As AI reshapes how software is built and delivered, strong architectural foundations are more important than ever. But how are engineering teams in the U.K. adapting—and how do their strategies differ from those in the U.S.?
To find out, we pulled U.K.-specific insights from our 2025 Architecture in Software Development Report, which surveyed 314 senior technology leaders across software, financial services, manufacturing, and more. From CTOs and heads of engineering to platform leads and architects, the findings offer a clear view into the current state of architecture in the U.K.
Key takeaways
Operational headwinds Compared to their U.S. peers, U.K. orgs report higher rates of service disruptions, delivery delays, and security and compliance issues.
Greater adoption of OpenTelemetry 64% of U.K. respondents have adopted OpenTelemetry—surpassing the U.S., laying the groundwork for real-time architectural observability and a readiness to move beyond basic monitoring.
Architecture integration grows with scale Larger U.K. enterprises are embedding architecture more deeply into the SDLC than smaller peers—suggesting that architecture maturity grows as complexity increases.
Architecture isn’t just technical, it’s strategic.
This 2025 research report shows where U.K. teams are excelling and where improvements are needed. See how your approach to software architecture stacks up. Download the full UK report today!
New research from 600+ technology leaders and practitioners
Software architecture has the power to drive scalability, resilience, and innovation. But when it’s disconnected from day-to-day development, it becomes a silent source of risk fueling delivery delays, security gaps, and operational drag.
In our 2025 Architecture in Software Development Report: Rethinking the Role of Architecture: From Security Risks and Delivery Delays to Strategic Asset, we surveyed CTOs, engineering leaders, architects, and practitioners across the U.S. and U.K. A striking 93% reported negative business outcomes related to misalignment between implemented architecture and documented standards.
In this report you’ll discover:
How many enterprises only consider architecture during initial design—and the risks that follow
How outdated or incomplete documentation undermines software delivery, security, and compliance
The impact of industry and company size on architectural alignment
How AI is amplifying complexity—and creating new opportunities for architecture to shine
What leading teams are doing differently to embed architecture into systems and workflows
To drive business innovation, architecture must be continuously integrated, actively managed, and closely aligned with what’s running in production.
Download the full report and learn how to transform architecture into a living, strategic foundation for innovation.
In the rush to deliver features and meet deadlines, it’s easy to overlook the hidden flaws in your software architecture. Everything might seem fine—features are shipping, and the system works. But beneath this success, complexity can silently grow, leading to a brittle, unmanageable system. This guide uncovers five subtle signs your architecture might not be as robust as it appears and offers actionable strategies to fix them.
What You’ll Learn:
Dependencies everywhere: Identify and mitigate the tangled web of dependencies that slow down your development and deployment.
Clean architecture vs. clean code: Understand the difference and ensure your architecture supports long-term scalability and maintainability.
The black box codebase: Increase transparency in your system to simplify debugging, feature development, and scaling.
No governance, no control: Implement effective governance to prevent chaos and ensure architectural consistency.
Living in a complete mesh: Avoid excessive inter-service communication and design a resilient, scalable system.
Why this matters
Ignoring architectural issues can lead to bottlenecks, downtime, and developer frustration. By recognizing and addressing these signs early, you can streamline your development process, scale efficiently, and foster innovation.
Ready to transform your architecture and set the stage for sustainable growth? Download the guide now and take control of your software’s future!
How Architecture Governance Keeps Your Microservices on Track
As your microservices scale, so does their complexity—slowing engineering teams down, increasing technical debt, and risking business continuity. According to Gartner®, 74% of organizations use microservices, yet half face issues like slow deployments and reduced scalability.
The solution? Architecture governance.
Our latest guide explores how you can effectively scale microservices architecture. Inside, you’ll discover:
How governance provides guardrails to prevent sprawl and maintain standards and best practices
Why architectural observability is essential for reducing complexity and enabling effective governance
How tools like vFunction simplify managing and governing distributed architectures
The power of governance in enforcing standards for resilient, scalable systems
Ready to take control of your microservices? Download the guide today to learn how architecture governance can transform microservices chaos into a resilient, secure microservices environment.
*Source: GARTNER, Microservices Architecture: Have Engineering Organizations Found Success? Jun 18 – Jul 13, 2023. GARTNER is a registered trademark and service mark of Gartner, Inc. and/or its affiliates in the U.S. and internationally and is used herein with permission. All rights reserved.
Growing software complexity is outpacing enterprises’ ability to manage it, resulting in slow engineering velocity, delayed product launches, customer churn, and missed revenue opportunities. As businesses face increasing challenges with diverse architectures, legacy systems, and evolving technologies, conventional methods are proving inadequate.
vFunction’s latest research, based on interviews with CIO/CTOs, software engineering leaders, and practitioners, explores these limitations and highlights emerging tools and solutions designed to help organizations manage complexity and accelerate development.
