Sanderson
Enterprise Architect
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Enterprise Architect — Banking Transformation, Cloud & AI
Location
Central London - 4 Days p/w Onsite (Mandatory)
Contract type, rate and IR35 status
up to £700 Outside IR35
About the Role
Our client is a UK regulated bank that specialises in cross-border payments and foreign exchange into emerging and frontier markets, working with banks, financial institutions, fintechs, governments and international development organisations. It handles currencies and corridors that most global banks won't touch.
The Programme
The bank is rebuilding its technology estate rather than patching it. The programme spans payments, FX, data, cloud and AI, and covers a new core banking ledger, a payments engine and an FX engine, alongside existing platforms that will carry over. It will redefine both the technology landscape and the future operating model.
The Role
The bank is looking for an Enterprise Architect to own the technology strategy and target architecture behind that transformation.
This is not an architecture role run from the sidelines. The bank wants someone hands-on enough to work directly with the engineering and transformation teams, willing to challenge established thinking, and able to translate strategy into delivered outcomes. There is a genuine opportunity to shape the direction of the bank rather than document decisions made elsewhere.
A significant part of the role is defining where emerging technology — AI, agentic architectures, intelligent orchestration and automation — realistically fits into a regulated bank, and making sure any adoption stands up to governance and regulatory scrutiny.
Key Responsibilities
Enterprise Architecture Leadership
- Define and own the bank's end-to-end enterprise architecture strategy and roadmap
- Establish architectural principles, standards and target-state architectures across business and technology domains
- Align technology investment with strategic business objectives and regulatory requirements
- Drive architectural governance while keeping delivery moving
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Banking Transformation
- Lead architecture across the major transformation programmes covering core banking, payments, FX, customer platforms, data and cloud
- Develop the strategy for modernising a complex legacy estate
- Create pragmatic transition architectures that accelerate transformation while managing operational risk
- Partner with transformation and delivery teams so the architectural vision is actually executed
Cloud and Modern Architecture
- Design and promote cloud-native, scalable, resilient and secure solutions on AWS
- Champion event-driven, distributed and microservices-based architecture
- Drive adoption of modern engineering practice including platform engineering, DevSecOps, API-first design and automation
- Ensure architectural decisions support resilience, performance, operational efficiency and scalability
AI and Future Banking
- Shape the bank's strategy for AI-enabled architecture and intelligent automation
- Evaluate emerging technologies including agentic AI architectures, intelligent workflow orchestration, autonomous operations and decision intelligence
- Work with business and technology stakeholders to identify AI use cases that are practical and can scale
- Ensure AI adoption aligns with governance, security, regulatory and risk requirements
Stakeholder Engagement
- Build relationships across senior business, technology and executive leadership
- Influence decision-making across a complex stakeholder landscape
- Present architectural strategy and transformation roadmaps at executive and board-level forums
- Act as a trusted advisor on technology strategy, architecture and innovation
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Essential Experience
- AWS — designing and delivering cloud-native platforms at enterprise scale, including migration approach and the security and resilience patterns that go with it
- Proven experience leading an enterprise architecture function within banking or financial services
- Track record of delivering large-scale technology transformation programmes
- Deep domain expertise in at least one of: banking platforms, payments, FX and treasury systems, or high-volume transaction processing
- Strong understanding of both legacy and modern technology estates
- Significant experience designing event-driven architectures, distributed systems, cloud-native solutions and API ecosystems
- Experience working within a highly regulated environment
- A track record of influencing and partnering with executive-level stakeholders
Desirable Experience
- Multi-cloud environments (Azure, GCP)
- Knowledge of AI, generative AI, agentic AI frameworks and intelligent automation
- Experience defining target operating models and business capability architectures
- Familiarity with data mesh, real-time analytics and enterprise data platforms
- Understanding of open banking and embedded finance
Skills and Competencies
- Strategic thinking with a strong execution focus
- Exceptional stakeholder management and influencing skills
- Strong leadership presence and communication
- Commercial and business acumen
- Ability to work through ambiguity and drive organisational change
- Deep understanding of technology risk, security and regulatory considerations
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