Senior Enterprise Architect (Borders & Trade) in England

As a Senior Enterprise Architect, you will play a pivotal role in shaping how HMRC delivers technology at enterprise scale. Operating at the intersection of business strategy, policy and technology, you will define and evolve architectural direction that enables secure, scalable and sustainable services across the Borders & Trade estate. Your work will directly influence how HMRC invests in technology, adopts new capabilities, and manages complexity across imports, exports, transit, excise and environmental taxes. By setting clear architectural strategy and standards, you will help ensure technology decisions deliver maximum value for customers, colleagues and the wider UK economy.

Person specification

You will bring a strong professional architecture mindset, informed by recognised enterprise architecture practices and continuous learning. This may include experience with commercial and sourcing considerations, cloud platforms (IaaS, PaaS, SaaS), and working towards or holding relevant professional architecture qualifications. This professional grounding supports effective architectural governance, credible engagement with commercial and policy colleagues, and confident leadership of enterprise scale change.

What You’ll Do

• Own and evolve the enterprise architecture strategy for the Borders & Trade domain, ensuring alignment with HMRC’s wider organisational objectives and policy intent.
• Develop, maintain and govern architectural principles, standards, roadmaps and reference architectures that guide technology investment and solution design.
• Provide enterprise level assurance and decision support, ensuring proposed solutions and investments deliver value, manage risk and align with long term architectural direction.
• Influence policy and set technical direction across the Enterprise Operations estate, shaping how technology supports regulatory, operational and customer outcomes.
• Carry out horizon scanning, identifying emerging technologies, industry trends and sourcing models, and assessing their potential impact and opportunity for HMRC.
• Guide architectural decision making, clearly articulating trade-offs, risks and benefits, and recommending options based on enterprise wide considerations.
• Collaborate with senior stakeholders across business, technology and commercial functions to align architecture with strategic priorities and delivery plans.
• Promote continuous improvement and innovation, helping HMRC reduce complexity and improve resilience, security and scalability across its IT landscape.
• Contribute to the development of architectural capability, supporting colleagues and strengthening enterprise architecture practice across HMRC.

Enterprise Architecture Strategy & Leadership - Proven experience operating as an Enterprise Architect (or equivalent), shaping and leading architecture strategy, roadmaps and direction for enterprise scale platforms or capabilities.

Architectural Principles, Standards & Governance - Strong experience developing and governing architectural principles, policies, standards and reference architectures to guide technology decision making.

Whole Enterprise Thinking & Impact Analysis - Ability to look beyond immediate problems to understand enterprise wide implications, dependencies and opportunities across systems, services and portfolios.

Decision Support & Trade off Analysis - Demonstrable ability to guide complex decision making, explain trade offs, and make evidence based recommendations that balance risk, value and long term sustainability.

Strategic Stakeholder Engagement - Experience influencing and engaging senior business and technology stakeholders, translating complex technical concepts into clear, accessible language.

Horizon Scanning & Innovation - Experience identifying emerging technologies, trends or sourcing approaches and assessing their relevance and impact within a large, complex organisation.