of them back.
Research from 10K’s latest Salesforce Talent Ecosystem report shows that technical architect demand grew by 27% last year, with demand for solution architects growing 21%. However, technical architects make up only 1% of total global talent supply.
Architects are not only short in supply, but they are also expensive – after all, they can afford to be. A lot of businesses will not have the architectural structures necessary to justify the high costs of more than one architect or one architect at all, indicating that current org structures likely do not reflect the most ideal scenario.
Final Thoughts
There is no one-size-fits-all when it comes to any roles within a Salesforce organization, especially the architect. Architects find themselves in a unique position where there aren’t too many of them, and businesses are attempting to scrape by with what they can get, but that isn’t always the best solution.
What does your org structure look like? Do you think just one architect is enough? Let us know in the comments.
