Lead Solution Architect

About the role

Join a mission‑driven team building secure, resilient platforms that protect the United Kingdom's financial system. The Bank of England, in partnership with Inspire People, is looking for a Lead Solution Architect with deep Azure expertise to shape the future of technology at the nation's central bank.

Key responsibilities

• Develop technology strategies, roadmaps and high‑level architectural artefacts (HLDs, blueprints, target states) for enterprise and regulatory platforms.
• Lead architectural governance, present at design forums and ensure alignment with Bank‑wide standards.
• Design secure data architectures across Azure services, covering ingestion, validation, modelling and metadata.
• Collaborate with Technology, Data, Policy and Delivery stakeholders to influence decisions and provide thought leadership.
• Support procurement, vendor assessments and define technical requirements for key programmes.

Required profile

• Proven experience creating enterprise architecture artefacts and roadmaps.
• Strong ability to drive architectural governance and influence senior stakeholders.
• Background in regulated environments or large‑scale financial services architecture is desirable.
• Familiarity with EA frameworks such as TOGAF, SAFe or Zachman.
• Experience with operational resilience, service continuity or hybrid architecture patterns.

Required skills

• Azure – ADLS, Databricks, App Services, Purview, identity and integration patterns.
• Advanced data‑collection and modelling, including XBRL and XML standards.
• Design of cloud‑native platforms, high‑volume ingestion pipelines and workflow orchestration.
• Enterprise Architecture frameworks: TOGAF, SAFe, Zachman.

What we offer

• 21‑month fixed‑term contract based in Leeds.
• Base salary up to £81,360 per year plus an 8% cash benefits allowance.
• 10‑25% discretionary annual bonus.
• Non‑contributory pension scheme.
• Opportunity to work on high‑impact projects that safeguard the nation’s financial stability.