What you’ll learn:
Key factors driving software complexity, from legacy systems to architecture to skills gaps
The costs of complexity and tech debt with companies dedicating significant budget to remediation
How existing manual approaches to addressing technical debt stifle innovation and scalability
New solutions and approaches to reduce complexity
Real-world insights from industry leaders on reducing complexity and driving innovation
Don’t let complexity slow your progress. Download the full report now to explore emerging strategies that can help your team manage complexity, streamline development, and accelerate innovation.
If your team is like many engineering organizations, you’re constantly looking for ways to increase application release velocity, improve reliability, and address scalability challenges. While teams try to address these issues in many ways, they are primarily chasing symptoms.
In this white paper, you’ll learn:
The root cause of most software application issues
What architectural events are and how they impact your applications
Why understanding your software architecture improves engineering excellence
How to proactively address challenges with application scalability, resiliency, engineering velocity, and cloud readiness
Whether your primary application is a growing monolith or one composed of hundreds of microservices, get the insights you need to enable proactive technical debt management, maintainability, and overall system health. Download Enhancing System Reliability today to begin your journey to more scalable, resilient applications.
*vFunction Research Report of 1,000 engineering leaders and practitioners, “Microservices, Monoliths, and the Battle Against $1.52 Trillion in Technical Debt,” 2024
How Software Architecture Choices Impact Application Scalability, Resiliency, and Engineering Velocity
Rapid software innovation required to support modern business has resulted in increasingly complex architectures and a surge in technical debt, hindering engineering velocity, scalability, and resiliency.
Drawing insights from a comprehensive survey of 1,000 engineering, architecture, and development leaders and practitioners, our latest research report investigates the ramifications of technical debt across various software architectures and explores opportunities to build more robust applications.
What you’ll learn:
Identify the most prevalent pain points in monolithic, hybrid, and microservices architectures
Uncover strategies for budgeting and resource allocation to tackle technical debt, and understand who bears the responsibility
Explore the crucial roles within CI/CD processes for creating resilient applications
Learn about cutting-edge technologies and methodologies that drive the development of high-performing applications
Your architecture significantly influences your applications’ susceptibility to specific pain points. Don’t wait until an outage leaves your team scrambling. Download the research report today to avoid disasters and empower your team to build more scalable, resilient applications.
Technical debt represents a $1.52 trillion* dollar cost to the global economy and is the antithesis of engineering velocity, which is crucial for innovating faster. So how do we take a manageable approach to addressing it?
Read this guide for software architects and engineering leaders that covers:
The root causes of technical debt and how it blocks innovation
How the hidden costs of technical debt are manifested
The symptoms of tech debt — complexity, delayed goals, and degraded customer & employee experience — impact your entire organization
Tips to prioritize tech debt remediation to boost engineering velocity, scalability, and resilience
How vFunction uses AI to help make applications more modular and reduce technical debt
*Mims, C. (2024) The Invisible $1.52 Trillion Problem: Clunky Old Software, Wall Street Journal
Architects are grappling with keeping innovation humming while technical debt and drift continually slow engineering velocity and add the risk of system failure. We can look at at least three highly public incidents that led to billions of dollars worth of losses. Architects have a unique opportunity to add significant value to the business by modernizing applications but only if they have proper observability to build business cases and tackle detrimental technical debt before it spirals into a crisis.
Technical debt can be managed with the right tools that shine a light on it and offer an easier fix and prevention than what architects are used to. The first step is building a business case for resources, where once again, observability into key data is critical. What was once hidden in the shadows, hampering architects, is about to meet its match.
This ebook for software architects and CTOs covers:
Why architecture and architects still matter
Why architectural debt is so dangerous
How most enterprises manage architectural drift (with recent case studies)
Major red flags that signal technical debt issues
The importance of and how to gain observability before modernization efforts begin
The key vFunction solution features that provide observability, business case data, and debt management
In this detailed guide, we dive deep into the intricacies of architectural debt, equipping you with the insights and best practices to help you understand your software architecture better and manage it more effectively. Discover the tradeoffs between monolithic and microservices architectures, and explore real-world cases illustrating both good and bad architectural debt.
Download the latest vFunction and Intellyx guide to:
Understand architectural debt and how it’s different from code quality debt.
Learn the difference between ‘good’ architectural debt, necessary for agile adaptation, and ‘bad’ debt rooted in legacy systems that hinder innovation.
Balance software modernization without overcomplicating the architecture.
Adopt an IT practice called “Managed Evolution” to continuously make progress toward the business value achieved through modernization.
Learn from practical examples of architectural debt and how vFunction’s platform can simplify your journey by analyzing software architecture, identifying domains, and alerting of drift events.
Don’t let architectural drift sink your projects. Application modernization is a continuous journey in the face of organizational headwinds. Equip yourself with the knowledge, tools, and strategies to navigate these ever-changing tides. Download your copy now and chart a course for architectural excellence.
