Lead Solution Architect

We're hiring a Lead Solution Architect on behalf of a financial services firm going through major technology transformation cloud migration and heavy investment in AI, including building and deploying AI agents. This is a genuinely hands-on architecture role, where you'll be expected to get into the detail.

The Role

You'll join a small, growing architecture function as the senior technical authority, owning the backlog of architecture work across business units, resourcing and demand planning. Architects are aligned to specific business units and platforms, working closely with IT Security on design assurance.

You'll empower Solution Architects to make and justify technology choices themselves, writing papers that set out the option, the rationale, and how it meets requirements, rather than defaulting everything to procurement.

Key responsibilities:

• Act as senior technical authority, reviewing designs for technical soundness and integration before they reach the review board
• Produce designs and low-level detail sufficient to pass IT Security threat modelling and review
• Contribute to the technical design authority (TDA) process
• Own the cross-business-unit backlog of architecture work, resourcing, and demand planning across the team
• Build out and mature the architecture practice, function, and community of practice
• Support cloud migration and AI/agent-based transformation initiatives
• Present and defend technical decisions clearly to both technical and non-technical stakeholders

What We're Looking For

• Genuinely hands-on background, able to build, configure, and deploy, not just design on paper (e.g. configuring SaaS platforms and integration)
• Strong communication skills - comfortable articulating and defending technical decisions in review forums
• Experience across cloud (Azure preferred), on-premises (VMware), and hybrid environments
• Exposure to enterprise SaaS platforms such as Workday, SAP, or equivalent
• Strong knowledge of solution design, architecture governance, threat modelling, and security-led design review
• Experience with modelling approaches such as ArchiMate or UML
• Commercial awareness - cost-benefit analysis, TCO, FinOps
• Interest or experience in AI/LLM-driven transformation and agent frameworks
• Comfortable operating in an immature, evolving architecture function and helping shape it

This is a hybrid role, requiring 2-3 days onsite in the clients Central London offices.