Principal Enterprise Architect (contract)

Aker Systems was founded in 2017 by a team of experienced technology professionals who recognised an opportunity to provide highly secure enterprise data platforms to large organisations. We build and operate ground-breaking, ultra-secure, high performance, cloud-based data infrastructure for the enterprise. Our proprietary technology solutions drive performance and reduce costs while helping our clients to improve the management and sharing of data across their organisations.

In 2024, Aker Systems won the Breakthrough Culture Awards highlighting growth companies putting culture first. In 2020 Aker Systems was recognised as a ‘One to Watch’ on the Sunday Times Tech Track. The Company was also recognised at the Thames Valley Tech Awards 2020; winning the Thames Valley Tech Company of the year, the Emerging Tech Company and High Growth Tech Business categories. We encourage people of all different backgrounds and identities to apply. We are committed to maintaining an inclusive, and supportive place for you to do your very best work.

As Principal Enterprise Architect – Public Sector, you will be passionate about digital, data and technology-led transformation, unlocking innovation for our clients, and providing leadership throughout the client engagements. The applicant must possess recent working knowledge and experience of Public Sector (Central Government) and understands their governance and security processes, preferably across multiple government departments. This is a 6-month contract role with a view to becoming permanent. UK Government Security Check (SC) and NPPV3 clearance is required for this role. Due to the nature of the projects, British citizenship is required. Location: Hybrid – Remote with weekly on-site presence within the M25.

This is primarily a client strategy, management, and growth role, expected to be 90% or more of the time across one or more client assignments. You will be part of the client leadership team as the technical lead for assigned projects/services, supporting the Aker Client Programme Director, Aker Client Account Director and the Aker and client delivery teams to ensure we deliver against all client deliverables and payment milestones. This is a senior client-facing role supporting a major re-procurement and insourcing programme for a national public sector capability.

The Enterprise Architect will be responsible for leading the discovery, mapping and planning of a complex service and technical landscape currently operated by a single incumbent supplier - strategically transitioning to a disaggregated sourcing approach (client and supplier). The role requires broad enterprise architecture experience in a public sector client and multi-supplier environment, and the ability to lead a multi-disciplinary team across infrastructure, application, data, and security domains. The successful candidate will work within a blended delivery environment comprising customer stakeholders, incumbent suppliers, and commercial partners. They will provide strategic input into procurement structuring, supplier evaluation, and technical assurance, ensuring alignment with programme objectives and service continuity.

Aker is a fast-growing business, so for any remaining % of time when not on client work, it is contributing to the future success of Aker by helping develop capabilities and supporting the other functions such as Sales and Technology and always looking to help grow existing accounts.

• Lead the strategic technical sourcing aspects of a complex re-procurement and insourcing programme for a public sector organisation.
• Conduct deep discovery and mapping of incumbent supplier services, platforms, and technology stack.
• Analyse how services fit within the overall scope of the contract, including legacy and transformation elements.
• Lead the development of high-quality artefacts including service maps, capability matrices, and evaluation frameworks.
• Provide architectural input into procurement documentation (PQQ, RFI, RFP), including advising on how the procurement could be structured or carved up.
• Support the creation of supplier briefing packs, evaluation rubrics, and scoring models.
• Collaborate with commercial, legal, and operational stakeholders to ensure procurement and insourcing strategy.
• Lead and mentor a team of architects (security, infrastructure, integration, application) and systems analysts.
• Operate effectively within a blended delivery team, which includes customer stakeholders, incumbent suppliers, and commercial support.
• Support stakeholder workshops, onboarding plans, and capability building across the programme.

• Advise on how services and capabilities can be logically grouped or modularised for tendering, identifying architectural boundaries, dependencies, and integration points that inform how the procurement could be shaped to optimise delivery, competition, strategic alignment whilst ensuring service stability.
• Embed architectural principles and solution design requirements into documentation across all procurement stages (PQQ, RFI, RFP) and insourcing transition preparation.
• Contribute to the creation of supplier evaluation frameworks, including technical scoring models and compliance matrices, innovation and interoperability assessments, risk and assurance indicators, and evaluation rubrics that reflect architectural priorities and programme goals.
• Capture and analyse the incumbent supplier’s technology stack, service delivery model, and operational dependencies.
• Support solution option analysis and provide architectural recommendations that influence procurement decisions.

• Demonstrable experience as a Principal/Lead Enterprise Architect in large-scale public sector programmes.
• Experience with complex operational and data systems and capabilities, including understanding of how these services are delivered and integrated.
• Experience across diverse network and hosting infrastructure models and ecosystems, including data centres, public cloud (AWS, Azure, etc) and WAN.
• Strong enterprise architecture background, including sensitive data environments, with ability to lead across infrastructure, application, data, and security domains.
• Experience working across multiple suppliers and software vendors (ISVs).
• Ability to understand and map complex technology estates operated by incumbent suppliers and map to a target disaggregated service model.
• Experience of providing technical support for large public sector procurement exercises.
• Experience working in blended/rainbow teams and building effective working relationships with delivery team members and customers.
• Ability to clearly communicate complex technology solutions and service models to technical and non-technical audiences.
• Ability to operate without supervision as the technical lead, demonstrating experience of leading multi-disciplinary architecture teams and mentoring junior colleagues.
• Understanding of secure design principles and working in high-assurance environments.

• Experience designing event-driven and asynchronous messaging architectures.
• Knowledge of modern data platforms and analytics platforms.
• Understanding of NCSC Cloud Security Principles and their practical implementation.
• Experience applying emerging technologies to solve complex enterprise problems.
• Familiarity with cloud orchestration tools and infrastructure automation approaches.
• Experience supporting public sector assessments and supplier transition planning.

At Aker we work as a team; we are collaborative, hardworking, open, and delivery obsessed. There is no blame culture here: try things, and take responsibility for the outcomes. You are always part of the wider Aker. We help our colleagues and take pride in successfully achieving difficult tasks. We run towards problems and help to solve them. Communicate always, do so accurately and in a timely fashion.

In return, we offer a competitive salary, 25 days holiday plus bank holidays, company paid medical insurance and life assurance, pension scheme, annual training allowance, wellbeing allowance, virtual GP, Employee Assistance plan and more.

Aker Systems fosters a diverse environment that encourages openness in its communications and is committed to providing equal employment opportunity for all people regardless of race, religion, gender or sexual orientation, age, marital status, national origin, citizenship status, disability, veteran status or other personal characteristics. We embrace differences of opinion and diversity because they help challenge us and find new groundbreaking technical solutions.