Solution Architecture Lead in Royal Leamington Spa

About us

At National Grid, our commitment to a cleaner, greener energy future is powered by the dedication and ingenuity of our people. Join our team as a Solution Architecture Lead and be a part of something bigger—where your unique skills and passions can make a real difference. Together, we are superpowered. National Grid is hiring a Solution Architecture Lead on a permanent basis. This position is based in Warwick. This role operates under a hybrid working model.

About the role

As Solution Architecture Lead, you'll set the architectural method and standard rather than producing solution designs itself. You'll orchestrate the Product Line Architects so that costed design options and solution architectures are produced to a consistent quality inside each line of business, and be the accountable owner of design assurance, the architecture runway, and a documented enterprise solution architecture to which every Product Line Architect contributes.

What you'll do

• Design authority and assurance
  • Own the design assurance process: define which solutions require architecture review, the criteria they are assessed against, and chair the design review forum.
  • Provide a written architecture assurance position on every major investment ahead of sanction, confirming the design work has been done to standard and stating the design risks carried and any conditions of approval.
  • Own the architecture decision record and exception process, ensuring Product Line Architects record decisions as they are taken and that every exception carries a named owner, a rationale and a remediation date.
• Patterns, standards and non-functional requirements
  • Own and publish the architecture pattern library and the non-functional requirement set covering performance, availability, security, recoverability and sustainability.
  • Assure traceability from the Product Line Architects' solution designs to enterprise architecture standards and strategic intent, and arbitrate where product need and standard conflict.
• Enterprise solution architecture and design options
  • Define the method, template and quality bar for costed option assessments and solution outlines, and assure that the Product Line Architects produce them so decision-makers choose on evidence rather than advocacy.
  • Lead a design personally only by exception — where it spans several lines of business, or where a line is temporarily without an architect.
  • Own the enterprise solution architecture — the documented current state, target state and the roadmap that moves the estate towards it — assembled from the contributions of the Product Line Architects rather than written alone.
  • Define what each Product Line Architect contributes to the enterprise solution architecture — the views, models and records their line of business owns — and the cadence on which they are updated.
• Architecture runway and design risk
  • Own the architecture runway across the lines of business, ensuring each Product Line Architect identifies the enabling work in their line and that it is funded and delivered ahead of the demand it supports.
  • Report runway health each Programme Increment.
  • Consolidate and challenge the design risk position across the lines of business, and report it to the Head of Product.
• Integration architecture
  • Own the integration architecture standard covering APIs, events, messaging and data flows, and assure that solutions designed in the lines of business, and those delivered by vendors and system integrators, comply with it.
  • Work with Cyber Security to ensure security and privacy requirements are designed in rather than retrofitted.
• Leadership and collaboration
  • Line manage the solution and domain architect team, setting objectives, managing performance and developing capability.
  • Orchestrate the Product Line Architects: set the architectural practice expected inside each line of business, agree their architectural priorities with the Product Line Directors, and hold the community to a consistent standard of design quality and documentation.
  • Chair the architecture community forum where Product Line Architects bring design decisions, exceptions and their enterprise architecture contributions for peer review.
  • Own the architecture career pathway and hiring standard, and build domain and integration architecture capability across the Product Line Architect community.

About you

• Extensive experience of designing and governing Azure-based cloud-native applications, including microservices, event-driven architectures and serverless workloads.
• Strong understanding of event streaming, messaging, observability, logging, metrics and distributed tracing.
• Experience of leading architecture for custom software development using modern engineering practices such as DevOps, CI/CD and infrastructure as code.
• Proven track record of establishing design assurance, architecture patterns and non-functional standards at scale.
• Experience of maintaining architecture decision records, exception processes and traceability to enterprise standards.
• Strong integration architecture background across APIs, data flows and third-party and vendor-delivered solutions.
• Understanding of operational technology contexts, real-time monitoring systems, telemetry integrations and network operations processes.
• Experience of strategic, investment and product planning, ensuring alignment with business strategy and priorities.
• Proven ability to get architectural work delivered through architects who do not report to them, including setting the quality bar for costed design options and holding others to it.
• Ability to successfully operate at a senior manager level, forming strong relationships and engagement as needed across all levels of the Business Entity.
• Experience of working within a heavily matrixed organisation, with the ability to drive for results.
• Good leadership, relationship, communication and presentation skills combined with a strong track record of delivery.

What you'll get

• Competitive Salary, based on capability and experience.
• Bonus of up to 30% based on personal and company performance.
• Additional benefits: A competitive contributory pension scheme where we will double match your contribution to a maximum company contribution of 12%.
• Flexible benefits such as a cycle scheme, share incentive plan, technology schemes.
• Access to apps such as digital GP service for round the clock access to GP video consultations and NHS repeat prescriptions, wellbeing app to support your health and fitness.
• Access to Work + Family Space, providing support and resources for work and family life, including paid emergency childcare and eldercare.

More Information

The closing date for this vacancy is 13th November. However, we encourage candidates to submit their applications as early as possible and not to wait until the published closing date. National Grid's recruitment periods can and may vary. We reserve the right to remove this advert or close it to further applications at any point during the recruitment process.

We value diversity and are committed to creating an inclusive workplace for all. We welcome applications from all suitably qualified candidates – we make appointments purely on merit, assessed against objective selection criteria. We support flexible working and will make reasonable adjustments throughout the recruitment process should you have any physical or mental impairment which may affect your ability to participate in the process. Please note that in most cases, National Grid is unable to offer sponsorship for employment under the UK points-based immigration system. As such, applicants must have the legal right to work in the UK without requiring sponsorship now or in the future under the UK points-based immigration system. However, in exceptional circumstances where there is a clear and demonstrable need for specialist skills that cannot be sourced from the local labour market, National Grid may consider offering sponsorship.