Job Description:

Solutions Architect - On Prem Design

2 Positions Available

7 month contracts

£96.36 per hour (Inside IR35)

2-3 Days a week - Preston

We are seeking a highly experienced architect to join a team to design and implement a complex on-premises solution within a defence environment. The ideal candidate would have experience delivering solutions involving virtualised environments spanning multiple countries, virtual desktop solutions, and enterprise collaboration applications from Microsoft and others.

Typical duties include :

• Architect & Design: Work within a team on the technical design and architecture of on-premises hosted VMWare-based platforms tailored for defence applications.
• Consultancy & Advisory: provide input to the lead architect on approaches for design and implementation of core elements of the solution, owning specific areas to create designs for those areas within a team of architects
• Implementation & Migration: Experience of delivering technical solutions within secure data centres including technologies such as VMWare Cloud Foundation, Microsoft enterprise collaboration applications, and virtual desktop solutions (including support for engineering tools e.g. CAD, PLM)
• Security & Compliance: Experience of working with a team following a secure-by-design methodology.
• Performance Optimization: Troubleshoot and enhance system efficiency.

Stakeholder Collaboration: Work closely with contractors, government agencies, and IT teams to align solutions with mission-critical objectives.

Knowledge:

Enterprise Architecture Knowledge: Understanding of how systems fit into a wider enterprise environment, and how to design solutions to deliver within a larger enterprise. Ability to work directly with an enterprise architecture team to reflect solution architecture into wider enterprise architecture and vice versa.

Along with over 5 years of relevant experience, we are looking for a candidate with the following set of technical and soft skills, as both are essential to perform in this role.

Technical Skills :

• Extensive Expertise With On-Premises Solutions: Proven experience in data centre design (compute, storage, networking), WANs, VMWare, Microsoft enterprise collaboration applications (on-premises versions); design, build and management of virtual desktop infrastructure solutions, including to support engineering applications such as PLM, CAD tools.
• Defence Sector Experience: Strong understanding of security protocols, working at different security classifications, and supplier assurance.
• Leadership & Strategy: Able to set direction for wider areas of the platform, and work with a product owner to define a roadmap and approach. Ability to direct the work of other architects to produce high quality work products, and fit designs into a wider context.
• Problem-Solving: Strong analytical and troubleshooting skills.
• Communication: Excellent stakeholder management and presentation skills. Ability to clearly communicate approach and challenges to, as well as eliciting high quality feedback from, an international set of industry and government stakeholders.

Soft Skills:

Communication:

• Ability to clearly explain technical concepts to both technical and non-technical stakeholders.
• Strong written and verbal communication skills.
• Experience creating and maintaining technical documentation.
• Collaboration & Relationship Management:
• Proven track record of cross-functional collaboration with product, engineering, security, compliance, and business teams.
• Strong interpersonal skills and able to build trust and manage stakeholder expectations.
• Able to adapt to diverse working styles and team dynamics.
• Ability to work as part of a distributed international team.
• Analytical Thinking & Problem-Solving:
• Strong analytical skills for troubleshooting complex data flow and infrastructure issues.
• Ability to juggle multiple priorities and adapt to dynamic workloads.
• Detail-oriented with a commitment to high-quality delivery.