Solution Architect in East Kilbride

On behalf of FCDO, we are looking for a Solution Architect Inside IR35 for a 12 month contract based Hybrid East Kilbride. SC Clearance is an essential requirement for this role, as a minimum you must be willing & eligible to undergo checks. Please note, due to the exceptional requirements of this position (short-term nature of this role and speed at which we require a postholder in situ) preference may be given to candidates who meet all of the essential criteria and hold active SV clearance.

The Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office (FCDO) pursues our national interests and projects the UK as a force for good in the world. We promote the interests of British citizens, safeguard the UK's security, defend our values, reduce poverty, and tackle global challenges with our international partners.

As a Solution Architect, your main responsibilities will be:

• Stakeholder Management: You will have proven ability to lead and influence stakeholders across multiple disciplines, crafting and advocating for long-term technical vision aligned with business strategy. This will include experience of interacting with, and influencing, senior stakeholders and a wide range of people across large teams, departments, suppliers, and customers.
• Communicating & Influencing: You will have exceptional communication skills, adept at translating complex technical concepts for both technical and non-technical audiences. Proven ability to collaborate effectively with cross-functional teams and build strong relationships with vendors.
• Delivery: You will have practical hands-on experience in technical and solution architecture and design including within programmes, projects, or a product-centric organisation, across agile and waterfall methodologies.
• Making Effective Decisions: You will have strong analytical and problem-solving skills, with a demonstrated ability to identify and address technical challenges. You will be passionate about exploring and implementing innovative solutions to meet evolving government needs.
• Technology Expertise: You will have a good understanding of a broad range of industry-standard technologies, both proprietary and open source, across a diverse range of Microsoft and Linux-based deployments, across physical, virtual, and containerised compute.
• Software & Infrastructure Expertise: You will have a good understanding of both software and infrastructure design considerations and be comfortable working with engineers to understand and guide the datacentre environment that applications are deployed into.
• Architecture Leadership: You will have deep experience in working in an architecture function and leading the development of the vision, principles, and strategy for architects for a set of products, projects, and technologies. You will be practised in creating technical standards, blueprints, reference architectures, roadmaps, transition states and target solutions across multiple services.

Please be aware that this role can only be worked within the UK and not Overseas.

Disability Confident: As a member of the Disability Confident Scheme, FCDO guarantees to interview all candidates who have a disability and who meet all the essential criteria for the vacancy. In cases where we have a high volume of candidates who have a disability who meet all the essential criteria, we will interview the best candidates from within that group. This scheme encourages candidates with a disability and/or neurodivergence to apply. In exceptional circumstances, we may also need to apply the desirable criteria in our shortlisting process which may include holding active security clearance.

Armed Forces Covenant/Commitment: FCDO guarantees to interview veterans or spouses/partners of military personnel who meet all the essential criteria for the vacancy. In cases where we have a high volume of ex-military candidates/military spouses or partners, who meet all of the essential criteria, we will interview the best candidates from within that group. In exceptional circumstances, we may also need to apply the desirable criteria in our shortlisting process which may include holding active security clearance.