Lead Architect - Full Time

ZipRecruiter; London; Hybrid; GBP 80,000 - 120,000; Full time

Job summary

A leading gym chain seeks a Lead Architect to drive their technology vision. This strategic role involves shaping the architectural blueprint, leading a team of architects, and ensuring technical excellence in a hybrid working environment. The ideal candidate has extensive experience in cloud systems and architecture governance.

Qualifications

• Extensive experience in enterprise and solution architecture for mid-to-large digital businesses.
• Deep fluency with Microsoft Azure and distributed systems.
• In-depth knowledge of security frameworks and database architecture.

Responsibilities

• Own and evolve enterprise architecture blueprint and governance.
• Drive architectural decision-making across cloud platforms.
• Foster architectural standards and tooling adoption.

Skills

Strategic Architecture Leadership

Cloud & Distributed Systems

Software & Application Architecture

Security, Data, and Performance

Tools & Methodologies

Tools

Microsoft Azure

UML

C4

Job description

Job Description

Lead Architect - Clapham Junction, United Kingdom

Full Time

Role: Lead Architect

Reporting to: Chief Technology Officer

Location: Hybrid - Clapham Junction (3 days per week)

Here at The Gym Group, we believe we are simply the best in our industry! Our teams have skills, abilities, and a can-do attitude that make this a great place to work. We have strong, embedded values and an easy-going culture that puts our people first.

We pride ourselves on being fun, innovative, inclusive, and engaging. We are now looking for a Lead Architect. So, what's stopping you?

Apply today and be YOU with us!

What you need to know about us...

The Gym Group is not like your average gym! To our members, we're the lowest-cost nationwide 24/7 gym with over 240 gyms and counting! Our teams are fun, welcoming, engaging, and inclusive. We challenge our limits and push ourselves to impact positive change with our goals and initiatives.

We take steps into new areas with a real and authentic purpose - it's our mission to break down barriers to fitness for all. We're #1 in our industry when it comes to our values, our culture, and our people - check out Glassdoor if you don't believe us. We offer a fantastic place to work in a great working culture. We have been recognized by The Sunday Times as one of The Best Places to Work, thanks to our great leaders and exceptional teams. Despite being one of the leading budget gym chains in the UK, there's nothing budget about our investment into our people.

We have retained GOLD in our Investors in People award for the last 6 years and silver in wellbeing last year. We're recognized as a confident and inclusive employer, which we are truly proud of. We have a brilliant team and opportunities for development and growth, with support for success. Having recently undertaken significant digital projects, our plans are to keep being innovative, creative, and agile in all that we do.

About the role...

Reporting directly to the CTO, as the Lead Architect, you will shape the architectural blueprint that enables our technology vision.

Guiding and coordinating a team of Solution Architects, Technical Architects, System Analysts, and Solution Designers, you will maintain robust documentation of current and target states across our technology landscape. You will define and maintain our architectural governance model and specify the architecture toolset and frameworks. You will advise and inform the business to optimize our capabilities and application lifecycle.

This is a strategic and hands-on role: setting architectural vision, enabling scale, and ensuring technical excellence in execution. The role will engage your breadth and depth of experience across the entire technology domain.

Key responsibilities

• Own and evolve the enterprise architecture blueprint, reference architectures, and target state definitions
• Shape architecture principles and governance, driving alignment across business, data, applications, infrastructure, and security
• Lead technical decision-making across TGG's cloud platform, including third-party integrations
• Act as the senior technical voice in executive and program-level forums, influencing strategic investments and day-to-day designs
• Drive architectural runway, risk management, and lifecycle planning to support growth, resilience, and innovation
• Foster architectural standards, documentation, and tooling adoption (e.g., C4, Archimate, UML, LeanIX)

About you...

We're looking for a strategic and accomplished Lead Architect to drive our technology architecture forward. You'll need to possess the following skills and experience:

• Strategic Architecture Leadership: Extensive experience in enterprise and solution architecture for mid-to-large digital businesses. Proven ability to define and manage architecture governance, roadmaps, and standards. Strong influencing skills to align senior stakeholders and delivery teams with the architectural vision.
• Cloud & Distributed Systems: Deep fluency with Microsoft Azure, specializing in the architecture of scaled, cloud, and distributed systems. Expertise in designing for high availability, fault tolerance, and auto-scaling patterns. Proficiency in designing secure, multi-tier applications using modern API and messaging protocols.
• Software & Application Architecture: Solid understanding of modern architectural patterns including DDD, Hexagonal Architecture, and CQRS. Proven ability to design and evaluate decoupled, microservice-based systems. Familiarity with various integration patterns and cross-cutting concerns.
• Security, Data, and Performance: In-depth knowledge of regulatory frameworks like ISO 27001, PCI DSS, GDPR. Expertise in access management, observability, and database architecture (SQL/NoSQL).
• Tools & Methodologies: Proficiency in architecture modeling standards like UML and C4. Strong understanding of modern engineering and DevOps practices. Experience with Agile and product-oriented delivery cultures.