Head of Application Solutions Guild in London

About AXA: AXA is a global leader in insurance and financial services, dedicated to helping customers protect what matters most to them. As the sixth-largest insurance company in the world, we provide a wide range of services, including health, car, home, and business insurance. We support millions of customers worldwide, helping them navigate life's uncertainties with confidence.

Job overview: As Head of Application Solutions Guild, you'll lead the strategy and execution for application solutions across AXA UKI. You’ll own the standards, patterns, and delivery approaches for core business applications, oversee modernisation initiatives, and partner with product, engineering, and enterprise architecture to ensure cross-functional alignment and maximum business value. You’ll also build and mentor a community of solution architects and technical leads to raise capability and consistency across domains.

Key responsibilities:

• Define and evolve the application engineering, design standards, and delivery patterns for core business applications.
• Guide solution design across change programmes and product teams to ensure technical alignment and business value.
• Own the modernisation roadmap for legacy applications, promoting re‑platforming, integration, or retirement where appropriate.
• Ensure applications are secure, scalable, and support interoperability across platforms and services.
• Collaborate with engineering, product, and enterprise architecture to ensure application decisions align with AXA’s broader technology strategy.
• Provide oversight for application lifecycle management, from selection and configuration through to support and optimisation.
• Drive continuous improvement in delivery quality, technical debt reduction, and performance management across the application portfolio.
• Lead and develop a team of solution architects and technical leads, fostering collaboration and capability‑building across domains.

Work arrangements:

At AXA we work smart, empowering our people to balance their time between home and the office in a way that works best for them, their team and our customers. You'll work at least two days a week (40%) away from home, moving to three days a week (60%) in the future. Away from home means attending the office, visiting clients or attending industry events.

Your skills & experience:

• Extensive experience in application engineering, solution design, or technical leadership across complex enterprise environments.
• Deep experience in designing and integrating enterprise‑scale applications across multiple business domains.
• Strong understanding of modern application architectures including APIs, microservices, event‑driven design, and cloud‑native patterns.
• Experience working across packaged solutions (e.g., ERP, CRM, policy admin systems) and custom‑built applications.
• Skilled in managing technical risk, vendor solutions, and delivery trade‑offs.
• Knowledge of secure application development, data privacy, and compliance best practices.
• Familiar with CI/CD pipelines, DevOps practices, and application monitoring tools.
• Excellent stakeholder engagement skills, with the ability to align technical delivery to business outcomes.

As a precondition of employment for this role, you must be eligible and authorised to work in the United Kingdom. We’re proud to be an Equal Opportunities Employer and don’t discriminate against employees or potential employees based on protected characteristics. If you have a long‑term condition or disability and require adjustments during the application or interview process, we’re proud to offer access to the AXA Accessibility Concierge.