Principal Consultant_ Azure Platform in London

Role Overview

We are seeking a Senior Azure Platform Consultant to own and govern the enterprise Azure platform, spanning platform design, service provisioning, automation, operations, FinOps led cost governance, CI/CD enablement, performance, security assurance, and regulatory compliance. This role defines how Azure is designed, consumed, secured, and operated at scale, acting as the central platform authority while coordinating with Cloud Infrastructure (CIS), Network, Security, and Data Platform architects. The focus is on delivering a secure, performant, cost transparent, and compliant Azure platform for high scale and regulated digital environments.

Key Responsibilities

• Azure Platform Architecture & Governance
  • Own the end to end Azure platform architecture, including landing zones, subscription models, shared services, connectivity, and PaaS foundations.
  • Define and enforce enterprise standards for subscriptions, resource hierarchies, tagging, naming, RBAC, networking, and Azure Policy.
  • Act as design authority for platform level decisions, aligned with the Azure Well Architected Framework.
• Service Provisioning & Automation
  • Define standardized, self service Azure platform services for application and data teams.
  • Lead Infrastructure as Code and platform automation using Terraform, Bicep, or ARM, with reusable blueprints and reference implementations.
  • Ensure all platform services are secure by design, zero trust aligned, and consistently deployed across environments.
• CI/CD & DevSecOps Engineering
  • Define and govern CI/CD standards and reference pipelines for platform and infrastructure deployments using Azure DevOps and/or GitHub Actions.
  • Embed DevSecOps practices into platform pipelines, including policy as code, secrets management, security scanning, and automated compliance checks.
  • Enable safe and repeatable deployment patterns (e.g., blue/green, rolling upgrades) for shared platform components.
  • Partner with engineering teams to ensure CI/CD pipelines align with platform guardrails, security controls, and cost governance.
• FinOps, Cost Monitoring & Optimization
  • Own the Azure FinOps strategy, embedding cost management into platform architecture, service design, and delivery processes.
  • Define and enforce mandatory tagging, cost allocation (showback/chargeback), budgets, alerts, and forecasting models.
  • Establish cost monitoring and usage transparency dashboards for platform, product, and delivery teams.
  • Drive architectural and operational decisions that optimise cost to performance, scalability, and resilience.
  • Act as the primary interface between platform, operations, and finance stakeholders on cloud cost accountability.
• Performance Engineering & Troubleshooting
  • Define platform level performance and scalability guardrails for compute, storage, networking, and PaaS services.
  • Lead investigation of performance bottlenecks, capacity constraints, and scaling limits at the platform layer.
  • Support complex root cause analysis in collaboration with application, data, and infrastructure teams.
  • Ensure proactive monitoring, telemetry, and alerting are embedded into the platform by default.
• Security Assurance & Regulatory Compliance (UK)
  • Embed security by design and zero trust principles across all platform components.
  • Support and lead security audits, assurance reviews, penetration testing, and vulnerability assessments.
  • Ensure platform alignment with UK regulated industry requirements, including NCSC Cloud Security Principles, Cyber Essentials (CE) and Cyber Essentials Plus (CE+), and UK GDPR, covering data protection, access control, auditability, and data residency.
  • Ensure the platform is audit ready by design, with clear evidence, logging, and policy as code controls.
• Cross Architecture Leadership
  • Coordinate closely with CIS/Infrastructure, Security, Network, and Data Platform architects to ensure aligned designs and shared guardrails.
  • Lead architecture reviews, governance forums, and Azure platform roadmap discussions.
  • Mentor senior engineers and architects, raising overall cloud and platform maturity.

Required Experience & Skills

• Strong working experience in infrastructure/cloud engineering, with proven experience owning or leading Azure platforms at enterprise scale.
• Deep expertise in Azure landing zones, networking, Entra ID, security, monitoring, and PaaS services.
• Strong experience in CI/CD pipeline design and DevSecOps enablement.
• Demonstrated experience in performance tuning, troubleshooting, and capacity planning.
• Hands on experience with IaC, automation, and policy driven governance.
• Proven experience supporting security audits, penetration testing, and compliance assessments.
• Practical experience with NCSC guidance, Cyber Essentials / CE+, and UK GDPR.
• Strong stakeholder management and communication skills.

Preferred Qualifications & Experience

• Azure certifications (AZ 305, AZ 400, AZ 700; FinOps Foundation preferred).
• Experience in regulated or public sector environments.
• Experience supporting high usage, mission critical digital applications.
• Cross cloud integration experience, particularly Azure with Oracle Cloud Infrastructure (OCI), including networking, identity, and data integration.
• Exposure to data platforms (Microsoft Fabric, Synapse, Databricks) and their performance and cost models.

Personal Attributes

• High analytical skills
• A high degree of initiative and flexibility
• High customer orientation
• High quality awareness
• Excellent verbal and written communication skills