Lead Solutions Architect (UK)

Responsibilities:

• Team leadership – coach and develop a high-performing team of architects and engineers, allocate work and encourage a culture of continuous improvement.

• Architectural direction – set the technical direction for Azure landing zones and related services, working with colleagues to agree best-practice patterns and governance.

• Decision-making and governance – chair design reviews, take responsibility for architecture decisions and present options analysis to senior internal and customer stakeholders.

• Solution design – design secure, efficient Azure solutions and plan modular landing zone topologies that deliver scalability, resilience and cost optimisation.

• Infrastructure as Code – deploy and manage Azure infrastructure using Infrastructure as Code (IaC) (e.g. Bicep, Terraform).

• Delivery pipelines – direct the implementation of CI/CD pipelines (e.g. GitHub Actions, Azure DevOps, GitLab CI/CD) and promote automated testing and release processes.

• New capabilities – lead the introduction of emerging capabilities (e.g. mobile platforms, geospatial analytics, zero-trust architectures) into legacy and hybrid estates.

• Operational performance – lead ongoing monitoring, capacity planning and cost control across cloud workloads.

• Partner liaison – work with defence partners, third-party suppliers and internal teams to make sure solutions meet programme requirements and security policies.

• Documentation and knowledge sharing – maintain architecture standards, patterns and runbooks to support audit readiness and the onboarding of new staff.

Required Expertise:

• Experience of leading cloud architecture teams on large-scale Azure programmes.

• In-depth knowledge of Azure cloud architecture, infrastructure and engineering, including landing zone design.

• A strong grounding in networking (VPNs, firewalls, routing and switching) and secure-by-design principles.

• Experience of overseeing IaC (Terraform or Bicep) and modern DevOps toolchains.

• Familiarity with container orchestration and microservices (e.g. AKS/Kubernetes, Azure Container Apps, Docker).

• Experience of mobile device management (MDM) platforms and enforcing endpoint policies across an organisation.

• Strong problem-solving skills, a disciplined approach to documentation and the ability to explain complex ideas to technical and non-technical audiences.

• Experience of supporting defence, intelligence or government customers, particularly in secure or classified environments.

Desired Qualifications:

• Azure Certification - AZ-104 

• Azure Certification - AZ-305

• Azure Certification - AZ-500

• Azure Certification - AZ-700

• Azure Certification - AZ-400

• CCNA (or equivalent networking qualification)

Travel: Willingness to travel to customer site in Gloucester 3 days a week.

Security Clearance: Active SC clearance is required at a minimum. Active DV or eligibility and willingness to undergo DV vetting is strongly preferred.

Compensation and Benefits:

●      Competitive salary 

●      Comprehensive health, dental, vision insurance and pension plan

●      Flexible hybrid work environment 

●      Additional benefits like flexible hours, work travel opportunities, competitive vacation time and parental leave  

While meeting all of these criteria would be ideal, we understand that some candidates may meet most, but not all. If you're passionate, curious and ready to "work smart and get things done," we'd love to hear from you.