Lead Solutions Architect

Salary: £53,871 – £95,000  + 25 days hols + 8 bank holidays + employer pension contributions up to 10% of salary (BAND3A)

Wider benefits include discretionary bonus, private health care, life assurance, enhanced maternity and adoption packages (note: some are non-contractual).

Location: Bradford or Leeds and hybrid work arrangements

Water is the lifeblood of Yorkshire. 5 million customers use it every day, to make a round of brews, clean a mucky pup or get the washing on. 140,000 businesses rely on it to make steel, style hair or brew pints. And behind every river, reservoir and coastline looked after, every brew made, and every business supplied is Yorkshire Water.

At Yorkshire Water we believe technology holds the key to making the most of this precious resource, and taking care of it, now and in the future. We have a five-year plan that will see us investing heavily in our Technology. Enabling us as a department to focus on our capabilities, increase our delivery and responsiveness for our customers and develop skilled technical and data experts.

As the Lead Solutions Architect you will:

• Undertake Lead Architect role on significant programmes of work providing clear leadership and direction. Assemble team of architects to undertake work within their respective domains e.g. Applications, Technology, Infrastructure and provide overall assurance of the work.  
• Provide key linkage into Enterprise Architecture ensuring departments are aligned on strategy and driving towards the same goal.   
• Take a proactive approach towards assessment of external technology trends ensuring that implications on Yorkshire Water’s business/technology strategy are fully understood.  
• Own strategic relationships within the business ensuring their needs are understood and, where relevant, translated into viable architectures.  
• Ensure architecture strikes the right balance between optimal and achievable, delivering both benefit and value in equal measure.  
• Develop relationships with 3rd parties for burst capability, quality assurance and market research purposes.   
• Form trusted relationships with delivery teams ensuring development is carried out in alignment with as-stated architecture. Ensure governance process is in place to manage quality stage gates. 

You will also have the following management duties:

• Form the shape and membership of Solutions Architect team at Yorkshire Water with accountability for managing a team of Solution Architects covering one of, Applications, Security and Infrastructure.  
• Drive the vision and roadmap for Solutions Architecture, ensuring the operating model is fit for purpose.  
• Acquire staff for the department, directly recruiting Architects based on assessments of gaps and succession planning.  
• Identify and support the personal development needs of all direct reports, providing continuous leadership and coaching. 
• Embed architectural “best practice” within the team to establish consistent governance through structured methodology (e.g. TOGAF) to establish architectural artefacts, capability models, strategy maps, etc.    

Your team will have the responsibility of: 

• Documenting historical architecture to provide an accurate as-is representation of Yorkshire Water’s systems landscape. 
• Identification of “technical debt”, duplication, opportunity and redundancy within the current systems landscape.  
• Documenting Yorkshire Water’s to-be systems landscape diagram based on outputs from Enterprise Architecture and the AMP Business Plan.  
• Responding to ad-hoc requests for architecture work, providing expert-level advice and producing artefacts that represent options available to the business.  
• Delivery of “strategy maps” to demonstrate future direction for each licensed technology. Alignment of IT solution strategy with business strategy through enduring relationships. 
• Handing over architecture to development teams ensuring that delivery conforms to specifications and adheres to agreed quality gates.  
• Providing IT governance across BSG at the solution-level. 

What skills are we looking for:

• Leading large-scale architecture teams to achieve a common goal. 

• Assembling teams to address specific architectural problems. 
• Definition of methodologies to identify and mitigate “technical debt”. 
• Undertaking complex architectural challenges working both at an individual and team level. 
• Excellent communication skills with the ability to influence at the highest levels in organisations.  
• Real-life experience of architectural methodologies with ability to identify what is relevant for each given scenario.   
• Ability to both form (recruit) and establish an architectural function from the ground up.  
• Production of high quality, visually engaging architecture work that is simple to understand.  

How we go about doing our job really matters to us. We all care about what we do, so whatever we’re working on we own it and make sure it gets done. We don’t just do this on our own as we know that we’re better together – whether that’s with our colleagues, customers, communities or stakeholders we use the power of people to make amazing things happen. And we’re not afraid to try new things, challenge ourselves and others – we’re always learning as that’s how we’ll improve.

We’re straight talking, respectful and we get things done with care and compassion, we value, understand and embrace difference. We have heart.

Although you will have a permanent friendly office to inspire collaborative thinking, and there may be occasions when there is a business need to attend the office we do offer flexible hybrid working arrangements. We appreciate that we all live busy lives and crave now more than ever a good work/life balance, so together we can discuss what this might look like for you as an individual. After all we know we are all good on our own but together there’s no stopping us! 

If you feel this opportunity is suitable and you match the skills required, then please apply online by uploading your latest CV and completing the application process.