Enterprise Architect

Job Description

Company Description

Hitachi Solutions understand what it takes to digitally transform organizations, harnessing the power of the latest technologies and seamlessly integrating them into businesses. As a global consultancy firm working across the private and public sectors, we specialize in user-friendly business applications based on the Microsoft cloud.

With a team of experienced industry professionals, consultants and technology experts, Hitachi Solutions has a wide range of capabilities including digital transformation, ERP and CRM implementation, change management and data science & analytics. Our highly skilled team help drive improvements to many aspects of your business, creating efficiencies and growth. For more information, visit Hitachi Solutions | Business Transformation Consultancy

Job Description

At Hitachi Solutions Europe we are the leading European Microsoft Gold Partner for Microsoft Azure & Cloud Solutions, Data and AI, Dynamics 365 and Microsoft Power Platform. We deliver complex, large-scale transformation programmes for public sector and regulated industry clients across the UK and Europe.

We are looking for an experienced Enterprise Architect to join our team and provide overarching architectural leadership across major client engagements. You will own the end-to-end technical vision, govern cross-workstream coherence, and ensure that every architectural decision is defensible, traceable, and fit for long-term service evolution.

This is a senior client-facing role. You will operate at programme leadership level, engage with client governance bodies, and work alongside Solution Architects, Technical Leads, and Delivery Managers to translate strategic intent into a coherent, deliverable architecture.

Key Responsibilities

• Architectural Leadership: Own and maintain the end-to-end target architecture across complex, multi-workstream programmes. Ensure coherence across front ends, integration, core processing, finance, and data platform decisions.
• Technical Governance: Serve as the primary technical authority on engagements. Chair architecture design reviews, own cross-cutting design decisions, and ensure all solution options are evaluated against agreed architecture principles and client constraints.
• Integration Architecture: Define and govern integration architecture across enterprise platforms. Ensure all system-to-system communication follows governed API patterns, with end-to-end traceability, event-driven design, and operational observability built in from the start.
• Cross-Workstream: Provide architectural oversight and challenge across parallel delivery tracks, ensuring track-level decisions do not create cross-track conflicts, duplication, or technical debt. Maintain a single coherent architecture across all workstreams without becoming a delivery bottleneck.
• High-Risk Architecture Decisions: Lead architectural decision-making on the highest-risk programme areas, including data migration feasibility, system replacement and coexistence strategies, compliance-critical service design, and transition sequencing.
• Stakeholder and Governance Engagement: Engage with client architecture governance bodies, technical assurance groups, and security review processes. Produce architecture artefacts suitable for formal assessment, regulatory review, and internal governance sign-off.
• Transition and Migration Strategy: Define transition and migration strategies for complex legacy estates, including parallel running, data profiling, cutover sequencing, and coexistence patterns that allow services to continue operating throughout delivery.
• Risk and Assurance: Identify, own, and drive resolution of architectural risks across the programme. Maintain a clear risk and assumption log. Escalate blockers early and propose mitigation options rather than deferring decisions.
• Delivery Enablement: Work closely with Solution Architects, Technical Leads, and Functional Leads to ensure delivery teams have clear architectural guidance. Translate architectural intent into actionable design constraints and patterns that teams can build to confidently.
• Practice Development: Contribute to Hitachi Solutions’ architectural practice, sharing patterns, lessons learned, and reusable assets across engagements, and supporting the development of less experienced architects within the team.

Qualifications

Architecture Expertise

• Proven track record as an Enterprise or Lead Architect on large-scale, complex programmes in government, regulated industry, or financial services, where architectural decisions carry statutory, compliance, or operational risk.
• Deep experience designing event-driven, API-first architectures on Microsoft Azure, including Azure Service Bus, API Management (APIM), Azure Functions, and enterprise integration platforms.
• Experience architecting Microsoft Dynamics 365 programmes (Customer Engagement and/or Finance & Operations), including integration patterns, data migration strategy, and coexistence with legacy ERP systems.
• Strong data architecture skills, including Microsoft Fabric, Azure Synapse, or equivalent modern data platforms. Familiarity with medallion architecture, operational-to-analytical data flow patterns, and data governance.
• Experience designing microservices-based architectures with clear separation of concerns: including calculation engines, orchestration layers, and domain-aligned service boundaries.
• Familiarity with statutory financial processing, HMRC compliance requirements, or equivalent regulatory reporting obligations is highly desirable.

Government and Standards

• Strong working knowledge of the GDS Service Standard, Technology Code of Practice, and the GDS Alpha/Beta service assessment process.
• Experience engaging with government architecture governance frameworks, including Architecture Forums, Technical Assurance Groups, and Security & SOC review processes.
• Familiarity with GOV.UK shared services (One Login, Notify, Pay) and the wider government digital landscape.
• Understanding of NCSC Cloud Security Principles, Secure by Design, Zero Trust architecture, and identity management using Microsoft Entra ID in a government Azure context.
• Leadership and Communication
• Ability to operate at CTO or Director level, articulating architectural decisions, trade-offs, and risks clearly and persuasively to senior non-technical stakeholders.
• Experienced at leading architecture across multiple parallel workstreams with complex interdependencies, maintaining coherence and momentum simultaneously.
• Skilled at producing high-quality architecture artefacts: component diagrams, integration views, transition architectures, Architecture Decision Records (ADRs), and risk registers.
• Strong facilitation skills, able to lead architecture workshops, challenge design decisions constructively, and build consensus across delivery teams and client stakeholders.
• Comfortable operating in ambiguity, able to make pragmatic architectural decisions under time pressure while maintaining long-term architectural integrity.

Qualifications and Experience

• Ideally 12+ years in technology roles, with at least 5+ years operating as an Enterprise or Lead Architect on major programmes.
• Microsoft Azure certifications highly desirable, particularly AZ-305 (Azure Solutions Architect Expert) or equivalent.
• TOGAF or equivalent enterprise architecture framework experience is advantageous.
• Active SC clearance or willingness to undergo SC vetting is required for this role.
• Exceptional written and spoken English, with the ability to produce client-ready documentation and present confidently to senior audiences.

Additional Information

What we offer:

• Competitive salary
• Additional Health Insurance
• Monthly Food Vouchers
• Multisport Card
• 25 days annual vacation
• Volunteering days
• Specialised Training
• Hybrid model (mix of office and home office days based on project assignments)
• Modern Office with excellent access to transport
• Drinks & Fruit Office Supply
• Professional & Friendly work environment
• Company events and Team Building
• Opportunity to grow your career and work with international teams

In applying for a role with Hitachi Solutions Europe Limited and/or its affiliates (“Hitachi”) you consent to Hitachi collecting and storing your personal information (including your name, job title and email address) in relation to this role and any others that may be suitable in the future.  For more information please refer to our Privacy Policy located at http://www.hitachi-solutions.co.uk/privacy-policy/

Beware of scams

Our recruiting team may communicate with candidates via our @hitachisolutions.com domain email address and/or via our SmartRecruiters (Applicant Tracking System) [email protected] domain email address regarding your application and interview requests.

All offers will originate from our @hitachisolutions.com domain email address. If you receive an offer or information from someone purporting to be an employee of Hitachi Solutions from any other domain, it may not be legitimate.