Solution Architect in Stevenage, United Kingdom

Right across infrastructure, there’s a requirement to not only maintain, but also renew and reimagine. Whatever stage you’re at in your career, with us you’ll have an opportunity to grow and develop. Delivering essential infrastructure services for life, while being safety first, and client and customer centric in a friendly, fun and respectful environment where you are encouraged to thrive.

Where you'll be working?

As a Solution Architect, you turn complex business needs, fragmented systems, data flows and integration requirements into clear, deliverable technology solutions. You provide the architectural direction needed to reduce ambiguity, manage risk and help delivery teams build secure, scalable and practical solutions aligned to enterprise standards. Through high-level logical designs across operational and enterprise platforms, including work management, ERP, middleware, BI and data warehousing, you ensure the end-to-end solution is understood, governed and capable of delivering sustainable business value.

You add value by assessing current architecture, identifying risks, dependencies and improvement opportunities, and recommending options that simplify delivery, improve reuse and support better decision-making. You work independently on assigned initiatives, applying agreed architecture standards and escalating complex cross-domain, strategic or policy-related decisions to Solution Architecture Leads, Enterprise Architects or Platform Architects as appropriate.

What you'll be doing?

In this role, you will work closely with business and technology teams to understand requirements and translate them into clear, practical solution architectures. You will ensure that business objectives, technical designs and delivery outcomes remain aligned throughout the project lifecycle.

You will design scalable, secure and cost-effective technology solutions that meet business needs while adhering to enterprise architecture standards, principles and best practices. Your focus will be on creating solutions that are robust, reusable and capable of supporting long-term business growth.

Working as part of the wider architecture community, you will contribute to governance and decision-making processes, providing architectural guidance and presenting solutions for review. You will identify risks, manage dependencies and ensure compliance with established standards and policies.

You will collaborate with Enterprise Architects, Platform Architects and delivery teams to shape future-state architecture, promote reuse of existing capabilities and support successful business change initiatives. Your expertise will help inform strategic technology decisions and continuous improvement activities.

Day to day, you will provide hands-on architectural support to project teams, helping to resolve design challenges, evaluate solution options and guide implementation. Building strong relationships with stakeholders across the business and IT functions, you will ensure architecture recommendations remain practical, trusted and aligned to organisational priorities.

Essential Skills & Experience

• Proven experience in solution architecture, designing secure, scalable and cost-effective solutions across a range of technologies.
• Strong understanding of architecture principles, standards and best practices, including solution, data and integration architecture.
• Experience producing high-level designs, architecture artefacts and technical decision documentation.
• Knowledge of cloud and hybrid environments, including IaaS, PaaS and SaaS, with an understanding of integration, data flows and migration approaches.
• Good understanding of data architecture concepts, security-by-design, resilience and regulatory compliance requirements.
• Strong communication and stakeholder management skills, with the ability to translate complex technical concepts for both technical and non-technical audiences.
• Experience working in Agile, Waterfall and Hybrid delivery environments.
• Strong analytical and problem-solving skills, with the ability to evaluate options and make informed decisions.
• Awareness of emerging technologies, including AI, and how they can support business outcomes.

Desirable Skills & Experience

• Experience with enterprise platforms such as Oracle Fusion, Salesforce and Microsoft Azure.
• Relevant professional certifications in architecture or cloud platforms (e.g. TOGAF, Azure, Salesforce or Oracle).
• Knowledge of modern architecture patterns, including microservices, event-driven architecture and API-first design.
• Familiarity with enterprise architecture frameworks such as TOGAF or Zachman.
• Experience working within infrastructure, utilities, transport, defence or other critical national infrastructure sectors.
• Degree in a technical, IT or business-related discipline, or equivalent practical experience.

What’s in it for you?

We offer a range of benefits designed to support your life in and out of work, some of which include;

• Matched or contributory pension scheme
• Online GP service, 24 hours a day, 365 days a year
• Employee assistance programme
• My Rewards portal, access to 1000’s of retail discounts
• Life assurance
• Cycle to work, salary finance and give as you earn schemes
• Enhanced maternity, paternity leave and adoption leave
• Reward and recognition scheme

In addition, this role offers;

• Private health care and health care cash plan for you
• Discretionary bonus scheme
• 25 days annual leave plus bank holidays
• Recommend a friend – get rewarded for introducing people to us!

About us

We want to be an employer of choice and a great place to work, attracting diverse and talented people, who join us and make a difference. We’re one of the Top 100 UK companies actively supporting and recruiting veterans. Our ENABLE inclusion networks bring together people who have a shared passion, to help create an environment where everyone belongs.

Our values help to shape our culture and how we work with one another. We recruit with these values in mind, to ensure your aspirations, and ways of working, align with ours.

• We’re  responsible  and go further for our people, clients, communities and the planet
• We’re  open and seek new and better ways of exceeding expectations
• We’re  together  and as one team; the whole is greater than the sum of the parts
• We’re  ambitious  and embrace opportunity, to lead essential infrastructure services for life

Whether you’re a trainee, apprentice or graduate, or progressing through your career, our people benefit from industry recognised programmes, training and development.

It’s an exceptional time to be a part of M Group.

Please note: Occasionally, job adverts might be closed before the stated closing date. Do apply as soon as possible to ensure your application is considered.

For certain roles, successful candidates will be subject to 3 rd party background checks as part of the hiring process. Some roles require drug and alcohol testing as part of induction and onboarding.

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