Cloud Architect

Experis UK; Oxford; Hybrid; GBP 60,000 - 80,000; Part time

Benefits offered by this job

Flexible working hours

Professional development opportunities

Job summary

A leading recruitment consultancy is seeking a Cloud Architect for a mid-senior level contract role based in Oxford. The successful candidate will define target architectures, lead migrations, and implement Infrastructure as Code across cloud platforms. The position offers a hybrid work model, with 2-3 days per week in Oxford. Ideal candidates will have extensive cloud experience, particularly in Azure, AWS, and GCP.

Qualifications

• 8+ years in cloud architecture/engineering.
• 3+ years multi-cloud experience across Azure, AWS, and GCP.
• Proven delivery of enterprise landing zones.

Responsibilities

• Define target state architectures across cloud platforms.
• Lead migration and modernization for priority applications.
• Implement Infrastructure as Code at scale.

Skills

Cloud architecture

IaC (Infrastructure as Code)

Kubernetes

Stakeholder management

Excellent communication

Cost optimisation

Tools

Terraform

Git

Azure DevOps

AWS Security Hub

GCP SCC

Job description

Cloud Architect

Key Responsibilities

• Define and socialise target state architectures across Azure/AWS/GCP (networking, identity, landing zones, operations).
• Deliver reference architectures and reusable patterns for containerised, serverless, and data workloads.
• Lead migration and modernisation (re‑host/re‑platform/re‑factor) for priority applications.
• Implement IaC at scale (Terraform preferred; standard modules; pipelines).
• Build observability (logs, metrics, traces, SLOs) and resilience (HA, DR, RTO/RPO).
• Produce HLDs/LLDs, diagrams, ADRs, non‑functional requirements, and traceability to business goals.
• Select and justify cloud services (compute, storage, data, AI/ML, integration).
• Design identity and access (Azure AD/Microsoft Entra, AWS IAM, GCP IAM; SSO; workload identities).
• Build/optimise Kubernetes platforms (AKS/EKS/GKE), service mesh (Istio/Linkerd), ingress, and autoscaling.
• Implement CI/CD (GitHub Actions/Azure DevOps/GitLab), environment promotion, secrets management, artifact repos.
• Security & Compliance
• Define guardrails (CIS benchmarks), cloud security posture management (Defender for Cloud, AWS Security Hub, GCP SCC).
• Vaulting and KMS (AWS KMS, Azure Key Vault, GCP KMS), key rotation, data classification & encryption.
• Threat modelling, zero trust patterns, vulnerability management, incident runbooks.
• Data & Integration
• Reference architectures for streaming/batch (Kafka/MSK, Event Hubs, Pub/Sub), data lakes, warehouses (BigQuery, Synapse, Redshift), ETL/ELT.
• Operations & Reliability
• Performance testing, capacity planning, SLO/SLIs, error budgets.
• Governance & Cost
• Landing zone governance, tagging/labels, budget alerts, reserved/savings plans.
• Operating model definition (RACI), platform backlog, roadmap, and risk management.
• Stakeholder Management
• Run workshops, architecture reviews, and design clinics.
• Collaborate with InfoSec, Network, Data, and App teams; mentor engineers.

Required Experience

• 8+ years in cloud architecture/engineering; 3+ years multi‑cloud across Azure, AWS, and GCP.
• Proven delivery of enterprise landing zones, Kubernetes, IaC at scale, and secure network architectures.
• Strong track record in app migration/modernisation and cost optimisation.
• Comfortable in highly regulated environments (finance, healthcare, public sector) is a plus.

Technical Stack (Desired)

• Networking: DNS, TLS/mTLS, BGP, NAT, WAF, CDN, private endpoints, service endpoints.
• Compute/Containers: AKS/EKS/GKE, ECS/Fargate, VMSS/ASG, serverless (Lambda, Azure Functions, Cloud Functions).
• Security: Defender for Cloud, Sentinel, AWS GuardDuty/Security Hub, GCP SCC, OPA, HashiCorp Vault, KMS.
• Scripting: Python/Bash/PowerShell; strong Git and code review practices.

Certifications (Nice to Have)

• AWS: Solutions Architect Professional, DevOps Engineer
• GCP: Professional Cloud Architect, DevOps Engineer

Soft Skills

• Excellent communicator—able to translate complex architecture into clear, actionable plans.
• Pragmatic, delivery‑focused, and comfortable with ambiguity.
• Strong stakeholder management and mentoring capabilities.
• Cloud Target Operating Model & reference architectures.
• Landing zone designs and implementation (per cloud).
• Network & identity blueprints and runbooks.
• IaC repositories (Terraform modules, pipelines) with documentation.
• Security patterns (guardrails, policies, encryption standards).
• Observability standards (dashboards, alerts, SLOs).
• Application migration plans (waves, dependency maps) and executed milestones.
• FinOps reports and cost optimisation recommendations.

KPIs / Success Measures

• % workloads onboarded to landing zones with guardrails enforced.
• Mean time to provision environments (baseline vs target).
• % policy compliance (CIS/NIST) and critical vulnerabilities remediated.
• Cost savings realised (rightsizing, reservations), forecast accuracy.
• Uptime/SLO adherence and incident reduction.

Ways of Working

• Hybrid: 2–3 days per week in Oxford; flexibility during key milestones.
• Cadence: Weekly architecture forum, sprint rituals with squads, monthly exec updates.
• Documentation: Diagrams (Draw.io/Visio), ADRs in Git, Confluence/SharePoint.
• Tooling Access: Provided by client (SSO, VPN, repositories).

Seniority level

Mid-Senior level

Employment type

Contract

Job function

Other

Industries

Construction