Hybrid Solution Architect | Public Sector Consulting

IBM; Manchester; On-site; GBP 90,000 - 130,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Sabbatical programs

Paid paternity leave

Maternity leave

Maternity returners scheme

25 days holiday

Private medical

Dental & optical cover

Employee Assistance Program

Group pension plan through salary sac

Job summary

IBM Consulting UK FutureNow is seeking multiple Solution Architects to design and deliver secure, scalable enterprise solutions across hybrid cloud environments. You will work with business stakeholders, engineering teams and delivery leads to translate requirements into high-quality designs, balancing security and operational sustainability.

This client-facing role requires expertise in modern application architectures, cloud services, and integration technologies, with leadership to guide

Qualifications

• Experience as a Solution Architect in complex enterprise environments.
• Strong governance and design authority experience.
• Proven ability to produce artefacts like design records and high-level designs.

Responsibilities

• Own end-to-end solution architecture activities from discovery to delivery.
• Produce architecture artefacts including S Designs, HLDs, option assessments and ADRs.
• Present proposals through Design Authority and governance forums.
• Translate requirements into scalable technical solutions balancing business outcomes.
• Define integration patterns and API strategies across complex environments.
• Provide technical leadership and mentor engineers and junior staff.

Skills

Solution architecture

Cloud architectures

Java 17/21

RESTful APIs

AWS

Kubernetes

Docker

TOGAF

CI/CD

Security clearance

Education

Bachelor's Degree

Tools

Jira

Confluence

UML modelling tools

Job description

IntroductionAt IBM Consulting UK FutureNow, you’ll build a career at the forefront of hybrid cloud and AI, working with leading clients across the public and private sectors. You’ll collaborate with top industry professionals, gain hands on experience with cutting edge technologies, and deliver solutions that create real business impact. From day one, you’ll work on meaningful, high profile programmes that stretch your skills and accelerate your growth. We invest heavily in you—supporting continuous learning, in demand skills development, and long term career progression. You’ll thrive in a flexible, inclusive environment that values curiosity, encourages reinvention, and recognises what makes you unique. We offer:

• Tools and policies to support your work-life balance from flexible working approaches, sabbatical programs, paid paternity leave, maternity leave and an innovative maternity returners scheme
• More traditional benefits, such as 25 days holiday (in addition to public holidays), private medical, dental & optical cover, online shopping discounts, an Employee Assistance Program, life assurance and a group pension plan through salary sacrifice.At IBM Consulting UK FutureNow, you’ll build a career at the forefront of hybrid cloud and AI, working with leading clients across the public and private sectors. You’ll collaborate with top industry professionals, gain hands on experience with cutting edge technologies, and deliver solutions that create real business impact. From day one, you’ll work on meaningful, high profile programmes that stretch your skills and accelerate your growth. We invest heavily in you—supporting continuous learning, in demand skills development, and long term career progression. You’ll thrive in a flexible, inclusive environment that values curiosity, encourages reinvention, and recognises what makes you unique. We offer:
• Tools and policies to support your work-life balance from flexible working approaches, sabbatical programs, paid paternity leave, maternity leave and an innovative maternity returners scheme

Introduction

At IBM Consulting UK FutureNow, you’ll build a career at the forefront of hybrid cloud and AI, working with leading clients across the public and private sectors. You’ll collaborate with top industry professionals, gain hands on experience with cutting edge technologies, and deliver solutions that create real business impact. From day one, you’ll work on meaningful, high profile programmes that stretch your skills and accelerate your growth. We invest heavily in you—supporting continuous learning, in demand skills development, and long term career progression. You’ll thrive in a flexible, inclusive environment that values curiosity, encourages reinvention, and recognises what makes you unique. We offer:

• Tools and policies to support your work-life balance from flexible working approaches, sabbatical programs, paid paternity leave, maternity leave and an innovative maternity returners scheme
• More traditional benefits, such as 25 days holiday (in addition to public holidays), private medical, dental & optical cover, online shopping discounts, an Employee Assistance Program, life assurance and a group pension plan through salary sacrifice.At IBM Consulting UK FutureNow, you’ll build a career at the forefront of hybrid cloud and AI, working with leading clients across the public and private sectors. You’ll collaborate with top industry professionals, gain hands on experience with cutting edge technologies, and deliver solutions that create real business impact. From day one, you’ll work on meaningful, high profile programmes that stretch your skills and accelerate your growth. We invest heavily in you—supporting continuous learning, in demand skills development, and long term career progression. You’ll thrive in a flexible, inclusive environment that values curiosity, encourages reinvention, and recognises what makes you unique. We offer:
• Tools and policies to support your work-life balance from flexible working approaches, sabbatical programs, paid paternity leave, maternity leave and an innovative maternity returners scheme

We Offer

• Tools and policies to support your work-life balance from flexible working approaches, sabbatical programs, paid paternity leave, maternity leave and an innovative maternity returners scheme
• More traditional benefits, such as 25 days holiday (in addition to public holidays), private medical, dental & optical cover, online shopping discounts, an Employee Assistance Program, life assurance and a group pension plan through salary sacrifice

You’ll collaborate with top industry professionals, gain hands on experience with cutting edge technologies, and deliver solutions that create real business impact. From day one, you’ll work on meaningful, high profile programmes that stretch your skills and accelerate your growth.

