Head of Architecture Standards, Patterns & Governance

Head of Architecture Standards, Patterns & Governance

London | Hybrid

Up to £155k + Bonus & Excellent Benefits (Felxible)

Lead the Architecture Practice & Domain Centre of Excellence that underpins all change portfolios—front-to-back platform migrations, hybrid-cloud adoption, data-mesh enablement and legacy retirement. Own the meta-model, reference architectures, and policy-as-code controls to industrialise delivery, cut run-costs and satisfy global regulatory obligations.

Core Accountabilities

• Architecture Operating Model – refine and enforce the TOGAF-aligned meta-model, artefact taxonomy and governance cadence across Technology domains.
• Policy-as-Code Automation – embed Open Policy Agent (or equivalent) into CI/CD and cloud pipelines to shift compliance “left”; target ≥90 % automated control coverage.
• Domain Standards & Reusable Components – curate, publish and measure reuse of cloud landing zones, data-platform blueprints, integration patterns and security baselines.
• Architecture Review Authority – chair Enterprise & Solution Design Boards; arbitrate design disputes and report KPI adherence to ELT.
• Practice Leadership – line-manage 5-10 Domain Architects (Cloud, Data, Integration, Workplace, Security) plus a methods/tooling squad; run the global community-of-practice.
• Regulatory & Risk Alignment – assure architectures meet FCA / PRA, GDPR and regional regulations; provide board-level traceability on resilience and data-protection controls.
• Transformation Acceleration – partner with programme directors to retire legacy estates, adopt event-driven platforms, and enable AI/ML workloads through compliant cloud patterns.

Candidate Profile – Must Have

• 15+ yrs enterprise architecture in global, regulated FS or equivalent complexity.
• Demonstrable ownership of an EA Operating Model and governance framework at enterprise scale (>5,000 users, multi-region).
• Deep hands-on expertise in two or more domains: hybrid-cloud, data platforms, integration, workplace, security.
• Proven deployment of policy-driven automation (OPA, Sentinel, Kyverno or similar) integrated with Terraform/Ansible IaC.
• Track record leading distributed architect teams / CoEs and motivating senior practitioners.
• Executive-level stakeholder management; comfortable defending architecture ROI to CIO/CTO and board committees.
• Certifications: TOGAF (or equivalent) and cloud (Azure highly favoured; AWS/GCP advantageous).

Desirable Extras

• Core-banking or investment-platform modernisation experience (Aladdin, CRIMS, SimCorp, State Street Alpha).
• Familiarity with BIAN, BCF or other capability frameworks.
• Knowledge-graph / AI-assisted modelling exposure.
• MBA or comparable commercial qualification.