Principle Architect

Role: Principle Architect
Location: Milton Keynes (Hybrid – Once a Week On-Site)
Salary: £60,000 - £67,000
Network IT are supporting a large, modernising organisation seeking a Group Architect to lead architecture across a broad digital domain. This role is ideal for an experienced Solutions / Domain Architect who enjoys shaping target architectures, guiding engineering teams, and influencing technology direction at scale.
You’ll work across multiple product teams to define target architectures, drive standards, and ensure technology change aligns to strategy. This is a hands‑on leadership role for someone who enjoys solving complex technical problems while supporting and uplifting a wider architecture community.
Role Overview
As a Group Architect, you’ll define and communicate the target architecture for your domain—covering business, application, data, and infrastructure. Working closely with engineering, operations, and product teams, you’ll ensure technology decisions are aligned, well‑governed, and enable fast, secure, and sustainable delivery.
You’ll support architectural governance, contribute to strategic decision‑making, mentor other architects, and champion modern engineering approaches across cloud, integration, DevOps, and event‑driven design.
Key Responsibilities

• Collaborate with engineers, operations, and product teams to shape effective cloud and integration solutions.
• Define and maintain target architecture, reference architectures, standards, and policies.
• Align technology change with organisational strategy and governance.
• Promote continuous architectural conversation and cross‑team alignment.
• Drive architectural decision‑making across build/run/improve activities.
• Stay abreast of emerging tech and industry trends, applying them where valuable.
• Advise senior technical leaders and support the development of the wider architecture profession.
• Enable reuse of trusted data and adoption of approved integration patterns.
• Participate in knowledge‑sharing, showcases, and wider architecture community activity.

Essential Skills & Experience

• Strong experience as a Domain or Solutions Architect, including Azure, AWS, and/or integration technologies.
• Ability to define strategies, standards, and architectures (MACH, event‑driven, cloud).
• Experience migrating on‑premise solutions to Azure with strong cost/performance awareness.
• Understanding of DevOps, CI/CD, and automation‑driven delivery culture.
• Knowledge of SaaS platforms (e.g., SAP, Salesforce) within a mixed architecture landscape.
• Excellent communication skills for varied technical and non‑technical audiences.
• Experience working with third‑party suppliers and implementation partners.
• Background in matrix management and supporting multi‑disciplinary agile teams.
• Awareness of architecture frameworks, patterns, and structured decision‑making.