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How a fractional enterprise architecture function works: the monthly rhythm, the tiers from £6,500 + VAT, where it beats a permanent hire and where it honestly does not.
Most organisations that need enterprise architecture do not need an enterprise architect. They need the discipline run properly: a systems register that is true, decisions that get made and recorded, programmes checked against a target, and a senior person the board can question. A virtual enterprise architect delivers that as a monthly function instead of a hire. This article explains how the model works month by month, what it costs, where it beats a permanent hire and where it honestly does not.
The short answer. A virtual enterprise architect is a senior architecture function bought by the month instead of a salary. With Intelance it runs from £6,500 + VAT per month for a named senior lead and eight senior days, from £11,000 for twelve days and from £22,000 for twenty or more. The register, the decision log and every deliverable live in your own tools, the function covers holidays and departures without a gap, and you can step the tier up or down as the workload changes. Advertised salaries for one permanent enterprise architect commonly sit between £90,000 and £130,000 before employer costs.
The word virtual describes the buying model rather than the work. The work is standard enterprise architecture: owning the systems register, mapping costs and integrations, setting the target estate, governing programme decisions and briefing the board. What changes is that you buy it as a function with a named senior lead and a team behind the lead, for a fixed number of senior days each month, on a fee agreed in writing. The same model is sold elsewhere as a fractional enterprise architect, enterprise architecture as a service or an EA department on subscription. The mechanics underneath are the ones that matter, and they are the subject of this guide. Our own version is the Virtual EA Department.
The discipline itself is standardised. The Open Group maintains TOGAF, the framework most UK architecture functions borrow from, and a fractional function works to the same method with the ceremony cut to what the estate needs.
A working month has a rhythm rather than a timesheet. It opens with a planning session against the decision backlog: which architecture questions must be answered this month, which programmes need review and what the board needs next. The senior days are then spent on the decisions themselves: writing options papers, running design reviews with delivery teams, updating the register as the estate changes and sitting in the governance forums where project choices get made. The month closes with a written summary of decisions taken, risks moved and what is queued next, in plain language the executive can read in ten minutes. Between sessions the named lead remains reachable, because architecture questions do not wait for a calendar slot. Everything produced lands in your own repository, wiki or document store as it is made rather than in a consultancy portal you lose at exit.
| Tier | Monthly fee | Best suited to |
|---|---|---|
| Named senior lead, eight senior days | from £6,500 + VAT | Estates of roughly fifteen to fifty systems keeping the register true, governing project decisions and briefing the board quarterly |
| Twelve senior days | from £11,000 + VAT | The same discipline plus a live change programme that needs design reviews and options papers most weeks |
| Twenty or more senior days | from £22,000 + VAT | Multiple concurrent programmes or a first internal hire being built around, with the function supplying breadth |
Fees are floors and are agreed in writing before the first month, and tiers step up or down with notice as the workload changes. For the full market picture, including day rates and salaries, see our guide to what enterprise architecture consulting costs in the UK.
Breadth. The enterprise architect role as commonly written asks one person to be a board strategist, a solution designer and an estate governor. A function puts different senior people on each, under one named lead who carries the relationship. Continuity. Holidays, sickness, notice periods and vacant seats do not stop the discipline, because the function is staffed rather than personified. Speed. A function starts within weeks. A permanent search commonly takes months, and the good candidates are scarce precisely because the role demands unreasonable breadth. Proportion. Below roughly fifty systems there is rarely a full week of genuine architecture decisions every week, and a monthly function buys the hours the estate needs. Our honest sizing guide covers when each answer fits.
Honesty matters here. A permanent architect is in the building five days a week, absorbs culture and politics by osmosis, and can carry long institutional memory in one head. Where an estate runs past roughly fifty systems with constant change, a dedicated hire starts earning its keep, and the strongest arrangement is usually both: a permanent owner with a function behind them for breadth and cover. A virtual function is also the wrong tool where the real need is a full delivery team for one programme, which is embedded programme architecture and is priced and run differently, as ProjectEA.
The test of any fractional arrangement is what happens when it ends. Run properly, the register, the decision log, the roadmap and every working document live in your tools from day one, so exit means turning off a subscription rather than negotiating a handover. Decision rights stay with your executives: the function recommends, evidences and challenges, and your people decide. If the discipline needs its own forums and decision rights designed formally, that is an operating model piece of work, and a good virtual function will tell you when you have outgrown it rather than clinging on.
Where the estate has never been mapped, start with the evidence: an EA QuickScan from £18,000 + VAT inventories and scores every system in ten working days, and the function then inherits a true register instead of spending its first months discovering one. Where a register already exists, the function starts directly: the first month is spent verifying the register, meeting the delivery teams and agreeing the decision backlog, and the rhythm above runs from month two. Either way the fee, the tier and the named lead are agreed in writing before anything starts. The wider practice is on our enterprise architecture consulting page.
A senior enterprise architecture function bought by the month instead of a salary: a named senior lead with a team behind them, a fixed number of senior days, and all registers and decisions kept in your own tools. With Intelance it runs from £6,500 + VAT per month.
A hire gives you one person for a salary commonly advertised between £90,000 and £130,000 before employer costs. A function gives you several specialisms under one named lead, keeps running through holidays and departures, starts within weeks and scales up or down with the workload.
A contract enterprise architect commonly costs £600 to £900 per day, works as one individual and takes their knowledge with them at the end. A function is staffed by a team, is bought by outcome and rhythm rather than by day, and is built so that everything it produces stays in your tools when it ends.
With Intelance, from £6,500 + VAT per month for a named senior lead and eight senior days, from £11,000 for twelve days and from £22,000 for twenty or more. Fees are floors, agreed in writing before the first month.
Yes, and past a certain estate size that is the strongest arrangement: a permanent internal owner with the function supplying breadth, specialist depth and cover. The function should strengthen internal ownership rather than replace it.
Within weeks rather than the months a permanent search commonly takes. Where no reliable systems register exists, an EA QuickScan from £18,000 + VAT builds one in ten working days so the function starts from evidence.
Emmanuel Olatunji
Chief Enterprise Architecture Partner
Emmanuel founded Intelance in 2017 and has led architecture, AI governance, cyber and deal engagements across the UK, Europe, the Middle East and Africa. Every Intelance engagement runs under his direction, and every guide he publishes comes from that work.
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