Architecture assurance guidance & standards management

About the role

Define, maintain and operate enterprise architecture standards, guidance, assurance and governance forums that enable safe, consistent and scalable delivery across D&T, while reducing architectural risk, technical debt and decision ambiguity.

Scope

Enterprise-wide, not domain-specific, operating horizontally across all technology and solution domains. This role does not design or deliver systems.

Core scope areas

• Enterprise architecture standards and reference architectures
• Architecture guidance and "minimum viable architecture" guardrails
• Architecture assurance for programmes, platforms and major investments
• Architecture governance forums and decision processes
• Architecture risk, resilience and technical debt reporting
• Architecture artefacts, documentation and playbooks

Key accountabilities

The Architecture Assurance, Guidance & Standards Management Lead is accountable for:

• Defining and maintaining clear, consumable enterprise architecture standards and reference architectures.
• Operating a consistent architecture assurance model that provides confidence in key initiatives and investments.
• Chairing and running enterprise architecture governance forums, ensuring decisions are high-quality, transparent and actionable.
• Ensuring architecture standards and decisions are applied and followed through, not just agreed.
• Providing independent architectural risk and resilience insight to senior D&T and governance forums.

Key responsibilities

• Enterprise Architecture Standards & Guardrails: Own and maintain enterprise-wide architecture principles, standards and reference architecture artefacts. Ensure standards are practical and easy to apply, proportionate to risk, focused on enablement rather than control. Regularly refresh standards to reflect changes in platforms, operating model and delivery approach.
• Architecture Governance Forums (Chairing & Operation): Chair enterprise architecture governance and assurance forums on behalf of the Technology Domain Architect. Set clear agendas aligned to assurance objectives and decision needs. Ensure the right materials are brought forward for decision, not discussion without outcome. Facilitate focused, fact-based decision-making and challenge where required.
• Forum Preparation & Decision Quality: Work with architects and delivery teams to prepare architecture submissions for forums, ensuring decisions are well-framed options and trade-offs are clear; alignment to standards and principles is explicit; improve the quality and consistency of architectural decision inputs over time.
• Minutes, Actions & Follow‑Through: Capture clear, outcome-led meeting minutes, including decisions taken, conditions or constraints, architecture risks accepted or deferred; track architecture actions arising from forums and ensure accountable owners are assigned; follow up on actions to ensure decisions are implemented, not forgotten, feeding outcomes back into assurance and standards where necessary.
• Architecture Assurance Framework: Define and operate when and how architecture assurance is required across programmes and investments. Apply assurance proportionately, balancing speed vs. risk, autonomy vs. enterprise consistency. Escalate material architecture risks through appropriate governance channels.
• Risk, Resilience & Technical Debt Insight: Aggregate assurance outcomes to provide enterprise-level visibility of systemic architectural risk, recurring deviations from standards, structural resilience and dependency weaknesses. Produce concise, decision-led insights for senior governance forums.
• "Freedom Within Guardrails": Enablement—Translate strategy into minimum viable architectures and guardrails that enable teams to move quickly without repeated escalation. Reduce ambiguity by making "what is allowed" as clear as "what is not".
• Architecture Community & Ways of Working: Act as a central reference point for architecture governance, standards and assurance guidance across D&T. Coach architects on how to engage effectively with governance forums and assurance processes. Drive continuous improvement of architecture ways of working.

What good looks like

Architecture forums are well-run, decision-focused and respected. Papers are higher quality and require less rework. Decisions are documented, traceable and implemented. Fewer surprises late in delivery due to unresolved architectural risk. Standards evolve based on real delivery feedback, not theoretical design.

Qualifications & experience

Essential: Significant experience in enterprise architecture, architecture governance or assurance roles. Proven experience chairing architecture or technical governance forums. Strong written and verbal communication skills, including clear documentation of decisions and actions. Ability to challenge constructively and maintain independence of judgement.

Preferred: Experience operating a central architecture assurance or design authority function. Experience in large, global or regulated environments.

Skills & capabilities

• Enterprise-level architectural judgement
• Strong facilitation and governance leadership
• Structured documentation and action tracking
• Pragmatic, outcome‑focused approach to assurance

Equal Opportunities

Haleon are committed to mobilising our purpose in a way that represents the diverse consumers and communities who rely on our brands every day. It guides us in creating an inclusive culture, where different backgrounds and views are valued and respected – all in support of understanding and best serving the needs of our consumers and unleashing the full potential of our people. It’s important to us that Haleon is a place where all our employees feel they truly belong. During the application process, we may ask you to share some personal information, which is entirely voluntary. This information ensures we meet certain regulatory and reporting obligations and supports the development, refinement, and execution of our inclusion and belonging programmes that are open to all Haleon employees. The personal information you provide will be kept confidential, used only for legitimate business purposes, and will never be used in making any employment decisions, including hiring decisions.