We invest heavily in you—supporting continuous learning, in demand skills development, and long term career progression. You’ll thrive in a flexible, inclusive environment that values curiosity, encourages reinvention, and recognises what makes you unique.

Your Role And Responsibilities

We're looking for mulitple Solution Architects, to help shape, design and deliver secure, scalable and resilient solutions across complex enterprise environments.

This is a client-facing architecture role where you'll work closely with business stakeholders, engineering teams, architects and delivery leads to translate requirements into high-quality solution designs that balance business outcomes, technical excellence, security and operational sustainability.

You'll be responsible for defining solution architectures across applications, integrations, cloud platforms and enterprise services, whilst ensuring alignment with architecture governance, design authority processes and strategic technology direction.

Success in this role requires a blend of architectural thinking, technical depth and stakeholder engagement. We're looking for architects who can operate comfortably between business discussions and detailed technical design, helping delivery teams move from concept through to implementation.

Key Responsibilities

• Own end-to-end solution architecture activities from discovery through to delivery.
• Produce and maintain architecture artefacts including Solution Designs, High-Level Designs (HLDs), option assessments and architecture decision records.
• Present architecture proposals through Design Authority and governance forums.
• Translate business, functional and non-functional requirements into scalable technical solutions.
• Define architecture approaches across applications, integrations, cloud services, data flows and supporting infrastructure.
• Collaborate with engineering teams to ensure architecture designs are successfully delivered and aligned to agreed standards.
• Support application modernisation and digital transformation initiatives.
• Define integration patterns and API strategies across complex enterprise environments.
• Work closely with stakeholders to balance delivery requirements, technical constraints and long-term architectural objectives.
• Provide technical leadership throughout project delivery, supporting issue resolution, risk management and architecture assurance activities.
• Contribute to architecture governance, peer reviews and technical quality standards.
• Support solution estimation, technical planning and delivery roadmaps.
• Mentor engineers, developers and junior architects where appropriate.

Preferred Education

Bachelor's Degree

Required Technical And Professional Expertise

• Experience operating as a Solution Architect within complex enterprise, consulting or transformation environments.
• Strong understanding of architecture governance, Design Authority processes and solution architecture methodologies.
• Experience producing architecture artefacts including Solution Designs, HLDs, option assessments and architecture decision records.
• Strong stakeholder engagement skills with experience working across business, technical and delivery teams.
• Experience using architecture and delivery tooling such as Jira, Confluence and UML modelling tools.
• Good understanding of modern application architectures and software delivery practices.
• Strong understanding of:
• Java (17/21)
• XML and JSON schemas
• RESTful services and API-driven architectures
• Enterprise integration patterns
• Relational databases
• Experience working with cloud-hosted and hybrid solutions, ideally within AWS environments.
• Understanding of key AWS services including:
• EC2
• EKS
• S3
• Experience designing solutions involving messaging and integration technologies such as:
• RabbitMQ
• IBM MQ
• Experience supporting projects from requirements and design through to implementation and production deployment.

This role is subject to pre-employment screening in line with the UK Government’s Baseline Personnel Security Standard (BPSS). An additional range of Personal Security Controls referred to as National Security Vetting (NVS) may apply, this could include meeting the eligibility requirements for The Security Check (SC) or Developed Vetting (DV).

Preferred Technical And Professional Experience

• Experience delivering Hybrid Cloud or cloud transformation programmes.
• Exposure to microservices architectures and cloud-native application design.
• Familiarity with container technologies such as Docker and Kubernetes.
• Understanding of DevSecOps, CI/CD pipelines and modern engineering practices.
• Experience operating within regulated, secure or enterprise-scale environments.
• Knowledge of architecture frameworks such as TOGAF.
• Experience participating in RFI/RFP activities, option evaluations and technology selection exercises.
• Experience working within Agile, Scrum or SAFe delivery environments.
• Exposure to observability, monitoring and operational readiness considerations.
• Experience supporting architecture governance forums, technical design reviews and enterprise change initiatives.
• Active UK Security Clearance.