Senior Solutions Architect

🚨 Senior Solutions Architect | Azure | Insurance / Financial Services

📍 Manchester (Hybrid)
⏱ Immediate Start
📅 6-12 Month Contract
💼 Inside IR35
💰 Competitive Day Rate

We're looking for an experienced Senior Solutions Architect to join a major transformation programme within the Insurance / Financial Services sector. This is an exciting opportunity to shape the architecture of large-scale, cloud-native platforms, working across multiple business-critical initiatives in a highly collaborative environment.

You'll play a key role in defining solution architecture, influencing technical strategy, and ensuring solutions align with enterprise standards while delivering scalable, secure, and resilient platforms.

The Role

As the Senior Solutions Architect, you'll work closely with engineering teams, product owners, enterprise architects, and senior stakeholders to design modern cloud solutions that support long-term business objectives.

Essential Skills & Experience

We're looking for someone with 8+ years' experience in Solution Architecture, Application Architecture, or Software Engineering, with a proven track record of delivering enterprise-scale solutions.

You should have strong experience with:

• Azure Solution Architecture – Extensive experience designing and delivering scalable Azure-native solutions using Azure PaaS services, API Management, Azure Functions, Containers, AKS, and cloud governance best practices.
• API & Integration Architecture – Strong background in designing API-first solutions, RESTful services, enterprise integration patterns, service orchestration, and reusable integration capabilities.
• Event-Driven Solutions – Proven experience delivering event-driven architectures using Kafka, Confluent, messaging technologies, asynchronous processing, and event streaming platforms.
• Cloud-Native Development – Solid understanding of containerisation, microservices, Docker, Kubernetes, and modern cloud-native application architectures.
• DevOps & Platform Automation – Experience implementing CI/CD pipelines, Infrastructure as Code (Terraform/Bicep), automated testing, monitoring, and operational best practices.
• Secure Solution Design – Strong knowledge of security-by-design principles, including Zero Trust, identity and access management, API security, encryption, and regulatory compliance.
• Architecture Governance – Experience producing High and Low-Level Designs (HLDs/LLDs), leading architecture reviews, contributing to Architecture Approval Boards (AABs), and ensuring compliance with enterprise architecture standards.
• Leadership & Stakeholder Engagement – Excellent communication skills with the ability to engage technical teams, business stakeholders, delivery partners, and senior leadership to drive successful outcomes.
• Enterprise Architecture – Strong understanding of enterprise architecture frameworks, strategic technology roadmaps, reusable platform capabilities, and architectural best practices.
• Customer-Focused Solution Design – Demonstrated ability to design resilient, scalable, and business-focused solutions that enhance customer experience, improve operational efficiency, and support long-term organisational goals.